Dec 18 The Sunday Edition
Day 298: selected posts and readings from Reznikov Zelenov Midttun Zaluzhny Mitchell TheKyivIndependent Kirillova Kelkar
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
Major General Andrii Kovalchukhas, a Ukrainian commander, said Russia may try to invade from the north, potentially around the anniversary of when Putin first ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. In a Sky News interview he warned that the fiercest fighting may yet come and called on western allies to support Ukraine with lethal weapons, including potentially cluster munitions.
NYT investigation of Russian military documents proves how flawed planning assumptions plagued Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S.-based think tank has long assessed that faulty Russian planning assumptions, campaign design decisions, and violations of its own military doctrine undermined Russian operations in Ukraine.
Prosecutor General’s Office: Russia’s war has killed at least 450 children, injured 863 since Feb. 24. The real number of children killed and injured due to Russia’s war is expected to be higher as the current count does not include casualties in Russian-occupied territories or where hostilities are ongoing.
Hans Petter Midttun, For the sake of European stability, NATO needs to intervene in Ukraine: Opinion - Euromaidan Press
When the two greatest western experts tell us that the speed of ammunition replenishment is crucial, that Ukraine is running out of munitions for defense systems, and that keeping up Ukraine’s arms supplies is a more pressing worry than the number of Russian soldiers posed along the frontline for a new offensive, NATO needs to pay attention.
The members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group are neither providing enough nor all the tools needed to help Ukraine solve NATO’s primary mission: defend the security and stability of its member states.
If the logistics fail, Ukraine runs the risk of failing as well. This is not the time for complacency or taking victory for granted. Especially when Russia still believes victory is within reach and doing everything in its power to succeed.
Scholz: We must continue talking with Russia to end war. There is a great danger of a further escalation of Russia's war against Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Süddeutsche Zeitung. "If we don't speak, Russia is even less likely to end the war," he said.
Germany will not unilaterally transfer tanks to Ukraine next year. Germany will not unilaterally decide to send Western tanks to Ukraine in 2023, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, as quoted by Suddeutsche Zeitung.
Zaluzhny doesn’t rule out new offensive on Kyiv, preparing for protracted battles - The Economist (Interfax Ukraine)
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, considers one of the main tasks of the army to "create reserves and prepare for a war that may take place in February, at best in March, at worst at the end of January."
"It may start not from Donbas, but towards Kyiv, from Belarus, I do not exclude the southern direction. We have done all the calculations — how many tanks, artillery and so on and so forth we need. This is what everyone needs to focus on right now. May the soldiers in the trenches forgive me, now it is more important to focus on accumulating resources for more protracted and heavy fighting that may begin next year," he said in an interview with The Economist.
In his opinion, the enemy's task today is to exhaust the armed forces of Ukraine. "Therefore, as during the Second World War, I have no doubt, most likely, new resources are being prepared somewhere beyond the Urals. They are preparing 100%," he said.
At the same time, in his opinion, "these will no longer be the resources that could have been in two years of truce. That's not going to happen. The combat potential will be very, very low, even if he recruits another million people into the army to throw corpses, as Zhukov did, it will not bring the desired result in any case."
"The next task that we have is, first of all, to hold this line and not lose any more positions. It is very important. Because I know that it is ten to fifteen times harder to release it than not to surrender. So our task now is to hold on," Zaluzhny said, adding that "the second strategic task is to prepare for this war, which may happen in February. To be able to wage war with fresh forces and reserves."
He called "missile defense and air defense" another task. "In my personal opinion, I am not an energy expert, but it seems to me that we are on the verge. We are teetering on a fine line. And if [the power grid] is destroyed … that's when soldiers' wives and children will start to freeze," he said.
Zaluzhny noted that he "does not need hundreds of thousands (of people)." We need tanks, we need armored personnel carriers, mechanized infantry fighting vehicles. And we need ammunition."
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine noted that Russian troops have adapted to the presence of HIMARS systems in Ukraine. "They have gone to a distance unattainable for HIMARS. And we don't have anything long-range," he said.
