Feb 1 - Day 1073b - continued
Foreign Stuff for Ukraine
This all really was linked to January being the month of the year, but just last week the news told us:
- Netherlands promises Eur 400 million, for long-range drones, artillery shells, air defence and air defense missiles. Also 26 Ukrainian F-16 maintenance crew chiefs are finishing up Dutch training.
- Sweden announces its largest military aid package to Ukraine to date, valued at SEK 13.5 billion ($1.2 billion). Key features are 16 CB 90 combat boats, and investment in arms manufacturing in Ukraine.
- Finland announces its 27th package of defense assistance, worth €198 million, to Ukraine.
- The Czech Republic announces round two of “Let’s crowd-fund hundreds of thousands of artillery shells for the UAF”, and also — of course we still have to see it — plans to increase 155mm shell production inside Ukraine.
None of that, as nearly as I can tell, reached the US mainstream. So, beating the dead horse, q.v.
But the outside assistance development this week I’d like to highlight is this: According to BBC Britain wil restart its “Homes for Ukraine” program (source: BBC) thereby once again allowing Ukrainian war refugees to live and work in the UK for the duration. Right now there are about 190,000 Ukrainian refugees in Blighty all mightily impressed with local queing culture and griping about the weather.
Against the background of the US’ present energetic prosecution of immigrants and attempts to change the Constitution to make it harder for a person born in the US to become an American, the British move to take aboard more Ukrainians is hard to see in any other way than a moral decision and a government that decided to do the right thing.
Britain also is no slacker when it comes to helping the Ukrainians with weapons and some other things I’m not allowed to talk about, but average people are more important. Immigration policy in the UK is politically-sensitive. So clearly worth a patriotic Bulldog image. It may be a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but right now the British have opened their doors to Ukrainians in need, and the British should be proud of themselves.
The “V” at the end of the “Q”
OK, that was a partial (phew!) overview of some of the news this week, and to re-iterate, the point I’m trying to make is that none of it was obscure. Overall, the picture from inside Ukraine is, “War continuing, destruction continuing, Russia is getting hit and that’s good news. But it’s not like either side is exhausted or interested in making concessions to get the fighting stopped.” Fair enough?
Well, on Thursday the newly-anointed US Secretary of State, Marc Rubio, had a chat with the pro-Trump former Fox reporter Megyn Kelly (image). Among other things they discussed Ukraine, and this, leading off with agreement that Ukraine is defeated, is what went out to Ms. Kelly’s 3 million+ blog followers prior to forwarding:
Kelly: “They’ve (the Ukrainians) lost. We just have to be realistic about the fact that Ukraine has lost. It’s not going to gain back any of this ground. And we need a negotiated settlement now. Before we keep throwing good money after bad. And we can’t afford it. We’ve got Americans who are suffering now. I think that’s the majority view, even on the Republican side.”
Rubio: “It also happens to be the reality on the ground. First let me say this. We think that what Putin did was terrible. Invading a country, the atrocities he’s committed. He did horrible things. But, what, the dishonesty that has existed is that we somehow led people to believe that Ukraine would be able not just to defeat Russia, but destroy ’em. Push them all the way back to what the world looked like in 2012. Or 2014 before the Russians took Crimea and the like. And the result, what they have been asking for the last year and a half, is to fund a stalemate. A protracted stalemate. In which human suffering continues. Meanwhile, Ukraine is being set back 100 years. Their energy grid is being wiped out. Someone’s going to have to pay for all this reconstruction after the fact. Many Ukrainian have left Ukraine and are living in other countries now. They may never return. And that’s their future and it’s in danger in that regard…at the end of the day, he’s got, if you imagine you are a Ukrainian and the Russians have made you suffer so much, and now you’re going to let them keep land? People will be upset about that in Ukraine and you would understand it…there’s going to have to be a lot of hard work done. And I think only the United States under the leadership of President Trump can make that possible.”
It would have been useful, I think, had Kelly asked Rubio: “OK, but what about all the Russian oil refineries Ukraine is burning? Or the Rylsk strike? Or all the European aid the Ukrainians are getting? Or all the dead North Koreans? Or about Ukrainian soldiers like Naya Bila? Ukraine has lost? Really?”
