When the invasion started, I was assuming that Russia would most likely defeat Ukraine’s military relatively easily, but that trouble would start after that if Putin intended to annex most of it. As it turned out, the Russians couldn’t even do what I thought would be the easy part and they had to retreat from Kiev after a month, but this was just the beginning of their troubles and since then they have suffered several more setbacks. This isn’t what I thought would happen, even after Russia’s initial failure in front of Kiev, but it’s what happened and it’s just silly to deny it or to pretend that things are not what they seem. Yet that is exactly what many people in the West, among those who support Russia against Ukraine, have been doing for months. They have been coming up with increasingly contorted theories to the effect that Russia wasn’t actually losing, but that everything was going according to plan, when it’s pretty clear that nothing is and frankly it’s not even clear there is a plan. Nevertheless, I think that people on the other side, who are in favor of supporting Ukraine for as long as it’s willing to fight and no matter the cost (as long as it doesn’t require that NATO enter the war directly), are probably overoptimistic.
Dec 27, 2022·edited Dec 27, 2022Liked by Philippe Lemoine
"Indeed, the US is currently producing only 14,000 155mm shells a month, which is barely 1/10th of Ukraine’s consumption if we assume that it fires 4,000 rounds/month" => should be 4000 rounds/day?
"A Russian opposition website estimated that before the war Russia was producing about one billion shells" => one billion per year? Or one billion total as of today?
Though I agree (mostly) with your observations, there are couple of points I am less sure.
I.
You write: «While the US is relatively insulated from the economic consequences of the war, this is not true of Europe, which used to import a lot of its energy from Russia. Except for Hungary, Central and Eastern European countries have been enthusiastically supporting Ukraine because they still perceive Russia as a security threat, but with the exception of the UK the same thing can’t be said about Western European countries, which have been dragging their feet and arguably had to be bullied into supporting Ukraine as much as they currently do."
«... but I doubt they will continue to provide the same level of support for several years and »
1) Though it is true that Eastern-Europe is more enthusiastic, there are several western countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, etc.) who have been also quite enthusiastic. Germany and France are (were) hesitant, but were they bullied?
2) The economic consequences of the war come mostly from sanctions against Russia and giving up Russian oil and gas. Aid, especially military aid from Europe have not been that large - it can go on almost indefinitely.
3) Cutting economic ties and giving up Russian oil and gas is not easy. But countries adapt. The longer the war continues, more they adapt. For instance EU countries have already built in record speed (and continue to build) new LNG terminals, they have already found new suppliers, new markets etc. Lot of sunk costs already.
4) It poses a question - even if war ends, why should we go back to Russian oil and gas? If we have already invested so much to alternative solutions, why should we go back? From reading western European media, I do get an impression that there is growing acceptance: Russian gas and oil will not come back. And even if it comes back, still, why should we go back.
5) When war started, there was an idea that Europe should cut is gas consumption. In summer it was officialy adopted: between 1 August to 31 March 2023 there should be a voluntary(!) reduction in gas use to 15%. It was deemed impossible task (thats why volutary), but today it is clear that 15% target wes met relatively easily and instead of 15% reduction, Europe is aprroaching 25% reduction. As I said, countries will adapt.
6) Also, sanctions are hard to impose, beacuse there have to be consensus between EU countries. But if they are already imposed, it is equally hard to abolish them - Baltics and Poland would surely veto any attempt to ease or cancel Russian sanctions.
7) I am not saying that the war is not hitting European economy, but longer it drags on, more they adapt and more they get used to the new situation.
II.
«The only way to prevent that from happening would be for the West to set up a sort of war economy on behalf of Ukraine, but that’s overwhelmingly unlikely to happen for political reasons.»
What do you mean war economy? If we are talking strictly about military actions, I will bring one example. During Donbas offensive (May-June), Russia was shelling on average 20-25 000 shells per day, sometimes over 30 000 shells per day (numbers come from recent RUSI report, byt he same report, Ukraine was spending 2000-3000 shells per day). So far, it has been the most intense phase of the war. It seems lot, but historically it is not so much. For instance, during Korean war, americans were routinely shelling 1.5 million shells per month, month after month after month. And I do not think that americans back then were thinking we are in war economy.
