(Drawing of Patron by Chetyrina Kate)
Before we get going with tonight’s update, I think we need to take a minute and discuss something. Specifically, if you feel the urge to be anything but polite to commenter Gin&Tonic stop, take a deep breath, and just don’t do it. So that he does not have to once again explain, G&T has relatives in Ukraine in harm’s way. One of them is in the Ukrainian Army and is currently deployed fighting the Russians who have reinvaded Ukraine. If he tells you something about Ukraine it is because he’s a Ukrainian who is also an American. I get it, it’s Balloon Juice where people will argue about anything for any reason and we pride ourselves on maintaining the tradition of the not forgotten commenter efgoldman in terms of how we communicate. But in this case just don’t do it. Given what he’s dealing with in terms of uncertainty around his relatives’ safety and well being when we’re lucky enough that he decides to comment in a post about Ukraine, which is usually to provide insider insight just take it in. Maybe tell him you’re keeping good thoughts for his family. Maybe thank him for the insight he’s providing. I’d like to believe I won’t have to post something like this again, but let’s be honest with ourselves about who we are. This is the place where people show up in the recipe posts to tell me or TaMara that we’re not making whatever recipe we’ve posted correctly. You know who you are…
Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the video of President Zelenskyy’s address to Ukraine from earlier this evening. Subtitled as always with the transcript to follow the jump.
Ukrainians!
All our defenders!
Every year on April 26, the world remembers the Chornobyl disaster. The worst nuclear disaster in human history.
But this year it is not enough to just remember Chornobyl. And it is not enough to say traditional words of gratitude to the heroes-liquidators. It is not enough to remind why and how the catastrophe became possible. It is not enough to repeat the conclusions that every intelligent person and every adequate society must draw.
Because this year, Russia has created new threats that could surpass even the worst accident.
I remember the night of March 4, when it became known about the fire at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
When Russian tanks fired at the station. They knew exactly which object they were firing at. But they had an order to seize the object at any cost.
They did not care about anything. They did not care that the Zaporizhzhia station is the largest in Europe. They didn’t think about how many power units there are and how the shelling could end.
That night I spoke with world leaders. With everyone who could influence the events and stop Russia. I spoke with President Biden, with Chancellor Scholz, with President of the European Council Charles Michel, with President of Poland Andrzej Duda… I spoke with IAEA Director General Mr. Grossi.
If the world had not woken up that night, we would not mention Chornobyl today, because everyone would think about what Russia has done at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
It is even surprising how quickly and completely Russia, the whole country, can forget about the worst catastrophe that its people have experienced as well.
Not only Ukrainians were involved in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chornobyl accident in 1986. But also Belarusians, Russians and others.
That catastrophe should have been told about in Russian schools as well. They should have reminded about it in Russia every year on April 26, as is done throughout the civilized world.
Instead, today they launched three missiles against Ukraine so that they flew directly over the blocks of our nuclear power plants. Over three nuclear power plants at once. Over Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and South-Ukrainian NPPs. What is it? Are they threatening? Are they targeting? There are no words…
It turns out they do not realize what Chornobyl is. At all.
Russian troops that were trying to attack Kyiv through the Chornobyl zone used the restricted area as a military base.
They set up positions on land where it is forbidden to even stand. They drove armored vehicles through areas where radiation-contaminated materials are buried and where the number of radioactive particles is simply horrendous. They destroyed the dosimetric control points. The Chornobyl radiation monitoring system was broken and looted. They looted a nuclear analytical laboratory…
They even stole contaminated items, which were confiscated from violators of the rules of the Exclusion Zone!
Only thanks to the professionalism and conscientiousness of our specialists working at the Chornobyl station and other facilities of the Chornobyl zone, we managed to save Ukraine, save Europe from a new catastrophe.
Only thanks to the professional team of the Zaporizhzhia NPP and our entire nuclear industry is it possible to ensure trouble-free operation of stations during the war.
Mr. Grossi, Director General of the IAEA, paid a visit to Kyiv today. We discussed all the dangers created by Russia and ways to possibly influence the situation to protect Europe and the world from completely irresponsible actions of the Russian Federation.
Today, I also awarded our heroes – shift workers at the Chornobyl station who did not leave the facility. Who maintained the work of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant despite the threat to their lives and despite the occupiers’ lack of understanding of even the basics of radiation safety.
I believe that after all that the Russian military has done in the Chornobyl zone and at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, no one in the world can feel safe knowing how many nuclear facilities, nuclear weapons and related technologies the Russian state has.
If Russia has forgotten what Chornobyl is, it means that global control over Russia’s nuclear facilities and nuclear technology is needed.
I spoke today with the Prime Minister of Japan. In particular, about the dangers created by Russia. About the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine. I thanked Japan for a strong package of sanctions, for its support and for the leadership needed to force Russia to peace and recognition of the foundations of international law. We also discussed the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine and the possible role of Japan in future security agreements.
The Prime Minister of Romania paid a visit to Kyiv. I thanked him for the defensive and political support.
We discussed not only bilateral cooperation between our states and joint work to protect freedom in Europe, but also cooperation at the EU level. With Romania, we share a common vision of both prospects and threats to European unity, in particular in the Black Sea region.
We agreed to work together even harder to ensure security in our region.
An important meeting at the level of defense ministers of Ukraine’s partner countries took place in Germany today. The key issue was to strengthen the protection of the whole of Europe from Russia’s aggressive ambitions.
There are almost no people left in the free world who do not understand that Russia’s war against Ukraine is just the beginning.
The ultimate goal of Russia’s leadership is not just to seize the territory of Ukraine, but to dismember the entire center and east of Europe and deal a global blow to democracy.
Therefore, the free world has the right to self-defense. And that is why it will help Ukraine even more.
I am grateful to the United Kingdom and personally to Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his prompt and positive response to our request for trade liberalization. Right now it is especially important for the support of our state.
Britain has announced the abolition of all duties and quotas on imports of Ukrainian goods. This will allow us to save thousands of jobs during the war and ensure a significant intensification of economic relations with Britain.
We expect similar decision from other partners.
I want to emphasize that this is important not only for our country, not only for each of the partner countries. This adds stability to global markets, especially the food market, which is one step away from a large-scale price crisis due to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
There is only one way to avoid the crisis: to strengthen cooperation and put pressure on Russia for it to give up this war.
Today, Russian troops continued missile strikes at our land, particularly in the Odesa region. They continued to attack our troops near Kharkiv, in Donbas. They are trying to portray an alleged “new government” in Kherson and part of the Zaporizhzhia region. They change flags, demonstrate some suicides in the role of collaborators.
And what does this give Russia? Only new losses.
There will be a new sanctions package from the European Union. There will be even more restrictions on trade. Inevitably, the vast majority of the world’s countries will abandon Russian oil and other Russian energy sources. No adequate country will want to invite Rosatom to cooperate. Most Russians will have to pay with poverty for the aggressive policy of their country’s leadership.
And I emphasize: we will identify, find and prosecute everyone – war criminals and collaborators. The longer and more brutal this war, the more resources will be spent not only by us, but also by the world to establish justice and punish all those responsible.
The time will come when Russia will have to recognize that peace is needed.
I paid a visit to Ilya Matvienko and Kira Obedinska in Okhmatdyt Hospital today. Kira is 12 years old, and Ilya turned 10 today. They lived in Mariupol until the Russian army came. Ilya’s mother was killed during the bombing of the city. Kira’s father, a well-known athlete and former captain of Ukraine’s water polo team, Yevhen Obedinsky, was killed by a sniper.
The occupiers took the children out of the city, actually abducted them, and it took a lot of effort to get them back. I am grateful to everyone who joined this cause. I am especially grateful to Iryna Vereshchuk and Andriy Yermak, who coordinated this task, to our entire team.
