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“Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
— George Orwell, 1946
EVERYTHING MR. EMORY HAS BEEN SAYING ABOUT THE UKRAINE WAR IS ENCAPSULATED IN THIS VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24
COMMENT: A new piece by Bill Arkin in Newsweek presents information from Pentagon sources—speaking on condition of anonymity—that contradicts the MSM/Azov Zelensky/Biden claim that Russia is “indiscriminately bombing” civilians in Ukraine. That dynamic has been highlighted by the massive explosions observed at a mall in Kyiv. A mall that Russia claims was being used to store MLRS rocket launchers. It’s a claim confirmed by independent reporters, underscoring how much of the fighting in Ukraine’s cities is taking place because that’s where much of the military hardware is located.
The anonymous Pentagon officials Arkin spoke with said that Russia has actually been holding back from engaging in the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. According to these officials, we are seeing a highly limited urban bombing campaign primarily focused on military targets.
It’s why most of the airports around Kyiv remain undamaged and much of the basic infrastructure of the country continues to operate and much of the West of the country has been largely untouched.
This “limited engagement” is part of Russia’s strategy.
As these anonymous Pentagon officials also note, there is altogether devastating damage to some urban areas, notably Mariupol– primarily been from ground fighting and the use of artillery. And, of course, we have to keep in mind that some of the high profile damage in places like Mariupol, home of the Azov Battalion, might be self-inflicted.
Our last post covered this in detail.
For all of the talk we’re hearing about the Russian military being forced to engage in medieval siege warfare now that Ukraine has refused to collapse without a fight, the indiscriminate killing of civilians has not taken place.
So far, the Russian assault appears to have been intentionally restrained for the vast majority of Ukraine.
” . . . . ‘We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct,’ says a retired Air Force officer, a lawyer by training who has been involved in approving targets for U.S. fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. The officer currently works as an analyst with a large military contractor advising the Pentagon and was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly. In the analyst’s view . . . the Russian military has actually been showing restraint in its long-range attacks. . . . As of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some 1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast, the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war). . . .”
Key points of analysis and discussion”
- “ . . . . Russia’s conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader’s strategic balancing act. . . .”
- “ . . . . Instead, his goal is to take enough territory on the ground to have something to negotiate with, while putting the government of Ukraine in a position where they have to negotiate. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘The destruction is massive,’ a senior analyst working at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) tells Newsweek, ‘especially when compared with what Europeans and Americans are used to seeing.’ . . . .”
- “ . . . . But, the analyst says, the damage associated with a contested ground war involving peer opponents shouldn’t blind people to what is really happening. (The analyst requested anonymity in order to speak about classified matters.) ‘The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.’ . . . .”
- “ . . . . In the capital, most observable to the west, Kyiv city authorities say that some 55 buildings have been damaged and that 222 people have died since February 24. It is a city of 2.8 million people. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct,’ says a retired Air Force officer, a lawyer by training who has been involved in approving targets for U.S. fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. The officer currently works as an analyst with a large military contractor advising the Pentagon and was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict.’ In the analyst’s view, though the war has led to unprecedented destruction in the south and east, the Russian military has actually been showing restraint in its long-range attacks. . . .”
- “ . . . . As of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some 1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast, the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war). The vast majority of the airstrikes are over the battlefield, with Russian aircraft providing ‘close air support’ to ground forces. The remainder—less than 20 percent, according to U.S. experts—has been aimed at military airfields, barracks and supporting depots. . . .”
- “. . . . ‘I know it’s hard … to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is,’ says the DIA analyst. ‘But that’s what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations.’ . . . .”
- “ . . . . Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24 with an air and missile attack targeted against some 65 airfields and military installations. On the first night, at least 11 airfields were attacked. Some 50 additional military installations and air defense sites were hit, including 18 early-warning radar facilities. . . .”
- “ . . . . In these initial salvos, a total of some 240 weapons were expended, including 166 air‑, ground‑, and sea-based missiles. Though there were a good number of longer-range bombers (flying from Russian soil), most of the airstrikes were shorter-range and most of the missiles launched were also short-range types of the Iskander (NATO SS-26 Stone) and Tochka (NATO SS-21 Scarab) classes. . . .”
- “ . . . . The breadth of the attack—north to south, east to west—led many observers to compare the opening bombardment to a pattern seen in U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where large salvos concentrating on air defenses and airfields had the intent of establishing air superiority, a shock strike that would then open the skies for follow-on bombing at will.When it came to Ukraine, not only did many observers ‘mirror-image’ Russian objectives to match U.S. practices, they also made premature (and incorrect) observations that Russia was fighting such a conflict. . . .”
- “ . . . . Even before Russian ground forces reached Kyiv and other cities, this narrative goes, the air and missile forces would have so damaged Ukraine—including its communications and other infrastructure needed for defenses to continue working—that it would secure victory on the ground. . . .”
- “ . . . . Russia has not achieved any of these goals. Though the outlines of its first night of strikes suggested an air superiority campaign and an intense and focused destruction of Ukraine’s military, after a month of war, continued targeting tells a different story. Russia still hasn’t completely knocked out the Ukrainian air force, nor has it established air superiority. Airfields away from the battlefield are mostly still operable and some (in major cities) haven’t been bombed at all. The fabric of communications in the country continues to operate intact. There has been no methodical Russian attack on transportation routes or bridges to impede Ukrainian ground defenses or supplies. Though electrical power plants have been hit, they are all in contested territory or near military installations and deployments. None have been intentionally targeted. . . .”
- “ . . . . In fact, there has been no methodical bombing campaign to achieve any systemic outcome of a strategic nature. Air and missile strikes, which initially seemed to tell one story, have almost exclusively been in direct support of ground forces. . . .”
- “ . . . . Russia did not bomb stationary air defense emplacements protecting cities. U.S. analysts say Putin’s generals were particularly reluctant to attack urban targets in Kyiv. As a result, regardless of the Kremlin’s plans—whether Russia was actually seeking air superiority or intended to limit damage in Kyiv—there is no question that Putin has had to revise the long-range attack plan. . . .”
- “ . . . . Over the course of almost four weeks, missiles fired at Kyiv have been scarce.Ukrainian media have reported just more than a dozen incidents involving Russian cruise and ballistic missiles intercepted over the city and its closest suburbs since February 24. And all of them, U.S. experts say, have been clearly headed for legitimate military targets. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘The fact that the mobile S‑300 SAM systems are still operating is a powerful indictment of Russia’s ability to conduct dynamic or time-sensitive targeting,’ the Atlantic Council asserted this week in a military brief. . . .”
- “ . . . . The DIA analyst disagrees: ‘For whatever reason, clearly the Russians have been reluctant to strike inside the urban megalopolis of Kyiv. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘Yes they might not be up to the U.S. task [in dynamic targeting] or in establishing air superiority … But this is the Russian air force, subordinate to the ground forces. And this war is different: it’s being fought on the ground, where everything strategic that Russia might destroy in front of its forces—bridges, communications, airfields, etc.—also becomes unusable to them as they move forward.’ . . . .”
- “ . . . . From the very beginning of air strikes, both U.S. analysts agree, some of the limited air and missile attacks have also had some internal logic. Take, for instance, the airfield at Hostomel, northwest of Kyiv. It wasn’t directly attacked because Russia initially used it to land paratroopers, with the hope of advancing to the capital city. Instead the airfield and the surrounding countryside became the scene a major battle, as Ukrainian forces mounted a fierce defense. . . .”
- “ . . . . In the south, Kherson airport also wasn’t attacked. The reason has become clear: Russia is now using that very airfield to stage its own forces. . . .”
- “ . . . . In Kyiv, only one of the major airports was struck, in Boryspil. The news media reported that the ‘international airport’ was hit, but the dual civil-military airfield is also home to Ukraine Air Force’s 15th Transport Wing, including the presidential Tu-134 jet that might have been used by Ukrainian President Zelensky if he chose to evacuate. The other major civilian Kyiv airport, Zhulyany, has never been attacked. Nor have two civil airports in Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second largest city) been attacked. . . .”
- “ . . . . The strikes inside major cities (Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa) have not only been limited, but the retired U.S. Air Force officer points out that even when long-range aviation—Russian Tu-95 ‘Bear’ bombers delivering cruise and hypersonic missiles —have flown strikes in western Ukraine, away from the battlefield, they have been directed at military targets. . . .”
- “ . . . . And there has been strategic logic, at least in Russia’s view. ‘They’ve been signaling,’ the retired officer says. ‘Western airfields [at Lutsk, L’viv, and Ivano-Frankivsk] were hit because they were the most likely steppingstones for donated fighter aircraft coming in from Poland and eastern European countries. When those targets were prepped,’ he adds, ‘there was also talk of a western no-fly zone where those [western] airfields might have been essential. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘And the so-called peacekeeper training ground [in Yaroviv] was hit because it was the place where the ‘international legion’ was to have trained,” the officer says. ‘Moscow even announced that.’ . . .”
- “ . . . . Russia, the DIA analyst adds, has also been careful not to cause escalation onto Belorussian or Russian territory, or to provoke NATO.Despite operating from Belarus, Russian ground and air operations have mostly been confined to the southeastern portion of the country. And the attacks in western Ukraine, have been careful to avoid NATO airspace. For example, the Ukrainian airbase at Lutsk, home to the 204th Aviation Wing and just 70 miles south of the Belarus, was attacked March 13th by long-range bombers. The missiles were launched from the south, from over the Black Sea. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘People are talking about Grozny [in Chechnya] and Aleppo [in Syria], and the razing of Ukrainian cities’ a second retired U.S. Air Force senior officer tells Newsweek. ‘But even in the case of southern cities, where artillery and rockets are within range of populated centers, the strikes seem to be trying to target Ukrainian military units, many of which by necessity operating from inside urban areas.’ . . .”
- “ . . . . He and the other analysts who spoke to Newsweekargue not only that the destruction is only a small fraction of what is possible, but also that they see a glimmer of hope in a fact-based analysis of what Russia has done. . . .”
- “ . . . . The second senior officer says that Putin obviously continues to apply pressure against Kyiv, but Russia hasn’t shifted much of its own forces and has continued to back off bombing in the city proper. ‘In that, maybe he is leaving room for a political settlement,’ the officer says. . . .”
- “ . . . . ‘I’m frustrated by the current narrative—that Russia is intentionally targeting civilians, that it is demolishing cities, and that Putin doesn’t care. Such a distorted view stands in the way of finding an end before true disaster hits or the war spreads to the rest of Europe,’ the second U.S. Air Force officer says. . . .”
- “ . . . . Heartbreaking images make it easy for the news to focus on the war’s damage to buildings and lives. But in proportion to the intensity of the fighting (or Russia’s capacity), things could indeed be much worse. ‘I know that the news keeps repeating that Putin is targeting civilians, but there is no evidence that Russia is intentionally doing so,’ says the DIA analyst. ‘In fact, I’d say that Russian could be killing thousands more civilians if it wanted to.’ . . .”
As destructive as the Ukraine war is, Russia is causing less damage and killing fewer civilians than it could, U.S. intelligence experts say.
Russia’s conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader’s strategic balancing act. If Russia were more intentionally destructive, the clamoring for U.S. and NATO intervention would be louder. And if Russia were all-in, Putin might find himself with no way out. Instead, his goal is to take enough territory on the ground to have something to negotiate with, while putting the government of Ukraine in a position where they have to negotiate.
Understanding the thinking behind Russia’s limited attacks could help map a path towards peace, experts say.
In nearly a month since Russia invaded, dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns have fallen, and the fight over the country’s largest cities continues. United Nations human rights specialists say that some 900 civilians have died in the fighting (U.S. intelligence puts that number at least five times UN estimates). About 6.5 million Ukrainians have also become internally displaced (15 percent of the entire population), half of them leaving the country to find safety.
“The destruction is massive,” a senior analyst working at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) tells Newsweek, “especially when compared with what Europeans and Americans are used to seeing.”
But, the analyst says, the damage associated with a contested ground war involving peer opponents shouldn’t blind people to what is really happening. (The analyst requested anonymity in order to speak about classified matters.) “The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.”
In the capital, most observable to the west, Kyiv city authorities say that some 55 buildings have been damaged and that 222 people have died since February 24. It is a city of 2.8 million people.
“We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct,” says a retired Air Force officer, a lawyer by training who has been involved in approving targets for U.S. fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. The officer currently works as an analyst with a large military contractor advising the Pentagon and was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly.
“If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict.”
In the analyst’s view, though the war has led to unprecedented destruction in the south and east, the Russian military has actually been showing restraint in its long-range attacks.
As of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some 1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast, the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war). The vast majority of the airstrikes are over the battlefield, with Russian aircraft providing “close air support” to ground forces. The remainder—less than 20 percent, according to U.S. experts—has been aimed at military airfields, barracks and supporting depots.
A proportion of those strikes have damaged and destroyed civilian structures and killed and injured innocent civilians, but the level of death and destruction is low compared to Russia’s capacity.
“I know it’s hard … to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is,” says the DIA analyst. “But that’s what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations.”
Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24 with an air and missile attack targeted against some 65 airfields and military installations. On the first night, at least 11 airfields were attacked. Some 50 additional military installations and air defense sites were hit, including 18 early-warning radar facilities.
In these initial salvos, a total of some 240 weapons were expended, including 166 air‑, ground‑, and sea-based missiles. Though there were a good number of longer-range bombers (flying from Russian soil), most of the airstrikes were shorter-range and most of the missiles launched were also short-range types of the Iskander (NATO SS-26 Stone) and Tochka (NATO SS-21 Scarab) classes.
The breadth of the attack—north to south, east to west—led many observers to compare the opening bombardment to a pattern seen in U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where large salvos concentrating on air defenses and airfields had the intent of establishing air superiority, a shock strike that would then open the skies for follow-on bombing at will. When it came to Ukraine, not only did many observers “mirror-image” Russian objectives to match U.S. practices, they also made premature (and incorrect) observations that Russia was fighting such a conflict.
Even before Russian ground forces reached Kyiv and other cities, this narrative goes, the air and missile forces would have so damaged Ukraine—including its communications and other infrastructure needed for defenses to continue working—that it would secure victory on the ground.
Russia has not achieved any of these goals. Though the outlines of its first night of strikes suggested an air superiority campaign and an intense and focused destruction of Ukraine’s military, after a month of war, continued targeting tells a different story. Russia still hasn’t completely knocked out the Ukrainian air force, nor has it established air superiority. Airfields away from the battlefield are mostly still operable and some (in major cities) haven’t been bombed at all. The fabric of communications in the country continues to operate intact. There has been no methodical Russian attack on transportation routes or bridges to impede Ukrainian ground defenses or supplies. Though electrical power plants have been hit, they are all in contested territory or near military installations and deployments. None have been intentionally targeted.
In fact, there has been no methodical bombing campaign to achieve any systemic outcome of a strategic nature. Air and missile strikes, which initially seemed to tell one story, have almost exclusively been in direct support of ground forces.
“Think of the Russian Air force as flying artillery,” says the retired senior U.S. Air Force officer, who communicated with Newsweek via email. “It’s not an independent arm. It has undertaken no strategic air campaign as American observers might be used to from the last 30 years of American conflict.”
Ukrainian air defenses, both fixed and mobile missiles, have proven resilient and deadly.
“The Air Defense’s survivability and efficacy have surprised many, not only in Kyiv, but also across the country,” Kyiv-based military expert Oleg Zhdanov told the Kyiv Independent.
…
Russia did not bomb stationary air defense emplacements protecting cities. U.S. analysts say Putin’s generals were particularly reluctant to attack urban targets in Kyiv.
As a result, regardless of the Kremlin’s plans—whether Russia was actually seeking air superiority or intended to limit damage in Kyiv—there is no question that Putin has had to revise the long-range attack plan.
Over the course of almost four weeks, missiles fired at Kyiv have been scarce. Ukrainian media have reported just more than a dozen incidents involving Russian cruise and ballistic missiles intercepted over the city and its closest suburbs since February 24. And all of them, U.S. experts say, have been clearly headed for legitimate military targets.
