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Tony Kevin: Amidst preparations for long Ukraine war, peace may come quickly

flower covered peace sign
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

By Tony Kevin, Pearls & Irritations, 1/12/24

Tony Kevin is a former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, and a member of the Emeritus Faculty at Australian National University. The author of Return to Moscow (2017), he has independently visited Russia six times since 2016.

It is possible now that peace could come to Ukraine rather faster than most Western analysts are predicting, but this will only be only on terms acceptable to Russia.

Last month in Pearls and Irritations, I reviewed the stage reached in the Ukraine military conflict. I suggested that the conflict would continue until Russia was ready to end it on negotiated terms that will protect Russian national security in years ahead. I predicted that:

“Russia in my view has no alternative but to continue to fight this war using its present prudent reactive tactics all along the front, in the hope of Kiev coming to its senses; to go on mobilizing and improving its weapons advantages at home; and to continue to try to minimise civilian casualties and infrastructure losses on both sides. Russia has effectively won this tragic war. It must not let itself be fooled by a political change in Kiev manipulated by Washington and London, trying desperately to snatch some sort of diplomatic victory out of their military defeat in Ukraine. Russia has learned not to trust American false peace overtures.”

Developments over the past month are consistent with these predictions. In what is now a complex picture of Western truth, lies, and cynical shape-shifting, the US/NATO disinformation narrative slowly and reluctantly crawls towards reality. Within Ukraine itself, the political mood is shifting significantly. We are at a moment when basic questions are quietly being asked in Kiev and Washington about Ukraine’s future.

‘And what rough beast, its hour come at last, slouches towards Jerusalem to be born?’

That rough beast is looking more and more like the blunt and popular Ukrainian Army Commander in Chief, General Valeriy Zaluzhny.

President Zelensky is becoming more dispirited and irrelevant: he knows that the Washington imperium sees him as a spent figure and is losing interest in him. The charisma is gone, only the sulky resentment is left.

The Washington imperial elite is now urgently focussed on Middle East dangers and opportunities. The powerful Zionist lobby in the US appears bent on helping Netanyahu find ways to widen to war to Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, and is trying to wrongfoot Iran into looking like the aggressor. Washington is sick of the Ukraine war, knows it can go nowhere good for US now, and wants to wrap it up in a way that the US does not lose face.

Up to a point, Russia is prepared to ease Washington’s diplomatic path to peace.

The Economist – always a good reflection of US-UK strategic thinking for public consumption – tells us that both Ukraine and Russia are war-weary, having taken massive casualties of their best fighters, and both running out of essential munitions. The mood in both countries, says The Economist, is for defensive, life-preserving war. True in the case of Ukraine, but utterly false in the case of Russia where public morale is good, mobilisation and training is well ahead of what is currently militarily necessary, and the military production lines are humming along nicely.

Along the front, Ukraine is no longer mounting suicidal media-driven offensives. Zaluzhny has scaled back a militarily pointless lodgement at Krynki, on the Dnieper east bank near Kherson. Zaluzhny is clearly trying to husband the lives of fit Ukrainian fighting men who are increasingly scarce. He is retrenching towards defensive positions along the long front. Russia is advancing where it is economical of life (on both sides) and Russian weapons to do so. The front remains essentially stable and there are no signs that Russia is preparing for major costly offensives. This is being masked by a steady diet of announcements of small territorial gains, and of Ukrainian desertions, defeatist talk, etc.

In recent days Russia mounted a major air missile attack on key military and infrastructure targets in Kiev and other large Ukrainian cities. Casualties were low. It has led to midwinter power cuts and blackouts. It was a reminder of what Russia can do to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian war party in Kiev – intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov would be a key figure still – continues with Western agency help to mount audacious attacks using missiles, drones and saboteurs on civilian targets deep inside Russia (as far as Chelyabinsk in Siberia). Severe loss of civilian life was caused in Donetsk and in Belgorod. The Economist politely commends this as ‘guerilla warfare’. Moscow condemns it as terrorism.

