Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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The CIA Thought Putin Would Quickly Conquer Ukraine. Why Did They Get It So Wrong?
Short answer: High-tech surveillance blinded the U.S. to how corruption has weakened the Russian military.
The Central Intelligence Agency was so pessimistic about Ukraine’s chances that officials told President Joe Biden and other policymakers that the best they could expect was that the remnants of Ukraine’s defeated forces would mount an insurgency, a guerrilla war against the Russian occupiers.
U.S. intelligence reports at the time predicted that Kyiv would fall quickly, perhaps in a week or two at the most.
The U.S. intelligence community’s stunning failure at the beginning of the war to recognize the fundamental weaknesses in the Russian system mirrors its blindness to the military and economic weaknesses of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when Washington failed to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
U.S. intelligence did not recognize the significance of rampant corruption and incompetence in the Putin regime, particularly in both the Russian army and Moscow’s defense industries, the current and former intelligence officials said. U.S. intelligence missed the impact of corrupt insider dealing and deceit among Putin loyalists in Moscow’s defense establishment, which has left the Russian army a brittle and hollow shell.
“There was no reporting on the corruption in the Russian system,” said the former senior intelligence official. “They missed it, and ignored any evidence of it.”
Following a string of Russian defeats, even prominent Russian analysts have begun to openly blame the corruption and deceit that plagues the Russian system. On Russian television last weekend, Andrey Gurulyov, the former deputy commander of Russia’s southern military district and now a member of the Russian Duma, blamed his country’s losses on a system of lies, “top to bottom.”
Additionally, Putin imposed an invasion plan on the Russian military that was impossible to achieve, one current U.S. official argued. “You can’t really separate out the issue of Russian military competency from the fact that they were shackled to an impossible plan, which led to poor military preparation,” the official said.
The inability of the U.S. intelligence community to recognize the significance of Russian corruption appears to be the result of an over-reliance on technical intelligence. Before the war, high-tech satellites and surveillance systems allowed the U.S. to track the deployment of Russian troops, tanks, and planes, and to eavesdrop on Russian military officials, enabling U.S. intelligence to accurately predict the timing of the invasion. But it would have needed more human spies inside Russia to see that the Russian army and defense industries were deeply corrupt.
Since the war began, a long list of weaknesses in the Russian military and its defense industries have been exposed, symbolized by the so-called jack-in-the-box flaw in Russian tanks. Ukrainian forces quickly learned that one well-placed shot could blow off a Russian tank turret, sending it sky high and killing the entire crew. It became clear that Russian tanks had been designed and built cheaply — with ammunition stored openly in a ring inside the turret that can explode when the turret is hit — and that crew safety had not been prioritized. In July, Adm. Tony Radakin, Britain’s military chief, said that Russia had lost almost 1,700 tanks in Ukraine.
One of the biggest mysteries for U.S. analysts has been Russia’s failure to gain control of Ukraine’s skies, despite having a far larger air force. Aircraft design flaws, poor pilot training, and gaps in aircraft maintenance have left Russian aircraft vulnerable to Ukraine’s air defenses, which have been bolstered with Stinger missiles and other Western air defense systems.
The failure of U.S. intelligence to see the dysfunction in the Russian army and defense industries means that it also didn’t foresee Russia’s ongoing battlefield defeats, which are
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https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war
How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end?
Timothy Snyder
18-23 minutes
At first, no one could imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian war could begin. And yet it began. And now, no one can imagine how it will end. And yet end it will.
War is ultimately about politics. That Ukraine is winning on the battlefield matters because Ukraine is exerting pressure on Russian politics. Tyrants such as Putin exert a certain fascination, because they give the impression that they can do what they like. This is not true, of course; and their regimes are deceptively brittle. The war ends when Ukrainian military victories alter Russian political realities, a process which I believe has begun.
The Ukrainians, let's face it, have turned out to be stunningly good warriors. They have carried out a series of defensive and now offensive operations that one would like to call "textbook," but the truth is that those textbooks have not yet been written; and when they are written, the Ukrainian campaign will provide the examples. The have done so with admirable calm and sang-froid, even as their enemy perpetrates horrible crimes and openly campaigns for their destruction as a nation.
Right now, though, we have a certain difficulty seeing how Ukraine gets to victory, even as the Ukrainians advance. This is because many of our imaginations are trapped by a single and rather unlikely variant of how the war ends: with a nuclear detonation. I think we are drawn to this scenario, in part, because we seem to lack other variants, and it feels like an ending.
Using the mushroom cloud for narrative closure, though, generates anxiety and hinders clear thinking. Focusing on that scenario rather than on the more probable ones prevents us from seeing what is actually happening, and from preparing for the more likely possible futures. Indeed, we should never lose sight of how much a Ukrainian victory will improve the world we live in.
But how do we get there? The war could end in a number of ways. Here I would like to suggest just one plausible scenario that could emerge in the next few weeks and months. Of course there are others. It is important, though, to start directing our thoughts towards some of the more probable variants. The scenario that I will propose here is that a Russian conventional defeat in Ukraine is merging imperceptibly into a Russian power struggle, which in turn will require a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine. This is, historically speaking, a very familiar chain of events.
