February 8 — Day 1081a — Diplomatic Churn and Whirl, TV Production, Kursk and Bombardment Revisited
Hi All!
Much Ado on The Peace Front
From Ukraine it looks like the Americans want to sound like they have a coherent peace plan, but they don’t. Certainly, the diplomatic news this week was busy:
- Some US information platforms are reporting there is a split inside the Trump administration with Kellogg and NSC director Mike Waltz wanting to amp up pressure on Russia, and others — maybe SoS Rubio, maybe SecDef Hesgeth (image, assuming FB allows me to post it), maybe that auto guy Elon Musk — are pushing for the US just to wash its hands of the whole peace process.
- Bloomberg reports the US peace plan will be made public at the Munich peace conference next week.
- The next day Kellogg says no it won’t. Two days later he said there really isn’t a hard plan yet, Munich is for discussions. Hesgeth announced he would go as well, so one can assume part of the discussions would be keeping US commitment to an international peacekeeping force low.
- This sort of glosses over the fact that most NATO nations want no part of a peacekeeping force between the Russian and Ukrainian armies, and that energy is even lower if the Americans aren’t playing ball. I have no doubt Hesgeth will tell his European counterparts that it must be done because Trump wants it. We’ll see how that plays out.
- Telegraph, meanwhile, reported the peace plan exists and it will be a disaster for Russia. Supposedly Trump wants all occupied territories evacuated and the Ukrainians somehow to get reparations.
- Several German pubs reported no, actually Russia gets to keep everything, the Ukrainians will give captured Russian territory back to the Russians, the Russians annex everything they’ve taken. No way no how on German participation in a peacekeeping force.
- Russia (Peskov) just said they won’t talk until the US approaches Russia with a plan. Russian mil-bloggers are now speculating Trump will come to Moscow on May 9 (Soviet Union Defeat of Germany Day) hat-in-hand to sign a peace deal with Putin.
- British Foreign Minister David Lammy was in Kyiv, met with Zelensky, and later said that British intelligence is pretty confident the Russians have no desire to negotiate unless Ukraine wants to surrender.
- Trump, who has not talked past generalities about any peace deal, this week told the world that the solution to Gaza was to evict the Gazans and make them live somewhere else. In Ukraine, this was seen as pretty strong evidence Trump doesn’t care much about people and their connection to their country.
- In Ukraine, more widely, this looks like the Americans are particularly serious about Ukrainian peace and security. At least superfically, it looks like the US objective is to negotiations, get a ceasefire terms unimportant, and then bail because they feel Ukraine’s security isn’t America’s problem.
- As an aside, every time a US official has said “stop the killing” in the Ukrainian media there is a new wave of reports about the viciousness and barbarity of Russian attacks. This week it was two young women, aged 18 and 19, one pregnant, killed by a Russian missile strike hitting an apartment building in Poltava.
- The Kremlin is pitching its propaganda that Russia is winning and if Russia is not given terms it likes in a deal, it will just keep on fighting and take what it wants by force.
- The Zelensky administration seems to be taking the public position the Trump administration knows what it is doing and that Trump will do right by Ukraine, and stick it to Russia, because he is a brilliant negotiator.
Do Your Homework, Or, If You Negotiate With Some One Maybe He Has a Track Record
The question of whether Trump might get the best of Putin in a negotiation, or the other way around, is so old I bet graduate students are writing dissertations about it. Maybe Trump’s dazzling sales pitch and room-filling charisma will just out-class his Russian opponent. Maybe Putin’s KGB background will make Trump a Kremlin puppet.
But what may be getting missed, I think, is the not unimportant point that the Ukrainians led by Zelensky are pretty influential players in the negotiating process, not least because man-for-man the most effective fighting force in the Russo-Ukraine War is the UAF.
When it comes to deals with Russians, Trump during his business career attempted more than once to develop business, in Russia, as I read the reports mostly in real estate. There was an attempt to build a Trump tower in Moscow. There was a Trump hotel that was discussed. There was sale of Trump name-brand products.
None of that amounted to much income, but, there was Russian oligarch investment in Trump properties in the states that may or may not have amounted to money laundering. There have been plenty of nasty allegations, but, the bottom line appears to be that the history is, that Trump from about 1996–2015 explored business opportunities in Russia but no deals were struck and no major money was made. All this of course has been thrashed over for years by Trump supporters and opponents.
As it also happens, Donald J. Trump is not the only foreigner in recent history with business ties to Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky starting in about 2010 shifted from an mostly Moscow-based actor/comedian career into television production, and by 2015 he had parlayed his flagship production company, and a comedy show called Kvartal 95, into one of the most successful and profitable programs on Russian television, ever. Widely-watched in those markets like Friends.
For the I’m-In-the-Beltway-I-Don’t-Care crowd, please note, to have done that, Zelensky didn’t just have to be a skilled writer and performer. This is entertainment production, advertising revenue splits, negotiating local market coverage. It’s hiring the right lawyers and knowing when the lawyers are and aren’t delivering.
