Russia’s international reserves rose to $552.1bn, climbing by 1.9% ($10.5bn) over the week as of November 11, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) announced.
As of November 4, 2022, international reserves amounted to $541.6bn, Tass reported. (chart)
The total includes the circa $300bn frozen in Western central banks at the start of the war in Ukraine in February.
Russia’s reserves are continuing to rise as its trade recovers from the shock of the massive sanctions package imposed following the invasion of Ukraine in February.
Russia’s current account surplus showed some increase in October, reaching c$17bn v c$15bn in September, according to the CBR. This stronger figure was driven by higher Urals prices ($70.62 per barrel in October v $68.25 per barrel in September), which supported export flows, and by a contraction in imports as a result of subdued household consumption.
Russia’s exports are recovering too. Despite the sanctions, Russia’s exports to the EU – mostly energy and raw materials – are on course to increase this year compared to exports a year earlier, largely due to the hefty increases in the cost of oil and gas.
Russia’s bilateral trade with the European Union in 2021 reached €257bn, with €158bn of that being Russian exports to the bloc. According to Eurostat, Russia-EU trade reached €171.4bn in the 7M 2022, which if averaged at similar volumes for the entire year would give a total 2022 figure of €293.8bn – an increase on 2021 levels.
At the same time, after crashing shortly after the war started, trade with China has recovered and reached a new all-time high, replacing European countries as Russia’s biggest trade partner.
Russia’s bilateral trade with China in 2021 amounted to $141bn (same value as the Euro today), of which Russian exports to China were worth $68bn. In the 10M 2022, according to the Chinese Customs Ministry, that trade had risen to $153.9bn, with Russian exports to China hitting $94.34bn. Compounded over the full year, that would indicate an increase in trade of some $184.6bn, meaning an additional $43.6bn over 2021, with Russian exports rising to $113.2bn, an increase of $18.86bn.
Russia is also running healthy trade surpluses with its neighbours in the CIS, where trade turnover is also growing. Trade within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), a trade bloc that includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in 2021 amounted to $72.61bn, of which Russian exports to the EAEU member countries amounted to $45.3bn. Over the first seven months of this year that had increased to $74.2bn, meaning a compounded 2022 total could reach $127.2bn, with Russia’s exports achieving about $99.6bn of this. That will indicate increases of $54.59bn in volume and $54.3bn in exports over the year.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.”
As a stage-setter for this analysis of Russia’s looming winter offensive, I have previously evaluated limited objective options Putin might choose, and then the likely preparation phase of an all-out war scenario. In this final edition, I will lay out what I contend is the most dangerous course of action Ukraine could face: a ground campaign to deprive Ukraine of its lifeblood from the West.
As a disclaimer right up front, I will concede that I have no knowledge of any secret Russian plans and have no idea if this is what Putin will do. What I represent in this analysis, however, is that given the force dispositions of both sides, the geography of Ukraine, Russia, and Belorussia, and the current status of each side’s army, what follows represents the gravest danger to Ukraine and one possible scenario; there are a virtually unlimited number of alternatives.
At a minimum, however, Kyiv must account for the possibilities described below in its winter defensive plans.
Triple-Axis Advance in Ukraine
Aside from insufficient troops numbers in February, Russia’s biggest strategic mistake was attempting to invest Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv simultaneously in the north. The only chance that had of success would have been if Zelensky panicked and surrendered merely at the sight of Russian tanks. When that didn’t happen, the initial Russian plan was doomed. In this scenario, Putin recognizes that the number of troops he has for the task remains insufficient to capture large cities – and that he doesn’t need to capture major cities to succeed.
Instead, what he may seek to do is identify and then take out the Ukrainian center of gravity. This is a term made famous in Western military circles by Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. In the early Nineteenth Century, von Clausewitz wrote the book On War in which he defined the center of gravity as being “the hub of all power and movement (of the enemy), on which everything depends.”
Meaning, in war, the overall objective should be to deprive the enemy of the one thing he must maintain to win the war. A belligerent’s objective in war, von Clausewitz explained, must be to strike his enemy “using superior strength” against his enemy’s weakness, “constantly seeking out the center of his power.” Only by “daring all to win all,” he concluded, “will one really defeat the enemy.”
In my assessment, Ukraine’s unquestioned strategic center of gravity is its western corridors to the Polish border where the vast majority of its war support enters the country. Their operational center of gravity is their resupply lines emanating eastwards from Kyiv to Ukraine’s various frontline positions. Without those two corridors, it would be nearly impossible for Kyiv to sustain wartime operations for more than a few weeks.
