There really is a great deal going in the world these days. And I don't mean the sort of deal that Trump talks about - they seldom seem to come to much from what I can see anyway. I simply mean that there is a lot of news of rather a lot of importance.
I have written before with some frustration about how people in Russia don't get to see or hear what is happening just a few hundred kilometres away across their border with Ukraine. Well, now I think it must be difficult for anyone in Russia to ignore what is happening in their own towns.
At least 78 regions have introduced rationing or limits on fuel sales, with some stations in heavily affected areas entirely suspending fuel sales to private customers. Crimea has been hit particularly hard, forcing local occupation authorities to declare a state of emergency, ban fuel sales to private individuals, and limit fuel access. This has been the direct result of Ukraine drone attacks on a range of targets associated with fuel refinery and distribution. There have been attacks across a vast area of the huge land mass that is Russia and these seem to have been very effective indeed. As well as long queues at petrol stations where fuel may be available, there have been many private videos posted of the large clouds of black smoke rising to the sky and, in some places, descriptions of the 'black rain' descending afterwards as the oil contained in the clouds returns to Earth. Whilst not everyone may have seen the explosions, I am sure almost everyone will know about the shortage of fuel and the impact that this has started to have on product deliveries to stores.
There is even an app that is proving popular, ostensibly indicating to motorists where there should be fuel available. However, a number of other 'users' have joined and used the reporting facility to advise others that there is fuel at stations where there is none! So the reliability of the data is decidedly questionable and it has been causing no small amount of confusion and anger amongst those trying to find fuel. As well as films of 3 kilometre queues in some places there are now videos of men fighting each other and a great deal of hoarding also seems to be going on by those fortunate enough to find supplies.
Crimea has been particularly affected and the longest queue there has actually been of cars carrying people desperate to get away from the region. Of course, many have not made it very far as their fuel runs out just idling. Some push their cars in an attempt to stay in line but it is highly probable that they will find no more fuel available even if they do get away.
The Kremlin-controlled media admits to there being a problem, and blames Ukraine 'terrorist' action but, four years and nearly 150 days after a 'special military operation' I suspect that even the dimmest of Russians will be wondering how it has come to this? The fact is that it must be dawning on the population in those areas most affected, if not at large, that their government isn't doing terribly well at running their country and appears to be having trouble resisting attacks now from the country they assumed would be brought back under the communist banner within a short period.
It is interesting to note that in retaliation, Russia lunched a massive attack on Kyiv on Wednesday night. Their missiles and drones demolished no factories or power stations, no weapons facilities or military sites. Just several multi-storey apartment blocks, a nursery and parts of two hospitals as well as a few hundred individual homes and shops. And a passenger train carriage. The death toll is around 30 as I write but there will be many more as rubble is carefully removed from the heaps into which blocks fell. Thousands will have suffered injuries and most will be the elderly and infirm unable to reach the safety of a basement in time. Ukraine's targets were precise and, according to independent sources, no personnel were killed, although there may be casualties from subsequent explosions.
The difference is that whoever fired the Russian missiles deliberately aimed them at domestic buildings, places where there would be civilians, not military personnel or some weapons factory. Their tactic of firing a second missile at the same place a little later in order to kill those responding to the first and attempting to rescue people will, I am sure, be a major factor in the prosecution of many Russian military personnel for war crimes in time to come.
I am not going to claim that Ukraine targets were totally clear of civilians but if there had been a significant number then we would certainly have heard about it and the important point is that Ukraine is trying to kill Russia's economy not its people.
What will Russian people do with this new knowledge? I fear they will not be able to do much at all, as any dissent is likely to be reported by someone and that never ends well for the person concerned. At some point, though, there will be much more dissent and that may be more difficult to quell. I am thinking about the impact of what is likely to be mobilisation by Russia in coming months, with all men and, who knows, women too, being required to serve and go to war or, as they will probably be informed, 'assist with the completion of the special military operation'. I doubt that anyone will tell the people being handed their new uniforms and boots that the life expectancy of a Russian trooper on the front line during an assault is 20-35 minutes. Or that around 1300 Russian soldiers are killed every day. The enhanced wages that they are given to go to the front will be taken by the many very corrupt local commanders in exchange for a promise that they can stay behind. Sometimes they are even fleeced of all their wages in some deal with a senior officer to keep them back but they still get sent or shot if they complain. Reports from the many prisoners who have been prepared to speak to reporters visiting jails in Ukraine make terrifying reading and the behaviour of so many middle-ranking commanders or officers is extraordinary and not just highly unprofessional but downright criminal.
