The Ukrainians can reconstitute all the battalions they want - with the usual untrained conscripts who will die within hours of arriving at the front. As I've said repeatedly, the more people you send into a kill zone, the more people get killed. Nothing Ukraine is doing now and in the future has any chance whatsoever of breaking through Russian lines.
Putin made a point of commenting on Ukraine's remaining population of less than 20 million at Valdai. As Andrei Martyanov points outs, this puts a hard limit on Ukraine's mobilization capability.
I stand by my prediction that the Ukraine military will collapse within 3-6 months (now 2-5 since it's been a month or so that I've been saying this). We'll know it's collapsing when Russia moves.
Also, it won't matter whether Biden sends another $24 billion or, as they're talking about, another $60 billion. It will keep the lights on in Kiev for a few more months and fill the offshore bank accounts of the Kiev elite a little higher, but that's about it.
This whole war is rapidly becoming yesterday's news - at least until Russia finally makes a move.
Thanks for that Richard. Some, even on the Russian side, are talking about a long war but I wonder just how long the Ukrainian army can continue to function. The winter months will be a huge test for Ukraine as the Russians attack the electricity grid. I think Colonel Doug MacGregor said that it is rare for an army to collapse in the field but this one could.
All depends on what "collapse" means. In this case, it likely means forced retreat to the other side of the Dnieper. And one thing we know is that armies take their worst casualties in a forced retreat if they are unable to perform a credible "fighting retreat" in an organized fashion. I really doubt Ukraine is capable of an organized retreat given they can't even organize an offensive.
Sorry, I missed this one. I'm not sure what MacGregor actually meant by 'collapse' but I take you point. If what I have heard is correct then sometime between the 5th and the 15th October we will see how capable the current version of the Ukrainian army is or is not.
24B, 60B, 100B. It does matter because the US is tapped out. Seeing what is going on around the rest of the world, Ukraine is no longer an issue to consider in "isolation". It would be a good time for China to open negotiations with the province of Taiwan.
The US isn't tapped out on "funny money", just hardware. As long as the stupid taxpayers pay their taxes and allow the Fed to print money, the US can piss money. But what I meant was it won't matter for Ukraine how much they receive except in terms of how much they can steal before the end comes.
Clearly tapped out on hardware. But let's not forget the inexorable march of the debt. These wars are coming home big time and in that form. We're just about at the point where interest - alone - on the debt totals as much as our current "defense" budget. There is no amount of taxes the stupid taxpayers can pay and no amount of appropriations from the richer elites that can keep US solvent. That's
the beauty of compound interest!
By the time Fed prints $6000, the prices of a 155mm shell will be up to $7500 and it still won't be possible to produce it because the supply chain won't handle it. Those who understand this are shutting down Congress because of it. And as this paper tiger melts into a soggy pile on the floor, all sorts of other events are going to bubble up uncontainable. That's what I meant by in "isolation".
All of which is true, but irrelevant to my point which was that nothing the US does is going to matter in terms of helping Ukraine. The US is currently considering sending another whopping $100 billion to Ukraine. My point is simply that won't matter in affecting the outcome of the war. Ukraine is finished in the next 3-6 months regardless of what the US does (short of sending nukes.)
Zelensky is just another camo-clad , rodent-like , shake down artist like Yasser Arafat
And yet we are supposed to believe that's he's a latter day Churchill when in reality he's merely a Ukrainian BORAT !
It just goes to show the seductive power of propaganda on uninformed minds , and it's the same marching morons who believed that a flu-like virus was a lethal pandemic, that those useless vaccines actually worked ; that opportunistic migrants are ''asylum seekers'' and that Joe Biden won the 2020 election , WE are living in a blizzard of LIES
You will have to forgive me, I am completely out of my depth in the ways of the substack. I have recommended you on my substack but I don't what a 'restack' is. Can you explain please. Rob
Dr Campbell, thank you for another amazingly informative update! I'm sure that I am not the only reader who appreciates all of your hard work; it must take a great deal of your time to provide such a comprehensive and detailed article. Please don't let certain pedantic posters bother you; keep up the good work!
