Europe at War

[MusicTurner]

Concerning Zelensky, that's the Ukrainian version; their information isn't always correct.

But I've wondered if there's military research on nano-drones, almost invisible, going on, for such projects (as well as surveillance etc.). They'll probably exist in the future. Just a little thought of mine.

[Todd]

cf. the Cuba crisis or imagine Canada becoming a Chinese satellite

John Mearsheimer has used the same exact same arguments, correctly, when explaining why liberal hegemony is dead, and how the world is moving to more traditional multi-polar balance of power international politics. 

But Americans are good guys, so you know, it's different in such cases, real or imagined.

[Mandryka]

It's mainly sphere of influence or rather buffer zones without NATO missiles and the eastern Ukrainian regions. Putin already had the Crimea and would probably have been able to secure the Donezk and Lugansk regions without an outright attack on the Ukraine although the ongoing skirmishes there were certainly a major reason (and it's not a mere pretext, despite the exaggerated language of De-nazification and preventing genocide).

A neutral Ukraine would be acceptable to Russia, a NATO-aligned never will be (cf. the Cuba crisis or imagine Canada becoming a Chinese satellite). And I read a comment by someone very familiar with Russia who thinks that something (such as preparation for "Western" military bases or worse in Ukraine) must have happened in the last three months because the outright attack on a people mostly perceived as "brothers" is a desperate measure and it's also a bad season for a military campaign. But this guy thinks that Putin apparently felt such pressure that he could not wait another month. He is not a mad dog, but obviously felt badly cornered and thus reacted accordingly.

The terrible thing is that there seems no real way out. After a war, Ukraine now has a larger incentive to join the West/NATO than before, even if the country is split somehow, the Western half will not want to become a Russian satellite or neutral. So the needed buffer zone will not appear.

And I am not sure if those wishing Putin gone would be happy with typical successors.

There's a serious problem with water in the Crimea which is stopping the Russians exploiting the geological resources. The canal which feeds the region has its source deep in the Ukraine. Ukraine has blocked the canal since 2014. I think that opening up the canal is a significant reason for the Russian campaign. However this pans out, I expect they will fight hard to ensure that they keep the Crimea and that the canal is never blocked up again.

[drogulus]

     Tucker just cracked. He blames Biden and Harris for being stupid. He doesn't blame himself for anything. Whatta guy!     

[T. D.]

     Tucker just cracked. He blames Biden and Harris for being stupid. He doesn't blame himself for anything. Whatta guy!   

You mean the Faux News moron? [I don't watch TV]
You actually watch that drivel?

[drogulus]

     Putin appears to have reminded the world what liberal hegemony is for. Great Job!!

     Mulitipole Viktor Orban, rattus hungaricus, is the model, right Tucker? Can you be a white christian nationalist and multi, too? Didn't the Axis powers kind of have a problem of hating each other as much as their enemies? Defectors are poor cooperators, history says. But, if they want to be unfruitful and multiply, let them.

You mean the Faux News moron? [I don't watch TV]
You actually watch that drivel?

     I get it second hand.

[Karl Henning]

It's mainly sphere of influence or rather buffer zones without NATO missiles and the eastern Ukrainian regions. Putin already had the Crimea and would probably have been able to secure the Donezk and Lugansk regions without an outright attack on the Ukraine although the ongoing skirmishes there were certainly a major reason (and it's not a mere pretext, despite the exaggerated language of De-nazification and preventing genocide).

A neutral Ukraine would be acceptable to Russia, a NATO-aligned never will be (cf. the Cuba crisis or imagine Canada becoming a Chinese satellite). And I read a comment by someone very familiar with Russia who thinks that something (such as preparation for "Western" military bases or worse in Ukraine) must have happened in the last three months because the outright attack on a people mostly perceived as "brothers" is a desperate measure and it's also a bad season for a military campaign. But this guy thinks that Putin apparently felt such pressure that he could not wait another month. He is not a mad dog, but obviously felt badly cornered and thus reacted accordingly.

The terrible thing is that there seems no real way out. After a war, Ukraine now has a larger incentive to join the West/NATO than before, even if the country is split somehow, the Western half will not want to become a Russian satellite or neutral. So the needed buffer zone will not appear.

And I am not sure if those wishing Putin gone would be happy with typical successors.

"The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know."

[Todd]

Olaf Scholz says ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder should resign from Russian firms

A possible posh casualty of war.

[Todd]

Biden weighing sanctions on India over Russian military stockpiles

The reckless use of sanctions and threats of sanctions in this war will erode the effectiveness of the measures.  Indeed, economic pressure from the US is already weakening in this crisis:


Mexico declines to impose economic sanctions on Russia

Even if Mexico ends up doing the bidding of the Yanquis, cracks in the system are appearing.  And punitive steps against Mexico, if any, would exclude the oil sector since Mexico is the second largest source of imported oil.  I mean, the US still buys Russian oil.

