Kit and morale may prove decisive as Ukraine war enters winter phase

Winter has arrived. Temperatures in the frontline Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, under remorseless attack from the Russians, plunged to -11C (12.2F) this weekend, and at no point got above freezing. Gradually the mud and rain of late autumn will give way to snow and cold of -20C or worse. Yet both sides have their reasons to carry on fighting.The weather is a neutral party to the near-10-month war, but in winter it inevitably acts as a constraint. Simple operations take far longer to conduct in the cold, cover from foliage is reduced or eliminated, white camouflage is required when snow has arrived and more rations are needed because soldiers consume more calories.Shelter and warmth is vital, above all because the armies have to ensure soldiers can dry once they get wet, or they will risk hypothermia or frostbite. A report from Channel 4 News on the Donbas frontline concludes in the kind of well-prepared, deep-dug warm bunker required for winter troops, complete with a kitten to hunt down the inevitable mice.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/05/ukraine-war-winter-phase-russian-troops

 

Embargo gegen russisches Öl: Guter Plan mit viel Risiko

Es ist der bisher kühnste Versuch der Europäer, den wirtschaftlichen Druck auf Russland zu erhöhen und dem Land die Kriegsführung in der Ukraine zu erschweren. Seit Montag ist ein Embargo in Kraft: Ölimporte aus Russland in die EU über den Seeweg sind verboten. Pipeline-Öl darf nur für Ungarn und die Slowakei fließen. Europäischen Redereien und Versicherern ist es nicht mehr erlaubt, russisches Öl zu transportieren oder Lieferungen zu versichern, wenn der Rohstoff für mehr als 60 Dollar je Fass verkauft wird.

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000141526076/embargo-gegen-russisches-oel-guter-plan-mit-viel-risiko

 

The Irish Times view on the war in Ukraine: civilians under fire

During the course of the last week the nature of the Russian war against Ukraine changed qualitatively. This is no longer a conflict in which civilians and civilian infrastructure are, even arguably, incidental or accidental victims in a conventional war, as Russia has sought to claim. It is now a war against civilians. They are the targets, in apparent revenge for battlefield losses the Ukrainian army inflicted on Russia. And, in the case of newly liberated Kherson, subject to a sham annexation by Russia, a war against “its own” citizens.

The purpose of the missiles which rained down and at times left some 80 per cent of the country in the dark and without water, was explicitly to attack civilians and the electricity, power, water and housing that sustains them. Along with hospitals, schools, historical sites, dams and churches, these are ostensibly protected by the rules of war set out in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and endorsed by 196 states of the United Nations.

The shelling of nuclear power stations, requiring disconnections from the power grid as a precaution, is also almost certainly a breach of the first protocol to the conventions. These are acts of wanton irresponsibility which threaten not only Ukraine and its neighbours with catastrophic radioactive pollution, but Russia itself.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorials/2022/11/27/the-irish-times-view-on-the-war-in-ukraine-civilians-under-fire/

 

We Albanians are just the latest scapegoats for Britain’s failing ideological project

When I was growing up in Albania in the 1990s, the father of one of my friends was a people smuggler. We used to call him B the Lame. B the Lame had not always been a smuggler. Before the country transitioned from a communist state to a liberal one, he worked shifts in the dockyard, where he would make fishing nets and repaint boats.

He did not look like a smuggler – he was tiny and anaemic and walked with a limp. He did not choose to be a smuggler – the privatisation reforms that accompanied the arrival of political pluralism forced dockyard managers to make redundancies, so B and his wife found themselves unemployed. Nor did he think of himself as a smuggler: it was a job like any other. He was paid to help people on dinghies reach Italy, and he needed the money to feed his children. He was a little afraid, but not ashamed of his activity. For decades, Albanians had been murdered by their state whenever they tried crossing the border. In the very rare cases in which people succeeded, relatives left behind were deported. Finally, Albanians were free, and B the Lame was helping them realise their dreams. He spoke of this with a touch of pride.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/04/albanians-scapegoats-britain-failing-ideological-project-invaders

 

The CIA Thought Putin Would Quickly Conquer Ukraine. Why Did They Get It So Wrong?

Ever since Ukraine launched a successful counteroffensive against Russian forces in late August, American officials have tried to claim credit, insisting that U.S. intelligence has been key to Ukraine’s battlefield victories.

Yet U.S. officials have simultaneously downplayed their intelligence failures in Ukraine — especially their glaring mistakes at the outset of the war. When Putin invaded in February, U.S. intelligence officials told the White House that Russia would win in a matter of days by quickly overwhelming the Ukrainian army, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who asked not to be named to discuss sensitive information.

The Central Intelligence Agency was so pessimistic about Ukraine’s chances that officials told President Joe Biden and other policymakers that the best they could expect was that the remnants of Ukraine’s defeated forces would mount an insurgency, a guerrilla war against the Russian occupiers. By the time of the February invasion, the CIA was already planning how to provide covert support for a Ukrainian insurgency following a Russian military victory, the officials said.

