Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 158

Alexander Titov: Ukraine war: life on Russia’s home front after ten months of conflict

Alexander’s Column at Palace Square, St. Petersburg, Russia; photo by Natylie S. Baldwin

By Alexander Titov, The Conversation, 1/11/23

It’s been a year since I last visited Russia. Back then, most people I met thought the prospects of a war with Ukraine were very remote, despite the massive troops build-up on the border. So I was curious to see how attitudes had changed since then. Equally important was to see for myself how the war has changed life in Russia.

The first surprise was how normal life was. Despite all the media reports of doom and gloom as a result of western sanctions, everything works just as before. Domestic banking is working, salaries and pensions are paid on time, ubiquitous e-commerce is bustling with activity, the shops are stuffed with food and consumer goods. In St Petersburg, at least, I’ve struggled to notice any change in daily life compared to January 2021.

Yet, digging deeper and the impact of sanctions is there. One issue that kept popping up was spare car parts, which have become noticeably more expensive. But even there new supplies are being shipped now. This goes pretty much for everything else consumer orientated. There’s no shortages, even of western goods such as whisky – the supermarket shelves are fully stocked.

EU travel restrictions have had their effect – but nothing like the measures introduced during the COVID pandemic. People can still travel to many countries, including Turkey, Egypt or the Gulf states.

Business people complain of facing difficulties, particularly those in the import/export sector. But, after a few months of chaos, business has been finding new shipping routes via third countries such as Turkey or Kazakhstan.

An acquaintance who works in a defence-related sector laughed at the suggestion that Russia could run out of missiles. He told me the defence industry had been stockpiling essential parts for years and is also using more locally sourced alternatives (although this is a claim I was unable to verify). The rest can still be bought – albeit at inflated prices. Their real problem is not a lack of parts, but the capacity to scale up production to meet growing military orders.

The general impression from conversations with people in different businesses is that their main focus is on adapting to the new normal. Many things will be less efficient and more expensive, but the Russian economy will not collapse.

If this is a crisis for Russia – which it is – it’s nothing like the turmoil of the early 1990s when the state, society and economy were all collapsing at the same time.

Don’t mention the war

Another surprising thing I’ve found is the extent to which the war is avoided on a day-to-day basis. You see reports about it on TV news and chat shows (which steadfastly follow the government line), but I felt much better informed about the war using the Telegram app in Belfast, where I live and work, than when talking to actual people in St Petersburg. I found you could have whole conversations without Ukraine ever coming up, unless I deliberately mentioned it.

My overall impression was that the invasion has reinforced people’s pre-existing views. Those who were always opposed to Putin hate it, while those who are supportive of the government remain largely in favour. But the vast majority tries to ignore it as much as they can.

No one I spoke to was happy that the war started – but there’s an important caveat: regretting it doesn’t mean they want to end it at all costs. Some said that one thing worse than a war is losing a war.

Nor did I see much evidence of popular protests. Obviously, many people who oppose Putin had fled the country already, especially since mobilisation began in September 2022. Many others opposing the war have been imprisoned. A couple of my friends (long-time critics of the regime) were planning to leave to avoid future mobilisation.

One of the most frequent questions I was asked related to the energy situation: “How much do you pay for gas in the UK?” The UK and the EU are presently suffering from high energy costs. But it’s unlikely the European economy will collapse or cause political unrest – the implicit assumption behind the question. It’s a similar situation in Russia. Despite western sanctions, it appears that there is little danger of Russia’s economy collapsing.

Perception gap

My distinct impression from two weeks in St Petersburg is that Russia’s society and economy are still nowhere near to being fully mobilised for the war effort. While the partial mobilisation in September and October last year brought the war closer to home, it involved a relatively small percentage of the population – from all of my acquaintances only one friend of a friend was called up. Meanwhile further rounds of mobilisation are to an extent baked in to people’s expectations. Barring huge military setbacks leading to a really extensive mobilisation, it appears that life on Russia’s home front is carrying on fairly normally.

One of the biggest lessons from my trip is the huge gap between representations of Russia in the west and what you see when you arrive there. This gap in perception is likely to increase because of the lack of people currently travelling there from the west and the suspension of professional and academic links.

Important as they are, reliance on comment from anti-Putin activists in exile or those remaining in Russia and still active on social media won’t help as they’re marginalised at home and lose contact with Russian reality while abroad.

The fact is that there is no substitute for seeing things for yourself. I found my recent trip to Russia stressful – but I’m glad I did it.

Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett: Muddle, Chaos and Hysteria

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By Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 1/20/22

Tanks for Nothing

Western defense chiefs have not been able to agree today on the sending of heavy tanks to Ukraine. A prime sticking point appears to be German unwillingness to release Leopard 2 tanks unless those Leopards that are in the possession of its allies agree to seek German permission before sending them. This may be an indication of growing impatience in western military circles with NATO’s Ukraine policy. The critics rightly perceive that the provision of tanks to Ukraine is not a solution to anything. Rather, it is an indication that NATO has no real solution but is prepared to dump more weapons into Ukraine to make it look as though they have a solution even if they dont really. Tanks to Ukraine – and, for that matter, all the other weapons that the US, in its latest $2.5 billion package (even as the USA hits its debt ceiling!) is proposing to send to Ukraine – will make little to no difference in the battlefield.

Brian Berletic, at New Atlas (Brian Berletic 01.20.2023) explains why, in great detail (as always). The bottom line, however, is this: no matter how many weapons the west is sending to Ukraine at this point they are not going to make up for the loss of Ukraine’s weapons to this point in the war. They started with 1,000 tanks and much else besides, including a working air force, but they have burned through all that (most of it was Soviet era); the west tried to replenish these losses with their stocks of Soviet era weapons and some western air-defense systems, among other things, and those have been burned through; now the west is proposing, among a lot of other stuff that is only barely relevant to Ukraine’s needs, to send some “advanced” western tanks which are, on balance, no more advanced than the equivalent weapons Russia already possesses, but in greater abundance, and for which the Ukrainian army is not yet equipped or trained to handle and which, because the new supplies are coming from a hodgepodge of different sources (bear in mind that effective battlefield weaponry should be part of a coordinated system of weaponry, not a trashcan full of isolated pieces) may be creating more problems than those they are intended to solve.

Battlefields

The battlefield situation appears to be turning in Russia’s favor. Russia is steadily advancing towards the encirclement of Bakhmut, where Ukraine has over-invested its troops and machines and from which it can retreat only with great difficulty – not only physically, but in terms of morale and optics. And while Ukraine is preoccupied with Bakhmut, Russia has launched an offensive in Zaporizhzhia that so far has gained it a cluster of settlements, and put many others within medium or even short-range Russian artillery fire, and putting Russia in striking distance (60 kms) of the major industrial city of Zaporizhzhia itself, the loss of which would constitute a major blow, a fatal blow possibly to Ukraine’s economy and war effort.

This development will presumably further complicate whatever remains of Ukrainian plans to launch an offensive from Zaporizhzhia down to Melitopol and then to cut across to the Azov. The US head of the CIA was in Kiev last week to brief Zelenskiy on Russian plans, suggesting that Russia’s much talked about major offensive is getting very close. US military officer Vishinin, who has written about the return of industrial warfare in Ukraine’s battlefields indicates that what we are seeing with Russia’s advance in Zaporizhzhia may indeed be the start of the next phase of precisely that form of warfare.

There is still no sign of Ukrainian withdrawal from Sversk or from Bakhmut. General Zaluzhnyi has recommended to President Zelenskiy that Ukraine withdraw from Sversk. A spokesman for the Lugansk militia has reported that strategically the land taken by Russia over the past day or so near Bakhmut is very important. He refers to the road leading into Bakhmut from Ivanovka and the west and says that Russian artillery is now very close to this location and is able to shell it and shell any Ukrainian supplies that try to enter Bakhmut along it. This does seem to confirm that Bakhmut is now almost entirely encircled.

There are air-raid alerts throughout Ukraine (perhaps in response to the take-off of Kinjal hypersonic missile-carrying Mig 31 fighter bombers from Belarus on exercises, and there are reports of a major Russian strike on an ammunition dump in Odessa.

Ukraine Missile Offensive on Moscow?

