I read an interesting (to say the least) article earlier this afternoon. It’s not long, but if you pay attention to goings on with the Ukraine war it’s significant. Why? There are exceptions (more than a handful) but generally Ukraine doesn’t put out statements from actual govt./military officials about goings on until well after (days usually, sometimes even weeks) after things have been confirmed multiple times via other sources. It goes beyond not “telegraphing their punch” and into “let’s make damned sure of this and let outsiders see for themselves before confirming. Not to mention if Russia blows smoke they’ll wind up looking stupid.” So, when you think about the article I linked keep that in mind.
Now it’s possible, not likely but possible that this is a PsyOps ploy by Ukraine. An attempt to spook Russian civilians and collaborators in Crimea to flee. To get the hell out of Dodge and to relative safety. Because they know, they know that the Crimean peninsula is NOT part of Russia and never was. It’s Ukraine and Ukraine won’t settle for less than getting it back. It’s been suggested by some including some western countries the way to end this war is some type of settlement, which includes Russia retaining control of at least part of Crimea or some sort of joint governance of the peninsula. I can’t envision figuring out a “co-rule” agreement that would be workable even if everyone trusted Russia to keep it’s end of the bargain.
And I’ve said before Ukraine simply won’t agree to a peace treaty that allows Russia to stay in Crimea. At best, maybe they will agree to, if Russia asks really, REALLY nicely and makes a huge amount of restitution for the war it started enter into a treaty that allows for Russian merchant ships to dock at Crimean ports – as long as said ships are under Ukrainian control as in a new Ukrainian Marine Corps (I’d be happy to go over and help teach them!) having a until on each and every ship while it’s in Ukrainian waters and when docked.
But getting back to that story and why I doubt it’s PsyOps, it would be a major thing for Ukraine to compromise an official spokesperson/Ministry this way. Almost at the level of the terrible choice governments sometimes face between the need to reveal intelligence and compromise how good their intel gathering is vs. trying to find a longer, more difficult and costly in suffering and even lives to protect secrets. It doesn’t take Captain Obvious to explain Ukraine has real credibility and Russia has none. That would be a lot to risk for a PsyOp of this scale.
I believe this news is real, and potentially significant.
If Russia soon accepts they are going to lose this war and lose big & therefore try to get a peace deal they are still going to want not just Crimea but that “Land Bridge.”
Having said all that I ask you to take a good look at the map in the title picture. You might even want to save it to your computer for future reference as the geography which includes well defined boarders and various places that have been and will be big in the news again when the counter-offensive begins.
If you’re reading this article you probably have followed at least some of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and even recall talk of Russia’s desire to have a “land bridge” to Crimea. Multiple ports on the Black Sea, and having them firmly and “forever” under Russian control is why Russia took over the Crimean peninsula in the first place. Few countries have from a diplomatic perspective recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Most countries as well as the U.N. have condemned it in fact. But Russia, just like in the bad old days of the USSR that Putin has tried to re-create not only didn’t care, but staged some bogus referendums in places that “voted” for Russian rule.
Russia has spent decades, going back long before anyone reading this and even their parents were born furiously working to transform Ukraine into a province of Russia. Russia wants and at times has desperately needed Ukraine’s agricultural output but it’s those ports on the Black Sea that really matter. It would take too long to get into the accident of the geography of the country (Russia) with the world’s largest land mass being so restricted in maritime trade and Naval movements but trust me when I tell you the ports are why Russia initially settled for the takeover of Crimea back in 2014.
However, there’s still been a problem which in part led to the current war. Russia has the Kerch Bridge, a massive road and rail bridge that stretches well over twenty miles and connects Russia with Crimea. That single main link however is way less than any country aspiring to world power and especially ports for Navy and civilian vessels closer to the Mediterranean needs. That’s why when the current war broke out you heard talk about a “land bridge to Crimea. As you know Russia hoped to decapitate Ukraine’s leadership by taking Kyiv and killing Zelenskyy and other leaders in the first 24-48 hours (certainly no more than 72) BUT they hedged their bets some and had a large offensive in southern Ukraine to acquire that “land bridge.”
