I’m also reading Timothy Snyder on Substack and he made recommendations this week for organizations that desperately need our donations to help Ukraine (and their children and animals) get through this. There is a huge evacuation going on and it’s awful what they are going through. https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-to-help-ukrainians-during-the
Probably. The trenches are designed to stop tanks and APCs so they can be targeted by airstrikes or ground weapons like a Russian version of our Javelin. They can work pretty well. The problem for Russia is this: if Ukraine pushes them out of the land bridge, and the Russians want to retake it, they'll be facing all the stuff they built to stop Ukraine...used by Ukraine. What goes around, comes around, war-style.
Back when I was an undergraduate studying the sort of stuff, I was taught at the five principles of warfare included (i) mass; (ii) maneuver; (iii) economy of force; (iv) terrain; (v) weather. Ukraine gets to pick and choose where it will attack, and will attempt to bypass strong points erected by Russia to control and protect their lines of communication. Russia doesn't have the wherewithal to defend its entire occupation perimeter; and creating a defense in depth seems to be beyond their current ability, given their losses to date; but most particularly, Russia has not fielded a competent army with respect to command-and-control and ability to maneuver rapidly. Ukraine has the advantage of having interior lines of communication, which means that it can shift forces rapidly from one sector to another. Russia has not shown comparable ability; and the fact of his hunkering down in defensive positions puts it in an untenable position. Reaching back to the World War II era, we saw how the Allies tied themselves up, first at Salerno, and later at Anzio. The beachhead in Salerno was saved from being overrun by Allied airpower and seapower. Anzio, nearly a year later, became another stalemate due to the incompetence of the Allied commanders who forfeited the element of surprise, and failure to seize the high ground beyond the landing site. That lodgment would've become untenable, except for Allied airpower which dominated the sky in which was able to interdict supplies and troops coming into the battle area.
Eleven years later, in Korea, three months after the North Korean army had attacked South Korea, United Nations forces, led by the United States, were backed into a narrow perimeter at the southern tip of South Korea, at Pusan. For several weeks it was touch and go as to whether the perimeter would be overrun. People remember the end run in mid-September at Inchon, just south of Seoul, which itself was as risky as a Hail Mary pass in football. Douglas MacArthur's luck held on that occasion, when our intervention in Korea at that time could've ended in a significant defeat. Two months after the Inchon landing, UN forces did suffer what became a significant defeat when MacArthur crossed the 38th parallel without formal authorization and sent his forces up to the Yalu River. The new communist regime in China was able to infiltrate a massive army into North Korea undetected by the American aerial reconnaissance; and in a series of running battles, the American army was driven from North Korea over the next four months, where the battle line did not stabilize until the following April. Again, the only thing that really saved those ground forces was the existence of American Air Force and Naval airpower. Nobody likes to talk about those days now; it is simply too embarrassing to relate that the Army that had defeated the Wehrmacht in the West and the Empire of Japan in the East could no longer project national power the way it did a mere five years before. Many of those who fought were the same men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, South of France, and Tarawa, the Philippine Islands, and Okinawa and Iwo Jima in the Far East. But things are different; and America was different in 1950 and 1951 from what it was in 1942 through 1945. Americans were now fighting to preserve what amounted to be the postwar settlement, and with no clear understanding as to why we were there. Back then, we had a poor appreciation of what nationalism and love of homeland meant to the people who live there; and our leaders were swayed by an inordinate fear on the 'international communism' which nobody understood, and which simply became a catchphrase for right wing extremists who did not like people unlike themselves getting ahead in life.
