generalspeaking

Challenging Russia

"I don't think anybody wants to get into a proxy war with Russia and that is not our objective here. Our objective is to change the behaviour of Russia."
U.S. State Department spokeswoman

"We intend to mobilize the necessary number of people to bring the size of our army up to 100,000 people. It will be a voluntary mobilization."
Alexander Zakharchenko, rebel leader, Donetsk

"The West needs to bolster deterrence in Ukraine by raising the risks and costs to Russia of any renewed major offensive."
"That requires providing direct military assistance -- in far larger amounts than provided to date and including lethal defensive arms."
U.S. independent advisory report

An elderly Ukrainian man is helped by a Ukrainian Army soldier and a citizen during a evacuation of civilians in Debaltseve, in the Donetsk region Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Russian troops and tanks continue to move from across the border into Ukraine supporting the separatists in eastern Ukraine, disdaining the signed ceasefire agreement, now in shreds. As for the general mobilization declared by rebel leader Zakharchenko; there can be little doubt that the 100,000-person voluntary mobilization will be anything but. The voluntary element has long since joined the rebels; to gain additional recruits a fair bit of aggressive nudging will be engaged.

The envisioned new motorized rifle brigades, an artillery and a tank brigade to materialize by spring to give the striking initiative to the rebel militias will be realized as a result of involuntary conscription, not voluntary mobilization. But in the language of violent rebellion, semantics are simply tools of propaganda and expediency.

The serious fighting between the separatists and Ukrainian troops has been roiling eastern Ukraine, with roughly 50 people dying over the weekend. President Putin is a long way from wobbling on his spurring on the rebels to Russia's geographic advantage, sanctions or not. The sanctions alone without the impact of the enhanced Saudi oil production initiative that has pulled the wheels out from under Moscow's oil-cart would have achieved little. 

Russian resolve appears to have strengthened, if anything, because Russians don't like to be pushed around; they're accustomed to doing the pushing. Now the report assembled by a who's who of U.S. administration elites and supported by actors like Secretary of State John Kerry, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, and even Susan Rice, visualize strengthening Kyiv's hand.

General Breedlove, NATO's military commander, is all for support to Kyiv by providing arms and equipment to Ukraine's underarmed military. The U.S. is urged through the report to hand over to the Ukrainians anti-tank weapons to match Russian armoured vehicles. Since most of Kyiv's anti-tank stock date from the Soviet era, and about 70% of the weapons are almost unusable, Petro Poroshenko's continual appeals for weaponry aid is understandable

With Russia continuing to back the rebels, Ukraine finds itself hard put to sustain east Ukraine while still grappling with the loss of Crimea, and its tenuous hold on a geography that has defaulted in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions to the combined forces of secessionists and Russian military holidayers.

Will others follow suit, should the U.S. decide to take the plunge and indirectly challenge Russia? Not likely; neither Britain nor Germany appear poised to render to Ukraine lethal weapons, but remain wedded to non-lethal support.

"Germany will not send Ukraine any deadly, lethal weapons, as I said yesterday. We are focusing on a diplomatic solution and the foreign ministers have made clear that if the situation gets even worse ... then it will be necessary to work on further sanctions", Chancellor Merkel made clear.

Labels: Aggression, Armaments, Russia, Secession, Ukraine, United States

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, February 04, 2015