The latest news on the Russian convoy that is 17 or 40 or however many miles long is that it’s stalled about 20 miles north of Kyiv near the town of Zdvyzhivka, the place I last wrote about where the convoy appeared to be setting up some kind of base camp. Reports are that Ukrainian forces have hit the convoy with RPG’s and other weapons, and vehicles are running out of gas. As closely as I can determine, the Ukrainians have succeeded in turning the convoy into a very long traffic jam.
"...sounds a little bit like “take your country back” doesn’t it? " It assuredly does, and it really makes me cringe to recall Trump's disparagement of NATO and wonder about the motive behind it, in light of these events. Putin is, of course, Trump's idea of a "strong" "leader". Scary shit....Your writings on this atrocity are near-revelatory; you should be syndicated.
Incredible reporting. You provide solid judgment (and conjecture where necessary,)based on years of experience. I salute you and your daily calm analysis of what is happening. I would rather rely on your assessment of what is most likely going on than most any other news coverage. To the point and fact based. Bravo and thank you.
"A weak man's idea of what a strong man is" fits Donald Trump's idolization of Putin to a "T." Next we'll see pix of a shirtless Trump eating a Big Mac.
Members of Putin's staff already knew the kind of man he is, now the world is figuring it out. A man on Long Island understands the truth means that millions of other men and women do the same. In a short time Mr. Putin will realize that Ukraine in ruins is no prize but a financial burden for Russia for decades to come. Embittered Ukraine kids will grow up with a fierce hatred of anything Russian. Putin's legacy will be that of a small man acting out big and destructive fantasy.
Great insights in this column, Lucian. You are seeing right through this two dimensional egocentric narcissist who is stomping his feet like his petulant acolyte Donald Trump.
He has what we saw at West Point plebe year. Short man’s syndrome. The shorter they are the more they yell to seem important. It would be pathetic if it wasn’t such a travesty for Ukrainians.
Putin has a few other things we saw as Plebes at West Point, including being a psychotic flaming asshole. West Point trained more than a few of those...present company excepted, of course...
You deserve huge support and many of us already subscribed will pay you handsomely with multiple gift subscriptions if you could get the juveniles who manage substack to care about providing a platform that would reward their content providers as much as themselves by simply making group gift subscriptions an actual function on its site.
Either that or they may as well just get ride of the useless "group subscription" option that infuriatingly doesn't work worth a damn.
Your military and war insights are a HUGE opportunity for us to send gift subscriptions to friends we have lost to the dark side and those we agree with who don't know of you. Maybe you could even provide a discount to $50 for group gift subscriptions.
The right, whatever that is at this degraded point, professes to be into military stuff and would read and find value in your insights on the war, but would never even look at a gift subscription to a lefty telling the truth about the risk we are truly facing as a nation. Once you are seen as valid, the door is cracked open, finally.
They will devour your military intelligence, and then we've got them at least reading some truth for a year with your other insights as they come.
Dare I say that due to this horrid war you uniquely provide a bridge and weapon for those of us who are subscribed to use your war posts to scale the wall and infiltrate your information behind enemy lines, to put it in war parlance?
In my of course limited exposure YOU with your military knowledge and hard work at investigating and explaining what the hell is going on with this potentially regional and even global war are the only one I hear from who can bridge that enormous gap.
If Fox is disgustingly being mainlined to our troops and bases as it has been to our airports, bars, and public venues for decades now; then your posts should be mainlined into their devises.
For the sake of this floundering country, if you'd like some support and help in convincing Substack to upgrade its childish understanding of commerce and how to increase their data hoarding goals while also helping those who provide them with content, please let me know.
Your war posts are a huge opportunity for us to finally have a weapon in this war. Hopefully this opportunity won't last though. If and when the war is settles and we're back to dealing with the Trumpian insanity, that opportunity to expose them is over.
Just sayin' and thanks loads for what you are doing for all of us.
