Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 70

Anatol Lieven: How the Russian Establishment Really Sees the War Ending

By Anatol Lieven, Foreign Policy, 8/27/24

Discussions have been happening for some time among Western policymakers, experts, and the wider public about how the war in Ukraine ought to end. I can confirm that the same type of conversations are happening in Russia.

I recently had the opportunity to speak, on the basis of confidentiality, to a wide range of members of the Russian establishment, including former diplomats, members of think tanks, academics, and businesspeople, as well as a few members of the wider public. Their ideas about the war, and the shape of its eventual ending, deserve to be better understood in the West and in Ukraine itself.

Only a small minority believed that Russia should fight for complete victory in Ukraine, including the annexation of large new areas of Ukrainian territory or the creation of a client regime in Kyiv. A large majority wanted an early cease-fire roughly along the existing battle lines. There is high confidence that the Ukrainian military will never be able to break through and reconquer significant amounts of Ukraine’s lost territories.

Most of my conversations took place before the Ukrainian invasion of the Russian province of Kursk. As far as I can make out, however, this Ukrainian success has not changed basic Russian calculations and views—not least because, at the same time, the Russian army has continued to make significant progress farther east, in the Donbas, where the Russians are closing in on the key town of Pokrovsk. “The attack on Kursk may help Ukraine eventually to get rather better terms, but nothing like a real victory,” in the words of one Russian security expert. “They will sooner or later have to withdraw from Kursk, but we will never withdraw from Crimea and the Donbas.”

The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk has undoubtedly been a serious embarrassment to the Putin administration. It comes on top of a long row of other embarrassing failures, beginning with the appallingly bad planning of the initial invasion. And among the informed Russian elites, I get very little sense of genuine respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin as a military leader—though by contrast, there is much more widespread approval of the government’s economic record in resisting Western sanctions and rebuilding Russian industry for war.

Yet a key reason for my contacts’ desires for compromise was that they believed that Russia should not, and probably could not, attempt to capture major Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv by force of arms. They pointed to the length of time, the high casualties, and the huge destruction that have been involved in taking even small cities like Bakhmut in the face of strong Ukrainian resistance. Any areas of the countryside in Kharkiv province that can be taken should therefore be regarded not as prizes but as bargaining counters in future negotiations.

Underlying this attitude is the belief that to create a Russian army large enough to attempt such a complete victory would require a massive new round of conscription and mobilization—perhaps leading to the kind of popular resistance now seen in Ukraine. The government has been careful to avoid conscripting people from Moscow and St. Petersburg, and to pay large salaries to soldiers conscripted from poorer areas. Neither of these limits could be maintained in the context of full mobilization.

Partly for the same reason, the idea of going beyond Ukraine to launch a future attack on NATO was dismissed by everyone with derision. As I was told, “Look, the whole point of all these warnings to NATO has been to stop NATO from joining the fight against us in Ukraine, because of the horrible dangers involved. Why in the name of God would we ourselves attack NATO and bring these dangers on ourselves? What could we hope to gain? That’s absurd!”

On the other hand, every single person with whom I spoke stated that there could be no withdrawal from territory held by Russia in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed. A majority suggested that any territory in other provinces like Kharkiv could be returned to Ukraine in return for them being demilitarized. This would help guarantee a cease-fire and would also allow Putin to claim that he had ensured the safety of adjacent Russian provinces, which in recent months have been subject to Ukrainian bombardment. Some more optimistic Russians thought that it might be possible to exchange territory in Kharkiv for territory in the four provinces, none of which is currently fully occupied by Russia.

I found this balance of opinion among the people with whom I spoke to be fairly plausible as a wider picture, because on the whole it corresponds closely to the views of the wider Russian public, as expressed in opinion polls conducted by organizations that in the past have been found reliable. Thus in a poll last year by the Levada Center, sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, respondents were exactly equal (62 percent) in their desire for immediate peace talks and in their refusal to return the annexed territories to Ukraine.

Among my contacts, there were no differences on the subject of Ukrainian neutrality, which everyone declared essential. However, it would seem that serious thought is being given by sections of the Russian establishment to the vexed question of how a peace settlement could be secured without formal Western military guarantees and supplies to Ukraine. Hence the widely discussed ideas of a peace treaty ratified by the U.N. Security Council and the BRICS, and of broad demilitarized zones secured by a U.N. force.

As a leading Russian foreign-policy analyst told me, “In the West, you seem to think that only military guarantees are any good. But political factors are also critical. We have invested enormous diplomatic effort in building up our relations with the global south, which certainly would not want a new war. Do you think that if we could get a peace deal that met our basic requirements, we would throw all that away by starting one?”

Most said that if in negotiations the West agreed with key Russian demands, Russia would scale down others. Thus on the Russian demand for the “denazification” of Ukraine, a few said that Russia should still aim for a “friendly” government in Kyiv. This seems to be code for regime change, since it is very hard to imagine any freely elected Ukrainian government being friendly to Russia for a very long time to come.

A large majority, however, said that if Russian conditions in other areas were met, Russia should content itself with the passage of a law banning neo-Nazi parties and symbols, modeled on a clause of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955. My Russian interlocutors referred here to the treaty’s provisions for restrictions on certain categories of Austrian arms and for minority rights—in the case of Ukraine, the linguistic and cultural rights of the Russian-speaking population.

On one important point, opinion was unanimous: that there is no chance whatsoever of any international formal and legal recognition of the Russian annexations of Ukrainian territory, and that Russia would not press for this. It was recognized that this would be rejected not just by Ukraine and the West, but by China, India, and South Africa, none of which recognized Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The hope is therefore that as part of a peace settlement, the issue of these territories’ status will be deferred for endless future negotiation (as the Ukrainian government proposed with regard to Crimea in March 2022), until eventually everyone forgets about it. The example of the (unrecognized but practically uncontested) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was mentioned. This means that Ukraine would not be asked publicly to “give up” these territories; only to recognize the impossibility of reconquering them by force.

In the end, of course, Russia’s negotiating position will be decided by Putin—with whom I did not speak. His public position was set out in his “peace proposal” on the eve of the West’s “peace summit” in Switzerland in June. In this, he offered an immediate cease-fire if Ukraine withdrew its forces from the remainder of the Ukrainian provinces claimed by Russia and promised not to seek admission to NATO.

On the face of it, this is ridiculous. Ukraine is never going to voluntarily abandon the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. However, Putin did not say that Russia will then occupy these territories. This leaves open the possibility that Putin would accept a deal in which these areas would be demilitarized but under Ukrainian administration and that—like the Russian-occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces—their status would be subject to future negotiation.

Nobody I spoke to in Moscow claimed to know for sure what Putin is thinking. However, the consensus was that while he made terrible mistakes at the start of the war, he is a pragmatist capable of taking military advice and recognizing military reality. Thus when in November 2022 Russian generals advised him that to attempt to hold Kherson city risked military disaster, he ordered withdrawal —even though Kherson was in territory that Russia claimed to have annexed and was also Russia’s only bridgehead west of the Dnipro River. Its loss has vastly reduced Russian hopes of being able to capture Odessa and the rest of Ukraine’s coast.

But while Putin might accept what he would regard as a compromise now, everyone with whom I spoke in Moscow said that Russian demands will be determined by what happens on the battlefield. If the Ukrainians can hold roughly their existing line, then it will be along this line that an eventual cease-fire will run. But if the Ukrainians collapse, then in the words of one Russian ex-soldier, “Peter and Catherine are still waiting”; and Peter the Great and Catherine the Great between them conquered the whole of what is now eastern and southern Ukraine for Russia.

Malcom Kyeyune: Why Ukraine is being blamed for Nord Stream

By Malcom Kyeyune, UnHerd, 8/21/24

To understand the truth about the Nord Stream pipeline, one needs to master a certain form of “Kremlinology”. Everything about it is designed to obfuscate, every strand shrouded in prevarication and deceit.

