Belarus build up scare.
I’m not really sure what’s behind this but if we all will remember this is a repeat of same thing done in may and June.
Build up to nothing. Mobilize troops move them around, claim this, whisper that.
It’s curious, did nothing in early summer either.
Is it just the moving around of cardboard armies to show any activity. Or to show actual buildup.
Soon there will be breaking news that nuclear capable iskanders are possibly being considered for delivery to Belarus.
Oh and it appears the Super secret super superior Belgrod sub is back in port, for a while it seems.
Wasn’t it just a week and half ago it was going out to strike at the heart of the Atlantic hegemony.
Sometimes it hard to know if it’s nato or Russian sources stirring the pot to cause concern and fear.
We are now watching a slow costly slugfest across a mostly flat, wet, commercial agricultural topography.
It’s brutal and it’s for the distant observer boring. So there will be lots of sensational reporting about this or that to keep both sides involved and invested in a desired outcome.
Russias troops as they are compressed back towards Russia will become more concentrated along the front. Especially with the “300,000” recruits sent to the front.
Winter is coming and it will be miserable on both sides. Worse on Russias side because for most of them their heart just isn’t in it.
Don’t expect a quick resolution now.
There might have been one but that windows passed. Troops will wallow in the cold while politicians talk of talking.
This isn’t a critique of Ukrainian failure it’s just the nature of land warfare.
Ukraine still has the advantage because it’s sponsors are it seems fully vested in grinding the Russian military down to a nub.
What’s that I see Russias resorted to buying short range rocket systems from Iran. So much for the vaunted Russian military juggernaut.
This didn’t have to be about systemic Russian failures, but Russia has inadvertently made it about that very thing.
There is a hidden problem or risk to the west as well. Becoming short sided and reluctant to continue the support they’ve poured so much into. To continue it will be costly and difficult financially and economically. But to withdraw support will be equally disruptive in the end as well.
Don’t expect a quick neat end to this conventional regional war. Just more day to day grinding reports of towns recovered armor destroyed and war dead.
I don’t like it certainly didn’t want to see it happen but here it is and words are cheap when blood has been spilled and homes burnt.