Andrew Korybko | Nov 22, 2024
He wants to deter the even greater provocations that the West might now be plotting, such as destabilizing and then invading Belarus, with the intent of coercing him into freezing the existing LOC and then possibly accepting the deployment of Western/NATO peacekeepers there.
Putin surprised the world on Thursday when he addressed the nation to inform them that Russia had tested a new hypersonic medium-range missile earlier that morning in an attack against a famous Soviet-era industrial complex in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk. He explained that this was a response to the US and UK recently allowing Ukraine to use their long-range missiles inside of Russia. Their decision resulted in the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine “assuming elements of a global nature” in his words.
As was explained here with regards to the “moment of truth” that this latest phase of the conflict led to, he was faced with the choice of either escalating or continuing his policy of strategic patience, the first of which could foil attempts by Trump to reach a peace deal while the second could invite more aggression. Putin chose the former and did so in a creative way that few foresaw. The Oreshnik missile system whose existence he disclosed on Thursday has Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs).
It’s essentially the same sort of weapon that Russia could use in the event of a nuclear conflict with the West since the aforesaid feature coupled with its hypersonic speed means that it’s impossible to intercept. In other words, Putin rattled Russia’s nuclear saber in the most convincing way possible short of testing a nuclear weapon, which his government previously confirmed that it wouldn’t do for the reasons that were explained here. He’s therefore finally climbing the escalation ladder.
Putin hitherto declined to escalate in response to the over 1,000 days’ worth of NATO-backed Ukrainian provocations that included bombing the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, nuclear power plants, and the Crimean Bridge, among many other sensitive targets, so as to avoid World War III. He also prioritized political goals over military ones up until this point, but that’s all changing now since he realized that his strategic patience was interpreted as weakness and only invited more aggression.
Seeing as how Ukraine’s latest use of Western weapons inside of Russia’s pre-2014 territory isn’t unprecedented due to the HIMARS already having been used in Belgorod and Kursk Regions, the latter of which Ukraine invaded with NATO’s support over the summer, the question arises of why it took over three months for his views to change. It should also be noted that Russia didn’t significantly respond to Ukraine fielding the F-16s despite Lavrov previously warning that they could be nuclear-equipped.
Russia might have therefore received intelligence that the West is plotting an even greater provocation in the future. Belarusian media just aired a documentary exposing a Western plot to destabilize and invade their country, which readers can learn more about by reviewing the seven analyses that were listed in this one here. Correspondingly, it was assessed that “Russia’s Updated Nuke Doctrine Aims To Deter Unacceptable Provocations From NATO”, and the aforesaid would certainly constitute such.
Putin’s strategic patience would have finally reached its limits if he caught wind that anything of the sort was afoot, which would explain why he’d order the Oreshnik to be used against that Soviet-era industrial complex in Central Ukraine in order to send an unmistakable message to the West to reconsider its plans. Recalling how concerned he is about avoiding World War III, it also makes sense why his spokesman confirmed that Russia informed the US about this approximately half an hour ahead of time.
After all, launching an intermediate-range hypersonic missile westward without any advance notification could have prompted the US to panic by interpreting this as the start of a potential nuclear first strike by Russia, thus setting into motion the exact same scenario that he’s worked so hard to avoid. His motive was to deter the West from carrying out unacceptable provocations that cross Russia’s most sensitive redlines, which the West might be plotting out of desperation to “escalate to de-escalate” on its terms.
It was written here, here, and here that Trump might resort to that, but the latest ATACMS escalation – which can be regarded as a provocation due to these missiles having a much longer range than the HIMARS – suggests that the “Collective Biden” decided to do so first out of fear that whatever deal he might reach with Putin would compromise on too many of the US’ interests. Accordingly, Putin might now have decided to beat the US to the punch by “escalating to de-escalate” on Russia’s terms instead.
Thursday morning was the first time that a MIRV was used in combat, which is much more significant than the US “boiling the frog” by expanding the range of the missiles that Ukraine has already been able to use inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders after once again signaling its escalatory plans long in advance, especially since few saw it coming and the US only had around a 30-minute notice. Putin also warned that Russia’s new doctrine allows it to use such weapons against those who arm Ukraine.