From the start, the investigation was a textbook cover-up. The Swedish government rushed to secure evidence, citing their putative rights under international law, consciously boxing out any sort of independent, UN-backed inspection. Of course, after gathering all the evidence, the Swedish authorities studiously did exactly nothing, only to then belatedly admit that it actually had no legal right to monopolise the information in the first place.

The Germans, for their part, were also supremely uninterested in figuring out who pulled off the worst act of industrial sabotage in living memory against their country. In fact, over the course of a year-long non-investigation, we’ve mostly been treated to leaks and off-the-record statements indicating that nobody really wants to know who blew up the pipeline. The rationale here is bluntly obvious: it would be awfully inconvenient if Germany, and the West, learned the true answer.

Thus, the recent revelation that the true mastermind behind the ongoing deindustrialisation of Germany was none other than a Ukrainian by the name of “Volodymyr Z.” must have come as an unwelcome surprise. For not only is the idea that the authorities have suddenly cracked open the Nord Stream case not credible in the slightest, but the sloppy way in which the entire country of Ukraine is now being fingered is likely not an accident. Indeed, at the same time as the ghost of Nord Stream has risen from the grave, the German government announced its plans to halve its budget for Ukraine aid: whatever is already in the pipeline will be sent over, but no new grants of equipment are forthcoming. The German government is hunkering down for increased austerity, and so it is cutting Ukraine loose.

Germany, of course, is hardly alone. Even if there were enough money to go around, Europe is increasingly not just deindustrialising but demilitarising. Its stores of ammunition and vehicles are increasingly empty, and the idea of military rearmament — that is, creating entirely new military factories and supply chains — at a time when factories are closing down across the continent due to energy shortages and lack of funding is a non-starter. Neither France, the United Kingdom nor even the United States are in a position to maintain the flow of arms to Ukraine. This is a particular concern inside Washington DC, where planners are now trying to juggle the prospect of managing three theatres of war at the same time — in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Pacific — even though US military production is arguably insufficient to comfortably handle one.

And so, in an effort to save face in this impossible situation, Ukraine is now being held solely responsible for doing something it either did not do at all, or only did with the permission, knowledge, and/or support of the broader West. This speaks to the adolescent dynamic that now governs Western foreign policy in a multipolar world: when our impotence is revealed, find someone to blame.

The war in Ukraine, after all, was already supposed to be won, and Russia was supposed to be a rickety gas station incapable of matching the West either economically or militarily. Yet here we are: our own economies are deindustrialising, our military factories have proven completely incapable of handling the strain of a real conflict, and the Americans themselves are now openly admitting that the Russian military remains in a significantly stronger position. Meanwhile, Germany’s economic model is broken, and as its economy falls, it will drag many countries such as Sweden with it, given how dependent they are on exporting to German industrial firms.

10 years ago, during the 2014 Maidan protests, the realist John Mearsheimer caused a lot of controversy when he began warning that the collective West was leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and that our actions would lead to the destruction of the country. Well, here we are. At present, our only saving grace is the continuing offensive in Kursk — a bold offensive that will surely be remembered as a symptom of Ukraine’s increasing desperation.

Indeed, a far better guide of things to come can be found in the fingering of “Volodymyr Z.” as the true culprit behind the Nord Stream sabotage. Here, rather than accept responsibility for the fact that Ukraine was goaded into a war it could not win — mainly because the West vastly overestimated its own ability to fight a real war over the long haul — European geopolitical discourse will take a sharp turn towards a peculiar sort of victim-blaming. No doubt it will be “discovered” that parts of Ukraine’s military consisted of very unsavoury characters waving around Nazi Germany-style emblems, just as it will be “discovered” that journalists have been persecuted by oligarchs and criminals in Kyiv, or that money given by the West has been stolen, and that arms sent have been sold for profit to criminal cartels around the world.

All of these developments will duly be “discovered” by a Western political class that will completely refuse to accept any responsibility for them. Far easier, it seems, to calm one’s nerves with a distorting myth: it’s the Ukrainians’ fault that their country is destroyed; our choices had nothing to do with it; and besides, they were bad people who tricked us!

Gilbert Doctorow: For Russia, recovering Kursk is no walk in the rose garden

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 8/27/24

In my last appearance on Judging Freedom, Judge Napolitano asked me whether the Ukrainian invasion of the Kursk region would be ended by the time of our next chat, two days from today. The implicit assumption behind this question is that the Russians were doing so well destroying all the NATO-supplied tanks, personnel carriers and other advanced equipment, they were killing and maiming so many Ukrainian troops by their carpet bombing and heavy glide bombing of the region, that none but a rag tag collection of invaders would be left to liquidate or take prisoner in the several days ahead.

This assumption was founded in the confident declarations of my peers in the Opposition or, shall we say, ‘dissident’ movement in the United States. And their certainty, which was reflected in the over-hyped titles given to the recordings of their interviews on youtube came from back channels in Russia that my peers have been using for their public statements.

For example, the very widely watched Scott Ritter revealed in a recent interview that he has been in touch with the commander of the Chechen forces now engaged in Kursk, Alaudinov. Such contact is entirely credible given the fact that Ritter visited Grozny earlier this year, met with the republic’s leader Kadyrov, participated in a review of the Chechen troops and surely met with some of their military chiefs.

Indeed, in view of the seeming consensus that the Russian recovery of Kursk is proceeding apace, with 4,000 of the estimated 12,000 invaders having been killed up to last Thursday, I also foresaw an early end to the conflict, though not necessarily measured in one week. As I explained, the Russian Ministry of Defense only claims territorial gains when it has thoroughly combed the territory and assured itself there are no enemy forces hiding out here or there. The 1,000 square kilometers initially occupied by the Ukrainians are a lot of ground to comb

However, I have had my reasonable doubts about the value of using such back channels as Alaudinov. Back in the days of the battle for Bakhmut, we saw a lot of Alaudinov on the Sixty Minutes news and talk show. Each day presenter Olga Skabeyeva warmly welcomed him on air and he handled himself very well, speaking optimistically of Russia’s progress but giving no specifics that could be of use to the enemy. In short, his lips were sealed. I find it hard to believe that such a professional soldier and patriot would give anything of use to a foreigner, however friendly he or she might be to the Russian cause.

Last night’s edition of the talk show The Great Game gave a very different picture of the state of conflict in Kursk from what my peers are saying and of where this proxy war may be headed NOW, not in some distant future.

See https://rutube.ru/video/f8abcf8a37c43568ef44089025726934/

The key personality in this discussion was Frants Klintsevich, identified on the video as leader of the Russian Union of Veterans of Afghanistan. His Wikipedia entry further informs us that after serving as a Duma member for many years he is now a Senator, i.e., a member of the upper chamber of Russia’s bicameral legislature. He has represented the city administration of Smolensk in the western part of the Russian Federation, where he is no stranger, having been born just across the border in what is now the independent state of Belarus.

For 22 years ending in 1997, Klintsevich was an officer in Russia’s Armed Forces, serving primarily with the parachutists, meaning that he has guts and knows what it means to face battle. He retired with the rank of colonel, but continued his military education in the Military Academy of the General Staff, graduating in 2004. He also has a Ph.D. in psychology and is a gifted linguist, with command of German, Polish, and Belarussian. He is a member of the steering committee of the ruling United Russia party. I bring this out to make the point that Klintsevich is no garden variety ‘talking head’ but a very authoritative source.

And his testimony on The Great Game is the kind of Open Source on which I rely to say what I do about current Russian affairs.

Klintsevich’s commentary last night was intended to sober up the television audience and explain why the fight in Kursk is far more complicated and challenging than anyone is saying either on Russian or on Western news. It suggests that Russian casualties among its armed forces may be far more serious than anyone would suppose.

Klintsevich’s commentary lays the foundation for a dramatic Russian escalation of the proxy war into a hot war threatening to become WWIII. Why? Because the so-called Zelensky gambit in Kursk is fully enabled by the United States and its NATO allies, using skills, satellite and airborne reconnaissance, command and control resources in real time that are superior to anything the Russians possess. It also has Western including U.S. boots on the ground. And in conditions like this, the disadvantaged side faces a strong temptation to go for the great equalizer, nuclear arms, to defend itself and to assure its victory.

