I have returned to DC. I should resume my regular news distribution schedule tomorrow

Quotes of the Day:

"We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires, but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can [and] do read worthwhile books."

– W.E.B. Du Bois 

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything needs to be said again."

– Andre Gide

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

– Ernest Hemingway

1. Chicken Littles Are Ruining America

2. The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin - The New York Times

3. Opinion: As an American in Avdiivka, what is Congress doing?

4. House China committee demands Elon Musk open SpaceX Starshield internet to U.S. troops in Taiwan

5. The Russo-Ukrainian War: A Strategic Assessment Two Years into the Conflict

6. Hard Lessons Make for Hard Choices 2 Years Into the War in Ukraine

7. Ditching Ukraine Would Help China and Iran (and north Korea)

8. Life and death in Putin’s gulag

9. The Challenge to U.S. Leadership on Ukraine Comes From Home

10. U.S. Committed to Stand With Ukraine 'For as Long as it Takes'

11. Two Years of War in Ukraine Has Changed the Way Armies Think

12. Russia’s War Machine Runs on Western Parts

13. Marines pass full financial audit, a first for any US military branch

14. How to Ruin the Marine Corps

15. Avoiding war in the Indo-Pacific | The Strategist

16. The Worst Morning Ever (Ukraine February 2022)

17. Opinion: Conflict is the new normal

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 24, 2024

19. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, February 24, 2024

20. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, February 23, 2024

21. US military not ready for low-tech war: 'Crisis'

22. Report of the Expert Study Group on NATO and Indo-Pacific Partners

23. Ex U.S. spies warned the Hunter Biden scandal had Russian fingerprints. They feel vindicated now.

24. ‘Blob’: An Idea That’s Spreading in All Directions

25. Options for Screening for Cancer in SOF

1. Chicken Littles Are Ruining America

A Sunday read to reflect on and ponder. I missed this when it came out a couple of weeks ago. Having lived through the 70's (and a little earlier) to the present, this really resonates with me.

Set aside the few partisan statements (David Brooks is a conservative [in the traditional sense] but anti-Trump) and try to read this objectively as I think this is one of the best explanations of our current social and political divides. 

I remain optimistic as I still believe in our great American experiment and despite our current ills I believe it continues to work and we will continue to improve despite apparent setbacks. As Congressman Jim Clyburn from South Carolina says, what makes America great is that we recognize our mistakes and work to correct them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/cultural-pessimism-america-self-fulfilling-effects/677261/?utm

Chicken Littles Are Ruining America

By David Brooks The Atlantic17 min

January 31, 2024

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Doomsaying can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Armstrong Roberts / Retrofile / Getty; Chaloner Woods / Getty; Lambert / Getty.

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Sometime around 1970, the American personality changed. In prior decades, people tended to define themselves according to the social roles they played: I’m a farmer, teacher, housewife, priest. But then a more individualistic culture took over. The University of Michigan psychologist Joseph Veroff and his colleagues compared national surveys conducted in 1957 and 1976 and found a significant shift in people’s self-definition: A communal, “socially integrated” mindset was being replaced with a “personal or individuated” mindset. The right-wing version of this individualism (which emphasized economic freedom) and the left-wing version (which emphasized lifestyle freedom) were different, but it was individual freedom all the way down. This culture of expressive individualism hit a kind of apotheosis with a 1997 cover story in Fast Company headlined “The Brand Called You,” in which Tom Peters, the leading management guru of the day, declared that “we are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc.”

But cultural change tends to have a pendulum-style rhythm, and we are now at the dawn of another collective phase. Unfortunately, this new culture of communalism has got some big problems.

Twenty-first-century communalism is a peculiar kind of communalism. For starters, it’s very socially conscious and political. Whether you’re on the MAGA right or the social-justice left, you define your identity by how you stand against what you perceive to be the dominant structures of society. Groups on each side of the political divide are held together less by common affections than by a common sense of threat, an experience of collective oppression. Today’s communal culture is based on a shared belief that society is broken, systems are rotten, the game is rigged, injustice prevails, the venal elites are out to get us; we find solidarity and meaning in resisting their oppression together. Again, there is a right-wing version (Donald Trump’s “I am your retribution”) and a left-wing version (the intersectional community of oppressed groups), but what they share is an us-versus-them Manichaeism. The culture war gives life shape and meaning.

Social scientists have had to come up with new phrases to capture this set of cultural attitudes and practices. In 2015, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff identified “vindictive protectiveness,” which is what happens when an online mob rallies together to punish a perceived threat from an oppressor. Henrique Carvalho and Anastasia Chamberlen developed the concept of “hostile solidarity” to describe the ways that retaliatory action binds people against their foes. This mode of collectivism embeds us in communities—but they’re not friendly communities; they’re angry ones.

In this culture, people feel bonded not because they are cooperating with one another but because they are indignant about the same things. Consider the word woke, which has been so politicized, and has been used in so many sloppy ways, that it has outlived its usefulness. But when it entered the mainstream—sometime between 2008 and 2013—it suggested that you could enter the circle of the enlightened, the inner ring of social belonging, simply by adopting a mode of awareness. To be woke was to perceive the world in a certain way, to understand how terrible everything is. You established solidarity by demonstrating that you were enlightened enough to see the pervasive rottenness of things.

In this way, pessimism becomes a membership badge—the ultimate sign that you are on the side of the good. If your analysis is not apocalyptic, you’re naive, lacking in moral urgency, complicit with the status quo.

This culture has produced a succession of prophets of doom across the ideological spectrum, people who established their moral courage by portraying the situation as negatively as possible. In 2016, the conservative speechwriter Michael Anton unified the Trumpian right with his “The Flight 93 Election” essay, which argued that desperate measures must be taken to keep America from crashing to its ruin. Trump followed up with his “American carnage” inaugural address, depicting the country as a chaotic dystopia. Quotidian catastrophizing has become a staple of Republican discourse. Here, for example, is a transcript of a video that a U.S. representative sent out to his supporters last July 4:

Hey guys, Congressman Andy Ogles here, wishing you a happy and blessed Fourth of July. Hey, remember our Founding Fathers. It’s we the people who are in charge of this country, not a leftist minority. Look, the left is trying to destroy our country and our family, and they are coming after you. Have a blessed Fourth of July. Be safe. Have fun. God Bless America.

In other words: The left is coming after you to destroy your family! Enjoy the hot dogs.

But a pessimism just as pervasive reigns on the left. The upbeat ethos of Barack Obama and Lin-Manuel Miranda—in which racial progress was seen as slow but steady—gave way to the intractable pessimism of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the critical race theorists. Extreme pessimism is now the go-to conversational stance. This tweet from The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz captures the vibe: “People are like ‘why are kids so depressed? It must be their PHONES!’ But never mention that fact that we’re living in a late stage capitalist hellscape during an ongoing deadly pandemic [with] record wealth inequality, 0 social safety net/job security, as climate change cooks the world.”

This deep sense of pessimism has become more and more predominant, especially among the young. Since about 2004, the share of American 12th graders who say it is “hard to have hope for the world” has been surging, according to surveys by Monitoring the Future, which has tracked the attitudes of high schoolers since 1975. There’s also been a rise in 12th graders who agree with the statement “Every time I try to get ahead, something or somebody stops me.” Since 2012, the share of 12th graders who expect to get a graduate degree or a professional job has plummeted.

The prevailing culture nurtures these attitudes. But there is a giant gap between many of these negative perceptions and actual reality. For example, since the mid-1970s the number of women who have earned college degrees and graduate degrees, and taken leadership positions in society, has risen dramatically; women’s wages are also much higher than in previous generations. Yet, as the psychologist Jean Twenge shows in her book Generations, teenage girls today are more likely than teenage girls in the ’70s to believe that women are discriminated against. Surely that’s partly because successive waves of feminism have raised women’s awareness of ongoing discrimination. But women are doing meaningfully better by these measures, and yet young women are feeling worse.

Many years ago, I auditioned to be a co-host of the CNN show Crossfire. Before the audition, one of the producers pulled me aside and told me that the key to the show was not what you say. No, the key to the show, I was told, was that you must wear a look of indignant rage as the other person is talking. That look of contemptuous fury, which the cameras featured in close-up shots, was what powered the show and kept viewers hooked. In the decades since, Tucker Carlson, who was a Crossfire co-host, has ridden that look—mouth pursed, eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed—to fame and fortune. With a single expression, he communicates that “they” are screwing the country and that “we” need to be outraged. Tucker happens to be on the right, but millions of people on both the left and the right now look at the world through a distorting lens like his.

The current culture confers status and belonging to those who see the world as negatively as possible. Once people learned this, they were going to perceive the world as a Hunger Games–like hellscape.

This negativity saturates everything. As The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson noted recently, more than 5,500 podcasts now have the word trauma in their title. Political life is seen through a negative valence. A YouGov survey of 33,000 Americans found that both sides of the political debate believe they are losing. Liberals think the country is moving right; conservatives are convinced that the country is moving left. Whatever your perspective, everything appears to be going downhill.

Even institutions as wholesome as motherhood have come to be seen as horrific. In December, Vox ran an essay titled “How Millennials Learned to Dread Motherhood.” A couple of weeks before that, The New Yorker published “The Morality of Having Kids in a Burning, Drowning World.” In previous eras, people were enculturated to see parenthood as a challenging but deeply rewarding and love-drenched experience. Now motherhood is regarded as a postapocalyptic shit show. Recently published books on motherhood include Mom Rage, Screaming on the Inside, and All the Rage.

In a culture where negativity is aligned with righteousness, anything good can be seen as a mark of ill-gotten privilege. And if by chance one does experience pleasure, don’t be so insensitive as to admit it in public, because that will reveal you are not allying properly with the oppressed: “When I started asking women about their experiences as mothers,” Rachel Cohen wrote in that Vox essay, “I was startled by the number who sheepishly admitted, and only after being pressed, that they had pretty equitable arrangements with their partners, and even loved being moms, but were unlikely to say any of that publicly. Doing so could seem insensitive to those whose experiences were not as positive, or those in more frustrating relationships. Some also worried that betraying too much enthusiasm for child-rearing could ossify essentialist tropes or detract from larger feminist goals.” Publicly admitting that you love and enjoy motherhood has come to be seen as a betrayal of feminism.

The culture of collective negativity has had a deleterious effect on levels of trust: In 1964, 45 percent of Americans said that most people can be trusted, according to a survey by American National Election Studies. That survey no longer asks this question, but a University of Chicago survey asked the exact same question to Americans in 2022 and found that number is now 25 percent. Seventy-three percent of adults under 30 believe that, most of the time, people just look out for themselves, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. Seventy-one percent say that most people “would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance.”

Human relationships have come to be viewed through a prism of power and exploitation. Institutions are assumed to be fundamentally illegitimate, rigged. A friend who teaches at Stanford recently told me that many of his students would not assume he had gone into teaching to serve his students, or to seek their good; rather, they see him as a cog in the corrupt system holding them down. Recently, I was struck by a sentence in The Chronicle of Higher Education, in an article about how the economist Raj Chetty runs his research lab at Harvard. Chetty is the most important social scientist in America right now, because of his revelatory work on the relationship between income inequality and life opportunity. You might reasonably see getting to work in his lab as a tremendous honor, a great educational experience, and a professional launchpad. But that’s not how several of his assistants saw it. “After landing the fellowship,” The Chronicle reported, “some employees said they were also disturbed to find a culture of overwork that left them fried but feeling forced to impress in order to secure a letter of recommendation to a top Ph.D. program.” If you see the system as legitimate, you will likely see the chance to work hard for a transformative scholar as an opportunity to achieve great things as part of a great team. If you see the system as illegitimate, that hard work is just a form of exploitation that will leave you “fried.” If you see the system as legitimate, impressing mentors is a chance to earn the esteem of those whose esteem is worth having. If you see the system as illegitimate, the whole letters-of-recommendation business is a rigged game that allows the dominant to preserve their status.

Our most recent previous period of apocalyptic collectivism was the McCarthy era. During that time, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr noticed that his fellow anti-communists were constantly demanding “that the foe is hated with sufficient vigor.” It wasn’t enough to disapprove of communism; one had to engage in collective moments of group hate. Meanwhile, on the left, intellectuals warned of a looming age of American fascism. This mode of escalating indignation led to what Niebuhr called “apoplectic rigidity,” an inability to see the world as it is, but rather only those nightmarish elements that justify the hatred and rage that are the source of your self-worth.

Before long, apoplectic rigidity becomes the default mode of seeing things. This damages the ability to perceive reality accurately. One of the great mysteries of this political moment is why everyone feels so terrible about the economy when, in fact, it’s in good shape. GDP is growing, inflation is plummeting, income inequality seems to be dropping, real wages are rising, unemployment is low, the stock market is reaching new peaks. And yet many people are convinced that the economy is rotten. These are not just Republicans unwilling to admit that things are going well under a Democratic president. The real divide is generational. In a recent New York Times/Sienna College poll, 62 percent of people over 65 who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 report that the economy is “excellent” or “good”—but of Biden supporters ages 18 to 29, only 11 percent say the economy is excellent or good, while 89 percent say it is “poor” or “only fair.”

Is this because the economy is particularly bad for young people? That’s not what the data reveal. As Twenge has pointed out, the median Millennial household earns considerably more, adjusted for inflation, than median households of the Silent Generation, the Boomers, and Generation X earned at the comparable moment in their lives; they earn $9,000 more a year than Gen X households, and $10,000 more than Boomer households did at the same age. Household incomes for young adults are at historic highs, while homeownership rates for young adults are comparable to previous generations’. All of which suggests that difference in the generational experiences is not economic; it’s psychological.

I can see why, in a lonely world, people would embrace the community that collective negativity offers. As the New York Times columnist David French has noted, Trump rallies are filled with rage, but they are also characterized by a festive atmosphere, a sense of mutual belonging; immigrants might be poisoning America’s blood, but we’re having fun singing “Y.M.C.A.” together.

Being negative also helps you appear smart. In a classic 1983 study by the psychologist Teresa Amabile, authors of scathingly negative book reviews were perceived as more intelligent than the authors of positive reviews. Intellectually insecure people tend to be negative because they think it displays their brainpower.

Believing in vicious conspiracy theories can also boost your self-esteem: You are the superior mind who sees beneath the surface into the hidden realms where evil cabals really run the world. You have true knowledge of how the world works, which the masses are too naive to see. Conspiracy theories put you in the role of the truth-telling hero. Paranoia is the opiate of those who fear they may be insignificant.

The problem is that if you mess around with negative emotions, negative emotions will mess around with you, eventually taking over your life. Focusing on the negative inflates negativity. As John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister note in their book The Power of Bad, if you interpret the world through the lens of collective trauma, you may become overwhelmed by self-perpetuating waves of fear, anger, and hate. You’re likely to fall into a neurotic spiral, in which you become more likely to perceive events as negative, which makes you feel terrible, which makes you more alert to threats, which makes you perceive even more negative events, and on and on. Moreover, negativity is extremely contagious. When people around us are pessimistic, indignant, and rageful, we’re soon likely to become that way too. This is how today’s culture has produced mass neuroticism.

The neuroticism problem seems to be especially acute on the left. Over the past decade or so, depression rates have been rising for all young adults, but they have not been hitting all groups equally, according to a 2022 study by psychiatric epidemiologists. Liberal young women experienced the highest increase in depression levels. Liberal young women are also the most likely to be depressed, followed by liberal young men, conservative young women, and, the least depressed, conservative young men. Why should this be?

In the substantial literature on how happiness intersects with ideology, one of the most robust findings is that conservatives are happier than progressives. That’s long been explained by the fact that conservatives are more likely to be married and to attend church, two activities that correlate with higher happiness levels. (Also, it could be that true conservatives, by definition, are more content with the status quo.)

But another explanation for this phenomenon that I find persuasive is that contemporary left-wing discourse tends to rob people of a sense of agency, what psychologists call an “internal locus of control.” For example, in one 2022 survey 53 percent of those who identify as “very liberal” agree with the statement “Women in the United States have no hope for success because of sexism.” Meanwhile 59 percent of people who call themselves “very liberal” agree with the statement “Racial minorities in the United States have no hope for success because of racism.” If you have no hope of success because you are a victim of injustice, how can you possibly be motivated to do anything? How can you have a sense of agency? A discourse that was intended partly to empower people who suffer from structural disadvantages, by revealing the underlying forces that produced their circumstances, may end up doing the exact opposite: It enshrouds people in their own victimhood, and in the feeling that they have no control over their life.

“Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life” are “vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt and a sense that life simply happens to them,” the journalist Jill Filipovic wrote recently on Substack. And yet victimization, pain, and powerlessness are now the approved postures of our time.

I am not saying that America doesn’t have real problems—Trump, climate change, racial injustice, persistent income inequality, a rising tide of authoritarianism around the globe. In our age, as in every age, there are things to protest and things to be grateful for.

What I am saying is that the persistent gaps between how things are and how they are perceived are new, maybe even unprecedented. In case after case, the data show one thing; conventional wisdom perceives another. President Joe Biden leads an economy that is producing millions of jobs and raising real wages, but his poll numbers about his economic stewardship are terrible. He passes legislation that invests hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy, but the people most agitated about climate change give him no credit. Biden’s curse is that he is running not just against the Republicans but against the entire zeitgeist.

We have produced a culture that celebrates catastrophizing. This does not lend itself to effective strategies for achieving social change. The prevailing assumption seems to be that the more bitterly people denounce a situation, the more they will be motivated to change it. But history shows the exact opposite to be true. As the Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman demonstrated in The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, social reform tends to happen in moments of growth and prosperity. It happens when people are feeling secure and are inspired to share their good fortune. It happens when leaders can convey a plausible vision of the common good.

A recent paper by four economists reinforces the idea that the mood of a culture can directly effect material progress. The researchers analyzed 173,031 works published from 1500 to 1900, and discovered that words relating to progress proliferated starting in the 1600s. The researchers infer that the “cultural evolution” this evinced over the coming centuries helped give rise to the Industrial Revolution and its concomitant economic benefits. John Burn-Murdoch, a data journalist for the Financial Times, recently extended this analysis to the present day using Google Ngram and found that “the frequency of terms related to progress, improvement, and the future has dropped by about 25 percent since the 1960s, while those related to threats, risks and worries have become several times more common.” That economic growth has slowed during this period is probably not coincidence, Burn-Murdoch notes. Doomsaying can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The thought of a second Trump term appalls and terrifies me. But to the more apocalyptic and Chicken Little–ish of my progressive friends, I’ll say this: You’re only helping him. Donald Trump thrives in an atmosphere of menace. Authoritarianism flourishes amid pessimism, fear, and rage. Trump feeds off zero-sum thinking, the notion that society is war—us-versus-them, dog-eat-dog. The more you contribute to the culture of depressive negativity, the more likely Trump’s reelection becomes.

The old late-20th-century culture of rampant individualism had to go. It liberated individuals but frayed the bonds that formerly united people. Somehow, our new communal culture needs to replace bonds of negative polarization and collective victimization with bonds of common loves and collective action.

One moment in history gives me hope. In the 1950s, as I’ve noted, the McCarthy era brought a wave of paranoia about communists under every bed. But that moment generated a cultural recoil that eventually led to, for instance, John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, one of the most lavishly optimistic addresses in American history: “Together, let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate diseases, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce.” And it wasn’t so long ago that Barack Obama thrilled millions with his gospel of hope and change. We shouldn’t let our current season of gloom and menace become self-fulfilling, but rather should help make the country ripe for a communalism of belonging. History shows that it doesn’t pay to be pessimistic about pessimism.

2. The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin - The New York Times

Not so secret anymore. A fascinating read. 

But this is a critical excerpt that really explains a lot of our current national security thinking and weakness: specifically, our fear of provoking our adversary. I have to wonder if we did not have the fear of provoking our adversary how much better we would be in anticipating and mitigating the threats to our nation? I think this is our current strategic achilles heel: fear of provoking. The paradox is that our adversaries do not react to our "provocations." They of course act in their own interests but most importantly they act when they see an advantage to be gained. And because of our own self imposed "red lines" to prevent perceived  "provocations" by us, our adversaries can gain a lot of advantage by acting.

From the outset, a shared adversary — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — brought the C.I.A. and its Ukrainian partners together. Obsessed with “losing” Ukraine to the West, Mr. Putin had regularly interfered in Ukraine’s political system, handpicking leaders he believed would keep Ukraine within Russia’s orbit, yet each time it backfired, driving protesters into the streets.

Mr. Putin has long blamed Western intelligence agencies for manipulating Kyiv and sowing anti-Russia sentiment in Ukraine.

Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.

But the Times investigation found that Mr. Putin and his advisers misread a critical dynamic. The C.I.A. didn’t push its way into Ukraine. U.S. officials were often reluctant to fully engage, fearing that Ukrainian officials could not be trusted, and worrying about provoking the Kremlin.

The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin - The New York Times

For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia.

By Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz

Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz conducted more than 200 interviews in Ukraine, several other European countries and the United States to report this story.

• Feb. 25, 2024Updated 8:04 a.m. ET

nytimes.com · by Michael Schwirtz · February 25, 2024

Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war.

But that is above ground.

Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders. On one screen, a red line followed the route of an explosive drone threading through Russian air defenses from a point in central Ukraine to a target in the Russian city of Rostov.

The underground bunker, built to replace the destroyed command center in the months after Russia’s invasion, is a secret nerve center of Ukraine’s military.

There is also one more secret: The base is almost fully financed, and partly equipped, by the C.I.A.

“One hundred and ten percent,” Gen. Serhii Dvoretskiy, a top intelligence commander, said in an interview at the base.

Now entering the third year of a war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the intelligence partnership between Washington and Kyiv is a linchpin of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. The C.I.A. and other American intelligence agencies provide intelligence for targeted missile strikes, track Russian troop movements and help support spy networks.

But the partnership is no wartime creation, nor is Ukraine the only beneficiary.

It took root a decade ago, coming together in fits and starts under three very different U.S. presidents, pushed forward by key individuals who often took daring risks. It has transformed Ukraine, whose intelligence agencies were long seen as thoroughly compromised by Russia, into one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.

A part of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, killing nearly 300 people.Credit…Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

The Ukrainians also helped U.S. officials pursue the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton.Credit…Damon Winter/The New York Times

The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border. Before the war, the Ukrainians proved themselves to the Americans by collecting intercepts that helped prove Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of a commercial jetliner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Around 2016, the C.I.A. began training an elite Ukrainian commando force — known as Unit 2245 — which captured Russian drones and communications gear so that C.I.A. technicians could reverse-engineer them and crack Moscow’s encryption systems. (One officer in the unit was Kyrylo Budanov, now the general leading Ukraine’s military intelligence.)

And the C.I.A. also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated inside Russia, across Europe, and in Cuba and other places where the Russians have a large presence.

The relationship is so ingrained that C.I.A. officers remained at a remote location in western Ukraine when the Biden administration evacuated U.S. personnel in the weeks before Russia invaded in February 2022. During the invasion, the officers relayed critical intelligence, including where Russia was planning strikes and which weapons systems they would use.

“Without them, there would have been no way for us to resist the Russians, or to beat them,” said Ivan Bakanov, who was then head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U.

A dead Russian soldier in Kharkiv the day after the 2022 invasion.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Ukrainians cleaning up debris after a residential building was hit by missiles in south Kyiv, the day after the 2022 invasion.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

The details of this intelligence partnership, many of which are being disclosed by The New York Times for the first time, have been a closely guarded secret for a decade.

In more than 200 interviews, current and former officials in Ukraine, the United States and Europe described a partnership that nearly foundered from mutual distrust before it steadily expanded, turning Ukraine into an intelligence-gathering hub that intercepted more Russian communications than the C.I.A. station in Kyiv could initially handle. Many of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence and matters of sensitive diplomacy.

Now these intelligence networks are more important than ever, as Russia is on the offensive and Ukraine is more dependent on sabotage and long-range missile strikes that require spies far behind enemy lines. And they are increasingly at risk: If Republicans in Congress end military funding to Kyiv, the C.I.A. may have to scale back.

To try to reassure Ukrainian leaders, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, made a secret visit to Ukraine last Thursday, his 10th visit since the invasion.

From the outset, a shared adversary — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — brought the C.I.A. and its Ukrainian partners together. Obsessed with “losing” Ukraine to the West, Mr. Putin had regularly interfered in Ukraine’s political system, handpicking leaders he believed would keep Ukraine within Russia’s orbit, yet each time it backfired, driving protesters into the streets.

Mr. Putin has long blamed Western intelligence agencies for manipulating Kyiv and sowing anti-Russia sentiment in Ukraine.

Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.

But the Times investigation found that Mr. Putin and his advisers misread a critical dynamic. The C.I.A. didn’t push its way into Ukraine. U.S. officials were often reluctant to fully engage, fearing that Ukrainian officials could not be trusted, and worrying about provoking the Kremlin.

Valeriy Kondratiuk, a former commander of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency.Credit…Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Ukraine is more dependent on sabotage and long-range missile strikes that require spies far behind enemy lines.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Yet a tight circle of Ukrainian intelligence officials assiduously courted the C.I.A. and gradually made themselves vital to the Americans. In 2015, Gen. Valeriy Kondratiuk, then Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, arrived at a meeting with the C.I.A.’s deputy station chief and without warning handed over a stack of top-secret files.

That initial tranche contained secrets about the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet, including detailed information about the latest Russian nuclear submarine designs. Before long, teams of C.I.A. officers were regularly leaving his office with backpacks full of documents.

“We understood that we needed to create the conditions of trust,” General Kondratiuk said.

As the partnership deepened after 2016, the Ukrainians became impatient with what they considered Washington’s undue caution, and began staging assassinations and other lethal operations, which violated the terms the White House thought the Ukrainians had agreed to. Infuriated, officials in Washington threatened to cut off support, but they never did.

“The relationships only got stronger and stronger because both sides saw value in it, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv — our station there, the operation out of Ukraine — became the best source of information, signals and everything else, on Russia,” said a former senior American official. “We couldn’t get enough of it.”

This is the untold story of how it all happened.

A Cautious Beginning

The C.I.A.’s partnership in Ukraine can be traced back to two phone calls on the night of Feb. 24, 2014, eight years to the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Millions of Ukrainians had just overrun the country’s pro-Kremlin government and the president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his spy chiefs had fled to Russia. In the tumult, a fragile pro-Western government quickly took power.

The government’s new spy chief, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, arrived at the headquarters of the domestic intelligence agency and found a pile of smoldering documents in the courtyard. Inside, many of the computers had been wiped or were infected with Russian malware.

“It was empty. No lights. No leadership. Nobody was there,” Mr. Nalyvaichenko said in an interview.

He went to an office and called the C.I.A. station chief and the local head of MI6. It was near midnight but he summoned them to the building, asked for help in rebuilding the agency from the ground up, and proposed a three-way partnership. “That’s how it all started,” Mr. Nalyvaichenko said.

Independence Square in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in February 2014, when popular protests ousted the pro-Russia president at the time.Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

People using lights from their cellphones during a funeral ceremony at Independence Square in Kyiv, in 2014.Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

The situation quickly became more dangerous. Mr. Putin seized Crimea. His agents fomented separatist rebellions that would become a war in the country’s east. Ukraine was on war footing, and Mr. Nalyvaichenko appealed to the C.I.A. for overhead imagery and other intelligence to help defend its territory.