Russian and international media show Russia is positioning Panzhir air defense systems on the roofs of key buildings in Moscow, suggesting they have received some kind of tip-off about an intended Ukrainian missile strike. Ukrainian missiles do have the range for this as was seen a few weeks ago with a Ukrainian strike on a Russian airfield not far from Moscow. Media (specifically, NYT) reports suggest that the US is becoming more willing to countenance Ukrainian missile strikes on Crimea and is probably giving a green light for attacks deeper into Russia proper. Russia clearly wants the world to see these installations and to know that Moscow is defended.

Russian sources have commented on western plans to send more weapons to Ukraine. War industry leader Medvedev,the Russian ambassador to Washington, and Putin’s spokesman, Peshkov, have all talked about this and Peshkov says that if there are deliveries of advanced tanks by the west, there will be consequences, and that such deliveries will only add to Ukraine’s problems. He warns against over-estimating the significance of such deliveries, as they will not change anything that could hinder Russia from achieving its goals. The US has promised a further 50 Bradleys in addition to these already promised; the British are supplying 50 Bulldog armored personnel vehicles and France is upplying LeClerc tanks. Yet the Russians do not appear to be particularly alarmed by any of this. The main drama for the west, meantime, is around the Leopard 2s.

Biden-Scholz Acrimony

There is a huge, concerted western effort to pressure Germany on delivery of Leopard 2s, which is unpopular in Germany and among the German officer class. The former German defense minister resigned after mounting criticism, perhaps because she feared taking the backlash from German generals if she allowed delivery of Leopards, and the new defense minister has been thrown into the argument almost immediately. Yet it is generally agreed among experts that these tanks are not especially suitable for Ukraine. In the past, at every red line that Germany has faced, it has caved (although on this occasion such a cave-in has not yet happened).

The Leopard 2 is a 70 ton tank. The British Challenger is up to 80 ton. The French LeClerk is lighter, at 50 tones, and has an automatic loader like the one that Russian tanks have. The French have been unwilling to provide LeClerks because it does not have many of them: 400 in total, of which 180 are in store. The most it could safely provide without cutting significantly into its total arsenal would be around 20. Production of these tanks has stopped, and it would take time to tool up production again. The only country that bought a large number of these is the UAE and the UAE would be unwilling to give up what it has got. There are many more Leopard 2s around than LeClerks -perhaps 2,300 across various ministries. They come in various forms and some are in very poor condition; the total number that could be supplied to Ukraine is likely to be fairly small, perhaps around 100 (Berletic has discussed the possibility that it might be many more, say around 200 to 300), but what difference is even 300 going to make?

German General Criticizes US/NATO War on Russia

Germany’s General Kuyak (spelling provisional!) is critical of the supply of Leopard 2s to Ukraine, even more so than General Vad, whose interview was reported recently by John Helmer on Dancing with Bears. Kuyak thinks this war is not a straight forward case of Russian aggression against Ukraine, and asserts that this was a very preventable war. He even published proposals for a settlement in January 2022. Perhaps the question will one day be asked, in effect: who wanted this war, and who stood in the way of stopping it? There were certainly outstanding voices in Britain and elsewhere who were determined that there should be a war. Kuyak expresses his regret that the Istanbul negotiations in March 2022 were called off, because the conditions were relatively light for Ukraine. The future of the Donbass was to be resolved in the space of 15 years. Kuyak blames Boris Johnson for sabotaging those negotiations, and he is angry that this sabotage has not been discussed in German media even though it has been discussed in US media like Foreign Affairts and the Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Kuyak is seriously worried about a confrontation between NATO and Russia. Instead of rebuilding its own armed forces,he says that Germany is in effect, disarming itself, as a result of the Ukraine war, even cannibalizomg its armed forces in order to free up weapons for Ukraine, on the pretext that Germany is fighting for its freedom! (Which, of course, is nonsense). The main players here are Russia and the US; the US’ declared goal is to weaken Russia. for other parties the core issue as to why this war is being fought continues. Kuyak talks bitterly of the sabotage of Minsk (by Merkel and others).

On the Leopard 2s he notes that these tanks may work in combined arms combat when the weaknesses of one system are compensated by the strengths of another. But when there is no such functional coordination, and in difficult operational conditions, this enhances the liklihood of the weapon being knocked out or falling into the hands of the enemy. Kuyak reminds his listeners that Russia has investigated the characteristics of western weapons in order to refine the effectiveness of its own weapons.

For Kuyak there remains the fundamental question of means-end effectiveness. Zelenskiy has repeatedly changed the strategic goals of Ukraine in this war. It currently wants to recapture all Russian held territories including Crimea. Yet Germany promises its support regardless, even though the US is committed only to recovering territories occupied by Russia since February 2022.

Are the means of weapons deliveries suitable for the purposes intended by Ukraine? Ukraine’s commander Zaluzhnyi has listed the weapons he says he needs to push back Russia. He has not yet received these; and it is not clear that even if he had them they would be sufficient to make up for those he has recently lost. It seems likely that were he to be given the weapons he has asked for, this would serve not to give Ukraine victory but only prolong the war. Russia could surpass western escalation at any time. In Germany these connections are not being properly discussed. The kind of pressure that is being imposed on Germany by NATO has never happened before in the history of NATO and it demonstrates lack of western respect for Germany.

Kuyak proposes there is an agenda [but whose agenda, precisely – that of the USA?] of destroying any possibility of a German-Russian rapprochement in the future, and that this is ultimately what a lot of this is all about. The new weapons could help Ukraine in the face of the coming Russian offensive but there is no way that Ukraine is going to recover the Russian occupied territories. US Chief of Staff General Milley has said that Ukraine has already achieved what it is capable of achieving militarily; more is not possible. Diplomatic efforts should be started now.

Military Deliveries: Why?

There is a huge amount of incoherence as to what is the purpose of the promised armoured vehicle deliveries, the hundreds of tanks (Madars, Bradleys, Strykers, AMXs, Ceasar Howitzers, etc….) to be sent.

What does the west say is their purpose? Mercouris has recently read two entirely different explanations. One is that Ukraine needs them so as to stall the expected big Russian offensives. They might help, yes, but it is far from certain that they will. The other explanation is that the machines are needed so as to break the stalemate (if indeed “stalemate” is actually the right description, as opposed to “Russian advances”) so that Ukraine can launch its own offensives. In that event, both Kuyak and Mercouris consider that the number of vehicles to be provided are nowhere near sufficient.

So why send them? Do they actually have a military purpose? One suggestion is that the west has now given up any hope of being able to match Russian artillery power and they have simply transferred as many as they can send. Rather than give up, and having exhausted stocks of air defense systems and missiles, they are turning instead to armoured vehicles because that is all they have left that they can send.

There has been talk of the US sending some combined missile-bomb systems – a recommendation from Raytheon – with a 160km range, a delivery that is pending. Publication of what is going to be in the next US military package does not include this hybrid system, since it would only become available in a few months. The warhead of such a system would be fairly small, and it would probably not be the most powerful system that could be sent. ATACMs and Abrams are off the agenda; we are clearing Israel of its remaining stocks of ammunition rounds. We are looking for Soviet era weapons in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East from the 1970s, scraping the bottom of the barrel, bullying the Germans into supplying Leopard 2s so as to complicate further the relations between Germany and Russia.

There is a general atmosphere of panic and hysteria, and no public willingness to admit that things are not going well for Ukraine on the battlefield, with Zelenskiy still not even admitting that Soledar has fallen. The latest Russian offensive in Zaporizhzhia has been unreported in British media. The Pentagon is said to be “surprised” that the fighting has been as dynamic as it is this winter. None of this comes close to an admission of reality, that Bakhmut, even Zaporizhzhia, may soon fall. All considerations of logistics are being thrown out of the window in the impetuous rush to get something to Ukraine.

It looks very muddled, chaotic, hysterial. And there is another factor that is causing alarm. William Burns, CIA Director, has returned from a secret (why?) visit to Kiev even though the visit has been confirmed. Some reports say that his purpose was to reassure Ukraine that some level of support would continue but that, with the Republicans now in control of the House, there may be enough only up until July, but that there is uncertainty about what will happen beyond that.

What happens if these various weapons systems fail to achieve their purpose? The US keeps talking about air defense systems being the priority (though so far they have not held Russia back) but doesnt have any to offer, so comes up with armored vehicles in their place. Mercouris has never known western policy to be as chaotic and misguided as it is. Even the Polish Chief of Staff is critical. Yet any time critical voices are heard, the hardliners still prevail.

