Tag Archives: foreign policy

I Sympathize

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Ukraine is preparing to put a captured Russian soldier on trial for a variety of war crimes committed over the course of the Russian barbarian invasion of Ukraine, an invasion still in progress. The 21-yr-old soldier stands accused of

fir[ing] several shots from a Kalashnikov rifle at the head of an unarmed 62-year-old man, who died on the spot just a few dozen meters from his own home in the village of Chupakhivka in Ukraine’s Sumy region[.]

Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova says the murder occurred on February 28. The soldier is a tank commander, which in the Russian army makes him a junior NCO.

The soldier absolutely stand trial for the crime, and I think the 10-15 years to life in prison should he be convicted is light. This is the sort of crime that should draw capital punishment.

However.

It occurs to me that before those who are no more than foot soldiers are tried for the war crimes they’re accused of committing, their officers—who created the environment within which their subordinates felt free to commit these atrocities—should be tried for their complicity in war crimes.

Unfortunately and especially in the present case, where so many of the Russian barbarian officers have evaded capture (or those few of them remaining have been killed in action), it will be hard to bring the foot soldiers’ officers in, try them, and if convicted, execute them.

Put this 21-yr-old on trial, certainly. But be sure he’s being tried for what he did, and punished suitably for it if convicted; do not use him as a scapegoat for not being able to get at the officers who allowed, if not actively encouraged, these atrocities.

Vladimir Putin’s May Speech

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Read between the lines of Putin’s speech and attempted justification of his invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to the nation from Red Square ahead of the traditional military parade here Monday, the Russian leader said the Kremlin had every indication that a clash with Ukraine, which he says is led by US-backed neo-Nazis, was inevitable, so Moscow took pre-emptive action.
“The danger was growing day by day, so Russia gave a pre-emptive response to the aggression. It was a forced, timely, and only correct decision, a decision made by the sovereign, strong, and independent country,” Mr Putin said. “We saw how the military infrastructure was being developed, how hundreds of foreign advisers began to work, regular deliveries of the most modern weapons from [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization] countries were occurring.”

And

The defense of the Motherland, when its fate was being decided, has always been sacred[.]

Ukraine, said Putin, with its population of 40 million and its military establishment of 197 thousand active and 900 thousand reserve personnel, was a threat to the existence of his Russia with its own population of more than 145 million and its own military establishment of 1 million active and 2 million reserve personnel—and all those nuclear weapons. Putin was forced, he said, to strike first before Ukraine could inflict its devastating and conquering blow.

What an amazing indictment by Putin of his nation’s military capability to protect the Motherland’s fate and defeat an invasion by a nation with barely a quarter of Russia’s population and whose total military barely matches the size of the Motherland’s active duty force.

What an amazing indictment by Putin of his own nation’s technological prowess and his own military’s most modern weapons already in being and still being produced as compared Ukraine’s military equipage and NATO’s.

Ooh—Count ‘Em

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Germany has agreed to supply the Ukrainian army with self-propelled howitzers, the Panzerhaubitze 2000, which can fire a 155mm round 25-40 miles, depending on the round selected.

All seven of the howitzers.

And, in keeping with the German government’s practice of slow-walking all aid to Ukraine in the latter’s struggle to defend itself against the Russian barbarian invasion, Germany’s Defense Ministry

did not give a time frame for the delivery of the howitzers….

The weapons aren’t even operational; they’re being taken from a “pool” that has been set aside by the Defense Ministry for repairs. The weapons will be repaired over the next few weeks. Here’s an indication of the quality of German maintenance, too, via Deutsche Welle:

Germany has more than 100 of these howitzers, of which only 40 are currently ready for deployment[.]

A 40% combat ready rate is…suboptimal…except that Germany has been satisfied with that for some time.

For comparison purposes, a modern Russian Army self-propelled 152mm howitzer battery consists of 6 guns, and a modern US Army self-propelled 155mm howitzer battery also consists of 6 guns.

Seven howitzers. Chancellor Olaf Schulz shouldn’t strain his defense establishment so much just to make an insultingly puny contribution to Ukraine’s fight for its survival.

A Clear Difference

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Assume, for a moment, that the series of attacks inside Russian territory and unexplained explosions at Russian targets near the border with Ukraine have been carried out by Ukrainian forces and are not just examples of shoddy Russian maintenance or done by disgruntled Russian protestors.

Compare, then, that damage with the damage done by Russian attacks inside Ukraine. “Ukraine’s attacks” have been carefully limited to facilities supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s continued prosecution of its unprovoked attack.

  • a fuel depot in Russia’s Belgorod region directly opposite Kharkiv
  • an explosion sparked a blaze at an ammunition depot near the city of Belgorod
  • blasts have been reported inside the city
  • fires erupted at other oil depots, including one at a Russian military base
  • explosions have damaged rail lines in Kursk and Bryansk oblasts

Russian attacks, on the other hand, have been deliberately targeted at residential neighborhoods of Ukrainian cities, and have been aimed at deliberately razing whole cities to the ground (and of simply making the rubble bounce)—Kharkiv, Kherson, Izyum, Lyman, Bucha, Mariupol, to suggest a few—and nakedly, without regard for much of anything, attacking nuclear facilities at Zaporizhzhia or firing on “targets” very close to or having cruise missiles overfly the Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant near Kostyantynivka in southern Ukraine and the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant near Netishyn in the northeast enroute to other targets, and blithely kicking up the potentially still lethal radioactive dirt around Chornobyl.

Prolonging the Crisis on Purpose?

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First, we have Brett Velicovich, a former US Army intelligence and special operations soldier, warning us that

There is a political logistics jam somewhere for the flow of training devices like this [Javelin simulators] into Ukraine, and it’s making it so they are less effective in the field and in some cases even failing on the front lines when being fired.

That political holdup is within the Biden-Harris administration.

Then we get Samantha Power, United States Agency for International Development Administrator, saying openly in regard to the relationship between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Left’s push to convert us to “green” energy no matter the cost,

Never let a crisis go to waste[,]

and that [as cited by Fox News]

fertilizer shortages would provide farmers the opportunity to “hasten” their “transition” from fertilizer to more “natural” resources.

And we get Jennifer Granholm, Biden-Harris’ Energy Secretary who, not so long ago, thought the idea of bringing down the price of gasoline and oil was laugh-out-loud hilarious, saying much the same thing, urging Congress to [again as cited by Fox News]

use this crisis to pass “clean energy” legislation and to “wean off” fossil fuels.

This along with Biden-Harris himself still slow-walking (albeit at a lessening obstructive pace) transferring arms to Ukraine so that nation can defeat Russia’s invasion—all while studiously continuing to refuse to say that Ukraine can, and must, win the war Russia has inflicted.

Is being green is more important than being free and sovereign?

Hmm….