During cold war, most western European countries were prepared, meaning, they spent and produced for a long and intensive war - but were they war economies? Sure, when Cold war ended, spending and stockpiles collapsed (this is one of the reasons, why its is hard to support Ukraine), but there is one exception - Finland. Finland continued, Finland preserved their own production capacity and today Finland has largest ammo stockpile in Europe, but would you describe Finland of last 30 years as war economy?
Point being, though war in Ukraine is intense, I cannot see why there is need to set up a war economy to support it.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think some of the points you make are sensible, but I disagree with others or at least would like to nuance them.
1) Yes, at least at the beginning, the French and German governments were definitely bullied into responding more forcefully to the Russian invasion than they would otherwise have done. I think France may be coming to terms with the idea of a forceful response, but Germany is still being bullied to increase its support. Just look at what is happening right now, with countries like Poland publicly saying that it wants to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine but that it needs Germany's approval. This is clearly meant to shame Germany into approving the transfer, as otherwise Poland would have made the request privately, instead of resorting to public opinion in order to pressure the German government into doing so.
2) I completely agree that the monetary cost of military and economic aid to Ukraine is easily sustainable for Western countries and that it's the counter-sanctions by Russia and more broadly the economic consequences of the war that make it very costly. The only nuance I would add is that, in order to keep delivering certain types of military equipment (such as artillery munitions), large investments in production capacities would have to be made, as explained in my essay.
3 to 5) There is a widespread misconception that, once the initial cost of the Russian decision to stop gas deliveries to the EU has been incurred, there is no reason to go back to purchasing Russian gas for EU countries. The idea many people seems to have is that, after one tough winter (which turns out not to be so tough in part due to exceptionally mild weather), we'll be fine. However, this is wrong, because the Russian cutoff means that we are now being supplied by marginal producers with higher costs. This is a *permanent* supply shock, at least as long as we don't (whether because we won't or because we can't) resume the purchase of Russian gas, that will raise energy prices in Europe significantly for many years. The reduction of demand, while pretty impressive, will not be costless and this is true in general for the increase in energy prices caused by the Russian cutoff. So there are definitely very good economic reasons to go back to purchasing Russian gas, but I agree that EU countries may decide that it's unwise to do so and forgo Russian gas permanently, in which case the calculus would be different. (I may touch on that in a forthcoming essay that will draw on the last section of this essay, about the political logic of Western support, if I find time to write it.) However, should this happen, it would be a political decision.
6) EU sanctions against Russia systematically have a deadline and need to be renewed by the European Council by a unanimous decision regularly. This has been the case since 2014, and the sanctions were made much harsher after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but it's important to understand that formally the situation is exactly the opposite of what you assume: extending the sanctions require a unanimous vote and, in the absence of consensus, the sanctions would automatically end, so any EU member could on its own decide to end the sanctions every few months. It is not the case, as you seem to think, that a vote would be required to end the sanctions, in which case you would be right that it would never happen because countries like Poland would veto the decision. In practice, however, it's politically impossible to end the sanctions abruptly and, should one or several members oppose their extension, a compromise would be found to phase them out. I doubt it will happen anytime soon though.
7) Yes, it's definitely possible that European countries will just get used to the situation and treat it as the new normal (especially since I think the economic cost will mostly consist in a decade of sluggish growth due to higher energy costs that will make European industry less competitive and negatively impact aggregate demand since we import a lot of our energy), in which case they may decide that they have nothing to lose in continuing to support Ukraine. It's not clear what they would have to gain though and at some point I think it's likely they'll want the massacre to end, but it could be that it will stabilize into a giant frozen conflict that European countries will just learn to live with. Again I will discuss this possibility if I write another post on the political logic of Western support.
On the last point about the war economy, I talked about "a kind of war economy" precisely because I didn't want to imply that Western countries would have to spend something like 30% of their GDP to support Ukraine, which is absurd. However, they would need to make large investments to *massively* increase production capacities for certain types of stuff, such as artillery shells. They would have to do that exclusively for Ukraine, even though they are not directly party to the war. They might do it but I think it will be politically tricky, especially when there is a recession, which will happen sooner or later even if I don't think it will happen this year, at least in Europe. When people hear that we're spending billions of dollars/euros a year to support Ukraine, they don't have a good sense of what it represents and in particular that it's not that much compared to total budget expenditures, so if/when there is a recession it will probably be very unpopular especially if people think that it serves no purpose because the Ukrainians are no longer making any gains.
