OPINION: Deadlier Drones, Dodging Debt, Icons With Clay Feet

Biggest news first, let the record reflect that it appears fighting intensity is at an effective all-war high, or more accurately, the numbers of engagements and casualties currently being reported are pretty much on par with May, which in turn was on par with the first week or so of the war.

If you believe the Ukrainians and their drone videos, the Russian casualties are approaching horrific – but they’re not stopped.

It seems like most of the guys on the line would add: “Yet.”

The general trend of combat reports I’m reading, is: “We’re having to give up ground, but the Russians are dying in droves and we can see the pace of their attacks is falling off, either because they are running out of people or because the ones they have aren’t that enthusiastic. The attrition strategy is working, we can see it, but the Russians aren’t stopped. Our guys still have to retreat, in good order, but we still can’t hold all the time everywhere.”

There are credible reports that in a few places – Vovchansk, Toretsk, Niu York, vicinity Kupiansk, Kursk sector, the Ukrainian counterattacks reclaimed ground.

I know for sure Azov did in Niu York, and there have been short gains for at least a week.

This may be the Syrsky strategy of “Hold ‘em and kill ‘em” in action, or it may just be that Azov is a lot more aggressive and capable of replacing casualties than the rest of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

Other Topics of Interest

N. Korean Troops Massed in Russia to Enter Ukraine War ’Soon’: Pentagon Chief

Austin said he had "not seen significant reporting" of North Korean troops being "actively engaged in combat" to date.

It’s a testament to, I don’t know, the absense of a benevolent deity, the failure of modern society to grasp modern information movement, or just Globalism, that record casualties in the biggest war the world has seen since World War II, taking place on the European continent, isn’t even minor news – it isn’t even worth a mention even in states neighboring Ukraine. Never mind Britain and the US.

The size of the war and the battles are the big news.

The rest is news items that caught my eye and that I thought were worth elaboration.

Ukrainian small drones seem to be getting nastier. More range. No real Russian counters.

I’ve seen several reports this week, from both sides, that the Ukrainians have figured out a way to push their small-scale drones beyond the 20-kilometer (12-mile) limit and now there are Ukrainian first person view (FPV) drones and bomber drones (e.g. the Baba Yaga converted agricultural drones) that are buzzing around 30 and even 35 kilometers (19 and 22 miles) behind the Russian lines. Image of a Baba Yaga and crew, courtesy 108 Territorials.

What convinced me was a pair of videos, different sectors, showing a Baba Yaga destroying a Russian Buk anti-aircraft system. Buks, aka the SA-6, aka the Russian system that shot down that Malaysian airliner back in 2014, are valuable and expensive. They’re the standard system on both sides for the anti-aircraft defense belt behind the fighting lines. (These days, the Ukrainians are using a lot of Western missiles on Buks jury-rigged to fire them, inevitably called “Franken SAMs).

These are only anecdotal incidents so far, but, the war has shown us that if the low-level Ukrainian drone operators, who are supported by volunteers and depend on their wits and donations to figure out how to fight the war better, not the army or the state, then a technological advance that works gets implemented in weeks, literally exactly as fast as it takes to find and deliver the new tech.

And remember, in wartime, for a democractic country, GOVERNMENT contracting six to twelve months doing the same thing, is considered lightning fast and amazing.

So implication number one, the Ukrainian small drone advantage over Russia seems to be widening and it would be irrational not to expect it to widen more.

This is far from the first time we’ve seen the Ukrainians make a tech jump in drones ahead of the Russians.

The tactical-operational implication is, Wikipedia tells me, that the operational range of a Russian Buk is about 50 kilometers (31 miles), so the writing is on the wall.

If this longer-range drone isn’t just a one-off, then, deploying big Buk anti-aicraft systems 30 kilometers (19 miles) behind the line is no longer completely safe for Russian air defenses, and, just being honest here, the smart money would say the situation will only worsen for the Russians.

The same goes for artillery.

Athough if it’s mobile it can operate inside the Ukrainian drone envelope somewhat by hiding outside drone range and then driving into drone range quickly, shooting, and then running away again.