With violence escalating, an unmarked U.S. government plane touched down at an airport in Kyiv carrying John O. Brennan, then the director of the C.I.A. He told Mr. Nalyvaichenko that the C.I.A. was interested in developing a relationship but only at a pace the agency was comfortable with, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

To the C.I.A., the unknown question was how long Mr. Nalyvaichenko and the pro-Western government would be around. The C.I.A. had been burned before in Ukraine.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine gained independence and then veered between competing political forces: those that wanted to remain close to Moscow and those that wanted to align with the West. During a previous stint as spy chief, Mr. Nalyvaichenko started a similar partnership with the C.I.A., which dissolved when the country swung back toward Russia.

Now Mr. Brennan explained that to unlock C.I.A. assistance the Ukrainians had to prove that they could provide intelligence of value to the Americans. They also needed to purge Russian spies; the domestic spy agency, the S.B.U., was riddled with them. (Case in point: The Russians quickly learned about Mr. Brennan’s supposedly secret visit. The Kremlin’s propaganda outlets published a photoshopped image of the C.I.A. director wearing a clown wig and makeup.)

Mr. Brennan returned to Washington, where advisers to President Barack Obama were deeply concerned about provoking Moscow. The White House crafted secret rules that infuriated the Ukrainians and that some inside the C.I.A. thought of as handcuffs. The rules barred intelligence agencies from providing any support to Ukraine that could be “reasonably expected” to have lethal consequences.

Masked Russian soldiers guarding a Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoe, Crimea, in 2014.Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

The wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, in 2014.Credit…Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

The result was a delicate balancing act. The C.I.A. was supposed to strengthen Ukraine’s intelligence agencies without provoking the Russians. The red lines were never precisely clear, which created a persistent tension in the partnership.

In Kyiv, Mr. Nalyvaichenko picked a longtime aide, General Kondratiuk, to serve as head of counterintelligence, and they created a new paramilitary unit that was deployed behind enemy lines to conduct operations and gather intelligence that the C.I.A. or MI6 would not provide to them.

Known as the Fifth Directorate, this unit would be filled with officers born after Ukraine gained independence.

“They had no connection with Russia,” General Kondratiuk said. “They didn’t even know what the Soviet Union was.”

That summer, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, blew up in midair and crashed in eastern Ukraine, killing nearly 300 passengers and crew. The Fifth Directorate produced telephone intercepts and other intelligence within hours of the crash that quickly placed responsibility on Russian-backed separatists.

The C.I.A. was impressed, and made its first meaningful commitment by providing secure communications gear and specialized training to members of the Fifth Directorate and two other elite units.

“The Ukrainians wanted fish and we, for policy reasons, couldn’t deliver that fish,” said a former U.S. official, referring to intelligence that could help them battle the Russians. “But we were happy to teach them how to fish and deliver fly-fishing equipment.”

A Secret Santa

In the summer of 2015, Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, shook up the domestic service and installed an ally to replace Mr. Nalyvaichenko, the C.I.A.’s trusted partner. But the change created an opportunity elsewhere.

In the reshuffle, General Kondratiuk was appointed as the head of the country’s military intelligence agency, known as the HUR, where years earlier he had started his career. It would be an early example of how personal ties, more than policy shifts, would deepen the C.I.A.’s involvement in Ukraine.

Unlike the domestic agency, the HUR had the authority to collect intelligence outside the country, including in Russia. But the Americans had seen little value in cultivating the agency because it wasn’t producing any intelligence of value on the Russians — and because it was seen as a bastion of Russian sympathizers.

Trying to build trust, General Kondratiuk arranged a meeting with his American counterpart at the Defense Intelligence Agency and handed over a stack of secret Russian documents. But senior D.I.A. officials were suspicious and discouraged building closer ties.

The general needed to find a more willing partner.

Months earlier, while still with the domestic agency, General Kondratiuk visited the C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va. In those meetings, he met a C.I.A. officer with a jolly demeanor and a bushy beard who had been tapped to become the next station chief in Kyiv.

The C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va.

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a former deputy foreign minister and commander for the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv, this month.Credit…Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

After a long day of meetings, the C.I.A. took General Kondratiuk to a Washington Capitals hockey match, where he and the incoming station chief sat in a luxury box and loudly booed Alex Ovechkin, the team’s star player from Russia.

The station chief had not yet arrived when General Kondratiuk handed over to the C.I.A. the secret documents about the Russian Navy. “There’s more where this came from,” he promised, and the documents were sent off to analysts in Langley.

The analysts concluded the documents were authentic, and after the station chief arrived in Kyiv, the C.I.A. became General Kondratiuk’s primary partner.

General Kondratiuk knew he needed the C.I.A. to strengthen his own agency. The C.I.A. thought the general might be able to help Langley, too. It struggled to recruit spies inside Russia because its case officers were under heavy surveillance.

“For a Russian, allowing oneself to be recruited by an American is to commit the absolute, ultimate in treachery and treason,” General Kondratiuk said. “But for a Russian to be recruited by a Ukrainian, it’s just friends talking over a beer.”

The new station chief began regularly visiting General Kondratiuk, whose office was decorated with an aquarium where yellow and blue fish — the national colors of Ukraine — swam circles around a model of a sunken Russian submarine. The two men became close, which drove the relationship between the two agencies, and the Ukrainians gave the new station chief an affectionate nickname: Santa Claus.

In January 2016, General Kondratiuk flew to Washington for meetings at Scattergood, an estate on the C.I.A. campus in Virginia where the agency often fetes visiting dignitaries. The agency agreed to help the HUR modernize, and to improve its ability to intercept Russian military communications. In exchange, General Kondratiuk agreed to share all of the raw intelligence with the Americans.

Now the partnership was real.

Operation Goldfish

Today, the narrow road leading to the secret base is framed by minefields, seeded as a line of defense in the weeks after Russia’s invasion. The Russian missiles that hit the base had seemingly shut it down, but just weeks later the Ukrainians returned.

With money and equipment provided by the C.I.A., crews under General Dvoretskiy’s command began to rebuild, but underground. To avoid detection, they only worked at night and when Russian spy satellites were not overhead. Workers also parked their cars a distance away from the construction site.

In the bunker, General Dvoretskiy pointed to communications equipment and large computer servers, some of which were financed by the C.I.A. He said his teams were using the base to hack into the Russian military’s secure communications networks.

“This is the thing that breaks into satellites and decodes secret conversations,” General Dvoretskiy told a Times journalist on a tour, adding that they were hacking into spy satellites from China and Belarus, too.

Another officer placed two recently produced maps on a table, as evidence of how Ukraine is tracking Russian activity around the world.

The first showed the overhead routes of Russian spy satellites traveling over central Ukraine. The second showed how Russian spy satellites are passing over strategic military installations — including a nuclear weapons facility — in the eastern and central United States.

A military checkpoint, with a sign indicating land mines along the roadside, blocking the road to the Russian border in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, in December last year.Credit…David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Ukrainian police officers setting up a mobile checkpoint in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region near the Russian border in December.Credit…David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

The C.I.A. began sending equipment in 2016, after the pivotal meeting at Scattergood, General Dvoretskiy said, providing encrypted radios and devices for intercepting secret enemy communications.

Beyond the base, the C.I.A. also oversaw a training program, carried out in two European cities, to teach Ukrainian intelligence officers how to convincingly assume fake personas and steal secrets in Russia and other countries that are adept at rooting out spies. The program was called Operation Goldfish, which derived from a joke about a Russian-speaking goldfish who offers two Estonians wishes in exchange for its freedom.

The punchline was that one of the Estonians bashed the fish’s head with a rock, explaining that anything speaking Russian could not be trusted.

The Operation Goldfish officers were soon deployed to 12 newly-built, forward operating bases constructed along the Russian border. From each base, General Kondratiuk said, the Ukrainian officers ran networks of agents who gathered intelligence inside Russia.

C.I.A. officers installed equipment at the bases to help gather intelligence and also identified some of the most skilled Ukrainian graduates of the Operation Goldfish program, working with them to approach potential Russian sources. These graduates then trained sleeper agents on Ukrainian territory meant to launch guerrilla operations in case of occupation.

It can often take years for the C.I.A. to develop enough trust in a foreign agency to begin conducting joint operations. With the Ukrainians it had taken less than six months. The new partnership started producing so much raw intelligence about Russia that it had to be shipped to Langley for processing.

But the C.I.A. did have red lines. It wouldn’t help the Ukrainians conduct offensive lethal operations.

“We made a distinction between intelligence collection operations and things that go boom,” a former senior U.S. official said.

‘This is Our Country’

It was a distinction that grated on the Ukrainians.

First, General Kondratiuk was annoyed when the Americans refused to provide satellite images from inside Russia. Soon after, he requested C.I.A. assistance in planning a clandestine mission to send HUR commandos into Russia to plant explosive devices at train depots used by the Russian military. If the Russian military sought to take more Ukrainian territory, Ukrainians could detonate the explosives to slow the Russian advance.

When the station chief briefed his superiors, they “lost their minds,” as one former official put it. Mr. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, called General Kondratiuk to make certain that mission was canceled and that Ukraine abided by the red lines forbidding lethal operations.

General Kondratiuk canceled the mission, but he also took a different lesson. “Going forward, we worked to not have discussions about these things with your guys,” he said.

Late that summer, Ukrainian spies discovered that Russian forces were deploying attack helicopters at an airfield on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, possibly to stage a surprise attack.

General Kondratiuk decided to send a team into Crimea to plant explosives at the airfield so they could be detonated if Russia moved to attack.

This time, he didn’t ask the C.I.A. for permission. He turned to Unit 2245, the commando force that received specialized military training from the C.I.A.’s elite paramilitary group, known as the Ground Department. The intent of the training was to teach defensive techniques, but C.I.A. officers understood that without their knowledge the Ukrainians could use the same techniques in offensive lethal operations.

Petro Poroshenko, then the president of Ukraine, right, and Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the U.S. vice president, during a meeting in Kyiv in 2015.Credit…Pool photo by Mikhail Palinchak

General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency in Kyiv, this month.Credit…Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

At the time, the future head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, General Budanov, was a rising star in Unit 2245. He was known for daring operations behind enemy lines and had deep ties to the C.I.A. The agency had trained him and also taken the extraordinary step of sending him for rehabilitation to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland after he was shot in the right arm during fighting in the Donbas.

Disguised in Russian uniforms, then-Lt. Col. Budanov led commandos across a narrow gulf in inflatable speedboats, landing at night in Crimea.

But an elite Russian commando unit was waiting for them. The Ukrainians fought back, killing several Russian fighters, including the son of a general, before retreating to the shoreline, plunging into the sea and swimming for hours to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

It was a disaster. In a public address, President Putin accused the Ukrainians of plotting a terrorist attack and promised to avenge the deaths of the Russian fighters.

“There is no doubt that we will not let these things pass,” he said.

In Washington, the Obama White House was livid. Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the vice president and a champion of assistance to Ukraine, called Ukraine’s president to angrily complain.

“It causes a gigantic problem,” Mr. Biden said in the call, a recording of which was leaked and published online. “All I’m telling you as a friend is that my making arguments here is a hell of a lot harder now.”

Some of Mr. Obama’s advisers wanted to shut the C.I.A. program down, but Mr. Brennan persuaded them that doing so would be self-defeating, given the relationship was starting to produce intelligence on the Russians as the C.I.A. was investigating Russian election meddling.

Mr. Brennan got on the phone with General Kondratiuk to again emphasize the red lines.

The general was upset. “This is our country,” he responded, according to a colleague. “It’s our war, and we’ve got to fight.”

The blowback from Washington cost General Kondratiuk his job. But Ukraine didn’t back down.

The pro-Russian rebel commander Arseny Pavlov, known as “Motorola,” saluting while taking part in a military parade in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in 2016.

Police officials examining the wreckage of Maksym Shapoval’s car after he was killed in an explosion in Kyiv, in 2017.

One day after General Kondratiuk was removed, a mysterious explosion in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, ripped through an elevator carrying a senior Russian separatist commander named Arsen Pavlov, known by his nom de guerre, Motorola.

The C.I.A. soon learned that the assassins were members of the Fifth Directorate, the spy group that received C.I.A. training. Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency had even handed out commemorative patches to those involved, each one stitched with the word “Lift,” the British term for an elevator.

Again, some of Mr. Obama’s advisers were furious, but they were lame ducks — the presidential election pitting Donald J. Trump against Hillary Rodham Clinton was three weeks away — and the assassinations continued.

A team of Ukrainian agents set up an unmanned, shoulder-fired rocket launcher in a building in the occupied territories. It was directly across from the office of a rebel commander named Mikhail Tolstykh, better known as Givi. Using a remote trigger, they fired the launcher as soon as Givi entered his office, killing him, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

A shadow war was now in overdrive. The Russians used a car bomb to assassinate the head of Unit 2245, the elite Ukrainian commando force. The commander, Col. Maksim Shapoval, was on his way to meeting with C.I.A. officers in Kyiv when his car exploded.

At the colonel’s wake, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, stood in mourning beside the C.I.A. station chief. Later, C.I.A. officers and their Ukrainian counterparts toasted Colonel Shapoval with whiskey shots.

“For all of us,” General Kondratiuk said, “it was a blow.”

Tiptoeing Around Trump

The election of Mr. Trump in November 2016 put the Ukrainians and their C.I.A. partners on edge.

Mr. Trump praised Mr. Putin and dismissed Russia’s role in election interference. He was suspicious of Ukraine and later tried to pressure its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate his Democratic rival, Mr. Biden, resulting in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.

But whatever Mr. Trump said and did, his administration often went in the other direction. This is because Mr. Trump had put Russia hawks in key positions, including Mike Pompeo as C.I.A. director and John Bolton as national security adviser. They visited Kyiv to underline their full support for the secret partnership, which expanded to include more specialized training programs and the building of additional secret bases.

The base in the forest grew to include a new command center and barracks, and swelled from 80 to 800 Ukrainian intelligence officers. Preventing Russia from interfering in future U.S. elections was a top C.I.A. priority during this period, and Ukrainian and American intelligence officers joined forces to probe the computer systems of Russia’s intelligence agencies to identify operatives trying to manipulate voters.

Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, talking with Donald J. Trump, then the U.S. president, talking in 2017.Credit…Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Mike Pompeo, then the U.S. secretary of state, laying flowers at a memorial to Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv in 2020.

In one joint operation, a HUR team duped an officer from Russia’s military intelligence service into providing information that allowed the C.I.A. to connect Russia’s government to the so-called Fancy Bear hacking group, which had been linked to election interference efforts in a number of countries.

General Budanov, whom Mr. Zelensky tapped to lead the HUR in 2020, said of the partnership: “It only strengthened. It grew systematically. The cooperation expanded to additional spheres and became more large-scale.”

The relationship was so successful that the C.I.A. wanted to replicate it with other European intelligence services that shared a focus in countering Russia.

The head of Russia House, the C.I.A. department overseeing operations against Russia, organized a secret meeting at The Hague. There, representatives from the C.I.A., Britain’s MI6, the HUR, the Dutch service (a critical intelligence ally) and other agencies agreed to start pooling together more of their intelligence on Russia.

The result was a secret coalition against Russia — and the Ukrainians were vital members of it.

March to War

In March 2021, the Russian military started massing troops along the border with Ukraine. As the months passed, and more troops encircled the country, the question was whether Mr. Putin was making a feint or preparing for war.

That November, and in the weeks that followed, the C.I.A. and MI6 delivered a unified message to their Ukrainian partners: Russia was preparing for a full-scale invasion to decapitate the government and install a puppet in Kyiv who would do the Kremlin’s bidding.

U.S. and British intelligence agencies had intercepts that Ukrainian intelligence agencies did not have access to, according to U.S. officials. The new intelligence listed the names of Ukrainian officials whom the Russians were planning to kill or capture, as well as the Ukrainians the Kremlin hoped to install in power.

Russian self-propelled howitzers being loaded to the train car at the station outside Taganrog, Russia, days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Credit…The New York Times

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at a news conference in Kyiv in March 2022.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

President Zelensky and some of his top advisers appeared unconvinced, even after Mr. Burns, the C.I.A. director, rushed to Kyiv in January 2022 to brief them.

As the Russian invasion neared, C.I.A. and MI6 officers made final visits in Kyiv with their Ukrainian peers. One of the M16 officers teared up in front of the Ukrainians, out of concern that the Russians would kill them.

At Mr. Burns’s urging, a small group of C.I.A. officers were exempted from the broader U.S. evacuation and were relocated to a hotel complex in western Ukraine. They didn’t want to desert their partners.

No Endgame

After Mr. Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the C.I.A. officers at the hotel were the only U.S. government presence on the ground. Every day at the hotel, they met with their Ukrainian contacts to pass information. The old handcuffs were off, and the Biden White House authorized spy agencies to provide intelligence support for lethal operations against Russian forces on Ukrainian soil.

Often, the C.I.A. briefings contained shockingly specific details.

On March 3, 2022 — the eighth day of the war — the C.I.A. team gave a precise overview of Russian plans for the coming two weeks. The Russians would open a humanitarian corridor out of the besieged city of Mariupol that same day, and then open fire on the Ukrainians who used it.

The Russians planned to encircle the strategic port city of Odesa, according to the C.I.A., but a storm delayed the assault and the Russians never took the city. Then, on March 10, the Russians intended to bombard six Ukrainian cities, and had already entered coordinates into cruise missiles for those strikes.

The Russians also were trying to assassinate top Ukrainian officials, including Mr. Zelensky. In at least one case, the C.I.A. shared intelligence with Ukraine’s domestic agency that helped disrupt a plot against the president, according to a senior Ukrainian official.

When the Russian assault on Kyiv had stalled, the C.I.A. station chief rejoiced and told his Ukrainian counterparts that they were “punching the Russians in the face,” according to a Ukrainian officer who was in the room.

A Ukrainian Army soldier preparing defenses at a beachfront position in Odesa in 2022.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Crowds gathering for food handouts in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after it was retaken from Russian occupation, in 2022.Credit…Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Within weeks, the C.I.A. had returned to Kyiv, and the agency sent in scores of new officers to help the Ukrainians. A senior U.S. official said of the C.I.A.’s sizable presence, “Are they pulling triggers? No. Are they helping with targeting? Absolutely.”

Some of the C.I.A. officers were deployed to Ukrainian bases. They reviewed lists of potential Russian targets that the Ukrainians were preparing to strike, comparing the information that the Ukrainians had with U.S. intelligence to ensure that it was accurate.

Before the invasion, the C.I.A. and MI6 had trained their Ukrainian counterparts on recruiting sources, and building clandestine and partisan networks. In the southern Kherson region, which was occupied by Russia in the first weeks of the war, those partisan networks sprang into action, according to General Kondratiuk, assassinating local collaborators and helping Ukrainian forces target Russian positions.

In July 2022, Ukrainian spies saw Russian convoys preparing to cross a strategic bridge across the Dnipro river and notified MI6. British and American intelligence officers then quickly verified the Ukrainian intelligence, using real-time satellite imagery. MI6 relayed the confirmation, and the Ukrainian military opened fire with rockets, destroying the convoys.

At the underground bunker, General Dvoretskiy said a German antiaircraft system now defends against Russian attacks. An air-filtration system guards against chemical weapons and a dedicated power system is available, if the power grid goes down.

The question that some Ukrainian intelligence officers are now asking their American counterparts — as Republicans in the House weigh whether to cut off billions of dollars in aid — is whether the C.I.A. will abandon them. “It happened in Afghanistan before and now it’s going to happen in Ukraine,” a senior Ukrainian officer said.

Referring to Mr. Burns’s visit to Kyiv last week, a C.I.A. official said, “We have demonstrated a clear commitment to Ukraine over many years and this visit was another strong signal that the U.S. commitment will continue.”

The C.I.A. and the HUR have built two other secret bases to intercept Russian communications, and combined with the 12 forward operating bases, which General Kondratiuk says are still operational, the HUR now collects and produces more intelligence than at any time in the war — much of which it shares with the C.I.A.

“You can’t get information like this anywhere — except here, and now,” General Dvoretskiy said.

Natalia Yermak contributed translation.

A home, flying Ukrainian and American flags, standing in the destroyed and mostly abandoned village of Rubizhne in the Kharkiv region, close to the Russian border, in December.Credit…David Guttenfelder

is a Washington-based investigative correspondent and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Before joining the Washington bureau of The Times, he covered intelligence, national security and foreign policy for The New Yorker magazine, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

is an investigative reporter with the International desk. With The Times since 2006, he previously covered the countries of the former Soviet Union from Moscow and was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for articles about Russian intelligence operations.

1

nytimes.com · by Michael Schwirtz · February 25, 2024

3. Opinion: As an American in Avdiivka, what is Congress doing?

A thoughtful and thought provoking essay.

Excerpts:

Our balanced approach to life and law does not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. In fact, every moment of every day there are billions of people studying U.S. history and politics – poor people, desperate people, people who are captured under the rule of a dictator who views their subjects as sheep to be sheered or slaughtered, sacrificed for power.

Russians live in such a culture. The Russians who are fighting in Ukraine are not like Americans. They could be, but they are not. We have killed thousands and thousands of them… and they keep coming. It is a great tragedy that these Russian men are dead. They could be raising their families, building infrastructure, creating new inventions, or dreaming of a better world.

But they are not.

Their society, their culture, their leaders, and their dreams speak of death; to kill their enemies, to die in glory, to destroy. Their society currently does not dream of progress, prosperity, or fairness. Their desire is for suffering, poverty, and ignorance. With these conditions, the leaders of Russia can shape their people’s minds toward anything they want. Like a hostage falling in love with their captors, Russian people are so desperate and miserable that they will do anything to satisfy the masters they depend on.

And the fact that, directly on the Russian border, there is a nation called Ukraine that is leading a democratic change to freedom and independence is why Russia has invaded it. Russian leaders cannot have free Ukrainians running around and living whatever lives they want. If Russian people are able to travel across their own border, make friends with Ukrainians, and see what Ukraine has built, it would dispel the entire power structure of Russian elites.

...

Incidentally, Russia's victory will lead to the capture of Ukraine and more evidence that the U.S. does not care about its ideals beyond its own borders. It will be yet another sign that the U.S. cannot be counted on as a friend and that the U.S. – with all of its economic prosperity, values, warships, and weapons – cannot be trusted with the power and influence we currently wield in the world.

The damage and destruction Russia is causing is something ISIS couldn’t imagine in even its wildest dreams.

The U.S. and Ukraine’s goals and futures have suddenly collided toward the same ends, and we need only to give Ukrainians the tools they are asking for. Give Ukrainians the weapons they need, and they will succeed.

There is so much more that could be said about how Ukrainians avoid targeting Russian civilians with long-range strikes. How Russians deliberately target Ukrainian civilians and civil infrastructure. How often Russian soldiers wear Ukrainian uniforms and attempt to infiltrate or use other underhanded tactics despite having military and economic advantages.

I am still an American soldier. I am still a warrior and a member of a team. I can tell you that here in Avdiivka, we felt the result of Congress’ actions to defund Ukraine. Our Ukrainian partners are not complaining. They are humble and doing everything they can to survive. I am here and I can see what is happening. I am complaining.

Opinion: As an American in Avdiivka, what is Congress doing?

https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-from-an-american-in-avdiivka-what-is-congress-doing/

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February 20, 2024 2:36 PM

10 min read

John Roberts

American volunteer with Ukraine's Armed Forces

Ukrainian police evacuate people from embattled Avdiivka, Ukraine, on Oct. 30, 2023. (Vlada Liberova/Libkos via Getty Images)

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1XBeyondWords

This audio is created with AI assistance

I am an American military veteran, callsign "Jackie," and I am writing from Donbas in Ukraine. I am originally from Orange County, California. I served in the U.S. military for eight years, stationed in Colorado, South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. I also worked as a contractor at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center in North Carolina, helping prepare our future special operators.

As an American soldier, I have always been interested in our national security and global interests. I am currently an assault instructor serving in the 3rd Assault Brigade, an elite unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

A few days ago, we came to the rescue of Ukrainian forces who had been enduring the Russian attack on the town of Avdiivka. Our fighters quickly destroyed two Russian brigades and kept a corridor open for Ukrainians in Avdiivka to retreat from the town. Our soldiers are true professionals, undisturbed by the massive Russian firepower being flung at them and fighting hard to gain and maintain the corridor.

One thing I teach my students is to conduct “shaping-operations”– essentially, to take steps by using alternative means such as artillery, airpower (drones in our case), or electronic warfare to prepare the battlefield for the success of our infantry to capture their final positions. My students are very excited to employ these techniques, they train on them and use them in battle frequently.

Russia takes Avdiivka at steep price, as Ukraine forced to face shortcomings

Ukrainian soldiers are highly motivated to fight efficiently and reduce casualties as they are making their transition from Soviet to NATO doctrinal warfare. Our brigade is leading this transition and using shaping-operations at every level possible – even down to the squad. We make plans, we do reconnaissance, we task support assets and we review our actions after battle to learn what we did well and what we need to change. We admit our successes and failures and we improve and grow ourselves as professionals. Because of this, in battle, we are confident and unrelenting.

On the ground in Avdiivka, we felt the results of current U.S. politics with full force. We are accustomed to fighting with less artillery than Russia. We have already developed clever ways of using precision fire to counter Russian artillery. Our artillery soldiers use their U.S.-provided weapons efficiently and effectively to batter the second largest military in the world, so that our assaulters have cover while they pierce like needles to rapidly cut Russian forces' critical arteries.

We are used to fighting understrength. We are intelligently adapted and trained to push ourselves to the highest level of combat performance, but we cannot deliver miracles. We have already delivered many miracles in this war, and I am sure we will continue to do so, but hoping for miracles is not a reliable way to win a war.

I need to go pray and say goodbye to more of my students and friends. These soldiers, these men and women, are incredible people. It takes weeks to teach American soldiers what Ukrainians are able to learn in hours. Their standards and self-expectations are high. They usually accomplish complex team-based tasks correctly on their first attempt.

Every time they fail in training, they get angry with themselves and repeat the task until it is right. I have never had to ask them to stay later or work harder. They hardly sleep, they don’t complain, and most of them have families. Besides not getting to spend time with their families, these soldiers know that this fight is for their future and their safety.

Ukrainian soldiers sit on an armored vehicle in the outskirts of Avdiivka, Ukraine, on Feb. 14, 2024(Vlada Liberova/Libkos/Getty Images)

I am extremely disappointed in a super minority decision in Congress to block funding for Ukraine. They have said that we need this or that – border security or healthcare or whatever you want to say – but it is clear to me that this is solely about Ukraine. We didn’t have proper border security or healthcare in 2010 either – or 2000, or 1990, or 1980, or 1970 0r 1960, or 1950. Our decision and ability as Americans to have funding for something we supposedly want has nothing to do with enabling Ukraine’s current defense.

The problems in the U.S. that this super minority in Congress is citing to block funding have endured since the founding of our nation in the 1700s. They have nothing to do with Ukraine in 2024. I am sure that France in 1776 could have come up with many excuses not to support American colonists fighting for independence from British subjugation. Foreign support and arms enabled Congress to stand today. Now, we are tasked to keep the light of freedom lit for others.

The current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, wants to pour water on that fire. We are fighting hard against impossible odds. All you need to do is help from a distance, and that is a good thing for Americans.