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/05/russia-ukraine-putin-cia/

 

Angst vor dem Kriegswinter in der Ukraine

Während die ukrainische Armee im Süden und Osten mit aller Härte gegen russische Truppen kämpft, bereiten sich die Menschen im ganzen Land auf eine neue, weitere Front vor, die überall verlaufen wird: der Winter. Es wird wohl der schlimmste in der Geschichte des Landes werden, erklärte Jurij Witrenko, Chef des ukrainischen Energiekonzerns Naftogaz, vor kurzem im Gespräch mit dem deutschen Handelsblatt. Er erwarte ständige Stromausfälle und viele Probleme bei der Versorgung der Bevölkerung mit Fernwärme. Am Montag waren durch einen russischen Raketentreffer in Kiew bereits große Teile der Wasserversorgung ausgefallen.Tatsächlich statten sich überall im Land die Menschen mit Powerbanks, Kerzen und Campingkochern aus; sie posten Bilder in den sozialen Netzwerken und berichten über ihre ganz persönlichen Strategien, um die kommenden Wochen und Monate zu überstehen. “Ich kann Ihnen sagen, dass es sehr, sehr kalt werden wird”, erklärt etwa Andrij Wynnytschenko in einem Video, das er bereits im Juli auf der Plattform Tiktok gepostet und das bereits mehr als 10.000 Likes bekommen hat.

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000140349513/angst-vor-dem-kriegswinter-in-der-ukraine

 

The Ukraine War Will End With Negotiations

By late August 2022, the West’s focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine was diminishing. The two sides were bogged down in an extended stalemate, freeing Western leaders from making difficult choices or thinking too hard about the future of the conflict. Events since early September—dramatic Ukrainian gains, followed by Russian mobilization, annexations, missile attacks on civilian areas, and nuclear threats—have shattered that illusion, pushing the war into a new and more dangerous phase.

Since the start of the war, the Biden administration has effectively maintained a balanced realpolitik approach: arming and funding Ukraine yet continuing to make clear that the United States will not engage directly in the conflict. But the administration has avoided talking about one crucial area of war strategy altogether: how it might end. Experts and policymakers who have suggested that the United States should also support diplomatic efforts aimed at a negotiated settlement have been treated as naïve or borderline treasonous. Driving the administration’s skittishness about endgames, then, are questions of morality: many argue that it is immoral to push Ukraine toward a settlement.

But nearly all wars end in negotiations. Moscow’s escalation this fall raises the twin specters of a broader war with NATO and of the use of nuclear weapons. The global economic costs of the conflict are already enormous and will almost certainly increase with the onset of winter. Even if a negotiated end to the war seems impossible today, the Biden administration should begin to raise—both publicly and to its partners—the difficult questions that such an approach would entail. It must think through the right timing to push for negotiations and at what point the costs of continuing to fight will outweigh the benefits. In seeking a sustainable settlement, the administration must also figure out how to capitalize on Ukraine’s successes without setting the stage for further conflict. To prepare for the best deal, American policymakers must maintain a common front between the West and Ukraine, take account of Ukrainian and Russian domestic politics, and embrace flexibility, particularly in working out which sanctions against Russia can be lifted without strengthening Putin’s regime. If the administration does not prepare soon, it may find its carefully calibrated response to the war being overtaken by a dangerous fantasy of absolute victory.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraine-war-will-end-negotiations

 

The Orgy at the End of the World

With Ukrainian forces reclaiming territory and sending Russia’s demoralized occupiers scurrying in retreat, Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated his threat to use nuclear weapons. Politicians have issued stern warnings to the Kremlin, and commentators have compared the current moment to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and other episodes of high tension that could have ended in nuclear Armageddon. But some 15,000 Ukrainians have met the prospect of annihilation in a less abstract way: They have reportedly signed up for a massive sex party.

Participants in “Orgy on Shchekavystsa: Official” outside Kyiv are expected to “decorate their hands with stripes denoting their sexual preference. People interested in anal sex have been asked to draw three stripes; those interested in oral sex have been asked to display four stripes.” Similar groups have popped up elsewhere, including one announcing an orgy on Derybasivska Street in Odessa.

Why, after eight months of Russian bombardment and brutal fighting, would anyone be interested in such an event? According to one eager participant: “It’s the opposite of despair. Even in the worst-case scenario, people will look for something good. That’s the mega-optimism of Ukrainians.”

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ukraine-sex-parties-more-civilized-than-russian-atrocities-by-slavoj-zizek-2022-10

 

Russia’s Small Nuclear Arms Are a Risk For Putin and Ukraine

For all his threats to fire tactical nuclear arms at Ukrainian targets, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is now discovering what the United States itself concluded years ago, American officials suspect: Small nuclear weapons are hard to use, harder to control and a far better weapon of terror and intimidation than a weapon of war.

Analysts inside and outside the government who have tried to game out Mr. Putin’s threats have come to doubt how useful such arms — delivered in an artillery shell or thrown in the back of a truck — would be in advancing his objectives.

The primary utility, many U.S. officials say, would be as part of a last-ditch effort by Mr. Putin to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive, by threatening to make parts of Ukraine uninhabitable. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe some of the most sensitive discussions inside the administration.

 

How Moscow grabs Ukrainian kids and makes them Russians

Olga Lopatkina paced around her basement in circles like a trapped animal. For more than a week, the Ukrainian mother had heard nothing from her six adopted children stranded in Mariupol, and she was going out of her mind with worry.

The kids had spent their vacation at a resort in the port city, as usual. But this time war with Russia had broken out, and her little ones — always terrified of the dark — were abandoned in a besieged city with no light and no hope. All they had now was her oldest son, Timofey, who was still himself just 17.

The questions looped endlessly in her head: Should she try to rescue the children herself — and risk being killed, making them orphans yet again? Or should she campaign to get them out from afar — and risk them being killed or falling into the hands of the Russians?

She had no idea her dilemma would lead her straight into a battle against Russia, with the highest stakes of her life.

https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-children-russia-7493cb22c9086c6293c1ac7986d85ef6