Klintsevich also said what I have not seen elsewhere, given the ubiquitous belief in Opposition interviews that the Ukrainians in Kursk are cut off from sources of supply: that Kiev has now raised the number of its forces sent to Kursk from 12,000 to 20,000.

In short, the Zelensky gambit that is being enabled fully by the United States is not a PR stunt but a full-blown invasion intended to be the vanguard of what will be an air assault on Russia’s strategic assets far in the rear using JASSM, Storm Shadow and other long-range missiles launched from F16s.

Klintsevich has further intimated that the two U.S. aircraft carriers and their escorts now in the Eastern Mediterranean may be there not to contain Iran but for an all-out attack on Russia using their jets to deliver nuclear strikes. I add to his analysis that this may explain the knock-out of Russia’s early warning radar stations in the south of the country by Ukrainian drones acting on orders from Washington.

So far, the Russian response to these gathering storm clouds has been two days in succession of massive missile and drone attacks on critical infrastructure in Ukraine. But let us not have any illusions: if the Russians sense that the United States is about to pounce on them, to use the assets in Ukraine and beyond not just against Russian planes, which have been moved back beyond the 900 km range of the JASSM and Storm Shadows, but on critical civilian infrastructure to disable the war effort, then a preventive Russian attack on NATO, on the continental United States. not to mince words, is entirely conceivable.

All of this is sure to play out in the weeks before 4 November and the U.S. elections. The Biden administration is evidently committed to a struggle to the death. Who will flinch? Who will “win” is an open question. Washington, you have been forewarned by Mr. Klintsevich, who is surely speaking on behalf of the Kremlin.

Andrew Korybko: Russia Is Finally Facilitating The Emigration Of Western Socio-Cultural Dissidents

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 8/20/24

Putin signed a decree on Monday (August 19, 2024) liberalizing his country’s immigration system to facilitate the emigration of Western socio-cultural dissidents who oppose their homelands’ neoliberal ideology. Renowned Russian immigration lawyer Timur Beslangurov, whose excellent services can be solicited from his website, translated the full text in a post on his “Moving To Russia” Telegram channel. He then thanked Duma member Maria Butina for helping to make this “revolutionary” move happen.

That’s not hyperbole either since Russia hitherto had some of the strictest and most byzantine immigration procedures in the world, though only for applicants from outside the former USSR. It was even cautioned in February that “Russia’s Embrace Of Traditional Values-Espousing Immigrants Won’t Be As Simple As Some Think” precisely for that reason. Interested immigrants were advised to learn Russian at a semi-decent level if they wanted any realistic chance of moving there and making a living.   

The new decree changes all of that by removing the language, history, and knowledge of law requirements for applying for temporary residency and even getting rid of the hated quota system. There’ll also be a streamlined procedure for granting three-month single-entry visas. To paraphrase the famous saying, “Russians take a while to saddle up, but when they finally ride, they ride fast.” This development was a long time coming and the result of lots of hard work, but it’s now a reality.

What this means is that anyone who opposes the West’s liberal-globalist socio-cultural policies has the opportunity to start a new life in Russia, though that’ll still of course be easier said than done if they actually decide to come there. They’ll have to have enough money saved up to rent a place or at least a hostel, not to mention to support themselves until they find a job, which is difficult to do until they receive their temporary residency permit.

In the meantime, it would obviously be a good idea for them to take Russian lessons, and some might freelance teaching English (perhaps as a quid pro quo) until they can legally join a teaching company. That, publicly financed media, farming, and specialized tech services are the most likely jobs that Western socio-cultural dissidents will end up having if they move to Russia since options are greatly limited for non-Russian speakers seeing as how few people there speak a foreign language at any level.

It might therefore be an admittedly intimidating and overwhelming experience for the average Westerner who decides to start a new life in Russia, thus leading to only the most passionate ones taking the plunge as well as those without the “baggage” (real estate, dependents, etc.) that could hinder this. Nevertheless, it should come as a huge relief for all of them to know that they still have this opportunity if they ever feel that they can’t comfortably live in their homelands’ liberal-globalist society any longer.

Russia is finally embracing its role as a refuge for them from the aforesaid evils by showing that it sympathizes with their plight, to which end it’s now facilitating their emigration by revolutionizing its byzantine immigration system with long-overdue radical reforms for this promising class of immigrants. Even those like-minded folks who don’t take up this opportunity will still appreciate that they’re always welcome there, which will go a long way towards winning more hearts and minds in the West.

Ben Aris: Germany cancels future funds for Ukraine’s war effort

By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 8/18/24

First it was the Americans that ran out of money for Ukraine leading to a disastrous six month hiatus in supplies that allowed Russia to destroy 90% of Ukraine’s non-nuclear electricity generation capacity. Now it is the Germans turn: Berlin has frozen all additional military aid to Ukraine due to budget constraints, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported on August 18.

The decision, backed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was ordered by Finance Minister Christian Lindner and limits new funding for Ukraine’s military needs to aid packages that have already been announced. No additional funds will be allocated for the coming years, despite ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine.

Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) quickly posted a message on social media saying that financial aid to Ukraine by Germany would not be suspended.

Some commentators have pointed out that the final decision lies with Bundesrat, the parliament, which has not yet made a decision. It already approved additional funds last year, contrary to the government’s draft budget, so a work around may still be found.

However, recent revelations that a Ukrainian diving instructor was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream 1&2 gas pipelines that belonged to Germany and was the major source of energy to the country, may complicate matters. German prosecutors have issued a warrant for his arrest, but, with Polish complicity, he fled to Ukraine.

Ukraine has been worried that the mounting Ukraine fatigue will reduce the support it gets from its Western allies. Eventually the US passed a new $61bn aid package on April 20, but that package is widely seen as the last big financial package the US will contribute to the war effort.

The EU also approved a four-year €50bn support package in February and is taking over as Ukraine’s main source of funds. In addition, a $50bn loan agreed by the G7 countries in July that will be serviced by interest payments from the $300bn of frozen Central Bank of Russia (CBR) reserves was approved, but as bne IntelliNews reported Ukraine is running out of men, money and materiel and the loan money is not expected until the autumn at the earliest.

This year the Ukrainian budget calls for a record $43bn deficit, but there is already a $12bn hole that needs to be filled, and the government is mulling making spending cuts, raising taxes and, as a last resource, turning the printing presses back on to cover the shortfall. Moreover, the outlook is for the situation to get worse; Ministry of Finance (MinFin) forecasts it will receive some $37bn this year from international donors, increasingly in the form of loans, but that will fall to $19bn by 2026.

Ukraine has already technically defaulted on its outstanding Eurobonds, after it was unable to start repayments at the start of August and was forced to restructure the debt, giving investors a 60% haircut, but offering them potentially lucrative GDP warrants as compensation. Under the deal some of the world’s biggest investors, including BlackRock, Amundi and Amia Capital, will write off a large part of $23.4bn by exchanging their bonds for new ones that will have maturities of as much as 12 years.

 Germany’s decision comes at the worst time for Ukraine, which is slowly losing ground to the advancing Armed Forces of Russia (ARR) on the frontline inside Ukraine, but has also launched a bold attack on Russian soil in the Battle for Kursk and needs more money and arms than ever.

In a letter obtained by FAZ, Lindner outlined that future aid to Ukraine should be financed through the $50bn package recently agreed upon by the G7. However, the $50bn loan remains bogged down in wrangling over how the money will be distributed by the contributing countries and German has objected to participating saying that it has already contributed €37bn to Ukraine’s war budget and points out it is already the biggest contributor to the four-year €50bn package agreed at the start of this year.

