Roundup
(1) Sweden will be joining NATO:
Sweden cleared the final hurdle to become the military alliance’s 32nd member after Hungary — the last holdout among the countries — held a parliamentary vote to approve the move.
In recent years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed Sweden away from its decades of military nonalignment and toward the world’s biggest military alliance. Sweden’s accession comes amid increasing uncertainty over NATO’s future as the Republican front-runner in the United States presidential race, Donald Trump, threatens to abandon security guarantees for at least part of Europe.
Good old Politico just can’t resist a misleading dig at Trump, twisting what he actually said, which was similar to what he has said (and done) as president: put pressure on the NATO nations to do more to pay their own way rather than relying financially so heavily on the US.
(2) Aaron Bushnell committed suicide by setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy, having said “Free Palestine!” as his last words. Such gestures in this country are a tragic response, most often by a mentally disturbed individual. RIP. See also this.
(3) This online March 5 event (at noon) by Legal Insurrection sounds interesting: a discussion of the Communist origins of anti-Zionist anti-Semitism. I wrote this fairly lengthy post on the subject as well as this one.
(4) Was there a Biden operative in Fani Willis’ office? Perhaps. Certainly possible, but it’s a good idea to take it with a grain of salt at the moment.
(5) This is about an interesting article by an ex-NYT opinions editor who described the leftist atmosphere at the Times when he worked there. It doesn’t say anything we don’t already know, but I think it’s interesting that the editor’s original article appeared in The Atlantic. His name is Adam Rubenstein, and he quit his post at the Times after the furor over the publication of the Tom Cotton opinion piece.
Aaron Bushnell appeared to be a self hating man who denounced his “white privilege”and also was an anarchist. The military always recruits the best and the brightest these days, don’t they?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/27/us-airman-aaron-bushnell-israeli-embassy-washington-church/
(1) Putin – the gift that keeps giving. Sep 6 2019 ‘..but he also said there were two other major factors at play. One is the greatest gift to NATO since the end of the Cold War and that’s Valdimir Putin and his aggressive actions which have given NATO a reason to live again, if you will, in a very significant way’ — Gen. David Petraeus
I read part of what Bushnell said/believed at the link. Calling the Israelis colonizers always pisses me off. It’s the Palestinians who are the “colonizers”. Where were they 3,000 years ago?
Rubenstein quit rather than was fired. You don’t need to publish this comment.
Factchecker:
Will fix.
That is like saying “a serial killer is the greatest gift to headcount of a police department.”
Putin is what he is. Not having an aggressive expansionist Russia would be a better gift to Europe and the world.
there was a narrow window where democracy could have flourished, yeltsin and his counselors like chubais and gaidar, made it a joke for every day Russians, enabling the oligarchs to rise the bratva to flourish, the chaos that they say as what ‘democracy looks like’ the sorcerers like Sachs and Summers just went on their way like the Buchanans of East Egg,
now Putin is a scorpion, so would Primakov have been, and whoever else in the Siloviki rises afterwards, no Navalny was not killed by Putin, as much as he tried, NATO expansion was not popular to the Russian people, no matter how much lipstick you put on this pig,
Re. NATO: Both George Kennen and Henry Kissenger thought that NATO had served its purpose when Communism collapsed in 1993 and it was time to treat Russia as another normal country. They both predicted that pushing NATO to Russia’s border would cause serious trouble. They were right. Patraeus doesn’t seem to understand that Russia sees this as an aggressive move that is a prelude to some form of aggression.
To my way of thinking, having nukes secures a country from an invasion. A military invasion anyway. Not an invasion like we are having right now. Why have tanks if your border is secure? Armor is an aggressive weapon.
Russia should have tried for economic dominance instead of force.
Can’t consider that Kissinger and Kennan were wrong, and that Russia was just continuing in its centuries old patterns after recovering from the internal chaos and disorder? Nope, the west and NATO is to blame; it forced all those peoples to desire some sort of protection from the Russia the lived with and under.
Self loathing and apologetics for tyranny?
It is funny to see into the mind of Russia while excusing Russian actions.
‘Russia must strike NATO first before their vast armies roll on Moscow!’ (sarc)
NATO has never learned from the history of Napolean or that Austrian corporal, because NATO is a military structure just like Russia, not a herd of cats? See the NATO involvement in Afghanistan, Article V, some of the forces were very serious and some (Germany) were not very.
kennan was one of the leading Russian experts, he was a curmudgeon, he crafted the long telegram, the basis for Containment, he complained later they had over extended his analogy to strictly military means, Richard Pipes was Reagans lead expert, one of the best experts on Lenin, Fiona Hill studied under him, and she learned nothing, she mentored Danchenko the fraud,
anybody in the current academic or policy lexicon, suggests they know what they are doing, that they know anything past Stolichnaya, mcfaul, or colonel vindman, who others have dubbed bearclaw, they miss the target with remarkable skill, I mean you have to work to get things wrong,
Now the Latin American section often hasn’t painted itself with great success, the Cuba desk, Rubbottom and Wieland (I’m not making this up) and the Langley contingent, Reynolds Noel and co,thought Fidel was a clubbable chap, why because Raul’s future wife said so,
and they believed it, they did much the same for the Sandinistas 20 years later, because Somoza bad, compared to whom, those were the people Reagan had to deal with the real fight, which was the end of the Cold war,
@Paul in Boston
Coming from Kissinger I take that as a ringing endorsement of NATO expansion. Whatever his diplomatic gifts (and I concede he has more than a few and had some serious achievements) he was emblematic of the utterly godawful culture at Foggy Bottom and the wider “Give a Little to Get a Little” diplomatic culture we see. I am not one of those people who blames him for Cambodia turning to a communist nightmare, but I do blame him for being ineffective at managing it. And it is hard for me to understate just how badly his decision to support Pakistan in the 1970s has damaged our ability to link up with India without ensuring Pakistani loyalty.
I have more respect for Kennan but I do think he spent far too much time in the Moscow beltway and in the typical “realpolitik” crowd for his own good. I spoke fairly at length of his very selective judgement when analyzing the post-Soviet Russian governments (including such things as lamenting the British and French naval entry to the Black Sea during the Crimean War without ever mentioning how that was caused by Russia invading the Danube and committing a Steamship era Pearl Harbor on the Turkish fleet, and complaining about the Turks taking part in a Black Sea naval exercise when – for all of my ASTOUNDING hatred for modern Turkish governments – Turkey has been a naval presence in the Black Sea for longer than modern Russia has existed). It is the kind of logic that led to things like the fiasco of Bush’s Chicken Kiev.
The issue is, what would treating Russia like “a normal country” entail? Because where I’m from that would absolutely not involve giving a blank check. If a normal country tolerated military and intelligence warlords turning neighboring countries like Georgia and Moldova into war zones in the early 1990s, I would start advocating a clampdown on that “normal country” and assessing it as a threat. Likewise if a normal country spoke out of both sides of its mouth regarding things like the Helsinki Final Act claiming of course it recognizes the freedom of all the nations in the OSCE zone to choose their orientation freely, but not really. And that’s before I get to other stuff like Milosevic and so on.
Treating Russia like a normal nation will mean treating it like a historically aggressive, ambitious ex-great power shot through with anti-Western elements who will logically have clashes of interest with their neighbors and you.
“Pushing NATO to Russia’s border.” Rather curious wording, as if we did what the Tsarists or Soviets did and pushed our influence at bayonet point with marching armies and outwardly blackmailing diplomats. The truth is NATO expanded up to the Russian border because of demands coming from below in those countries, and to a lesser extent at home over the objections of the foreign policy elite that did not give much care so long as they got theirs. Because it turns out that being on the border of Russian states has been a perilous place to be for about 800 or so years.
Neither do I, and frankly neither do I think Putin or his Brain trust, regardless of what they say for public consumption or what the average Russian thinks. The reason for it is fairly simple. We have pretty good ideas on how Russian military and political circles act when they think there is a leadup to an invasion of aggressive act and this does not add up. The number of NATO members the Russian government has fought military conflicts in its “near abroad” with is zero. The number of NATO countries Russia or its Belarusian client have had nonviolent (for now at least) border disputes with are four (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland).
In sharp contrast, the number of neutral or nonaligned countries on its border that Russia has had outright shooting conflicts with is a minimum of three (Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine) and I could bump that number up with more tenuous counting methods. But the moral of the story is fairly clear: the Russian government is Less aggressive to NATO members or others protected by mutual defense agreements committing troops to a shooting defense, not more. It is countries that tried to be nonaligned or neutral (like Putin said he supposedly wants) that have gotten trashed.
That tells me that the Kremlin is doing this not to try and pre-empt some perceived aggressive move, but to protect their ability to conduct aggression in what they view as their “zone of influence”, and when their bluff is called they tend to fold (like Kennan predicted). I for one am tired of paying homage to the idea of Russia as Eternal Aggressed Upon.
