May 17, Day 1177b — continued
Explosions also were reported all along the resort coast — it’s still a little early for the big summer tourist waves — in and above Yalta, Alupka and Sevastopol. Social media reports make clear some of that was air defense weapons shooting at, well, something. Some of it was pretty close in, there was a Pantsir system by Sevastopol that launched a couple of missiles. There also were launches reported from Belbek and Kacha airfields.
The final interesting development on the bombardment war front, this week, was one that didn’t happen. Some of you may recall from last report that the Russians had announced they would make a major missile launch from the Kapustin Yar facility, which was a possible indicator the Russians would launch one of those super-scary Oreshnik hypersonic-it-could-be-nuclear ICBM missiles. The Ukrainians have nothing to stop it. The point to such announcements is to let the Americans know the Russians with the launch aren’t starting WW3, and also, to intimidate anyone who wants to be intimidated by Russian ICBMs. The launch window was May 12–13.
Which opened and closed and nothing happened. Nothing. The logical assumption is the Russians tried to launch the missile — it could have been a space shot, a satellite, not necessarily against Ukraine, but possibly could have been — and the missile didn’t work. According to Ukrainian intelligence that’s happened before.
So, at this point, I can’t tell you why all the western embassies put out a missile warning for May 12–13, and zip. If you ask Russian state media, I would expect the spin would be “Putin chose to support the peace process.”
FRIDAY EVENING ADDITION: Missile/drone warnings going out across Crimea.
SATURDAY MORNING ADDITION: FIRMS spots big fires burning at Kushchevskaya military airfield, Krasnodar Krai. It’s a fighter base. The SBU hit it last in May 2024.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON ADDITION: A USAF Global Hawk flies into air space over the western Black Sea, this is the first time in about nine months by my count (based on open sources). It seems to be flying a track off shore Romania with its sensors pointed at Crimea.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON ADDITION: Turkish maritime recon plane patrols north of Turkish Black Sea shore/south of Crimea. This is a pretty frequent flight.
SATURDAY EVENING ADDITION: An almost-unprecedented deep mission by a USN Poseidon is over the eastern Black Sea, flying roughly the same route as the Canadian spy plane on Friday. I know of one time a Poseidon flew this route since at least the start of the war, in mid-May. Someone somewhere in the US military command structure has decided to take some risks and a Navy Poseidon crew are the guys to do it.
Taken together, this is an unprecedented level of US air reconnaissance activity over the Black Sea. Like, for more than a year, and in some ways, for the entire war.
There has never, repeat, never been a Poseidon on deep patrol, and Global Hawk on close patrol, at the same time over the Black Sea. With one exceptions over better than the past three years, where the Poseidon maritime reconnaissance plane is flying on Saturday, the US Navy has never risked one before.
Either the Americans are posturing, or something is up.
“Something” could be US Europe command deciding on its own more data about Russian defenses in the Black Sea littoral are needed, a decision to train harder, or more intense data collection in support of a Ukrainian strike. This is not normal recon activity.
Ukraine in NATO? Everyone Knows That Isn’t Happening. Right?
Everyone agrees Ukraine won’t join NATO. Even Kyiv is saying it. This is because the Trump-led Americans don’t want more conflict with Russia via NATO, and also, because as long as Trump is in power, who really believes the US would keep its word and honor the NATO Article 5 and go to war with Russia, if Russia invaded (say) Finland or Estonia? The US commitment to NATO right now isn’t credible. So the issue of Ukraine “in” or “out” of NATO is pretty academic. What’s really important is non-US European capacity to fight Russia. First and foremost, I would say, that’s foremost production capacity in Germany, Scandinavia and the Low Countries, and the size of the Polish and French armies, which is really the only big field armies in Europe right now.
Which is why, this Wednesday, even though Ukraine definitely isn’t joining NATO, the commander of Ukraine’s army general Oleksandr Syrsky took part, via zoom video and some big screen tech (image) in a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council. It was a chat among national military commanders-in-chief or their reps, and my understanding is that included the Americans.
Syrsky gave a presentation on the war situation, thanked NATO for past help, and estimated the Russian army in Ukraine at 640,000 men. He said Ukraine is winning the attrition battle but still needs weapons, equipment, training and logistics. Then he said Ukraine wants to work on the “interoperability Roadmap” some more, which is a way countries can fight alongside NATO, without being in NATO.
If Russia’s goal is to split Ukraine from NATO, or NATO by using Ukraine as a wedge, then Syrsky talking with NATO wasn’t a success for the Kremlin, or even US foreign policy for that matter.
