Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

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On a more heartwarming note:  

Meet Rambo: The stray puppy protecting Ukrainian soldiers


(Image credit: FNTV/YouTube)

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It doesn't mean, though, that Ukrainians on the Black Sea coast should relax their guard:

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1500597144360734728

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https://twitter.com/boccaSanta/status/1500947989870882818

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As much as Russians are suffering from the effects of sanctions, they can still take solace in McDonalds (for now):

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1500954446066593794

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With Russia so weakened by its invasion of Ukraine and the crippling sanctions imposed on it, Xi Jinping would be in a prime position to drive a hard bargain with Vladimir Putin.  That in exchange for their 'limitless support' keeping the Russian Federation from collapsing into chaos and turning into a failed state, Putin would relinquish his nuclear arsenal, his space program, and all the scientific and engineering know-how accumulated over decades to China, as well as ceding Central Asia to the Chinese sphere of influence.  China would then offer an additional benefit by bringing Russia under its nuclear umbrella.

When all is said and done, I don't think Putin will be in a position to refuse.  

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First Germany rearming, now Japan is setting the political foundation for recovering the Kuril Islands. Let's gooo!

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1500891170964217862?s=20&t=JfyXOI...
There will certainly be no better time to retake (either through a bilateral agreement or military action) the Kurils than now.

I didn't see this one coming. Wow.
I would guess PM Kishida looked at Japanese public opinion in regards to the Ukraine crisis and decided this was a good move on that basis.

This was an unnecessary distraction.  He would have been better off keeping his head down and not making any territorial claims.  

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Some Russian officials think invading Ukraine was 'a mistake' and are 'discouraged, frightened,' and 'making apocalyptic forecasts,' report says

Farida Rustamova is an independent Russian journalist who once worked for the BBC Russian Service as well as Meduza and RBC TV (a 24-hour business news channel in Russia) who has since fled the country, though before she did so she had access to the powerbrokers in Moscow including government officials and members of the Duma:

And here is the English translation of her article posted to a blog:

What Russian Officials Think of the Invasion of Ukraine
A senior banker is "in mourning." Some members of parliament are thinking of giving up their seats. A translation of Farida Rustamova's insider report.

By the outbreak of the war, the Russian political space had been wiped clean to the extent that is possible. In the depths of their souls, officials and legislators may disagree with the decisions of their leaders — but only in the depths of their souls. There are very few left who can contradict him out loud, directly to his face.

The official comments high-ranking officials are making during the war are uniform and echo what President Putin said when the war was declared: "Russia was left with no other choice," "our army is liberating the Ukrainian people from the oppression of nationalists," and so on.

In reality, the attitude toward the war within the corridors of power is ambiguous. I came to this conclusion after speaking with several members of parliament and officials at various levels. Many of them are discouraged, frightened, and are making apocalyptic forecasts. Andrei Kostin [head of the largely state-owned VTB Bank] is "in mourning." Some Duma members are thinking of giving up their seats. Two days before Putin announced the start of the "special operation," one of my most ‘in-the-know’ friends thought that it wouldn’t come to war, because war wouldn't benefit anybody. I see that officials, deputies, and even journalists at government outlets who have left their posts are relieved that they no longer have anything to do with this, and are speaking out against the war.

Without any moral judgment of what my interlocutors are saying, I’ve decided to share what I’ve observed as an impartial journalist.

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I genuinely don't know if Ukraine will even exist in a month. The Russians will not accept anything less than their current demands.
 

I am not sure Russia has the manpower to roll over the entire country and deal with the inevitable insurgency. I think their best case scenario at this point is to set up an "East Ukraine" with a puppet leader and commit enough forces to deal with the insurgency there than attempt to take the west. To be honest, I am not even sure that Russia *could* take Western Ukraine at all at this point.

I suspect when people think of the Russian military, some are still envisioning the Red Army that prevented the Wehrmacht from capturing Moscow, destroyed von Paulus' 6th and 4th Panzer armies at Stalingrad, lifted the siege of Leningrad, destroyed the German ability to conduct massive blitzkrieg campaigns upon the conclusion of the battle of Kursk, steadily forced the Wehrmacht to relinquish all the territory it gained from Operation Barbarossa and Fall Blau (and more), and eventually destroyed Hitler's Nazi regime at Berlin.  

It should be clear by now that the Russian army today is the (unworthy) successor to its heroic forebearers from the Great Patriotic War.    