One immediate impact of the decision is the inability to finance an IRIS-T fire unit that had been offered for immediate delivery by Germany’s Diehl Defence. The unit became available after another customer opted to defer their delivery to aid Ukraine following a devastating Russian missile attack on a children’s hospital in Kyiv in July. Despite the urgency, the funds were not approved, against the wishes of Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, but Norway has stepped in to provide the system.

The freeze on new military aid has reportedly led to significant tensions within the German government. Ministries led by Defence Minister Pistorius, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck were strongly opposed to the lockdown. Sources told FAZ there was a major dispute within the government following the announcement.

FAZ reported that the funds for military aid in 2024 have already been fully allocated, with the planned €4bn for 2025 already overbooked.

The Federal Government itself has denied the FAZ report. The only reason aid to Ukraine was capped at €4bn in the budget is because there will be additional aid from another budget, the Chancellery said.

There was also no comment on how many weapons were currently being delivered, as this is usually only announced once the weapons, tanks and air defence systems have arrived in Ukraine .

The financial planning for subsequent years looks grim, with only €3bn earmarked for 2026 and a mere €500mn for both 2027 and 2028. Unless new money is found, the financial outlook for Ukraine is grim and that no new military aid pledges to Ukraine will be possible in the near future.

As a result, the $50bn G7 loan becomes a crucial source of funding for Kyiv.

Behind Germany’s budget problem is the November 15, ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, which declared the second supplementary budget unconstitutional. The federal government had earmarked structural EU funds that it intended to use for the green transition, but the court ruled that the €60bn in question could not be reassigned under Germany’s so-called debt-brake rules, leaving a significant hole in the budget plans.

The federal government and the 16 federal states are obliged to balance their books, making taking out new loans very difficult. No other G7 country has such strict limits on new borrowing and the rules are enshrined in the German constitution. The debt brake became legally binding for the federal government in 2016 and for the states in 2020. Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) was then able to present the first “black zero” balanced budget in 45 years in 2014. The only wiggle room the federal government has – regions have none — is it is allowed to borrow up to a maximum of 0.35% of GDP, or around €13bn in additional debt.

The debt brake can be suspended, “for natural disasters or unusual emergency situations beyond governmental control and substantially harmful to the state’s financial capacity,” categories the war in Ukraine do not fall into.

Jack Rasmus: A Tale of Two Offensives: Endgames in the Ukraine War?

By Jack Rasmus, Website, 8/26/24

Dr. Jack Rasmus is author of The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Trump, Clarity Press, 2020 and the forthcoming Twilight of American Imperialism, 2024, also Clarity Press. He blogs at http://jackrasmus.com, hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, and posts daily on ‘X’ at @drjackrasmus.

The Ukraine War is at a crossroads. It is entering a new phase. Military and political strategies on both sides are in flux. Both Ukraine and Russia have opened new fronts and offensives—Ukraine in the northern Kursk border region and Russia in the Kharkov and central Donbass area of Donetsk. Further new fronts are likely.

It is estimated that Russia’s total forces in Ukraine ranges today, late summer 2024, are between 600,000 (per Ukraine) and 700,000 (per Russia Ministry of Defense). Ukraine’s total available forces are around 350,000. Behind these numbers, however, both sides are mobilizing further additional forces not yet committed to the line of combat. Ukraine is hurriedly recruiting and training another 150,000 while Russia reportedly has another 400,000 in its total armed forces located elsewhere in Russia. Russia additionally plans to have an army of 1.4 million by year end which suggests additional combat reserves of perhaps 300,000 in addition to its 700,000 combat brigades now in Ukraine.

So Russia today has a roughly 2 to 1 numerical superiority in both combat troops in Ukraine as well as potential reserves. What a Russian force of 700,000 in Ukraine today—and even 1 million by year end—means is that Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) is simply not a sufficient force to conquer all of Ukraine. Nor was it ever intended to be when Russia in February 2022 entered Ukraine with an SMO combat force of less than 100,000.

With combat forces even at 1m by year end, short of an unlikely total collapse of Ukraine’s army, the SMO is not sufficient to take Kiev or Odessa; and it’s certainly not sufficient to invade NATO as some war hawks in the west like to argue in order to justify more direct NATO involvement in the war.

By way of historical comparison, it took the Soviet Union a 13 million man army to push the Nazis out of its territory; at least a third or 4 million of which were engaged in its southern Ukrainian front alone.

While Russia has a clear, albeit not overwhelming edge, in combat forces in Ukraine today, military success is not just a function of absolute numbers but of how well forces can be concentrated at a given front to enable a numerical advantage for a time over one’s adversary. Other factors play a tactical role as well—like the element of surprise, the quantity and quality of reserves that can be marshalled at critical points and times in the conflict, the mobility of one’s forces to be quickly deployed, and the ability to deceive one’s opponent as to where, when and how much force will be concentrated.

While important, and even at times decisive, these latter factors (reserves, surprise, mobility, etc.) are nonetheless secondary; concentration of force is always the primary military tactic. And so far we have seen both Ukraine and Russia concentrate their respective forces, albeit in different fronts separated by hundreds of kilometers. The question is which front is strategically the more important.

The Key Strategic Event of 2024

The key event of the war this summer 2024 is Russia’s concentration of numerically and qualitatively superior forces in the central Donbass area. Russia has enjoyed a numerical advantage in combat forces in the Donbass as well as in air superiority and missile-artillery forces for at least the past year since the collapse of Ukraine’s summer 2023 offensive. This Russian advantage and superiority in Donbass has been further increased this summer 2024 as result of Ukraine’s withdrawal from Donbass this summer of some of its own best brigades. Ukraine sent these best brigades from the Donbass to the north Kursk border region to participate on August 6 in Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk territory. That shift of Ukraine forces left its Donbass front weakly defended. In contrast, Russia has not shifted any of its forces from Donbass to the Kursk front but has increased its forces in Donbass. This event is perhaps the single most important strategic shift in the war this summer 2024.

Which front and offensive—Ukraine’s Kursk or Russia’s Donbass—is more important for the eventual outcome of the war will likely be decided in the coming months, and definitely before year end 2024.

In the battles now underway in these two fronts—Kursk and Donbass— we may in effect be witnessing the beginning of the endgame of the war in Ukraine.

As result of Ukraine’s withdrawals of some of its best brigades from the Donbass, Russian forces are now having increasing success on that front taking village after village and driving west toward the key Ukraine strongholds of Pokrovsk in central Donbass, as well as toward Slavyansk in northern Donbass. Should Russia take Pokrovsk and Slavyansk, the war in eastern Ukraine will be effectively over—at least in those former provinces Lughansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson in eastern Ukraine. The line of combat will almost certainly then move quickly far to the west to the Dnipr river.

In contrast, it’s difficult to see what strategically Ukraine hopes to achieve by its penetration into Russia’s Kursk province. Will it turn the tide of the war in favor of Ukraine? That is highly unlikely given Russia’s continuing advantage in combat forces, weapons and air superiority. Which raises the question: what were Ukraine’s motives and objectives for its Kursk offensive and can it attain them?

Ukraine’s Kursk Summer Offensive

Launched on August 6, 2024 Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has had some initial success. Ukraine initially concentrated numerically superior forces at the Kursk border (as it had earlier in the summer at the Kharkov border southeast of Kursk).

In the run up to its August Kursk offensive, Ukraine publicly announced its troop concentrations opposite Kursk and north of Kharkov city were strictly defensive moves to prepare for expected Russia invasions from the north which were being rumored to be imminent throughout the spring 2024. In hindsight, however, Ukraine’s announcement that its forces at the Kharkov and Kursk borders were strictly defensive appears to have been a military deception. Ukraine’s military recently revealed that Ukraine had been preparing back in June for an offensive into Russia at Kursk.

The question then arises: what were Ukraine’s motives and objectives moving troops from the Donbass and other areas of Ukraine (also from the Belarus-Ukraine border) and concentrating them on its northern Kharkov and Kursk border? If it was not for defense against a new Russian offensive in the north but to launch an offensive of its own, what were (and are) Ukraine’s objectives?

