Russia/Ukraine Crisis 2022-3

[dubsartur]

I was interested, in a grim way, in the news about how Russia is pushing its Ukraine propaganda into school textbooks. It's hardly unexpected that they will justify it that way, but the precise mechanisms and arguments they're going for are interesting and quite 21st century. It's not so long ago in historical terms that even somewhat more democratic major powers could proclaim victory through strength as their rationale for things in one way or another. Now even Russia, one of the most obviously fascist medium to large powers, has to fall back on portraying itself as a reluctant invader and ultimately a wounded, put upon party. I get that Russia do that line for the international media, but that they're doing it in school textbooks too rather than a more flatly jingoistic account of matters kind of interests me.

Its another way in which the Putin regime is using old Nazi propaganda strategies ("we are defending Europe against the Bolshevik hordes who are pressing west ... don't listen to the Jewish Bolsheviks and their Anglo-Saxon puppets about why they are pressing west.")

I saw a claim that Prigozhin was in Africa on Monday or Tuesday before he was reported to be in an aircraft which exploded in Russia on Wednesday.  If only Igor Girkin had been on board too.

[Jubal]

Honestly, the main thing to come out of the whole Prigozhin affair is that Prigozhin had about the same level of grand strategic nous as the average toddler, and that may be unfair to some toddlers.

I think the downside to this is that it makes military disloyalty to Putin less likely: it definitely feels like a position-securing moment for the regime (at least for now).

[dubsartur]

This is why a prince needs to study the chronicles so he remembers what happened to Roger de Flor or why Julius Caesar stayed in the provinces with his army after his consulship in 59 BCE. 

There will be celebrations in Syria tonight.

Edit: Ukrainian military intelligence say they convinced a MI-8 helicopter pilot to land his helicopter on Ukrainian territory, the rest of the crew were killed resisting arrest https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/news-budanov-rozpoviv-jak-vdalosya-vymanyty-pilota-mi-8/32561846.html https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2023/08/23/7416758/

Edit: and a sobering statement from someone at Come Back Alive: "if we don't make enough progress this year and run out of troops, vehicles, and especially ammunition, we will come back in fall 2024 or spring 2025 when ammunition production in the EU has increased and finish the job" https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/08/23/the-one-most-important-thing-for-ukraines-counteroffensive/

[Jubal]

It does feel like eastern Ukraine could end up becoming a wildly costly long term frozen conflict that no side feels it can afford to accept defeat from. Even if Ukraine were to gain better air power etc, clearing defended minefields is a slow job.

[dubsartur]

The shooting part of this war could sure continue into 2025-2027 although I don't know if "frozen conflict" is the right term.  The Ukrainians can't let Russian forces just sit in all the occupied territories building up for another go like they did from 2014 to 2022.

This may end with Russia controlling some of 2014-Ukraine but I think both sides have a lot of fight in them.

[Jubal]

Yeah, you're right, frozen conflict was a clumsy wording. Stalemate, I guess? Not sure what the right term is for "everyone is still shooting but nobody is winning".

[dubsartur]

Meanwhile someone has added a gambit to the long debate about what to do with 24 Sussex Drive, the no-longer-inhabitable official residence of the Prime Minister of Canada: do we want to armour the roof with steel plate against drone attacks? https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/24-sussex-prime-minister-trudeau-ottawa-1.6949710 (Assassination is extremely rare in Canadian politics since the murder of Thomas D'Arcy McGee in 1868 or the attack on Ujjal Dosanjh by Sikh separatists in 1985)

Edit: The fact that the Russian government has funded the Fratri d'Italia, UKIP, AfD, the FPÖ in Austria, and Marie le Pen has done less damage to them than I would have expected.  Ditto for Trump's financial connection to shady 'businessmen' from the non-Russian parts of the former USSR.  Meloni in Italy is certainly showing that a little money does not guarantee that someone will play along when you do something shocking.

[dubsartur]

A source I don't know has a translated summary of an interview with an Ukrainian officer who says that his unit was turned into a different kind of unit twice (intelligence to assault to mechanized infantry) https://militaryland.net/news/offensive-through-the-eyes-of-a-soldier/  A lot of training outside of Ukraine has been very abbreviated eg. a five-week course which is half or a third of most countries' basic training before they start to teaching a specific military trade. The author of this post seems kind of Azov-friendly and there is a back-and-forth in the comments about what he left out from the original Ukrainian.

If they really convinced themselves that they just needed to show up with fancy kit and the enemy would not fight, that is a classic blunder.