I was looking forward to seeing your opinions until I came across the remark about Mr Medvedev's "mendacious rants". Sad how a single statement like that can render a commentator's whole future output invisible.
And by the way, properly made gravy is not greasy.
I quite like Medvedev's 'mendacious rants' actually. I was praising him rather than criticising him. He is Russia's 'bad cop' to Putin's 'good cop'. If you want to make someone's output invisible just because their opinion differs from yours isn't that rather sad?
Just to weigh in on that, I agree that Medvedev comes across as an "honest politician". He seems to "over-emphasize" what Putin "under-emphasizes."
Other people seem to consider Putin as George Washington as in "I can not tell a lie" - which is ludicrous. Putin is trained as a lawyer (not to mention a spy) and he weighs his words very carefully and people who assume they understand what he means with his frequently ambiguous remarks are probably much mistaken.
I never assume that what he says is "the whole truth and nothing but the truth", especially when it comes to the ultimate objectives of the SMO. I'm pretty sure Putin understands that you don't tell people what your desired outcome is because then someone will try to stop you. I've always interpreted his "de-militarization" and "de-Nazification" (weird turns of phrase to begin with!) as mere "pre-conditions" to the SMO's actual objectives.
It's not just that your opinion differs from mine; it's that your statement is incompatible with what I think I know about Mr Medvedev and the Russian government as a whole. I have been following events in Ukraine since 2014, and in Russia for longer than that. "Rants" I completely agree with, and I am thankful that the sometimes dangerously polite Russian government has one outspoken senior member. But as I grow older, my patience is growing much less. Nowadays I leap at the chance to prune any source that I think might waste my time. (Although most of them do, sometimes - perhaps a by-product of the "pay per click" business model).
His outspokenness is what I like about Medvedev. No one could accuse him of towing the party line and I often wonder whether Putin approves of what he says. But compared to Putin, he's a bit of a hawk and this may all be part of a game.
Ironically, when he was President (2008-2012) and Mr Putin became Prime Minister, Mr Medvedev was strongly criticised for being much too weak and easy-going. In particular, he sat on his hands and did nothing about the Western lynching of Libya and Colonel Gaddafi; I was seen it said that this inaction decided Mr Putin not to name Mr Medvedev as his successor. Wikipedia says this: 'In the views of some analysts, Medvedev's presidency did seem to promise positive changes, both at home and in ties with the West, signaling "the possibility of a new, more liberal period in Russian politics"'. Exactly why so many people in Russia scorned him as a wimp who would not stand up for their interests.
Since the Ukrainian crisis blew up, Mr Medvedev has been reborn as Mr Putin's attack bear, and his popularity in Russia has grown immensely. He can make bloo-curdling threats that carry conviction from an ex-President, allowing Mr Putin to keep his image as the calm voice of reason and pourer of oil on troubled waters.
Medvedev has become the "bad cop" (from the Western point of view) recently; but previously he was the "good cop" who was willing to go along to get along, Like Yeltsin and Gorbachev - whose names are now swear words in Russia.
The term mendacious is ambiguous so I should have been more careful. It can mean harmless mischievous deceit. I am not implying that Medvedev is lying but he is a politician playing a game so he won't be completely honest either. I like Medvedev, though, and I thought that should have been clear from what I said about him. In view of the ambiguity, I'll do a correction in my next Update. Others may have interpreted it in the way you have. It is good that you pointed this out - thanks.
In that case I have been fooled by your idiosyncratic usage, and I was wrong to take umbrage. But my dictionary (the COED) says:
mendacious
n adjective untruthful: mendacious propaganda.
DERIVATIVES
mendaciously adverb
mendacity noun
ORIGIN
C17: from Latin mendax, mendac- 'lying' + -ious.
and I am a bit of a pedant. Another unpleasant and confusing modern trend is for people to use words to mean what they think they mean - like Humpty Dumpty - whereas I see words as precision instruments. I would not say that I can see any meaning for "mendacious" other than simply "lying" or "untruthful".
