Been thinking about the long-term picture of Russia as opposed to short-term. Russia has long been facing a demographic crisis, but the deaths of 600,000 Russian men isn’t going to have that much of an impact given that the reproduction bottleneck of any society is women, not men.
What needs to be done to encourage and exacerbate the demographic crisis would be for there to be a significant exodus of Russian women in childbearing age, i.e., 20-45. The West would need to offer some sort of incentive for such women to leave Russia en masse. The loss of a million such women would do far greater damage to Russia long-term than a million dead Russian men.
The West would also need to take indirect measures to ensure that the cost of raising or starting a family in Russia is as high as possible, in order to further discourage couples in Russia from having kids and thus exacerbate the demographic crisis. Unfortunately, the true effects of such an approach wouldn’t be felt for years or decades, so it wouldn’t exert much immediate pressure on Putin.
Ukraine should copy Russia and start administering Kursk. Change the school curriculum, change all the signs, and flags. Put up photos of Volodymyr Zelenskiy in all the government buildings. Make themselves at home. Welcome to Ukraine.
I realize Ukraine doesn’t want that responsibility. They probably are only liaisoning with local officials and police. Otherwise they continue day to day governing?
I wonder how that works for school teachers, firemen, patrol officers, and postmen? Do they just go to work as usual in an occupied town? Russia is a well established country with local governments and they provide services. Arrest the burglars, put out fires and deliver mail. The children still have to study math and science. Take tests. Ukraine took many settlements with little fighting. Life goes on with a new Sheriff in town.
IMO they’ve decided that gaining the strategic hub of Pokrovsk is worth the loss of militarily valueless territory near Kursk, and don’t care about their citizens there nor the conscripts and ex-cons they are losing there. And Putin judges his position is not imperilled.
I think its good strategy to request permission to specifically bomb Russian Airfields. It’s one small step in escalation. Ukraine already has permission to bomb Russian military targets close to the border.
I feel it was unwise to request additional missiles specifically to bomb Russian airfields. That puts NATO into a bad situation. It gives a bad impression that Ukraine is blatantly bombing Russia by proxy.
Ukraine can use existing stocks from Military Aid that will quietly be restocked at a later date.
Semantics matter. Don’t start a war between NATO and Russia.
i think it might be a matter of just “shuffling around weapon systems” … i.e. using western missiles within the 2014 borders against RU and keeping those UKR drones/missiles for strikes on 2014 RU territory.
Not sure how good the UKR systems are compared to the UK/FR/USA Cruise Missile
Remember that the old “fixed” missile defense systems on concrete pads are mostly extinct. These days missile systems are either semi-mobile (older Russian/Ukrainians systems) or fully mobile (newer Russian/Ukrainian systems, including all the most lethal long-range systems like the S-300/400/500 family). You can reliably guess at point air defenses being present at various must-be-defended points, like say major military facilities and the slow to pack up old semi-mobile systems are pretty vulnerable (the oldest Ukrainian systems took a shellacking in the first days of the war). But in general hunting the modern fully mobile air defense systems requires some elaborate triangulation often based on back-tracking missile launches and air defense radar illumination, because they don’t just squat at the same spot every day. This was the point of the whole ‘Wild Weasel’ SEAD system. In the worst case scenario (plenty of decent roads and directions to take) it’s roughly analogous to surface ships hunting for submarines.
This is just way harder for Ukraine to pull off with a handful of planes. By contrast air fields don’t move.
You make very good points that I hadn’t considered.
IIRC Doesn’t an air defense system expose themselves when they light up a plane with radar? I don’t know the exact terminology. You explained it better in your post
Damn, I wish Washington would stop chopping off Ukraine’s legs.
The complex maintenance schedule for the F-16 has been discussed here before. It was a key objection to giving Ukraine the planes.
It won’t be long before poor maintenance will result in crashes and that will hit the news.
The F-16’s are a crucial part of Ukraine’s military. They’re in short supply. The hangers would be kept secret and well protected. The contractors should be able to decide if they want to take the risk. That’s usually true of any work they do in hostile environments.
Nicolás Maduro, who is clinging to power by all means despite having almost certainly lost the Presidential Elections in Venezuela a couple of weeks ago is showing his deference to Putin by extraditing two Colombians, José Medina and Alejandro Ante, to Russia. Both fought in Ukraine and are accused by Russia of being mercenaries:
From the link:
On Wednesday, a Moscow court placed the men in pre-trial detention in Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo prison while they are investigated for paid participation in an armed conflict, which in Russia carries a maximum sentence of up to 15 years behind bars.
[…]
Russia, meanwhile, is itself actively recruiting mercenaries abroad for its own war effort against Ukraine, including in Cuba and India, with promises of sky-high salaries and fast-tracked Russian citizenship.
The Russian state also maintains close links to Russian mercenary groups, such as Wagner, which — as well as fighting in Ukraine — is especially active in Africa.
I guess Americans enjoy protection against extradition from the USA to a foreign country, specially Russia? Let’s hope that protection holds in future. But for the moment I would be very careful not to set on foot in Caracas airport, just in case of trumped up charges. Hostages are useful to Putin.
I started my career as a programmer at a university. I can fully appreciate the complexities of this project. This team stepped up and got it done. They even set up a test environment to work out any bugs in the code.
I hadn’t considered that the F-16’s in different nations use tailored EW programming for their unique airspace. That adaptability shows the care and foresight that went into designing the planes decades ago. It’s why they can still fly and perform so well against modern planes.
Venezuela has a level 4 ‘do not travel’ advisory in the US. If you have to travel there some of the recommendations are ‘make a will’ and ‘Establish a “proof of life” protocol with your loved ones’. Similar to the Ukraine advisory.
On a lighter note: My mom recently returned from a trip to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland. She reports that Lithuania has renamed the street that the Russian embassy is on to “Ukrainian Heroes Street”, and the building on the other side of the street bears a mural of a skeletonized Putin. Their tour also included a stop close enough to the Russian border to flip the bird to Russia, and a stop at a workshop where they helped make camouflaged netting for use by the Ukrainian army.
AIUI, the United States can/does extradite American citizens who are dual citizens, but only if they are citizens of the nation requesting extradition. So, for instance, if a US-Irish dual citizen were wanted in America for crimes committed in Ireland, the U.S. government might send him to Ireland.
But I can’t picture any scenario where the U.S. would do such a favor for Russia, even if it were an American-Russian dual citizen.
Wait a moment - does that mean that Russia as a potential adversary had at some point been struck from the requirements list for maintenance of the F-16 software? I always assumed US-made aircraft would automatically come with software to deal with current Russian weapons systems.
Put up photos of Volodymyr Zelenskiy in all the government buildings. Make themselves at home. Welcome to Ukraine. 
security was breached. That could be why