The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...

[Stavros]

Putin's Folly -failing to win his war in days....now I suspect he will park his troops in the Donbas and leave them there for years in the hope that the Ukrainian govt accepts this 'temporary' arrangement in exchange for some kind of peace. But will the people, if asked in a referendum, accept such terms?

"Vladimir Putin risks running out of viable tanks, missiles and fighter jets because the components they use are made in Ukraine, The Telegraph understands.The engines for all Russian helicopters, ships and cruise missiles and a substantial portion of fighter jet engines and ground-to-air missile and tank components are made in Ukrainian factories, which no longer supply Mr Putin’s forces."
Vladimir Putin ‘running out’ of missiles – because parts are made in Ukraine (yahoo.com)

[Stavros]

A desperate, pathetic response by the Russians to the massacres in Bucha and surrounding villages. The demonization of Ukraine as a place so rife with Nazis the place doesn't just need to be 'de-Nazified' but also 're-educated' begs questions -such as, why would a Ukrainian be a Nazi when the Nazi policy of 'Lebensraum' required the elimination of well, Ukrainians so the 'Aryan Race' could populate the 'vacated' land? One can understand why some Ukrainians in the 1940s supported the Germans -because they hated Stalin's Russia (as did a lot of Russians!) but those days are past, and there are probably as many Jew-hating Ukrainians as there are Russians.

Also, why should the Third Reich be the historical event by which contemporary events are to be judged? And is there some reverse Psychology at work, when the Russians use as a tool, the very example of mass murder that they are perpetrating? There are other examples in history to use, but positive ones, should the Russians choose to use them.

Have Ukrainians done bad things to Russians? I would say yes. I had a conversation with someone close to some Russians who complained that nobody has anything to say about 'the other side'. I argued that if the discrimination against Russians in the Donbas region had been so bad before 2014 we would have the evidence, but I haven't seen it, and anyway would military occupation have been the only means to combat such things? Moreover, if the Russians could provide hard evidence of what Ukrainians have done to them, even if they are defending their country, the balance of argument would at least facilitate debate.

Instead, all we get is abuse, violence, and a complete lack of contrition, or compassion -so the killings will go on, and on, and on.

"“The Guardian says Russia troops brutalised civilians in Bucha while regrouping, using kids as human shields – without proof, taking word at face value,” said an NTV news presenter on Sunday evening.While Russian state media categorically denied any links to the atrocities, leading news agency RIA on Monday published an op-ed titled “What Russia should do with Ukraine” by a pro-Kremlin political commentator in which the author called for the “denazification” and “re-education” of a large part of Ukrainian society.
“The name Ukraine can seemingly not be retained as the title of any fully denazified state formation on the territory liberated from the Nazi regime,” the pundit Timofei Sergeitsev wrote."
(1) Russia-Ukraine war latest: Biden calls for Putin to face war crimes trial after atrocities in Bucha – live (theguardian.com)
-posted at 13.51

[Stavros]

A few random thoughts.

This may become another 'forever war'. Having over-estimated the abilities of his military, I suspect that Putin as a minimum expects to consolidate Russia's annexation of the Donbas region, which will end the current level of hostilities, and in effect return Russia-Ukraine relations to the 'low-level warfare' that existed between 2014 and February 2022. It means, if it can be done, he can declare some sort of 'victory' on May 9th- and NATO relax the intensity of its support. But this may create a crisis in the leadership in Ukraine, if compromise undoes Zelensky's coalition, another potential gain for Putin.
Sitrep: Putin 'desperate' to celebrate victory on 9 May (forces.net)

The scale of violence and destruction in Ukraine is genuinely distressing, but is no worse than the combined Syrian-Russian demolition of life and property in Syria, while the full detail of the Saudi Arabian offensive in Yemen has not been covered in the media. The prospects of any Russian being held to account in a Court of Law for offences in Syria or Ukraine is close to zero. I may not want that to be the case, but it can only happen if most of Russia's formal and informal allies abandon Putin, much as changes in Serbian politics enabled the arrests of Milosovic, Mladic and Karadzic. I don't see that happening, not as long as Putin can rely on the Gulf Arabs and Saudi Arabia to maintain the oil price at a level even diminished Russian exports remain an important source of revenue.

