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THE UKRAINE WAR
UKRAINE SLOWLY WINNING WP Opinion Putin is losing his ‘war of choice’ in Ukraine 
A Ukrainian soldier takes a selfie as an artillery system fires in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, on Sept. 3. (Kostiantyn Liberov/AP) Original article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/06/ukraine-winning-war-russia-losing/ Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I am reminded of the phrase ... 'It is not over, until its over!' There is a lot of optimism in this Washington Post opinion piece, and I am happy about that. But war is not totally predictable, and while I want this to be so, I am well aware that we need to be on guard against complacency and war fatigue on the part of the people and policicians in the Western allies of Ukraine. I have been impressed by the Ukraine military leadership and its soldiers ... they are highly motivated and very well trained. They are also operating in a very strategic manner, that seems to be very solid. I am also impressed by the support that has been coming from the NATO allies, not to mention the many countries in Europe that are welcoming refugees from the violence in Ukraine. For me ... I am not sure that the business community is going to take the high ground or is going to cave as soon as there is any serious downward profit pressure. The financial and business community has had a long run of profit increase no matter what the situation in society and the environment, and I am not sure that investors will take kindly to a change that will reduce profit performance even though this has been at totally unjustified record levels for a very long time. My impression is that both the Federal Reserve and the Biden Administration learned some important lessons from the 2008 financial crisis and have been able to do a surprisingly good job of maintaining a generally good level of economic performance in the United States compared to what might have been expected given the severity of the economic downdraft associated with the Covid pandemic. There are some current issues that are getting a lot of media attention ... especially inflation, supply chain disruption, extreme weather and commercial disruption from the Ukrainian conflict, but generally speaking the economic situation is way better than one would have expected given the disruption of the recent (2 or 3 years) past. While I would not describe President Biden as the most charismatic of leaders ... there are many things that he is and that he has done that are world class, and might even be classed as 'best ever'. I am very comfortable ranking the Biden administration as consequential as President Johnsom was with the Great Society legislation and President Eisenhower was with the Interstate Highway System ... and I am very impressed with the manner in which NATO and other international initiatives are improving with the Biden administration. My assessment of media performance, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. They are failing in the mission of informing the public in a complete, coherent manner which is very dangerous for democracy. So far support for Ukraine has been solid ... my hope is that will continue. It is very important that it does! Peter Burgess | ||
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Opinion Putin is losing his ‘war of choice’ in Ukraine
Opinion by Max Boot ... Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.” September 6, 2022 at 3:06 p.m. EDT At the end of August, Ukrainian forces launched a slow-motion offensive to push the Russian invaders out of Kherson, one of the biggest cities they have occupied since the start of the war more than six months ago. The Institute for the Study of War reports that “the Ukrainian counteroffensive is making verifiable progress,” although it remains far from clear when, or even if, the Ukrainians can liberate Kherson. But, while the fate of Kherson remains to be determined, the larger trend is not in dispute: Ukraine is winning its war of independence. The major issue now is how much of its territory it can claw back. The existence of a democratic, pro-Western Ukrainian state is no longer in doubt. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s war plans have failed miserably. My Post colleagues reported in their deeply researched “Road to war” series that Putin had planned “to seize Kyiv in three to four days,” “remove President Volodymyr Zelensky” and “install a Kremlin-friendly puppet government.” Other Russian forces were supposed to drive from the east and south, “leaving a rump Ukrainian state in the west.” When those initial plans were stymied by the heroic defense of Kyiv, Putin switched in mid-April to focus on the Donbas region in the east. By early July, Putin’s forces had forced the retreat of Ukrainian defenders from Luhansk, one of the two provinces in Donbas. But Russian troops did not trap Ukrainian forces, as they had hoped, and they have not made any appreciable progress in Donetsk (the other province in the Donbas region). Instead, they have been thrown on the defensive in Kherson and the rest of the south. Moscow has now been compelled to postpone plans for a farcical “referendum,” scheduled for mid-September, on annexing Kherson to Russia. Ukrainian forces have the initiative, and they are displaying impressive resilience despite substantial casualties. Putin hoped to tear Ukraine apart. Instead he has united it. In a recent poll, 91 percent of Ukrainians expressed approval of Zelensky and 98 percent expressed confidence in victory. Putin has managed to retain Russian support for his “special military operation” only by brutally repressing dissent and hiding its real cost. CIA Director William Burns said on July 20 that Russian casualties were estimated at 15,000 troops killed and 45,000 wounded. Independent analysts estimate that Russia has lost more than 5,400 military vehicles (including more than 1,000 tanks) along with 52 aircraft and 11 ships. Such massive losses of troops and equipment will be hard to replace — all the more so because Putin refuses to risk a total mobilization of Russian society that could undermine support for his illegitimate rule. Russia is compelled to buy artillery shells from North Korea and drones from Iran. Putin had hoped to bring Ukraine and its Western allies to their knees by waging economic warfare, but so far his machinations have been stymied. On July 22, under pressure from Turkey and other countries whose support he is seeking, Putin agreed to relax his Black Sea blockade and allow Ukrainian grain shipments under United Nations auspices. The Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry reports that so far 86 ships have sailed from Ukrainian ports carrying 2 million tons of agricultural products to 19 countries. Those shipments are blunting Putin’s attempts to weaponize food shortages, relaxing inflationary pressures and allowing Ukraine to generate badly needed revenue. Putin has been trying to use the threat of Russian energy cutoffs to persuade Europe to stop supporting Ukraine. A Kremlin spokesman just announced that Russia was shutting the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline to Europe until Western sanctions are lifted. But the Europeans haven’t wavered. Rather, they have accelerated their efforts to end dependence on Russian energy. European gas storage facilities are nearly 80 percent filled already, well ahead of a November deadline, and the European Union is ramping up imports of liquefied natural gas, putting off plans to close nuclear plants, and reducing energy use. Western sanctions haven’t led to an economic implosion in Russia or forced Putin to discontinue his invasion, but they are taking a toll that will only grow. Russia will be hard put to run its production lines, military and civilian, without Western semiconductors — and it has seen a 90 percent drop in chip imports. According to Bloomberg, an internal Russian government document warns of a much “longer and deeper recession” than officials admit in “their upbeat public pronouncements,” with the economy not returning to its prewar level until “the end of the decade or later.” There is no room for complacency. Ukraine can prevail only if it continues to receive substantial Western aid, and it needs even more assistance (fighter aircraft, long-range rockets and tanks) to complete the liberation of its soil. But more than six months into Putin’s “war of choice,” Russia’s probable defeat is coming into focus. What remains to be determined is the magnitude and impact of that defeat. If the Ukrainians manage to trap up to 25,000 Russian troops on the west bank of the Dnieper River around Kherson, it could shake Putin’s criminal regime to its foundations. Opinion by Max Boot ... Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.”
| The text being discussed is available at | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/06/ukraine-winning-war-russia-losing/ and |