I surmise that peace precursor discussions through mediators in neutral sites e.g Turkey are already informally underway. Russia’s red lines are being tested and reaffirmed; no rump Ukraine NATO membership or protective affiliation under any circumstances, political neutrality for rump Ukraine (but EU membership would be acceptable to Russia), language rights for Russians in Ukraine, denazification of the worst Banderist elements in Ukrainian politics, restored good-neighbourly relations with Russia and Belarus, final abandonment of Ukrainian claims to Crimea and the four annexed provinces. Russia can expect tacit Hungarian, Polish, Romanian and Slovakian acceptance of such an outcome.

Russia will be negotiating from strength. But it will still be a complex and challenging diplomatic negotiation both at the Moscow-Washington and Moscow-Kiev levels.

Russia wants the US and its NATO satraps finally to butt out of Ukraine but is prepared to ease their path diplomatically. On this basis I suggest Moscow will be prepared to help Kiev to negotiate a post-1945 Finlandisation model of sovereign neutrality and retention of a citizen army, but with acceptance of substantial loss of former territory (as Finland then lost in Karelia).

There will be an obvious tradeoff between how cooperative Ukraine will be in such peace negotiations, and how much territory Ukraine will be forced permanently to sacrifice. Will the final Russia-Ukraine border remain on the present frontline, or will it extend to the province capital cities of Zaporizhie and Kherson, now still part of Ukraine? Will it even extend to the provinces of Odessa and Kharkov? Nobody yet knows.

My sense is that Russia would settle for the four prewar provinces in full, as long as the postwar relationship of the two countries is set fair for stability. Russia wants a friendly postwar Ukraine more than it wants to acquire Odessa and Kharkov, however tempting those territories might be. To the extent that Russia continues to face an unfriendly postwar Ukrainian rump state, annexation of Odessa and Kharkov will be more strategically attractive and may be deemed essential to future Russian security.

Everything now depends on what happens in Kiev in coming weeks, and on how helpful or unhelpful a role Washington and its key NATO /EU lieutenants (especially Stoltenberg, Von der Leyen, and Borrell) choose to play in helping, hindering or simply standing aside from any political transition in Kiev.

There are realist politicians in Kiev who could provide core elements of a new more pragmatic regime: I would include as examples Zaluzhny himself – still a popular and trusted figure despite Ukraine’s military reverses, Arestovich, and the Klitschko brothers. Some form of transfer of power away from Zelensky and diehard Russophobe fanatics like Oleksiy Danilov and Kyrylo Budanov would be necessary. The transfer could be bloody or bloodless. Much depends on Washington.

The mood in realist political circles in Ukraine now is fatalistic and despondent. Anti-Russian fanatics are falling silent. There is no enthusiasm left for prosecuting this suicidal war against Russia. Realistic Ukrainians know in their hearts that their war on behalf of the US has been lost, and they now want simply to save what they can of the national patrimony. They are coming to despise how their present political leaders let their countrymen be used as cannon fodder by the US. The Middle East strategic flashpoint around Gaza that is preoccupying Washington is their opportunity.

Peace, when it comes, may come quickly. Meanwhile, expect both sides to continue to talk big publicly of their being ready for a long war. In Russia’s case, it is true.

MK Bhadrakumar: An Anniversary the West Would Rather Forget

Famous statue in center of Monument to Siege of Leningrad, St. Petersburg; photo by Natylie Baldwin, May 2017

By MK Bhadrakumar, Consortium News, 1/26/24

An epochal anniversary from the annals of modern history on Saturday remains a living memory for the Russian people. The Siege of Leningrad, arguably the most gruesome episode of the Second World War, which lasted for 900 days, was finally broken by the Soviet Red Army on Jan. 27, 1944, 80 years ago. 

The siege endured by more than 3 million people, of whom nearly one half died, most of them in the first six months when the temperature fell to 30° below zero. 

It was an apocalyptic event. Civilians died from starvation, disease and cold. Yet it was a heroic victory. Leningraders never tried to surrender even though food rations were reduced to a few slices of bread mixed with sawdust, and the inhabitants ate glue, rats — and even each other — while the city went without water, electricity, fuel or transportation and was being shelled daily. 