Putin, therefore, may calculate the best use of those 218,000 additional troops will be to launch a three-pronged axis to cut both of those supply routes: the priority effort in the west out of Belarus with the objective of Lviv, a supporting effort to the northeast in the Sumy direction, and supporting axis from the east to reinforce the current offensive in the Donbas.
LVIV AXIS (MAIN EFFORT, 40% OF AVAILABLE TROOPS)
A Russian attack out of southeast Belorussia with the objective of Lviv would represent the greatest strategic threat to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF). Virtually all of the UAF’s weapons, ammunition, and repair parts enter the country from Poland through several land routes towards Kyiv. If Russia were to cut these routes off by attacking along the Polish/Ukraine border down to Lviv, Russia could cut off the majority of the shipments of war material from the West, without which Kyiv would not long be able to sustain its forces at the frontlines in the eastern part of Ukraine.
There are available rail lines in Belarus that could transport and then sustain a Russian incursion there, and already there have been reports of Russian forces building up in the Brest region. At the moment, the vast majority of Ukraine’s combat forces are concentrated in the southeast (near Zaporizhia), the east (Donbas) and northeast (Svatavo). If Russia made a major unexpected push, with up to 75,000 combat forces, they would have a real chance at plunging roughly 250km to Lviv.
If Russia attained strategic surprise, Ukraine would have to try and hold off the Russian advance with whatever forces it could muster from the west of the country, as it would likely take weeks to move meaningful combat power from the east of the country to the west (and as described in the section below on Donbas Axis, putting combat troops from the eastern fronts would risk a Russian breakthrough from the east) – and that would imply Kyiv would have the capacity to move troops across country, as Russia has already severely disrupted Ukraine’s energy system and any new missile attacks could outright destroy it.
Russia would not intend to attack Lviv, but rather isolate it by creating a blocking position east of the city to cut off the M10 Highway and prevent any supplies reaching the UAF from the Polish border. If properly resourced and sufficient strategic surprise is gained, this axis would have a reasonable chance of successfully attacking to blocking positions west of Lviv. The bigger challenge for Russia would be to keep the corridor from the Belarus border secure and its forces supplied, however, as Ukraine would no doubt throw everything it had to cutting off the penetration. To limit Kyiv’s ability to focus all its reinforcements on the Lviv Axis, Russia would simultaneously launch an axis in the Sumy area.
SUMY AXIS (SUPPORTING EFFORT, 40% OF AVAILABLE TROOPS)
Russia made an initial assault in the Sumy region in February, and Ukraine currently mans newly created defensive barriers to slow down any future Russian advance in this direction. Moscow would either choose less densely manned entry points or plan on a major push through contested zones near the border. The initial push in this axis would be similar to the February path, which will create uncertainty in the Ukrainian Command as to the objective of this axis.
Initial penetrations will put Russian columns on a route that could lead to Kyiv. It would be very difficult for the Ukrainian authorities to conclude anything besides it being a new push on the capital, and they would likely send whatever reinforcements that were available in the region racing to defend Kyiv. But once Russia’s leading elements reach somewhere around the town of Pryluky, about 150km from the capital, they would turn south, with the objective of Blahodatny, on the northern bank of the Dnipro River.
As with the Lviv axis, the Sumy axis will be composed of approximately 75,000 troops with the ultimate objective of creating a corridor to the Dnipro River so as to cut off all connections and resupply routes with Kyiv and its forward armies in the Kharkiv, Donbas, and Zaporizhia fronts. Also, as with the Lviv axis, the Sumy axis will seek to bypass or block access to major cities. It will only seek to capture those areas necessary to ensure security of the corridor and provide security for the Russian line.
DONBAS AXIS (SUPPORTING EFFORT, 20% OF AVAILABLE TROOPS)
Simultaneous with the launching of the Lviv and Sumy axes, Russia would send a major force to supplement its existing offensive in the Donbas. The intent would be to send about 40,000 of the newly created mechanized units, along with about 10,000 Russian troops freed up after withdrawing from Kherson, to attack the weakest identified flanks of the UAF in the Donbas region. The purpose of this attack will be twofold.
First, to the extent possible, the inclusion of major additional forces on weak flanks could help break the stalemates roughly existing in the Bakhmut/Adveevka direction, and possibly force Ukraine back to Seversk and Kramatorsk. But more importantly second, would be to fix all the Ukrainian troops in the Svatavo, Donbas, and Zaporizhia fronts in place so they are not able to withdraw in an effort to blunt Russia’s Lviv or Sumy axes advances.