Merriam Webster has this: 'MENDACIOUS may suggest bland or even harmlessly mischievous deceit and when used of people often suggests a habit of telling untruths'. Have you ever read Keywords by Raymond Williams? Williams, who was a sociologist of culture, shows how words change over time. The term 'individual' for example, which now means separate, used to mean indivisible'. The trend nowadays is to redefine words for political purposes.
Interesting that Merriam-Webster would say that. As a reasonably well educated British man (and a former professional writer and editor) I would find their definition quite strange. To me, "mendacious" means simply "lying" - and I'm not sure I follow the idea that lying can ever be "not so bad". I suppose, as you say, it's a difference that just has to be noted and accepted.
Unfortunately, every such difference puts yet another obstacle in the path of our attempts to understand each other - let alone find agreement. It's bad enough that people cleave to different ideologies, but now perhaps they are hiving off different languages.
Sorry to go on beating a dead horse, but that is just what I meant in my last comment. "Mendacious" sounds rather like "menacing", but it has a quite different meaning. One can perfectly easily be menacing without being at all mendacious, and one can also be wholly mendacious without being in the least menacing.
Amusingly, that Wikipedia page contains another glaring solecism: "niggardly is nonetheless often substituted with a synonym". Correct would be "replaced by..."; or "a synonym is often substituted for..."
Such simple mistakes are harmless in ordinary conversation, but in public speech or especially writing they can cause serious misunderstandings.
The Ukrainians can reconstitute all the battalions they want - with the usual untrained conscripts who will die within hours of arriving at the front. As I've said repeatedly, the more people you send into a kill zone, the more people get killed. Nothing Ukraine is doing now and in the future has any chance whatsoever of breaking through Russian lines.
Putin made a point of commenting on Ukraine's remaining population of less than 20 million at Valdai. As Andrei Martyanov points outs, this puts a hard limit on Ukraine's mobilization capability.
I stand by my prediction that the Ukraine military will collapse within 3-6 months (now 2-5 since it's been a month or so that I've been saying this). We'll know it's collapsing when Russia moves.
Also, it won't matter whether Biden sends another $24 billion or, as they're talking about, another $60 billion. It will keep the lights on in Kiev for a few more months and fill the offshore bank accounts of the Kiev elite a little higher, but that's about it.
This whole war is rapidly becoming yesterday's news - at least until Russia finally makes a move.
Thanks for that Richard. Some, even on the Russian side, are talking about a long war but I wonder just how long the Ukrainian army can continue to function. The winter months will be a huge test for Ukraine as the Russians attack the electricity grid. I think Colonel Doug MacGregor said that it is rare for an army to collapse in the field but this one could.
All depends on what "collapse" means. In this case, it likely means forced retreat to the other side of the Dnieper. And one thing we know is that armies take their worst casualties in a forced retreat if they are unable to perform a credible "fighting retreat" in an organized fashion. I really doubt Ukraine is capable of an organized retreat given they can't even organize an offensive.
Sorry, I missed this one. I'm not sure what MacGregor actually meant by 'collapse' but I take you point. If what I have heard is correct then sometime between the 5th and the 15th October we will see how capable the current version of the Ukrainian army is or is not.
24B, 60B, 100B. It does matter because the US is tapped out. Seeing what is going on around the rest of the world, Ukraine is no longer an issue to consider in "isolation". It would be a good time for China to open negotiations with the province of Taiwan.
The US isn't tapped out on "funny money", just hardware. As long as the stupid taxpayers pay their taxes and allow the Fed to print money, the US can piss money. But what I meant was it won't matter for Ukraine how much they receive except in terms of how much they can steal before the end comes.
Clearly tapped out on hardware. But let's not forget the inexorable march of the debt. These wars are coming home big time and in that form. We're just about at the point where interest - alone - on the debt totals as much as our current "defense" budget. There is no amount of taxes the stupid taxpayers can pay and no amount of appropriations from the richer elites that can keep US solvent. That's
the beauty of compound interest!