This is business inside Russia, so besides the standard arcane hoops of the entertainment business elsewhere, this was making sure the right officials had their palms greased or were otherwise motivated not to interfere. It was understanding, exactly, how far 95 Kvartal satire of the Russian government could be pushed to the line before getting kicked off the air. It was, at bottom, understanding the mentality and values of average Russians so well, to be able to produce content, for years, that they found really funny.
I’m not saying who would be more likely the more effective negotiator, Zelensky or Trump. But where Trump came up with nothing, in Moscow business, the record is clear: in that market Zelensky prospered, succeeded and made a lot of money. In terms of what the Russian populace might or might not be willing to accept from a peace negotiation, I am quite sure, Zelensky almost certainly has a better read on that than Putin.
I doubt very, very much the White House negotiating team has ever heard of 95 Kvartal. If they somehow have, I doubt they care. Image of the 95 Kvartal crew from late last century.
Kursk and Koreans and Kill Counts
It really is a side item but there is this stat that came out this week — January 2025 was the second-bloodiest, for Russia, for the entire war. The Wagner mass assaults against Bakhmut back in summer 2023 were the peak, as I understand it.
By and large the reason Russian losses were so high was because the ongoing offensive in Donbas hadn’t stopped and, in January, the Kremlin committed about 11,000 North Korean troops to battle in the Kursk region and about half of them were killed or wounded in a matter of weeks. There has been some back and forth about whether the North Koreans now have been sent home (western expert opinion) or that the North Koreans have been pulled off the line to lick their wounds and rest and refit (Ukrainian military intelligence). I read in the news today Zelensky is saying the North Koreans are attacking again.
The thing is, it’s not at all like once the Russians and North Koreans turned off the heat at the end of January in Kursk region, everything settled down. Actually, this week it was the opposite.
As always, it’s possible the Ukrainians don’t have their act much together and whatever battlefield events we’re seeing where it looks like the Ukrainians are taking the initiative, was just dumb luck.
But, there is always the alternative interpretation, which is that once the steam went out of the Russian offensive, the Ukrainians launched a series of counterattacks and there is more than a little evidence it wasn’t haphazard at all, they had a plan. Me, I’m inclined to the plan interpretation.
Starting on Sunday reports started surfacing of, well, precursors to a Ukrainian ground attacks. HIMARS strikes hit Russian rear areas. Russian mil-bloggers started reporting intensified Ukrainian drone activity. Then a tiny village called Pohrebky, where there had been a lot of back and forth fighting, got probed by the Ukrainians. Nobody thought much of it.
Later on in the evening somehow a Russian official from the Far East named Sergei Yefremov (pictured), vice mayor of the city Ussurisk but in sector to help out a Far Eastern naval infantry (155 Naval Infantry Bde) unit nearby, was driving in his armored car well behind Russian lines, and then died when somehow a land mine turned up in the road.
Then Ukrainian long-range weapons -blasted another naval infantry headquarters (810 Bde+possibly North Koreans). A Russian mil-blogger later calculated the launch was from about 35 km. away, which is far closer to the front line than the Ukrainians like, unless they’re planning to advance. Then there were reports of Ukrainian drones patrolling roads 20 km. behind Russian lines and sometimes attacking automobiles.
Then, on Monday, a Russian drone operator unit army aired images it had damaged a Challenger tank driving down a road in Kursk region (turret hit, probably no KO, image). Everyone knows the Ukrainians don’t ever move their NATO tanks out in the open for fun, and most of us know only 82nd Air Assault Brigade has Challenger tanks, and we have yet to see the 82nd do something really stupid, they’re a strong unit. Then on Tuesday another Russian local HQ got hit.
On Wednesday, the air assault troops command published video showing 21 (!) Russians taken prisoner in Kursk sector, by their accounts very recently. Most were from 155th or 810th Naval Infantry, or from airborne units. Captured prisoners is a classic indicator of a successful surprise attack.
Then, towards Thursday evening, Russian mil-boggers exploded: the Ukrainians were attacking! Near the village Ulyanok, on the east base of the Kursk salient, Ukrainian tanks, armored personnel carriers, drone swarms, proper columns with discernible advance guards and main bodies. Vehicle counts ranged from about 20–50 vehicles and around 350 soldiers. In other words, a one to two battalion-sized attack (Ukrainian battalions), which for the Ukrainians is extremely rare.
Some Russian sources said the Ukrainian got cut up by FPV drones controlled via fiber-optic cables, and then the Russian air force came and blew everything up. Others said the attack had widened and the Ukrainians had captured not just Ulyanok but the villages Cherkasskaya-Konopelka and Fanaseevka. By Saturday morning it was clear the Ukrainians had stopped having grabbed about 30 square km. of Russian territory.
Later reports said Russia’s 11th brigade commander, identified as Pavel Filatyev, was sacked in the wake of the attack. The main units hit reportedly were 40th and 177th Naval Infantry. As noted, it seems elements of two more Naval Infantry brigades, 155th and 810th Naval Infantry, got beat up earlier in the week. The Ukrainians are saying “yes we attacked but for now we’re stopped”. So it looks like a land grab with limited objectives.