Should Ukraine seek to thin their lines in order to send reinforcements west, they would run the risk that Russian mechanized forces accomplish a breakthrough. One of Russia’s biggest failures in the opening invasion was not to mass forces at key and decisive locations and did try to attack cities with woefully insufficient numbers of troops. That lack of mass and mutually reinforcing actions allowed Ukrainian forces to isolate the Russian advances in each area and bring the invasion to a standstill in less than three weeks.
If Russia employs a three-axes advance with its newly mobilized combat forces, added to the roughly 200,000 troops already engaged – and critically, avoids trying to invest cities – they will have a chance to focus their combat power where Ukraine is weakest, and in ways that are mutually reinforcing to other axes. This course of action would represent great risk for Zelensky’s troops, but it isn’t without significant risk for the Russians either.
RUSSIAN RISK IN UKRAINE
In war, nothing is guaranteed and nothing is ever easy. Despite the months of building up of combat power around Ukraine’s borders in the months prior to February, Russia still caught Ukraine by surprise when the invasion actually took place. Other than the elaborate defensive positions constructed over eight years in the Donbas, there were little other barriers to Russia’s entry on February 24. That will not be the case for the troops launching Putin’s winter offensive.
Ukraine continues to man and expand on the defensive works in the Donbas but are now constructing new defensive positions and barriers in the Sumy, Kyiv, and Lviv areas to the north along the Belarus border. Though the border between Ukraine and Belarus is more than 1,000km long, Zelensky’s forces will seek to build fortifications and barriers along the most likely routes of entry and will make use of all natural barriers (such as rivers, marshes, or lakes) to channel Russian forces into preplanned “kill zones” or block their paths.
Some of the Russian troops that enter the fight will be trained fighters with combat experience. But meaningful numbers of the troops will be raw recruits who have never been under fire. Even in my own experience in armored warfare in Iraq, I observed how there can sometimes be significant differences in the skills and quality of different units of the same army.
The disparity in the Russian army, however, could be dramatic, in that some may be good while others may fail abysmally. It is uncertain, therefore, that Russian ground forces would be able to successfully penetrate Ukrainian border defenses and drive 100 or more kilometers to the south and seize their objectives on the Lviv and Sumy axes.
As has been extensively covered, Russia’s logistic system was inadequate at the start of the war. Logistics and resupply could again be a major constraint for Putin’s winter offensive, as the farther away from Russian or Belarussian rail lines his army gets, the more difficult it will be to sustain the forward units. A long corridor of troops also has built in vulnerabilities to Ukrainian interdiction and flanking attacks.
If Russia attains strategic surprise in the location of its primary two axes of advance, Ukraine may not have sufficient combat strength in the region to stop Russia. But over time, Kyiv may have success in building combat power in the Ukrainian interior and strike at weak points along Russia’s support corridors, preventing supplies and reinforcements from reaching the frontline troops.
Bottom line: war is hard, all the time, and rarely do initial plans work out. The enemy is always devising new and creative ways to frustrate one’s own objectives. As with all wars, the winner in this one will be determined by which side does the best to cope with the unexpected, reacts the best and quickest, and proves to be the most resilient. It is impossible, at this point, to predict which side that will be, as both Ukrainian and Russian militaries have shown flashes of brilliance, courage, and stamina.
CONCLUSION
In addition to the risk that will be faced by the Russian army, we must consider Putin’s personal risk. Many have long argued that Putin desires to be a modern-day Peter the Great. He wants to be remembered in Russian history as a great statesman and military leader. It is possible that in pursuit of that goal, he may use every conventional tool in his military chest to subdue Ukraine. If he succeeds to any degree, he will likely remain in power for some time. If he fails, he may not last much into 2023.
If Putin’s mobilization and winter offensive stall out and make little to no dent in the current front lines, the risk of his running afoul of Russian public opinion will be great. Russians have long rallied behind strong men who succeed and strengthen their country. They have sometimes driven from power those that fail. Putin is painfully aware of Russian history and realizes what is at stake for his country generally and his life specifically in this war.
We will have a much clearer picture of the level of risk Putin is willing to take when we see which path Putin takes in the coming winter offensive. He will lean towards pursuing the limited objective paths of options 1 and 2 if he is uncertain about the quality and capacity of his ground forces. If he is willing to risk his regime and his life, and has sufficient confidence in his army, he may engage in all-out war to subdue eastern Ukraine, using his entire force and arsenal short of nuclear weapons.