In preparation for it Kursk offensive this August, Ukraine transferred combat brigades from all over Ukraine and concentrated them at the Kursk border in July—including many of its best brigades in Donbass as well as some of its 95,000 in defensive positions at the Kharkov border. Ukraine reportedly even moved troops from its Belarus border to Kursk, enabled apparently by an agreement with Belarus to reduce their respective forces from the Belarus-Ukraine border (an agreement that reportedly has been recently rescinded). Finally, Ukraine also rushed some of its new drafted recruits with minimal training to its Kursk region in preparation for the Kursk offensive as well.

In short, Ukraine moved up to a third of its total brigades to the Kursk region. That is probably around 150,000, perhaps half of which are actual combat brigades. A reduced force was left at Vovchansk and a seriously depleted force in the Donbass. In addition, some Ukraine brigades reportedly have returned to the Belarus border since the August offensive.

With an amassed combat force of around 70,000 Ukraine easily overwhelmed Russia’s thinly guarded Kursk border which was manned with border guards and other untested units—even though Ukraine invaded Kursk initially with 12,000 or so. Since August 6 it has brought up and concentrated at least another 60,000 or so.

This perhaps suggests Ukraine is not finished with crossing the border into Russia elsewhere along the northern border. Some analysts suggest Ukraine plans to open another offensive further northwest of Kursk in what’s called the Bryansk border region. Or alternatively just southwest of Kursk in the Belgorod border.

There is even some rumor of another offensive in the far southwest of Zaporozhie province by Ukraine, targeting the taking of the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant currently under Russian control. Where Ukraine might marshall such additional combat forces is debatable, however.

In response, Russia initially brought in special forces and marines to check Ukraine’s advance which has slowed significantly. And reportedly mechanized forces are en route to the Kursk front from other locations in Russia. The Kursk pocket has now become perhaps the most intense killing field of the war to date.
What the Kursk and other possible Ukraine offensives and fronts suggests is that Ukraine is desperate to get Russia to shift its superior and increasingly effective forces from the Donbass in order to slow Russia’s accelerating advances there. But so far it appears Russia has not done so.

Russia’s Kharkov-Vovchansk Offensive

There’s another parallel story here: Before Ukraine’s August offensive into Kursk, Russian forces in early May had entered Ukraine’s Kharkov province near the Ukrainian border city of Vovchansk located just 25miles north of Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkov. That Russian offensive was launched with a small force of only 15-20,000 even though Russia knew Ukraine had concentrated 95,000 troops in a defensive line just south of the border. The result was predictable: the Russian offensive into Kharkov became quickly bogged down and a stalemate resulted there around the city of Vovchansk, at least until very recently.
A second parallel question therefore arises: why did Russia cross the border near Kharkov-Vovchansk with such an insufficient concentration of forces, facing off against what it knew were reportedly 95,000 Ukrainian troops dug in defensive positions? Clearly the objective could not have been to take Kharkov city. So then what was it?

Russia’s Donbass Offensive

The most important strategic military development this summer 2024 in the war is not Ukraine’s invasion at Kursk. It is that to enable its Kursk offensive Ukraine has left its Donbass front seriously weakened. So weak in fact that Russia’s offensive in the Donbass is intensifying almost daily with growing success.

There are three directions in which Russia is driving west in the Donbass. The most important is the central Donbass where Russia is virtually at the gates of the strategic hub Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk is a railway and road intersection that feeds Ukraine forces most of its weapons and supplies to central and southern Donbass. If it falls to Russia, supplies to most of its forces in central Donbass are at great risk. Equally important, west of Pokrovsk there are few lines and fortifications for Ukraine defense operations. The road is open to the Dnipr river to the far west, the next natural line of defense by Ukraine. But the Dnipr represents the loss of all of Donetsk province and its complete liberation by Russia.

Just further north of Pokrovsk lies a similarly strategic city of Slavyansk and its neighboring largest city of Kramatorsk. Slavyansk is the analog in terms of Ukraine logistical support for the northern Donbass. If it too falls so too does all of the remainder of northern Donetsk and Lughansk province. Russian advances have also begun in this region, through Siversk and Izyum.

In short, if Pokrovsk and Slavyansk fall to Russia it’s game over in the Donbass front to Ukraine. Russia advances suggest this is likely before the US November elections or soon after. The point is Ukraine’s withdrawal of some of its best forces from Donbass, to its Kursk front, as no doubt accelerated Russia’s gains now underway in the Donbass. And if Donbass falls, Ukraine has no choice but to exit its positions further south at the Zaporozhie border as well, or else be encircled there.

The events in recent months in Donbass thus raises yet a third strategic question: Has Ukraine effectively decided to sacrifice the Donbass in order to launch its Kursk offensive?

Military analysts on both sides seem uncertain as to why Ukraine and Russia have made the decisions they have at this critical juncture of the war in summer 2024—Russia last May in Kharkov, Ukraine this summer in Donbass and today Kursk, and Russia’s decision to hold firm to its offensive in Donbass.

So what are some of the possible explanations being bandied about by analysts trying to explain these objectives of these two offensives—Ukraine in Kursk and Russia in Kharkov-Donbass?

Some Unanswered Strategic Questions:

Let’s summarize these strategic questions and offer some possible answers.

Question 1. Why Did Ukraine Invade Kursk, what are its possible objectives, and can it attain those objectives:

Military analysts are all over the map with speculation as to why Ukraine invaded Kursk. Some say the objective was seize the Russian nuclear power plant located just south of the city of Kursk and less than 100 miles from the border. By seizing the plant Ukraine would then use it as a blackmail piece in negotiations with Russia.

Another objective raised is that Ukraine intends to use the territory captured as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Russia, which it appears several third party countries have been trying to arrange—albeit thus far without success.

In terms of military tactics, still another speculation goes, the Ukrainian invasion was intended to force Russia to transfer brigades from its Donbass front to Kursk, and thereby slow down Russia’s advances in the Donbass that appear to be accelerating.

Yet another speculation is Ukraine intended to create a buffer zone along the border before Russia launched its own offensive into Ukraine in the region. That suggests the Ukrainian invasion was to pre-empt Russia opening an offensive front of its own along the northern border.

Another view is that the true objective of Ukraine’s offensive has been to make Putin appear weak to Russian elites and public who are now demanding a more aggressive Russian response to the invasion. The Kursk offensive, according to this view, is to provoke Russia to a more extreme aggressive response that would enable Zelensky to receive more lethal military aid from NATO—like UK Storm Shadow and US ATACMS missiles and missile carrying F-16s—and NATO permission to use them to attack deep inside Russia.

It is possible that a little of all the above are motivations for Ukraine’s offensive: So far as seizing the Kursk nuclear plant is concerned, if that were the objective it has been neutralized and Ukraine has virtually no chance of reaching the Kursk plant any longer now that massive Russian defenses now block its path.

The explanation that the Kursk offensive’s objective is to force Russia to move military units from Donbass to Kursk has also apparently failed to date. Russia has sufficient reserves elsewhere in Russia proper and is moving those to the Kursk front.

The speculation that Zelensky authorized the Kursk offensive as a ‘land for land’ bargaining chip in future negotiations is also negated by recent events since August 6: Putin has publicly stated there will be no negotiations with Ukraine so long as its forces remain on Russian territory, whether in Kursk or Donbass.

The idea of Ukraine obtaining a buffer has never been convincing. Why would Ukraine deplete its military resources elsewhere and risk losing more territory (Donbass) in order to protect territory (North Border) it hadn’t even lost yet?

It seems therefore that the most likely objective of the Ukraine Kursk offensive was, and remains, political: to provoke Russia into an extreme response in order for Ukraine to restore fading western support for Ukraine to continue the war. Zelensky needs Russia to escalate to remain in power in Ukraine. Throughout NATO, support is waning for providing military arms and ammunition. The west further believes that funding Ukraine’s war and economy is settled, provided by the seized $300 billion of Russian assets. However, Western Media almost daily has become increasingly critical of the war, recognizing it cannot be won. Zelensky thus needs to show Ukraine still has the ability to fight and NATO needs to provide even more weaponry because Russia is escalating the war!

