Bomb suits are not useful for offensive operations but very useful for disarming munitions in civilian areas or other sensitive infrastructure.
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My take is that it is because UA is the biggest of the old Soviet states and the one that is leading the way to pivot from a Soviet/Russian alignment to a euro centric (EU) alignment. They’re basically showing Russians the way to do it.
Hold anti Yanukovych demonstrations
Throw out the oppressor
Hold democratic elections
Improve living standards and wages
Join the EU
Join NATO
It’s the template for Russians and the population of 44m makes them such a bigger influence than the Baltics (6m).
No doubt there would be local impressions in neighbouring oblasts but the minorities in the east would surely be more influenced by seeing the improved living standards, freedoms, etc.
The big risk for Putin is that they start looking for independance, no doubt UA are trying to getting something started there.
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Glimpsed on TV overnight, Pentagon spokesman (Ryder.?)
- US Government has not approved any third party transfers of equipment to paramilitary organisations outside the Ukraine Army Forces, nor has the Ukraine Government requested any such transfer.
In an interview with France 24, Ponomarev (sp ?) said that his mob were part of the Ukraine military structure, but the ones over the border acted autonomously, all Russians.
In a joint briefing around 23 May with Karine on Biden’s visit to Japan covering the US domestic and international agenda (transcript on White House site) Jake O’Sullivan stated the basic proposition that the US is not enabling or supporting attacks on Russian territory, that will go for the support for the provision of F-16 by any party as well. The Ukrainians have consistently indicated that they are prepared to follow though on that with the provision of western equipment we have given them. In response to Qs on apparent shifts in Biden’s position on F-16s, he said that the White House is a learning organisation.
Blitzers are free to dig deeper and interpret those briefings in whichever way they fit with their own narratives.
Kalingrad is more artificial with a Russian population that has no historical links with either the original German city of Konigsberg or its Polish and Lithuanian neighbours.
I think it is both factors:
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Family connections, language etc. Ukrainian nationalists emphasize the differences from Russians but they are also deeply similar. eg Linguistic differences a lot less than those in Canada, let alone Belgium and a lot of common history. As well as the large ethnic Russian population who have stronger family connections the others can also speak Russian perhaps as much as Swedes and Norwegians can speak to each other (though not as much as Norwegians and Danes).
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Maidan revolution. The revolution in 2014 was against a very similar post-Soviet kleptocrat gangster oligarchy to that in Russia and reasonable prosperity flowed directly from having overthrown them rather than from previous historical levels of development.
The 2011-2012 protests in Russia were in the same direction as Maidan:
The response to Maidan in 2014 was invasion that intended to establish a new regime in Kharkiv but only succeeded in annexing Crimea and separating some parts of Luhansk and Donetsk.
The anti-maidan movement established by the regime to fight the danger of revolution was also the basis for the ongoing campaign about the “Nazis” of Ukraine that culminated in the 2022 invasion.
Naturally mainstream “geopolitical” analysts tend to downplay the centrality of revolution but I would put the Maidan issue as first.
Tsarist fascists need to crush democratic revolutions. In the nineteenth century they also sent troops to help other reactionaries crush other revolutions in countries that had no family or linguistic connections with Russia.
There was a fascinating series of articles by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the New York Tribune that sheds historical light:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/russia/crimean-war.htm
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There are so many Russias within the Russian Federation (as in Russia of the past).
IIRC, Ukraine in Russian translates to Borderlands. Fitzroy McLean has described the other Russias in his writings and did a BBC TV series during the Soviet era.
The Kola Peninsula ( much larger than the Crimea ) and the Barents Sea region is out there on its own, a small population (including Samis) but resource rich with foreign investment, a warm water port in Murmansk (thanks to the Atlantic current) outward looking, consistently engaged in international trade during the CMEA Soviet days, economic, cultural and family connections with Norwegians in the area, military garrison including ethnic Ukrainians. A world away from Siberian Russia, the borderlands with Ukraine and the remnants of what used to be called Soviet Central Asia.
After closing its land borders, Norway is under the pump to restrict free access to Russian fishing vessels (and crews) , now identified as dual purpose vessels with espionage capacity. It would wreck the Kirkennes economy.
From an ecological perspective alone, it is a tragedy that the Arctic Council (membership extending to the Pacific Arctic)is currently not functioning without Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
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We have our third Hurtigruten trip planned for March departing from Kirkennes. Who knows if it will go ahead or not.
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The Barents Observer (available online in EL) is informative on developments.
Still a fair way off but if it get canceled so be it. I’ll look at other options
Russia has recently re-introduced visa free flights with Georgia. Some in the Georgian public have reacted with street protests.
That was a fascinating read.
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Pretty impressive that publicly available intelligence can even have the tail number of the aircraft.
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Reportedly orphans are offered free homes at the end of service if they enlist.
Could be cost effective if they go to the front lines, based on the death rates of soldiers in combat in Ukraine.
When they said that Ukraine would attack where we least expect it I didn’t expect it would be Belgorod.
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Don’t know where to ask this but who won the Turkish election?
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Not over yet, but the third placed, who dropped out, is encouraging his supporters to vote for Erdogan, some punting Erdogan is a shoe in (he only just missed the 50%+ in the first round, much better than predicted)
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The Kurile islands are part of Japan.
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South Korea will give the US half a million 155-mm shells to replace those that the Americans supply to Ukraine from their own warehouses. The law prohibits South Korea from exporting weapons to countries at war, but such a three-way scheme does not fall under the law, and will allow the United States to supply shells to Ukraine much more freely. donga.com/news/Politics/…
I think they’ve previously sold 100k and leased 500k to the US, so this looks to be a backfill totalling 1.1M shells.
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Japan has been scrambling around 700 times per year for China, so this doesn’t change their operating tempo by much.
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