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Comments to Daily Kos coverage of Ukraine + Ask me Anything [1]

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Date: 2023-02-25  

Trenches are dug by the side of the road as a precaution against Russian attacks, in Kyiv, Ukraine on March 10. (Emin Sansar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

I have been reading Daily Kos coverage of the Russian war in Ukraine for several weeks — or maybe months by now, and I thought that maybe somebody will be interested in some comments from a person on the ground.

I am a civilian Ukrainian who lives in Kyiv and has spent the whole time of the 2022 invasion in Kyiv. In fact, I find the daily coverage provided by Mark and Kos to be of excellent quality, and I often myself rely on their posts for a summary of the day — they usually appear at around 20:00 Kyiv time, which is good for the end of day’s summary — though not so good for nerves if you try to sleep well at night.

What they may lack — or maybe what I sometimes wish to add — is some local context to what is described in the posts, maybe some civilian perspective (the main coverage naturally focuses on the military side), as well as something that may be possibly called meta-data — the general feelings, motivations or beliefs of Ukrainians, Europeans, and russians.

For context, I am a business lawyer with some experience in cross-border legal work, which makes me think I can get — and sometimes explain — the ways of thinking of people from different national and geographic backgrounds. I still have trenches like the one pictured above around my district in Kyiv — luckily, they did not see fighting yet. And I live in a building very similar to the one you can see in the background of the picture. I am ethnically 5/3 Ukrainian/Russian, I speak Ukrainian, Russian and English, I had my extended family cut apart by the Russian 2014 invasion, and I have been to Donbas (pre-2014) and to Mariupol and personally know people from there. I have some friends in the army and — as maybe every Ukrainian — am sometimes involved in fundraising and delivery of necessary stuff for the army.

For starters, I will put below some of the comments I posted below some of the Daily Kos publications on Ukraine during the last couple of weeks. I have got a feeling that they are usually buried in hundreds of other comments and not widely read — that was my main motivation behind this post.

And even the deeper motivation behind that is, of course, to offer a Ukrainian’s perspective on anything you read, watch, think or feel about Ukraine. Therefore, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Russian full-scale invasion, I decided to offer my answers to any questions you may have about Ukraine — be they connected with war or not. History. Culture. Business. Whatever. Of course, I do not know everything, but I will do my best to answer your questions as objectively as possible and refer you to the relevant sources wherever I can.

I can also connect you with a relevant Ukrainian relief initiative if you wish to donate your money, goods or skill/time — there is everything starting from saving and feeding pets to purchasing specific gear for military units to working as a business adviser for Ukrainian businesses looking for international sales and expansion.

In the end, I want to thank the American people for supporting Ukraine all the time and particularly after the beginning of the big war — all that support is very much felt and appreciated. Please keep standing with us — it would be very difficult for us to win this war alone.

The commentary:

The impact of the war on the Ukrainian economy:

30% GDP fall (Russia about 2% GDP fall), 20% of the territory occupied by Russia, the sea trade is still blocked (except for gain export), 7 million internally-displaced persons, another 7 million refugees internationally (out of a pre-war population of 45 million) — in total, 30 to 40 per cent of the country displaced out of houses.

It has been reported that Ukraine maintains 1000 000 servicemen (including police and other armed non-army formations). Ukraine spends 50% of its annual budget on the military. As of now, it fully depends on international financial support to maintain the social/humanitarian part of the budget.

At least 1200 international corporations still operate in Russia maintaining production facilities or distribution/service chains, employing thousands of russians, complying with russian conscription activities and paying taxes to russian government. They include about 100 US corporations.

Russia started to feel the effects of war only in the last months of 2022, when the mobilization was announced, the first mobilized Russians started to die, and when the real oil and gas sanctions began entering force.

Until at least September, this war was nothing for Russia — it was the war it was being preparing and planning for years. They were fine and comfortable with that.

Can Ukraine produce its own weapons, taking into account some known good Ukrainian technologies and the local engineering talent pool?

Russia essentially destroyed most of the Ukrainian heavy machine-building defence-industrial sector at the beginning of the war (and there were not many in the beginning). Suffice it to say that Ukraine’s main tank-building plant was located in Kharkiv — and yes, it was bombed. For unknown reasons, Russia has also bombed many Ukrainian universities, in particular, where it could use artillery or S300 systems.

Needless to say, Russian military plants are fully safe and intact. (And are being reported to work 24/7). There is some hope that in the long term, Western trade sanctions can slow down russian production — it is known that, for example, S300 are being made on German machines, and russian weapons contain French, Austrian, Japanese and US parts and technologies. Though you can always buy something through third countries, China may offer some help as well.

We have very bright minds in Ukraine but also used to have a lot of red tape in the defence industry with, I regret to admit, some corruption mixed in. And the overall defence spending planning was — as much as I can judge — for a 2014-2015-style and scale of war against those Russian puppet states in the east (LNR/DNR) with some Russian forces impersonating “local militia”.

Over the last year, most of the red tape and corruption has gone, but so are the industrial facilities and economic power :( Yet we are making some progress in deploying new weapons and restoring production now. The Ministry of Defense announced recently UAH 20 bn (USD 500 mln) for drone purchases this year — both foreign and Ukrainian-made. It has been said there are already 13 models of Ukrainian drones that were selected for purchase, and there are more lined up. The main problem now is to quickly expand the volume and speed of production from single experimental models to mass production.

