The drop in trade between Russia and the EU over the past year is one of the major signs that Brussels’ sanctions on Moscow have been successful, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in an article titled, ‘Yes, the sanctions against Russia are working’, which was published on Saturday on his EEAS blog.
According to Borrell, EU imports from Russia dropped by 58% in 2022, which he called “an unprecedented decoupling.”
“This movement is accelerating: the decline in imports is above 75% for the first quarter of 2023, and the fall is even greater for energy goods, at minus 80%.”
He noted that EU exports of goods to Russia last year also dropped 52% below the annual average prior to 2022.
“Within a year, [the sanctions] have already limited Moscow’s options considerably, causing financial strain, cutting the country from key markets and significantly degrading Russia’s industrial and technological capacity,” Borrell said. He added that Russia’s “technological degradation” and the exit of foreign companies, a number of which left the country under sanctions pressure, “will hamper investment and productivity growth for years.”
“And the outlook for 2023 remains bleak. According to the latest OECD report, Russia’s GDP is foreseen to shrink by up to 2.5%… In short: Russia’s decision to attack Ukraine has obviously pushed the Russian economy towards isolation and decline.”
Meanwhile, both economic data and experts’ projections paint a different picture. Despite the sanctions, trade has been on the rise in both the energy and non-energy sectors due to Moscow’s successful efforts to reorient from Western markets to the East. For instance, according to data from Chinese customs, as of the end of 2022, Russia became the top European country in terms of exports to China, fourth in terms of imports, and second in trade turnover. In recent months, Russia has also become the largest exporter of oil to both China and India.
According to a recent World Bank report, Russia moved into the world’s top five largest economies in 2022 based on purchasing power parity, outpacing the EU’s largest economy, Germany. Both the World Bank and the IMF recently raised their forecasts for the Russian economy, saying GDP would continue to grow amid strong trade and industrial production, as well as higher-than-expected energy revenues. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said this week that the country’s economy is expected to grow about 2.5% by the end of the year, fully recovering from last year’s decline.
By contrast, the Eurozone entered a recession earlier this year after energy prices spiked following the drop in gas flows from Russia, which was once its largest energy supplier. Despite its efforts, the European Central Bank has been unable to bring inflation in the region to the target level and turn the economy towards growth. According to a recent ECB forecast, Eurozone GDP growth is expected to slow to 0.9% by the end of the year from 3.5% in 2022.
August 27, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | European Union, Russia |
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The United States pretty much had its way in the world from 1991 to 2014. But now the empire’s strength is severely depleted and fatally overextended, whereas the military and industrial capacity of its increasingly allied adversaries is ascendant, and in aggregate, greatly exceeds that of the empire and its compliant vassals.
Perhaps most importantly, the ability of the US to inflict severe economic and financial damage on countries who defy “the rules-based international order” has been rendered effectively impotent by the collaborative countermeasures developed and resolutely employed by Russia, China, Iran, India, Brazil … the list goes on, and is lengthening at an accelerating pace.
And, even as US sanctions power has dramatically waned, its capability to maintain a potent military presence in dozens of strategic “hot spots” around the world has become illusory. Yes, the American military ostentatiously maintains many hundreds of bases dotting the planet, but that simply underscores the extreme degree to which US military power is diluted.
The purported ability of the US military to “project power anywhere on the globe at a moment’s notice” is a meaningless fantasy in the context of anything more than launching a few dozen cruise missiles at a target in a country that lacks the capacity to shoot back.
This is the incontrovertible mathematical reality: to assemble a force sufficient to wage war against Russia, China, or Iran would require the US to effectively abandon every major military base on the planet.
Were they permitted, without opposing interdiction, to concentrate a million combat effectives (they wouldn’t be, of course), it would require at least a full year to stage such a force in the theater of operations.
A “combined-arms” force adequate to make war against Russia, China, or Iran would necessarily constitute the greatest concentration of American military power since the Second World War, with the longest and most vulnerable supply lines ever seen in the history of warfare — choke-points that would be potently contested by what almost certainly would be the combined naval and long-range strike-missile capabilities of Russia, China, and Iran.
But, for the sake of argument, let us imagine a fully equipped American combined-arms force could be miraculously materialized in eastern Europe, or the South China Sea, or the Persian Gulf.
As multitudes of observant and discerning military officers and analysts around the world have now come to see: the US could only sustain high-intensity industrial-scale warfare for 6 – 8 weeks, at most, until severe losses, munitions exhaustion, and broad-spectrum logistical breakdowns compelled them to cease operations.