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This could be huge:

https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1501233069885632515

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If you are curious on how the Russians made large advances on the first days of the war in the Southern Front then this article partly explains it. There's no denying Zelensky's heroism but Ukraine could have prepared for it better.

Proud Band of Ukrainian Troops Holds Russian Assault at Bay — for Now

In a way, Putin was in a race against time.  Had he waited any longer before invading Ukraine, it would have been even harder for the Russian military considering all the training and equipment the Ukrainian army received from the United States and NATO in the years since 2014.  Another couple of years, and Ukraine would be (militarily, at least) a peer of any NATO member.

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Upwards of 4,000 Russian soldiers are estimated to have been killed so far:

U.S. Military Intelligence Estimates Russian Troop Deaths Reach 4,000

And that's after only about a couple of weeks since the invasion began.  Those were our totals after nearly a decade in Iraq...  

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If I were Putin, I'd concentrate on keeping the North Crimea Canal in Russian hands, and give up everything else (except, of course, Crimea), so long as Ukraine gives up NATO membership aspirations although it can pursue talks on joining the European Union, and remain a neutral state like Austria and Switzerland.  

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So while the cyberworld has been waging war against Putin's Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, Wikileaks has been AWOL.  

How curious... 

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How many more troops can Putin put into Ukraine without endangering the security of Russia's borders?  They still need to be guarded and protected after all, while this is going on...

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No word yet on whether Russia is going to be expelled altogether from the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, though:

Biden moves to reimpose Cold War trade restraints on Russia
The president announced Friday he is working with Congress to revoke favorable U.S. trade treatment for Russia, among other measures.

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Putin is screwed no matter what happens, and it seems his alliance with China is not going to pay the dividends he thought it would:

China Has Tools to Help Russia’s Economy. None Are Big Enough to Save It.
Any financial lifeline that Beijing can offer Moscow involves taking on risk and won’t have the power to reverse the damage of sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies.

To help Russia evade sanctions, China would have to offer a viable substitute to the American dollar. But Chinese money — the renminbi — is barely used outside of China. Only 3 percent of the world’s business is done using the redback. Even Russia and China conduct their trade mostly in U.S. dollars and euros.

What’s more, the risks of helping Russia avoid economic ruin may be greater for China than any possible reward. Much of China’s own economy depends on the U.S. dollar and the financial edifice that underpins it. Chinese companies are active around the globe, using the American financial system to pay employees, buy materials and make investments. China is the world’s largest exporter, and is paid for its goods mainly in dollars.

Should Beijing run afoul of the sanctions against Russia, China’s own financial stability would be put at risk at a time when its leaders have emphasized caution. And besides, the few lifelines that Chinese leaders could feasibly offer Russia would not be strong enough to help the country survive a financial blackout from the United States and its allies.

(...) criticizing sanctions is one thing. Choosing to go against the global financial order and risk inviting sanctions at home is another. Beijing has already given some indication that it isn’t willing to do the latter. The Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank — an investment bank that Washington sees as a World Bank rival — last week said it would put its lending to Russia and Belarus on hold over the war in Ukraine. Some Chinese banks have cut back on the financing of Russian commodities.

“Chinese banks are trying to cut their exposure to Russia,” said Raymond Yeung of ANZ Bank. “You can tell that the theory of China offering a financial alternative to Russia remains questionable.”

I know Putin made clear that he wanted to conquer all of Ukraine, and install a puppet in Kiev, but China may well force him to accept an East/West division of Ukraine (and Kiev) along the Dneiper.  And that, from the Russian perspective, is being optimistic, assuming they can even control eastern Ukraine. The Chinese are getting more and more discomfited the longer this war goes on.

And we (NATO and the United States) on our part can make the legitimate Ukrainian government accept this division despite their insistence they want their whole country back including Crimea.   

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It’s amusing that all of these puppet states call themselves “people’s republics”, something Russia itself no longer does. What a throwback.

Strictly speaking, under the Soviet Union, Russia was called a 'Soviet Federative Socialist Republic', not a 'People's Republic'.  Not that I see much of a difference...  

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Putin is screwed no matter what happens, and it seems his alliance with China is not going to pay the dividends he thought it would:

I know Putin made clear that he wanted to conquer all of Ukraine, and install a puppet in Kiev, but China may well force him to accept an East/West division of Ukraine (and Kiev) along the Dneiper.  And that, from the Russian perspective, is being optimistic, assuming they can even control eastern Ukraine. The Chinese are getting more and more discomfited the longer this war goes on.

And we (NATO and the United States) on our part can make the legitimate Ukrainian government accept this division despite their insistence they want their whole country back including Crimea.  

The longer this war drags on, the more that Putin just becomes a dead weight for Beijing. The best outcome for Beijing now is for Russia to just end the war and retreat to pre-February 24 boundaries. Russia will be still strong enough to menace the west, but too weak to wage any more wars. But, the problem is this war is now existential for Putin - if he doesn't win this war, he will at best become like Saddam post-1991, and at worst fall out of a window.

It will also be impossible to pressure the Ukrainian government - which ultimately answers to Ukrainian citizens - to give up half of the country to the despised enemy. As much as Putin wishes as such, Russia isn't the Soviet Union, and simply doesn't have the resources to secure an area of ~20 million people, which would require ~400,000 occupation troops. All that has to be done is wait for Russia to give up and withdraw.

Fair enough.  And as to this point in particular:

But, the problem is this war is now existential for Putin - if he doesn't win this war, he will at best become like Saddam post-1991, and at worst fall out of a window.

If this proves too insurmountable an obstacle for a negotiated peace, perhaps China can arrange an assassination of Vladimir Putin not dissimilar to what we eventually assented to for Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, but being careful to deflect the blame to someone else, perhaps disgruntled members of Putin's inner circle (or Senator Lindsay Graham...).

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Putin tried to create a homegrown tech industry. His failure could be key to a Russian defeat, experts say

Kamil Galeev, a Russian historian, journalist and former Wilson Center fellow argued on Twitter and in a recent interview with economist Brad DeLong that a central failure of Russia’s sanction-proofing strategy was its effort at fostering domestic technological innovation.

Following Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent imposition of Western sanctions, Russian officials worked to inoculate their economy from such embargoes, first and foremost by a policy of “import substitution” or the fostering of domestic industry to produce products that avoid supply chains in the U.S. and Europe.

Galeev argues that the authoritarian nature of the Putin regime, which he and western diplomats say operates similarly to an organized crime syndicate, means it is unable to foster industries that require technical sophistication. He notes that President Putin cheered the decline in the value of the ruble following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, because it made Russian oil cheaper on the global market and boosted ruble-denominated revenues.

What Putin appeared to ignore, Galeev said, was the damage this did to Russia’s domestic manufacturing base, which relies on imports of Western technology to produce the machines that both enable resource extraction and the construction of military equipment.

Though the Putin regime has pressured local governments and manufacturing firms to develop domestic technologies as substitutes, this “import substitution is 95% PR,” Galeev wrote.

Galeev’s theory is that a “mafia state” like Russia is unable to foster complex domestic manufacturing industries because such states select officials not for technical competence, but for the ability to inspire fear in opponents and for their loyalty to the leader.

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Question: have the Russians managed to get the water flowing again to Crimea after they took control of the North Crimean Canal?

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Question: have the Russians managed to get the water flowing again to Crimea after they took control of the North Crimean Canal?

They have
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1499384801123618819

From March 4th: "North Crimean Canal Fills With Water After Russian Forces Destroyed Dam"

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/04/north-crimean-canal-fills-with-water-after-russian-forces-destroyed-dam-a76755

Well it's good to see the Russians did something right!  

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Here's a interesting article from a Chinese professor that's been translated about the possible impacts from the war from a Chinese perspective.

https://uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/hu-wei-russia-ukraine-war-china-choice/

III. China’s Strategic Choice

1. China cannot be tied to Putin and needs to be cut off as soon as possible. In the sense that an escalation of conflict between Russia and the West helps divert U.S. attention from China, China should rejoice with and even support Putin, but only if Russia does not fall. Being in the same boat with Putin will impact China should he lose power. Unless Putin can secure victory with China’s backing, a prospect which looks bleak at the moment, China does not have the clout to back Russia. The law of international politics says that there are “no eternal allies nor perpetual enemies,” but “our interests are eternal and perpetual.” Under current international circumstances, China can only proceed by safeguarding its own best interests, choosing the lesser of two evils, and unloading the burden of Russia as soon as possible. At present, it is estimated that there is still a window period of one or two weeks before China loses its wiggle room. China must act decisively.

