If you have a weak stomach, you might want to turn off your tv. Putin just appeared on Russian television, and announced to his own people that he had just authorized special operations in eastern Ukraine. And MSNBC is reporting that there are confirmed reports of bombs going off in Kyiv.
The Russian invasion is now officially underway. As we speak, it’s about 5:30 am in Kiev, so daylight is breaking. And when that happens, then you can count on starting to see live video out of Kyiv and Ukraine.
President Biden just released a statement in which he lambasted Russia for an unprovoked unilateral assault against the people of the Ukraine, said that the prayers and thoughts of the world are with the Ukrainians, and that he will address the country tomorrow to lay out the next steps of the US/NATO response to Putin’s aggression.
Don’t expect to see a whole lot for the next several hours. Most military experts say that the initial Russian aggression will largely be by air, manned aircraft, missiles, and artillery. The object is to soften up Ukrainian positions, knock out cell phone towers and electric stations, and other forms of communication, such as phones and even radar. The object is to isolate and deprive the Ukrainians and their military of necessary services. Once that is done, the ground assault will begin.
And then it will get up close and personal, and so will the images. As I wrote earlier tonight, there is no way for the US military or government to control what comes out, or what goes on the air. Right now, NBC News alone has at least 3 separate crews on site, Richard Engel on the eastern Ukrainian border, Erin McLaughlin in Kyiv, and Cal Perry in western Ukraine. All of them have camera crews, and all of them are now officially In harms’ way.
A much more technologically equipped world is about to see things that we haven’t seen since 1939, a widespread land invasion in Europe. Only this time, it isn’t just with more advanced broadcasting capabilities, but with much more effective methods of causing mass death and destruction. Don’t touch that dial.
Update
The Ukraine is not going quietly into that good night. Ukraine requested its second UN Emergency Security Council in 3 days. And in that meeting, Ukraine’s UN Ambassador went for broke. He quoted Section Four of the UN charter, which welcomes all peace loving countries. The Ukrainian Ambassador challenged not only Russia’s right to be on the UN Security Council, but even their place in the United Nations, since they are inherently not a peace loving country. The Ukrainians are looking to force the world to choose sides, and I already know how that is going to shake out.
You’re correct that Russia is trying to disrupt communications to degrade Ukraine’s command & control capabilities. However, I again say that once the Russian troops move into non-separatist parts of Ukraine it will get real ugly and real fast – and not just for Ukrainians.
People here and on the site so many of us came from that pay attention to me know that while I support the Jewish people having their own homeland and even that where they’ve chosen is logical I have a lot of problems with the State of Israel and its policies and not infrequently. However, what I want to speak more directly to is their “vaunted” military capability which I’ve long maintained is significantly, if not vastly overrated. Being a jarhead whose active duty days were back during the 1980s I will always hold a special bitterness towards their leadership down to their units at the airport in Beirut. That’s a longer set of stuff I won’t get in to but the main point related to what I have to say next is that this supposedly awesome Israeli military couldn’t project power a hundred fucking miles from their northern border, and at least establish control of Lebanon from Beirut down to their northern border! It was an epic fail and exposed (in my mind at least) the myth of how great and fearsome the Israeli military is.
They couldn’t, and frankly still can’t project power to control areas even fifty kilometers beyond their border. But, and this is a huge but they ARE in fact awesome and fierce when defending their country from an all-out attack from others and have proved it more than once. That actually shouldn’t surprise anyone. People fighting for their homes and towns against a foreign entity seeking to subdue them are ALWAYS fierce. And effective, even if it takes a while. Ask Russians who were adults during their fiasco in Afghanistan about that. We of course have our own examples thanks to Bush 43 and his desire to avenge his daddy’s loss against Clinton. Russia itself has a history of making invaders rue the day they tried to invade and take over that country. Napolean sure as hell learned the hard way an so did Hitler. At the time Russia didn’t match up well at all militarily and STILL kicked ass.
That is what happens when one tries to take over a large country with a majority of the people that are hostile towards you. I still believe Putin has lost perspective, and deluded himself into believing that most of Ukraine (instead of only the separatist provinces Russia has spent so long transplanting actual Russians in to) desires Russian rule. The reality is the opposite. He should take a good, hard look at our own vaunted “shock and awe” strategy when Bush 43 decided to try and take over Iraq. It failed to intimidate and if anything pissed off even Iraqis who didn’t like us but hated Saddam enough to tolerate some outside help in deposing him. That’s why that initial jubilation when he fled quickly turned into “now get the fuck out” and got steadily worse from there.
In Ukraine, only the separatist regions with all those Russian families will be dancing in the streets as the tanks roll through. The rest of the country will grit its teeth, do their damndest to survive the initial bombing and shelling and then will start fighting back. I believe Putin would need a million troops and be willing to lose far more military hardware than he can replace to pacify that country and even then there would still be resistance. He had his puppet government and the people ran them out of the country. As you’ve noted they aren’t happy about the corrruption that has persisted but I also think many of them place at least some of the blame on Russian sympathizers who managed to conceal enough of their intent to fight a rear-guard action to stay behind and fuck with things. When all this is done I fear for the kind of purge that will take place because surely some innocent people will get swept up in it, but that’s an issue for a later time.
I can’t get it out of my head…how the two primary adversaries of the Cold War have both managed to give into their worst instincts this century. To be clear, we finished up OUR round of that on the international front. Now it’s Russia’s turn and it will be a fiasco.