News From Eastern Europe- Bosnia, Hungary, Russian Sanctions, Energy, Training Ukrainian Forces

There are so many important news items, some of them with very subtle nuances regarding events and possibilities, that can only be found by digging a little deeper. Most of these will not even merit a mention in what passes for news sources in the US. Here are a few points of note from the last few days.

• From the Balkan Insight website, Bosnia closer to joining EU. Another milestone is reached towards EU membership for BiH.
• Also from the Balkan Insight website, Hungary considers its suspension of funds by EU as positive. Bosnia moves closer, Hungary moves away.
• From the RFE website, “Hungary, Romania, Georgia, Azerbaijan Agree To Black Sea Electricity Project.” The article notes the move towards reducing independence on Russian energy for all countries, praised even by Orban, and mentions Georgia’s moving “closer to Europe.”
• Also from RFE, Russian victory centers on permanent occupation of Crimea. A follow-up on articles noted in my last post abut strategic goals in Ukraine and the retaking of Crimea, permanently.
• Last post of note from RFE, so many fires all around Russia… the call to those within the country to defeat the Putinist regime is not completely ignored.
• From OvertDefense.com- the US will expand training of Ukrainian troops, as many as 500 personnel per month, on advanced tactics and the use of M777 howitzers and M142 HIMARS.
• Posted on the Ukrinform website, Putin to pressure Lukashenko to join war. 
• From the Foreign Affairs website, if you have access, is an article by Wally Adeyemo, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. In “America’s New Sanctions Strategy,” Adeyemo reviews the implementation of sanctions against Russia, noting its three major foci: the Russian financial system, elites and oligarchs, and its military industrial complex. The article also stresses the importance of sanctions on today’s battlefield, in this time of the hybrid war. 
• ISW RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, December 16, 2022
• Finally, as of today according to the Telegram channel Ищи своих 97,690 Russians have died fighting Putin’s imperialist war in Ukraine. If they are trying to reach 100,000 by Christmas day, my guess is they will make it. 

Risks of Premature Ceasefire In Ukraine, Ukraine War Updates

As a follow-up to my recent post about avoiding a Bosnia-style outcome in Ukraine, I have found a related article of interest. Originally posted on the website Criticalthreats.org, the article The Long-Term Risks of a Premature Ceasefire in Ukraine by Fredrick W. Kagan outlines the most likely scenarios if anything other than a complete Ukrainian victory and expulsion of the invading Russian aggressors from Ukraine is not achieved. Simply put, if there is a compromise of any sort in Ukraine, European and world security will continue to be at a higher level of risk; after regrouping Russia will continue its aggression against Ukraine and then into other parts of eastern Europe; and western support of Ukraine is likely to wane once Russia goes on the offensive and begins to win ground through this “diplomacy”, further threatening Ukraine and the world.

Another source of interest is an article from The Washington Post from March, 2022. It discusses the size of Ukraine and its major population centers, and compares them in numbers and graphically to similar-sized US cities.

See today’s post on the Institute for the Study of War for an update on the Russian campaign of aggression against Ukraine. 

Radio Free Europe reports a drone strike at an airfield inside Russia. Part of that report states:

At least one large explosion occurred at a Russian military air base in the Saratov region, about 600 kilometers east of Ukraine, while another blast was reported by Russian state media at an airfield outside Ryazan, southeast of Moscow.

The December 6 incident, coming a day after Moscow accused Ukraine of carrying out deadly drone strikes on two other airfields, prompted the Kremlin to announce that Putin convened a meeting of his Security Council to discuss how to ensure the state’s “domestic security.” No other details were provided.

Part of the comments from today’s Institute for the Study of War update regarding those drone strikes follow:

Anger over the Russian military’s inability to prevent the Ukrainian strikes on Russian strategic airbases over 280 miles from Ukrainian positions outweighed praise for the latest round of strikes against Ukraine within the Russian milblogger community. Russian milbloggers criticized Russian officials for failing to anticipate and prevent the drone strikes at the Engels-2 and Dyagilevo Air Bases on December 5.[10] Select milbloggers noted that Russian military officials have not adequately protected the airbases, with some suggesting that Russian officials did not adequately defend the bases despite knowing that they were clear targets for Ukrainian strikes.[11] Several prominent Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups must have launched the strike against the Engels-2 air base from inside Russian territory, asserting either that Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are active inside Russia or – if the UAVs were launched from Ukrainian territory – that Moscow is under threat from Ukrainian territory.[12]

As of today, Russian dictator Putin is responsible for the death nearly 92,000 people. 

Russian combat dead as of 05 December, 2022

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