Ukrainian conscription/mobilization status:

- there are enough men and women still willing to volunteer; there are some problems though: - mismatch between quality and quantity. All of the experienced men and women have been called or volunteered already, now has come the time for the inexperienced. That means a lot of training; also, operating advanced weapons and partaking in combined arms fighting requires much more skill and training and officers; - logistics, logistics, logistics. Ukraine had a very bad conscription and overall military “human resource” management system as of February last year. It was struggling with processing volunteers in the first weeks of war and is struggling with obligatory conscription now. Then, training — you need to have instructors for the masses of people not planned for before. And you cannot concentrate them in any significant amounts in Ukraine. In short, Ukraine has many systemic problems similar to Russian mobilisation, with probably the only main difference being that we have greater motivation and initiative and a will to learn and improve as fast as possible. The conscription/recruitment system has been gradually improving over the year, though. Also, it’s not just the people, but weapons that are needed by people: “Zaluzhny: We are already conducting it [mobilization] as it is. We have enough people, and I can clearly see what I have. I have enough. I don’t need hundreds of thousands more. We need tanks, we need APCs [armoured personnel carriers], infantry fighting vehicles. And we need ammunition". This is Zaluzhny's interview with the Economist in December. This is confirmed by what I see and hear. Ukraine has a lot of very light infantry (no armour, just guys with AKs and RPGs moving around on civilian light trucks and vans), but this is not exactly what you need to fight Russians. Please do not be overexcited/and misled about the actual status of war by the videos of Ukrainian bravery and ingenuity and the Russian losses While I do appreciate — and enjoy a lot — the mainstream coverage and reception of the war in the West, you must remember that there is a gentlemen's agreement — and an information warfare imperative — not to report about Ukrainian weaknesses and mistakes. So, if you wish to understand the war as it is, just remember that 90% of what happens to the Russians in those videos also happens to Ukrainians. Tanks blown up, infantry killed from above, stupid decisions by commanders — all of that. And much, much more. Of course, there are differences as well. The main is the fighting spirit and motivation. That’s mostly on the Ukrainian side. Other things are more subtle and nuanced. Ukrainian ingenuity with an application of non-traditional combat tricks and weapons and tactics was not invented because Ukrainians wanted to improve what they (or Russians) already had. They were (and are) used because Ukrainians lack many weapons and equipment that a normal modern army (including Russian) has. Where to look for the objective picture? Definitely not at the short videos. Look for long-form analysis from folks like RUSI, or long-form reporting on the ground from the best media, something like “Our journalist has spent a week with a unit in Bakhmut and that’s what she has to tell”. They will be edited in order not to give a too depressing image, but an attentive reader would get the small details that will hint at the general picture: the number of dead and wounded, the way the unit is supplied and wounded are evacuated, the kinds of weapon the unit uses or is able to request from the higher commander, the level of battle experience and training that the soldiers have, whether they ever have a chance to wash themselves, the level of exhaustion on their faces and in their eyes, etc. Ukrainians are fighting heroically, but our fighting is much more sad, chaotic and desperate than one would think by watching the funny videos only. The only good thing is — we cannot afford to lose, and therefore we are constantly improving. Hopefully, faster than the Russians. Because they are improving too. Please do not overestimate the meaning of russian losses and don’t underestimate Ukrainian losses. Almost every Russian attack that ends in several hundred dead russians is described by Western observers as a “disaster”. But in fact, it really depends on the scale that you use to measure the “disastrousness” of an event. I have noticed that many if not all, Western commentators measure the scale of the disaster by their own Western standards, using the scale of loss they used for the US losses in Iraq or Afghanistan. For them, the loss of 500 men and 30 tanks is a “disaster”. While in fact, Russia (or Putin) compares (at least ideologically) its human losses with their losses during WWII. My rough guess is that in WWII, the Soviet Union lost in Ukraine about 2 million men in 1941 (probably half of them POWs) and another 1 million in 1943. Tanks were lost in thousands. So 500 men and 30 armour lost are really not that much for Russia. They are also fine with fighting long wars — it was 6 years of WWII, about 10 years of Afghanistan, and about 4+4 years of the Chechen wars. I am pretty sure that that’s fine for Putin and the Putinists. (Ukrainians also had similar disasters in terms of loss of life. Mariupol has been one big disaster, in terms of loss of life and equipment, though the defenders were successful in tying a substantial number of Russian forces for several months of the critical initial stage of the war. Also, Ukraine could have easily lost more armour since the beginning of the war, but it just didn’t have it). We need many more disastrous disasters for Russia. As Ukraine is desperately asking for the ATACMS, what is hitting the russian bases beyond the HIMARS range? This could be drones, foreign (undisclosed) long-range supplies, but also — Ukraine’s own long-range missiles. Ukraine might still have some old Soviet Tochkas modernized by Ukraine (120 km) — though I would assume that they were all used through the time of the war, except for the strictest reserves. There were also a couple of other missile technologies available in experimental production as of February last year: Neptune (the one used to sink Moskva warship) has a 380 km range — though it’s an anti-ship missile, who says it cannot hit something on land? Sapsan/Hrim has a 280 km range. Whatever it was, please don’t hesitate to send us more of that — Russia has, unfortunately, a lot of ammo and personnel that needs to be destroyed to liberate Ukraine and make russia stop this war.

P.S. If you like this post, please don’t forget to recommend this post to make sure it is seen by other Daily Kos readers.

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