Sunday morning musings no. 1. Does anyone really know what’s happening in Ukraine?
Heretofore, I have held the idea that, 1)Russia is a despotic aggressor, 2)Ukraine is largely innocent holder of resources and land, and 3)Ukraine is largely winning due to a combination of pluck and western supplies.
But I heard a recent podcast, however, that caused me to question my line of thinking. The podcast was Chapo Trap House* and they had guest podcasts hosts War Nerd or something, who seem to have some expertise in the slavic world. And they presented a very different narrative. Namely, 1)Ukrainians really want the war to end, even if the country loses some land, 2)There’s tons of corruption in the military, as bad as leaders demanding payment from soldiers to avoid deployment to the front lines, 3)There are fascist units in the military, and they shake down the civilians, 4) Zelensky was of a mind to deal with Russia until Biden asked him not to, 5)Russias economy is very resilient and has adapted to sanctions, and 6)Russia has been very adept at neutralizing new western military tech, and 7) there is a conspiracy of silence about Ukrainian casualties. Side note, there may be problematic funding of all the open source intelligence arms, especially bellingcat, by US Governemtnt intelligence interests.
I managed to confirm at least partially one of the objections:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html
But some of the claims seem less strong:
https://kyivindependent.com/a-very-bloody-war-what-is-the-death-toll-of-russias-war-in-ukraine/
Mixed on some of the others:
https://theintercept.com/2024/06/22/ukraine-azov-battalion-us-training-ban/
The podcast was a useful reminder, at least, to retain a humility about my beliefs, and that news media is especially suspect in our present moment.
It’s not like I have any power to influence the outcome, but I do still buy into the myth that a responsible citizen retains some degree of information about events around them. My query to tildes is, what’s your narrative about the war, and what sources of information are you drawing upon?
*I’m vaguely aware that there’s somce controversy around these guys. I find the podcast entertaining, however, and they seem to share some of my values about how a sane society would function, and, like this report, they sometimes really challenge my understanding of what I think is going on.
1)Ukrainians really want the war to end, even if the country loses some land,
Yes. But it's very vague idea. Loses some land additionally to occupied by russia, or lose some lands that already occupied? End war with security guarantees that war will never happen again, or without any guarantees? I can definitely say that most people want to end war even with lose of some lands but with guarantees that war will never happen again.
2)There’s tons of corruption in the military, as bad as leaders demanding payment from soldiers to avoid deployment to the front lines.
Ukrainians are people too. All people do mistakes. I personally think that most people in the army are here in a good faith, but yes, situation with corruption like that definitely happenes and as far as I know currently heavily investigated.
3)There are fascist units in the military, and they shake down the civilians
I never heard of it. Currently Ukrainians quite hostile to people in russian army. And russian people in general. Are Ukrainians allowed to be a bit fascist against russian army? Also what is "fascist" in this content? Fascist as opposed to democrat?
4)Zelensky was of a mind to deal with Russia until Biden asked him not to.
Never heard of it. Deal in a sense of making agreement? As far as I know Ukraine trying to have agreement with Russia from day one. We all can see results.
5)Russias economy is very resilient and has adapted to sanctions.
Yeah. This info definitely comes from russia :) I mean that definitely happens, but to what level? I don't think that Russia economy returned to level before 2022.
and 6)Russia has been very adept at neutralizing new western military tech
Sure. And Russia can't win in Ukraine for last 3 years because...?
7)there is a conspiracy of silence about Ukrainian casualties.
I can't say "conspiracy". Sometimes relatives have to wait for half a year for results of DNA tests to learn about death of soldier. Sometime people went missing. We will learn about real count of casualties in a dozen of years later as it always happens with absolutely any other war.
Source: I'm Ukrainian.
Source is quite biased, so take it with grain of salt.
Upd: formatting.
Really appreciate this.
I have some knowledge because I've been friends with people who do regional development (both on very local - microregion - level and previously on a high level) in Ukraine for over 20 years and they in turn have many Ukrainian friends. And I try to follow the situation, if only because of that and because it's geographically slightly uncomfortably close and we've been invaded by Russians before. It's all hobby interest from me though, not real expertise.
