In Search of Redlines

Did Ukraine finally dig deep enough to find them with Russia?

Attack on SBU building in the center of Kiev

As of recent Ukrainian military and political leadership were showing some signs of frustration. No matter how hard they tried to humiliate Russia they couldn't reach the promised redlines that at the highest level were identified by a former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. But it looks like they have finally succeeded! After attack on Crimean bridge on October 8, Russia decided to retaliate and performed a massive rocket and drone attack on primarily infrastructure objects responsible for heat and electricity generation for the entire depth of Ukrainian territory - East to West, North to South. As a result of the attack electricity, water and heat supplies, internet are affected in many cities, including capital city of Kiev and the central city of Western Ukraine - Lviv. Attack was performed in two waves beginning last night. Along with infrastructure there are reports of attack on objects such as SBU office in Kiev (Ukrainian secret police) and at least one presidential office location in Kiev.

It is not clear if attacks will continue in the following days. President Zelensky and his immediate surrounding were reported to leave Kiev for Western Ukraine closer to Polish border. US DoS recommended to all American citizen visiting Ukraine privately to leave the country.

This type of attack that Russia was trying to avoid since the beginning of the SMO was provoked by a terror attack incident on Crimean bridge performed on October 8, allegedly by Ukrainian special operations units in collaboration with NATO allies, day after Putin celebrated his 70 year jubilee. Ukrainian politicians congratulated Putin on social networks by combining video of burning Crimea bridge and the famous performance by Marilyn Monroe of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President".

One has to note that Russian commander-in-chief, Putin, had little choice but to retaliate in some way, because internally in Russia situation was growing increasingly more restless because of consistent lack of response by him to the humiliating attacks by Ukrainian military that sank Russian Black Sea fleet flagship "Moskva", ongoing bombardment of the civilian areas and infrastructure of Donetsk aglomeration bringing casualties, including children, daily. And even recent post by one of regiment Azov commanders, Zhorin, where he shows dead people being showed into a ditch supposedly in a town of Kupiansk that was left by Russian army and is now controlled by Ukrainians. First post by Zhorin says "expect payback" but then he he realized he went too far and added two minutes later that video was taken off the phone of an occupier (e.g. Russian soldier). The only problem is that metadata associated with video says it was filmed on October 9 this year, three weeks after AFU took control of Kupiansk. People familiar with the situation say these are the bodies of teachers that went back in August to Russia to get trained on delivery of Russian curriculum in schools of Kharkov region. I won't be posting link to this video in this blog, you can find it on Telegram by searching for "Купянск".

Russian military expert, Igor Strelkov (Girkin), that used to be a Minister of Defense of DPR back in July and August of 2014, who is also a known critic of Putin and of Russian military establishment and how it conducts SMO, says that performed strike on infrastructure objects is going to be felt, but it is going to take time for the cumulative effect to build up during two week period. In the meantime Ukrainian forces are likely to unleash at least two offensives while they have necessary supplies and numbers advantage before Russian mobilized recruits come to front.

Belorussian president Lukashenko reported that Belarus and Russia are creating joint military taskforce on Belorussian territory that is going to be principally manned by Belorussian army. This is a response to Poland concentrating forces on its eastern border. Also, according to reports from the front in Ukraine, Polish troops in quantity of two brigades are already taking active part in combat on Ukrainian side. They are being billed as volunteers, and perhaps they are, but these are regular Polish military that were assigned a different status to go and fight in Ukraine. This, btw, is similar to what Russia did in 2014 involving its professional military in Ukrainian conflict as "vacationers". Those who decided to volunteer were given several weeks of "vacation" to go and fight on the side of self-proclaimed republics.

Also is important to note that army general Surovikin was given a command of all the fronts and Russian forces in Ukraine. He is characterized as a tough man (his last name, Surovikin, is derived from the word tough, surovy in Russian) that follows "take no prisoners" approach. Rumors are is that he was given a complete carte blanche to use whatever methods and weapons he has to, except for WMD, to make this military campaign a success. Today Putin also will conduct meeting of the security council. Judging by events of last night the tone for the meeting appears to be set.

Finally, if electricity grid infrastructure of Ukraine will indeed sustain a significant damage this is going to fall as a very badly timed burden for Europe that is struggling with own generation capacity and the prices per megawatt hour that are reaching 1000 euros in places like Germany.

All-in-all looks like Russia decided to change the course of this campaign. Will they succeed remains a big question as there are plenty of very influential forces there that would rather see Russia not succeed. This depends more than anything on political will by Putin and that is a quality that he was lacking more often than not. The biggest problem that Putin has in this situation is that he hates to act under pressure, but this delays the necessary decisions that do get made eventually but miss the opportune moment and steeply increase the price of inaction. His other problem - Putin hates firing people for failing to complete the given task or job. Just look at Dmitry Peskov, his spokesman. He definitely does more harm than good for a long time but especially since the start of SMO. If he can't manage to replace someone in a secondary technical position, how can we talk about him making bigger decisions about people like Shoygu or Gerasimov?

PS: Putin has come-up with a statement via video conference at the Security Council meeting he was conducting today:

- Russia will retaliate in the harshest of ways if Ukraine will continue with sabotage and terror activities on Russian territory

- Besides explosion on Crimean bridge and constant shelling of Zaporozhye nuclear plant he accused Ukraine of three terror attack attempts on Kursk nuclear station in Russia and of attempt to destroy Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline going through the bottom of Black Sea to Turkey and further to Europe.

- According to Putin targets of today's attack were energy infrastructure objects, military command centers and communication infrastructure.

PPS: Medvedev has come up with a statement of his own, saying that Ukraine in its current political form can't exist since it represents constant threat to Russian existential security.

PPPS: Gazprom's transit pipeline through Ukraine is intact and keeps pumping natural gas to Europe. There were no reports by Ukrainian authorities about not receiving payments from Gazprom as per contract. Ukrainians know there is at least one safe place in the country and this is Russian gas pipeline. In the worst case scenario one could always pitch a tent next to a pipe and feel secure!