Posted on 02/28/2022 8:10:18 PM PST by Mariner
A Russian military convoy that was outside of Ivankiv, Ukraine, on Sunday has since made it to the outskirts of Kyiv, satellite images show.
On Sunday, the convoy was roughly 40 miles northwest of the Ukrainian capital, according to images provided by Maxar Technologies.
Maxar said that roughly 17 miles of roadway is chocked full of the convoy, which consists of armored vehicles, tanks, towed artillery and other logistical vehicles.
The private US company said the convoy was located on the T-1011 highway at Antonov air base around 11:11 a.m local time.
Antonov is roughly 17 miles from the center of the Ukrainian capital.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
The Russian Baltic Fleet is conducting a coastal missile exercise likely to posture against ongoing NATO Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises. The Russian Baltic Fleet's Press Service reported on January 23 that Russian Bastion coastal missile defense system crews conducted electronic launches of Onyx missiles against mock adversary ships in the Gulf of Finland and also conducted camouflage and anti-sabotage exercises.[31] About 50 Russian military personnel participated in the exercises and used 10 pieces of specialized military equipment.[32] Russian officials often portray NATO exercises as escalatory against Russia despite routinely threatening NATO member states, and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) called the NATO Steadfast Defender exercises “increasingly provocative and aggressive” after NATO announced the exercises in September 2023.[33] Russia's Baltic Fleet exercises are likely part of Russia's wider effort to posture against the wider NATO alliance in preparation for potential future conflict with NATO, as ISW has previously assessed.[34]
full report: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-23-2024
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 24, 2024
NATO announced on January 24 that the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises have started and will run until May 31, 2024.[36] NATO reported that the exercises will occur in the High North, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe.[37] ISW continues to assess that Russia will attempt to misrepresent these exercises as a threat against Russia despite the exercises’ defensive nature in response to real Russian aggression against Ukraine and overt Russian threats to NATO states.[38]
full report: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-24-2024
Shoigu was going to fight for the Arctic and Alaska.
It sounds fantastic, but the Ministry of Defense, against the backdrop of the [Ukrainian invasion], decided to prepare a plan for the return of Alaska under the Russian flag. It would seem that it sounds like sheer nonsense in the current situation, but it is worth considering in more detail.
Shoigu decided to prepare and present to the president a plan for a blitzkrieg to Alaska in the coming months. Among the arguments is that by helping Ukraine, the United States is weakening, so it will be easier to return Alaska after the completion of the Northeast Military District.
Another important region is the Arctic . The interests of both Russia and the United States intersect here. The president has repeatedly spoken about the need to develop the region and increase military infrastructure. Shoigu instructed to develop a plan for the next 10-12 years, the result of which will be total control of the region by Russia, as well as a significant reduction in the American presence in the Arctic. Such an ambitious plan will be a response to the expansion of NATO and the entry of Finland and Sweden (in the foreseeable future).
Shoigu plans to receive budget funds for all this, as well as implement partnership infrastructure programs with China. They say that it was Shoigu who advised Medvedev to threaten the Americans about Alaska. One of these statements was made just a few days ago.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-24-2024
Bloomberg reported on January 24 that labor shortages in Russia have driven up private sector wages enough to compete with relatively lucrative military salaries, likely making military service even less appealing to Russian citizens. Bloomberg reported that Russian civilian wages increased between eight and 20 percent in 2023 and that Russian skilled and semi-skilled workers can now opt for civilian sector jobs with salaries comparable to or greater than military salaries. Kremlin-affiliated outlet Izvestiya reported on December 24, 2023 that data from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences indicated that Russia's labor shortage in 2023 amounted to about 4.8 million people, and ISW assessed at that time that Russia's labor shortages will likely continue to exacerbate competing Kremlin efforts aimed at increasing Russian economic output and generating new forces.[83]
ISW previously assessed that Russia continues to face shortages in both skilled and unskilled labor, a problem that is further compounded by the Kremlin's inconsistent rhetoric towards Russians who fled Russia because of the war and migrant workers in Russia.[84] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated during an interview on January 15 that the main motivation for Russians to join the military is “the salary,” particularly for Russians from poorer Russian federal subjects.[85] Reported increases in civilian salaries to rival military salaries will likely worsen Russia's force generation issues.
full report; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-25-2024
During periods of inflation, the price of goods typically increases more than labor costs, and wages lag behind. Recently, Russia has a shortage of certain types of labor, so we will see how it goes.
