I'm curious how much weight people put on the interpretation that Putin started this eight years ago specifically prompted by the discovery of more mineral wealth off the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea. It's plausible but also very pat.

What's interesting about the missile theory is that Russian intel on Ukraine seems to have been pretty unreliable (or at least unreliably transmitted up the chain), but this would be a counterexample. It's certainly a plausible trigger, if every month of delay represents UKR forces gaining strength relative to RUS.

As for the theory in 1, I'm not sure we need a trigger for Russian aggression as a whole: Putin seems very sincerely to believe that an independent Ukraine is simply intolerable. I'm reminded a bit of US attitudes towards Native Americans: any given act of aggression might be tied to a plausible economic story, but the underlying attitude was simply that the tribes were inherently illegitimate, and that literal or cultural genocide were the only acceptable long term outcomes.

I'd suggest that Chechnya and the various Caucasus aggressions were all kind of the gateway to attacking Ukraine: Putin learned what he could do and how, and that the Russian public would largely welcome it while western Europe would largely tolerate it. That's a little simplistic, and I'm not suggesting that South Ossetia was a Munich Moment or whatever, but I think that was all the warmup for the tough nut of recreating the territorial USSR. And if any of them had gone as badly as Ukraine is, then maybe nothing since 2008 happens as it has.

Yes, I imagine the most the explanation in my 1 provides is an additional fillip to preexisting motivations, though I'm curious how strong a one.

4: I know Russia's economy is mostly extractive; I'm not clear what the balance is between fossil fuels and other minerals. There's a certain sweet spot where it's big enough to matter, but not so big that any given deposit is a marginal increase.

5: Some of them (underground not underwater) may be the EV battery kind of mineral.

I'm still wallowing but without anything new to say about it.

I mean we could all argue about how allies should respond to the Donbas assault now underway. This is a turning point and a big deal etc. I'm feeling pretty rattled.

I haven't figured out the line between spreading defeatism and discussing current events, so I'm not saying much.

8: We knew this was coming, but I really thought it would take another week to kick off. I guess if I wanted to feel positive about this I'd say that moving this quickly really strongly implies that they haven't done anything to address all the things that led to the failure of the original offensive. I mean, maybe they have a better strategic plan than the original one, but that's an incredibly low bar to clear.

Seems unlikely that cohesion among hastily reconfigured BTGs will be better than it was for the prewar ones; obviously the soldiers who were poorly trained in February aren't any better trained now; I doubt they've fixed their communication problems; I doubt they've figured out how to do close air coordination or to establish control of the skies.

I want to wrap this up with something along the lines of "well-trained troops with good morale get better with combat experience, while poorly-trained troops with low morale get worse from combat fatigue*", but that seems like too-wishful thinking.

*I know "combat fatigue" was a euphemism for PTSD, but here I mean it in a more literal sense--these guys have been fighting and getting their asses kicked for almost 2 months, that seems fatiguing.

Yeah, the Donbas offensive coming so soon seems like a sign that the Russians haven't actually learned anything from the war so far and are likely to keep making the same mistakes. They'll still be able to do a lot of damage, of course, so it's not exactly good news. Just kind of more of the same.

My assumption has been that using the same force to accomplish something less ambitious increases the likelihood of success.

CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/18/politics/russia-learning-from-failures-north-ukraine/index.html

Well, we'll see. They may well be trying to manage and defend their logistical systems better, and concentrating forces in a smaller area should help with that. It still seems like they're charging back out again too soon to have really fixed those problems, though.

I don't know, even with the same logistical problems, it's more troops concentrated over a much smaller land area. Possibly harder to mess up, just a wall of bodies and guns.

I don't think they'll have as many logistical problems when they operate so close to their actual borders.

I feel like anything that I say around here should be prefaced with "Coming from a place of complete ignorance," but after spending way too much time on twitter, I get the distinct impression that Ukraine may have pushed Russia into acting before it was really ready.

Russia has been pushing south from Belograd past Kharkiv to Izyum in what looks like an attempt to encircle the Ukrainian troops fighting in Donbas. Since they have not been able to take Kharkiv, they are bypassing it on smaller roads. They do control Izyum, where a day or two ago they were were reported to have 22 BTGs.

