Below are some excerpts, but I recommend reading the full article at the Edward Slavsquat Substack site. Note: Bolding is in original. – Natylie

By Marko Marjanović, Edward Slavsquat Substack, 4/1/22

….Russia pulling units from everywhere to make Donbass a by-the-books operation with a massively positive correlation of forces is not good news for Ukraine. It was far better for Ukraine when the enemy was spread out over numerous axes, none of them strong enough to deliver a decisive blow.

I wrote that the danger for the Russian side was that it would become a hostage of its almost-success at Kiev. Logic dictates that an operation that has stalled and where chances of success are low should be scaled down and cannibalized to beef up more promising operations. But its forces having advanced so far and having come so near, it wouldn’t be an easy decision to pull them back.

And yet that is exactly what the Russians have done. They have made the tough call.

It is the correct call but it surely wasn’t easy to make. To voluntarily relinquish territory your forces had bled to take — that can’t be easy, no matter how strategically justified.

I am in awe of the sheer ruthlessness of Russia’s withdrawals.

The Sumy ambition abandoned. The Nikolayev ambition abandoned. The Chernigov ambition abandoned. The Kiev ambition abandoned.

I have been writing for three weeks now that Russia’s effort was very cleary too diluted over too many axes and sectors. (I would have started even earlier but early on there were so many other things that were also wrong.) I wrote that single-minded focus on the Ukrainian military center of gravity (which happens to lie in the Donbass) offered the best chances of success. These radical adjustments are evidence that Russia’s generals thought the same….

….Everyone old enough to remember February 24 will remember that the war kicked off with the Russians fighting in kid gloves. Air strikes were nearly absent, there was no targeting of barracks with cruise missiles, and the units racing to Kiev were trying to avoid fighting wherever possible, bypassing resistance rather than confronting it. That the initial Russian effort, of which the drive on Kiev was the centerpiece (tying up as many Russian units as all the other efforts combined), was primarily concerned with degrading the Ukrainian military (the strongest grouping of which lay far away in Donbass) is nonsense. It was exactly the other way around. The initial plan was focused on testing if the Ukrainians state could be made to unravel without having to go after its military and killing tens of thousands of Ukrainian servicemen.

If MoD was truthful it would have said:

“We tried something (politicians/ideologues made us). It didn’t work. So now we’re going to make radical adjustments and try something else.”

But that wouldn’t have exactly pacified the homefront, would it?

….The unforced Russian withdrawal around Kiev has pro-Ukrainian Westerners seeing Russians “pushed back” and even a “Russian rout“. They will be surprised when Ukrainian gains in the north are not followed up by Ukrainian gains in the south but by Russian gains and forced Ukrainian retreats.

They do not seem to fully understand that what is happening is Russia switching from a fanciful non-military Plan A (which indeed failed), to a by-the-books Plan B, and that this demands radical redeployment of troops to correspond to the shift of focus from the political to the military center of gravity.

Meanwhile pro-Russian Westerners have similarly discredited themselves. It wasn’t so long ago that “former CIA” Larry C Johnson was telling us that “the Ukrainian army has already been defeated. What’s left is a mop-up.”

….No. Exactly wrong. The Ukrainian military has not been defeated. That is exactly why the Russian military is having to be recalled from Kiev for Donbass. To create a grouping of forces strong enough to decisively defeat the large Ukrainian military concentration there.

Johnson’s fellow fantasist Scott Ritter didn’t opt for blowing up Russian success beyond all proportion. Instead he moved the goalposts so far as to still be able to proclaim the failed Russian drive on Kiev a 5D success.

He spins a tale where “200,000 Russian attackers” faced “600,000 Ukrainian defenders” and therefore needed a Kiev “feint” to prevent the Ukrainians from moving their allegedly ginormous forces to where Russia didn’t want them.

First of all this is pure revisionism. Nobody in the first week of the war, when the Russians were clawing ever closer to Kiev and were making a point of calling Zelensky illegitimate, thought the Kiev operation was about anything other than Kiev. All this stuff about a “feint” only ever hit the light of day when the effort stalled and failed.

Secondly, it is dishonest arithmetic. It is comparing apples and oranges. You can’t take just the forces actually committed for one side but the theoretical total for the other. The 100,000 Ukrainian territorials do not venture outside the oblasts they are raised in. Likewise there are still plenty of Ukrainian brigades, active-duty and reserve, in western and central Ukraine that have not been committed. Moreover the reserve is supposedly over 200,000 strong but that is a paper strength and it is unclear how much of that can actually be constituted and in what timeframe. Zelensky only issued the order for the reserve to mobilize on February 23 so when the Russians rolled in precisely zero of that reserve was in the field. The Russians were absolutely not outnumbered 3 to 1. In the border areas where battles were taking place they were the more numerous ones.