[drogulus]

     https://www.youtube.com/v/ca4j1Fr8gWA&t=1s

     I think severe sanctions are far less reckless than, say, a no fly zone. The economic cost will be high. Everyone understands that.

     Biden is responsible for NATO unity more than any other earthly being besides Putin himself. Everyone understands that, too. Ask the Germans.

     Should we be unwilling to exert pressure on India? That's an interesting viewpoint. Is there a reason? Will they hate us ever after? Gosh, this foreign policy thing is so hard. I never knew it was so complicated.

[Mandryka]

Even if Mexico ends up doing the bidding of the Yanquis, cracks in the system are appearing.  And punitive steps against Mexico, if any, would exclude the oil sector since Mexico is the second largest source of imported oil.  I mean, the US still buys Russian oil.

Everyone still buys Russian oil. Even the EU's SWIFT ban doesn't include banks which facilitate oil and gas business.

[drogulus]

    The sanctions will leak. Hypocrisy will rear its head. In movies perfect heroes battle perfect villains. We must contain our disappointment that real life is not like that.

[Que]

     Should we be unwilling to exert pressure on India? That's an interesting viewpoint. Is there a reason? Will they hate us ever after? Gosh, this foreign policy thing is so hard. I never knew it was so complicated.

We should exert a lot of pressure on India. Though it would help if the US would stop cosying up to Pakistan, which has been an insane and fruitless idea to begin with.

Russia supported India against China, but India will soon discover that allegiances have shifted for Russia.

[amw]

There's a serious problem with water in the Crimea which is stopping the Russians exploiting the geological resources. The canal which feeds the region has its source deep in the Ukraine. Ukraine has blocked the canal since 2014. I think that opening up the canal is a significant reason for the Russian campaign. However this pans out, I expect they will fight hard to ensure that they keep the Crimea and that the canal is never blocked up again.

Some of the first Russian Ministry of Defence videos showed water flowing through a canal, purportedly the Dnipro-Crimea canal, which had previously been blocked off by Ukraine. I think this and not the hydroelectric plant is probably the main reason they took Nova Kakhovka on the second day of the assault.

Once Mariupol falls they will also control the entire Sea of Azov coastline; I believe Ukrainian naval bases in Mariupol and Berdyansk (already under Russian control) had previously kept Russian vessels from using the sea entirely. If the Russians are expecting a ceasefire and peace agreement within the next few days, the outright assault on Mariupol rather than siege makes sense from a military point of view; the city could not withstand a siege, but it would probably take a couple of weeks under siege conditions before it would be forced to surrender. Destroying the city's infrastructure and defenders speeds that timeline up and allows its capture to become a "fact on the ground" prior to any peace agreement.

The other probable goal is the encirclement of the large number of Ukrainian forces dug in on the front line in Donetsk—some sources claim 50,000 troops. Russian units on the "Crimean front" are reportedly pushing north from Mariupol and northeast from Enerhodar towards the Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia highway (N15), and on the "Kharkiv front" are pushing towards the strategic town of Izyum for control of the Slovyansk-Kharkiv highway (M03). If successful this would leave the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk highway (E50) as the sole land evacuation corridor for Ukrainian forces in Donetsk and allow Russia to threaten to eliminate them entirely unless its demands are acceded to.

That said, I think success in the latter endeavour is pretty unlikely: Russia seems to have run into tremendous logistical difficulties supplying the ~150km line from the Belarus/Ukraine border to the outskirts of Kiev. From the Russia/Ukraine border to Izyum is also ~150km. Any further advances would be unlikely to hold due to the minor problem of soldiers running out of food and ammunition.

Everyone still buys Russian oil. Even the EU's SWIFT ban doesn't include banks which facilitate oil and gas business.

Was also amused to see American nuclear companies lobbying for a sanctions carve-out to allow them to continue to import Russian uranium. And Shell has reportedly acquired a Russian gas company. War is evidently good for business.

[Todd]

Russia supported India against China, but India will soon discover that allegiances have shifted for Russia.

Which is why sanctioning India is foolish.

War is evidently good for business.

An outrageous assertion.

[Que]

Which is why sanctioning India is foolish.

Absolutely.

[drogulus]

     India will grow closer to the US regardless. The MIGs will fall apart and not be replaced by Russian weapons. Their Kuznetsov class carrier is a piece of shit. The Russian Kuznetsov is a piece of shit.

     

[MusicTurner]

Concerning apparently shifty alliances, a direct participation by the Belarus military in the invasion is now being downgraded a lot as a possibility. That was quite a change.



The relevant, bigger companies here in DK were called to a meeting at the 'Ministry of Energy & Industry' to prepare in a very concrete way for a possible closure of Russian gas deliveries. A closure would then likely be announced 72 hours ahead.