Yesterday, Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv began attacking outward-- toward the Russian supply line from Belograd. I can't find the best maps that I saw yesterday but this thread goes over some of it:
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1515755847082819591
Phillips P. OBrien@PhillipsPOBrien
"Well this is interesting. Ukrainian armed forces report that Ukrainian forces are pushing out from Kharkiv. This would be very threatening to Russian communications, logistics coming out of Belgorod. Take a look below where Bazaliyaka is in particular"

At any rate, I suspect that Russia would have preferred to wrap up Mariupol before proceeding, but between the shock of losing their flagship, verifying that yes, those Neptune missiles really work and discovering that a critical supply line was vulnerable, they seem to have plunged in anyway. Repeat "Coming from a place of complete ignorance" but still, it gives me hope.

I feel like anything that I say around here should be prefaced with "Coming from a place of complete ignorance,"

I don't need to do that any more. My style has become apparent over the years, and it's just assumed.

"Coming from a place of complete ignorance,"

Ohio?

19: Next door.

I'm reading with interest, but somehow talking about an ongoing war ratchets up any remaining inhibitions I have about burbling on ignorantly.

20: Even worse.

Re: complete ignorance
Belgorod--not Belograd
Lots of criticism of OBrien and his assessment of Russian supply line vulnerability out there

Burbling on . . .

Has lily been offered the fruit basket yet?

24: Apologies, lily! Supply chain issues... Nothing worse than a gift basket of rotten fruit.

The basket is plastic, so it's fine.

Beseda (the FSB guy who pocketed the bribes intended to buy off UA leadership after the invasion) is no longer under house arrest but is in a tough prison. Apparently the rest of the division has been fired/demoted/otherwise humiliated. So, for understanding Ukraine, Russia is flying blindly. Also substantial brain drain this year-- maybe Snowden will be drafted into real work now, seems like most graduates MSU math&cybernitcs have left. There being no prospect of a better Russia in my lifetime seems like a bad thing.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/04/11/why-is-a-russian-intelligence-general-in-moscow-lefortovo-prison-a77301

Also welcome lily!

So here's a good thread from last Friday from a retired Major General:
https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1515160478447636480?s=20&t=NKUdXq9JVWqPjdeAkfzExg

A few highlights:
"Despite their efforts to concentrate their forces in the east and south, the Russian force still has too many missions with too few combat formations. This demonstrates their lack of adaptive capacity as this situation has not been addressed throughout their invasion."

"Leadership. Soldiers act in accordance with training, tasks they are given, direct supervision from NCOs & the example of leaders. When each of these is corrupted, military effectiveness is degraded. We have seen only evidence of a corrupt military system from the Russians."

"The Russians in Ukraine have shown minimal adaptive capacity. Their organisational learning culture is almost non-existent & lessons from Syria are irrelevant. Despite this, they remain a large & very dangerous military force in the east and south."

He's not dismissive, but the picture he paints is still of an essentially dysfunctional military force.

Belated thanks for the the lovely welcome, fruit basket (such as it is) and thoughtful warning.

I have no idea who this guy is but this struck me as interesting:

Ilya Matveev@IlyaMatveev_
Rare glimpses of honesty from senior Russian officials. (Another 🧵 on sanctions.)

Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Central Bank: logistical blockade hurts even more than financial sanctions. Supply chains are broken. (1/11)
Inventories will run out very soon and inflation will soar. (2/11)
Sergei Sobyanin, mayor of Moscow: 200,000 people are at risk of losing jobs in Moscow alone. (3/11)
Andrei Belousov, deputy prime minister [this one wasn't reported in the West, but it's crucial]: economic stimulus to fight the crisis without risking further inflation is limited to 7-8 trln rubles and the government has already reached this limit. (4/11)
Thus there's not much room to further stimulate the economy financially. (5/11)
Overall: economic sanctions are very effective at disrupting the Russian economy. Whether they can weaken the war machine is another matter. There are two factors: 1) overall military budget, 2) dependence on imports in the military-industrial complex. (6/11)
Regarding the first factor: I don't think anything short of complete energy embargo can reduce military spending, and even that might not do it. (7/11)
Second factor is trickier, however. Military production is very opaque and no one will disclose import dependency there, obviously, but there is some indirect evidence. (8/11)
E.g. Dmitry Rogozin, then deputy prime minister, admitted in 2014 that 640 Russian military products require components from NATO and EU countries. (9/11)
There were plans to substitute most of these imports by 2018, but, knowing the general ineptitude of Russian economic policy, I seriously doubt that this goal was reached. (10/11)
Bottom line: logistical and other export-oriented sanctions likely disrupt supply chains in the military industry and therefore should stay. (11/11)
https://twitter.com/IlyaMatveev_/status/1516464028729679872