In general most of the talking points you mention have some basis in reality but are often used in nefarious ways to support irrelevant conclusions. It's a bit like when conservatives complain that USAID funded strongly ideological and specifically leftist political projects like feminist media or gender reassignment clinics (no idea if that's true, let's pretend that it is), which from their point of view is unacceptable, and they use it as an argument to shut down USAID. But they ignore that USAID also funded a ton of long term education in economic development that spreads capitalism and conservative-compatible economic policies or that it's an immenselly useful tool for projecting soft power and creating allies that is hugely advantageous in the long term and is completely in tune with foreign policy of conservatives like Reagan, despite its real faults.
Now to specifics:
Firstly this sentence: 3)Ukraine is largely winning due to a combination of pluck and western supplies
This is not true. Ukraine has been slowly losing the whole time, and it's not happening quickly because of sheer determination and western supplies. Ukraine could have been better off if the west wasn't so scared of Russia escalating and didn't trickle the supplies so that Ukraine is able to somewhat hold off Russia but not significantly overpower it. The other two points are correct.
Then the actual points:
1)Ukrainians really want the war to end, even if the country loses some land
This is very vague and specifics matter a lot. I didn't do the legwork here, but research of public opinion is still done even during war, so you can probably find some real data if you try. Recent information is that the majority of the country still supports Zelensky, plus Zelensky himself iirc recently said that for a lasting peace he is willing to lose territorry . So I give this "likely untrue" if it's meant as "Zelensky is not fulfilling the will of the people in this case". Ukrainians are not naive and the public likely understands very well that deterrence is crucial for lasting peace because Russia is fundamentally unreliable and only understands force.
2)There’s tons of corruption in the military, as bad as leaders demanding payment from soldiers to avoid deployment to the front lines.
This is a post-soviet military and a post-soviet society so of course this is true to some degree. Hard to say how much, but the rule of thumb in arguments like this is that if something bad is happening in Ukraine, the same is much worse in Russia, and you should think hard if something like this is any reason to reduce support. Ukrainian society and army have changed dramatically for the better since the war started in 2014 (and society even since before that, some changes started since the orange revolution), but they still have a long way to go. They are much less corrupt and more westernized than Russia by now though, and as opposed to Russia they have been on the right track for at least over a decade.
3)There are fascist units in the military, and they shake down the civilians
Rule of thumb from above applies. I don't know about shakedowns (may happen, I can't say either way), I do know about Azov Batallion and while it was started by right wing radicals, purges of the worst people happened and it was forcefully absorbed into the Army (it started as an independent group) so that it's better regulated and observed. These days it's mostly a normal unit and foreigners, including those with different colors of skin, have been fighting in it since before the full scale invasion. It's also a small fraction of the Army, so even if it was full of neonazis, it's not a reason to not support Ukraine. And, as is tradition, Russia has a much worse neonazi problem than Ukraine. Wagner group, led by a dude with literal swastika tattoos, is just one small example.
4) Zelensky was of a mind to deal with Russia until Biden asked him not to
Iirc there have been other variants of this rumor, like Boris Johnson pressuring him, and as far as I know they are either significant deliberate misinterpretations or completely made up.
5)Russias economy is very resilient and has adapted to sanctions
Yes and no. Russian economy is not very resilient and has not adapted to sanctions, they have caused a ton of damage, but it has shifted into war economy, which due to their size they can hold for years before crumbling. The longer they do so, the worse off they are going to be when the war somehow ends, it's going to be a shitshow, but they likely can hold it for a couple more years at least. The difference between Europe and Russia is that Russia is centrally led, realizes the gravity of the situation and does not give a shit about its people, so they have no problem giving 20% GDP on weapons and ammunition manufacture, printing money and all around doing whatever dirty business necessary even if it bites them in the ass later.
6)Russia has been very adept at neutralizing new western military tech
This is true on both sides. Russians are on one hand really stupid in some aspects and mostly take land by sending waves upon waves of inexperienced soldiers to sure death and also suffers from a lot of other soviet style idiocy, but at the same time, yes, they have been able to adapt to new tactics just like Ukrainians have. That's just war, there is a ton of incompetence and dysfunctional patterns in the Russian army, but they're not all mentally challenged.
