February 12, 2022 • 43 mins
This is Part 2 of a multi-part series on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In this episode we talk about the considerations of an invasion timeline, and should it happen, the most likely avenues of invasion to include what exactly Russian goals would be. We also begin our foray into what the West could and should do to prevent this whole mess from unfolding.
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Episode Transcript
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Henri (00:00):
Welcome to part two of our ongoing series on the
Ukrainian crisis.
If you haven't listened to partone where we talk about the lead
up to the crisis, please give itgander before moving on to this
episode, where we explore, whenRussia could invade, how Russia
could invade, and what areRussia's goals in a set
invasion.
For context, courtesy of France24, let's listen to Ukrainian
(00:22):
president Zelenskyy's remarks,where he attempts to calm the
people and downplay the risk ofthe Russian threat.
Let's have a listen.
France 24, President Zelens (00:30):
The feeling you get from the media
is that we have a war, we havetroops on the roads, we have
mobilization, people are goingsomewhere.
That is not the case.
We do not need panic.
France 24 reporter (00:43):
The message in that press conference, which
was specifically for foreignmedia was really, would you
please stop spreading this panicand saying that the invasion is
imminent, that it's gonna betomorrow.
As Zelenskyy said, it ispossible that there will be
Russian military action againstUkraine.
The threat absolutely exists,and the country is prepared and
the world should be prepared.
But to say that it's going to betomorrow, or it's going to be
(01:06):
before the end of February orany kind of speculations like
that according to VolodymyrZelenskyy is completely
misplaced.
We simply don't know.
Henri (01:21):
Come on.
Don't Bullshit Me! Even a crappyfiction writer couldn't write
this better, you know (01:37):
the winter Olympics is ending 20
February, Operation AlliedResolve is ending 20 February.
Jeez, I wonder when Russia'splanning on invading Ukraine.
Welcome to"Come On, Don'tBullshit Me!", where we peel
(01:58):
away the messaging of talkingheads to get to the crux of
today's issues.
We have to now consider twosituations: when is Russia going
to invade Ukraine and, two,where or how is Russia going to
(02:19):
carry out the invasion ofUkraine.
For the first answer, we've kindof already touched upon it, is
that they should be doing thissooner rather than later,
because every week that goes by,they are losing their leverage,
where by keeping Germany hostagewith natural gas, it prevents a
coordinated Western responseinto Ukraine course.
(02:44):
We don't even need to talk aboutnuclear deterrence.
That's an entirely separatesituation that should be
considered independently.
Obviously, if the west is goingto intervene, it has to
intervene in a conventionalmanner that avoids the political
discussion of nuclearretaliation, because nobody
(03:05):
wants that.
So if anything is going to bedone, it has to be done in a,
much like Russia has been doingfor the past seven years, the
west has to do this in asomewhat surreptitious manner in
supporting the Ukrainiansthrough material and logistics
and intelligence, rather thanthrough overt military action.
(03:25):
In fact, I was trying to getthis episode out earlier, like a
week or so ago, and there, thebig question was okay, is Putin
going to invade now or later?
Because February isб there isthe Beijing in Olympics and
China and Shi Jinping don't wanta war in the Ukraine right in
(03:46):
the middle of their big comingout party by the hosting of the
Olympics.
So there was a big talk in thesense of, okay, if we can delay
Russia up until February, wellthen China will exert its own
pressure on Russia from an allystandpoint, rather than
aggressor standpoint, in a senseof saying Putin, you better do
what you wanna do with Ukraine,that's fine, but you better not
(04:07):
invade during February, whilewe're hosting the Olympics.
And it seems like we've actuallybeen able to do that.
And from my guess, that'sprobably why we had that
bombshell announcement fromBritish intelligence, outright
calling out Putin and Russia,saying, oh, Russia has amassed
all these troops and equipmenton the Ukrainian border, and oh,
(04:27):
by the way, they're about to doa false flag operation of
claiming some sort of attack andthe cyber attackю And then using
that as an excuse to enterUkraine.
And everyone was called bysurprise.
If you remember that storydominated the news cycle.
Defense insiders would say thatthis was a highly unusual act,
because normally you don't wannagive away your intelligence
(04:49):
capabilities.
So yes, you wanna monitor fromintelligence channels, what your
enemy is doing, but you don'twant to call them out.
This was the whole dilemma thathappened in World War II.
Likewise, when we cracked theEnigma code, but we didn't want
to actually position our forceswhere the Nazis were actually
attacking, because if we didthat too many times, then the
(05:09):
Nazis would've realized thatwe've, uh, we broke their
encryption and then they wouldchange their encryption, and
we'd be back to square one.
So the point was, it was a kindof a really morbid calculation,
where we knew that we were to beattacked, but we still allowed
the attack to happen.
And obviously our own peopledied.
But that was for the greaterbenefit of ensuring that we
(05:30):
could still read Nazi-encryptedmessages to eventually cause
their defeat.
So the fact that Britainoutright came out to the public
sphere and saying, Hey, look,this is what Russia's doing, we
can see them on the satellites,and then we can also see them
through their electroniccommunications, that this is
what their plan is.
And essentially calling Putinout.
(05:50):
It caused, it, caused theRussians to pause.
And another reason why I alsothink that Russia was firmly
committed to attacking Ukraineis that normally in the past,
when we've seen, when, before wesee Russia starting to do some
sort of invasion, there's apretense that their propaganda
arm of the state usually sendsout messages to frame public
(06:13):
opinion.
Or should say, internationalopinion, saying like, Hey, look,
this is happening, it's hurtingRussia, and we're being
threatened and we need to defendour interests.
But when this bombshellannouncement happened with the
UK, famously, the Russiansdidn't answer immediately.
They were hemming and hauling alot and they didn't have a
proper answer.
Then only eventually did theystart talking about: Oh well,
(06:36):
we're against the NATOexpansion, and we feel that you,
guys, promised us you wouldn'texpand East.
Which was all completefabrication and complete lie,
but it was a very uncoordinatedquick response to this British
intelligence announcement.
Which kind of leads at least meto believe that they didn't
(06:56):
think that the West would callthem out on the invasion of
Ukraine.
They were ready to do that falseflag operation and just say, Oh,
look, the Ukrainians attackedour, you know, whatever, and so
now we need to go in and movein.
But because we called them outon it before they could present
that to the internationalcircles, they had to come up
with some other bullshit reason,which didn't carry much weight.
(07:20):
And it gave them a pause.
And now there's a lot moredialogue going back and forth,
which may have actually helpedin the in long run.
Maybe historians will look backat this moment and say, Hey,
this may have ultimately savedUkraine's bacon.
Now of course, we're firmly atthe recording of this podcast,
Olympics just started.
And if was a betting, man, Iwould say that Russia's not
(07:41):
going to invade Ukraine at thispoint in the middle of the
Olympics.
In fact, just, I believe it wasFriday, when Putin and Shi
Jinping had a bilateral summit,where they discussed God knows
what, but I'm pretty sure partof the things there was that
China was demanding that Russianot carry out any invasion
during the Olympics.
(08:02):
In fact, that's kind of funnythat the 2008 Russian-Georgian
war happened during the Beijingsummer Olympics.
So they don't want Russia toscrew up now their winter
Olympics.
So, everything that I'm sayingright now is completely
circumspect.
Because nobody knows when Russiais going to attack.
Not even the Russian army knowswhen Russia is gonna attack.
(08:24):
Because when it comes down toit, the only person that knows
when Russia is going to attackis Putin himself.
He has complete control andauthority to initiate this
invasion.
So it's his own personalcalculus on whether and when
they should cross the border andbegin the invasion.
So I'm trying to look at thisfrom a rational perspective, but
(08:46):
that assumes that Putin himselfhas a rational mind.
We can do our best to try to putourselves in his head, but
ultimately it's his own thoughtsthat will dictate the schedule.
So with that caveat, now let'slook at this.
If we can assume that nothing'sgoing to happen during the
Olympics, well, okay.
The Olympics end on 20 February.
(09:07):
Rasputitsa is coming...
there's not a specific date, butit's March-April timeframe.
We'll just call it, give it a,say, mid-March, if you want to,
especially considering globalwarming and whatnot.
But either way, the sweet spot,if they are going to invade, is
going to be at the end ofFebruary or early March.
(09:28):
So if Russia is going to indeedinvade Ukraine, they're going to
do it after the Olympics.
And any further delay into theMarch, April timeframe, I'm not
saying they're not going toattack, but with rasputitsa
coming all around the corner,it's definitely gonna make their
tactical advantages diminished,shall we say, in the sense that
(09:50):
the logistics chain is going tobe severely taxed.
But I don't want to say, this isgoing to be like a rasputitsa is
some sort of silver bullet.
This is the Russian army we'retalking about.
Russia, obviously, after UnitedStates is probably the most
capable military in the world,especially after they're
experiencing Syria.
(10:11):
They actually have now battletested veterans in service.
Whereas before for Syria, theRussian army was largely
untested.
And we could even see thishappening in Syria in the
initial stages where Russia wasfoundering in Syria.
But to the point now thatthey've actually used their
experiences in Syria to betterthemselves.