Zelensky realizes he needs more direct NATO troop involvement—not just weaponry. Currently NATO is participating in ground operations with technicians operating advanced NATO weapons, mercenaries, as well as senior NATO officers and war planners on the ground. It will need even more. It can’t impress NATO to provide more by losses in the Donbass. But it might convince NATO war hawks to do so by offensives into Russia like Kursk.

2. Has Ukraine effectively decided to sacrifice Donbass?

Evidence on the ground strongly suggests Ukraine may have decided to sacrifice territory in the Donbass and perhaps the entire region altogether. Its Donbass defense was beginning to crack well before the Kursk offensive, ever since loss of the strategic Donbass city of Avdeyevka earlier this year. Now losses there are accelerating after Ukraine pulled some of its best brigades from Donbass and moved them to Kursk.

For Ukraine, the northern Kursk front is strategically more important than Donbass. Its bargaining position in eventual future negotiations with Russia and western support in general was weakening so long as it was losing Donbass. Seizing Russian territory in the north might shore up that loss of support and strengthen its position. In short, protecting Kharkov city and Ukraine territory outside Russia’s four provinces in the east is strategically more important to Ukraine than holding on to the Donbass. Ukraine can’t hold onto the Donbass in the end and NATO and Ukraine both know it. Opinion in the west increasingly suggests Ukraine should agree to give up Donbass and the four provinces. But Ukraine cannot simply retreat in the Donbass and give it up without appearing weak or is about to lose the war. That would accelerate NATO withdrawal of support. Zelensky therefore needed another success elsewhere if Ukraine was inevitably about to lose Donbass. Thus the Kursk offensive.

3. Why did Russia invade Kharkov region with an insufficient force?

Russia crossed over the border early last May in the Kharkov region but not to capture the large Ukraine city of Kharkov. That would take perhaps a Russian offensive force of at least half a million. Russia obviously knew, moreover, that a large Ukrainian force of up to 95,000 per reports was concentrated between the border and Kharkov city itself barely 50 miles away to the south.

So why then did Russian open that front with only 15-20,000 troops? The only possible explanation is Russia entered Kharkov with an insufficient force to get Ukraine to withdraw forces from the Donbass to protect Kharkov, which it did. Otherwise the explanation for throwing a force of 15,000 at 90,000 was military folly. And there’s no evidence throughout the war Russia has been militarily foolish in its offensive force deployments.

4. Did Russia get caught by surprise by the Kursk invasion?

It has to be admitted Russia was clearly caught off guard by Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. It might have been misled by Ukraine’s deception that its amassing of forces on the Ukraine side of the Kursk border in the summer was strictly defensive, designed to confront Russia should it have itself invaded at that location. It is also possible Russia may have viewed US/NATO limitations to date on Ukraine’s use of ATACMS and cruise missiles to attack deep inside Russia as evidence Ukraine was not allowed by NATO/US to escalate attacks directly into Russia. Before August 6 Ukraine’s attacking inside Russia was limited to Ukrainian drones.

Russia may have interpreted these NATO limits meant Ukraine would not be given the ‘green light’ to cross the Russian border with large ground forces. This—combined with Russia misreading Ukraine’s concentration of forces on its side of the border as only defensive—may have led Russia to erroneously assume Ukraine would not mount an offensive into Kursk.

5. Are we witnessing the growing importance of reserves in the war?

As the war now has passed its two and a half year mark, it is clearly beginning to wear on both sides in terms of men and materiel. The availability of sufficient reserves is therefore beginning to play a relatively more important role as the war has continued. Not just reserves in the sense of the number of available combat troops but their combat experience, training, and availability of weapons and ammunition are becoming an increasingly critical factor in the conduct of the war. This is often the case in war as the conflict becomes protracted, except when one side has an overwhelming force advantage of the other. That may have been the case in US wars in Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Panama, and elsewhere. But it wasn’t in Viet Nam and it isn’t in Ukraine. Here Russia’s longer term advantage in reserves has begun to show.

It is true Russia in refusing to move reserves from Donbass has had to commit reserves from elsewhere in Russia but it has such reserves. Ukraine does not. The Kursk offensive shows Ukraine has probably committed most of its remaining reserves to that front. And it had to move brigades from Belarus, Kharkov and Donbass for the Kursk offensive—and to cut short training of new drafted recruits. Ukraine is approaching the end of its human reserves and cannot get an increase in weapons and ammunition from NATO that it requires if the war intensifies, as it is now, in both Kursk and Donbass. NATO has arrange continued funding for Ukraine throughout 2025 by seizing Russia’s $300B assets in G7 banks that were frozen at the outset of the war.

NATO’s provision of weapons is slowing, moreover, as NATO inventories are drying up; it can no longer accelerate the delivery of weapons to Ukraine as it did in 2022-23. Nor politically does NATO have the will to provide soldiers on the ground directly into Ukraine, although it is building the largest military and air base in NATO now in eastern Romania within tens of miles from Odessa where it already has stationed thousands of French and US airborne troops. If NATO does intervene ever on the ground it will mostly like be to prevent Russia seizure of the critical Ukraine seaport of Odessa, without which even a rump state of Ukraine in the west cannot be sustained.

6. What are Russia’s strategic options with regard to the Kursk invasion? Its Donbass Offensive?

Russian strategy will not change much in the Donbass. It will continue to advance, likely even more rapidly. Ukraine’s forces in Donbass may even collapse there before year end, with Ukraine retreating west to the Dnipr river and thus abandoning any hold on territory that comprises Russia’s four provinces. As for the Kursk front, Russia will most likely seal off the currently occupying Ukrainian force, bring up new Russian armored division, artillery and air forces and continue to batter those Ukrainian forces in the pocket until they weaken and retreat of their own accord. That will likely happen soon after the US November elections. Ukraine will try to hold on to Kursk to try to ensure further US support before Biden leaves office next January. The odds are significant, however, it will not be able to succeed in that.

Political Consequences of the Kursk-Donbass Offensives

Public opinion in Russia has strengthened Putin’s hand in the war as a consequence of the two offensives. His problem now is not ensuring Russian public opinion continues to support his government and the SMO but that growing segments of Russian opinion and Russian media are now demanding he take even more aggressive military action in response to the Kursk invasion.

Putin’s challenge now is to not fall for Ukraine’s Kursk provocation, abandon the SMO and escalate the conflict to an even more intensive and wider war that would require a much larger military force than the SMO and falling into the NATO war hawks trap to use a Russian escalation as an excuse to get NATO even more directly involved on the ground in the war than it already is.

Zelensky clearly wants to maneuver events into that direction—i.e. a more direct Russia-NATO conflict. That’s perhaps the major rationale behind the Kursk offensive. But Putin ultimately wants some kind of negotiated settlement, albeit on Russia’s two terms announced earlier this summer. He will therefore likely wait until the outcome of US elections to determine whether abandoning the SMO for a larger conflict is necessary. Zelensky and Ukraine leadership is desperate and reckless; Putin is calculating and typically factors in the bigger political picture.

For the moment, however, Putin’s conditions for beginning negotiations announced a couple months ago—i.e. Ukraine leave the four provinces and agree to neutrality—is off the table.

Scuttling the possibility of negotiations (that China was trying to arrange last July) may have also been part of the objective of Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. Ukraine and Zelensky have a long track record of feigning interest in negotiations as a cover for an escalation planned. Ukraine diplomatic maneuvers in Beijing in July and in Qatar in August are evidence Ukraine has no intention of seriously negotiating anything. Quite the contrary. Although nothing is imminent, US and Russia may continue exploring the possibility of negotiations through back channels, as they have in recent months, but it’s clear there will be no negotiations of any kind until after the US elections at earliest and more likely not until the Biden administration ends next January 20, 2025.