7) there is a conspiracy of silence about Ukrainian casualties
This is done for morale and it's a standard mode of operation in all large conflicts, nothing abnormal to see here and pretty much every expert on both sides knows and acknowledges it. I don't think this happens on an individual level (like, being secretive about deaths of conscripts, not recovering or destroying bodies which Russians tend to do etc.). Ukrainian towns and villages are full of large posters with photos and names of fallen heroes and cemeteries are full of Ukrainian flags put on their gravestones.
Side note, there may be problematic funding of all the open source intelligence arms, especially bellingcat, by US Governemtnt intelligence interests.
I have a bit of a problem with this because US/western sources are often the least bad available and there is history of specifically Bellingcat doing stellar work. Arguments like this are often done by people with a "west bad" grudge (and imo Chapo Trap House is firmly in that category) because they sound legitimate - we all know that US federal agencies are very far from being saints - but often aren't and without comparison to the alternatives the criticisms tend to be very manipulative.
Really appreciate the perspective.
From another outsider just trying to follow the news, my understanding is:
Bonus: LOL at the bellingcat rumours, those are totally unfounded and are just cope (mostly from people who don't like seeing the conclusions they reach)
I’ve heard similar things from someone who is always interested in nation-scale economics, albeit only mildly interested in the war itself. They were essentially suggesting that Russia is currently able to shield its population from the worst of the economic sanctions but doing so in a way that’s not viable long term. If the war continues for another two or three years, Russia might start to see runaway hyperinflation that would be pretty significantly damaging in the long term.
I suspect Americans tend to have a less intuitive understanding of this than people from a lot of other nations do. The US government invested heavily in manufacturing during World War II, and then the US went on to have the world's strongest economy, so there is this vague sense in the US that war spending boosts long-term prosperity.
However, the US's post-war economy was so strong because the European and Asian economies were so weak after the war. Some 60 million people died (only a tiny fraction of them American) and countless European and Asian factories, homes, transportation networks, etc., were reduced to rubble. There was an unprecedented demand for manufacturing during the rebuild process, and the US was one of the only countries in the world positioned to serve that demand.
I am no expert on macroeconomics, but I have a hard time imagining how Russia could maneuver itself into such an advantageous position after this war. I do think they are trying to damage the world economy (and the American economy in particular), and that may well help them out, but they have sacrificed an awful lot of working-age people in the meantime, especially in the form of emigration (i.e., brain drain), and their most robust industries have a lot of healthy competition around the world.
Evidently, it still is, with a CPI of 36/100 and placing 104th out of 180 countries.
Russia ranks 141 with a score of 26.
The US ranks 25 with 69.
Denmark scored the highest with a 90.
From a civilian between a quarter to halfway across the world, you don't know really. If you want to find information first hand, subscribe to Meltwater and watch the region for mentions and do your own OSINT analysis. That's far too involved for a casual musing though.
Some people make content for YouTube regarding their own OSINT analysis, like Perun AU, and since they've been posted to tildes before (and in some situations I can confirm accuracy) I would generally view them as true - with the caveat that it's all OSINT and made for entertainment consumption. Don't plan to join the fray without better Intel.
Bottom line, you can always find a source to confirm a narrative. Do 'civilians' want the war to end even if it means losing land? Sure. I'm sure we can find a few. I'm also sure I can find at least one that says don't stop until Moscow has Blue and Yellow over the Red Square. Have Russians adapted to Western weapons? Yeah, but they also adapted multiple times with 'defenses' that infer no defense and only after heavy losses.
Sadly, short of joining the war at a high level (on either side) we don't know the 'true' (from each perspective) information. Maybe 60,000 dead is fine from a Russian perspective. Maybe the West (EU/USA) doesn't care if they lose a few more kilos if they keep Russian personnel losses high.
Remember that Ukraine was first invaded in 2014. This war has been going on for a long time. Ukrainians are justifiably tired.
Iʼm Ukrainian, thus you may expect some biases. Just in case, I havenʼt read comments here [for now], and havnʼt listen the mentioned by you podcast.
Thesis: Ukrainians really want the war to end, even if the country loses some land.