Before I lay this out, we will first have to clear away the nuclear static. Speaking of nuclear war in a broad, general way, we imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian War is all about us. We feel like the victims. We talk about our fears and anxieties. We write click-bait headlines about the end of the world. But this war is almost certainly not going to end with an exchange of nuclear weapons. States with nuclear weapons have been fighting and losing wars since 1945, without using them. Nuclear powers lose humiliating wars in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan and do not use nuclear weapons.
To be sure, there is a certain temptation to concede mentally to nuclear blackmail. Once the subject of nuclear war is raised, it seems overwhelmingly important, and we become depressed and obsessed. That is just where Putin is trying to lead us with his vague allusions to nuclear weapons. Once we take his cue, we imagine threats that Russia is not actually making. We start talking about a Ukrainian surrender, just to relieve the psychological pressure we feel.
This, though, is doing Putin's work for him, bailing him out of a disaster of his own creation. He is losing the conventional war that he started. His hope is that references to nuclear weapons will deter the democracies from delivering weapons to Ukraine, and buy him enough time to get Russian reserves to the battlefield to slow the Ukrainian offensive. He's probably wrong that this w
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Putin has repeatedly signaled that he could resort to nuclear weapons to protect the Russian gains in Ukraine — a harrowing threat that shatters the claims of stability he has repeated throughout his 22-year rule.
“This is really a hard moment for him, but he can’t accuse anyone else. He did it himself,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “And he is going straight ahead to big, big problems.”
By unleashing the disastrous war in Ukraine, Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, Putin has broken an unwritten social contract in which Russians tacitly agreed to forgo post-Soviet political freedoms in exchange for relative prosperity and internal stability.
Mikhail Zygar, a journalist who has had extensive contacts among the Kremlin elite and published a bestselling book about Putin and his entourage, noted that the invasion came as a complete surprise, not only for the public but for Putin’s closest associates.
“All of them are in shock,” Zygar said. “None of them wanted to see the developments unfold in such a way just because they are going to lose everything. Now they are all stained by blood, and they all understand they have nowhere to run.”
Stanislav Belkovsky, a longtime political consultant with extensive contacts among the ruling class, described the invasion as a mechanism of “self-destruction for Putin, his regime and the Russian Federation.”
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/07/putins-path-pledges-of-
stability-nuclear-threats.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Nah.
Election day is a month away. This will all cool off then.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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If we're going to see a nuke it going to be now. Happy Birthday Putin...
T
"This bridge was a pillar to Vladimir Putin's regime. Annexing Crimea was something his regime was built on in the last eight years."
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When the US actually did move ‘heaven and earth’
Brian Finch, opinion contributor
6-7 minutes
Forty-nine years ago this month, Israel’s survival was in serious doubt. A coalition of Arab nations, led by Egypt and Syria, had surprised the Israeli military with a coordinated, all-out assault on the Jewish nation as it observed the holiest day of its year, Yom Kippur. Armed with the latest in Soviet weaponry, Arab forces quickly destroyed Israeli warplanes and tanks in numbers so shockingly large that a complete conquest of Israel — previously unthinkable — suddenly seemed all too possible.
In desperate need of rearmament, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir sent multiple appeals to the United States for military aid. Some of President Richard Nixon’s military advisors counseled against such a move, as they feared it would rapidly spiral into open warfare between America and the Soviet Union.
Nixon, after huddling with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, ordered a decisive response that few if any expected: a full-on emergency mobilization of the American military to immediately bring the Israeli military back to its pre-invasion strength.
Launched just six days after the first Egyptian and Syrian attacks, “Operation Nickel Grass” constituted a resupply campaign that surpassed anything ever seen before — or since — in American history. U.S. military transports filled to the brim with weapons and supplies immediately took off for Israeli airbases, shadowed by American fighters with orders to shoot down any plane that appeared even remotely hostile.
Quickly restocked with fresh American equipment, Israeli forces rapidly regained control of the battlefield and, by the time a cease fire took hold four weeks later, once again had little to fear from its enemies.
The success of Nickel Grass, driven in no small part by Nixon’s order to use “everything that can fly” to resupply Israel, is more than an interesting historical anecdote: It makes one wonder why the Biden administration’s pledge to move “heaven and earth” for Ukraine’s military hasn’t been fulfilled with similar urgency.
Since the moment Russian forces crossed into his territory last winter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — much like Golda Meir — has repeatedly beseeched America and its allies to replenish his rapidly attritted weapons stockpiles. Zelensky’s pleas have become increasingly urgent even as Ukrainian troops retake swaths of captured territory, thanks to fears that Russia’s newly announced mobilization of 300,000 plus troops will allow it to regain the battlefield initiative.
The Biden administration can of course rightly point out that it has committed over $17 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and that U.S.-supplied weapons like the highly touted “HIMARS” rocket artillery systems have played a vital role in some of Kyiv’s recent military victories.