Now Ilya is with his grandmother, Kira is with her grandfather. Their only relatives left. We will help them with everything they need. We will help raise children.
And we will definitely do everything to return all our Ukrainian children to Ukraine. Let no one in Russia hope that Ukraine will forget or forgive the abduction of our children, the deportation of our citizens. And the destruction of Mariupol.
I also thanked Okhmatdyt’s doctors for their work. For saving lives and trying to restore children’s peace of mind under all circumstances. Thank you very much, dear doctors.
Before delivering the evening address, I traditionally signed a decree awarding our heroes. 243 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were awarded state awards.
Eternal gratitude to all our defenders!
Eternal memory to everyone who gave life for Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
For those wondering exactly who President Zelenskyy is referring to, this is Kira and her grandfather:
Source: https://t.co/m0sUdzt4Nr
— Alexander Khrebet/Олександр Хребет (@AlexKhrebet) April 26, 2022
Here is today’s operational update from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense (emphasis mine):
The operational update regarding the russian invasion on 18.00 on April 26, 2022
The sixty-second day of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people to a russian military invasion continues. A russian federation continues its full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine.
russian enemy continues to carry out offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone in order to defeat the Joint Forces, establish full control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and maintain the land route with the occupied Crimea.
russian enemy continues to launch missile and bomb strikes on military and civilian infrastructure.
In the Slobozhansky direction, russian enemy groups from the 6th Combined Arms Army of the Western Military District, the coastal troops of the Baltic and Northern Fleets continue to partially block Kharkiv and fire on it.
In the Izium direction, russian enemy units and subdivisions of the 1st Tank Army, the 20th and 35th Combined Arms Armies, the 68th Army Corps and the Airborne Forces, supported by artillery, are advancing in the direction of Barvinkove. In order to reconnoiter the positions of Ukrainian troops, russian enemy continues to use UAVs in this area.
In the areas of the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, russian occupiers continue to hold field camps to restore combat readiness and train units. According to available information, up to five battalion tactical groups of russian enemy are in the immediate vicinity of the state border of Ukraine in this area.
In the Donetsk direction, russian enemy is taking active action along almost the entire line of contact. The main efforts are focused on taking control of Rubizhne, Popasna and Marinka.
In the Severodonetsk direction, as part of the regrouping of troops in the direction of Kreminna, russian occupiers moved to a tank battalion from the 90th Tank Division, as well as a pontoon-bridge unit from the 12th separate engineering brigade of the Central Military District.
To develop the offensive in the direction of the settlement of Lyman, russian enemy is building up a group of troops.
russian invaders do not stop artillery shelling and air strikes on Mariupol. The blocking of units of our troops in the area of the Azovstal plant continues.
In the South Buh and Tavriya directions russian enemy continues to hold the occupied frontier, in some areas it tries unsuccessfully to improve the tactical position, improves the engineering equipment of its positions and carries out shelling of positions of our armies.
In the transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova, units of the operational group of russian troops have been put on alert “Full”, the security forces have been transferred to a reinforced mode of service.
In the Volyn, Polissya and Siversky directions, certain units of the Armed Forces of the republic of belarus perform tasks to strengthen the protection of the Ukrainian-belarusian border.
Ukrainian defenders are defending themselves and continue to systematically inflict losses on the russian occupiers.
Let’s win together!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here’s today’s British MOD assessment:
And here’s the British MOD’s updated map:
You can see the movement south and east of Izium, which was not in the earlier updates they were making to their maps. It, as well as the British assessment for today, matches up with the Ukrainian MOD’s operational update for today that I highlighted above:
In the Izium direction, russian enemy units and subdivisions of the 1st Tank Army, the 20th and 35th Combined Arms Armies, the 68th Army Corps and the Airborne Forces, supported by artillery, are advancing in the direction of Barvinkove. In order to reconnoiter the positions of Ukrainian troops, russian enemy continues to use UAVs in this area.
The Russians are clearly trying to encircle the Joint Force Operation so they can cut it off and reduce it. The position that the JFO has been in has been problematic for several weeks now and I will continue to update on what is going on as new information comes in.
As of the time that I’m typing this up, there is no background briefing transcript from the DOD. I expect there wasn’t one again today because of the summit that Secretary Austin hosted for Ukraine’s Defense Minister and representatives of thirty-nine other allied and partnered states at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany today. We do, however, have a transcript of SecDef’s remarks.
PRESS SECRETARY JOHN F. KIRBY: Thanks for coming this afternoon. In a moment, I’m going to turn the microphone over to Secretary Austin, but just a couple of administrative remarks.
The secretary will have some opening comments and then we’ll have time a for a few questions. I will moderate those questions from here. I will call on the journalists. And if you could limit your follow-ups if possible — so, we’ve got a bit of a tight timeline this afternoon.
So with that, Mr. Secretary?
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LLOYD J. AUSTIN III: Well, thanks, John.
Good afternoon, everybody.
It’s been an important day and a highly constructive one. We’ve had some great discussions in all and a lot of rich interactions among leaders throughout the day.
So let me, again, thank all of the ministers and the chiefs of defense and your teams for joining us today, especially my good friend, Ukraine’s minister of defense, Minister Reznikov and his delegation. It’s great to see you.
We’re all coming away with a transparent and shared understanding of the challenge that the Ukrainians face, and I know that we’re all determined to help Ukraine win today and build strength for tomorrow.
The work that we’ve done together in record time has made a huge difference on the battlefield. President Zelenskyy made that clear when we met Sunday in Kyiv. And countries all around the world have been stepping up to meet Ukraine’s urgent needs.
And I wanted to especially welcome a major decision by our German hosts, as Minister Lambrecht announced just today that Germany will send Ukraine some 50 Cheetah anti-aircraft systems.
And yesterday, of course, the British government announced that it would provide Ukraine with additional anti-aircraft capabilities as well. And today, Canada announced that it will send Ukraine eight armored vehicles.
And so that’s important progress. And we’re seeing more every day. And I applaud all the countries that have risen and are rising to meet this demand. But we don’t have any time to waste.
The briefings today laid out clearly why the coming weeks will be so crucial for Ukraine. So we’ve got to move at the speed of war.
And I know that all the leaders leave today more resolved than ever to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression and atrocities. And I know that we’re all determined to do even more to better coordinate our efforts. So I was especially glad to hear General Wolters encourage us all to make more determined use of EUCOM’s coordination mechanism.
Now, to ensure that we continue to build on our progress, we’re going to extend this forum beyond today. I’m proud to announce that today’s gathering will become a monthly contact group on Ukraine’s self defense, and the contact group will be a vehicle for nations of good will to intensify our efforts and coordinate our assistance and focus on winning today’s fight and the struggles to come. The monthly meetings may be in person, virtual or mixed, and they’ll extend the transparency, the integration and the dialogue that we saw today.
And let me underscore another key point. We held an important session today on the long term support for Ukraine’s defenses, including what that will take from our defense industrial bases. That means dealing with the tremendous demand that we’re facing for munitions and weapons platforms and giving our staunch support to Ukraine while also meeting our own requirements and those of our allies and partners, but it also means redoubling our common efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul, and I look forward to our discussions in the contact group and elsewhere about how to get that done right.
Let me again thank all of the countries who came together today. They’ve done crucial work and they sent a powerful signal. We’re going to build on today’s progress and continue to reach out to nations of good will to help Ukraine defend itself and we’ll continue working transparently and urgently with our allies and partners and we’ll continue pushing to support and strengthen the Ukrainian military for the battles ahead.
So we leave tonight strengthened and so does Ukraine. And thank you and I’ll be glad to take your questions.