But obviously, the longer-range the Ukrainian drones, the further the mobile artillery has to drive, the longer it’s out in the open and visible to drones during that drive, etc. And if you’re out in the open and moving, chances go way up the drones see you and hunt you down.

So the other implication is, we are seeing pretty convincing evidence that the Ukrainian campaign to control the low-level airspace over and around the battlefield is moving forward, and we have close to three years’ of experience showing us the Russian military is struggling to keep up.

There is no way to say when this little factoid might result in overwhelming Ukrainian drone dominance over the battlefield.

The Ukrainians could certainly still lose the war before it happened. But Ukrainian drones pushing the standard 20-kilometer envelope to 30+ is a positive.

Russian prime rate just went to record highs

This week Ms. Elvira Naibullina, head of Russia’s National Bank, (pictured with her boss) announced that the key bank-to-bank loan rate is no longer 19% (ouch!) a year – it will now be 21% (wow!) a year.

Russian national bank head Elvira Naibullina (R) discusses something with her boss.

The reason given for the hike was inflation, which fficially is at 8%. If you read Russian media, where consumers talk about actual prices, is probably more like 15–20%.

Sure, Russia has a wartime economy, so maybe this is a “So-what?” kind of data point.

I think the easiest way to comment on this is with historical context. The last time Russia’s interest rate was close to this high, was in the first few weeks of the war, February-March 2022, when the bottom fell out of the ruble. By spending a lot of cash reserves the Russian National Bank (RNB)managed to stabilize that.

The problem is, this time, the problem isn’t the ruble, it’s the economy itself.

I’ve attached an Intelnews graphic showing Russian interest rates 2018–2022 that shows pretty well how available cash was during the Donbas invasion years. As you can see, that Russian military attack on Ukraine didn’t affect domestic rates much at all.

The previous record was way back in 2003, when Putin took over and tightened money markets. It’s worth noting that the last time interest rates were this high for any extended period of time, in Russia, was during the 1990s, when the entire Russian economy tanked. The Kremlin pretends it’s in the past, but I promise you, Russian consumers don’t share that confidence.

A serious, and I do mean critically-serious shortcoming of the present hike is, in normal countries, if they hike the interest rate, then money comes in from economies where the interest rates are lower, and that puts cash back into the banking sector.

The Russian banking sector is pretty much absolutely cut off from the truly liquid capital in the world, which is pretty much Wall Street, but also London, Zurich, San Franciso, Tokyo, Chicago, etc.

It’s quite accurate that there is a sizable amount of capital in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, but first thing, the guys deciding where that money goes in those places, even in China, are only going to think in terms of potential profit and loss, and buying into a Russian capital market vehicle or government bond or whatever, at best, would be paid off in rubles.

Second thing, were the Bank of China to try and intervene somehow, and force Chinese banks to invest in Russian financial instruments, then capital would flood out of Chinese banks to places where governments don’t monkey with shareholder money.

So yes China is Russia’s friend. We know this because the Kremlin and Forbidden Palace (incorrect reference but fun) say so. But, is China really so good a friend to Russia, as to risk a capital abanonment and possibly even panic and reserve run on China’s banks?

And if China’s banking sector likes safe profit more than friendship with mighty Russia, then Ms. Naibullina is left with the question, who exactly is going to take advantage of the 21% interest rate, and invest capital in Russia?

It’s not like North Korea has a lot of hard currency lying around, for instance…

There are major Western states with a ton of capital, and the memory of a goldfish, but, in Europe there is the famous case of Russian War Bonds and Russian Railway Shares back from the early 1900s, which sucked huge sums of money from Western institutions and individual investors.

Then the Russians decided to be Communists, defaulted, and reneged on their obligations to creditors. Image attached of a Russian railway bond that stuck some probably French investor in the Russian war economy with a 500 Franc (187 rubles 50 kopecks) dead loss.

It would take too long for me to get into detail about how this financial domino is going to have knock-on effects, but bottom line, this is a huge red flag to outsiders to stay the Hell out of the Russian economy, because it is visibly getting worse.

