Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, on October 9, 2024 (Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images)
A proposed reform of the European Peace Facility (EPF) would make financial contributions voluntary, aiming to bypass Hungary’s veto on military aid to Ukraine, which has caused a 6.5 billion euro ($7 billion) backlog.
Hungary, broadly seen as the most Kremlin-proximate EU member, has repeatedly obstructed aid for Ukraine on account that it “prolongs” and “escalates” the ongoing war. These views have been often echoed in Slovakia since Ukraine-skeptic Prime Minister Robert Fico took office last fall.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also said on July 23 that Ukrainian military aid will be blocked until Kyiv allows the transit of Russia’s Lukoil oil.
“I made it clear that as long as Ukraine fails to resolve the issue, everyone can forget about the 6.5 billion euros in compensation for arms transfers under the European Peace Facility,” Szijjarto said in an interview with the ATV news channel.
The reform plan is in its early stages, and would allow countries like Hungary to opt out of contributing, relieving tensions caused by Hungary’s opposition to EU military support for Ukraine.
However, the move could weaken the EU’s united front against Russia and raise budgetary concerns among member states.
Though some EU leaders remain hopeful that Hungary will lift its veto, the ongoing friction between Hungary’s positions and the majority of EU member decisions leaves the future of the EPF uncertain.
Another horror story on the English Mail Online about 9 surrendered drone operators/assistants being stripped and executed by Russian forces. War crimes being committed on a daily basis.
As of 10:00 PM (Kyiv time) on October 13, there have been 105 battles along the front since the start of the day. The hottest fighting continues in the Kurakhove direction. At the same time, the enemy remains active in the Lyman, Pokrovsk, and Kupiansk directions, according to the evening report from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Russin shelling
Today, the enemy launched 43 airstrikes on Ukrainian territory, including the use of 76 guided aerial bombs (KAB), and deployed 418 kamikaze drones for strikes. Additionally, there were over 2,900 shellings of our military positions and civilian settlements.
Frontline situation
In the Kharkiv direction, combat clashes continued in the area of Starytsia.
“According to preliminary estimates, enemy losses in this sector today amount to 67 servicemen killed and wounded. Our forces also destroyed an armored combat vehicle and 16 UAVs, while three artillery systems, two vehicles, and one piece of special equipment were damaged,” the General Staff reported.
In the Kupiansk direction, the enemy attempted to advance toward our positions near Petropavlivka, Pishchane, Vyshneve, Kopanky, and Lozova 16 times throughout the day. Our defense forces repelled five attacks, and 11 clashes are ongoing.
In the Lyman direction, the Russian army launched 19 attacks in the areas of Hrekivka, Druzhlyubivka, Novosadove, Nevske, Terni, and Torske. Four clashes are still ongoing, while our forces have halted the rest.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the enemy launched two attacks on our positions. The assault near Chasiv Yar was repelled, while fighting continues near Stupochky.
In the Toretsk direction, our forces repelled four enemy attacks near Toretsk and Shcherbynivka. Three attacks have been thwarted, and the battle is ongoing. The situation is under control.
The enemy made 22 attempts to breach our defenses in the Pokrovsk direction, particularly in the areas of Sukhyi Yar, Lysivka, Promin, and Selydove. The main efforts of the Russian forces were concentrated around Selydove, where there were 15 attempts to advance.
“The enemy is suffering significant losses - according to preliminary information, our forces eliminated 228 Russian soldiers in this sector today, with 105 of them irrecoverable. An armored combat vehicle and three enemy vehicles were destroyed,” the report states.
The situation remains difficult in the Kurakhove direction, where the enemy launched 29 attacks on our positions near Kreminna Balka, Izmailivka, Novoselydivka, Kurakhivka, Hirnyk, Maksymilyanivka, Kostiantynivka, and Katerynivka. The enemy showed the greatest activity in the areas of Zhelanne Druhe and Kostiantynivka. Currently, Ukrainian forces have repelled 19 attacks, with 10 clashes still ongoing.
In the Vremivka direction, fighting continues near Zolota Nyva.
In the Orikhiv direction, the Russian army made three attempts to displace our units near Robotyne and Mala Tokmachka.
In the Prydniprovskyi direction, the enemy continues attempts to dislodge our forces from their positions, conducting seven unsuccessful assaults throughout the day.
In the other directions, there have been no significant changes.
The Ukrainian Defense Forces continue their operations in the Kursk region.
The General Staff has also recognized the effective and professional combat work of the soldiers of the 79th Separate Air Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who are successfully destroying the enemy and inflicting significant losses in personnel and equipment.