By the time Fed prints $6000, the prices of a 155mm shell will be up to $7500 and it still won't be possible to produce it because the supply chain won't handle it. Those who understand this are shutting down Congress because of it. And as this paper tiger melts into a soggy pile on the floor, all sorts of other events are going to bubble up uncontainable. That's what I meant by in "isolation".
All of which is true, but irrelevant to my point which was that nothing the US does is going to matter in terms of helping Ukraine. The US is currently considering sending another whopping $100 billion to Ukraine. My point is simply that won't matter in affecting the outcome of the war. Ukraine is finished in the next 3-6 months regardless of what the US does (short of sending nukes.)
Zelensky is just another camo-clad , rodent-like , shake down artist like Yasser Arafat
And yet we are supposed to believe that's he's a latter day Churchill when in reality he's merely a Ukrainian BORAT !
It just goes to show the seductive power of propaganda on uninformed minds , and it's the same marching morons who believed that a flu-like virus was a lethal pandemic, that those useless vaccines actually worked ; that opportunistic migrants are ''asylum seekers'' and that Joe Biden won the 2020 election , WE are living in a blizzard of LIES
I like the phrase 'blizzard of lies'. Thanks
Sharing your update on our stack. Thanks!
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/russia-ukraine-reports-2023-10-05
Hello Skeptic,
You will have to forgive me, I am completely out of my depth in the ways of the substack. I have recommended you on my substack but I don't what a 'restack' is. Can you explain please. Rob
Dr Campbell, thank you for another amazingly informative update! I'm sure that I am not the only reader who appreciates all of your hard work; it must take a great deal of your time to provide such a comprehensive and detailed article. Please don't let certain pedantic posters bother you; keep up the good work!
I was looking forward to seeing your opinions until I came across the remark about Mr Medvedev's "mendacious rants". Sad how a single statement like that can render a commentator's whole future output invisible.
And by the way, properly made gravy is not greasy.
I quite like Medvedev's 'mendacious rants' actually. I was praising him rather than criticising him. He is Russia's 'bad cop' to Putin's 'good cop'. If you want to make someone's output invisible just because their opinion differs from yours isn't that rather sad?
Just to weigh in on that, I agree that Medvedev comes across as an "honest politician". He seems to "over-emphasize" what Putin "under-emphasizes."
Other people seem to consider Putin as George Washington as in "I can not tell a lie" - which is ludicrous. Putin is trained as a lawyer (not to mention a spy) and he weighs his words very carefully and people who assume they understand what he means with his frequently ambiguous remarks are probably much mistaken.
I never assume that what he says is "the whole truth and nothing but the truth", especially when it comes to the ultimate objectives of the SMO. I'm pretty sure Putin understands that you don't tell people what your desired outcome is because then someone will try to stop you. I've always interpreted his "de-militarization" and "de-Nazification" (weird turns of phrase to begin with!) as mere "pre-conditions" to the SMO's actual objectives.
I don't think there are many politicians who are totally honest and ambiguity is part of their stock in trade. Agree on your first point.
It's not just that your opinion differs from mine; it's that your statement is incompatible with what I think I know about Mr Medvedev and the Russian government as a whole. I have been following events in Ukraine since 2014, and in Russia for longer than that. "Rants" I completely agree with, and I am thankful that the sometimes dangerously polite Russian government has one outspoken senior member. But as I grow older, my patience is growing much less. Nowadays I leap at the chance to prune any source that I think might waste my time. (Although most of them do, sometimes - perhaps a by-product of the "pay per click" business model).
His outspokenness is what I like about Medvedev. No one could accuse him of towing the party line and I often wonder whether Putin approves of what he says. But compared to Putin, he's a bit of a hawk and this may all be part of a game.