I have no idea who this guy is

Associate Dean for International Relations at the North-Western Institute of Management in St. Petersburg, apparently.

Haven't listened to the podcast, but Andrea Mitchell interviews him here.

(I guess that isn't actually Mitchell doing the interviewing)

32: Thanks! I listened to bits and he is definitely knowledgeable. I found myself a bit nostalgic for the days when apostropher links (like the fruit basket) required a warning though. . .

Jack Detsch@JackDetsch · 14h
Zelensky, tonight: "I am very pleased to say, with cautious optimism that our partners started to understand our needs better ... And when exactly we need this. Not in weeks, not in a month, but immediately. Right now, as Russia is trying to intensify its attacks."

Damn. It is looking like a busy day today. The list of what we are sending is simply incredible and it is getting there fast.
tldr-- just read Jack Detsch-- https://twitter.com/JackDetsch

Jack Detsch Retweeted Raf Sanchez@rafsanchez·8h
NEW: Putin says he is cancelling plans to storm the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol and is content for his forces to maintain the siege while taking control of the rest of the city.
"There is no need to climb into these catacoms," he says at meeting with defence minister.

35: And from his DoD update posted 30 minutes ago: UKR now has more tanks that RUS on the battlefield.

Wow.

36: Wow!

"EXPLAINER: What to expect from the Battle of Donbas, Russia's new offensive"-- from Illia Ponomarenko
https://kyivindependent.com/national/explainer-what-to-expect-from-the-battle-of-donbas-russias-new-offensive/

Just saw this in the comments to one of his tweets (not his retweet, which I would take more seriously):
Visegrád 24@visegrad24 · 11m
The Dmitrievsky Chemical Plant near Moscow is on fire & beyond saving.
It's one of Russia's largest manufacturers of chemical solvents.
The Aerospace Defence Research Institute in Tver burned down earlier in the day.
We are starting to notice a pattern.

I just want to see destruction somewhere that isn't Ukraine but realistically this is too encouraging to be true.

The fires are suggestive but guess we'd need to see another one before putting it down to sabotage by dissident scientists.

Forgive my ignorance, but does anyone know if there are *any* plausible scenarios in which the soldiers and civilians holed up in the Mariupol steelworks aren't captured or starved to death? Are they all definitely doomed, or is rescue remotely possible, even if unlikely?

I think even Zelensky is getting criticized domestically for not doing more to save Mariupol. I don't understand at all why it's gone down quite the way it has. Was it always going to be the weak link in the defense?

I mean everything else bordering the Sea of Azov is already under Russian control, right? It's not that it's the weak link, but rather that it's the last hold out.

Have some doubts about how watertight the blockade of Mariupol is. Some reports of UA units - 500 personnel is a number quoted - being extracted (by APCs, with covering fire). Relatedly, there is a recent video of Azov conducting an ambush in the west of the city: a long way from the steelworks.

In the Azov video (which shows Russians being killed, so do not recommend) it's clear that that the 'occupying force' is very low quality; in that ambush they did not even have armoured vehicles, but were driving civilian minibuses etc. Possibly the Russian army is just staying out of the city and is sending in proxies.

Also, while it's risky to generalise, I'd guess that this picture from Mariupol points to a wider problem that Russia has with numbers. In effect they can't mobilise: any conscripts sent into this war will get minced.