(10:32):
And this is even, you can evensee this within Russian military
circles, that now, the most sureway to get a promotion and to
advance the ranks in the Russianmilitary is to show a service
record in Syria.
So the Russian general staffplaces an enormous amount of
respect and importance to anexperience in Syria, which makes
(10:53):
sense they need battle testedsoldiers.
And those who have experiencedin Syria, obviously warrant
promotions and leadershippositions that promotions
require.
So that being said, I don'twanna put all my eggs in the
rasputitsa basket, but giventhat it's more favorable to do
it sooner, rather than later, Iwould say, we need to consider
(11:16):
the end of February early March.
Of course, after rasputitsa, youknow, May-June timeframe,
Germany and Europe, doesn'treally care about natural gas
and they have more freedom torespond to any specific
aggression.
So it looks like if anything'sgoing to happen, it's going to
happen in this end of February-early March timeframe.
(11:39):
But of course this in itself isa precarious situation, because
if you look at the Russiancalendar, the Russian Armed
Forces, which I know for us inthe West, no one really gives a
shit about Armed Forces.
It's kinda like a"Ho-hum, whocares" type of thing.
But in Russia, this is actuallykind of a big deal.
And that's on the 23rd ofFebruary.
The other big deal holiday,that's also coming up on the 8th
(12:01):
of March, is InternationalWoman's Day, which is also is a
huge, big deal in Russia.
Again, in the West, you may notunderstand this or really care,
but it doesn't matter what wethink, what matters is what the
Russians think.
And for them, in fact, the 8thof March is on a Tuesday.
And if you look at the Russianpublic calendars, they show 7th
of March is also going to beholiday to bridge the weekend
through to Tuesday.
(12:22):
So these two holidays areenormously important to the
Russian people.
And when you're a populistautocrat, like Putin is, you
need to make sure that duringthese national patriotic
holidays, that something good ishappening.
So having invasion during thistime is a very precarious
situation'cuz under the offhandchance that things are not going
(12:44):
well, imagines trying tocelebrate Armed Forces day, when
your armed forces are gettingdecimated by a supposedly
inferior Ukrainian army, right?
And then imagine celebrating theInternational Women's Day, when
Russian mothers are crying overthe coffins of their young sons,
who have just died in battle.
You don't have to take my wordfor it, look at the reports
(13:06):
during the Chechen and theGeorgian wars of there's
constant documentation of, newsreels-- Russian news reels-- of
Russian mothers crying overtheir dead sons and screaming
and cursing at Putin and theRussian leadership.
So this is a very precarioussituation that if Russia is
(13:27):
going to attack, they're goingto attack, but they might be in
the danger of overcommitting,because of these patriotic
holidays.
Now, of course you can besaying, that I'm putting too
much emphasis on these type ofthings and it's much to do about
nothing, whatever's going tohappen is going to happen.
Russian military is obviously avery professional military, so
what's going to happen is goingto happen, sure.
(13:47):
But again, it's not up to theRussian military to dictate when
this thing's going to happen.
It's about Putin's own personalwhims.
All I'm saying is that theseconsiderations are exactly that
considerations for his ownpersonal whims.
And if you put enough pressureon the calculus of, Hey, this is
going to be a painful adventure,you might actually give him
(14:10):
pause to the point where hedoesn't actually commit to the
invasion.
And ultimately if you're theWest, that's what you want.
You wanna make sure that thisthing doesn't happen.
And the further you can delayand give pause to the potential
Russian invasion, the betterstrengthening bargaining
position in not only the westis, but also Ukraine is.
So that basically covers thepotential timeline of when an
(14:32):
invasion is going to happen.
If it's going to happen at all.
The other part that we have toconsider is that, if it's going
to happen is from where and howit's going to happen.
And if we're considering thefact that Russia does not want
(14:56):
to integrate Ukraine into itsown country, for the reasons
that we've already discussed,but really make Ukraine into a
unstable satellite or clientstate to give Russia a buffer
against the West.
Well then you just see that alot of people are saying, Oh,
Russia is going to cross theDnieper river and completely
take over Ukraine.
That's not going to happen.
(15:16):
Our, it would be very poordecision to make that happen,
because especially now aftereight years of fighting...
If you look at the polls, a lotof people like to quote the
polls, Ukrainian polls about,Oh, well, Western Ukraine, yes
is totally pro-European, but thepolls show that Eastern
Ukrainians are very pro-Russia.
Well, yeah, sure, but that wasprior to 2014.
(15:38):
No serious polls have been doneafter eight years of war, where
clearly Russian back separatistswere killing and maiming Eastern
Ukrainians.
And given the fierce resistancethat Ukraine as a whole, but
also more specifically EasternUkrainian civilians have been
giving against the Donbasseparatist, it would be very
(15:59):
reasonable to believe, that mostof Ukraine is firmly
anti-Russian at this point.
So completely subjugatingUkraine doesn't make sense, not
only from a operational warfighting standpoint, but also
from a strategic geopoliticalstandpoint for Russia.
So then you're saying, okay,well it's not gonna be the
(16:19):
complete invasion, well, whatother options do we have here?
Well, if you're the West andyou're trying to delay this
invasion or at least give Putinenough pause where he doesn't
invade, look at what are themost vulnerable parts of
Ukraine?
Well, clearly there's going tobe, given the satellite imagery
that the Brits were nice enoughto share with the rest of the
(16:43):
international community,predictably, we've seen a lot of
military build up and equipmentEast of Ukraine, just to the
East of Donbas.
So it comes to no one's surprisethat any Russian invasion is
going to consist of a sizableforce crossing the Eastern
border of Ukraine, right intoDonbas, and from Donbas out into
(17:08):
Eastern Ukraine.
Other things we need to considernow is with the annexation of
Crimea is there going to be aSouthern flank of the invasion
as well.
Now there you have the Isthmusof Perekop, and that's the land
bridge that, actually thatorganizer treat that I was
talking about in 2014, wherethey left Crimea after the
(17:32):
Russian invasion, they organizedtheir pull out up to the Isthmus
of Perekop, and that's this landbridge that connects the Crimean
peninsula to the rest of Ukraineor the European continent.
So that's kind of like a"hotgates at Thermopylae" type of
situation, where the entireRussian army has to go through
this itty- bitty land bridge inorder to get through to the rest
(17:53):
of Ukraine proper.
There's that, but also withSevastopol being the major Naval
port of Crimea, there is areasonable expectation, if
there's going to be a Southernflank to this invasion, that's
going to be accompanied by aamphibious force from Sevastopol
to Ukraine proper.
(18:15):
Either through Odesa or up theriver to Mykolaiv.
And part of the reason why aSouthern flank makes sense,
other than the fact thatobviously more flanks that you
can open up, or from a warfighting operational standpoint
obviously makes sense, but thepoint here is that if an
amphibious force actually landsand takes Southern Ukraine,
(18:38):
you've effectively cut off theentirety of Ukraine's access to
the Black Sea, and Ukraineeffectively becomes a landlocked
nation.
And to give more credence to apossible amphibious assault on
the Southern flank of Ukraine isthat for the past several weeks
Western navies have beenshadowing six Russian amphibious
(19:00):
landing ships, traveling fromthe Baltic sea, through the
Mediterranean.
And now they're right now, as ofthe recording of this episode,
they're somewhere in the EasternMediterranean, conducting drills
and exercises.
Now, of course they haven'tannounced yet to Turkish
authorities that they're goingto transit through the Turkish
(19:21):
straits.
And there's the Montreuxconvention, there's a treaty
there, saying that Russia cannotbe impeded during peace time.
They cannot be impeded frommoving Naval war ships back and
forth through the Black Sea.
But in order to do that, theyneeded to give the Turkish
government eight days of advancenotice before they plan on
entering Turkish straits and upinto the Black Sea.
(19:42):
So as of yet, at least I haven'theard any news yet of Russians
requesting or Russiansannouncing to Turkish government
their plan to enter the Turkishstraits.
But we shall see as the daysprogress if that announcement
happens, because if that doeshappen, that only further
reinforces the fact that, Hey,if you're going to be sending
amphibious ships to Sevastopol,that an amphibious landing onto
(20:06):
the Southern flank of Ukraine isgoing to be a very real
operational consideration forthe Russian military.
And not only that, but if welook further West, one of the
other regional instabilityshenanigans that Russia has been
doing to prevent further NATOenlargement is Transnistria.
(20:28):
And Transnistria is this smallthin strip of Russian
separatist.
I guess Russia would not saythey are separatist, but they're
Russian separatists.
It's a thin strip of landbetween Moldova and Ukraine.
And they've been backing theseseparatists in Moldova to have
(20:48):
that regional or borderinstability of Moldova, which
prevents Moldova from beinginvited into the European Union
and also NATO.
Not only that, but that there'slots of talks between Roman and
Moldova that they unite.
And in that case, then Moldovacan just bypass all of these
European Union and NATOrequirements of stability and
(21:12):
whatnot, because by becoming apart of Romania, well, Romania
is already in the EU and NATO.
So then Moldova will be in it aswell.
So it's kind of a backend way ofdoing that.
Romanians and Moldovans ofcourse, for those of you who
don't know, are essentially thesame people.