Caitlin Johnstone: Western Journalists Are Cowardly, Approval-Seeking Losers

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By Caitlin Johnstone, Substack, 1/11/22

Research conducted by New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics into Russian trolling behavior on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election has found “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.”

Which is to say that all the years of hysterical shrieking about Russian trolls interfering in US democracy and corrupting the fragile little minds of Americans — a narrative that has been used to drum up support for internet censorship and ever-increasing US government involvement in the regulation of online speech — was false.

And to be clear, this isn’t actually news. It was established years ago that the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency could not possibly have had any meaningful impact on the 2016 election, because the scope of its operations was quite small, its posts were mostly unrelated to the election and many were posted after the election occurred, and its funding was dwarfed by orders of magnitude by domestic campaigns to influence the election outcome.

What’s different this time around, six years after Trump’s inauguration, is that this time the mass media are reporting on these findings.

The Washington Post has an article out with the brazenly misleading headline “Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters“. Anyone who reads the article itself will find its author Tim Starks acknowledges that “Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior,” but the insertion of the word “little” means anyone who just reads the headline (the overwhelming majority of people encountering the article) will come away with the impression that Russian trolls still had some influence on 2016 voters.

“Little influence” could mean anything shy of tremendous influence. But the study did not find that Russian trolls had “little influence” over the election; it failed to find any measurable influence at all. 

Starks does some spin work of his own in a bid to salvage the reputation of the ever-crumbling Russiagate narrative, eagerly pointing out that the report does not explicitly say Russia definitely had zero influence on the election’s outcome, that it doesn’t examine Russian trolling behavior on Facebook, that it doesn’t address “Russian hack-and-leak operations,” and that it doesn’t say “doesn’t suggest that foreign influence operations aren’t a threat at all.”

None of these are valid arguments. Claiming Russia definitely had no influence on the election at all would have been beyond the scope of the study, the report’s authors do in fact argue that the effects of Russian trolling on Facebook were likely the same as on Twitter, the (still completely unproven) “Russian hack-and-leak operations” were outside the scope of the study, as is the question of whether foreign influence operations can be a threat in general.

What Starks does not do is make any attempt to address the fact that mainstream news and punditry was dominated for years by claims that Russian internet trolls won the election for Donald Trump. He does not, for example, make any mention of his own 2019 Politico article telling readers that the Russian Twitter troll operation ahead of the 2016 election “was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known.”

Starks also does not take the time to inform The Washington Post’s readership about the false reporting this story has received over the years from his fellow mainstream news media employees, like The Washington Post’s David Ignatius and his melodramatic description of the St Petersburg troll farm as “a sophisticated, multilevel Russian effort to use every available tool of our open society to create resentment, mistrust and social disorder” in an article hysterically titled “How Russia used the Internet to perfect its dark arts“. Or The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg in her article “Yes, Russian Trolls Helped Elect Trump“, in which she argues that it looks increasingly as though the Internet Research Agency “changed the direction of American history.” Or NBC’s Ken Dilanian (a known CIA asset), who described Russian trolling on Twitter in the lead-up to the election as “a vast, coordinated campaign that was incredibly successful at pushing out and amplifying its messages,” a claim that was then repeated by The Washington Post. To pick just a few out of basically limitless possible examples.

Starks and his editors could easily have included this sort of information in the article. It would have greatly helped improve clarity and understanding among The Washington Post’s audience if they had. It would have been entirely possible to clearly spell out the fact that all those other reports appear to have been incorrect in light of this new information, or at least to acknowledge the fact that there is a glaring difference between this new report and previous reporting. It would do a lot of good for awareness to grow, especially among Washington Post readers, that there’s been a lot of inaccurate information circulating about Russia and the 2016 election these past several years.

But they didn’t. And nobody else in the mass media has done so either. Even The Intercept’s report on the same story, despite having the far more honest headline “Those Russian Twitter bots didn’t do $#!% in 2016, says new study,” doesn’t name any names or criticize any outlets for their inaccurate reporting on Russian trolls stealing the election for Donald Trump.

Indeed, it’s very rare in the west to see mainstream journalists hold other mainstream journalists accountable for their false reporting, facilitation of propaganda, or journalistic malpractice, unless it’s journalists whose approval they don’t care about like members of the opposite political faction or independant media reporters. This is because western journalists are worthless, obsequious cowards whose entire lives revolve around seeking the approval of their peers.

The most important reporting a journalist can do in the western world today is help expose the lies, propaganda and malpractice of other western journalists and news outlets. But that is also the last thing a western journalist is ever likely to do, because western journalists seek praise and approval not from the public, but from other western journalists.

You can see this in the way they post on Twitter, with their little in-jokes and insider references, how they’re always cliquing up and beckoning and signaling to each other. Twitter is a great window through which to observe western journalists, because they really lay it all out there. Watch their bootlicking facilitation of status quo power, their ingratiating tail-wagging with each other, the way they gang up on dissenters like zealots burning a heretic. To see what I’m talking about you have to pay attention not to their viral tweets that go off but to all the rest that receive little attention, because the ones that take off are the ones the public are interested in. If you watch them carefully it becomes clear that for most of them the intended audience of the majority of their posts is not the rank-and-file public, but their fellow members of the media class.

Look at this Twitter conversation between Australian journalists right after the Ecuadorian embassy cut off Julian Assange’s internet access in 2018 for a good illustration of this. Former ABC reporter Andrew Fowler (now a vocal supporter of Assange) questions ABC’s Michael Rowland for applauding Ecuador’s move, and ABC’s Lisa Millar rushes in to help Rowland argue that Assange is not a journalist and doesn’t deserve the solidarity of journalists, and that Fowler is putting himself on the outside of the groupthink consensus by claiming otherwise. Millar and Rowland are part of the clique, Fowler is being ostracised from it, and Assange is the heretic whose lynching they’re braying for:

Western journalists have a freakish herd-like mindset that makes the derision and rejection of their class the most nightmarish scenario possible and the approval of their class the most powerful opiate imaginable. They’re terrified of other journalists turning against them, of being rejected by the people whose approval they crave like a drug, of being kicked out of the group chat. And that’s exactly what would happen if they began leveling valid criticisms at mass media propaganda in public. And that’s exactly why that doesn’t happen.

The western media class is a cloistered, incestuous circle jerk that only cares about impressing other members of the cloistered, incestuous circle jerk. It doesn’t care about creating an informed populace or holding the powerful to account, it cares about approval, inclusion and acclaim from its own ranks, regardless of what propagandistic reporting is required to obtain it. The Pulitzers are mostly just a bunch of empire propagandists giving each other trophies for being good at empire propaganda.

A journalist with real integrity would spurn the approval of the media class. It would nauseate and repel them, because it would mean you’ve been aligning yourself with the most powerful empire in history and the propaganda machine which greases its wheels. They would actively make an enemy of the mainstream western press.

Journalists without integrity — which is to say the overwhelming majority of journalists — do the opposite.

None of this will be news to any of my regular readers, who will likely understand that the role of the mass media is not to inform but to manufacture consent for the agendas and interests of our rulers. But we shouldn’t get used to it, or lose sight of how odious it is.

It’s important to be clear about how gross these people are. You can never be sufficiently disdainful of these freaks.

The Bell: Cost of War

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The Bell, 1/10/22

What did Russia’s invasion cost Ukraine?

Throughout the year, we have written about the impact of the war on Russia’s economy and society. But the main victims of this war are Ukraine and its citizens. Here is a short list of the losses and destruction inflicted on the country by the Russian military. In addition to those killed and injured — including civilians — Ukraine faces a budget deficit of at least $50 billion, a 70% fall in industrial output and a fivefold increase in poverty.

Russia’s economy: -6% GDP

The Russian economy in 2022 was expected to grow about 3%, according to government and Central Bank predictions from early February. However, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a broad coalition of nations, both Western and Eastern, imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow. As a result, Russia’s economy contracted 2.8% this year. That means the war and sanctions caused Russia’s economy to be about 6% smaller than it would otherwise have been at the end of 2022.At 2021 prices, 6% of Russia’s GDP is equivalent to 9 trillion rubles ($130 billion). That figure would cover Russia’s healthcare budget for 6 years, or pay for education for 7 years. However, the bigger issue is the long-term consequences.