MR. KIRBY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Our first question today will come from Sylvie Lanteaume, AFP. Do you have a microphone?
Q: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, actually I have a double question for you. Moldova is stepping up its security measures after a series of explosions in the separatist region of Trans-Dniester. Do you think there is a risk of spillover of the conflict to Moldova?
And my second question is after this big meeting about arming Ukraine, are you — are you concerned that Putin may become restless and threaten again to use a nuclear weapon?
SEC. AUSTIN: Well, on the issue of spillover to Moldova because of what we’ve seen here, a reporting of recent violence, we’re still looking to the cause of that, that’s still — you know, still doing analysis there. So not really sure what that’s all about but we’ll — that’s something that we’ll stay focused on. And certainly we don’t want to see any spillover, and again, it’s important to make sure that we do everything that we can to ensure that Ukraine is successful. And that’s the best way to address that.
And the — your second part of the question there, Sylvie, was?
Q: Was about the risk for Putin to threaten to use a nuclear weapon?
SEC. AUSTIN: Well, you know, you’ve heard us say a number of times that that kind of rhetoric is very dangerous and unhelpful. Nobody wants to see a nuclear war happen. It’s a war that, you know, where all sides lose.
And so rattling of sabers and, you know, dangerous rhetoric is clearly unhelpful and something that we won’t engage in.
MR. KIRBY: Our next question goes to Susan Galhart from ZDF.
Q: Mr. Secretary, what military aid do you now — oh — Mr. Secretary, what military aid do you now expect from the German government? And do you think the delivery of Leopard tanks is sufficient, in your opinion?
SEC. AUSTIN: You mean Cheetahs, which is what the — yeah.
Well, let me just say that — and I think you probably heard me say this before as I visited Germany — I consider Germany to be a great friend and an ally.
And, you know, I’ve served in Germany as an officer and worked with German forces and it’s always been a real pleasure to work alongside our German partners here. Now, I think it’s significant that, you know, Germany announced that it was going to provide 50 Cheetah systems. I think those systems will provide real capability for Ukraine.
And in terms of what else Germany will do going forward, again, that’s a sovereign decision, one that the German leadership will make, and I don’t want to speculate on that. I just believe that just based upon everything that I’ve seen in my interaction with the Minister of Defense and how intently she’s been focused on making sure that she can do everything that she can to help and work alongside her partners and allies, that she’ll continue to look for ways to be relevant and provide good capability to the Ukrainians as they continue to prosecute this fight.
This next question and the answer is important, so if you’re skimming or just sort of scrolling through PAY ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!
MR. KIRBY: Our next question goes to John Ismay, New York Times.
Q: Mr. Secretary, yesterday you mentioned that one of the United States’ goals in Ukraine now was to see Russia weakened. Can you explain more fully what that means? And specifically, what do you want to weaken and how you would measure success in that regard?
SEC. AUSTIN: Yeah, John, so I think we’ve been pretty clear from the outset — we do want to make it harder for Russia to threaten its neighbors, and leave them less able to do that.
Now, if you look at what’s transpired here in this 62 days or so that Ukraine and Russia have been involved in this struggle here, Russia has — in terms of its land forces, their land forces have been attrited in a very significant way — casualties are pretty substantial, they’ve lost a lot of equipment, they’ve used a lot of precision-guided munitions, they’ve lost a major surface combatant. And so they are, in fact, in terms of military capability, weaker than when this started.
You know, John, it will be harder for them to replace some of this capability as they go forward because of the sanctions and the trade restrictions that have been placed on them. And so, we would like to make sure, again, that they don’t have the same type of capability to bully their neighbors that we saw at the outset of this conflict.
The rest of the Q&A at the link!
This last question and answer is important as it clarifies in some ways, but not in others, Secretary Austin’s statement from yesterday about one of the stated end states of the war. Which is to ensure that Russia emerges from the war without the capability to ever threaten any of its neighbor’s again. A lot of the usual suspects immediately latched on to that statement as proof that their conspiracy theories that the US actually started the war, that it is a war of American aggression and conquest to destroy Russia, Ukraine is just its dupe, Russia is both blameless and has no agency, and everyone should stop supporting Ukraine’s defense of its state and society and citizenry because the US IS BAD!!!!
Unfortunately one of these chuckleheads is in the US Senate!
BLINKEN: If you look at the countries Russia attacked, these were countries that were not part of NATO
RAND PAUL: You could also argue the countries they've attacked were part of Russia
BLINKEN: I firmly disagree. It's the right of these countries to decide their future pic.twitter.com/4ZeZOVrK0i
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2022
The Pauls, father and son, have long histories with post Soviet Russia and being apologists for Putin, so this shouldn’t be surprising.
Mariupol:
We appear, if you hold your head at just the right angle and squint, to have an agreement between the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and Putin to create a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the Ukrainians sheltering at the Azovstal plant. From Reuters:
UNITED NATIONS, April 26 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed “in principle” to U.N. and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) involvement in the evacuation of civilians from a besieged steel plant in Ukraine’s southern city of Mariupol, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
During a meeting in Moscow, Putin and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed the situation at the huge Azovstal steel plant, where the last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol are hunkered down after months of Russian siege and bombardment.
“Follow-on discussions will be had with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Russian Defence Ministry,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement after the meeting.
Earlier on Tuesday, Putin told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that there were no military operations underway in Mariupol and that Kyiv should “take responsibility” for the people holed up in the Azovstal steel plant.
Ukraine on Monday appealed for the United Nations and the ICRC to be involved in the evacuation of civilians from Azovstal. Guterres is expected to meet with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday. read more
During a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Guterres said he has proposed a “Humanitarian Contact Group” of Russia, Ukraine and U.N. officials “to look for opportunities for the opening of safe corridors, with local cessations of hostilities, and to guarantee that they are actually effective.”
“In principle” is doing a LOT of work in that opening sentence!
I expect that just like every other humanitarian or green corridor that the Russians have agreed to regarding Mariupol or Kharkiv or Kherson or Mykolaiv or Melitopol or any other Ukrainian town or city that this is all a ruse. Diplomacy here is being used as a weapon to both buy time and, if possible, to get the Ukrainians to once again think there will be a humanitarian corridor and an evacuation is going to happen. Which provides Russia with an easy target. At this point, no matter how desperate President Zelenskyy may be to evacuate the Mariupolians sheltering at the Azovstal complex and their defenders from the Azov Regiment and the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, there is no way he or anyone else in the Ukrainian government is going to fall for this again.
Last night in Mariupol Russia carried out at least 35 air strikes on the Azovstal steelworks where more than a thousand of civilians and troops are hiding. People are getting injured every day.
This is the latest video from the Azov regiment that’s defending the city from Russia. pic.twitter.com/8ZJUEoRlNx— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) April 26, 2022
The infusion solutions are almost over. Now washed sheets are the material for wound dressing. The wounds begin to rot… Only a humanitarian corridor guaranteed by a third country can save these people,” the doctor at Azovsteel posted.
— Iryna Matviyishyn (@IMatviyishyn) April 26, 2022
Ukrainian soldier at AzovStal. Azov medics said they have no more materials left to cure the wounded. Russia continues to bomb AzovStal. Soldiers are starving. No more time left. They did everything they could for their country. If they surrender Russia will kill them. pic.twitter.com/MFocMO9R7q
— Nika Melkozerova (@NikaMelkozerova) April 26, 2022
After two months of fighting ?? says they "took Marupol". With amendment: "except Azovstal". But the point is that Azovstal is 1/5 of Mariupol. Or 22 Vaticans or 3 Central Parks in NY. Took the city, really? The country of fakes. ?? defenders have proved they’re made of steel.
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) April 26, 2022
Kyiv:
You don't kill your brother.