This reality was little recognized and poorly understood prior to February 2022. But the war in Ukraine has exposed key US military shortcomings and vulnerabilities, and revealed the shocking logistical and industrial debility of what many across the globe still imagined to be “The Greatest Military in Human History” and the peerless industrial production might of the legendary “Arsenal of Democracy”.
By unfounded reputation, and “on paper”, as they say, the United States appears to possess the most powerful military on the planet. But there is a vast difference between perceived power and the actual ability to project power and sustain power against the adversaries the US military must now face and defeat in order to prevent or even meaningfully delay the end of American global hegemony.
August 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism | China, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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The Kremlin reported that Ukrainian drones were downed in the Moscow region for a sixth consecutive day. Kiev has launched a series of attacks on Russia as it has failed to retake territory during its Spring counteroffensive.
The Kremlin reports that it downed three Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow on Wednesday. TASS, Russian state media, said that no one in the Moscow region was killed or injured. One building, currently being constructed, was hit by a drone after it was disabled by Russian electronic warfare systems.
“The glazing of the Neva Tower in the Moscow City district was damaged on the 11th, 12th and 13th floors on an area of about 100 square meters after the crash of the downed drone,” TASS reported.
The drones have caused Moscow to shut down traffic at its airports for short windows for three straight days.
Additionally, Ukraine attacked the Belgorod region of Russia, killing three. Belgorod’s governor said a drone was used in the attack. Several Russian civilians have been killed by Ukrainian fire in Belgorod since Kiev decided it would begin targeting Russia.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Kiev would increase strikes on Russia. “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases,” he said. “And this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.”
In the months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the White House sought assurances from Kiev that it would not use American weapons to target Russia. However, officials in the Joe Biden administration appear to be less concerned the attacks will risk escalation with Moscow. American weapons have been documented to be used in cross-border raids conducted by Kiev-backed neo-Nazi militias.
In the past, Moscow has said that the Ukrainian attacks on Russia would not be possible without US support. “These attacks would not be possible without the help provided to the Kyiv regime by the US and its NATO allies,” the Russian foreign ministry said. The West is “training drone operators and providing the necessary intelligence to commit such crimes.”
The Kremlin has warned it will take harsh measures in response to the attacks on Moscow. “We regard what happened as yet another use of terrorist methods and intimidation of the civilian population by the military and political leadership of Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry explained. “The Russian Federation reserves the right to take tough retaliatory measures.”
Russia’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, recently said the greatest danger posed by the war in Ukraine is a direct conflict between Moscow and NATO breaking out. The Russian Foreign Minister said the war would lead to nuclear weapons being used.
August 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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The Western push to incorporate Ukraine into NATO can only lead to an escalation of the conflict with Russia, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said, expressing doubt that the opposing parties in the stand-off have used all the tools at their disposal to achieve peace.
Speaking to TF1 TV on Wednesday, Sarkozy stressed that he believes Ukraine must remain “neutral” and refrain from joining the EU and NATO.
“This is not the solution. The solution is to discuss, for reasonable people to sit around the table, for us to give Ukraine security guarantees and for us to engage in a discussion to see at least if we can get out of it other than by annihilating either Ukraine or Russia,” he said.
Victory in the conflict can be achieved either by destroying an enemy, or finding a compromise, according to the French president, who called on the West to “stop talking about buying planes, ammunition, tanks.” He added that the international community must “find a solution that preserves the interests of Ukraine,” noting that “Russia won’t go anywhere, with or without [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
“My analysis is that the world and Europe are dancing on the edge of a volcano. It can get out of hand at any moment. There have been enough deaths, and it seems to me that the path of diplomacy and discussion has not been used to the end and that it is now appropriate to use it.”
Last week, Sarkozy said that despite the current stand-off, Russia will always be Europe’s neighbor, suggesting that Ukraine “must remain” a bridge between the two.
He also stated that any compromise with Moscow would involve recognizing Crimea as part of Russia. The peninsula voted in a referendum to become part of the country in 2014 following a Western-backed coup in Kiev.
His comments, however, sparked outrage in Kiev, with Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, calling the proposal “criminal,” and accusing Sarkozy of complicity in organizing “genocide and war.”
