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.

Just a few month back I argued that the new economic protectionism the U.S. is pushing for will fire back:

Last week Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen gave a speech on the U.S.-China economic relationship. I called it a declaration of war.

Yesterday National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held a speech on 'Renewing American Economic Leadership' which touched on some of the same themes as Yellen's speech.

Sullivan argues that the U.S. must change course from opening markets and liberalization to targeted protectionism and subsidies for specific sectors. The main argument for it is 'national security' but the real aim seems to be the suppression of competition from others.
…
Sullivan's whole speech is an argument against free markets and for protectionism and sector subsidies. It does away with the economic framework the U.S. had build after the end of the second world war. This is supposed to be replaced it with bilateral and block wise agreements that are to the advantage of the U.S., to the disadvantage of its agreement 'partners' and which exclude China and other 'hostile' economies.

The so called 'decoupling' or 'de-risking' from China is actually an attempt to isolate it. It creates a dynamic that will lead to import replacements in China.

This will lower exports to China from the U.S. and its allies. The whole scheme will thereby eventually work to China's advantage.

Three years ago the U.S. prohibited domestic and foreign companies to stop the provision of 5G chips to Huawei. Thus a milestone of import replacement was revealed yesterday when Huawei announced a brand new 5G phone with Chinese made chips:

Cont. reading: Huawei Chips Demonstrate The Perils Of Technology Protectionism

Big Serge has a long read about the state of the war in Ukraine which I recommend to read. It is a nice recap of the whole war and the ballyhooed counter-offensive:

Escaping Attrition: Ukraine Rolls the Dice
The Zaporizhia Summer Blockbuster

After concluding that the Ukrainian counter-offensive has evidently failed, he dares a look into the future:

So, whence goes the war from here? Well, the obvious question to ask is whether we believe Ukraine will ever have a more potent assault package than the one they started the summer with. The answer clearly seems to be no. It was like pulling teeth to scrape together these understrength brigades – the idea that, following on a defeat in the Battle of Zaporizhia, NATO will somehow put together a more powerful package seems like a stretch. More to the point, we have American officials saying fairly explicitly that this was the best mechanized package Ukraine was going to get.

It does not seem controversial to say that this was Ukraine’s best shot at some sort of genuine operational victory, which at this point seems to be slowly trickling away into modest but materially costly tactical advances. The ultimate implication of this is that Ukraine is unable to escape a war of industrial attrition, which is precisely the sort of war that it cannot win, due to all the asymmetries that we mentioned earlier.

In particular, however, Ukraine cannot win a positional-attritional war because of its own maximalist definition of “winning.” Since Kiev has insisted that it will not give up until it returns its 1991 borders, an inability to dislodge Russian forces poses a particularly nasty problem – Kiev will either need to admit defeat and acknowledge Russian control over the annexed areas, or it will continue to fight obstinately until it is a failed state with nothing left in the tank.

Trapped in a bat fight, with attempts to unlock the front with maneuver coming to naught, what Ukraine needs most is a much bigger bat. The alternative is a totalizing strategic disaster.

Pushed by the U.S. the Ukrainian leadership seems to have decided to go for the alternative.

Also a good read is:

The Case for Negotiating with Russia – The New Yorker

Not that Biden will go for it, but it is important that such pieces are now coming up.

News & views (not related to the war in Ukraine) …

The New York Times repeats claims by the Ukrainian government that it 'liberated' Robotyne. The account though is more pessimistic than earlier reports:

Ukraine’s military said on Monday that its forces had retaken the southern village of Robotyne, a tactical victory that underlines the immense challenge Kyiv’s counteroffensive faces in punching through deep and dense Russian defenses.
…
[T]he Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in early June has advanced only a few miles southward to reach Robotyne, in intense fighting with heavy casualties and equipment losses, and a similar distance on another axis to the east. The ultimate target of the thrust to Robotyne is the city of Melitopol, about 45 miles farther south, and more layers of Russian defenses lie in the way.
…
About 15 miles south of Robotyne lies the Russian-controlled city of Tokmak, a road-and-rail hub whose recapture would be strategically significant.

But satellite images show that to reach Tokmak, Ukrainian forces will have to breach two more Russian defensive lines made up of trenches, dense minefields, earthen berms and anti-tank barriers.

Those defense lines are not an easy problem to solve. They are on the hills following the contours of the land while the Ukraine army has so far stuck to the low lands.