"For instance, during Korean war, americans were routinely shelling 1.5 million shells per month, month after month after month. And I do not think that americans back then were thinking we are in war economy."
The US was only able to maintain that rate of shelling during the Korean War by using stockpiles of munitions produced during World War 2, when the US *was* in a full war economy.
"During cold war, most western European countries were prepared, meaning, they spent and produced for a long and intensive war - but were they war economies?"
They spent a significantly higher % of their GDP on the military and used that higher spending to build up large stockpiles over decades. Had a war broken out in Europe, they surely would have gone into full war economy mode, and if they hadn't their stockpiles would probably have ran out pretty quickly. (Assuming that the war lasted long enough for that sort of thing to matter.) Also, like in Korea, early on a lot of their stockpiles were leftovers from World War 2.
Seems like a bad strategy from the west to neglect ground based air defence because of overwhelming advantage in fighter jets and then arbitrarily drawing the line at providing fighter jets.
"I’m still not sure why it was wrong, but I can think of several possibilities. One of them is that I underestimated..."
The issue was (and is) available manpower. The Russians weren't completely wrong to think that a smaller attacking force can quickly overwhelm and paralyse a larger defensive force if you intelligently concentrate your resources, and the enemy collapses. After all, this is why Blitzkrieg worked.
However once it was clear that the initial attack into Kiev had failed, there is now a contest over a 2500km front. Ukraine simply had (and has) more men on the ground in Ukraine. Sure, an overwhelming technological advantage can render this unimportant, but as you correctly noted, the two sides are fairly evenly matched. Russia failed to recognise this and paid the price, which prompted the hasty partial-mobilisation.
This is what led to the defeat of the Russians in Kharkov. At the time, there were rumours of a big Ukrainian counterattack but in the Kherson area, and the damage that the newly-delivered HIMARS were doing there forced Russia to prioritise that front over Kharkov.
Kherson, unlike Kharkov, was just a strategic defeat rather than a military defeat. I am surprised that you didn't mention the new commander of the special military operation in Ukraine, Surovikin. He seems to be superior to the prior commander and less susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy. Abandoning Kherson was almost certainly a good decision from a military perspective - the cost/reward ratio is skewed incredibly just by a few hundred yards of river.
I completely agree with your critique of expert-ocracy, and tend to agree with your assessment of the war so far and your predictions for the coming months. On the other hand, I would say that you are overestimating the costs of Western sanctions and ignoring the potential benefits of being forced to produce advanced technology indigenously, although I recognise this is a medium-long term argument and discussions of the war can only really take place in a < 2 year timeframe.
Yes, I agree with you that the problem with my argument in September was likely the lack of manpower for Russia, they just didn't have any given the length of the lines at the time. This is what I meant to imply when I said that mobilization should preclude another defeat of that sort in the next few months unless it was carried out extremely incompetently, but I realize that it wasn't very clear.
I also agree that Surovikin's decision probably made sense from a military point of view and, as I commented on Twitter at the time, it at least shows that he Russia was now capable of making pragmatic decisions. Indeed, while it probably made sense militarily to abandon Kherson, politically it was difficult.
«The issue was (and is) available manpower. The Russians weren't completely wrong to think that a smaller attacking force can quickly overwhelm and paralyse a larger defensive force if you intelligently concentrate your resources, and the enemy collapses. After all, this is why Blitzkrieg worked.
However once it was clear that the initial attack into Kiev had failed, there is now a contest over a 2500km front. Ukraine simply had (and has) more men on the ground in Ukraine.»
I am not sure that this is correct. It definitely was not correct during first months of the war - We have now quite a good picture about spring and early summer campaigns and Ukraine did not have more men. Even during Harkiv counteroffensive (picture is less clear, but still) Ukraine probably did not have more men or weapons than Russians.
And today, Ukraine probably has raised more men (estimates vary quite much), I would still guess that they do not have significally more men in active combat zone than Russia.
The land was taken. You can choose to call them pyrrhic or unimportant successes, but those were successes. Even the most favorable interpretation of the withdrawal - inflicting serious attrition on Ukrainians, still concedes that Russia lacked strength to execute the far superior move of capturing Kharkov and Odessa.
