Russia invades Ukraine

[Ediswan]

If you ignore the slight changes of status regarding France, you have the arguable case of Russia succeeding the USSR in 1991. However, in 1971 the People’s Republic of China’s replaced the Republic of China, the latter being Taiwan. The other seats are only held for two years at a time. (More on Wikipedia under United Nations Security Council.)

Please say more regarding France.

 

[yorksrob]

I think it's more that France stays the same, even though the Republics change (they're on the fifth I believe).

 

[Gloster]

Please say more regarding France.

The Wikipedia article I mentioned will explain it better than I can, unless I copied it out, which would take ages as I would have to go backwards and forwards between this page and Wikipedia. (I can only have one page on the screen at a time.)

 

[Ediswan]

I think it's more that France stays the same, even though the Republics change (they're on the fifth I believe).

Got it.

 

[brad465]

Lavrov going on a tour around Africa seeking allies, suggesting sanctions are having an impact:

Ukraine war: Russia denies causing global food crisis

Its foreign minister, who is in Egypt, says the West is distorting the truth as the Ukraine war rages.

www.bbc.co.uk

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has begun a tour of African countries in Egypt, as he seeks to rally support amid anger over the Ukraine war.
He blamed the West for encouraging Ukraine to fight Russia "to the bitter end".
Mr Lavrov held talks in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry.
Egypt has significant ties with Russia, which supplies wheat, weapons and - until the invasion of Ukraine began - large numbers of tourists.
After his talks with Mr Shoukry, Mr Lavrov told a joint news conference that the West was prolonging the conflict even though it understood "what and whose end it will be".
"We are in no way prejudiced against resuming negotiations on a wider range of issues, but this does not depend on us, because the Ukrainian authorities - starting from the president and down to his numerous, countless advisers - repeatedly say that there will be no talks until Ukraine defeats Russia on the battlefield," he said.
"In this, the Ukrainians are being actively encouraged by their Western handlers, be it London, Washington, Berlin or any other European Union and Nato capital. So the choice is theirs."
It is the first stage for Mr Lavrov of a brief tour of Africa taking in Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo-Brazzaville.
In an article published by local newspapers in the run-up to his tour, Mr Lavrov said his country had always "sincerely supported Africans in their struggle for freedom from the colonial yoke".
He added that Russia appreciated Africans' "balanced position" on the issue of Ukraine.

Many African nations are badly affected by grain shortages caused by Russia's war in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia usually supply more than 40% of Africa's wheat, the African Development Bank says.
Egypt is normally a big consumer of Ukrainian wheat. In 2019, it imported 3.62 million tonnes of it, more than any country.
But in his article, Mr Lavrov rejected the accusation that Russia was "exporting famine" and blamed it on Western propaganda.
He added that Western sanctions imposed on Russia had exacerbated "negative tendencies" in the international food market that stemmed from the coronavirus pandemic.

 

[najaB]

Lavrov going on a tour around Africa seeking allies, suggesting sanctions are having an impact:

Ukraine war: Russia denies causing global food crisis

Its foreign minister, who is in Egypt, says the West is distorting the truth as the Ukraine war rages.

www.bbc.co.uk

I'm amazed by the line that Lavrov is taking: "It's Ukraine's fault the war is going on so long, they won't give up."

Sounds like he has just found the solution to war: just think how short WW2 could have been if the UK had just given up during the Battle of Britain!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm amazed by the line that Lavrov is taking: "It's Ukraine's fault the war is going on so long, they won't give up."

Sounds like he has just found the solution to war: just think how short WW2 could have been if the UK had just given up during the Battle of Britain!

Indeed. And also, according to Lavrov's logic, how short it would've been if America hadn't supplied us with raw materials etc. to help keep us going while we were fighting the Nazis.

 

[dgl]

And naturally if he does get any takers in Africa they are going to want some very good deals, and I doubt many will want to do deals with Russia.
Russia is stuffed whatever happens, giving countries cut price commodities is not a way of saving your failing economy.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Lavrov going on a tour around Africa seeking allies, suggesting sanctions are having an impact:

I would be hesitant before laughing at Lavrov here. Putin has a lot of sympathisers in Africa, and you often see Africans on social media taking the Russian side. I've already read online that they're accusing Poland of 'stealing our wheat' (because Poland can't export enough of it from Ukraine), and they also remember how the Soviet Union was staunchly anti-colonialism.

It's very conceivable that a desperate Russia will sign deals with willing African countries, although you have to wonder what Africa can even offer Russia beyond buying very cheap energy. But still, let's not rule out the possibility of even formal military alliances between Russia and some African countries.