You do not want to come here. The Ukrainians are dying and it is not out of ignorance or accident. They are dedicated to their liberation from Soviet values and Russian oppression. They are spilling oceans of blood to join the free democracies of the world.

Ukrainians, who enjoy an average income of something like $5,000 a year, are the largest public donors to the war. Ukrainian soldiers purchase most of their professional equipment with their own income. This economy was already struggling before the invasion and there are still not enough resources to fight and equip everyone.

Opinion: Europe must rearm now

Ukrainians are doing everything and giving everything they have for this, and they will not stop. They are fighting for their future, and they will not give up on their future. They will not surrender to Russian capture and enslavement. They received a soft independence in 1991, which they turned into complete self-governance and independence in 2014 and now Russia has come to crush them.

Thanks to U.S. aid, the Ukrainians have not been crushed. Thanks to U.S. aid, they have taught the second largest military power in the world, that might doesn't make right. Where is the Russian cruiser Moskva? Thanks to U.S. aid, a new free nation is being born in the world. Ukraine is not giving up.

Americans, we cannot give up either. I can say from living in California, Colorado, and North Carolina that I love the U.S. I love the peace and prosperity that I enjoy in the U.S. I have been to enough places around the world to know that we are blessed with the lives we live and the hardships we sometimes endure. I trust our American mindset, based on freedom and free will.

In every American mind exists the mental foundations of blind justice, mutual consent, self-determination, individual rights, a resistance to mob rule, a resistance to rule by elites, a resistance to rule by violent force, a desire to stand up for the weak or oppressed, a desire to create, build, explore, learn, and improve, and a desire to shape the conditions of a paradise for all.

The U.S.' goals are ambitious, but not selfish. We know that by standing up for others, we expose ourselves to harm. We know that by accepting the freedom to succeed in our lives, we also accept the freedom to fail.

We know that we want low-cost healthcare, but we also know that we don’t want to empower a government dictatorship over the medical industry. We know we want to show compassion to people who are suffering, but we also know that we don’t want open borders for all to take advantage of our kindness.

Our balanced approach to life and law does not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. In fact, every moment of every day there are billions of people studying U.S. history and politics – poor people, desperate people, people who are captured under the rule of a dictator who views their subjects as sheep to be sheered or slaughtered, sacrificed for power.

Russians live in such a culture. The Russians who are fighting in Ukraine are not like Americans. They could be, but they are not. We have killed thousands and thousands of them… and they keep coming. It is a great tragedy that these Russian men are dead. They could be raising their families, building infrastructure, creating new inventions, or dreaming of a better world.

But they are not.

Their society, their culture, their leaders, and their dreams speak of death; to kill their enemies, to die in glory, to destroy. Their society currently does not dream of progress, prosperity, or fairness. Their desire is for suffering, poverty, and ignorance. With these conditions, the leaders of Russia can shape their people’s minds toward anything they want. Like a hostage falling in love with their captors, Russian people are so desperate and miserable that they will do anything to satisfy the masters they depend on.

And the fact that, directly on the Russian border, there is a nation called Ukraine that is leading a democratic change to freedom and independence is why Russia has invaded it. Russian leaders cannot have free Ukrainians running around and living whatever lives they want. If Russian people are able to travel across their own border, make friends with Ukrainians, and see what Ukraine has built, it would dispel the entire power structure of Russian elites.

Russian leaders know that this is their last chance to capture their people’s minds. Russia’s goal is to maintain the illusion of desperation to their population, that the Ukrainians are set to shatter completely.

Opinion: How many tanks does Russia have left?

Ukraine is not trying to challenge Russia – it has done so incidentally. Ukrainians want prosperity, independence, freedom, and the rule of law just like the rest of the U.S.' allies.

Ukrainians built a path for themselves to get there and they were doing it right. In 2014, they demanded fair democratic rule and they actually got it. Ukrainians have built successful businesses, their agricultural industry is one of the most productive in the world, they educate their people, and their contribution to the workforce of the global information technology industry was significant.

Russia took steps to slow them down in 2014, invading Crimea and Donbas, but Ukrainians persisted in their vision of progress. And then came 2022: The ladder the Ukrainians were climbing was broken by Russian artillery.

But the most extraordinary thing is that Ukrainians don't care.

They continue to climb this broken ladder and nothing will stop them. What should we think about these people, whose will for progress has already endured so much resistance? Do we really think the Ukrainians will give up? Do we think they should give up? If Ukrainians win, it will result in the freedom and prosperity of a new and enduring democracy. Incidentally, it will result in a collapse of the Russian societal mindset of master and slave.

The Russian nation will endure, but divorced from its current dream of theft and destruction. The Russian people will have an opportunity to flourish, to take advantage of global trade and ideas, to spark a desire for the freedoms that they see in Ukraine. If Russia wins, it will result in the survival of an impoverished dictatorship.

A view of smoke billowing from the Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant in Avdiivka, Ukraine, on Feb. 15, 2024. (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)

Incidentally, Russia's victory will lead to the capture of Ukraine and more evidence that the U.S. does not care about its ideals beyond its own borders. It will be yet another sign that the U.S. cannot be counted on as a friend and that the U.S. – with all of its economic prosperity, values, warships, and weapons – cannot be trusted with the power and influence we currently wield in the world.

The damage and destruction Russia is causing is something ISIS couldn’t imagine in even its wildest dreams.

The U.S. and Ukraine’s goals and futures have suddenly collided toward the same ends, and we need only to give Ukrainians the tools they are asking for. Give Ukrainians the weapons they need, and they will succeed.

There is so much more that could be said about how Ukrainians avoid targeting Russian civilians with long-range strikes. How Russians deliberately target Ukrainian civilians and civil infrastructure. How often Russian soldiers wear Ukrainian uniforms and attempt to infiltrate or use other underhanded tactics despite having military and economic advantages.

I am still an American soldier. I am still a warrior and a member of a team. I can tell you that here in Avdiivka, we felt the result of Congress’ actions to defund Ukraine. Our Ukrainian partners are not complaining. They are humble and doing everything they can to survive. I am here and I can see what is happening. I am complaining.

What happened in Congress this winter was wrong. Many Ukrainian soldiers wear the American flag into battle out of respect and admiration. Ukrainians who look up to the U.S. and our values. Many of whom are now dead.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

SUBMIT AN OPINION

John Roberts

American volunteer with Ukraine's Armed Forces

John "Jackie" Roberts is an American military veteran, and a volunteer assault instructor and soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Roberts' unit was operating near Avdiivka around when it was captured by Russian forces in February 2024.

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4. House China committee demands Elon Musk open SpaceX Starshield internet to U.S. troops in Taiwan

House China committee demands Elon Musk open SpaceX Starshield internet to U.S. troops in Taiwan

PUBLISHED SAT, FEB 24 20246:28 PM ESTUPDATED SAT, FEB 24 20246:35 PM EST

Rebecca Picciotto

@BECCPICC

Lora Kolodny

@IN/LORAKOLODNY/

KEY POINTS

• The House China committee sent a letter on Saturday to Elon Musk demanding that U.S. troops stationed in Taiwan get access to SpaceX’s Starshield, a satellite communication network designed specifically for the military.
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• The letter came after Committee Chair Rep. Mike Gallagher and a delegation of lawmakers returned from a Taiwan visit where they learned that Starshield was not operational for American troops in and around the region.
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• Taiwan governs itself independently of China, but Beijing officials have repeatedly made clear their intention to reunify the sovereign island with the mainland.

CNBC · by Rebecca Picciotto,Lora Kolodny · February 24, 2024

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and X, speaks at the Atreju political convention organized by Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), in Rome, Dec. 15, 2023.

Antonio Masiello | Getty Images

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter on Saturday to Elon Musk demanding that U.S. troops stationed in Taiwan get access to SpaceX's Starshield, a satellite communication network designed specifically for the military.

The letter, obtained by CNBC and first reported by Forbes, claimed that by not making Starshield available to U.S. military forces in Taiwan, SpaceX could violate its Pentagon contract, which requires "global access" to Starshield technology.

"I understand, however, that SpaceX is possibly withholding broadband internet services in and around Taiwan — possibly in breach of SpaceX's contractual obligations with the U.S. government," read the letter, which was signed by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wi., who chairs the House CCP committee.

The Pentagon awarded SpaceX a one-year contract for Starshield in September, after commissioning SpaceX's Starlink network months earlier for Ukraine's war against Russia, which hit the two-year mark on Saturday.

The letter comes after Gallagher led a visit to Taiwan where he and a delegation of other lawmakers met with Taiwan officials like President Tsai Ing-wen and President-Elect Lai Ching-te.

The letter said that the lawmakers learned that U.S. troops stationed in Taiwan were not able to use Starshield despite the Pentagon's stipulation of global access: "Multiple sources have disclosed to the Committee that Starshield is inactive in and around Taiwan."

The letter requests that Musk provide the House committee with a briefing on its Taiwan operations by March 8.

Taiwan has been governing itself independently of China since the island split from the mainland during the 1949 civil war. China has said it still lays claim to Taiwan and has repeatedly made clear its intention to reunify the sovereign island with the mainland.

"In the event of CCP military aggression against Taiwan, American servicemembers in the Western Pacific would be put at severe risk," read the letter. "Ensuring robust communication networks for U.S. military personnel on and around Taiwan is paramount for safeguarding U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific region."

Tesla's success hinges on favorable business relations with China, which has led Musk, its CEO, to cultivate cozy relations with the country, despite its broader tensions with the U.S. Tesla operates its own factory in Shanghai while other foreign automakers in China had been required to establish joint ventures.

Musk came under fire from Taiwanese officials last September for seemingly siding with China's reunification doctrine toward Taiwan, stating that the self-governing island was an essential part of China.

"I think I've got a pretty good understanding as an outsider of China," Musk said on the All-In Podcast. "From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China."

"Listen up, #Taiwan is not part of the #PRC & certainly not for sale," Taiwan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jaushieh Joseph Wu wrote on X in response to Musk's comment.

SpaceX and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

Read the full letter here:

CNBC · by Rebecca Picciotto,Lora Kolodny · February 24, 2024

5. The Russo-Ukrainian War: A Strategic Assessment Two Years into the Conflict

Download the 23 page paper in PDF at this link: https://www.ausa.org/file/114561/download?token=aj-B-BQq

The Russo-Ukrainian War: A Strategic Assessment Two Years into the Conflict

ausa.org · February 20, 2024

by LTC Amos C. Fox, USA

Land Warfare Paper 158, February 2024

In Brief

• Examining the strategic balance in the Russo-Ukrainian War leads to the conclusion that Russia has the upper hand.
• In 2024, Ukraine has limited prospects for overturning Russian territorial annexations and troop reinforcements of stolen territory.
• Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian offensive action decreases as U.S. financial and materiel support decreases.
• Ukraine needs a significant increase in land forces to evict the occupying Russian land forces.

Introduction

The Russo-Ukrainian War is passing into its third year. In the period leading up to this point in the conflict, the defense and security studies community has been awash with arguments stating that the war is a stalemate. Perhaps the most compelling argument comes from General Valery Zaluzhny, former commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, who stated as much in an interview with the Economist in November 2023.1 Meanwhile, there are others, including noted analyst Jack Watling, who emphatically state the opposite.2

Nonetheless, two years in, it is useful to objectively examine the conflict’s strategic balance. Some basic questions guide the examination, such as: is Ukraine winning, or is Russia winning? What does Ukraine need to defeat Russia, and conversely, what does Russia need to win in Ukraine? Moreover, aside from identifying who is winning or losing the conflict, it is important to identify salient trends that are germane not just within the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, but that are applicable throughout the defense and security studies communities.

This article addresses these questions through the use of the ends-ways-means-risk heuristic. In doing so, it examines Russia and Ukraine’s current strategic dispositions, and not what they were in February 2022, nor what we might want them to be. Viewing the conflict through the lens of preference and aspiration causes any analyst to misread the strategic situation. The goal of this article, however, is to take a sobering look at the realities of the conflict, offer an assessment of the situation, and posit where the conflict is likely to go in 2024.

The overall conclusion is that Russia is winning the conflict. Russia is winning because it possesses its minimally acceptable outcome: the possession of the Donbas, of the land bridge to Crimea, and of Crimea itself. This victory condition, however, is dependent upon Ukraine’s inability to generate a force sufficient to a) defeat Russia’s forces in each of those discrete pieces of territory; b) retake control of that territory; and c) hold that territory against subsequent Russian counterattacks. No amount of precision strike, long-range fires or drone attacks can compensate for the lack of land forces Ukraine needs to defeat Russia’s army and then take and hold all that terrain. Thus, without an influx of resources for the Ukrainian armed forces—to include a significant increase in land forces—Russia will likely prevail in the conflict. If U.S. support to Ukraine remains frozen, as it is at the time of this writing, then Russian victory in 2024 is a real possibility.

6. Hard Lessons Make for Hard Choices 2 Years Into the War in Ukraine

Hard Lessons Make for Hard Choices 2 Years Into the War in Ukraine

Western sanctions haven’t worked. Weapons from allies are running low. Pressure may build on Kyiv to seek a settlement, even from a weakened position.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/world/europe/lessons-choices-war-in-ukraine.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

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Soldiers with the 31st Separate Mechanized Brigade firing a 122-millimeter howitzer D-30 at a Russian target this week in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

By Steven Erlanger and David E. Sanger

Reporting from Munich and Berlin

Feb. 24, 2024

Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States has the capacity to keep Kyiv supplied with the weapons, technology and intelligence to fend off a takeover by Moscow. But Washington is now perceived around Europe to have lost its will.

The Europeans, in contrast, have the will — they just committed another $54 billion to reconstruct the country — but when it comes to repelling Russia’s revived offensive, they do not have the capacity.

That is the essence of the conundrum facing Ukraine and the NATO allies on the dismal second anniversary of the war. It is a stunning reversal. Only a year ago, many here predicted that Ukraine’s counteroffensive, bolstered by European tanks and missiles and American artillery and air defenses, could push the Russians back to where they were on Feb. 24, 2022.

Now, some harsh lessons have emerged. The sanctions that were supposed to bring Russia’s economy to its knees — “the ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble,” President Biden declared in Warsaw in March 2022 — have lost their sting. The International Monetary Fund’s prediction that the Russian economy would shrink considerably was only briefly true; with the huge stimulus of military spending, it is growing faster than Germany’s. Income from oil exports is greater than it was before the invasion.

With the setbacks, and the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, hope has just about collapsed that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will conclude anytime soon that he can make no further gains and should enter a serious negotiation to end the war.

American and European intelligence officials now assess that Mr. Putin is determined to hold on, even at the cost of huge casualties, in the hope that a failure in Congress to fund Ukraine’s effort sufficiently or a victory by former President Donald J. Trump in November will make up for the Russian leader’s many early mistakes.

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Soldiers who were recruited from across Russia at Kadyrov’s Russian Special Forces University in December in Gudermes, Chechnya. Intelligence officials say there is little hope that Russia will enter a serious negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Biden administration officials still insist that Mr. Putin has already suffered a “strategic defeat.” His military is humiliated by its early failures and huge casualties, which Britain estimated on Saturday at 350,000 killed and wounded, and Russia can count on only China, Iran and North Korea as reliable suppliers.

At the same time, NATO has enlarged. Sweden is set to become the 32nd member state within a few days, after the addition of Finland last year, and two-thirds of its members will each spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense this year, a significant increase.

For the first time since NATO was founded in 1949, Europeans are finally taking seriously the need for a defense infrastructure independent of the United States.

Still, as recent intelligence reports in Europe indicate that NATO nations might be Mr. Putin’s target in the next three to five years, the question remains: Without a durable American commitment, can Ukraine and Europe defend against a new Russian threat?

Strategic Stalemate

At the core of the current strategic stalemate is the absence of any serious prospect of a negotiated settlement.

As recently as last summer, senior members of the Biden administration held out hope that Ukrainian advances on the battlefield would force Mr. Putin to find a face-saving way out. The most commonly discussed possibility was a negotiated settlement that left unclear the future of the parts of Ukraine seized or annexed by Russia, but which would at least end the fighting.

At the same time, at a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Mr. Biden and his aides were discussing with President Volodymyr Zelensky putting together an “Israel model” of aid for Ukraine. Even if short of actual membership, the plan aspired to provide a decade-long guarantee of the arms and training that Ukraine would need to keep Russia at bay.

But even hope for those muddled outcomes has been cast aside amid the congressional debate over renewing short-term help for Ukraine, and as pessimism sets in that Ukraine can hold out long enough to think about the long term.

As isolationism rises in a Republican-controlled Congress beholden to Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden has shifted from promising to give Ukraine “whatever it needs, for as long as it takes” to last December’s less ambitious “as long as we can.”

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Formerly Russian-held territory near Bakhmut.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

At the Munich Security Conference last weekend, Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, struck an even more sober note: Ukraine would have to learn how to fight on a tight budget.

Even if the “$61 billion of supplemental aid to Ukraine goes through, I have to be honest with you, that is not going to fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield,” he said. “The amount of munitions that we can send to Ukraine right now is very limited.”

Mr. Vance went on to make a second point: Those limited resources should be saved for competing with China and defending Taiwan.

“There are a lot of bad guys all over the world,” he said. “And I’m much more interested in some of the problems in East Asia right now than I am in Europe.”

Mr. Vance’s assessment was met with a stony silence. Shortly afterward, a senior American military official who declined to speak on the record said that the Republican debate in Washington and the mood among Ukraine’s ground forces were reinforcing each other, “and not in a positive way.”

In the view of Charles A. Kupchan, a Georgetown University professor who served as a national security official in the Obama administration, that means the United States should be exploring ways to get negotiations started to end the war.

“Even if Russia can stay the course, I don’t think Ukraine can,” he said. After two years of war, Mr. Kupchan said, “there is no foreseeable pathway toward a battlefield victory for Ukraine,” even with the imminent arrival of long-range missiles or F-16s.

Mr. Zelensky faces a stark choice, he said: whether to keep every inch of sovereign Ukrainian territory, or find a way to secure an economically viable state, with a democratic future, Western security guarantees and eventual membership in the European Union and in NATO.

In private, some senior Biden administration officials say they have been trying to nudge Mr. Zelensky in that direction. But Mr. Biden has instructed his staff not to deviate from the slogan it used at the beginning of the war: “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

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President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Washington in September.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

The result is that American military officials in Europe, led by Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, have been quietly warning that the best the Ukrainians can hope for is a largely frozen conflict.

General Cavoli rarely speaks publicly, but officials emerging from recent briefings with him described a downbeat assessment, one in which, at best, the Ukrainians use 2024 to defend, rebuild and attempt another counteroffensive next year.

Even in Europe, where support for Ukraine has been strongest, public opinion is shifting, too. In a recent opinion poll conducted in January for the European Council on Foreign Relations in 12 countries, only 10 percent of Europeans said they believed Ukraine would win the war, though what would constitute a win was not clearly defined. Twenty percent said they believed that Russia would win, and a plurality, 37 percent, thought the war would end in some kind of settlement.

But if the United States withdraws support from Ukraine and presses Kyiv for a deal, 41 percent of Europeans polled said their governments should either increase support to try to replace Washington or continue support at the current level. Roughly a third said that European countries should follow Washington and pressure Kyiv to settle.

“Things are not going well,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said bluntly as he left the Munich Security Conference last week.

“Ukraine is starved of ammunition and forced to pull back, Europe is facing challenges which might test Article 5, and global instability emerges because autocrats are emboldened by Russia’s action and our cautious response,” Mr. Landsbergis said on the social media platform X, in a reference to the section of the NATO treaty that calls for each member to come to the aid of any member under attack. “This is not pessimism. This is fact.”

Awakening to a Larger Threat

For years, American officials have urged Europe to spend more on its defense. Now, Europeans are beginning to confront the cost of complacency.

No matter who Americans elect as their next president in November, the United States may no longer be willing to take its traditional lead in deterring Russia or defending the West. That will inevitably place more of the burden on a Europe that is not yet fully prepared.

Germany’s military is better equipped, but it is not of the size or skill level needed to face the challenges ahead, its defense secretary, Boris Pistorius, has warned. Finland adds considerable technological capability to NATO, but Sweden’s military, American officials say, will need to be rebuilt.

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A Leopard 2 tank, front, at the factory of the German weapons manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann in 2022 in Munich.Credit...Felix Schmitt for The New York Times

Meanwhile, Europe is piecing together packages of help for Ukraine that were first meant to supplement, but now may be intended to replace, aid from the United States.

This month, European Union leaders pledged another 50 billion euros, about $54 billion, in new aid to Ukraine over the next four years. In aggregate, European countries have outpaced the United States in aid provided to Ukraine.

To date, said Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state for political affairs, the United States has provided $75 billion in security, economic, and humanitarian assistance. But, she said, “Europe and our global partners have provided even more, $107 billion, in addition to hosting 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees in countries across Europe.”

Yet to fully replace American military assistance this year, according to an assessment by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe would still have “to double its current level and pace of arms assistance.”

And European efforts to provide another 5 billion euros, about $5.4 billion, over each of the next four years to buy arms for Ukraine have stalled because of objections by Germany and France.

The Germans say they are paying too much into the fund, given their large bilateral funding of aid to Ukraine, the second largest in the world after the United States.

The French are, as ever, insisting that weapons purchased with European money should be made or at least partly made in Europe — though Europe doesn’t have the capacity to provide them.

And European promises to deliver one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March have fallen well short.

Still, European arms production has been increasing, with senior European officials saying that the continent should be able to produce a million shells a year by the end of this year, compared with about 350,000 shells 18 months ago.

While Europeans point proudly to the changes they have made, it remains far from certain that those changes are happening as fast as the world demands, especially when it comes to Ukraine.

“Strategically the goal should be to change Putin’s calculations,” said Mr. Kupchan, the former Obama administration official. “Disrupt the field. I know it’s not easy, but it is better to admit mistakes and chart a new path forward rather than to engage in empty self-congratulation.”

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Shells and primers are seen inside a self-propelled howitzer as the 80th Brigade waited to fire artillery toward Russian positions last year near Kreminna, Ukraine.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He has reported from over 120 countries, including Thailand, France, Israel, Germany and the former Soviet Union. More about Steven Erlanger

David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 25, 2024, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Hard Lessons Make for Hard Choices Two Years Into Conflict. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

7. Ditching Ukraine Would Help China and Iran (and north Korea)

I am glad to see Seth included north Korea (but note how the headline editor left it out of the title). I am still mad (jokingly) for not including north Korea in his book: “Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare.” north Korea has been masterful in the gray zone and has long conducted irregular warfare on the Korean peninsula. We just don't notice it and ignore it because of the nuclear and huge conventional military threat.

But is this about "appeasing" or our "fear to provoke" as I commented in the NY Times Article "The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin?" Or does our "fear to provoke" lead to appeasement?

Ditching Ukraine Would Help China and Iran

Beijing, Tehran, Moscow and Pyongyang all work closely together. Appease one, and you help the rest.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ditching-ukraine-would-help-china-and-iran-house-military-aid-package-03efda95?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_s

By Seth Jones

Feb. 21, 2024 2:12 pm ET

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 14. PHOTO: JOSE LUIS MAGANA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

As Congress debates an emergency supplemental bill to aid Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, some lawmakers and pundits insist that the U.S. can pick and choose between opposing China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. It can’t. The growing military, economic and diplomatic cooperation between these countries means that appeasing one of them helps the whole axis of autocracy.

The opponents of American assistance come in several flavors. There are those who believe the threat China poses necessitates that the U.S. focus on opposing Beijing, not Moscow. They fail to appreciate how a Russian victory would be a boon to autocratic regimes around the globe—most of all China. Others want to kill funding for Israel, despite growing Iranian-backed aggression in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Finally, some isolationists believe America can bury its head in the sand and focus mainly on domestic issues, such as immigration and border security, as though there’s no real trade-off. In each case, they misunderstand how wider American interests are tied into the security of each of these front-line states.

The evidence of closer relations between China, Russia, Iran and even North Korea is clear. Take China. While it is true that Beijing poses a serious danger to American interests, China also has tied itself tightly to Russia—particularly in its fight for Ukraine.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have bragged that their friendship “has no limits,” and according to American intelligence, China is “an increasingly important buttress for Russia in its war effort.” The report found that Beijing is “probably supplying Moscow with key technology and dual-use equipment used in Ukraine.” This includes navigation equipment for M-17 military helicopters, jamming technology for military vehicles, parts for fighter jets, components for defense systems like the S-400 surface-to-air missile system, semiconductor chips for weapons systems, and drones for battlefield use. China denies sending military equipment to Russia.

China also clearly sees a national interest in the success of Iran and North Korea. Beijing has stepped up aid to both regimes, including advanced technology that can be used for weapons as well as trade that circumvents U.S. and international sanctions.

Almost every element of the axis works together. Tehran has provided growing military assistance to Moscow, including Shahed-136 and Mohajer-6 drones, artillery shells, short-range ballistic missiles, and more than one million rounds of small-arm ammunition. Iran is also building a sprawling drone factory in the Russian town of Yelabuga, which will produce thousands of attack drones. Iran’s president has denied sending drones and weapons to Russia since the war in Ukraine began.

North Korea has supplied military aid to Moscow, such as artillery shells, short-range ballistic missiles, and other munitions for Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine. Russia has likely supplied North Korea with advanced technology for satellites, nuclear-powered submarines and ballistic missiles. Last November, Pyongyang launched its new Chollima-1 rocket in Tongchang-ri in an attempt to put up its first military spy satellite, thanks in part to technical help from Moscow. North Korea and Russia have denied that Pyongyang is sending arms to Moscow.

These despotic regimes have disagreements, as all friends do. Chinese leaders have complained about Russia’s warming military relations with North Korea. Beijing has been far more reluctant to help Pyongyang develop nuclear weapons. Iranian leaders were also recently upset with Russia for taking sides with the United Arab Emirates in a spat over the sovereignty of three islands in the Persian Gulf.

The members of this axis are nevertheless developing increasingly close relationships, contributing to 17 straight years of declining democracy worldwide, according to the U.S.-based Freedom House. Their remarkable cooperation disproves those in Congress and the media who think the U.S. can focus on only one adversary at a time.

America’s allies certainly don’t see it that way. South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand have contributed billions of dollars in economic assistance and weapons to help Ukraine defeat Russia. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan, President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia have all visited Kyiv to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine. Even Taiwanese leaders have expressed alarm at the prospect that the U.S. will slash funds to Ukraine.

Military aid is a sliver of the federal budget, and more than 75% of the bill the Senate passed would go to U.S. defense jobs, including in Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Florida and Alabama.

It is time to be realistic about growing cooperation between U.S. adversaries. If Congress doesn’t pass a bill providing military and economic aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other front-line states, it will endanger American interests in every theater. To paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. needs to deal with the world as it is, not the world that some might wish it to be.

Mr. Jones is senior vice president and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and author most recently of “Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare.”

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Appeared in the February 22, 2024, print edition as 'Ditching Ukraine Would Help China and Iran'.

8. Life and death in Putin’s gulag

I am reminded of reading "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a kid back in the 1960s (and of course also "The Gulag Archipelago" which is referenced in the article). Those books had profound impacts on me then.

