Investigative journalist Christo Grozev of Bellingcat believes Russia will try to “freeze” the war at some point in the coming week, without actually announcing its end.
The journalist made a comment while speaking at the Batsman YouTube show.
“I’m afraid there will be a period when it won’t be clear whether the war has ended or not, but there’ll l be no more bloodshed. I think that we’re approaching this, this is a matter of a week, 10 days max. Russia’s position is weakening, and they understand this. It will be more beneficial for them not to say the war is over, because they will have to admit that they’ve lost it, but keep it ‘frozen’ at some stage,” Grozev said.
Bellingcat has an extremely high reputation around the world for accurate reporting and assessments. They have won many journalism awards over a number of years for reporting in wars and combat zones. In this war, they have high-level contacts in Russia, including within the FSB.
The Russians may be thinking about freezing the war and holding their positions with a ceasefire in place, but whether Ukraine will accept that is another question. I doubt that they will, because they are gradually gaining the upper hand.
Ukraine would have every reason in the world to attack Russian troops in place; “Freezing” just takes away one of the advantages a large armored force has. It’s a bananas move. Russia’s best shot at victory is to get their asses in gear, while Ukraine would gain little from a de facto ceasefire, especially given that the perception of the war stopping would mean the West would start to lose interest in supporting them.
Well, if you listen to what Zelenskyy is saying recently, he’s kind of gotten cold feet wrt NATO, even though joining NATO is in their constitution. However, he’s rightfully pointing out that NATO has really not stepped up in assisting Ukraine, even to the extent they could plausibly do so (and keep the world from WWIII). I think Ukraine was hoping for more than they have gotten, and feel they are fighting alone against Russia, a major power.
So, I doubt IF Ukraine agreed to keep itself from NATO that they would secretly join anyway, as I don’t think they see that as helpful to Ukraine…or even something that could or would plausibly happen anyway, since they have been requesting to join for years now without any real progress being made.
Yes. What Russia needs to do is push forward quickly, and take cities like Kyiv and Odesa. THEN they could, plausibly, pause and negotiate, and do so from strength. If they take Kyiv, especially, it will effectively cut off many off the forces that Ukraine has in the pocket in eastern Ukraine, plus they take the capital. It would be a huge advantage for them in negotiating. If they halt in place, it gives Ukraine a bunch of advantages, including that the Ukrainians are currently hitting the Russians hard where they are at.
We’ve seen what’s happened to the ‘convoy of death’. They haven’t made any progress for nearly 10 days, and every day that passes the column is degrading and they are less able to do so.
Mariupol is basically cut off, and Russian forces have progressed in surrounding the city. They are working around Mykolaiv to the north pushing west and, again, are making progress. As for Kyiv, they have it basically cut off to the east and north, and the northern force coming down from Belarus has the city essentially cut off to the west and north, and that force is making progress extending that further south.
They haven’t tried a large-scale assault, yet, but they have been putting the pieces in place to bomb the crap out of Kyiv, and they have pushed scouting forces into the suburbs (without great results so far, granted). They have made progress in the past 10 days, however…they haven’t been halted in place. They are still, weirdly, not doing any night ops as far as I can tell, and they are shutting down and halting most of their operations each evening. But, if they are going to really put the screws on Ukraine, they HAVE to push forward and take those cities. I think they are putting the pieces in place to do so, though I also think it’s taking them a lot longer than they thought it would. But it’s a mistake to think they haven’t made and aren’t making any progress…they are. They are just doing this a lot differently than the US would or have done things like this in the past. Some of that seems to be they just don’t have the logistics doctrine to do this sort of thing. Some of this comes down to training. Some of it is simply risk aversion, IMHO, and stubbornly clinging to the battle plan they had rather than adjusting to reality. But some of this is I don’t think the Russians have wanted to go all out, probably because they still have some idea that Ukraine will come around.
Exactly. Russia may try to “freeze” the war, but this will simply mean that Ukraine will just pick off their assets until they have nothing left that can operate in the country. Unless what they mean by “freeze” is to remove every Russian troop from Ukrainian territory.
Mariupol is a tenth of the size of Kyiv, but they haven’t been able to capture it in two weeks of assaults, despite surrounding it.
Yes, they are bypassing Mykolaiv after all their attempts to capture the city failed. Just as they have had to bypass Suny after failing to take it.
Kharkhiv is a third the size of Kyiv, and after throwing everything they had at it, and deaths of two generals in a week, they are being driven back by Ukrainian forces.
Maybe you missed that the force that was coming down from Chernihiv in the north has been defeated and pushed back. And you also missed the destruction of the column coming from the east towards Brovary (mentioned a few posts up), with the death of its commander, Colonel Andrei Zakharov.
My hope is that this will be a positive version of Hunter S. Thompsons “wave” of hippie optimism that crested on the streets of Haight Ashbury, that we will see on the outskirts of Kiev the place where the wave of global Russian-backed separatism and divisive right wingers crested and broke.
But ISTM that they operate in a binary fashion: they’re either in by a majority vote of the 28 member nations or they’re out (by a failure to reach that majority).
But it really seems to focus exclusively on member nations, no ?
Which, AIUI, means … if they’re out … they can do virtually nothing. They also seem to only have some AWACS and a few drones of their own, so absent a ‘force generation’ order that comes from an upvote … where are they ?
Two page PDF that – for those who, like me, know nearly nothing about NATO:
Also …
I’m basically trying to understand how NATO would have cover to actively and directly involve itself in the defense of a non-member nation.
Anybody know the ‘rule’ on which they could lean as an Organization, rather than relying solely on the actions of individual member states, say, or the EU ??
General Sir Richard Barrons, Britain’s former Commander Joint Forces Command, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the Russian forces were beginning “to run out of steam militarily, at least for now”.