Ironically, it might be better for European and NATO security if Putin chooses either of the limited objective options, as doing so would result in Russia on a firm defensive footing for the foreseeable future. If he goes for all-out warfare and succeeds – conquering all of Ukraine east of the Dniper and imposing a negotiated settlement on the rump western Ukraine on terms favorable to Moscow – Europe may face the prospect of a larger, experienced, and successful Russian army on its eastern flank.
Given the stakes, it might make more sense for the West to use all its diplomatic tools to get both sides to end this war as soon as possible, with neither side getting all it wants. Holding out in hopes of draining Russia with a drawn-out stalemate runs the risk that Russia defeats Ukraine, leaving Europe with a much less favorable security environment.
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Sweden’s parliament adopted a major espionage law expansion that will permit the country’s police to investigate journalists, publishers, and whistleblowers if they reveal secret information that “may damage Sweden’s relationship with another state or an international organization.”
Journalists, publishers, or whistleblowers found guilty of revealing such “damaging” information could be sentenced to up to four years in prison under the new law.
The expansion was aimed at ensuring the Swedish government has even more control over what the public learns about the country’s cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and the United Nations.
Specifically, the measure may help authorities ensure information about the war in Ukraine remains concealed and does not contribute to fatigue that has spread among the public. The measure also may reassure the United States military and security agencies that Sweden can be trusted as an ally to clamp down on leaks if information from their close partnership is exposed to scrutiny.
Two votes were required by the parliament to pass the measure, which was widely condemned by media organizations and press freedom groups in Sweden. The first vote occurred on April 16, 2022, and then after a parliamentary election, a second vote was held on November 16.
While the Left Party and Green Party recommended the second vote be delayed to next year, the right-wing Swedish Democrats, the Center Party, the Moderate Party, and the Liberal Party all believed that the bill granting the Swedish Security Agency more investigatory power was necessary.
As the Journalists Association in Sweden described, beginning on January 1, “Anyone who promotes, leaves or discloses information that is covered by the provision on foreign espionage can also be sentenced for unauthorized position with secret information. This means that the situations in which a journalist can be sentenced are expanded.”
“The provision on foreign espionage includes ‘secret information that occurs within the framework of a collaboration with another state or an international organization or in an international organization of which Sweden is a member.’ It is therefore not about all information about other states, but the decisive factor is whether they appear within the framework of a collaboration in which Sweden is included.”
Nils Funcke, a press freedom expert in Sweden, acknowledged that the measure has a small safety valve for media organizations. If publication was “justifiable,” outlets could escape penalties under the law. But Funcke noted that what is “justifiable” is up to the courts, which undoubtedly will be more inclined to see cases from the nationalistic perspective of security agents defending their prosecutions.
Officials, security agents, or military officers from outside Sweden, particularly the United States, could feasibly invoke the measure and pressure the Swedish government to bring a prosecution.
Consider this example from 2013: Sveriges Television (Swedish public TV) published details from documents disclosed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that showed Sweden was a “key partner” in helping the US spy on Russia.
Revelations about the close relationship came from a document dated April 18, 2013, which indicated that “Sweden’s National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) had “provided NSA…a unique collection on high-priority Russian targets, such as leadership, internal politics.”
Under the expanded law, quoting a secret US document—as Swedish public TV did—could be construed by authorities as damaging to Sweden’s relationship with the US or the country’s standing in NATO, especially as it relates to the government’s ability to covertly pursue objectives viewed as critical to fighting Russia in Ukraine.
If one goes back to 2005, such a law would have hampered the Swedish media’s ability to expose the role of their government in the CIA’s rendition and torture of detainees in the “Global War on Terrorism.”
Johanne Hildebrandt, a Swedish war correspondent, warned, “The change could make war reporting from the field impossible. If I’m following Swedish troops and see the USA bombing a village so that civilians die, my reporting could be criminalized because it damages Sweden’s relations with the USA.”
“It’s hard enough to report from war zones. The law would lead to decreased insight. Who decides what could damage Sweden’s relationships? Officers and soldiers will say no to journalists out of the fear of making a mistake,” Hildebrandt added.
Swedish security agents are given more authority to launch raids against media outlets and seize electronic devices for the purpose of identifying sources that provided information to journalists.
In 2016, United Nations whistleblower Anders Kompass exposed child sex abuse by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. He condemned the UN for failing to hold anyone accountable and for retaliating at him.
“The complete impunity for those who have been found to have, in various degrees, abused their authority, together with the unwillingness of the hierarchy to express any regrets for the way they acted towards me sadly confirms that lack of accountability is entrenched in the United Nations. This makes it impossible for me to continue working there,” Kompass declared.