I appreciate the duelling poles on FP laid out by om and miguel. But we can go further I think by considering how the two Commie Bigs — Russia and China— evolved and adapted dedicated authoritarian regimes, instead of devolving and abandoning them.
For those who lived through the late Cold War era, this outcome was a surprise, in general. Until two decades later, when in seemed inevitable.
Both China and Russia transformed into fascist states — where private economic interests became state controlled.
China was deeply impoverished, yet its leaders were relentless in keeping the quasi-capitalist future from yielding to chaos, happened to Russia.
Put broadly, China rose fiercely in productivity thru capitalist style International exporting to the world, by keeping a leash on everything successful via the CRA. Think of the leash out on China’s billionaire star, former teacher Jack Ma and Ali Baba — the EBay or the East.
The relevant historical analogue goes back to Nazi Germany, without Hitler’s Malthusian and genocidal hysterics. Instead of Jewish persecution and the elimination of untermenschen, China expanded Han Nationalism as the Ancient Imperial successor hegemon. Although atrophied by the 2000s, President Xi put it back in place and on steroids in the following decade.
By contrast, the Russian analogue bears resemblance to a blended Mussolini-Franco-ist fascism — but through Putin, a reinvigorated KGB style FSB Security State exercising veto and ultimately controlling all organised opposition, and thus reverting to a de facto One Party State, reminiscent of Czarist times.
I don’t recall if I’ve seen my analysis, briefly outlined here, elsewhere. What intrigues me to share it here is that I’ve not at all speculated about how these insights might guide US FP in the respective conflicts.
Please, anyone reflecting on this with me — share your imagination?
I guess my initial thoughts go to Ziehan on Chinese insular dictatorship, as well as Putin’s failure to respond to last June’s mutiny.
Dictatorship when insulate and isolated from the people and its institutions becomes vulnerable to destabilising events. How long can THIS go on?
We know what can happen, because history speaks to us. Civilization without avenues for error detection, reform, and “course correction” are destined not to last.
CORRECTION “CRA” should read “PLA. Sorry.
@JFM
Agreed with some caveats, in that it might not immunize a country from a surgical invasion or one that moves to quickly decapitate leadership. I think that is one reason Russians are so worried about domestic unrest or coups. They have conducted a fair few themselves.
Moreover I’d also note that Russia is suffering a similar invasion like we see at home, with Muslim and Chinese demographic intervention.
To play Devil’s advocate; because a good reserve of tanks is one of the final arguments in making one’s border secure, and while they are a naturally offensive weapon the tactical aggression and offensive can be used for the strategic defense. The first battle of what is arguably the first recognizably modern-ish tank the FT was in 1918 in counterattacks to block and then roll back the German Spring Offensives in 1918. I bring it up here, for instance.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2024/02/01/peter-hitchens-on-israel-and-hamas/#comment-2721288
To be fair they did. It is just that they did it in a rather blunt force fashion that had some fruit but caused a lot of anger. It is telling that “pipeline wars” and tariff conflicts dominated the economic landscape of post Soviet Eastern Europe, and it is telling how even Lukashenko has been on the receiving end of this stuff, and the spark for this war was Euromaidan, which at least originated as a dispute over economic agreements.
Wasn’t it Adam Rubenstein who was caught off-the-record saying that Jan. 6 was nowhere as violent or hysterical as was “reported”?
That the “reporting” was over the top.
Or was it someone else…?
If I were Putin, I would tell Sweden that neutral unaligned Sweden was not a nuclear target. Member of the enemy alliance is and then give them the a-list of cities now targeted.
“How to win friends and influence people.”
or “Send Hallmark”
or ‘If you hadn’t noticed, the time of power mad expansionist, dictators is back.’
Not that Vlad hasn’t been threatining Europe with nukes for two years now.
I think a lot of the current issues with Russia are really the same old mess of European nationalism across existing borders. The eastern provinces of Ukraine (now controlled by Russia) are majority ethnic Russian. I believe that Transnistria is majority ethnic Russian. It doesn’t help that the USSR spent 70 years moving populations (and territory) around among the Soviet republics and supressing nationalism.
Many Americans are looking at Ukraine and Russia and applying the lessons of the second half of the 20th century, (i.e., cold war; freedom v. oppression; Putin is Hitler, and so on). More than a few Americans are also still laboring under assumptions about Russia drawn from the Russia hoax against Trump.
Instead, I wonder if we ought to be appying the lessons of the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, which was the last time that major multi-ethnic powers broke up and cross-border nationalism was ascendent. It wasn’t handled well then. I fear that it hasn’t been handled well to date. I also fear that our romantic late 20th century notions about Ukraine have caused us to get involved in what is, for the most part, the same old nationalistic quagmire of eastern Europe. The only powers who have navigated that mess with any measure of success are the Tsars and the Hapsburgs, though many of their methods would be completely unacceptable today. The last time this happened, we had WWI. I just hope that, whatever happens, we can avoid such a horrible result.
https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1762621250113773802
Much worse than we thought
https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1762673608826986626
That was post script to the rubenstein story
“Majority ethnic Russian ….” otay, but for whatever readson they weren’t copacetic with Yanukovych and his Vladiphillic policies in 2014 after the snipers got busy. No matter, Vlad sent helpers to assist the independence of those ethnic Russians. Somewhat like the Russian armed forces ensconsed in the internationally unrecognized “republics” of Transnistria and East Ossetia(?), although those Russian forces predate Putin.
Not that other dictators have used ethnic (Germans) ancestry of minority groups (Czeckoslovakia) as a pretext for land grabs and warfare. Or in Yugoslavia (Serbs etc), soo last century dude!
Nope, it will all work out …..
It is what tyrants do, eg, whatever is not resisted.
If I were Putin, I would tell Sweden that neutral unaligned Sweden was not a nuclear target.
==
Yeah, you can take that to the bank.
The eastern provinces of Ukraine (now controlled by Russia) are majority ethnic Russian.
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No, they aren’t. The Crimea was the only region of the Ukraine prior to 2014 wherein a majority of the population consisted of self-identified Great Russians. Self-identified Great Russians accounted for about 38% of the population of the two Donbass regions.
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Note, in the fall of 1991, every region of the country (including the Crimea) voted for the declaration of sovereignty in a referendum. There’s a reason Putin never allowed a free vote in the Crimea.
Not that other dictators have used ethnic (Germans) ancestry of minority groups (Czeckoslovakia) as a pretext for land grabs and warfare.
==
The Germanophone borderlands of Bohemia and Moravia saw a preference cascade in favor of merger with Germany during the period running from 1933 to 1938. IIRC, the Sudeten Party won about 2/3 of the vote in that section of the country in the last parliamentary elections held before the Munich conference. Something similar may have happened in Austria during that period, but we don’t have the data. People were on the street cheering themselves hoarse as the occupation troops arrived.
They both predicted that pushing NATO to Russia’s border would cause serious trouble.
==
The only place NATO was ‘on Russia’s border prior to 22 February 2022 was where the Russian border meets that of Latvia and Estonia, two countries with a total population similar to that of greater Seattle, two countries with large Russian minorities, two countries who had a history in the last century of being subject to gruesome mistreatment by Russia.
According to this paper, the 1991 referendum did see 54% of those voting in Crimea in favor of independence, but only 37% of the total eligible voters. This contrasts to 80-90% in favor in other oblasts.
“….However, in Crimea, the percentage of “yes” votes was only 37% of total voters, and in Sevastopol, it was just 40%. Moreover, it has been argued that many of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who voted for independence believed that they were voting to abolish the Soviet Union, which would be followed by some sort of reunification with a non-Communist Russia.
After 1991, the status of Crimea in the now independent Ukraine was a major political issue from the beginning and the politics of the 1990’s featured a continuous struggle between the central government in Kiev and the local authorities in Crimea, before the matter was finally resolved in 1998.
Almost immediately after independence, the Crimean parliament sought to assert its autonomy, going so far as to declare its independence on May 5, 1992, only to retract that declaration the following day. On May 6, the newly adopted (in Crimea) Crimean Constitution was amended to identify Crimea as part of Ukraine (albeit a highly autonomous part). In June of 1992, the Ukrainian parliament recognized Crimea’s status as an “Autonomous Republic” under the Ukrainian Constitution, but the controversy of the scope of the powers of the Crimean government was not resolved until December 23, 1998, when the Verkhovna Rada accepted a new, less ambitious constitution that had been adopted in Crimea two months earlier. (Article 135 of the Ukrainian Constitution provides that the Crimean Constitution must be approved by the Ukrainian parliament.)”
https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2014/03/understanding-the-constitutional-situation-in-crimea/
According to this paper, the 1991 referendum did see 54% of those voting in Crimea in favor of independence, but only 37% of the total eligible voters.
