By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 8/10/24

Kursk Offensive

There are significantly different narratives about how Ukraine’s Kursk offensive unfolded over the past 24 hours. But they share the conclusions that (1) the main Ukrainian aim was to seize the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant south of Kursk city; (2) this was not accomplished and cannot now be accomplished; (3) that Russia has largely stabilized the situation in its favor at points north and east of Sudzha; (4) that Ukrainian options are now more limited, either to advancing southeastwards towards places like Belitza or to dig in deeper where Ukrainian forces still have the upper hand, closer to the Russian border with Ukraine (south and west of Sudzha), to build fortifications and to continue to try to stretch the Russian front lines and to harrass Russia over the coming months (even though most everyone agrees that the Ukrainian army is hardly in a good position to try to carry this out effectively).

Pro-Russian forces, citing Russian sources such as the mayors of Sudzha and Keranovo, are dismissive of accounts that claim that large parts of Sudzha, parts of Keranovo (northwest of Sudzha) and Martynovko (north east of Sudzha) fell to Ukrainian control as many accounts attest. The latest account from Dima of the Military Summary Channel, based in Belarus, and broadcasting at around midday, California time, of Saturday, August 10th. does not align with these. But whereas pro-Russian accounts deny that Russian reinforcements were seriously impeded and fired upon as a result of traffic blockages incited by Ukrainian demands that citizens evacuate, I notice that Dima has nothing further to say on this topic since his report of it yesterday. The mayor of Sudzha has claimed that what really happened was that Ukrainian forces tried to stall evacuation attempts by firing at Russian vehicles.

Dima does describe the current situation as a “turning point,” in Russia’s favor, and that from tomorrow, Russia is likely to regain the initiative and Ukraine likely to fall back. He reports that there are now doubts whether Ukrainian forces ever did advance westerwards from Lybulinovka to Snagost or that Ukrainians ever reached Keranovo from Snagost, although Ukrainian sources claim to have fire control (by drone) over southeast Keranovo.

Russian MoD appears to confirm that Ukrainian forces did reach close to Kromstiye Byki (north of Anastas’yevka) by reporting a Russian attack on a Ukrainian convoy that was discovered in that area and in which ten Ukrainian armored vehicles were destroyed. Russian reinforcements have arrived and no further Ukrainian advance is anticipated. Likewise, Ukrainian forces did reach the first buildings of Martynovka, but were repelled by Russian reinforcements sent down from Bol’shoye Soldatskouye. Ukrainian troops withdrew to Sudzha. A Ukrainian convoy was destroyed and rebuffed in Cherkasskoye Porechone, west of Bol’shoye Soldstskoye.

In effect the latest Russian line of defense now runs from east of Mikhaylovka through Martynovka up to Pyccko, certainly shutting Ukraine off from an advance towards the KNPP.

Ukrainian forces appear still to be in control of northern Sudzha in the areas of Kasachy Loknye, Zaoleshenka and Gonchsrovka, and appear to have pushed Russia from Plekovo. And many if not most of the rest of Sudzha still appears as contested areas on Dima’s map. To the south of Sudzha, Ukrainian forces may still be in control of the settlements of Kurilovka, Melovoy and Guyevo and certainly control a large area of territory around those locations.

The likelihood of a Ukrainian push in the direction of Belitsa, Giri, Ulanok and Kommunar still exists but seems increasingly weak.

Did Authorities Ignore the Warnings?

I referred yesterday to reports that Russian Chief of Staff Gerasimov had warnings of a Ukrainian concentration of forces south of the border in Sumy two weeks ago and appeared not to have taken sufficiently rapid attention. This may be linked to the account relayed today by Dima who says that some weeks ago Belarus had reacted strongly to the invasion over its territory of Ukrainian drones east of Minsk. Belarus accordingly strengthened its troops in the directions of Gomel and Mozyr and improved its border positions. In July, when a concentration of Ukrainian troops was observed in Ukraine south of the border with Belarus there was a negotiation between Ukraine and Belarus, with the result that Belarus withdrew its forces from close to the border and Ukraine did the same. But Ukraine redeployed these forces towards Kursk.

