Five worries to start September...
September is upon us…
Let’s not call today’s blog a Ukrainian update. Let’s also not call it a crime update.
Let’s just say change is in the wind. The region is on edge, and as cynical as this blog does tend to be, for once let me go even beyond stating the facts (and the obvious):
Yours Truly is truly worried.
Yes, a week I go I wrote "four weeks."
Just hold out four weeks.
Easier said than done.
And these September worries--and I trust that the Sept. 1 anniversary of the invasion of Poland (and the events that followed) are not lost upon any of us--are indeed running wide. Which means that in an effort to not only highlight developing events, but to also spread nerves, an addition to coffee and an eternal wince no etched into this blogger/investigator’s mug, below are the top five incidents, events and atrocities that have of late managed to keep me up at night.
Well, not exactly top five. Let’s just say… in no particular order.
- Pokrovsk, Kursk… and still more nuclear threats from Russia. The Kursk offensive was a clear gamble. And the gambling has not stopped. Originally, Yours Truly believed this was a small, special-forces type of operation, and partially based on a source and partially based on assumption, I believed the architect here was Ukrainian intel head/special forces gur Kyrlo Budanov. Within a week this was proven unlikely (and I was told directly that this was not true), as the Kursk counter-offensive was in fact planned meticulously by Ukrainian top commander and four star general Oleksandr Stanislavovych Syrsky. It should be said—and despite the clear admiration of some in the Ukrainian military—as soon as I learned this was the case, I was practically engulfed in tremors of worry. Why? Syrsky has an old-school Russian take on command. This includes a blood-and-guts mentality for which he has been harshly criticized since Bakhmut. He appears to be a master of planning, and he is clearly smart. Reactive? It is hard to put much stock in that aspect of his command, as Bakhmut at least seems to indicate a tendency to hunker down, fight it out, to stick forever with the plan. Meanwhile Russia has proven to be the same. Pokrovsk and Donetsk has been the play (obviously) for more than six months—and come hell or high water it was clear that it also would not deviate from the plan. This de facto sowed doubt (at least in my mind) that it would sufficiently divert troops from the Pokrovsk effort to defend Kursk. This is, after all, the Russian military. Likewise, Syrsky is Russian-educated and has the Russian mindset. So it is seriously hard to believe that a sudden will to reverse course or deviate from the Kusk plan is a possibility. This means that, despite having caught Russia off-guard, we are back to a war of attrition. Which does not play into Ukrainian hands.
- Pokrovsk again, as it deserves two spots in today’s mini-ranking. I’ve highlighted this endlessly, but Pokrovsk is key. Despite Deepstate UA mapping, Russian forces may be as close a few kilometers to Pokrovsk, and already the Pokrovsk logistics chain (see past blogs or the map below (highlighted in blue) is being disrupted. In fact, even some Ukrainian bloggers are stating that it “used to be” a key logistics point. And unfortunately, the time-line of my prediction that Russians would be beating on the door of Pokrovsk in four weeks (give or take four weeks ago) has proven all to accurate. And the basis of this prediction came down to Russia’s use of glide bombs to take out Ukrainian defenses (ranging from trenches to half-destroyed buildings) has not changed. And neither has the slow (deliberate or not) delivery (or non-delivery of Western weapons). For the record, I’m not the only blogger stating just how critical Pokrovsk is to Ukraine (as seen and explained here: https://www.twz.com/news-features/fall-of-key-donetsk-city-could-be-an-operational-catastrophe-for-ukraine ). I was just one of the first.
- The F-16 crash and the death of Olesky “Moonfish” Mes. The controversy surrounding this probably friendly fire incident cannot simply be brushed off. Hopes and dreams that F-16 deliveries might finally begin in earnest—and that the F-16 could slow down Russia’s use of glide bombs against military and civilian targets—have not been dashed, but they have been seriously damaged. Likely as not, the F-16 and Mes were downed by a Patriot missile system in a fog-of-war incident that has now also cost the head of the Ukrainian air force his job. This was exactly not the news that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky needed at this time, and the reality is that not only is every single F-16 over Ukraine all but invaluable, but Mes himself represented a highly capable pilot who had been key in pushing training and deliveries from the start. And even a less-known pilot would have been regarded as a tragedy. Most pilots need three years of training in an F-16. Reportedly, pilots who can become war-capable on a rush training schedule are simply few and far between.
- The north… and south. In the north we still have the Belarussian question. Ukraine has warned Belarus over a major buildup on its border, and—another worry—Russian President Vladimir Putin recently awarded Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko a… medal. As Lukashenko has walked a tightrope literally forever, something is up. Morever, Lukashenko’s health has long been in question, and he is all but obese. At any rate, Ukrainian fears of far more active help on the part of Belarus are not unjustified. Meanwhile in the south—in the Balkans—the Kosovo-Serbian bickering (which admittedly does always happen in summer) is once again quite hot. This is not something that can be completely blamed on Serbia, as the Kosovo-Albanian government has again done its part to enrage Kosovo Serbs by raiding local Serb-dominated institutions in North Kosovo (which has drawn criticism from the US). Yet concerning is that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has recently come out to criticize Serbia and highlight Russian influence there. At first glance this may not appear beyond the norm, but over the past 18 months Rama has often appeared to get along with or even side with Serbian President Aleksander Vucic even on Kosovo issues (as his difficult relationship with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti). Does Rama know something we don’t. Probably.
- The apathy of the West—and calls to stop Russia, which is another way to state that two plus two does not equal four. Yes, the Czechs and the Poles and the Baltic states have been quite consistent. And yes, even Danish representatives have stated that they believe F-16s (supplied by Denmark) should not be limited and should be allowed to hit deep Russian targets. Meanwhile, the flow of arms has not happened as advertised, and Russia has made the “right” PR moves in stating that it will now revamp its own nuclear weapons policy. True, this type of saber rattling has proved to be a bluff in the past, but in the past it has also proven to apparently slow arms supplied to Ukraine. And Russia is simply going to continue going with what works.
In short, this is my true fear: Pokrovsk as a logistical hub is already compromised. At the rate that Russia is progressing—and bearing in mind the exhaustion of the Ukrainian military—it will be overwhelmed within weeks, which will bring a wide collapse of Ukrainian positions. At this moment, Russia will effectively have met its goals of taking Donetsk and Luhansk.
Which means that Ukraine effective loses the war, and at this point turmoil within Ukraine—i.e. within Ukrainian politics and more—will be very difficult to predict.
True, some will brush this off. There are plenty in the West who simply have proven that they could not care less about Ukraine; that they do not see Ukraine as even so much as buffer zone to thwart Russian ambition.
But not those in Estonia. Or Lithuania. Or Latvia. Or Poland.
Countries that actually know best.
Three weeks. Just hold out three more weeks and Putin will be out of men.
Easier said than done.
Preston Smith is a licensed investigator based in Gdansk, Poland. He can be reached at query@cddi.pl.
Map courtesy of Deep State UA.