More practically, to spell it out, this is evidence ZSU and the NATO armies are still advancing towards a future where they train to fight side-by-side. Just not under a NATO flag.
Schlachtschiff ist Sicher. Aber Ein Schwer Bewaffnetes Schlachtschiff Ist Noch Sicherer!
It’s clear the European capitals gave up on any progress on the peace front about two weeks ago, so the wheels of European bureaucracy have been turning. As is normal for such processes, the decisive thing will be the Germans and their money.
Friedriech Merz so far, despite the financial and industrial power behind him, on the international stage seems to be avoiding, er, upstaging people like France’s Macron and Britain’s Starmer. But you can see from the body language — they all were at Istanbul and all met with Zelensky and discussed the Russians — that the critical bit is how serious Germany and Friedriech Merz are about reining in Russia.
This week Merz offered some hard evidence on that in the most convincing of German terms: hard money. In a speech to the Bundestag, he declared the government policy will be that Germany will rearm, that the Bundeswehr will become the most powerful in Europe, and it’s all because of Russia, Germany would prefer not to have to do this but European security requires it.
You can’t get much more Bismarckian than that. Since I have dragged den Eisenkanzler far too often into this review anyway, attached is an image of an authentic Germany Navy League membership card. Good for you if you get the reference.
Brass tacks, Merz is “proposing” (he’s got a solid majority in the Bundestag) Germany’s defense budget get beefed up $67 billion just in 2025, that’s a 15 percent increase, and that about $22 billion of that will be debt-financed, Fully 100,00 more men and women will beef up the Budeswehr, and if sufficient volunteers cannot be found, there will be a draft. When Merz is done the Bundeswehr will close to DOUBLE in size from 260K to 460,000 men and women.
Even though the idea of Germany re-arming is still a shock those of us that studied 20th century history may never get over, what I really cannot communicate to you, how utterly shocking that is to contemplate a modern German leader suggesting deficit spending of that scale. It would like going to Oktoberfest and suggesting the general public would enjoy some quality Coors on tap. Oktoberfest image.
From the nationalist-fascist Russian point of view, this is terrifying, and foreign. For one thing, the German state budget is in the black, it can raise funds easily, it is responsibly run, corruption is negligible, and if the government decides to fund Germany’s rearmament then Germany will rearm. There will be hard money and German accountants making sure the funding goes where it’s supposed to. It’s not like that in Russia.
The other nightmare for Kremlin spin doctors contemplating this is that a critical, basic, feral, absolutely irreplaceable plank of modern Russian state ideology is that Europeans are weak and not aggressive. Yet, deep in the nationalist Russian DNA and exploited for decades by state propaganda, is the assumption that armed Germany is the worst threat Russia ever faced.
It really can’t be reconciled and that is going to be very damaging to state propagandists, who have to sell the idea to the Russian public that the people in the Kremlin know what they’re doing and that Russia’s future is positive.
The Big News Next Week — European Sanctions
The big news next week war-wise will, my guess, be the European sanctions that are either going to get discussed or even announced on the 20th.
The Europeans got a start on that this week with the Council of Europe backing a special tribunal for Russian aggression against Ukraine. This followed on a decision by the the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization on Tuesday, that formally found Russia responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, opening the possibility for families of the 298 people killed aboard to sue Russia for damages. Russia says it had nothing to do with the shoot-down, but, Russia can’t decide where and when it will get sued, and by whom, and for what damages.
Theoretically, any Russian business connected with the Russian state could be taken to court, anywhere except places like North Korea and Belarus.
Also on Wednesday, the EU — so not all states that might wish to pressure Russia viz. peace talks and Ukraine — agreed on the seventeenth package of sanctions against the Russian Federation. This black-listed 189 vessels of Russia’s “shadow fleet”, about 30 Russian companies evading sanctions, and 75 individuals or businesses involved with the Russian military-industrial complex. It’s complicated, but it seems like the EU bosses have a plan to suppress Orban and the Hungarians to get the votes to approve it.
This is all by way for foregoing, these are the sanctions that are coming already. Practically every major European leader, following the Istanbul meetings, went on the record with language along the lines of “OK, Russia doesn’t want to play ball, it’s time to really turn the screws on Russia.”
The news is that exactly what that will be is still being discussed, pretty much for certain Russian energy and Russian international financing. DW says non-Russian banks outside Russia handling Russian government money will get targeted. Wide predictions have more shadow fleet oil tankers black-listed. Also lots of talk of confiscation of overseas Russian assets. But anyway, it will be news next week. Image of an Imperial Russian gold ruble, which will retain value no matter what happens.