"The land was taken" thanks, you confirmed my point: you can switch the point as long as you like, but calling Kherson (and imho even Kharkov) an "offensive" is a "i cannot define a woman i am not a biologist"-level of doublespeak.
Good article, refreshing when a 'pundit' admits his own shortcomings and uncertainties like this, bravo! (this sounds sarcastic but isn't).
"Indeed, the US is currently producing only 14,000 155mm shells a month, which is barely 1/10th of Ukraine’s consumption if we assume that it fires 4,000 rounds/month" => should be 4000 rounds/day?
"A Russian opposition website estimated that before the war Russia was producing about one billion shells" => one billion per year? Or one billion total as of today?
Thanks, those were typos, I fixed them.
Though I agree (mostly) with your observations, there are couple of points I am less sure.
I.
You write: «While the US is relatively insulated from the economic consequences of the war, this is not true of Europe, which used to import a lot of its energy from Russia. Except for Hungary, Central and Eastern European countries have been enthusiastically supporting Ukraine because they still perceive Russia as a security threat, but with the exception of the UK the same thing can’t be said about Western European countries, which have been dragging their feet and arguably had to be bullied into supporting Ukraine as much as they currently do."
«... but I doubt they will continue to provide the same level of support for several years and »
1) Though it is true that Eastern-Europe is more enthusiastic, there are several western countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, etc.) who have been also quite enthusiastic. Germany and France are (were) hesitant, but were they bullied?
2) The economic consequences of the war come mostly from sanctions against Russia and giving up Russian oil and gas. Aid, especially military aid from Europe have not been that large - it can go on almost indefinitely.
3) Cutting economic ties and giving up Russian oil and gas is not easy. But countries adapt. The longer the war continues, more they adapt. For instance EU countries have already built in record speed (and continue to build) new LNG terminals, they have already found new suppliers, new markets etc. Lot of sunk costs already.
4) It poses a question - even if war ends, why should we go back to Russian oil and gas? If we have already invested so much to alternative solutions, why should we go back? From reading western European media, I do get an impression that there is growing acceptance: Russian gas and oil will not come back. And even if it comes back, still, why should we go back.
5) When war started, there was an idea that Europe should cut is gas consumption. In summer it was officialy adopted: between 1 August to 31 March 2023 there should be a voluntary(!) reduction in gas use to 15%. It was deemed impossible task (thats why volutary), but today it is clear that 15% target wes met relatively easily and instead of 15% reduction, Europe is aprroaching 25% reduction. As I said, countries will adapt.
6) Also, sanctions are hard to impose, beacuse there have to be consensus between EU countries. But if they are already imposed, it is equally hard to abolish them - Baltics and Poland would surely veto any attempt to ease or cancel Russian sanctions.
7) I am not saying that the war is not hitting European economy, but longer it drags on, more they adapt and more they get used to the new situation.
II.
«The only way to prevent that from happening would be for the West to set up a sort of war economy on behalf of Ukraine, but that’s overwhelmingly unlikely to happen for political reasons.»
What do you mean war economy? If we are talking strictly about military actions, I will bring one example. During Donbas offensive (May-June), Russia was shelling on average 20-25 000 shells per day, sometimes over 30 000 shells per day (numbers come from recent RUSI report, byt he same report, Ukraine was spending 2000-3000 shells per day). So far, it has been the most intense phase of the war. It seems lot, but historically it is not so much. For instance, during Korean war, americans were routinely shelling 1.5 million shells per month, month after month after month. And I do not think that americans back then were thinking we are in war economy.
During cold war, most western European countries were prepared, meaning, they spent and produced for a long and intensive war - but were they war economies? Sure, when Cold war ended, spending and stockpiles collapsed (this is one of the reasons, why its is hard to support Ukraine), but there is one exception - Finland. Finland continued, Finland preserved their own production capacity and today Finland has largest ammo stockpile in Europe, but would you describe Finland of last 30 years as war economy?
Point being, though war in Ukraine is intense, I cannot see why there is need to set up a war economy to support it.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think some of the points you make are sensible, but I disagree with others or at least would like to nuance them.