Moscow has repeatedly said that it is open to talks with Kiev. Last year, however, Zelensky signed a decree banning any talks with the current Russian leadership after four former Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted in referendums last autumn to join Russia.
August 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | European Union, NATO, Russia, Ukraine |
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Ukraine will be unable to defeat Russia on the battlefield as Moscow has more men and an “impressive” advantage in firepower, retired Italian general Marco Bertolini has said.
“The Ukrainian victory is inconceivable. We must take note of this fact and sit at the negotiating table,” said Bertolini, who headed Italy’s Joint Operations Command and the Folgore paratroopers brigade in the 2000s.
“This war should’ve been stopped much earlier, but in recent months the rhetoric of ‘we will win’ has been cultivated, fueling the expectations in the public opinion of a victory that is impossible on the ground. The Ukrainians will not prevail,” he told Libero Quotidiano newspaper on Monday.
Kiev’s much-anticipated counteroffensive, which started in early June, “proceeds slowly,” the retired general remarked.
He mentioned a report by the Washington Post last week, which cited a classified US intelligence assessment that concluded “Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach the key southeastern city of Melitopol,” and that the aim of severing Russia’s land bridge with Crimea would not be realized this year. According to Bertolini, this was “an acknowledgment that Kiev’s objectives can’t be achieved in the expected form and time frame.”
“The Russians have an advantage in the number of men and firepower. The firepower unleashed by the Russians, especially when it comes to artillery, is superior and this is impressive considering the aid that has arrived in Ukraine from all over the West,” he said.
The retired general suggested that there’s now an understanding in many circles that reclaiming territories captured by Russia from Ukraine is “unrealistic.” He also pointed out that “a ceasefire with the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO, at any moment, and resuming hostilities won’t suffice for the Russians.”
“The conflict can only be ended through negotiations” in which the interests of both sides are respected, Bertolini said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that Moscow remains ready for “meaningful dialogue” on Ukraine, but the prospects for negotiations with the West “are non-existent at this stage.” Kiev’s main backer, the US, which declared the goal of inflicting a strategic defeat to Russia in Ukraine, “has no intention of ending the conflict,” he insisted.
Washington maintains that any negotiated settlement must be based on the so-called ten-point peace plan proposed by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, which calls for Russia to withdraw to borders claimed by Kiev, pay reparations, and submit to war crimes tribunals. Lavrov described this as a “pointless ultimatum.”
August 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Russia, Ukraine |
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Attempts by the West to maintain its hegemony were the key cause of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed. He added that members of the BRICS group of nations reject the idea of exceptionalism.
“We are against any hegemony, the notion of exceptionalism promoted by some nations, and the policy of neocolonialism derived from that claim,” the Russian leader said on Wednesday during a speech via video link to a summit of BRICS leaders in South Africa.
The BRICS group, which includes Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa, firmly believes in “the formation of a multipolar world order, truly just and based on international law,” Putin stated.
Explaining the origins of the Ukraine crisis, Putin accused Western powers of facilitating the “anti-constitutional coup” in Kiev in 2014. After seizing power, the new Ukrainian authorities “unleashed a war” against those who rejected them, Putin said.
“Our actions in Ukraine have but one motive: to put an end to this war that the West and its satellites in Ukraine started against the people living in Donbass,” the president stressed.
He conveyed Moscow’s gratitude to BRICS members, which he said are working to resolve the situation “in a fair way through peaceful means.”
Russia deployed troops against Ukraine in February 2022, stating that its goals were to stop Kiev’s attacks on Donbass, ensure Ukrainian military neutrality, and eliminate radical nationalist forces. The US and its allies have claimed that Moscow’s military action was “unprovoked,” and have pledged to arm and fund Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.
Moscow has identified NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe and particularly its increasing influence in Ukraine as a major threat to Russian national security. In 2021, the Russian government sought to negotiate with the West to address those concerns, but its efforts were rejected.
August 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | NATO, Russia, Ukraine |
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By Lucas Leiroz | August 23, 2023
Showing political realism, a major Austrian official criticized the European Union’s efforts to “cancel” Russia, recalling the role of geography in determining Europe’s policy towards Russia. In fact, the current crisis in relations between Russia and Western Europe is due to the end of the pragmatic search for good diplomatic ties with Moscow, which tends to be a “suicidal” policy considering that Europe and Russia are geographically close and will always have to maintain dialogue to guarantee regional peace.