Still, when compared to the pace and scale of Operation Nickel Grass, the Pentagon’s efforts to resupply Ukraine seem far more half-hearted.
Consider the kinds of weapons delivered through Nickel Grass. The Nixon administration immediately transferred its most advanced fighter jets to Israel’s inventory. Some, previously earmarked for the U.S. Air Force, were instead flown straight from the Boeing factory in St. Louis to Israeli airbases. Others were flown from Air Force squadrons in America and Europe to Israel. In more than a few cases, American pilots landed their jets at Israeli airbases and watched an hour or two later as Israeli pilots took off in them for combat missions, some with still hastily painted Star of David emblems still drying over the U.S. Stars and Stripes.
Hundreds of America’s latest battle tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces, along with tens of thousands of tons of critical ammunition also went straight to frontline Israeli troops. Those transfers played a key role in turning the tide of the war: One U.S. intelligence study concluded that the majority of the nearly 2,000 Arab tanks lost in the Yom Kippur War were destr
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Russia appoints notorious general to lead Ukraine offensive
Russia has appointed a notorious general who opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the 1990s as its first overall commander for the war in Ukraine, as the Kremlin struggles to halt a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has left its forces in disarray.
The appointment of Gen Sergei Surovikin came on the same day as Vladimir Putin was dealt a humiliating blow after an explosion on the Kerch bridge sank a section of the motorway into the Kerch Strait and caused a major fire on the railway.
Surovikin is a veteran commander who led the Russian military expedition in Syria in 2017, where he was accused of using “controversial” tactics including indiscriminate bombing against anti-government fighters.
His appointment is the first of an overall battlefield commander for Russian troops in Ukraine. It may indicate that Moscow now understands that its military is in danger of collapse in Ukraine, with Kyiv’s forces advancing in all four of the regions that Putin claims to have “annexed”.
A former head of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Surovikin was installed in the summer as head of the southern military grouping, replacing Gen Alexander Dvornikov, who lasted just months in the position.
He is seen as having improved the effectiveness of Russian forces fighting in east Ukraine, where poor communication and cooperation has plagued the Russian invasion force.
Yet Surovikin also has a checkered history that includes two stints in jail for allegedly selling weapons and for leading a military column against protesters during the 1991 coup. He has also previously served in Tajikistan and Chechnya.
“For over 30 years, Surovikin’s career has been dogged with allegations of corruption and brutality,” wrote British intelligence officials in a recent report on Surovikin’s likely promotion to lead the southern military group.
During the 1991 coup d’état attempt launched by Soviet hardliners, Surovikin, then a captain, led a rifle division that drove through barricades erected by pro-democracy protesters. Three men were killed in the clash, including one who was crushed.
“It is highly symbolic that Sergei Surovikin, the only officer who ordered to shoot on revolutionaries in August 1991 and actually killed three people, is now in charge of this last-ditch effort to restore Soviet Union,” wrote Grigory Yudin, a Russian political scientist and sociologist. “These people knew what they were doing, and they know now.”
With the appointment, the Kremlin may also be seeking to combat criticism from nationalists who have accused the army of mismanaging the war in Ukraine and of failing to use harsh tactics to try to force the Kyiv government to submit.
Among Russians who welcomed the appointment of Surovikin was Yevgeny Prigozhin, the notorious founder of the Wagner private military company and a vocal critic of the military leadership.
“Surovikin is the most able commander in the Russian army,” Prigozhin said, according to a statement put out by Concord, a company he is associated with. He is a “legendary figure, he was born to serve his motherland faithfully.”
“Having received an order [in 1991], Surovikin was that officer who without hesitation got in his tank and went forward to save his country.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/08/russia-appoints-notoriou
s-general-sergei-surovikin-ukraine
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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A pipeline with valves that Russia can open and close, and pumps that Russia can turn on and off, gives Russia leverage. A pipeline that is mostly kaput and that would take months to repair removes that leverage.
OTOH the USA benefits from detroying the pipeline by removing for the forseeable future negotiation between Russia and Germany.
SECOND literally can't see what's in front of his face.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:If you sell LNG to the EU, the price the EU will pay has risen by 1,000% as the EU gets panicky. The cost for sellers of LNG has increased by 0%. I detect inflated profits for LNG sellers! The most motivated people in the world to destroy those pipelines would be sellers of LNG. The next most motivated are people who have still operating pipelines running into the EU, e.g. Russia. With natural gas sales, Putin is extorting the EU.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A pipeline with valves that Russia can open and close, and pumps that Russia can turn on and off, gives Russia leverage. A pipeline that is mostly kaput and that would take months to repair removes that leverage.
OTOH the USA benefits from detroying the pipeline by removing for the forseeable future negotiation between Russia and Germany.
SECOND literally can't see what's in front of his face.
October 9, 2022 • 5:59pm ET
Ukraine and Moldova move to disarm Vladimir Putin’s energy weapon
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-and-moldova
-move-to-disarm-vladimir-putins-energy-weapon/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The big sellers of LNG to the EU would be USA-based. There is also a geopolitical angle that you havent taken into account. USA is still implicated.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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