Ukraine – 1/25 Sitrep
By: Robert Homans
January 25, 2023
Today, my collaborator in Kyiv is addressing the needs of a paying customer. Yesterday I did the same, although I was able to get something off late in the day. I will use today to share several items that have crossed my computer monitor in the last 24 hours.
Tanks
All I can say is that I will believe it when the first German Leopard II tank crosses the Ukrainian border. There has been too much German dithering to do anything else.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. (Ret) H.R. McMaster is now a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. When he was a mere U.S. Army Captain McMaster led a platoon of Abrams M1-A1 tanks, the same type of tank that the U.S. plans to deliver to Ukraine in the Battle of 73-Easting, that took place on Feb. 26, 1991 during the first Iraq War. McMaster is interviewed in the film. I would love to ask McMaster about his thoughts on the U.S. sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
Another person who was interviewed was Maj. Douglas MacGregor, now better known as one of Tucker Carlson’s military experts, who says that Ukraine has no chance to defeat Russia. The Iraqi Republican Guard was using the Soviet T-72 tank and the BMP infantry fighting vehicle, the same types of equipment used by both the Russians and Ukrainians today.
News From the Battlefield
“Reporting From Ukraine” Continues to focus on events in the South, where he says Ukraine has repulsed Russian attacks. This will be an area where Ukraine’s new supply of heavy vehicles will likely be concentrated, to support a counterattack toward Melitopol. As the “Latest Denys” reports, yesterday Ukraine shot down 3 Russian KA-52 attack helicopters in this same area.
Ukrainska Pravda reports on a raid by Ukraine’s special forces near Nova Kahovka, Kherson Region. It involved crossing the Dnieper River, destroying a Russian command center, and returning.
“Flashback” is a new YouTube channel that I’ve been looking at. This video is an interview with a Ukrainian soldier who has been fighting in Bakhmut. What strikes me is how well he appears to be fitted out, compared to the Russians. One commentator suggested that the Winter is going to be extremely tough on the Russians, because of the lack of Winter clothing.
Ukraine War in Maps & Charts from Al Jazeera looks to be an excellent resource to follow events on the ground. On the map entitled “Who Controls What in Southern Ukraine,” you can see an area of dark blue/purple. This is the area in and around Melitopol where, since the start of the latest Russian invasion, partisan units have been active. It is also possible to see the strategic value of Melitopol, as part of Ukraine’s objective of splitting the Russian land bridge in two and cutting off Russian forces located between Melitopol and Dnieper River.
On the map entitled “Who Controls What in Eastern Ukraine,” it is possible to see the strategic value of Kreminna, to both sides. Taking Kreminna would allow Ukraine to choke off supplies to Soledar/Bakhmut to the south, potentially pose a threat to Bakhmut from the rear, and threaten to re-take Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk.
Other News
“SDR Reallocation Can Solve Ukraine’s Debt Problem,” by Tim Ash, the pre-eminent authority on Ukraine’s finances and macroeconomy. SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, is defined by Google as “an interest-bearing international reserve asset created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement other reserve assets of member countries. The SDR is based on a basket of international currencies comprising the U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, euro, pound sterling and Chinese Renminbi.” SDRs are allocated to member countries based on their share owning in the IMF. What Ash is proposing is the use of SDRs to collateralize a new type of security that can be used by low and middle-income countries to meet additional funding needs caused by Covid and the adverse effects of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine. It can also be used to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction. I suppose that it is also possible to consider using the $300 billion of frozen reserves of the Russian Central Bank in a similar manner.
General Valerii Zaluzhnyi inherits $1 million from Hryhorii Stepanets, an American born in what is now Ukraine (Ukrainska Pravda). Gen. Zaluzhnyi said that he’s turning over the proceeds from Stepanets’ estate to the Ukrainian Army. Stepanets’ spent his career working for Microsoft. His life story can be found in the article.
“How Western scholars overlooked Russian imperialism”/Al Jazeera – This article “nails it.” I have discussed this in prior emails. Western educational institutions have produced at least 2 generations of Soviet and later Russian scholars, willing to give the Romanovs, the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation, a "pass" as an imperialist power and, at the same time, completely ignore Ukraine. The effects are still evident today, as these former Soviet and Russian scholars can be found in policy making positions in the U.S. Government, they populate the thinktanks, and they serve as major sources for the Western media. Given how Russian ethnic minorities, in Siberia, the Caucuses and along the Finnish border have been treated by these successive regimes, Alaska Natives should thank William Seward every day, for the US coming up with the $7+ million to purchase Alaska from the Romanovs.
Do you think that Mr. & Mrs. Bernie Sanders would've wanted to spend their honeymoon in the Soviet Union, if at the time the Soviet Union had been perceived as what it was, an imperialist State rather than a benign socialist society helping to lift minorities out of poverty?
Per the Al Jazeera piece: "In the early 1930s, Joseph Stalin embraced Russian nationalism based on the old imperial myth of the greatness of the Russian people. Bolshevik Moscow made ethnic Russians the most privileged group in the Soviet Union and sent Russian settlers to populate and control non-Russian regions.
Purging native leaders, forcefully resettling entire ethnic groups and creating conditions that led to mass deaths were all part of Soviet colonisation. Non-Russian people’s cultures, languages and histories were disparaged while Russification was presented as enlightenment."
Thus began the original conflict in the Donbas that has been perpetuated since 2014 with claims the area is Russian. In fact my understanding it has been mixed all along and pre-2014 most citizens had come to terms with being Ukrainian with some resentment toward an out-of-touch central government. Somewhat like southern CO or NM which have quite different political viewpoints compared to the central government - the urban vs rural divide, if you will.
The article summary: "To appreciate the ways out of colonial dictatorships, one needs to study the successful transformations of states like Ukraine. This would require dismissing the myth of the “artificial nation” and finally seeing Russia as an empire." Quite on-target.