==
So what? All electoral contests are held among a populace which contains people too apathetic to cast a ballot.
It is a curiosity that Kalinigrad, a Soviet construct, is still considered part of Russia.
‘Muscovy must retain an ice-free port! It has always been so!’ (channeling Putin apologists)
And of course to Brain E the 2008 siezure of Crimea by Vlad is toots good, because of a 1991 election. But Yanukovych being deposed in 2014 is even more of a justification for another Vladdy invasion in 2022.
The mind boggles.
Not if but when: Ukraine will eventually be at the tender mercies of you-know-who. If we make nice, maybe he’ll be more kindly disposed.
Not if but when: Ukraine will eventually be at the tender mercies of you-know-who.
==
Thanks for the wishcast. Been hearing it for about two years now.
Bring back the Holodomor, Boned Loser?
Another mind boggler.
Why does Boned Loser hate Ukrainians?
Or not.
*sigh*
It is a curiosity that Kalinigrad, a Soviet construct, is still considered part of Russia.
==
The German population of East Prussia was expelled and the territory repopulated with Poles (below a certain latitude) and Great Russians (north of that). Brutal, but too costly to reverse. For whatever reason, the local population never changed the name of the territory and its capital from one derived from the name of a Soviet functionary who died in 1946 to one derived from its historical name (Konigsberg – literally, ‘king’s castle’) or its location (on the Baltic sea).
There’s nothing wrong with hobbies and curious chess pieces…
until untold billions in national treasure are foolishly spent on them.
Boned Loser:
Your definition of ‘foolish” is contested, and your “tender mercies” is something else alltogether.
You do realize how the Russians and Soviets have “tenderly” treated subjugated populations?
But you be you.
Again i rely on massies bios of peter the great as well as catherine this is putins bre’r rabbit stance
There’s nothing wrong with hobbies and curious chess pieces…
until untold billions in national treasure are foolishly spent on them.
==
An admonition properly directed at the Russian head of state.
Art Deco, I “highlighted” that bit. It was confusing in the story, and I assume they were making the best case scenario. You’re right. We don’t know the inclination of those that didn’t vote.
But notice within one year, Crimea declared it’s independence from Ukraine. Yes it was squashed, but Crimea was considered an autonomous zone, mostly, I assume to placate the Crimeans.
This was a time of incredible turmoil and as the story points out, people may have thought there would be additional votes, which never came about.
You pointed out that the Donbas lists the ethnicity as around 38% identifying as Russian, but I think the number of those who wanted to maintain ties was much higher. There was a survey taken in March 2014 by a Kiev organization of attitudes in the Donbas and while only 29% strongly wanted to leave Ukraine and join Russia, 68% were worried about ultra nationalists in W. Ukraine and 68% wanted to join the Eurasian Customs Union.
The academic paper is behind a paywall.
Given the industry in the Donbas, people there likely felt their economic interests would be better served trading with Russia than the EU.
Yep, better to trade with the world’s largest hive of kleptocrats than those scary Europeans; the devil you know assumptions, cast back acrost the globe 33 years into the past.
Alternate history, if onlies …..
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1762867488486809632
but I think the number of those who wanted to maintain ties was much higher.
==
This is a vacuous remark. You can trade with Russia and trade with EU countries. It’s not an either / or proposition. And where and when do disagreements over trade policy prompt a political unit to favor being conquered by a neighboring country?
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This was a time of incredible turmoil
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Oh, for crying out loud. Episodes like Euromaidan happen every few years in Latin America. Various political actors brush themselves off and life goes on. It doesn’t generate cross border conquests and years long inter-state wars. It needn’t have done that in re the Ukraine. It’s just that Putin has objects and motives you lot refuse to acknowledge.
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We don’t know the inclination of those that didn’t vote.
==
Those who didn’t vote want more skin on the Ukrainian edition of Love Boat.
Art Deco,
The EU made it very clear that Ukraine couldn’t be both a member of the Customs Union and the EU. Russia made it clear they would lose all of their subsidies with Russia if Ukraine joined the EU.
The time I was talking about was the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
And where and when do disagreements over trade policy prompt people to overthrow their government? Had the rioters accepted the compromise, Yanukovych would have been neutered and out of power within months and Ukraine could have pursued the EU and avoided a civil war.
And where and when do disagreements over trade policy prompt people to overthrow their government?
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The services told Yanukovich that they weren’t going to shed blood to protect him and he fled the country. His own political party would not stand up for him. He was succeeded by the constitutionally designated official and a new president was elected three months later. The ministry was replaced, but that’s unremarkable for a country with parliamentary institutions.
==
No, disputes over trade policy do not exhaust the motors of the Euromaidan protests.
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and Ukraine could have pursued the EU and avoided a civil war.
==
There was no civil war. Russia seized the Crimea and parts of the Donbass, in the latter case making use of mercenaries.
Art+Deco:
Good luck with Brian E; he has ‘his truth’ and ‘his facts’ and is sticking to them.
Art Deco, that’s the sort of narrative that Americans are tired of. If that’s you’re version of events at the Maidan, you’re leaving out a lot of what happened.
They had to revert to the 2004 constitution to create a “constitutionally designated official”. Do you not believe there was a negotiated settlement by opposition leaders, members of several EU countries and Yanukovych that was rejected by the rioters?
By any standards this was a civil war. Crimea and Donbass have a separate dynamic, but you’re simplifying and ignoring what happend to say it was mercenaries. Were there Russian agents there? Were there CIA/State Department encouraging rioters in Maidan?
After the government fell and was replaced with a new constitution and temp. leader– the protestors (which had already formed private militias) were sent to the East to quell the separatists.
Here’s a video by Vice News talking to a unit sent to Sloviansk to retake the city. They had been protesters a few months before and were now a military unit (mostly private) fighting in E. Ukraine.
Sure looks like a civil war to me.
Did Russia aid/meddle in the separatist movement? Sure.
From what I have seen, the first instance of regular Russian troops is recorded in August, four months into the war. If you have evidence that happened sooner, I would be interested in seeing it.
Simon Ostrovsky Returns To Eastern Ukraine: Russian Roulette (Dispatch 40)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzAIXo9BeFA&t=401s
“A London-based digital forensics agency says it has gathered an enormous body of evidence that Russia’s military was deployed in the August-September 2014 fighting around Ilovaysk, in eastern Ukraine, in which Ukrainian forces were defeated by combined Russian and separatist troops.
https://www.rferl.org/a/british-online-research-group-says-more-evidence-found-of-russian-role-in-donbas-conflict/30116665.html
By August, Donetsk and Luhansk had already declared their independence. Would they have asked for military assistance from Russia? Sure. In my estimation, based on events in Kiev earlier in 2014, they had a legitimate cause to declare their independence. One of the concerns expressed by residents there was the nationalists from W. Ukraine. That was who fought for Ukraine during the early parts of the civil war.
The separatist movement was active from the early 90’s. Were they communists that rejected the idea of the Soviet Union failing? Likely. Did they capitalize on the events of the Maidan revolution? Probably. Were they behind the overthrow of Yanukovych? Unlikely.
is this your card,https://www.972mag.com/escaping-justice-who-killed-bassem-abu-rahme/
Brain E now has displayed some of ‘his truth’; somehow the East Donbas indigenous rebels managed to get a Russian Surface To Air (SAM) system in July of 2014. In the real world that is before August of 2014. Shot down MH 17 with it. Killed 298 people.
Not a happy occassion. Plausible deniability of Little Green Men?
The Russian who facilitated it has recently been jailed by Vlad for speaking ill of him. No honor among theives (and murderers)?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
Inconvenient facts.
Thanks, om. But while Russia may have provided the separatists with the SA11 missile system, there was no indication it was fired by Russian troops. Regular army would have distinguished between civilian and military targets.
Also, the SA11 was an older system and could have been in the Ukraine inventory. Remember when the rebels declared their independence, I think they got military equipment from local armories.
I was talking about the first instance of regular Russian troops fighting in the Donbas, but duly noted the Russians may have been providing equipment to the separatists in July.
@Chase Eagles
I would too, issue is nobody would buy it. There is a reason why Sweden’s military heavily leaned towards the West pretty much since 1945 (technically before WWII ended, it just finished before they were ready to jump in). While the Swedes were two faced, greedy, and in their dealings with foreign powers corrupt they all knew about Soviet attitudes towards Neutrals, one the Putin era leadership has largely inherited. While Sweden was as far as we know not slated to be among the first possible targets for nukes, it was always on the conditional list and any defeat of NATO would have led to wholesale attempts to subjugate it by pen or sword.
It wasn’t quite as murderously bad as Soviet attitudes towards Austria or earlier Soviet policy between 1917 and 1941, but it was still awful. And the public knew it for decades. Hence jokes about the options neutral countries had in a hot WW3 being compared to steaks having made the rounds for decades.