Life and death in Putin’s gulag

Navalny’s death has exposed the similarities between Russia’s current penal system and Stalin’s

Feb 22nd 2024

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By Arkady Ostrovsky

The Economist

The wake-up call in cell number nine of the IK-6 prison colony in the Siberian town of Omsk comes at 5am in the form of the Russian national anthem blasting from a loudspeaker. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist and politician, knew as soon as he heard the opening chord that he had only five minutes to get up before prison guards would take away his pillow and mattress. By 5.20am his metal bed frame, attached to the wall, would be locked up so that he could not use it for the rest of the day. Kara-Murza’s cell, painted in bright blue, was five metres long and two metres wide. In the middle, a table and a bench were screwed to the floor. The only objects he was allowed to keep were a mug, a tooth brush, a towel and a pair of slippers. The light was never turned off.

Later in the morning a mug of tea and a bowl of gluey porridge made from an unidentifiable grain would be pushed through a small hatch in the cell door. At some point Kara-Murza would be permitted a 90-minute “walk” – a stroll around a concrete courtyard the same size as his cell with a metal grille in place of a roof. He was obliged to keep his hands behind his back. Often the sub-zero temperatures made it impossible to keep going for the allotted time. The loudspeaker in his cell blared throughout the day, sometimes playing the local radio station, sometimes a monotonous recital of the penal-colony rules.

Like Navalny, Kara-Murza was the victim of suspected Novichok poisoning. He twice fell into a coma in 2015, and again in 2017

CCTV cameras were trained on Kara-Murza around the clock. Even so, the guards would take him to an inspection room at 9am and 5pm each day. He had to strip naked while they ran a metal detector over his clothes and underwear. Every time he is addressed he has to identify himself in the official formula: “Kara-Murza, Vladimir Vladimirovich, date of birth September 7th 1981, convicted under criminal code articles 284.1 part one, 207.3 part two, 275. Start date of sentence, April 22nd 2022. End date of sentence, April 21st 2047.”

A poster of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny is held up during a protest at the Russian embassy in Berlin, Germany (opening image). Vladimir Kara-Murza (above), a journalist and prominent oppositional figure, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian armed forces

Since the death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, in a similar penal colony in the Arctic last week, Kara-Murza has become, along with Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician, one of the country’s highest-profile political prisoners. Like Navalny, Kara-Murza was the victim of suspected Novichok poisoning. He twice fell into a coma in 2015, and again in 2017. (According to Bellingcat, an investigative outlet, a specialist unit of the Russian security services had been tailing him before each incident.) As a result, he suffers from polyneuropathy, a nerve disease that causes his legs to go numb.

Like Navalny he could have stayed in exile abroad – he had lived in America for years and is also a British citizen. (The British government has said that it will not try to secure his release through a prisoner exchange.) And like Navalny he also chose to return to Russia, drawn by his calling as a Russian intellectual and a refusal to let his country be defined by Vladimir Putin. On April 5th 2022 – just over a month after Russia invaded Ukraine – he flew back to Moscow. By that time Putin had already made it a crime to refer to his “special military operation” as a war, let alone to criticise it. Yet Kara-Murza openly denounced it as a war of aggression.

Kara-Murza was given 25 years – a far graver penalty than awarded, on average, for murder

A week after his return he was arrested outside his home in Moscow, and charged with spreading “fake news” about the war. His advocacy for the Magnitsky Act – an American law that allows sanctions to be placed on individuals involved in corruption and human-rights abuses – made him a traitor in the eyes of the Kremlin. (It is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who uncovered a $230m fraud and who died in prison in 2009, having been denied urgent medical treatment.) His trial for treason took place behind closed doors because it involved what the Kremlin regards as “state secrets”.

Kara-Murza was given 25 years in prison – a far graver penalty than awarded, on average, for murder. (He was sentenced by Sergei Podoprigorov, the same judge who put Magnitsky in jail and was sanctioned in Magnitsky’s name.) It is the longest term currently being served by a political prisoner in Russia. From his prison cell, Navalny called the sentence “revenge for the fact that [Kara-Murza] did not die”.

Alexei Navalny died at IK-3, a prison colony located in Kharp, a city just above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence. Navalny wraps his arms around his wife, Yulia Navalnaya

On January 26th of this year Kara-Murza was transferred to an even harsher penal colony a short drive away, differentiated from the previous one by a single digit (IK-7). This measure had been taken, officials said, because of a “severe administrative breach” by Kara-Murza: missing a wake-up call which he says never came.

Kara-Murza is permitted to write and receive letters, though he is only allowed a pen for 90 minutes each day. I wrote to him after his abrupt disappearance from IK-6. “You ask me about the meaning of my transfer,” Kara-Murza replied. “The meaning of a transfer is the transfer itself. One of the main features of prison life is a constant unpredictability, insecurity and uncertainty not only about tomorrow but even this evening.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning writer, had identified this kind of punishment as a distinctively Soviet innovation, Kara-Murza said. “The Soviet know-how was to constantly uproot a person, ordering him ‘out with your stuff’ without any warning…As soon as you start getting used to and adapting to a place, you have to start all over again.”

“One of the main features of prison life is a constant unpredictability, insecurity and uncertainty not only about tomorrow but even this evening”

Kara-Murza is almost completely disconnected from the outside world. Since he arrived in prison, he has been granted only one 15-minute phone call with his children (five minutes per child). Complete isolation means that even a visit from the prosecutor can lift his spirits.

Apart from the drone of the loudspeakers, Kara-Murza’s only external sources of mental stimulation are letters and books from the prison library. But he finds it hard to read. “You lose concentration very fast, thoughts run away. You read one page and don’t understand what it is that you’ve read,” he wrote to me. “Memory also works in a strange way. You remember in detail what happened 30 years ago, but anything you hear and read this morning is erased completely.”

The outspoken Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza at a hearing in Moscow city court

At 8.30pm he is handed his mattress and pillow. His bunk bed is lowered. Then at 5am the next morning he once again wakes up to the sound of the Soviet national anthem.

Omsk, the city where Kara-Murza is being held, was one of hundreds of sites for the Main Directorate of Corrective Labour Camps, established by Stalin in 1929 and better known by its acronym in Russian: gulag. This was a centralised system of slave labour on an industrial scale, in which up to 20m people from across the Soviet Union found themselves trapped. Roughly 2m of those prisoners died.

Solzhenitsyn gave the definitive literary treatment of these labour camps, prisons and transit centres in “The Gulag Archipelago”. He spent 11 years within the gulag and wrote a three-volume “literary investigation” in which he mapped it as though it were “an almost invisible, almost imperceptible country…though scattered in an archipelago geographically”. He described the prisoners, starving and exhausted by work, “eyes oozing with tears, red eyelids. White cracked lips covered with sores. Skewbald, unshaven bristles on the faces.”

Part of the function of the gulag, Solzhenitsyn argued, was economic: Stalin needed labour to industrialise and prepare for war in Europe. The camps were usually in far-flung places rich in natural resources that needed extracting. But their horrors also served a political purpose: to sow terror and purge from society anyone who showed signs of independent thought. It was “a wonderful place into which he could herd millions as a form of intimidation”, wrote Solzhenitsyn.

Many of Russia’s camps – particularly in more remote parts of the country – are staffed by children and grandchildren of those who guarded the gulag

After Stalin’s death in 1953 the extermination stopped, the system became more humane and the number of prisoners decreased, but its essence remained. Navalny saw many of the features of the gulag perpetuated in the Russian prison system. “It is not concerned in the slightest with the re-education of prisoners but is aimed only at dehumanising the prisoner, bullying him and serving the illegal orders of the country’s political leadership,” he wrote. “This system cannot be reformed.” As Solzhenitsyn observed: “Archipelago was, Archipelago is, Archipelago will be.” The archipelago has shrunk in size, changed its name and adapted to new economic conditions – but its terrain and procedures remain recognisable.

Few institutions in Russia have experienced the continuity that prisons have. Both prisoners of the Soviet gulag and those who guarded them have passed on their experiences to their descendants. Russia’s camps – particularly in more remote parts of the country where the prison is the main employer – are often staffed by children and grandchildren of those who guarded the gulag. These dynasties see their past as a point of pride. When the Usolsky penal camp in Siberia celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2013, its press office hailed the unbroken tradition of “loyalty to the Motherland, mutual support and respect for veterans” stretching back to its founding just before the second world war.

Police detained dozens of people at an unsanctioned rally against political repression in March 2020

Russia’s current prison population remains among the highest per head in Europe with Belarus and Turkey but, at around 430,000, it is the lowest in its history. Around 225,000 employees work in the system. The network of colonies and detention centres is still so vast that prisoners often disappear within it for weeks; they are transferred from one facility to another in windowless train compartments with six berths and twice as many prisoners. Their families and lawyers lose track of them.

New arrivals to prison are placed in “quarantine”, where they are given medical checks and a psychological assessment, before they are moved to a shared cell or solitary confinement. But the main purpose of this is to break the spirit of the prisoner. Scared and often barred from seeing a lawyer, they feel completely powerless. Kafkaesque absurdity is built into the system, explains Anna Karetnikova, now in exile, who once oversaw pre-trial detention centres in the Moscow region. To demand a meeting with a lawyer, detainees need a pen and paper, which they are often denied. (They can complain, of course, but for that they still need a pen and paper.)

To demand a meeting with a lawyer, detainees need a pen and paper, which is often denied. They can complain, of course, but for that they will need a pen and paper

They soon learn that real power lies in the hands of prison officials known as operativniki – investigators. In countries governed by the rule of law, punishment comes after a trial. In Russia investigations start after an arrest and continue inside prisons and penal colonies. Operativniki, who are rewarded on the basis of how many crimes they solve, use their unlimited power to coerce confessions and pin new crimes on prisoners. They work in close co-ordination with the security services and the police, deciding who gets urgent medical care and who gets punished with solitary confinement or beaten in special “pressure cells”.

Conditions vary greatly between colonies and even between cells within the same prison. Some have televisions and fridges; others have only a hole in the floor for a toilet. Some prisoners can pay for the use of a gym or have food brought to them by a delivery company. Others are kept hungry. Many prisons, including IK-7 in Omsk, are connected to an electronic mail system, so sending a letter to a prisoner can take a matter of minutes. But the speed at which it is passed on depends on the good will of the prison censor. A benevolent censor will deliver the correspondence within hours. A cruel one may not deliver it at all. (Navalny was denied letters from his family for weeks.)

Security guards patrol the entrance of penal colony IK-6 in Mordovia, central Russia

Which island of the archipelago a prisoner lands on depends on the financial means of prisoners and the designs of the powerful person who put them there. This offers a business opportunity for prison bosses. Corruption lies at the heart of the gulag’s modern iteration, explains a former senior prisoner official. Bribery can buy you a better cell and racketeering by prison staff is endemic. They rent out slave labour to friendly businesses.

How much a prisoner must pay is decided by the khoziain – the master who runs the prison. Details of the amounts that change hands are scarce but, in 2012, monthly “collections” at one prison with 1,500 inmates ran at between $1m and $1.5m. Some people paid the equivalent of $60 a month; others $25,000. The money is shared with other prison officials.

Those who refuse to pay get “broken” – beaten or tortured. The richer they are and the more they resist, the greater the punishment. “Breaking” is mostly carried out not by guards but by “activists” – inmates who work closely with the prison administration. The methods of torture include denying medical care, beatings, suspending prisoners from bars (known as “crucifying”), electric shocks and rape with mop handles. Russian prisons have the highest number of deaths and suicides in Europe and the rate is growing according to the latest figures. Political prisoners are rarely tortured physically but there is no shortage of means by which suffering can be inflicted. Navalny was worn down with sleep deprivation, tormented with the smell of food when he was on hunger strike and denied treatment.

Corruption lies at the heart of the gulag’s modern iteration, explains a former senior prisoner official

Relations between prisoners across the system are regulated by a strict, unwritten “thieves’ law” which has evolved over decades and passed down by word of mouth. It has its own argot – prison is called “our common home” – and conflicts are resolved by a council appointed by a “crowned” thief-in-law who oversees the obschak, the common slush fund.

Prisoners are divided into four castes. The top caste is “criminal elite” or “made men”, who perform no duties themselves and adjudicate conflicts. They are followed by “collaborators”, “bitches” or “reds” who enforce order alongside prison officers. “Lads”, “men” or “wool”, who are not professional criminals, make up the vast majority of prisoners. And then there are the outcasts or untouchables who are referred to as “cocks” or “the degraded” because they sleep under the bunk beds. They are not allowed to touch other prisoners or their possessions, and must eat separately, using their own cutlery. People convicted of sex crimes, snitches and people who hide the fact they’re gay fall into this category. This stigma follows outcasts from one prison to the next.

This informal hierarchy has been endorsed by prison authorities. Recently the security services spread intimate photographs of Azat Miftakhov, a political prisoner, in order to brand him a “cock”. This subculture is so established that last year it was acknowledged in a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which awarded damages to a group of outcasts for “inhuman and degrading treatment”.

Until recently, penal colonies were divided into “red” prisons run by the authorities and “black” prisons where thieves’ law prevailed and inmates administered punishment themselves. The “red” prisons, where power is more impersonally exercised, were considered to be the worst. Today these prisons predominate as the state, obsessed with control, has become intolerant of any sources of autonomy.

The state and the underworld have fused together, according to Nikolay Shchur, a former prison ombudsman. Gone are the days when collaboration with prison authorities was considered a violation of thieves’ law – brigades of inmates now carry out torture on behalf of the authorities. “The community of criminal bosses today is simply a branch of the FSB, Russia’s security service, or the police, who appoint informants over a particular territory,” Shchur has written.

Russian prisons have the highest number of deaths and suicides in Europe and the rate is growing

Though the prison economy drives many of the abuses within Russia’s penal system, its horrors are politically vital to the Putin regime. “Everyone must be afraid of Russian prison. That is its purpose,” said the former official. “The goal of the penitentiary system…is to break people, to destroy their personality and to vaccinate the population against freedom.”

One person who has seen this process up close is Maria Eismont, a defence lawyer. In 2019 Konstantin Kotov, one of her clients, was transferred to IK-2, a notorious “red” colony where Navalny was first sent, for taking part in a political protest. After visiting Kotov there, Eismont was struck by how poorly defended it seemed from the outside: there were no towers or barbed wire. “It was guarded by fear,” she wrote. “You feel that fear in the looks of those convicts who walk around the camp without a convoy, but answer monosyllabically to your questions and avoid eye contact,” she has written. “You feel it in the visitors’ waiting room filled with relatives of the convicts, who try their best not to talk to you. ‘They don’t like lawyers here,’ one explained.”

Konstantin Kotov, a human-rights activist, received hundreds of letters when he spent over a year in prison for violating Russian protest rules in 2019

Eventually she was allowed to see her defendant. “Kotov had been there less than a day, but I saw a completely different person.” It was not primarily that his head had been shaved or that he was dressed in an oversized uniform – he simply wouldn’t look her in the eye. The one time he raised his head, she saw tears. “We are not allowed to look around,” he told her.

In prison brutality is elevated to a virtue and acts of kindness are rooted out. Kotov didn’t have any gloves, so one of his fellow prisoners took pity on him and offered him a spare pair. In response, the prisoner’s parole was cancelled and Kotov was blamed. Earlier this year Alexander Kravchenko, a prison doctor who signed off on the release of four gravely ill prisoners, was sentenced to seven years in jail for “overstepping his authority”.

Prison spits out soldiers to prosecute the war and swallows those, like Kara-Murza, who protest against it

There have been intermittent attempts to humanise the prison system and focus it on rehabilitation. But in recent years even these limited efforts have been quashed. In 2018 a liberal newspaper provoked widespread outrage when it published a video showing a dozen prison guards beating an inmate named Yevgeny Makarov with truncheons, periodically reviving him to continue the torture. A group of experts, with the support of politicians, proposed a series of modest reforms. In response, the deputy head of the prison system, who had apologised to Makarov, was fired and locked up, and Putin discarded the proposals.

Putin had reason to keep the prison system unreformed, which became apparent after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, a mercenary outfit, and a former convict himself, demonstrated that penal colonies could be a vital source of manpower. In a video released in September 2022, as the Russian army was retreating , he was seen offering the inmates of Yablonevka prison a pardon if they signed up to fight for six months. Should they survive, he told them, they would be treated as heroes. Olga Romanova, who runs Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners’-rights organisation, estimates that the total number of prisoners who have been recruited since the start of the invasion is about 100,000. She claims half of them made it home alive, but many re-offended, found themselves in prison again and agreed to return to the front line.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the dissident writer, pictured on the day he was released from the gulag in 1953. He had been imprisoned for eight years

Prigozhin and several senior Wagner commanders died in a plane crash after staging a mutiny last year. The Russian defence ministry has taken over the recruitment of prisoners, who are still paid but no longer released after six months. According to a current prisoner, they are offered a choice between fighting on the front line, sewing uniforms or being transferred to a harsher colony. Prison spits out soldiers to fight the war and swallows those like Kara-Murza who protest against it.

Kara-Murza is a historian by background and by pedigree. He studied history at Cambridge. One of his ancestors was Nikolai Karamzin, a 19th-century historian who is the Russian equivalent of Edward Gibbon and author of the 12-volume “History of the Russian State”. He is attuned to the historical resonances of his surroundings: IK-7, where he is now kept, is only a few miles from a fortress where the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky spent four years as a prisoner for possessing and spreading banned literature. Dostoyevsky was forbidden to write but committed his impressions to memory, which he later published as “The House of the Dead”, praised by Tolstoy as the finest work written in Russian.

After Stalin’s death, the Soviet leadership lost the appetite for mass repression. Slave labour was ineffective and even the leadership had had enough of terror

Grim though forced labour in the provinces could be under the tsar, Stalin’s repression was a completely different beast. The establishment of the gulag in 1929 served as the foundation of Stalin’s political order; that year was a more pivotal moment in Russian history than 1917. The camps destroyed the fabric of life and liquidated entire social classes. There was no discernable logic determining who was sent there and nothing you could do would spare you. As with many Russians, the history of the gulag feels personal to Kara-Murza: his grandfather was arrested in 1937 and survived a labour camp in the far east.

After Stalin’s death, the Soviet leadership lost the appetite for mass repression. Slave labour was ineffective and even the leadership had had enough of terror. The KGB, which Putin joined in the 1970s, found that the memory of mass repression was enough to control the populace. Everyone knew somebody whose relatives had been sent to the gulag. This was enough to instil compliance. The number of political prisoners fell to between 10,000 and 20,000, according to one of the Soviet dissidents.

Kara-Murza was eight years old in 1989, when “The Gulag Archipelago” was published in Russia. It was an important literary event but it remained largely unread. Two years later the Soviet Union collapsed and even fewer people cared about Soviet dissidents in the brave new world of capitalism.

Vladimir Bukovsky, a freed dissident, holds up his passport to the press after arriving at Heathrow Airport, London, in 1977

But Kara-Murza retained his interest. In 2005 he made a four-part documentary about dissidents. Even then, he was in no doubt that Russia was heading back into authoritarianism. His subjects included his hero Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident and memoirist. Bukovsky, who was imprisoned during the 1970s, wrote about trying to maintain his sanity in prison by drawing a castle – sometimes on scraps of paper, sometimes on the floor – with a fragment of a pencil lead he kept hidden in his cheek. To escape the feeling of “drowning”, he would sketch out “every detail, from the foundations, floors, walls, staircases and secret passages right up to the pointed roofs and turrets”.

Now, surreally, Kara-Murza finds himself part of the tradition of Russian prison literature that he reveres. “Sometimes I can’t help feeling that I am inside one of those books,” he wrote to me from IK-7.

Russians became noticeably less fearful after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 2000s the economy boomed and Putin ruled legitimately with popular support. By 2008 only 17% of the population worried about the return of repression, according to a poll. The children born in these years did not grow up obliged to choose between defying the absurdities of the governing ideology or submitting to them, as their grandparents had. They became known as the “unflogged” generation, who regarded themselves as citizens rather than subjects.

In the 2000s, the economy boomed and Putin ruled legitimately with popular support

In 2012 Putin, who had served as president from 2000 to 2008, decided to circumvent the constitution and return to the Kremlin. He was greeted by large protests, galvanised by Navalny. He knew that he needed to take drastic measures to reassert control.

Not only did he arrest protesters, he started methodically to lay the foundation for repression. He introduced a law requiring any “politically active” organisation or person, in receipt of funds from outside Russia, to register as a “foreign agent”; and he expanded the scope of treason legislation to encompass not just espionage but “providing financial, material-technical, advisory or other assistance to a foreign state, international or foreign organisation…in activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation”. The vagueness of the word “other” allowed the state, as the Soviets had done before, to pursue people for any activities it disapproved of. Investigating corrupt Russian officials could be treason; so could writing reports or articles read by Western officials.

Evgenia Kara-Murza (pictured), wife of imprisoned political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, speaks at a conference held by the Washington Post

Putin’s new laws needed to be enforced gradually in order not to trigger resistance. In 2013 there were just four convictions on charges of treason. But Putin didn’t need a conveyor belt of trials to achieve his goals – his intention was to reignite collective fear because exemplary brutality and lengthy sentences intimidate the whole of society. By 2021 more than half of the population were concerned about the return of repression.

Putin started the war against Ukraine to solidify his power and shape Russia in his image. The extraordinary circumstances allowed him to boost his arsenal of repressive measures in order to stamp out any opposition. The offences introduced at the beginning of the war – “spreading false information” and “discrediting the Russian army” – were taken straight from the Soviet criminal code. He has also brought back Soviet practices, such as declaring dissidents “insane” and locking them up in psychiatric hospitals. Last year an 18-year-old activist, Maksim Lypkyan, was forcibly detained in a mental institution after being convicted of spreading “fake news”.

The justice system has become a tool of repression – few people get out of prison after being arrested. Pre-trial detentions can last for years and the acquittal rate in Russia is less than 0.5%. Sometimes, punishment is dispensed without a trial. If people who are designated “foreign agents” repeatedly fail to declare their status when they broadcast, publish or post on social media, they are automatically considered criminals.

Pre-trial detentions can last for years and the acquittal rate in Russia is less than 0.5%

In 2023 more than 100 people were charged with treason, among them Kara-Murza. In court he noted that in “its secrecy and its contempt for legal norms”, his trial was less fair than those of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s. He felt as if he had been taken back to the show trials of the great terror in the 1930s.

For the most part, Putin’s terror has worked. After 15,000 arrests in the first month after the invasion, protests have died down. Around 1,100 people are serving sentences for their beliefs. The number of people who have been charged under politically repressive laws in Russia over the past six years is greater than at any time since 1956, according to Proekt, a Russian online media outlet. Mass arrests can be dangerous for authoritarian regimes, because they puncture the myth of popular support. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. “Until recently it was the well educated, a socially and politically active minority, who were aware of political prosecutions. Now everybody, from a taxi driver to a shop assistant, knows that people can go to prison for what they say,” says Eismont, who has defended prisoners of conscience, including Kara-Murza.

Valeria Zotova is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for supporting Alexei Navalny and participating in pro-Ukraine groups online

Some of the recent crop of political prisoners are famous, such as Yashin, the charismatic Russian politician. But many are ordinary people – increasingly women – who had never previously been political. Anna Bazhutova, 30, was arrested in August 2023 for live-streaming a video about Bucha, a Ukrainian town where Russian troops committed a massacre, in which she declared “death to the Russian occupiers”. Technology makes the FSB’s job easier. It stages sting operations on social media and prosecutes people at random to create an atmosphere of unpredictability.

Political prisoners are also younger these days: over the past decade the average age has dropped from 47 to 39. Growing up, they never experienced the climate of fear that shaped their elders. “He is part of Russia’s freest generation,” says Eismont, of Dimitry Ivanov, one of her clients. Ivanov is a 23-year-old maths student who was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for “disseminating knowingly false information about the Russian Armed Forces motivated by political or ideological hatred”. He showed no fear in court when he addressed the judge at his sentencing: “Freedom is the ability to say that two times two is four.”

Around 1,100 people are serving sentences for their beliefs

Transcripts of trial proceedings have become the last examples of free political speech in Russia. These texts have been posted on social media and gathered in book form. Yevgenia Berkovich, a poet and theatre director who was arrested for “justifying terrorism” in a play about Russian women who became brides of Islamic State fighters. She addressed the judge in verse, turning the court into a theatre. Her statement has been transformed into a rap.

Those who defy the regime act in the full knowledge that they will be imprisoned. Kara-Murza returned to Russia after Navalny was already behind bars. Before he was arrested, Yashin had prepared himself for his ordeal with a psychologist. Ivanov knew he would end up in jail for his actions. They spoke out because they wanted to assert their freedom to act and because they believed that their country had been hijacked.

Riot police detained Navalny for leading an anti-Putin rally at Pushkin Square in central Moscow in March 2012. He was released several hours later (pictured top). A portrait of Navalny adorned with candles and flowers left at a memorial in Paris (pictured below) on February 16th 2024, after the Kremlin announced his death

It may not look as if Russian political prisoners have achieved much. But they destroy the appearance of ubiquitous support and threaten the government by undermining fear and obedience. In one of his first communications from prison in January 2021, Navalny wrote that the authorities are cowed by “those who are not afraid, or, to be more precise: those who may be afraid, but overcome their fear”.

Prison is ingrained in Russian song, language and folklore. “You can never be safe from prison or the begging bowl,” runs a popular proverb. “If you have not been to prison, you don’t know life,” goes another common saying. Despite the barbed-wire fences, the separation between the world inside and outside prison has always been notional. Prisoners are not an aberration but an essential part of Russian life.

“The only place befitting an honest man in Russia at the present time is a prison,” a character reflects in Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection”. Much of the book is set in a penal colony in Siberia in homage to Dostoyevsky. Tolstoy, much to his regret, never went to prison. Neither did Anton Chekhov. But both recognised that you cannot be a writer of national importance without incorporating the institution into your literary world. For those who aspire to be national politicians in Russia, prison is not just a punishment or hindrance but the ultimate test of someone’s convictions. It asserts their dignity and earns them moral authority.

Prison is ingrained in Russian song, language and folklore. “If you have not been to prison, you don’t know life,” goes one proverb

Navalny, the ultimate national politician, understood this fully. He walked into prison to strike at the fear that prison instils and, in so doing, liberate his people from paralysis. When Putin tortured Navalny, he didn’t want a confession but a plea for mercy, an admission that fear works. He could not obtain it.

In his last significant appeal to Russia’s supreme court made from his penal colony, Navalny pleaded not for justice for his country or for his own release, but for the right of prisoners to have two items of printed material in a punishment cell. The rules permitted just one. For himself he requested two books – the Bible and “The Law of God”, a volume of Orthodox teachings. But he wasn’t just concerned with his own situation. A Muslim prisoner, he argued, is faced with a choice of having the Quran or a newspaper. Such a prisoner would always choose the former, but anyone put in a punishment cell also needs a newspaper because “it is a very cold place.” he said: “Do you know what they take newspapers into the cell for? To cover themselves at night.” In Russia the separation between prison and freedom, life and death, is newspaper thin. ■

Arkady Ostrovsky is The Economist’s Russia editor and author of “The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War”

ILLUSTRATIONS: MICHELLE THOMPSON

source images: GETTY, AP, CAPITAL

The Economist

9. The Challenge to U.S. Leadership on Ukraine Comes From Home

J.D. Vance is misguided and can hardly be taken seriously as a strategic thinker. I have an obvious bias toward East Asia (I decry the lack of focus on north Korea -except for our nuclear fears) and I certainly agree that focus is needed on East Asia, but we are a global power and we have global interests and those interests are all interrelated and interlinked. Ignoring one will impact the others. We have to do even more than walk and chew gum at the same time.  