Mattia Nelles@mattia_n·1h
According to Major General Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of the Central Military District, the tasks of the Russian operations are to establish full control over the Donbas and Southern Ukraine, to create a land corridor to the Crimea and to Transnistria. /1

Quote Tweet
Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦@IAPonomarenko · 3h
So, the Russian war's new "official" goals:
1. Full control of Donbas
2. A land connection between Russia and Crimea
3. Full control of Southern Ukraine and a land access to the Transnistria (where "Russian-speaking population is being oppressed")
Code red for Moldova 🚨

Mattia Nelles@mattia_n·1h
Everyone needs to understand these maximalist objectives, regardless of whether they are realistic or not. This is not a crazy propagandist stating his desires, this is the Russian military stating their goals of conquering more land and taking (parts of) Moldova. /end

Also creating a landlocked Ukraine. That's probably the goal.

Still, a lot could change in the next week or two-- none of Putin's plans have worked out as expected so far . . .

I think Russia will lose. It's just that they can keep killing for a long time.

Ukraine can't be landlocked unless Odessa is captured and this is beyond Russian ability for the foreseeable. They can't even capture Mykolaiv (which is on the route to Odessa), and even if they were somehow able to capture Mykolaiv the UA will blow the bridge, which is a big one, and the Russians will have to go the long way around, using an upstream crossing of the Pivdennyi Buh river etc. etc. (Great name for a river.) And they will be strung out and killed doing this.

There's still the blockade at sea, but here would guess that the lifting of any naval blockade will be a condition of any ceasefire, and the Russians will eventually require a ceasefire so as to stop getting attacked from the part of Ukraine that isn't occupied. Like with Korea, at a minimum. So those war aims that we're hearing about today are just not achievable. If they were, it would have happened already, in the initial assault.

Exactly.

So far, the Russian military hasn't gotten any of what it wanted. They still don't have Mariupol . . .

They have each other.

Agree with 49. TBH I'm not even sure why #3 was included in the list of objectives, it's so transparently unachievable (especially absent Moskva). I guess it's simply the Rule of Three.

Also agree with 48, although I wonder a little bit just how long they can keep killing. The original offensive culminated in just a few weeks. This one is already a week old, and manifestly less momentous. Will Russia achieve any objectives before this push fizzles out?

Particularly given the news in 36, I could envision a situation where RU flails for a bit trying and failing to close off the salient*, and then Ukraine counterattacks aggressively, putting them to rout.

*which, PS, isn't much of a salient: it's not as if RU could close the 150 mile gap between Ilium & Donetsk in a day or two, let alone hold that line for long enough to matter.

40: Given that Putin has said that they're not going to try to attack the steelworks, and given that Ukraine reportedly stocked the catacombs, I think they can hold out a good, long time. That doesn't do them much good if KR never counterattacks, but I can imagine two rescue scenarios:

1. Direct rescue: after 53.last comes to pass, KR troops turn their focus south and actively aim to liberate Mariupol. That would be risky, but would also represent a potentially war-ending move, with a tremendous propaganda/morale victory as well as smashing the only meaningful war aim remaining (connecting Crimea to Donbas).

2. Negotiated rescue: after 53.last comes to pass, KR troops rampage in whatever direction makes the most sense while guerrilla action in the northeast beats the Russians back to the front lines ex ante, at which point RU are forced to negotiate in weakness before KR takes all of the Donbas back.

To be clear, I don't think either is especially likely to come to pass in the next 3-4 weeks, which may be pushing the survival of the Mariupol holdouts, but I think the balance of forces is tipping KR's way with literally every passing day, especially with the next round of US aid (to be mostly delivered this coming week I believe). I've seen zero evidence that RU has made or can make the adjustments necessary to win the war that they're now in, and at some point standing still turns into turning tail.

Jack Detsch@JackDetsch· 1h
NEW: Russia is STILL engaged in heavy fighting in Ukraine's besieged Mariupol despite Putin's stated victory, slowing 🇷🇺 progress in the Donbas: UK Defense Intelligence

Video of women and children inside the Azovstal Steel and Iron Works-- no translation but they look in decent shape:
https://twitter.com/CanadianUkrain1/status/1517741197611220992