You don't rape your sister.
You don't destroy your friend's country.
That's why today we dismantled this monument once created as a sign of friendship between Ukraine and Russia.#FreeUkraine #WeAreAllUkrainians #StandWithUkraine #StopTheWar pic.twitter.com/HQI0W9XNS8— Klitschko (@Klitschko) April 26, 2022
The head fell off the Russian guy in the statue while they were dismantling it.
Luhansk:
In the Luhansk region, russians kidnap Ukrainian children and force their mothers to spy on the Ukrainian servicemen under threat of killing kids, the head of Luhansk regional administration wrote. I am speechless #ArmUkraineNow
— Olena Halushka (@OlenaHalushka) April 26, 2022
Melitopol:
Irina Scherbak, head of the education dept of now occupied Melitopol city council, was missing for more than a month after being kidnapped by russian military. She refused to sign papers about changing school program from Ukrainian to Russian one. pic.twitter.com/mz6vpA7n12
— Andrei Kurkov (@AKurkov) April 26, 2022
Anywhere/everywhere the Russians have occupied in Ukraine:
There are at least 400 confirmed cases of rape by the Russian military of Ukrainian children and adults, said Ombudswoman Liudmyla Denisova.
On Friday on Twitter Spaces I will be discussing sexual violence as one of Russian war crimes with ?? human rights defenders. Details soon— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) April 26, 2022
Which is why this is good news:
Remember that enemy scumbag whose wife told him to rape Ukrainian women? Well, he was just captured by our forces near Izyum, and hopefully he will be charged with war crimes. https://t.co/nwVOsZOTgI
— Euromaidan PR (@EuromaidanPR) April 25, 2022
I expect the Ukrainians will ensure that justice will be done.
Germany finally appears to have gotten the stick out! From Politico Europe:
BERLIN — The German government said Tuesday it will deliver anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine after facing strong pressure at home and abroad to abandon its reluctance to supply heavy weapons to Kyiv.
The decision to provide the “Gepard” tanks, which come from German defense industry stocks, was made at a closed-door government meeting on Monday, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told reporters at a Ukraine security conference at a U.S. airbase in Ramstein, Germany. There was no immediate information on how many tanks Germany would deliver.
The announcement marks a notable shift for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who as recently as last week was still ruling out sending German tanks to Ukraine, insisting it would make more sense for Eastern NATO countries to give Kyiv old Soviet-era tanks already familiar to the Ukrainian military. Scholz promised Germany would then send those countries replacement German tanks.
He also cited the risk of nuclear war as a reason for his hesitance to directly ship German tanks into the war zone.
Scholz had come under growing pressure in recent days to change course, both from international allies and from within his governing coalition, which is comprised of his Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). The Greens have been pushing for weeks to deliver heavy weaponry to Ukraine and the FDP also spoke out in favor of sending such weapons at a party convention over the weekend.
Adding further pressure, the main opposition party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is planning to submit a parliamentary motion this week demanding Germany supply Ukraine with tanks. The move could have drawn support from Green and FDP lawmakers and led to a critical defeat for Scholz in parliament, undermining trust in his government.
Moreover, allies like the U.S., France and the Netherlands have already promised heavier weapons to Ukraine, meaning Germany risked becoming increasingly isolated with its resistance.
Speaking in Ramstein, Lambrecht, who is from Scholz’s SPD party, acknowledged, “there has also been criticism of Germany in recent weeks in this context,” but argued that “the numbers” of overall German weapon deliveries to Ukraine, which include anti-tank and anti-air missiles, “speak a different language.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at the same press conference that Western allies “can do more … to help Ukraine defend itself,” lauding Kyiv’s sustained resistance.
The Gepard, a tank with two 35-millimeter anti-air cannons that can be upgraded with “Stinger” anti-aircraft missiles, was phased out from the German army more than 10 years ago. But many of these tanks are still parked at German defense company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, which has signaled interest in refurbishing the vehicles and selling them to Ukraine.
However, one potential problem could be Switzerland, a key supplier of ammunition for the Gepard. The country has banned the export of such ammo to Ukraine, as Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger reported on Tuesday.
More at the link!
Here’s an interesting piece from The Financial Times that drills into Putin’s decision making and his mindset. (emphasis mine)
Vladimir Putin has lost interest in diplomatic efforts to end his war with Ukraine and instead appears set on seizing as much territory as possible, according to three people briefed on conversations with the Russian president.
Putin, who was seriously considering a peace deal with Ukraine after Russia suffered battlefield setbacks last month, has told people involved in trying to end the conflict that he sees no prospects for a settlement.
“Putin sincerely believes in the nonsense he hears on [Russian] television and he wants to win big,” said a person briefed on the talks.
Though Moscow and Kyiv agreed their first draft communique at a meeting in Istanbul in late March, talks stalled after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of committing war crimes against civilians in cities such as Bucha and Mariupol.
Putin said peace efforts were at a “dead end” and was infuriated after Ukraine sank the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, according to two people.
“There was hope for a deal. Putin was going back and forth. He needs to find a way to come out of this a winner,” one of the people said.
After the Moskva sank, “Putin was against signing anything. [ . . . ] after the Moskva he doesn’t look like a winner, because it was humiliating,” the person added.
Ukrainian and western officials had always doubted Putin’s commitment to peace talks, suspecting it was a way of buying time for Moscow’s offensive.
The Russian president appears to hold a distorted view of the war as set out by his generals and depicted on Russian television, the people briefed on conversations with him said.
They added that he insisted, despite all evidence to the contrary, that his forces have not targeted civilians during attacks such as the siege of the Azovstal steelworks, Ukrainian forces’ last holdout in the largely destroyed city of Mariupol.
But Putin told Michel in a call on Friday that the talks had run aground because Ukraine “put up a wall”, and said it “was not the right time” to meet Zelensky, according to a person briefed on that conversation.
Negotiators interpreted that as meaning Moscow believes it can capture more territory, rather than being an indication that the talks need more time to find areas of agreement.
Putin is avoiding the meeting with Zelensky “with all his might”, a person involved in the peace talks said. “He wants everything to be decided before their personal meeting.”
Officials in Kyiv are concerned Putin may go further than Russia’s stated goal of capturing the eastern Donbas border region and instead try to seize the whole of the south-east, cutting Ukraine off from the sea, according to people involved in trying to end the war.
Ukraine is confident it can push Russian troops back further after defeating Putin’s initial plan to rapidly seize the country, but officials are increasingly worried that Moscow could resort to tactical nuclear weapons if it suffers further setbacks, two of the people said.
More at the link!
I want to focus on two different things here. They’re related. The first is that Putin may appear delusional to us, but within the alternative history and mythology that he’s both bought into regarding Russia’s origins, how Ukraine relates to that alternate history and mythology, and that he’s expanded and augmented in his own speeches and essays over the past twenty-years Putin is actually acting rationally. This is what Max Weber referred to as bounded rationality. Specifically, that decisions that seemed irrational to people outside of the context in which the decisions were being made – whether psychologically, in regard to maximizing one’s preferences/utility (economic/econometric rationality), or a combination of the two – they were actually perfectly rational to those inside of the context from which the decisions were being made. To all of us who are not Putin or not Russians who have been marinating in the propaganda that his governments have been pushing out for the past twenty years, some of it built on the garbage history of World War II that the Soviet Union created, what he’s doing seems completely off. It seems irrational, unreasonable, in some cases delusional. But to Putin and his supporters in Russia this is perfectly rational and reasonable.
