alanjjohnstone
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I think broadly there was a lot of hypocrisy.
Protests rightly against Iran.
But Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen?
Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara?
Not a peep.
“Odessa? Kharkiv? Kherson?”
Definitely and **permanently**“Can Russia impose such a long-term occupation?”
Who said anything about a long-term occupation?”You did as I have asterisked.
If you mean Russia isn’t capable of occupying (or annexing) all of Ukraine, then I agree that it isn’t possible.
I note you insist that details of intelligence failures should only be from internal Kremlin sources. Hardly going to happen, is it?
“Putin fired Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and put the military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) in charge of providing intelligence on the Ukraine invasion, according to two leading Russian journalists.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-gru-in-charge-ukraine-intel-after-fsb-failures-report-2022-5But there are ample other non-Russian sources that he purged his intelligence departments, as well as a number of generals, one being in charge of logistics for failures.
“Putin has sacked. Dmitry Bulgakov, Russia’s highest-ranked general in charge with managing its military’s logistics operations in Ukraine.”
https://inews.co.uk/news/vladimir-putin-sacks-another-general-as-he-takes-a-more-active-role-in-ukraine-war-1877002It indicates Russia also has supply problems that you deny.
“No longer than a year I think.”
A year from February 2022 or from now?
The examples you offer show that commitment was much longer than a year or two…Almost 20 years in Afghanistan.
The deadlock in the Donbass shows that Russia cannot manage a breakthrough. It shows also that Ukraine has to concede territory for a peace settlement.
FT link behind a paywall.
However, do you think that Russia has no supply problems? That it possesses unlimited weapon capacity?
They too will equally be suffering logistic problems.
I said in a previous post that it depends on who replenishes their stocks the quickest.
I stand by my earlier point that the West has reserves they can still access consisting of older weapons, just as Russia equally does. Question is who kept them in the better condition?
Both also will repair their arms. Again, it is a matter of who has the skills and facilities to bring them back into operation sooner. You say it is easier for Russia as their factories are close by. The ex-Warsaw Pact countries such as the Czechs possess the know-all and aren’t too far away, either.
However, with the sanctions in place, the West with a much larger budget to spend can go on a shopping spree around the world’s armament bazaars. Russia has only Iran and North Korea to look to.
But for you, these problems are not important as you expect a short war, just months away from a total victory. But the idea that the entire Ukraine can be occupied and subdued is very doubtful. Russia can only acquire more territory to better negotiate. Will it include Kiev? Odessa? Kharkiv? Kherson?
Can Russia impose such a long-term occupation?
Or do you believe they will be welcomed with flowers as Putin has initially been misled by his faulty intelligence departments
I anticipate a long war, perhaps interrupted by sporadic ceasefires.
Who can sustain the war effort for the longest?
Can the West subsidize Ukraine indefinitely?
I simply speculate that NATO still can become involved more. Without it being formally under the aegis of NATO, volunteer troops can be seconded from various countries regular armies to give it legality.
I don’t think it is likely but nevertheless, it is a possibility, if push comes to shove and Ukraine is backed up into a corner.
Unlike the start of the war Western powers can no longer concede a Russian total victory, only a compromise concession.
It is now all or nothing for BOTH sides.
Gandhi did not challenge the caste system of India but accepted it.
“I do not advise untouchables to give up their trades and professions. One born a scavenger must earn his livelihood by being a scavenger and then do whatever else he likes. For a scavenger is as worthy of his hire as a lawyer or your president. That according to me is Hinduism.”
Almost unknown outside India, the person who drafted India’s constitution, Ambedkar, was a severe critic of the treatment of the lower castes, the Dalits and Adivasi population.
“Gandhiji, I have no homeland. How can I call this land my own homeland and this religion my own, wherein we are treated worse than cats and dogs, wherein we cannot get water to drink? No self-respecting Untouchable worth the name will be proud of this land.” – Ambedkar
A more recent critic of Gandhi has been the writer Arundhati Roy, who has called him a defender of the caste system and an upholder of oppressive gender relations.
Also forgotten is Gandhi’s admiration for Mussolini.
Gandhi’s position on class was that advocated the use of moral force to achieve a more equitable society where capitalists would become trustees over the labourer plus a levelling of incomes.
During his time in South Africa, Gandhi also expressed various racist opinions – see video below
You might be interest in this blog post i wrote while living in India
Serbia supporters displayed fascist slogans and aimed racist chants towards ethnic Albanians during their side’s match against Switzerland
The vultures circle
Around 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine
Oleksiy Danilov, head of the National Security and Defense Council said the Kremlin believed Hungary “could take part of its territory” back, an apparent reference to Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to World War I and part of Hungary on the eve of World War II.