Which brings us back to Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine knows why it is fighting, and Russia does not. Vladimir Putin relies on fear and propaganda to motivate his army; Ukrainians have a burning passion to protect their homeland against Russian intrusion and domination. Patriotism and nationalism are what carry a people through the hardship of war and the sacrifices that must necessarily be made. A passion for self-rule, and self-determination is more important than all the military hardware that can be supplied. We should have learned that lesson in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, if in fact we learned anything from those adventures at all. What counts is that Ukraine, led by its passionate leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, is keeping the pressure on Russia, never giving Vladimir Putin or his generals a moment's rest, and finding a way to interdict reinforcements of troops and matériel from getting into the battle area. But regardless of military hardware, or the number of troops committed to a theater of operations, what counts is the will of the combatants to succeed. War matériel is important as it gives a people the means to succeed, the way we responded to the challenge of World War II. On the other hand, the mere handing over of weapons to a military force of indifferent quality and lacking in commitment to succeed will still lose, as the French did in Indochina, and as the Iraqi and Afghani armies lost to their countries' own insurgents. There is a lesson for us Americans in their, too, if we choose to pay attention. Trump Republicans do not believe in America anymore, at least the way most of us see it. And they would rather destroy America than part company with their own selfish interests. Donald Trump's own selfish and irresponsible behavior is proof of that, and his party averts their eyes, determined not to take notice.
Great comment from the Pusan Perimeter - a company commander stuck his rifle and bayonet into the ground and said "Easy Company stands or dies on the Naktong River." And they stood.
As with Hitler...and Trump...the World sits back and watches psychopathic Putin destroy a nation... Why are we spending so much money on entities like the CIA or NSA? They collect secrets and just to hand the info over to traitors and tyrants...
Of course, the Russians blew the dam. Another indication of the desperation of Putin and his generals who now find themselves in the position of "destroying Ukraine to save it from the Nazis in Kiev."
This, of course, makes any offensive operation much more difficult and likely means future Ukrainian offensive operations must come elsewhere. But, while a strike into Crimea is much more difficult it would if successful cut the Russian Army into two and isolate all the forces west of the breach to wither on the vine. And, be a huge morale booster because Ukraine would have won back territory taken from it in 2014. And, of course, make it a hell of lot more difficult for Russians to spend day at the beach on the Black Sea. That might really piss off some Russian citizens who now simply go along to get along with Putin's madness.
Winston Churchill's quote about Russia still has relevance: Famously, Winston Churchill defined Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," his words in 1939. While Stalin diddled with the Allies, the forthright leader realized that something wasn't quite what it seemed. In fact, a secret alliance with Hitler was still in play. Back-stabbing seems to be the operative word.
it would be interesting to see what Allan Cowell has to say about Russia since he pronounced Churchill's words in a NY Times piece in 2008, under the banner headline: "Churchill's definition of Russia still rings true". But you don't need a magnifying glass to read the fine fingerprints! Even this amateur history knows how to connect the dots.
It took several attempts to understand Lucian's twisted post, but after reading out loud, I recognized to Harry, we realized which was the wind was blowing. Please understand, we whose grandparents fled persecution from raving Ukrainian mobs have had to digest the indigestible since the invasion of the Crimea in 2014.
That's about the time "Sir" Timothy Snyder begin gaining traction beyond the ivy-covered walls of Yale University. As Trump inched closer to gaining control of the White House, Professor Snyder was making it clear in a step-by-step guidebook, "On Tyranny", originally posted on Facebook. It was becoming apparent that Trump and Putin were bedfellows, and the mobs in the US were being primed for insurrection. Does anyone remember a full-page ad in the Times from Vlad to his "friends" in the United States? That was unnerving. I remember wondering if the Times was so hard-pressed for cash! In fact, they were selling off substantial shares of the newspaper to a Mexican media mogul.
Understanding just how tyranny takes hold of a country requires sincere determination. Unfortunately we've been here before, but now we have more subtle weapons including dog-whistles, social media and drones. If you want a real brain-twister, read Professor Snyder's "The Road to Unfreedom" or "Bloodlands".
But please don't call our current situation "a perfect storm". There's nothing about this that can be described as perfect, unless you want to stretch it to "perfectly dreadful"!
‘Three months ago, this wasn’t possible’: exiled Russians dare to dream of Putin’s fall
Opposition leaders have begun to plan for the end of the regime – and some believe it is now inevitable
Shaun Walker in Brussels
Sat 10 Jun 2023 00.00 EDT
Is Russia about to experience a period of dramatic political change? If so, can exiled democratic forces unite into a coherent bloc, and is there any way for them to force themselves on to the political scene?
