The Invasion of Ukraine

[bjn]

Not on Twitter so cant read that thread.

Negotiations with Putin sounds like pure folly to me. Zero trust he would hold up his end of any bargain.

Nitter link for you....

https://nitter.net/samagreene/status/17 ... 1zY-PW4R9w

[Imrael]

Not on Twitter so cant read that thread.

Negotiations with Putin sounds like pure folly to me. Zero trust he would hold up his end of any bargain.

Nitter link for you....

https://nitter.net/samagreene/status/17 ... 1zY-PW4R9w

The "All wars end in negotiation" thing bothers me. WW2 in Europe didnt in any meaningful way end in negotiation - except between the victor powers.
The Punic Wars didn't end in negotiation.

Maybe I'm being picky - most wars do, and likely the Ukrainian one will. But not all.

[TopBadger]

The Soviet-Afghan war didn't end with negotiations either. The Afghans (with external assistance) wore them down until the Soviets withdrew.

Ukraine can do the same if the support continues.

[Martin_B]

The Falklands War (not technically a war as it wasn't declared in line with UN protocol!) was ended with "surrender negotiations". This was essentially the Argentine soldiers ceasing fire and asking for repatriation. I'm not sure if this should be counted as a negotiated end or not.

The invasion of Iraq didn't end with negotiations. That ended with the toppling of Hussein and his regime and a long and protracted occupation.

[Woodchopper]

Not on Twitter so cant read that thread.

Negotiations with Putin sounds like pure folly to me. Zero trust he would hold up his end of any bargain.

Pretty much the point made in the thread.

[Woodchopper]

Of course if you look hard enough you can find an example of a war that definitively ended without negotiations.

But end of WW2, the Soviet Afghan war and the US war in Iraq all involved negotiations. The victorious armies in 1945 wanted to ensure the orderly surrender of German, Japanese and Italian forces. The Soviet Union signed a peace accord in Geneva to ensure the safe withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan. The US and Iraqi governments negotiated the terms of the US withdrawal of its troops.

Of course these negotiations took place when one side had been victorious on the battlefield. That’s the point. Victories give one side or other weight in the negotiations.

The best case scenario for Ukraine is that there would be negotiations with Russia which end the war with a peace agreement that specifies a Russian withdrawal to the 1992 borders (and of course other aspects).

[Imrael]

Of course if you look hard enough you can find an example of a war that definitively ended without negotiations.

But end of WW2, the Soviet Afghan war and the US war in Iraq all involved negotiations. The victorious armies in 1945 wanted to ensure the orderly surrender of German, Japanese and Italian forces. The Soviet Union signed a peace accord in Geneva to ensure the safe withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan. The US and Iraqi governments negotiated the terms of the US withdrawal of its troops.

Of course these negotiations took place when one side had been victorious on the battlefield. That’s the point. Victories give one side or other weight in the negotiations.

The best case scenario for Ukraine is that there would be negotiations with Russia which end the war with a peace agreement that specifies a Russian withdrawal to the 1992 borders (and of course other aspects).

I think we'll have to agree to differ on WW2 in Europe. My point is that the German state had effectively ceased to exist by the time Doenitz became leader as basicaly last man standing of the inner circle. The allies did not negotiate terms with a German state, but the administration of surrender. And effecitvely dismantled Germany afterwards. I know less about the other conflicts but my impression is that Japan did surrender as a state after the emperors famous "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japans advantage" broadcast.

The point being that if Russie had succeeded in their original attack there possibly would not have been negotiation of peace terms with a Ukrainian government, rather forced re-incorporation into Russia.

Realistically of course, the reverse isnt true and the Ukrainian war aims do not run to overrunning and dismantling Russia. So in the case as you said the most desirable path to peace is negotiation from a position of Ukrainian success.

[Woodchopper]

Ukrainian fighter pilots will begin their training in Denmark with Norwegian F-16`s.

Defence minister Bjørn Arild Gram visited the airfield in Bodø this week, where the remaining preparations for the F-16s are being conducted before a mission. Norway is presenting two F-16 fighter jets that will train and educate Ukrainian personnel in Denmark. Norway is also sending down ten instructors that will aid in the training and education. – The contribution of F-16 from the military sector is nothing more than impressive, states the defence minister.

[…]

Ukrainian pilots have experience with a different fighter jet and will now be trained to use the F-16 systems. At the same time, Ukrainian technicians will be trained in Denmark, USA and Belgium.

[…]

The Norwegian Air Force has already presented instructors that will take part in the training, which will take place in Skyldstrup. This program is multinational and will be led by Denmark. - The span of this deployment to Denmark will be decided through dialog with the other partners of this program, says the defence minister.

https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/- ... id3020558/

[bjn]

The head of the German Bundestag Defence Committee has called on the German government to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said...

"Ukraine needs more ammunition, more spare parts, and we need to mobilize the Taurus immediately to make it difficult for Russia to resupply for good,"

500km range, 480kg of high explosive, desperately need to level a bridge or two. Hopefully some movement from Scholz soon.

https://news.yahoo.com/bundestag-mp-calls-immediate-transfer-172600453.html

[jimbob]

I was talking to a colleague today and invoked Pitt the Elder.