Russia reportedly imported $1.7 billion worth of advanced microchips and semiconductors in 2023, primarily from the West, skirting Western sanctions intended to deprive Russia of such technology. Bloomberg reported on January 25 that classified Russian customs service data shows that Russia imported over one billion dollars worth of advanced US and European-produced chips and that more than half of the semiconductors and integrated circuits that Russia imported in early 2023 were manufactured in the US and Europe.[35] Bloomberg’s report does not definitively indicate whether Western companies violated sanctions or provide identities of the likely intermediaries that trafficked the technology to Russia.
Russia reportedly imported $2.5 billion worth of Western-made microchips and semiconductors in 2022 and Russia's demand for this technology would have likely increased during 2023, given Russia's ongoing efforts to expand its military equipment and weapons production capabilities, particularly for drone and missile production.[36] Western sanctions are likely the driving force behind Russia's decreased import of microchips and semiconductors despite ongoing Russian efforts to evade such sanctions. ISW previously assessed that China, Iran, Belarus, and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member states have likely been heavily involved in various Russian sanctions evasion schemes.[37]
full report: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-26-2024
ok
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, and Kremlin officials claimed that Russia is in an existential geopolitical conflict with an alleged modern Nazi movement that extends beyond Ukraine while marking the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad. Putin attended the opening of a memorial to the Soviet victims of Nazi genocide in Leningrad Oblast on January 27 and focused heavily on long-standing claims that Russia is fighting “Nazis” in Ukraine.[1] Putin also asserted that select countries have adopted Nazi ideology and methods and tied this assertion to a number of European states promoting “Russophobia as a state policy.”[2] Putin declared that Russia will ”do everything to suppress and finally exterminate Nazism” and cast Russia as pursuing the ”aspirations of millions of people...all over the planet for true freedom, justice, peace, and security.”[3] Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko also attended the ceremony and stated that Belarus and Russia ”are again faced with the question of the right to life of our civilization and the preservation of ancestral...[and] cultural values.”[4] Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin stated that Russia will not stop halfway in its fight against current Nazi followers, and Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin explicitly stated that “fascist ideology is becoming the norm...for leaders of NATO states” and specifically accused US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of sponsoring genocide in Ukraine.[5] Volodin framed this alleged growing fascist movement as a “dangerous path that could lead to a new world war.”[6]
Nazi Germany besieged Leningrad for over two years during the Second World War, causing the deaths of roughly 1.5 million Soviet citizens. Putin was born in Leningrad in 1952, and his grandfather was seriously wounded while defending the city. Putin likely sought to leverage his known if unstated personal connection with the siege and the emotional appeal of one of the most dramatic moments in the Great Patriotic War (Second World War) to expand his overall ideological framing of the conflict with the West to which he has committed Russia.
Putin has long tried to construct an ideology for Russia that he can use to support a geopolitical confrontation with the West reminiscent of the Cold War, and the Kremlin may increasingly use existing rhetoric about fighting Nazism to support this effort. The Kremlin has called for “denazification” in Ukraine as a thinly veiled demand for regime change and has used information operations about Ukrainian “Nazis” to wrap its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in the mythos of the Great Patriotic War.[7] Russian officials have previously applied the label of “Nazism” to Western states and actors outside Ukraine, although Putin's, Lukashenko’s, Naryshkin’s, and Volodin’s likely coordinated rhetoric on January 27 suggest that the Kremlin may increasingly label any perceived adversary and possibly the entire West as “Nazi.”[8] The Kremlin may have decided that the simple narrative that Russia and other states are fighting a geopolitical Nazi force is a more effective immediate narrative line than Putin's attempt to appeal to Russian citizens and Russian speakers in the territory of the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire with the ideology of the “Russian World” (Russkiy Mir), which is based on purposefully amorphous ethnic identities that are not agreed upon and that are at odds with Russia's multi-ethnic composition.[9]
full report: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-27-2024
The anti-war candidate channelling Russians’ discontent with Putin [Boris Nadezhdin]
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4213415/posts
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