Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[jimmy olsen]

Personally, I appreciate seeing combat footage without the constant shouts of "Allah Ackbar!" ruining the soundtrack for a change. It's refreshing.

Wow! Welcome back! 

[Syt]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44697/ukrainian-tu-141-strizh-missile-like-drone-appears-to-have-crashed-in-croatia

Tu-141 "Strizh" Missile-Like Drone From The War In Ukraine Looks To Have Crashed In Croatia

The mysterious craft that slammed into Croatia's capital appears to be a Soviet-era jet-powered drone that only Ukraine operates.

In what can only be deemed a totally bizarre event, Croatia's capital of Zagreb was awakened to a loud blast just hours ago only to find a large crater filled with what appeared to be aircraft parts. Some said it was a plane that crashed and that parachutes were seen nearby, others said it was a missile. After close examination of the visual evidence, The War Zone strongly believes this was actually a Tu-141 "Strizh" reconnaissance drone that must have severely malfunctioned and crossed over the entirety of Hungary or parts of neighboring countries and into Croatia from Ukraine. Flying direct from Ukraine's border to Zagreb is nearly a 350-mile journey. It has been reported that Ukraine has been putting the high-speed, Soviet-era drones to work in recent days following Russia's invasion of the country. Ukraine is the only known current operator of the Tu-141.

We were first alerted to the mysterious crash by @Darkstar_OSINT who quickly briefed us on the strange situation and the claims surrounding it. Upon inspecting the wreckage and considering the odd and somewhat conflicting reports, as well as the biggest news story of the year occurring in the region, we concluded only one aircraft really fit the bill—the Tu-141.

It just so happens one of the wings was left largely intact, allowing us to verify our hunch. Still, the fact that this drone flew so far off course is both puzzling and alarming. But it would not be the first loss of the Tu-141 of the war. Another went down in Ukraine just days ago.

The Tu-141 is a fascinating piece of Soviet-era hardware that Ukraine has upgraded and made useful following the invasion of Crimea in 2014. More of a cruise missile than a traditional drone, the aircraft is rocket-launched from its trailer and flies a predetermined course at transonic speed, collecting various forms of intelligence, before recovering via parachute. It can then be reset and used again.

The Tu-141's roots go back to its predecessor, the Tu-123, which first flew in 1960, but the Strizh is far from youthful, having first been introduced into service by the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. With a range of about 650 miles, the Tu-141 can take on some of the missions that a manned tactical reconnaissance jet can, but without the risk of losing the crew. Ukraine has also used the type as a target drone recently and it could also act as a decoy during combat, although this particular Tu-141 was heading in completely the wrong direction for such a mission.

It's also possible that Russia has pulled some of these out of storage to act as crude decoys in a ploy to stimulate Ukraine's air defenses, but we have no proof of this at this time. This crashed example would have been beyond its stated range from the Russian border, although it could have reached Zagreb if it was launched from Belarus.

I don't think the folks in Croatia realize exactly what landed in their town just yet. It will be interesting to hear what Ukraine says about this. Also, this does raise some serious air defense readiness questions for the NATO countries that Tu-141 flew over.

We will update this post as more information comes available.

"Oops."

[Jacob]

Apparently Russia is prohibiting the export of wheat, rye, barley, and maize until Aug 31st to ensure enough supply for the domestic market. That includes exports to Russia's Eurasian Economic Union partners (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan).

[Richard Hakluyt]

Time to gift Putin a book from Amazon :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814

[Syt]

Thread about Lavrov's and Putin's "side families": https://twitter.com/pevchikh/status/1501878715709632518

[Syt]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/even-russias-state-tv-admits-ukraine-disaster-has-putin-in-trouble?ref=scroll

Even Russian State TV Is Pleading With Putin to Stop the War

State propagandists called for Putin to end the "special military operation" before "frightening" sanctions destabilize his regime and risk civil war in Russia.

There is a notable mood shift in Russia, as darkness sets over its economy and the invasion of Ukraine hits major problems. While the beginning of President Vladimir Putin's full-scale war against Ukraine was greeted with cheers, clapping, and demands of Champagne in the studio, the reality sobered up even the most pro-Kremlin pundits and experts on Russian state television.

The ugly truth about Russia's invasion of Ukraine is slipping through the cracks, despite the government's authoritarian attempts to control the narrative.

The Kremlin-controlled state media is doing its best to flip the situation upside down, blaming the victims of Russia's aggression for all of the casualties. On Wednesday's edition of the state TV show The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, the host claimed the fallout of Russia's bombing of a maternity hospital this week was "fake" with no one there to be injured, despite photos of pregnant women being carried away from the blast that killed at least one child. A guest on 60 Minutes last Saturday even claimed Ukrainians "are firing on each other and blaming us."