We have to lead on Ukraine.

The Challenge to U.S. Leadership on Ukraine Comes From Home

Domestic politics, not Russia’s Putin, pose the greatest threat to the U.S. role abroad

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/the-challenge-to-u-s-leadership-on-ukraine-comes-from-home-93c357ac?mod=hp_lead_pos4

By Michael R. GordonFollow

Updated Feb. 25, 2024 12:00 am ET

In February 2023, President Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv and declared that the U.S. and its allies were determined to win the test of wills with Moscow to defend Ukraine. 

Biden had taken office pledging to rally the world’s democracies against authoritarian states. And the journey to the wartime capital was intended to underscore that bedrock policy along with the imperative of preserving Ukraine’s independence in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

“Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided…. He thought he could outlast us,” said Biden, who donned a striped tie with Ukraine’s blue and yellow colors. “But he’s just been plain wrong.”

A year later, Moscow’s forces were raising the Russian tricolor over the town of Avdiivka, Ukrainian forces were on their back foot, and worries were proliferating through European capitals that political paralysis in Washington could compel the U.S. to step back from its leadership role. 

The American-led effort to support Ukraine against its larger adversary has faced an array of obstacles, including the formidable task of revamping the West’s defense industrial base and Putin’s willingness to accept enormous losses—about 350,000 killed or wounded, according to Britain’s Defense Ministry—in pursuit of his objectives. 

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Officials at a WSJ event in New York pushed for the U.S. to continue its financial and military support for Ukraine. Photo: Thalia Juarez for The Wall Street Journal

But the principal challenge has come at home, where additional U.S. military assistance to Ukraine has been stymied by Donald Trump-aligned House Republicans who question the importance of Ukraine for American security and in some cases even the centrality of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance itself. 

Ukraine’s military prospects will be a major topic in July, when NATO holds a summit in Washington to commemorate its 75th anniversary. If U.S. military aid is flowing by then, according to military analysts, Ukraine can spend this year buttressing its air and ground defenses, training fresh troops, softening up its foe with long-range strikes and preparing to go on the offensive in 2025.

But if the U.S. doesn’t resume its military support and Putin’s forces are making further gains, the celebratory NATO meeting might be transformed into a sobering split-screen moment that spurs anxieties about whether Washington can meet its commitments in the years ahead in Europe and other military theaters such as Asia and the Middle East. 

“There’ll be a lot of brave talk, but the subtext will be that we can’t rely on the Americans anymore,” said Alexander Vershbow, who served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO and to Russia. 

U.S. officials weren’t anticipating a confrontation with Moscow during the early months of Biden’s presidency. With the focus on China and problems at home, the goal was to keep relations with Moscow on an even keel as Biden worked to strengthen the worldwide system of alliances with the U.S. at the helm. 

After taking office, Biden canceled the plans under his predecessor to remove 9,500 troops from Germany because of its low level of military spending and came to a quick agreement over cost sharing with South Korea.

A missile fired during an exercise conducted by South Korea and the U.S. in June 2022. PHOTO: SOUTH KOREAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

“America’s allies are our greatest asset,” Biden said in his first major address on foreign policy.

After the U.S. received fresh intelligence by October 2021 that Putin was planning to attack Ukraine early the following year, Ukraine emerged as the purest test of Biden’s alliance policies. 

By late December 2021, Biden had authorized a fresh package of security assistance for Kyiv that would grow to more than $44 billion since Putin’s invasion. 

At a NATO summit in July 2023 in Lithuania, Biden vowed that the U.S. military support would continue “for as long as it takes.” 

But with House Republicans digging in their heels on additional Ukraine assistance, Biden used a different phrase to describe the American commitment when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House five months later. The U.S., Biden said, would supply Ukraine with vital military aid “as long as we can.” 

Looking back, some security analysts say that Biden should have moved more quickly to supply critical weapons systems to Kyiv, before the Russian military had time to adapt and to ensure that the arms were in Ukraine’s hands before the patience of U.S. lawmakers began to run thin.

A modest number of ATACMS surface to surface missiles, for example, weren’t provided to Ukraine until October 2023, well after the Ukrainian counteroffensive began to falter. And the weapons U.S. sent were the shorter-range variant, which has a range of about 100 miles, and not the longer-range model that has the capability to strike targets more than 180 miles away, including in Crimea. 

“This was a policy that was carried out in a very incremental way due to escalatory concerns and concerns about Ukrainians’ not being able to use the kit,” said Alina Polyakova, president and chief executive officer of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based think tank that supports Ukraine. “If we had moved faster and weren’t as worried about Russian reaction, I think this conflict could have ended in the first year before the Russians adapted.”

A senior Biden administration official said that, in making weapons decisions, the White House needed to take into account the Ukrainian military’s ability to absorb new equipment as well as Putin’s proclivity for rattling the nuclear saber.

“Ukraine wasn’t ready to receive all of this stuff on day one of this conflict,” said the administration official.

On Thursday, the National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, said the option to provide the longer-range version of the ATACMS remains on the table. The Pentagon still has the authority to provide up to $4.2 billion in weapons and military equipment to Ukraine from its own stocks, but said this past week that it won’t do so unless Congress approves funding to replenish the Defense Department inventory. 

Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio on Capitol Hill earlier this month. PHOTO: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

The broader question is whether the resistance of some House Republicans to continued military support for Ukraine and the popular support for Trump’s America First policy reflect a seismic shift away from the alliance policies in Europe that Biden has long embraced.

“The point isn’t we want to abandon Europe,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio), a staunch Trump supporter, told a security conference in Munich earlier this month. “The point is we need to focus as a country on East Asia, and we need our European allies to step up in Europe.” 

Some European equipment has been crucial for Ukraine’s military effort, including Britain’s Storm Shadow cruise missile and Germany’s Iris T missile-defense system. There are more German tanks in Ukraine than U.S. ones, and European self-propelled howitzers have been important for the battle.

But the continent, which is still struggling to overcome weaknesses in its defense industrial base, wouldn’t be able to cover the shortfall if the U.S. supply of artillery shells, air defense interceptors and other key weapon systems isn’t quickly resumed, a deficiency Western analysts say Russia would move to exploit. 

A Storm Shadow missile being prepared for use by British forces during the Iraq war in 2003. PHOTO: ROYAL AIR FORCE/REUTERS

“Putin’s calculation is that we won’t be able to get our act together quickly enough,” said Fiona Hill, the former top Russian expert on Trump’s National Security Council. “A focal point of the propaganda right now is that Ukraine seems to be a losing proposition.”

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump, said the growing Republican opposition to support for Ukraine is largely a function of politics and isn’t a fundamental shift about the U.S. global role. 

“A lot of Republicans also ask what’s the strategy for the money we’re spending,” he said. “And it’s all happening under a Democratic president, so they see it as a Democratic war.” 

An essential aspect for many Republicans skeptical of aid to Ukraine, he said, is their political loyalty to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Trump has long been viewed as much more sympathetic to Putin than to Ukraine’s leaders.

“If Tom Cotton were the nominee and became president, the House Republicans would fall back into line,” Bolton said, referring to the hard-line Republican senator from Arkansas, who has long been a staunch supporter of Ukraine.

Liana Fix, an expert on European security policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the stakes in the continuing debate in Congress and in the U.S. presidential election go well beyond Ukraine.

“There’s still an idea in Europe that Trump represents the exception to decades of trans-Atlantic policy,” she said. “But if Trump wins, the realization will kick in that the Biden term was the exception. And Europe will need to adjust to a new direction in American foreign policy in which the U.S. isn’t really the leader of an alliance with Europe.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump at a Group of 20 summit in Germany in 2017. PHOTO: EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Alistair MacDonald contributed to this article.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com

10. U.S. Committed to Stand With Ukraine 'For as Long as it Takes'

But not so say some in Congress.

U.S. Committed to Stand With Ukraine 'For as Long as it Takes'

defense.gov · by C. Todd Lopez

The president and the secretary of defense have committed to long-term, sustained support for Ukraine's fight against Russia, which invaded Ukraine two years ago this Saturday.

But that commitment also requires a commitment by the U.S. Congress, said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh during a briefing today.

Aerial of the Pentagon

An aerial view of the Pentagon, May 11, 2021.

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"We can't stand by as an aggressor invades a sovereign neighbor," Singh said. "[Ukraine has] a commitment from the United States that we are going to be with you for as long as it takes ... We do need Congress to give us the funding in order to supply Ukraine with what it needs. We not only need the supplemental, we need a budget passed. And so, we're working with Congress and hopefully we'll be able to get something done."

According to Singh, Ukraine's top priorities include air defense, artillery, and ammunition. She said whatever is contained in the next presidential drawdown authority package — whenever that comes — will reflect those priorities.

"We're not taking anything off the table, but we certainly want to make sure that we're getting Ukraine what it needs," Singh said. "We can only do that when we have the supplemental passed in Congress. But of course, whatever we give Ukraine it will be to meet their urgent battlefield needs."

Spotlight: Support for Ukraine Spotlight: Support for Ukraine: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Support-for-Ukraine/

In the same way the U.S. commitment to Ukraine requires a commitment from a large swath of the U.S. federal government — Congress included — commitments in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian requires commitment from partners and allies as well.

That operation, which kicked off in December, brings together multiple nations in order to address the challenges posed by Houthi attacks originating from Yemen which threaten the free flow of commerce in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

"The Houthis are, every single day, putting at risk innocent mariners transiting, putting at risk the freedom of navigation, and therefore, Operation Prosperity Guardian is there to protect against that alongside other allies and partners."

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Singh said the U.S. welcomes more partners to help join up with OPG or to create their own operations that can work alongside OPG.

"We always welcome more nations to join that coalition. We have seen growth since December when it was first announced," Singh said. "We welcome more nations to join. Just recently you saw the EU announce a coalition as well, that will work alongside Operation Prosperity Guardian. We certainly are seeing an expansion of assets in the region, even if they're not under ... OPG ... they're still working alongside us and like-minded nations, with the same goal in mind."

defense.gov · by C. Todd Lopez

​11. Two Years of War in Ukraine Has Changed the Way Armies Think

Some useful lessons. Will we head them or are they only lessons "encountered" as Joe Collins has written about Iraq and Afghanistan.

1. Go Small

2. Pick a Side

3. Sanctions Aren’t a Silver Bullet

4. Supply-Chain Independence Is Paramount

5. It Could Happen Again

Two Years of War in Ukraine Has Changed the Way Armies Think

• Drones have emerged as the conflict’s weapon of choice
• War has led to more bipolar world; spurred race to buy arms
• By Bloomberg News
• February 23, 2024 at 12:00 AM EST
• Updated on February 23, 2024 at 4:40 AM EST
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-23/two-years-of-war-in-ukraine-has-changed-the-way-militaries-think?sref=hhjZtX76

Since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, military planners, world leaders and citizens have been piecing through the devastation to draw lessons from what has turned out to be the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

Here are some of the ways in which it’s already transforming warfare.

Listen • 16m19

Big Take DC: Why Sanctions on Russia Haven’t Stopped the War (Podcast)

1. Go Small

Instead of tanks and planes, nimble drones have emerged as the conflict’s weapon of choice. They overwhelm hulking tanks, kill troops and have allowed both sides to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. Ukraine’s use of inexpensive uninhabited maritime vehicles (UMVs) to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has popularized remote-controlled weaponry by sea. And the primacy of drones has set off another kind of competition: the race to disable them through signal jamming.

Ukraine sea drone attacks an oil tanker.Source: Ukraine Military

Other countries are taking note. According to industry estimates, the global drone market is expected to reach $260 billion by 2030, growing almost tenfold from the year before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukraine said Friday it shot down two dozen Shahed-type drones overnight launched from Russia and occupied Crimea.

Unmanned crafts give commanders on both sides an aerial view of the battlefield, allowing them to monitor the enemy’s movements in real time — which is part of why the conflict has turned into a war of attrition. That means that, for all this technological advancement, World War I-style trench warfare supported by barrages of artillery has prevailed along the front line. That’s required the adversaries to churn out mass quantities of ammunition — with more or less success.

Russia Is Gaining Ground Again

As the West stalls further aid to Ukraine, impeding its defensive abilities, Russia is pressing forward in eastern Ukraine

Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project; Bloomberg News reporting; OpenStreetMap contributors; Copernicus Sentinel (satellite images captured on Jan. 23)

2. Pick a Side

The war in Ukraine has forged a more bipolar world. It sent Sweden and Finland running into NATO’s embrace after they had for so long resisted joining the alliance out of fear of antagonizing Russia.

That decision came to symbolize how the world that three decades ago hailed the end of history is again descending into the old divisions between West and rest. Ukraine also renewed its push to join both NATO and the European Union, after its prospects had for years been on ice.

Not all countries have rushed to choose sides. Turkey, a NATO member which styles itself (not without reason) as a broker between warring factions, didn’t join sanctions against the Kremlin. Neither did Israel or many of the countries of the so-called Global South.

As much as war has united the US and its traditional postwar allies, it has also taught it something about the reliability of these ties. Many in Europe are beginning to doubt the steadfastness of their transatlantic ally, after months of political spectacle have held up the release of over $60 billion in military aid. The prospect of Donald Trump’s returning as US president after November’s election is compounding their unease.

3. Sanctions Aren’t a Silver Bullet

Group of Seven nations have imposed an impressive array of sanctions on Russia over the past two years, cutting off its markets for energy, essential goods and technologies. They blocked much of Moscow’s access to the international financial system, immobilized its central bank reserves and froze the assets of hundreds of individuals and entities.

But far from imposing the “massive and severe consequences” predicted at the war’s inception, they’ve neither deterred Russia’s war nor led to the collapse of its economy. That’s partly because of the country’s ability to circumvent restrictions — or mitigate their effects.

Over time it will become more and more difficult for Russia to sustain these efforts: it has had to divert significant resources toward military spending and has been shut out of key export markets. Its import costs have risen. Against that backdrop, G-7 nations are focused on choking the country’s attempts to dodge select sanctions, such as those on technologies and electronics used in the weapons it sources through third countries.

4. Supply-Chain Independence Is Paramount

The war has exposed the critical importance of domestic supply chains. When Ukraine needs more military supplies it usually has to negotiate with allies; when Russia does it’s more often able to boost production at industries it controls, paying in rubles along the way.

Though Russia faces some shortages and its products tend to be inferior to those of its opponents, it was quicker to shift to a war footing. It also put into place supply routes through third countries to get its hands on banned components.

An armored terrain vehicle during a joint exercise of Finnish and Swedish troops on Gotland.Photographer: Anders Wiklund/AFP/Getty Images

By contrast, European nations were slow to boost military production and crack down on sanctions evasion, often getting bogged down in procedural debates. Their ability to produce and source artillery lags behind that of Russia, leaving Kyiv rationing munitions as the war enters its third year. While Russia continues to press its advantage on the battlefield, allies can’t get enough weapons to Ukraine.

Kyiv is starting to boost its own production to avoid being so heavily reliant on allies, but the transition is taking time.

5. It Could Happen Again

In a speech shortly after the invasion began, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz referred to the moment as a Zeitenwende: a profound turning point in history. The term came to symbolize the way the conflict shattered the optimism — some might say, the denial — in which Europe had previously been cosseted; for so long believing that a war of this magnitude could never happen on its soil.

Olaf Scholz during the German armed forces “Shaping the new era” conference.Photographer: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

It’s arguable that this understanding has taken too long to translate into action. Only now, two years into the war, is Germany itself meeting NATO’s military spending goal of 2% of GDP. Not much more than half of the remaining 30 members will reach it this year, although that’s a big jump from before the fighting began.

Donald Trump has alarmed Europeans by threatening to encourage Russia to invade countries that don’t spend enough on defense. But they also have their own motivations for heeding this pressure.

Having been caught unprepared, they’re trying to move onto the front foot. Countries from Denmark to Germany are working to beef up their defenses, with varying levels of determination. They calculate that within a few years, Putin may be ready to attack a NATO country.

“This conflict will probably revolutionize warfare more than any other since World War II,” said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a defense think tank in Moscow.

— With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak, Daryna Krasnolutska, and Alberto Nardelli

(Adds latest drone attack in fourth paragraph)

12. Russia’s War Machine Runs on Western Parts

​Most of the world runs on western parts (but many "western" parts are not made in western countries).

Excerpts:

But compared with other law enforcement and national security agencies, the bureau’s budgets have not kept pace with its expanding mission. The Department of Homeland Security has more investigators in the city of Tampa, Florida, than BIS does across the entire country, Axelrod noted in his January speech.

On the other side, you have Russia, which is extremely motivated to acquire the critical technologies it needs to continue to prosecute its war. The Kremlin has tasked its intelligence agencies with finding ways around sanctions and export controls, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a speech last year. “We are not talking about a profit-seeking firm looking for efficiencies,” the second senior U.S. intelligence official said. “There will be supply if there is sufficient demand.”

Russia’s War Machine Runs on Western Parts

Despite sanctions, Moscow is still importing critical weapon components from the U.S. and Europe.

FEBRUARY 22, 2024, 9:49 AM

By Amy Mackinnon, a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · by Amy Mackinnon

Shortly before noon on Aug. 19, 2023, a Russian cruise missile sliced past the golden onion domes and squat apartment blocks of the Chernihiv skyline in northern Ukraine. The Iskander-K missile slammed into its target: the city’s drama theater, which was hosting a meeting of drone manufacturers at the time of the attack. More than 140 people were injured and seven killed. The youngest, 6-year-old Sofia Golynska, had been playing in a nearby park.

Fragments of the missile recovered by the Ukrainian armed forces and analyzed by Ukrainian researchers found numerous components made by U.S. manufacturers in the missile’s onboard navigation system, which enabled it to reach its target with devastating precision. In December, Ukraine’s state anti-corruption agency released an online database of the thousands of foreign-made components recovered from Russian weapons so far.

Russia’s struggle to produce the advanced semiconductors, electrical components, and machine tools needed to fuel its defense industrial base predates the current war and has left it reliant on imports even amid its estrangement from the West. So when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, major manufacturing countries from North America, Europe, and East Asia swiftly imposed export controls on a broad swath of items deemed critical for the Russian arms industry.

Russia quickly became the world’s most sanctioned country: Some 16,000 people and companies were subject to a patchwork of international sanctions and export control orders imposed by a coalition of 39 countries. Export restrictions were painted with such a broad brush that sunglasses, contact lenses, and false teeth were also swept up in the prohibitions. Even items manufactured overseas by foreign companies are prohibited from being sold to Russia if they are made with U.S. tools or software, under a regulation known as the foreign direct product rule.

The scene after a missile attack at the music and drama theater

Rubble is strewn around the Chernihiv drama theater following a Russian missile attack on Aug. 19, 2023. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

But as the war reaches its two-year anniversary, export controls have failed to stem the flow of advanced electronics and machinery making their way into Russia as new and convoluted supply chains have been forged through third countries such as Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, which are not party to the export control efforts. An investigation by Nikkei Asia found a tenfold increase in the export of semiconductors from China and Hong Kong to Russia in the immediate aftermath of the war—the majority of them from U.S. manufacturers.

“Life finds a way,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, quoting the movie Jurassic Park. The official spoke on background to discuss Russia’s evasion of export controls.

Some of the weapons and components analyzed by investigators were likely stockpiled before the war. But widely available Russian trade data reveals a brisk business in imports. More than $1 billion worth of advanced semiconductors from U.S. and European manufacturers made their way into the country last year, according to classified Russian customs service data obtained by Bloomberg. A recent report by the Kyiv School of Economics found that imports of components considered critical for the battlefield had dipped by just 10 percent during the first 10 months of 2023, compared with prewar levels.

This has created a Kafkaesque scenario, the report notes, in which the Ukrainian army is doing battle with Western weapons against a Russian arsenal that also runs on Western components.

It is an obvious problem, well documented by numerous think tank and media reports, but one without an easy solution. Tracking illicit trade in items such as semiconductors is an exponentially greater challenge than monitoring shipments of conventional weapons. Around 1 trillion chips are produced every year. Found in credit cards, toasters, tanks, missile systems, and much, much more, they power the global economy as well as the Russian military. Cutting Russia out of the global supply chain for semiconductors is easier said than done.

“Both Russia and China, and basically all militaries, are using a large number of consumer electronic components in their systems,” said Chris Miller, the author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. “All of the world’s militaries rely on the same supply chain, which is the supply chain that primarily services consumer electronics.”

Export controls were once neatly tailored to keep specific items, such as nuclear technology, out of the hands of rogue states and terrorist groups. But as Washington vies for technological supremacy with Beijing while also seeking to contain Russia and Iran, it has increasingly used these trade restrictions to advance broader U.S. strategic objectives. For instance, the Biden administration has placed wide-ranging prohibitions on the export of advanced chips to China.

“At no point in history have export controls been more central to our collective security than right now,” Matthew Axelrod, the assistant secretary for export enforcement at the U.S. Commerce Department, said in a speech last September. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has described export controls as “a new strategic asset in the U.S. and allied toolkit.”

Russia’s ability to defy these restrictions doesn’t just have implications for the war in Ukraine. It also raises significant questions about the challenge ahead vis-à-vis China.

“The technological question becomes a key part of this story and whether or not we can restrict it from our adversaries,” said James Byrne, the director of open-source intelligence and analysis at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

A technical illustration of a drone

Álvaro Bernis illustration for Foreign Policy

In the Russian city of Izhevsk, home to the factory that manufactures Kalashnikov rifles, shopping malls are being converted into drone factories amid a surge in defense spending that has helped the country’s economy weather its Western estrangement. Arms manufacturers have been urged to work around the clock to feed the Russian war machine, while defense is set to account for one-third of the state budget this year.

“We have developed a concept to convert shopping centers—which, before the start of the SMO [special military operation], sold mainly the products of Western brands—to factories for assembly lines of types of domestic drones,” Alexander Zakharov, the chief designer of the Zala Aero drone company, said at a closed event in August 2022, according to the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti. “Special military operation” is what the Russian government calls its war on Ukraine. Zala Aero is a subsidiary of the Kalashnikov Concern that, along with Zakharov, was sanctioned by the United States last November.

Defense companies have bought at least three shopping malls in Izhevsk to be repurposed for the manufacture of drones, according to local media, including Lancet attack drones, which the British defense ministry described as one of the most effective new weapons that Russia introduced to the battlefield last year. Lancets, which cost about $35,000 to produce, wreaked havoc during Ukraine’s offensive last year and have been captured on video striking valuable Ukrainian tanks and parked MiG fighter jets.

Like a lot of Russia’s weapons systems, Lancets are filled with Western components. An analysis of images of the drones published in December by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security found that they contained several parts from U.S., Swiss, and Czech manufacturers, including image processing and analytical components that play a pivotal role in enabling the drones to reach their targets on the battlefield.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the II All-Russian Forum of Gunsmiths in Izhevsk, Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) visits the II All-Russian Forum of Gunsmiths in Izhevsk, Russia, on Sept. 19, 2023, in this image provided by Sputnik Agency. Mikhail Metzel/AFP via Getty Images

“The recurring appearance of these Western products in Russian drone systems shows a keen dependence on them for key capabilities in the drone systems,” the report notes. Lancets are not the only drones found to contain Western components. Almost all of the electronic components in the Iranian Shahed-136 drones, which Russia is now manufacturing with Iranian help to use in Ukraine, are of Western origin, a separate analysis published in November concluded.

Early in the war, the Royal United Services Institute analyzed 27 Russian military systems, including cruise missiles, electronic warfare complexes, and communications systems, and found that they contained at least 450 foreign-made components, revealing Russia’s dependence on imports.

One of the principal ways that Russia has evaded Western export controls has been through transshipment via third countries such as Turkey, the UAE, and neighboring states once part of the Soviet Union. Bloomberg reported last November that amid mounting Western pressure, the UAE had agreed to restrict the export of sensitive goods to Russia and that Turkey was considering a similar move. Kazakh officials announced a ban on the export of certain battlefield goods to Russia in October.

Suspected transshipment is often revealed by striking changes in trade patterns before and after the invasion. The Maldives, an island chain in the Indian Ocean that has no domestic semiconductor industry, shipped almost $54 million worth of U.S.-made semiconductors to Russia in the year after the invasion of Ukraine, Nikkei Asia reported last July.

Semiconductor supply chains often span several countries, with chips designed in one country and manufactured in another before being sold to a series of downstream distributors around the world. That makes it difficult for companies to know the ultimate end user of their products. This may seem odd—until you realize that this is the case for many everyday products that are sold around the world. “When Coca-Cola sells Coca-Cola, it doesn’t know where every bottle goes, and they don’t have systems to track where every bottle goes,” said Kevin Wolf, a former assistant secretary for export administration at the U.S. Commerce Department.

While a coalition of 39 countries, including the world’s major manufacturers of advanced electronics, imposed export restrictions on Russia, much of the rest of the world continues to trade freely with Moscow. Components manufactured in coalition countries will often begin their journey to Moscow’s weapons factories through a series of entirely legal transactions before ending up with a final distributor that takes them across the border into Russia. “It starts off as licit trade and ends up as illicit trade,” said a second senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The further items move down the supply chain, the less insight governments and companies have into their ultimate destination, although sudden changes in behavior of importers can offer a red flag. In his speech last September, Axelrod, the assistant secretary, used the example of a beauty salon that suddenly starts to import electronic components.

An employee makes chips at a semiconductor factory

An employee makes chips at a semiconductor factory in Nantong, in China’s Jiangsu province, on March 17, 2021.China OUT/AFP via Getty Images

But the Grand Canyon of loopholes is China, which has stood by Moscow since the invasion. In the first days of the war, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned that Washington could shut down Chinese companies that ignored semiconductor export controls placed on Russia. Last October, 42 Chinese companies were added to export control lists—severely undercutting their ability to do business with U.S. companies—for supplying Russian defense manufacturers with U.S. chips.

But as the Biden administration carefully calibrates its China policy in a bid to keep a lid on escalating tensions, it has held off from taking Beijing to task. “I think the biggest issue is that we—the West—have been unwilling to put pressure on China that would get China to start enforcing some of these rules itself,” said Miller, the author of Chip Wars.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said: “Due to the restrictions imposed by the United States and key allies and partners, Russia has been left with no choice but to spend more, lower its ambitions for high-tech weaponry, build alliances with other international pariah states, and develop nefarious trade networks to covertly obtain the technologies it needs.

“We are deeply concerned regarding [Chinese] support for Russia’s defense industrial base. BIS has acted to add over 100 [China]-based entities to the Entity List for supporting Russia’s military industrial base and related activities.”

Export controls have typically focused on keeping specific U.S.-made goods out of the hands of adversaries, while economic and financial sanctions have served broader foreign-policy objectives of isolating rogue states and cauterizing the financing of terrorist groups and drug cartels. The use of sanctions as a national security tool grew in wake of the 9/11 attacks; in the intervening decades, companies, government agencies, and financial institutions have built up a wealth of experience in sanctions compliance. By contrast, the use of export controls for strategic ends is relatively novel, and compliance expertise is still in its infancy.

“It used to be that people like me could keep export controls and sanctions in one person’s head. The level of complexity for each area of law is so intense. I don’t know anyone who is truly an export control and sanctions expert,” Wolf said.