Short of Ukraine paying giant war reparations to Russia or all sanctions on Russia being cancelled overnight, it’s unlikely to get better.

The takeway is, of course, that if you want to look for evidence that Ukraine’s attrition strategy is working, and in this case more specifically sanctions, this is evidence.

SHOULDA WOULDA COULDA, OR, REWRITING HISTORY BEFORE IT’S REALLY WRITTEN

OK, get ready, I’m going to attack the Biden administration two weeks before a Presidential election, but I promise you I’m not taking sides. It’s just that sometimes the lies and double-talk just need to get called out.

For the sake of fair play, to balance things, I append here a pretty funny news item originating with Oleksandr Usyk, the undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion.

He is from Crimea but he doesn’t match the Kremlin narrative that everyone in Crimea is a Russian-speaker who wants to live in Russia. He says he likes speaking both languages and that he thinks Russia invaded Crimea and stole it from Ukraine, and if Putin doesn’t like that point of view he can put up his heavyweight belt in the ring against Putin’s black belt in Karate.

Usyk’s position on the US election is that he supports Harris and opposes Trump, in part, because Trump’s position is that Ukraine should hand over his home, Crimea (and other parts of Ukraine) to Russia, and force everyone living there to become Russian citizens.

Usyk questions Trump’s repeated campaign promises that, if elected, he could end the war between Ukraine and Russia quickly. Usyk’s position is that Ukraine needs to fight for its freedom because Russia is too agressive and mendacious to be negotiated with.

On Friday Usyk pointed out that if Trump was so influential with Putin and the Kremlin, as Trump has repeatedly claimed in campaign speeches, then there is nothing stopping Candidate Trump from deploying his influence with the Kremlin, right now, and bringing back home hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war who are in Russian prisons, because Russia captured them in the early part of the war and then the not-exactly-fair Russian court system convicted them of being Nazis or just war criminals. Which makes them victims of judicial persecution.

Since Trump has stated repeatedly he thinks he is the victim of a biased and vindictive US court system, then, is Usyk’s point of view, it should only be natural that Trump would parlay his special influence with the Kremlin to get the Ukrainian POWS released.

Two years in prison, victims of biased judges, huge public relations win, major foreign policy egg on the Biden administration’s face?

Why wouldn’t Trump help them?

That’s the Republican side slammed. Now, for the sake of fairness, the Democratic side.

I’m sure many of you have noticed, no less than the journalism demigod Bob Woodward (pictured with the better writer of the team Leonard Bernstein) earlier this month released a book, entitled “War,” in which he exploits longstanding links with Beltway powerbrokers and wanna-be powerbrokers, and does a deep survey of the Biden administration’s foreign policy trials and tribulations from election through to the present.

By and large, Woodward talks with mid- to upper-level officials and reports what they say, what they did, and why.

In general, Woodward’s conclusion is that Biden and Co. did a heck of a job in very difficult conditions, so vote for them not Trump.

He argues the White House gang was professional and skillful as it negotiated an entire globe of issues including the Afghanistan withdrawal, the Hamas-Israel War (the ones with Hezbollah and Iran hadn’t really started when the book went to press, apparently).

So I guess if you want to know more about that, buy the book and decide for yourself. I can’t really offer any insight.

HOWEVER, more than a third of the book is devoted to the Biden administration’s dealings with Ukraine, Russia, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

According to Woodward – and I was in DC reading his newspaper right after it won a Pulitzer prize for his work on Watergate – the White House handled that situation with finesse, skill, confidence and even prevented World War III.

This is claptrap of the first order. I say that narrative is “according to DC officials, most of whom want to keep jobs and keep on working in the Beltway.”

According to Woodward, it was the Biden administration’s backchannel messaging and warnings about US retaliation in October 2022, that prevented Russia from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

This is absurd to anyone in Ukraine or Russia at the time. Which included me. At that point the lion’s share of the fighting had settled into grinding warfare mostly in Ukraine’s east.

The Ukrainians had unleashed an offensive in the Kharkiv sector that caught the Russians unprepared and they liberated a chunk of territory before the Russians could stabilize lines along the Zherebets River.

