Ukrainians watched with glee as Russia flirted with civil war on June 24th. They had hoped that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow would tie up Russian troops and destabilise Vladimir Putin’s regime. Alas, the insurrection proved short-lived. In recent days, Ukraine’s army has made modest advances in the east. But a counter-offensive that began on June 4th shows little sign of breaking through Russian lines in force any time soon, making some Western officials nervous.
Still, Ukraine has made some hay with the disarray next door. Its army made significant progress in the eastern town of Bakhmut, which Mr Prigozhin’s forces had captured only last month after almost a year of fighting. Ukrainian forces now threaten to encircle Russian defenders from the north and south. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, hailed a “happy day” after visiting front lines on June 26th. Russia responded with a dinnertime missile strike on a popular restaurant in Kramatorsk on June 27th, 30km from the front line. It killed at least eight people, including three children.
The composed Headline, that reads in part ‘Party like it’s 1917’ the maladroit framing, expresses a dull-witted attempt to shanghai Prince’s 1999 best selling Pop Record? call it at best pathetic. Or an attempt to reach a generation of readers, that used to think that The Economist was the reading of choice of Economics Majors? Or for those Oxbridgers or the Pretenders who were aiming for lucrative employment opportunities? The reader has 1, 052 words of propaganda to ingest, digest or just regurgitate, to demonstrate a pastiche of highfalutin Econo-Speak?
Selective quotation of the remainder of the essay reads like more Front Line descriptions, from those ever-present ‘stringers’ who provide the near graphic costs of War?
The aim of the offensive towards Bakhmut appears less to enter the city than to surround it.
The front-lines shifted elsewhere, too. Ukraine’s capture of territory in the western suburbs of Donetsk city was especially important: troops crossed into territory which Russia had held since 2015, during its first invasion of Ukraine.
Some officials suggest that Ukraine may be able to conduct a more significant crossing of the rapidly desiccating Kakhovka reservoir in the weeks to come.
The question is whether the convulsions in Russia will have longer-lasting effects on the battlefield. One issue is the future of the Wagner Group.
Some fighters have indeed gone back to Ukraine, where Mr Putin says they will be absorbed into the Russian forces. Others, including the 2,500 to 5,000 troops who played a role in the mutiny, may join Mr Prigozhin in Belarus.
The second issue is the impact on morale. A spokesperson for the 56th Motorised Brigade, now fighting on the outskirts of the city, says her colleagues had observed new levels of “confusion” among their Russian counterparts since June 23rd. Their befuddlement is understandable.
In angry remarks on June 24th Mr Putin himself drew an indelicate comparison to 1917, a year in which revolution at home contributed to the mutiny of Russian armies in France. Anthony King, a military sociologist at Warwick University, warns against over-egging the effect of Mr Prigozhin’s subversive messaging.
Mr King says he is sceptical that “political shenanigans” will have much of an effect on platoons and companies at the tactical level.
The impact on Russia’s high command, the third question raised by the insurrection, could be more severe.
Sources : The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Both reports cited American intelligence, Mr. King.
On June 28th the New York Times reported that General Sergei Surovikin, the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine between October and January, had prior knowledge of the rebellion. The same day, the Wall Street Journal said that Mr Prigozhin had intended to kidnap Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, and General Valery Gerasimov, the country’s chief of general staff, during their visit to a region near Ukraine’s border. Both reports cited American intelligence. “Fractures at that command level could have a longer-term effect on the unity of the campaign,” says Mr King.
Sources:
“It is still too early to tell how successful the ongoing counteroffensive will be,” acknowledged General Sir Patrick Sanders, Britain’s army chief, on June 26th, adding “Russia has been a country of comebacks.”
Sources:
A Ukrainian military-intelligence source complains that the country is moving as fast as it can, given the tools at its disposal. “Let me put this as diplomatically as I can,” he says. “Certain partners are telling us to go forward and fight violently, but they also take their time delivering the hardware and weapons we need.”
Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer.
'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary
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