Export controls, experts say, are at best speed bumps designed to make it harder for Russia’s defense industrial base to procure Western components. They create “extra friction and pressure on the Russian economy,” said Daniel Fried, who as the State Department coordinator for sanctions policy helped craft U.S. sanctions on Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia is now paying 80 percent more to import semiconductors than it did before the war, according to forthcoming research by Miller, and the components it is able to acquire are often of dubious quality.

But although it may be more cumbersome and expensive, it’s a cost that Moscow has been willing to bear in its war on Ukraine.

A police expert examines fragments of a Russian missile after an attack in Kyiv

A police expert examines fragments of a Russian missile after an attack in Kyiv on May 29, 2023. Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images

Western components—and lots of them—will continue to be found in the weapons Russia uses on Ukraine’s battlefields for the duration of the war. “This problem is as old as export controls are,” said Jasper Helder, an expert on export controls and sanctions with the law firm Akin Gump. But there are ways to further plug the gaps.

Steeper penalties could incentivize U.S. companies to take a more proactive role in ensuring their products don’t wind up in the hands of the Russian military, said Elina Ribakova, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “At the moment, they’re not truly motivated,” she said.

Companies that run afoul of sanctions and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. federal law that prohibits the payment of bribes, have been fined billions of dollars. Settlements of export control violations are often an order of magnitude smaller, according to recently published research.

In a speech last month, Axelrod said the United States would begin issuing steeper penalties for export control violations. “Build one case against one of the companies extremely well, put out a multibillion-dollar fine negotiation, and watch everybody else fall in line,” Ribakova said.

And then there’s the question of resources. BIS has an annual budget of just $200 million. “That’s like the cost of a few fighter jets. Come on,” said Raimondo, speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum last December.

The agency’s core budget for export control has, adjusted for inflation, remained flat since 2010, while its workload has surged. Between 2014 and 2022, the volume of U.S. exports subject to licensing scrutiny increased by 126 percent, according to an agency spokesperson. A 2022 study of export control enforcement by the Center for Strategic and International Studies recommended a budget increase of $45 million annually, describing it as “one of the best opportunities available anywhere in U.S. national security.”

When it comes to enforcement, the bureau has about 150 officers across the country who work with law enforcement and conduct outreach to companies. The Commerce Department has also established a task force with the Justice Department to keep advanced technologies out of the hands of Russia, China, and Iran. “The U.S. has the most robust export enforcement on the planet,” Wolf said.

But compared with other law enforcement and national security agencies, the bureau’s budgets have not kept pace with its expanding mission. The Department of Homeland Security has more investigators in the city of Tampa, Florida, than BIS does across the entire country, Axelrod noted in his January speech.

On the other side, you have Russia, which is extremely motivated to acquire the critical technologies it needs to continue to prosecute its war. The Kremlin has tasked its intelligence agencies with finding ways around sanctions and export controls, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a speech last year. “We are not talking about a profit-seeking firm looking for efficiencies,” the second senior U.S. intelligence official said. “There will be supply if there is sufficient demand.”

Foreign Policy · by Amy Mackinnon

13. Marines pass full financial audit, a first for any US military branch

Good on them. Now let's get all the services on board.

Marines pass full financial audit, a first for any US military branch

Defense News · by Megan Eckstein · February 23, 2024

The U.S. Marine Corps passed a full financial audit for the first time, with the service announcing Friday its fiscal 2023 financial audit received an “unmodified audit opinion” after a rigorous two-year review.

The milestone — something the Defense Department and the other armed services still have not achieved — comes after almost two decades of trying to prepare the Corps’ records and several failed audits along the way.

During this two-year audit, the Marine Corps had independent third-party auditors from Ernst and Young vet the value of all its assets listed on financial statements. The Corps also had to prove that every single item existed and was where the service said it was.

Gregory Koval, the assistant deputy commandant for resources, told reporters the audit team made more than 70 site visits in the U.S. and around the world. In these visits, they checked more than 7,800 real property assets such as land and buildings; 5,900 pieces of military equipment; 1.9 million pieces of non-ammunition supplies, such as spare parts; and 24 million items of ammunition, some of which are stored at Army and Navy facilities.

If a vehicle wasn’t where it was listed as being because it was out conducting operations, or a piece of ammunition wasn’t there because it had already been shot in a recent exercise, the Corps had to show documentation or photos of that, too, in order to explain discrepancies.

Koval said the final financial report states the Marine Corps passed its audit but still has some areas where it can improve.

Lt. Gen. James Adams, the deputy commandant for programs and resources, said one area of focus is automating processes. Today, there are disparate systems where data must be manually moved from one system to another, introducing the opportunity for error. The service is moving toward integrated, automated systems that would avoid human error in sharing information between human resources and financial data systems, for example.

U.S. Marine ammunition technicians and officers with Marine Corps Base Quantico Ammunition Supply Point receive ammunition disposal training on base in 2020. (Sgt. Ann Correa/U.S. Marine Corps)

Adams said that passing the audit now will make all future ones more manageable. This last audit asked a third party to validate the existence and the value of every single thing the Marines own, which required significant historical research, he explained.

Subsequent audits, on the other hand, will be able to assume the past information is correct and therefore only cover “from this point forward,” instead asking Marines to prove information related to that fiscal year’s financial transactions.

Adams said the Corps got close to completing past audits in a single fiscal year, but because of the immense historical research, they couldn’t get the audit completed and over the finish line in a single year. For the FY23 audit, the service requested an extension, which could prove to be a model for the other services.

“It was a goal of the commandant of the Marine Corps to pass the audit because he wants to show the credibility of the Marine Corps back to the Congress and the taxpayer,” Ed Gardiner, the assistant deputy commandant for programs and resources, told reporters.

In addition to having more time, this audit also used the military’s new general ledger software, Defense Agencies Initiative, in which auditors had confidence, according to Gardiner.

Gardiner explained the services were, by law, supposed to start their financial audits in the 1990s, but the Marine Corps didn’t begin producing statements in preparation for an audit until 2006. The first audit in 2010 showed plenty of room for improvement, he said. In late 2013, the Marines announced they had passed a limited-scope audit for FY12 — but in March 2015, a number of financial and oversight leaders reported the results were unreliable and the clean pass would be rescinded.

In 2017, the Marine Corps began conducting full financial statement audits.

The 2023 full financial statement audit was conducted to the highest standards, Gardiner said, with the Ernst and Young team not only being audited themselves by a peer-review team but also by the Pentagon’s inspector general team.

“We’ve been all the way to the end of the process, and we have lessons learned that we can share with the rest of the department,” he said, adding the Marine Corps hopes these lessons “can be an accelerant for the rest of the department.”

Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord made similar remarks in November, when the Pentagon failed its sixth audit since 2018.

Noting the Marines’ extension, McCord said that “we are very focused on it as a test case for the department and the larger services.”

“Whatever results of that may be when we get the auditor’s final opinion, I want to commend the USMC and, in particular, [Marine Corps Commandant Gen.] Eric Smith for their leadership and effort,” McCord added.

About Megan Eckstein

Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.

14. How to Ruin the Marine Corps

Ouch. My snarky comment is I guess COL Anderson says that passing an audit won't help the Corps to accomplish its mission.

How to Ruin the Marine Corps

thedefensepost.com · by Gary Anderson · February 23, 2024

Few would ever consider how to completely neutralize a truly iconic fighting force like the US Marine Corps.

However, for whatever reason, if one were motivated to do so, I would recommend the following strategy.

The Plan in Theory

First, I would not reveal my plans during my confirmation hearing as Commandant of the Marine Corps. That would alert the traditionalists among the retired Marines and friends of Marines who might oppose my appointment. Once confirmed and installed, I would present my real plan, proceeding confidently and decisively.

Let’s say my concept would involve a radical transformation of the Marine Corps from a worldwide force in readiness into a service primarily focused on deterring or fighting a war with China. I would issue my Commandant’s Planning Guidance to that effect and direct my combat development command to set up a series of war games that would support my plan.

I would use a small group of trusted agents to run the games and make sure that they supported the concept. I would ensure that anyone participating in the games signed non-disclosure agreements, and I would classify the process so that no dissenting opinions would be let loose. I would then declare that the results validated my concept.

Next, I would divest the Marine Corps of what I considered to be legacy capabilities no longer needed for the implementation of my plan. These divestitures would include all tanks, all its heavy engineer and assault breaching capabilities, much of the conventional artillery, its vaunted snipers, and about a third of the aviation assets.

Knowing that many retired Marines and friends of Marines would object to this radical departure from the Marine Corps’ traditional force-in-readiness posture, I would direct my public affairs people to dismiss them as hopeless reactionaries.

US Marines and Georgian Army soldiers run to an extraction point. Photo: US Marine Corps

I would be confident that I was hitting all the right political bases. The administration has identified China as the nation’s pacing threat. I would be saving Congress billions by divesting unneeded capabilities.

There would be a few potential obstacles. The combatant commanders of global theaters might object to my taking away capabilities that they need in their war plans. More embarrassingly, the commander of the Indo-Pacific theater might object that he or she did not need my concept. However, I could be fairly confident that the “general officers’ protective association” would prevent them from airing this dirty laundry in public.

Finally, I would have my director of combat development designated as my preferred replacement. Because of his complicity in my approach, he would look foolish trying to reverse it.

My legacy would be ensured.

How It Has Played Out

Fortunately, I never became Commandant of the Marine Corps. Unfortunately, General David Berger did. With his concept, dubbed Force Design (FD) 2030, he transformed the Marine Corps from a worldwide force in readiness to a service primarily aimed at deterring, or if necessary, fighting a war against China in the South China Sea.

Since his concept did not require large-scale amphibious landings, General Berger released the navy from its requirement to provide the Marine Corps with a division’s worth (two Expeditionary Brigades) of amphibious shipping. This was a savvy move as it got buy-in from the navy’s carrier and submarine admirals.

To give Berger credit, this was a brilliant political approach. The Biden administration has identified China as the pacing threat to national security.

Berger’s plan to “divest to invest” to procure the anti-ship missiles needed to implement FD 2030 would save the nation billions in the short run. Although the divestiture was done without any guaranteed quid pro quo, General Berger apparently believed a grateful nation would reward the Marine Corps for its generosity.

A Naval Strike Missile streaks out to sea before striking a naval target ship on August 15, 2021. Photo: Lance Cpl. Dillon Buck/US Marines

The Results

Things have not gone well for FD 2030 in the past year. Before he left office, General Berger was forced to admit that the Navy-Marine Corps team could not respond to contingencies in Sudan and Turkey due to a lack of amphibious shipping.

Congress has belatedly realized something may be wrong, and the current Defense Authorization Act has mandated a second look at FD 2030.

An exhaustive study by a group of retired senior Marine Corps generals revealed the war games justifying FD 2030 were manipulated to produce positive results. General Berger’s concept was built on a house of cards. He reduced the Marine Corps to something between coastal artillery and naval infantry.

General Eric Smith, Berger’s chosen successor, has obviously felt the heat and recently changed the name to “Force Design,” but this is like changing the name of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

If the congressional study confirms what the retired generals suspect, several things should be done. General Smith is not a well man and should be medically retired. One of the recently retired general officers who objected to FD 2030 should be returned to active duty and appointed as commandant to sort out the mess. That will be difficult; Berger left chaos in his wake.

Gary Anderson served as the Chief of Plans (G-5) of the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force responsible for the Indo-Pacific area.

He lectures on Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.

The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people – do you want to send us yours? Click here to submit an op-ed.

thedefensepost.com · by Gary Anderson · February 23, 2024

15. Avoiding war in the Indo-Pacific | The Strategist

The 31 page report can be downloaded here: https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2024-02/SR201%20Escalation%20risks%20in%20the%20Indo-Pacific.pdf?VersionId=Ec1JMi.G8DGKlGvD_w6Qf3B.rEYCW393

I am glad to see the recognition of the importance of instability in north Korea. From my two recent trips to Korea I have noticed a singular focus on the nuclear threat (for obvious reasons) and little to no acknowledgement or understanding of the threat of internal instability.

I am becoming more and more convinced that our fear of escalation and nuclear use has stunted our strategic thinking and actually makes miscalculation more likely.  

Regarding China, when we wrote the first instability CONPLAN in the 1990s we recognized the need for a joint coordination center that would include all counties in the region to try to mitigate misunderstanding and miscalculation. In three Track II events in 2018-2019 with China, South Korea, and the US with very senior former foreign affairs and military officials we saw that both China and South Korea were receptive to the idea of a joint coordination center. Of course the current political situation with China might preclude that. But then again all three countries might be interested in avoiding a chance contact or meeting engagement with military forces trying to protect their nation's interests during a contingency north Korea.

The Korean Peninsula

A very serious crisis centred on North Korea remains a real possibility. The drivers could come from within

North Korea, through international tension, or some combination of both.

In 2015, Peter Varghese, while Secretary of the Department of Foreign A.airs and Trade, speculated that

North Korea might collapse under the weight of its own economic gravity and contemplated the future of the

Korean Peninsula in terms of when, rather than whether, reunification will occur.68 Even if the North Korean

regime doesn’t collapse, there’s potential for a succession crisis within the regime, in which the alignment and

conduct of the military could be crucial.69

Domestic instability in North Korea would pose a range of problems for the international community. The

safety of North Korean nuclear weapons would be a pre-eminent concern.70 A large-scale humanitarian

catastrophe, which could drive migrants across the Chinese border, would be another concern, and the

regional and international community would need to be mindful of Beijing’s equities in how the crisis were

handled. The US, South Korean and Chinese militaries would probably need to be involved in managing such

eventualities and could potentially be acting in close proximately to each other inside North Korea in the

event of a regime collapse. In such situations, the potential for misunderstanding resulting in either accidental

escalation or pressure to pre-empt could be very real.

A crisis on the Korean Peninsula could also be more immediately international rather than domestic. For

instance, the North Korean regime might miscalculate the tolerance of a future US administration for nuclear

brinksmanship, or a US administration might miscalculate the regime’s own thresholds.71 Some research

suggests that the North Korean regime consistently responds to US – South Korea joint military exercises as

a serious security threat, not mere theatre, providing a regular basis for miscalculation.72 And there’s plentiful

space for accidents with tragic outcomes, including involving third countries. For instance, a North Korean

missile test over Japan could misfire and hit a populated area, dramatically escalating tensions.

Crisis

Whatever its cause, a crisis on the Korean Peninsula would almost certainly involve both the US and China.

Any crisis or conflict could involve heavy fighting, potentially including the use of nuclear weapons, close

to the Chinese border. The need to avoid inadvertent or accidental escalation with China because of allied

actions on the peninsula would clearly be a pre-eminent concern.

Russia would also be a factor in any crisis scenario because of its border with North Korea, its close relations

with the regime in Pyongyang, its new ‘no limits’ strategic partnership with China and its historical place

at the table in formats such as the Six Party Talks. The prospects for Moscow playing a constructive

crisis-management role look very dim, at least while Vladimir Putin leads Russia.73

Avoiding war in the Indo-Pacific | The Strategist

aspistrategist.org.au · by William Leben · February 22, 2024

War in the Indo-Pacific is a real possibility. Increased competition, a growing trust deficit between global and regional powers and potential miscalculations heighten the danger. There needs to be a more engaged Australian discussion on conflict-escalation risks and how they might be managed.

Today I examine these issues in a new ASPI special report: Escalation Risks in the Indo-Pacific: A review for practitioners.

Policymakers and leaders need to understand escalation risks as they manage Australia’s relationship with the US, China, North Korea and Australia’s key regional defence partners over coming decades. In rhetoric and in action, Australia also needs to be attentive to how the acquisition and employment of our own new capabilities—strike missiles, evolving cyber capabilities and nuclear-propelled submarines—affect strategic stability dynamics in a fast-changing world.

This report addresses key priorities for the Australian Government. Australian ministers and senior officials have consistently called for governments across the region to use their agency to shape great-power dynamics, including supporting the development of so-called ‘guardrails’ to manage strategic competition between China and the US.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has heightened concern about escalation risks in general terms. While there are many important lessons to be learned from that conflict, it’s essential that similar concerns are understood by Australian policy- and decision-makers as they relate to our key partners and our geography.

The first and principal aim of the report is to provide a review and discussion of various escalation risks in the Indo-Pacific. This is a complex issue which can be approached from multiple directions, drawing on a vast and rich literature which can help us think about the challenges. But for the historical reasons—among them that Australia has not had to think too hard about crisis management and escalation risks in recent decades—much muscle memory has been lost.

I argue against a rosy view of strategic stability in Australia’s region and suggest there are four main reasons we should remain concerned that crises and escalation pathways could be very difficult to control. These are: the ambiguous nature of maritime capabilities, novel technologies, unknowns in the nuclear balance and simple human frailty.

There is no reason for complacency. Taken together, these factors mean that there are all-too-imaginable possibilities for inadvertent and accidental escalation around flashpoints like the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and in the East and South China Seas. Moreover, the maritime nature of the Western Pacific as a military theatre, combined with emerging technologies like hypersonics, means that decision makers could face very strong pressures toward pre-emption in a crisis. Put more simply, the fear-driven pressure to ‘shoot first’ could be very strong and very dangerous.

The report also identifies policy options for mitigating those concerns. Australia certainly cannot manage these risks alone, and we shouldn’t exaggerate Australian influence over the various factors influencing strategic stability. Nonetheless, the potential consequences are so serious that significant regional players, Australia included, cannot be bystanders. These are not just issues for the US and China alone. Indeed, there is a history of Australia playing a constructive role in this area.

Accordingly, the report makes three recommendations. First, Australian policy makers should support the establishment of appropriate crisis-management mechanisms. Second, Australia should continue and improve crisis exercises, in which national decision-makers should participate. Thirdly, it is important that there is continued investment in understanding escalation thresholds.

It’s important to be up front that my emphasis in this report is on Australian and allied capabilities and concepts. To borrow some military jargon, the report is focused on ‘blue’ (one’s own side) and not on ‘red’ (potential adversaries). I encourage further research and discussion about the escalatory implications of what our potential adversaries are doing. Conflict and contest are always two-sided (or many-sided) affairs, and the actions we take—even in combination and coordination with allies and partners—can’t determine outcomes on their own.

Moreover, the risks discussed here can never be eliminated. If deterrence is to be a significant part of the answer to our security challenges over coming decades, then the management of escalation risks will be an ongoing imperative.

aspistrategist.org.au · by William Leben · February 22, 2024

16. The Worst Morning Ever (Ukraine February 2022)

The Worst Morning Ever

On the second anniversary of the invasion, our vivid memories of the first 24 hours. In reporter’s notebook, Myroslava takes us to a demonstration in Kyiv marking the war entering a third year!

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/the-worst-morning-ever?r=7i07&utm

TIM MAK, MYROSLAVA TANSKA-VIKULOVA, OKSANA OSTAPCHUK, AND 3 OTHERS

FEB 24, 2024

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It Started Off As A Quiet Night

Kyiv on the morning of February 24th, 2022 – foggy and spooky, the whole city deserted.

Tim: I landed in Kyiv on February 23rd, 2022 – what would turn out to be one of the last commercial flights into the city – and it was all incredibly peaceful. My taxi driver made sure to point out that no one was panicking. I went to grab a quick drink with a friend who was a seasoned war correspondent. “It’s not gonna happen, mate,” said the veteran journalist. Was this going to be all hype? 

Ross: I was living in London at the time, where I had moved from Ukraine years earlier. I was hugely skeptical that this war would start. It was a great example of terrible naïveté.

Myroslava: A few days before, we had gotten a little hamster, Kiwi, named after the green hairy fruit. That night I held this baby in my arms and thought that maybe the war would not start and it was all just intimidation. After all, who needs war in the 21st century when people want to conquer planets... not countries?

Myroslava and Kiwi at the last peaceful day, February 23, 2022

Alessandra: I was in Oxford at the time, finishing my last year of my undergraduate degree. I had spent my summers and vacations in Ukraine since I was 8, I had friends in Kyiv, I had planned to move there after I graduated. It was like a second home to me.

A Rude Awakening

Oksana: A downed rocket landed under my windows, smashing glass on all nine floors of my building in Kyiv. It brought me, oddly enough, relief. After months of living in a country surrounded by Russian troops, certainty was comforting—even if it only meant that my country was heading for catastrophe.

Tim: I got a call from an editor at around the same time. He said, “something’s going on outside – you better get to a bomb shelter.” I remember the first thing I did was stand in front of the mirror and brush my teeth. I was just in shock.

An ATM out of service on the morning of the invasion, due to being emptied by frantic civilians.

Myroslava: My husband next to me was not sleeping. He was awakened by explosions that I did not hear. The airfield next to us was being bombed. For a second, I thought maybe it was a dream... that was about to end.

Ross: I woke up around 3 a.m., and the first thing I saw was my ex-wife sitting in the chair and looking extremely disturbed and lost. I asked what happened and she replied: “war happened.”

Alessandra: I looked at my phone to check the time, and saw a notification from the BBC: “Explosions in Kyiv.”

An elderly woman waits for a bus on the morning of the full-scale invasion.

Processing the News

Myroslava: In the office of the news outlet I worked for at the time, we turned off the lights everywhere, according to the rules of light-masking. We wrote news items all night. There was too much of it, we did not have time to cover it all.

Oksana: I found myself infused into a stream of people, carrying in their hands children, pets, and human-sized suitcases – their entire lives. The most patient ones stopped at an endless line near the ATM, the rest rushed to the nearest metro station, damaged by one of the blasts.

People moving frantically in the Kyiv subway as explosions were heard that day.

Tim: The driver we had arranged to evacuate us in case an invasion started just disappeared as soon as it all began. We scrambled to find a car, began driving south to the city of Uman, to link up with some of my journalism colleagues, all the while filing reports even in the dark or without power.

Filing a report by phone in the dark, by headlamp.

Alessandra: I got dressed and cycled to my Russian translation class. I don’t remember much of the class, I was still reeling and trying to come to terms with the new world I had woken up to. 

Ross: I simply couldn’t accept the thought that a massacre of this magnitude could happen in the 21st century. I sincerely believed that we people were already too civilized and developed for this. Yet humans proved to be humans again. 

Oksana: It took me months to realize that normality had forever slipped away through that opened window, before my father called me to tell me that the war had just started. 

Alessandra: I realized that the whole morning I had felt sick. I hadn’t noticed because I had been so nauseous with anxiety. I tested positive for Covid in the library bathroom.

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A New Reality: 

Men arriving at a military recruitment center in central Ukraine.

Tim: It never occurred to me that our lives would all be irrevocably changed by that day. There was simply no time to reflect. It was survival mode. My colleague grabbed a can of tinned fish at the supermarket in a panic – even in those times, there was some dark humor there.

Alessandra: The largest country in the world thought it could take back the capital of its former colony in three days, and yet here I am, two years later, writing to you from a cafe in Kyiv. Although it might not be the Ukrainian victory people talk about, it is hard for me to hear it understood as a failure. 

Myroslava: My father-in-law came to pick me up, and I thought I would never come back. We stayed for 11 days in central Ukraine but decided to return to Kyiv even as Russian troops bombed the city. 

This postcard Myroslava’s best friend gifted her after she returned to Kyiv, it says: “Let's never say goodbye forever again.” March 7, 2022

Ross: The first couple of days just flew by in some kind of delirium. The amount of news that was coming from all over the Ukraine was just too much for the human brain to embrace. There are many days from then on that are carved into my memory more vividly, but this day clearly divides my life: before, and after.

Oksana: Today uncertainty, disappointment and fatigue have replaced the optimism and idealistic faith in the rule of law that fed our morale two years ago. That morning, we started fighting because we all had a lot to lose. Today we keep fighting before we all have lost too much to give up. 

Ultimately Ross moved from London to Ukraine, where he became Tim’s fixer and interpreter. Tim moved permanently to Kyiv in May 2023 to start The Counteroffensive. Myroslava joined the team in the fall of 2023, followed by Alessandra after she graduated from Oxford. Oksana joined us shortly after for her first journalism job.

After the paywall: Taiwan worries about what American hesitation on Ukraine aid means for whether they can rely on the U.S. in the future. And Myroslava files an intimate dispatch from a demonstration in Kyiv marking the second anniversary — along with, of course, our Dog of War!

NEWS OF THE DAY:

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

Today is the 3,656th day of war in Ukraine and the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. 

Several world leaders gathered to pay tribute at Antonov Airfield near Kyiv to mark the event. Prime Ministers from Italy, Canada, and Belgium stood side by side on the airfield that Giorgia Meloni, the Italian PM, described as "a symbol of Moscow’s failure and Ukrainian pride."

(Read the tense moment-by-moment details of Russia's assault on Antonov Airfield during the early hours of the invasion in our previous issue)

SECOND SPY PLANE SHOT DOWN: Reports of a second downed Russian A-50 spy plane are circulating after a video posted online shows the plane deploying flares before reportedly exploding. The aircraft was shot down 124 miles from the front, over Russian territory. 

The A-50 is an advanced support aircraft with a crew of around a dozen highly trained specialists, two losses in two months is a significant blow to Russia's warfighting capabilities. 

TAIWAN WORRIED U.S. WILL ABANDON UKRAINE: A congressional delegation made up of members from the House Select Committee on China recently returned from a brief trip to Taiwan. They were met with worry over the United States' lack of support for Ukraine, reports Politico. Taiwanese officials have legitimate concerns about what the recent lackluster aid for Ukraine means for Taiwan's defensive capabilities. 

FOREIGN MINISTERS FROM POLAND/UK WARN U.S.: Radosław Sikorski and David Cameron, in a joint speech, warn that not standing up to Putin will "remake the world as we know it." They urged Western leaders (all eyes on the U.S.) to provide more cash for Ukraine and not fail one of the greatest tests of this generation. 

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK:

Hello there - it’s Myroslava here!

For most people, February 24 is the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion. But Russian aggression has been going on for nearly 10 years. 

Today is an opportunity to remember that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are still in captivity.

Perhaps the largest share of them are the defenders of Mariupol, who held the city for 86 days, buying time for Western partners to deliver a large number of weapons to Ukraine to bolster its defense.

Among the POWs are members of the Azov Battalion, who are being mistreated in captivity by the Russians. “Free Ukrainian Prisoners of War!” Hundreds of mothers, wives, children, friends, acquaintances and concerned Ukrainians gathered today to support the POWs. It took place in Kyiv, right on the central square. 

Almost everyone was holding a poster with various inscriptions: "Captivity Kills," "Bring Back My Dad," "Free Mariupol Defenders," being some examples. Many of the demonstrators were wrapped in yellow and blue flags.

Ukrainians demonstrating to support POWs.

This was the second time I attended the event. This time I came with a poster: "They fought for us - now we fight for them!” I really feel that way. And I know that without them there would be no Ukraine, there would be no us...

Among those who came to support the POWs were mothers with babies, and some came with their pets.

I met Hanna Kurtsanovska at the event. The war caught up with her in Donetsk in 2014. Since then she has been concerned about prisoners of war – this is her 10th demonstration. And each time she tries to organize some kind of performance to draw attention to the issue. This time, she wrapped herself in wire and taped a sign over her mouth that read: "Prison kills," and hung a sign that read, "I want to break free.”

In this way, she wants to remind everyone about the POWs that are still in captivity.

Performance by Hanna Kurtsanovska at the demonstration. 