2. China should avoid playing both sides in the same boat, give up being neutral, and choose the mainstream position in the world. At present, China has tried not to offend either side and walked a middle ground in its international statements and choices, including abstaining from the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly votes. However, this position does not meet Russia’s needs, and it has infuriated Ukraine and its supporters as well as sympathizers, putting China on the wrong side of much of the world. In some cases, apparent neutrality is a sensible choice, but it does not apply to this war, where China has nothing to gain. Given that China has always advocated respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, it can avoid further isolation only by standing with the majority of the countries in the world. This position is also conducive to the settlement of the Taiwan issue.

3. China should achieve the greatest possible strategic breakthrough and not be further isolated by the West. Cutting off from Putin and giving up neutrality will help build China’s international image and ease its relations with the U.S. and the West. Though difficult and requiring great wisdom, it is the best option for the future. The view that a geopolitical tussle in Europe triggered by the war in Ukraine will significantly delay the U.S. strategic shift from Europe to the Indo-Pacific region cannot be treated with excessive optimism. There are already voices in the U.S. that Europe is important, but China is more so, and the primary goal of the U.S. is to contain China from becoming the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific region. Under such circumstances, China’s top priority is to make appropriate strategic adjustments accordingly, to change the hostile American attitudes towards China, and to save itself from isolation. The bottom line is to prevent the U.S. and the West from imposing joint sanctions on China.

4. China should prevent the outbreak of world wars and nuclear wars and make irreplaceable contributions to world peace. As Putin has explicitly requested Russia’s strategic deterrent forces to enter a state of special combat readiness, the Russo-Ukrainian war may spiral out of control. A just cause attracts much support; an unjust one finds little. If Russia instigates a world war or even a nuclear war, it will surely risk the world’s turmoil. To demonstrate China’s role as a responsible major power, China not only cannot stand with Putin, but also should take concrete actions to prevent Putin’s possible adventures. China is the only country in the world with this capability, and it must give full play to this unique advantage. Putin’s departure from China’s support will most likely end the war, or at least not dare to escalate the war. As a result, China will surely win widespread international praise for maintaining world peace, which may help China prevent isolation but also find an opportunity to improve its relations with the United States and the West.

The only problem Xi Jinping has in backing away from his 'limitless partnership' with Vladimir Putin is that he can ill afford to do so.  After all, how does he think other nations will react if and when China again offers an olive branch of friendship and alliance when it has proven such words aren't worth the paper they are printed on?  With Russia as a cautionary example, who is going to want to ally themselves with China?  They are already short on allies as it is.

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China Signals Disinterest in Providing Weapons to Russia for Brutal Ukraine Campaign
Beijing appears eager to distance itself from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine despite months of warmer relations between the two powers.

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If this opinion piece is proven true, then once Putin (and his regime) is no more, the West led by the United States will be free to devote their full and undivided attention towards containing the People's Republic of China:

Why Vladimir Putin will fall

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What I *suspect* is going on here ties into the "1,000 Russian Mercs" story which I reported earlier today after hearing a mention of it on CNN on the TV background.

This also jives with multiple other reports, which we have seen over the past week about the poor military performance of Russian conscripts, most of whom had no idea they were going to Ukraine until after they crossed the border.

We also know about the critical role that Russian mercenaries have played in Libya & Syria (Among other recent actions), with a major oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin

who runs "The Wagner Group".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group

Here is a bit of context:

https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/the-fallen-mercenaries-in-russias-dark-army/

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/wagner-group-what-russian-mercenearies-ukraine-president-zelensky-putin-1489364

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/06/what-is-wagner-group-russia-mercenaries-military-contractor/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/marat-gabidullin-russian-mercenary-wagner

Gee, it would be a shame if they “happened” to run into Western ex-military “volunteers” in Ukraine who just happened to be comprised of people on the same level of expertise as the ones who flatlined the ers in Syria a few years back.

And on a greater scale, please read the following:
https://twitter.com/mollymckew/status/1500620397644898306?s=21
Edit:

Here comes the barrel bombs...

https://mobile.twitter.com/PalmerReport/status/1500621931011321860

Assad can’t send his good troops because Turkey and its Syrian allies will pounce if they do.

What is Putin going to do with all these mercenaries once he no longer has the ability to pay his own troops, let alone them?  He is aware, I hope, that these mercenaries will go wherever the money is, and that we will not hesitate to use them against him at the first opportunity.