I wonder if the motivation is wanton destruction. He hates Ukraine and what it has become. He hates the Jewish comedian president who is everything he is not. Could he be intent on destroying Ukraine as a modernizing democracy because it’s an existential threat; and driving its urban people away? Is this a primitive pillaging and destroying the temples and fields of your enemy? Does he think the remnants will have no other choice than to subjugate themselves? I tend to think so, as the targets appear to be cities and electrical and transportation infrastructure. Let’s hope the Ukrainian army defends the nation.
It was Stalin's tactic to be sure: he was fine with the idea of starving all of Ukraine into oblivion in the 1930s. Ukraine was a sophisticated multiethnic kingdom centuries before Muscovy emerged from its animal husbandry phase. Muscovy has always hated what Ukraine stood for. My Jewish family escaped the Pale of Settlement--Ukraine and Belarus--at a time when Ukrainians were anything but friends to the Jews who had lived in those shtetls for generations, but what Stalin and Hitler did was an order of magnitude worse than the oppressions of the Jews in decades prior. And they did it to Ukrainians as well.
I rarely post again in your columns, Lucien, but this Twitter thread from a Russian expert has a lot of information about the Russian forces that have been thrown into battle. It's not looking good for them. Putin might have a disaster on both hands:
"THREAD I know it sounds contra-intuitive, but it feels that Russia and its army are about to collapse. RU obviously has no reserves left: the tanks they send to the front are very old, without active armor, look like training machines. They do not have trucks, using civilian ones"
Inaccurate. I haven't seen them in civilian trucks. The long convoy is hundred of military trucks. Tanks I've seen are newer models and they do have have active armor, those little boxes you see all over them.
I think you're right. I think Putin is primarily about destroying Ukraine's economy and sending an object lesson to the former SSR's, NATO, and the EU. He didn't want Ukraine as much as he wanted a buffer between him and the West. And if its a destroyed buffer rather than an intact country, so be it. Look what he's done before. He's not going to occupy it and rebuild the infrastructure. He's going to keep destroying Ukraine it until it surrenders or there is so much damage he's satisfied it's no longer worth his effort to keep destroying, and then he'll leave. He'll hope that what he leaves behind is a puppet government or at least one too cowed to oppose him. He'll leave it to the EU to help rebuild if there is no surrender and then he'll be clear that he's ready to come in again! And if NATO resists him and there is a miscalculation and it leads to nuclear war?! I think he's more ready than more normal people to go out in a blaze of thermonuclear glory knowing he's taken everyone else with him.
Well, if he forces all the Ukrainians to flee and become refugees, he gets a relatively empty country to share with his friends, and the burden of taking care of the Ukrainians falls predominantly on the EU. His friends and allies are richer and he doesn't have to deal with administering a hostile population.
this is kinda in line with what i thought putin's objective was.
of course his plan was to quickly take Kyiv by force or coercion. he expected a fledgling government run by a former comedian to flee or capitulate. if he had to, he was loaded up and ready to shell the daylights out of cities like he did in Syria and Georgia. then putin could proudly boast to his country that he had brought back the Ukraine into the motherland.
putin would/will not care if the defeated land was viable. he would reap any harvest that remained standing, milk any industries that survived, and he would welcome any surviving former Ukrainians as new russian citizens - albeit as second class or lower caste.
but now he's bogged down, standing bare chested in a slushy field with snow dusting his comb-over.
he can't go home like this. he's gotta show strength. he has got to flex his muscles and show not only his people that he will fight to win, he will show the world he is The Man.
what to do??
well. more firepower..missles, cruise missles, bombers, ...and if need be, the nuclear option - low yield intermediate range projectiles.
"...sounds a little bit like “take your country back” doesn’t it? " It assuredly does, and it really makes me cringe to recall Trump's disparagement of NATO and wonder about the motive behind it, in light of these events. Putin is, of course, Trump's idea of a "strong" "leader". Scary shit....Your writings on this atrocity are near-revelatory; you should be syndicated.