I mean, there's a littlecontroversy here and there, but
broad strokes-wise, they'reconsidered the same people.
So that's why there's this talkof reunification.
(21:34):
And interestingly enough, thisis also considered as an option
to backend a peace deal forKosovo and a more legitimization
for Kosovo, because an overallmajority of them are, again,
broad strokes-wise, ethnicallyAlbanian.
So just talk of, rather thandealing with the whole Serb
situation for Kosovo, that theyjust unite with Albania, and
(21:57):
then they'll automatically bepart of NATO.
And then of course, what thetalks of EU accession for
Albania, Kosovo will also bepart of the EU as well.
So, it kind of avoids a Serbianveto, if you will, of the
legitimacy of Kosovo.
But anyway, going back toMoldova, of course, while we are
having these problems withTransnistria, Romania is not
(22:21):
going to accept thisresponsibility of dealing with
that Transnistria mess.
And with Transnistria being aland locked region, this
Southern invasion of Ukrainewill allow a complete land
bridge from Russia properthrough Southern Ukraine, or
what would be formally SouthernUkraine, all the way into
(22:41):
Transnistria, where Transnistriais now connected to Russia
itself.
And to further cement their holdof Transnistria and, more
importantly, for Russia toprevent Moldovan accession into
either integration into Romaniaor more broadly, entering the EU
and the NATO Alliance.
So that would be the Southernaspect.
(23:08):
Another potential flank here isthe Northern flank.
And this is what's going on withBelarus, is that, we know that
the Dnieper river is a bignatural obstacle, right?
It cuts Ukraine in half.
A lot of people are saying whatRussia is going to do is move
all the way across EasternUkraine up to Dnieper river, and
(23:30):
then stop there, fully integrateEastern Ukraine into Russia, and
then call the day.
I don't think that they would dothat, because it doesn't really
make sense to me.
Because if you hear Russia andyour concern is about NATO and
having a pro-Western Ukraine,well what you've essentially
done by taking over all ofEastern Ukraine is basically
(23:54):
removing the entire supposedlyanti-Western portion of the
Ukrainian population and leavinga completely pro-Western Western
Ukraine.
Now it's not the complete regionof Ukraine, but that Western
Ukraine is going to be firmlypro-European.
I mean, they were already firmlypro-European before the Crimea
invasion, 2014.
(24:15):
Now it's gonna be even more so.
And now that you don't have the,quote,"baggage" of Eastern, you
know, pro-Russian EasternUkrainians, well then Western
Ukrainians are gonna be free tocompletely run into the arms of
the EU and NATO.
And in that case, now you haveNATO territory.
You know, again, this is fromRussia's perspective, you have
NATO territory all the way up tothe Dnieper river.
(24:38):
To kind of give a tongue andcheek example of this Eastern
Ukraine annexation situation,well, there's a lot of talking
in the United States aboutRepublicans saying, Oh, well,
you know, the Democrats are blah, blah, blah, they're evil and
blah, blah, whatever; and wewant Texas, being the biggest
Republican state, to say, Hey,we're going to secede from the
Union.
(24:59):
And they keep talking about thatand threatening, Hey, we're
gonna leave the Union, we'regonna cause another Civil War.
And of course, everyone onTwitter and Democrats and in the
news cycle, in the left leaningnews, they always get up in arms
about Texas threatening tosecede from the Union.
Obviously it's a ridiculoussituation, but think through
this for a second (25:16):
if Texas actually left the United States,
well, that's the biggest portionof Republican control of
Republican votes in Congress, soif Texas actually left, that I
would make the United Statesmore democratic and completely
erode any control thatRepublicans had in the United
States.
So not only is it ludicrous froma military and a historical
(25:39):
situation of Texas leaving theUnited States, but if you're
talking about strictlypolitically, it makes absolutely
zero sense, because you justlose your entire political
leverage in the United States.
So it's the exact same situationwith Russia annexing Eastern
Ukraine.
Because it goes againsteverything, every geopolitical
goal that Russia and Putin hasin Ukraine in preventing a
(26:02):
pro-Western Ukraine on thedoorsteps of Russia.
So I really don't buy, that fullannexation of Eastern Ukraine is
in the works.
I don't see this as a probableor a smart objective for the
Russian military to incur.
But what I do see is that inorder to quickly capitulate Kyiv
(26:24):
and maybe install a puppetgovernment is that they need to
quickly rush into Kyiv beforeany considerable resistance can
formulate itself and push theRussians back.
Now with Kyiv being about, Iforget how much, but like 250 or
so kilometers from the Russianborder, that's gonna take a
while to go through.
But from the Northern side fromKiev is only about 70-ish
(26:47):
kilometers from the border ofBelarus.
So it's much easier to if you'regoing to attack Kyiv that you
attack them from the North.
Not only that, but if in orderto attack them from the East you
have to cross the Dnieper river,which is obviously going to be a
very difficult thing to do.
River crossings for armieshistorically have always been a
precarious situation.
Whereas what you can do is,since Belarus is a supposedly
(27:10):
allied nation of Russia; and infact, if anything, it's a de
facto puppet state of Russia, isthat you can cross the Dnieper
river in Belarus and then swingdown from Belarus into Kyiv.
And it's kind of like a VietnamCambodia situation where the
North Vietnamese and the VietCong would use Laos and
(27:30):
Cambodia,'cause technically itwasn't part of Vietnam.
So the Americans couldn't attackthem.
And then from there swoop downand then attack American South
Vietnamese forces.
So it would be a similarsituation there.
Of course, there you have to adeal with the Chernobyl
exclusion zone, but they'vealready shown a want and
disregard for the dangers of anyradioactive dust that may be
(27:52):
kicked up into the atmosphere.
And in fact, now there isOperation Allied Resolve going
on, which is a joint Belarusianand Russian exercise going on in
the middle of Belarus.
I think it should be endingaround 20 February, which
actually coincides with theclosing of the Beijing Olympics.
(28:12):
So who knows, after the end ofthat exercise, they could use as
a pretense to be like, well,we're already in Belarus after
this exercise, and now we'regonna immediately go down to
attack Ukraine.
Of course, there is a situationhere and that's specific to
international trees of the OSCE,which is the Organization for
(28:34):
Security and Cooperation ofEurope.
It specifically states that ifyou have any military exercise
over 13,000 troops, then itinvites international observers
it.
And in this case for a Russianexercise, it would mean Western
observers would need to beinvited into Belarus to observe
the exercise.
Of course, what did Russia do?
They made sure to keep thisOperation Allied Resolve below
(28:56):
that 13,000 number.
There,you have it.
So if any force that's going tocome through, at least from an
initial attack standpoint, it'sgoing to be a small one.
But it may be small, but it'sstill sizeable enough to provide
a Northern flank that divertsUkrainian resistance from the
East to the North and spreadingout the already limited
Ukrainian forces.
(29:17):
And in order to give even morecredence to the situation, all
you have to do is look atBelarussian Twitter right now.
And there's a lot of pictures...
Actually, Twitter now within theconcept of war is kind of an
amazing thing right now, becausewith Operation Allied Resolve,
there are pictures right now onTwitter of pontoon bridges at
(29:37):
Rechytsa, which is a Belorussiancity on the Dnieper river.
So you already have Russiantroops, if not training for
pontoon river operations inUkraine, using the Operation
Allied Resolve as excused to getall their heavy machinery across
the Western bank of the Dnieperriver for a potential Northern
(29:58):
flank for the invasion ofUkraine.
Yeah.
So you can't make this even moreblatant.
Like even a crappy fictionwriter couldn't write this
better (30:06):
the Winter Olympics is ending 20 February, Operation
Allied Resolves is ending 20February.
Jeez, I wonder when Russia isplanning on invading Ukraine.
(30:29):
So in the Eastern Ukraineinvasion situation, the risk for
Russia is not losing an invasionof Eastern Ukraine.
The real risk is beingsuccessful in your invasion of
Ukraine, where now you'recontrolling a territory of
anti-Russian population, whereyour only choice is to hold the
(30:52):
territory that you didn't reallywanna hold in the first place.
And this is exactly whathappened in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
In that United States wanted togo into these countries, affect
change, and then get out, sothat we could focus on other
things and not bleed ourtreasury.
But we ended up holding the bagthere and getting stuck in a
(31:12):
nation building quagmire, andsucking the life out of our own
military.
This is exactly what Russia doesnot want to do.
'Cause while yes, United Statesdid that, it was really bad.
United States being, you know,the largest economy in the World
can easily weather, as disastersas that was in our Iraq and
Afghanistan, it didn't reallyeconomically really hurt us.
(31:35):
Whereas with Russia and theeconomic situation, that it is
in, the last thing it wants todo is divert much needed
national treasure to the holdingof Ukrainian territory.
So what should the west do?
Well, we just spent all thistime talking about if we were
Putin's advisors, that we'd betelling them to attack sooner
(31:56):
rather than later.
Now, if we were Biden'sadvisors, what would we say to
President Biden?
Well, first of, United Stateshas its own conundrum in the
sense that there's a lightningrod around American troops,
especially when considering thatany attack or any perceived
attack by American troops couldlead to nuclear retaliation.