It was on June 22, 1941, that the German armies crossed the Russian frontiers. Within six weeks, the Army Group North of the Wehrmacht, armed forces of the Third Reich, was within 50 kilometers of Leningrad in a fantastic blitzkrieg and had advanced  650 kms deep into Soviet territory.

A month later, the Germans had all but completed the city’s encirclement, only a perilous route across Lake Ladoga to the east connected Leningrad with the rest of Russia. But the Germans got no farther. And 900 days later their retreat began. 

The epic siege of Leningrad was the longest endured by any city since Biblical times, and, equally, citizens became heroes — artists, musicians, writers, soldiers and sailors who stubbornly resisted the iron from entering their souls.

The siege of Leningrad, 1942. (Av Boris Kudojarov/RIA Novosti arkiv.
Lisens: CC BY SA 3.0)

Petrified by the prospect of surrender to the Soviet Union, the Nazis preferred to lay down arms before the western allied forces, but Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, ordered that the honour of victory should go to the Red Army. 

Herein lies one of the greatest paradoxes of war and peace in modern times. Today, the anniversary of the siege of Leningrad has become,  most certainly, an occasion that the U.S. and many of its European allies would rather not remember. Yet, its contemporary relevance is not to be glossed over.

Death by Starvation

The Nazi leadership aimed to exterminate Leningrad’s entire population by enforced starvation. Death by starvation was a deliberate act on the part of the German Reich.

In the words of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler “intended to have cities like Moscow and St Petersburg wiped out.” This was “necessary,” he wrote in July 1941, “because if we want to divide Russia into its individual parts,” it should “no longer have a spiritual, political or economic centre.” 

Hitler himself declared in September 1941, “We have no interest in maintaining even a part of the metropolitan population in this existential war.” Any talk of the city surrendering had to be “rejected, as the problem of keeping and feeding the population cannot be solved by us.”

Hitler with Finland’s Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim and President Risto Ryti in Imatra, near the border with Russia, in 1942. (Kalle Sjöblom, digitized by Finnish Heritage Agency, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Simply put, the population of Leningrad was left to starve to death — much like the millions of Soviet prisoners of war held by the Wehrmacht. The historian Jörg Ganzenmüller later wrote that this form of mass murder was cost-effective for Berlin, for, it was “genocide by simply doing nothing.” 

“Genocide by doing nothing.” Those chilling words are as well applicable today to the West’s “sanctions from hell” with an ulterior agenda to “erase” Russia and carve out five new states from its vast landmass with fabulous resources that can be subjugated by the industrial world. 

The mother of all ironies is that Germany is even today at the forefront of the “genocide by doing nothing” strategy to weaken and bring down the Russian Federation to its knees.

The Biden administration depended on a troika of three German politicians to do the heavy lifting in that failed effort to erase Russia — the E.U,’s top bureaucrat in Brussels Ursula von der Layen, German Chancellor Olaf Schulz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. 

George Santayana, the Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is how the far-right thrives.

Israeli General Staff meeting on Oct. 8, 2023. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

In Germany and elsewhere, younger generations are becoming indifferent to the history of fascism. The idea of a Fourth Reich has entered an unprecedented heyday and is currently experiencing a new phase of normalisation in Europe. The tumultuous political upheaval throughout the Western world provides the backdrop today.

The author of  The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present, historian and professor of history and Judaic studies Gavriel Rosenfeld has written that “The only way to mute the siren call of the Fourth Reich is to know its full history. Although it is increasingly difficult in our present-day world of fake ‘facts’ and deliberate disinformation to forge a consensus about historical truth, we have no alternative but to pursue it.” 

The justification of political violence is classically fascist. Last week, we saw a breathtaking spectacle at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague reminding us that we are now in fascism’s legal phase. 

If the Nazis used Judeo-Bolshevism as their constructed enemy, Israel is doing the same thing by raising the bogeyman of Hamas. Fascism feeds off a narrative of supposed national humiliation by internal enemies. 