Advocates believe if Kompass, who is from Sweden, had come forward after the law was expanded he would have faced legal jeopardy. His resignation and comments dealt a blow to the image of the UN in Sweden, and as the law states, anyone who releases information that may “damage” Sweden’s relationship with an international organization could be targeted.
Arne Ruth Sigyn Meder, an advocate with the Julian Assange Support Committee in Sweden, highlighted the prosecution of Assange by the United States. His journalism exposed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet he is being targeted by the US Espionage Act.
“Foreign and Swedish media, including SVT and Dagens Nyheter, published the information from Wikileaks, but have later largely remained silent about the gross legal abuses he was subjected to, which have been extensively documented by Nils Melzer, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” according to Meder.
Publishing secret information like WikiLeaks did is the type of journalistic activity criminalized by Sweden through this law.
In fact, US Justice Department prosecutors have used the US Espionage Act to criminalize the disclosure of information that could cause “damage” to the US government’s relationship with another state or an international organization.” Even though the US military and government lacked clear evidence of damage, they charged Chelsea Manning, and now Assange, with Espionage Act offenses for releasing the US State Embassy cables.
Sweden’s expanded espionage law may not entirely discourage Swedish media from reporting on Swedish military and security operations, including the close relationship that Sweden has with the United States. Journalists, editors, and media producers could still publish secret information that furthers the agenda of the US, NATO, the EU, and the UN.
However, those in the press who act independently and dare to scrutinize the shared goals and objectives of Western security partnerships or military alliances would be vulnerable to repression—and that is the intention.
The expansion of security agency power is intended to make individuals, who are not blindly supportive of the US and NATO, think twice about exposing any alleged abuses, corruption, recklessness, or wrongdoing that would lead one to reconsider their support.
The only way Ukrainians will see anything approximating a holiday season is if a ceasefire can be arranged by New Year’s Day, and it just might happen, regardless of President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s repeated assertions that there will be no negotiations with Russia until it withdraws all its troops from all occupied territories, including Crimea. There are several reasons for the possible ceasefire.
First, the Russian hammer is about to fall on Ukraine. The gloves are coming off; electric energy stations, bridges, and even ‘decision centers’ such as central Kiev’s government buildings are being targeted. Russia is one or two more massive bombing attacks on Ukraine’s energy and transport infrastructure from permanently disabling Ukraine’s electricity, water, and railroad systems. With ‘only’ 50 percent of Ukrainian electricity infrastructure knocked out by the first three widespread bombings of electricity grid components, demonstrations are already breaking out in Odessa and other places over the deteriorating humanitarian situation, with Zelenskiy sending the Ukrainian KGB, the SBU, in to break up the protests and banning coverage in the media. The Office of the President was reportedly recently informed by technicians that the electricity system has entered the stage of ‘arbitrary and uncontrolled imbalance,” and one official has urged Ukrainians to be prepared to leave the country in winter. What will the sociopolitical situation be like when these critical infrastructures are in complete collapse and temperatures are 20 degrees colder? Russia will be moving closer to the strategy of ‘shock and awe’, fully destroying all infrastructure – military or otherwise – as the US did in Serbia and Iraq and will likely take less care now to avoid civilian casualties.
After the infrastructures are completely destroyed or incapacitated, Russia’s reinforcements of 380,000 regular and newly mobilized troops will have been fully added into Russia’s forces across southeastern Ukraine. Even without these reinforcements, Russian forces continue to make small gains in Donbass around Ugledar, Bakhmut (Artemevsk), as withdrawals from and stabilization of the fronts in Kharkiv and Kherson have led to a redeployment and thus concentration of forces in Zaporozhe, Donetsk, and Luhansk. A winter offensive by some half a million troops will make substantial gains on those three fronts and multiply Ukrainian losses in personnel and materiel`, which are already high. This could lead easily to a collapse of Ukrainian forces on one or more front.
Second, the West is suffering from Ukraine fatigue. NATO countries’ arms supplies have been depleted beyond what is tolerable, and social cohesion is collapsing in the face of double-digit inflation and economic recession. All this makes Russia the winner on the strategic level and is forcing Washington and Brussels to seek at least a breathing spell by way of a ceasefire. This is evidenced by the plethora of Western leaders calling on Zelenskiy to resume talks with Putin and the emergence of the ‘Sullivan plan’. Most recently, rumors have it that new British PM Rishi Sunak used a package of military and financial aid he announced during his recent trip to Kiev to cover up his message to Zelenskiy that London could no longer bear the burden of leading the European support for Kiev and that Kiev should reengage with Moscow.