That is, this meeting took place 14 days ago, and therefore 5 days before the invasion; a guess would be that such preparations are being made in most EU countries.
Also, it is being estimated that the EU could manage without any Russian gas from before next winter.

[SimonNZ]

And I am not sure if those wishing Putin gone would be happy with typical successors.

Wouldn't an election have to be called sooner or later?  Would this put someone like Nevalny in greater or lesser danger?

Maybe Kasparov could try again.

I see the next "election" for Putin is scheduled for March 2024. Perhaps they could have a protectorate until then while they try to roll back Putin's corrupt and self serving electoral legislation.


from 2015:

Three Scenarios For A Succession In Russia

"For a decade and a half, Vladimir Putin has sat at the top of a closed, hierarchical, and personality-based political system that allows for no competition.

As a result, opinion polls in Russia routinely show the public sees "no alternative" to Putin's leadership.

So what would happen in Russia if Putin suddenly and without warning left the political stage? Over the last few days, we have seen the anxiety that even the rumor of such an event can produce in Russia and around the world. If Putin is the guarantor of stability in Russia, then does a scenario without Putin automatically imply instability -- even violent instability?

The Constitutional Scenario

Formally, of course, Russia has a constitution and a process for handling a president's incapacity. Article 92 of the Russian Constitution states that if the president is unable to fulfill the duties of the office -- although the process for declaring him incapacitated is unclear -- the prime minister would become acting president and a new presidential election would be held within three months.

The acting president would not have the power to disband the Duma, schedule a referendum, or alter the constitution.

Under Russian election law, each party represented in the State Duma -- United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and A Just Russia -- would have the right to nominate a candidate. Other parties would have to scramble to assemble the required 100,000 signatures and get them approved by the Central Election Commission in such a tight time frame.

So if Putin unexpectedly left the scene and the constitution were followed to the letter, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev would return to the Kremlin and a competitive election would take place in three months.

The Consensus Scenario

Of course, such a smooth and legal transition of power is unlikely in Russia.

In Soviet times, political heavyweights wrestled behind the scenes until a successor emerged through some unfathomable communist alchemy.

More recently, when President Boris Yeltsin decided to retire, political insiders reached a consensus and produced the unimaginable candidacy of Vladimir Putin as his successor. They then used a combination of their financial, administrative, and media resources to get him elected.

Yeltsin's inner circle, despite its divisions, had the benefit of time in making its decision. In addition, they also had the experience of reaching a similar crucial consensus during the period around the 1996 presidential election, when the major oligarchs agreed to work together to reelect the ailing and increasingly unpopular Yeltsin.

The Conflict Scenario

But what if consensus can't be reached?

Under Putin, the political system has become more personalized and centered around the president himself, who has balanced conflicting parties. And he has almost certainly stifled all discussion of what could or should happen in a post-Putin era.

But the divisions in Putin's inner circle, always latent, have become more manifest with the Ukraine crisis and have intensified since the February 27 assassination of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov.

"Now the conflict between the clans has become very seriously intense," says journalist and analyst Raf Shakirov. "It is obvious that different groups are pushing for different paths."

The main fault line, he says, is between "hawks" who have become ascendant due to the Ukraine crisis and Russia's showdown with the West and a "liberal group" responsible for the economy who would prefer a thaw at home and a rapprochement abroad.

The former group, Shakirov says, will probably fight fiercely in any transition to preserve their primacy. "This group understands that for them any normalization would mean, not the end of the world, but a loss of position," Shakirov says. "They cannot risk the loss of the almost unlimited power that they have now."

Likewise, political analyst Marat Guelman sees conflict as the likely scenario. These are "people who have tasted lawlessness, who already feel that they have the right to break the law, to kill," he says in reference to the Kremlin hard-liners."

[MusicTurner]

Concerning Navalny and Kasparov, I don't think either of them would succeed, definitely not Kasparov; they are icons of the West and some young Russians, but not among the elder generations. Of course, just my rather uneducated 2 cents. A new leader would probably have to be either moderate, or a a different nationalist than Navalny, with some ressources in the political system. Navalny is seen as a Western asset by many, due to his friendly connections to the US, previous holidays in California, etc.

I've always wondered how Grigory Yavlinsky and Yabloko could recede so much into the dark, even before the authoritarian tendencies really began. But haven't studied why. They seem to be sensible folks, but maybe they were too much associated with the 90s and the West. Nowadays the party is being harassed, of course, and probably without chances. Yavlinsky publicly denounced any war, before it began. Btw, I once sold a newspaper to him, from a tiny tourist kiosk here in Copenhagen, when he visited.

As on the 1st of March, 80,000 had signed their protest against the war
https://eng.yabloko.ru/the-fifth-day-of-the-war-with-ukraine/

https://eng.yabloko.ru/