Avdiivka, Black Sea, and Navalny

Crisis for Ukraine in Avdiivka

Latest news from the battlefields in Ukraine, as of midnight February 16, according to the Military Summary Channel, concerns Russia’s further progress on the west of Avdiivka along Industrial Avenue (and the adjacent railway), up to the area of the fire station on the way towards the chemical plant; Russian control over the summer cottage and trench positions north of Ceheburashka in the southwest near the Air Defense Base, and buildings of the “Alter Group” and Avdiivka Coke Plant; consolidation of Russian control of the former Air Defense Base (whence according to one Ukrainian source, some 20% of Ukrainian soldiers have managed to evacuate, while many of the remaining 80% - perhaps a few hundred - are still in the area, entirely encircled), and, possibly, in the area of the Ukrainian stonghold on the east of Avdiivka near the so-called Filtration Station which the Ukrainians appear to be in the process of abandoning; Russian progress south from Industrial Avenue down towards the supply road that connects Avdiivka to Sieverne to the west; Russian advances towards the village of Lastochkyrne to the west where it is believed Ukraine’s Third Assault Brigade (formerly the Azov battalion) has established positions; should Lastochkyrne fall to Russian forces this would remove Ukraine’s logistic hub for the management of troop withdrawals and/or rotations.

Dima predicts a steady Russian move westwards to a line well beyond Tonenke and Sierverne to places like Prohas, Komichivka, Netilove and Pervovmaiorsk. While there are no significant updates (yet) on other areas of Russian advance such as in and around Novomykhailivka, Staramaiorske, or Robotyne, and noting also the virtual collapse of the Ukrainian adventure in Krynky, the immediate if not longer-term future of Ukraine looks dire. It is even more acute, given that Congress has left for vacation without voting through an arms package for Ukraine. Even if the House of Representatives were to vote for passage of the Biden arms package on their return to Washington in early March (and such a vote currently seems unlikely) the first installment of the package would not arrive until May (not to mention that the chances of the availability of newly produced weapons before the end of the year do not seem high). Germany is talking about giving $7 billion to Ukraine (even though it cannot afford the required 2% of GDP for its NATO dues), an amount which would hardly help Ukraine survive for another six weeks, and exacerbate Germany’s economic crisis. It would be hardly enough to give Ukraine’s RADA the confidence to vote through the mobilization of 500,000. Even Ukrainian analysts are saying that Ukraine cannot afford to deal with the mobilization and training of more than 250,000. All this may incentivize Russia to make what progress as soon as they can, especially in these latter and muddier stages of the Winter. This would likely point to a major advance in Lyman-Kupiansk-Kharkiv areas, especially given the significant concentrations of Russian forces there, and given the context of recent Ukrainian bombings of civilian targets in Belgorod, and the successful Ukrainian hit of the Russian ship, the Caesar Kunikov.

Russian Black Sea Weakness

A number of successful Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships many employing newer generations of maritime drones (including the Magura-5, with a range of 450 nautical miles) in the Black Sea has allowed Zelenskiy to claim significant success, overall, in establishing a Black Sea corridor for Ukrainian exports following the collapse last July of a Turkish-brokered deal (the Black Sea Grain Initiative) with Russia and Ukraine. According to Ukrainian and US sources, 22.6 million tons of Ukrainian cargo have moved through the corridor in the past seven months and more than 700 ships have used the passage to the Bosphorus and beyond to world markets. The same sources say that $1.9 billion worth of Ukrainian exports were shipped by sea (out of a total of $3.4 billion). Some ships have offset the risk by taking up insurance through a scheme called UNITY, created by the Ukrainian government together with a pool of insurance companies. Such shipping has not been subject to Russian attacks (which has chosen, instead, to focus on port and storage infrastructure). One-third of the Black Sea fleet has been disabled or destroyed. Remaining ships rarely venture into the western half of the sea. Following successful Ukrainian missile attacks on Sevastopol last August, Russia withdrew some of the fleet to safer ports on the Russian coast.

Editor's Note: Every major navy today faces the same problem: the inability to protect its ships from drone, rocket and missile attacks. The Russian navy entered the war with ships that, despite their modernity and capability in deep blue water zones outside the reach of drones, drone attack boats, missiles and rocketry, could not quickly develop efficient (technical and economic) countermeasures against such weapons. To date, no one has. That's why the US Navy, especially its carriers—big floating targets at the mercy of long-range missiles— could do little against Iranian missiles or even Yemeni  rockets. Same applies to US vessels challenging Russian or Chinese cities or installations near their shores. Big war navies are rapidly becoming obsolete due to the rise of these new technologies. —PG

Navalny

News today of the passing, in prison of Navalny has been noted by Craig Murray, among others, as an event that merits no exaggeration (Murray uses the common citation of Navaly’s 2% public support; Scott Ritter says that at most he had 3-5% public support - far less today, given the flight of many of his supporters, says Ritter, among the 200,000 who fled following the start of the SMO kin 2022) while calling attention to what Murray considers Russia’s unwise and unjust decision to imprison him. I am not too sure of the specific circumstances and charges of his imprisonment (Ritter says they were charges of corruption, that the charges were real and that Navalny was corrupt; if, as Ritter seems to suggest, the charges were related in some way to “activist” Bill Browder, the smell of corruption grows more intense), but I can understand why someone like Navalny whose “Novichock” poisoning shenanigans (I was amused to read Doctorow’s comments this morning to the effect that the persistent chain of such supposed Russian poisoning events occurring in Britain indicates British culpability more than Russian) suggests at least the possibility of a charade carried out in collaboration with Western intelligence agencies, might be a real danger to Russian security interests in a time of war. He could have stayed out of Russia following that episode, but volunteered (or was required by the CIA) to return. Ritter says he collaborated with the CIA to produce anti-Putin propaganda.

Scott Ritter today in an interview with Ania K says of him that he was not a good man, that he was a white supremacist (for example, he called Georgians cockroaches and advocated the shooting of Chechnyan Muslims) that he was a traitor to Russia who, in the 1990s, identified more with the West than with Russia. A lot of his funding came from non-Russian NGOs that were “democracy-promotion” fronts for Western intelligence. Ritter claims that Navalny was groomed, perhaps recruited, by the CIA at Yale (the paperwork that sent Navalny to Yale was signed off on, says Ritter, by then US ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul) with a view to returning him to Russia as an opposition figure whose purpose was to bring down Vladimir Putin. Navalny would have thereby weakened, not strengthened democracy in Russia, given Putin’s commanding position in all polls. Apart from the official Russian account, we dont know exactly how he died, but he had had medical problems for some time, and, when moved to a harsher prison within the Arctic circle (because of enhanced charges brought against him), doubtless found it difficult to adapt.

Satellites

The Biden Administration is seeking negotiations with Russia concerning Russian capability of using nuclear missiles to destroy Western military satellites. The political agenda may simply be to push Congress into voting through yet more money for military satellites. If it is a real problem then its essence may be, as Ritter argues today US abrogation of the 1967 treaty that prohibited the militarization of space. The more immediate challenge is that in the event of a war in which the USA had highly militarized its satellite networks (doubtless with the participation of Musk’s $14 billion Starlinks system), Russia would be unable to take down hundreds of enemy satellites all at once without the option of a nuclear attack in space. Without the satellites the US military machine would be highly vulnerable; Russia, less dependent on satellites, would have the advantage.