The statement was made by the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Schallenberg, at an international panel discussion organized by a university in Spain on August 22nd. According to him, it is not possible to create an efficient security architecture for Europe without Russia, considering both the geographical proximity and the relevant military and economic role played by Russia. Therefore, he is against the anti-Russian isolation campaign, believing it to be an inefficient and anti-strategic policy for Europe itself.
“Whatever happens, Russia will be our biggest geographic neighbor. Whatever happens, it will probably be still number one as far as nuclear warheads are concerned. It is still a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN (…) We cannot cancel Russia. We cannot do ghosting on it”, he said during the event.
At the event, Schallenberg mentioned the legacy of Egon Bahr, an important 20th Century German diplomat, notorious for his attempt to bring West and Eastern Europe closer during the Cold War’s bipolarity. Bahr’s doctrine is known as “Ostpolitik“, being summarized in the permanent search for the normalization of ties between Europe and Russia, given the inevitability of dialogue due to geographical proximity. Bahr said that “America is irreplaceable, but Russia is unmovable”, something Schallenberg seems to agree with.
It is important to note that Schallenberg is obviously not “pro-Russian”, but a European official concerned about the future of his own region. At the event, which was also attended by EU top diplomat Josep Borrell and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, Schallenberg severely criticized Russia, blaming it for the conflict and endorsing the Western narrative that Moscow violated international law by “invading” Ukraine. Furthermore, Schallenberg also reminded the conflict with Georgia in 2008, calling it another violation of international norms.
At a certain point in his speech, Schallenberg even asked: “What in heaven has to happen for us to actually trust this country again?”, clearly showing the “lack of trust” that Europeans have in Russia today – despite the fact that until now only the EU, not Moscow, has acted hostilely in bilateral relations. Also, Schallenberg tried to justify the policy of aid that Austria has been giving to Ukraine. He said that, despite being neutral, Austria advocates a rules-based global order, which is why aid would be “justified”. Until now, Vienna has not sent weapons to Kiev, but has spent millions on financial and humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian side, which sounds like hypocrisy when the Russian population is also affected by the conflict, being simply ignored by the West.
However, despite condemning Russia, Schallenberg shows realistic pragmatism by considering Moscow necessary for the success of European security. He argues that, despite the disagreements, Europe and Russia must work together to build a mutually favorable security architecture, recovering the principles of Bahr’s “Ostpolitik”, which has now been completely abandoned by the EU in favor of automatic alignment with the US. In addition, Schallenberg emphasized that by excluding Russia from European diplomacy, the EU ends up also excluding Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. In other words, instead of isolating Russia, Europe is isolating itself with its policies.
Schallenberg’s words sound like hope for a resurgence of realism and political pragmatism in the EU. In the midst of so many unnecessary hostilities, including even informal declarations of war, it is positive to see that there are still diplomats who advocate classic principles of peaceful coexistence, ignoring the irrational attempts to apply the “cancel culture” in international relations. However, this is still insufficient.
Russian-European dialogue will not be possible as long as the EU continues to believe in a “rules-based global order”. For any serious specialist in international law, it seems evident that the so-called “rules” are imposed to defend the interests of the West, this “global order” being nothing more than a system of geopolitical unipolarity led by the US. Europe has been collaborating with this system for decades, passively accepting to submit to American orders, even when these violate Europe’s own interests – as we can see in the Ukrainian case.
To really live peacefully with Russia, Europe needs to break with this kind of mentality and understand the importance of the rise of a multipolar world. Only in a polycentric geopolitical system will it be possible for Europe to adequately coexist with Russia, since then it will no longer be subservient to the orders of a hegemonic power. More than that, only in a multipolar world will Europe itself be able to become a relevant center of power, capable of defending its own interests.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
August 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, Russia |
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Average Westerners were told for the past 18 months how fearless and optimistic the Ukrainians were, which was done to convince the former to continue supporting their leaders’ decision to fund the latter, but now the Mainstream Media (MSM) is telling them the complete opposite. The Washington Post wrote earlier this month that “Slow counteroffensive darkens mood in Ukraine”, which was followed by The Economist declaring that “Ukraine’s sluggish counter-offensive is souring the public mood”.
These four major updates were shared in the 10-day period between those two pieces:
* Washington Post : “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal”
* CNN: “Ukraine’s recent focus on Crimea draws skepticism from corners of the Biden administration”
* Washington Post : “Ukraine running out of options to retake significant territory”
* Financial Times : “US grows doubtful Ukraine counteroffensive can quickly succeed”
The impression that one gets from all this is that a new information campaign has begun.