“The fact that the mobile S‑300 SAM systems are still operating is a powerful indictment of Russia’s ability to conduct dynamic or time-sensitive targeting,” the Atlantic Council asserted this week in a military brief.
The DIA analyst disagrees: “For whatever reason, clearly the Russians have been reluctant to strike inside the urban megalopolis of Kyiv.
“Yes they might not be up to the U.S. task [in dynamic targeting] or in establishing air superiority … But this is the Russian air force, subordinate to the ground forces. And this war is different: it’s being fought on the ground, where everything strategic that Russia might destroy in front of its forces—bridges, communications, airfields, etc.—also becomes unusable to them as they move forward.”
From the very beginning of air strikes, both U.S. analysts agree, some of the limited air and missile attacks have also had some internal logic. Take, for instance, the airfield at Hostomel, northwest of Kyiv. It wasn’t directly attacked because Russia initially used it to land paratroopers, with the hope of advancing to the capital city. Instead the airfield and the surrounding countryside became the scene a major battle, as Ukrainian forces mounted a fierce defense.
In the south, Kherson airport also wasn’t attacked. The reason has become clear: Russia is now using that very airfield to stage its own forces.
In Kyiv, only one of the major airports was struck, in Boryspil. The news media reported that the “international airport” was hit, but the dual civil-military airfield is also home to Ukraine Air Force’s 15th Transport Wing, including the presidential Tu-134 jet that might have been used by Ukrainian President Zelensky if he chose to evacuate. The other major civilian Kyiv airport, Zhulyany, has never been attacked. Nor have two civil airports in Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second largest city) been attacked.
Russia started the war with some 300 combat aircraft in Belarus and western Russia within range of Ukraine. Those and other aircraft pulled into the war have been flying about 80 strike sorties (individual flights) daily. Ukraine claims that 95 of those Russian aircraft have been lost, either shot down by air defenders or due to human error and technical problems. (Russia has moved additional aircraft from other bases to replenish most of its losses.)
The strikes inside major cities (Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa) have not only been limited, but the retired U.S. Air Force officer points out that even when long-range aviation—Russian Tu-95 “Bear” bombers delivering cruise and hypersonic missiles —have flown strikes in western Ukraine, away from the battlefield, they have been directed at military targets.
And there has been strategic logic, at least in Russia’s view.
“They’ve been signaling,” the retired officer says. “Western airfields [at Lutsk, L’viv, and Ivano-Frankivsk] were hit because they were the most likely steppingstones for donated fighter aircraft coming in from Poland and eastern European countries. When those targets were prepped,” he adds, “there was also talk of a western no-fly zone where those [western] airfields might have been essential.
“And the so-called peacekeeper training ground [in Yaroviv] was hit because it was the place where the ‘international legion’ was to have trained,” the officer says. “Moscow even announced that.”
Russia, the DIA analyst adds, has also been careful not to cause escalation onto Belorussian or Russian territory, or to provoke NATO. Despite operating from Belarus, Russian ground and air operations have mostly been confined to the southeastern portion of the country. And the attacks in western Ukraine, have been careful to avoid NATO airspace. For example, the Ukrainian airbase at Lutsk, home to the 204th Aviation Wing and just 70 miles south of the Belarus, was attacked March 13th by long-range bombers. The missiles were launched from the south, from over the Black Sea. . . .
. . . . Evidence on the battlefield, where there has been grinding fight for territory—in Kharkiv, in the contested front line towns like Mariupol, Mikolaiiv, and Sumy in the east; and Chernihiv northeast of Kyiv—indicates that civilian deaths have been much higher where ground forces are operating.
Even though the majority of Russian airstrikes have taken place in these areas, the increased civilian harm is due to the use of artillery and multiple rocket launchers, not Russian air or long-range missile strikes.
“People are talking about Grozny [in Chechnya] and Aleppo [in Syria], and the razing of Ukrainian cities” a second retired U.S. Air Force senior officer tells Newsweek. “But even in the case of southern cities, where artillery and rockets are within range of populated centers, the strikes seem to be trying to target Ukrainian military units, many of which by necessity operating from inside urban areas.”
The officer requested anonymity because he is being privately briefed on the war by the Pentagon and is not authorized to speak to the news media.
He and the other analysts who spoke to Newsweek argue not only that the destruction is only a small fraction of what is possible, but also that they see a glimmer of hope in a fact-based analysis of what Russia has done.
“I was initially puzzled as to why more long-range missiles haven’t been sent into Kyiv and other major cities such as Odesa, and also why long-range aviation hasn’t been used more in strategic attacks,” says the second senior officer. “But then I had to shift to see the war through [Vladimir] Putin’s eyes.”
“Caught with his pants down, perhaps Putin indeed pivoted after he realized that Ukraine wasn’t going to be a cakewalk and that Kyiv wasn’t conquerable. Maybe he decided to solely focus on taking territory along the periphery and linking up his consolidations in the south, to be in a position to hold enough territory to extract concessions from Ukraine and the west—security guarantees or some demilitarized zone.”
The second senior officer says that Putin obviously continues to apply pressure against Kyiv, but Russia hasn’t shifted much of its own forces and has continued to back off bombing in the city proper.
“In that, maybe he is leaving room for a political settlement,” the officer says.
Sunday, Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN he is prepared to talk to the Russian president. “I’m ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations, we cannot end this war,” said Zelensky.
