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Posted by Phillips P. OBrien

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-147-the-war-will-continue

Hi Everyone,

First off—Happy Ukrainian Independence Day! It was on this date in 1991 that the state of Ukraine gained its independence in a peaceful and legal secession from the USSR. It was also a moment built on centuries of political developments and the growth of a Ukrainian identity. Like many people in Central and Eastern Europe, the Ukrainians had to see their national identities politically operate within much larger empires—which often did their best to destroy or at least weaken that sense of identity. Ukrainians were at different times in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, the USSR, and even the Polish State. And at the end of all this, an independent Ukraine eventually emerged—a little later than in the case of some other states, but no less a state and, as it has turned out, with a very powerful Ukrainian identity and a deep longing for Democracy. The fate of Ukraine’s state and people are now the single most important question for Europe, the answer to which will determine the fate of the continent politically and possibly socially. So, on this Ukrainian independence day, realize it should not be just Ukrainians celebrating—it should be all peoples who value a free and democratic Europe.

And that Ukraine will still be fighting for the foreseeabe future. Its now been 9 days since the Anchorage Summit which started the normalizing process between the USA and Russia, and 6 days since the Washington DC summit of Trump with Zelensky and a delegation of European leaders—and one thing is clear. Trump has shifted the goalposts very much in Putin’s favor and has no intention of actually pushing for an end to the war—unless it involves a almost complete bending of the Ukrainian knee to the Russians.

That became clearer and clearer over the week, when all the pressure that the US was putting was on the Ukrainians—with none on the Russians. Trump is basically protecting Putin, allowing the Russian dictator to prosecute the war as he wants (which involves increasing attacks on Ukrainian civilians). As such, the war will continue.

Btw, I talked about this in a podcast with Paul Krugman which was released yesterday. We delved into the state of the war, the horrific failings of military analysis which is endemic today, and spent sometime on my soon to be released book: War and Power: Who Wins Wars And Why.

Paul Krugman

Talking With Phillips O'Brien

I spoke a while back with Phillips O’Brien, a military historian who completely changed my understanding of World War Two and has been, as I read it, one of the most level-headed analysts of the Russia-Ukraine war — a war all too many analysts keep getting wrong. After the horrible Alaska summit — and after another Russian “breakthrough” trumpeted by th…

Read more

2 days ago · 509 likes · 168 comments · Paul Krugman

So it makes sense to stop talking about deals, completely non-existent security guarantees, new sanctions to get Putin to the table—all of that. For now we have war, and the important thing is how Ukraine is to be aided to fight it and to win it.

The War Will Continue For A While Yet

What the week showed is that the USA has no intention of pressuring Russia to try and settle this war—however that did not stop the rather bizarre pantomime which was the discussion of post-war security guarantees for Ukraine which have no chance for now of being a reality.

What has come out of Anchorage is that the US government believes that the key step in any peace deal is to force Ukraine to give up territory to Putin while getting practically nothing in return. Its probably the most important development from Anchorage, that the US is now seemingly committed to making Ukraine hand over at least the Donbas (if not more).

Trump this week was explicit about land swaps and the idea that Russia is much more powerful than Ukraine and will win the war. He said this most in a Fox interview. There are some useful excerpts from that interview in this CNN clip.

He then repeated his claim that Russia is winning as Ukraine cannot attack on Russian soil it in a tweet that people, bizarrely, misread as him calling for Ukrainian attacks into Russia (see below). Of course nothing could be further from the truth. The US has been actively blocking many Ukrainian long-range strikes into Russia for months, according to this just-released story in the Wall Street Journal.

Here is how that story begins.

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has for months been blocking Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, U.S. officials said, limiting Kyiv from employing a powerful weapon in its fight against Moscow’s invasion.

What in particular the US is doing is keeping Ukraine from attacking Russia with any US-produced ATACMs (directly protecting the Russian war effort and damaging Ukraine’s)

So Trump has been arguing that Russia will win—and actively trying to make that happen.

On the other hand, what he also did this week is basically shelve sanctions on Russia for the foreseeable future. He used his famous “two-weeks” formulation again, but went further and hinted that he is more likely to walk away from doing anything than actively trying to harm Putin’s war efforts.

Here was his quote from the White House.

“We’ll see what happens,…I think over the next two weeks, we’re going to find out which way it’s going to go. And I better be very happy.”

After that two weeks he is “going to make a decision as to what we do, and it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs, or both. Or do we do nothing and say, ‘It’s your fight.’”

In other words—he is going to keep doing what he is doing by trying to limit the Ukrainian war effort and provide cover for Putin. The war is going to go on for now, because Putin is being incentivized by the USA to do so. And that reality, that we are no closer to a deal and that the war will go on, is now spreading across Europe. German Chancellor Frederich Merz admitted just a few hours ago that a deal was a long way off—using the metaphor that if the process towards a deal was a 10-kilometer race, that the discussions are in the first 200 metres.

With this reality now spreading, hopefully European leaders will understand that they have one way and one way only to try and bring “peace” to Europe—and that is to defeat the Russian military by aiding Ukraine as much as possible. Talk about weak security guarantees (and that is all they were) and even pressuring Ukraine to give up land (which did happen this week) are most likely to lengthen the war and put Europe in an even worse strategic place.

What Europe should be doing in backing Ukraine to the hilt—do more of the things that they have been doing, such as helping the Ukrainians develop their new FP-5 Flamingo Missile—which should start appearing in numbers large enough to enter the fighting by the end of the year.

