After six days of fighting, on Tuesday night, the southern town of Kherson fell to Russian forces. In the end, they walked in, unchallenged. Regular Ukrainian army forces had melted away, no doubt to regroup somewhere else to fight another day. The town of around 300,000 people was the first regional capital and city of any real note to fall into enemy hands.
Yet firefights continued through the night, and after a day of Russian triumphalism, explosions could be heard throughout the city again last night. Among Russia’s problems, this one will loom larger, the more cities it eventually takes. That is, successfully capturing these major towns may end up being the easy part, compared to the ensuing insurgency. Indeed, Napoleon once took Moscow. Hitler took Stalingrad.
In daytime, Russia will have full, seeming control. At night, the regional defense crew will emerge to slowly bleed the occupying Russians, roaming their own neighborhoods in the dark against an occupying force with little night-fighting capabilities. Their supply convoys will continue to be picked apart by drone strikes and ambushes, compounding their misery. They are trying to occupy a country the size of Texas, with an occupying army the size of Brownsville, TX (pop: 186,738). And remember, not all of those are fighting troops. Most are support and logistics. Yet all of them will be juice targets for insurgents—especially those poor support and logistics saps.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 12:48:17 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
More talks are scheduled for today. Ukraine has indicated that it would consider not joining NATO in exchange for Russian withdrawal, but there’s been no sign so far that Vladimir Putin is willing to accept anything short of surrender.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 12:53:15 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
What started as a relatively small set of sanctions, that left experts pondering over the impact, has become an accelerating set of restrictions applied both by governments and corporations. This morning, the UK proposed throwing all Russian banks completely out of SWIFT, oil and gas sales be damned.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 1:21:40 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Apartment buildings in the suburbs of Kyiv. By now, the world should be well past the idea that Russia is doing anything less than what it did in Chechnya, Georgia, or Syria — the systematic reduction of civilian centers, leaving behind bodies and piles of rubble where no one can live.
The U.N. is warning that the number of refugees from Ukraine will soon number in the millions, and it’s not hard to see why. Ukraine has a population greater than that of California, and Russia is purposely turning it into a slag heap.
This is the kind of strategy armies adopt that aren’t capable of winning battles against opposing military units.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 1:25:48 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
As Russia carries out brutal destruction of civilian areas in Ukraine, and the body count from this assault rapidly grows, there are increasing rumors that Russia intends to create some kind of tragedy within its own borders to “justify” continued operations in Ukraine.
It’s unclear what Putin will say when he addresses the Russian people tonight or tomorrow, but there are terrifying hints that he’s going to try and give them a reason that Russia should increase the destruction.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 1:34:04 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
In the last day Chernihiv, a city northeast of Kyiv, has been the scene of particularly intense fighting and of repeated missile and artillery attacks against residences and other civilian structures. A Russian missile struck a school there, reportedly killing nine, the impact of other missiles was caught on video as Russian forces blasted apart the city center.
The level of destruction in the city is hard to comprehend.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 1:47:03 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
In addition to U.S. made Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that it dispatched to Ukraine on Wednesday, Germany has supposedly sent Ukraine a shipment containing 2,700 Strelas.
What’s a Strela? These are Soviet-era anti-tank weapons that were deployed by the USSR in East Germany to be used against NATO tanks in any potential conflict. Now they are headed to Urkraine to see how they work on Russian armor. Oh, and these are likely the upgraded version, which also works against helicopters. Hopefully they do work. Some of these weapons likely date to the 1970s, though hopefully they have been serviced much more recently.
Using them is a good deal more risky for the person on the firing end than is a Javelin. A modern Javelin is a fire-and-forget weapon. Once it’s been given a target, the operator can start getting the hell out of there even before the missile strikes home. A Strela is like an old U.S. “Redeye” where the operator has to track the target until the missile arrives.
But they’re relatively small and light (about 30 lbs, missile and all) so they’re easy for troops to carry, even when traveling some distance on foot. If they do get utilized against Russian forces, there will be some degree of ironic satisfaction.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 2:05:06 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Here is part of Russia’s response to the nighttime insurgency in Kherson — land mines. These are indiscriminate weapons, to be effective, they have to be unmarked and a danger to everyone, including residents and children. Around the world, land mines from wars decades past still injure thousands each year.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 2:13:57 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
This video is not of a captured Russian soldier, it’s of a Russian soldier on duty. The bit about “dismissed retroactively” seems to be setting up some pretense that the soldiers were never in Ukraine, but were out of the army before the invasion began. Good luck on those pensions, guys.
Thursday, Mar 3, 2022 · 2:18:35 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
More evidence that Putin is preparing to create some kind of “outrage” — some kind of assault on a Russian village or city that can be used as a rallying cry to justify even more brutality in Ukraine. The visibility of these actions means that this won’t for a minute be accepted by the rest of the world. The question is, at this point, how will it be accepted in Russia?