Big Serge ☦️🇺🇸🇷🇺 @witte_sergei – 19:53 UTC · Aug 28, 2023

I love to advance along the floor of the battlespace into a fire bag.

bigger

In my usual effort of trust but verify I checked the topographic map of Ukraine and compared it with the deployment map. You can see the town Orikhiv (Opixia in Cyrillic script) on the upper left of these pictures:

Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: Topography Shapes The Battle Field – Abysmal Medical Service Causes Death

Milley is uttering deluded nonsense.

U.S. Joint Chiefs' Gen. Milley cites Ukrainian counteroffensive 'breakthrough'

Ukraine's soldiers have penetrated the first line of Russian defense in spots along the southern front between the two countries, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley said Friday during a television interview with a Jordanian news outlet.

"Specifically on the axes of advance that (Ukrainian forces) are attacking right now, (Ukrainian forces) have attacked through the main defense belt," Milley told Al-Mamlaka Television.

bigger

Show me a picture of Ukrainian tanks tackling a dragon's teeth barrier.

Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep – U.S. To Prolong Its Proxy War

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.

Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:

• August 22 – The Democrats Biden Problem
  Related:
  – Former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin accuses Joe Biden, Hunter and Burisma of corruption … – Daily Mail
  – Hunter Biden investigation: David Weiss worked with Beau Biden when he was state attorney general – Washington Examiner
  – Luxurious Villa owned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Family Discovered On Egyptian Coast – Punch Nigeria

• August 23 – Sunk Cost Fallacy In Ukraine
• August 25 – So Much Winning … And More …
  Related:
  – Who’s afraid of Prigozhin and Wagner? – Indian Punchline
  – Time and Logistics are Working Against Ukraine – National Interest
  – Why Is Ukraine's Counteroffensive Destined To Fail? – RealClearDefense
  – Ukrainian Commander Urges More Defenses in the Northeast – NY Times
  – Ukraine will speed up advance on southern front, commander says – Reuters
  – The NYT & WSJ’s Critical Articles About Kiev’s Counteroffensive Explain Why It Failed – Naked Capitalism
  – Medical Services chief who criticised poor quality of tourniquets is severely reprimanded – Ukrainian Pravda

• August 26 – "Information Designed To Show …"
  Related:
  – How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—Four Billionaire Techno-Oligarchs—Are Creating an Alternate, Autocratic Reality – Vanity Fair
  – John Pilger: Silencing The Lambs (How Propaganda Works) – OpEd – Eurasia Review

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-203

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.

Yesterday CNN published another Russiagate like nonsense story:

Newly declassified US intel claims Russia is laundering propaganda through unwitting Westerners

Russian intelligence is operating a systematic program to launder pro-Kremlin propaganda through private relationships between Russian operatives and unwitting US and western targets, according to newly declassified US intelligence.

Caitlin Johnstone takes it apart:

Another Day, Another CIA Press Release Disguised As News

She concludes:

One of the craziest things happening in our world today is how westerners are being trained to overlook the massive amounts of western propaganda they’re inundated with day in and day out and focus instead on “Russian propaganda”, which has no meaningful existence in the west. In 2017 before RT was shut down in the UK, it accounted for 0.04 percent of the UK’s total TV audience. A New York University study published earlier this year found that the supposed Russian Twitter influence campaign ahead of the 2016 election which dominated headlines for years had had “no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior”. An earlier study found that suspected Russian accounts showing up in Facebook’s news feed during that time amounted to “approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content.” A study by Adelaide University found that despite headline after headline warning us about a massive wave of Russian bots manipulating online discourse after the invasion of Ukraine began last year, the overwhelming majority of fake accounts they examined (more than 90 percent) were pro-Ukraine accounts.

Contrast this microscopic smattering of influence with the fact that westerners are continually getting their news reporting from western propaganda outlets which openly publish CIA press releases disguised as news on a regular basis. These people are absolutely telling us the truth when they say we’re under constant bombardment by propaganda and influence operations — they’re just lying about who’s really doing it to us.

CNN was not the only outlet that plugged the stupid CIA press release. The New York Times had it too and its report is a bit more revealing:

Russia Pushes Long-Term Influence Operations Aimed at the U.S. and Europe

Reading through the stupid disinformation stuff one stumbles over this sentence:

Cont. reading: “Information Designed To Show …”

Rob Lee @RALee85 – 5:39 UTC · Aug 24, 2023

The Deep State channel updated its map to show Ukraine has liberated Robotyne. They credit the 47th, 65th, 116th, 117th, 118th, 71st, 46th, 82nd brigades; Skala battalion; 78th Regiment; 73rd Center; and NGU 3rd and 14th Brigades that fought in the area.
https://t.me/DeepStateEN/2318

According to the above Senior Fellow @FPRI Rob Lee the Ukrainian army has used 10+ brigades, some 20 to 35,000 men, to take (not confirmed) Robotyne. A town which, according to the 2001 census, had 480 inhabitants.