Anyway, it's clear that Ukraine is up to something in Kherson. Zelensky has said straight out that they're moving towards Kherson, and if the Antonovskiy bridge is badly damaged, Russia will be forced into using the hydroelectric plant bridge in Nova Kakhovka. That means using a very exposed, open road through Tyahynka, where they'll be easily within reach.

 

[najaB]

It's very conceivable that a desperate Russia will sign deals with willing African countries, although you have to wonder what Africa can even offer Russia beyond buying very cheap energy.

Votes in the UN, for one thing.

 

[Roast Veg]

There are several developing economies to watch in Africa - Nigeria is likely to be a big figure in the world stage in the next couple of decades, and Egypt isn't doing too badly either.

 

[TheEdge]

Votes in the UN, for one thing.

Which is the one thing Russia doesn't need as they have a veto.

 

[Roast Veg]

Which is the one thing Russia doesn't need as they have a veto.

Only on the security council.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Votes in the UN, for one thing.

Good point. If Russia and China carve up Africa between them, things could get very interesting in the UN.

Having said that, I don't think Russia is as anywhere near as clever as the Chinese are. They'll go charging in with cheap oil, but they won't build utterly expensive and useless shiny new investments that are guaranteed by the state.

 

[brad465]

Good point. If Russia and China carve up Africa between them, things could get very interesting in the UN.

Having said that, I don't think Russia is as anywhere near as clever as the Chinese are. They'll go charging in with cheap oil, but they won't build utterly expensive and useless shiny new investments that are guaranteed by the state.

China has been cleverly gaining African influence for years through its Belt and Road initiative, which arguably is a form of neo-colonialism. This is why the G7 recently pledged funding for a counter-project, though how successful it will be remains to be seen. There was also news yesterday that China has paused BRI spending in Russia, believed to be fearing sanctions if it deals too much with Russia right now.

There was also a belief that the overall response to Covid, combined with the lack of WHO success in investigating Covid's origins in China, came about in part due to the current WHO head being from Ethiopia, and as the country is in debt to China, they could well have influence in stopping the WHO investigating properly, and maybe also even stopping the WHO questioning their police-state style response that most of the world ended up adopting.

 

[REVUpminster]

Indeed. And also, according to Lavrov's logic, how short it would've been if America hadn't supplied us with raw materials etc. to help keep us going while we were fighting the Nazis.

And to Russia via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_convoys_of_World_War_II

 

[DustyBin]

I came across this article earlier. Note the date it was published. I found it quite interesting, and other than overestimating Russia's military capability and underestimating that of Ukraine, it's not far off predicting how things would play out.

A Ukraine War and the End of Russia - Zeihan on Geopolitics

Demographics are at the core of what we do here at Zeihan on Geopolitics. More than just a count of population, demographic data--often expressed as a pyramid-shaped graph--can deliver a wealth of information about a society.

zeihan.com

All anyone can talk about in Europe these days is Russia. Russia is constricting natural gas flows to Europe in order to drive energy prices higher and extract geopolitical concessions. Russia is using irregular state tools — think cyber — to manipulate European politics and exacerbate the COVID epidemic by planting misinformation about vaccines. Russia is threatening war in Ukraine, up to moving over one hundred thousand troops to the Ukrainian border region, and tapping the global mercenary community to recruit thousands of fighters to throw at Kiev. Russia is demanding the right to fundamentally rewrite the security policies of not only Ukraine, but Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Turkey and Germany in exchange for a de-escalation in Ukraine.

I’m down on paper and video saying that Russia’s impending doom (more on that in a minute) will force it to take a more aggressive security posture, specifically on Ukraine. Today much of Russia’s border regions are indefensible. There are few geographic barriers to block potential invasion, forcing the Russians with their dwindling numbers to attempt to defend massive stretches of territory. What barriers the Russians do have — Crimea and the Caucasus come to mind — are only because of the sort of strategic adventurism that Putin is now threatening to Ukraine as a whole. There is a method to the madness. To paraphrase Catherine the Great, Russia can expand, or Russia can die.

But a few things have changed since I laid out my position in The Accidental Superpower back in 2014 and sketched out the general outlines of the hypothetical Twilight War in The Absent Superpower in 2017.

First big change: Ukrainian politics and identity.

Back in the 2000s, Ukraine could be very charitably called “messy.” It was an oligarch playground, sharply divided into three competing regions. The biggest region in the east was populated by either Ukrainians who spoke Russian as their first language, or actual Russians who due to the quirks of history happened to live on the Ukrainian side of the dotted line on the map. Ukraine has always been home to the greatest concentration and number of ethnic Russians outside of Russia’s borders. And these groups — both the ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking Ukrainians — were unapologetically pro-Moscow.