We could lose Taiwan on the banks of the Dnipro.

[TimW]

I noticed these stories on TASS. I guess the first one is unrelated to the other two?

08:39 GMT

Air defense forces down drone over village outside Russia’s Belgorod — governor
According to preliminary data, there were no casualties or damage

MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. Russian air defense forces downed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that targeted Belgorod, without causing any casualties, governor of the Russian borderline region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said.

"In the Belgorod municipal district, air defense forces shot down an UAV over the village of Blizhneye. First responders have yet to clarify information about the consequences on the ground," the official wrote on his Telegram channel.

According to preliminary data, there were no casualties or damage, Gladkov added.

09:23 GMT

Governor of Russia’s Belgorod Region departs for Korocha district in wake of incident
According to Vyacheslav Gladkov, a team of investigators and Emergencies Ministry employees are currently working at the scene

MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. The governor of Russia’s borderline Belgorod Region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has reported an incident in the Korocha municipal district, without elaborating.

"There is an emergency in the Korocha district. A team of investigators and Emergencies Ministry employees are currently working at the scene. I have rescheduled my business plans and departed for the district," Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel as he promised to provide details later.

Earlier, air raid sirens went off in Belgorod and adjacent areas.

10:18 GMT

MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/.
A military transport plane Ilyushin-76 crashed in the Belgorod Region on Wednesday morning, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew and three escorts.

"On January 24 this year an Ilyushin-76 transport plane crashed in the Belgorod Region during a scheduled flight at about 11 a.m. Moscow time (8 a.m. GMT). There were 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were being moved to the Belgorod Region for an exchange, and three escorts on board," the Defense Ministry said.

The Aerospace Force has dispatched a panel of inquiry to probe into the incident.

Earlier, the governor of the Belgorod Region, said on his Telegram channel the incident occurred in the Korocha district. He did not elaborate. A team of investigators and Emergency Ministry personnel are working at the site of the crash.

[IvanV]

They are related in the sense that the Russians are trying to add plausibility for the story they tell in the last one.

Usually in the past the Russians would usually prefer you to believe a plane crashed than that the Ukrainians brought it down, whereas today they prefer you to believe that the Ukrainians brought it down, whatever the truth in any case.

The only thing I can believe is that an IL-76 came down near the Ukrainian border. Why it came down, who was on it, at this point I have no opinion.

[Martin Y]

The depressing thing about this story is how much it sucks to be those 65 Ukrainian POWs, whether or not they were on the Russian flight.

[FlammableFlower]

From what I've read, unless things have firmed up, there's a discrepancy on what was on the plane. Russia says POWs, Ukraine says missiles. For Russia, to say it's POWs makes it less of a failure, but as yet I haven't seen which is true.

[Woodchopper]

From what I've read, unless things have firmed up, there's a discrepancy on what was on the plane. Russia says POWs, Ukraine says missiles. For Russia, to say it's POWs makes it less of a failure, but as yet I haven't seen which is true.

I suspect that if there had been 65 POWs on board the Russian authorities would have posted close up pictures of the bodies. As far as I know there’s been nothing.

[Gfamily]

From what I've read, unless things have firmed up, there's a discrepancy on what was on the plane. Russia says POWs, Ukraine says missiles. For Russia, to say it's POWs makes it less of a failure, but as yet I haven't seen which is true.

I suspect that if there had been 65 POWs on board the Russian authorities would have posted close up pictures of the bodies. As far as I know there’s been nothing.

According to various reports* on Twitter, the list of 65 POWs included the name of 17 that had been repatriated 3 weeks ago.

* I can't verify these reports.

[Martin Y]

It's commonplace for Russia to lie, and also for what things they do say not to be consistent. In this case I begin to think the stories of POWs aboard may have been real, even if the passenger list claimed circulated is fabricated nonsense.

YouTubers like Suchomimus have noted the geolocation suggests the plane had recently left Belgorod and was heading north east, suggesting that didn't support the idea of its bringing POWs for a swap. But I thought swaps tend to happen in other, neutral countries, so it wouldn't be inconsistent with taking the POWs there from where they were being held in Russia.

[sTeamTraen]

But I thought swaps tend to happen in other, neutral countries, so it wouldn't be inconsistent with taking the POWs there from where they were being held in Russia.

According to this report of the crash, "an exchange had been due to take place at the Kolotilovka checkpoint on the border between Russia and Ukraine". I don't know how typical that would be, though.

[IvanV]

YouTubers like Suchomimus have noted the geolocation suggests the plane had recently left Belgorod and was heading north east, suggesting that didn't support the idea of its bringing POWs for a swap. But I thought swaps tend to happen in other, neutral countries, so it wouldn't be inconsistent with taking the POWs there from where they were being held in Russia.

According to this report of the crash, "an exchange had been due to take place at the Kolotilovka checkpoint on the border between Russia and Ukraine". I don't know how typical that would be, though.

I have heard of some early exchanges taking place in Turkey. But there have now been quite a few, and maybe they now make them at the border. The Russians also mentioned a second plane containing more PoWs for the exchange, that was flying towards Belgorod, and turned back. I'm sure the Ukrainians would say if the agreed exchange location was different from what the Russians said.