So much winning …

How many of such victories can the Ukraine sustain?

Correct assessment, wrong conclusion:

Cont. reading: So Much Winning … And More …

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.

News & views (not related to the war in Ukraine) …

The U.S. military is continuing its criticism of Ukraine's military strategy.

Ukraine’s Forces and Firepower Are Misallocated, U.S. Officials Say – NY Times

The main goal of the counteroffensive is to cut off Russian supply lines in southern Ukraine by severing the so-called land bridge between Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. But instead of focusing on that, Ukrainian commanders have divided troops and firepower roughly equally between the east and the south, the U.S. officials said.

As a result, more Ukrainian forces are near Bakhmut and other cities in the east than are near Melitopol and Berdiansk in the south, both far more strategically significant fronts, officials say.

American planners have advised Ukraine to concentrate on the front driving toward Melitopol, Kyiv’s top priority, and on punching through Russian minefields and other defenses, even if the Ukrainians lose more soldiers and equipment in the process.

The criticism is correct. The attempt to regain Bakhmut (Artyomovsk) is wrong. But the conclusion from it, to push more forces towards the south, is – in my view – false.

The Deployment Map shows that there are significantly more Ukrainian units in the east than in the south.

bigger

It was wrong for Ukraine to defend Bakhmut, a low laying road and rail center surrounded by hills. As soon as the hills had been taken by Wagner fighters Bakhmut was destined to fall into their hands. For months the government in Kiev pressed its military to hold the city. There was even some pop-song published that said "Bakhmut will hold". According to Wagner the Ukrainian lost some 70,000 men in the hopeless defense of Bakhmut. Wagner lost some 40,000 while taking it. A high price for both sides. But paying it could have been avoided by Ukraine if it had pulled back just a few miles to the west where a chain of hills around Chasiv Yar would have been a much more favorite defensive position.

To combine the much ballyhooed counter-offensive towards the south with a new push to regain Bakhmut was a serious mistake. The leadership of Ukraine had fallen for the sunk cost fallacy:

Cont. reading: Sunk Cost Fallacy In Ukraine

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.

On August 7 2023 a fire burned down a large part of the Lahaina, a city on Maui, Hawaii, with some 12,700 inhabitants. Thousands of homes were destroyed. At least 115 people died, some 850 are still missing. It was the deadliest fire in the U.S. in more than a century.

bigger

When President Biden was asked about the incident a week after it had happened he responded with "No comment."

The government offers an insulting $700 as emergency aid to every affected household. U.S. aid to Ukraine has exceeded $3,000 for every Ukrainian and Biden is seeking another $27 billion to be send there.

It took fourteen days for Biden to show up on the scene of the fire incident.

Being there he joked about the 'hot ground' and offered a fake story:

When President Joe Biden met with survivors of the Maui wildfires on Monday, he told them that he could relate to them because he and First Lady Jill Biden knew what it was like to lose a home to a fire.

But the fire in question was described by the Associated Press at the time as "a small fire that was contained to the kitchen," with the Delaware fire chief indicating that it was under control in 20 minutes.

Later, while someone on the stage talked about how his home and the homes of his son and daughter had burned down, Biden seemed to fall asleep (vid).

I do not know who is supposed to manage Biden's public relations but whoever that is is doing a bad job.

The strategists for the Democratic Party and those concerned with winning elections should seriously think about replacing Biden with someone who is better at handling himself.

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.

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.

Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:

• August 14 – Newspaper Raids – "Exceedingly Rare"
  Related:
  – A raid on a Kansas newspaper likely broke the law, experts say. But which one? – AP
  – Confidential affidavits detail reasoning for police raid of Kansas newspaper – Washington Post
  – Marion County Record

• August 14 – A Litany of Lies
• August 17 – Why This Ship Was Allowed To Leave Ukraine
• August 19 – Ukraine SitRep: Chernihiv Drone Exhibition – Russian Offensive
  Related:
  – A blow to Chernigov. Details (dubious claims) – Niqnaq
  – How a meeting on combat drones was bombed in Chernihiv and why there was a scandal (in Russian) – Strana
  – Crises Ukraine – Code Pink
  – ‘Milley had a point' – Politico
  – The Hard Truth: Ukraine Has No Realistic Path to Victory Over Russia 19fourtyfive
  – Ukraine running out of options to retake significant territory – Washington Post
  – Zelensky holds court with Ukraine’s most notorious neo-Nazi – Grayzone
  – Seymour Hersh: Summer of the Hawks – Scheerpost
    Wishful thinking is still the rule among Biden's foreign policy team, as the slaughter in Ukraine continues.