Also considering Putin’s violations of Helsinki and Astana his credibility is in the toilet, since he or whoever succeeds him can say “I lied.”
So the Swedes would point out “So you’ve already done the targeting calculations. Why would we believe you won’t use them?”
Brain E:
Are you serious? LOL, man how far do you have to go?
The Russian who orchestrated it is well known, and has been charged in international court. It ain’t a bloody f’en mystery. There is evidence regarding movement of the system back to Russia as well
Ivan the miner or steelworker from the DPR didn’t just managed to operate a SAM system. Not something you pick up in an on the job session at work, IMO. It ain’t a AK47 or RPG, or even a MANPAD.
I expected you to say
‘show me the Russian uniform ….’
But didn’t anticipate the
‘it could have been a Ukramian system.’
Put on your thinking cover (i.e. hat or cap for civilians); do you concieve what a propaganda triumph it would have been for Russia to show that MH 17 was shot down by those Ukrainian Nazis? Yet they couldn’t.
When it comes to Ukraine you live in an alternate reality.
They had to revert to the 2004 constitution to create a “constitutionally designated official”.
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There is, in any constitution not written by a drunk, a constitutionally designated official. Let go of everyone’s leg.
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By any standards this was a civil war.
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You’re not entitled to your own facts.
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After the government fell and was replaced with a new constitution
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There was no new constitution. It’s been the same constitution for more than 25 years. An appellate court attempted in 2010 to disallow some amendments enacted in 2004, which decision Ukrainian governments have refused to credit since Yanukovich departure.
By August, Donetsk and Luhansk had already declared their independence.
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There was no authority in those fragments of the two regions in question which could have made such an enactment.
Actually, om according to this expert, separatists could be trained to use the system “badly” in a matter of hours.
“…based on the results, this crew was NOT proficient. For example, they apparently did not know how to operate the IFF equipment, or didn’t care enough to bother. I am guessing here, but it might be possible that a crew could be taught to use the system badly, very badly indeed in this case, in just several hours.”
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-ultimate-guide-the-sa-11-gadfly-10928
Sure but there is also the issue of old and new messes such as great power politics, Russian ambitions, and creeping Islamism across borders.
As Art Deco pointed out that isn’t true. Moreover “majority ethnic Russian” doesn’t necessarily mean “Wants unity with the Kremlin.” Especially after decades of pipeline and tariff conflicts bled over into war and how the folks there have been able to get near front row seats to occupation regimes the Kremlin has sustained for about a decade now and have generally been displeased with the results (as indeed many of those SUPPORTIVE of the Kremlin and in favor of said occupation regimes have griped about). There’s a reason why Right Sector’s membership is disproportionately ethnic Russian and Russophone
Likely. It almost certainly is now, with the cultural and ethnic purges of the 1990s there
Firstly: Hitler was from the FIRST half of the 20th century, Bauxite.
Secondly: We have every right to apply those lessons IF we think they apply. And I certainly do and have mustered many arguments on their behalf. Arguments you have been utterly incapable of refuting.
Indeed I have pointed out that while Putin isn’t Hitler he is very willing to deploy strategies, tactics, and excuses rather reminiscent of him. And before the Tucker interview I had forgotten his habit of softball apologia for Hitler or arguing that if Hitler had stopped before Danzig he would’ve somehow been “Good.” So just remember that before you whine about people comparing Putin to Hitler again, Bauxite: it isn’t Leftists or anti-Russia hawks making the comparison but Putin himself.
I personally have compared Putin’s actions in Ukraine and elsewhere to both the actions of the Kwantung Army in China during the 1930s (especially the attempts to deploy military troops under a cover of deniability and construct puppet states) and Hitler’s use of Austrian and Sudeten Nazi Paramilitaries to wage undeclared wars against those governments for the purpose of annexing them into the Reich. I could further compare it to Soviet terror tactics in the interwar period and sending partisans over as they did in the Baltics and Romania.
If you do not think the 20th century has applicable lessons for this situation, I frankly do not think you have studied it enough, or honestly.
True enough, and I have criticized it for that (especially the parade of morons who forget Trump turned on lethal aid again to Ukraine and wiped out a lot of Baathist and Wagnerite troops in Syria and Iraq).
But not me. I labor under assumptions about Russia drawn from my experiences (Limited as they were) under the Putin regime, my understandings of history, and the Russian Regime’s own rhetoric and policies. And I have been able to defend them with significant success on this matter, very much unlike you.
Ok, and what pray tell DO You think the “lessons of the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century” ARE, oh Sage? And how are they drastically different from those of the 20th?
Because I know damn well I know the late 19th and early 20th century history and politics better than you (Mr. “Put Hitler in the Second Half of the 20th Century”). Not perfectly of course, but far more than most. I have fisked Kennan himself for complaining about British and French naval warfare in the Black Sea during the Crimean War while utterly whitewashing exactly how and why that war started and specifically drew in British, French, and Italian (technically Piedmont-Sardinian with various other Italian volunteer) units. Namely the Russian occupation of the Danube.
If you challenge me on this, I do not think you will win.
China in the 1930s calling on Line 1, Burma today on Line 2, Decolonized Africa on Line 3.
This is what ignorance trying to make itself look sophisticated and knowledgeable sound like.
No, we did not get involved in Ukraine “for the most part” because of “romantic late 20th century notions”. We primarily got involved in Ukraine because of CRUDELY CYNICAL and oh so sophisticated Late 20th Century notions of the balance of power, denuclearization, fear of Ukrainian nationalism or Russian revanchism, and the desire to get both sides to play by the rules. Which is one reason why we brokered things like the Budapest Memorandum and Ukraine’s denuclearization in exchange for tripartite assurances about its independence and territorial integrity.
Assurances the Russian government has broken.
And it is telling that while even the sub-moron and often racist chowderheads that call themselves NAFO often emote far more than they think and primarily couch their stuff in romantic notions, even THEY can generally point (even if in vague terms) to things like the Budapest Memorandum.
The reason, as I have pointed out, is incredibly simple. Russia advancing in Eastern Europe generally leads to bad things for the rest of the continent and even the world, with precious few exceptions.
Firstly: The Ottomans and Soviets called.
Secondly: It is worth discussing how they did such navigation, and indeed how their actions helped spark the flames of that quagmire (which well predates modern nationalism in the areas). Proxy War, provocateurs, filibustering, and piracy were not exactly unheard of and I could ramble.
Let’s talk about what actually sparked WWI, then, so we can better avoid it.
WWI was fundamentally sparked by the feeling of crisis and decline in the governments of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, who had found themselves outflanked (after Bismarck’s usually-forgotten late career screwups trying to goad France into another war long after even the French realized they needed allies) by a Franco-Russian and then Anglo-French-Russian Alliance just as they were facing growing economic and social pressures (not merely but also including nationalism). This as well as paranoia about ideological subversion from either Pan-Slavism in the East or Western Classical Liberal Capitalist Democracy and various mixtures of optimistic and alarmist projections (such as that Russia would be unbeatable by 1916) helped make their leadership go around looking to pick a “controllable” fight with their enemies, running risks that truly peaceloving statesmen would not have done so repeatedly. Most famously this was in Austria-Hungary’s desire to conquer and absorb Serbia in order to regain its position of power in the Balkans and quell Southern Slavic nationalism (mirrored by a growing nationalist awakening in the South that gave rise to terrorists who ALSO welcomed war for their own reasons, namely that it would lead to the destruction of the Habsburg Realm and a Greater Serbian or Yugoslav State). However it also popped up elsewhere, such as in the North Sea and in Morocco.
This is important, because while the proximate cause was the Sarajevo murders by a bunch of Bosnian Serb Anarcho-Nationalist Terrorists (yes, it’s a long story short) thinly supported by “Colonel Apis” Dragutin Dimitrijevic, essentially head of Serbian Military Intelligence and semi-secretly the terrorist godfather of Serbian nationalist terrorism of the time. However, this was more of what was viewed as “the suitable excuse” rather than the direct cause, as shown by how Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin rejected several offers to avoid or minimize the scale of the war (indeed, with Berlin essentially declaring war on half the continent before its opponents had a time to react, dragging Austria-Hungary into war with both Russia and the West).
So at least one moral of the story is: Decaying Empires are dangerous. Especially autocratic ones with an ideological hate on for Western Capitalist Democracy. That isn’t the ONLY lesson, but it is by far one of the most important. We can talk a great deal about the interminable Eastern European Nationalist Quagmire, but that quagmire was shaped by conscious actions by at least semi-rational actors.
Agreed. Especially given the risks involved. I do not want Brandon or his ilk to start WW3, or even to “merely” seize emergency powers. They already have too much power as is. If Ukraine has to be sacrificed to avoid that, I will accept it with a heavy heart.
But I don’t think we are there yet.