On Thursday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that Russia never attacked Ukraine and repeated the same lies as Soloviev about the total absence of patients in the maternity ward and children's hospital bombed by Russia.

Putin's most trusted propagandists are becoming ever more desperate to distort or deny the evidence of the atrocities because the truth is finding its way past the roadblocks erected by the Kremlin. Russian citizens are not pleased either with the war, nor with the financial price they have to pay for their leader's ill-conceived military conquests.

Even the infamous show run by Soloviev—who was recently sanctioned as an accomplice of Putin by the European Union—became dominated by predictions of Russian doom and gloom. Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, cautioned: "For our country, this period won't be easy. It will be very difficult. It might be even more difficult than it was for the Soviet Union from 1945 until the 1960s... We're more integrated into the global economy than the Soviet Union, we're more dependent on imports—and the main part is that the Cold War is the war of the minds, first and foremost. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union had a consolidating idea on which its system was built. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia has nothing like that to offer."

State TV pundit Karen Shakhnazarov pointed out: "The war in Ukraine paints a frightening picture, it has a very oppressive influence on our society. Ukraine, whichever way you see it, is something with which Russia has thousands of human links. The suffering of one group of innocents does not compensate for the suffering of other innocent people... I don't see the probability of denazification of such an enormous country. We would need to bring in 1.5 million soldiers to control all of it. At the same time, I don't see any political power that would consolidate the Ukrainian society in a pro-Russian direction... Those who talked of their mass attraction to Russia obviously didn't see things the way they are. The most important thing in this scenario is to stop our military action. Others will say that sanctions will remain. Yes, they will remain, but in my opinion discontinuing the active phase of a military operation is very important."

Resorting to the traditional propaganda tropes prevalent in Russian state media, Shakhnazarov accused the United States of starting the war—and trying to prolong it indefinitely. He speculated: "What are they achieving by prolonging the war? First of all, public opinion within Russia is changing. People are shocked by the masses of refugees, the humanitarian catastrophe, people start to imagine themselves in their place. It's starting to affect them. To say that the Nazis are doing that is not quite convincing, strictly speaking... On top of that, economic sanctions will start to affect them, and seriously. There will probably be scarcity. A lot of products we don't produce, even the simplest ones. There'll be unemployment. They really thought through these sanctions, they're hitting us with real continuity. It's a well-planned operation... Yes, this is a war of the United States with Russia... These sanctions are hitting us very precisely.

"This threatens the change of public opinion in Russia, the destabilization of our power structures... with the possibility of a full destabilization of the country and a civil war. This apocalyptic scenario is based on the script written by the Americans. They benefit through us dragging out the military operation. We need to end it somehow. If we achieved the demilitarization and freed the Donbas, that is sufficient... I have a hard time imagining taking cities such as Kyiv. I can't imagine how that would look. If this picture starts to transform into an absolute humanitarian disaster, even our close allies like China and India will be forced to distance themselves from us. This public opinion, with which they're saturating the entire world, can play out badly for us... Ending this operation will stabilize things within the country."

The host frowned at the apparent departure from the officially approved line of thinking and deferred to the commander-in-chief. However, the next expert agreed with Shakhnazarov. Semyon Bagdasarov, a Russian Middle East expert, grimly said: "We didn't even feel the impact of the sanctions just yet... We need to be ready for total isolation. I'm not panicking, just calling things by their proper name."

Soloviev angrily sniped: "Gotcha. We should just lay down and die."

Bagdasarov continued: "Now about Ukraine. I agree with Karen. We had prior experiences of bringing in our troops, destroying the military infrastructure and leaving. I think that our army fulfilled their task of demilitarization of the country by destroying most of their military installations... To restore their military they will need at least 10 years... Let Ukrainians do this denazification on their own. We can't do it for them... As for their neutrality, yes, we should squeeze it out of them, and that's it. We don't need to stay there longer than necessary... Do we need to get into another Afghanistan, but even worse? There are more people and they're more advanced in their handling of weapons. We don't need that. Enough already... As for the sanctions, the world has never seen such massive sanctions."

Dmitry Abzalov, director of the Center for Strategic Communications, pointed out that even though energy prices will go up for most of the West, it won't do much to ease the pain for the Russians: "We'll still be the ones taking the terminal hit, and an incomparable one, even though other countries will also suffer some losses. We'll all be going to hell together—except for maybe China—but going to hell together with the French or Germans won't make our people feel any better." Abzalov argued that after taking additional territories in Eastern Ukraine, Russia should get out of Dodge, believing that all Western companies that temporarily paused their operations in Russia would then rush to come back. "It's about toxicity, not just sanctions... It will go away once the situation stabilizes."