Elsewhere along the combat lines, it is reported that Russia has established control over most of the northern sector of Vovchansk, has broken through Ukrainian defenses in northern Kupyansk around Tabaivka and Pischane and has encircled Stelmakhivka (south of Pischane). In the Toretsk/Niu York conurbation, Russia has estblished control over 30% of Druzhba, and has moved westward from Yurivka towards Panteleimonivka and Valentynivka. In the Pokrovsk area, Russia has established control over Ivanivka and Russian forces are close to Hrodivka. Fierce clashes continue in the Kostianynivka area but it seems very unlikely that Ukraine can hold out there for much longer. Russia continues to press northwards from Urozhaine, and continues to suppress Ukrainian attempts on the Tendra Spit in the Dnieper estuary.

Imported Weapons

Recent reports in the New York Times and elsewhere that Russia imports large numbers of drones, and will import hundreds of ballistic missiles from Iran, including the Fath-360 and Ababil, and that Russian production of its own missiles are increasingly “hand to mouth” because of the speed with which missiles appear on the battlefield after manufacture, might suggest a significant weakness in Russian production capability.

There are so many previous reports that suggest otherwise, that I think these latest should be taken with a hefty dose of salt. I don’t know for certain what the explanations really are but I would not be surprised that Russia would choose to take advantage of an ally’s existing specialized expertise in certain weapons, or by the ability of an ally to produce certain weapons at a cost lower than domestic equivalents, particularly if this helped consolidate the bonds between Russia and its ally. I suspect that Russian ability to move missiles quickly from the factory to the battlefield is something Russia might celebrate, first of all because of its efficiency and secondly because it would suggest that the most advanced weapons are being prioritized.

The Ababil missile , according to RBC Ukraine and MSN, is a small missile measuring 3.7 meters in length, weighing 240 kg, with a range of up to 86 km. Analysts note that the Ababil exists in two versions: one with satellite and inertial navigation, and another with an additional optical-electronic guidance system for the terminal phase. The Fath-360 missile is 5.1 meters long, with a diameter of 368 mm, and a total weight of 787 kg, of which 150 kg is the warhead. It reaches speeds of up to Mach 4 and has a flight range of up to 120 km. The guidance system includes an inertial system and satellite navigation.

Europe

Writing for Propaganda in Focus today, Stephan Sander-Faes (Sander-Faes) weighs the possibility that US handling of the conflict with Russia over Ukraine, and its increasing lack of respect for European sovereignty, is fomenting a backlash that will break the bonds that have gripped Europe in the bear-hug of the US since 1945.

“Europe, on the other hand, is circling down the maelstrom of economic disaster stemming from its adversarial policies vis-à-vis Russia.

“In the meantime, anti-Globalism and anti-Americanism are beginning to coalesce with the European people’s criticism of the EU Commission’s handling of the energy crisis. Slowly, extra-parliamentary opposition to the increased conferral of power to Brussels is merging with calls for the restoration of popular sovereignty and calls to end Europe’s utter dependence and subservience to US foreign policy diktats.

It appears that the — so far successful — US policy to destabilise Russia to induce the economic suicide of Europe is reaching its next phase: the pushback from the peoples of Europe who, deprived of many of the promised benefits of legacy policies such as increased EU integration and unquestioning Transatlaticism, might be America’s undoing”.

Meantime, Intellinews reports that the level of Russians’ trust in President Vladimir Putin stands at 81.5%, according to a poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), TASS reported on July 12. Perhaps this is related in no small part to continuing evidence of robustness in the Russian economy as confirmed yesterday by The Bell (The Bell) in answering the question of why is investment in Russia at a 12-year high? It notes thst Capital investment (expenditure on new construction, higher-tech equipment for enterprises, purchase of new kit, etc.) in 2023 hit a 12-year high of 34 trillion rubles, almost 10% more than the year before. In the first three months of this year, Russian companies invested 5.9 trillion rubles, up 14.5% year-on-year. Russia’s positive “investment gap” – i.e. the difference in growth rates between investment and GDP – has reached a 15-year high, according to the Moscow-based Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting (CMASF). The government is getting close to hitting one of its long-term targets – getting the proportion of investment in Russia’s GDP to 25%. Three reasons why companies are investing so much at the moment: import substitution; Russia’s “Pivot to the East” and government support, especially in military spending and a wide range of social benefits, including subsidized mortgages.