I was especially impressed by the people who could not join the action, but drove by in their cars. They actively honked their horns to show their support for the POWs. Sometimes it seemed that my ears were ringing from the noise, but we all understood what it was for.

Such events are a drop in the bucket, but they are what reminds the whole world of the POWs. And as long as they are in captivity, each one of us is a voice of the POWs that is heard loud and clear around the world.

February 24th is the day when Ukraine remembers the horrors of two years ago and at the same time remembers what our unity is worth - our freedom!

Today our dog of war is Rudi, who came to support POWs with his pet-mother Sasha.

Stay safe out there!

Best,

Myroslava

17. Opinion: Conflict is the new normal

Opinion: Conflict is the new normal | CNN

CNN · by Fareed Zakaria · February 23, 2024

Fareed to Tucker Carlson: You need to get out more

06:20 - Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: Fareed Zakaria is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS, airing at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET Sundays on CNN. Follow Fareed on X, and read news, analysis, and insights from Fareed and his team in the daily CNN newsletter Fareed’s Global Briefing. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more CNN Opinion

CNN —

Looking at the crises proliferating around the world, it is clear that we are in an age of geopolitical tension that resembles the Cold War — a time of constant, continual threats to international order. But this time, the West is treating each of these threats as one-offs to be dealt with separately in the hope that normalcy will soon return. But conflict is the new normal.

Look around. The war is going badly for Ukraine, which is critically outgunned and outmanned by its much larger adversary. Its key advantage, access to Western arms and money, is in peril. The US Congress seems unwilling to pass legislation to send it more arms and money. The European Union is stepping in and filling part of the gap, but Europe does not have the military industrial complex to send Ukraine the level of armaments it needs to fight Russia.

FILE PHOTO: A Ukrainian serviceman walks next to a residential building heavily damaged by permanent Russian military strikes in the front line town of Avdiivka, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 8, 2023. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/ via REUTERS/File Photo

Serhii Nuzhnenko/Radio Free Europe/Reuters

Related article Opinion: Who is winning? Gen. Petraeus on Ukraine war, two years in

Ukraine’s army has held out heroically against Russia’s onslaught. But as a senior European diplomat said to me recently, “Ukrainians are brave and bold, but they are not supermen. They will not be able to hold on if they don’t have weapons and supplies.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is making sure that he can keep the war going, getting arms from North Korea and recruiting men from as far as Cuba. He continues to benefit from the fact that many of the world’s major economies — from China and India to Turkey and the Gulf States — are trading freely with Russia. If Russia’s aggression works, it tears up a norm that has largely stood for 80 years: no change of borders by force.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, many believed when the Gaza war began that it would be short, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would fall. Neither is likely.

The Israel Defense Forces, humiliated by the surprise attack of October 7th, are determined to completely eradicate Hamas from Gaza. That means months more of bombing, fighting, and bulldozing. The tensions and internal debates that Israel’s actions will produce in other countries will only rise.

Netanyahu is going nowhere. Most Israelis may dislike him, but they approve of his war policies. This week, in a pointed rebuke to international — including American and British — calls for pursuing a two-state solution, Israel’s Knesset approved a resolution declaring that it was opposed to any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state with 99 out of 120 votes. (Netanyahu’s coalition has only 64 members, so many opposition parliamentarians joined in.)

An artillery unit in northern Israel fires across the border towards Lebanon on January 11, 2024.

Amir Levy/Getty Images

One less-noticed theater has been in the North. Israel has been striking and killing Hezbollah militants, to the point that by one account, it has killed over 200 of them. This campaign will continue and might even accelerate.

The IDF’s goal is to weaken Hezbollah to the point that the roughly 80,000 Israelis who fled their homes in northern Israel can return. At some point, Hezbollah might respond forcefully, which could trigger an Israeli incursion into Lebanon, truly widening the war.

And then we have the Houthis, who have managed to assert themselves through a series of pinprick strikes that, according to one consulting firm, have reduced the number of container vessels through the Suez Canal by about 72% since they began in December. American efforts to organize an effective coalition to keep trade flowing through the Red Sea have failed. Its efforts to respond to Houthi attacks have not caused a cessation in Houthi strikes.

This failure is a blow to the credibility of the United States’ guaranteeing the freedom of the seas, a key component of the open global economy that has been built over two centuries, first with the British Navy and then the American. And more threats to the maritime underpinnings of that order are on the horizon. Russia and China have both been building up the capacity to cut undersea cables, which are now an integral part of the “cloud” on which data is stored across the globe. If the United States cannot deter a sub-state actor like the Houthis from its disruptive behavior in the Red Sea, what chance does it have against powers like China and Russia?

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There are ways to address all these problems. But it requires a paradigm shift in the Western world. We are now in a high-security age. That means governments have to spend significantly more on defense — and spend more efficiently.

The US took on the role as guarantor of the freedom of the seas in 1945 and has been master of the seas ever since. In the 1980s, it had almost 600 ships, but today it has fewer than 300. Europe has lost its military industrial complex, which allowed it to produce munitions on a near-constant basis.

In these new, dangerous times, congressional Republicans have decided to return to isolationism, hoping that they can bury their heads in the sand and the problems will somehow go away. It should be noted that contrary to popular belief, ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand to escape threats. In fact, it would lead to their asphyxiation. Maybe the birds understand something congressional Republicans don’t.

CNN · by Fareed Zakaria · February 23, 2024

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 24, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-24-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Ukraine continues to defend against Russian aggression and the Kremlin’s attempt to destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity despite growing difficulties two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
• Ukraine’s European and Canadian partners commemorated the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion by committing additional aid to Ukraine and discussing Ukraine’s integration into the European Union (EU).
• Russian opposition media estimated that upwards of 75,000 Russian personnel have died in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to highlight Russian Central Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev and Russia’s seizure of Avdiivka.
• Mordvichev highlighted Russian technological and tactical adaptations in the Russian seizure of Avdiivka in a likely effort to address persistent criticisms of Russian forces in Ukraine.
• Senior Russian military officials likely are attempting to deflect responsibility for high-profile apparent Russian war crimes away from themselves and onto mid- and low-level Russian commanders.
• A recent Russian opinion poll indicates that Russian sentiments about the war in Ukraine have largely remained unchanged in recent months, but notably suggests that another mobilization wave would be widely unpopular.
• Ukrainian special services conducted a drone strike on one of Russia’s largest metallurgical plants on the night of February 23-24.
• Ukrainian reporting indicated that the A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft shot down on February 23 temporarily halted Russian aviation operations elsewhere in the theater.
• Russian information space actors continued responding to the February 23 A-50 shootdown and largely denied that Ukraine is responsible for the downing of any recent Russian aircraft.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Bakhmut and Avdiivka and in western Zaporizhia Oblast amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on February 24.
• Indian authorities have asked Russian authorities for the “early discharge” of Indian citizens fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
• The Russian government continues efforts to support infrastructure and logistics development in occupied Ukraine likely to support the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) and solidify Russian control over occupied areas.
• 
  

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 24, 2024

Feb 24, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 24, 2024

Riley Bailey, Nicole Wolkov, Christina Harward, Grace Mappes, and Frederick W. Kagan

February 24, 2024, 7:00pm ET 

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 1:30pm ET on February 24. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the February 25 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Click here to read ISW’s latest warning update on the possibility of Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova, calling for Russian annexation or taking other action to support Russian hybrid operations against Moldova.

Ukraine continues to defend against Russian aggression and the Kremlin’s attempt to destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity despite growing difficulties two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Two years ago Russia launched a full-scale war of conquest to overthrow the Ukrainian government and forcibly install a pro-Russian regime firmly under Moscow’s control. Russian forces drove on Kyiv from several directions and struck at Kharkiv, Kherson, Mariupol, and other Ukrainian cities. Russian President Vladimir Putin expected Ukrainians to welcome his forces or flee. Instead, Ukrainians fought for their freedom. They stopped the Russian drives on Kyiv and Kharkiv cities, stopped the Russian advance on Mykolayiv and Odesa cities, and fought Putin’s troops to a standstill along the rest of the line. Then, armed with experience, courage, determination, and growing Western aid, Ukraine struck back. Ukrainian forces drove the Russians from Kyiv and away from Kharkiv and liberated large swathes of territory in northeastern Ukraine. They liberated Kherson City and forced Russian forces off the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River. They ended the threat to Ukraine’s existence for the time. 

But the Russians did not abandon their war aims or slacken their military operations. They remained in control of areas strategically and economically vital to Ukraine’s survival and of millions of Ukrainians whom they are subjecting to brutal Russification campaigns and deportation schemes.[1] The Russians launched a missile and drone campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities that continues to this day.[2] The Russians then ground through the eastern city of Bakhmut, taking losses so devastating that they prompted an armed rebellion against Moscow.[3] The Russians also prepared themselves for the expected Ukrainian 2023 counteroffensive. The excessive hopes for that counteroffensive were not met. The war assumed a positional character, and the expected US assistance has been held up.

The situation today is grave, but it is far from hopeless. Russian forces have regained the initiative across the theater and are attacking and making gains. Those gains thus far are very limited and extremely costly. More Russian soldiers have likely died to seize Avdiivka than died in the entire Soviet-Afghan war.[4] Ukrainians are weary and worried that American military assistance will cease, but they continue to fight with determination, ingenuity, and skill. Ukraine’s air defenders are dropping Russian planes from the sky while Ukrainian drone- and missile operators sink Russian ships.[5] And Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for their positions against Russian “meat assaults” using drones in novel ways as well as the artillery, tanks, and traditional weapons of war available to them. The Ukrainian Air Force will receive its first F-16s in the coming months, and Ukraine’s European allies are racing to make good deficiencies in other war materiel.[6] American military assistance remains essential—only the United States has the resources to give Ukraine right now what Ukraine most needs.[7] If the United States, in the end, withholds that aid, then the situation can become very grave indeed.

But the war is far from over. Ukraine has not lost and there is no reason for Ukraine to lose. Russians are adapting for a long war effort in Ukraine, but they are not the Red Army hordes wrapped in the triumphant banners of World War II victories that Putin and his propagandists pretend them to be.[8] The Russian military suffers from many flaws that Ukraine has learned to exploit.[9] And the combined economic power of Ukraine’s allies is many times that of Russia.  

Putin remains a deadly threat to NATO as well as to Ukraine, however. The Kremlin has been setting conditions to conduct hybrid warfare operations in the Baltic States and Finland for months and is currently engaged in such operations against Moldova.[10] Putin’s aims remain the destruction of NATO as an effective alliance, the breaking of the tie between the United States and Europe, and the construction of a new global order in which Russia’s voice and power are dominant.[11] The interests of America, Europe, and America’s allies in Asia and around the world are inextricably tied with helping Ukraine defeat Russia.[12]

Ukraine’s European and Canadian partners commemorated the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion by committing additional aid to Ukraine and discussing Ukraine’s integration into the European Union (EU). European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that the European Commission will provide the framework for negotiations of Ukraine's EU accession in mid-March 2024.[13] Von der Leyen also stated that the EU will provide the first tranche of 4.5 billion euros (about $4.8 billion) of unspecified aid to Ukraine in March as part of the EU’s recently announced support package of 50 billion euros (about $54 billion) for 2024-2027. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that the EU plans to deliver almost 170,000 rounds of artillery ammunition to Ukraine by the end of March.[14] Kuleba stated that Spain is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine that will include ammunition.[15] The United Kingdom (UK) announced that it will spend £245 million (about $310 million) throughout 2024 to procure and invigorate supply chains to produce ammunition for Ukraine.[16] The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) and UK-based Cook Defense Systems signed contracts to provide tracks for tanks and armored vehicles to aid Ukraine in restoring damaged vehicles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Miloni signed a security cooperation agreement in which Italy stated that it will continue to provide assistance to Ukraine over 10 years.[17] Zelensky and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also signed a 10-year security cooperation agreement in which Canada allocated three billion Canadian dollars (about $2.2 billion) in financial and defense aid to Ukraine in 2024.[18]

Russian opposition media estimated that upwards of 75,000 Russian personnel have died in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.[19] Russian opposition outlets Meduza and Mediazona published a joint report on February 24 wherein they compared Mediazona’s ongoing count of confirmed Russian deaths with the Russian Register of Inheritance Cases (RND) and mortality data from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) to estimate the number of Russian military deaths in Ukraine.[20] Meduza and Mediazona estimated that 66,000 to 88,000 Russian personnel have died in the war between February 2022 and December 2023.[21] Meduza and Mediazona extrapolated the current monthly rate of Russian military deaths in Ukraine to January and February 2024 and estimated that roughly 83,000 Russian personnel may have died since the start of the full-scale invasion.[22] Meduza and Mediazona noted that Russian military deaths in Ukraine began to steadily increase following the start of localized Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine in October 2023 and added that Russian volunteers have made up the majority of the deaths since mid-2023.[23] US intelligence assessed in December 2023 that Russian forces had suffered 315,000 casualties in Ukraine since February 2022.[24] Meduza’s and Mediazona’s estimate is consistent with this US assessment, assuming a standard three to one wounded-to-killed casualty rate for Russian forces in Ukraine.

Russian forces are currently sustaining offensive operations in Ukraine despite these heavy losses by relying on crypto-mobilization efforts.[25] Russia is generating new forces roughly at a rate equivalent to current Russian losses, which allows Russian forces to consistently reinforce attacking units and regularly conduct operational-level rotations.[26] It is unclear if Russia would be able to sustain offensive operations in the same way at a higher operational tempo that would generate even greater losses, however.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to highlight Russian Central Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev and Russia’s seizure of Avdiivka. The Russian MoD published footage on February 24 of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu meeting with Mordvichev to discuss the Russian capture of Avdiivka at a Russian Central Grouping of Forces command post in occupied Ukraine.[27] Mordvichev claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces back by over 10 kilometers during the Russian operation to seize Avdiivka.[28] Russian President Vladimir Putin noted on the evening of February 17 that Russian forces captured Avdiivka under Mordvichev’s leadership, and the Russian MoD published footage on February 21 of Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov meeting with Mordvichev to discuss plans for future Russian operations in the Avdiivka direction.[29]

Mordvichev highlighted Russian technological and tactical adaptations in the Russian seizure of Avdiivka in a likely effort to address persistent criticisms of Russian forces in Ukraine. Mordvichev told Shoigu that the effectiveness of Russian forces’ reconnaissance-strike complex (RSC) and reconnaissance-fire complex (RFC) has “increased significantly.”[30] A Russian RSC system is “designed for the coordinated employment of high-precision, long-range weapons linked to real-time intelligence data and precise targeting provided to a fused intelligence and fire-direction center,“ and the Russian RFC is the RSC’s tactical equivalent using tactical fire systems such as tube artillery, tactical drones, and short-range rockets.[31] Russian forces have yet to employ an operational-level RSC system at scale in Ukraine, however, and Mordvichev is likely applying the operational concept of the RSC alongside the RFC to Russian tactical operations in Avdiivka. ISW has consistently observed reports that Russian forces combine widespread drone reconnaissance data in order to conduct artillery, aviation, and loitering munition strikes. ISW assessed that Russian forces temporarily established limited and localized air superiority during the final days of the Russian seizure of Avdiivka.[32] Mordvichev notably did not highlight Russian glide bomb strikes, although Mordvichev may consider glide bomb strikes as part of the “RSC and RFC.” Shoigu emphasized the importance of drones and stated that the Russian MoD plans to equip Russian forces with drones “controlled using artificial intelligence,” likely referring to lethal autonomous systems. Mordvichev likely sought to manage expectations about future Russian offensive efforts while highlighting these alleged Russian adaptations and claimed that Ukrainian forces near Avdiivka have not decreased their intensity of indirect fire.[33] Mordvichev’s comment diverges from the triumphalist commentary of other Russian officials, who have seized on Ukrainian ammunition shortages to highlight Russian success in Ukraine and attempt to weaken Ukrainian morale.[34]

Senior Russian military officials likely are attempting to deflect responsibility for high-profile apparent Russian war crimes away from themselves and onto mid- and low-level Russian commanders. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) published footage of Russian Central Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev reporting to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that Russian forces captured about 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) near Avdiivka.[35] Shoigu emphasized the need for Russian forces to treat POWs humanely “as [Russian forces] have always done” to Mordvichev and other Russian officers. Shoigu, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, is likely concerned about international repercussions for his subordinates’ actions regarding apparent Russian war crimes and may have explicitly addressed Ukrainian POWs given recent international attention on Russian atrocities in Ukraine.[36]

A recent Russian opinion poll indicates that Russian sentiments about the war in Ukraine have largely remained unchanged in recent months, but notably suggests that another mobilization wave would be widely unpopular. Independent Russian opposition polling organization Chronicles stated on February 24 that data from a survey conducted between January 23 and 29 indicates that respondents who are “consistent” supporters of the war – Russians who expressed support for the war, do not support a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine without Russia having achieved its war aims, and think that Russia should prioritize military spending – increased from 12 percent to 17 percent between October 2023 and January 2024.[37] Chronicles previously observed a significant decrease in staunch war support between its October 2023 survey and an earlier poll in February 2023 that found that 22 percent of Russians were “consistent“ war supporters.[38] Chronicles added that the proportion of ”consistent” peace supporters – Russians who expressed opposite positions on the three survey questions –  has largely remained the same at 19 percent of respondents in January 2024 compared to 20 percent in February 2023.[39] Chronicles’ observations that staunch pro-war and anti-war sentiments comprise a minority of Russian opinion are consistent with other recent independent Russian survey data that suggest that most Russians are largely apathetic to Russia’s war in Ukraine.[40]

Chronicles’ most recent poll also shows that 29 percent of respondents support demobilizing personnel mobilized through Russian President Vladimir Putin’s September 2022 partial mobilization decree, 26 percent favor the current state of Russian force generation efforts, and 17 percent support a new mobilization wave.[41] Chronicles added that even the majority of “consistent” war supporters support the status quo regarding mobilization at 34 percent and that only 22 percent of these respondents support another mobilization wave.[42] Putin attempted to address concerns about a new mobilization wave during his “Direct Line” event on December 14, 2023, stressing that there is no need for a subsequent mobilization wave due to the success of ongoing Russian crypto-mobilization efforts.[43] Putin is likely aware that a second mobilization wave would be widely unpopular and likely remains concerned that such a measure would generate widespread discontent. Putin may nevertheless determine in the future that force generation requirements in Ukraine outweigh the risks of domestic discontent, and he may become less concerned about public sentiment after his assured reelection in March 2024.

Ukrainian special services conducted a drone strike on one of Russia’s largest metallurgical plants on the night of February 23-24. Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported that sources stated that the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) organized a drone strike on the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant (NLMK) in Lipetsk and that damage will stop production at the plant for a long time.[44] Lipetsk Oblast Governor Igor Artamonov claimed that Russian forces intercepted two drones in Lipetsk Oblast and that the plant’s operations were not significantly affected.[45] An NLMK representative claimed that the plant does not supply products to Russian defense industrial base (DIB) enterprises, likely in an attempt to downplay the extent of NLMK’s involvement in fulfilling contracts for the Russian government and defense industrial base (DIB).[46] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported in July 2023 that NLMK won contracts to supply steel to the Izumrud plant in Vladivostok, which the Russian Federal Agency for State Property Management controls and which produces artillery control systems, drone engines, and systems for dropping explosives from drones.[47] RFE/RL also reported that NLMK supplied steel to state-owned enterprises involved in the production of nuclear weapons from 2014 to at least 2019.[48] Vladimir Lisin owns NLMK and is one of Russia’s top three richest oligarchs.[49]

Ukrainian reporting indicated that the A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft shootdown on February 23 temporarily halted Russian aviation operations elsewhere in the theater. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian forces ordered five Su-35 fighter aircraft to terminate ongoing combat missions following the A-50's destruction and that some of these missions included conducting airstrikes near recently captured Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast.[50] Ukrainian media reported that sources in Ukrainian security services also stated that Ukrainian forces shot down the aircraft with a modernized S-200 air defense system and that all 10 crewmembers of the Russian A-50 died in the crash.[51]

Russian information space actors continued responding to the February 23 A-50 shootdown and largely denied that Ukraine is responsible for the downing of any recent Russian aircraft. Russian milbloggers continued to claim on February 23 and 24 that Russian forces were responsible for shooting down the A-50, but offered many different theories about the shootdown. One prominent milblogger claimed that Russian authorities are investigating a Russian S-400 crew for shooting down the A-50 while trying to intercept Ukrainian missiles targeting the A-50.[52] Another milblogger claimed that a Russian air defense crew purposefully targeted the A-50.[53] Other milbloggers continued to claim that Ukrainian forces could not have shot down the A-50 because the aircraft was out of range of Western-provided Patriot air defense systems and complained that Russian air defenders are so systemically incompetent that they shot down five of their aircraft in February 2024.[54] A prominent Wagner Group-affiliated milblogger dissented, however, expressing disbelief that Russian air defenses are so incompetent as to have shot down so many Russian aircraft in such a short period and attributed the shootdown to Ukrainian forces instead.[55]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukraine continues to defend against Russian aggression and the Kremlin’s attempt to destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity despite growing difficulties two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
• Ukraine’s European and Canadian partners commemorated the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion by committing additional aid to Ukraine and discussing Ukraine’s integration into the European Union (EU).
• Russian opposition media estimated that upwards of 75,000 Russian personnel have died in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to highlight Russian Central Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev and Russia’s seizure of Avdiivka.
• Mordvichev highlighted Russian technological and tactical adaptations in the Russian seizure of Avdiivka in a likely effort to address persistent criticisms of Russian forces in Ukraine.
• Senior Russian military officials likely are attempting to deflect responsibility for high-profile apparent Russian war crimes away from themselves and onto mid- and low-level Russian commanders.
• A recent Russian opinion poll indicates that Russian sentiments about the war in Ukraine have largely remained unchanged in recent months, but notably suggests that another mobilization wave would be widely unpopular.
• Ukrainian special services conducted a drone strike on one of Russia’s largest metallurgical plants on the night of February 23-24.
• Ukrainian reporting indicated that the A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft shot down on February 23 temporarily halted Russian aviation operations elsewhere in the theater.
• Russian information space actors continued responding to the February 23 A-50 shootdown and largely denied that Ukraine is responsible for the downing of any recent Russian aircraft.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Bakhmut and Avdiivka and in western Zaporizhia Oblast amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on February 24.
• Indian authorities have asked Russian authorities for the “early discharge” of Indian citizens fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
• The Russian government continues efforts to support infrastructure and logistics development in occupied Ukraine likely to support the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) and solidify Russian control over occupied areas.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas
• Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
• Russian Information Operations and Narratives
• Significant Activity in Belarus

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Positional engagements continued northeast of Kupyansk and near Kreminna on February 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Positional engagements continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka and Lake Lyman; northwest of Kreminna near Zhytlivka; and west of Kreminna near Terny.[56] Elements of the Russian 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People‘s Republic [LNR] Army Corps [AC]) are reportedly operating south of Kreminna near Berestove.[57]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Russian forces recently advanced near Bakhmut amid continued positional fighting in the area on February 24. Geolocated footage published on February 24 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced south and southeast of Bohdanivka (northwest of Bakhmut).[58] A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the Russian 98th Airborne (VDV) Division, the 11th VDV Brigade, and the 150th Motorized Rifle Division (8th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) are attacking Ukrainian positions near Ivanivske (west of Bakhmut) and made further gains in the settlement's eastern outskirts.[59] Positional fighting continued southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[60]

Russian forces recently advanced west of Avdiivka amid continued positional fighting in the area on February 24. Geolocated footage published on February 24 indicates that elements of the Russian 35th Motorized Rifle Brigade (41st CAA, Central Military District [CMD]) recently advanced within southeastern Lastochkyne (west of Avdiivka).[61] Russian sources widely reiterated existing Russian claims that Russian forces have captured all of Lastochkyne, Sieverne (west of Avdiivka), and Stepove (northwest of Avdiivka).[62] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of recent Russian gains in Stepove or Sieverne. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces recently advanced up to 1.5 kilometers in the direction of Orlivka (west of Avdiivka) from the Avdiivka Coke Plant in northwestern Avdiivka.[63] Positional fighting continued west of Avdiivka near Orlivka, Lastochkyne, and Sieverne and southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Nevelske.[64]

Positional fighting continued west and southwest of Donetsk City on February 24. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a partially successful counterattack near Pobieda and expressed concern about the stability of Russian positions near the settlement.[65] Positional fighting continued west of Donetsk City near Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Pobieda and Novomykhailivka.[66] Elements of the 255th Motorized Rifle Regiment (20th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating near Pobieda, and elements of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) are reportedly operating near Novomykhailivka.[67]

Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Positional engagements continued in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on February 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued southwest of Velyka Novosilka near Shevchenko and southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Zolota Nyva.[68] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced north of Pryyutne (southwest of Velyka Novosilka), but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[69] Elements of the Russian 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army (Russian Aerospace Forces [VKS] and Eastern Military District [EMD]) are reportedly operating near Malynivka (southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[70]

Russian forces recently made a confirmed advance in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Geolocated footage published on February 24 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in central Robotyne.[71] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced further northward into central Robotyne, but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[72] Russian sources stated that positional engagements occurred near Verbove (east of Robotyne) and Mala Tokmachka (northeast of Robotyne and southeast of Orikhiv).[73] Elements of the Russian 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) are reportedly attacking near Robotyne and Verbove, and elements of the 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating in central Robotyne.[74]

Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast in Krynky on February 24.[75]

Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign (Russian Objective: Target Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure in the rear and on the frontline)

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched two Iskander-M ballistic missiles from Rostov Oblast; three Kh-59 cruise missiles from occupied Kherson Oblast; and 12 Shahed-136/131 drones from Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai and occupied Cape Chauda, Crimea on the night of February 23 to 24.[76] The Ukrainian Air Force stated that Ukrainian forces downed all 12 Shahed drones and two Kh-59 missiles over Kirovohrad, Odesa, and Mykolaiv oblasts.

Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)

Indian authorities have asked Russian authorities for the “early discharge” of Indian citizens serving with the Russian military. Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated on February 23 that the Indian MFA is aware of some Indian citizens who signed contracts for “auxiliary” roles in the Russian military and is discussing their early discharge with Russian officials.[77] Jaiswal additionally urged Indian citizens to stay away from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Indian outlet The Hindu reported on February 20 that Russian authorities forced Indian citizens to sign contracts to fight under false pretenses and to fight in Ukraine with minimal training and that some of these Indian citizens are now stranded.[78] The Hindu estimated on February 23 that roughly 100 Indian citizens began fighting with the Russian military in Ukraine within the past year.[79]

The US Department of State (DoS) reported on February 23 that North Korea has delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions and related materials to Russia since September 2023.[80] The US DoS reported that North Korea has delivered over 7,400 containers through the Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company’s terminal at Vostochny Port in Primorsky Krai.

Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)  

Russian news outlet MASH reported on February 23 that Russia has developed its first unmanned naval drones that utilize artificial intelligence (AI).[81] MASH reported that Russia has developed the “Alfina” surface naval one-way attack drone with a maximum speed of 60 kilometers per hour, a range of 500 kilometers, and a maximum payload of 200 kilograms. MASH reported that each drone will cost roughly one million rubles (about $10,700) and that serial production will begin in summer 2023.