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, state TV experts predicted that Russia could overtake it in a matter of minutes or a few days. Stunned by the fierce resistance on the part of Ukrainians, Soloviev described them as "the army that is second in Europe, after ours, and which has been prepared for eight years and armed with everything you can imagine."

Soloviev added: "This is a frightening war that is being waged against us by America."

To lighten the mood in the studio, the host resorted to one of the favorite pastimes of many Kremlin propagandists: playing yet another Fox News clip of Tucker Carlson and his frequent guest Ret. Col. Doug Macgregor. In the translated video, Macgregor predicted Russia's easy military victories over Ukraine and its total invincibility to Western sanctions. Soloviev sighed and smiled: "He's a lot more optimistic than my previous experts in the studio."

[celedhring]

Well, that's interesting, Syt. Wish we could have more first-hand reports from the mood in Russia, although the Kremlin already took care of that.

Anyway, Putin is calling in his foederati.

Putin has approved 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to fight in Ukraine
With more details of Vladimir Putin's comments on welcoming volunteers to fight in Ukraine, Reuters reports that the Russian president yesterday approved bringing thousands of fighters from the Middle East to fight against Ukraine.

At a meeting of Russia's Security Council, defence minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East who were ready to come to fight with Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine in the breakaway Donbass region.

Putin said:

If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbass, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone.

He also told Shoigu that he approved Javelin and Stinger missles captured by the Russian army in Ukraine being handed to Dobass forces.

"As to the delivery of arms, especially Western-made ones which have fallen into the hands of the Russian army - of course I support the possibility of giving these to the military units of the Lugansk and Donetsk people's republics," Putin said.
"Please do this."

I presume he'd first called in the Belarussians before bringing in Syrian troops, so I guess that means the reports of Yanukovich (or the Belarrusian army) being unwilling to join the war directly are true.

[Admiral Yi]

That 16,000 number looks strangely like the number of volunteers announced for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.

[Admiral Yi]

And yes Syt, very interesting.

[celedhring]

That 16,000 number looks strangely like the number of volunteers announced for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.

It's probably for propaganda purposes. Besides the trouble of getting them there, I don't think Middle East fighters will be too effective freezing their balls in an Eastern European theater. And Assad isn't going to part with important troops either.

[alfred russel]

Well, that's interesting, Syt. Wish we could have more first-hand reports from the mood in Russia, although the Kremlin already took care of that.

Probably not positive.

https://youtube.com/shorts/gsVw9NfBW3U?feature=share

[Admiral Yi]

It's probably for propaganda purposes. Besides the trouble of getting them there, I don't think Middle East fighters will be too effective freezing their balls in an Eastern European theater. And Assad isn't going to part with important troops either.

Obama's Invincible Syrian Army of Mellow Islam and Democracy Loving set a pretty low bar to beat.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

That 16,000 number looks strangely like the number of volunteers announced for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.

It's probably for propaganda purposes. Besides the trouble of getting them there, I don't think Middle East fighters will be too effective freezing their balls in an Eastern European theater. And Assad isn't going to part with important troops either.

Isis on the other hand...

[Josephus]

A bit of a doom and gloom piece from Foreign Affairs

During the first week of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian leaders repeatedly raised the prospect of a nuclear response should the United States or its NATO partners intervene in the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded his speech announcing war in Ukraine by warning that "anyone who tries to interfere with us ... must know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history." He subsequently emphasized Russia's "advantages in a number of the latest types of nuclear weapons" while ordering Russian strategic nuclear forces on alert. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned to this theme a few days later, noting that a third world war would be a nuclear war and urging Western leaders to consider what a "real war" with Russia would entail. The message was crystal clear: nuclear escalation is possible should the United States or its NATO partners intervene in Russia's war against Ukraine.

Observers have expressed shock at the notion of a return to Cold War nuclear brinksmanship. The U.S. government even tried to reassure Moscow by postponing an intercontinental ballistic missile test planned for early March. These steps are clearly for the best; no one wants a nuclear exchange. Yet the heavy focus on nuclear escalation is obscuring an equally important problem: the risk of conventional escalation—that is to say, a non-nuclear NATO-Russia war. The West and Russia may now be entering into the terminal stages of an insecurity spiral—a series of mutually destabilizing choices—which could end in tragedy, producing a larger European conflagration even if it doesn't go nuclear.

