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We're sitting on a > 48 hour interval with no top level posts which might be some kind of record. It's been awhile since we talked about Ukraine, so here we go..
It would seem that Ukraine is still slowly losing a war of attrition. Of course, the big news is Ukraine's incursion into Kursk, in which they managed to capture some Russian territory after catching the Russians with their pants down. Coupled with that, Ukraine has also been mounting more long-range attacks against Russian oil infrastructure. Neither of these actions is really what Ukraine's western allies want to see, but what can they do? Ukraine's best bet may to escalate in order to draw in more Western support without which they will collapse. But it's looking quite grim. Germany has vowed to stop new aid.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-halt-new-ukraine-military-aid-report-war-russia/
In response to Kursk and the oil infrastructure attacks, Russia has attacked Ukraine's energy grid.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-strikes-ukraines-power-grid-in-most-massive-attack-of-war/ar-AA1pt39P
What many people don't realize is that the Ukraine/Russia conflict has been in many ways quite limited. Life goes on in the cities. Casualties have largely been limited to combatants. The longer things go on, the more this might change. People in Kiev are now facing the real possibility of a winter without heat and electricity.
Here in the West, people's enthusiasm for the war seems to be waning as the news cycle covers newer, shinier topics. But the war grinds on and every day men die at the front.
Edit: As usual, the cure to a stale front page is to post about Ukraine which inspires another post on a different topic moments later.
I’m glad we can talk about this but I’d disagree on your assessment of the war at present. A few quick notes —
(1) It’s a little misleading to say that Germany has vowed to stop new aid. The article you helpfully reference explains what this means, namely that “future funding would no longer come from Germany's federal budget but from proceeds from frozen Russian assets.” While there’s still some wrangling to come here on fine details, this is a very large pot of money that help sustain Ukraine for the foreseeable future.
(2) I’m not yet fully sold on the wisdom of the Kursk campaign, as its success criteria are more strategic than operational, for example, in boosting Ukrainian morale, reassuring Western backers, or weakening Putin’s position. The reallocation of troops from the Donbas to Kursk will probably hasten the fall of Pokrovsk, which will be the most significant Ukrainian setback since Bakhmut, but unfortunately this had been on the cards for a while.
(3) I would disagree that the Ukrainians are losing the conflict through attrition. While the last 9 months have seen creeping Russian progress in the Donbas, the conflict is extremely unlikely to be settled via seizure of land or conventional military breakthrough. Instead it is likely to be resolved via collapse of political will or industrial-economic capacity. Ukraine has some disadvantages here (being a smaller country by population, for example), but also some notable advantages. On the political front, most Ukrainians see the conflict as a war of national survival, and on the industrial economic side, it has deep-pocketed allies in the West.
(4) Overall the picture for Ukraine is considerably better than it was 6 months ago, which is not to deny that it is still extremely challenging. The new mobilisation bill has been passed and has implemented and the previously precarious manpower shortages will likely start improving in the autumn as new mobiks enter the field. Russia’s much-feared summer offensive has taken territory but has not led to breakouts or encirclements. A Trump presidency now looks considerably less likely than it did even a couple of months ago, and there is a very good chance that a Harris White Housr would be even more hawkish on Russia than the Biden-Blinken administration. F-16s are now in service, with more to follow. Long-range missile and drone attacks on Russian energy and transport infrastructure have continued, and Ukraine announced just this week that it had successfully tested its first ballistic missile. Meanwhile the Russian economy looks increasingly fragile, with central bank interest rates at 18%, their highest for two years, and signup bonuses for new recruits are approaching eye-watering levels.
None of which is to say it’ll be plain sailing. For example, I still think there’s a very real (though still <10%) chance that Russia will use nuclear weapons as a last resort strategy. However, I’m considerably more optimistic than you.
What's your basis for saying this? My only real sense of Harris' positions is that she's much likelier than Biden to indulge the left of the party, and that wing doesn't really care about Russia beyond any supposed connections the country's leadership has with Trump.
Not the OP, but my model of Harris is that she is a cipher, with no real views or opinions of her own (except perhaps social justice). She's much like Biden in that way.
So the same people who've been running the Biden admin will run the Harris admin with the same results. If she has credible opinions on foreign policy, or can even identify Crimea on a map, we haven't seen it.
I think Biden was responsible for the Afghanistan pullout, and he's likely also responsible for the US not being pro-Hamas. He also doesn't have nearly as dumb ideas on taxation.
I think this is much better attributed to AIPAC than Biden.
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