Meanwhile, what gets forgotten is that there has been a growing fascist social and political movement in Israel for decades. Like other fascist movements, it is riddled with internal contradictions, but this movement now has a classically authoritarian leader in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has shaped and exacerbated it, and is determined that in his time in politics it will be normalised. 

The probability is high that in a matter of a few days, the ICJ will give some sort of interim order/injunction to Israel to end the violence against the hapless Palestinians in Gaza. But the fascist movement Netanyahu now leads preceded him, and will outlive him.

These are forces that feed off ideologies with deep roots in Jewish history. They may be defending a fictional glorious and virtuous national past, but it would be a grave error to think they cannot ultimately win.

The Russians are learning this home truth the hard way in Ukraine where “denazification” is turning out to be the weakest link in their special military operation, given its geopolitical moorings traceable to Germany’s dalliance with the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi groups in Kiev in the run-up to the 2014 coup, which the U.S. inherited gleefully and wouldn’t let go. 

M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. Views are personal.

This article originally appeared on Indian Punchline.

George Beebe & Anatol Lieven: Russia’s upper hand puts US-Ukraine at a crossroads

By George Beebe & Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 1/11/24

Russian progress in the Ukraine war is pushing the United States toward a painful choice.

If we want a prosperous Ukraine with a viable path toward liberal governance and European Union membership, we will have to concede that it cannot be a NATO or U.S. ally, and that this neutral Ukraine must have verifiable limits on the types and quantities of weapons it may hold. If we refuse to agree to those terms, Russia will quite probably turn Ukraine into a dysfunctional wreck incapable of rebuilding itself, allying with the West, or constituting a military threat to Russia.

Russian progress is not yet evident on the map, where the battle lines have not moved appreciably over the past year. Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed to break through Russian defenses, and Russia has not pushed Ukrainian forces significantly westward. An observer comparing territorial holdings in January 2023 with January 2024 might reasonably conclude that the war has become a stalemate.

But this picture is misleading. The Kremlin is almost certainly not seeking such a breakthrough, at least not yet. Rather, it is methodically grinding down Ukraine’s capacity not only to wage war, but also to reconstitute a post-war military, by killing and wounding enormous numbers of Ukrainian soldiers and exhausting Ukrainian and Western arsenals of arms and ammunition. Ukraine is running short of artillery shells, and the U.S. and Europe cannot manufacture new ones quickly enough to meet Ukraine’s needs. Russian barrages of long-range air and missile strikes are increasingly overwhelming the capacity of Ukrainian air defenses, and the West simply lacks the ability to continue providing Patriot missiles or other advanced air defense systems.

It is quite true, as the Biden administration has warned, that ending U.S. aid to Kyiv would quickly result in Ukraine’s collapse. Sufficient aid to help Ukraine to stand successfully on the defensive should therefore continue. But what U.S. policymakers need to understand and honestly acknowledge is that absent a compromise peace settlement, massive levels of aid will have to continue not just for the coming year, but indefinitely. There is very little realistic chance of the West being able to outlast Russia and force it to accept peace on Ukrainian terms. The controversies in Congress over aid to Ukraine reflect these realities and are unlikely to diminish.

Under such circumstances, for the Biden administration to pledge American support to Ukraine for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia is unwise, and even dishonest. It is widely believed in Washington that the failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive means that the West has no choice but to back Ukraine’s fight against Russia for many years to come. Seeking compromise with Moscow is regarded as not only undesirable but also futile. Lacking alternatives, we must stay the present course, hoping that time will improve Ukraine’s position.

But time is not on Ukraine’s side, either militarily or economically, and so Ukraine’s position in any future negotiations may well be very much worse than at present. Russia’s population is at least four times that of Ukraine and its GDP 14 times. The Russian army is far better led and more tactically adept than it was at the start of the war, and Western sanctions show no signs of being able to cripple the Russian economy, which is more and more geared for war.

And whatever Brussels may say, as long as the war continues it is exceptionally unlikely that Ukraine will be able to develop economically and begin the extremely difficult process of joining the European Union.