If the current phase of the war ends, will NATO and allies lift sanctions against Russia? I don't think so, but I also think the urgency of the transition away from fossil fuels to break the dependency on Russia, has not gained momentum, not in the UK, where Boris Johnson, making up policy on a day to day basis is claiming the UK will develop nuclear power stations, without telling us where, or what the cost is going to be, or who is going to pay for it, let alone build the stations. The Germans are in a difficult position because like Japan they are a major industrial power without the core energy sources to make their economies less dependent on external providers.

Can Putin stay in power? He has changed personnel at the top of the military, but there is no sign of an internal coup, though in the absence of any intelligence on the matter, who knows?

When I was a student of Russian history and politics, many years ago I admit, we learned that the foundations of Imperial Russia were the Autocracy of the Tsar, the Orthodoxy of the Church, and Russian Nationalism. The post-Imperial USSR evolved into one whose foundations were the Autocracy of the Communist Party, the Orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism, and Russian Nationalism. Soviet 'Internationalism' as defined by the Comintern was never more than an external means to maintain internal power.

It seems to me that since 1991, the Autocracy has been re-established by Putin after the chaos of the Yeltsin years, and Russian Nationalism is as toxic and destructive now as it has been since the 19th century. What seems missing to me is a binding ideology, an 'Orthodoxy', because I don't think the concept of Russia as Eternal Victim is sufficient to create the solidarity Putin needs to defend himself and his supposed vision of Russia as a great power restored.

Russia has been let down by the billionaires who shifted most of their wealth out of the country, rather than invest in it. Most of the troops on the ground in Ukraine seem to be from the Far East where poverty rather than Patriotism is the motive for joining the forces. What the generation growing up think about their country, when they have no personal experience of the USSR is not clearly established.

I feel sorry for Russia on this level, it is an amazing place to visit, but someone I know who lived there for a year came to hate the ease with which he was robbed by the police on a regular basis, a level of corruption that too many Russians get used to living with. It suggests to me that whether he stays or goes, Putin is President of a dysfunctional state with no opposition, which has no practical solution for its problems, the ones that existed before the crisis created by the war. Just as one wonders if life really is better under Russian rule in South Ossetia, or Transnistria, or Luhansk and Donetsk, I don't see the quality of life in Russia itself improving in the short to medium term. Will Russians conclude Putin is to blame for their situation?

Putin is in effect, destroying his own country. And for what? The absurd need to be a Great Man? But for years we gave this little prick what he wanted, and his Hubris and its destructive consequences is as not something we can, in the UK in particular claim we played no part in nurturing. The deaths of Alexander Litvinenko, and the Salisbury poisonings should have been the 'red line' that ended Russian saturation of the UK economy and the Conservative Party. They got a slap on the wrist, the City of London billions of dollars.

Russia is going down, and taking with it more than its own crooks and swindlers. But to clear out our own filthy backyard, we need a more robust media prepared to expose Boris Johnson and his Party for the catastrophic incompetents that they are. It is going to take time, though, and time is not on the side of those people dying every day in the Ukraine, seeing everything they lived for trashed by yet another Governing machine that treats people and their property with contempt.

Ni slavom uniat', ni platkom uteret'

[filghy2]

Unfortunately, Russia is reverting to historical type as a backward, isolated country whose leaders rely on brute force and keeping their people ignorant rather than on competence. While there have some great Russian contributions to culture and knowledge, it does seem like the civilised virtues have always been a veneer rather than something that has put down deep roots.

None of this speaks well of the various Western leaders over the past three decades. First, they assumed naively that democracy and free enterprise would take root despite the absence of any historical foundations. Instead, the end of Communism simply crashed the economy and allowed insiders to loot previously public assets, which discredited the democratic project in the eyes of most Russians. Then they indulged Putin's behaviour and ignored the warning signs on the assumption that he would not go too far and thereby lose the benefits of Russia's integration into the global economy. That was a category error because it assumed that someone like Putin actually cares about his peoples' wellbeing.

Will we finally learn the lesson this time? I had assumed that one good thing to come out of this would be the discrediting of populist politicians who had been Putin enthusiasts. However, I see the recent polls are suggesting that Marine Le Pen has a chance of winning the French Presidential election. Apparently, she has been running hard on the rising cost of living. The key question is what the voters will care more about ultimately - defending another democracy from a brutal dictator or bringing down energy prices?