There was even some military irony. On Wednesday, the day (by my calculation) Ukrainian special ops teams were crossing the line and setting up this little offensive, Putin went on television and told the Russian public the Russian Naval Infantry was fighting heroically in Kursk region and soon would liberate all Mother Russian territory captured by the evil Ukrainians. Think about how funny that sounded in Joint Forces North HQ. At 82nd and 95th Air Assault, the Ukrainian units that grabbed the Russian marine POWs, Putin’s remarks must have been even funnier.
Anyway, this Kursk mini-offensive to my mind has Syrsky’s personal fingerprints all over it. Pick a sector you can destabilize, send in the drones and follow that with the special ops, concentrate maneuver-capable units, focus firepower in a small sector, grab ground, stop when hitting hard resistance. It appears at least six of the UAF’s best brigades had a piece of this little battle. Besides the two air assault brigades there was 22nd Mech, 36th Marine, 47th Mech and 17th Tank. This fits Syrsky’s pattern of making attacks with units that are more reliable than the norm, and who have a history of aggressiveness.
Another typical feature of a Syrsky operation is after-the-fact delivery of media content telling civilians the UAF is great but actually not offering too much info about actual operations.
On Saturday 82nd Brigade published pictures of their latest Hero of Ukraine recipient, image, this is call sign “Jack”, a member of a reconnaissance element from 2nd Battalion. According to the award write-up while operating behind Russian lines in August he was part of a two-company element operating behind Russian lines that successfully ambushed Russian reinforcements heading towards Ukrainian positions. I have no way of confirming any of that, but at least, it’s pretty clear Ukraine’s military leadership wants people to know about tough soldiers in 82nd Brigade.
The Bombardment Campaign, Continued
Last week I took a bit of a risk and wrote that in my view the Ukrainian bombardment campaign of Russian oil and gas infrastructure had turned a corner and that we were potentially at an inflection event for the entire war, to wit, late January 2025 was the moment Russia lost control of its airspace and the effectively unchecked destruction of west Russia’s energy industry by Ukrainian drones had begun.
I qualified that with “assuming the Ukrainians can make enough drones to keep it up”. Unsurprisingly, the line about inflection points seemed to please more than a few people and got forwarded, while the qualification, not quite as much.
Fast forward a week, and from the operational point of view yes it’s continuing but as before this is a complex bombardment campaign mixing military targets and infrastructure targets. It still looks like the Ukrainians have more targets then they have drones.
Of this week’s strikes probably the most interesting was a drone attack that hit an air base in Russia’s Krasnodar region, it looks like stationary objects like aircraft weapons and fuel storage were targeted. There was a clear spike of US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft activity in the days and hours before the strike. It doesn’t look like a coincidence and the Russians seem not to think so, but it’s hard to say what the US intention was here, if anything.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/46699
But overall one can’t say the week saw relentless leveling of more targets deep in Russia, rather, it was the standard pattern of drones crossing the line daily probably to recon Russian air defenses, and then every two days, roughly, a strike got through and set something on fire, and after a day or two the Russians put the fire out.
Saturday morning, today, was pretty typical. Ukrainian drones flew into air space all over south-west Russia and strikes seem to have hit three places, in each case a piece of energy infrastructure. Early reports said that among other things hit was a gas pumping station run by a company called Alabashneft’ in Krasnodar region. Big fire, image. The Andrushchenko channel published a nice map about where all the Ukrainian drones flew last night/this morning, attached.
The main thing is, we are watching the Ukrainians slowly degrade Russia’s ability to produce oil and other petroleum products, and it’s a pretty sophisticated bombardment campaign that doesn’t always go for the big explosions, at times they seem to target bottlenecks, like the Alabashneft’ station. There is no way all of NATO, even including the Americans which is always a question, could stop these type of attacks — too much air space to protect, too hard to keep the Ukrainians from finding routes through gaps to bottlenecks. Of course the Russians are repairing damage, but fixing energy infrastructure is harder than repairing an apartment building, and as long as something is off-line for Russian oil export earnings it’s the same financially as destroyed. So right now it’s a race.
continued…
Thoroughly enjoyed your realistic assessment of the building froth over the “peace plan”, or whatever the description for the results of upcoming diplomatic efforts might deserve. Trump is certainly clueless - with no capacity for considering right vs wrong or just vs unjust. His motivation is not capable of going beyond “what’s in it for me”. Kellogg may be honorable, intelligent and determined with good intentions (jury still out), but is destined to run into a stream of “absolutely non-negotiable” demands, smashing into “absolutely unacceptable” refusals. If the product of “negotiations” is something Russia will accept, then it will almost certainly be somewhere between suspect and disaster. I’d put my money on deep strike drones till a Russian collapse; either military, economic or, preferably, both.
Great reporting and analysis!