As was explained in this recent analysis about how “A Vicious Blame Game Is Breaking Out After The Counteroffensive Predictably Failed”, everyone’s now pointing fingers out of desperation to eschew their own responsibility for this spectacular disaster, which set this latest media trend- into motion. The average Westerner is now either very confused if they’re a hardcore pro-Kiev supporter or feels vindicated if they were against funding the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.
In any case, the point is that the Western public is finally discovering the truth about this conflict, both in terms of the counteroffensive’s failure as well as Ukrainians’ fatigue and frustration with everything. The first revelation proves that their tens of billions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-provided funding for the counteroffensive failed to achieve any military dividends while the second suggests that Ukrainians aren’t as gung-ho about fighting as before. Taken together, they hint that a ceasefire is possible.
Regrettably, “US Policymakers Are Caught In A Dilemma Of Their Own Making After The Failed Counteroffensive”, which the preceding hyperlinked analysis explains is due to them sabotaging peace talks last spring and then declining to resume them last winter. Since then, the path towards peace has become much more complex since the top four stakeholders in this proxy war – Russia, the US, Ukraine, and Poland – have increasingly divergent interests that thus greatly impede the possibility of a ceasefire.
Even so, the two revelations that the MSM just shared help shift Western public opinion in support of that scenario. The first one about the counteroffensive’s failure is enough for the average person to turn against continuing the proxy war, while the second absolves the most brainwashed among them of guilt by informing them that a growing number of Ukrainians want to end it too. Nobody can be “more pro-Ukrainian than the Ukrainians themselves” so that group would feel pressured to go along with this.
Simply put, what’s taking place is a “de-programming operation” aimed at reversing the effect that pro-Ukrainian/-war and anti-peace/-Russian propaganda had on the Western masses. The purpose is to precondition them for accepting the scenario of peace talks and the resultant ceasefire that they could lead to if successful. Even if the aforesaid doesn’t transpire, the impact that the MSM’s latest information campaign will have on reshaping the Western public’s perceptions will likely be irreversible.
August 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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By Lucas Leiroz | August 21, 2023
Western criticism of the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” is increasing. In response to Kiev’s unlimited demand for arms, Western media claim that the US is not in a position to send more heavy weapons to the regime. According to a major western outlet, Washington does not produce enough tactical ballistic missiles to send the number that would be needed to guarantee the Ukrainian counterattack’s victory.
In a recent article for the Financial Times called “US grows doubtful Ukraine counteroffensive can quickly succeed”, Western experts reported that the US does not manufacture enough tactical ballistic missiles to make a difference on the battlefield. The “necessity” to send weapons to Ukraine coexists with the need for internal supply for the arsenal of the American armed forces, with no possibility of accelerating production significantly in the short term.
In addition, the newspaper’s informants allege that Washington is currently “holding back” as many missiles as possible, as Americans are concerned about the possibility of escalation in the conflict. Kiev’s officials blamed the failure of the counteroffensive on the supposed “slowness” in the supply of weapons, mainly high-range missiles capable of reaching the undisputed territory of the Russian Federation. Many American experts, however, seem to disagree with this analysis.
Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the US think tank Rand Corporation, told Financial Times’s journalists that ballistic missiles are capable of causing damage to Russian logistics, but assessed that this is not the main problem to be solved by Ukrainians to achieve victory. According to him, there are no “magic wands” able to make the counteroffensive become successful, thus echoing the growing Western pessimism with the Ukrainian military moves.
“I don’t think that you’ll hear an argument from anyone that this [Ukraine’s counteroffensive] is going well right now or that this is heading to a place that people would view as good, but there is not much by way of plan B (…) There’s no magic wands,” Charap said. “It’s hard to make the case that long-range strike [missiles] can fix the problem of minefields or all these defences (…) It will complicate Russian logistics but that’s not the main or the only problem the Ukrainians are facing today”, Charap said.
In fact, this assessment exposes growing dissatisfaction on the part of the West with Ukraine’s progress in the conflict. The strategy used by the Ukrainians – certainly instructed by NATO agents – failed on the battlefield and Kiev quickly lost massive amounts of soldiers and equipment. The Ukrainian defeat was so evident that it was not even possible for the western media to continue doing its propaganda work, which meant that more critical and pessimistic opinions began to be exposed by the newspapers.