Incredible reporting. You provide solid judgment (and conjecture where necessary,)based on years of experience. I salute you and your daily calm analysis of what is happening. I would rather rely on your assessment of what is most likely going on than most any other news coverage. To the point and fact based. Bravo and thank you.
"A weak man's idea of what a strong man is" fits Donald Trump's idolization of Putin to a "T." Next we'll see pix of a shirtless Trump eating a Big Mac.
I have no desire to ever see a shirtless Donald Trump!
On a coroner's slab?
Would pay for that treat!
Eww
The Horror...
Hamberder?
Ewwww.
I love the photo from a few years ago of Obama staring down Putin.
Members of Putin's staff already knew the kind of man he is, now the world is figuring it out. A man on Long Island understands the truth means that millions of other men and women do the same. In a short time Mr. Putin will realize that Ukraine in ruins is no prize but a financial burden for Russia for decades to come. Embittered Ukraine kids will grow up with a fierce hatred of anything Russian. Putin's legacy will be that of a small man acting out big and destructive fantasy.
Great insights in this column, Lucian. You are seeing right through this two dimensional egocentric narcissist who is stomping his feet like his petulant acolyte Donald Trump.
Putin and Trump have this in common: narcissistic personality disorder.
He has what we saw at West Point plebe year. Short man’s syndrome. The shorter they are the more they yell to seem important. It would be pathetic if it wasn’t such a travesty for Ukrainians.
Putin has a few other things we saw as Plebes at West Point, including being a psychotic flaming asshole. West Point trained more than a few of those...present company excepted, of course...
I hate to be a broken record, but.............
You deserve huge support and many of us already subscribed will pay you handsomely with multiple gift subscriptions if you could get the juveniles who manage substack to care about providing a platform that would reward their content providers as much as themselves by simply making group gift subscriptions an actual function on its site.
Either that or they may as well just get ride of the useless "group subscription" option that infuriatingly doesn't work worth a damn.
Your military and war insights are a HUGE opportunity for us to send gift subscriptions to friends we have lost to the dark side and those we agree with who don't know of you. Maybe you could even provide a discount to $50 for group gift subscriptions.
The right, whatever that is at this degraded point, professes to be into military stuff and would read and find value in your insights on the war, but would never even look at a gift subscription to a lefty telling the truth about the risk we are truly facing as a nation. Once you are seen as valid, the door is cracked open, finally.
They will devour your military intelligence, and then we've got them at least reading some truth for a year with your other insights as they come.
Dare I say that due to this horrid war you uniquely provide a bridge and weapon for those of us who are subscribed to use your war posts to scale the wall and infiltrate your information behind enemy lines, to put it in war parlance?
In my of course limited exposure YOU with your military knowledge and hard work at investigating and explaining what the hell is going on with this potentially regional and even global war are the only one I hear from who can bridge that enormous gap.
If Fox is disgustingly being mainlined to our troops and bases as it has been to our airports, bars, and public venues for decades now; then your posts should be mainlined into their devises.
For the sake of this floundering country, if you'd like some support and help in convincing Substack to upgrade its childish understanding of commerce and how to increase their data hoarding goals while also helping those who provide them with content, please let me know.
Your war posts are a huge opportunity for us to finally have a weapon in this war. Hopefully this opportunity won't last though. If and when the war is settles and we're back to dealing with the Trumpian insanity, that opportunity to expose them is over.
Just sayin' and thanks loads for what you are doing for all of us.
I wonder if the motivation is wanton destruction. He hates Ukraine and what it has become. He hates the Jewish comedian president who is everything he is not. Could he be intent on destroying Ukraine as a modernizing democracy because it’s an existential threat; and driving its urban people away? Is this a primitive pillaging and destroying the temples and fields of your enemy? Does he think the remnants will have no other choice than to subjugate themselves? I tend to think so, as the targets appear to be cities and electrical and transportation infrastructure. Let’s hope the Ukrainian army defends the nation.