It’s unlikely that he’ll throw caution to the wind by launching Oreshniks against military targets in NATO countries at the risk of sparking World War III, but it can’t be ruled out that the next escalation that he’s considering in response to more aggression could be bombing Moldova instead. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said earlier in the week that the Western-backed government there is “turning the country at a rapid pace into a logistics hub used to supply the Ukrainian armed forces.”
It’s not a NATO member though so Russia could bomb it without crossing the West’s red lines while still signaling that he’s not the pushover that they convinced themselves that he was after misreading the reasons for his strategic patience if they still keep provoking him even after Thursday’s escalation. They want him to accept Western/NATO peacekeepers along the Line of Contact (LOC), Ukraine’s continued militarization, its future membership in NATO, and no change in its anti-Russian legislation.
By contrast, Putin wants to expel Ukraine from the four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022, no Western/NATO peacekeepers along the LOC, Ukraine’s demilitarization, the restoration of its constitutional neutrality, and the rescinding of its anti-Russian legislation. Beating the West to the punch by “escalating to de-escalate”, or at least finally climbing the escalation ladder in response to their provocations, is therefore aimed at achieving as many of these maximum goals as he can.
If he sticks to his guns and doesn’t waver from his newfound approach, which is arguably long-overdue since some believe that he should have begun applying it after the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks, then he stands a much greater chance of achieving at least part of the most important ones. NATO can always conventionally intervene in Ukraine west of the Dnieper to salvage some of its geopolitical project so Russia should assume that it won’t be able to demilitarize or denazify that part of the country.
What it can do, however, is employ military and diplomatic means (both individually and in combination through its abovementioned newfound approach) to obtain control over all the territory that it claims as its own east of the Dnieper, possibly including Zaporozhye’s eponymous city of over 700,000 people. The new LOC could then be patrolled by purely non-Western forces deployed as part of a UN mandate while Ukraine might be coerced to demilitarize everything that remains under its control east of the Dnieper.
All heavy weapons would have to be withdrawn westward as part of a massive demilitarized zone (DMZ), while the possibility also exists that this “Transdnieper” region might also receive political autonomy or at least cultural autonomy to protect the rights of ethnic Russians and those who speak that language. This scenario was first tabled here in March and could take the form shown below, with the western part of the country in blue possibly hosting NATO troops as part of the arrangement that’ll then be described:
Ukraine could be deterred from breaking the ceasefire due to the DMZ placing it at a disadvantage, while Russia would be deterred by the “security guarantees” that Ukraine clinched with a bunch of NATO countries this year, which amount to de facto Article 5 support. While Russia could storm into the DMZ, NATO could also storm into Western Ukraine or possibly even cross the Dnieper, whether due to a swift intervention or having already deployed its troops west of the river per tacit agreement with Russia.
What was detailed in the three preceding paragraphs is the maximum that Russia can realistically achieve given the new military-strategic circumstances in which it finds itself over 1,000 days since the special operation began. Putin finally started climbing the escalation ladder in order to deter the even greater provocations that the West might now be plotting with the intent of coercing him into freezing the existing LOC and then possibly accepting the deployment of Western/NATO peacekeepers there.
Such a scenario would be completely unacceptable for him from the perspective of Russia’s national security interests and his own reputational ones after promising to check NATO’s expansion in Ukraine. Keeping that bloc west of the Dnieper while demilitarizing everything east of it and north of the administrative borders of the four former Ukrainian regions that joined Russia in September 2022, tentatively known as the “Transdnieper” region, would be a tolerable compromise though.
Trump might deem this to be pragmatic enough of a deal for him to go along with since it could still be spun by all relevant parties to the conflict as a victory (e.g. Russia gained land and created a DMZ deep inside Ukraine; Ukraine continued to exist as a state; and the US de facto incorporated Western Ukraine into NATO). It could even enter into force prior to that if either side “escalates to de-escalate” before his inauguration and this is the “mutually face-saving” compromise that they reach to avoid World War III.
Of course, it would be better if they agree to this without sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that risks spiraling out of control, hence why their diplomats should begin discussing it now or a third country’s ones like India’s should propose it behind the scenes to get the ball rolling. Putin’s newfound (and arguably long-overdue) approach signals that he won’t accept freezing the existing LOC, nor especially the deployment of NATO/Western peacekeepers there, and will escalate to avert that.