If to be more correct, thereʼre two topics. Yes, Ukrainians wanted the war to end. You donʼt even need check social pools, just look at the chosen presidents after Janukovıč:
As you can see, nothing happened. Putin had cut dialog with Porošenko, and later with Zelensjkıj after France. And for you information, Porošenko and Zelensjkıj are not friendly in political tension here.
About lands. Today itʼs not matter as before, because many here understand that doesnʼt matter, Russian want not lands but destroy Ukraine (and not only).
Thesises: There’s tons of corruption in the military, as bad as leaders demanding payment from soldiers to avoid deployment to the front lines and There are fascist units in the military, and they shake down the civilians
Corruption is anywhere, war makes this things worse. But saying that Ukraine is the worst here — it was Russian propaganda. The same is with fascist units.
Because today we see, that in US and Europe thereʼre many fascist political parties in parlaments and some of them a pretty big and even donʼt hide this, while Ukraine has none, and at the last time (during Janukovıč) it was aroung 5 %.
Thesis: Zelensky was of a mind to deal with Russia until Biden asked him not to
About dealing I was already mentioned before. A part about Biden — never heard. After full-scale attack, a deal means nothing.
Thesis: Russias economy is very resilient and has adapted to sanctions
Itʼs more complex, because itʼs yes and not. But the main answer, that the tecnology isnʼt only in US, as it was during Cold War, but in China (thank to US too, which built factories there) and around too. Itʼs more like has adapted to not destroy their own economy totally, but itʼs still strugle by some mesuares. Thatʼs why Russian still asks to cancel sanctions.
Thesis: Russia has been very adept at neutralizing new western military tech
Not so much. Ukraine uses moslty not new Western military tech, and if itʼs new — in very small number — basically microdoses, giving tech to Ukraine just not to lose, but also not to win.
Thesis: there is a conspiracy of silence about Ukrainian casualties
Canʼt say anything here. Need more info. And I donʼt like discuss any conspiracy. About silent, itʼs more about not giving info to Russia and donʼt down morale. But some info about killed are given in periodic time, from Zelensjkıjʼs mouth included.
Thank you, really appreciate the sharing.
Yes, we do depend on reporting to know what’s going on in Ukraine. It’s good to remember that our knowledge is only as good as our sources. Some questions might not be answerable with public knowledge. In a war, people aren’t going to be transparent about their vulnerabilities.
I think podcasts are unlikely to be a good source of information when the people doing them aren’t reporters, don’t talk to reporters, and don’t have a way of linking to their sources. Other people’s opinions are a funhouse mirror and they’re useful mostly for whatever evidence they can provide backing them up.
I’m not really following the war right now, but when I do, the Institute for the Study of War is pretty good for daily news from a military perspective. They do link to their sources. Unfortunately, the sources are often not in English.
That’s another reason why understanding what’s going on can be difficult - we don’t have the language skills and rely on others to summarize.
Having more questions than answers is normal.
This is a related issue implied in my post. How does one vet/validate/verify sources? chapo trap house are primarily entertainers, but they do include guests who purport to have front line sources, as was the case with these guests, who claim to be traveling in the areas and speak the relevant languages and reporting based on primary sources. The post might as well be entitled, "does anyone have any clue about what is going on anywhere with anything?"
I’m biased towards print because people can link and quote their sources a lot more easily, and they can edit out mistakes. It’s also what academics use for their best work.
People do podcasts because they’re easy and people watch them, but even good writers will make mistakes when they’re talking off the top of their head in interviews. A podcast like Conversations With Tyler (which I don’t watch, but I sometimes read transcripts) can be useful for discovering good writers.
So if they have someone on who seems interesting, maybe look into what they’ve written?
This can be time-consuming, but I think that’s just how it goes - if you really want to know things, you need to do research. We mostly don’t do that; we rely on others.
I do remember there was a lot of controversy about the Azov battalion after 2014. It attracted a lot of very patriotic violence-loving people, and while those are very useful in a war, they tend to not be very good people. From what I understand, the Azov battalion is better regulated now.
I believe the corruption situation has also improved since then, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's still pretty bad.
I guess I'm willing to look through my fingers a bit on these things (and some losses of expensive equipment), as long as they're fighting so well against the greater evil of Russia.