The second point, which flows from the first, is that the Ukrainians, as well as the US and our NATO and EU partners and non-NATO and non-EU partners that are all supporting Ukraine, have to deal with this reality: that Putin is rational and acting rationally, but only within his own context. And it is this reality that leads to the final paragraph I copied and pasted from the article and that I bolded and italicized:
Ukraine is confident it can push Russian troops back further after defeating Putin’s initial plan to rapidly seize the country, but officials are increasingly worried that Moscow could resort to tactical nuclear weapons if it suffers further setbacks, two of the people said.
This gets to the discussion from last night. It is not that I expect Putin will use low yield nukes to just destroy as much of Ukraine as possible should it finally become clear to him that he’s lost and lost big. It is that given that as an outside analyst of the context that Putin has created for himself and Russia, I have to keep the unthinkable in mind because for Putin it may just be thinkable. And that is aside from the fact that I’m one of the analysts who after spending a lot of the last eight years working on this problem set in one way or another has come to believe that the whole ambiguity in Russian military doctrine about using nukes tactically is a ruse to set the information portions of the theater and freeze our decision making thereby forcing us to limit our options because we think it could quickly escalate to a nuclear exchange.
I’m sure we’ll have more opportunities to discuss this before this is all over. Hopefully it will remain a discussion of what if, not what actually is!
Whomever this Ukrainian Soldier is, he’s a badass!
According to our information, this was a Ukrainian attack against the flanks of a Russian convoy attempting to consolidate the front line.
[Part 2] pic.twitter.com/zx1VvwG7T1— ?? Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 25, 2022
Your semi daily Patron:
And we’ll finish with your semi daily Chef Jose Andres:
Meet some of our amazing @WCKitchen #FoodFighters in Dnipro, Ukraine! This is Anastasia from Moderna restaurant…along with other WCK partners here who are cooking tens of thousands of meals every day! An incredible team feeding the people! #ChefsForUkraine #SlavaUkraini ?? pic.twitter.com/8DtmYyZJsh
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) April 26, 2022
Open thread!
RaflW
I’ve followed Jasmin Mujanović for a number of years. Balkans is his expertise. This brief thread seems not good.
Major Major Major Major
I look forward to your updates every night, thanks. What a mess.
Madeleine
Thanks for your support of Gin & Tonic.
G & T: I appreciate your comments and have been very unhappy that you’ve felt hesitant lately. I hope the best for your family.
And thanks, Adam, for these nightly posts. I don’t sleep until I’ve read them.
Jerzy Russian
Speaking of the Pauls, is the father or the son the bigger asshole?
Kent
@Jerzy Russian: Son BY FAR.
Ishiyama
@RaflW: Putin is putting all his chips in. Doubling down on his losing strategy.
Adam L Silverman
Can we make s’mores?
Carlo Graziani
Thanks, Adam. Total agreement on the in-context “rationality” that it is necessary to attribute to Putin’s motivations. And the unthinkable aspect scares the living shit out of me too. I just like to think about the guard rails.
Adam L Silverman
Part of why I’ve been saying this is already a world war. But while I think we should be concerned in what’s happening in Transnistria, the reality at this point is that Putin can make mischief there, but he really doesn’t have the capability left to actually open another entire front in Moldova. And given where Moldova is, I don’t see Romania of Poland or Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania not deciding they need to be proactive in providing assistance.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: You’re welcome.
Adam L Silverman
@Madeleine: And then you don’t sleep because you’ve read them!
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: Yes.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: Too true, Adam, too true!
guachi
Arabic translation of the instructions running along the top of the view screen:
Wait for permission to launch
Authorize the launch
Launch
Missile not available
There are other instructions but that’s repeated for the launch sequence
Source of translation: Me, because translating Arabic is the job I’ll be retiring from in 4 months and 4 days.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Jerzy Russian:
Yes.
Omnes Omnibus
Germany struck a deal with Poland today that will allow them to join the oil and gas sanctions against Russia. That deal might also be a factor in their willingness to supply weapons to Ukraine as well.
Kelly
@Adam L Silverman:
RaflW
I suppose with the Russian-aligned Transnistria region being ‘contested’, the EU application that Moldova submitted this March is more a marker in the sand politically than something that will move forward any time soon?
Anyway, having Russian fighting break out on another flank, and nearby Romania and other EU members (who, like Poland haven’t been all that far from Ukraine, but generally in areas that Russia hasn’t tried ground forces) seems escalatory.
Further overstretching RU forces seems a dumb idea. But ideas we think are dumb may look different to a potentially cornered and losing man.
Captain C
If Putin does something stupid from Transnistria, I wonder if there’s a chance that some totally-not-Romanian little green men with NATO gear will attack those forces from behind. ‘Nope, just some concerned private Moldovan citizens spontaneously demonstrating against occupation. You can get NATO gear at any corner store…”
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: You’re welcome!
Adam L Silverman
@guachi: Yep, these were intended for export to the Middle East, but got redirected.
Congratulations on the retirement!
columbusqueen
@Adam L Silverman: I’ll bring the chocolate if you bring the marshmallows.
And thanks for all your hard work, as ever. You’re a mensch.
Adam L Silverman
@Kelly: You don’t see that every day!
Adam L Silverman
@guachi: Are you planning to join Ukraine’s new Arabic cryptolinguist corps?
Adam L Silverman
@RaflW: It’s not an issue for joining the EU. It’s an issue for NATO membership.
Adam L Silverman
@columbusqueen: You’re quite welcome.
Carlo Graziani
It is interesting how much less concerned with Russian sensitivity US policy has become since the outset of the war. Assuming that the US still has a deep intelligence read into the Russian government, a progression from the initial caution to this sort of assertiveness—Austin explicitly calling for Russia’s weakening is a throwback to Zbigniew Brzezinski pointing a rifle down the Khyber pass—suggests that the US sees weakness, and an advantage to be had by pushing hard. I wonder what they are seeing.
RaflW
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, oops. Thanks for all the work, and for staying around in the comments afterwards many nights.
TheMightyTrowel
For something a bit lighter: the Russian military film Putin doesn’t want you to see…
Thanks Adam, as always
sanjeevs
@Carlo Graziani: It’s almost a mirror image of Russian tactics – salami slicing, creating confusion (the Polish MiGs), working via proxies
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for all these posts, Adam. They’re so informative and helpful, as difficult as they are to read. Sometimes I only skim the tweets and speeches if it’s not a day I can deal with the awfulness. I read what you write because your take on things helps me understand what’s going on. Thank you for continuing to do these.
Alison Rose ???
@Kelly: Every day, I am more proud that a small portion of my DNA comes from that country.
Thank you as always, Adam. Especially for the G&T support.
Jay
Adam L Silverman
@TheMightyTrowel: I’m planning on working the antiquities stuff you sent across into tomorrow night’s post.
And you’re most welcome.
Adam L Silverman
@RaflW: Easy mistake to make. And you’re quite welcome.
Jay
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: You’re quite welcome. And I understand completely. A lot of this material is hard going.
Adam L Silverman
@Alison Rose ???: You are also most welcome.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I am not really sure how you can do it every day. I know you’re trained and all but it’s just awful to look at and read. I’m impressed with your ability to keep doing it day after day.
Kent
No “green men” just all their stuff mysterious goes up in a cloud of smoke in the middle of the night. Russia is prone to mysterious fires. A couple of stealth bombers with precision guided munitions would put an end to any military presence there. Or maybe some UN ‘black helicopters.’
Jager
Thanks, Adam. I read your posts around 10 Pacific time, some nights I sleep well, others not so much.
On a lighter note: The lady down the street has a Jack Russell female named Nikki. Nikki is madly in love with Patron, so much so that she wants to have his pups.