(32:19):
And we definitely don't wantthat.
I'm sure you have othercountries like the UK and France
that are also nuclear powers,but in that sense international
opinion, which ultimately iswhat's going to matter or what
Putin's going to attempt tomanipulate, international
opinion doesn't really equate aBritish or a French attack as an
(32:41):
attack that would warrant anuclear response.
So it would be very easy for usto say, and a lot of armchair
generals on the Internet are nowsaying, Oh yeah, United States
needs to deploy troops toUkraine and end this thing once
and for all.
Well, that's really, we'rereally rolling the dice here
with the threat of nuclearweapons.
(33:02):
Now you could say, well, nowPutin's bluffing, he's not an
idiot, he's never going to usenuclear weapons.
Well, yeah, that's maybe thecase, but with the finality of a
nuclear event, me personally,I'm not willing to risk that
outcome.
And I think a lot of peoplewithin Washington are also not
willing to risk that outcome.
So the point for United Statesis at best to provide
(33:22):
surreptitious military aid or atworst, galvanize enough of the
West to provide the military aidthat Ukraine needs, which would
not warrant a nuclear responseor, more aptly, nuclear threat
from Russia to the West.
And with that regards, one ofthe first things that United
(33:43):
States can do, since the UnitedStates is already in talks with
President Zelenskyy in Ukraineis to address the UN general
assembly.
Notice I didn't say"UN SecurityCouncil",'cuz obviously on
Security Council nothing's gonnago through with Russia and also
China holding veto powers there.
And so we can't expect anyresponse or any help from the
(34:05):
United Nations.
But through the UN GeneralAssembly, by calling an
emergency meeting of the GeneralAssembly, no one nation holds
veto power there.
In fact, when we're talkingabout with Palestinian
recognition in internationalcircles that was done in, again,
not through the SecurityCouncil, because of America's
veto of Palestine, but it wasdone through a petition through
(34:28):
the General Assembly.
And Zelenskyy could do that aswell.
And there's two reasons forthis.
One,'cause, like we alreadymentioned, the security council
with Russian veto is anon-starter, but more
importantly from a diplomaticendpoint, we see that European
nations are very much into ruleof law or rule of international
law.
You know, United States is notone of those countries that
(34:52):
believes in this.
Or I should say, believes in it,but doesn't subscribe to this
notion of international law inthe sense that, unlike Europe or
unlike the European nationsUnited States is not part of a
lot of international legalframeworks.
To include the InternationalCriminal Court, the UN
(35:14):
Convention on Law of the Sea,UNCLOS, the Kyoto protocol, you
know, about climate change.
There's even other things likethe ban on cluster munitions,
the ban on torture, famously,the ban on mines, the Ottawa
treaty.
And there's a whole list ofthese things, a whole bunch of
different internationalframeworks, diplomatic
(35:35):
frameworks that the UnitedStates is not part of and
refuses to be a part of.
Did I mentioned thecomprehensive test ban, nuclear
test ban treaty?
Banning nuclear weapons tests,which actually it's funny
enough, Russia has signed,whereas the United States
hasn't.
So, uh, let's, that's the UnitedStates for you.
Whereas the European nations arereally big on these type of
(35:57):
international frameworks andreally hold those to high
regard, even though Americansdon't.
In fact, even the Bushadministration, George W.
Bush, he understood this,because while he wanted to go
straight in guns blazing intoIraq during the second Gulf war,
he still had to wherewithal,administration still had the
(36:18):
wherewithal to plead their caseto the United Nations.
You know, that was the wholething with Colin Powell or
Secretary Powell talking aboutthe yellow cake uranium in Iraq.
And obviously that turned out tobe a fabrication, but again, the
fact that they spent the timeand energy to plead their case
to the UN shows that the UnitedStates understands that
(36:42):
Europeans hold this into higherregard.
So that if you want Europe onyour side, you have to plead to
international norms, which theEuropeans hold to a high regard.
So the things that the US coulddo is implore president
Zelenskyy to go to the GeneralAssembly and then one by one
list all these violations thatPutin has done, that Russia has
(37:03):
done.
You can refer Putin to theInternational Criminal Court,
you know, to the Hague.
And there's plenty of evidencethere to brand him as an
international criminal with aviolation of the Budapest
memorandum and the Helsinkiaccords.
Budapest memorandum being themaintaining of the territorial
integrity of Ukraine, as well asBelarus and Kazakhstan in
(37:27):
exchange for them giving uptheir nuclear weapons, when the
Soviet union disbanded.
So by Putin annexing Crimea,he's in direct violation of the
Budapest memorandum of 1994.
So as far as the InternationalCriminal Court is concerned,
this is grounds for not just thepenalties against the Russian
Federation, but also by makingthe case that Putin is the
(37:51):
single architect of theannexation of Crimea, branding
Putin as an internationalcriminal.
Now of course, branding Putin asa criminal might not do much
against Putin himself, but youcan use this as leverage for the
international loving Europeans,by constantly going to Germany,
to the German government,saying, Hey, look, what are you
(38:11):
talking about?
Nord Stream 2 and not imposingsanctions, because of Russian
gas.
Why is Germany dealing with aninternational criminal?
And you already have the Germanguilt trip of World War I and
more importantly, World War IIand the Nazis, and the
Holocaust, and all that.
So really playing in andneedling the German sense of
guilt of all the crime anddestruction that they've done in
(38:34):
the 1940s, using that as a wayto affect German sentiment
against Vladimir Putin, bybringing this case to the
international criminal court.
Even going further back to theHelsinki Accords, which
emphasizes, among many ofdifferent things, but the
territorial integrity of statesand those other things about
(38:55):
self determination of people,respect for human rights, yyadi
yadi yada, non-intervention ofinternal affairs.
You can use this as a solid basefor a case against Vladimir
Putin in the InternationalCriminal Court.
And more importantly for theinternational public opinion
court, vis-à-vis, the UN GeneralAssembly.
And another thing that theUnited States can do is have
(39:18):
talks with Poland and Lithuania.
One of the things that they'reworried about is being cut off.
Especially the Baltic nations,being cut off from the rest of
Europe, because of the smallborder that the Baltic nations
share with Poland and the restof Europe.
And that's because of theterritory of Belarus and
(39:40):
Kaliningrad, which is an exclaveof the Russian Federation.
That's called the Suwalki grad,uh, the Suwalki gap.
And the Suwalki gap is this thincorridor, essentially it's the
border between Lithuania andPoland, but this border also
provides a visa-free access forBelarussians and Russians to
(40:01):
travel across the, for there tobe a ground-based connection
between this Russian exclave andBelarus and of course the rest
of Russia.
So by Poland at least suggestingthe rescission of this visa-free
access to the Suwalki gap, thatcan put further pressure on
Putin to maybe not change thedecision, but at least force him
(40:24):
to consider a differentcalculus, should he invade.
Now, another thing the UnitedStates can do is put pressure on
France.
President Macron is talkingabout, oh, well, the thing is
that we can't rely on the UnitedStates anymore.
And this is like when Trump waspresident, but we can't rely on
United States anymore formilitary security of Europe.
(40:46):
Well, okay, fine.
Well, put your money where yourmouth is, especially talking
about this US conundrum of if wedeploy our troops that could
potentially warrant a nuclearreprisal.
Well have France, since theywanna make this European army,
EU4, as they call it, this wouldbe a great case of mobilizing,
(41:06):
at least the progenitor of EU4.
Not only that, but also Macronright now, he's the president of
the European Union Council.
And with that, he has a not onlyenormous amount of power, but
enormous amount ofresponsibility to guide the
European union in internationalaffairs.
And one of the things that hewas saying is his staff was
(41:26):
advising him even while he washaving trips and discussions
with Russia, they were saying,oh no, Macron shouldn't go to
Ukraine, because if he goes toUkraine, then given his
prestige, not only as Presidentof France, but also president of
the EU, this would beunnecessarily antagonize Russia.
Which, basically you have tocall him out on him, like
(41:48):
saying, Hey, that's a ridiculousstatement.
Is Ukraine not a nation as well?
You're talking about, Europe,you're so you're so much into
the, you know, internationalnorms and the supremacy of
international law and how weshould all be adhering to that
as all nations are being equal.
Well, how can you at at the sametime then be saying that, Oh,
you as head of state don't wantto visit another head of state,
(42:10):
because you risk antagonizinganother head of state.
It's just, it's, it'sridiculous.
By Macron not going to Ukraine,especially during the time of
crisis, you're essentiallysaying that Ukraine is not a
legitimate state in theinternational community.
So these are the ways we have toframe the discussion at the
(42:30):
international level.
And basically break thisnarrative, this Russian
narrative, that ultimatelyRussia considers itself as a
regional hegemon, where all ofits neighboring states should be
client states and subservient toRussian interests.
(42:51):
Which is antithetical to theEuropean notion of international
order, where all states have theright for self-determination and
an equal standing at theinternational level.
But to properly address theRussian narrative, let's explore
what exactly is the Russiannarrative in the next episode.
(43:18):
If you would like to comment onthis podcast or on the topics
covered within it, or you'd likeus to raise a new topic in our
next episode, please feel freeto leave us a message or a
voicemail on www.
codbsm.com.