He might even go as far as using tactical nukes in Ukraine (and/or NATO’s logistics hub in Moldova) if he feels that he’s being cornered by the evolving circumstances in which the West might soon place him through its possibly forthcoming greater provocations (e.g. destabilizing and invading Belarus). The West must therefore start taking Putin seriously after he finally began climbing the escalation ladder otherwise the worst-case scenario of World War III might become unavoidable if they push him too far.
Peloni
I have to write it. But there’s no mystery. Their treatment of Ukraine and also this war is where they start their analysis from. And since their take is from true non scientific method they leave major and the most critical issues untouched. I go back in contrast to them to the emergence of new currents of thought and a more invigorating method … Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism… historical materialism.
If I can be so bold you yourself have failed to explain the Antisemitism of Sachs and others
Adam
How disarmingly noted by your new hero!
“Sergiy Sydorenko, the European Pravda’s editor, has spoken with Pomianowski, whose position is very close to realpolitik. It included points about the West’s perspective on the war and potential “compromises” that might unsettle or even offend some in the Ukrainian audience. Rather than dismissing these viewpoints, they need to be understood and addressed.”
It is only recently they are so understanding
And that is because they are having proven to be no match for Russian military science and technology
Of course it is total racism. It could not be possible that those Slavs would be able to smash the smart people of Europe.
I noticed that you and Michael have been firing fake figures every day at israpundit when you haven’t a dammed clue how many were being killed.
You should now be apologising to this site for leading people astray.
But you will never do that.
@fquigley
I would be interested in reading the article if you have the citation handy. I have read Sach’s commentary for sometime now, but I have not read a single thing which demonstrates a superficial aspect to his rational perspective on the Ukraine debacle.
Peloni
Actually when you go a little deeper on the Jeffrey Sachs issue, reference his take on Ukraine
The mystery soon clears up.
Of course he’s better than the Guardian but that is a case of “in the land of the blind a one eyed man is king”.
It seems like a paradox but on Ukraine also his take on the key matters turns out to be quite superficial
Or so my reading for an article in preparation leads me to conclude
So Adam old bean
If it is connected in promotion of the EU why do you present THAT to Jews???
From Ukrrainska Pravda, but republished from a site called Europeanintegration.com, which is connected to the EU=note by Adam.
Ukraine’s strategy under Trump, problematic signals from Ukrainians and parallels with WWI: an interview
Friday, 22 November 2024 — Anton Filippov
Jerzy Pomianowski is a Polish career diplomat who has been based in Brussels for over a decade, leading the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), an organisation that supports democratic and civil initiatives worldwide, including in Ukraine.
Pomianowski has a keen understanding of how Western attitudes toward Ukraine and Russia’s war against Ukraine are evolving.
Sergiy Sydorenko, the European Pravda’s editor, has spoken with Pomianowski, whose position is very close to realpolitik. It included points about the West’s perspective on the war and potential “compromises” that might unsettle or even offend some in the Ukrainian audience. Rather than dismissing these viewpoints, they need to be understood and addressed.
Read more in the the full interview – “The West is preparing Ukraine for negotiations rather than victory.”
Such a clear change of administration will make a difference. The only thing we know about Trump is that he is unpredictable. It is very difficult to guess what his next move will be.
This unpredictability means that it will be difficult to make any long-term plans.
It does not necessarily have to have negative consequences. Sometimes it is positive because if something is not working, you can quickly change strategy and jump to another deal and another deal.
A scenario where Trump hands Ukraine over to Putin, I don’t consider a serious one.
We need to keep in mind that there is a strong perception among the military community within the US that the war with Russia in Ukraine is extremely important from a strategic point of view, that it cannot simply be given up for some small political deals.
But at the same time, the US interest is to make sure that Putin is not going out of this war stronger, because that would be against the US interest.
I have this extremely strong voice in my head that is related to 1918. ?here were two people – French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and US General John Pershing – who were saying: we cannot stop now, we have to go to Berlin. Because if we don’t do this, we will have a war in 20 years.
But the public, in France, in the US and the UK, were so tired of the war that they demanded an immediate ceasefire, immediate peace.
What we see today (here I am being absolutely blunt and down to the ground) is that the language of today’s political discourse about Ukraine is a preparatory process for some kind of negotiations.
Not a preparation for victory.
That is the real danger.