At a glance on the map, Kolotilovka is very roughly 40km from Belgorod. So if the plane just left Belgorod airport, that doesn't make any sense in terms of transporting the PoWs to the border nearby.

It would be entirely possible for the Russians to deliberately put some PoWs in transports of the variety that the Ukrainians have recently been targeting with missiles, for the round trip, wherever it was going, to act as human shields. So that if and when the Ukrainians brought another one down, they would be able say, look what you did, and the bodies would be there in the debris as proof. Though if the plane did have missiles in, as has been alleged, then there might not be much in the way of identifiable human remains. The explosion on the mobile phone footage that is on the BBC was pretty huge. I don't know if that is typical.

[Martin Y]

The large, yellow fireball looked more like fuel from a plane (recently taken off with plenty of fuel aboard) rather than the detonation of explosives. That, and the general northeast direction the plane seemed to be heading, hint it was leaving Belgorod, potentially after having delivered a cargo of POWs.

If that was what happened the Ukrainians may be saying as little as possible about it to avoid provoking the Russians into taking their anger out on the POWs. It might be a bad time to ask the Russians "Well, where are all the bodies?".

[Woodchopper]

Girkin / Strelkov has been sentenced to four years in jail.

Let’s see how long he serves and whether he leaves alive.

[Woodchopper]

One reason for western officials’ alarm is Russia’s revival of its industrial defence machine over the past year, which took place at a speed many in the west had thought impossible.

Russia churned out 4mn artillery shells and several hundred tanks during the year. It will recruit another 400,000 men this year without resorting to full-scale mobilisation, Ukrainian officials forecast.

At the same time, Nato’s own future has been cast into doubt by the prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump last weekend said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any Nato member that failed to reach the alliance’s target of defence spending of 2 per cent of gross domestic product.

[...]

While Russia’s army is heavily deployed in Ukraine and has suffered huge losses during two years of conflict, most western officials expect that it would be able to reconstitute its forces within five to six years. 

“We know that adversaries are always looking at new ways to conduct war,” UK defence secretary Grant Shapps told reporters on Thursday. “That’s why we need to be on our mettle. That’s why we need to be ready.”

Other western defence officials in recent weeks have issued an unprecedented number of public warnings of the possibility of a broader conflict in Europe with a more confident and rearmed Russia.

Denmark’s defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen said last week that Russia could test Nato’s mutual defence clause “within a three to five-year period”. That followed similar warnings from colleagues from Sweden, the UK, Romania, Germany and senior officials at Nato itself since the start of the year.

[...]

Officials said that one reason for the dire warnings was to prepare societies for the potential danger, and to ensure that civilian infrastructure was ready for the possible consequences.

That includes ensuring national energy supplies and stockpiles are resilient enough, that communications networks are secure and could function properly in the event of war, and that critical infrastructure, including roads and railways, could handle the large amount of military equipment that would need to be transported across Europe.

Nato’s Joint Support and Enabling Command, an alliance command centre in the southern German city of Ulm, is drawing up plans for how Nato military forces would deploy around Europe and be sustained and reinforced in the event of a conflict, officials said.

https://www.ft.com/content/83f8a7e9-dd4 ... pe=nongift

When they warn that Russia could reconstitute its forces that doesn't mean that it would have pre-2022 levels of equipment. But that it would be able to threaten European armies, for which Russia would not tens of thousands of artillery and armoured vehicles. Of course the US could come to the rescue. But no one now can rely upon that. The threat from Russia and lack of faith in the US are why Sweden and Finland are so keen to join the alliance. Even without the US they are still safer in than out.

ETA

Ukrianian intelligence officials have also told me this. They are worried that Russia’s military will return to pre-2022 invasion levels by 2028.

https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1758 ... 83645?s=20

[Woodchopper]

While Brussels is abuzz with talk about rearming, the bloc is falling short on its commitment to deliver ammo to Ukraine. That’s partly by choice.

FRANCE DIGS IN ON ‘BUY EUROPEAN’: While the bloc ramps up shell production, it could seek to alleviate Ukraine’s immediate shortage by using EU money to jointly purchase ammo on the global market.

Non: Yet, according to three EU diplomats, a small group of countries led by France is blocking attempts to use EU money for buying shells from outside of the bloc. The reason? European arms manufacturers need orders to justify ramping up their production.

How it went down: Earlier this week at a meeting of the Political and Security Committee, a majority of EU countries was in favor of allowing EU money to be used to buy non-EU produced shells as an emergency measure to help Ukraine, the diplomats told Playbook. But France, Greece and Cyprus opposed the effort, the diplomats said.

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brus ... in-munich/

There is a tradeoff between prioritizing short-term aid for Ukraine and prioritizing a long-term buildup of European industrial capacity.

[atled]

Report on Bluesky cited German newpaper that there maybe movement on suppling Taurus missiles to Ukraine. https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschlan ... 73170.html

My German is not good enough to make to make any comment on the report.

[Gfamily]

Depressing (though probably inevitable) response to trade sanctions
https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/ ... 4741891241