Kelly might also have observed Rubio’s predecessors in the Secretary of State job generally never characterized a sovereign democratic state defending itelf from an unprovoked military invasion by a dictator “a stalemate” the attacked country was begging America to fund. Previous secretaries of State pretty much always called that “America supporting Democracy and Freedom”. France, Britain, South Korea, West Germany, Taiwan. Never mind failed attempts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc. Did the basic American values of Democracy and Freedom suddenly become obsolete?”
(It wouldn’t be fair to expect Kelly to ask Rubio about how furious all of Odessa would be at Vladimir Putin for ordering ballistic missiles fired at the Bristol Hotel, but hopefully I make my point)
Kelly certainly could have questioned Rubio’s line about Ukraine being “set back 100 years”. A hundred years ago the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians were illiterate, as a practical matter indoor plumbing didn’t exist, rule of law was at the point of the gun, and plague, famine and Civil War had gutted the population.
Modern Ukraine is a country a good deal more digitized than some western states, they make excellent coffee, education is universal, they produce high-tech weapons, the courts generally function, you get in trouble if you park illegally, and buildings the Russians blow up, once shooting stops in a place, get fixed in a year or less, usually. Kelly might have asked Rubio on why he was describing an Armageddon that isn’t actually happening, or where this failed state Ukraine he was talking about was located.
Instead, Kelly went on to inform viewers it would be an excellent idea if they diverted portions of their retirement funds or personal savings from conventional instruments to a company called the Birch Gold Group, because in times of strife putting one’s holdings in gold, she advised, is wise. Ms. Kelly did not say if the information she delivered regarding Birch Gold Group was news, a personal opinion or an advertisement she had been paid to make.
Then, on Friday evening, Kevin Kellogg, Trump’s special negotiator on Ukraine, said that the 100-days-to-peace objective he announced last week still stands, and that his and his boss’s intent is to get an initial agreement “in the short term”, with a final peace deal in “months not years”.
Kellogg told the world, via Fox News, and again I quote: “He (President Trump) knows exactly what he is doing, he knows where to apply pressure, where not to apply pressure, but more importantly, he will create leverage both with the Ukrainians and the Russians. An you can read between the lines on that, is how in fact you create leverage. He’s a great deal-maker, he knows that. He knows how to apply leverage.”
When a government spokesman tells me to “read between the lines”, as a working reporter, I know that about 99 percent of the time that is a government employee trying to make the import of his statement seem weightier than it actually is. If the Trump administration knew, or even thought they know how to put effective pressure on Kyiv and Moscow, they would at least threaten it openly. Look at the tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico. But here Kellogg is effectively asking us viewers to have faith in a secret plan and magic deal-making skills.
Any moron setting foot in a Ukrainian bazaar knows that among the most stupid negotiating tactics to adopt when you’re hunting for a nice, big, juicy piece of pork at a good price for you, is to walk up to the butcher man and say “I really am in a hurry, you must believe I have lots of ways to influence your decisions about pricing, let’s make a deal on these terms that I will dictate to you.”
You don’t have to be Henry Kissinger to predict both the Ukrainians and the Russians will leverage the Trump administration’s pretense/need of a quick deal and that that leverage will be ruthless.
Kellogg probably knows better, but if he does, this is also what a DC professional submitting to the political ideology of the moment looks like. The guy fought in Vietnam, he is in his 80s, he is a Lieutenant General, yet he’s telling millions of voters he actually buys this claptrap? Richard Nixon said a Silent Majority of Americans wanted to stay the course in Vietnam, that American resolve to fight was superior to Vietnamese will to kick the foreigners out of their country. Kellogg was there. He saw how that turned out.
As an aside, compared with this level of foreign policy bumbling, the Biden administration stance on the war — “Support Ukraine as long as it takes, no deals without Ukraine, promise no peace deal deadlines because that gives the Russians negotiating leverage, sacrifice a lot to keep chances of nuclear escalation low” — looks really smart. And there was a lot that was bad about Biden administration policy on Ukraine and I certainly was among those pointing it out.
But the currently oafish Republican leadership and their foreign policy makes, in comparison, Biden and Kirby look like the reincarnation of Bismarck, Metternich and Talleyrand. Since Otto v. keeps showing up in these reviews I’ve attached in image of Talleyrand manipulating the Heavies and doing Concert of Europe stuff.