Kent
West Germany, South Korea, and South Vietnam all had disputed territories and that didn’t stop the US from entering into military alliances with all three of those countries.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: NATO has a rule that candidates for membership can not have an active territorial dispute and/or troops of the state they’re in dispute with on their territory for a decade to qualify for NATO membership and be admitted. It’s why Putin occupied parts of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. And it’s why he’s threatened Sweden and Finland should they actually apply for membership. Specifically that this will precipitate a conflict before they are actually admitted, which by NATO’s own rules, would then halt the process to admit them for at least a decade.
South Korea is not and South Vietnam was not ever a possible candidate for NATO membership. West Germany was a special case and I’d have to double check, but I think they finessed it by technically accepting that East Germany wasn’t occupied it was a separate sovereign state.
Jay
@Kent:
US alliances ( Treaties) were/are different than NATO membership and were confirmed by the House and Senate by majority votes.
What are the odds that Biden could get a mutual defence treaty through the House and Senate given how many Russians sit there in office?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@guachi: Thanks for the translation, but I was a bit bemused to see Arabic labels alternating with English. Is this perhaps an artifact of the fact we sell lots of arms to Saudi Arabia?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the explanation!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Yarrow: Ditto. Many thanks to Adam for all his work, and especially for the insights he provides.
VeniceRiley
Thank you Adam. Are the #FSBLetters legit? There is a new one translated today
https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1519061793716408320?s=21&t=jiU48-Xh0C64K4u58zK2lA
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: What do you think the Ukrainian Army is doing w/ the JFO? Defend in place & attrit the Russian offensive until it peters out then attack the bases of the Russian thrusts (miniature Battle of Kursk)? I am surprised that the Ukrainian Army has not yet counter attached out of Kharkiv to threaten the logistics tail of the Izium thrust, concerned about longer range fire based on Russia? Why would the Ukrainian Army not consider pulling back the JFO to less precarious position? Is it because the JFO forces are tied down in the fortifications & thus not very mobile? The road & rail network in Eastern Ukraine does not appear to be that dense or well developed. If the Russian Army manages to make Dnipro a contested area, I would think supplying the JFO will become very difficult, as will any retreat (will likely lose almost all of the heavy equipment, w/o access to well paved roads).
The above presumes the Russian Army can actually capture Kramatorsk & threaten Dnipro, or doing so w/o shattering its remaining combat power, which not something I would bet on given recent performance.
Adam L Silverman
@VeniceRiley: I think the initial one or two verified by the Bellingcat folks are as I trust their ability to validate them. I have a lot of trouble with the idea that a fluent bilingual English/Russian race care driver that no one had ever heard of a month ago is suddenly, because he did a translation of the first letter on his Twitter feed, the recipient of accurate leaked information and documents from a confirmed FSB insider just trying to get the word out.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: I don’t know. Honestly, other than “the Ukrainians have done a good job in planning and then executing on those plans, so I’m sure they’ve got something worked out that would be effective”, I’m just as curious as to what is actually going on with the JFO as you are.
ColoradoGuy
I’m struck by the sheer nihilism of the Russian’s approach to nuclear plants … they just don’t give a shit, and prove it by exposing their own troops to massive radiation, as well as direct military assaults on operating nuclear plants.
This strangely echoes the nihilism of the current crop of GOP’ers, going back as far as Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist. They don’t care what they destroy, and had no compunctions at all about being pro-coronavirus and killing their own supporters. TFG’s little gesture of contemptuously throwing away his mask on the White House balcony probably resulted in the agonizing deaths of tens of thousands of his own supporters. Did he care? Of course not. It felt good at the time, that’s all that mattered.
This mirrors the nihilism and contempt we see in the RU troops. The people of Ukraine are just objects to them, to be thrown away at will. It’s not just Putin any more; the whole nation of Russia has succumbed to a dark nihilism, passively sucking up their own version of Fox News.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
Something has been bugging me about the nuclear discussion. A commenter said to Adam a couple of days ago that they didn’t think the Russians would force their cannon fodder through nuclear fallout. I think that the way the Russians behaved at Chernobyl answers that question. I think Russian commanders and Putin have zero qualms about exposing his troops to nuclear fallout and that consideration will have no effect on his decision to use or not use tactical nuclear bombs. And it’s not just the leaders who are willing to expose the soldiers, but the soldiers themselves. The individual soldiers surely knew they were in Chernobyl and knew what they were risking and still they did what they were told. Can’t imagine that concern for his troops or the troops having any self regard for their safety would stop Putin at this point. And it would be dangerous for us to expect that kind of morality from Putin. Clearly he doesn’t care how much it costs in lives whether they are Russian or not. So the fallout, poisoning of civilians, potential fallout moving across national boundaries etc simply are not part of his calculation. That alone is very, very scary and should give any rational person pause.
Jay
@Ms. Deranged in AZ:
a bunch of pundits, analysts etc have pointed out that most of the RU troops in Chernobyl and who fired on Ukrainian Nuclear facilities, had no clue, as Chernobyl isn’t taught in Russian history and the documentaries are banned.
Yutsano
Okay so…is it Chernobyl or Chornobyl? I don’t want to adopt Russian vowels for Ukrainian names anymore. Why transliteration be hard?
Ruckus ??
Adam, Thank you for the updates and I’m so very sorry that there is a reason for you to keep doing them.
And thank you for the remarks about G&T. I hope you don’t have to do that again.
Ruckus ??
@Ms. Deranged in AZ:
I believe that vova and his buddies have around zero concern for the actual well being of most of the Russian population, including the armed forces. If he had concern he would have reasonably prepared them to go into Ukraine to begin with. You know food, fuel, etc. I’ve said this before but I think it’s worth repeating, I believe that vova and his buddies like money far more than anything else. They are in this for themselves and only themselves. vova thinks he will be a bigger man by what he’s doing, more respected, more everything that floats his boat, have more power in the world. I’m not sure he realizes that he’s stepped upon himself by what he’s done and I think thats because it seems his ego is bigger than all outdoors, as often happens to people who run countries like he does. (And sometimes it even happens to people who think they should run a country. Like some right here at home, like the last guy, what’s his name, isn’t it SFB?)
Jay
@Yutsano:
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: That’s where I am at, too.
However, throwing the Russian Army back to pre-war line of control would require maneuver warfare at the operational level w/ large groups of formations (as opposed to the smaller unit tactical proficiency demonstrated to date). I am not sure how well trained the Ukrainian Army is in maneuver warfare. Most of the prior experience in Eastern Ukraine is w/ low intensity positional skirmishes.
Allowing the Russian Army (& DNR/LNR/Chechen forces) to dig in, after making sufficient gains to allow Putin to declare victory, will make evicting them very much difficult & costly. Not to mention the longer time for the occupation forces to brutalize the civilian population in the occupied territories.
W/ the urgent requests for artillery, armored vehicles, combat aircraft & area AD, it does appear the Ukrainian Army wants to be better equipped for the possible next stage of warfare. Javelins, NLAWs & Stingers will be less impactful in this type of combat. For that to happen, the Ukrainian Army cannot allow the bulk of the JFO to be surrounded & reduced, or lose most of its heavy equipment in the breakout.
Of course, The Russian Army could simply collapse & melt away, &/or the Putin regime could collapse, but I don’t think Ukraine can count on that as Plan A.
Chetan Murthy
@Ms. Deranged in AZ: Your comment reminded me of this Kamil Galeev thread: https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1503768312236421120
In it, he describes the many ways in which the Russian elite treated their serfs as slaves and disposable. And how those serfs who were conscripted, were treated as even-more-disposable: effectively, their families treated them as dead already, b/c they would be soon enough. All that fits with your observations, that as a culture, the Russian elite simple don’t have an idea of “duty of care” for the people they command/rule.
