More Ukraine
To end this workweek, I present some rather dire sounding news from the stalled Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Economist news magazine interviewed Ukrainian Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian military—and his estimation of Russia’s next moves are bracing. He views the mass conscription of Russian men into the Russian military as largely successful, no matter how poorly these conscripts have performed on the front lines recently.
Gen. Zaluzhnyi believes the Russians are producing artillery shells and training conscripts in the eastern parts of central Russia for a renewed assault on Kyiv around the end of February. He thinks the Russians will begin with a barrage of artillery (presumably against civilian targets) before sending in an invasion force of some 200,000 over the northern route to try once more to take Kyiv.
The current Russian drone and missile attacks are aimed at demolishing Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure for electricity and clean water across the country as a means of softening it up for invasion, per the general. How will Ukrainian soldiers perform if they are worried about their families back home starving or freezing to death? And if cell service is cut off, the armed forces will have no way of knowing.
It makes sense within the logic of this misbegotten Russian adventure. Such an invasion would turn the war into an open war of attrition, where all that matters is killing as many of your adversary without regard for your own battlefield losses. When all else failed, Russian forces in modern times have resorted to attrition, cruelty, and brutality against their own just as much against their military targets.
My summary here is admittedly superficial since I’m short on time (probably the case until early January). And I haven’t yet signed up with The Economist to see if it really will let me read the article without a paid subscription, although I’ve seen snippets pasted on Twitter. But a brief overview of the article was published by Yahoo News, republished from Ukrainska Pravda. The interview itself is real news of the most worrisome.
I fear the predictions may be correct. And if so, it means we in the West need to be ramping up munitions production to send to Ukraine. The ongoing murder of civilians by the Russian regime should be brought to a halt—because it is intolerable. It was intolerable when they were doing it in Georgia and Syria, too. It would be fantastic if we could simply deter the Russians from continuing. But if we can’t, we had better be doing everything we can to make sure Ukraine can win and regain their lost territory. A Russian “win” would only encourage them to continue their murderous campaigns elsewhere after pausing to rearm—with a renewed zeal for mass murder.
And now, for the best (worst?):
"And so the two pachyderms with the same first name met, and they formed the jazz duo legend known as the Elephants Gerald."
Over a foot of snow here. Back out in a bit for Car Clearing #2. Here is another pun:
"While Little Bighorn is where the famed General lost his life, at that fateful moment his young Scottish girlfriend was soaking up the rays with a bunch of her sorority sisters and as such unaware of his demise, Miami Beach is where Custer's lass tanned."