Indeed, the coming weeks are likely to be more perilous. The United States should be especially attuned to the risks of escalation as the next phase of conflict begins, and should double down on finding ways to end the conflict in Ukraine when a window of opportunity presents itself. This may involve difficult and unpleasant choices, such as lifting some of the worst sanctions on Russia in exchange for an end to hostilities. It will, nonetheless, be more effective at averting an even worse catastrophe than any of the other available options.

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TIT FOR TAT
In the parlance of security studies, an insecurity spiral ensues when the choices one country makes to advance its interests end up imperiling the interests of another country, which responds in turn. The result is a potentially vicious cycle of unintended escalation, something that's happened many times before. For example, Germany's attempt at the turn of the twentieth century to build a world-class navy threatened the naval power on which the United Kingdom depended; in response, London began to bulk up its own navy. Germany responded in kind, and soon, the scene was set for World War I. The origins of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union share a similar genesis, as both sides sought influence throughout the world and engaged in an arms race. In each case, a tit-for-tat spiral drove states toward conflict.

Today, the United States and Russia have already taken steps to shore up their real or perceived sense of insecurity, spurring the other side to do the same. As the scholars William Wohlforth and Andrey Sushentsov have argued, the United States and Russia have been engaged in a slow-motion spiral throughout the post-Cold War era as each sought to refashion European security to its liking and tried to limit the other side's inevitable response. Recent events highlight the trend: the 2008 Bucharest summit, at which NATO pledged to bring Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance, was followed by Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia. A 2007 dispute over the Bush administration's plans to base missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic was followed by Russian violations of related arms-control agreements. In 2014, the EU's offer to Ukraine of an association agreement precipitated the Maidan revolution in Kiev, heightening Russian fears of Ukrainian NATO membership and prompting the Russian seizure of Crimea that year.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, however, has dangerously upped the ante and accelerated the spiral's pace. In response to Moscow's wanton and illegitimate aggression, the United States, NATO, and EU member states have sent Ukraine significant quantities of lethal weapons, placed draconian sanctions on Russia's economy, and launched a long-term military buildup. Currently, Moscow sees the United States and its partners threatening to make Ukraine into a de facto ally—a situation Moscow's own aggression helped cause—whereas the United States sees Moscow threatening the core principles undergirding peace in Europe.

For sure, Russia has been dramatically less restrained in military terms than the West —shelling Ukrainian cities, for instance—while the Biden administration has gone out of its way to signal its unwillingness to directly intervene in the conflict. Based on this, one might infer that one side is willing to escalate and another isn't. Still, spirals are defined by their tragic nature: even states that might not want to directly confront one another end up competing and risking war. As Russia's invasion continues, Western arms flood into Ukraine and sanctions threaten to collapse the Russian economy. Each side appears committed to ratcheting up the pressure further. It may take just a single spark to ignite a broader conflagration.

THE WIDENING GYRE
For obvious reasons, much of the concern about escalation has focused on the nuclear question. Putin's announcement that Russian strategic nuclear forces would be raised to a higher alert status was a clear attempt to deter direct Western military action by raising the stakes. But although policymakers are right to take nuclear escalation seriously, they should not discount the risks of conventional war between NATO and Russia. After all, low-level conventional conflicts between nuclear powers have occurred elsewhere, including clashes between China and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and in the 1999 Kargil war between India and Pakistan.

Scholars have developed a theory to explain why such conflicts happen: the stability-instability paradox, in which states, stalemated in the nuclear realm, might be more willing to escalate in conventional terms. There are multiple paths through which such an escalation to a broader war might happen today. One scenario stems from the economic war the West has launched against Russia in the last week. By preventing the Kremlin from using its foreign exchange reserves and applying export controls to stop Russia from importing high-tech goods, Washington and its allies have entered into uncharted territory: such sanctions have never been used against a major global economy such as Russia. Even in a few short days, the effect of these measures has been widely felt: the ruble crashed, Russian citizens lined up at banks to withdraw their savings, the Russian government imposed capital controls, and Western companies such as BP and Ikea rapidly exited the Russian market.

It is hard to think of historical parallels to this sudden isolation of a major economy, and the few comparable historical cases—Italy in the 1930s, Japan in the 1940s—do not bode well. Indeed, if the economic damage in Russia becomes severe enough, Putin may decide that it is worth retaliating through nonmilitary means such as cyberattacks. He may decide things are bad enough that it is worth forgoing energy revenues and shut down some gas pipelines to Europe, which would send energy prices soaring. Russia would presumably hope to use these steps to gain leverage over Western policy, but they could easily backfire: cyberattacks could trigger consultations under Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty, which states that an attack against one member state will be considered an attack against them all. This could result in retaliatory cyberattacks on Russia and continue from there. One might hope policymakers find off-ramps at that stage, but there are no guarantees.


