Yves Smith is discussing the Washington Post report on Russia-Ukraine negotiation to end the infrastructure attacks:
An Admission of Russian Long-Term Weakness or More Complex Calculation?
I had previously discussed the WaPo piece here.
Yves suggests that the negotiations, if they really have happened as described, were an Ukrainian ruse to distract Russia from the Ukrainian preparation of the Kursk oblast incursion. The talks were useless for Russia, she says. She doubts that Russia would favor to stop the attacks on the Ukrainian electricity generating and network capabilities. She suggests that the Ukrainian attacks on Russia create little damage. It disagree with that view.
The winter will already become very difficult for Ukrainian civilians. There is no need to increase the damage on Ukrainian infrastructure beyond the already achieved level.
The Ukrainian attacks have so far created repairable damage in Russia. But that may not be the case forever. One day one of such attacks could in fact create some real catastrophe. The attacks are also binding lots of Russian resources. One needs a huge number of soldiers and equipment to give at least some protection to the most exposed sites. The Russian economy is currently short on men. Not diverting some 100,000 men for local air defense purposes can make a difference.
I believe that Russia was genuinely interested in making such deal. But the Ukrainian attack on Kursk oblast blew it apart.
There are new suggestion on how the Ukrainian incursion into Russia was prepared for.
The Times in London claims that it largely followed a British plan (archived):
When footage of British Challenger 2 battle tanks being used by the Ukrainian army for its counterinvasion of Russia emerged on Tuesday, Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence were ready.
For the previous 48 hours, officials and political aides working for Sir Keir Starmer and John Healey, the defence secretary, had been in talks about how far to go to confirm growing British involvement in the incursion towards Kursk.
The stakes were high. Unseen by the world, British equipment, including drones, have played a central role in Ukraine’s new offensive and British personnel have been closely advising the Ukrainian military for two years, on a scale matched by no other country.
The U.S., in contrast, has claimed not to have known about the Ukrainian plans and there purpose. This leads Kit Klarenberg to develop a theory:
Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg – 15:02 UTC · Aug 18, 2024
"🧵: I speculated earlier was probably Britain behind Kursk suicide op. Lo and behold, a Times article confirms this. More broadly, contents amply underline Kursk latest effort by London to keep the US in the proxy war – and it appears Washington has finally had enough of this.
Times reveals up top heavily promoted footage of British Challenger 2 tanks in Kursk was a conscious, deliberate decision made by new PM Keir Starmer and his defence secretary John Healey. British equipment is said to have "played a central role" in the "counterinvasion".
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Starmer and Healey reportedly made the decision to advertise London's involvement "to be more open about Britain’s role in a bid to persuade key allies to do more to help." In other words, to encourage/pressure the US et al to double down on this unwinnable, nightmare quagmire.
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However, US reportedly unhappy with Kursk incursion, because it scuppered peace talks. Kiev's purported culpability for Nord Stream bombing is, it seems, being used to justify ending German aid to Ukraine. And the US is blocking Kiev from firing British-made missiles at Russia.
Kit's theory is that the Washington Post story about the blown negotiations as well as the latest "Nord Stream done by Ukraine" rumor reporting by the WSJ are expressions of U.S. anger over the Ukrainian government and its Kursk invasion.
The Times also reports that Britain is pushing its allies to provide more weapons and to allow their use against targets deep inside of Russia:
In the coming weeks Healey will attend a new meeting of the Ukraine Defence Co-ordination Group, where Britain will press European allies to send more equipment and give Kyiv more leeway to use them in Russia. Healey spoke last week to Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, and has been wooing Boris Pistorius, his German opposite number.
Germany, whose Taurus missiles have a similar 155-mile range to Storm Shadow but a more powerful warhead, has been the country under the most pressure to move. However, it was revealed yesterday that Germany has actually frozen military aid to Ukraine because of a domestic budgetary crisis. Pistorius had asked for £3.4 billion of additional supplies but that was rejected by the finance ministry.
A previous leak provided that the long range Taurus missiles are complicate and have to be programmed just-in-time by German officers. There is no support in Germany for allowing such a deep involvement in attacks on Russia.
To me it seems that Britain has promised to Ukraine that it would get its allies to agree to the usage of longer range weapons against Russia in exchange for Ukraine to launch the attack on Russia.
Only that can explain this Zelenski complain about Starmer:
The Ukrainian president complained that British aid to Kyiv had begun to wane as his forces continued their unprecedented incursion into Russian territory in the Kursk region.
“Unfortunately, the situation has slowed down recently,” Mr Zelensky said, referring to UK military assistance.
Sir Keir has upheld a Conservative ban on using UK-made Storm Shadows to strike targets deep inside Russia, amid concerns it could lead to escalation with nuclear-armed Moscow.
“We will discuss how to fix this because long-range capabilities are vital for us. The whole world sees how effective Ukrainians are – how our entire nation defends its independence,” said Mr Zelensky.
It came as four former Conservative defence secretaries called on No 10 to do more to support Ukraine, with some demanding Kyiv be allowed to use Storm Shadows in the Russian offensive.
But it is not Starmer who is blocking the missiles, it is the U.S. of A. (archived):
Washington is in effect blocking Britain from allowing Kyiv to fire Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia, amid fears in the Biden administration of an escalation in the Ukraine war.
…
It is understood that although the UK wants to give Ukraine the freedom to do what they want with the long-range weapon, it requires consensus from allies, including the US, France and a third undisclosed Nato country. A government source stressed that the UK was not blaming the US for any delay, adding that such policy changes took time.
Combining all the above one can (re-)construct this story.
Britain, in a bipartisan move, wants to prolong the war in Ukraine. It suggested to and helped Ukraine to invade Russia even as it knew that this would interrupt peace talks in Qatar. It also promised to press its allies for long range attack permission against Russia. But the U.S. and Germany are still blocking such attacks. Zelensky now complains that Britain failed to deliver on its promise.
The U.S., miffed about the British involvement in a likely useless Ukrainian attack on Russia, is leaking about the Ukrainian/Russian negotiations in Qatar.
The above is largely based on the U.S. claims that it was not really involved in the planing of the Kursk incursion.
There are of course good reason to doubt those claims:
As the Ukraine war enters its most perilous phase, with Kiev’s forces fighting inside Russia, the United States is operating a formal “sensitive activities” detachment that is active in providing direct military support to the beleaguered country. The detachment, never before disclosed, is run by U.S. special operations forces, and with its Ukrainian counterparts, provides on-the-battlefield support, including near-real time targeting intelligence, operators say.
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An operator formerly deployed to the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group assigned to a sensitive activities detachment told me their work included the creation of clandestine human networks for intelligence gathering, as well as identifying Russian military weaknesses for targeting.
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A second operator also described having been tasked with providing near up-to-the-minute intelligence support to Ukrainian forces.
Those U.S. operators in Ukraine certainly did not miss the preparations the Ukrainians were making for their attack.
P.S. Bonus from The Times piece:
“It’s not just about the military support, but it’s about the industrial, economic, and diplomatic support,” the defence source said. “If Putin succeeds in Ukraine he’s not going to stop there. But also the economic implications of that are massive, because we all saw how heavily Britain got hit when he first invaded.”
Yes, the sanctions, intended to hurt Russia, were quite damaging to those who issued them. Nice to see that finally acknowledged.