External restrictions will prevent Russia’s economy from developing: Western markets are closed and in Asia there is high competition and overstretched infrastructure. It will take some time to fully enter these markets. Instead of proactive investment in innovation and technology, the authorities are choosing to spend on the military. Investment in people is increasingly linked to political views: funding for nurturing “patriotic” feelings is up sixfold, academic mobility is effectively at an end and access to cutting-edge equipment is blocked. In the modern world, economic development is shaped not by resources, but by human capital. Ignoring this fossilizes economic development.

The middle class is hardest hit

Russia’s middle class is the main economic victim of the Kremlin’s war. Real disposable incomes for Russians will fall 2.2% in 2022, the Ministry of Economic Development predicts. Incomes fell 1.2% year-on-year in Q1, 0.8% in Q2 and 3.4% in Q3 (figures for Q4 are not yet available). At the same time, middle class incomes (before we take into account the third quarter) are already down 5% year-on-year, according to calculations by an analyst at one of Russia’s biggest investment banks using data from the State Statistics Service.At the same time, there was steady growth in the incomes of the poorest groups in society, probably due to a wide range of social benefits.

This is not the first time Russia’s middle class has been hit hardest by an economic crisis. First, it was hobbled by the 2008-09 crisis, then it suffered a protracted squeeze on incomes after 2014. The coronavirus pandemic only worsened the situation, with part of the middle class dropping into poorer income brackets. There’s no quick fix for Russia’s middle class, as the National Agency for Financial Research admitted. To achieve an uplift, the state would need to explore technological development, increase labor productivity, boost real incomes and support families with children. The government pledged to do these things in the 2010s, but those promises now appear to be long forgotten.

500,000 have left the country

The war in Ukraine has sparked two waves of emigration. In spring, amid rumors of imminent border closures, hundreds of thousands of people rushed to leave the country. The authorities kept the borders open, and many returned to the country. However, seven months later, after the announcement of a “partial” mobilization, there was another exodus. In addition to the panic buying of airline tickets, which pushed prices sky-high, there were also enormous lines at Russia’s land borders.It’s almost impossible to get an accurate figure for how many people left the country because of the war. But we estimate that, since February, at least 500,000 Russians have fled the country and not returned.25,000 fewer births

Russia’s reproduction rate is already below “break even” and further decline seems inevitable. The direct impact of mobilization alone could amount to 25,000 ‘missing’ births in 2023, according to calculations by leading Russian demographer Mikhail Denisenko.Several factors lead to a declining birth rate including men of reproductive age being “taken away” from family life, according to Salavat Abylkalikov, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Demographics at the Higher School of Economics. There are also losses due to people leaving the country. However, the most important factor is people deciding to postpone having children until things are better — meaning many births will never take place.

There are even suggestions that the total fertility rate will drop to the level of the late 1990s.Demographer Igor Yefremov estimates an imminent decline in the total fertility rate to 1.3, and then to 1.2 per woman. That compares with 1.5 last year. That will bring the number of births next year down to 1.2 million (last year there were 1.4 million).

25 million people without Instagram

The past year has seen Russia blocking websites on an unprecedented scale. Just three weeks after the start of the war, communications watchdog Roskomnadzor — which has evolved into a sort of censorship agency — started restricting access to photo sharing social media site Instagram (at that time the second most popular social network in Russia). Within a week, the courts listed
 the platform’s owners, Meta, as an “extremist organization.

At first it seemed that this cyber-blockade would do little to undermine Instagram’s position. After all, a similar ban on Telegram a few years earlier did little to affect the messenger’s audience. This time, though, the blockade was far more successful. According to Mediascope, 32 million people a day were using Instagram at the end of February. By early April, that had halved, and by early December the numbers dropped to just 7 million. An average user now spends 15 minutes a day on the site, compared with a pre-war 41 minutes. The main reason for the dramatic decline is the more effective blocking mechanisms available to the authorities that have followed a law “on sovereign Russian internet”. That law forced providers to install special devices to control traffic, making blocking far more effective. They also enable the state to block VPN services. Despite this, between March and July, 2022, Russia was second in the world for VPN downloads.

We don’t know what will happen to Russia’s internet next year, but indications are not encouraging. So far, Russia’s authorities have shied away from the most radical step — a block on YouTube. Banning YouTube would “trigger another wave of interest in mechanisms to get round the block” and “greatly increase the load on Russian services that are barely ready to cope,” said parliamentary deputy Anton Gorelkin who has been at the forefront of legislative restrictions on the internet. Gorelkin added that YouTube, like any bad habit, should be suppressed gradually.

Isolated by visas and prices

Contrary to widespread fears, the Russian authorities did not close the country’s borders. However, 2022 still saw journeys outside of Russia — especially to the West — become more difficult and more expensive. Land borders to the European Union are almost completely closed to Russians with tourist visas, getting a visa is far more expensive and time-consuming and flights to Europe are two or three times more expensive.

A source close to the travel industry told The Bell that the average cost of tickets from Russia to Europe has increased from its pre-war average of €400 ($423) to between €1000 and €1500. Flight times have increased from an average 3-4 hours to 8-24 hours. The key factor is the need to fly via third-nation hubs such as Istanbul, Yerevan or Astana (because most of Europe’s airspace is closed to flights from Russia). By the end of 2022, the total number of passengers carried by Russian airlines will be about 95 million. That’s down almost 15% compared with the previous year, or 26% compared with 2019 (before the pandemic), according to a source close to the aviation industry.

Kelly Vlahos: What foreign policy elites really think about you

Expression of contempt

By Kelly Vlahos, Responsible Statecraft, 1/6/22

Tell us, Washington, how do you really feel about American public opinion?

For years now, Beltway establishmentarians have been trying desperately to countermand the idea that they are in fact, elites: out of touch, impervious to what regular Americans want and need, and slaves to conventional foreign policy doctrine and dogma.

But it is wartime again, and that’s when the masks slip. It began with the steady stream of Eliot Cohen and Anne Applebaum columns from the start of the Russian invasion, all demanding that Americans see the war in Ukraine as our fight, a struggle for democracy, the liberal world order. If Americans do not have the stomach for it, there is something wrong with us, a moral failing.

These ham-fisted approaches befit the neoconservatives who wield them, as they did the same in the Global War on Terror, and to a great extent, worked to keep the Iraq War going for almost a decade and the war in Afghanistan shambling on for a full 20 years.

In addition to the destruction of two countries, trillions of dollars, a massive refugee crisis, a new generation of U.S. veterans dependent on lifetime assistance, and countless dead and wounded, these “elites” are in great part responsible for the mistrust of Washington that has eaten away at the culture and politics here to the core.

Poll after poll show a plunging lack of faith in American institutions, including the once-vaunted military. That’s what going to war based on lies, distortions, and rhetorical bullying will do to an already strained and tribalized society. Add a financial collapse (2008) that Washington addressed with an unprecedented bank bailout, while homeowners and workers struggled to survive, and you have the basis for major populist movements — on the left, and the right.

The rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were buoyed in part by a continuing skepticism of the ongoing wars and of the elites at the helm of U.S. foreign policy, which had become as self-serving and disconnected from American interests as they were.

You would have thought they had learned their lesson.

But the war in Ukraine has given them new purpose and in that vein, to both patronize and ignore the wants and needs of the American public. A new commentary by Gian Gentile and Raphael S. Cohen, deputy director of the Rand Corporation’s Army Research Division, and Air Force Strategy and Doctrine Program, respectively, says it all. Clearly written for Beltway practitioners and politicians, the takeaway from “The Myth of America’s Ukraine Fatigue” is clear: don’t mind the polls, or even American public opinion. Ukraine’s (and in effect, Washington’s) long war will go on no matter what the hoi polloi is thinking, or feeling.

“In war, from a purely political perspective, it’s usually safer for politicians to stay the course.

“Perhaps this is why democracies’ track records of playing the long game in armed conflicts is actually pretty good. From the ancient Athenians during the Peloponnesian War on through to the present day, democracies have not usually been the fickle, shrinking violets their detractors make them out to be. In the United States, the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were all eventually deeply unpopular. Yet the United States fought for three years in Korea, almost nine years in Iraq (before going back in after the initial withdrawal), and almost 20 years in both Vietnam and Afghanistan. All these campaigns involved significantly more investment of American blood and treasure than the U.S. commitment to Ukraine has demanded thus far.”

