Aug 20: Programming Note- break week
Break week coming up and some thoughts on allied resolve
Programming note: break week
Just a quick note to inform everyone that E-Stories will go on a brief break starting on Tuesday, and it will be back in your in-boxes by Monday August 28 in its regular format.
No…I’m not going on vacation. That will have to wait until the third week of September when I’ll be flying to the States for my sister’s wedding. My university duties kick in this week and I’ll be dealing with in-coming students (help!) that need attention. We’ve also done renovations in the lab, so I’ll have to be present to make sure everything’s working properly.
I’ll be keeping up with what is happening at the front, and behind the lines but this will also be a mental break for me. I hope to come back refreshed and laser sharp, so I can provide my daily up-date in the most comprehensive way possible.
At dinner with my husband, we were talking about the war. We were saying that this is the most difficult time: keeping our focus, and devising ways to give a helping hand to our Ukrainian friends when it seems as if little is happening or moving on the line of contact.
News about the war has dropped dramatically on most media outlets, and it’s being replaced by pro-Kremlin voices calling the Ukrainian counteroffensive a failure because it hasn’t wrapped up in ten episodes like a TV series. It’s frustrating and absurd but I listen to Madi, one of my friends, who echoes the advice of many others:
He’s right. This is the moment we need to bolster our resolve, and keep our focus on the little ways as civilians, and non-Ukrainians, to give a helping hand.
The first thing to realise is that the war will not be over until Ukraine wins. Full-stop. It may take more time than what any of us thought and much more help on our part.
The Allied offensive that kicked off on D-Day in the Second World War took over two months before they saw any results. I don’t think Russia can be stopped and defeated in Ukraine in just 2 or 4 months. I believe that the war will go on for at least another 12 to 24 months. That’s much more realistic given the fact that Russia still receives Western technology and parts for its weapons and still sells its oil and gas on the market, refurbishing its war chest. It’s a resourceful country, a federation, with allies that have stepped in to keep it alive.
We must be patient, and think of the work the Ukrainians are doing on the ground and the difficulties they face in battle and in every day life. They have no choice: they must defeat Russia and send those criminals home or perish as a people. It’s not an exaggeration if you consider what has happened to any city or population ‘liberated’ by Russia in this war or any other before it. Now that the allied leadership is back from vacation, they’ll need to make some serious decisions.
On a macro-level, our leaders, as allies to Ukraine, must spell out if they are all in or not. That’s harsh given the amount of weaponry and ammunition and aid that have come from all corners of the world to support Ukraine. I still get the sense that the allies have not set out exactly what the strategic goals are: do they want Ukraine to win the war and Russia to lose it? Saying you stand with Ukraine and want victory is easy—making it happen in a timely fashion is another story.
One positive step was taken yesterday. Allied fighter aircraft are now making their way to Ukrainian airfields. That’s good: the allies are coming through on this promise. Ukraine can now aspire to protecting its skies and accompanying their combined ground operations with air cover.
It’s not enough, though. The allied nations need to close third-sector loopholes that allow Western technology and parts to find their way into Russia through a complex web of secondary routes—mostly China, Belarus and Iran. The Russian tool and die industry have machines they bought from the West that make parts for drones and other weaponry—guidance systems, for example. According to my contacts, the Russians have increased production output five-fold in some factories. Those missiles and drones with Western guidance systems are killing Ukrainian civilians and soldiers at the front. Western businesses selling these parts need to be held accountable for these sales, and there are ways to do this.
Depriving Russia of war materiel is one thing we could do but it should be coupled with the delivery of long-range missiles and other means to begin knocking out Russian armaments industries, infrastructure and supply routes. Logistics, logistics, logistics. The more chaos you create in the factories and along those routes, the harder it is for Russia to keep it together on the battlefield. Why is this taking so long?
This brings me to my final consideration: The continued tepid allied assistance to Ukraine risks bringing victory to Russia in the long term, and that is what Russia is banking on. Ukraine has defeated the Russian forces in the Battle of Kyiv, and Kharkiv, but the entrenched Russian defensive positions in southern Ukraine are formidable. They had a whole winter to put up over 20 kms of defensive belts, while we were debating stupidly about armaments deliveries with fears of escalation. Defeating them in southern Ukraine will take much more kit than we have been providing to this day.
What I fear is this: should Ukraine lose the war, we will be faced with an entrenched Russian leadership and forces in Ukraine right on the border of NATO member states. This would inevitably change the geopolitical and security landscape for the US and NATO for years to come. More importantly, it would also bring about the end of the existing Ukrainian population. It’s actually too bleak to think about right now and merits much more discussion than what I can pull off in this post.
So I’ll leave you with this video about Ukrainian medics saving lives on the line of contact. It’s moving, and it’s hopeful because this medic didn’t give up. He saved a life and a family from tragedy and sorrow. We could be doing the same.