My Ukraine coverage today, five articles looking at various angles; 1- "There is no international mechanism or world leadership that can stop wars like this and it will be essential in the next days to see how the US, UK and others respond to this attack" jpost.com/international/…
What I don't understand about this war is that reading all the accounts of Russia trying to grab airfields, did they think they will just fly in all the forces deep inside Ukraine? Like they thought this is the invasion of Crete style?
From what I can tell, and I don't know really, there is no traditional frontline. There is fighting in different towns, there are armored columns that have tried to push through (like in Market Garden)...and there are a lot of attempts to grab airfields (many unsuccessful)
Everything seems fluid, moving quickly. Not a traditional war. What does this tell us? Lack of information, lack of major defensive planning by Ukraine, and Russia's assumption for a quick war, not a slugfest.
There has been some focus on the position that India and UAE took on Ukraine, basically arguing that they are partners of the West and shouldn't have prevaricated at the UNSC
But there are two issues to point out here. First is, what is Qatar doing? Qatar will be voting in the General Assembly right? Qatar was recently named a major non-NATO ally of the US; so is there focus on its position?
Question:
Months ago we were told that Russia was "rattled"...that Ukraine was "boosted" by Turkish drones it acquired. A "big role" in Ukraine's offense...so today where are the drones? Or is this a lesson that these kinds of UAVs alone are actually not gamechangers?
One of the narratives, falsely understood I think, from the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict was that the Ankara-made drones were a gamechanger, when in fact it was other loitering munition technology, primarily Israel's, that was important alongside it
Ankara has a very close relationship with some media and it feeds stories to the media to pump up the sales...there are uncritical reports...like questions of "how do the drones work in contested airspace"?
Pakistan has long been an ally of authoritarians...oddly the US once empowered it and relied on it in Afghanistan...kind of like the US then relied on Qatar and made it a major non-NATO ally; bad decisions...
Khan is in Moscow today, he thinks he knows where world is going.
Back in 2019 Khan was at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Bishkek, Pakistan premier stated the world is standing at a crossroads and the "advent of a multipolar global order" is being witnessed. He likes Russia-China's rise.
The tragedy of what is being done to Ukraine is that it is in a position where if it retaliated and strikes inside Russia it will be accused of “escalating” which is one of the weird aspects of war these days; countries are just supposed to be attacked and fight in borders
If Ukraine acquired defensive weapons it was also seen as “provoking” and if it wanted to join NATO this was portrayed as “provoking”…basically anything Ukraine did was painting it into an unfair corner
The unprovoked attack on Ukraine is unfolding openly and there are no consequences for the airstrikes on Ukraine forces. Total impunity.