The fact that both sides are talking, experts say, indicates not only how shocked they are by the destructiveness of a land war in Europe, but are also stymied in achieving their military objectives. As Russia advances, it is running out of supplies. Its forces are also exhausted. As Ukraine continues its valiant defense, it too is reaching the limits of human endurance, facing major losses and running low on ammunition.
It is now absolutely clear, all U.S. observers agree, that Putin and his generals overestimated their own military prowess while grossly underestimating Ukraine’s defenses.
“I’m frustrated by the current narrative—that Russia is intentionally targeting civilians, that it is demolishing cities, and that Putin doesn’t care. Such a distorted view stands in the way of finding an end before true disaster hits or the war spreads to the rest of Europe,” the second U.S. Air Force officer says.
Heartbreaking images make it easy for the news to focus on the war’s damage to buildings and lives. But in proportion to the intensity of the fighting (or Russia’s capacity), things could indeed be much worse.
“I know that the news keeps repeating that Putin is targeting civilians, but there is no evidence that Russia is intentionally doing so,” says the DIA analyst. “In fact, I’d say that Russian could be killing thousands more civilians if it wanted to.”
“I’m no com-symp,” the analyst says. “Russia is dead wrong, and Putin needs to be punished. But in terms of concluding the war in a way that both sides can accept and where we don’t see Armageddon, the air and missile war provides positive signs.”
Every war is unique and awful, and Ukraine is no different. But Russia’s choice to modulate its destructiveness is an important counterintuitive element. Vladimir Putin can’t easily win; he can’t accept loss or retreat; and he can’t escalate. He has to keep destruction and pressure at a very careful, just-bad-enough level to keep some advantage.
“I know it’s thin consolation that it could be a lot worse,” the DIA analyst says, “but to understand how that is the case should really change people’s perspectives, even inside the U.S. government, as to how to end this.”
It’s report card time! Let’s check in with how some foreign and domestic figures have handled this most Orwellian war. We’re going to start off with some of our slower students first.
Michael Moore- Few figures have had more attention on the Left over the past three decades than Michael Moore. He is the essence of “you don’t get big”, in my opinion. I actually liked his film Roger and Me and appreciated his Saudi/Bush focus in Fahrenheit 9/11 even if he didn’t go far enough. Bowling for Columbine was an ahistorical joke of a film, however, and completely distorted major events in American history. Much of his other work is also of similar, boring quality. Let’s see how he did with his understanding of matters Ukraine.
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/putintermsofsurrender?s=r
“To: President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Владимир Путин):
From: Michael “Moorovich” Moore, Interim Negotiator for Ukraine (Іди на хуй сам)
Subject: Your Surrender
Mr. President:
Now that your attempt to seize the nation of Ukraine is beginning to unravel — with your richest oligarchs, Oleg and Mikhail, demanding an “end to bloodshed” and “peace now”; the always neutral Switzerland now freezing your money, something that they wouldn’t even do to Hitler; tens of thousands of young Russians demonstrating against your war all across Russia; and the Russian army now finding itself lost and broken-down on the road to Kyiv (and discovering why the Ukrainian Army is the second largest in Europe) — you must see the writing on the wall. The entire world has abandoned you, they won’t let Aeroflot fly over their countries, they’ve cut you off financially and now you’ve just been booted out of this year’s World Cup.
And the Associated Press has shown these photos to the world of the damage your missiles did on Sunday when fired into a Ukrainian market: You killed this little 6‑year old girl:
(Includes pic of child in hospital)
OK, zip it, tubby, we get your schtick.
GRADE: F-
Rachel Oswald- Lee Harvey’s baby girl has been tweeting a fair amount of anti-Russia stuff. A lot of retweets of other people’s nonsense, but one of her foci is creating the notion that any concern over biolabs or Nazis is QAnon stuff.
https://twitter.com/OswaldRachel
Sorry, Rachel, not easy being LHO’s daughter, but no pity points in this classroom!
GRADE: F
Bernie Sanders- To be fair, Bernie hasn’t been the worst on this issue and has asked good questions about expanding the defense budget and other matters. This piece has him saying some good things. However, at the root of it, when one denies that Putin had ANY reason for an invasion, one belongs to the Big Lie. Also, Putin has tried many times to solve this diplomatically, to no avail.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bernie-sanders-ukraine/
“Vladimir Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine is an indefensible violation of international law, regardless of whatever false pretext he offers,” Sanders (I‑Vt.) said in a statement. “There has always been a diplomatic solution to this situation. Tragically, Putin appears intent on rejecting it.”
GRADE: D+
AOC: She is in a similar cloud as Bernie, with no idea how to handle a crisis like this. She has also said some good things and thus avoids the F. However, here we seeing her push to get rid of Ukraine’s debt. Even on her twitter you will see some refreshing replies below from people saying “why are we forgiving foreign debts and screwing over our own people?” It was good to see.
https://twitter.com/RepAOC/status/1508492301097926656?cxt=HHwWgIDUla3wnu8pAAAA
As Ukraine fights against the Russian invasion, we have a moral obligation to assist any way we can. The Ukraine Comprehensive Debt Payment Relief Act would work to support the immediate suspension of Ukraine’s debt payments, help coordinate comprehensive debt relief, and more.
GRADE: D+
Noam Chomsky: How is everybody’s favorite military-funded “leftist intellectual” handling this issue? Eh, the usual mixed bag. Like Sanders, he is also pushing the Big Lie. However, much of this article has some interesting takes and he points out some of the bullshit. I’m just highlighting the part where he compares this “war crime” to the invasion of Poland by Germany. That’s some big words there, buddy.