The authors are referring to a number of recent polls that would appear to show that Americans’ unconditional support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion has its limits and in some cases, may be flagging. To start, Cohen and Gentile say that isn’t true, that Americans support Ukrainian sovereignty and the fight for it. Absolutely. What the authors don’t say is that the polls indicate that Americans are also concerned about a protracted war that could lead to more death and a direct U.S. confrontation with the Russians. That they are less enthusiastic about supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes,” and have shown a growing interest in negotiations to end the war sooner than later, even if that ultimately means concessions for both sides.

Instead of recognizing the nuance and giving credit to Americans for understanding the implications of another long war (whether they are directly involved on the ground or not), the authors blame the media for hyping up what they believe is the negative messaging from the surveys. Furthermore, they suggest that — citing the cases of Vietnam and our recent wars — conflicts will go on (and rightly so!) no matter where public opinion is at.

“If past is precedent, and present trends continue, it could be years before any of the declines in the American public’s support actually result in a change of policy,” the authors contend. Cohen and Gentile (much like their counterparts in the Iraq and Afghanistan War eras, did) diminish those “amplifying the Ukraine fatigue narrative,” claiming they fit into neat little categories: 1) “America First” Republicans who’d rather focus on domestic issues 2) “knee-jerk” anti-war activists on the left, and 3) those who “may genuinely sympathize with Russian talking points” that Americans will tire of the war.

Meanwhile, “some Americans may really believe that they are paying more of a price for the conflict than they in fact are, but this is primarily based on perceptions—not facts.”

Right. That is exactly what Fred Kagan, the AEI neoconservative who helped to craft the Iraq War Surge plan said in this lengthy National Review piece in 2008, entitled “Why Iraq matters: Talking back to anti-war party talking points,” in which he deployed this fatuous bromide:

“Americans have a right to be weary of this conflict and to desire to bring it to an end. But before we choose the easier and more comfortable wrong over the harder and more distasteful right, we should examine more closely the two core assumptions that underlie the current antiwar arguments: that we must lose this war because we cannot win it at any acceptable cost, and that it will be better to lose than to continue trying to win.”

Which makes this all very ironic, since (Col.) Gian Gentile was one of the few brave souls in the active duty military who were openly speaking out against Fred Kagan’s “Surge” and the counterinsurgency craze that was rocking the Blob during that period. He was an arch critic of Washington’s hyper-message management and selective history machinations. It is head scratching that he would oversimplify the effects of public opinion on recent wars — and suggest its relative unimportance — while offering the thinnest of arguments for in essence, “staying the course.”

“The leaders of the free world need to remind their publics what is at stake in Ukraine—not just for European and global security, but for democracy at large,” Gentile exclaims in his recent piece with Cohen.

This, from an historian who in his 2013 book, “America’s Deadly Embrace of Counter-Insurgency,” not only took on what he called the “myths” of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the shibboleths of the U.S. counterinsurgency in Vietnam and the British military’s “success” in Malaya (1948-60) as well.

Gentile’s “Ukraine fatigue myth” article is elite thinking, which reads as a pep talk for Beltway insiders in the wake of recent polling. For the rest of us, it is a cogent reminder that the same people who did not want regular Americans to actually think about foreign policy during the Iraq War, are still out there, whether they want to call themselves “elites” or not.

Larry Johnson: BLINDED BY THE LIES — THE U.S. MILITARY IS RELYING ON UKRAINIAN INTELLIGENCE

Photo by Nati on Pexels.com

By Larry Johnson, Sonar 21, 1/4/22

Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism

I have confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency is relying solely on Ukraine for the intelligence on Russian and Ukrainian casualties. In other words, if Ukraine tells its DIA liaison officer that Ukraine killed 400 Russians in its latest HIMARS strike then that is what DIA tells the U.S. General commanding EUCOM. This is more than troubling. This is dangerous.

There are six basic types of intelligence that a good analyst should consult in preparing an assessment:

1) Intelligence from foreigners recruited to spy for the United States,

2) Intelligence produced by foreign governments that is passed to the United States,

3) Reports produced by U.S. Government organizations, e.g. State Department cables sent from US embassies and Defense Attache reports based on information the attache collected in a particular country,

4) Electronic intercepts, which includes communications collected and analyzed by the National Security Agency,

5) Imagery from satellites and air craft (including drones)

6) Open source, e.g. press, media, and social media

What DIA and CIA ought to be doing is to scour all source intelligence to come up with an accurate report on the casualty rate for Ukraine and Russia. For example, surely the United States has intercepted communications between Russian military commands discussing killed and wounded. Ditto with respect to Ukraine.

Here is what we know with certainty from open source reports.

“Russia is firing a staggering 20,000 artillery rounds per day, a senior U.S. defense official estimated, while Ukraine is firing from 4,000 to 7,000 rounds daily.

“The Ukrainians are quickly burning through their stockpiles of artillery rounds and other ammunition, including for their air defense systems, officials said.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russia-ukraine-war-ammo-rcna56210

Those rounds translate into casualties on both sides. Put simply, Ukraine is suffering at least four times the number of killed and wounded than Russia.

U.S. journalists are a lazy lot and are regurgitating to the public the official line presented to them by the White House, the Department of Defense and the Department of State. The same applies to most of Europe. But once in a while, a reporter stumbles on to the truth. Maria Senovilla, who writes for the Spanish magazine Atalayer, committed an act of journalism:

“What is happening in the battle of Bakhmut? The news we are receiving is of the death of very many people.

“Yes, we have to look to the Donbas because Bakhmut is precisely the blackest point of the war in Ukraine. This week, both the Institute for the Study of War, which is a prestigious American think tank, and other international thin tanks, have agreed that up to 400 Ukrainian soldiers a day are being killed and wounded in Bakhmut.

“And beyond the number, which is just a figure, I have been able to talk in recent days with different military sources, both official and combatants who have been there, and what they say makes one’s hair stand on end. The city is for the moment under Ukrainian control, but the Russian troops have stationed their artillery close enough to fire there, but far enough away so as not to expose their troops too much. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army, as it has to defend the terrain, has a lot of infantry, light units, paramilitary units that can do little against the bombs. This combat front has become today a real human meat grinder. That’s how crude I can say it.

“Right now it is one of the most, if not the most, worrying point for Zelenski’s armed forces. Our listeners are probably wondering what is the importance of Bakhmut to take such a commitment to defend the position with such a very high cost of living. Bakhmut is not an iconic city like Severodonetsk was, where one of the great battles of this war also took place. Bakhmut is not that kind of iconic city. However, it is a communications hub that is key to the supply lines of Ukrainian troops in Donetsk province, and it is also the buffer that contains the advance of Kremlin troops towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. If the Russian Army were to take these two cities, it would gain almost total control of the Donetsk province and, therefore, of the entire Donbas, something that Putin could already sell as a great victory. So you can imagine the effort that the Kremlin is putting right now in taking Bakhmut and what it is costing the Ukrainians to defend it.”

https://atalayar.com/index.php/en/content/maria-senovilla-bakhmut-blackest-point-ukrainian-war-400-ukrainian-soldiers-day-are-being

I understand why politicians will lie about a failing policy. But it is inexcusable for intelligence professionals to enable that lying. The best antidote is factual, objective analysis. Especially analysis based on multiple sources. Politicians need a Dutch Uncle who will tell them uncomfortable truths. That is not happening. One of these days the reality of the carnage Ukraine is suffering will become impossible to cover up and the Kabuki theater of looking for a scapegoat will kick off in Washington. Guess what? It will be called an intelligence failure. The politicians will be frantic to escape any blame for the debacle of “losing Ukraine” and the intelligence community will be the culprit. In this case, the intelligence community will have earned its culpability. They are cowards who refuse to stand up and tell the truth.

Jeremy Kuzmarov: The Trillion Dollar Silencer

Photo by Sergio Ordonez on Pexels.com

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Magazine, 1/6/22

The military’s deep penetration into all aspects of American life has hampered the development of a strong anti-war movement—at a time when it is desperately needed.

Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across the U.S. in the last few years to decry police brutality, to oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to restrict abortion rights, and to contest what they believed was a rigged election (the January 2021 Capitol riots).