During the previous day, October 12, there were 186 combat clashes along the front. Yesterday, just like today, the occupiers actively attempted to assault multiple directions simultaneously.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman has denounced the alleged execution of nine captured Ukrainian troops by Russian forces in the Kursk border region.
Dmytro Lubinets said he had written to the United Nations and the Red Cross about the allegations, accusing Moscow of breaching “all the rules and customs of war”.
The intervention follows reporting by Ukrainian battlefield analysis site DeepState, which published drone footage purporting to show the dead troops who it said were drone operators. Officials in Russia have yet to comment on the allegations.
Kyiv is believed to have deployed thousands of troops into the Russian border region since it launched its shock incursion earlier this summer.
The images published by DeepState showed the dead Ukrainian troops stripped to their underwear and lying face down in what appeared to be farmland in Kursk. The BBC cannot independently verify the images.
The outlet said the drone operators had been overrun by a rapid Russian advance.
“These actions must not go unpunished, and the enemy must bear full responsibility,” Mr Lubinets wrote in a message to Telegram. “The international community should not turn a blind eye to such crimes!”
Kyiv has frequently accused Russian of executing captured Ukrainian troops - a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Earlier this month the prosecutor general’s office alleged that Russian forces had executed 93 Ukrainian soldiers since the beginning of the conflict.
It added that an official investigation had been opened into reports that 16 Ukrainian soldiers were executed in the eastern Donetsk region near the city of Pokrovsk - where fighting has raged for months. Officials said the reports would mark the “largest mass execution” of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian troops since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022.
The Kremlin denies that its soldiers have been committing war crimes in Ukraine.
The reports come as Russian forces continue to attack Ukrainian positions in Kursk. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address from Kyiv on Saturday that Ukrainian troops had fought off a renewed Russian advance in the region.
Analysts say that Kyiv launched the offensive to try and force Russia to redirect some of its troops from its offensive in eastern Ukraine. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has estimated that around 40,000 Russian forces are now active in Kursk - up from 11,000 when Ukrainian troops first crossed the border.
But the offensive has failed to slow Russian momentum in the eastern Donbas region, where relentless attacks has slowly pushed Ukrainian forces backwards.
The Ukrainian leader acknowledged that “there are very difficult conditions, with harsh enemy actions” in both Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia in his address on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, the Russian defence ministry said its forces had seized the village of Mykhailivka, which sits along a highway near the key city of Pokrovsk.
Russian forces have been advancing towards Pokrovsk - which is a key logistics hub - for months. Experts say if Russia can seize the city Ukraine’s ability to resupply units in other crucial towns would become far more difficult.
Meanwhile, Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine continued overnight. Air force officials in Kyiv said Moscow launched 68 drones and four missiles towards Ukrainian territory.
This is a tongue in cheek, rather wordy, satire article examining (war time) capitalism. It could easily be entered into the (Everything is Wrong With) American Politics thread.
“There’s many a true word said in jest”.
How Ukraine Threatens War Profiteers
By showing the world that inexpensive, easily built weaponry can resist the Russian juggernaut, Ukraine threatens the entire construct underlying the $Billions we lavish on war toy builders.
The simple truth is that Ukraine MUST lose its war with Russia. I know, I know, this will come as
blasphemy to millions of people who believe in freedom and the right of self-determination.
But let’s just look at economic reality. Ukrainian President Voldomort Zelenskyy is as dangerous to the U.S. economic system as that other Voldemort was to the muggle world. The more the Ukrainian army succeeds in disrupting and resisting the great Russian war machine, the more he undermines the entire post WW-II American economic construct.
WW-II was an eye-opener for American industrialists. Their unrestrained capitalism had plunged the entire world into the great depression. Their greed and dishonesty led to the populist rebellion of the New Deal. Government facilities, including troops, which had been used to defend the excesses of capitalism, were turned toward enforcing minimal standards for workers, very basic pensions (Social Security) for non-agricultural workers, minimum wages, protections for union efforts (where soldiers had once been used to brutalize striking workers and to bust unions), and the beginnings of the concepts of workplace and environmental safety.
The advent of a new war, encompassing the whole world, the first after military planners had figured out how to avoid the stultifying drudgery of WW-I’s trenches, was a goldmine for industrialists everywhere. Globalist Henry Ford sold trucks and machinery to Germany as eagerly as to the USA. And Prescott Bush sold Germany the oil to lubricate and fuel the war machines, and provided the banking services to facilitate moving the money from the war powers to the war profiteers.
Once the war was over, the flow of war machine profits dried up. It was time to study the war and the thinking of those who had wanted it. Mein Kampf was studied for clues to what drove a madman. It was studied in business schools to understand how the madman’s dreams had been so profitable for so many industries. Hitler was neither an innovative nor an imaginative thinker or writer. He wrote mimicking the ancient wisdom that the best way to power was by identifying a clear enemy and promising to defeat “it”. “It,” not "them,” because dehumanizing the enemy was part of the identification and justification for defaming. Hitler also reminded every business student reading Mein Kampf” of the reality that repeating a claim, over and over, was a key to success/profits.
And so, “COMMUNISM” (the enemy) was repeatedly mentioned, starting as early as negotiations between the allies about how to divvy up their German spoils. It didn’t take long for whizkid MBAs to recognize that selling the “communist” enemy to hoi polloi could be used, through the use of eager congressmen, to justify expenditures for armaments to “prevent” the next war, or to guarantee that we won the next war, if it couldn’t be prevented.
Through the decades of the 50s and 60s, America was fed a steady diet of messaging about the “communist menace,” reminding everyone that communism was both a “failed” economic system, incapable of capitalist style industrial innovation and a military marvel, easily able to outgun America if we didn’t devote all our resources to funding private businesses building both defensive and offensive weaponry. Communism was at once an industrial failure and military-industrial juggernaut.
The solution, endless messages told us, was to fund massive developments in military technologies. Since we were looking at “new” and “innovative” technologies, we couldn’t criticize the corporations doing the development. We couldn’t question their budgets and the bills for the new war toys they developed. The default for Pentagon budgeting became the “cost-plus” contract.
A corporation would tell the Pentagon contract officers, “We’re going to invent…, and we think that it will cost $…” The Pentagon, if it wanted what the corporation was proposing, gave the corporation a contract to invent and build the product at the predicted cost PLUS a percentage on top of that “cost” for the corporation to count as profit for their patriotic defense work. If the development/build cost prediction turned out to be too low, the contracts provided that the “cost” could be recalculated and the profit percentage PLUS would then be calculated on the new higher cost.
The flood of new MBAs being churned out by business schools competed hard for jobs. The jobs went to the ones who could most creatively generate profits for corporations. The Pentagon didn’t need MBAs; it relied on the honesty of corporations that were patriotically developing new weapons systems to protect our great nation. To protect the integrity of Pentagon contracts, MBAs realized that it would be good to check and double check every accounting issue and every bit of paperwork.
Secretaries who were typing interoffice memos certainly needed other secretaries to double check their spelling and punctuation. And then a supervisor to check the double-checked work. Similarly, accountants needed more accountants to check their work, and supervising accountants to check that double-checked work. If different corporate divisions were working on different parts of a weapons project, then departments to check and integrate the work of individual accounting and secretarial divisions were necessary. And since much of the work was classified for national security, corporations needed to develop parallel security divisions and departments to ensure that everyone else wasn’t selling or just accidentally leaking information to the enemy COMMIES.
That’s a lot of offices, desks, salaries, benefits, etc. Each of those measures, patriotically undertaken solely to make the weapons systems contracts function, cost money—i.e., became a “cost” item to be billed to the contract before the “cost plus” percentage was calculated. And EVERY Pentagon contract soared far beyond what the original projections were.
No MBA anywhere was surprised. Many made huge bonuses and many moved up into corporate senior management.
We taxpayers paid the bills. And we were told to be happy because we were being kept safe from the incompetent COMMIES!
Then came October 4, 1957. The incompetent, scientifically and industrially backward Soviet Commies launched Sputnik-1 into earth orbit. Not only did the USA not have satellite capability when the Soviets did, we didn’t even have radar tracking capability to follow Sputnik-1. We had to rely on our British allies for that.
Two months later, on December 6, 1957, when the USA tried to answer the Soviet Sputnik, our Vanguard rocket exploded on the launch pad, leaving war profiteer corporations Martin Marietta and General Electric to bicker over fault. Since then, while our space program has rivaled the Pentagon for the sweetness of its contracts, the Pentagon continued to field profitable failures. Many soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam experience the jamming of the new AR-16 “super weapon,” whose first iteration left soldiers unarmed when confronting Vietnamese independence fighters.
Jump forward 50 years to the Cheney/Bush administration. We learned that American ICBMs, in silos across the country, were still relying on 1950s-era technology for launch and navigation controls. They had no ability to evade modern Russian or Chinese countermeasures but continued to deliver $Billions in profits to the profiteering corporations that built and maintained them. The Soviet Union was gone, but we were still being told that the COMMIE menace remained our biggest threat, and we needed to keep building ever more expensive war toys to protect ourselves from the Russian army, now as formidable as our own.
In 2022, Russia’s Czar Vlad invaded Ukraine. People can argue endlessly about his reasons and whether or not he was justified. But everyone agreed that the mighty Russian army would steamroll across tiny Ukraine, which had minimal defense capabilities.
Step back 275 years to find everyone agreeing that rabble colonial farmers would be no match for the highly trained and disciplined Hessian mercenaries sent to quell dissent by England’s George III. 247 years before Russia invaded Ukraine, Gearge III’s troops marched through the night from Charleston to Lexington and Concord. On Lexington’s town green, they killed rebel farmers and merchants arrayed against them in accepted military formation, and marched on to Concord to confiscate rebel weapons and ammunition.
Facing insurmountable odds, the rebels set an example for the future Ukrainians (and for Arabs under Colonel Lawrence and Vietnamese, South African, and Latin Americans in the 20th century). Using lessons learned while fighting indigenous Americans, they eschewed the showy and intimidating battle formations of European warfare and hid behind trees and stone walls and relied on each individual shot to have collective effect more devastating than the volleys from tightly formed Hessian troops.
Russia confronted Ukrainians with the modern equivalent of the showy, intimidating formations that dominant colonial armies have shown from Rome to the invasion of Iraq. Ukraine had nothing equivalent with which to answer. So they did what American farmers and merchants had done almost 250 years earlier. Instead of trying to match tank for tank, troop carrier for troop carrier, they used what they had in new ways.
They rigged drones available from hobby stores to drop grenades into the open hatches of expensive Russian tanks and into the open beds of troop and supply trucks. Having no spy satellites, they used civilian cellphones to share personal observations of Russian troop and equipment movements and to coordinate attacks from different directions. Like the Minutemen at Concord, they stalled the mighty Russian juggernaut. And like the Americans on Breeds Hill, even when defeated and pushed back, they inflicted devastating blows to an “undefeatably superior” power.
Like the Minutemen at Concord and the people’s warriors surrounding Dien Bien Phu, Ukrainians signaled the world that innovation could counter stolid corporate militarism. Ukrainian drone boats have driven Russia’s huge, sophisticated warships from the Black Sea. Ukrainians have converted the concept of a simple recreational ATV into cellphone-controlled unmanned attack vehicles, with guidance provided by aerial drone-mounted cameras.
In the 1840s, the US Army rejected the primitive Walker Colt revolver pistol, preferring to stay with single-shot weapons. The pre-statehood Texas Rangers adopted the revolvers and changed the nature of their war on indians. The industrial makers of single-shot pistols suffered.
War profiteering makes up a huge part of our budget. We build Abrams tanks, which have armor so sophisticated and secret that the tanks can’t be used in battle for fear that one might be captured by an enemy and the armor secrets revealed. The Abrams tanks we send to Ukraine have to have the secret armor removed first. Like the 50s technology guiding or ballistic missiles, the super expensive, super profitable armor is useless in battle.
Ukraine benefits from a lot of sophisticated technology from NATO countries. But its real strength lies in its innovations driven by desperation. By showing the world that inexpensive, easily built weaponry can resist the Russian juggernaut, Ukraine threatens the entire construct underlying the $Billions we lavish on war toy builders. It threatens to undermine public belief in the need for war profiteering. Ukraine must be stopped. Ukraine must lose the war.
Tom Hall is a family lawyer in West Los Angeles. He is from Boston, and was raised in Friends Meeting at Cambridge (Quakers) to think that religion was a progressive force. During the Vietnam War, he organized draft counseling centers and worked with groups training people in techniques for disciplined nonviolent demonstrating. After the war, he became just another yuppie working to make a comfortable life. The Bush administration shocked him back into social concerns.
The discourse around the 45 aged rotorcraft dragged for several months, now details surfaced about what happened to the dismantled components afterward
Late January 2024, reports appeared that Australia had started to scrap decommissioned MRH90 Taipan multirole helicopters, Airbus interested in acquisition of parts. This process evolved simultaneously with the scandal that Australia, under various pretexts, refused to transfer these helicopters to Ukraine, even despite a publicly voiced request from Kyiv.
Now this story has a continuation, more than six months afterward. According to Janes, NHIndustries, the manufacturer of the NH90 military helicopter, has received 300 out of the 4,000 MRH-90 Taipan components purchased from the Australian side; the first deliveries took place in September 2024.
Critical components of the MRH90 Taipan that can be used with the NH90 / Infographic credit:
The MRH90 Taipan, as a localized variety of the NH90, contains about a few thousand components that could be removed to support other helicopters of the product line, operated across the world. The most important ones are broken down in the graphic above, provided by Janes. There were speculations that a prior agreement on the supply of these parts was the reason why Australia ignored Ukraine’s requests.
An interesting detail in this context is that the Australian military was once forced to temporarily withdraw MRH90 Taipans from service specifically due to shortage of components for maintenance. Issues related to maintenance were also the factor that made Sweden and Norway rule out the possibility of acquiring baseline NH90 back in the day, cementing its status as a “problematic helicopter.”
In a comment to Janes, Axel Aloccio, the CEO of the NHIndustries, admitted that the spare parts dismantled from the Australian helicopters are already “used in the wider support program,” for NH90 operators, where they are sold at a discount. He said this was a solution to the shortage of components for the NH90 series.
Against this background, it is quite telling that now countries, mostly from the Middle East, are now lining up to get these helicopters, with a hundred units queued up on the production lines for the next within 18 months.
Still the question lingers, although now purely retrospective: would it not be more profitable to transfer these same MRH-90 Taipans to Ukraine answering the open request, and thus create a new long-term customer, with opportunities for further development and orders from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy has been touring Europe to promote his victory plan, but he has also been lobbying for real security deals that would allow the war to end. / bne IntelliNews
The impending elections of the US President, apparently, can open a window for negotiations on a truce between Ukraine and Russia. This week, a series of articles appeared in the leading Western media, from which it follows that Kyiv is ready to negotiate a truce in which the occupied territories de facto (but not de jure) will be left under the control of Russia, but Ukraine will receive either a guarantee of joining Nato, or similar security guarantees. Russia gives signals that I do not agree to such a deal.
Thrashing out meaningful security deals for Ukraine and Russia are at the heart of the talks and finding an acceptable formula won’t be easy.
It all started with a large article in the FinancialTimes of October 1, which described in detail about the difficult prospects of Ukraine in the coming months amid the possible victory of Trump in the United States, defeats in the Donbass and the approximation of winter with new Russian missile attacks on energy infrastructure.
Russia refuses to participate in peaceful summits organised by Ukraine - at the end ofSeptember, the representative of the Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova called this proposal “the next manifestation of the fraud of the Anglo -Saxons and their Ukrainian puppets”, which will “drag” the “Zelenskiy formula” unacceptable for Moscow.
More meaningfully, the official position of Russia was formulated by Vladimir Putin in early September. Then he stated that Moscow was ready to negotiate on the basis of documents partially agreed, but never signed in the spring of 2022 during the negotiations over the Istanbulpeace deal.
As bne IntelliNews reported, Ukraine was inchingtowards a ceasefire deal at the beginning of August and even agreed on a meeting in Qatar, at whichthey were supposed to take on mutual obligations to refuse to strike energy infrastructure. But the Kurskincursion ended those efforts; Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said thenegotiation card has been takenoff the table shortly afterwards.
Ukraine’s partners are becoming increasingly reluctant to back its war against Russia. The Swiss peace summit held on June 16-17 was deemed a failure after half of those that voted to condemn Russia’s invasion in the UN voting, failed to show up to the summit. Zelenskiy’s trip to New York to sell his victory plan this month was also seen as a failure as he left with little that he was asking for.
That was followed by a whirlwind European tour that included visiting UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, Zelenskyy reportedly presented his peace plan, which pledges an end to the war in 2025. One of the key meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who promised new air defence systems and other weapons, along with a fresh military aid package, in collaboration with other NATO partners, worth €1.4 billion. However, Germany has already halved its allocations to support Ukraine to €4bn this year that will fall to €500mn for the next two years after that. Scholz also once again refused to discuss sending Germany’s powerful Taurus missiles to Kyiv.
In the same week US House Speaker Mike Johnson said there was “no appetite” for providing Ukraine with more money, suggesting that the $61bn aid package agreed on April 20 may be the last large support deal, even if Kamala Harris becomes president.
All these problems are pushing Kyiv towards restarting talks. The international press and comments by Ukraine’s allies are suggesting that a ceasefire deal is being seriously discussed behind the scenes as Ukraine’s position rapidly deteriorates.
· In late September, Czech Prime Minister Petr Pavel expressed doubts that Ukraine could regain its occupied territories, urging a realistic assessment and suggesting that some areas might remain under Russian control. Around the same time, Switzerland voiced support for China and Brazil’s peace proposals, which Ukraine viewed as pro-Russian.
· On October 1, the Financial Times reported that a ceasefire deal was possible due to Ukraine’s struggles, including the potential return of Trump to power, defeats in Donbass, and the onset of winter, with new Russian missile attacks on infrastructure.
· On October 4, former NATO head Jens Stoltenberg compared the situation to West Germany joining NATO without East Germany, and to Japan’s security under the U.S. excluding the Kuril Islands.
· By October 5, the Financial Times reported that Western diplomats were discussing the idea of “Land for NATO membership,” where Ukraine would receive security guarantees but quietly allow Russian control over occupied territories, hoping for a diplomatic resolution later.
· On October 8, Bloomberg reported that Western allies had noted President Zelenskiy becoming more flexible on ways to end the war, with Ukrainian officials acknowledging that the conflict might need a resolution soon. This issue was set for discussion at the October 12 Ramstein meeting, with NATO membership being central, though Russia remained opposed.
On October 10, Italian media suggested that Zelenskiy might accept a truce along the current front lines in exchange for Western military guarantees and EU membership, though the article appeared to be more opinion-based than based on actual sources.
· On October 11, the Washington Post reported, citing Western diplomats, that Zelenskiy was more open to negotiations with Russia, despite their occupation of 20% of Ukraine.
During his whirlwind tour of Europe last week, Zelenskiy insisted that ceasefire talks were not on the agenda.
Security deals
As bneIntelliNews reported, the Istanbulpeace deal collapsed largely because Ukraine’s international partners refusedto offer Kyiv bilateral security deals, but former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised that the West would arm Ukraine if it wanted to continue to fight.
The Istanbul agreement (the fulltext was published by TheNew York Times in June) included: · Ukraine would not join any military alliances, including Nato; · Russia would provide Ukraine withinternational security guarantees, similar to Nato’s Article 5, from permanent members of the UN Security Council; · Russia would not obstruct Ukraine’s potential EU membership; · Ukraine would agree to a 15-yearmoratorium on attempting to reclaim Crimea by military force and negotiate Crimea’s status with Russia; and · Ukraine would significantly reduce the size of its military.
But now these conditions are as unacceptable for Ukraine as Ukrainian proposals for Russiaoutlined in Zelenskiy’s 10-pointpeace plan presented at the G20 summit in November 2022.
Putin’s most recent ceasefire proposal includes the following key conditions: · Ukrainemust withdraw its troops from the fourregions that Russia claims to have annexed – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia – and acknowledge Russia’s sovereignty over them, none of which Russia’s full controls; · Kyiv must drop its ambitions to join Nato; and · Russia would then agree to an immediate ceasefire and begin negotiations.
This proposal, however, was swiftly rejected by Ukraine, which described it as a non-seriousattempt to achieve peace. Ukraine continues to demand a complete Russian withdrawal from all occupied territories, including Crimea. Western allies, including Nato, have criticised Putin’s offer as one that would reward Russia’s aggression by allowing it to retain control over seized territories.
But last week Zelenskiy softened his maximalist position that talks with no talks can be helduntil all Russian troops leave Ukraine’s territory, including quitting the Crimea.
As bneIntelliNews reported extensively at the time, Russia’s main goal in the two rounds of diplomacy in January and February 2022 was to obtain a “legally binding ironclad guarantee that Ukraine will never join Nato.” This was rejected out of hand by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in January, and after French President Emmanuel Macron came close to restarting the Minsk II deal, but ultimately failed to find an agreement, the invasion of Ukraine occurred a few days later.
According to bne IntelliNews sources, active backchannel talks are currently ongoing and focusing on security deals that will satisfy both sides.
Some of Ukraine’s allies, including Stoltenberg in his recent interview with the FT, are suggesting a “West German” solution, where West Germany was taken into Nato following unification, but East Germany was not, as the “Article5 demarcation line” does not have to necessarily follow national borders.
Another solution that avoids Nato membership is the Korean scenario where Ukraine concedes its eastern territories de facto but not de jura and a DMZ is set up and policed by Ukraine’s friends. This proposal was at the heart of the Chinese 12-pointpeace plan suggested on the first anniversary of the start of the war.
In this scenario some, but not necessarily all, of Ukraine’s allies will have to offer Kyiv real military security guarantees and come to its aid should Russia attack again.
Getting Kyiv to giveup its Nato ambitions and revert to its neutral status that was enshrined in the constitution until2014, should not be that hard as it already conceded this in the first months of talks with Russia in Belarus. However, this option necessitates some real security guarantees from some Nato members and not the “securityassurances” it has received so far from the likes of the UK, which come with no obligation to come to Ukraine’s military aid in the event of a new Russian attack.
The West remains extremely nervous about bringing even a rump Ukraine into Nato as it realises that this is a red line for Putin and one that he is very unlikely to allow to be crossed without responding, despite the fact he has allowed so many other red lines to be crossed.
Part of the problem is that Ukraine is a young democracy and while Zelenskiy has signed off on the EU value agenda, the case of Georgia, which was also a poster boys for liberal reform following the Rose revolution and the accent of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, it has since been entirely captured by the Russia-leaning oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is threatening to fix the general elections at the end of October to hang onto power and has already forced through several Russian-styled illiberal laws like a “foreign agents” last and anti-LGTBQ laws. Western powers are nervous of providing military security guarantees to countries that could slide back into authoritarianism.
And in addition to power hungry Ukrainian oligarchs, of which there are plenty, there is a more immediate threat of Ukraine’s far-right groups. Ukrainian deputy Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People part, warned about the threat posed by what he described as a growing far-right movement in Ukrainian society in an interview with the Financial Times earlier this year. The concern is if Zelenskiy attempts a ceasefire or gives away territory there will be a possibly violent backlash from these groups with unpredictable results.
As for Russia, the no-Nato for Ukraine is paramount, but it also wants security guarantees from the West. As bneIntelliNews reported, the first thing that Dmitry Medvedev did after being elected president in 2008 was travel to Brussels and offer a new post-Cold War pan-Europeansecurity deal that was rejected out of hand. During the Istanbul talks, the Kremlin was prepared to make several key concessions. While the Crimea remains permanently off the table, the Kremlin suggested it might accept the Donbas being turned into an autonomous republic but remain formally inside a federated Ukraine. Russia was also prepared to offer Ukraine the same security guarantees it was demanding from the West. However, the status of the two new regions annexed last autumn of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be a very difficult nut to crack. Russia has now incorporated them into the constitution as Russian sovereign territory making it very difficult for the Kremlin to give them back.
The upshot is one of the most likely scenarios is the Cypriot standoff. Turkey invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974, in response to a Greek-led coup on the island, which aimed to unify Cyprus with Greece. As with Russia, the Turkish military intervention was framed as a “peace operation” to protect Turkish Cypriots, but it resulted in the division of the island into a northern Turkish-controlled area and a southern Greek Cypriot area.
And the conflict has been frozen ever since. As of now, the northern part of Cyprus is self-declared as the TurkishRepublic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which was proclaimed on November 15, 1983. However, the TRNC is recognised only by Turkey, while the rest of the international community considers it as part of the Republic of Cyprus. There have been various attempts to reunite the two halves without success. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations attempted to reunite Cyprus through what became known as the Annan Plan place in the early 2000s, but ultimately came to nought.
Cyprus joined the EU on May 1, 2004, but only the Greek Cypriot-controlled southern part enjoys full EU benefits, as the northern part is not internationally recognised and Cyprus is not a member of NATO, although Turkey is. The Article 5 demarcation line does not cover Northern Cyprus.
The plagues of Ukraine: war and demographic collapse
October 14, 2024
Eastern Europe’s bottomless pit of perdition, where human beings are cannon fodder, is putting up a brave front. That is today’s Ukraine. People still go to work and do their best to provide for themselves amidst the chaos. A weakened and corrupted government, financed by American taxpayers, still functions.
Keeping up appearances
Evidence of that lingering functionality is the Ministry of Social Policy’s 2 October 2024 press release announcing “Government approves the Strategy of Demographic Development of Ukraine” and has formulated a “Demographic Development Strategy until 2040”.
The Strategy of Demographic Development of Ukraine is aimed at implementing sectoral policies to increase the birth rate, reduce premature mortality and return migrants. The document also envisages the creation of cross-cutting conditions for a comfortable life in Ukraine: affordable housing, high-quality public infrastructure, a safe environment, barrier-free environment, inclusive labor market and social cohesion of the population, ensuring equal rights and opportunities, freedom and dignity of citizens.
Dream on. Ukraine’s government cannot effectively address population collapse or do much of anything else besides fight the war and try to keep the water and electricity on. This is the tenth year of a grinding war of attrition, massive civilian exodus and economic ruin. Ukrainian forces are out-manned and out-gunned by orders of magnitude. More than a quarter of the territory within Ukraine’s prewar borders has been lost.
By January 2022, Ukraine’s population was 41.17 million, having suffered a 25 percent reduction in 32 years. That included the loss of Sevastopol and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014. Barring that loss, there would have been 43.4 million Ukrainians, still an almost 22 percent decline. Ukraine’s population shrinks by about 300,000 every year.
In 2018, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin confirmed that roughly 100,000 people were leaving Ukraine every month.
Today, the situation is even worse. While accurate statistics are hard to come by, reliable estimates range from 400,000 to 600,000 Ukrainian military deaths. There are even more wounded, and civilian casualties are horrific.
Death spiral
Ukraine’s war began in 2014. In the pre-Covid years of 2018-2020, two deaths were recorded for every birth. Covid struck in 2021, with 120,000 deaths attributed to the virus. In 2022, the Russians invaded. For the people of Ukraine, it has been one disaster after another.
During the first half of 2024, 87 655 children were born in Ukraine, and 250,972 people died. During the same period in 2021, before the full-scale war, 132,595 children were born in Ukraine… Currently, there are three deaths per one newborn in Ukraine. In 2018-2020, there were two deaths per child.
Ukraine’s last official census (2001) reported the population at 48.5 million; government estimates for mid-2024 were 35.8 million, with 4.7 million of them (13.5 percent) residing in Russian-held areas, leaving 31.1 million “in the territories where public authorities exercise their powers in full." The Institute of Demography and Quality of Life Problems (National Academy of Sciences) grimly projects a population of 28.9 million by 2041, and 25.2 million a decade after that.
However, research specialist Svitlana Aksenova of the Institute of Demography and Social Studies cites the “lack of reliable statistical data” though she is certain that Ukraine’s total fertility rate (TFR) is well below one child per female (<1.0) and likely the world’s lowest, surpassing South Korea. (That is also the US Central Intelligence Agency’s assessment).
We will never be able to reach a birth rate of two children per woman. It would be very positive if we could at least return to the level we had in 2012. Back then, the birth rate was one and a half children per woman, or 15 births per 10 women.
This forecast of 25 million people assumes that a large portion of the population that fled the war will not return. It suggests that people will be very hesitant to come back.
Aksenova conceded that “The figure of 25.2 million was provided to illustrate the severity of the demographic problem.” The Ministry hopes to raise Ukraine’s TFR to the 2012 level of 1.5 by 2040. Ukraine’s 2020 (reported) TFR was 1.22.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), as of February 2024, there were 3.7 million internally displaced persons and 6.5 million recorded refugees from Ukraine throughout the world. This mass exodus of mostly younger people is a debilitating brain drain, has depopulated many areas and ensured a more rapidly ageing population.
Future prospects
There is talk in Washington about staving off military collapse until after the US presidential election, then bailing on Ukraine to concentrate on the Middle East. There is also talk of establishing a government-in-exile. Will President Zelensky be thrown under the bus? Ukrainian defeat would lock in global multipolarity. I only hope that nobody goes nuclear. Ukraine’s horrific humanitarian disaster is what inspired, finally, the Strategy for Demographic Development.
Daryna Marchak, Ukraine’s First Deputy Minister of Social Policy, played a central role in crafting the strategy document. Her foremost priority is encouraging the millions who have left Ukraine to return.
The document provides a vision of what we need to do to make every Ukrainian family want to build their life in Ukraine and stay in the country, give birth and raise children here. It aims to create conditions where as many people as possible will choose to be Ukrainian citizens, including those who choose to return to or move to Ukraine from other countries.
A woman and a family should feel safe that they will have the ability to raise children and afford it financially until they grow up. The best thing the state can do to stimulate birth rates is to create a convenient, barrier-free infrastructure for raising children close to home.
[I]t is necessary to provide targeted support to families with children, not only at the stage of childbirth but until the child becomes fully independent. Every family planning to have a child should know that if they face hardship, the state will assist and support them, including financially, until the family overcomes the difficulty.
These are commendable goals, but such a massive repatriation as envisioned by the Ministry cannot happen until the war ends, and is unlikely even then. Nonetheless, it is my fervent hope that whenever peace comes to Ukraine, there will be a rebuilding in accordance with the Ministry’s demographic targets.
Hopefully, enough people will return to Ukraine to at least set that beleaguered land on the road to recovery. Lucrative foreign aid schemes notwithstanding, nation-building begins at home.
Dona Nobis Pacem.
Louis T. Marchhas a background in government, business, and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author, and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
That article is pro-russian propaganda and the outlet highly dubious so take the contents with a grain of salt…in fact a lot of its assertations are outright bullshit.
Terror in the Kherson region | Discord Blocking | Executions of prisoners of war (Eng Subs) - Weekly Military Update 13.10.2024 Ruslan Leviev (Max Katz)