Ritter claims the Russians needed the “feint” against Kiev to break out from Crimea and isolate Mariupol but that was accomplished in all of 5 days (before Ukraine could even stand up its reserves). Yet the Kiev “feint” continued for weeks after that. *Why?*  (You could make the claim it continued on to discourage Ukraine from reinforcing Donbass but then why is it being radically scaled-down now? The Donbass battle is still ongoing and the Ukrainian communication lines to Donbass are still open as their force there remains un-encircled. How does withdrawing from around Kiev *now*, and even telegraphing the reduced posture in advance, possibly square with the notion that sitting outside Kiev was absolutely vital to prevent “the more numerous” Ukrainians from reinforcing Donbass??)…

Read full article here.

By Serhiy Kudelia, Open Democracy, 3/28/22

In an article published in December last year, Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister Dmytro Kuleba dismissed neutrality as a policy that could “do nothing to abate Putin’s appetite”, but would rather feed it further. Kuleba also stressed that Ukraine would not abandon its stated ambition to join NATO, which has been enshrined in the country’s constitution since 2019, “no matter how much pressure we face from Russia”.

Three months later, faced with Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyi has already acknowledged that Ukraine “would not be able to join” NATO and that this “needed to be recognised.”

Zelenskyi’s response has fuelled speculations that a Ukrainian pledge of neutrality would be the centrepiece of a possible diplomatic settlement with Russia. However, after years of official repudiation of the idea, the sudden embrace of a permanently neutral status may be harder for Kyiv than it might seem. It may now be up to NATO itself to open the path to a Russian-Ukrainian settlement.

Imposed neutrality

With Russia’s military offensive stalled on all fronts, Zelenskyi’s fiery rhetoric has been feeding public expectations of impending victory among Ukrainians. A recent opinion poll in Ukraine showed that at least half of respondents believed that the war would end in a matter of weeks. Ninety three percent of respondents were largely or fully confident that Ukraine would win.

By contrast, Foreign Minister Kuleba conceded in an interview on 18 March that a peace agreement is a more “realistic” scenario for the end of the war than a Ukrainian victory. This major gap between public expectations about how the war might end and the Ukrainian government’s own assessment of the likely outcome may be a serious impediment for the successful resolution of the talks.

After all, any settlement will require major concessions on Ukraine’s part. Compromise could be viewed by many in Ukraine as a reprise of the Minsk agreements, the ceasefire and political settlement signed under duress in 2014-2015 – and which have been criticised even by Zelenskyi.

A source of instability

Although neutrality was supported by at least a third of Ukrainians prior to the war, political elites and government officials have consistently dismissed the idea.

Days before Russia launched its military attack on 24 February, Ukraine’s former US Ambassador Valeriy Chaly, who is close to former president Petro Poroshenko, characterised neutrality as “the Kremlin’s plan.” In mid-February, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, claimed that Ukraine could consider its ambition for NATO membership to avoid war with Russia – but had to walk back his comments after a critical response from both the government and opposition parties. Zelenskyi’s party, Servant of the People, has a consistent record of parliamentary support for cooperation with NATO and late last year argued for the provision of a NATO Membership Action Plan. Even after softening its pro-NATO rhetoric since the start of the war, the party has still suggested that NATO membership is impossible only in the short-term.

A sudden about-face by the president’s faction and other NATO supporters in parliament, who would need to amend Ukraine’s constitution to remove the country’s commitment to NATO membership, would be an explicit acquiescence to one of Russia’s key demands. Similarly, a country-wide referendum on the issue of NATO membership is unlikely to produce a unified response, even if it was carried out quickly. The latest Ukrainian opinion poll shows that a record number – 72% of respondents – support NATO membership. And why should Ukrainians give up on NATO aspirations if they feel confident in their eventual victory?

Rather than a strategic choice made of Ukraine’s own accord, neutrality would become a policy imposed on Ukrainian society and its elites through the use of force. Indeed, the prospect of neutrality lacks deeper political legitimacy and is likely to be immediately contested. It would be at permanent risk of reversal by any of Zelenskyi’s successors. This would undermine the effectiveness of neutrality as a tool of international relations. Instead, it would likely become a permanent source of internal instability.

Security guarantees

Neutrality would also only be effective in ensuring the territorial integrity of a neutral state if it rests on the symmetry of security interests of all major powers. Once one of the powers suddenly finds it in its interests to violate the pledge, like Germany did with Belgium twice in the last century, neutrality status offers no effective mechanisms to prevent it.