Middle East

Continuing Israeli atrocities in Gaza, including the bombing of schools that are being used as shelters by homeless and displaced Palestinians (at least a hundred dead on this account over the past few days) – on the pretext, for which evidence is never supplied and, even if true, would be obscenely disproportionate, that Hamas fighters have been identified in such shelters – increase the doubts that there is any seriousness in the Israeli cabinet about a ceasefire with Hamas and that, even if there was a ceasefire agreement, Israel would respect it beyond an opening phase of negotiations.

The world has waited now for several days to see if Iran would retaliate against Israel for Israel’s recent assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. Equally, it has waited to see if Israel would make preemptive attack on Israel and/or would invade southern Lebanon. Various theories have been canvassed as to why it has taken Iran this long to retaliate. Iran’s Supreme Leader had ordered a retaliation, and this was anticipated to take place within 72 hours of that order. We have long exceeded 72 hours, so what is going on? Some analysts speculate, encouraged by Washington voices, that the US, with carrott and stick, has persuaded Iran not to proceed. Others report that Russia, for different reasons and with different arguments, has also advised Tehran to hold its fire. Still others speculate that in-fighting in Tehran between the political and military leadership, perhaps exacerbated by western media reports (doubtful, if should be said) that IRGC personnel may have collaborated in the recent assassination in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, may have led the new President, Pezeshkisan, to hold back.

Or, and this seems to me to be perhaps the most likely, Tehran simply needs to be in a stronger state of readiness before proceeding, on at least three counts: (1) seeking the necessary support from trusted allies and even others in the region, including Saudi Arabia and members of the Organization of Islamic States; (2) identifying locations for missile launchers outside of Iran in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon or Yemen, firming agreements with its allies and delivering the weapons and the personnel required to use them; (3) awaiting delivery from Russia of electronic warfare and radar equipment and advanced missiles, determining the locations for these and accommodating the Russian advisers who would be needed to support these operations. A fourth possibility, much less likely in my view, is that Iran is waiting either to complete a subterfuge nuclear weapon or is waiting for Russia to supply a nuclear warhead for capping missiles already in Iranian possession.

Western Mainstream Media

Melvin Goodman, writing in Counterpunch today (Goodman), noting the New York Times has always favored Israel, focuses on the newspaper columnist Bret Stephens, a former editor of the Jerusalem Post who Goodman says left the Wall Street Journal to join the Times in 2017 because he believed Israel was not getting a fair hearing in the mainstream media. Exemplifying pro-war policies, Stephens’s most recent column supported any Israeli military option that “advanced Israel’s national interests on all fronts.”  Goodman notes that Stephens” never refers to the genocidal campaign that Israel is waging in Gaza and to a degree on the West Bank, where land has been appropriated by Orthodox Jews on a daily basis.” He dismisses those who protest Israeli actions as “Iran’s useful idiots” and antisemites.  He supports increases to the defense budget that will assure “global primacy.”

Meantime, for Consortium News (Mick Hall), Mick Hall writes that major international media face a dilemma over whether to adapt their reporting to the World Court’s judgment last month that Israel is an apartheid state illegally occupying Palestinian territory or continue to reflect a dominant narrative giving Israel ideological succor. He writes:

“The rule of international law and rule of U.S. hegemony stands diametrically opposed and the non-Western world sees it, a reality Western media thus far has studiously avoided to represent to its own increasingly skeptical audiences.

“Western news leaders now have a choice, assuming they are not themselves as deluded as those wielding power, making rational choice impossible. Either continue as is, or attempt to achieve a semblance of credibility by aligning descriptors in reports with determinations of the U.N.’s top judicial body.

“The decision will ultimately come down to whether any moral agency remains within those institutions, but more likely, whether those states funding them change their diplomatic settings in the way that the ICJ advisory opinion requires.”

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Intellinews, 7/12/24

The level of Russians’ trust in President Vladimir Putin stands at 81.5%, according to a poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), TASS reported on July 12.

“Asked if they trusted Putin, 81.5% of survey participants responded in the affirmative (plus 0.6 percentage points). The president’s job approval rating increased by 0.6 percentage points over the week to 79.0%,” VTsIOM said in the survey.

The government’s approval rating is at 52.8%, down 0.3pp. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s approval rating remains unchanged at 52.8%, while 62.2% of respondents expressed trust in him, an increase of 0.9pp.