@Banned Lizard
I have personally lived through more than 20 years of attempts to “make nice” with and appease Putin, and 20 years of him shanking us in the back.
It is poor form and logic in realpolitik to calculate on the tender mercies or kind disposition of any actor, not necessarily because they lack such things but because assumptions risk making an ass out of u and provide unnecessary risk.
But that is particularly true when it comes to Putin, who has shown PITIFULLY little indication he knows the meaning of the word “tender”, “mercy”, or “kindly disposed.” And who has partnered with monsters that are if anything even worse than he is, and has for years, like the Ayatollahs and the CCP.
Moreover, the idea that Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable reads to me as overstatement at best. Maybe Russia will eventually be able to force Ukraine under its tender mercies. But I certainly wouldn’t treat that as inevitable. Especially given how we are nearly a decade of warring and “Novorossiya” is still a fairly distant dream.
And moreover: WHY THE HECK should ANY country trust to Putin’s “tender mercies” after we have seen the chance of what has happened to Moldova and Georgia?
I don’t know about you, but concepts such as sovereign rights are not “hobbies” or “curious chess pieces” and certainly were not viewed as such even by the most isolationist of the Founders. Moreover, have you applied that logic to the Kremlin’s leadership, who after all decided to start this war and then escalate it?
Art Deco, reverting to the 2004 constitution was part of the compromise deal worked out by Germany, Poland, opposition leaders and Yanukovych.
It was necessary because the 2010 constitution that the country was working under designated the acting president falls to the prime minister, and there was no prime minister at the time.
It really didn’t matter that the constitution wasn’t followed, that the vote didn’t rise to the level of impeachment– though that wasn’t what the vote was to do.
The Western governments were going to recognize the new government, regardless.
The Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts held a referendum on May 11 to create independent states.
A number of nations—such as Germany, the United States, France, and Britain—said that the referendum was unconstitutional and lacked legitimacy. That’s rich since the ouster of Yanukovych was unconstitutional.
Turtler, you said this: “I have personally lived through more than 20 years of attempts to “make nice” with and appease Putin, and 20 years of him shanking us in the back.”
How have we appeased Putin for the last 20 years. What are the policies you are referring to?
Brain E:
Your “expert” in the SA11 admits he does not know who trained Ivan the miner or steelworker, does not know that an IFF is a military term for military aircraft, or that commercial aircraft use transponders to broadcast who and what they are, and of course does not mention how or who supplied the SAM system to the Ukrainian seperatists (cough Russians).
They just pointed it up in the sky after it was left there by someone and golly gee it went boom up in the air?
I completely agree that they (Russians) didn’t care. I completely missed the Russian investigation into how one of their systems got loose in eastern Ukraine and was used to kill 293 civilians. Or who crewed and trained the crew of the SA11; Russian crickets chirp the loudest of all.
Sorry, I don’t know how many civilian Ukrainians or Nazis were on MH 17, not that it matters, Brain E?
@Brian E
Apologies for the delay. I had almost completed a response but needed to restart my browser and so lost it.
In general the attempts by various Western leaders – and particularly American Presidential Administrations (usually starting their first term) – to get Russia “on side.” This I feel is important because of how broadly common it was across the political spectrum in the US, and while not all US Administrations were made alike or appeased as much or carried on for so long (for instance, Obama was PARTICULARLY egregious) I do think it was incredibly common and bipartisan, indicating this went far beyond personal preferences among the individual candidates or administrations and also beyond the opportunism of turning the “You ruined our relations with Russia!!!” card for electoral gain into something being pushed by the foreign policy doyens in Foggy Bottom and elsewhere. But a handful of the snippets involve things such as Obama’s “reset” with Putin after the Georgian War, as well as his moves to put the kibbosh on the missile defense system in Eastern Europe meant to protect against Iran and other threats from there but which would have been impotent or marginally useful at best against Russia.
In general the “received wisdom” was to try and get Putin and Russia on our side, at least when dealing with things like Middle Eastern terrorism, and we see this pop up time and time again between the 1990s and 2022 (and arguably still now, with Biden trying to use the Kremlin as an intermediary for yet another Iran deal).
Agreed, and this is also why I do not put too much emphasis on the Crimean portion of the independence referendum, due to the imminently dissolving nature of the Soviet Union and the general chaos of the early 1990s, where a lot of weird and “wonderful” things happened and even more were proposed. It is also why in principle I do not object to the concept of a Crimean reunification with Russia, though I do object to the criminal, fraudulent nature in which it was carried out in 2014. I also note – as has become fairly clear since 2014 – that Crimean economic prosperity will rely on tolerable relations with Ukraine or some kind of improbable and dubious Russian occupation of much of Southern Ukraine like Kherson.
Agreed, but I also note that the first round of attempted Crimean secession or reunification with Russia fell apart due to Crimea not really being economically self-sufficient in the modern world (similar to the Donbas) and Russia’s government at the time having no great interest in reannexing Crimea and making the necessary diplomatic concessions to Ukraine necessary for that, let alone rehabbing the peninsula. So long as they had their base and basing rights they were content. I also don’t think anybody expected things like the tariff wars and their integral role in Russia’s relations with its neighbors in the coming decades, or how tumultuous Eastern Europe or internal Ukrainian Politics would be.
Agreed, the numbers were higher. However, “maintain ties” is not synonymous with “support a foreign occupation government (and generally ones of poor quality and accountability) while launching coordinated attacks on the army in barracks.” There was plenty of tension and even low level violence in the Donbas from the usual protestor mobs clashing with each other, but we really do not see a turn towards widespread paramilitary violence – let alone coordinated military efforts – before the Russian military proper arrived, at an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM in Crimea and most likely in the Donbas around that time.
Likely true, though I think a few things are worth noting.
A: That entailed actual trading with Russia, and as people living more or less on the border they were the first people to get hit with the ensuring tariffs wars.
B: They (like in Crimea) seriously overestimated what the Russian government would be willing to invest in terms of rehabilitating the region economically, since the Donbas is largely a rust belt (an economically important rust belt, sure, especially before the war, but still one) and also the quality of Russian governance. It is telling that one Ukrainian Loyalist – Aleksander Motyl – outright reacted to the military occupation and secession in the Donbas with glee and outright argued the Loyalist should walk away from them and let the locals stew. That’s really REALLY unpopular among most quarters in Ukraine (especially because nobody fully trusts Putin or whoever succeeds him to stop there as the attempts to annex other regions of Ukraine like Kherson shows), but it does show something.
and
C: Partially due to the aforementioned trade issues and moreso now with the war (and the poor quality of the occupation governments, especially outside Crimea) the public has been increasingly leery and disillusioned about ties with Russia. Is this anything like a majority? I do not know, prior to the outbreak of fighting in 2014 almost certainly not. But it did cut into the Blue demonstrations of support.
Which was an unenviable position between a rock and a hard place, and while I have made little secret of my opinion of Yanukovych I do not envy him for that, because it was a situation that would’ve taxed politicians and statesmen far better than he ever was, and at least 2-3 generations of Ukrainian politicians had tried and failed to resolve the issue (and this was a wider issue throughout Eastern Europe, as Putin especially played HARD on trade deals and issues).
I largely put the blame for this on Putin for putting Yanukoyvhc into this situation, because he had miscalculated a few things. Firstly, the growing weariness among Ukrainians (including those in the South and especially the East) about the tariff war, and how this had shifted even Blue opinion towards some kind of triangulation between Russia and the EU on trade, hence Yanukovych promising to negotiate such a deal in his successful election bid. Secondly, how he did not recognize what Yanukovych was in and how delicately he needed to finesse the issue, hence the strongarming of the trade deal (which was viewed quite badly across the Ukrainian public, even by those generally supportive of Yanukovych and Putin), and then following up with the Kharkhiv Pact. And thirdly, the general feeling that there was no guarantee the Russian government could be trusted to not play Lucy and the Football and cancel the subsidies and other trade deals anyway for leverage, which had happened even in Belarus.
All of this made the Association Agreement issue far more volatile and important than the original issue should have been (though it is important to note that for an Eastern European post-Soviet country with an economic slump it was already quite important, especially in the East), and the idea that this was a(nother) great battle over Ukrainian sovereignty and its future was not at all helped by the actions of Yanukovych’s cabinet and Moscow, who rather than trying to de-escalate the conflict gambled on some kind of decisive push to quell the protests and the opposition forcibly, and wound up pouring fuel on the fire that was larger than they realized.
They by and large don’t, by themselves. But if Euromaidan and the Ukrainian political crisis accompanying it had ever been purely about disagreements over trade policy, it stopped being about just that very quickly as it bled into many other old wounds and policy positions in the perennial (up to 2014 at least) Ukrainian cold civic divide. And it was made all the worse by what I can only describe as Yanukovych getting spooked and reacting like a cornered thug by passing the “questionably constitutional” Emergency Decrees and giving riot police a terrifying amount of leeway as well as orders to crush the protests, which helped turn much of them into riots.