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
Noam Chomsky: Before turning to the question, we should settle a few facts that are uncontestable. The most crucial one is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime, ranking alongside the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland in September 1939, to take only two salient examples. It always makes sense to seek explanations, but there is no justification, no extenuation.
GRADE: C. Yes, I’m cherry-picking from a generally good interview where he says mostly intelligent things. Yet, still he HAS to attack Putin’s move. That seems to be some kind of red line for a lot of these “power Leftist” types.
Viktor Orban- Interesting to see which way this guy is heading. He’s like the Erdogan of Europe, always trying to play all sides.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/hungarys-orban-criticized-neutrality-ukraine-war-83688242
Arguing that providing such assistance to Ukraine would draw Hungary into the war, Orban — while avoiding ever mentioning Putin by name — has portrayed himself as the defender of his country’s peace and security while insisting that EU sanctions against Russia not be extended to its energy sector, of which Hungary is a major beneficiary.
“The answer to the question of which side Hungary is on is that Hungary is on Hungary’s side,” Orban wrote Saturday on social media.
While his approach has gained traction among many of his supporters, Orban’s reluctance to act unambiguously in support of Ukraine and his insistence on maintaining his Russian economic interests has led to frustration and outrage among other European leaders — not least the Ukrainian president himself.
GRADE: C. Seems to be doing the right thing so far, but he’s a fascist and not to be trusted.
Volunteers for Ukraine! Going to give this a surprisingly good grade, not because the Ukraine Volunteers are doing good work, but because in this darkest of times, few things have given me more laughs than the reddit page Volunteers For Ukraine and the meta-commentary about this page on Kiwi Farms, which mocks all the video-game playing, pink haired geeks of the flabby West for pretending to be warriors for the West against the homophobic Putin. Honestly, these are two of the best places to follow the war. The reddit page has been cracked down on by the moderators, but previously had a lot of good dissent and mockery. They occasionally post things that the media denies… then later admits. For example, the bombing of the volunteer legion bases was largely covered up in the West, but it was admitted to on the reddit page before I heard a hint of it in the Western media. There is also someone who regularly posts French reports on Russian gains that bely the notion that “Ukraine is winning!’. These reports are sourced heavily from Ukrainian sources, so can’t be debunked as “Putin propaganda”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/volunteersForUkraine/
These are the reports I mentioned. It’s been claimed that this is front for French intelligence. Generally, they have been more objective and predictive than the Western press, even though they have a pro-Ukraine bias.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
WARNING: Kiwi Farms is a largely Free Speech Zone, where feelings are hurt and mean things are said by mean people. But in this case, some feelings really do need to be hurt.
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/r‑volunteersforukraine.113841/
Radical Islam:
It has been difficult to ascertain positions by Islamist factions on this war due to a general press lockdown on stories linking Muslim Brotherhood activity in the Russian sphere. However, I found these articles interesting. Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to bend the knee to Biden and interest in pricing oil in yuan may have some interesting consequences down the road. Wouldn’t be surprised if we wind up with a “Saudi Arab Spring” within a year or two.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/24/hldukraine-war-allows-uae-to-bring-syrias-assad-in-from-the-cold
Since its military intervention in the Syrian civil war in September 2015, one of Russia’s major foreign policy goals has been to convince Gulf Arab monarchies to come to terms with the survival of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and the reacceptance of its “legitimacy”.
A host of developments in Gulf-Syrian relations during the past few years, most recently al-Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates, indicate that this Russian strategy has been quite successful.
The key to understanding this burgeoning relationship, and the UAE’s openness to warmer relations with al-Assad, is a shared antipathy to political Islam and pro-democracy movements in the region.
“The UAE vision for the region, in opposing both Muslim populism and democracy, looks an awful lot more like Putin’s vision than it does Washington’s, so it is natural that the UAE is hedging its US entanglements by keeping on the good side of Russia and its clients,” said Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
NOTE: Juan Cole is one of the most consistent MB apologists in the West. When terms like “shared antipathy to political Islam” are used, those are codewords for MB terror groups.
This next article is also interesting as it shows that the MB is using social media to try and create a split between the UAE and the Saudis over oil pricing and production.
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1203/462938/AlAhram-Weekly/World/Gulf-energy-moment.aspx
He added, “UAE is committed to the OPEC+ agreement and its existing monthly production adjustment mechanism.” The minister’s tweet contradicted the ambassador’s statement but was in line with the Saudi position to honour current production levels, agreed on with Russia and other OPEC partners.
Despite political interpretations of the Gulf oil producers’ moves, seen by some as favouring Russia over the Biden administration, they are mainly driven by forces of supply and demand in the energy market. The fundamentals of supply and demand show that the market is not short of supply; and any unnecessary increase in production might lead to a supply glut and a price crash.
The American administration is worried about the prices of petrol at the pump, which hurt consumers and fuels inflation that could cost the Democratic Party the mid-term election this year.
Another interpretation of last week’s mixed messages from the UAE was propagated mainly by those who dig to find any differences in positions between the two allies: the UAE and the KSA. Social media has been rife with such rhetoric, especially from accounts connected with the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet a well-informed source in Abu Dhabi speaking on condition of anonymity told Al-Ahram Weekly that coordination between the two countries is as close as usual.
GRADE: Incomplete. Muslim radicals don’t even believe in things like “time” and need remedial studies in many things. Why would they want to go to an infidel classroom anyway? Referred to special education classes. However, I would not discount the concept that they will win with any scenario. How did things work out in Iraq and Afghanistan?
