“Ukraine – Russia”

The soldier with the Kalashnikov wasn’t happy. Neither were the hundreds of comrades who had chosen him as the spokesman for their angry complaints as they milled about on a train platform somewhere in Russia. ‘There are 500 of us, we are armed, but we haven’t been assigned to any unit,’ the newly mobilised soldier complained on a video that went viral earlier this month. ‘We’ve been living worse than farm animals for a week… Nobody needs us, we’ve had absolutely no training.’ Other soldiers, most of them masked, chipped in with more grievances. ‘The officers treat us like animals,’ shouted one. ‘We’ve spent a fortune on buying food for ourselves.’

LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) – If Ukraine is admitted into the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, then the conflict in Ukraine would be guaranteed to escalate into World War Three, a Russian Security Council official was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin formally proclaimed the annexation of up to 18% of Ukraine on Sept. 30, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced a surprise bid for fast-track membership of NATO.

… The intimate connection between industrial war and proletarian revolution was understood well enough that, as historians Gabriel Kolko and Azar Gat have demonstrated, most of the distinctive military strategies that emerged across the last century were expressly devised in order to avoid imposing the kinds of costs — especially in blood — that necessitated making promises to the masses. This was true of strategies such as the blockade by the Royal Navy, RAF terror bombing, Nazi Blitzkrieg and US containment, among others. It was also believed that de-massifying politics would help defuse the nationalist passions that fuelled conflict, facilitating diplomacy once elites were freed from explicit commitments to their national populations.

During a visit to Kyiv last weekend, I kept asking Ukrainians a question that vexes me: Is your war against President Vladimir Putin — or against Russia itself? Nearly every time, I got the same unyielding answer. The enemy is a Russia that must be defeated and transformed.

Through Ukrainian eyes, this terrible conflict has become a clash of civilizations. They argue that most Russians support Putin’s brutal war in the way that most Germans supported Adolf Hitler. Unless Russia as a nation abandons the imperial dreams that Putin has evoked, the conflict cannot be resolved through negotiations.

Brothers in Arms

Footage has emerged showing a Russian unit coming under attack from a Ukrainian ambush.

As soon as they are attacked, the vehicle speeds off and the unit abandons one of their men to his fate.#Ukraine #Russia pic.twitter.com/9njZRTsVOw

— WhereisRussiaToday (@WhereisRussia) October 12, 2022

Eight months into Ukraine’s war with Russia, its emerging strategy is combining classic military operations with opportunism on the battlefield to exploit the incompetence of Russian forces—and is changing the course of the battle.

Ukraine’s command structure encourages junior officers to make in-the-moment battlefield decisions, an authority that they have used to seize opportunities and quickly take advantage of enemy weaknesses.

Russians, by contrast, have been slowed by a Soviet-era decision-making structure, in which orders trickle down the chain of command from Moscow, and troops at the front lines take little initiative.

#Ukraine: A Russian MT-LB driver, apparently with very limited vision, drove into a row of TM-62 anti-tank mines. The result is as expected. pic.twitter.com/Efp9ML2txu

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 12, 2022

Biden doesn’t just want to weaken Russia

All of Europe is suffering as a result of the energy crisis, but for the continent’s largest economy, this is more than just an economic crisis — it’s an existential one. Once hailed as Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany is now being labelled its “weakest link”.

A recession next year is now considered almost certain; industrial production is down 9% on last year; inflation has soared to double digits for the first time since the Second World War. Given Germany’s deep-seated inflation-phobia, all this is problematic enough. But even more traumatic for the country is the fact that Germany is now running a negative trade balance — the first time this has happened in more than 30 years. This is a very tough pill to swallow for a country where export-led growth is more than just an economic model — it’s part of its national identity.

Elon Musk personally rejected a Ukrainian request to extend his satellite internet service to Crimea, the SpaceX CEO fearing that an effort to retake the peninsula from Russian forces could lead to a nuclear war, according to a report published Tuesday.

Following Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, Musk — and the US government — provided Kyiv with thousands of Starlink systems, enabling Ukrainian forces to communicate in what were previously dead zones. The low energy requirements of the service’s satellite receivers have enabled it to be connected to reconnaissance drones, Yahoo News reported, providing valuable, real-time intelligence on Russian movements and the ability to target them.

But recently there have been problems. Last week, the Financial Times reported that the service was suffering “catastrophic” outages on the frontlines, prompting speculation that it had been shut off in areas controlled by Russia — perhaps to prevent the Kremlin from itself exploiting the network.

A photo of Elon #Musk, which was posted as a sign of gratitude for his support of #Ukraine, is being removed in #Odesa. pic.twitter.com/ZjljZjhEWh

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 12, 2022

Russian president said to have told tech billionaire nuclear strike was on the table if Ukraine refused to cede annexed territories

Elon Musk spoke directly with Vladimir Putin before tweeting a “peace plan” which would involve Ukraine permanently ceding illegally annexed territory to Russia, according to reports.

During the conversation, the Russian president is said to have told the tech billionaire that a nuclear strike was on the table if Ukraine refused to recognise Moscow’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as Putin demanded.

The alleged conversation was reported in an email sent to Eurasia Group subscribers on Tuesday by Ian Bremmer, the group’s founder. Mr Bremmer wrote that the Tesla CEO told him two weeks ago that Putin would accomplish his goals “no matter what.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for a preemptive strike against Russia in a Thursday speech. “But what is important, I once again appeal to the international community, as I did before February 24 – we need pre-emptive strikes, so that they’ll know what will happen to them if they use nukes, and not the other way around,” he said. “Don’t wait for Russia’s nuclear strikes, and then say, ‘Oh, since you did this, take that from us!’ Reconsider the way you apply pressure. This is what NATO should do – reconsider the order in which it applies pressure [on Russia].”

In Bakhmut the AFU is actively repulsing PMC Wagner attacks. The enemy struggles to take terrain while sustaining huge losses. Already between 1200-2000 PMC Wagner soldiers died in the last 2-3 weeks during the Zaitseve offensive. pic.twitter.com/aPzswUxC04

— NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) October 11, 2022

Interviews in Kraków offer a collective portrait of their experience.

Three weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I arrived in Poland intending to volunteer, maybe by ladling soup for refugees or by unpacking boxes of humanitarian aid. Instead, I began a series of interviews with refugees in Kraków, Poland’s second-largest city, located just a few hours from the Ukrainian border.

By the time I arrived, Poland felt, if not quite like a country at war, certainly a nation poised to support a war. The trains and train stations overflowed with evacuees, mostly women and children. Volunteers in dayglow vests manned help points in train stations, bus depots, airports, and shopping malls. Blue and yellow flags were everywhere. Even local shopkeepers were stepping up. One convenience store I visited had posted a sign on a shopping cart: “Please take an item from your bag to help feed our Ukrainian visitors.”

Zelensky must make concessions, or prepare for the worst.

For the sake of the world, no less, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky needs to heed the events of Oct. 1962.

That’s when the Soviet Union and the United States came too close to nuclear war.

The United States considered it intolerable when it found Soviet missiles deployed in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida. Remove them, or prepare for retaliation.

Both sides were bloated with nuclear weapons. It was a time of advancing communism and when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev blustered, “We will bury you.”

Our commander-in-chief is weak and fearful.

Livening up a Thursday fundraiser, President Joe Biden said, “Think about it. We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis. We’ve got a guy I know fairly well; his name is Vladimir Putin…. It’s part of Russian doctrine that they will not — they will not — if the motherland is threatened, they’ll use whatever force they need, including nuclear weapons.” He added, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as an ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”