Russia has invested heavily in driving out any Ukrainian resistance (including tragedies like turning the once beautiful major port city of Mariupol into rubble. It’s why why they fought so hard for control of Kherson, a major crossing over the Dnipro river into that “land bridge” and territory south of it including that tiny bit of land just south of the sliver of connection between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine. Russia has, even as the meat grinder was using up troops and equipment put considerable effort into holding on to that land bridge. They still want all of Crimea of course but I truly think at this point almost anyone in Russia not named Vladmir Putin would settle for that land bridge and a few ports and gladly let Ukraine have back the rest of it’s own country.
Conventional wisdom has been that Ukraine will face fierce, well-organized resistance and have considerable difficulty in overcoming the defenses Russia has put in place in the south to protect that land bridge. It’s led to speculation that the primary target of the much anticipated Ukraine counter offensive will be to break through to the Black Sea on a wide enough front to cut off Russia from land access to Crimea. And that means the already badly damaged Kerch Bridge will get hit again. How is yet to be determined but bear in mind that in addition to weapons the west has been providing Ukraine is proving ever more capable of producing their own. Or taking what’s been provided and modifying it. If Ukraine decides to take out the Kerch Bridge I for one am confident they can and will do so.
I could keep going on this all day so I’ll try to wind it up by emphasizing access to open waters/oceans. I noted Russia, for all it’s size has always been hampered by not having year round access to multiple warm weather ports where it can ship and receive goods. Ships are the key to being a world power economically. Always have been. You can’t export significant amounts of goods be they agricultural or manufactured without lots of shipping capability. Or receive them. Year round. In The Keepers of the Sea author Edward Beach has an interesting quote. Lengthy and academic but the main point is the conclusion: that nations that fail the sea power test also rail the longevity one. Ok, so Russia has been around a lot longer than we have but I think the sentiment applies when you consider it from the perspective of being a world power.
Ukraine isn’t the first war that’s been fought over access to ports for shipping and Naval vessels. It won’t be the last. But it’s why Russia invaded and took control of Crimea and now is trying to take over all of Ukraine but would settle for that land bridge I’ve talked about and some ports on the Black Sea.
THAT my friends is why I find this report of Russians/collaborators fleeing Crimea and heading east into Russia at an increasing pace so interesting. Maybe they know something we don’t. As in Russia, if not willing to face the humiliation of evacuating it’s military forces isn’t nearly as formidable a foe as had been feared. So keep an eye out in the weeks ahead. I know I will.
Some of the maps I see have areas with ‘partizan’ activity. How much of the territory under russian control is controlled by people who support russia?. It sounds like we are hearing about more incidents of sabotage in places like Crimea and even in Russia. How many Ukrainians are slipping across the lines in russian uniforms and blending into the chaos that is the russian deployment. we will see when this offensive begins.
Interesting (and good) that you bring this up. Even before Russia kicked off the hostilities but it was apparent war would happen there were experts mentioning that while it was unlikely Ukraine could stop a major Russian offensive and that it was not only possible but likely Russia would gain control and install a puppet government in Ukraine the issue of civilian unrest was brought up. Basically, the theme was that despite the brutal reprisals that would ensue Ukrainians would routinely engage in sabotage and guerilla attacks against their occupiers. More importantly they noted that Ukraine had too many people (thanks to so many reservists who had gone back to civilian life) who had fought Russia (well, the proxy forces, many of whom were in fact Russian soldiers but not “officially” to maintain a veneer of “plausible deniability” for Putin) in those eastern provinces of Ukraine that Russia took over. The belief from many experts was that given such a large group of people with training and experience with war, the resourcefulness of Ukrainians and their ingrained hate of Russia that they’d make life a living hell for their occupiers. That over time (years if that’s what it took) Russia would come to learn that bad as Afghanistan turned out for them with Ukraine they’d made an even bigger mistake. After all, the ethnic and language similarities would as you note make it far easier for Ukrainians to infiltrate.
I’ve believed all along that eventually Ukraine would prevail and that Russia would, as was the case with Afghanistan wind up having to endure a humiliating withdrawal. And that when the history of the war was written some would note that once again, as history teaches us almost always happens that a country that tries to take over another country by choice and uses military force they lose – because those who do the unjustified invading don’t take into account a simple fact – that someone will try and stop them.