Most importantly, the United States has not tested the assumption that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no interest in talking. It is indeed very likely that Putin believes Russia now has the upper hand in the war and can afford to wait. Nonetheless, Putin has repeatedly insisted that Russia is ready to talk, and also that Washington – not Kyiv – makes the key decisions in the war and therefore it is for Washington to engage in talks.

This may be posturing; but it is also possible that Putin recognizes that absent a settlement, Russia is headed toward the dangers of a permanently volatile confrontation with the West, an economy distorted by the demands of military production, and a constricting degree of dependence on China. Russians’ concerns about these problems are likely to grow as their fears they may lose the war in Ukraine diminish.

It is further alleged that Putin believes that a future Donald Trump presidency would be the Kremlin’s best hope for a settlement on Russian terms. However, Trump’s first term produced some friendly rhetoric but much hostile action toward Moscow, including withdrawal from nuclear arms agreements and increased flows of U.S. weapons and training for the Ukrainian army.

Moreover, given the animosity toward Trump evident in Congress and the U.S. foreign and security policy establishment, Putin has little reason for confidence that Trump could actually deliver any deal. By 2020, Russians were thoroughly disillusioned with Trump. As the leading Russian foreign policy thinker Fyodor Lukyanov told Radio Liberty about the 2020 elections, “Why should Russians care? I don’t believe anyone here expects any change regardless of who will win.”

Given that Russia now has the advantage on the battlefield and senses that time is on its side, to get Putin to end the war and end his ambition to subjugate Ukraine or seize more territory, Washington will have to offer some serious incentives. These will need to include showing that the U.S. is prepared to meet Russian concerns about the U.S. and NATO security threat to Russia (concerns that are genuinely held throughout the Russian establishment).

This will mean agreement to a Ukrainian treaty of neutrality, with security guarantees for Ukraine, that will allow that country to follow neutral Finland and Austria during the Cold War and develop as a free market democracy. Western sanctions against Russia would need at least to be eased if not suspended, but with a binding commitment that they would automatically resume if Russia launched new aggression.

On the issue of the territories presently occupied by Russia, the only possible way forward is to defer this question for future talks under United Nations auspices, while putting the maximum possible security measures in place to prevent a resumption of war.

An agreement along these lines would be extremely painful for both Ukraine and the Biden administration. However, we should see preserving the independence of 80 percent of Ukraine as a real victory, even if not a complete one. It is certainly far better than what appears to be the alternative: a war of attrition with dreadful losses for Ukraine, leading sooner or later to a far greater Ukrainian defeat.

Sophia Ampgkarian contributed to the research for this article.

VIPS MEMO: To Biden — Avoid a Third World War

Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), Consortium News, 1/25/24

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Throwing Good Money After Bad: Decisions in an Intelligence Vacuum

Dear President Biden:

We noted in our January 26,2023 Memorandum to you that National Intelligence Director Avril Haines had expressed skepticism that Russian forces would be sufficiently prepared for Ukraine’s coming offensive. She said Russia was using up ammunition “extraordinarily quickly” and could not indigenously produce what it was expending.

You had just approved sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine. We wrote:

“None of the newly promised weaponry will stop Russia from defeating what’s left of the Ukrainian army. If you have been told otherwise, replace your intelligence and military advisers with competent professionals – the sooner the better.”

Russia Has Not Already Lost

On July 13, 2023, you said Putin “has already lost the war”. You may have gotten that from C.I.A. Director William Burns who, a week before, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post saying: “Putin’s war has already been a strategic failure for Russia – its military weaknesses laid bare.” Both statements are incorrect. Nor is the war a “stalemate”, as Jake Sullivan has claimed more recently.

Ukraine has lost the war, and this will become very clear in the weeks ahead. Given the lack of any prospect for negotiations, nothing short of nuclear weapons could stop the measured but inexorable advance of Russian forces. You have said you want to avoid World War III. That’s what nukes (including “mini” ones) would mean.

Wooden-Headedness

At this historic juncture, we might seek what wisdom historians might offer. Here is Barbara Tuchman in her highly relevant book, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam:

“Wooden-headedness…consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.”