Forgive me if I find these prospects dubious, especially since I feel this would involve giving far too much trust to Putin and Yanukovych compared to what their conduct warrants. I also think that the threats of violence against Yanukovych – while not jokes – are more of a fig leaf to justify his leaving the capital along with many of his regime’s VIPs, as well as what happened later. Maybe leaving the capital for safer fields was justified by the circumstances, in spite of the military (which had remained in barracks and steadily neutral) promising to defend government buildings.
However, large scale theft from government institutions by the soon-to-be-outgoing cabinet, cutting even their own Parliamentary party members out of their plans, and refusing to even talk about how to organize a future inquiry with the Rada were not justified, especially since they were violations of Yanukovych’s oath of office and basic duties as President. It was the final nail in the coffin of his political career, as it turned most of his own coalition against him to the point where many voted for his removal and most abstained. This is also one of the issues I take with your focus on the rioters and the Rada as solely responsible for what happened, while giving Yanukovych little to no blame for flatly walking out of his duties and in what communications there were doing what amounted to stonewalling without prospect of future negotiations.
In any case, I have basically no reason to believe that Putin would have tolerated this situation. To the extent this conflict is a civil war, it is a civil war second and a Russian military invasion first, and this has been the case since 2014. Even IF most of the “separatist” combatants were actual separatists rather than reflagged Russian units (and I am agnostic on the issue), it is fairly clear that leadership, hardware (especially in artillery), and the policy of violently targeting government buildings and the military in their quarters with a lethality unheard of in Ukrainian politics before came from Moscow. Had the agreement gone through (which admittedly would have involved Yanukovych to keep to his end of the deal as well), I believe Putin would simply have deployed the troops anyway.
Moreover, I believe you HIGHLY overestimate Yanukovych’s importance for the genesis of the war. He had heavily discredited himself even among his supporters and the Separatists. There are a few reasons why the Russian government did not cite his ouster as a casus belli for the war.
Firstly because the Kremlin spent months providing absolutely zero justifications for military intervention and insisting that the Curiously-Guards-Spetznaz-Shaped troops in Crimea and the Donbas weren’t theirs.
Secondly because Yanukovych had few supporters. The Oranges were inclined to dislike and distrust him from the get go, and whatever goodwill he had earned from them with his campaign promises were more than washed away by his reneging on them, and doubled down on by his passing of the “Dictatorship Decrees”, deployment of Berkut, and attempts to get the military to wash the streets with blood (which was another reason why he fell when he did, since the military pointedly told him that they viewed this as an unconstitutional order and that not only would they not obey, they would notify the Legislature and Opposition). The Blues were a broad coalition that looked to him as a leader rather than the cause itself, and were divided on his conduct before getting angry at his flight. And the Russians came to view him as discredited and unreliable. While the Kremlin and its puppets are happy to talk about his ouster as a source of grievance, almost none of them actually want him back or are willing to fight to put him back in office in Kyiv (as the Russians could have arguably attempted back in 2014 and possibly succeeded).
In any case, Yanukoych had turned a ‘disagreement aver trade policy’ into the bloodiest crisis in modern Ukrainian history up to that point and succeeded in bridging the longrunning divide in Ukrainian politics… against him. Which is kind of an impressive feat but for all the wrong reasons.
Maybe, but truth isn’t determined by what a given audience is tired of.
Sure, but so are you. In particular Yanukovych’s conduct (such as looting a bunch pf Presidential properties on the way out and refusing to answer summons from his own legislature, the role of the military, and the role of Rusisan assets).
Not really. The reversions to the 2010 Constitution had more to do with what was judged to be the excessive power of the President, but there remained a chain of succession.
I believe there was to a certain degree, I do however believe you greatly exaggerate the importance of “the rioters” both in unanimity and in rejecting it. But in any case, the fact remains that Yanukovych and much of his cabinet didn’t just flee, they conducted quite a few “questionably legal” actions on the way out, claimed to be the legal Presidential Cabinet of Ukraine without actually conducting or even making preparations to conduct the legal obligations of a Presidential Cabinet, and were apparently trying to stonewall demands from the Rada.
Perhaps, but it was not primarily a civil war, and certainly not before the decision of the Russian government to send military troops into Crimea under false flag to seize control of the peninsula and encircle or neutralize Ukrainian loyalist positions. Especially since we have a good idea of what conflict in Ukraine looks like (even grisly or violent conflict like what led to the Odessa arsons). A bunch of clashing between protest groups and even outright arsons of property are one thing, but massive, extremely lethal paramilitary or conventional military operations with a high priority targeting the Ukrainian military in its barracks is quite another, and it would be quite another even if we “conveniently” ignored the presence of RF exclusive equipment and a volume of fire (often from across the border) that painted the figure solidly at the Kremlin.
Sure, for starters Putin no longer pretends he deployed military troops to Crimea while he still says he did not in the Donbas. But they are highly linked. And both dynamics saw the situation catch on fire and explode with the deployment of Russian Federation military assets to it, which we can by and large track with the use of Little Green Men in the crucial Feb-April window.
I mean, fair enough I suppose. I certainly won’t deny that there were a fair number of real separatist paramilitaries involved (even if I do think the evidence is fairly clear they received radicalization, armaments, and direction from Moscow very very early on, and for most of them from the time they were created). And of course since a good portion of those combatants were Russian Federation regulars or spec ops referring to them as “mercenaries” would be legally and factually dodgy. But we can track the deployment of a good number of mercenaries and PMCs tied to the Kremlin to it.
Absolutely. For one, it’s important for me to underline that literally nobody sane denies that there were Russian Spec Ops and mercenaries involved in Crimea from Feb 2014 onwards, not even Putin. There has been no such open admission of events in the Donbas, but there’s plenty of evidence. Starting with the massive change in the MO of anti-Maidanite groups from protesting mixed with periodic brawls or mob violence against Maidanite groups, to massive paramilitary assaults on Military and Government buildings with the aim of establishing a new regime, including drawing in targets that had generally remained above and out of the fray like military bases. Add that to the presence of a good number of confirmed Russian Government “assets” (mostly medium-to-high profile operatives and fixers) like our friends Utkin and Strelkov within the area by April, as well as the suspicious amount of RF exclusive kit, and ESPECIALLY higher end exclusive kit.
I mention the last point because I’m not daft, and if I have criticized Kremlin propagandists like Jacques Baud for pointedly whitewashing weapon smuggling in the Sea of Azov when it served his purpose I’m not going to do so again. And corruption in the RF Military branches is – while no longer quite as scandalous as it was in the 1990s – still damn biblical in scale. So there’s a lot of ways to explain the deployment of small arms (including AT Weapons) and even some kinds of Tank, such as Igor Igorevich doing it to feed his Krokodil habit or Ivan Ivanich doing it because he sincerely believes in “The Cause.”
But that doesn’t explain things like high end EW Equipment, TIGRs, or division level artillery fire with accompanying ammunition originating on both sides of the border. And that’s PARTICULARLY important because of how Russian artillery is centrally managed, since you do not have the kind of regularly delegated artillery command we are familiar with in the West, and you especially did not see it in 2014 before years of fighting in the Donbas and elsewhere in the Ukraine sort of forced more delegation.
Taken together, I have no reason to believe this was primarily some kind of organic uprising like 1775-6., and every reason to believe this was primarily managed from the Kremlin.
Probably from a distance. Western intel in Ukraine generally preferred operating either from the embassies and other diplomatic property, or from over the border (such as the famous “e-workshops” in Poland for Orange activists for lofty sounding purposes). But in general the CIA was conspicuous in its absence in Ukraine, with State taking the lead. And State was remarkable for how rapidly it could get outmanuevered.
It’s also worth noting how most Kremlin propaganda allegations of Western intel involvement in Euromaidan and the “Coup” are damning in their own details. From what I have encountered they largely allege fairly small, deniable groups of mercenaries (especially “Polish Mercenaries” – how they were expected to behave well with “Banderaite Nazis” is another question).
But not even the Kremlin was claiming that the CIA told the Poles to give the Maidanites artillery support from Polish or American regular units. So let’s not pretend this was some kind of exact equivalency, or even an approximate one. Even most of the most flamboyant Kremlin allegations about Western involvement fall FAR short of confirmed Russian Fed Military and Intel involvement in Ukraine, let alone what is probable (such as the heavy weight of artillery fire and the sharp, violent, and unprecedented shift in targeting indicating the Russian “Organs” were now making command decisions).
As well they should, considering how we had “Little Green Men” running riot in the Donbas by mid March and vast artillery fire involving the intentional targeting of military and political targets. That’s not something that happened even in the more gruesome episodes of Euromaidan or elsewhere, such as the Odessa Arson.