1) Yes, at least at the beginning, the French and German governments were definitely bullied into responding more forcefully to the Russian invasion than they would otherwise have done. I think France may be coming to terms with the idea of a forceful response, but Germany is still being bullied to increase its support. Just look at what is happening right now, with countries like Poland publicly saying that it wants to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine but that it needs Germany's approval. This is clearly meant to shame Germany into approving the transfer, as otherwise Poland would have made the request privately, instead of resorting to public opinion in order to pressure the German government into doing so.
2) I completely agree that the monetary cost of military and economic aid to Ukraine is easily sustainable for Western countries and that it's the counter-sanctions by Russia and more broadly the economic consequences of the war that make it very costly. The only nuance I would add is that, in order to keep delivering certain types of military equipment (such as artillery munitions), large investments in production capacities would have to be made, as explained in my essay.
3 to 5) There is a widespread misconception that, once the initial cost of the Russian decision to stop gas deliveries to the EU has been incurred, there is no reason to go back to purchasing Russian gas for EU countries. The idea many people seems to have is that, after one tough winter (which turns out not to be so tough in part due to exceptionally mild weather), we'll be fine. However, this is wrong, because the Russian cutoff means that we are now being supplied by marginal producers with higher costs. This is a *permanent* supply shock, at least as long as we don't (whether because we won't or because we can't) resume the purchase of Russian gas, that will raise energy prices in Europe significantly for many years. The reduction of demand, while pretty impressive, will not be costless and this is true in general for the increase in energy prices caused by the Russian cutoff. So there are definitely very good economic reasons to go back to purchasing Russian gas, but I agree that EU countries may decide that it's unwise to do so and forgo Russian gas permanently, in which case the calculus would be different. (I may touch on that in a forthcoming essay that will draw on the last section of this essay, about the political logic of Western support, if I find time to write it.) However, should this happen, it would be a political decision.
6) EU sanctions against Russia systematically have a deadline and need to be renewed by the European Council by a unanimous decision regularly. This has been the case since 2014, and the sanctions were made much harsher after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but it's important to understand that formally the situation is exactly the opposite of what you assume: extending the sanctions require a unanimous vote and, in the absence of consensus, the sanctions would automatically end, so any EU member could on its own decide to end the sanctions every few months. It is not the case, as you seem to think, that a vote would be required to end the sanctions, in which case you would be right that it would never happen because countries like Poland would veto the decision. In practice, however, it's politically impossible to end the sanctions abruptly and, should one or several members oppose their extension, a compromise would be found to phase them out. I doubt it will happen anytime soon though.
7) Yes, it's definitely possible that European countries will just get used to the situation and treat it as the new normal (especially since I think the economic cost will mostly consist in a decade of sluggish growth due to higher energy costs that will make European industry less competitive and negatively impact aggregate demand since we import a lot of our energy), in which case they may decide that they have nothing to lose in continuing to support Ukraine. It's not clear what they would have to gain though and at some point I think it's likely they'll want the massacre to end, but it could be that it will stabilize into a giant frozen conflict that European countries will just learn to live with. Again I will discuss this possibility if I write another post on the political logic of Western support.
On the last point about the war economy, I talked about "a kind of war economy" precisely because I didn't want to imply that Western countries would have to spend something like 30% of their GDP to support Ukraine, which is absurd. However, they would need to make large investments to *massively* increase production capacities for certain types of stuff, such as artillery shells. They would have to do that exclusively for Ukraine, even though they are not directly party to the war. They might do it but I think it will be politically tricky, especially when there is a recession, which will happen sooner or later even if I don't think it will happen this year, at least in Europe. When people hear that we're spending billions of dollars/euros a year to support Ukraine, they don't have a good sense of what it represents and in particular that it's not that much compared to total budget expenditures, so if/when there is a recession it will probably be very unpopular especially if people think that it serves no purpose because the Ukrainians are no longer making any gains.
"For instance, during Korean war, americans were routinely shelling 1.5 million shells per month, month after month after month. And I do not think that americans back then were thinking we are in war economy."
The US was only able to maintain that rate of shelling during the Korean War by using stockpiles of munitions produced during World War 2, when the US *was* in a full war economy.
"During cold war, most western European countries were prepared, meaning, they spent and produced for a long and intensive war - but were they war economies?"
They spent a significantly higher % of their GDP on the military and used that higher spending to build up large stockpiles over decades. Had a war broken out in Europe, they surely would have gone into full war economy mode, and if they hadn't their stockpiles would probably have ran out pretty quickly. (Assuming that the war lasted long enough for that sort of thing to matter.) Also, like in Korea, early on a lot of their stockpiles were leftovers from World War 2.