Since Russia has engaged in repeated acts of aggression against Ukraine, it will have little incentive to abide by any future pledges of non-interference – unless its actions trigger confrontation with other major powers, or if it faces little prospects of success. Meanwhile, NATO’s pledge to bring Ukraine into an alliance could continue serving as a convenient pretext for renewed Russian aggression. From this standpoint, the prospect of Ukrainian neutrality could be secure only if it quickly builds up a strong defensive capacity or receives credible third-party security guarantees from key NATO members.

Neither of these two options, however, has a realistic path forward. Russia’s demand to demilitarise Ukraine and its sustained actions to degrade Ukraine’s military infrastructure indicate that Moscow would only accept a deal that severely restricts the size of the Ukrainian army and imposes arms limitations.

By contrast, if the US gave security guarantees to Ukraine similar to its defence treaties with South Korea or Japan, this could prove problematic in light of American public opinion’s aversion to any new foreign policy entanglements. Only about 35% of Americans (and 28% of Brits) support deploying their troops to protect Ukraine, given the risks of confronting a major nuclear power. Nor do Americans see the Russian-Ukrainian war as presenting the same urgent security challenge to the US as other threats, cyberterrorism or nuclear proliferation. Without public support and bipartisan approval, no US administration would be willing to extend tangible security guarantees to Ukraine.

Borders

The final, and most fundamental, obstacle to a Russia-Ukraine deal is the disagreement over Ukraine’s borders. At the very least, Moscow expects Kyiv to recognise Crimea as part of Russia and accept the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “republics”.

Zelenskyi suggests approaching the issues of neutrality and the resolution of territorial disputes sequentially. For Ukraine, discussion of a territorial settlement can only start after a new security arrangement is reached. Russia, by contrast, has already linked progress in talks on the peace agreement to Kyiv’s recognition of Ukrainian territorial losses. For Moscow, the agreement on neutrality thus serves a dual purpose: advancing its security interests and satisfying its territorial claims.

Once Kyiv signs an agreement in which Russia’s neutrality pledge is limited to Ukraine’s territory excluding Crimea and Donbas, it would also signal acquiescence to the redrawing of its borders. Given Moscow’s experience with eight years of stalled Minsk talks over a similar sequencing dispute, another proposal to resolve differences through a sequence of steps is unlikely to be accepted. For Zelenskyi, however, an agreement would be even more difficult if it fulfils both Russia’s security wishes and its territorial demands. This substantially narrows the available bargaining range and raises the likelihood of a diplomatic stalemate.

A path forward?

Five or ten years ago, neutrality could have been a viable stand-alone security alternative for Ukraine. Now its effectiveness is in doubt and its implementation requires the types of additional concessions that none of Ukraine’s current leaders is willing to make. Zelenskyi, however, is also right in exposing NATO’s lack of resolve and inconsistency in its engagement over Ukraine. Despite its vocal pledges of support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, NATO leaders appear to be powerless now to stop Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukrainian statehood.

The one tangible contribution that NATO can still make, though, is to respond to Zelenskyi’s repeated calls and clarify its stance regarding Ukraine’s eventual membership. This would require scrapping its earlier promise to make Ukraine a member of the alliance issued during the 2008 Bucharest Summit (and reiterated, most recently, in the 2021 Brussels Summit Communique). Such a move would, at the very least, allow Zelenskyi to pivot from the need to justify abandoning NATO aspirations domestically to searching for a new security arrangement outside of existing alliances.

Neutrality would then no longer be viewed as a choice forced on Ukraine by Russia alone, but as an inevitable necessity. This decision could also change the broader context for ongoing talks with Russia and open the possibility for decoupling the discussion of Ukraine’s security status from the disputes over Donbas and Crimea.

Finally, it would allow key NATO members, such as the US and the UK, to engage more directly in the diplomatic efforts to stop the war without being viewed by Russia as spoilers interested in prolonging it. Although a successful peace settlement would require multiple adjustments both from Ukraine and Russia, the initial step should be reducing what the current CIA director William J. Burns once characterised as “the brightest of all red lines” for the Russian elite: Ukraine’s possible NATO membership.

Economists Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff join Consortium News Live! to discuss the economic war against Russia, its boomerang effect on the West and the threat to extend the war to China. Is globalization over? Watch the replay.

By Michael Snyder, ZeroHedge, 3/30/22 (emphasis in original)

Russia has just made some moves that are going to change the global financial system forever.  When the conflict in Ukraine originally erupted, the U.S. immediately attempted to crash the value of Russia’s currency.  Those attempts were successful for a few days, but now the value of the ruble relative to the U.S. dollar is almost all the way back to where it was before the start of the war.  This has absolutely stunned many of the experts, because they thought that U.S. sanctions would absolutely cripple Russia.  So what happened?  Well, it turns out that the Russians have made some very savvy moves that have turned the tables on the Biden administration.