Ok, but that doesn’t mean the impetus for military conflict was a civil war. Because unless we can explain away artillery fire from across the Russian Border and Little Green Men taking operational command of military operations, it wasn’t. It was primarily a foreign invasion. Opportunistically using local dissent and paramilitary activity (which I’ll be the first to admit was very real), but which was distinct from them.
That’s probably understating it to put it mildly.
That depends on how we define “regular Russian troops.” But in any case, the involvement of Regular troops is less important than the role of Russian special operations units and provocateurs, which was detected in Crimea by February (and again subsequently admitted to by Putin) and in the Donbas by March.
https://informnapalm.org/en/soldiers-of-very-special-russian-military-units-43734-and-42352-liquidated-in-mariupol/
/https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2917&context=parameters
So simply put, the GRU and SVR played a leading leadership role in fanning the flames of unrest into outright war, and the Spetznaz proved to be a decisive sword arm to help attack the at the time confused and barracks-confined military as well as irregularly-armed-at-best Maidanite groups. Which is one reason why I make so many comparisons about this conflict to those of the Japanese (and to a lesser degree Soviet) invasions of China in the 1920s and 1930s, and those of Nazi Germany in Austria and Czechoslovakia.
And indeed, you could semi-credibly claim those conflicts were civil wars, or at least aspects of it. Various Chinese collaborationist armies far outnumbered the decimated CCP that would go on to ultimately win the spiraling wars in China, and at times they were tasked with being the bulk of pro-Japanese combatants under the guidance of small cadres of IJA officers, not unlike what we have evidence of in the Donbas. But there’s a reason why we don’t really think of the fighting in Manchuria in 1931 onwards as an episode in a Chinese Civil War. Because it fundamentally was not, or at least had what “civil war” aspects of it there were pushed utterly into the backside by the ambitions of the Japanese army and intelligence doyens.
Months after GRU operatives and other assorted neverdowells like Utkin and Girkin popped out of the woodwork, while making use of a suspicious amount of artillery fire from over the border.
This is again why I compare the situation to if the British redcoats at Concord Bridge met a bunch of “Minutemen” in Bourbon White uniforms, speaking Spanish, with regimental levels of artillery. But even that is underplaying it because that at least presupposes the British made the first strategic move by marching to seize the powder stocks, when in reality the “Separatists” primarily attacked troops in barracks and government positions in either containment and siege ops, or grueling urban fighting, with the clear cooperation of the Russian Navy. So imagine the World’s Largest Ship of the Line sailing into Boston Harbor that Spring 1775 with the “S______ Tri____” on the back amidst hastily scratched out or covered over words.
That’s pretty much what we are dealing with here, and why I refuse to treat this situation like some kind of 1775 “Donbas War of Independence” scenario like you do, especially since unlike a bunch of other proxy wars the Kremlin operated in pro-Russian separatists tended to have their own paramilitary structures, aggressive leadership, and a willingness to conduct military operations months or even years before Russian government officialdom was prepared to help them (and in particular the Abkhaz and South Ossetian irregular operations were highly decisive at putting the Georgian government on a back foot it never really recovered from). In this case almost the full might of Russian SOF and the Black Sea Fleet popped up in the Donbas.
Again, we quite literally have GRU operatives caught, acknowledged, and exchanged months before. The Separatists didn’t really need to “ask for military assistance” considering the military “assistance” was already there and taking operational control.
Even if that were true, it did not give them legitimate cause to murder their fellow citizens en masse, attack the military in their barracks, and commit perfidy of war.
Ok sure, and I don’t deny that.
,,,, along with Russian Federation Spetznaz, GRU Operatives, and Mercs. And also somehow Russian-divisional-sized-Artillery-Parks.
But they were fringe even at the time, and they all but died out completely after it became clear that
A: The Russian Government wasn’t willing to make the political and diplomatic concessions needed to annex them.
B: Russia really was not in much shape to conduct the intensive urban and industrial rehabbing that the Donbas needed, and frankly probably wouldn’t have wanted to even if it could.
and
C: There were better ways to fight for regional interests, starting with Kyiv.
Which is why you don’t see too much in the way of direct continuities between there.
They weren’t behind the overthrow of Yanukovych, but at least the radicals among them were willing to either sanction his unconstitutional actions or at least use him as a masthead. In any case, they weren’t the catalysts behind military operations in Crimea and the Donbas, because that bill lies rather firmly with Vladimir Vladimirovich and the Russian Government’s Organs. Not because more than a few in the Donbas weren’t up in arms or even prepared to fight under Moscow’s direction, but because it was ultimately Moscow’s direction that they fought under.
I find this to be exceedingly optimistic in light of Russian military behavior in recent years, as well as the general desire to clear the skies.
This is true ,but it is far, far more likely they were from the Russian arsenals, and in particular that AA Training happened from fairly experienced Russian military hands.
This just opens up the question of “And how did they get that military equipment from local armories?” At which point I point back to the GRU and Spetznaz assets on the ground in the Donbasfrom March onwards, and go from there.
Moreover, while military equipment could be gotten from local armories (up to a point), training couldn’t be, and that most likely came from Russian AA operators.
Try “March” for the reasons I mentioned. Part of the reason your theory of the conflict falls down on itself is because you hugely discount the Rus Fed involvement in the war earlier, in spite of how Crimea provides us with a very good roadmap for how this went and there’s remarkably little actual dispute about who did what, when (for instance, yes “Crimean Self Defense Units” were present before and not pure creations of Moscow, but they were engaged in indecisive skirmishing with Pro-Maidan protestors until Little Green Men with obvious military equipment and doctrine came in and began cranking up the bloodshed while systematically encircling and then storming Ukrainian Loyalist positions).
Which brings upon the question: were they using the system “badly”? I have to agree with om here. The systems used seem to have been deployed well, if with exceptional callousness and indifference to neutral life. Which is hardly unheard of, and in any case needs to be held against the rather good anti-air results that shoulder mounted AA had against the Ukrainian Air Force in the early stages of the conflict;
But in any case, I don’t view the importance of who fired the SA-11 (whether actual Russian Federation troops, Separatist Proxies trained in it, or some third party Mercs tied to both). The fact of the matter is that operational decisions on the AA campaign – like that of most of the war – primarily originated in Moscow, and thus the Russian dictatorship bears the blood guilt for it.
based on events in Kiev earlier in 2014, they had a legitimate cause to declare their independence.
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This is an idiot remark.
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Turtler, you’re quite thorough and patient.
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A couple of points: the Ukraine prior to 2022 was an abnormally export-oriented economy given its geographic and demographic dimensions. The ratio of exports to nominal gross domestic product bounced around 40%. Tariffs on imports were modest, with total revenue generally amounting to around 3% of imports. The common external tariff of the EU is minimal. Russia’s mean tariff during the Putin Era has been variable from year to year, with 6% the central tendency. It is pretty much true the world over that tariffs present little impediment to trade and commodities most sensitive to tariff rates are (as they have been) undifferentiated primary products like grain. Barriers to trade are in the form of health and safety regulations or administrative procedure. See Jagdish Bhagwati’s remarks on latter-day trade agreements: they’re enormous compendia of carve-outs that no one really understands in toto. Note, even a big promoter of liberal trade regimes like Bela Belassa was willing to admit that quantitative research demonstrated that the static and dynamic benefits from liberal trade regimes were quite small. Trade regimes are of modest importance short of actual economic sanctions.
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I’ve been in discussions with Europhile Ukrainians where they point to the economic trajectory of Roumania as one they’d like to follow. The thing is, to the extent that has any relationship to EU membership, it would be because the countries in question had to scrape barnacles off their country’s political economy in order to qualify for membership. Well, you could just scrape the barnacles off yourself instead of having the European Commission twist your arm. (The Ukraine and Moldova have been notable for contextually horrible economic performance since 1990. I assume there are working papers available from various sources sussing out the reasons for this).
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Again, blow ups like Euromaidan happen in other countries. They don’t have abiding significance elsewhere. Complaints about Euromaidan are an excuse, not a reason.
Oh Brain E boy I hear the crickets calling
From far Ukraine Yanukovych has fled
To his refuge in the land of Putin
Where all is just and all opponents dead
Romania is a whole other country, Ukraine has been tied to the whole Russian system of Oligarchs for as many years Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan Georgia there is much the same set up,
Turtler,
As usual it will take some time to process what you wrote.
I’ve tried to be careful in what I’ve written about the events following the Kiev Revolution of Dignity, since it’s hard to find reliable reporting about the aftermath that isn’t based on a POV.
I’ve mentioned a survey done later in 2014 by a group in Kiev (which I assume would be particularly pro-Russian) that found about 30% of Luhansk-Donetsk residents favored separation from Kiev and joining Russia. It’s part of a report– “Who Supported Separatism in Donbas?”