For its part, Kiev responds to the criticism by demanding even more weapons. It became commonplace among the regime’s officials and Western warmongers to blame a supposed “failure” in NATO’s aid for the fiasco of the counteroffensive. It is said that the more lethal and long-range weapons Ukraine receives the faster it will achieve victory against Russian forces. But, in practice, this has not been seen so far.
The West sent heavy – and even illegal – weapons to its proxy regime as much as it could. Packages including banned cluster bombs, radioactive depleted uranium ammunition and British long-range missiles arrived in Kiev and were used on the battlefield, not to seek any military victory, but to murder civilians and bomb undisputed demilitarized zones, making “counteroffensive” a mere wave of terrorist attacks.
Apparently, American experts understood that the more lethal weapons they send to Ukraine, the greater the risks of escalation and, consequently, the greater the regime’s losses will be. In this sense, in the Financial Times article, it is also said that until next year, military aid to Kiev is expected to decrease, at least in terms of quality – lethality of the weapons. There is a concern to avoid greater losses in an eventual scenario of escalation by Russia – which is aggravated by the upcoming presidential elections and the inability of the American defense industry to produce arms in even larger quantities.
“Even if Congress authorizes the latest package of Ukraine funding requested by the White House, some US officials and analysts say it is unlikely that Washington will be able to offer the same level of lethal assistance to Ukraine next year, given the looming presidential election and munitions manufacturers’ longer-term schedule to increase production”, the article reads.
This scenario of American disappointment with Ukraine must be analyzed from a realistic point of view. Washington does not want the war to end. On the contrary, it wants to prolong the hostilities in order to generate friction with Russia for as long as possible. And this is precisely why the country is avoiding increasing the deployment of long-range weapons, as it fears that Russian responses to Ukrainian provocations could be strong enough to end the conflict quickly.
For the US and NATO, what matters is to keep Russia fighting on multiple flanks as the alliance prepares for a direct military conflict with China. With no hope of defeating Russia on the battlefield, the US just wants to keep Moscow fighting in various proxy conflicts. Therefore, it is in Washington’s interest to prolong the war in Ukraine as well as to generate provocations in other regions where Russia could be militarily involved.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
August 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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By Ahmed Adel | August 21, 2023
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost many commanders, said German Army Lieutenant General Andreas Marlow to Reuters agency. This suggests that Germany’s training of Ukrainian troops makes no difference on the battlefield as these newly trained recruits do not reinforce an experienced leadership. This comes as the popularity of the German government collapses amid a growing economic crisis.
“The training of sergeants and officers is what moves the Ukrainians most because the professional soldiers have been fighting this war for one and a half years now, and many have died or been wounded – so they need a fresh supply of military leaders,” said Marlow to journalists.
The press meeting was held at the Klietz training camp in Germany, where foreign instructors trained the Ukrainian military. The site is used to train Ukrainian service members to operate German Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks, as well as IRIS-T air defence systems. However, as has already been proven, these short training missions make no difference to Ukraine’s war effort as the undertrained soldiers are only fed to the Russian meatgrinder.
Marlow’s revelation that most of Ukraine’s professional soldiers are either exhausted, wounded or dead comes as Gunnar Beck, a member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the European Parliament, blasted his country’s policy on Ukraine.
Olaf Scholz’s government members, including Finance Minister Christian Lindner, recently expressed support for sending long-range Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missiles to Ukraine. The German finance minister said a decision would be made “faster, in a shorter timeframe” than in the past. Berlin is pushing ahead with this despite most Germans opposing the step.
A new poll revealed that while 36% favour supplying new military aid, 52% are against it. Support fell to just 21% among residents of eastern Germany.
According to Russian sources, Germany has sent more than 260 Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks, including from its arsenals and other European NATO allies, as well as Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, MARS rocket artillery systems, Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Marder infantry combat, Bergepanzer armoured recovery vehicles, Panzerfaust rocket-propelled grenades, and many other weapons, support equipment, ammunition, and supplies. These weapons are worth about €7.5 billion, all handed to Ukraine over the past year and a half, the second-highest amount after the US.
Although the US and other NATO countries promised that the weapons would not be used against Russian territory, the Ukrainian military used supplied military equipment, including artillery, missiles, and drones, to attack Russian cities and towns. Germans who do not want to be embroiled in the war are especially afraid that Ukraine will use the Taurus cruise missile, a €950,000 481kg warhead with an operational range of over 500km, against Russia. Ordinary Germans fear what a Russian response could be.