Sloane Ranger
In regard to a potential Russian incursion into either Finland or Sweden, or both, I don’t think Russia has the troops or material to do this in any kind if numbers without taking them from somewhere else. I think that the Fins and Swedes would be able to to send them back across the borders quite easily. If, on the other hand, Russia commits sufficient troops and armaments for a serious attempt to take and hold territory, they will have to weaken their forces elsewhere running the risk of losing control of those areas. This is plate spinning territory.
Betsy
@ColoradoGuy: You are so right. We should call out GOP nihilism constantly, as it is in fact their primary philosophy. Post-truth, post-humaneness, nothing matters.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: Moldovans are mostly Romanian speakers and Romania is fully ready to come to the aid of their brothers and sisters. My so is Romanian and there’s no love lost for Russia
Ksmiami
@YY_Sima Qian: Fuck it. I want the US to blast the Russians from the sky. It’s now or later as Putin already thinks he’s in a war w NATO
Geminid
@Ksmiami: It seems like occupied Transnestrian Moldova will be used as a base from which to attack Ukraine from the west. Some CBS reporter said that Wagner Group fighters are staging in Transnestria to augment Russian Army troops already there. Ukrainians are well aware and are prepared to resist an attack towards Odesa from the west.
Moldova may try to retake it’s occupied territory if the opportunity arises. They might have help from Romania and others if they do. I haven’t seen much about Belarus but I wonder if Russia can keep that as a client state if they fail badly in Ukraine. Putin is risking a lot now.
wetzel
Hi Adam. Thank you for the guidance. I appreciate you and this community very much. I am a guest in your house. I apologize.
Reading the Financial Times article, I am struck by how the journalists cast this Putin character into a literary form where they, the journalists, understand his intentions and decision making. He is just a projection.
Because there are three people (look at that sourcing) briefed on conversations (none of them talked to Putin), the Financial Times feels now it can present what is really just an ersatz pseudo fact, as if it were now the historical truth:
Vladimir Putin has lost interest in diplomatic efforts to end his war with Ukraine and instead appears set on seizing as much territory as possible
There are two claims.
The first claim is that Vladimir Putin has lost interest in diplomatic efforts to end this war. This is actually an enthymeme, a claim with a hidden premise, which is this:
Before recent events, Vladimir Putin was definitely interested in diplomatic efforts to end this war.
That’s not true!!! It has the effect of lying, though. The Financial Times is channeling Putin’s propaganda unreflectively.
The second claims is:
instead he appears set on seizing as much territory as possible.
I am convinced it is a major aspect of FSB propaganda to prime Western audiences to interpret Kremlin war aims on the traditional plane of territorial losses or gains like the game of Risk.
Everyone sees the fact set differently. I do not think most people have a dark enough view of how the FSB analytical tradition (which you can only glance) views atrocities in revolution, war, and catastrophic violence as spectacular instruments. This war is creating a new social reality in Russia and the United States. I know it is difficult to encompass or picture the inhumanity, Financial times journalists are honestly not oriented to Putin’s sense of psychology, historical consciousness, or his self-conception or divine mission to purify Russia.
This weak Anglo-American way of complacently assuming our norms, scripts, roles and schemas encompass everything is exactly what they mean in FSB by bourgeoisie. We project everyone else’s consciousness and intentionality as just some version of our own. We would never go to war with the main goal of transforming our own society into a terror state, so this goal is incomprehensible. My belief is that the primary war aims for the Kremlin are #1 reconstituting Russian state totalitarianism and #2 starting a fake war with the United States. I don’t have any privileged evidence or ethos to make the claims. I cannot appeal to common sense.
Stalin began a similar program in Ukraine in the 1930’s with a different genocidal method but similar goals. Putin’s genocide in Ukraine was not eliminationist but to quickly instill public order (such as the original revolutionary violence) and to make docile bodies across Russia. Russians now see themselves and their families in the abattoir under the power of wild Russians from places they’ve only heard about. If Ukrainians actually are Russians this is especially true. Look what can happen to your family. There is no limit to the horror. Every Russian is feeling this.
Now that Russia itself is being attacked in some combination of false flag and Ukrainian operations, mass mobilization will occur. Of course Financial Times will say Putin was forced to this point by battlefield reverses, when mass mobilization is a key step in Putin’s playbook. In Putin’s weird philosophy, see Ivan Ilyin’s White Russian fascist phenomenologies, mobilization for war will reveal the the disloyal in sharp relief for the purge coming.
Sometimes I feel like the only person who gives a care in the world that Putin appears to be getting ready for a purge in Russia, such as has not been seen since the time of Stalin. If you listen you can hear the trains in the distance. That’s all you will hear because the purge will not be spectacular. Death will follow disappearance and that will be followed by silence.
wetzel
How I am keeping my sanity is my dogs and I are inventing Dog Football.
Blue is Georgia and Molly is Alabama. If an Alabama fan will teach a wide-receiver and linebacker up, we will play you Georgia vs. Alabama and raise money for the humane society.
Blue is a lab-border collie mix. There are a million of these at the pound. They are a pain in the ass. Blue is a full out dog genius.
Molly is a lab-pit mix. There are even more of these than the Borradors. Molly is very smart about her zone defense.
Dog football is safer than human football, though Molly tore Blue’s ear accidentally going for a Hail Mary pass. It was an accident! Anyway, if it happens again we can make the cone standard equipment for the wide receiver dog. The cone might need to be standard Dog Football equipment for the wide receiver if someone trains a linebacker who plays rougher than Molly!
Anyway, Dog Football is tough for all three players. It’s hard to get a first down!
Geminid
@wetzel: Stalin’s bloody purges of 1937-38 resulted in the executions of the dynamic Marshall Tukashevsky and much of the Russian Army’s senior leadership first, and then the trials of Communist Party leaders who had been Stain’s peers and rivals in the 1920’s. The leading rival to Stalin, the Mayor of Leningrad, was assasinated beforehand. I wonder who Putin has left to purge. His opposition is sullen and dispersed. I guess there are people at risk if Putin lashes out at domestic opponents, but he really doesn’t have as many potential opponents to kill as did Stalin.
Stalin’s purge of Marsbal Tukashevsky had far reaching effects. Besides the loss of competent army commanders, Tukashevsky’s efforts to modernize the Soviet Army in organization and fighting doctrine were reversed. This contributed to the Soviet Union’s appalling losses to Hitler’s invaders at the beginning and throughout the war with Germany.
I wonder if the current deficiencies in Russian Army leadership can be traced back to Stalin’s military purges of 1937. That seems like a long time ago, but institutions like the Russian officer corps can have long memories.
Not all of the officers purged by Stalin were executed. Have you read The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the German-Soviet Pact (1989)? It’s a well researched and fascinating history of the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact signed in late August 1939, just a few days before Hitler’s attack on Poland. It covers the period between the Munich agreement in 1938 through the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941.
The two British authors’ names escape me right now. They tell the story of one purged army officer. One day in early fall of 1941 the man was a prisoner working at a gulag in Siberia. Two days later he was in a general’s uniform and heading to the front.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, but it’s world war stupid.
Putin ignoring Ukraine War because he can’t win, starting another war in Transnistria to hide it sure fits the pattern with Chechnya, Georgia and Syria. The guy wants easy wins and hates hard work.
I mean consider – Russia’s problem is Russia never recovered from the Great Recession because of an imbalanced economy and out of control corruption. So, Putin’s solution is go LARP as an old school American party boss in the 2016 election.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And I am going to predict when the Transnistria War becomes a debacle Putin will just start something in Lithuania from Kaliningrad to distract from his Transnistria debacle, which distracts from his Ukraine debacle, which distracts from his Syria debacle, which distracts from his Georgia debacle, which distracts from his Chechnya debacle.