That's Charlie, Oscar, Delta,Bravo, Sierra, Mike, dot com.
Thank you for, for listening andsee you at the party, Richter!
Welcome to part two of our ongoing series on the
Ukrainian crisis.
If you haven't listened to partone where we talk about the lead
up to the crisis, please give itgander before moving on to this
episode, where we explore, whenRussia could invade, how Russia
could invade, and what areRussia's goals in a set
invasion.
For context, courtesy of France24, let's listen to Ukrainian
(00:22):
president Zelenskyy's remarks,where he attempts to calm the
people and downplay the risk ofthe Russian threat.
Let's have a listen.
France 24, President Zelens (00:30):
The feeling you get from the media
is that we have a war, we havetroops on the roads, we have
mobilization, people are goingsomewhere.
That is not the case.
We do not need panic.
France 24 reporter (00:43):
The message in that press conference, which
was specifically for foreignmedia was really, would you
please stop spreading this panicand saying that the invasion is
imminent, that it's gonna betomorrow.
As Zelenskyy said, it ispossible that there will be
Russian military action againstUkraine.
The threat absolutely exists,and the country is prepared and
the world should be prepared.
But to say that it's going to betomorrow, or it's going to be
(01:06):
before the end of February orany kind of speculations like
that according to VolodymyrZelenskyy is completely
misplaced.
We simply don't know.
Henri (01:21):
Come on.
Don't Bullshit Me! Even a crappyfiction writer couldn't write
this better, you know (01:37):
the winter Olympics is ending 20
February, Operation AlliedResolve is ending 20 February.
Jeez, I wonder when Russia'splanning on invading Ukraine.
Welcome to"Come On, Don'tBullshit Me!", where we peel
(01:58):
away the messaging of talkingheads to get to the crux of
today's issues.
We have to now consider twosituations: when is Russia going
to invade Ukraine and, two,where or how is Russia going to
(02:19):
carry out the invasion ofUkraine.
For the first answer, we've kindof already touched upon it, is
that they should be doing thissooner rather than later,
because every week that goes by,they are losing their leverage,
where by keeping Germany hostagewith natural gas, it prevents a
coordinated Western responseinto Ukraine course.
(02:44):
We don't even need to talk aboutnuclear deterrence.
That's an entirely separatesituation that should be
considered independently.
Obviously, if the west is goingto intervene, it has to
intervene in a conventionalmanner that avoids the political
discussion of nuclearretaliation, because nobody
(03:05):
wants that.
So if anything is going to bedone, it has to be done in a,
much like Russia has been doingfor the past seven years, the
west has to do this in asomewhat surreptitious manner in
supporting the Ukrainiansthrough material and logistics
and intelligence, rather thanthrough overt military action.
(03:25):
In fact, I was trying to getthis episode out earlier, like a
week or so ago, and there, thebig question was okay, is Putin
going to invade now or later?
Because February isб there isthe Beijing in Olympics and
China and Shi Jinping don't wanta war in the Ukraine right in
(03:46):
the middle of their big comingout party by the hosting of the
Olympics.
So there was a big talk in thesense of, okay, if we can delay
Russia up until February, wellthen China will exert its own
pressure on Russia from an allystandpoint, rather than
aggressor standpoint, in a senseof saying Putin, you better do
what you wanna do with Ukraine,that's fine, but you better not
(04:07):
invade during February, whilewe're hosting the Olympics.
And it seems like we've actuallybeen able to do that.
And from my guess, that'sprobably why we had that
bombshell announcement fromBritish intelligence, outright
calling out Putin and Russia,saying, oh, Russia has amassed
all these troops and equipmenton the Ukrainian border, and oh,
(04:27):
by the way, they're about to doa false flag operation of
claiming some sort of attack andthe cyber attackю And then using
that as an excuse to enterUkraine.
And everyone was called bysurprise.
If you remember that storydominated the news cycle.
Defense insiders would say thatthis was a highly unusual act,
because normally you don't wannagive away your intelligence
(04:49):
capabilities.
So yes, you wanna monitor fromintelligence channels, what your
enemy is doing, but you don'twant to call them out.
This was the whole dilemma thathappened in World War II.
Likewise, when we cracked theEnigma code, but we didn't want
to actually position our forceswhere the Nazis were actually
attacking, because if we didthat too many times, then the
(05:09):
Nazis would've realized thatwe've, uh, we broke their
encryption and then they wouldchange their encryption, and
we'd be back to square one.
So the point was, it was a kindof a really morbid calculation,
where we knew that we were to beattacked, but we still allowed
the attack to happen.
And obviously our own peopledied.
But that was for the greaterbenefit of ensuring that we
(05:30):
could still read Nazi-encryptedmessages to eventually cause
their defeat.
So the fact that Britainoutright came out to the public
sphere and saying, Hey, look,this is what Russia's doing, we
can see them on the satellites,and then we can also see them
through their electroniccommunications, that this is
what their plan is.
And essentially calling Putinout.
(05:50):
It caused, it, caused theRussians to pause.
And another reason why I alsothink that Russia was firmly
committed to attacking Ukraineis that normally in the past,
when we've seen, when, before wesee Russia starting to do some
sort of invasion, there's apretense that their propaganda
arm of the state usually sendsout messages to frame public
(06:13):
opinion.
Or should say, internationalopinion, saying like, Hey, look,
this is happening, it's hurtingRussia, and we're being
threatened and we need to defendour interests.
But when this bombshellannouncement happened with the
UK, famously, the Russiansdidn't answer immediately.
They were hemming and hauling alot and they didn't have a
proper answer.
Then only eventually did theystart talking about: Oh well,
(06:36):
we're against the NATOexpansion, and we feel that you,
guys, promised us you wouldn'texpand East.
Which was all completefabrication and complete lie,
but it was a very uncoordinatedquick response to this British
intelligence announcement.
Which kind of leads at least meto believe that they didn't
(06:56):
think that the West would callthem out on the invasion of
Ukraine.
They were ready to do that falseflag operation and just say, Oh,
look, the Ukrainians attackedour, you know, whatever, and so
now we need to go in and movein.
But because we called them outon it before they could present
that to the internationalcircles, they had to come up
with some other bullshit reason,which didn't carry much weight.
(07:20):
And it gave them a pause.
And now there's a lot moredialogue going back and forth,
which may have actually helpedin the in long run.
Maybe historians will look backat this moment and say, Hey,
this may have ultimately savedUkraine's bacon.
Now of course, we're firmly atthe recording of this podcast,
Olympics just started.
And if was a betting, man, Iwould say that Russia's not
(07:41):
going to invade Ukraine at thispoint in the middle of the
Olympics.
In fact, just, I believe it wasFriday, when Putin and Shi
Jinping had a bilateral summit,where they discussed God knows
what, but I'm pretty sure partof the things there was that
China was demanding that Russianot carry out any invasion
during the Olympics.
(08:02):
In fact, that's kind of funnythat the 2008 Russian-Georgian
war happened during the Beijingsummer Olympics.
So they don't want Russia toscrew up now their winter
Olympics.
So, everything that I'm sayingright now is completely
circumspect.
Because nobody knows when Russiais going to attack.
Not even the Russian army knowswhen Russia is gonna attack.
(08:24):
Because when it comes down toit, the only person that knows
when Russia is going to attackis Putin himself.
He has complete control andauthority to initiate this
invasion.
So it's his own personalcalculus on whether and when
they should cross the border andbegin the invasion.
So I'm trying to look at thisfrom a rational perspective, but
(08:46):
that assumes that Putin himselfhas a rational mind.
We can do our best to try to putourselves in his head, but
ultimately it's his own thoughtsthat will dictate the schedule.
So with that caveat, now let'slook at this.
If we can assume that nothing'sgoing to happen during the
Olympics, well, okay.
The Olympics end on 20 February.
(09:07):
Rasputitsa is coming...
there's not a specific date, butit's March-April timeframe.
We'll just call it, give it a,say, mid-March, if you want to,
especially considering globalwarming and whatnot.
But either way, the sweet spot,if they are going to invade, is
going to be at the end ofFebruary or early March.
(09:28):
So if Russia is going to indeedinvade Ukraine, they're going to
do it after the Olympics.
And any further delay into theMarch, April timeframe, I'm not
saying they're not going toattack, but with rasputitsa
coming all around the corner,it's definitely gonna make their
tactical advantages diminished,shall we say, in the sense that
(09:50):
the logistics chain is going tobe severely taxed.
But I don't want to say, this isgoing to be like a rasputitsa is
some sort of silver bullet.
This is the Russian army we'retalking about.
Russia, obviously, after UnitedStates is probably the most
capable military in the world,especially after they're
experiencing Syria.
(10:11):
They actually have now battletested veterans in service.
Whereas before for Syria, theRussian army was largely
untested.
And we could even see thishappening in Syria in the
initial stages where Russia wasfoundering in Syria.
But to the point now thatthey've actually used their
experiences in Syria to betterthemselves.
(10:32):
And this is even, you can evensee this within Russian military
circles, that now, the most sureway to get a promotion and to
advance the ranks in the Russianmilitary is to show a service
record in Syria.