Throughout the summer opinion has been growing among NATO elites and western media that Ukraine cannot hold onto the Donbass or even the four provinces annexed in 2022 by Russia. Russia’s continuing successes in the Donbass offensive further confirm that view, and solidify it should Russia take Pokrovsk next month. Conversely, NATO elite opinion may shift further toward allowing Ukraine to attack inside Russia using ATACMS, cruise missiles, and even F-16s to enable Ukraine to hold onto the Kursk territory as Ukraine losses the Donbass. The test of this NATO elites’ shift will be evident should US allow in coming weeks further shipments of UK storm shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. Losing the Donbass logically means rolling the military dice even further in Kursk and the northern border.

US neocons and war hawks will attempt to create further escalation in the Ukraine war between now and January 2025 in order to make it extremely difficult for any new US president elected in November to reduce US/NATO commitments to Ukraine, let alone withdraw.

Should Harris win in November, the Biden administration policies toward the war will almost certainly continue. Harris will be malleable to the foreign policy/neocon establishment who have been running US foreign policy and wars since at least 2001 and perhaps even earlier since the late 1990s. Should Trump win—and the Deep State allow him to actually take office in January without a major US constitutional crisis (which is more likely than not)—it is unlikely that Trump will be able to end the Ukraine war in the short run after taking office January 20. Even with Trump in office, the war will therefore continue well into 2025. The only factor that may expedite an earlier end to the war is if Russia debilitates Ukraine military resources to such an extent that those forces effectively collapse in both the Donbass and Kursk fronts.

Russia has never intended to ‘conquer’ all of Ukraine, including Kiev. Putin’s SMO has always been to drive Ukrainian forces out of the Russian speaking provinces and then ensure some kind of neutrality by what’s left of a Ukrainian state.

But before that can happen Russia will need to conclusively drive Ukraine back across the border from Kursk and take the strategic Donbass cities of Pokrovsk and Slavyansk. Only then is Endgame apparent. Only then will Ukraine forces retreat back to whatever remains of Ukraine. Only then will US/NATO decide to cut losses and abandon the ‘Ukraine Project’ altogether.

Ken Klippenstein: Pentagon’s “sensitive activities” detachment revealed

By Ken Klippenstein, Website, 8/19/24

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.

Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, the Biden administration has issued firm reassurances that there are no U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine. The statement has always been misleading because “boots” only refers to conventional forces and excludes CIA and military special operations personnel, which are considered unconventional and even covert.

The U.S. military defines1 sensitive activities as:

“Operations, actions, activities, or programs that are generally handled through special access, compartmented, or other sensitive control mechanisms because of the nature of the target, the area of operation, or other designated aspects. Sensitive activities also include operations, actions, activities, or programs conducted by any DOD Component that, if compromised, could have enduring adverse effects on U.S. foreign policy, DOD activities, or military operations; or cause significant embarrassment to the United States, its allies, or the DoD.”

Something that is “sensitive” is defined2 as:

“Requiring special protection from disclosure that could cause embarrassment, compromise, or threat to the security of the sponsoring power. May be applied to an agency, installation, person, position, document, material, or activity.”

The Government Accountability Office further clarifies that sensitive activities demand extraordinary secrecy and are “excluded from normal staff review and oversight because of restrictions on access to information.”

Given the Biden administration’s pledges not to be involved in the fighting against Russia, it’s not hard to see why public knowledge of special operators directly supporting the war might be embarrassing. Also, U.S. military aid packages for Ukraine have become an increasingly contentious issue, particularly among Republicans in Congress who have sought to block such aid. But is this a legitimate reason for secrecy? To prevent the American public from knowing something, especially at such a time when the war could even further escalate? 

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. Part of the sensitive activities detachment, the operator was tasked with providing near-real time intelligence in support of Task Force Raven, which trains Ukrainian military personnel, predominantly in Poland.

A second operator also described having been tasked with providing near up-to-the-minute intelligence support to Ukrainian forces. Formerly deployed to a coalition planning cell in Germany, the operator worked with 20 partner nations, generating intelligence on vulnerabilities in Russian electronic warfare systems and air defenses.

To what extent is the “sensitive activities” detachment working on the ground in Ukraine? And how are U.S. green berets and other special operators providing support for Ukraine’s foray into Russia? These are questions that demand answers. Those answers would enhance U.S. foreign policy rather than undermine it, by better informing debate on the matter. At a time when the Pentagon is decrying adversary operations in the so-called “gray zone” — the murky continuum between peace and all-out war — shrouding their own such activities in unnecessary secrecy destabilizes more than stabilizes a very shaky world.

— Edited by William M. Arkin

Artificial Intelligence Out of Control: How AI and ChatGPT End Humanity

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Gilbert Doctorow: Pressure from Russians on Vladimir Putin to escalate?

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 8/24/24

In my latest chat with Judge Andrew Napolitano on his program Judging Freedom this past Thursday, I made an off-the-cuff answer to his question about whether Russian society is pressuring Vladimir Putin to be more cruel, more dramatic, more effective in responding to provocations engineered by the West, the most recent example of which is the invasion of the RF province of Kursk by Ukrainian forces.

The show has come and gone but while I was perusing the last, 18 August show of Sunday evening with Vladimir Solovyov before the host went off on summer vacation, I heard a very authoritative answer to Judge Napolitano’s question from, shall we say, “the horse’s mouth.”

https://smotrim.ru/video/2851978

Solovyov is at the apex of Russian journalism and has close ties to the Kremlin. Over time, he has conducted several lengthy interviews with President Putin. Therefore what he said on air in his characterization of Putin’s decision making processes in times of crisis, like in the aftermath of the Ukrainian incursion/invasion of the Kursk province, may be taken to be very well informed.

Said Solovyov: “Our Commander in Chief does not submit to either outside pressure or to his own emotions.” Solovyov insists that Putin’s decisions are made in an absolutely rational way. One might say in an autocratic manner, if we use the original meaning of that word to be self-reliant and independent.

Political talk shows generally do not age well, given that the assumptions of the day rest on ever changing circumstances. However, to my surprise, I found the 18 August edition of Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov to be very useful for coming to terms with a number of other issues surrounding the invasion of Kursk and the Russian response that have developed in the six days since it was aired..

I will set these observations out first and then move on to discuss briefly how and why the Solovyov show differs from the other authoritative state television talk show, The Great Game, which I have used these past several weeks as my principal source of information about Russia’s chattering classes, who are concentrated in the capital and form whatever forces of domestic political pressure may be said to exist with respect to Kremlin policy.

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One of the most valuable insights that I found in the typically long introductory remarks of host Vladimir Solovyov before he turned the microphone over to his guests was a direct answer to the question that several interviewers have posed to me in the past week: namely what were the objectives of the Ukrainian raid into, later invasion of the Kursk province.

I have answered this question by saying that the accounts of Kiev’s objectives have been constantly changing if you take President Zelensky’s words as having any substance to them. We have heard most recently that they wanted to capture some RF territory that might be used to compel the Russians to give back some of the Ukrainian land they have occupied since the start of the Special Military Operation. Thus, the aim is said to have been to prepare for peace talks on a ‘fair basis.’

However, Solovyov presented a different story, one which he surely received from senior officials in the Russian military with whom he is in close contact. He said that the main objective of the invaders had been to capture the nuclear power plant in Kursk, situated perhaps 70 km in from the border.

If the Ukrainians had succeeded on that mission, they would indeed have improved their overall chances of bringing the Russians to the peace table on more favorable terms to themselves. And this logic of their mission is confirmed by the large concentration of the most modern NATO tanks (British Challenger 2) and other heavy equipment appropriate to an irresistible cut through Russian defenses to their target. That equipment was certainly not brought together for the sake of taking and holding the thinly populated farm country which is the predominant character of the 1,000 square kilometers along the Kursk-Ukraine border that the Kiev forces have occupied since the first days of the incursion.

