Ukraine

[Dave2002]

Both sides have set impossible goals. Russia cannot conquer Ukraine, and Ukraine cannot regain all of its territories. The most realistic solution is a Korean Style cease fire, and then hope for regime change in Russia

I don't think we can really bet on either side. I doubt that a cease fire as you suggest would be acceptable to Ukraine. It is possible that an analogy with Korea won't work, but perhaps Afghanistan might provide a different analogy with a very determined opposition to invasion - though in that case the outcomes to date have not proved to be desirable.

[french frank]

"Putin knows that a Republican 'America First' victory is likely"

Not from what I read of the surveys of the USA's electorate as a whole.

I admit to being somewhat surprised, but one survey suggested that if he was convicted he would lose almost half his current Republican support. And then there are the Independents who incline towards voting Republican. Trump is not a winner among them.

[Historian]

I think the BBC coverage, in the same way as many other reports, does not show a good understanding of what Ukraine is trying to do. In the face of determined and effective Russian resistance it is unrealistic to expect the sort of territorial advances we saw around Kharkiv last year. Instead Ukraine is grinding down the Russian forces, attacking them in several areas to increase the pressure. This will take time and results will be slow to appear.

Russia had has time to develop an impressive-looking system of fortifications, with very deep minefields. In the absence of air superiority Ukraine has little choice but to conduct a series of slow, cautious advances by infantry followed up by engineers. Meanwhile Ukrainian artillery and drones have been destroying Russia's artillery, as well as inflicting heavy casualties on Russian troops and armoured vehicles. The long-running campaign against Russian logistics, as well as command and communications, is also making Russia's defensive task more and more difficult.

I would disagree that Ukraine's forces are overstretched. On the contrary, significant numbers of well-equipped and trained forces have not yet been committed to the front line. I doubt that Russia has much in the way of meaningful reserves available to combat further Ukrainian successes. Russia's attempted advances in the north-eastern theatre have achieved only minor success. The Russian air force has only a limited effectiveness on the battlefield, as distinct from killing innocent civilians in war crimes. Their naval forces are under increasing threat in the Black Sea, a point made clear by the recent successful naval drone strike on a Russian warship near Novorossiysk, which involved a voyage of more than 750 km. Their armoured forces are decreasing in both quantity and quality. As mentioned above, Russian artillery superiority - which is crucial to the successful defence of their positions - is being systematically eroded.

Russia is still losing. I believe that Ukraine is still winning, albeit slowly.

[Frances_iom]

my own theory is that Russia will slowly destroy enough infrastructure that Ukraine cannot rebuild - the dam was blown taking with it irrigation that will take years to rebuild + significant power loss, grain silos + ports are slowly being destroyed, the electricity supply network is significantly weakened, explosives known to be placed within the large nuclear site which will probably not cause a meltdown but destroy in one blast some 15% of the power generation which will take major expense to even safely demolish - Russia doesn't need to control it merely needs to destroy the state - the West has consistently misunderstood Putin - he doesn't need Ukraine's resources but cannot tolerate a western European state with such deep tentacles into Russian society.

[Historian]

In HD's absence, here is the latest from Prof. Sir Lawrence Freedman on the Global South, BRICS and the G20: the changing international system and the Ukraine War.

[french frank]

In HD's absence, here is the latest from Prof. Sir Lawrence Freedman on the Global South, BRICS and the G20: the changing international system and the Ukraine War.

Very interesting overview on what LF describes as 'the changing character of international relations'; and interesting that there appears to be global support for 'staying in line with the UN Charter and respecting national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international humanitarian law'. The more intransigent Putin remains, the more he will lose the support altogether of those who believed that a negotiated settlement was a realistic aim in the shorter term.

[antongould]

https://magazine.newstatesman.com/2023/08/16/russias-war-on-the-future/content.html

[french frank]

https://magazine.newstatesman.com/20...e/content.html

Not much joy there

[antongould]

Not much joy there

indeed

[Serial_Apologist]

indeed

Ironic that having gone out of its way to promulgate and fund the conversion back to capitalism of China and then the whole of the old E Bloc, the West now shows the worst aspects of its own failing unsusutainable politico-economic system and thus finds itself therefore incapable of uniting worldwide to defeat Putin's threat.

[Frances_iom]

it reflects in considerably more detail my own theory - Ukraine is being hung out to die by destruction of all key infrastructure - it cannot fight back in any meaningful way when Russian attacks are launched from outside its borders eg the guided bombs, iranian drones + supersonic missiles

[Historian]

That would be a coherent Russian strategy, however there attacks are actually much more limited in terms of destroying infrastructure. Apart from the apparently successful attacks on grain silos in the south west Russia still mainly targets residential areas. This is partly because many of their long-range weapons lack precision guidance systems.

Long-range bombing is difficult to counter. However, most of the Iranian drones are destroyed each time they are sent. The same is also true of some of the supersonic missiles which were supposedly invincible. Thanks to the West Ukraine now has very effective anti-air defences covering many major cities. These defences cannot cover everywhere.

[Dave2002]

Another factor could be cost. Long range missiles probably cost orders of magnitude more than some of the smaller artillery or drone attacks by either side. Thus the Russian approach is maybe "just" to cause terror - plus damage if it can - but it the stocks are dwinding as some suggest, and the relative costs of missiles vs everything else are much higher, then they are wasting their own resources.

[HighlandDougie]

Latest post from Sir Lawrence:

https://samf.substack.com/p/ukraines-offensive-is-it-failing?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[Bryn]

Yevgeny Prigozhin reported as possibly killed in an air 'accident'.