One hardly need ask why there has been no advance in any area of Ukraine in the last year. And yet still Russians troops and Ukraine children die (or disappear from the occupied territories).
And the world looks on, wrings its hands, says how much they support a peaceful solution, an end to fighting or words of similar practically meaningless expression.
One wonders whether it may actually be Russian people who finally end this? Could there be such a horror at men and women being forced to fight, replacing the 1300 a day being lost and becoming some of those 1300 themselves sooner or later, could that fear outbid in their minds the fear of being carted off by police for resisting mobilisation? Might many make a run for it? Interestingly, many border crossing points are being closed around Russia and not just those with Finland or places like that but with other previous Soviet States. This has to be an indication that some new mobilisation, requiring people to join the battle, is on the cards.
To date losses appear to have been of troops garnered to a great extent from regions far away from Moscow and St Petersburg society, from villages to the east and prisons, of course, and those with debts where the offer to repay whatever they owe was attractive at first. Then there have been the many North Korean and a few thousand from Africa recruited who probably had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. These losses, whilst extraordinary in their vastness - I repeat, 1300 every day! - do seem not to have registered in any meaningful way with the general public there. They must be evident to many who have access to news from abroad and some journalists but I can imagine that it is so bad that they know the trouble they would be in for even whispering those numbers.
One has to ask, though, whether the mothers of intelligent and economically useful sons from Moscow, St Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, and many other modern centres where new recruits will have to be drawn from, taking young men away from their jobs in banks and commerce, offices and schools, will be as complacent as those who have lost a million, and counting, from other more rural or distant parts of Russian society? It seems to have been easy to ignore whatever unease may have been expressed in the distant regions. I suspect the new recruits' parents to be more vocal and better organised in their questions to authority.
With that in mind I have a feeling that the Kremlin will take some action to divert attention and perhaps help to justify the mobilisation planned. This could be an incursion of troops or a weapon landing in a NATO country - officially expressed by the Kremlin as an 'error', perhaps, or 'unauthorised movement' by some commander, or variations on such a theme - but serious enough to make the West feel they have to respond somehow. The Kremlin are basically, therefore, proposing to test just how organised, how determined, we are to defend an ally. Our likely response will, I fear, be to talk a lot and have several meetings but, in the end, let whoever or whatever crossed a border go back and hope out loud that it doesn't happen again, no doubt with an 'or else' added for good measure without any definition of what that 'else' might be.
There is a chance, though, that there is a more aggressive stance taken and a skirmish takes places and the Russian troops and machinery are captured and prevented from leaving. This may seem to be verging on an escalation of the Ukraine conflict into something more global as NATO v Russia but I suspect, again, that it will not proceed far and all will go quiet with troops and machinery begrudgingly returned.
More likely could be an attack on some military infrastructure in the West, or damage to internet connectivity or power supplies that cannot specifically be proven to have been under the orders of the Kremlin. Russia may claim it was a rogue element or, of course, the classic 'Ukrainian supporters trying to make it appear that Russia was responsible'. This sort of event is so difficult to deal with because it is so difficult to know who really was responsible and, therefore, how to respond. A response is needed, though, and that's what the Kremlin need to see so they can continue to plan the game and, like the best chess players, look ahead many stages.
We are in for some troubling times. Whilst Ukraine's exceptional success in what they describe as 'long range sanctions' against Russia deserves praise and it has certainly lifted the morale of the public and their troops, as well as tending to show that those countries backing Ukraine are backing a winner, Putin still makes all the decisions and, in his view, all Russia has to do is carry on bombing and destroying Ukraine and eventually there will be nothing left for even a successful army to fight for.
So those new recruits will be needed. I do worry that Belarus is somehow badgered into making an attack from the north and that Ukraine will find that their limited forces are terribly split. They may well decide that they have to give Belarus the same treatment as they've been giving Russia in order to attempt to discourage further development along those lines. That would almost certainly bring the Belarus public out on the streets as they are by no means supportive of Lukashenko and I wonder to what extent the Belarussian police will really wish to quell disturbance and discontent.
Indeed, it is the police in Russia too that I would, if I were working in any resistance movement, wish to infiltrate and try to turn. If one could diminish the threat that they pose to members of the public and we see a few people starting to get away with speaking out then more dissent would be encouraged for sure. That, in turn, could be a very good way to end this war, as there would be far too many problems then with society within its borders for the Kremlin to ignore and attention would have to be given to some solution that does not turn one Russian against another Russian.
That could, again, be where the Big Distraction comes in to play and Lithuania finds its border fences broken and a few hundred Russian troops marching across fields while drones take out local defences.
All in all, a few totally unpredictable months lie ahead. I predict a riot.
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