My sources for keeping up with developments are mostly Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten and national broadcaster NRK. They're probably both guilty of some hopium and selective journalism, but I believe both to be overall reliable. Notably, they rarely write about Ukrainian losses. I also visit the megathread on Reddit almost every day, but most of what's posted there should be taken with a pinch of salt.
In order to be eligible for EU accession you must have certain anti-corruption laws in place and pass screening. Ukraine has been very willing and able to implement these laws to combat corruption. Almost all post Warsaw-pact countries except the Baltics have had serious corruption problems lasting to this day, however Ukraine is showing intent to improve on the situation. Because corruption is so pervasive I don't disagree with you and it's likely still bad, but we can also see there's a willingness. The perceived corruption index is showing no signs of improvement though.
Oh also to answer the real q
Right now my impression is that movement of the front lines has stalled for a while and it's just a meat-grinder, with worse absolute losses on the russian side but similar/worse per capita on ukrainian.
Sources I read are mostly the FT and the Economist because I find them in general to be reliable sources of analysis and get them for free through institutional subscriptions, though I think Reuters and BBC are both good as well
Reuters had a partnership with TASS and while they discontinued the partnership in 2022, Reuters can still be found to have a Russian slant. I would not consider them entirely unbiased regarding this war.
A caveat: I'm responding to soft claims with soft defenses/explanations. I'm not looking to debunk but to spur critical thinking about these points, and encourage you to investigate anything you have concerns with as this is a good general practice.
Listening to a podcast like Chapo Trap House, or any other internet-lefty resource is going to be a risk of accuracy. They aren't lying like the right-wing, but there's a tendency to let passion run the conversation which leads to exaggeration. While, generally, the left does not pull random shit out of their ass, there is also a tendency to repeat things based on ideology and "what should be," rather than what is actually happening. That said, if I were to come across a credible report of this, it wouldn't be too surprising. I'm not saying "bOtH sIdEs Do ThIs," far left and far right behaviors are significantly different, with the far right often just blatantly lying and being contradictory, rather than occasionally accidentally inaccurate.
Possible, but for a claim like this if you want answers, try to run down your own sources and vet the ever-loving hell out of them. Don't trust a podcast, they're just people talking about stuff, even if they're experts in their field if they aren't citing specific references you can check yourself. Chapo Trap House simply aren't experts in anything, they're a bunch of lefty bros who talk about lefty stuff.
Azov Batallion started as a neo Nazi paramilitary organization that got folded in the Ukrainian defense force. It is now just another subsection of the Ukranian military. As a contrast, many militaries also have issues with nationalists (the US has a documented issue with white nationalists in its military as well. Despite the "If one nazi sits at a table with nine people..." anecdote, in desperate times you can find strange bedfellows. Azov was absorbed in an effort to resist Russian occupation.
As far as shaking down civilians, I can't speak to that, but it's not an impossibility. As @V17 said, this is a post-soviet country and a major problem in the region is government corruption.
As far as 2022 The US has pushed Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, and Zelenskyy has refused to negotiate, given Russia's demands to maintain any held lands and for further compromise from Ukraine.
Demand/find sources for extraordinary claims if you have concerns. I've heard accounts of the economy taking massive blows, inflation spiking, but the economy not being in a shambles/recession/depression, but these do not constitute evidence either.
This has been changing after the initial influx of resources as Russia ramps up their offensive. A major advantage Ukraine has is its allies sending new materiel in, but Russia also seems to have a never-ending pool of bodies and equipment.
There is an immense propaganda campaign at work for both sides. We hear a lot about Russian and, lately, North Korean casualties, but suspiciously little about Ukranian casualties because the West's side, backing Ukraine, doesn't want to dwell on the negatives of the campaign. Ukraine doesn't want to blatently say "We've lost 500,000 people" (not a number claim) because unsolicited negative information invites scrutiny. This is pretty standard behavior.
Off topic/ meta comment. I know that there was a mega thread about Ukraine. The percentage of users subscribed to ~ society is really low. I wonder if it includes all the people who regularly discussed Ukraine
Probably not, I originally posted in ~news but it got relocated.