It was the mix of this pro-Russian sentiment with the Kremlin’s view that large-scale political violence is often useful, that set us onto the path to where we are today. In early 2014 then-Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych — one of those pro-Russian Ukrainians — dealt with pro-Western “Euromaidan” protesters by using Ukrainian special forces to shoot up a couple thousand people. He was driven out of office and ultimately out of country and now he is living in exile in, you guessed it, Russia.

Yanukovych’s actions against his own people — actions publicly supported by none other than Vladimir Putin — started Ukraine down the road to something I had once dismissed out of hand: political consolidation and the formation of a strong Ukrainian identity. Putin didn’t — hasn’t — figured that out. Later Russian actions — starving the Ukrainians of fuel, annexing Crimea, invading the southeastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas War — only deepened the Ukrainian political consolidation that Yanukovych inadvertently started.

Far from capitalizing on strong and legitimate pro-Russian sentiment, Russia’s policies towards Ukraine these past seven years have turned even the most pro-Moscow Russian citizens of Ukraine into Ukrainian nationalists.

In 2010, Ukraine was not a country. It was simply a buffer territory between Russia and the European Union with no real identity, and it would have been ridiculous to admit such a non-entity into either the EU or NATO. Today Ukraine is a country, and the idea of EU or NATO membership isn’t nearly so crazy. And that evolution is all because of Putin’s ongoing miscalculations.

Second big point: military reality.

Back in 2014 when the Russians launched the Donbas War, Putin boasted that should he choose, Russian forces could easily invade Ukraine. He noted Russian troops could be in Kiev in under a month.

It may have been a brag, but it most definitely was neither a bluff nor an exaggeration. The Russian military may be a pale shadow of its Soviet forebearer, but it is far better than the war machine which ground to humiliation in Chechnya in the 1990s. Ukraine’s military in comparison? Phbbbbt. Wracked by corruption, enervated by a lack of motivation, armed with nothing more than the pre-1992 equipment that the Russians chose to leave behind when the Soviet Union fell? There’s a reason Yanukovych used the special forces to suppress the Euromaidan protestors. The military wasn’t even up to that job. Fighting a hundred thousand or so Russian troops? That’s funny.

Since 2014, some things have gotten better. Western assistance has helped professionalize the forces. The Russian invasion has charged Ukrainian commanders some high tuition at the school of Real-Life War. Strengthening national identity has improved force cohesion. But the biggest shift is in weaponry.

Arming a country the size of Ukraine with sufficient military equipment to fight the Russians solider-to-solider would be a Heraclean effort. So that’s not what the United States has done. The Americans have provided the Ukrainians with Javelin anti-tank missiles. Javelins are man-portable and shoulder-launched, weighing in at under 50 pounds. They shoot high and plunge down, striking tanks on the top where armor is weakest. And above all, they are sooooo eeeasy to operate. If you can make it to level 3 on Candy Crush, you can use a Javelin.

Considering any drive to Kiev will be a tank operation, giving Javelins to the Ukrainians is like giving water to firefighters. It’s the perfect tool for the job. The Javelins made their wartime debut on the front lines in Donbas only in November 2021…about when the Kremlin started getting all screechy and demanding wholesale changes to European security alignments. Coincidence? I think not.

Now don’t get carried away. I’ve little doubt that Javelins would be enough should the Russians get truly serious. Any Russian invasion force would massively outnumber and outgun the defenders. But that’s not the point. Unlike in the 2000s or in the Donbas War, the Ukrainians can now slip a knife through the chinks in the Russians’ armor and make them bleed. A lot. And unlike in the 2000s, the Ukrainians now have a national identity to rally around and fight for. The Ukrainians now have the means and motive. It’s up to the Russians to decide if they’d like to provide the opportunity.

If war comes, the Russians could still reach Kiev. But it would likely take three months instead of one. The Russians could still conquer all of Ukraine. But it would likely take over year rather than less than three months. The toll on the invaders would be high and most of all the war would only be the beginning. After “victory” the Russians would have to occupy a country of 45 million people.

Which brings us to the final bit of this story: demographics.

Russia’s had a rough time of…everything. The purges of Lenin and Stalin. The World Wars. The post-Soviet collapse. Horrific mismanagement under Khrushchev and Brezhnev and Yeltsin. Sometimes in endless waves, sometimes in searing moments, the Russian birthrate has taken hit after hit after hit to the point that the Russian ethnicity itself is no longer in danger of dying out, it is dying out. And for this particular moment in time, there just aren’t many teens today to fill out the ranks of the Russian military tomorrow.