The Peace Talks
I told you this was going to be a Charlie Foxtrot and I very much hope you did not waste time and energy paying attention to this closely. After much jetting about and making promises and changes to plans and absolutely useless diplomatic noise, on Friday a low-level Russian delegation got in a room in Istanbul with a top-level Ukrainian delegation.
From a world geo-politics perspective, the key outcome this week is that theoretically either the superpower America or the superpower Russia could have done something to influence the outcome of the Russo-Ukraine War, and by the end of the week it was clear that their diplomacy isn’t just emasculated, it’s effectively castrated. Words don’t influence the battlefield.
For the record there was a bilateral Russo-Ukrainian agreement to trade 1,000 POWs for 1,000 POWs. 1,000 is a lot, more than in previous exchanges but exchanges have been taking place the whole war. Otherwise, the Istanbul talks did nothing. There was no ceasefire, no peace process, no meeting of Presidents. Just a week of pretending something Big might happen, when it was abundantly clear nothing could.
It seems like, the Russian objective was just to message to the world how tough and obstreperous they are. The leader of the Russian delegation was a low-ranking “historian” named Vladimir Medinsky (image), who is best-known in Russia for faux historical knowledge underpinning rabid Russian nationalism.
In a post-meeting interview with Russian state TV, this fellow invented quotes by Napoleon and Bismarck supporting the argument that Russia could never be out-lasted. If you want some of this guy’s bad historical research get hammered, next section.
I am not an insider, but my read of this week’s diplomacy was that the Russian calculation was, and is, that they could out-last Europe and the US, and destroy Ukraine, by making them sick of the war. The failure of the Istanbul talks, from the Kremlin perspective, was an attempt to brow-beat the Europeans into giving up on Ukraine, by looking like Russia intends to fight forever.
Arguably, the real outcome of all this diplomatic superpower talk and frenetic racing around, with no results to show for it, strangely resembles a thumping Ukrainian diplomatic victory. Think about it. One, two years ago, all the capitals of Europe were sick of the war in Ukraine. The problem with continued support to Ukraine, was that Europe was getting tired of supporting Ukraine.
Now, after three years of war, it’s pretty clear, what Europe is sick of, is Vladimir Putin and Russia. It’s no longer Ukraine’s fault it got attacked by Russia and Russia’s claim Ukraine somehow threatens Russian national security is no longer accepted.
Properly, this should have been the European stance in Feb. 2022. But better late than never. Next week, sanctions.
POLLS
This week a big Ukrainian polling company did a national survey: Zelensky’s popularity numbers with Ukrainian voters are about double Donald J. Trump’s numbers with American voters.
Another factoid, Moscow Times report on an all-Russia survey by the Anderida Financial Group, 47 percent of respondents reported a deterioration in their financial situation over the year; 40 percent of respondents reported that their income level remained unchanged; and 13 percent said things were getting better. The majority of respondents, or 75% of them, admitted that the finances they have are often not enough to cover current needs.
These are numbers from a survey conducted in an authoritarian state where criticism of those in power can land you in jail. The reality is probably worse.
Not the Russo-Ukraine War, This is Historical European Stuff
This section won’t add to your information base on the Russo-Ukraine War, it’s a historical excursion that attacks a piece of the Great Russian narrative. If that’s your cup of tea, read on.
OK, this guy Medinsky while at Istanbul claimed that Russia is unbeatable, he told reporters Russia would fight forever, he harangued the Ukrainian delegation with threats that if they didn’t surrender now the next time they met Russia’s demands would be harsher, and he even complained the world is picking on Russia because criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is Russophobic.
Medinsky even (OK, overtly this is an unnamed source, but he led the delegation and he works for the Kremlin, so where else would The Economist have got the quote from?) dredged up Sweden and the Great Northern War, during which (early 18th century) Russia led by no less than Tsar Peter the Great fought Sweden for two decades plus and prevailed. The quote goes:
We don’t want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two, three — as long as it takes. We fought with Sweden for 21 years (the Northern War of 1700–1721). How long are you (meaning, the limp-wristed, effeminate West) ready to fight?
The is one of the deepest and most insidious planks of the Great Russian historical narrative, to wit that Russian expansion is inevitable because Russia will fight for it longer and harder than anyone, particularly western European people.
Setting aside the pretty significant modern point that modern Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power with supposedly the second most powerful military on Earth, has been locked in a modern war with a country one-quarter its size for three years and has been fought to a stand-still, there are some serious issues with Medisnky’s claims about Russia and Russian fighting prowess historically.