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz – 0:58 UTC · Aug 20, 2023

I'm probably going to be regularly reminding my readers of this paragraph from @IgnatiusPost for the remainder of my writing career.

Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.

• August 15 – How Will Trump's Fourth Indictment – And RFK Jr. – Influence The Election Season?
  Related:
  – Inside the Collapse of Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal – NY Times

• August 18 – U.S. Sanctions Syrian 'Moderate Rebels' It Had Previously Armed
  Related:
  – Mysterious US Military Movements in Iraq… Syria a Possible Target – Aawsat
  – War, illegal logging and climate change turn Syria’s forests into ‘barren land’ – Times of Israel

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-196

This morning at around 10:00 local time a Russian missile hit the drama theater in Chernihiv, some 150 kilometer north of Kiev:

"Five people died," Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said about the Chernihiv attack on Telegram. "Thirty-seven people were wounded, including 11 children."

Zelensky said the attack hit "in the center of the city" in a square that houses a "polytechnic university, a theatre".

"An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss," the Ukrainian leader said after he had arrived in Sweden.

He posted a video from the scene that showed debris around a large Soviet-era building, with parked cars around it that were partially destroyed, with smashed roofs and windows blown out.

AFP reporters saw fire trucks outside the Taras Shevchenko Drama Theatre and Music Academy, which suffered some damage.

The Ukrainian news site Strana reported that the missile hit a conference and exhibition about drones (machine translation):

13:54 There was a comment from the organizer of the drone exhibition at the Chernihiv Drama Theater, which was the target of a Russian strike.

Recall that after the strike, it turned out that the announcement of the exhibition was published in advance. Because of this, the organizers of the exhibition in social networks were accused of actually pointing the missiles themselves, revealing information about the event in advance.

The organizer of the exhibition, a well-known volunteer Maria Berlinskaya, denies the charges. She says that information about the specific venue was not publicly available, and it was sent to participants a few hours before the start of the exhibition. She also says that as soon as the air raid alert started, the exhibition was stopped.

At the same time, judging from the message of Berlinskaya, some of the participants of the exhibition suffered from the impact, as after the alarm was announced, they went not to the shelter, but to the street.

This week the Ukrainian army committed its last reserve brigade with western equipment to its counter-offensive. It will get ground up just like the forces it is replacing. The furthest the counter-offensive has gone in total was in the south of Orkiv where it progressed some 12 kilometer. It took more than 72 days, and many losses of men and material, to get that far. Tokmak, an important traffic center that Ukraine would like to take, is still 12 kilometer away. It is also protected by several well build defensive lines which the Ukrainian forces will be unable to cross.

bigger

On the second axis of the counter-offensive, south of Velyka Novosilka, the maximum progress is some 6 to 8 kilometer. Several small villages, now destroyed, were captured along the way. The number of lives lost during the fight is much bigger than the number of inhabitants those villages previously had.

The aim of the counter-offensive was to reach the Azov Sea or, if that was not possible, to go far enough to get all southern roads under artillery fire. The distance from the frontline to the sea as of June 5 was 100 kilometer. There are still 88 kilometer to go. But time is running out and all reserves have been committed.

Over the last week the Russian Defense Ministry reported on average 770 Ukrainian frontline casualties per day. The Ukrainian counter-offensive will likely culminate next week. It has reached is maximum potential and will now peter out.

That is the moment when the Russian army will go on the offensive. A sure sign of this was last night's visit of President Putin to Rostov-on-Don from where the 'special military operation' is controlled. General Gerasimov, the leader of the Russian military, and others briefed Putin about their plans.

I have no idea where or how large the Russian offensive will be, but two days ago the Belorussian President Lukashenko gave a hint of its potential size:

COMBATE |🇵🇷 – @upholdreality – 21:56 UTC · Aug 17, 2023

LUKASHENKO to Ukrainian reporter: "Your counteroffensive cost 45,000 people in dead and maimed. 45,000!.. Your losses are 1 to 8 at the frontline. And [Russia has] 250,000 people in reserve with cutting-edge hardware. You will be crushed… and the Poles rub their hands in glee. Pushed by the Americans, they will cut off the western regions… You have to take your head into your hands and act on the basis of reality. Act in the interests of this huge and beautiful territory."
video

Here is a longer version of the Lukashenko video with close captioning and the complete interview which unfortunately has no close captioning.