The survey also gauged public trust in the leaders of parliamentary factions. Chairman of the Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov enjoys a 34.5% trust rating, up 3.6pp. Sergey Mironov, leader of A Just Russia — For Truth, is trusted by 28.0% of respondents, a rise of 1.6pp. LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky has a trust rating of 20.5%, up 2.1pp, while Alexey Nechayev, chairman of New People, is trusted by 9.7% of respondents, an increase of 2.3pp.

A separate poll by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) revealed that 80% of respondents trust Putin, with 81% approving of his job performance.

According to FOM, 51% of respondents rated the government’s performance positively, a decrease of 3pp. Additionally, 57% of respondents believe Mishustin is performing his duties well, with no change from previous results.

Support for the ruling party United Russia stands at 46%, a drop of 1 percentage point. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) maintains an 8% support level, unchanged from previous figures. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and A Just Russia — For Truth each hold steady at 8% and 3%, respectively, with New People also at 3%.

YouTube link here. This episode aired on Tuesday, August 6, 2024.

By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism, 7/8/24

From the launch of the Special Military Operation, this site has warned that Russia could win the war and lose the peace. That risk is still very much in play. The political calculus behind the Special Military Operation and Putin’s goals of demilitarization, denazification and no NATO entry for Ukraine almost succeeded, with Ukraine agreeing to a draft outline of key terms in Istanbul in March-April 2022.

But as it has been apparent that the resolution will come by force, not words, and Russia will impose its will on Ukraine, it is not evident how Russia intends to achieve its overarching goal of stopping the West from ever again using Ukraine to threaten Russian security. As much as strategic flexibility is very valuable in negotiations, not being clear where you want to wind up is not a great posture for waging war.

Perhaps Russia has a clear vision of desired end states within its leadership and is keeping its own counsel for now. But Russia does not appear to have embraced the necessity of somehow subjugating most if not all of Western Ukraine, let alone the best way to manage the situation on a long-term basis.

As we have explained before and will update below, given the certainty of intense European hostility toward Russia even after fighting in Ukraine stops, Russia will have to conquer, subdue, or somehow get other countries to partition Western Ukraine. Any of these outcomes is a pretty tall order. But anything less would result in a rump Ukraine that the West would treat as NATO lite, particularly with respect to the thing Russia wanted most to avoid, installation of nuclear missiles.

Another reason that Russia will in some form have to control a significant part of Western Ukraine is the Dnieper watershed. Recall Russia by its own law now deems all of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporzhizhia oblasts to be part of Russia:

Note that Kherson (in particular the city of Kherson) and Zaporzhizhia (including the city of Zaporzhizhia) both straddle the Dnieper. We hoisted this comment from PlutoniumKun last month, and it bears repeating:

PlutoniumKun noted recently in comments:

“I’m glad for once to see someone mention water and sewerage, something often overlooked in all the high level military/geostrategic theorising. Ukraine is topographically flat, which means that nearly all its water services require active pumping.

“This has clear strategic implications (nevermind the hardships this will cause for millions of Ukrainians). There is a good reason why most uncontentious national boundaries follow watersheds, not the obvious boundary of rivers – because once a river is shared, you need intensive co-operation on a wide range of issues, from fishing to bridges and dams and flood controls and… water quality. This is obviously unlikely for many years after whatever resolves the war.

“Since Russia needs to control the mouth of the Dnieper for strategic purposes, and needs to control the lower dams and canals for water supply, the obvious question is what happens if a rump Ukraine state is either unwilling or unable to maintain infrastructure upriver. Not just dams – what happens if they pump all of Kievs sewerage into the Dnieper? Russia can hardly complain if its crippled Ukraines infrastructure.

“So Russia has three choices – seek complete control over most of the Dnieper watershed (which is most of Ukraine), or accept that it has no control over it becoming a sewer and construct alternative infrastructure, or it can try to ensure that whatever deal finally finishes the war includes a comprehensive watershed management. The latter seems very convoluted and unlikely, not least because Russia might then have no choice but to pay for a lot of Ukraines infrastructure repair. So this may well be a major factor in Russias calculations – maybe even more so than the more obvious military calculations. Water infrastructure is very, very expensive, its not something that can be overlooked.”

