What Do the Odessa Strikes Accomplish, Exactly?

It's just business, nothing personal!

The Russian MoD has been pounding Odessa for many days now. Also, for some reason, Odessa is now “Odesa” in Western media.

I’ve written about these language games before.

A little history for you: the city was founded by Empress Catherine II, and named in honor of Odysseus only in the feminine form because Catherine was a feminist because she was actually German.

But I digress.

The Guardian:

Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa has endured a second “hellish night” of attacks, with loud explosions audible throughout the city in the early hours of Wednesday and at least one missile landing within the city limits, as Russia targeted grain facilities and port infrastructure.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 63 missiles and drones at various targets across the country, of which 37 had been shot down, suggesting that more of Russia’s missiles got through air defences than has been the case in recent weeks.

Odesa bore the brunt of the onslaught; the attack on the city was “very powerful, truly massive”, Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said on his Telegram channel on Wednesday. “It was a hellish night,” he added.

On Wednesday morning, residents inspected a huge crater close to a dormitory building across the street from a grain facility not far from central Odesa. An investigator on the scene said it had most likely been caused by an Oniks, designed as an anti-ship cruise missile.

Before I wade into the controversy du jour, I’d like to point out that the last wave of strikes launched by Russia was an abject failure. Let us recall and recap what happened last time. Kiev destroyed the Crimea bridge and launched an offensive against Russia. The Kremlin responded by bombing transformers. Power outages were experienced over the course of some months, but, the system was restored soon after and Ukraine even retained the capacity to export electricity to Europe when the smoke had cleared.

But at the time, of course, these strikes were viewed quite favorably by the Z-side.

They said that:

• It would drastically curtail Ukraine’s military capabilities

• It would psychologically demoralize Ukrainians and destroy their will to fight on

• It was a sign that Russia was taking the gloves off, getting serious, not holding back anymore

• It might even force a surrender of Ukraine

• It as a prelude to a huge offensive campaign to take Donbass/Kiev

None of this came to pass, of course.

So, right off the top of our heads, we ought to ask ourselves, what makes these strikes any different? I am already hearing the same old sweet swine song being sung on social media. That this is proof that the Kremlin is really, actually, totally serious now. That this will somehow undermine Ukraine’s military capabilities. That it will force a surrender and that it’s Russia softening up the defenses before capturing the city.

The haunting and alluring swine song lures many naive sailors to their deaths every year around the shipwrecked shores of ‘Odesa’ (formerly Odessa).

But I am extremely skeptical of these claims and you should be too.

Remember: Putin confirmed that the last wave of strikes was a political, PR move to punish Kiev for crossing one of the Kremlin’s red lines and to justify doing nothing, again. Proof from Putin’s mouth:

So, why is this wave of strikes any different? Isn’t the burden of proof on the people claiming that it is?

Now, these strikes are different in some ways. The target is Odessa and the port infrastructure and there are a lot of cheap, replaceable lawnmower-engine Shaheed drones being used en masse in waves. This is a vast improvement already over over the previous wave of strikes that used up a lot of valuable missiles for simple shock and PR reasons as if Russia had millions of missiles to spare.

The drones are replaceable and cheap, and Ukrainian air defense has been drastically degraded since then. Ukraine has not been given enough Patriot systems and there is reason to believe that Patriot just isn’t all that good. Also, Russia is still misusing missiles intended for other purposes in these strikes like the Oniks, and I don’t know why they insist on continuing to do this. I wish our esteemed military “expert” blogger partners would explain that aspect of it, but alas. Can’t get any decent help these days.

Here is the key takeaway though.

The Odessa strikes almost certainly have something to do with the grain deal and Turkey. I’m working on a big Erdogan article, stay tuned, we will return to the topic in depth. But as it pertains to the strikes and the grain part, we know that a lot of grain silos are being targeted and hit.

That’s one way to exit the grain deal, I suppose.

In February of last year, Turkey agreed to prevent weapons from flowing in through the Dardanelles. They have the right to close the straits to warships according to some international treaty (Montreux Convention) but allow civilian traffic to continue. After that we had the grain deal. If you read the old grain deal on the UN page it is rather straightforward and only 1.5 pages long. It talks mostly about ships being inspected to make sure that illicit cargoes do not flow into Ukraine. It is hard to determine whether or not this part of the agreement was implemented 100% honestly by Russia’s esteemed Turkish partner. Some say that weapons were still being smuggled in from time to time with Turkish acquiescence and help. There was the case of a helicopter that was caught by the Russian inspection team that comes to mind. I certainly wouldn’t put it past Putin’s “dear friend” Erdogan to try something like that.

But either way, the quantities were probably inconsequential.

So, one reason for the bombing of the port infrastructure could be a preemptive move to make sure that Turkey can’t start sending weapons to Ukraine. That’s the slightly more intelligent ZAnon narrative as far as I can tell. So basically, the logical chain is 1) Russia gets mad at turkey 2) the grain deal is ended and inspections of cargo scrapped 3) Turkey decides to start sending weapons to Ukraine by sea 4) Russia destroys the port so that it is more difficult to unload the weapons.

We already have Russia’s diplomats warning that ships suspected of carrying arms will NOT be targeted.