So the Russian general staffplaces an enormous amount of
respect and importance to anexperience in Syria, which makes
(10:53):
sense they need battle testedsoldiers.
And those who have experiencedin Syria, obviously warrant
promotions and leadershippositions that promotions
require.
So that being said, I don'twanna put all my eggs in the
rasputitsa basket, but giventhat it's more favorable to do
it sooner, rather than later, Iwould say, we need to consider
(11:16):
the end of February early March.
Of course, after rasputitsa, youknow, May-June timeframe,
Germany and Europe, doesn'treally care about natural gas
and they have more freedom torespond to any specific
aggression.
So it looks like if anything'sgoing to happen, it's going to
happen in this end of February-early March timeframe.
(11:39):
But of course this in itself isa precarious situation, because
if you look at the Russiancalendar, the Russian Armed
Forces, which I know for us inthe West, no one really gives a
shit about Armed Forces.
It's kinda like a"Ho-hum, whocares" type of thing.
But in Russia, this is actuallykind of a big deal.
And that's on the 23rd ofFebruary.
The other big deal holiday,that's also coming up on the 8th
(12:01):
of March, is InternationalWoman's Day, which is also is a
huge, big deal in Russia.
Again, in the West, you may notunderstand this or really care,
but it doesn't matter what wethink, what matters is what the
Russians think.
And for them, in fact, the 8thof March is on a Tuesday.
And if you look at the Russianpublic calendars, they show 7th
of March is also going to beholiday to bridge the weekend
through to Tuesday.
(12:22):
So these two holidays areenormously important to the
Russian people.
And when you're a populistautocrat, like Putin is, you
need to make sure that duringthese national patriotic
holidays, that something good ishappening.
So having invasion during thistime is a very precarious
situation'cuz under the offhandchance that things are not going
(12:44):
well, imagines trying tocelebrate Armed Forces day, when
your armed forces are gettingdecimated by a supposedly
inferior Ukrainian army, right?
And then imagine celebrating theInternational Women's Day, when
Russian mothers are crying overthe coffins of their young sons,
who have just died in battle.
You don't have to take my wordfor it, look at the reports
(13:06):
during the Chechen and theGeorgian wars of there's
constant documentation of, newsreels-- Russian news reels-- of
Russian mothers crying overtheir dead sons and screaming
and cursing at Putin and theRussian leadership.
So this is a very precarioussituation that if Russia is
(13:27):
going to attack, they're goingto attack, but they might be in
the danger of overcommitting,because of these patriotic
holidays.
Now, of course you can besaying, that I'm putting too
much emphasis on these type ofthings and it's much to do about
nothing, whatever's going tohappen is going to happen.
Russian military is obviously avery professional military, so
what's going to happen is goingto happen, sure.
(13:47):
But again, it's not up to theRussian military to dictate when
this thing's going to happen.
It's about Putin's own personalwhims.
All I'm saying is that theseconsiderations are exactly that
considerations for his ownpersonal whims.
And if you put enough pressureon the calculus of, Hey, this is
going to be a painful adventure,you might actually give him
(14:10):
pause to the point where hedoesn't actually commit to the
invasion.
And ultimately if you're theWest, that's what you want.
You wanna make sure that thisthing doesn't happen.
And the further you can delayand give pause to the potential
Russian invasion, the betterstrengthening bargaining
position in not only the westis, but also Ukraine is.
So that basically covers thepotential timeline of when an
(14:32):
invasion is going to happen.
If it's going to happen at all.
The other part that we have toconsider is that, if it's going
to happen is from where and howit's going to happen.
And if we're considering thefact that Russia does not want
(14:56):
to integrate Ukraine into itsown country, for the reasons
that we've already discussed,but really make Ukraine into a
unstable satellite or clientstate to give Russia a buffer
against the West.
Well then you just see that alot of people are saying, Oh,
Russia is going to cross theDnieper river and completely
take over Ukraine.
That's not going to happen.
(15:16):
Our, it would be very poordecision to make that happen,
because especially now aftereight years of fighting...
If you look at the polls, a lotof people like to quote the
polls, Ukrainian polls about,Oh, well, Western Ukraine, yes
is totally pro-European, but thepolls show that Eastern
Ukrainians are very pro-Russia.
Well, yeah, sure, but that wasprior to 2014.
(15:38):
No serious polls have been doneafter eight years of war, where
clearly Russian back separatistswere killing and maiming Eastern
Ukrainians.
And given the fierce resistancethat Ukraine as a whole, but
also more specifically EasternUkrainian civilians have been
giving against the Donbasseparatist, it would be very
(15:59):
reasonable to believe, that mostof Ukraine is firmly
anti-Russian at this point.
So completely subjugatingUkraine doesn't make sense, not
only from a operational warfighting standpoint, but also
from a strategic geopoliticalstandpoint for Russia.
So then you're saying, okay,well it's not gonna be the
(16:19):
complete invasion, well, whatother options do we have here?
Well, if you're the West andyou're trying to delay this
invasion or at least give Putinenough pause where he doesn't
invade, look at what are themost vulnerable parts of
Ukraine?
Well, clearly there's going tobe, given the satellite imagery
that the Brits were nice enoughto share with the rest of the
(16:43):
international community,predictably, we've seen a lot of
military build up and equipmentEast of Ukraine, just to the
East of Donbas.
So it comes to no one's surprisethat any Russian invasion is
going to consist of a sizableforce crossing the Eastern
border of Ukraine, right intoDonbas, and from Donbas out into
(17:08):
Eastern Ukraine.
Other things we need to considernow is with the annexation of
Crimea is there going to be aSouthern flank of the invasion
as well.
Now there you have the Isthmusof Perekop, and that's the land
bridge that, actually thatorganizer treat that I was
talking about in 2014, wherethey left Crimea after the
(17:32):
Russian invasion, they organizedtheir pull out up to the Isthmus
of Perekop, and that's this landbridge that connects the Crimean
peninsula to the rest of Ukraineor the European continent.
So that's kind of like a"hotgates at Thermopylae" type of
situation, where the entireRussian army has to go through
this itty- bitty land bridge inorder to get through to the rest
(17:53):
of Ukraine proper.
There's that, but also withSevastopol being the major Naval
port of Crimea, there is areasonable expectation, if
there's going to be a Southernflank to this invasion, that's
going to be accompanied by aamphibious force from Sevastopol
to Ukraine proper.
(18:15):
Either through Odesa or up theriver to Mykolaiv.
And part of the reason why aSouthern flank makes sense,
other than the fact thatobviously more flanks that you
can open up, or from a warfighting operational standpoint
obviously makes sense, but thepoint here is that if an
amphibious force actually landsand takes Southern Ukraine,
(18:38):
you've effectively cut off theentirety of Ukraine's access to
the Black Sea, and Ukraineeffectively becomes a landlocked
nation.
And to give more credence to apossible amphibious assault on
the Southern flank of Ukraine isthat for the past several weeks
Western navies have beenshadowing six Russian amphibious
(19:00):
landing ships, traveling fromthe Baltic sea, through the
Mediterranean.
And now they're right now, as ofthe recording of this episode,
they're somewhere in the EasternMediterranean, conducting drills
and exercises.
Now, of course they haven'tannounced yet to Turkish
authorities that they're goingto transit through the Turkish
(19:21):
straits.
And there's the Montreuxconvention, there's a treaty
there, saying that Russia cannotbe impeded during peace time.
They cannot be impeded frommoving Naval war ships back and
forth through the Black Sea.
But in order to do that, theyneeded to give the Turkish
government eight days of advancenotice before they plan on
entering Turkish straits and upinto the Black Sea.
(19:42):
So as of yet, at least I haven'theard any news yet of Russians
requesting or Russiansannouncing to Turkish government
their plan to enter the Turkishstraits.
But we shall see as the daysprogress if that announcement
happens, because if that doeshappen, that only further
reinforces the fact that, Hey,if you're going to be sending
amphibious ships to Sevastopol,that an amphibious landing onto
(20:06):
the Southern flank of Ukraine isgoing to be a very real
operational consideration forthe Russian military.
And not only that, but if welook further West, one of the
other regional instabilityshenanigans that Russia has been
doing to prevent further NATOenlargement is Transnistria.
(20:28):
And Transnistria is this smallthin strip of Russian
separatist.
I guess Russia would not saythey are separatist, but they're
Russian separatists.
It's a thin strip of landbetween Moldova and Ukraine.
And they've been backing theseseparatists in Moldova to have
(20:48):
that regional or borderinstability of Moldova, which
prevents Moldova from beinginvited into the European Union
and also NATO.
Not only that, but that there'slots of talks between Roman and
Moldova that they unite.
And in that case, then Moldovacan just bypass all of these
European Union and NATOrequirements of stability and
(21:12):
whatnot, because by becoming apart of Romania, well, Romania
is already in the EU and NATO.
So then Moldova will be in it aswell.
So it's kind of a backend way ofdoing that.
Romanians and Moldovans ofcourse, for those of you who
don't know, are essentially thesame people.
I mean, there's a littlecontroversy here and there, but
broad strokes-wise, they'reconsidered the same people.
So that's why there's this talkof reunification.