That was a fast offensive that took a lot of ground fast. In October and November there was a slower Ukrainian offensive wherein the Ukrainians advanced carefully in the southern Kherson sector, not risking big ambushes, and the Russians pulled back towards Kherson because that was the only place they could get supply across the Dnipro River.

It was obvious, once the Ukrainians had gotten close enough to the Dnipro bridges by Kherson to start bombarding them with HIMARS rockets, that either the Russians would have to evacuate the right/north bank of Kherson region, or watch the bridges get knocked down with Russian troops on the wrong side.

As the Kherson offensive proceeded, in October 2022, there was no chance of a Russian collapse, there was no chance of a sudden overwhelming Ukrainian victory, there was no operational reason, anywhere on the front, for anyone even to contemplate detonation of a nuclear device.

It’s also worth remembering this is the Kremlin.

It’s not like they don’t talk about use of nukes and it’s not like they don’t make threats. Go back and look at the record. What overt Russian nuclear threats were there at the time?

Answer: Basically none. And that’s not surprising, because in retrospect we know the Russian leadership was grappling with major soldier shortages and the political decision of mobilizing reserves. Which they started in September and ended in late October.

That was by far the main issue facing the Russian leadership at the time. From the Kremlin point of view, the key, overwhelming priority had to be to keep the lid on civil society when tens of thousands of civilians were forced back into uniform to go fight in a war.

Just about the LAST thing the Kremlin would have wanted to do, at that moment, was to think seriously about using a nuclear device in Ukraine.

In fact, at the time, pretty much the only nuclear-related threatening originating with the Kremlin was warnings of “intelligence” Ukraine was planning to detonate a dirty nuclear device.

This certainly played to Russian internal rhetoric that the nation was in danger and reserves must report, and external rhetoric that Ukraine was an evil state whose independence needed to be eliminated so East Europe could be stable.

But aside from the Russian claims, there certainly was nothing in information spaces pointing to the possibility of Russian nuclear weapons preparation, use, or even contemplation. I was there watching those spaces.

In fact, in the Kherson sector, the Russians were conducting a fairly well-organized withdrawal, assisted by an AFU that was a lot less organized and capable of big operations than it is today, and I saw them.

So again, I have to ask, where is the credible grounds to conflate Russian rhetoric about Ukrainian dirty bombs, into a nuclear war warning for the US?

It’s credible to me that there were Biden administration officials that told each other that telling the Russians not to pop a nuke in September-October 2022 was a brilliant and ballsy foreign policy move.

Maybe they told each other: “Yes, really, Russians talking about a Ukrainian dirty nuclear bomb = Credible Russian nuclear threat to the US.”

However, the Ukrainians and pretty much every foreign reporter here saw it as just pretty blatant Kremlin rhetoric designed to frighten the West into not taking quick action to support Ukraine, and specifically, content that was ideal for the Beltway decision-making infrastructure to keep itself busy with, in order to prevent the Biden administration from doing something that would have practical effect on the battlefield.

We figured Washington was like almost any west European nation – they were grasping straws trying to justify not taking any serious action to respond to Russia’s main force military invasion of Ukraine.

We were amazed, but not particularly surprised, that the Beltway establishment fell for that hook, line and sinker.

I promise you, the Russian internal response was along the lines: “Look how stupid these Americans are, the nuclear threats that we don’t even take seriously, they’re actually taking seriously. Even better, now we know where their red line for serious action is: if we detonate a nuclear device. This means anything short of that in Ukraine, basically, the Americans are messaging to us they’re not going to take serious action.”

So where Woodward (and the DC establishment apparently, one CNN article on Woodward’s book has the section on Ukraine entitled, and I quote “Biden Gets It Right in Ukraine”) sees finesse and skill in White House decision-making on Ukraine, I see an unwillingness to look at the Kremlin from the Kremlin point of view, and a big, fat national security policy error.