"I know I can defeat this enemy. But I need resources. I need 300 tanks, 600-700 infantry fighting vehicles, 500 howitzers. Then, I think, it is quite realistic to reach the frontiers on February 23. But I can't do it with two brigades. I get what I get, but less than I need," Zaluzhny also said.
With such resources, he noted, "I cannot conduct new large operations, although we are currently working on one. She's on the way, but you haven't seen her yet."
In his opinion, "the Russian mobilization has worked. It is not true that their problems are so terrible that these people will not fight. They will. The king told them to go to war, and they are going to war. I studied the history of the two Chechen wars — it was the same there."
"They may not be as well equipped, but they still pose a problem for us. According to our estimates, they have a reserve of 1.2–1.5 million people … The Russians are preparing about 200,000 fresh soldiers," he said.
Russ Mitchell, How Amazon put Ukraine’s ‘government in a box’ — and saved its economy from Russia- Los Angeles Times
Since Februrary, Amazon has been playing Santa Claus to Ukraine, delivering planeloads of goods, including blankets, hygiene kits, diapers, food and toys, for the war-torn nation and refugees in Poland and other parts of Europe.
But long term, what’s more important to Ukrainians than the gifts coming in is what’s going out: massive amounts of government, tax, banking and property data vulnerable to destruction and abuse should Russian invaders get their hands on it.
Since the day Russia launched its invasion Feb. 24, Amazon has been working closely with the Ukrainian government to download essential data and ferry it out of the country in suitcase-sized solid-state computer storage units called Snowball Edge, then funneling the data into Amazon’s cloud computing system.
“This is the most technologically advanced war in human history,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s 31-year-old vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, referring not just to weapons but data too. Amazon Web Services’ “leadership made a decision that saved the Ukrainian government and economy.”
Kseniya Kirillova, Wagner Mercenary Pleads for Return to Jail- CEPA
A convict recruited directly from prison by the Wagner mercenary organization to fight in Ukraine has asked human rights activists to help him return to prison, according to Vladimir Osechkin, who leads the Gulagu.Net organization. The soldier-criminal is one of “many” deserters and disaffected seeking to escape life-shortening stints at the front.
The fact that prisoners have turned to him to extricate themselves is another piece of evidence that, despite the growth in the prominence of Wagner’s founder, the Soviet-era convict Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and the creation in Russian society of a cult of “Wagnerites,” the mercenary group is a “colossus with feet of clay,” according to Osechkin, whose group has a long record of exposing abuse in the notoriously brutal Russian prison system.
Russian Oligarchs Seek Compensation for Ukraine Sanctions ‘Damage’ in EU Court- Haaretz
Russian oligarchs and businesses have filed a total of 61 lawsuits at the European Court of Justice against the European Union sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine, according to German tabloid Bild on Saturday. Timochenko and Abramovich are among those presenting lawsuits.
Grigory Berezkin and Gennady Timchenko are among those seeking compensation for ”non-material damage” they allegedly suffered due to the EU sanctions imposed on them, according to documents available on the court’s website.
On Friday, a ninth package of EU sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine entered into legal force, targeting Russian defense companies, banks, media broadcasters and state officials.
In addition, a freeze on assets held in the European Union applies to 141 new individuals and 49 entities. Persons listed are also subject to a travel ban in EU territories.
They’re back! Love these robots…
Vivek Y Kelkar, China’s road to hegemony- The Cosmopolitan Globalist
The US and its allies need to catch up quickly
When Xi Jinping visited Saudi Arabia last week to attend the China-Arab and China-Gulf Cooperation Council summits, he received a royal welcome. His arrival in Riyadh confirmed China’s status as the other pole in the global power axis. It’s. sign that Beijing is now setting the pace of a contest for global hegemony with the United States—one quite different from America’s Cold War with the Soviets.
Beijing’s strategy for countering the US is clear: It steps right into any power vacuum Washington leaves—and it has left many, in the past decade—using its massive financial power to wrest the initiative from its American rival in every part of the world that Washington has neglected or sanctioned, be it in the Middle East, Iran, Russia, or Central Asia...