Nearly 300 exiled Russian opposition politicians and activists gathered to discuss these questions in the European parliament earlier this week, the congress coming as news broke of the Nova Kakhovka dam destruction, the latest grim episode in Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.
The Brussels forum, convened by four MEPs, was the first such gathering to be given official status by a European parliamentary body, as some in Europe start thinking about how the contours of a post-Putin Russia would look.
“This is the first time that someone is speaking about the possibility of post-Putinism. Three months ago, this wasn’t possible. EU countries thought that Putin would be president for years and years if not decades and decades … Now, the perception has changed,” said Bernard Guetta, a French MEP who was one of the forum’s organisers.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, formerly the richest man in Russia before he was jailed for a decade in 2003, said that simply changing Putin for another person from his system would not make any difference.
“This regime should be destroyed,” he said during the opening session. “There is no other road to a peaceful normal future for Russia and for Europe and the whole world.”
Khodorkovsky
Exiled Russian calls on those still in country to ‘sabotage’ Putin’s war
Read more
The Russian opposition has been saying this for years, and it can often sound like wishful thinking. But with the Russian army on the back foot, drone strikes and military incursions hitting inside Russia and infighting between the elites spilling into the public domain, some in Europe are also beginning to wonder if Putin is as secure in the Kremlin as they had thought.
What a post-Putin Russia would look like is a matter of debate, however. Andrius Kubilius, the Lithuanian MEP and former prime minister who was the conference’s main organiser, said it was still a minority view among European politicians that real democratic change could come to Russia, but he felt it was an important argument to make for the sake of both Russia and Ukraine.
I’m also reading Timothy Snyder on Substack and he made recommendations this week for organizations that desperately need our donations to help Ukraine (and their children and animals) get through this. There is a huge evacuation going on and it’s awful what they are going through. https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-to-help-ukrainians-during-the
Excellent news about the Ukrainian forces! So, Lucian, do you think those trenches contain minefields?
Probably. The trenches are designed to stop tanks and APCs so they can be targeted by airstrikes or ground weapons like a Russian version of our Javelin. They can work pretty well. The problem for Russia is this: if Ukraine pushes them out of the land bridge, and the Russians want to retake it, they'll be facing all the stuff they built to stop Ukraine...used by Ukraine. What goes around, comes around, war-style.
Well, that would just be the icing on the cake!
Back when I was an undergraduate studying the sort of stuff, I was taught at the five principles of warfare included (i) mass; (ii) maneuver; (iii) economy of force; (iv) terrain; (v) weather. Ukraine gets to pick and choose where it will attack, and will attempt to bypass strong points erected by Russia to control and protect their lines of communication. Russia doesn't have the wherewithal to defend its entire occupation perimeter; and creating a defense in depth seems to be beyond their current ability, given their losses to date; but most particularly, Russia has not fielded a competent army with respect to command-and-control and ability to maneuver rapidly. Ukraine has the advantage of having interior lines of communication, which means that it can shift forces rapidly from one sector to another. Russia has not shown comparable ability; and the fact of his hunkering down in defensive positions puts it in an untenable position. Reaching back to the World War II era, we saw how the Allies tied themselves up, first at Salerno, and later at Anzio. The beachhead in Salerno was saved from being overrun by Allied airpower and seapower. Anzio, nearly a year later, became another stalemate due to the incompetence of the Allied commanders who forfeited the element of surprise, and failure to seize the high ground beyond the landing site. That lodgment would've become untenable, except for Allied airpower which dominated the sky in which was able to interdict supplies and troops coming into the battle area.