Berlin would obviously want to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles against Russian territory, but this is wishful thinking. In practice, Germany cannot do anything to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles, which is why the move is so unpopular.
Recently, support for the right-wing AfD, which has been the most critical of Berlin’s anti-Russia policies, has increased, with recent polls indicating the party would get up to 21% of the vote if elections were held today, the same level as Scholz’s Social Democrats. Despite relentless anti-Russian propaganda in the German media, many Germans have lost faith in the Scholz coalition, mainly due to the declining economic situation spurred on by anti-Russia sanctions.
According to the new Insa survey for Bild, 64% of those surveyed found that a change of government would be better for Germany. The survey found that just as many respondents (64%) are dissatisfied with the work of the current federal cabinet. Only 27% are satisfied. There are even more dissatisfied and less satisfied when it comes to Scholz. 70% are dissatisfied with his work, and only 22% are satisfied.
The German economy for two quarters in a row declined, a “technical recession,” as described by economists. Germany’s GDP stagnated at the previous quarter’s level in the last recent quarter, and there is evidently a decline. The IMF predicted in its July estimates that most of the world’s major economies will see growth, except for Germany, which is expected to contract by 0.3% this year. In fact, the financial institution forecasted Germany to do worse than in the last report from April 2023.
Germany is no longer the European economic powerhouse it once was, primarily due to self-sabotaging anti-Russia sanctions, making the country import energy at an inflated price and cut off from Russian markets and businesses. More disturbing is that Germany insists on maintaining the sanctions and continues to train mostly ordinary Ukrainian men knowing they cannot overturn Russian forces.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
August 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Germany, Russia, Ukraine |
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Politico reported on Friday that US policymakers are starting to wonder whether “Milley had a point” when he suggested that last November was a good time to resume peace talks. Kiev had just reconquered the western half of Kherson Region less than two months after expelling Russian forces from the rest of Kharkov Region. Furthermore, the coming winter was bound to force a de facto freeze along the frontlines. In hindsight, Ukraine’s negotiating position was the strongest it had ever been.
Instead of seizing the opportunity, the decision was made to prepare for summer’s counteroffensive, which spectacularly failed and has recently sparked a vicious blame game between those responsible for this disaster as reported by two leading US outlets last week. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov reaffirmed several days back that the US is obsessed with dealing a strategic defeat to Russia, hence why it’s not interested in peace, yet Politico’s latest piece hints that its calculations might be changing.
According to them, one of their unnamed official sources lamented that “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks” in spite of paradoxically insisting that there aren’t any regrets about the counteroffensive. Another such source went even further by claiming that the Biden Administration is now asking itself the following question: “If we acknowledge we’re not going to do this forever, then what are we going to do?”
Politico then reminded their readers that these views are being shared shortly after the Washington Post revealed that “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal”. Although not mentioned in their article, all of this occurred during the same week that a leading NATO official proposed that Ukraine formally cedes its former regions to Russia in exchange for joining that bloc. They retracted their idea shortly after, but it still made observers suspect that the West is becoming fatigued.
NATO’s “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia that Secretary General Stoltenberg declared in February is taking its toll as Moscow’s edge grows in parallel with the depletion of the West’s stockpiles. The frontlines still remain largely frozen due to the counteroffensive failing to break the stalemate that set in since November, but there are now reports that Russia might be preparing for its own offensive sometime this fall that could capitalize on the aforesaid to scale into a full-blown campaign by spring.
President Putin’s series of reminders two months ago that Russia is still sincerely interested in a political solution to this conflict might become irrelevant if he decides to seize the opportunity presented by the counteroffensive’s spectacular failure to militarily ensure his side’s objective national security interests. At minimum, the Kremlin seeks to obtain full control over the entirety of those four former Ukrainian regions that unified with Russia last September, but its forces might have to go further to guarantee this.
After all, Kiev’s NATO-supplied artillery, drone, and missile arsenals can still threaten those regions’ residents even if they’re deployed far away from the frontlines, thus compelling Moscow to advance deeper into the Ukrainian hinterland in order to carve out a buffer zone for protecting them. The further that Russia moves in that direction, the more hysterical NATO will become, which could lead to the bloc as a whole escalating or some of its members like Poland unilaterally intervening to stop the tide.