Seems like a bad strategy from the west to neglect ground based air defence because of overwhelming advantage in fighter jets and then arbitrarily drawing the line at providing fighter jets.
Main Russian opposition news website Meduza published a very similar article today: https://meduza.io/feature/2023/01/04/o-voyne-na-istoschenie-mezhdu-rossiey-i-ukrainoy-govoryat-davno-no-tolko-seychas-ona-nachinaetsya-po-nastoyaschemu
"I’m still not sure why it was wrong, but I can think of several possibilities. One of them is that I underestimated..."
The issue was (and is) available manpower. The Russians weren't completely wrong to think that a smaller attacking force can quickly overwhelm and paralyse a larger defensive force if you intelligently concentrate your resources, and the enemy collapses. After all, this is why Blitzkrieg worked.
However once it was clear that the initial attack into Kiev had failed, there is now a contest over a 2500km front. Ukraine simply had (and has) more men on the ground in Ukraine. Sure, an overwhelming technological advantage can render this unimportant, but as you correctly noted, the two sides are fairly evenly matched. Russia failed to recognise this and paid the price, which prompted the hasty partial-mobilisation.
This is what led to the defeat of the Russians in Kharkov. At the time, there were rumours of a big Ukrainian counterattack but in the Kherson area, and the damage that the newly-delivered HIMARS were doing there forced Russia to prioritise that front over Kharkov.
Kherson, unlike Kharkov, was just a strategic defeat rather than a military defeat. I am surprised that you didn't mention the new commander of the special military operation in Ukraine, Surovikin. He seems to be superior to the prior commander and less susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy. Abandoning Kherson was almost certainly a good decision from a military perspective - the cost/reward ratio is skewed incredibly just by a few hundred yards of river.
I completely agree with your critique of expert-ocracy, and tend to agree with your assessment of the war so far and your predictions for the coming months. On the other hand, I would say that you are overestimating the costs of Western sanctions and ignoring the potential benefits of being forced to produce advanced technology indigenously, although I recognise this is a medium-long term argument and discussions of the war can only really take place in a < 2 year timeframe.
Yes, I agree with you that the problem with my argument in September was likely the lack of manpower for Russia, they just didn't have any given the length of the lines at the time. This is what I meant to imply when I said that mobilization should preclude another defeat of that sort in the next few months unless it was carried out extremely incompetently, but I realize that it wasn't very clear.
I also agree that Surovikin's decision probably made sense from a military point of view and, as I commented on Twitter at the time, it at least shows that he Russia was now capable of making pragmatic decisions. Indeed, while it probably made sense militarily to abandon Kherson, politically it was difficult.
«The issue was (and is) available manpower. The Russians weren't completely wrong to think that a smaller attacking force can quickly overwhelm and paralyse a larger defensive force if you intelligently concentrate your resources, and the enemy collapses. After all, this is why Blitzkrieg worked.
However once it was clear that the initial attack into Kiev had failed, there is now a contest over a 2500km front. Ukraine simply had (and has) more men on the ground in Ukraine.»
I am not sure that this is correct. It definitely was not correct during first months of the war - We have now quite a good picture about spring and early summer campaigns and Ukraine did not have more men. Even during Harkiv counteroffensive (picture is less clear, but still) Ukraine probably did not have more men or weapons than Russians.
And today, Ukraine probably has raised more men (estimates vary quite much), I would still guess that they do not have significally more men in active combat zone than Russia.
Whomever thinks Kharkov and Kherson were "succesful" "counteroffensive" does not deserve a follow.
The land was taken. You can choose to call them pyrrhic or unimportant successes, but those were successes. Even the most favorable interpretation of the withdrawal - inflicting serious attrition on Ukrainians, still concedes that Russia lacked strength to execute the far superior move of capturing Kharkov and Odessa.
"The land was taken" thanks, you confirmed my point: you can switch the point as long as you like, but calling Kherson (and imho even Kharkov) an "offensive" is a "i cannot define a woman i am not a biologist"-level of doublespeak.
Okay. I think we are done here.
Paolo should collaborate with Matt Walsh and write "What is an Offensive?"