Only small hardy bands by comparison have taken to the streets to protest record military budgets—approaching $1 trillion under Joe Biden—or the illegal bombing of Syria, expansion of U.S. troops in Africa, provision of $20 billion in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, and military provocations directed against China.

Joan Roelofs’[1] new book The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2022), starts with an important question: “Why is there so much acceptance and so little protest against our government’s illegal and immoral wars and other military operations?”

Her answer is simple and convincing: Money.

While successful propaganda, fear and distraction are important, the military-industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his Farewell Address in 1961 has penetrated so deeply into American life that much of the American public has essentially bought into acquiescence.

Roelofs writes that “the economic impact of the military-industrial complex is a highly effective silencer.”

Particularly important is the fact that military bases have been placed strategically across the U.S., often in remote rural areas, where they become the life blood of economic development.

Millions of American workers find jobs with military contractors or their subsidiaries, which finance scholarships and internships for college students who have no knowledge of the anti-Vietnam War protests that once roiled their campuses.

According to Roelofs the triumph of military Keynesianism in the U.S. is evident by the fact that military spending consumes half of the federal government’s discretionary budget.

This type of spending has a great impact on the economy, she notes, because a) it is recession proof; b) is a boon in rusted and depressed areas of the country; c) does not rely on consumer whims; and d) has a huge multiplier effect: contractors, subcontractors, and employee spending, as well as military bases and installations are economic hubs of their region, supplying customers for real-estate agents, landscapers, restaurants, furniture shops, museums and yoga studios, while enhanced tax receipts support social services, education, infrastructure and culture.

Many in the middle class benefit from weapons manufacturers stocks in their mutual fund portfolios. In Roelofs’ home state of New Hampshire, the F-35 program supports 55 suppliers—35 of which are small businesses—and more than 900 direct jobs, many of them located at BAE Systems in Nashua, which Money Magazine twice deemed the “best place to live in the U.S.”

According to Business Review, the F-35 program “generates over $481 million in economic impact in the state.”

Read full article here.

Dmitri Lascaris: WESTERN SOLDIERS REVEAL THE SORDID REALITY OF THE UKRAINE WAR

By Dmitri Lascaris, Website, 1/2/23

Just about every time Western media interview a Western soldier who has fought in the Ukraine war, we hear accounts of the war that diverge radically from the narrative peddled by Western leaders and pro-NATO think tanks. Their narrative is that Ukraine is winning a war being fought for democracy and freedom, and that those who stand with the Ukrainian state are the good guys, while those who oppose it are the bad guys.

That narrative simply cannot be reconciled with accounts from the battlefield.

A case in point is “Trapped in the Trenches of Ukraine”, published by The New Yorker on December 26, 2022. The article was authored by war correspondent Luke Mogelson, who interviewed numerous members of Ukraine’s International Legion.

One of his sources was a Canadian Army veteran who survived a Russian missile attack on the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security in Yavoriv, Ukraine, a town that sits 10 miles from the Polish border. According to that army veteran, the March 3, 2022 attack resulted in a “bloodbath”, but he claimed that only Ukrainians — and no foreigners — died in the attack. The Canadian veteran said that many of the foreigners who were at the base fled Ukraine after the attack. He felt that this was for the best, because a number of these volunteers were “shit”: “gun nuts,” “right-wing bikers,” “ex-cops who are three hundred pounds.” A “chaotic” lack of discipline, he added, had been exacerbated by “a fair amount of cocaine.”

Mogelson explains:

Many foreigners, no matter how seasoned or élite, were unprepared for the reality of combat in Ukraine: the front line, which extends for roughly seven hundred miles, features relentless, industrial-scale violence of a type unknown in Europe since the Second World War. The ordeal of weathering modern artillery for extended durations is distinct from anything that Western soldiers faced in Iraq or Afghanistan (where they enjoyed a monopoly on such firepower).

According to Mogelson, “the Ukrainian military has been extraordinarily opaque about how it is executing the war, and journalistic embeds are almost nonexistent.” Mogelson nonetheless managed to obtain permission from the G.U.R., the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s intelligence directorate, to accompany American and other foreign soldiers for two weeks in the Donetsk region.

The foreign soldiers were attached to a unit led by Ukrainian soldiers from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade. That Brigade had previously served in Bakhmut, where “an enormous number of soldiers had died, and even more had been wounded. The trauma of Bakhmut,” wrote Mogelson, “had unnerved many of the survivors, and they now seemed wary of outsiders.” He continues:

Many of the professional soldiers in the 72nd had been killed or injured in Bakhmut. Conscripts had replenished the ranks. Some had attended a three-week basic infantry course in the U.K., with instructors from across Europe, but most had received only minimal training before being given Kalashnikovs and dispatched to the front.

“Turtle”, one of the foreign soldiers from the unit in which Mogelson was embedded, told Mogelson of a recent mission in Pavlika. Although Turtle and his team-members had briefed the 72nd on their route for the mission, a Ukrainian unit opened fire on the team as they approached. The team shot back. “We won, they didn’t,” Turtle told Mogelson.

The team then continued on its mission and stumbled upon a large grouping of Russian soldiers. A fierce firefight ensued, in which one U.S. soldier was killed and three others wounded. Numerous Russians were also killed. One of the wounded Americans was bleeding profusely and screaming for help, but Russian mortars prevented his rescue. He died.

The “debacle” had “further strained the team’s rapport with the 72nd.” Turtle confessed to Mogelson that “some people don’t like us in this area anymore”. Mogelson continues:

The leeriness was mutual. Members of the brigade’s reconnaissance company—with which the team was supposed to coordinate—had followed the foreigners partway through the tree line, and had agreed to provide additional backup if anything went wrong. Yet none of the Ukrainians had joined the battle with the Russians. (One of them later told me that their radio had malfunctioned and they had not heard the team’s call for help.)

Eventually, Mogelson accompanied the unit on a dangerous, front-line mission. During the mission, Mogelson and the soldiers were forced to take shelter in the ruins of a house as Russian artillery rained down on them. Remarkably, none of them was killed.

After narrowly escaping with their lives, the soldiers reflected upon their brush with death and their reasons for coming to Ukraine:

[Turtle] once told me that many volunteers who quit the Legion did so because they hadn’t been honest with themselves about their reasons for coming to Ukraine. “Because when you get here your reason will be tested,” Turtle said. “And if it’s something weak, something that’s not real, you’re going to find out.” He was dubious of foreigners who claimed to want to help Ukraine. Turtle wanted to help, too, of course, but that impulse was not enough; it might get you to the front, but it wouldn’t keep you there.

I asked what was keeping him there.

“In the end, it’s just that I love this shit,” he said. “And maybe I can’t escape that—maybe that’s the way it’s always gonna be.”

What kind of a human being ‘loves’ war?

A recent interview by British YouTuber Nikolas Lloyd sheds an even harsher light on the sordid reality of this war and the foreigners serving in it. Lloyd conducted a three-part interview of a British soldier who had just concluded seven months of service in Ukraine’s International Legion. (All three parts of the interview are embedded below.)

In the interview, the soldier identifies himself as “Joseph MacDonald”. MacDonald begins the interview by explaining that he travelled to Poland from the U.K. shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February of last year. From Warsaw, he was bused across the Ukraine-Poland border, along with other volunteers, to the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security. MacDonald arrived at the Center shortly before the Russian missile strike of March 3, 2022. He estimates that over 100 Ukrainian officer recruits were killed in that strike. Unlike Mogelson, who reports that no foreigners died in the attack, MacDonald asserts that “a few” recruits for the International Legion were in fact killed.[1]

MacDonald blames the foreigners’ deaths on poor security measures:

If you are going to hide a bunch of chaps who are foreign and who have come to fight for your country, don’t put them at the ‘International Cooperation Centre’, that’s all I’ve got to say. If you were playing pin-the-missile-on-the-donkey, and I was Vladimir Putin, it would be a good bet, right next to the Polish border, called the ‘International Cooperation Centre’, large base, definitely capable of dealing with all of these people coming in, let’s blow that one up, eh?[2]

MacDonald reveals that, in the aftermath of the strike, “there was an awful lot of looting going on. Like a lot of looting”.[3] He explains:

A lot of people who came to volunteer for the Ukrainians were also kleptomaniacs or just total [indiscernible] who’d gone there with the intention of plunder… That is a problem that the Legion kept having for several months…. It was a no-vetting, sign-up-we’ll-take-anyone free-for-all at the start, and it drew in a lot of undesirable types.