For one thing, Russia has started to demand payment in rubles when it sells natural gas to non-friendly nations.  A lot of countries in western Europe are quite upset about this, but they really have no choice, because they are exceedingly dependent on Russian gas.  So from this point forward, western powers are actually going to be forced to help prop up the value of the ruble…

Russia wants “unfriendly countries” to pay for Russian natural gas in rubles. That’s a new directive from President Vladimir Putin as he attempts to leverage his country’s in-demand resources to counter a barrage of Western sanctions.

“I have decided to implement … a series of measures to switch payments — we’ll start with that — for our natural gas supplies to so-called unfriendly countries into Russian rubles,” Putin said in a televised government meeting, adding that trust in the dollar and euro had been “compromised” by the West’s seizure of Russian assets.

Secondly, the Russians have decided that U.S. dollars will no longer be accepted as payment for anything that they sell to other nations.  Pavel Zavalny, the head of the Russian parliament, says that U.S. currency “has lost all interest for us”…

Much more interesting was Zavalny’s main point, even though it has been mostly overlooked. If other countries want to buy oil, gas, other resources or anything else from Russia, he said, “let them pay either in hard currency, and this is gold for us, or pay as it is convenient for us, this is the national currency.”

In other words, Russia is happy to accept your national currency — yuan, lira, ringgits or whatever — or rubles, or “hard currency,” and for them that no longer means U.S. dollars, it means gold.

“The dollar ceases to be a means of payment for us, it has lost all interest for us,” Zavalny added, calling the greenback no better than “candy wrappers.”

This is huge, but it isn’t being discussed much by the corporate media in the United States.

The Russians aren’t just saying that they do not recognize U.S. dollars as the reserve currency of the world any longer.

That would be bad enough.

At this point, they are actually saying that they will no longer accept U.S. dollars as a form of payment at all.

Wow.

Thirdly, the central bank in Russia has fixed the value of the ruble to the price of gold for at least the next three months…

The Russian central bank will restart buying gold from banks and will pay a fixed price of 5000 roubles ($52) per gramme between March 28 and June 30, the bank said on Friday.

But you won’t hear about this on CNN or MSNBC.

This is a move that could potentially change everything.

Once upon a time, the value of the U.S. dollar was tied to gold, and that helped the U.S. dollar become the dominant currency on the entire planet.

But then Nixon took us off the gold standard in the early 1970s, and things have gone haywire ever since.

Now Russia has linked the value of the ruble to the price of gold, and many believe that this is really going to shake things up…

“I am reminded of what the U.S. did in the middle of the Great Depression. For the next 40 years, gold’s price was pegged to the U.S. dollar at $35. There is a precedent for this. It leads me to believe that Russia’s intention would be for the value of the ruble to be linked directly to the value of gold,” Gainesville Coins precious metals expert Everett Millman told Kitco News. “Setting a fixed price for rubles per gram of gold seems to be the intention. That’s pretty important when it comes to how Russia could seek funding and manage its central bank financing outside of the U.S. dollar system.”

Others believe that this move will create great instability in the global financial system.

For example, Tom Luongo is warning that the following could soon happen…

1. At $1550 per ounce the first order effect here is that is implies a RUB/USD rate of around 75. Incentivizing those holding RUB to continue and those needing them to bid up the price from current levels.
2. This creates a positive incentive loop to bring the ruble back to pre-war levels.  Then after that market effects take over as ruble demand becomes structural, based on Russia’s trade balance.
3. Once that happens and the RUB/USD falls below 75, then the USD price of gold rises structurally draining the paper gold markets and collapsing the financial system based on leveraged/hypothecated gold.  Now we’re into the arb. phase @Lukegromen postulated w/ 1000bbls/oz.

Time will tell if Luongo is right or if he is wrong.

But without a doubt, things have not played out the way that Biden administration officials were hoping.

They had hoped that U.S. sanctions would crush the ruble, the Russian financial system and the entire Russian economy.

Instead, the Russians have been able to successfully prop up the value of the ruble and have made moves that directly threaten the dominance of the U.S. dollar.

No matter what happens with the ceasefire talks, I expect the United States and Russia to continue this economic conflict for the foreseeable future.

Ultimately, that will be bad for both of our nations.

And as history has shown, economic conflicts have a way of becoming shooting wars way too often.  Needless to say, we definitely do not want a shooting war with Russia.

Leaders on both sides should be attempting to find ways to achieve peace and to fix the tremendous damage that has already been done.

Unfortunately, everyone seems to want to continue to escalate matters, and that should deeply alarm all of us

https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/25/ted-postol-what-you-really-need-to-know-about-the-threat-of-nuclear-war/