Elise Giuliano (2018): Who supported separatism in Donbas?
Ethnicity and popular opinion at the start of the Ukraine crisis, Post-Soviet Affairs, DOI:10.1080/1060586X.2018.1447769
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2018.1447769
“Demands for separatism in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine in spring 2014 emerged rapidly. Residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, who had been politically quiescent throughout the Maidan demonstrations that started the previous fall, began to participate in a series of escalating demonstrations after the ouster of Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych in late February. As events in Crimea crescendoed in early March, local activists of formerly marginal pro-Russian organizations in Donbas gained in popularity.1
Whereas only a year earlier these groups’ events consisted primarily of distributing literature to passers-by from folding tables, they now took advantage of the opening provided by Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Activists forcibly seized government buildings in April and declared themselves leaders of the self-styled Peoples’ Republic of Donetsk (DNR) and Peoples’ Republic of Luhansk (LNR).
They quickly adopted declarations of sovereignty (e.g. Declaration 2014), and in May, held referenda on state sovereignty….”
Art Deco,
To bad the people in Ukraine weren’t aware of minimal impact of tariff’s on trade. The problem as I understand it was neither the EU or Russia would allow any trade once Ukraine joined the other group.
Ukraine is having problems already integrating their crops into the EU. Ukraine grain products usually are sold to the Middle East/African markets. No doubt that is depressing prices shipping through the European countries.
om, we should have a cup of coffee sometime.
I hope to get my autocross car running this year and compete down there. The club uses the Red Mountain Event Center at the old stock car track.
@Art Deco
Thank you, I try.
I’d argue it still is an abnormally export-oriented economy, and that looking primarily at “2022 and back” skews the figures because after 2014 the country’s economy shifted in a bunch of ways due to the war.
The issue I see with this is that the Russian government was not and is not above using actual bona fide economic sanctions on its neighbors and trade partners in the “near abroad” to exert influence. I was speaking in very general terms about the ongoing trade conflicts that spiraled on for about a quarter century before 2014 (and arguably continued after), which centered around tariffs because they were the main form of imposition but was not limited to them by any metric whatsoever. Including with Russia periodically sanctioning its ally and mini-me Belarus with things such as blocks on dairy products in the Milk War, and even threatening to reimpose them.
Moreover, I think focusing too much on how things look for number crunching overlooks how things felt on the ground. Especially for economically depressed regions like Ukraine was in general, and the Donbas Basin and the areas of Russia nearby were in particular. For people often living paycheck to paycheck in what amounts to Greater Detroit with moderately less peacetime violence and moderately worse infrastructure, even the seemingly minor cuts from tariffs (to say nothing of outright trade stoppages) are painful. One of the reasons Euromaidan and its aftermath didn’t play out quite like previous Blue v Orange slapfights is because of the growing economic desolation in the Donbas and irritation by a lot of the blue collar base there (and people dependent on them like regional oligarchs) to do something, Anything to get more money flowing in, and this helped trigger the chain reaction upstairs for Yanukovych to make his fateful campaign promise.
I do think overemphasizing trade policy or the importance of the EU Association Agreement itself is a mistake, because much of the public and powerbrokers on both sides were not doing this from a coldly practical POV (even if they probably should have), but as another chapter in the ongoing questions of where the country was going, heavily marred by political tribalism (with its own heavy influence from cultural and ethnic tribalism). Which is one reason the Customs Union v. Association Agreement debate quickly took on absolutely massive proportions and got freighted with a lot of baggage that went far beyond the merits or demerits of the policy, and got so contentious.
That doesn’t mean the actual policy or agreement proposals were meaningless or pointless, after all they were fiercely debated over and featured some things such as the muted support for Yanukovych (relatively speaking) among his base and some line crossing to join Maidan (which panicked him and while probably not that important in their own terms help explain why he acted like he did).
In any case, it’s easy for us to argue on whether or not a given policy has much effect from half a world away in our offices, but for people with a fraction of our affluence on the frontlines of Yet Another Trade Conflict even those minor real changes could be important, and they could seem even more important than that.
on that note, the resource rich donbas along with most of the heavy industry is still in his control, does no one at the White House or Whitehall or the Quay Dorsay not notice this,
@Brian+E
No worries, and for whatever our differences and disagreements I appreciate it. Indeed, I hold myself at fault for it, because I screwed up my previous incarnation of this post, had to redo it from scratch, and so that drained a lot.
Agreed, which is also why I try to phrase it too. Suffice it to say I have tried not to whitewash the violence, paramilitary behavior, and “Sus as heck” “legal” Maneuvers by both sides, even if I May not have always lived up to it. In any case, I do not deny the presence of actual pro-Yanukovych/Pro-Russian/”Autonomist”/”Separatist” sentiment, especially in Crimea and the Donbas. Like I mentioned before, the timeline and chain of events doesn’t work otherwise (for instance the presence of the Crimean “Self Defense” units for weeks if not months).
But I do not view them as decisive in understanding the outbreak of the conflict, especially like it did, for the reasons I mentioned. The very sudden change in the composition, armament, and strategies of these groups coupled with the confirmable drip drip drip of SVR, GRU, and known Kremlin assets I think points to that. Similar to how I will not deny the importance of Wang Jingwei and the Left-wing KMT (whose general behavior in regards to the Japanese has been memory holed hard), Mongol autonomists, and so on, or deny their involvement in things like Chinese history and conflicts in the 1920s-1940s. But I don’t view them as decisive for explaining the nature of the various vassal states that popped up in China in the 1930s and 1940s.
Agreed on the whole, and I don’t deny it. In many ways those people made the sort of bedrock or “raw material” to help construct the DNR and LNR. But they (or their leaders) probably acted under overall command and management from Moscow, in large part because while there were a good number of anti-Maidan groups around they were taking part of a general clash for power and control over Ukraine as a whole in places like Kyiv, not separation, and because of the extremely sharp turn in composition and behavior. Like I said, I won’t TOTALLY rule out that I missed some kind of attacks on Ukrainian military personnel in their barracks during Ukraine’s turbulent decades between 199X and 2013, but I can definitely say it was never on this scale or ferocity, and I find the confirmed presence of GRU and Little Green men there to be… “telling.” Especially since your own article points to the importance of the seizure of Crimea, which as I pointed out was decided by the deployment of false flagged Russian SOF and associated groups like Wagner.
At a minimum I believe these actors had clear and obvious messages from Putin and the Kremlin that this would be done and they would receive support (as borne out by things like the intercepted Dugin-Gubarev call reassuring military support. But I believe in many cases and overall it was probably commanded by the Russian government and its actors.
Agreed, and moreover I believe that is probably downplaying the actual effects in this case, especially since they were leavened by things like sanctions.
That’s not the case. I mean, Russia consistently traded with countries outside of its customs union and still did, and ditto the EU. But both could raise the price of transaction.
Indeed, and I think one sign that the Association Agreement issue became more of a talisman or tribal identity banner rather than a policy subject to be analyzed was how the two sides lined up on opposite sides, but have found serious issues with what was supposed to be their preferred policy position. This is particularly obvious with Ukraine finding the EU Association Agreement to be not the golden bullet it was done.
Understandable and admriable there.
@Miguel Cervantes
Sure, but they had a bunch of similarities even down to the culture and economics.
Agreed, but there was a phenomenon of Communist oligarchs in Romanian politics, started by the Soviets and worsened under the Ceaucescu regime and its eventual breakup, leading to messes like the Mineriad.,
This is flatly untrue.
While the Donbas is “Resource Rich” most of its resources are things the Kremlin has elsewhere. Moreover, its infrastructure and urban sprawl are legendarily bad, which is one reason why bread and butter politics of trade and patronage were so important.
As for “most of the heavy industry” this is simply not true. The industrial heartlands of Ukraine were the Donbas, the lower Dnieper, the greater Odessa industrial zone, and Galicia. Putin has control of one or maybe one and a half of those.
But the era where the Donbas was the most developed part of Ukraine ended sometime in the 1800s, if not the 1700s. The Donbas has a closer relationship to Detroit now than it does to Detroit in its golden age.
They don’t notice it because it isn’t true. This is one issue the Kremlin and even more notable pro-Kremlin local sentiment fell for: exaggerated ideas of the Donbas’s importance in the wider economic ecosystem, the idea that Russia would be able or willing to carry out the costly rehab work (even sans the war), and so forth. Most of Ukraine’s homegrown industry remains under Kyiv’s control (even if under wartime pressures and battered by Russian fire), as do much of its resources. The Donbas isn’t completely devoid of either but it is not this kind of economic heartland that people make it out to be.
It’d be kind of like New Yorkers thinking the country revolves around them.
Brian E:
Post on an Open Thread when you plan to be in the Tri Cities, and we can chat. I work 4x10s so weekends are fine.