Eleven years later, in Korea, three months after the North Korean army had attacked South Korea, United Nations forces, led by the United States, were backed into a narrow perimeter at the southern tip of South Korea, at Pusan. For several weeks it was touch and go as to whether the perimeter would be overrun. People remember the end run in mid-September at Inchon, just south of Seoul, which itself was as risky as a Hail Mary pass in football. Douglas MacArthur's luck held on that occasion, when our intervention in Korea at that time could've ended in a significant defeat. Two months after the Inchon landing, UN forces did suffer what became a significant defeat when MacArthur crossed the 38th parallel without formal authorization and sent his forces up to the Yalu River. The new communist regime in China was able to infiltrate a massive army into North Korea undetected by the American aerial reconnaissance; and in a series of running battles, the American army was driven from North Korea over the next four months, where the battle line did not stabilize until the following April. Again, the only thing that really saved those ground forces was the existence of American Air Force and Naval airpower. Nobody likes to talk about those days now; it is simply too embarrassing to relate that the Army that had defeated the Wehrmacht in the West and the Empire of Japan in the East could no longer project national power the way it did a mere five years before. Many of those who fought were the same men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, South of France, and Tarawa, the Philippine Islands, and Okinawa and Iwo Jima in the Far East. But things are different; and America was different in 1950 and 1951 from what it was in 1942 through 1945. Americans were now fighting to preserve what amounted to be the postwar settlement, and with no clear understanding as to why we were there. Back then, we had a poor appreciation of what nationalism and love of homeland meant to the people who live there; and our leaders were swayed by an inordinate fear on the 'international communism' which nobody understood, and which simply became a catchphrase for right wing extremists who did not like people unlike themselves getting ahead in life.
Which brings us back to Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine knows why it is fighting, and Russia does not. Vladimir Putin relies on fear and propaganda to motivate his army; Ukrainians have a burning passion to protect their homeland against Russian intrusion and domination. Patriotism and nationalism are what carry a people through the hardship of war and the sacrifices that must necessarily be made. A passion for self-rule, and self-determination is more important than all the military hardware that can be supplied. We should have learned that lesson in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, if in fact we learned anything from those adventures at all. What counts is that Ukraine, led by its passionate leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, is keeping the pressure on Russia, never giving Vladimir Putin or his generals a moment's rest, and finding a way to interdict reinforcements of troops and matériel from getting into the battle area. But regardless of military hardware, or the number of troops committed to a theater of operations, what counts is the will of the combatants to succeed. War matériel is important as it gives a people the means to succeed, the way we responded to the challenge of World War II. On the other hand, the mere handing over of weapons to a military force of indifferent quality and lacking in commitment to succeed will still lose, as the French did in Indochina, and as the Iraqi and Afghani armies lost to their countries' own insurgents. There is a lesson for us Americans in their, too, if we choose to pay attention. Trump Republicans do not believe in America anymore, at least the way most of us see it. And they would rather destroy America than part company with their own selfish interests. Donald Trump's own selfish and irresponsible behavior is proof of that, and his party averts their eyes, determined not to take notice.
Great comment from the Pusan Perimeter - a company commander stuck his rifle and bayonet into the ground and said "Easy Company stands or dies on the Naktong River." And they stood.
Just like Joe Clemmons, CO of King Company, at Pork Chop Hill, three years later.
Logic.
Excellent piece.
Here is to Uk finding the weak spots in Ru defenses before the KIA-WIA becomes unbearable and unsustainable for the forces and country.
As with Hitler...and Trump...the World sits back and watches psychopathic Putin destroy a nation... Why are we spending so much money on entities like the CIA or NSA? They collect secrets and just to hand the info over to traitors and tyrants...
So is this going to go on for years? Is there any realistic scenario where NATO is forced to get involved?
Not the Proud boys?
Of course, the Russians blew the dam. Another indication of the desperation of Putin and his generals who now find themselves in the position of "destroying Ukraine to save it from the Nazis in Kiev."
This, of course, makes any offensive operation much more difficult and likely means future Ukrainian offensive operations must come elsewhere. But, while a strike into Crimea is much more difficult it would if successful cut the Russian Army into two and isolate all the forces west of the breach to wither on the vine. And, be a huge morale booster because Ukraine would have won back territory taken from it in 2014. And, of course, make it a hell of lot more difficult for Russians to spend day at the beach on the Black Sea. That might really piss off some Russian citizens who now simply go along to get along with Putin's madness.
Winston Churchill's quote about Russia still has relevance: Famously, Winston Churchill defined Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," his words in 1939. While Stalin diddled with the Allies, the forthright leader realized that something wasn't quite what it seemed. In fact, a secret alliance with Hitler was still in play. Back-stabbing seems to be the operative word.
it would be interesting to see what Allan Cowell has to say about Russia since he pronounced Churchill's words in a NY Times piece in 2008, under the banner headline: "Churchill's definition of Russia still rings true". But you don't need a magnifying glass to read the fine fingerprints! Even this amateur history knows how to connect the dots.