The Dnieper watershed map:

By Francis McLloyd, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1729444

Russian officials have been pointedly silent on the question of what the end game for Ukraine might look like. One big reason is that is not how they conceptualize the military campaign. As we and others have repeatedly pointed out, Russia operates on Clausewitzian principles: destroy the enemy’s ability and will to fight, rather than focus on territory. Any acquisition follows from the elimination of combat capability. Historically has meant his armed forces. However, with the US having made color revolutions into an art form, that now includes informational warfare and NGO long-term campaigns to cultivate and coach Western friendly young people, ideally from academically accomplished or socially connected backgrounds, in the hopes that they will also be assets that can help accomplish US aims.

Russia (which recall at the start of the war had significant business ties to Europe, as well as a considerable number of its middle and upper middle class), did not anticipate that the US and NATO would go into vindictive divorce mode. Russia invaded with what it intended to be seen as an underpowered force, designed to drive Ukraine to the negotiating table. That did happen in less than a month.

After the deal fell apart, Russia muddled about, evidently lacking a plan B, until its embarrassing retreats in Kherson and Kharviv (which caused freakouts in the Donbass, since its people worried they could be abandoned too) led it to decide that it needed to engage in a serious, full bore campaign, and it set about to do so with its partial mobilization.

Due to the fact that the institutional might of the Collective West has gone all on trying not just to defeat Russia in Ukraine but also to subjugate Russia as a nation, a negotiated settlement is well nigh impossible. Aside from the perceived-to-be-high cost to personal and organizational credibility of the many deeply invested parties in the West, there is also the wee matter of what it would take to get Russia to have any faith in US/NATO pledges. Russian officials had been depicting the US as “not agreement capable” even before the conflict began. The news that Ukraine, France, and Germany had all engaged in a big con with the Minsk Accords was deeply disillusioning to Putin, who has, in an unusual display of sentiment and self-recrimination, discussed his bitterness about the betrayal. Putin has since taken to regularly mentioning (one might even say carrying on about even though is outside his normal mien) other instances of Western sharp dealing.1

Even as it greatly increased its military capabilities, Russia’s progress was regularly discounted by military officials, pols and pundits in the US/NATO sphere largely because apparent progress, measured in map terms, was meager. They could overlook that Russia was fighting in difficult terrain, an extended manufacturing/somewhat urbanized region that Ukraine had been fortifying since 2014. But Ukraine sacrificed some of its advantage by insisting on throwing men and machines against the extended (and over time, more formidable) line of contact, which was also conveniently close to the Russian border.

It should have been clear that Ukraine was in far worse shape than its backers were willing to recognize after the Russian defeat of the much-hyped Great Summer Counteroffensive. Ukraine did not even reach the first Russian fortified defense line and suffered serious losses of men and materiel, embarrassingly including Western wunderwaffen like Leopard 2 tanks.

To skip over close to a year of fighting: Russia is now getting close to the point of breaking the Ukraine army. Even if the trajectory of travel has been clear, the Ukraine-skeptic commentators have had a tendency to make early estimates of the culmination point. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s forces are becoming visibly less effective. The speed of Russia’s recent advance into Kharkiv caught many Western experts by surprise. Russia now has such strong control of the skies that it can drop massive glide bombs, capable of destroying concrete buildings. Even the normally staid TASS has gotten cheeky:

There are now regular reports of Ukraine units refusing to fight. Zelensky even recently made a tired-sounding speech where he depicted Ukraine as unwilling to continue the conflict due to battlefield losses and said he was going to present a settlement plan, which will presumably be different from his old “Russia go home” peace plan.

It still seemed aggressive for Putin to table his own peace proposal that required Ukraine to cede all of the four oblasts that Russia deems to be part of the Russian Federation, even though Russia is in full possession of only one of them. That is, until you consider the balance of forces. Russia is vastly outproducing all of the Collective West in nearly all major weapons categories. Ukraine’s allies have for many months been engaging in an all-too-visible scramble to come up with more armaments. A recent example is the US telling Israel to turn over 8 Patriot missile batteries. Informed sources say this is not as big a demand of Israel as it appears, since these platforms are in storage and probably not in great repair.2 And perhaps more important, the US has informed its allies, including Israel, that Ukraine has priority for delivery of Patriot missiles.