(21:34):
And interestingly enough, thisis also considered as an option
to backend a peace deal forKosovo and a more legitimization
for Kosovo, because an overallmajority of them are, again,
broad strokes-wise, ethnicallyAlbanian.
So just talk of, rather thandealing with the whole Serb
situation for Kosovo, that theyjust unite with Albania, and
(21:57):
then they'll automatically bepart of NATO.
And then of course, what thetalks of EU accession for
Albania, Kosovo will also bepart of the EU as well.
So, it kind of avoids a Serbianveto, if you will, of the
legitimacy of Kosovo.
But anyway, going back toMoldova, of course, while we are
having these problems withTransnistria, Romania is not
(22:21):
going to accept thisresponsibility of dealing with
that Transnistria mess.
And with Transnistria being aland locked region, this
Southern invasion of Ukrainewill allow a complete land
bridge from Russia properthrough Southern Ukraine, or
what would be formally SouthernUkraine, all the way into
(22:41):
Transnistria, where Transnistriais now connected to Russia
itself.
And to further cement their holdof Transnistria and, more
importantly, for Russia toprevent Moldovan accession into
either integration into Romaniaor more broadly, entering the EU
and the NATO Alliance.
So that would be the Southernaspect.
(23:08):
Another potential flank here isthe Northern flank.
And this is what's going on withBelarus, is that, we know that
the Dnieper river is a bignatural obstacle, right?
It cuts Ukraine in half.
A lot of people are saying whatRussia is going to do is move
all the way across EasternUkraine up to Dnieper river, and
(23:30):
then stop there, fully integrateEastern Ukraine into Russia, and
then call the day.
I don't think that they would dothat, because it doesn't really
make sense to me.
Because if you hear Russia andyour concern is about NATO and
having a pro-Western Ukraine,well what you've essentially
done by taking over all ofEastern Ukraine is basically
(23:54):
removing the entire supposedlyanti-Western portion of the
Ukrainian population and leavinga completely pro-Western Western
Ukraine.
Now it's not the complete regionof Ukraine, but that Western
Ukraine is going to be firmlypro-European.
I mean, they were already firmlypro-European before the Crimea
invasion, 2014.
(24:15):
Now it's gonna be even more so.
And now that you don't have the,quote,"baggage" of Eastern, you
know, pro-Russian EasternUkrainians, well then Western
Ukrainians are gonna be free tocompletely run into the arms of
the EU and NATO.
And in that case, now you haveNATO territory.
You know, again, this is fromRussia's perspective, you have
NATO territory all the way up tothe Dnieper river.
(24:38):
To kind of give a tongue andcheek example of this Eastern
Ukraine annexation situation,well, there's a lot of talking
in the United States aboutRepublicans saying, Oh, well,
you know, the Democrats are blah, blah, blah, they're evil and
blah, blah, whatever; and wewant Texas, being the biggest
Republican state, to say, Hey,we're going to secede from the
Union.
(24:59):
And they keep talking about thatand threatening, Hey, we're
gonna leave the Union, we'regonna cause another Civil War.
And of course, everyone onTwitter and Democrats and in the
news cycle, in the left leaningnews, they always get up in arms
about Texas threatening tosecede from the Union.
Obviously it's a ridiculoussituation, but think through
this for a second (25:16):
if Texas actually left the United States,
well, that's the biggest portionof Republican control of
Republican votes in Congress, soif Texas actually left, that I
would make the United Statesmore democratic and completely
erode any control thatRepublicans had in the United
States.
So not only is it ludicrous froma military and a historical
(25:39):
situation of Texas leaving theUnited States, but if you're
talking about strictlypolitically, it makes absolutely
zero sense, because you justlose your entire political
leverage in the United States.
So it's the exact same situationwith Russia annexing Eastern
Ukraine.
Because it goes againsteverything, every geopolitical
goal that Russia and Putin hasin Ukraine in preventing a
(26:02):
pro-Western Ukraine on thedoorsteps of Russia.
So I really don't buy, that fullannexation of Eastern Ukraine is
in the works.
I don't see this as a probableor a smart objective for the
Russian military to incur.
But what I do see is that inorder to quickly capitulate Kyiv
(26:24):
and maybe install a puppetgovernment is that they need to
quickly rush into Kyiv beforeany considerable resistance can
formulate itself and push theRussians back.
Now with Kyiv being about, Iforget how much, but like 250 or
so kilometers from the Russianborder, that's gonna take a
while to go through.
But from the Northern side fromKiev is only about 70-ish
(26:47):
kilometers from the border ofBelarus.
So it's much easier to if you'regoing to attack Kyiv that you
attack them from the North.
Not only that, but if in orderto attack them from the East you
have to cross the Dnieper river,which is obviously going to be a
very difficult thing to do.
River crossings for armieshistorically have always been a
precarious situation.
Whereas what you can do is,since Belarus is a supposedly
(27:10):
allied nation of Russia; and infact, if anything, it's a de
facto puppet state of Russia, isthat you can cross the Dnieper
river in Belarus and then swingdown from Belarus into Kyiv.
And it's kind of like a VietnamCambodia situation where the
North Vietnamese and the VietCong would use Laos and
(27:30):
Cambodia,'cause technically itwasn't part of Vietnam.
So the Americans couldn't attackthem.
And then from there swoop downand then attack American South
Vietnamese forces.
So it would be a similarsituation there.
Of course, there you have to adeal with the Chernobyl
exclusion zone, but they'vealready shown a want and
disregard for the dangers of anyradioactive dust that may be
(27:52):
kicked up into the atmosphere.
And in fact, now there isOperation Allied Resolve going
on, which is a joint Belarusianand Russian exercise going on in
the middle of Belarus.
I think it should be endingaround 20 February, which
actually coincides with theclosing of the Beijing Olympics.
(28:12):
So who knows, after the end ofthat exercise, they could use as
a pretense to be like, well,we're already in Belarus after
this exercise, and now we'regonna immediately go down to
attack Ukraine.
Of course, there is a situationhere and that's specific to
international trees of the OSCE,which is the Organization for
(28:34):
Security and Cooperation ofEurope.
It specifically states that ifyou have any military exercise
over 13,000 troops, then itinvites international observers
it.
And in this case for a Russianexercise, it would mean Western
observers would need to beinvited into Belarus to observe
the exercise.
Of course, what did Russia do?
They made sure to keep thisOperation Allied Resolve below
(28:56):
that 13,000 number.
There,you have it.
So if any force that's going tocome through, at least from an
initial attack standpoint, it'sgoing to be a small one.
But it may be small, but it'sstill sizeable enough to provide
a Northern flank that divertsUkrainian resistance from the
East to the North and spreadingout the already limited
Ukrainian forces.
(29:17):
And in order to give even morecredence to the situation, all
you have to do is look atBelarussian Twitter right now.
And there's a lot of pictures...
Actually, Twitter now within theconcept of war is kind of an
amazing thing right now, becausewith Operation Allied Resolve,
there are pictures right now onTwitter of pontoon bridges at
(29:37):
Rechytsa, which is a Belorussiancity on the Dnieper river.
So you already have Russiantroops, if not training for
pontoon river operations inUkraine, using the Operation
Allied Resolve as excused to getall their heavy machinery across
the Western bank of the Dnieperriver for a potential Northern
(29:58):
flank for the invasion ofUkraine.
Yeah.
So you can't make this even moreblatant.
Like even a crappy fictionwriter couldn't write this
better (30:06):
the Winter Olympics is ending 20 February, Operation
Allied Resolves is ending 20February.
Jeez, I wonder when Russia isplanning on invading Ukraine.
(30:29):
So in the Eastern Ukraineinvasion situation, the risk for
Russia is not losing an invasionof Eastern Ukraine.
The real risk is beingsuccessful in your invasion of
Ukraine, where now you'recontrolling a territory of
anti-Russian population, whereyour only choice is to hold the
(30:52):
territory that you didn't reallywanna hold in the first place.
And this is exactly whathappened in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
In that United States wanted togo into these countries, affect
change, and then get out, sothat we could focus on other
things and not bleed ourtreasury.
But we ended up holding the bagthere and getting stuck in a
(31:12):
nation building quagmire, andsucking the life out of our own
military.
This is exactly what Russia doesnot want to do.
'Cause while yes, United Statesdid that, it was really bad.
United States being, you know,the largest economy in the World
can easily weather, as disastersas that was in our Iraq and
Afghanistan, it didn't reallyeconomically really hurt us.
(31:35):
Whereas with Russia and theeconomic situation, that it is
in, the last thing it wants todo is divert much needed
national treasure to the holdingof Ukrainian territory.
So what should the west do?
Well, we just spent all thistime talking about if we were
Putin's advisors, that we'd betelling them to attack sooner
(31:56):
rather than later.
Now, if we were Biden'sadvisors, what would we say to
President Biden?
Well, first of, United Stateshas its own conundrum in the
sense that there's a lightningrod around American troops,
especially when considering thatany attack or any perceived
attack by American troops couldlead to nuclear retaliation.
(32:19):
And we definitely don't wantthat.