Third, Ukraine’s greatest political asset – Zelenskiy himself – just got devalued, putting at even greater risk Ukraine’s political stability. The Ukrainian air defense strike on Poland (accidental or intentional) and the Ukrainian president’s insistence that it was a Russian air strike, despite the evidence and nearly unanimous opposing opinion among his Western backers, has hit Zelenskiy’s credibility hard. Zelenskiy’s insistence on the Russian origins of the missile and technical aspects of Ukrainian air defense suggests that the event may have been an intentional Ukrainian false flag strike on Polish/NATO territory designed to provoke NATO or Poland into entering the war. Some in the West are beginning to wake up to the dangers of Ukrainian ultranationalism and neofascism, not to mention the growing megalomania of Zelenskiy, who has appeared on ore than one occasion to be willing to risk the advent of a global nuclear winter in order to avoid sitting at the negotiating table across from Putin. Some may now come to understand that claims that Putin wants to seize all Ukraine and restore the USSR if not conquer Europe are yarns spun by Kiev to attract military and financial assistance and ultimately draw NATO forces into the war. There remains a danger that Kiev’s dream of a NATO intervention might come to fruition is the following temptation. NATO has declared that a defeat of Ukraine in the war is a defeat for NATO, and NATO cannot be allowed to lose a war to a Russia because that would accelerate the coming of the end to US hegemony. It cannot be excluded and may even be likely that should Kiev appear to be losing the war that Polish forces, NATO or some ‘coalition of the willing’ will move military forces into western Ukraine up to the Dnepr but do so without attacking Russian forces. This would force Russia to cease much of its military activity or risk attacking NATO forces and a larger European-wide war. This or something like it is probably already being considered in Washington.
For now, in order to keep the West on board, Zelenskiy is rumored to be pushing Ukrainian armed forces commander Viktor Zalyuzhniy to start a last pre-winter offensive in northern Donetsk (Svatovo and Severodonetsk) or Zaporozhe in order to put a stop to the West’s ceasefire murmurs and reboost support. At the same time there is talk of continuing Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy tensions over the latter’s good press and star status in the West. Tensions first emerged over disagreements of previous offensives and Zalyuzhniy’s earlier entry on the Western media stage. On the background of the deteriorating battlefield and international strategic situation, such civil-military tensions are fraught with the potential for a coup. Much of Zelenskiy’s strategy and tactics is driven more by political than by military considerations. Not least among the former is Zelenskiy’s political survival, which any ceasefire or peace talks requiring Kiev to acquiesce in the loss of more territory certainly will doom. Neofascist, military, and much of public opinion will not brook the sacrifices made in blood and treasure bringing only additional ones in Ukrainian territory. Others will ask why was not all of this averted by way of agreeing to Ukrainian neutrality and fulfilling Minsk 2 could have avoided it all.
We may be reaching the watershed moment in the Ukrainian war. No electricity, no army, no society. But here, as with any Russian occupation of central or western Ukrainian lands (not planned but perhaps a necessity at some point down the road for Putin), a quagmire awaits the Kremlin. Russia can not allow complete societal breakdown and chaos to reign in Ukraine anymore than it could tolerate a NATO-member Ukraine with a large neofascist component next door. All of the above and the approaching presidential elections scheduled in Moscow, Kiev and Washington the year after next make this winter pivotal for all the war’s main parties.
A celebrated American journalist goes to Ukraine. He finds a woman whose home has been destroyed by Russian bombs. The woman recounts that before the building collapsed, she and her 5-year-old escaped, but her grandmother did not.
The journalist has this woman’s picture taken in front of her destroyed home — in front of the wreckage and rubble piled over her dead grandmother. And he asks her a question. For The New York Times, he wants her opinion of certain Americans who have let her down.
Does he ask her about the Americans who could have prevented the entire Russian invasion in the first place?
After all, the U.S. White House had for years quietly enmeshed Ukraine’s military-security establishment with our own. For years we had also fueled the Ukrainian civil war with hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons (back when that seemed like a lot of money). We also for years insisted Ukraine would someday join NATO, even though ordinary Ukrainians had consistently expressed different desires: for peace, for military neutrality, and for economic and travel access to both Europe and Russia. Moscow had repeatedly stated it would go to war before it would allow NATO to absorb Ukraine, but we publicly dismissed that — even as privately, our top foreign policy experts inside and outside of government confirmed that, yes, indeed that’s what will eventually happen.