[Stavros]

Thank you for your thoughtful post, which I agree with. Marine Le Pen has had to destroy campaign literature which was printed before Russia's invasion, which featured her photographed with Putin, just as it is widely known her party received loans from a Russian bank. That said, and as your post indicates, the domestic situation in France appears to appeal to voters more than Le Pen's shady past, and it seems the emergence of two candidates even further right than she has enabled her to look more moderate.

That said, I am not sure she can win the second round, and the question with Hungary is not so different from the question asked of Luhansk and Donetsk -is life better there than it was before? In the latter case, Ukraine stopped paying pensions in the breakaway 'Republics' and the leadership there is now firmly part of the Russian system, so it is hard to see those regions being re-incorporated into Ukraine; but is life itself actually better than it was before, and will the people in Hungary feel their lives have improved over the next five years if they continue to test the EU's resolve on a range of issues, and, for example lose access to EU loans?

Were Le Pen to become President, I think it would be more divisive than the French have experienced for some time, rather like Trump treating the Constitution and the Rule of Law with contempt and, so far, getting away with it. Not sure about Johnson as the negative drip-feed of illegal parties, non-dom Tax benefits and 'Golden Visas' for Russians won't go away, just as Brexit continues to seep into the economy like poison.

I offer a link to an analysis of Ukraine and Russia with the chilling prediction- “There’s seven bad years ahead, but then we’ll have our hundred years of empire.” , and an interesting point about Putin's view that he aims not to re-create the USSR, but a vertically structured Empire in which he is Tsar in all but name.

Article also criticises Zelensky's various positions, though the actuality of war has changed a lot of perspectives, so while there is an assumption Russia has the capacity to spend years grinding Ukraine into dust, it leaves them with the prospect of control over a territory in which the remaining population is a permanent source of division and conflict, similar to Israel and Palestine. With the equally grim view that just as Israel has been able to maintain its illegal siege of Gaza for 15 years, so the Ukraine-Russia sore will seep for years to come because external parties are not going to intervene to change it. Unless something dramatic happens and I am proven wrong.

A Ukrainian Socialist Explains Why the Russian Invasion Shouldn’t Have Been a Surprise | Спільне (commons.com.ua)

[Stavros]

Easter Hymn
by A. E. Housman

If in that Syrian garden, ages slain,
You sleep, and know not you are dead in vain,
Nor even in dreams behold how dark and bright
Ascends in smoke and fire by day and night
The hate you died to quench and could but fan,
Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.

But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by,
At the right hand of majesty on high
You sit, and sitting so remember yet
Your tears, your agony and bloody sweat,
Your cross and passion and the life you gave,
Bow hither out of heaven and see and save.

[Stavros]

An interesting analysis of Russia's 'strategic mistakes' in Ukraine, derived from its campaign in Syria.

As Fortress Russia crumbles, the global economy faces a new world order (yahoo.com)

[Stavros]

The letters in this link are critical of 'Luxury' Liz Truss, aiming to be the most expensive Foreign Secretary in British history, and apparently as useless at the job as Boris Johnson was. The key point is that the only conceivable 'end' to the crisis in the Ukraine will not in fact be an 'end' but a compromise which leaves Russia in control of some territory in the east of Ukraine, thus allowing Putin to claim 'victory' even if the reality is that even Russians realise their military is not that good, the leadership even worse. This may be Putin's last stand, if he is as ill as some footage indicates he is.

That said, he is also keen to lob cruise missiles into Kyiv, really just to let 'us' know he can do it, just as I expect him to provoke Moldova and in effect, keep begging NATO to attack Russia so he can say to the Russians 'See, I told you they are out to get us'.

After all, next month sees the 15th anniversary of the start of Israel's siege of the Gaza District, a crime for which there appears to be no solution as no external party is willing or even able to coerce Israel into lifting the siege, or for that matter engaging in peace talks to end illegal settlement building in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, on the basis that 'facts on the ground' are what matter, just as 'the West' is again, neither capable nor willing to pressure Israel into ending the daily assault on Christians in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Charter of the United Nations makes the acquisition of territory by force illegal, but there is no agreed mechanism to reverse it.

The letters are in this link-
Liz Truss’s careless talk fans the flames of war in Ukraine | Letters | The Guardian

[MrFanti]

Interesting perspective out of Germany...
Merkel's Legacy on Russia Casts a Shadow over Her Party
https://www.spiegel.de/international...3-982574b15b28

[MrFanti]

And....(from Germany again)....
Germany and France Must Drive Effort for Credible Deterrent Against Russia
https://www.spiegel.de/international...c-052c0a508ef5