I'm sure you have othercountries like the UK and France
that are also nuclear powers,but in that sense international
opinion, which ultimately iswhat's going to matter or what
Putin's going to attempt tomanipulate, international
opinion doesn't really equate aBritish or a French attack as an
(32:41):
attack that would warrant anuclear response.
So it would be very easy for usto say, and a lot of armchair
generals on the Internet are nowsaying, Oh yeah, United States
needs to deploy troops toUkraine and end this thing once
and for all.
Well, that's really, we'rereally rolling the dice here
with the threat of nuclearweapons.
(33:02):
Now you could say, well, nowPutin's bluffing, he's not an
idiot, he's never going to usenuclear weapons.
Well, yeah, that's maybe thecase, but with the finality of a
nuclear event, me personally,I'm not willing to risk that
outcome.
And I think a lot of peoplewithin Washington are also not
willing to risk that outcome.
So the point for United Statesis at best to provide
(33:22):
surreptitious military aid or atworst, galvanize enough of the
West to provide the military aidthat Ukraine needs, which would
not warrant a nuclear responseor, more aptly, nuclear threat
from Russia to the West.
And with that regards, one ofthe first things that United
(33:43):
States can do, since the UnitedStates is already in talks with
President Zelenskyy in Ukraineis to address the UN general
assembly.
Notice I didn't say"UN SecurityCouncil",'cuz obviously on
Security Council nothing's gonnago through with Russia and also
China holding veto powers there.
And so we can't expect anyresponse or any help from the
(34:05):
United Nations.
But through the UN GeneralAssembly, by calling an
emergency meeting of the GeneralAssembly, no one nation holds
veto power there.
In fact, when we're talkingabout with Palestinian
recognition in internationalcircles that was done in, again,
not through the SecurityCouncil, because of America's
veto of Palestine, but it wasdone through a petition through
(34:28):
the General Assembly.
And Zelenskyy could do that aswell.
And there's two reasons forthis.
One,'cause, like we alreadymentioned, the security council
with Russian veto is anon-starter, but more
importantly from a diplomaticendpoint, we see that European
nations are very much into ruleof law or rule of international
law.
You know, United States is notone of those countries that
(34:52):
believes in this.
Or I should say, believes in it,but doesn't subscribe to this
notion of international law inthe sense that, unlike Europe or
unlike the European nationsUnited States is not part of a
lot of international legalframeworks.
To include the InternationalCriminal Court, the UN
(35:14):
Convention on Law of the Sea,UNCLOS, the Kyoto protocol, you
know, about climate change.
There's even other things likethe ban on cluster munitions,
the ban on torture, famously,the ban on mines, the Ottawa
treaty.
And there's a whole list ofthese things, a whole bunch of
different internationalframeworks, diplomatic
(35:35):
frameworks that the UnitedStates is not part of and
refuses to be a part of.
Did I mentioned thecomprehensive test ban, nuclear
test ban treaty?
Banning nuclear weapons tests,which actually it's funny
enough, Russia has signed,whereas the United States
hasn't.
So, uh, let's, that's the UnitedStates for you.
Whereas the European nations arereally big on these type of
(35:57):
international frameworks andreally hold those to high
regard, even though Americansdon't.
In fact, even the Bushadministration, George W.
Bush, he understood this,because while he wanted to go
straight in guns blazing intoIraq during the second Gulf war,
he still had to wherewithal,administration still had the
(36:18):
wherewithal to plead their caseto the United Nations.
You know, that was the wholething with Colin Powell or
Secretary Powell talking aboutthe yellow cake uranium in Iraq.
And obviously that turned out tobe a fabrication, but again, the
fact that they spent the timeand energy to plead their case
to the UN shows that the UnitedStates understands that
(36:42):
Europeans hold this into higherregard.
So that if you want Europe onyour side, you have to plead to
international norms, which theEuropeans hold to a high regard.
So the things that the US coulddo is implore president
Zelenskyy to go to the GeneralAssembly and then one by one
list all these violations thatPutin has done, that Russia has
(37:03):
done.
You can refer Putin to theInternational Criminal Court,
you know, to the Hague.
And there's plenty of evidencethere to brand him as an
international criminal with aviolation of the Budapest
memorandum and the Helsinkiaccords.
Budapest memorandum being themaintaining of the territorial
integrity of Ukraine, as well asBelarus and Kazakhstan in
(37:27):
exchange for them giving uptheir nuclear weapons, when the
Soviet union disbanded.
So by Putin annexing Crimea,he's in direct violation of the
Budapest memorandum of 1994.
So as far as the InternationalCriminal Court is concerned,
this is grounds for not just thepenalties against the Russian
Federation, but also by makingthe case that Putin is the
(37:51):
single architect of theannexation of Crimea, branding
Putin as an internationalcriminal.
Now of course, branding Putin asa criminal might not do much
against Putin himself, but youcan use this as leverage for the
international loving Europeans,by constantly going to Germany,
to the German government,saying, Hey, look, what are you
(38:11):
talking about?
Nord Stream 2 and not imposingsanctions, because of Russian
gas.
Why is Germany dealing with aninternational criminal?
And you already have the Germanguilt trip of World War I and
more importantly, World War IIand the Nazis, and the
Holocaust, and all that.
So really playing in andneedling the German sense of
guilt of all the crime anddestruction that they've done in
(38:34):
the 1940s, using that as a wayto affect German sentiment
against Vladimir Putin, bybringing this case to the
international criminal court.
Even going further back to theHelsinki Accords, which
emphasizes, among many ofdifferent things, but the
territorial integrity of statesand those other things about
(38:55):
self determination of people,respect for human rights, yyadi
yadi yada, non-intervention ofinternal affairs.
You can use this as a solid basefor a case against Vladimir
Putin in the InternationalCriminal Court.
And more importantly for theinternational public opinion
court, vis-à-vis, the UN GeneralAssembly.
And another thing that theUnited States can do is have
(39:18):
talks with Poland and Lithuania.
One of the things that they'reworried about is being cut off.
Especially the Baltic nations,being cut off from the rest of
Europe, because of the smallborder that the Baltic nations
share with Poland and the restof Europe.
And that's because of theterritory of Belarus and
(39:40):
Kaliningrad, which is an exclaveof the Russian Federation.
That's called the Suwalki grad,uh, the Suwalki gap.
And the Suwalki gap is this thincorridor, essentially it's the
border between Lithuania andPoland, but this border also
provides a visa-free access forBelarussians and Russians to
(40:01):
travel across the, for there tobe a ground-based connection
between this Russian exclave andBelarus and of course the rest
of Russia.
So by Poland at least suggestingthe rescission of this visa-free
access to the Suwalki gap, thatcan put further pressure on
Putin to maybe not change thedecision, but at least force him
(40:24):
to consider a differentcalculus, should he invade.
Now, another thing the UnitedStates can do is put pressure on
France.
President Macron is talkingabout, oh, well, the thing is
that we can't rely on the UnitedStates anymore.
And this is like when Trump waspresident, but we can't rely on
United States anymore formilitary security of Europe.
(40:46):
Well, okay, fine.
Well, put your money where yourmouth is, especially talking
about this US conundrum of if wedeploy our troops that could
potentially warrant a nuclearreprisal.
Well have France, since theywanna make this European army,
EU4, as they call it, this wouldbe a great case of mobilizing,
(41:06):
at least the progenitor of EU4.
Not only that, but also Macronright now, he's the president of
the European Union Council.
And with that, he has a not onlyenormous amount of power, but
enormous amount ofresponsibility to guide the
European union in internationalaffairs.
And one of the things that hewas saying is his staff was
(41:26):
advising him even while he washaving trips and discussions
with Russia, they were saying,oh no, Macron shouldn't go to
Ukraine, because if he goes toUkraine, then given his
prestige, not only as Presidentof France, but also president of
the EU, this would beunnecessarily antagonize Russia.
Which, basically you have tocall him out on him, like
(41:48):
saying, Hey, that's a ridiculousstatement.
Is Ukraine not a nation as well?
You're talking about, Europe,you're so you're so much into
the, you know, internationalnorms and the supremacy of
international law and how weshould all be adhering to that
as all nations are being equal.
Well, how can you at at the sametime then be saying that, Oh,
you as head of state don't wantto visit another head of state,
(42:10):
because you risk antagonizinganother head of state.
It's just, it's, it'sridiculous.
By Macron not going to Ukraine,especially during the time of
crisis, you're essentiallysaying that Ukraine is not a
legitimate state in theinternational community.
So these are the ways we have toframe the discussion at the
(42:30):
international level.
And basically break thisnarrative, this Russian
narrative, that ultimatelyRussia considers itself as a
regional hegemon, where all ofits neighboring states should be
client states and subservient toRussian interests.
(42:51):
Which is antithetical to theEuropean notion of international
order, where all states have theright for self-determination and
an equal standing at theinternational level.
But to properly address theRussian narrative, let's explore
what exactly is the Russiannarrative in the next episode.
(43:18):
If you would like to comment onthis podcast or on the topics
covered within it, or you'd likeus to raise a new topic in our
next episode, please feel freeto leave us a message or a
voicemail on www.
codbsm.com.
That's Charlie, Oscar, Delta,Bravo, Sierra, Mike, dot com.
Thank you for, for listening andsee you at the party, Richter!
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