And they need to completely and openly reject the idea that Russia is entitled to any land from Ukraine in any form—that Europe will never accept the transference of free soil to a dictatorship.

And they need to stop deferring to Trump. They do not need to insult him, they need to plan for a future without any reliance on the USA.

So with the war set to continue and the US increasingly backing Putin or out of the game, whether we have “peace” or not will come down to what European states do.

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Ukrainians Are Understanding That They Are Getting Played By The Western Analytical Community

Well, the Ukrainian military did not collapse this week and Russia seized hardly any land (and actually by military standards they have taken no land of strategic value from Ukraine for arguably a year). It was just over two weeks ago that the dooming starting spreading from the usual crowd about the great Russian breakthrough near Pokrovsk. However, they have no gone quiet.

To show how little territory the Russians took this week—here are Deep State’s maps of the major area of fighting (Chasiv Yar to Pokrovsk) today—and a week ago.

Today:

A week ago

Deep State, btw, is a very important resource for Ukrainians—who trust their maps and who listen to their commentary. Deep State tries to speak the truth to power, and does not sugar coat the situation on the ground and can be critical of Ukrainian commanders.

Its why they have been misused regularly by the analytical community who try to talk up Russian successes. And they are not alone. Many patriotic and honest Ukrainians who are not enamored of Ukrainian military command (think Syrskyi) have actually helped the analytical community—though in the process they have unwittingly helped that community as it argues against aiding Ukraine in the best possible way.

The manner in which the Russian “breakthrough” (which was no breakthrough) near Pokrovsk was spun by military analysts finally seems to have made the Ukrainians understand that they are being used. Deep State put out a statement a week ago—and its important enough that I will quote the whole thing for you to read. Pay particular attention to the last paragraph, where they make it clear that their “American partners” have been distorting the situation.

Less than 1% of Ukrainian territory has been occupied by the enemy in the last 1010 days of the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.

Enemy occupied 5842 sq. km of Ukrainian territory in the period of November 12th, 2022 (114,489 sq. km was under occupation on that date) to today (114,493 sq. km is currently occupied). This territory is equal to 0.96781% of the whole Ukrainian state within its internationally recognized borders.

While Russians unfortunately had operational success in the first days of the full-scale invasion, a large percentage of the territory they’ve occupied was liberated through the successful offensive operations in the north of Ukraine, as well as through counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

Enemy's offensive actions have continued since November 12th, 2022, and they go on to this day with minor interruptions. One of such offensives, the Bakhmut operation, as a reminder to those who do not remember, took place throughout the fall of 2022. We hope that this information will get to our American partners to help them get their math straight.

Enough said,

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Trump Ukraine Derangement Syndrome: The Worst Case Yet

The latest iteration of Trump Ukraine Derangement Syndrome occurred this week, and it might have been the most bizarre ever. After Anchorage when Trump showed his attachment to Putin, and after telling Europeans that Putin would want to do a deal to please him (Trump), the US president sent out this rather confused and confusing tweet on Thursday.

People instantly misread this tweet as a call for Ukraine to start hitting Russia more with long range strike. CNN, for one, filed a story to that effect which started like this.

President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to offer a rationale for Ukraine to go on offense against Russia, notable rhetoric as the momentum around peace talks has stalled.

And, as always the very destructive faction that is Pro-Trump and tries to pretend it is pro-Ukraine, instantly piped up to say that Trump was starting to side with the Ukrainians. It was of course, nonsense.

NBC News reported the next day that Trump was actually trying to pressure Ukraine through the tweet, to take a deal on Russia’s terms. The specfic quote from this story was:

In a social media post Thursday, Trump wrote that because Ukraine is largely defending its turf, it can’t defeat Russia. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the post was meant to signal that Ukraine will need to accept a deal largely on Russia’s terms.

The amazing thing is that people still think Trump might abandon Putin and side with Ukraine. If anything—Trump is getting more and more open about his infatuation with Putin. On Friday, in one of the most grotesque Oval Office spectacles in the history of that room, Trump displayed a picture that Putin had reportedly sent him of the two of them making love-eyes with each other in Anchorage (See picture at the top of the update). Trump then went on at length about how much Putin respected him and how much Trump wanted Putin to be able to attend the next World Cup in the USA. Here is a quote from the NY Times story about the incident.

“I was just sent a picture from somebody that wants to be there very badly,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s been very respectful of me and of our country, but not so respectful of others.”

Facing the television crews gathered in front of him, Mr. Trump held up the photo of the two men together.

“I thought you would like to see it,” he said. “That’s a man named Vladimir Putin, who I believe will be coming, depending on what happens. He may be coming and he may not, depending on what happens. We have a lot of things happening over the next couple of weeks.”

Mr. Trump then said he thought Mr. Putin looked “nice” in the photo.

“I thought it was a nice picture of him. OK of me, but nice of him. So that was very nice that it was sent to me,” he said.

Oh, and well Trump was demonstrating his love, Putin was bombarding Ukrainian cities with one of his largest attacks in weeks—574 UAVs and 40 missiles according to the Ukrainians.

It remains a mystery how many Ukraine supporters fall for this endless cycle of BS from a pro-Putinist like Trump. Its gone from the misguided, to the absurd, to the downright destructive. For the record a few things need to be understood.

Trump does not care about Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians

Trump does not care about letters that Melania writes about said attacks

Trump wants Putin to get the best deal possible out of this war

Trump would not mind if Ukraine ceased to exist as a nation and was all/partly subsumed into Russia.

These fundamental points are not changing—live with them or hurt Ukraine by denying them.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-147-the-war-will-continue