Tweet
An update on Ukraine: "Culminate" is the term used to describe the end of offensive operations for Russian forces in Ukraine which includes Wagner PMC. Analysts I follow believe that Russian forces are degraded to the point that they are no longer able to sustain offensive operations and have defaulted to defense of the Ukrainian territory they now occupy.
Over the last couple of weeks, Wagner Group's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been publicly complaining about the Russian MOD's lack of support in supplying ammunition. ISW has described what's going on between Prighozhin and the Russian MOD as evidence of "fracture lines" emerging in Russia's overall war effort. Observers believe the Kremlin is trying to isolate Prighozhin, reduce his presence in the information space and, he alleges, set him up for the cause of failure in Bakhmut and the western fronts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The most obvious indicator of this is the lack of coordination between multiple attack axis within this front rendering the overall Russian war effort since January '23 another failure - at least for now.
Ammunition shortages are contributing and affecting both sides. Zelenski stated today that Ukraine's army cannot undertake counter-offensives now, even though there is a critical window of opportunity to do that successfully, becasue arms delivery from western sources are happening too slowly or not at all. Zelenski also reported that his attempts through diplomatic channels to get Xi to discuss his peace proposal have not produced the intended result (a Zoom meeting between Zelenski and Xi). One can read all sorts of things into this and news rooms have. Aside from dismissing Zelenski as an active participant in negotiations to end the conflict, it suggests the Xi and Putin want the west, in the form of Joe Biden, to collaborate in a peace deal. That reflects the Kremlin's approach from the start in defining the war in Ukraine as a conflict between an aggrieved Russia fending off threats from US lead NATO allies to its security. A conflict between NATO, led by the US and Russia.
IMO, on a strategic level, the war in Ukraine is becoming a back-drop to the larger struggle to maintain the rules based world order threatened by the alignment of China, Russia and Iran who would like to replace it - primarily replace the US with themselves - as autocratic players that determine the outcomes of events that serve their interests and not those of the west. I've read plenty of articles that flesh out what that means and to what degree the outcome in Ukraine will determine how successful either side is in preservation or replacement of the rules based world order and all the institutions that have arisen in the last 50+ years to sustain it.
IOW, the degree to which Russian aggression and Putin's revanchist view of restoration of the Russian Empire is allowed to go unchallenged in the Caucuses ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus), Ukraine and former Soviet satellite states that are now NATO members, or about to be members, is a huge deal. I'd offer the view that democracies are revisiting the challenges presented to it in the post WWI era by the autocrats of Germany, Japan and Italy.
Over the last couple of weeks, Wagner Group's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been publicly complaining about the Russian MOD's lack of support in supplying ammunition. ISW has described what's going on between Prighozhin and the Russian MOD as evidence of "fracture lines" emerging in Russia's overall war effort. Observers believe the Kremlin is trying to isolate Prighozhin, reduce his presence in the information space and, he alleges, set him up for the cause of failure in Bakhmut and the western fronts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The most obvious indicator of this is the lack of coordination between multiple attack axis within this front rendering the overall Russian war effort since January '23 another failure - at least for now.
Ammunition shortages are contributing and affecting both sides. Zelenski stated today that Ukraine's army cannot undertake counter-offensives now, even though there is a critical window of opportunity to do that successfully, becasue arms delivery from western sources are happening too slowly or not at all. Zelenski also reported that his attempts through diplomatic channels to get Xi to discuss his peace proposal have not produced the intended result (a Zoom meeting between Zelenski and Xi). One can read all sorts of things into this and news rooms have. Aside from dismissing Zelenski as an active participant in negotiations to end the conflict, it suggests the Xi and Putin want the west, in the form of Joe Biden, to collaborate in a peace deal. That reflects the Kremlin's approach from the start in defining the war in Ukraine as a conflict between an aggrieved Russia fending off threats from US lead NATO allies to its security. A conflict between NATO, led by the US and Russia.
IMO, on a strategic level, the war in Ukraine is becoming a back-drop to the larger struggle to maintain the rules based world order threatened by the alignment of China, Russia and Iran who would like to replace it - primarily replace the US with themselves - as autocratic players that determine the outcomes of events that serve their interests and not those of the west. I've read plenty of articles that flesh out what that means and to what degree the outcome in Ukraine will determine how successful either side is in preservation or replacement of the rules based world order and all the institutions that have arisen in the last 50+ years to sustain it.
IOW, the degree to which Russian aggression and Putin's revanchist view of restoration of the Russian Empire is allowed to go unchallenged in the Caucuses ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus), Ukraine and former Soviet satellite states that are now NATO members, or about to be members, is a huge deal. I'd offer the view that democracies are revisiting the challenges presented to it in the post WWI era by the autocrats of Germany, Japan and Italy.
Comment