On the battlefield, Russia is continuing to grind its way through the Donbass, and is expected fairly soon to be able to assault the last Ukraine defense line there, in Slavynsk and Kramatorsk. The reason Ukraine fought so hard in the Bakhmut area, which was the third of four fortified lines, was that it was considered to be much more defensible than Slavynsk and Kramatorsk. Not only were the buildings in and around Bakhmut apparently better suited to digging in, but Bakhmut is on comparatively high ground, while Slavynsk and Kramatorsk are in a low-lying area. And on top of that, Ukraine had also build more formidable defenses in Bakhmut.

The imperiled and not-far-in-the-future-to-be-toast status of the Slavynsk-Kramatorsk line may seem to be yet another map-watcher obsession. In fact this will be a key inflection point whether it comes about via continued Russia force or accelerating Ukraine military collapse. This is the last major fortified line in the built-up Donbass area. Russia if it wants to, particularly given its control of the sky, would be able to move to the Dnieper in fairly short order and/or threaten Kiev if it wanted to make the point that Ukraine was now ripe for Russia’s picking.3

Another set of options is that Russia sticks (for the moment) to its knitting, and then focuses on taking control of the parts of Kherson and Zaporzhizhia it does not now possess. The major cities of both oblasts straddle the Dnieper, putting the control-of-the-watershed problem in focus.

Russia could proceed as John Helmer has repeatedly described, of subjugating the rest of Ukraine via the destruction of its electrical supply.

The big point is that Russia is finally getting to the point where it can define the end game. Yet what does Russia want?

One might argue that Russia having had to greatly increase the ambition of its campaign due to the ferocious response of the US and NATO, does not seem to have been accompanied by a rethink of its aims. Recall the Powell Doctrine, which is commonsensical but regularly ignored:

“Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear attainable objective? Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?”

Russia may have fallen into the trap of getting fuzzy about its objectives, particularly as it became apparent internally that it was getting the upper hand, and not even at too high a cost to its citizens. In other words, there’s not much reason to rethink what you are doing when it seems to be working….even if you’ve now gone way beyond your original map.

Remember that despite Putin having been criticized for vague Special Military Operation objectives, he and his top officials did seem to have a clear idea of what the end state would have to include. The draft Istanbul agreement shows Russia and Ukraine haggling over how many weapons Ukraine could have. Denazification might seem vague, but like “pornography,” it probably was pretty clear to Russian officials, with minimum requirements like removal of all Stephen Bandera statues, purging and barring from office of anyone with neo-Nazi affiliations, restoration of the status of the Russian Orthodox church, and preservation of rights of ethnic Russians.4

Again, Putin’s lack of great specificity made sense given his plan to force negotiations. He was not about to lay out concrete terms but instead seemed to seeking a package, with horse-trading among elements, that would overall do a pretty good job of satisfying Russian concerns.5

But the exposure and cultivation of intense Western hostility and the West having severely over-invested in the idea that it could use this war to subdue Russia has greatly increased both the stakes and difficulty of coming up with a stable resolution that leaves Russia reasonably secure.

The Medvedev map, the brainchild of Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev still remains a clever solution:

The details are up for grabs, but the high concept is Ukraine is reduced to Greater Kiev and Ukraine’s neighbors, particularly Poland, gobble up big parts of pesky Western Ukraine.

The wee problem is that the West would reflexively reject anything that looked like it came from Russia as inherently bad. Is there a way to get the US and NATO to believe a variant of this scheme as theirs?

There is a remote possibility that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent travel to Ukraine, Russia, and now China could advance this plan. Orban has long been critical of the way ethnic Hungarians have been top targets for Ukraine conscription. He has recently issued a list of demands, all involving the rights of the Hungarian minority, that Ukraine must meet before Hungary will agree to Ukraine joining the EU. Note that these protections are weaker than the ones Russia sought for ethnic Russians in the Minsk Accords, which amounted to a federalized status for the Donbass within Ukraine. But it does take some steps in that direction.

We’ve often mentioned the plan described by John Helmer, of creating a big demilitarized zone in Western Ukraine. As he described, that could be achieved relatively easily via de-electrification. Russia has also been repeatedly warning the West that it would need to create a big buffer zone if the West kept helping Ukraine attack Russia, with the width of the no-go zone depending on the longest-range weapons the US and NATO deployed.

But even with Russia having repeatedly given a logical justification of why a measure like creating a large DMZ might be necessary, the results, of depriving civilians of functioning infrastructure, could be depicted as Gaza-like human rights violations. Alexander Mercouris argued in his July 7 show that Putin, like Lincoln, wants to occupy the moral high ground in this conflict. This method of subjugating the West would be ugly. But then so was the Reconstruction, but Lincoln did not live to see that.