Indeed, the Russians, who were taken by surprise, did scramble to bring to bear their overwhelming air domination and artillery plus drone forces to stop the Ukrainians in their tracks before they got more than 15 km or so inland in Kursk from the international border. They have, by all accounts, utterly destroyed all of the NATO equipment used by the invaders, so that the survivors, i.e., the 7,000 from the initial 12,000 who are still breathing, are scattered in small groups operating on foot and awaiting their extermination or opportunity to surrender, which are sure to come in the days ahead. Their escape routes west, across the border, have been sealed by the Russians.

 By evacuating all the civilian population, Russia made the entire territory of the Ukrainian occupation a free fire zone, thus depriving Kiev’s forces of shelter in residential houses that they enjoy in the territory upon which the Russians are advancing along the main line of confrontation in Donetsk.

Like Napoleon’s forces which took Moscow in 1812, the Ukrainians in Kursk have degenerated from elite brigades into armed marauders breaking into houses to steal and machine-gunning any civilians who were foolish enough not to heed Moscow’s evacuation orders. We know that from the testimony of some evacuees before Russian television war reporters. Of course, not everyone got out in time, and we heard today about a heavily pregnant Russian woman who was wantonly murdered in the hospital where she lived by the invaders.

We are told by Russian military spokesmen that the toll on the Ukrainian forces in Kursk this past week has been around 2,000. That is a high proportion of the contingent fighting in Kursk. But it is a small part of overall Ukrainian losses on the battlefield in the past 7 days, which these same Russian spokesmen put at 16,000.  Sixteen thousand! This very high number results directly from losses on the main line of confrontation, in Donetsk, and particularly around the city of Pokrovsk, losses which rose precisely because the most capable Ukrainian defenders there were shipped out to Kursk and their places were taken by new conscripts, many of whom were dragooned off the streets of Kiev and elsewhere and given very little training before they were handed their rifles and delivered to the front.

Finally, a word must be addressed to the fate of the surviving foreign troops now engaged in Kursk should they be taken alive by the Russians. As some of my colleagues have said on air in latest interviews, these ‘mercenaries’ will not be dealt with in the same manner as any Ukrainian POWs. They will not be exchanged for Russian soldiers held by the Ukrainians. By international law they do not enjoy the same protection as regular troops. Some of my peers have said these mercenaries will be executed by the Russians. At this moment, that is not true. Russia still has an official moratorium on the death penalty. However, there is currently discussion in the Duma of a bill which would remove the protection of this moratorium from captured foreign fighters.

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There are important differences between the talk shows hosted by Russia’s top journalist Vladimir Solovyov and the talk show hosted by Duma member Vyacheslav Nikonov (The Great Game).

I have not listened to Solovyov for a while because he is an aggressive nationalist, because he takes too much pleasure speaking ersatz German as if every German politician is a practitioner of Hitler’s histrionics, because he is often a bully with his panelists, using some as punching bags, and because he interrupts them, takes them off subject all too often.

However, in his favor, some of his guests are to be seen only on his show. I have in mind chairmen and deputy chairs of key Duma committees such as Finance, Taxation and Defense. He also presents Duma members from the Communist Party, from the Liberal Democrats, and independents, which is a great service to those of us who are interested in the role given to the Duma ‘fractions’ outside of the governing United Russia party. And he has very highly regarded military men, retired colonels who are also prominent in the Duma. In this last category, I would name Andrei Gurulyov, whose views I have occasionally quoted on these pages.

By contrast, Nikonov is very much the gentlemen. He never interrupts his guests. He never puts forward extravagant views or reads lectures to his audience. This is not to say that he does not deliver to his audience clearly articulated views on key subjects of the day, often in a drole manner. I think, for example, of his remarks following presentation on screen of the latest antics at the Democratic National Convention. He pointed out at some length the procedures by which Kamela Harris was anointed as the party’s candidate without ever having won a primary or won a single delegate for that matter. He did not shrink from saying this was a flagrant violation of all principles of democracy. He put up on screen some of the points in her radical economic program such as measures against price gouging. And he concluded that the Kremlin definitely favors Kamala Harris in the election because she and her policies will continue and accelerate America’s precipitate decline as a world economic and military power.

The panelists on The Great Game tend to be think tank senior personnel, pundits and representatives of civil society NGOs, not politicians. That being said, many of the think tank spokesmen and academics are exactly the same people who appear regularly on Vladimir Solovyov’s shows. That conforms to the tradition of Russian political talk shows that I witnessed back in 2016 when I was an invited guest on several of them. There were always these ‘experts’ who seemed to spend their entire days going from one television studio to another to take part in the discussions of current events.

Andy Corbley: Russia’s Parliamentary Left Calls for Assassination of Zelensky and His Cabinet

By Andy Corbey, Antiwar.com, 8/15/24

In a statement from Sergey Mironov, the leader of the Just Russia – For Truth Party, representing the socialist left in the Russian state Duma or parliament, the veteran politician said that in response to strikes on the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant, “it is necessary to eliminate with pinpoint strikes the terrorist leaders in Kiev”.

“The attacks on the Zaporozhskaya NPP should be regarded as an attempt to use weapons of mass destruction against Russia,” Mironov said, arguing this gives the Federation every right to return fire with nuclear weapons. “If the Kiev regime and its masters continue nuclear escalation, then this can be regarded as the use or readiness to use weapons of mass destruction against Russia”.

He concluded his statement by noting it’s not necessary to use nuclear bombs, but rather simply to assassinate those responsible for escalating to the brink of their use.

The statement captures the pressure that Vladimir Putin is under from multiple sides of his government to “take the gloves off,” to use Western parlance, and move to total war.

Especially when considering the rhetoric surrounding it, the war in Ukraine even at this late stage has been remarkably limited in its scope. Historically speaking, this is indisputable.

Certain massacres, such as the case in the village of Bucha, the use of cluster munitions by both sides, and a steady stream of errant bombs and missile strikes all over urban Ukraine, certainly have occurred, and often constitute war crimes according to the Geneva Conventions.

Yet compared to nearly all other armed conflicts across the 21st century, in terms of various markers such as the destruction on a societal level, the number of civilian casualties, and the frequency with which civilian infrastructure like water treatment facilities and hospitals are struck, the conflict has gone on as close to the letter of international law as has happened practically since the creation of the concept.

Russian forces have refrained from strategic bombing of the large Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, L’viv, Kharkiv, and Kherson, such as what was carried out against the Germans, British, and Japanese in the Second World War. Missile strikes targeting communications or power infrastructure are common, but indiscriminate bombing, such as what was seen in Iraq when the US launched over 100,000 piloted airstrikes on Baghdad, has not occurred.

For example, rail transport has been vital not only to allow refugees to flee embattled cities in eastern Ukraine, but to transport Western military equipment into the country, yet there have been less than ten instances of major attacks on railway infrastructure since the conflict began, and less than ten targeting trains carrying civilians; one was located in Russia.

Furthermore, certain areas of the Ukrainian economy, even excluding military-related sectors, are growing, such as the publishing industry. Ukraine’s largest bookstore chains have opened up dozens of new locations, with plans to open over dozens more by the end of 2024.

In the Historic Center of Lviv, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is considered in danger because of the conflict, bombing has caused the deaths of around 21 civilians in the entire county in which the city is located. Contrast that to US/Saudi bombing of the Historic Center of Sanaa, Yemen, another UNESCO World Heritage Site considered in danger, where 1,685 civilians were killed in the city itself, and dozens of buildings that make up the UNESCO designation were hit in the first five years of war.

Assassination or the organized hunting and killing of enemy political leaders during conflicts in the 21st century has occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and most recently over Gaza, but not Ukraine. The fact that the political opposition to Putin is calling for it suggests, at least partially, that as evil as Putin is portrayed in American media, his grip on Russia may be, at least in part, to suffocate much more reckless and dangerous forces.

Andrew Corbley is founder and editor of  World at Large , an independent news outlet. He is a loyal listener of Antiwar radio and of the Scott Horton Show. Reprinted with permission from  World at Large .