In the weeks before the invasion, the Kremlin repeatedly came to Washington — both privately and publicly — seeking one last time for a new understanding. Washington declined to entertain any of Moscow’s ideas. The White House would rather see Ukraine wrecked. This was so even as the new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, had been elected on a peace platform, with a mandate to wind down the civil war in the Donbas. From the perspective of today, that war is forgotten, but even before the invasion it had lasted eight years and killed more than 13,000 people, and Ukrainians on both sides — the U.S.-backed and the Russian-backed — were tired of it. The White House could have worked with Vladimir Putin and Zelensky toward a diplomatic solution of all of this. Instead, again, we chose to see Ukraine wrecked. We then dedicated ourselves to fighting Russia down to the last Ukrainian, and congratulated ourselves on our noble spirit of self-sacrifice for the good of others.
But no. Our hero the journalist does not ask about any of this. This woman’s home is destroyed, her grandmother crushed to death, her life upended, it could have all been avoided with basic, commonsense diplomacy — but he does not mention this or ask her thoughts.
Does he ask her how she feels about Americans who actively sabotaged a tentatively-reached peace deal that could have ended the war seven months ago?
Seven months ago! Presumably her home could still be standing and her grandmother still alive if the U.S. government had not scuttled that peace process.
No. He does not ask her about this either. After all, there is a U.S. election happening back home. Control of Congress is at stake! People like “Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Republican” are threatening to derail the Ukraine gravy train! What does this woman think of those spineless, heartless, quisling politicians? That’s the story we’re chasing here.
The journalist recounts that the woman hopes her grandmother’s body can be dug out from the rubble and given a proper burial, and then writes:
“Her voice cracked with emotion, but she held together until I asked what she thought of Americans who say it’s time to move on from supporting Ukraine.
“’We’re people, you understand,’ she said, and she began weeping. ‘It doesn’t matter if we’re Ukrainian or American — such things should not happen.’ And then she was crying too hard to continue.”
Such things should not happen.
We’re people, you understand.
It’s a universal and emotionally moving statement. And it’s such an interesting answer to his question — in part because it’s an answer that actually speaks more to the questions he didn’t ask.
If “such things should not happen”, then why did our government embrace yet another avoidable war? Why did it seven months ago sabotage peace?
“Buck Up America!”, Caws the Crow
I’ve long been a mild fan of this journalist, Nicholas Kristof. He has made a career out of defending human rights. He’s a thoughtful and kind-seeming person. He can be a powerful writer and the Ukrainians he profiles in this article are indeed inspiring and admirable.
Yet I’m so disappointed at the cartoonish conclusions drawn.
Apparently if you oppose allocating billions of dollars more in weapons for Ukraine then you a) don’t care about human suffering, and b) are a weak and silly person, and c) are probably Republican.
We are not offered any alternative to pouring more weapons into this conflict.
For example, we are not offered the alternative of a massive international humanitarian aide package — and how striking to see this omission by Kristof, a self-identified progressive, and a journalist whose focus on humanitarian needs has, per The Washington Post, “reshaped the field of opinion journalism.”
Nor are we offered any information about, or advocacy for, peace.
This is in fact one of the most pro-war opinion columns I’ve seen in awhile. It’s mesmerizing, and manipulative. It demonizes Russia and Russians repeatedly with the sort of luridly detailed reporting that could have been aimed at an emotional appeal for peace — but instead is a masterfully choreographed emotional appeal for more war, up to and including the photo of an attractive young Ukrainian woman, a television personality-turned soldier who, Kristof tells us, wants to fight the Russians because they “killed the man I love,” and who
“projected strength, wearing body armor and walking carefully to avoid land mines. ‘Follow in my footsteps,’ she advised.”
Follow in my footsteps, says a woman bent on revenge. She’s earned her right to walk that path. But are we going to scorch every hectare of Ukraine and wreck millions of lives more following her down it? By “we” I mean the American Crows and Russian Seagulls who have collaborated to murder the peace of Ukraine.
It’s not until the 32nd paragraph of his article that Kristof notes that “a prolonged war will claim lives of children starving in Somalia and elsewhere because of higher food prices” — this echo of the old Kristof is bittersweet for being so pathetic, a day late and one hundred billion dollars short. Weirdly, Kristof never mentions the suffering of Ukrainian children now as a reason to seek peace, but he is apparently moved by the thought of Somalian children suffering later, and so he continues: “It may be that at some point outsiders should encourage Zelensky to make concessions (as he offered early in the conflict).”
“It may be that at some point” might kick off the mealiest-mouthed passage in the history of writing.