Ironically, when he was President (2008-2012) and Mr Putin became Prime Minister, Mr Medvedev was strongly criticised for being much too weak and easy-going. In particular, he sat on his hands and did nothing about the Western lynching of Libya and Colonel Gaddafi; I was seen it said that this inaction decided Mr Putin not to name Mr Medvedev as his successor. Wikipedia says this: 'In the views of some analysts, Medvedev's presidency did seem to promise positive changes, both at home and in ties with the West, signaling "the possibility of a new, more liberal period in Russian politics"'. Exactly why so many people in Russia scorned him as a wimp who would not stand up for their interests.
Since the Ukrainian crisis blew up, Mr Medvedev has been reborn as Mr Putin's attack bear, and his popularity in Russia has grown immensely. He can make bloo-curdling threats that carry conviction from an ex-President, allowing Mr Putin to keep his image as the calm voice of reason and pourer of oil on troubled waters.
yes - as I said 'good cop - bad cop' according to some.
Medvedev has become the "bad cop" (from the Western point of view) recently; but previously he was the "good cop" who was willing to go along to get along, Like Yeltsin and Gorbachev - whose names are now swear words in Russia.
In my world, "mendacious" is bad. I have never caught Mr Medvedev in a lie. Indeed, he is far too candid to succeed in Western politics or media.
The term mendacious is ambiguous so I should have been more careful. It can mean harmless mischievous deceit. I am not implying that Medvedev is lying but he is a politician playing a game so he won't be completely honest either. I like Medvedev, though, and I thought that should have been clear from what I said about him. In view of the ambiguity, I'll do a correction in my next Update. Others may have interpreted it in the way you have. It is good that you pointed this out - thanks.
In that case I have been fooled by your idiosyncratic usage, and I was wrong to take umbrage. But my dictionary (the COED) says:
mendacious
n adjective untruthful: mendacious propaganda.
DERIVATIVES
mendaciously adverb
mendacity noun
ORIGIN
C17: from Latin mendax, mendac- 'lying' + -ious.
and I am a bit of a pedant. Another unpleasant and confusing modern trend is for people to use words to mean what they think they mean - like Humpty Dumpty - whereas I see words as precision instruments. I would not say that I can see any meaning for "mendacious" other than simply "lying" or "untruthful".
Merriam Webster has this: 'MENDACIOUS may suggest bland or even harmlessly mischievous deceit and when used of people often suggests a habit of telling untruths'. Have you ever read Keywords by Raymond Williams? Williams, who was a sociologist of culture, shows how words change over time. The term 'individual' for example, which now means separate, used to mean indivisible'. The trend nowadays is to redefine words for political purposes.
Interesting that Merriam-Webster would say that. As a reasonably well educated British man (and a former professional writer and editor) I would find their definition quite strange. To me, "mendacious" means simply "lying" - and I'm not sure I follow the idea that lying can ever be "not so bad". I suppose, as you say, it's a difference that just has to be noted and accepted.
Unfortunately, every such difference puts yet another obstacle in the path of our attempts to understand each other - let alone find agreement. It's bad enough that people cleave to different ideologies, but now perhaps they are hiving off different languages.
I have changed the text to read 'menacing rants' - which is less ambiguous.
Oh, I forgot to say that "menacing rants" is perfect! Even Mr Medvedev would probably quite enjoy that, as I am sure he means to be menacing.
Exactly - he means to be menacing: it's all part of the theatre.
Sorry to go on beating a dead horse, but that is just what I meant in my last comment. "Mendacious" sounds rather like "menacing", but it has a quite different meaning. One can perfectly easily be menacing without being at all mendacious, and one can also be wholly mendacious without being in the least menacing.
I still recall the ridiculous episode - in the USA, naturally - explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly. (I had better not say anything about it myself, for obvious reasons).
Amusingly, that Wikipedia page contains another glaring solecism: "niggardly is nonetheless often substituted with a synonym". Correct would be "replaced by..."; or "a synonym is often substituted for..."
Such simple mistakes are harmless in ordinary conversation, but in public speech or especially writing they can cause serious misunderstandings.