MacDonald then refers to the infamous Georgian Legion, some of whose members were at the International Cooperation Center at the time of the Russian missile strike. (Members of the Georgian Legion are suspected of having executed a dozen Russian soldiers after they had surrendered.) According to MacDonald, in the aftermath of Russia’s strike on the International Cooperation Center, he and a British fellow soldier came across Georgian Legion members who were looting an armoury. The looters reacted menacingly when the other British soldier tried meekly to stop their looting. MacDonald describes the Georgian Legion as “not the most uniform and regimented group of guys”, “quite ‘piratey’” and a “pack of hyenas on a carcass”.[4]

MacDonald confirms that, after the missile strike, a “great desertion” happened: 600-700 of the 1,000 or so foreign volunteers left the International Legion. Some left Ukraine altogether, but others went to other Ukrainian militias, believing or hoping that, in those militias, they would find opportunities to shoot Russians with impunity, which MacDonald describes as “sweet spots”. But the reality, according to MacDonald, is that “there is no sweet spot like that – if you are fighting the Russians, you are getting horribly shelled…. No one gets the Call of Duty experience. The artillery strike is on all the time.”

At one point, MacDonald comments on the Canadian soldiers with whom he served. He commends the “really great guys from First Nations and the French side”, but then adds “sadly, the rest of them proved a bit on the cowardly side. That’s the only way to say it.” According to MacDonald, these soldiers – even those who had served up to ten years in the Canadian military – could not endure shelling that was of medium intensity (let alone high-intensity shelling). He observes that a soldier who served in Afghanistan “didn’t like it when the enemy had bigger guns than him, so he went home.” MacDonald refers to these soldiers as “goldilocks soldiers”.[5]

While praising U.S. soldiers from U.S. special forces, MacDonald asserts that many of the U.S. soldiers he encountered were “spoiled”, adding “it’s very easy to be the best army in the world when you can get an F-16 to go and blow up a mortar team on a hillside… I haven’t seen a fighter plane this whole bloody war. They’re all over Kyiv, keeping the President safe.”[6] Artillery, mortars, tanks and rockets do “all the killing on the battleground… Your rifle, if that accounts for 1% of the dead in this war, I’d be surprised.”[7]

MacDonald comments extensively on the three Ukrainian commanders under whom he served. MacDonald found the first of them to be “excellent”, but that commander’s replacement was “very obtuse” and “inept”: he “seemed to think that picking a nice house for him and all his drivers to stay in was much more important than picking a house where you had radio comms to your actually deployed units in the field.”[8]

While posted in a trench in Ukraine, MacDonald contracted lime disease. “They weren’t feeding us very well at the time”, he states. “Pretty much everyone had Covid or some kind of common or garden flu.” After finding a large tick in his nose, MacDonald became very ill. He went to a hospital in the central Ukrainian city of Rivna. There, the doctor who treated him “was not to Western standards” and “looked like he smoked about 80 a day and had a bottle of vodka every night” while “using some very 1950s implements”. Ultimately, MacDonald found it necessary to return to the U.K. to receive proper medical treatment.[9]

At one point, MacDonald’s company was transferred from one city to another. His company’s convoy included two trucks containing advanced military rifles, machine guns and javelins — “a whole company’s worth of Western weapons”. According to MacDonald, the two trucks “just disappeared” as the convoy was in transit.[10]

After explaining that foreign volunteers were treated much more favourably by Ukrainian commanders than Ukrainian rank-and-file soldiers were treated, MacDonald describes a Russian strike on a Ukrainian military base. He explains that, whereas the soldiers of the International Legion were permitted to spread out their tents so as to reduce the risk of mass casualties in a missile attack, Ukrainian soldiers at a nearby military base were forced to keep their tents close to each other. The Russians dropped a thermobaric bomb on the tents at that base and killed about 135 Ukrainian soldiers. They apparently were all young officer recruits.

Several important themes emerge from these accounts, and they are themes that I have commented upon previously (see, for example, here and here).

First, this war is unlike any war that NATO has fought in at least fifty years. It is happening on a massive, industrial scale and is being waged by NATO and its proxy against a peer enemy, whereas NATO’s typical wars are fought against enemies that are vastly outmatched. As Stalin observed, artillery is the “God of war”, and Russians have plenty of it. By most accounts, their firepower is vastly superior to that of Ukraine and is inflicting horrific casualties on Ukraine’s military, many of whose conscripts have not been adequately trained.

Second, many of the foreigners who have gone to Ukraine are there for ignoble reasons. They certainly are not the sort of persons whom Western militaries should be arming.

Third, Ukraine is a deeply corrupt country. Inevitably, much of Western weaponry transferred to Ukraine will end up in the hands of criminals, as Interpol’s chief has warned. Flooding Ukrainian society with deadly weapons imperils the long-term stability of Europe and is a recipe for disaster.

Thus far, Western states have expended well in excess of US$125 billion on sustaining this war. Hundreds of thousands of persons have been killed or wounded. The Ukrainian economy lies in smoking ruins and would collapse without massive Western financial aid. Russia is in the process of destroying the Ukrainian energy grid as Ukrainians head into the heart of winter. Worst of all, with every act of escalation, the risk of a nuclear holocaust increases.

The humane and sensible thing to do is to seek a negotiated resolution of this war. The worst thing we can do is escalate it.

When, if ever, will Western governments come to their senses?

Review of Nicolai Petro’s “The Tragedy of Ukraine”

The Tragedy of Ukraine by Nicolai Petro

There are several academics whose work on Russia and the former Soviet Union I have found to be excellent and reliable. These include the late Stephen F. Cohen, Richard Sakwa, Paul Robinson, Dominic Lieven, and Nicolai Petro (among a few others). I had been looking forward to reading Petro’s latest work, The Tragedy of Ukraine, which couldn’t be more timely.

Petro dives into the complex history of Ukraine and its relationship to imperial Russia, the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia. He emphasizes the point that, unfortunately, has to be repeated constantly in the west that this conflict did not begin on February 24, 2022. As Petro writes:

“[T}he current conflict is merely the latest in a series of conflicts that have bedeviled this area of the world for more than a century. These include: the great power rivalry between Russia and the West; the conflict between Russia and Ukraine; and finally, the conflict within Ukraine itself over its national identity, its relationship to Russia, and its role in the world. It is, in sum, a conflict about who gets to define Ukrainian identity.” (p. 1)

He goes on to explain the internal divisions within the borders of post-Soviet Ukraine. In western Ukraine, the Galician influence predominates and this is predicated upon the rejection of not only Russian culture, but of virtually any active relationship with Russia, including trade. This attitude is considered by its adherents to be “decolonization” and representing the only way for Ukraine to be truly Ukrainian. It is an ideology based on exclusion and an ethnic definition of identity.

In the southeastern part of modern day Ukraine, there is what Petro calls the Maloross identity, which has close historical and cultural ties to Russia that are of major importance, though this population didn’t necessarily want to become part of the Russian state prior to the events of 2013-2014 and the subsequent civil war. According to Petro, the Maloross Ukrainian identity saw itself as distinct from but complementary to Russia and its culture. It rejected the view that Ukraine must choose between Europe and Russia, preferring instead a partnership with both. On one side, the Galician ideal was for Ukraine to serve as a bulwark of the west against Russia, while the Maloross ideal was for Ukraine to serve as a bridge between both.

This was the core of the problem after the illegal overthrow of the democratically elected government in Kiev in 2014, a government that subsequently implemented policies on behalf of a Galician ideal. The residents of the Donbas (Maloross) saw the change of government as an illegitimate coup and genuinely feared and rejected the Galician policies it began to undertake.

Petro acknowledges that Ukraine has had a rocky path as an independent country since 1991, experiencing economic decline and high inequality, despite having emerged from the Soviet era as one of the most developed and resource-rich republics of the USSR*. Moreover, there are region-dependent differences in terms of economics in the country (e.g. industrial v. agricultural, etc.) This has been another factor that has contributed to the complicated divisions and instability within Ukraine.

