Prime

From TPM Reader PC …

The remarkable thing about the change in Russian messaging about their objectives is the threat it poses to Putin’s regime survival.

Even before the military changed their public tune, on March 16 Lavrov described ceasefire negotiations as being “close to agreement” on terms that were basically: give up Donbass and Crimea (no clarity on borders, or the potential land bridge between them) and give up NATO membership (no clarity on EU membership, just “neutrality”).

From what I can tell, the more serious-minded military analysts and Ukraine experts are this afternoon trying to make sense of just what this afternoon’s Russian military briefing means. Is this just chatter along the lines of claims of a soon to be announced ceasefire or is this really the signal that the Russian leadership is looking for an offramp from this strategic catastrophe entirely of its own making? I don’t think anyone quite knows what to make of it yet. The claims of ‘this is what we meant to do all along’ are absurd on their face. And yet, they’re the most plausible and possibly even the most predictable path to a face-saving exit. In fact, we shouldn’t have to wait long to find out. If this signals a true pivot in Russian policy and war aims we should see movements on the ground in fairly short order.

But one really has to question whether this pivot is even possible. And by possible I mean is it in any way a plausible path to the end of the conflict on any terms?

TPM Reader PT tries to puzzle out what the people in charge of the Russian military are thinking …

After reading your posts on the latest proclamations from Russia’s General Staff, I find myself scratching my head (figuratively) and muttering, “I don’t get it” (also figuratively).

Specifically, I don’t see how these comments set the conditions for an end to the war on terms other than an abject Russian retreat.

Sen. Ron Wyden says that Clarence Thomas’ conduct on the court “looks increasingly corrupt” and that at a minimum he should recuse himself from any cases tied to the January 6th conspiracy or the 2024 election if ex-President Trump chooses to run again for election. I was gratified to see this because I had suggested the same and it seems really the minimum that should be required of him. (He’s already sat in review of other January 6th cases and ruled adverse to the investigation.)

We have a bit more detail now on that Russian General Staff update in which they seem to argue that most of their military operation in Ukraine is now done and they’re going to focus just on “liberating” Donbas, the region in the east of the country, part of which had been under de facto Russian occupation back to 2014. Christopher Miller of Buzzfeed gives us a bit more of the nuance and detail.

The Russian Ministry of Defense just announced that, in Reuters’ wording, the “first phase of its military operation in Ukraine was mostly complete and that it would focus” on “liberating” (Russia’s word) the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east. It’s hard to know precisely what this means. It could mean close to nothing and in fact things continue as they have for weeks with no clear change. But it could also mean admitting that most of the military operation in Ukraine has failed or met much more resistance than was anticipated and they are now focusing on cleaving off a large chunk of territory in the east.

Last night TPM Reader ES sent me this Newsweek article on the Ukraine War that he was puzzling about. I read it and found it quite interesting. Let me premise this by anticipating some responses. Yes, Newsweek is trash. By any fair standard the Newsweek most of us grew up with doesn’t exist anymore. The magazine or rather the title is now owned and operated by yet another rightwing cult – the kind that always seems interested in buying publications. So yes, Newsweek is trash. But I decided to read it because I noticed the byline: William Arkin. Arkin is not trash. He’s a longtime national security reporter with a good, if perhaps idiosyncratic, reputation. I note all this simply to say that you shouldn’t dismiss it because of Newsweek’s current and deserved reputation.

I don’t want to get too deep into particular reports. But both Ukrainian government sources in Kyiv as well as reporters on the ground in contested areas are reporting that the Ukrainian Army is having some success reclaiming territory around Kyiv over the last 24 to 48 hours. (Peruse my Ukraine Crisis and Military Analysts lists to get more granular details.) I wouldn’t put too much into these reports as yet since both propaganda and the fog of war make our visibility blurry at best. (I find it impossible to know what to make of claims like this, for instance.) And even the reported gains are fairly small. But this does seem to be happening. And it matches reports of real though not game-changing counteroffensives and reclaiming of territory in other parts of the country. There’s been an assumption that these fronts are basically stalemated or that the Ukrainian Army’s size and armament is really suited only to defensive operations. But it’s not clear that is the case.

Eliot Cohen is a commentator on military affairs who’s been a fixture of Washington’s conversations for decades. He’s generally been in line with the policy hands identified as “neocons” but his writing has never been entirely in line with theirs. It’s at least a bit more independent, a bit less infected with their antic zeal. Earlier this month Cohen wrote a short article for The Atlantic titled “The Strategy That Can Defeat Putin.” It’s essentially a neo-Cold War manifesto which calls for a military crusade against the kind of revanchist authoritarianism which Vladimir Putin’s Russia both embodies and leads. Cohen writes that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “is a threat, too, to the integrity and self-confidence of the world’s liberal democracies, battered as they have been by internal disputes and backsliding abroad.” He argues that the goal of U.S./EU/NATO policy must be not only to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine but “to leave Russia profoundly weakened and militarily crippled, incapable of renewing such an onslaught, isolated and internally divided until the point that an aging autocrat falls from power. Targeting Putin alone is not enough.”