It was Stalin's tactic to be sure: he was fine with the idea of starving all of Ukraine into oblivion in the 1930s. Ukraine was a sophisticated multiethnic kingdom centuries before Muscovy emerged from its animal husbandry phase. Muscovy has always hated what Ukraine stood for. My Jewish family escaped the Pale of Settlement--Ukraine and Belarus--at a time when Ukrainians were anything but friends to the Jews who had lived in those shtetls for generations, but what Stalin and Hitler did was an order of magnitude worse than the oppressions of the Jews in decades prior. And they did it to Ukrainians as well.
Makes sense to me! No wonder he and tRump had a “bros fest” together.
I rarely post again in your columns, Lucien, but this Twitter thread from a Russian expert has a lot of information about the Russian forces that have been thrown into battle. It's not looking good for them. Putin might have a disaster on both hands:
https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1499822066098655234
"THREAD I know it sounds contra-intuitive, but it feels that Russia and its army are about to collapse. RU obviously has no reserves left: the tanks they send to the front are very old, without active armor, look like training machines. They do not have trucks, using civilian ones"
Inaccurate. I haven't seen them in civilian trucks. The long convoy is hundred of military trucks. Tanks I've seen are newer models and they do have have active armor, those little boxes you see all over them.
I thought it would pique your interest, but not saying the guy was accurate. I couldn't tell a tank from a big box truck, myself.
I strongly suggest a slapfight between Putin and Vitali Klitschko - for all the marbles. Loser has to suck the other guy's tits. In Macy's window.
I'm crying here.....
Lucian,
I think you're right. I think Putin is primarily about destroying Ukraine's economy and sending an object lesson to the former SSR's, NATO, and the EU. He didn't want Ukraine as much as he wanted a buffer between him and the West. And if its a destroyed buffer rather than an intact country, so be it. Look what he's done before. He's not going to occupy it and rebuild the infrastructure. He's going to keep destroying Ukraine it until it surrenders or there is so much damage he's satisfied it's no longer worth his effort to keep destroying, and then he'll leave. He'll hope that what he leaves behind is a puppet government or at least one too cowed to oppose him. He'll leave it to the EU to help rebuild if there is no surrender and then he'll be clear that he's ready to come in again! And if NATO resists him and there is a miscalculation and it leads to nuclear war?! I think he's more ready than more normal people to go out in a blaze of thermonuclear glory knowing he's taken everyone else with him.
all this death and destru tion for one man's ego. what a sad thing humans are
Well, if he forces all the Ukrainians to flee and become refugees, he gets a relatively empty country to share with his friends, and the burden of taking care of the Ukrainians falls predominantly on the EU. His friends and allies are richer and he doesn't have to deal with administering a hostile population.
yes.
this is kinda in line with what i thought putin's objective was.
of course his plan was to quickly take Kyiv by force or coercion. he expected a fledgling government run by a former comedian to flee or capitulate. if he had to, he was loaded up and ready to shell the daylights out of cities like he did in Syria and Georgia. then putin could proudly boast to his country that he had brought back the Ukraine into the motherland.
putin would/will not care if the defeated land was viable. he would reap any harvest that remained standing, milk any industries that survived, and he would welcome any surviving former Ukrainians as new russian citizens - albeit as second class or lower caste.
but now he's bogged down, standing bare chested in a slushy field with snow dusting his comb-over.
he can't go home like this. he's gotta show strength. he has got to flex his muscles and show not only his people that he will fight to win, he will show the world he is The Man.
what to do??
well. more firepower..missles, cruise missles, bombers, ...and if need be, the nuclear option - low yield intermediate range projectiles.
oh.
My heart breaks for Ukraine.
I have mentioned before that in the 1970's I was assigned to a NATO Army Group HQ in Mannheim-Seckenheim in the Federal Republic of Germany.
I worked with Canadians, Germans and Americans.
The senior German 2 star General had been a POW, interred in Colorado.
One German major had his home village in range when the Russians threatened the Czechs in the late 60's.
When Trump ran his bullshit against NATO I was livid and lost many brat friends who sided with the Traitor of Helsinki and his Russian master.