India and Modi:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/in-india-a-u-s-partner-modi-s-base-is-inundated-with-anti-u-s-commentary-on-ukraine/ar-AAVCepa
NEW DELHI — Turn on a television in India this past month, and the arguments espoused by some of the country’s most popular media personalities follow a pattern: The United States provoked Russia into attacking Ukraine. The Americans were possibly developing biological weapons in Ukraine. Joe Biden, the U.S. president who fumbled the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, has no business criticizing India over the war he sparked in Ukraine.
While the Russian invasion has galvanized public opinion against President Vladimir Putin in many Western countries, it has had a strikingly different effect in India, reflecting a gulf between the United States and the world’s largest democracy in how each public perceives the war, Russia and the West.
In recent weeks, some Indian English-language newspapers catering to wealthy urban liberals have carried editorials nudging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take a tougher stance against Putin. But on mainstream talk shows and in the pages of magazines popular with Modi’s right-wing base — a far larger audience — it has mostly been fire and fury directed toward the United States, portrayed as the culprit and instigator of yet another international conflagration.
“The American media, the American establishment wants to conceal this: They don’t like this charge of having anything to do with biological weapons,” Arnab Goswami, the star anchor of India’s top-rated news channel, Republic TV, said in a monologue earlier this month after Moscow and Washington exchanged accusations about bioweapons possibly being researched and used in Ukraine.
“But I don’t believe in the concept of Americans declaring themselves innocent, because the Americans are the ones who have a profound history of using the worst chemical weapons, on the most innocent people,” Goswami continued. He took a breath, then furiously recounted the U.S. government’s record of dropping the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and spraying the herbicide Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, which devastated forests and caused birth defects.
Meanwhile, in a studio east of Delhi, Rahul Shivshankar, Goswami’s competitor on the Times Now channel, wondered whether the West had happily “baited” Putin into launching a risky invasion and forced Russia to “do what it had to do.”
“Ukrainian residents are today facing the brunt, and the West is looking at all the fun,” Shivshankar said. In his monthly newspaper column, the TV star wrote that “the trigger for the war isn’t Putin,” but NATO’s encroachment into Russia’s sphere of influence. “America considers the Caribbean its backyard, China considers the South China Sea as its own,” Shivshankar wrote.
The commentary does not necessarily reflect the policy of the Modi administration, which has generally sought to strengthen relations with the United States and maintain a neutral position throughout the Ukraine conflict. Despite the West’s attempts to isolate Moscow, India has repeatedly abstained from condemning Russia, a decades-long weapons supplier, and continues to buy Russian oil. But the war in Ukraine has resurfaced an unmistakable strain of anti-American skepticism that has coursed for decades across India’s political spectrum.
GRADE: B. Taking one grade off for Modi/RSS ties, but still, I completely understand the Indian position. The US is likely to support Kashmiri jihadists against the Indian people. It was the vacuum of action against the Kashmir jihad and other jihads throughout India that lead directly to Modi, just as similar inaction against jihadists in America and Europe lead directly to Trump. Xinjiang, the Rohingya in Burma, Pankisi Gorge, it’s all the same game. Why should they back us in anything? Biden is an embarrassment: if you really want to take on Russia, shouldn’t you probably line up a) the Saudis b) China and c) India on your side before escalating things in Ukraine? Unbelievable!
Next up, we come to my favorite social media post of this social media war unlike any other. Chinese broadcaster dunks all over Joe Biden and his policy of trying to turn China against Russia. Again, isn’t this stuff you do BEFORE the war pops off? It has become obvious over time what the difference between Trump and Biden is: Trump favored siding with Russia to take down China, Biden favors siding with China to take down Russia, THEN taking down China. But, it’s almost like a country like China that has had to play these games several thousand years before the US was a thing can see through such machinations.
https://twitter.com/LiuXininBeijing/status/1505043155682402306?cxt=HHwWhICpodWx_uIpAAAA
Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?
GRADE: For this line only, an easy A+. Line of the year.
Ralph Nader:
In a huge upset victory, the best take I’ve seen from someone I expected TERRIBLE takes from, here we have Ralph f’in Nader with a pretty solid article. I’m shocked, quite frankly.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/02/27/nobody-wins-conflict-over-ukraine
When two scorpions are in a bottle, they both lose. This is the preventable danger that is growing daily, with no end game in sight, between the two nuclear superpowers, led by dictator Vladimir Putin and de facto sole decider, Joe Biden.
This is a dangerous recipe for an out-of-control escalation, much as it was in the lead-up to World War I.
Putin’s first argument is, Washington invented the model of aggressive, illegal invasions, and destruction of distant countries that never threatened U.S. security. Millions have died, been injured, and sickened in defenseless countries attacked by U.S. armed forces. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney killed over a million innocent Iraqis and devastated the country in so many ways that scholars called it a “sociocide.”
Putin’s second argument is that Russia is being threatened on its sensitive western border, which had been invaded twice by Germany and caused the loss of 50 million Russian lives. Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, the West’s military alliance against Russia began moving east. Under Bill Clinton, NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signed up Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999 leading to major arms sales by the U.S. giant munitions corporations.
More recently, Putin sees U.S. soldiers in these countries, ever closer U.S. missile launchers, U.S.-led joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, and intimations that Ukraine and Georgia could soon join NATO. (Imagine if the Russians were to have such a military presence around the U.S. borders.)