“At some point?” Such as when? After the mid-terms? They’re over. Can we get on with it now? (Apparently not. First we need to vote another $37.7 billion through a lame-duck Congress. And then? Well, I guess then we’ll see how much money is left, and which way the winds are blowing.)
Also: What “concessions” are you talking about that we maybe, might, at some point, want to encourage Zelensky to make? So, you’ve skipped the entire peace process — skipped all negotiation and gone straight to the surrender? How about just encouraging a cease fire and peace talks?
Also: “Outsiders” might someday get involved? Meaning us, the people orchestrating the war from Day 2, and fueling it gleefully to a massive new scale that is truly demolishing Ukraine?
This part — the suggestion that some unspecified day soon, American “outsiders” oughta get involved, if only for the children of Somalia — this part might be the most mendacious moment in the entire unpleasant exercise. Here Kristof reinforces the White House fiction that we’re taking our lead from Zelenksy — when it’s well-documented that Zelensky is almost as helpless a bystander as you or I. He was elected on a peace platform; sought peace in the civil war but was stymied by (CIA-backed) Ukrainian nationalists; sought peace with Putin after the invasion but was stymied by Washington and London; and only gets traction with the rest of the world when he sues for weapons and not for peace.
So Zelensky has been just as managed and manipulated as has any reader of this Kristof article. The New York Times, our masterful paper of record, has never really delved into any of this.
Instead, we are offered a binary choice: Either escalate the conflict with more weapons, or “abandon” the Ukrainians entirely.
“While President Vladimir Putin of Russia seems unable to break the spirit of Ukrainians, he is already shattering the will of some Americans and Europeans. … Buck up, America and Europe!” Kristof exhorts us. “And take some inspiration from Ukrainians themselves. … Ukrainians aren’t wavering the way some Americans, French and Germans are.”
Buck up, America?
Don’t “waver”, like a bunch of French or German sissies?
Keep fueling this terrible conflict with enormous amounts of weapons — and then keep complaining when the Russian response is proportionally (or disproportionally!) enormous?
Then, go document the horrific results of that enormously destructive Russian response, snap some pics of the victims — and use their stories to advocate for enormous amounts of additional weapons?
That’s the message from one of our more notable humanitarian writers?
Yes. Well, that plus some of the kookiest, most wooly-headed foreign policy thoughts imaginable. Kristof states that in addition to the moral reasons for shipping weapons to Ukraine, “there’s also a practical reason to do so,” because Ukrainians “are offering themselves as a human shield in ways that benefit the West.” He then cites how much better protected Estonia is from hypothetical future Russian aggression, now that Russia has worn itself out.
Again, how incredibly jarring to hear a person steeped in human rights lingo speak so approvingly about people serving as human shields. (Did the grandmother crushed in her apartment building “offer herself” for that?) International human rights law condemns people being used as human shields; the very term itself calls to mind a cowardly or immoral behavior in which combatants hide behind civilians, including the elderly and children. Yet here, Kristof applauds the use of the entire Ukrainian people, including the elderly and children, who supposedly “are offering themselves” as a “human shield” for the convenience of entire other, distant nations, like Estonia and America.
He continues:
“Ukraine’s resistance may also increase the possibility that Putin himself will be toppled. That might lead to the rise of aggressive militarists who would be more likely to use nuclear weapons, but it could also moderate Russia and lead to a safer world …
“The most important way in which Ukraine is arguably making the world safer is farther to the east. If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, China could take that as a warning and be less likely to move on Taiwan, reducing the risk of a cataclysmic war between the United States and China.”
That’s a lot of woulda-coulda mumbo jumbo. If we keep the pressure on, Putin might be toppled, which might lead to a nuclear war, or it might not, but if we ease up the pressure, China might be emboldened, which might lead to a cataclysmic war, or it might not.
So the only solution is: More war, which might or might not lead to more war.
C’mon Nick, what happened to you?
Once upon a time an American President, Teddy Roosevelt, won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to negotiate an end to a war between Russia and Japan. That was in a happier era, before we had nurtured and fed an enormous, malignant blob of military industry, a money-fattened blob that has oozed into 81 countries around the planet, a corrupting blob that has seeped everywhere into the American political system and has poisoned political thought itself.
Joe Biden could at any point rise above this blob. He could follow in Teddy Roosevelt’s footsteps, and could step forward with a bold peace initiative to bring the U.S.-Ukraine-Russia war to an end. He could do it tomorrow.
But he won’t. And why should he, when not even as renowned a humanitarian as Nick Kristof can be bothered to ask for this?