Russia is not preparing to attack civilian ships in the Black Sea - Russian ambassador to the US Antonov, July 20, 2023.

But there are problems with this preemptive weapons-strike theory regardless.

First, it would make more sense to just blockade Ukraine by sea. But Russia doesn’t have a fleet, apparently, so this hasn’t been done. That is, Russia does have a fleet, but doesn’t want to use it blockade Ukraine for some reason. Just like Russia, in theory, has a larger military than Ukraine. But you wouldn’t know this judging by how they have fought the war so far. When I point out that Russia has a smaller, weaker military than Ukraine, I am always chided and reminded that Russia has a greater potential than Ukraine. Sure, I don’t argue that point.

My point is that whether Russia can but chooses not to use its naval and army might or can’t use it at all is a difference without a distinction as things stand now in both examples. So, can someone explain to me why Russia couldn’t just reimpose a naval blockade if Black Sea weapons shipments were causing them trouble? Does Russia have a navy or not? Is the Kremlin fighting this war seriously or not?

Also, lest we forget, the Kremlin gave up Snake Island, as part of a grand humanitarian gesture (they were promised that Russia’s oligarchs would be able to sell grain and other goods if they surrendered the Island and lifted the blockade actually) according to Putin and Konashenkov. But Snake Island would have helped immensely with the weapons flow issue if that was indeed the concern.

Finally, the only other problem with this preemptive weapons ban thesis is that Turkey already arms Ukraine via land and is building weapons factories within Ukraine as we speak.

The Turkish company Baykar has received licenses to produce Bayraktar and Akıncı combat drones in Ukraine, the newspaper Yeni Akit reported on June 22, citing the company’s CEO Haluk Bayraktar.

The production of drones is expected to start in 2025 and the total investment into the project is expected to amount to $95.5 million, the newspaper wrote.

Baykar founded Avia Ventures LLC in Ukraine in 2019 with the aim of opening two factories in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced in 2022 that, based on an agreement between Ankara and Kyiv, Baykar would open a factory in Ukraine to produce Bayraktar drones.

This should also include training facilities for pilots, Reznikov added.

The Bayraktar is a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned combat aerial vehicle. Turkey has been supplying Bayraktar drones to Ukraine over the past few years.

Nikola stated on the podcast that the only reason why they are building weapons factories to arm the UAF in Ukraine is because Putin gave a guarantee to Erdogan that they would not be bombed, just like all the key Ukrainian military infrastructure, communications infrastructure, transportation infrastructure and political infrastructure is also left intact by the Kremlin. That strikes me as true - why else would they invest money into something that can be bombed so easily if they didn’t have guarantees from Putin personally that they would be allowed to arm the Ukrainians in peace?

So, finally, we come to our conclusion.

I ask again: were the strikes really to stop potential Turkish weapons flows to Odessa? As a thesis, clearly, it just doesn’t make any sense. But did the swine stop to think before they scarfed down this new hope-filled narrative? Surely, this time around they took the time to ask some questions and be a bit more skeptical of ZAnon’s claims, right?

Wrong.

But it should make sense to us that recent events are somehow related to one another. Consider: Grain silos have been blown up, and the grain deal expired right before.

This is no doubt related somehow.

Here is what I say: Russia might be preparing to reenter into a grain deal, but on slightly better terms for the oligarchs who stand to profit from this arrangement. By reducing Ukraine’s export potential, the price of food is expected to spike, and this may tempt buyers to buy the Russian grain that they have hitherto refused to touch. So, the strikes on the port may be a simple business decision, an extremely understandable “2D checkers” move to make someone with power and position and business a lot of money.

That is, after all, how the Russian Not-State, or Russia LLC as I prefer to call it, operates in all other spheres. This is the Western Liberal model that was imposed in the 90s on a prostrate and betrayed Russia by people like Jeffrey Sachs, who now defends Putin publicly and, along with Kissinger, calls for deescalation and talks with the Kremlin.

Funny that.

I believe that the Odessa strikes really are a pure and simple calculated business move by Moscow’s oligarchs. Kiev’s bombing of the Crimea bridge simply gave them the pretext that they needed. Weapons have been flowing into Ukraine across the land border and Russia hasn’t lifted a finger to stop this, so that can’t be the real reason for the strikes on the port now. In fact, the reason why Russia refuses to bomb the transport infrastructure for supplies coming in by land is almost certainly the reason why they bombed Odessa’s ports: business interests dictating military strategy.

But the funny thing is that it might not work. The Kremlin might come out whining that they have been tricked again by the fall and learn the hard way that the West would rather let its peasants starve than buy Russian grain and fertilizer.

Viewed this way, the Odessa strikes are not a turning point or a change in Russia’s handling of the war, but really just more of the same. Those who thought that the Not-War had ended and Russia had gotten serious at long last need to provide better proof for their outlandish and conspiratorial claims. Until the Kremlin’s MO changes, I have no confidence whatsoever predicting any kind of escalation or hardening of positions vis-a-vis that Kremlin’s esteemed Western partners + Kiev. The Z-NPCs who are celebrating now, will have nothing to say and nothing to show for the strikes about a month from now.

Just like last time.

And just like the next time.

The peasants refuse to learn. How they beg to be exploited and slaughtered.

How they squeal with indignation at those that try to warn them!