In any case, the preceding scenario spikes the risk of a larger war by miscalculation, which both sides presumably want to avert. Therein lies the rationale behind US policymakers starting to wonder whether it’s time to consider a compromise before it’s too late, the thoughts of which were unexpectedly voiced by that previously mentioned leading NATO official who later retracted their proposal under pressure. Despite the Biden Administration denying that any such plans are in the cards, Kiev became spooked.
Many of its lawmakers from different factions united in the aftermath of last week’s scandals to table a resolution prohibiting territorial concessions, which will likely pass just like last fall’s similar such one prohibiting Zelensky from negotiating with his Russian counterpart. Neither parliamentary reaction would have happened if the Rada sincerely had faith that the US wouldn’t ever coerce Ukraine into walking back its maximalist demands for ending the conflict.
Unlike then, this scenario is now more realistic than ever as evidenced by last week’s spree of reports aimed at preconditioning the public to accept the possibility of a compromise for resolving the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine before its cycle of self-sustaining escalations spirals out of control. If the political will is present on both the American and Russian sides, then it’s possible that they could reach a deal, but this can’t be taken for granted due to the dilemma that US policymakers inadvertently created.
Despite Politico reporting that officials are now wondering whether “Milley had a point” about last November being a good time to resume peace talks, politicians might fear the public’s wrath if they do so now after all that was spent on the counteroffensive for nothing. Moreover, Ukraine and the West’s newfound military-political weaknesses that were brought about by this debacle might have made Moscow disinterested in peace talks for the time being if it already decided on another offensive.
Each therefore has their reasons for staying the course: America wants to “save face” after this summer’s disaster while Russia might want to seize the aforesaid opportunity to militarily ensure its minimum national security interests by obtaining full control over the entirety of its new regions. That said, the first’s motivations relate to an intangible interest of dubious importance and are therefore negotiable, while the second’s concern a tangible issue of premier importance and thus aren’t negotiable.
Accordingly, the only way to reduce the risk of a larger war by miscalculation is for the US to make concessions on its abovementioned intangible interests in order to meet Russia’s tangible ones, which is likely one of the possibilities being discussed during their reportedly ongoing informal negotiations. In the event that an understanding is reached, then it could take the form of the US pulling Kiev’s strings (possibly through threats of curtailing arms shipments) to coerce it into informally accepting a ceasefire.
Just like it can’t be assumed that America and Russia both have the political will to agree to this, nobody should take for granted that Kiev would go along with it even if those two reach a related deal, not to mention Poland. Each has their own reasons not to, which thus results in a multidimensional dilemma that’ll likely necessitate the US having to practically force those latter two to comply if it’s to stand any chance of success, though it’s also difficult to imagine that happening too.
The takeaway is that US policymakers are now caught in a quandary completely of their own making, which lessens the odds of a political solution to the NATO-Russian proxy war materializing anytime soon and correspondingly spikes the risk of a larger war by miscalculation. Unless the US accepts that it’ll have to sacrifice its soft power by forcing Kiev and Poland to freeze the conflict against their will, which first requires accepting the loss of its unipolar hegemony, then the worst-case scenario can’t be ruled out.
August 20, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Tensions are mounting between officials in Washington and Kiev over Ukraine’s strategy in the counteroffensive, with the United States seemingly girding for a war of attrition amid limited results on the battlefield, the Western media reported on Sunday.
US officials reportedly urged Ukraine to stop avoiding risks and make full use of its forces in the south. Washington also advised Kiev against concentrating its main forces in the eastern direction, but Ukraine instead sent its best units there, the newspaper said.
The report added that US officials are privately preparing for a war of attrition in Ukraine, which may last into 2024, while they continue to publicly reiterate support for Kiev’s counteroffensive.
Republican Congressman Andy Harris, a co-chair of the Ukraine Caucus in the US House of Representatives, said at a meeting with voters earlier this week that the counteroffensive “failed” and that aid to Kiev should be slashed, the report said. He also expressed doubt that the conflict is “winnable” for Ukraine.
Earlier this week, US magazine reported that the Ukrainian political leadership was allegedly misled by the military command on the true scale of Ukraine’s losses in the counteroffensive.
Ukraine launched its much-touted counteroffensive in early June after multiple postponements. Citing the counteroffensive’s needs, Kiev pushed its Western donors to step up the military and financial aid. According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s estimates, as of August 4, Ukraine’s losses in the counteroffensive were about 43,000 troops and 4,900 units of military equipment.
August 20, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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