L85NJGT
A couple of weak BTGs stiffened with a few nazis in Transnistria isn’t going to last very long. The local proxy in-charge is already making bleating noises. The Trannistrian Army, such that it is, is more of a May 9 cosplay organization, outfitted with the finest mid-twentieth century Soviet kit. They actually do up custom truck bodies to make them look period accurate.
This and the Belorussian air exercise are trying to fix Ukrainian forces in place outside the areas of concentration.
wetzel
@Geminid: he really doesn’t have as many potential opponents to kill as did Stalin
You think those were opponents of Stalin?
Those were sacrifices of Stalin.
They are like the oligarchs being purged now along with with their wives and children.
Renee Girard’s Violence and the Sacred is helpful. Anthropologically, those murders you described, and the murders Putin appears to be carrying out across the oligarchy, are more to establish a totem through sacrificial ritual.
Which lieutenant to purge was always arbitrary so they all feel it. Panoptic fear and doubt underlying their own self-consciousness. Who will be the surrogate victim for everyone? Terror doesn’t begin or end at a particular social strata in scientific totalitarianism. Putin is drawing all of Russia into the terror state, which is a form of government where all power is in the fasces held by one, the source of all legitimate power and the state’s monopoly on violence. Terroristic violence constitutes the government. It’s how totalitarianism formed in Russia in the past, so Putin is following Stalin’s playbook. I believe this playbook is bureaucratized within the institutional memory of FSB.
Geminid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t think the idea is to start a new war so much as to prosecute the current war with an attack on southwestern Ukraine accross the occupied Moldovan border. This would threaten Odesa from a new direction.
I don’t think Russia’s prospects are good there, but Putin still hopes to seize Ukraine’s Baltic seacoast and will push harder before he accepts failure. This could result in favorable conditions for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, provided they can hold on long enough to receive the heavier weapons western countries are shipping.
debbie
Well, now I’m more worried about Patron. I didn’t realize he was digging around in the dirt like that. Can JRTs really be trained to maintain a light touch?
Thanks again, Adam, for the information you provide every night about this staggering tragedy. I don’t understand much of the military maneuvering (to me, that damn map’s looked the same for weeks and weeks), but the human face you put on this war focuses on what really matters. People. Period.
And a special thanks for your opening paragraph. I see this same kind of growing thoughtlessness going on at my work. It never occurs to most people (younger, mostly) to put themselves in others’ situations before framing their responses to distressed customers. Sometime their callousness brings me to tears. The world won’t get any better until people learn to prioritize and genuinely care about everyone, not just their own small club.
wetzel
@debbie: That’s it, Debbie. It’s like we’re on the road between the Church of Flagellation and the Holy Sepulchre. We are the sides of the street, the Via Dolorosa, along the route in Jerusalem. What is this weird parade going by? I’ll bet we’ll find out on Twitter later. There will be masterful strategic communications about it. Happy Easter!
RaflW
@Adam L Silverman: I know this has been discussed before, but one would hope that NATO members would see through the transparent self-dealing that a Russian move against SE or FI would be.
wetzel
I think about Syrian War a lot. I gave a pregnant woman $200 in the Northlake Atlanta Publix parking lot we couldn’t afford two months ago. I passed her number to a church in Clarkston, where a lot of the churches are all about helping refugees. I hope Sara is okay. I remember her very well. She was a Syrian Christian woman, about six months pregnant. No WIC. No papers. Other children in a nearby apartment. It might have all been a story, but I gave her $200 anyway because if I hadn’t I would be sure to go to Hell.
Things are like that sometimes for me, a test, because of this dumb religion I’ve been wrestling with my whole life. I try not to see symbolisms. I try to see things in plain common sense, but I’m always wondering whether this or that Syrian refugee is a member of one of the congregations in Syria started by Jesus’ disciples or those that knew them.
Anyway, I was thinking about this and my last comment, when I saw this story today in the Guardian about a horrible war crime in Syria. There is no military purpose to the massacre detailed in the story, which is extremely graphic and disturbing.
In the massacre, which happened in 2013. The people aren’t being killed for any military purpose. They aren’t being killed for any particular crimes. They were selected randomly at checkpoints and murdered at an execution pit. The nature of the massacre is sacrificial. It is a program carried out by Assad’s uniformed intelligence service designed to bring that community back under the state of terror which had previously prevailed. This is how terror constitutes itself as a form of government.
Massacre in Tadamon: how two academics hunted down a Syrian war criminal
UncleEbeneezer
I can’t believe people are being assholes to G&T.
Just a friendly reminder of Elon’s Law*: You could just say nothing!
*Coined by former-BJ-frontpager Elon James White who was chased away from BJ by insensitive and casually racist commenters.
Nutmeg again
Thanks for all this! I’m especially glad for the transcript of Secretary Austin’ remarks. He is a very impressive guy–not only in size (seeing him tower over Pres. Zelenskiy). He just gives off vibes of strength, intelligence, and major bad-assery.
Carlo Graziani
@Geminid: I’m very late to this, but whatevs. It doesn’t look like a very likely threat. The Russians can’t really support much of a thrust into Ukraine from Moldova, especially given their current depleted state and knotted logistics. Odesa is not an open city that they could surprise at this point. If they tried it, it could very well turn into a repeat of their day 2 debacle in Kyiv. Much as I’d like to see that, I doubt that even the Russian general staff is quite that stupid.
VOR
@Sloane Ranger: Sweden doesn’t have a land border with Russia, unlike both Finland and Norway.
Tarragon
@Adam L Silverman: You have clearly discovered the cause of my strategy for reading these the next day
I echo all the thanks above. We are all so much better informed thanks to you.
Kent
But Sweden has a LOT of maritime territory including hundreds of islands that the Russians like to infringe on with submarines and naval ships. It would be trivial for a Russian sub to land some special forces troops on an uninhabited Swedish island, especially one that has some sort of military radar installation and generate a border or territorial dispute that way.
Ishiyama
Question: Who is this guy Bryan Frydenborg? And does he have any credibility?
https://realcontextnews.com/how-ukraine-can-take-back-crimea-from-putins-reeling-russian-military/
terry chay
If Russia thought they had the capability to stymie Finland or Sweden’s entrance into NATO through creating a territorial dispute, they would just do it instead of announcing or threatening shit. They didn’t need to announce or threaten when they took a piece of Moldova in the 90’s, when they invaded Georgia in 2008, nor when they invaded Ukraine in 2014.
The fact that they’re saying shit is a sure sign that they can’t do anything about it.
That’s why the U.S. keeps escalating arms shipments. Russia says a lot but does nothing. When they do nothing, more allies feel empowered to deliver stuff. Three months ago, we were trying to figure out how to disable our radar from reaching into Russia and keeping stuff from targeting across that border. Now we’re giving them MiG parts, helicopters, and artillery networked with counterbattery radar as well as intelligence sharing stuff that we never shared outside the 5 Eyes countries.
In soccer, I was taught to look at their hips, not their feet. When you do the same with Russia, you see a country that has lost the war and the next one for a generation and whining about it because its all they have left.
Geminid
@Carlo Graziani: Well, in my comment I discounted Russian prospects for offensive out of Transnistria towards Odesa. Russia seems up to something though, if the report of Wagner Group reinforcements are accurate. My point to the other commenter was that if they are up to anything it probably isn’t starting a new war against Moldova but instead prosecuting their current one.
Carlo Graziani
@Geminid: It does make you wonder about the degree of control exercised by the regular military over the Wagner group. As a military op this one makes no sense. It has the feel of a bright idea by an eager-but-not-terribly-bright pupil trying to impress the teacher.
If independent operators are really getting to call their own plays, that would also suggest a certain loss of control at the top. I doubt that the regular military is happy about the resource diversion that this represents.