(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ukraine: Which way does the wind blow? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-11-03 With the US presidential election finally here we should all be getting some clarity soon on which way the US will be going. I’m personally optimistic about Harris getting elected. Most fundamentals are in her favor, enthusiasm is in her favor, and just about everything is in her favor other than the polls. But the polls can be manipulated. So my prediction is for Harris to win the electoral college in the high 300s. She’s going to take the swing states and a few surprises such as Florida or Iowa. So we’ll see in a few days if Ukraine has that going for it. Some clarity for Ukraine’s future would be nice as things are very murky at the moment with many competing trends. Let’s start with the negative trends. Russians are moving towards Pokrovsk Russians have reached the Oskil near Senkove Russians have taken roughly a third of Ukrainian salient back in Kursk Glide-bombs continue in large numbers Ukrainian air defense is not strong enough yet Ukrainian electrical grid is in poor shape Reports of ammo shortages Reports of delays in aid deliveries Probably a few more I’m missing Hopefully I’m right and in a few days I won’t have to add Trump to that list. And yet, not all is to be despaired. First, the Ukrainian economy is on far firmer footing than the Russian economy. The Europeans, along with the US, and even the Russians through interest off of frozen Russian assets have been keeping the Ukrainian economy going. It would be in bad shape without all this help and while there are challenges ahead, I’m optimistic the Europeans will keep Ukraine’s economy going. Meanwhile Russia has 21% short term interest rates as they try to fight inflation. They have a manpower shortage which is driving inflation and they’ve run out of their warchest and are starting to borrow money. We don’t know when the shit hits the fan, but I’d rather have Ukraine’s economic situation than Russia’s. On the fighting front, while Ukraine is falling back, that’s not entirely bad news. Even with recent increased rates of Russian progress, the Russians are still not making amazing gains. Further, falling back to preserve troops is better than holding strong for too long. Ukraine has gotten significant criticism in the past for holding on too long to various cities. Now that Ukraine is falling back, the same people seem to criticize it for not holding on too long. I’d certainly rather Ukraine be able to comfortably hold the lines without needing extreme measures. But their current status, while not cause for cheer, is also not the worse case scenario. As always, it seems that the perpetual big question is what does Ukraine have in reserve? If it has nothing in reserve with no hope for stabilizing, that’s obviously not good. But Ukraine has at other times gone lean on the defense in order to build up an attacking force. We were hearing about ammo shortages at the same time that Ukraine was building up a stockpile for the offense. This is a standard military practice. Now whether or not it is happening again is the big question. I can only hope that it is. If Ukraine is doing so it is important to do so in secret. But we just don’t know. As far as mistakes that Ukraine has made in the past. I’m not worried about them. Every country makes mistakes in war. And due to the nature of war, mistakes can be rather colossal ones causing thousands of deaths. I’d obviously rather not have these, but I’d also rather not have had the Russians attack in the first place. Ukraine has tried a variety of tactics to mixed success. But if you look at every single country’s performance in World War 2 you will find brilliance and blunders on all sides. Ukraine has tried some things with moderate to poor success that we’d all rather have seen them do better (or not attempt in the first place) but countries at War HAVE to try. One of the things going well right now for Ukraine is a continued high Russian casualty rate. Pretty much the highest rates of the war. 1370 casualties per day is the rate which results in a half million casualties per year if sustained there. Russian has been well over that number for a while now. We know it’s not sustainable for Russia as their economy is struggling to find workers. The North Koreans joining the fight points to this problem for Russia. I am a little worried about North Korean participation. People talk about the 10,000 North Koreans like more can’t be sent. I think we are simply seeing the start. I don’t really know what casualty rate North Korea can manage. But I do know the South Koreans are highly interested in the balance of power here. While they are cautious about provoking the Russians and North Koreans, they also can’t let them increase in power. I don’t know how South Korea will go about it, but I do expect some response from them which should directly or indirectly assist Ukraine. But coming back to the relatively high recent Russian casualty rates, we’ve seen this phenomenon before. In the lead up to the 2022 elections Russia held on to the right bank of the Kherson region far longer than was militarily wise in order to keep a certain narrative going while the US mid-terms were being held. As soon as the midterms were done, Russia withdrew from the right bank. I expect to see a similar phenomenon with this election. The Russians are pushing past even their own high casualty tolerance as a last ditch attempt to maintain a perception of dominance in Ukraine. After the election I expect a significant decrease in tempo on the Russian side. A Trump loss may even give Putin pause. Russian economists have been publicly speaking about the poor state of the Russian economy so he knows things are going well. If he doesn’t have the Trump administration to look forward to I expect him to push hard for a freezing of the conflict in order to give Russia time to work out its economic problems. While I wish he would just give up I don’t imagine he would unless the western allies suddenly put up an immense new aid package meant to scare Putin into pulling back. Essentially what the US attempted with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Putin is running low on chips, instead of letting him get more the West should push so much into the pot that Putin can’t afford to keep up. We’ve helped Ukraine to relative parity. The war could go any which way from here. Ukraine might still win even with the current aid levels. But the smart bet is upping the aid levels to the point where Ukraine can simply push Russia out, and Russia knowing this might be convinced to leave. But either way they should be gone. Unfortunately I don’t see the west actually following this path. I see no indication of any of the major NATO powers being willing or able to significantly increase aid to Ukraine. Perhaps if Harris does win in a landslide we will see the Democrats control both sides of Congress as well. Then we’ll truly see where Harris stands on Ukraine. She has been relatively quiet so far. She’s given no indication she would approach the matter any differently that Biden. But there is always hope she might. She has met Zelenskyy herself on multiple occasions and hopefully her silence is mainly to not undermine Biden while he is still in office. So which way does the wind blow? Things are a mess right now. I’m hoping to see something really amazing happen this Tuesday for the US. And I hope that amazing is catchy and Ukraine gets a good dose of it to follow. Slave Ukraini! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/3/2282043/-Ukraine-Which-way-does-the-wind-blow?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/