Russia can’t manage a full-scale offensive against any city literally on its border, against a inferior-equipped smaller country. Poland is okay. The Baltic states are small, but they have NATO backing. They’ll be okay. Meanwhile, Russia demilitarizes quite effectively by simply trying to wage its incompetent war.
Russia wants the broader war. They want to face a peer opponent, so when they lose—and they’ll lose—it won’t be to a country they don’t even consider a country. Losing to the West would fuel decades of victim narratives. Losing to Ukraine is just sad. And the world will laugh at them. And with the myth shattered, their empire will disintegrate.
Not that Poland isn’t taking the threat seriously:
How many people are lining up to join the Russian army? Instead, let’s see how many Russians avoid the draft next month, when the country has the first of its twice-a-year conscription.
Meanwhile, on its other coast, Russia is dealing with a frisky Japan, who has reasserted its jurisdiction over a series of Russian-occupied islands. (I’ve always known them as the Kuril Islands, but just learned that Japan calls them the Northern Territories.)
Those 3,000 Russian troops are the luckiest Russian troops in their entire army. They could be in Ukraine instead … but that’s Russia’s insecurities coming through. They’re trying to remind Japan that they’re a bear. No one buys it anymore. Could they really defend against a Japanese invasion of the islands? Not right now they couldn’t.
Then there’s the Central Asian republics, many propped up by Russian forces.
On March 17, as Moscow’s war on Ukraine intensified, Uzbekistan made a statement few observers anticipated.
Speaking at the Senate’s plenary session, Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said, “Firstly, the military actions and violence must be stopped right away. The Republic of Uzbekistan recognises Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
“We do not recognise the Luhansk and Donetsk republics.”
Russia had recently supplanted China as Uzbekistan’s biggest trading partner. Oh well. Russian VDV airborne troops are literally propping up the despotic regime in Kazakhstan. Yet they’re reading the room.
Kazakhstan, unlike Belarus, did not vote against the March 2 U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine. Instead it abstained, like Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Ambivalence was also reflected in Tokayev’s March 1 statement on Twitter regarding Ukraine and Russia: “We call on both states to make utmost efforts to pursue a dialogue and work on a peaceful settlement,” which supports the position of neither side. This noncommittal position continued in official reports of phone calls between Tokayev and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on March 2 and between Tokayev and Putin on March 4.
Moreover, Minster of Foreign Affairs Mukhtar Tleuberdi stated that there was “no question of recognizing the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics by Kazakhstan,” a position explicitly counter to Moscow’s intentions for these territories.
And Russian “peacekeepers” in Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed Azerbaijani territory currently held by Armenia, have sat helplessly by as Azerbaijan violated the cease-fire agreement that ended their 2020 war. Russia backs Armenia, Turkey backs Azerbaijan, but the alliances have nothing to do with politics, and lots to do with generations of ethnic conflict in the region. (Armenia is a rare Central Asia democracy (ish), while Azerbaijan has “an authoritarian regime [...] elections are not free and fair, political power is concentrated in the hands of Aliyev and his extended family, corruption is rampant, and human rights violations are severe (including torture, arbitrary arrests, as well as harassment of journalists and non-governmental organizations).
I’m not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of this conflict, but Russian troops used to keep Azerbaijan out, and now they don’t. Because no one fears them anymore.
Russia is a great regional power. Russia was a great regional power. Unlike China and the United States, it has no soft power to exercise. Its economy was a joke, and countries that depended on it for energy are finding alternatives at lightning speed. Russia was 100% hard power—the fear of its military might. Vladimir Putin may convince Russia, and himself, that Donbas was the goal all along, but the world knows the truth. There is now a vacuum, and we’ll be dealing with the consequences for a long time. China will rush to fill the void (with Russia itself in play). India won’t stand pat. Nor will Iran. Or Pakistan. Europe will be a player, and the United States never stays out of these things. Russia’s own territorial integrity could be in play, as massive demographic shifts could very well sunder the country.
Europe and North America are working hard to contain the conflict from spreading beyond Ukraine, but that focus is on Europe. The other direction will burn for a long time, without a powerful unifying force to keep it all together.
Saturday, Mar 26, 2022 · 1:07:55 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
There has been little new information overnight on the surprise announcement from French President Emmanuel Macron that France, Turkey, and Greece would be cooperating in an “exceptional humanitarian operation” to evacuate citizens still trapped within Mariupol.
On Saturday, fighting still continues in Mariupol, Russia continues to shell the areas that have not fallen under Russian control, and an estimated 100,000 people are still trapped. There are also reports of tens of thousands of citizens taken prisoner by Russia, some in a tent city on the former edge of the city, others sent away by buses into Russia.
The level of confusion remains high and the situation desperate. Macron had indicated that he was going to “discuss” the situation with Vladimir Putin. It’s unclear if that has taken place. However, the mayor of Mariupol says he has spoken with Macron, but gave no details of the pending operation.
Saturday, Mar 26, 2022 · 1:16:10 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Work by Kyiv Independent reporter Illia Ponomarenko has appeared in these updates frequently. As someone on the ground — and someone originally from Donbas — he often has a very clear-eyed and blunt view of events. At the end of the war’s first month, he’s written his own summary of the action and changing pace as the war moved from one of acquisition, to attrition.
After a month of hostilities, tangible results indicate that Ukraine has sustained the war’s first major blow. It defeated the Kremlin’s initial, most dangerous plan of a quick, shock-and-awe invasion. Now, the war is entering a new phase—a grueling longer-term war of attrition, and a new, difficult test for the Ukrainian military and the nation.
But thanks to important early victories, as well as broad international support, this new phase opens a wide window of opportunity for inflicting a full-fledged military defeat upon Russia.
Saturday, Mar 26, 2022 · 1:54:52 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
The most common way that artillery gets taken down is by artillery, using what’s known as counter-battery fire. Because artillery may be located miles from the targets being hit, they can be safely behind lines of infantry and armor. It can be extremely difficult to stop them with ground forces, or even to get into the area with planes or UAVs.
Meanwhile, areas being shelled may be able to tell the direction from which that artillery is firing, but can’t easily discern the distance. It’s an issue that goes back to the earliest days of cannons. You may have a cannon of your own, but figuring out how to take out someone firing from out of sight behind the next hill or patch of woods can be all but impossible, especially when factoring in things like temperature, wind, etc. One whole branch of what became modern computers originated with just trying to calculate “artillery tables” that instructed gunners on how to load and aim their weapons to hit targets at specific distances.
That’s where counter-battery radar comes in. Systems like the one featured below can spot the incoming shells and essentially back-calculate their paths to pinpoint the location of enemy artillery. The results can be fed into a battery of artillery so they can send a “gift” right back to the source of incoming shells. When counter-battery radar is up and running, every time artillery fires, its placing itself in danger of a return hit.
Hopefully this one is intact and useful, because counter-battery fire is a critical component of stopping the Russian guns that are reducing cities like Mariupol, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv.