If Russia Cannot Hold Ukraine What Does Victory Mean?
Nine months ago, CSIS’s Seth Jones wrote at WaPo that Russia could defeat Ukraine but could not hold the territory. Today it is not even certain that Russia can “defeat Ukraine” much less hold it. To give it a serious try, Moscow would need to dilute its defenses along borders on its vast frontier. Moscow…
Governing Incompetence of the Siloviki
The Russian intelligence service veterans termed “Siloviki” who became self-dealing oligarchs, or “Silovarchs,”1 have all but destroyed the KGB-FSB-SVR-GRU brands with their incompetence. A metaphorical meme for Putin’s war on Ukraine could be Tom Clancy’s “Hunt for the Red October” scene in which the Lithuanian-born (today he could be Ukrainian) Captain Marko Ramius of the…
Might Russia have Hacked, Hijacked, and or Spoofed Ukraine’s S-300 Air Defense?
Purpose: This brief dispatch is to point out a possible, not certain, past reference raising the issue of whether (1) Russian network attack capability and/or (2) cyberattack using backdoors could have had a hand in the errant flight this past week of what evidence so far suggests are two Ukrainian (yet Russian designed and made)…
Utilize Russians Fleeing Draft to Write Russians at Home
There is a mass exodus of Russians avoiding Putin’s war observed by media in and outside of Russia, with up to 700,000 Russian men according to unnamed Russian official sources cited by Forbes, Russia. Reuters has been using the words “tens of thousands.” Russian exiles have native literacy, fluency, and knowledge to write colloquially and credibly…
Target Logic: Shahed-136 Drones
The Russians are aiming Shahed-136 drones at Ukrainian energy nodes, buildings, and other infrastructure items, such as communications. The Shahed-136 suicide drone uses commercially available GPS as a guidance system, making it susceptible to jamming devices. In December 2021, Israel’s Jerusalem Post published a well-informed advance warning of the capabilities of Iran’s Shahed-136 including longer range,…
Appease Putin and Lose Freedom
Putin kindled then started wars against Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine seeking one thing: Imperialist control over two continents. His nationalists have told us so, and Putin has embraced their warmongering extremism and called it patriotism. And Putin has embraced something much deeper than that: Chinese imperial interest and interference in Russia’s fundamental economic survival. That…
Announcement by Russian MOD of Withdrawal from Lyman
Did President Vladimir Putin bless the withdrawal of Russian forces from Lyman? Recent reports claim he had become more involved in tactical decisions before it happened. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it withdrew troops from Lyman, Donetsk, Ukraine after the city was surrounded by Ukrainian Armed Forces, not the Kremlin. If not blessed by Putin,…
Russia in Syria: More Footprint Than Boot
A September 14th, 2022 report of the U.N.’s Commission of Inquiry on Syrian Arab Republic found conditions similar to those that led to the wider Syrian Civil War eleven years ago. Moscow has borrowed heavily on its credited strategic gains in Syria to pay off its deep deficits in its war of aggression against Ukraine…
Update: Turkey
In late August 2022, Haluk Bayraktar, the CEO of Bayraktar drone company Baykar, reportedly pledged that the company would not sell its drones to Russia “no matter how much money we are offered.” This, while expressly continuing to sell them to Kyiv in solidarity with Ukraine. Yet in March, Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Yavuz Selim Kiran…
Turkey playing both sides with decided preference for autocracy
One would think Putin would have yanked S-400 contracts with Turkey, angered by Ankara’s Bayraktar combat drone deals with Kyiv. He has not. Instead, he is pursuing a Bayraktar drone plant in Russia to use the combat drones against Ukraine. If a conflict with NATO broke out Putin would not want S-400’s operational over Turkish…