As the conflict of 2014 has escalated over the years, the history of Ukraine has become weaponized by both sides to varying degrees:

“At its heart this is a debate about power – the power to define Ukrainian identity. In this power struggle both sides appeal to history, which since 2014 has become a minefield that must be navigated very carefully. The issue of whether to interpret a millennia of common history with Russia – as a colonial imposition to be rejected, or an imperial heritage to be proud of – has often been used to keep the conflict between these two competing Ukrainian national identities burning.” (p. 38)

Ukraine, along with Russia, constituted a “loose federation of East Slavic tribes – warrior-traders – ruled by the Rurik dynasty from 9th to 13th century”. Ties were buttressed by a shared Orthodox religion due to Prince Vladimir choosing that religion for people of the Kieven Rus area in the 10th century. By the time of the Mongol invasion of the 13th century, the area had degenerated into rivalries among various princes who’d lorded over a dozen or so independent areas.

The Mongol massacre killed about 2/3 of the population. Some of the survivors managed to flee closer to what is modern-day Moscow and those who remained were forced into subjugation. Slavic bonds were ruptured by the Mongol takeover. Those from the southern part of the Kieven Rus region later became known as Ukrainians and were cut off and later ruled over by Poles and Lithuanians .

In the mid-17th century (1654), the Pereyaslavl Treaty united Ukraine to Russia as an autonomous region and in turn led to a 13-year war between Russia and Poland which resulted in the division of Ukraine between Poland and Russia (Britannica). From then on, the Ukrainian-speaking parts of Poland-Lithuania were progressively conquered by the Russian Empire, leading many Orthodox Ukrainians to strongly identify with Russia . From the late 18th century on, Russians referred to Ukraine territory as Malorussia or “Little Russia” viewing Ukraine and the Ukrainian language as having emanated from the greater Russian history and culture and later sought to standardize it to Russian.

The Western parts of modern-day Ukraine were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries while the southeastern portion was part of the Russian Empire. An independent Ukrainian state emerged very briefly in the years of the Russian Revolution and early civil war period, but the project failed in 1919. From then until WWII, parts of Ukraine were ruled by Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet Russia – the latter becoming a Soviet Republic ruled by the Communist Party. Russian/Soviet rule of Ukraine in the 19th and 20th centuries created complex patterns of migration with significant parts of southern Ukraine settled by Russians, including those who came to work in the mines and factories of the Donbas region, bringing the Russian language with them.**

Petro points out that many contemporary Russians view the Russians (Great Russians in the north), Ukrainians (Little Russians in the south), and Belarusians (White Russians in the west) as one people as promulgated by the writings of Innocent who was the 17th century Abbott of the Kieven Orthodox Monastery. Innocent’s assertion was based on territorial unity, religious (Orthodox faith) and linguistic/literary unity throughout these areas, and the governing princes of all territories having descended from the Ryurik line.

An alternative historical view – the western Ukrainian/Galician view – was put forth by an academic named Mikhail Grushevsky (1866-1934) who taught at the University of Kiev and asserted that “Ukraina-Rus” emerged on the territory of modern-day Ukraine much earlier and had descended from the ancient steppe culture of Scythia leading to “divergent patterns of development in Ukraine and Russia’ which included “a distinct line of statehood for Kievan Rus that in the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, and later in the Zaporozhian Sich, before it was finally incorporated into the Russian Empire by Catherine the Great.” (p. 39)

Ukrainian nationalists do not think Rus should equate with Russia but that Russia should be referred to as Muscovy and that Moscow did not emerge as the new center of a common people from Kiev due to the Mongol destruction of Kiev in the 13th century, but as a “poisonous” phenomena that kept Kiev from its proper glory.

This conflict, given its historical and ideological roots as well as its brutality, would appear to be implacable. But, here, Petro provides a possible means of avoiding a never-ending cycle of hatred and revenge once the sides cease actual physical fighting. Essentially, Petro thinks a truth and reconciliation commission should be put in place. He provides examples of successful but somewhat different models of such commissions in South Africa, Spain and Guatemala.

But another argument offered for this solution goes much further back – the role of the Greek tragedy, which – contrary to what many may believe – played a far more crucial role in Greek life than merely as a source of entertainment. He explains that Greek tragedy focused on the human emotions that play an important role in intractable conflicts that cause suffering and that the exploration and acting out of tragedy fostered understanding, compassion and healing among the different sides to a conflict, thus seeking to break the cycle of hatred and vengeance.

The tragedies acted out in Athens deliberately took on controversial topics, provided moral guidance, and taught its audience how to be better citizens, with the idea that qualities like moderation and prudence were skills that could be taught to everyone. Themes addressed included the negative consequences of hubris, arrogance, and inequality. The danger of self-righteousness, the problem of creating a larger moral wrong when attempting to correct a perceived existing moral wrong, was recognized. According to Petro: “tragedy trained citizens to recognize and avoid policies that could lead to disaster.” (p. 10)

Petro uses the Greek tragedy playwright Aeschylus as an example:

“Aeschylus wants the audience to see that creating a harmonious social order requires former enemies to become stakeholders in society.” (p. 30); He explains that the process involves: 1) raising awareness that the effort of reconciliation will require all of society to effectuate, 2) catharsis or purging, and 3) dialogue. This will lead to genuine justice rather than the continuing cycle of revenge.

Petro also states that Ukraine, in order to attain long-term stability, must eventually base its sense of identity and loyalty on civic patriotism rather than ethnicity, religion or culture:

“While nationalism values above all else cultural, religious, and ethnic unity, patriotism values above all else the people’s common liberty, which is enshrined in the republican ideal of equality before the law.” (p. 131)

If you’re looking for a thought-provoking book that explains the complex history of Ukraine, its relationship to Russia, and the underlying causes of the current conflict, I highly recommend this one.

*An excellent book that delves into this specific aspect of post-Soviet Ukraine can be found here and more about it will be discussed at this blog in the future.

**This historical summary is taken not just from information in Petro’s book, but also Richard Sakwa’s Frontline Ukraine and Anatol Lieven’s “Ukraine Should be a Bridge, Not a Battleground.“

Patrick Lawrence: The Sino-Russian Summit You Didn’t Read About

By Patrick Lawrence, Sheerpost, 1/4/22

It is never very easy to understand what is going on in the world if you depend on The New York Times for an accounting of daily events. This is especially so in all matters to do with Russia, China, or any other nation The Times has on its blacklist because the policy cliques in Washington have these countries on their blacklist. Rely on The Times for its reporting in these cases and you are by definition in the dark. No exceptions. This is what the once-but-no-longer newspaper of record has done to itself and to its readers over, I would say, the past 20–odd years. It is now nothing more than an instrument of the imperial ideology emanating from our nation’s capital.

It follows that we must always take care to read The Times, odious as we may find it, in the same way millions of Soviet citizens over many decades made it a point to read Pravda. As noted severally in these commentaries, it is important to know what we are supposed to think happened on a given day before going in search of what happened.

Never were these assertions truer than they were as 2022 turned to 2023. On December 30, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping gathered by video for one of their regular summits. The Russian and Chinese presidents have now met, in person or electronically, 40–odd times by my count. A day later Putin delivered his customary New Year’s address to the Russian people. These were momentous events by any measure. They declared Moscow’s and Beijing’s historic commitment to constructing nothing less than a new world order. The world turned in 2022, to put the point another way. But you could not possibly know this if you read The Times’s accounts and nothing more.

Here I must single out the reporting of Anton Troianovski. While I do not approve of attacking a journalist in ad hominem fashion, it is meet and just, as the New Testament would put it, to single out Troianovski as the worst Moscow bureau chief The Times has had in place at least since Andrew Higgins, Troianovski’s immediate predecessor, who was in turn the worst bureau chief since Neil MacFarquhar, who preceded Higgins and was worse than his predecessor, and let us leave it there, as this list of worse-than-the-worst extends back many years.

In the method just outlined, I read first of the Putin–Xi summit, which was unusually long and pointed, in a piece Troianovski filed afterward from Moscow. I then read the detailed readouts issued by the Chinese and Russian governments, which are respectively here and here. Then I was astonished to discover the sheer irresponsibility of Troianovski and his employer. Even correspondents who serve more or less openly as propagandists can sink lower than what you thought was their low point, I had to remind myself…

Read full article here.