Perhaps Russia has come up with a clever way to create a puppet state in the West. Given Ukraine’s spectacular corruption and near-certain US-UK determination to subvert it, I would not bet on it remaining tractable.

Mind you, it is way over both my pay grade and access to information to solve this problem. The big point remains: Russia looks to have been put in a position where it will have to bite off a lot more than it ever wanted to chew. So what will it do?

By Tony Kevin, Facebook, 8/5/24

Tony Kevin is a former Australian Foreign Affairs officer 1968-98 at Australian Government. Writer of ‘Return to Moscow’ (UWA Publishing, Perth 2017) and ‘Russia and the West, 2017-19’ (2019)

Here is my latest update on the Ukraine war situation as of 5 August 2024, drawn from multiple independent and Russian sources:

Russia has absolute military supremacy on the Ukrainian frontline. There is active fighting now in 3 particular localities: Pokrovsk/Progress, Toretsk, and near Kharkov . Ukraine is taking casualties, dead or disabled, of 1000-2000 men per day or up to 14,000 per week. These casualties cannot be replaced despite extreme and cruel measures of forced mobilisation that are now increasingly being resisted by Ukrainian civil populations from all regions. There has been massive male flight out of Ukraine and the birthrate has collapsed . Foreign mercenaries have largely fled the country too. Quite large numbers of untrained forces sent to the front and left without weapons or leadership, are simply surrendering to Russian forces when surrounded , or retreating without orders to do so.

Unable to make progress on the battlefront, but with a temporary surplus of long range drones, Kiev is carrying out militarily meaningless terrorist drone attacks that are damaging a few apartment buildings and killing a few civilians in weakly defended towns and cities in frontline regions of Russia adjacent to Ukraine like Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, and Rostov. Russia regards these acts as war crimes and promises retribution when the war is over. Ukrainian security chief Kirill Budanov will be high on the Russian prosecution list.

There will come a point – and it may come soon – at which enough Ukrainian soldiers will just stop fighting at the front that no amount of bullying by Kiev war enforcers can change the outcome .

It is still bipartisan US policy to fight Russia in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian but the Ukrainian soldiers are not superhuman. Their will to fight and die is close to cracking.

Russians are calibrating the rate of their advances and destruction of Ukr military units just fast enough to keep steadily demoralising and neutralising Ukr soldiers, while not panicking NATO elites too much into desperate decisions to expand the war. NATO elites have got the message and are going quiet.

On The Duran, Alexander Mercouris was convincing this week in reporting on this: see The Duran conversation, “Ukraine front line slow motion collapse” (copied also to YouTube and to my social media- and recommended viewing) .

Here also are extracts from the latest Russian Defence Ministry weekly report. Note the huge Ukr casualties this week. Russian casualties would by most expert estimates be between 5 and 10%% of these, which are sustainable given Russia’s massive mobilised manpower advantage:

“August 2️⃣. [2024]

▪️ 11 group strikes were carried out during the week against Ukrainian armoured enterprises, UAV workshops, ammunition depots and temporary staging areas of the Ukrainian armed forces and mercenaries.

▪️ The Central Group of the Russian Armed Forces liberated five settlements during the week, the Defence Ministry said.

▪️ Kiev lost 13570 soldiers, 14 tanks, 42 armoured vehicles, 189 field artillery guns during the week, according to the summary” (extracts end).

It’s only a matter of time now. The NATO armaments cupboard is bare. The trickle of F-16 aircraft now getting into Ukraine from US are militarily meaningless. NATO is afraid overtly to expand the war with their own declared regular forces. NATO covert special force units in Ukraine have taken significant personnel hits in recent weeks. Russia has superb intel on where they are and hits them now without compunction, when they are located in legitimate military rear-area targets alongside NATO weapons and ammunition storages and depots.

Finally, on the diplomatic front, Russia is rejecting phony peace signals by Kiev that do not reflect military and political reality as it has evolved on the ground since February 2022. Russia has made clear it is open to genuine peace signals through possible intermediaries China, Hungary or Turkey.

Until there is real policy and/or regime change in Kiev, such efforts will not bear fruit and the war will continue its slow and bloody path.