It took several attempts to understand Lucian's twisted post, but after reading out loud, I recognized to Harry, we realized which was the wind was blowing. Please understand, we whose grandparents fled persecution from raving Ukrainian mobs have had to digest the indigestible since the invasion of the Crimea in 2014.
That's about the time "Sir" Timothy Snyder begin gaining traction beyond the ivy-covered walls of Yale University. As Trump inched closer to gaining control of the White House, Professor Snyder was making it clear in a step-by-step guidebook, "On Tyranny", originally posted on Facebook. It was becoming apparent that Trump and Putin were bedfellows, and the mobs in the US were being primed for insurrection. Does anyone remember a full-page ad in the Times from Vlad to his "friends" in the United States? That was unnerving. I remember wondering if the Times was so hard-pressed for cash! In fact, they were selling off substantial shares of the newspaper to a Mexican media mogul.
Understanding just how tyranny takes hold of a country requires sincere determination. Unfortunately we've been here before, but now we have more subtle weapons including dog-whistles, social media and drones. If you want a real brain-twister, read Professor Snyder's "The Road to Unfreedom" or "Bloodlands".
But please don't call our current situation "a perfect storm". There's nothing about this that can be described as perfect, unless you want to stretch it to "perfectly dreadful"!
Just forwarded some very hopeful news to a list of media organizations and personal friends:
www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/10/russia-exiles-life-after-vladimir-putin
An opening excerpt,
Russia
‘Three months ago, this wasn’t possible’: exiled Russians dare to dream of Putin’s fall
Opposition leaders have begun to plan for the end of the regime – and some believe it is now inevitable
Shaun Walker in Brussels
Sat 10 Jun 2023 00.00 EDT
Is Russia about to experience a period of dramatic political change? If so, can exiled democratic forces unite into a coherent bloc, and is there any way for them to force themselves on to the political scene?
Nearly 300 exiled Russian opposition politicians and activists gathered to discuss these questions in the European parliament earlier this week, the congress coming as news broke of the Nova Kakhovka dam destruction, the latest grim episode in Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.
The Brussels forum, convened by four MEPs, was the first such gathering to be given official status by a European parliamentary body, as some in Europe start thinking about how the contours of a post-Putin Russia would look.
“This is the first time that someone is speaking about the possibility of post-Putinism. Three months ago, this wasn’t possible. EU countries thought that Putin would be president for years and years if not decades and decades … Now, the perception has changed,” said Bernard Guetta, a French MEP who was one of the forum’s organisers.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, formerly the richest man in Russia before he was jailed for a decade in 2003, said that simply changing Putin for another person from his system would not make any difference.
“This regime should be destroyed,” he said during the opening session. “There is no other road to a peaceful normal future for Russia and for Europe and the whole world.”
Khodorkovsky
Exiled Russian calls on those still in country to ‘sabotage’ Putin’s war
Read more
The Russian opposition has been saying this for years, and it can often sound like wishful thinking. But with the Russian army on the back foot, drone strikes and military incursions hitting inside Russia and infighting between the elites spilling into the public domain, some in Europe are also beginning to wonder if Putin is as secure in the Kremlin as they had thought.
What a post-Putin Russia would look like is a matter of debate, however. Andrius Kubilius, the Lithuanian MEP and former prime minister who was the conference’s main organiser, said it was still a minority view among European politicians that real democratic change could come to Russia, but he felt it was an important argument to make for the sake of both Russia and Ukraine.
Those wily hackers, at it again, only this time...
Hacker drains Russian special services wallets, transfers funds to Ukraine
280
The New Voice of Ukraine
Sun, June 11, 2023 at 7:14 AM CDT·2 min read
news.yahoo.com/hacker-drains-russian-special-services-121400918.html
Brilliant analysis once again, Lucian, and fascinating reading.
Awe shucks.
Now Harry and l can go out for a walk in the Long Island haze.
To mask or not to mask: that is the question!