The implications of that fact are legion.

Least importantly, if somewhat amusingly, is the Russians are now flat-out falsifying their demographic data so the situation does not look so…doomed. Check out the bottom two age categories in the above graphic; the section for children 10 and under. A few years ago the Russians started inflating this data. Best guess is there are probably one-quarter to one-third fewer children in Russian than this data suggests. That’s roughly a four million child exaggeration.

Most importantly are the implications for a potential Russian-Ukrainian War. Any Russian solider lost anywhere cannot be replaced. If Putin commits to an invasion of Ukraine, Russia will win. But the cost will not be minor. The war and occupation will be expensive and bloody and most importantly for the world writ large, it will expend what’s left of the Russian youth.

Will Putin order an attack? Dunno. There was a demographic and strategic moment a few years ago when the Russians could have conquered Ukraine easily. That moment is gone and will not return. But the strategic argument that a Russia that cannot consolidate its borders is one that dies faster remains.

Perhaps the biggest change in recent years is this: the United States now has an interest in a Russian assault because it would be Russia’s last war.

Demographics have told us for 30 years that the United States will not only outlive Russia, but do so easily. The question has always been how to manage Russia’s decline with an eye towards avoiding gross destruction. A Russian-Ukrainian war would keep the bulk of the Russian army bottled up in an occupation that would be equal parts desperate and narcissistic and protracted until such time that Russia’s terminal demography transforms that army into a powerless husk. And all that would transpire on a patch of territory in which the United States has minimal strategic interests.

That’s rough for the Ukrainians, but from the American point of view, it is difficult to imagine a better, more thorough, and above all safer way for Russia to commit suicide.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Another random idea that occurred to me: Noting that they have damaged the bridge, but not destroyed it, I wonder if the aim is to make it impossible for heavy armoured Russian reinforcements to use the bridge, while leaving enough of it standing that the Russians in Kherson could still use it as an escape route (minus their heavy/armoured vehicles)? That would be on the theory that, if the Russians there know they can flee, that might avoid a bloodbath if/when the Ukrainians retake the city.

Much as I hate to blow my own trumpet (OK, I'm lying. Who doesn't like blowing their own trumpet occasionally ) it seems I may have been onto something about the Antonovsky Bridge. According to the Telegraph today (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/27/retreat-kherson-annihilated-ukraine-warns-russia/)

The 1000-metre-long bridge, which Russian forces rely on to resupply the occupied city, has been left “completely unusable”, according to a Western official.

That will make it much harder for Moscow to move heavy armour into Kherson - or take its troops out in personnel carriers.

“Ukraine’s Kherson counteroffensive is now gathering pace,” the official added. “As with so many wars, one central part of the campaign is boiling down to a race to seize and destroy bridges.”

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry warned “Russian occupiers in Kherson” to “retreat or be annihilated” in a post on Twitter, adding “the choice is theirs”.

“Occupiers should learn how to swim across the Dnipro River,” Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on Twitter.

“Or (they) should leave Kherson while it is still possible. There may not be a third warning.”

The Ukrainians are telling the Russians in Kherson to retreat, but as far as I can make out, unless the Russians cross the damaged bridge, there's nowhere they can retreat to! I would also assume that 'completely unusuable' means, unusable to vehicles: You could still very carefully walk across it, but you couldn't drive anything across it.

 

[TheEdge]

The Ukrainians are telling the Russians in Kherson to retreat, but as far as I can make out, unless the Russians cross the damaged bridge, there's nowhere they can retreat to! I would also assume that 'completely unusuable' means, unusable to vehicles: You could still very carefully walk across it, but you couldn't drive anything across it.

So nice of Russia to donate all those T-90s to the Ukrainians to fight the Russians with...

 

[Cloud Strife]

The Ukrainians are telling the Russians in Kherson to retreat, but as far as I can make out, unless the Russians cross the damaged bridge, there's nowhere they can retreat to! I would also assume that 'completely unusuable' means, unusable to vehicles: You could still very carefully walk across it, but you couldn't drive anything across it.

There is still the railway bridge to the east, which Ukraine will need to take out in order to ensure that the Russians can't cross in Kherson.

Completely unusable appears to be exactly that: the bridge is impassable, but you can walk across it. It's probably a deliberate policy of the Ukrainian side, because it means that the Russians have the choice of either retreating across the bridge and risking being blown to pieces, or they can expose themselves on small boats.

IMO, Ukraine doesn't attack until all the three bridges are out of use.

 

[najaB]

There is still the railway bridge to the east, which Ukraine will need to take out in order to ensure that the Russians can't cross in Kherson.

