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Ukraine Invasion Day 266: no WWIII yet, despite a fatal missile strike in Poland [1]

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Date: 2022-11-15

Despite another missile miss into an uninvolved country, there will be no WWIII yet. The strikes on energy infrastructure came with another Russian missile miss in Poland after last month's hit in Moldova. However if the involved nations cannot establish a demilitarized zone around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, there seems even less likelihood for one on the 2014 border including Crimea. Today’s strike on Poland could have been launched from Belarus as well as being a mistake that has precedents.

This incident may be an accidental strike. However, it is just as likely that Russia is signaling the West that the war can spillover to NATO, thus the US should limit military support to Ukraine & coerce Ukraine to negotiate. This incident is important from another perspective.

Here's an article about the missile attack that affected Moldova recently. It was a Russian missile, aimed at a dam on the Dneister River, that Ukraine shot down, and fragments fell on a village. Russia has done missile flights over Moldova for months. https://t.co/oWMbLryLva

Kyiv is in total blackout. More than 100 missiles were launched at Ukraine last night, which may be the largest number since Feb. 24, the day of the invasion. Timed with the G20, it seems.

“After defeats in military and international arenas, the enemy (Russia) is carrying out another attempt at terrorist revenge and is trying to inflict maximum damage on our energy system on the eve of winter,” Halushchenko said.

After some conversation with others (Including @blueboy1969 , who has zero ID rivals) I'm slightly more confident in my feeling this is the rear of a 5V55-series missile motor section. However, I'm not sure we can be conclusive that this was the *only* thing that came down. https://t.co/Y8omNGPkGO

x Ukrainian defenders forced the Russian fascist invaders to withdraw 10-15 kilometres back from the left bank of the Dnipro River. Ukrainian fire control is too dominant for the rashists to hold any positions. Settlements such as Oleshky and Nova Kakhovka are now "grey zone." pic.twitter.com/c1w8NW8eE6 — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) November 16, 2022

x Russian troops continue to set up defenses on the left bank of the Dnipro river, – Operational Command "South" reports.



👉 Follow @Flash_news_ua — FLASH (@Flash_news_ua) November 14, 2022

The tide of war has clearly turned. Putin’s dual decision to order a partial mobilization (inevitably crudely mismanaged) and the annexation of four Ukrainian regions (from which Russian forces are being expelled, village by village) cannot alter these dynamics. Every square mile liberated by inspired Ukrainian battalions signifies another breach of Russia’s muddled territorial integrity, compromised by the fact that it has incorporated territories outside its control. This means that the opportunities and risks inherent to a painful reckoning in Moscow with the reality of failure in its fateful “special operation” must be examined without delay.

Charting a course of a Russian defeat requires common-sense strategic forethought, rather than a long stretch of imagination. Yet, among the multiple drivers of this debacle, it is the kinetic interactions on several Ukrainian battlefields that have produced crucial impact. The spectacular breakthrough at Balakliya and the expulsion of Russian forces from the Kharkiv region came as a shock for Western believers in a stalemate and for the war-planners in Moscow, but didn’t surprise those strategic thinkers who were monitoring the diminishing capabilities and declining morale of Russian forces and predicted that a rout would come gradually, then suddenly. It was possible for the Russian authorities to explain away that disaster as a “regrouping,” even if “patriotic” bloggers cried havoc, and the next retreat from Lyman was presented as a “planned maneuver” (to an even louder outcry), but at least a feared encirclement was avoided.

The on-going battle for Kherson, however, may produce a strategic setback of far greater proportions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared the intention to liberate this city in July, and a sequence of Ukrainian attacks started in August, but only a few tactical successes were scored. Russian command opted to bring reinforcements to this vulnerable position to the west of Dnipro River — in retrospect, this decision may be recognized as a major strategic blunder, determined by Putin’s order to maintain control over symbolically important Kherson. Putting the newly-provided U.S. mobile rocket launchers M142 HIMARS to good use, Ukrainian forces repeatedly hit the three Dnipro bridges and effectively denied the delivery of supplies to the 25,000-strong Russian grouping. The degraded Russian troops retreated under the forceful new Ukrainian attacks in early October, and the newly-appointed “special operation” Russian commander General Sergey Surovikin spoke about “difficult decisions” when ordering the evacuation of the Russian-installed Kherson administration. Kherson’s defenses have been reinforced by the newly-mobilized Russian infantry, but their combat spirit remains as low as their supplies, so a tactical Ukrainian breakthrough could trigger a rout — and unlike in Izyum, the desperate Russian battalions have no avenue for escape.

The Kremlin will not be able to hide or to explain away this disaster, and neither can it respond — as it did after the explosion on the Kerch bridge — with a wave of missile strikes, simply because the stocks of Kalibr and Iskander are already low. Back in July, a withdrawal from Kherson could have been compensated for with a new offensive in Donbas. But in late October, this push — conducted primarily by “Wagner” mercenaries due to the exhaustion of regular battalion tactical groups (BTGs) — appears useless and senseless.[2] The partial mobilization decreed by Putin cannot produce effective reinforcements to stabilize defensive lines, nor can it deliver the modern military hardware for the newly-formed units. The mobilization has caused a profound shock for Russian society, amplified by the perception that every tactical setback now amounts to a loss of Russian territory, since Putin rushed the annexation not only of the Donetsk and Luhansk quasi-republics, but also of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

[...]

Sketching a roadmap for Russia’s gradual exit from the lost war is not an application of optimistic wishful thinking, but a task of practical significance. At every turn of this bumpy road, the West — inevitably more divided on the problem of dealing with Russia than on the job of rebuilding Ukraine — will have opportunities to prevent bad crashes and encourage further progress. The point of departure in this positive planning is Putin’s disappearance from the Kremlin. This is by no means a far-fetched idea. His decision to rush the annexation of Ukrainian territories and start a mobilization failed to change the course of the war or to increase its public support, but instead aggravated Russia’s economic and political crisis. It is futile to speculate about how a coup could happen and who would form Russia’s new collective leadership, but it is essential to prepare for such a culmination of the squabbles among the desperate and corrupt elites already in the near future. Deterrence might appear the most appropriate and indeed feasible strategy for dealing with a post-Putin Russia, which will remain a source of high risks and a generator of violent instabilities, but multi-layered meaningful engagement will be necessary. Only committed collective efforts may effectively prevent a geopolitical catastrophe, which cannot possibly answer the interests of any of Russia’s many neighbors and partners.

www.brookings.edu/...

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/15/2136319/-Ukraine-Invasion-Day-266-no-WWIII-yet-despite-a-fatal-missile-strike-in-Poland

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