A Look at History Helps to Understand the War in Ukraine by Cain Burdeau
October 8, 2022
Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — Ukrainians are at the heart of Russian history: They are the famed Cossacks and the noblest of Eastern Slavic families. Nikolai Gogol, author of “Dead Souls,” and Sergei Prokofiev, the pioneering modern classical composer, were Ukrainians.
Ukrainians were top rulers of the Soviet state: Leonid Brezhnev was Ukrainian and also the Soviet leader at the height of the Cold War between 1964 and 1982. He hailed from Kamianske, a city in central Ukraine on the Dnieper River. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was half-Ukrainian and the great anarchist of the Russian Revolution, Nestor Makhno, was Ukrainian. He ended his life in exile in Berlin – another outcast from the Bolshevik lands.
And yet, for as much as they've been at the center of Russian history, Ukrainians resent that history.
To Ukrainians, Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of their country is the most awful proof for why they hate their place in Russia's imperial history: A history that even saw Muscovy take the name of their old land, always known as "Rus," and steal it for themselves. Rus became Russia. The term Ukraine took root and began to spread in the 19th and 20th centuries.
To understand the war in Ukraine, a good and necessary starting point is a look at the centuries-old relationship between Ukraine and Russia.
Belarus: EU warns Lukashenko of sanctions over joint grouping of troops with Russia
10/10/2022 - 18:21
The European Commission on Monday raised the spectre of further sanctions against Belarus, urging Minsk to stop spreading "false accusations" against Ukraine and to call off a joint grouping of troops with Russia.
Belarus' autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, reiterated claims on Monday during a meeting with military and security officials that "carrying out strikes on the territory of Belarus is not just being discussed, it is being planned in Ukraine."
He also said that the two leaders have agreed to create a joint "regional grouping of troops," but offered no details as to where or when such a grouping might be deployed.
Foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano told reporters in Brussels that the Commission "took note of the false accusations" which he branded "totally unfounded, ridiculous" and "utterly unacceptable."
"Ukraine here is the victim. Ukraine is not the aggressor. And we remind the Belarusian regime that Ukraine is under brutal, illegal attack, which is in violation of the UN charter and in violation of international law. And we urge the regime in Minsk to refrain from any involvement of Belarus in this brutal, illegitimate undertaking."
Pushing Back Against Putin’s Threat of Nuclear Use in Ukraine by Steven Pifer
October 10, 2022
Introduction:
(Bulletin of Atomic Sceintists) Seven and a half months after it began, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has not gone as the Kremlin had hoped. The Ukrainian military has resisted with skill and tenacity, in recent weeks clawing back territory in the country’s south and east. As the Russian invasion falters, concern has arisen that Putin might turn to nuclear weapons.
The nuclear threat needs to be taken seriously. Russia’s conventional forces appear stymied, the country has a large nuclear arsenal, and Putin thus far seems unwilling to lose or retreat. He has, if anything, doubled down, for example, ordering a mobilization and a sham annexation of Ukrainian territory. Moreover, Putin has made a string of miscalculations in launching and executing his war on Ukraine, and his comments have observers wondering if nuclear could be next. But there are reasons to believe Moscow would not press the nuclear button. Such use would not end the Ukrainian determination to resist. It would alienate countries such as China and India that have tried to remain on the sidelines of this war. Moreover, senior Russian political and military leaders understand that introducing nuclear weapons into the conflict would constitute a step into a murky and potentially disastrous unknown.
Putin’s nuclear threats. Putin has ensured that the nuclear specter has loomed over the Russia-Ukraine war since nearly the beginning. On February 27, three days after the Russian military launched its invasion, Putin put Russia’s nuclear forces on a state of “special combat readiness,” which may have meant an increase of staff at nuclear command centers. Since then, Putin and other senior Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have alluded to the threat of nuclear war. On September 27, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev cautioned that the nuclear threat was “not a bluff,” referring to words used by Putin in a September 21 address, and suggested that Russia could employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine without NATO reacting.
In his September 30 speech, Putin, after announcing Russia’s supposed “annexation” of the Ukrainian oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, declared that Russia would defend “[its] land” with “all the forces and resources [they] have.”
So seems Russia is throwing their soldiers at the Ukrainians around Bakhmut in Donetsk in a desperate attempt to make some sort of battlefield gain. These are going to be unsustainable losses for the Russians for another attempt at a propaganda victory. Pyrrhic victory (if they even succeed).
Crimea Railway Bridge damage: the fire burned with 1000+ degrees Celsius and melted the rails. That rail isn't gonna be in use for a week or two... and I doubt the bridge can hold the weight of a train transporting tanks.
I wonder if he has been reading much about rails in the American CW...