Even often hawkish New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Bret Stephens made this point this week about the brazen U.S. history of military hypocrisy while tearing into Putin. Stephens brought up the Monroe Doctrine over the entire Western Hemisphere, in raising repeatedly the question, “Who are We?”
The chess game between Russia and the West has become more deadly with Putin’s military moves followed by immediate Western sanctions against some Russian banks and oligarchs close to Putin. Travel bans and freezing the completion of the second major natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany are in place with promises of much more severe economic retaliation by Biden.
These sanctions can become a two-way street. Western Europe needs Russian oil and gas, Russian wheat, and essential Russian minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Sanctions against Russia will soon boomerang in terms of higher oil and gas prices for Europeans and Americans, more inflation, worsening supply chains, and the dreaded “economic uncertainty” afflicting stock markets and consumer spending.
The corporate global economy gave us interdependence on other nations, instead of domestic self-reliance, under the framework of corporate-managed free trade agreements.
So how many billions of dollars in costs and a weakened economy will Joe Biden tolerate as the price of anti-Putin sanctions that will blow back on the American people? How much suffering will he tolerate being inflicted on the long-suffering Russian people? What will be the impact on the civilian population of more severe sanctions? And who is he to talk as if he doesn’t have to be authorized by Congress to go further into this state of belligerence, short of sending soldiers, which he said he would not do?
Is Congress to be left as a cheerleader, washing its hands of its constitutional oversight and foreign policy duties? Also, watch Republicans and Democrats in Congress unify to whoop through more money for the bloated military budget, as pointed out by military analyst, Michael Klare. What energy will be left for Biden’s pending “Build Back Better” infrastructure, social safety net, and climate crisis legislation?
In recent weeks, the State Department said it recognizes Russia’s legitimate security concerns but not its expansionism. Well, what is wrong with a ceasefire followed by support for a treaty “guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine, similar to the enforced neutrality for Austria since the Cold War’s early years,” as Nation publisher and Russia specialist Katrina vanden Heuvel urged. (See: Katrina vanden Heuvel’s Washington Post article and her recent Nation piece).
Putin, unable to get over the breakup of the Soviet Union, probably has imperial ambitions to dominate in Russia’s backyard. Biden has inherited and accepted the U.S. Empire’s ambitions in many other nation’s backyards. Events have polarized this conflict over Ukraine, which is not a security interest for the U.S., into two dominant egos—Putin and Biden—neither of whom want to appear weak or to back down.
This is a dangerous recipe for an out-of-control escalation, much as it was in the lead-up to World War I. Neither the people nor the parliaments mattered then, as seems to be the case today.
Putin isn’t likely to make a cost-benefit assessment of each day’s militarism. But Biden better do so. Otherwise, he will be managed by Putin’s daily moves, instead of insisting on serious negotiations. The Minsk II Peace Accords of February 2015 brokered by Germany, France, and the United Nations that Russia and Ukraine agreed to before falling apart due to disagreements over who should take the first steps, still makes for a useful framework.
It is too late to revisit the accords to stop the invasion. But it should be proposed to introduce a climate for waging peace. Already, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has spoken about an increase in cyberattacks and ransomware demands in her state in recent weeks. Has Biden put that rising certainty in his self-described decades-long foreign policy expertise? Watch out for what you can’t stop, Joe.
Ro Khanna: Let’s finish up with our most disappointing student this semester. Ro Khanna was quite a solid critic of the Ukrainian Nazis before the war. But now?
https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2022/03/24/ro-khanna-wants-india-to-pick-sides-in-russias-ukraine-war-449002/
Noting that there is a bipartisan consensus that they are appalled by India abstentions on UN Security Council vote over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Khanna said, it makes it all the much harder.
“And it is something that I hope India will still consider,” he said. “I mean look we’re not even asking them yet for to impose sanctions or to stop their defense.”
“But to refuse to condemn Putin’s bombing of mothers and children in Ukraine, how can you look at what’s happening and not say that’s wrong, that’s immoral, that’s unconscionable, and vote with the world in condemning it,” Khanna said.
GRADE: A-. A+ work, but I can’t help but dock some points just for being Nader.
@cinque anon–
I give Nader a C- and would put the rest in prison for the rest of their lives.
Aside from saying NOTHING about the BW presence and its large intersection with the “Oswald Institute of Virology” exposition done by YT, NONE of these sphincters has said one goddamn word about the Nazis in Ukraine.
And they are dominant.
Hell, F* Biden was deeply in the mix with Geoffrey Pyatt and Andriy Parubiy–the founder of what became Svoboda.
Svoboda’s C14 militia, which has received government funding, has (along with Azov’s Druzhina Militia) got police powers in 21 Ukrainian cities, including Kiev.
C14 is named after the Fourteen Words, an international White Supremacist anthem, minted by David Lane, who drove the get away car in the Order’s murder of Alan Berg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
And this is just ONE of the many Nazi connections.
F* Nancy Pelosi greeted Zelensky with the salute used by Bandera’s troops and now the Ukrainian Army and Police.
https://spitfirelist.com/news/nancy-pelosi-channels-stepan-bandera/
And NONE of these people–nor much of anyone else, including the so-called “progressive sector”–has said one goddamn word about this.
Grade for the whole bunch: See Me After Class!!
Keep Up the Great Work!
Dave
Yeah, my grading scale was mostly for parody purposes and its main purpose was to show the “stalwarts of the American Left” being even shittier than monsters like Orban on this topic. Nader is just a broken clock who happened to get this one mostly right.