Orbán came under pressure to apologise after posting a video of himself at a football match wearing a scarf that depicted historical Hungary, including parts of Ukraine
China set to triple its nuclear arsenal
it is “likely” to have a stockpile of 1500 nuclear warheads by 2035 if it continues the pace of its nuclear expansion, a report released by the Pentagon revealed.
It is estimated that China’s operational nuclear warheads stockpile has surpassed 400.
China is also working to modernise its ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear weapons. It launched some 135 in testing during 2021 – “more than the rest of the world combined”
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/beijing-nuclear-weapon-triple-pentagon-b2235831.html
Fiona Hill on Putin’s qualities. Why is her opinion of any value? Because she studied Putin’s politics.
The Levada poll does make good reading
I find it promising that support for peace talks is growing
In October 36% supported the continuation of hostilities.
Support to start negotiations 57%.Support for the mobilisation – strongest among the least likely to be called up (66%). With a majority who oppose it being in the age groups that may well be subject to conscription.
I’m not at all surprised that most people support their country when it goes to war. It is par for the course for all countries. However, 20% against the war is a good solid base that can grow.
The Meduza article here
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/11/30/make-peace-not-warOther news from Meduza
Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that Russia’s defense purchasing will increase by almost 50 percent in 2023
Russian Ministry of Finance, Russia’s defense spending was 4.7 trillion rubles (or about $77 billion) in 2022. The Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported that this is 1.2 trillion rubles (or $20 billion) more than the approved 2022 military spending budget. Close to 5 trillion rubles are being allocated to defense for 2023, and 4.6 trillion for 2024.Russia’s defense purchasing is only part of its total defense budget. Traditionally, about half of the defense spending goes towards purchasing military goods and equipment, as well as financing military contracts. The rest covers the military’s operating expenditures, the servicemen’s allowances, training, and similar expenses
Russian Senator Lyudmila Narusova, speaking to the Federation Council.
“The fifth-grade bulletproof vest that cost 7,000 rubles last January, now costs 135,000,” Narusova said. She added that the Federal Antitrust Service (FAS) should find out why Russian manufacturers don’t deliver the bulletproof army gear directly to the Russian military, selling it instead to consumers at market prices.
Also reading its website I note Russia too is suffering energy price inflation, a 3rd rise in 2022 when only an annual price rise is customary. But they do promise no more rises for 2023.
Putin mobilises God
It isn’t de-Nazification of Ukraine, at all.
Aleksei Pavlov, assistant secretary on Russia’s security council called on the Russian military to carry out an urgent “de-Satanisation” of Ukraine.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov referenced “shaitan” – evil spirits or devils in Islam – in an attempt to help mobilise the Muslims
Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has increased references to a “holy war” in Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the president of the legislative branch of the Duma, presented the update on the law banning LGBT “propaganda”.
“We have our own traditions and our own values,” he said, adding that the new legislation would “protect our children and the future of this country against darkness spread by the US and European countries”.In 2020 the Russian constitution was rewritten to add a reference to belief in God being an integral part of the “thousand-year history” that unites Russian society.
Viatcheslav Avioutskii, professor of international relations specialising in Russia and Ukraine at ESSCA School of Management in Angers. “Lacking unanimous support for its war in Ukraine, Russian leaders have launched a conservative initiative of ‘ideological purification’ as it sees the Russian population as being at risk from harmful Western influences.”
To me, it all sounds very much like the reactionary right-wing Christian pro-Trump cults in the USA.
Not MAGA but Make Russia Great Again
Chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff General Mark Milley said in November that Russia’s military had seen more than 100,000 of its soldiers killed and wounded. He said that Ukraine’s armed forces had “probably” suffered a similar level of casualties
And the Ukraine figure of its deaths broadly matches the BBC calculation of Russian dead, giving added evidence to Milley that BOTH sides have suffered roughly the same attrition rates.
ALB – They are clarifying that figure she gave meant both dead and wounded.
“We have official evaluations by the General Staff, official evaluations by the commander-in-chief [Mr Zelensky], and they range from 10,000 to 12,500-13,000 killed,”
His estimates of Russian casualties are wildly exaggerated
The BBC’s Russian Service has established that at least 9,311 Russian soldiers of all ranks have been killed since the invasion on 24 February while the true death toll could be more than 18,600.