The United States sees Moscow threatening the core principles undergirding peace in Europe.
There is also a serious risk that the conflict in Ukraine might spill over its borders. Europe is engaged in a rapid period of rearmament, with dramatically shifting security conditions on the ground. Russia's actions in Ukraine have obscured its de facto military annexation of Belarus, and U.S. forces have poured into the region to reinforce NATO's eastern member states. This has heightened tensions and made accidental confrontation between the sides more likely.

Amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, for example, four Russian planes violated Swedish airspace. Though a frequent occurrence during peacetime, it is highly dangerous during a shooting war and could easily draw antiaircraft fire. The problem would be worse if Russian planes accidentally violated the airspace of a NATO member state bordering the conflict. Another possibility: since the start of the conflict, arms have flowed into Ukraine to bolster its defense, at first by air but more recently on land through transfers from the NATO states bordering the war zone. If the war continues, Russia might decide to shut down these transfers by, for example, attacking supply lines leading from the transfer points; such efforts might inadvertently kill or harm NATO personnel. Again, an escalating spiral could take hold. These problems will only become more pressing if Russia continues to take territory inside Ukraine and the land routes for resupply become more limited.

Finally, there is always the risk of freelancing by regional allies, which might draw Russia and the rest of NATO into direct conflict. Thus far, unity within the alliance has been impressive, but the NATO member states closest to Russia—particularly Poland and the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania)—are the ones that have been among the most ardent and active proponents of arming Ukraine. This has included questionable announcements such as an unexpected offer—since walked back—to give Ukraine surplus European fighter jets. If the Russians seize Kyiv or overthrow the Ukrainian government, these states will likely be strong proponents of arming and supporting an insurgency inside Ukraine. What will the United States do if Russia bombs a Ukrainian camp or resupply mission on, for example, Polish territory? What if Lithuanian troops—perhaps operating on their own or having misread a map—are killed while delivering arms to Ukrainian forces? As seen in conflicts from Colombia to Syria, this kind of support risks blurring the lines between combatants and noncombatants, dramatically increasing the risks of a broader war.

STAYING ON THE SIDELINES
It is widely assumed that a conventional great power war is impossible in the nuclear era. The logic is clear: the stakes are simply too high for nuclear-armed states to make that kind of decision. Yet insecurity spirals have their own logic, and Washington should heed the lessons of history.

Although the Biden administration has been relatively careful and judicious in its approach to arming Ukraine, it may be rapidly approaching a more perilous period of this conflict. Ukrainian defenses have operated better than anticipated. Still, the odds are on Russia's side, and Russian forces will likely seize more Ukrainian cities and inflict more harm on Ukrainian civilians, thus increasing moral outrage at Russia's actions. Pressure is likely to mount for Western governments to offer additional assistance to Ukraine, particularly if an insurgency erupts in Russian-occupied areas.

The Biden administration should be extremely wary about responding to such pressure. In particular, arming and backing an insurgency would blur the line between being a supporting actor and being a co-combatant. The United States must also be prepared to restrain its allies. For example, it may be tempting for the countries closest to the conflict to consider unilateral steps such as supporting an insurgency or offering Ukrainian fighters safe haven on their territory. Nevertheless, it would not be out of line to make clear that the United States might interpret Article 5 commitments loosely in such instances, meaning that should Russia retaliate, the United States might not be obligated to respond with military force. Amid the present spiral, Biden and his team must determine where the United States' own limits fall and focus on remaining well within them.

The most effective way to curtail the risks of escalation in Europe is to end the conflict in Ukraine. This will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to do in the near term given the brutality of Russian behavior, the irreconcilable demands of each side, and the West's understandable desire to support Ukraine. At some point, however, the United States may need to use its leverage with all parties—for example, the prospect of lifting the most draconian sanctions on Russia or reducing its military aid for Ukraine—to bring about a ceasefire or settlement. Such a move would amount to a sea change in U.S. policy thus far. But because the alternative may be to get pulled into a direct military engagement with Russia, hardheaded consideration of U.S. interests may require a course adjustment. Ultimately, the only thing more tragic than the present war would be an even bigger, bloodier one.

[Legbiter]

Ukrainians are claiming to have killed a third Russian general Andrey Kolesnikov.