The first, a drum beaten repeatedly in these reviews, is that Russia is certainly warlike and certainly expansionist, but it loses as many wars as it wins. What’s more and second, when Russia has fought a war without powerful allies, its performance consistently has been catastrophically bad, and usually the result has come fairly quickly.
In the Great Northern War, Russia had on its side (at the start) Denmark–Norway, Saxony, and Poland–Lithuania. These were eventually joined by Great Britain, Hanover, and Brandenburg-Prussia. Yes, Swedish king Charles XII was a military genius and the Russian ruler at the time, Tsar Peter I, most definitely was not. But Russia had powerful allies and at the end of the day Sweden’s allies were short-lasting.
Medinsky, doubtless because he felt his interviewer and viewers would be bored by it, didn’t mention that during that very same Great Northern War, the mighty Russian hero Peter I also prosecuted a war in what eventually became southern Ukraine. Russia had few allies in that southern war and the outcome was disastrous for Russia.
Particularly, in 1711, Russia aimed to detach what is now partly modern Romania and partly modern Moldova from the then-Ottoman Empire, and add it to the Russian Empire. The pretext was the Ottomans had allied with the Swedes and where sheltering Charles XII. Peter prosecuted the campaign without allies. There was some hope Christians in Moldavia might rally to the Russian cause but the proximity of a big Ottoman army seems to have convinced the locals otherwise.
So Tsar Peter the Great decided to invade Moldavia/east Romania sans allies. After spending a big chunk of the Russian state budget on raising a well-equipped, “modern army”, Peter I in Spring 1711 led his men south and by early July he had his army dug in in a strong defensive position near the shores of the Pruth River. He had lots of cannon and fortifications and it was from exactly that kind of strengthened, prepared defensive position he and the Russian army had defeated the Swedish King at the Battle of Poltava two years previously.
Unfortunately for the campaign and Tsar Peter the Great’s enduring military reputation, the sneaky Turks declined to attack the Russians in their entrenchments like Peter the Great wanted. Instead, unfairly, the Turks surrounded the Russians with their own fortifications, and waited.
July in Moldova can get pretty hot, it’s wide open, not much cover, long days. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that defensive fortifications worked both ways and that Russian attacks against the Turkish defense works wouldn’t do much but pile up Russian casualties. The Turks had a source of water for their troops and the Russians — sitting on tactically-strong high ground if only the cheating Turks would attack them — did not.
In less than two weeks Tsar Peter the Great of Russia surrendered himself and his army to the mercy of the Ottoman Empire. If there was another instance, in history, that a Russian Tsar fell into enemy hands, ever, I’m not aware of it.
The result was a pretty punishing peace treaty and Peter’s surrender of a goodly chunk of Russian territory over to the Ottomans. Image of Tsar Peter and the Ottoman general who defeated and captured him, Grand Vizier Baltadji Mehmed Pasha.
On Friday, a Russian “historian” named Medinsky argued modern Russia cannot be defeated, not by any force on Earth, because Russia fights forever if necessary. This is certainly reasonable Russian Imperial propaganda. But as rigorous history, it stinks.
In fact, history shows the Russians can be defeated, badly. Even Russian national heroes later put forward by Russian historians as emblematic of Russian absolute immunity from defeat — in this case Tsar Peter I “The Great” — have led themselves and their men into epic military disasters.
If the Russians believe they have a winning tactical system, and they are going to war without serious allies, the chances of military catastrophe and Russian defeat go up, the historical record shows. They don’t teach it in Russian schools (who am I kidding, they don’t teach historical trivia like this in western schools either) — but that’s what happened.
I will comment separately on the history. Russia invincibility… always winning wars since the Great Nordic war. Did Russia win? Maybe. Sweden definitely lost, and their king was killed by us Norwegians. But even if we accept that Russia won that war (definitely not alone) since then they lost the Crimean War, The Russo-Japanese war, world War 1. (The treaty of Brest Litovsk wasn’t a victory for Russia.) And Russia didn’t win its war in Afghanistan either. So if you say they won the Napoleonic wars and WW2 (again not alone) they are barely ahead. Ok, we can give them the Winter War against Finland but usually we include that in WW2. So, overall not very impressive. But yes, the myth is is there. And unfortunately working.
Thank you for both updates. Interesting and encouraging to read about the «new» units doing their job great. That is necessary to win. The Germans making the effort is very good. It is up to Europe now, but fascinating to read about Canadian spying. They have definitely had enough of 47. The diplomacy…. Nothing… Exactly as expected but for the prisoners exchange. Which is good.