It would probably be enough to target the railway either side of it. It appears to be quite a substantial viaduct on the southern side of the river, so targeting that would deny the Russians use of the bridge for resupply while making the job of bringing it back into use after the war a lot easier and faster.

 

[Trackman]

The well known YouTuber ‘Bald and Bankrupt’ has also travelled there. As excellent as he is, I find he is a bit of an idiot sometimes. I really don’t agree with some of his recent posts on Instagram either.

I know it's been months since this post; but about B&B, but I'm becoming wary and alarm bells are ringing with certain things.
His latest you-tube video (and I think one of the best) is totally amazing connected to the arrest - I'll post it below.

To keep OT- Putin says hypersonic missiles he will be deploying next month to the navy etc.., will they make any difference?

 

[the sniper]

I know it's been months since this post; but about B&B, but I'm becoming wary and alarm bells are ringing with certain things.
His latest you-tube video (and I think one of the best) is totally amazing connected to the arrest - I'll post it below.

I'm always a little dubious about him but enjoy his travels. This episode really did have has some incredible 'peak B&B' moments though!

To try and be somewhat on topic again, in a recent video on his other channel, he tried to re-enter Ukraine by train recently, but they wouldn't let him in due to the Russian visa in his passport.

 

[gingerheid]

I'm always a little dubious about him but enjoy his travels. This episode really did have has some incredible 'peak B&B' moments though!

To try and be somewhat on topic again, in a recent video on his other channel, he tried to re-enter Ukraine by train recently, but they wouldn't let him in due to the Russian visa in his passport.

He's certainly an idiot, and he demonstrated that with his efforts to speak Russian in Estonia (English would have been more useful)!

He also uploaded a video in which he stated that the Russian embassy (for no clear reason) arranged hospital treatment for him when he was ill in Serbia, which was slightly odd and makes him look like a little bit of a Russian asset! I wouldn't have let him into Ukraine just at the moment myself.

 

[Yew]

Putin says hypersonic missiles he will be deploying next month to the navy etc.., will they make any difference?

The main reason that those missiles were designed was to attack US Aircraft Carriers. I'm sure that they can pass through Ukrainian air defences, but I'm struggling to think of many targets that the Ukrainians have that are as valuable as an American Flattop.

For example, it'd be a very expensive way to hunt MLRS systems.

 

[TheEdge]

He also uploaded a video in which he stated that the Russian embassy (for no clear reason) arranged hospital treatment for him when he was ill in Serbia, which was slightly odd and makes him look like a little bit of a Russian asset! I wouldn't have let him into Ukraine just at the moment myself.

His version of events after being picked up at Baikonur also raise eyebrows a bit. I know in the past the a few state owned media companies have said how wonderful his portrayal of Russia is and the claim he was picked up and given a stern telling off then being let go does make you wonder quite what is in the background.

He's certainly an idiot, and he demonstrated that with his efforts to speak Russian in Estonia (English would have been more useful)!

I'm constantly surprised he doesn't get more issues with going on about "wonderful Soviet x", especially in ex-SSRs. It seems a bit tone deaf.

The main reason that those missiles were designed was to attack US Aircraft Carriers. I'm sure that they can pass through Ukrainian air defences, but I'm struggling to think of many targets that the Ukrainians have that are as valuable as an American Flattop.

For example, it'd be a very expensive way to hunt MLRS systems.

They are also anti-ship as you say so not really the right tool for the job. Not that thats stopped the Russians before.

 

[alex397]

He also uploaded a video in which he stated that the Russian embassy (for no clear reason) arranged hospital treatment for him when he was ill in Serbia, which was slightly odd and makes him look like a little bit of a Russian asset! I wouldn't have let him into Ukraine just at the moment myself.

Yes that was rather odd. Although perhaps the Russian government recognised the positive impact his videos have been about Russia. Not about the Russian government, but more the people. Especially videos where he has visited rural Russia, and people there generally have been very welcoming.

 

[DustyBin]

They are also anti-ship as you say so not really the right tool for the job. Not that thats stopped the Russians before.

Very True. Could they be deploying them simply because they haven’t got much else left?

Or is it all just propaganda?

 

[Gloster]

According to an item on my news feed and sourced from Reuters, a ferry has been established using two pontoons. There is a video with it that has the bridge in the background and civilians using the ferry, but it originates from RIA Novosti (as may the information) and so may be open to a bit of scepticism.

 

[najaB]

According to an item on my news feed and sourced from Reuters, a ferry has been established using two pontoons.

I've seen similar. Not sure I'd want to be using that in the middle of a pitched battle though!