As an example, Tuchman offered 16th century Philip II of Spain: “No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence.” In the end, Philip amassed too much power and drained state revenues by failed adventures overseas, leading to Spain’s decline.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s appeal Tuesday to U.S. allies to “dig deep” to provide Ukraine with more arms has the ring of wooden-headedness. It also brings to mind a more colloquial quip: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

Obama’s Take

We do not have to go back five centuries to Philip II. As you will recall, President Obama faced down bipartisan pressure to send arms to Ukraine. According to The New York Times, he warned aides “that arming the Ukrainians would encourage the notion that they could actually defeat the far more powerful Russians, and so it would potentially draw a more forceful response from Moscow.”

Lastly, attempts to dismiss President Vladimir Putin as paranoid don’t pass the smell test. Putin has heard from the lips of Secretary Austin:

“One of the U.S.’s goals in Ukraine is to see a weakened Russia. … The U.S. is ready to move heaven and earth to help Ukraine win the war against Russia.”

Our closing warning of a year ago seems worth repeating:

“Can the U.S. achieve Austin’s goal? Not without using nuclear weapons.

Thus, there is a large conceptual – and exceptionally dangerous – disconnect. Simply stated, it is not possible to ‘win the war against Russia’ AND avoid WWIII. That our Defense Secretary Austin may think this possible is downright scary. In any case, the Kremlin has to assume he thinks so. Thus, it is a very dangerous delusion.”

Willing to Help

Lastly, we are about to re-issue our quadrennial offer to be of assistance to all presidential candidates. This would, of course, include you.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP,
VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPs)

  • Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
  • Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
  • Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)
  • Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
  • Larry C. Johnson, former C.I.A. and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
  • John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
  • Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
  • Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
  • Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)
  • Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & C.I.A. political analyst (ret.)
  • Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
  • Pedro Israel Orta, former C.I.A. and Intelligence Community (Inspector General) officer
  • Scott Ritter, former MAJ, USMC; former U.N. Weapons Inspector, Iraq
  • Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
  • Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
  • Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
  • Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

Stephen Bryen: Ukraine in dire need of new air defenses

By Stephen Bryen, Asia Times, 1/11/24

Update: Today Russia’s RT reports that the Norwegian NASAMS system won’t arrive anytime soon in Ukraine.

On January 8 Ukraine was hit by the second massive missile and drone attack in ten days.  The Russians struck at locations in cities including Kiev, Odesa, Kharkiv and L’viv —altogether, 10 Ukrainian cities.

The Russian attacks used a variety of air-launched hypersonic and cruise missiles and Geran-2 drones.  From all accounts, the Russians successfully destroyed a number of munitions and armaments factories, command centers and airfields.   

Reports from Ukraine, Russia and Poland say that in the January 8 strike Ukraine was able to knock out only 18 of the 51 missiles and drones launched by the Russians.

There are reports that Ukraine says it was not able to shoot down any of the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, nor any of Russia’s Iskander-M ballistic missiles, nor any of the Kh-22 (anti-ship) liquid fueled missiles, and that it managed to down only some of the Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles. 

Kinzhal missile on MIG 31K

Ukraine also says it shot down all of the Geran-2 drones, the Russian version of Shahed-136 suicide drones – but Kiev claims that only eight of them were launched by the Russians. In fact, drones were used in large number.

The United States and its NATO allies (and two couintries that were not part of NATO at the time, Sweden and Finland) have been supplying various types of air defense systems to Ukraine.

The US supplied the Patriot air defense system, most likely the Pac-2 version, although it also supplied Pac-3 interceptor missiles. Norway, in partnership with the US, supplied its NASAMS air defense system. The European consortia supplied IRIS-T. Italy sent its Aspide; France and Italy, SAMP-T; and the Germans supplied their twin-barrel radar-driven Flakpanzer Gepard.

Sweden also provided Bofors air defense guns. 

In addition, the US supplied its best MANPADS shoulder fired anti-aircraft system, the FIM-92 Stinger and the Ukrainians also had Russian Igla MANPADS, at least in the early days of the war.

In addition to NATO- and other Western-supplied air defense systems, Ukraine has installed the Russian S-300S and BUK-1M air defense systems around Kiev.