If you have such feelings that would dominate in the public in Western Europe, in the US, then of course no politician will be able to overrule such pressure.
Because that’s how democracy works.
Here is where the role of Ukrainian society comes in. We at the EED believe that the whole of society in today’s world – through social media, through advocacy campaigns, through different mechanisms – can communicate the will of the Ukrainian people to other societies.
But at the moment, if an ordinary Polish or Belgian person talks to their Ukrainian neighbour, they receive mixed messages which are not only about Ukraine’s readiness to defend itself. People hear things like “I don’t know what’s going on there,” or “Corruption is still high, because you can pay and cross the border.”
This kind of cacophony that comes from ordinary Ukrainians all accumulates to one general message: that Ukrainian society is getting weaker than it was at the beginning of the war. This harms Ukraine.
What we see today (here I am being absolutely blunt and down to the ground) is that the language of today’s political discourse about Ukraine is a preparatory process for some kind of negotiations.
Not a preparation for victory.
That’s why NATO membership and EU membership are two elements that cannot be given up in any future negotiation. That will disable Russia’s ability to relaunch the war after 2, 3, 5, 7 years.
I hope that pan-European support will be strong enough to give Ukraine the ability to manoeuvre, to strike those short-term deals with the US whenever the situation allows, and to prepare a better negotiating position for the future so-called peace talks.
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Anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine sources claim that the Russian economy is near collapse. Food prices are said to be climbing rapidly. There is a serious shortage of butter, which has led to people stealing butter from markets, or even breaking into them after hours to get a “haul” of butter. And some commentators say that a shortage of butter in Russia has always presaged serious economic problems ahead. (the “experts” disagree on what is so. But there seems to something of a consensus that it is a sign of a general rise in food prices.) Inflation is said to becoming severe, and increasing faster than wages, meaning that wage-earners real incomes are falling. The ruble is in free fall against the world’s leading currencies, such as the dollar, the yuan and the yen. One hundred rubles is now woth less than one dollar, and its loss of value appears to be accelerating. This makes it very difficult for Russia to import things from overseas.. Since most Russians and Russian companies have investments denominated in rubles, this means their return on their investments has been falling rapidly. Some business and individuals have been receiving negative returns, meaning losses on their investments.
Some Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainians in the West are hoping that Russia’s economic woes will cause the Russian government to accept a peace on Ukrainian and Western terms, in spite of the Russian army’s gains on the battlefield.
Putin never has anyone thrown out of windows or poisoned or shot if they disagree with him. Wrong it is his M.O. as is invading is neighboring sovereign countries and claiming some type of false flag such as he stopping the NAZIs from taking over.
All or some are free to disagree with me but it matters not as that is the truth I believe. Some may feel Putin is a man of good for Russians but many many Russians feel he has gotten 100,000s killed and more injured in a power play, where he overplayed his hand. He figured he was going to kill Zelensky quickly and take over Kiev in a couple of weeks but a few years later that has not yet occurred!
@RufusG
All true, but even here you can appreciate the limit of Sachs’ use of logic and sanity as it specifically applies to Israel when he references the abandonment of the JCPOA as being completely “reckless foreign policy”. His desire, which parallels that of many Neocons with whom he would rue to be compared, to make false comparisons between Iran and Russia or Israel and Ukraine is simple perversity in the extreme. So while you are correct in describing him as brilliant in regards to his appreciation of facts surrounding the Russia-Ukraine quagmire, he can not offer a single syllable of sanity even as it tangentially applies to Israel, which should both inform and reveal a great deal about Sachs.
Here is a brilliant history lesson on #Russia v #Ukraine
By the man who has been there every step of the way, Jeffrey Sachs.
Disastrously bad “diplomacy” by Americans and Europeans
https://x.com/ivan_8848/status/1852163971501166661
So this has been happening. I bet very few on this site have much knowledge of this.
And lack of knowledge is a thing that can be fixed.
Adam on the death of the ballet dancer what’s his name and what info do you have? Have you done research or…?
Critics of the Russian government and its president, Vladimir Putin, have been commenting over the past year have commented on how many critics of the president or his policies have died by falling out of upper-story windows. Just yesterday, the leading male ballet dancer, whose name I can’t pronounce, just died yesterday after falling out of a fifth story window. The police have ruled the death an accident. He was only 39 years old.