Maybe not as bad as Hitler invading Russia. But arguably Bay of Pigs/Gulf of Tonkin stupid. The great American action, when you analyze it, was inaction justified by trusting acceptance of a Kremlin red herring. That’s how it’s going be written up in the histories.

Instead of focusing on getting Ukraine weapons and ammunition, and getting ahead of the production curve in what already was a major conventional war, the way it looks to me, the Beltway Establishment spent a couple of critical months early in the war sending secure e-mails to each other about nuclear deterrence and who talks to which Russian, and when it was all over, the collective Biden administration patted itself on the back.

There is however a historical silver lining. Since I am 100% sure that no decisions on major arms assistance could have been made until DC sorted it out on this fake nuclear threat, September-October 2022, the slow pace of long-term US assistance decisions is a bit clearer.

That’s two months of critical planning time lost, never to be returned.

By and large it looks to me like Bob Woodward listened to that song and dance and then reprinted it, pretty much uncritically.

Maybe I’ve missed something. But I’ve seen nothing in the book suggesting Putin and the Russians may have been playing the Biden administration. That they were, is a serious possibility.

In any case, US support to Ukraine such as it has been, has not had a decisive battlefield effect. That is just objective fact. So far, Russia seems emboldened rather than deterred by Biden foreign policy.

If Woodward’s book discusses that in detail, you know, to fact-check the officials telling their side of the story, I missed it.

It’s a little depressing because I respect the heck out of Woodward’s work. These days from time to time I will lecture young reporters on journalistic ideals and cite Watergate and the Washington Post as the standard to shoot for. But then everyone has feet of clay if you wait long enough.

I’ll close this section with a partial list of possible US military actions the Woodward book either glosses over or does not even mention that, objectively, would not place US service personnel particularly in harm’s way, and which would very seriously impede Russia’s war against Ukraine, and would certainly match the actions of a real superpower leading its allies and moving to take control of a regional war. These are all actions the Biden administration has not taken nor, as far as I can see, is not considering seriously.

- Air and naval action, to wit a naval no-fly zone, to end Russian Air Force piracy against civilian ships in the Black Sea.

- Air interdiction of Russian missiles and kamikaze drones attacking Ukrainian homes and businesses, in Ukrainian air space. This is a land-based no-fly zone.

- Substantial reduction of US inventory of Patriot systems (which are being phased out anyway) to make Ukraine’s tattered air defense network more muscular. This is not US troops, this is hardware.

- Transfer of targeting data collected by NATO surveillance of Russian military sites and units to Ukraine in real-time, rather than handing over scrubbed target lists days after the surveillance flight.

- Substantial commitment of US Air Force equipment and personnel to Poland and Romania (who have been asking for it for some time), to make credible the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Of course, some might say: “Well, a more vigorous US policy towards Russia was politically impossible in the US. It still isn’t.”

My response is, in 1939–41, that argument was made a lot, in the US. Now the people that made that argument, are known, collectively, as appeasers of dictators.

I sure didn’t see a serious discussion in Woodward’s book of Biden administration policy meeting the definition of appeasement.

But even without labels, the way I see it, the actual record is pretty clear. Without vigorous US leadership on Ukraine, Russia was emboldened, and America’s problems with Russia got worse.

Trump has his own baggage, and I am in no way convinced he and his gang could or would have done better.

The other night the Russians launched another wave of missiles and drones. In Dnipro they trashed a hospital and as I write this there are reports children are trapped underneath the rubble. In Kyiv one of the Shaheds blew out an upper story of an apartment building. People dead in both places. In Kyiv it was a 15-year-old girl.

Across the border, there are Romanian, Polish and British, and American fighter jets and personnel that could have prevented that death.

It would have taken strong White House support for the intercept, which obviously isn’t there.

The lead image of this review is from an old Dutch deployment to Romania, picked mostly because it’s a pretty image.

But possibly some of those aircraft will soon join the Ukrainian Air Force.

The final image is from the Emergency Situations Ministry. The drone basically flew into the girl’s bedroom and blew up. The burning apartment is in a middle-class residential neighborhood.

This opinion piece was reprinted with the author’s permission. You can find the original article here.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.