Ukrainian Defense Industrial Efforts (Ukrainian objective: Develop its defense industrial base to become more self-sufficient in cooperation with US, European, and international partners)

Bloomberg reported that the US Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General opened over 50 cases investigating issues related to US aid provisions to Ukraine but has yet to substantiate any allegations.[82] US DoD Inspector General Robert Storch reported that the US DoD Inspector General is investigating issues of “procurement fraud, product substitution, theft, fraud or corruption, and diversion.” Storch stated that the US DoD Inspector General will likely open more investigations due to the “quantity and speed” of materiel provisions to Ukraine.

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

The Russian government continues efforts to bolster infrastructure and logistics development in occupied Ukraine likely to support the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) and solidify Russian control over occupied areas. The Russian government introduced reduced rates for rail freight transport of coal, ferrous metals, ore, and other industrial raw materials in occupied Ukraine on February 24.[83] The new measure reduces freight rail transport rates by 48 percent for coal and 74 percent for other industrial materials.

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian officials, occupation authorities, and milbloggers used the anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 to promote long-standing anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian Kremlin narratives, including claims about the West’s and Ukraine’s alleged responsibility for the war.[84]

A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger attempted to downplay Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement on February 22 that Armenia “essentially” froze its participation in the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as Russian-Armenian relations continue to deteriorate.[85]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)

Nothing significant to report.

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

19. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, February 24, 2024

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-february-23-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Yemen: The Houthis claimed that Saudi Arabia and the United States conducted combined airstrikes in Houthi-controlled territory on February 23, likely to pressure Saudi Arabia to exert its influence on the United States to decrease US strikes targeting Houthi military assets.
• Northern Gaza Strip: Palestinian militias continued to disrupt Israeli operations in Zaytoun neighborhood, southeastern Gaza City.
• Southern Gaza Strip: Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in western Khan Younis.
• Political Negotiations: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.
• Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh completed a three-day trip to Cairo to discuss a hostage deal.
• Iran: US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said on February 23 that the United States has not yet confirmed that Iran transferred ballistic missiles to Russia.
• The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian and Iran-linked entities on February 23 for facilitating the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia

IRAN UPDATE, FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Feb 23, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, February 23, 2024

Ashka Jhaveri, Johanna Moore, Amin Soltani, Kathryn Tyson, and Brian Carter

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm EST 

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. For more on developments in Iran and the region, see our interactive map of Iran and the Middle East. 

Note: CTP and ISW have refocused the update to cover the Israel-Hamas war. The new sections address developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as noteworthy activity from Iran’s Axis of Resistance. We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

The Houthis claimed that Saudi Arabia and the United States conducted combined airstrikes in Houthi-controlled territory on February 23, likely to pressure Saudi Arabia to exert its influence on the United States to decrease US strikes targeting Houthi military assets.[1] A Houthi-controlled media outlet claimed that the alleged US-Saudi strikes hit unspecified targets in Amran, Marib, Saada, Hajjah, Taiz, Dhamar, Sanaa, Bayda, and Hudaydah provinces. The Houthi outlet also claimed that the strikes resulted in civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. A Saudi strike on Houthi-controlled territory would constitute a violation of the Yemeni ceasefire that went into effect in April 2022.[2] Saudi Arabia seeks to maintain its truce with the Houthis and has discouraged US attacks against the Houthis during the current escalation in the Red Sea.[3] CTP-ISW has not recorded any indications that Saudi Arabia conducted an airstrike into Houthi-controlled territory on February 23. Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni government, and the Houthis have maintained the ceasefire past its official expiration in October 2022.[4]

The Houthis are "fortifying” missile launch sites according to individuals “with knowledge of the situation” cited by Bloomberg on February 22, which will enable the Houthis to continue offensive attacks on military and civilian vessels in the Red Sea.[5] The sources claimed the Houthis are “fortifying” missile launch positions in the mountains and increasing one-way surface naval attack drone and one-way subsurface naval attack drone tests. This is consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment on February 22 that Iran and the Houthis are likely using their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to test and refine their approach to striking naval targets.[6] Houthi attacks provide Iran and the Houthis opportunities to evaluate the effectiveness of different strike packages to understand how they can evade and overwhelm US air and maritime defenses more effectively. The Houthi effort to better defend its launch sites enables to Houthis to continue offensive operations—namely, cruise and ballistic missile fire—that test US defense capabilities.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted six preemptive strikes targeting Houthi one-way attack drones and mobile anti-ship ballistic missiles and intercepted three one-way attack drones since CTP-ISW's last data cut-off on February 22.[7] CENTCOM stated that it intercepted two mobile anti-ship cruise missiles and conducted four preemptive strikes targeting “Iranian-backed Houthi [drones]” on February 22. CENTCOM intercepted three one-way attack drones operating near commercial vessels in the Red Sea on February 23.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.[8] The proposal is the first time Netanyahu has presented a written position on his post-war plans. A senior aid to Netanyahu said the goal of the plan was to present principles that would get the “broadest consensus possible.”[9] Israeli media reported that Israel will continue its military operations in the Gaza Strip with the aim of destroying the military capabilities and governance infrastructure of Hamas and PIJ, securing the return of hostages, and preventing further threats from the Gaza Strip.[10]

The proposal covers long-term plans related to security, governance, and reconstruction. The IDF will maintain “operational freedom” in the Gaza Strip and establish a buffer zone along the Israeli border under the proposal.[11] Israel will also control the Gaza-Egypt border and monitor demilitarization efforts in the Gaza Strip. Unspecified "local elements with management experience" will be responsible for civilian management and public order in the strip.[12] Axios reported that the plan does not rule out a role for the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip, although it does not specifically mention the PA either.[13] Lastly, the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip will only be possible after the completion of the demilitarization process and the beginning of a “de-radicalization process.”[14]

Key Takeaways:

• Yemen: The Houthis claimed that Saudi Arabia and the United States conducted combined airstrikes in Houthi-controlled territory on February 23, likely to pressure Saudi Arabia to exert its influence on the United States to decrease US strikes targeting Houthi military assets.
• Northern Gaza Strip: Palestinian militias continued to disrupt Israeli operations in Zaytoun neighborhood, southeastern Gaza City.
• Southern Gaza Strip: Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in western Khan Younis.
• Political Negotiations: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.
• Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh completed a three-day trip to Cairo to discuss a hostage deal.
• Iran: US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said on February 23 that the United States has not yet confirmed that Iran transferred ballistic missiles to Russia.
• The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian and Iran-linked entities on February 23 for facilitating the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to launch and sustain a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip
• Degrade IDF material and morale around the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian militias continued to disrupt Israeli operations in Zaytoun neighborhood, southeastern Gaza City on February 23. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters ambushed Israeli armor in Zaytoun using unspecified munitions.[15] Hamas published footage on February 23 that shows its fighters firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) targeting Israeli forces in Zaytoun.[16] Several other Hamas-aligned militias clashed with Israeli forces in Zaytoun.[17] [18] Israeli forces located weapons and military equipment in the area.

The IDF Nahal Brigade (assigned to the 162nd Division) killed several Palestinian fighters in the central Gaza Strip on February 23.[19] PIJ fighters mortared Israeli forces east of the central Gaza Strip.[20]

Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in western Khan Younis on February 23. The 89th Commando Brigade (assigned to the 98th Division) continued to direct airstrikes, ambush Palestinian fighters with sniper fire, and clash with Palestinian fighters in western Khan Younis.[21] Israeli forces raided military infrastructure and located improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other weapons. The IDF Air Force destroyed a weapons depot in western Khan Younis.[22] PIJ and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine fighters detonated explosive devices in two separate attacks targeting Israeli forces in al Amal neighborhood in western Khan Younis.[23] The DFLP is a leftist Palestinian militia aligned with Hamas in the war.

Palestinian militias clashed with Israeli forces in eastern Khan Younis on February 23. PIJ fighters detonated an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) targeting Israeli engineers in an ambush in eastern Khan Younis.[24] The militia also reported that its fighters fired a tandem-charge anti-tank rocket targeting Israeli forces in the same area.[25]

The IDF Givati Brigade (assigned to the 162nd Division) launched an attack targeting Palestinian fighters and military infrastructure in an unspecified area of Khan Younis.[26] The IDF Air Force struck Palestinian militia sniper positions and weapons storage facilities prior to the attack.[27]

Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh completed a three-day trip to Cairo to discuss a hostage deal.[28] An unspecified Hamas official reported on February 23 that Hamas did not offer a new proposal to Egyptian mediators.[29] Hamas is waiting to see what US, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators can accomplish during talks in Paris, according to the Hamas official. The same official said that Israeli negotiators arrived in Paris on February 23.[30]

Palestinian militias did not conduct indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel on February 23.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward the West Bank and fix them there

Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian fighters at least six times in the West Bank since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on February 22.[31] Israeli forces conducted a drone strike that killed a PIJ commander in Jenin.[32]

This map is not an exhaustive depiction of clashes and demonstrations in the West Bank.

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward northern Israel and fix them there
• Set conditions for successive campaigns into northern Israel

Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, conducted at least seven attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on February 22.[33]

Israel conducted an airstrike that killed a senior Lebanese Hezbollah member in the group’s elite Radwan Force in southern Lebanon on February 22.[34] Israeli and Lebanese sources reported that the Hezbollah member specialized in operating anti-tank systems and that he had operated in Shebaa Farms during the Israeli-Hamas war.[35]

The Israeli Navy concluded a week-long military exercise in northern Israel on February 23.[36] The Israeli Navy held drills to simulate countering drones, conducting aerial rescue operations, and refueling vessels.[37] Israeli media reported that Israel’s naval exercises are preparations for a potential war with Hezbollah.[38] Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on February 23 that Israel will not wait ”much longer for a diplomatic solution in the north.”[39]

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on February 22 that Iran accelerated the pace of its weapon shipments to Lebanese Hezbollah after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War.[40] Katz said in a letter to the UN Security Council that Iran’s shipments included ”components for air defense systems, drones, and several different missiles.“[41] The IDF Air Force said on February 3 and 19 that it has struck many Iranian, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Syrian targets in Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.[42]

Recorded reports of attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Demonstrate the capability and willingness of Iran and the Axis of Resistance to escalate against the United States and Israel on multiple fronts
• Set conditions to fight a regional war on multiple fronts

US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said on February 23 that the United States has not yet confirmed that Iran transferred ballistic missiles to Russia.[43] Kirby added that the United States plans to impose additional sanctions on Iran for its support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and that the United States is “prepared to go further” if Iran supplies ballistic missiles to Russia. Kirby noted that Iran seeks a significant amount of Russian military equipment in return for its material support to Russia. Iranian sources told Reuters on February 21 that Iran provided hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia in early January.[44]

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian and Iran-linked entities on February 23 for facilitating the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia.[45] OFAC designated the following Iranian and Iran-linked entities: 

• The Iranian Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Ministry for helping to finance and produce Iranian drones at the Alabuga facility in Tatarstan, Russia.
• The Iranian Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Ministry-affiliated and UAE-based Generation Trading FZE for facilitating the sale of Iranian drone samples, parts, and ground stations that enable the Russian production of Iranian drones at the Alabuga facility.

Iran’s arms sales to Russia are part of Iran’s efforts to generate revenue to support its deteriorating economy.[46] CTP-ISW previously assessed that Iran could seek to acquire cash from Russia in return for supplying Russia with missiles.[47] The Prana Network hacker group published documents on February 4 alleging that Russia is paying Iran roughly $4.5 billion per year to import the Iranian Shahed series drones.[48]

20. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, February 23, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-february-23-2024

Key Takeaways

• The Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) pledged to begin conducting regular maritime inspections around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island. Normalizing PRC maritime enforcement around the island will erode Taiwan’s control over its territorial waters and risk confrontations between the PRC and Taiwan’s maritime law enforcement.
• The CCP is engaging in global cyberattacks to degrade regional countries’ capacity to engage in military action against the PRC during a crisis. The cyberattacks could also facilitate actions against individuals who oppose the CCP.
• CCP International Department Head Liu Jianchao and PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave conflicting stances on global governance and the Russia-Ukraine War at the “For Freedom of Nations” forum in Russia and the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
• Three of the PRC’s “Big Four” state banks stopped accepting payments from Western-sanctioned Russian financial institutions.
• The PRC deployed a People’s Liberation Army detachment to monitor a joint US-Philippines air force patrol over the South China Sea.

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Feb 23, 2024 - ISW Press

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, February 23, 2024

Authors: Nils Peterson, Matthew Sperzel, and Daniel Shats of the Institute for the Study of War

Editors: Dan Blumenthal and Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute

Data Cutoff: February 21 at 5pm ET

The China–Taiwan Weekly Update focuses on the Chinese Communist Party’s paths to controlling Taiwan and relevant cross–Taiwan Strait developments.

Key Takeaways

• The Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) pledged to begin conducting regular maritime inspections around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island. Normalizing PRC maritime enforcement around the island will erode Taiwan’s control over its territorial waters and risk confrontations between the PRC and Taiwan’s maritime law enforcement.
• The CCP is engaging in global cyberattacks to degrade regional countries’ capacity to engage in military action against the PRC during a crisis. The cyberattacks could also facilitate actions against individuals who oppose the CCP.
• CCP International Department Head Liu Jianchao and PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave conflicting stances on global governance and the Russia-Ukraine War at the “For Freedom of Nations” forum in Russia and the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
• Three of the PRC’s “Big Four” state banks stopped accepting payments from Western-sanctioned Russian financial institutions.
• The PRC deployed a People’s Liberation Army detachment to monitor a joint US-Philippines air force patrol over the South China Sea.

Cross-Strait Relations

Taiwan

The Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) pledged to begin conducting regular maritime inspections around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island. Normalizing PRC maritime enforcement around the island will erode Taiwan’s control over its territorial waters and risk confrontations between the PRC and Taiwan’s maritime law enforcement. Kinmen is a Taiwan-controlled island with a large military garrison roughly 3 kilometers from the coast of the PRC. The Taiwan Coast Guard Administration (CGA) enforces maritime laws around Kinmen and its lesser islands. An incident on February 14 that resulted in the death of two PRC nationals prompted the CCG to defy Taiwan’s sovereignty in the waters around its outer islands. A four-man PRC fishing boat intruded almost a mile into Taiwan’s territorial waters around Kinmen and capsized after colliding with a CGA ship while fleeing from a CGA inspection.[1] [2] The CGA was able to rescue only two of the fishermen, who returned to the PRC on February 20. CCG Spokesperson Gan Yu stated on February 18 that the CCG will strengthen law enforcement and conduct regular inspections in the waters around Kinmen and Xiamen, the nearby PRC city.[3] PRC Taiwan Affairs Office Spokesperson Zhu Fenglian refuted the existence of Taiwan’s territorial or restricted waters and stated that the PRC has the right to take “further measures,” and that Taiwan will “bear the consequences.”[4] Zhu also condemned Taiwan for its “brutal treatment of mainland fishermen” and disregard for human life.[5]

The CCG conducted its first maritime inspection in the Taiwan-controlled waters around Kinmen Island on February 19. CCG personnel boarded a Taiwanese sightseeing ship off the coast of the island. The personnel remained onboard for about 30 minutes, during which they inspected the ship’s voyage plan and registration. The CGA commented that this was the first CCG boarding of a Taiwanese vessel in Taiwan-controlled waters.[6] A CCG maritime surveillance ship entered Taiwan’s territorial waters south of Kinmen on February 20 and left an hour later.[7]

The CCG’s assertive behavior also extends to Taiwan’s other outer islands near the mainland. Three CCG ships entered the territorial waters around the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands on February 21.[8] The Matsu Islands are 10 kilometers off the mainland coast at their closest point and roughly 240 kilometers northeast of Kinmen Island.

A ROC official warned that the CCG may expand its operations into other Taiwan-controlled waters as well. KMT legislator Alex Tsai Cheng-yuan speculated on February 21 whether the Penghu Islands would be the next target for the CCG.[9] The Penghu Islands are located on the east side of the median line in the strait between the PRC and Taiwan, roughly 140 kilometers southeast of Kinmen Island. The islands hold strategic significance due to Taiwan’s robust military presence there and their ability to enable early detection and response to PRC military activities. The location of the islands in the Taiwan Strait makes them a valuable potential staging ground for the PRC to launch a future invasion of Taiwan.

The Kuomintang appointed two key legislators to oversee foreign and defense policy, which signals its determination to oppose the Democratic Progressive Party’s political agenda in these areas. Kuomintang (KMT) Caucus Whip Fu Kun-chi announced the party’s designation of Legislative Yuan Speaker Han Kuo-yu and Deputy Speaker Johnny Chiang Chi-chen to serve on the Foreign and National Defense Committee on February 21.[10] The Foreign and National Defense Committee is a legislative committee with the authority to conduct budget reviews, make recommendations to the Legislative Yuan (LY) based on its review of draft legislation, and summon officials from relevant agencies to respond to inquiries. The KMT and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) hold divergent views on defense policy, with the former advocating for a comparatively modest approach that seeks to de-escalate tensions with Beijing. The KMT has consistently criticized President Tsai Ing-wen’s DPP administration for excessive defense spending.[11] The KMT’s appointment of its leading legislators to the committee suggests the party will focus considerable resources on shaping foreign and defense policy, making it one of the primary areas of competition in the LY. The KMT likely seeks to wield its influence in the committee to obstruct the DPP’s defense agenda, such as freezing budget appropriations and shaping policy proposals.

Fu declared in his announcement that there is nothing more important than imposing checks and balances on the DPP and stated that “Taiwan would not be well until the DPP falls.”[12] The KMT’s adversarial approach carries negative implications for President-elect Lai Ching-te, whose policy platform emphasizes stronger international relationships and national defense. The KMT's determination to block the DPP’s political agenda is favorable to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interests, especially if it hinders the government’s ability to implement its foreign and defense policy.

The Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party are pursuing political reforms that threaten to undermine the Democratic Progressive Party’s governance by entangling the party in defensive struggles. KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) party leaders discussed a joint proposal for “legislative and judicial reforms” in the Legislative Yuan on February 22.[13] TPP Caucus Whip Huang Kuo-chang stated that the two opposition parties maintain a close consensus on the issue.[14] The TPP and KMT have consistently stated that establishing a legislative investigative task force to strengthen oversight of the executive branch is at the top of their agenda.[15] KMT caucus Secretary-General Lin Tzu-ming earlier referred to the proposed mechanism as a “great weapon” that the Legislative Yuan must use to supervise the government.[16] Collaboration between the KMT and the TPP to introduce the proposals suggests the reforms will pass with a majority in the LY, as the TPP’s eight seats constitute a crucial swing vote. The opposition’s plan to impose checks and balances on the DPP could significantly hamper the government’s ability to pass policy by miring it in defensive actions against accusations of overstepping authority or corruption.

China

The CCP is engaging in global cyberattacks to degrade regional countries’ capacity to engage in military action against the PRC during a crisis. The cyberattacks could also facilitate actions against individuals who oppose the CCP. US and foreign partner cybersecurity and intelligence agencies confirmed in a joint advisory on February 7 that a PRC state-sponsored cyber threat actor known as Volt Typhoon infiltrated critical infrastructure organizations in the continental United States and US territories.[17] The authoring agencies assessed with high confidence that Volt Typhoon’s goal was to develop the capability to disrupt key operational technology functions in the event of a conflict with the United States by leveraging its access to informational technology environments. The cyber company I-Soon, which has contracts with the PRC Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, and People’s Liberation Army, subsequently leaked documents in late February that revealed additional CCP cyber operations. The targets of the operations include NATO, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, and India.[18] I-Soon also hacks X (formerly Twitter) accounts to uncover user identities.[19]

A February 13 report from the US security firm Trellix also shows a significant increase in cyberattacks against Taiwan during the 24 hours before its January 13 presidential election.[20] The report stated that the cyberattacks targeted a myriad of institutions such as governmental offices, police departments, and finance entities.[21] Trellix is reviewing the data but posited that PRC threat actors may have been responsible.[22]

The CCP refuted that it is responsible for the cyberattacks. The PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Mao Ning refuted US FBI Director Christopher Wray’s statement that Chinese offensive malware is at an unprecedented high. Mao falsely claimed on February 22 that “China firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyberattacks.”[23]

United States and Europe

CCP International Department Head Liu Jianchao and PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave conflicting stances on global governance and the Russia-Ukraine War at the “For Freedom of Nations” forum in Russia and the Munich Security Conference in Germany. “For Freedom of Nations” is a Russian forum of international political parties against “neo-colonialism” that Russia’s United Russia ruling party organized for the first time on February 15–16. It overlapped with the Munich Security Conference, which ran from February 16–18. Liu told the primarily Russian and Global South participants including former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that the PRC advocated “reforming the global governance system,” among other things. [24] A joint statement claiming to represent the forum’s over 400 participants denounced “modern practices of neo-colonialism,” “selective application” of international law and a “rules-based world order,” and interference in other countries’ internal affairs.[25] These were thinly veiled attacks on the Western-led international order, which has been highly critical of both Russia and the PRC. Wang Yi presented an opposing view of PRC policies to the Western audience in Munich. He stated that the PRC is a “responsible major country” that would serve as a “stabilizing force” amid global turmoil. He said the PRC wished to “strengthen” global governance by upholding the authority of the United Nations and enhancing the voice of the Global South. Wang also portrayed the PRC as a stabilizing force in promoting cooperation between major world powers and in dealing with “hot issues” such as the “Ukraine crisis.” [26] Wang’s core message to European powers is part of a broader “charm offensive” toward Europe as the PRC seeks to boost Western trade and investment to revitalize its troubled economy.

Liu’s endorsement of “reforming” global governance to a primarily non-Western audience contrasts with Wang’s claim to European leaders that the PRC supports “strengthening” global governance. The PRC aims to use existing organs of global governance and new international mechanisms to promote an alternative PRC-led world order that advances PRC interests. It is simultaneously trying to reassure Western powers that it is not a threat and is a reliable partner, however. Liu did not comment on Ukraine in publicly available statements, but his attendance at a Russia-hosted “anti-neocolonialist” forum concurrent with the Munich Security Conference undermines Wang Yi’s message that the PRC can be relied upon as an impartial interlocutor and promoter of peace in Ukraine.

The CCP also issued conflicting perspectives on ending the Russian war in Ukraine. Wang claimed to European leaders and in a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that the PRC did not “sit back and watch” the “Ukraine crisis” but instead has stayed committed to promoting peace talks. He did not call the Russia-Ukraine war a war. He stressed that “the earlier peace talks resume, the less damage for all sides.”[27] Bloomberg reported that Wang rejected Ukraine’s proposal for high-level peace talks in March, however, claiming that conditions were not ripe for parties to go back to the negotiating table. This comment was absent from the official PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) readout of his statements and contradicts Wang’s statement that peace talks should resume as early as possible.[28]

The PRC’s conflicting messaging about the Russia-Ukraine War reflects a strategy to balance support for Russia with attracting Western investment while avoiding Western sanctions. Wang Yi falsely stated about the “Ukraine crisis” that the PRC “did not sit back and watch, let alone take advantage of the opportunity to make profits.”[29] This is exactly what the PRC has done by selling military or dual-use products to Russia and buying Russian fuel at cheap prices during the war.[30] Wang warned world leaders that “de-Sinicizing” in the name of economic “de-risking” would be a “historic mistake.”[31] His economic messaging to incentivize Western investment in the PRC plays on his inaccurate security message to the West that the PRC is a necessary “responsible major country” that implicitly has leverage over the Russians it would willingly use. The PRC MFA readouts of Wang’s meetings with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as well as subsequent visits to Spain and France after the conference all align with this message by portraying the PRC as desiring economic exchanges with each of these countries.[32] The PRC has lifted travel barriers with several European countries and urged Western countries to stop sanctions and “de-risking” measures against PRC companies.[33]

Three of the PRC’s “Big Four” state banks stopped accepting payments from Western-sanctioned Russian financial institutions. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank (CCB), and Bank of China have rejected payments from sanctioned Russian banks since the start of 2024. Russian newspaper Izvestia reported that the PRC banks began introducing restrictions in December 2023 after the European Union imposed its 12th sanctions package against Russia and the United States authorized secondary sanctions on financial institutions that helped Russia evade sanctions. An unnamed Russian source told Izvestia that ICBC and CCB were rejecting the payments regardless of which system they went through: Europe’s SWIFT, Russia’s SPFS, or the PRC’s CIPS. Other PRC banks have also tightened compliance checks.[34] Zhejiang Chouzhou Commercial Bank, the main PRC bank used by Russian importers, suspended all business with Russian and Belarusian clients including those not under sanctions. The Russian business newspaper Vedomosti reported that Russian businesses feared a “logistics collapse.”[35]

Southeast Asia

The PRC deployed a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) detachment to monitor a joint US-Philippines air force patrol over the South China Sea. The PRC’s Southern Theater Command accused the Philippines of “enlisting foreign countries” to create trouble in the South China Sea and stated that it sent air and naval forces to “closely monitor the situation.”[36] The Philippines Air Force stated that the patrol occurred within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 90 nautical miles west of its largest island Luzon.[37] The PRC’s actions belong to a trend of increasingly confrontational posture in the South China Sea to undermine the Philippines’ sovereignty over the waters immediately west of its territory.

The CCG twice claimed that it expelled Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) vessels from the waters around Scarborough Shoal on February 15 and 22.[38] The Philippines denied both claims, stating that the ships in question continued to patrol the area to ensure the security of Filipino fishermen.[39] The Philippines regularly deploys BFAR vessels alongside the Philippines Coast Guard to deliver food and supplies to Filipino fishermen around contested features in the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands. The PRC’s claims resemble earlier CCG statements that it “allowed” the Philippines to airdrop supplies to Filipino troops on Second Thomas Shoal on January 21. The Philippines denied that it required anyone’s permission to conduct its activities on the shoal.[40] The PRC regularly attempts to intercept and prevent the Philippines’ resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal.

Oceania

Compacts of Free Association

The loss of Compacts of Free Association (COFA) funding for Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands risks United States control of key sea lines of communication (SLOC) in East Asia. These COFAs govern the United States’ relationship with Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands while granting the United States extensive military access throughout their territories. The United States renewed COFAs with Palau and Micronesia in May.[41] It then did so with the Marshall Islands in October.[42] Congress previously funded the COFAs for a twenty-year period in 2003.[43] That funding has now expired. The newly re-signed COFA agreements are now before Congress for funding consideration in the form of H.J.Res.96 and S.J.Res.48.[44] The total cost for all three of the twenty-year agreements would be roughly $7 billion spread over the period 2024 to 2043, according to the Congressional Research Service.[45]

The loss of funding also threatens the continuation of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in Micronesia, the Department of Defense high-frequency radar system under construction in Palau, as well as the opportunity for the United States Air Force Agile Combat Employment operations to take place in Micronesia.[46]

The loss of COFA funding also threatens the security of key SLOCs for the United States that provide a secure route connecting American allies and partners, such as the Philippines and Taiwan, to the US territory of Guam and the state of Hawaii. The United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) defines SLOCs as “the principal maritime routes between ports, as used for trade, military, or other purposes.”[47]

The loss of Compact of Free Association (COFA) funding for Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands presents opportunities for the People’s Republic of China to fill the gap in funding to threaten the SLOCs. COFA funding accounts for $36.9 million of Palau’s annual $124.2 million revenue as of fiscal year 2023 and $35.2 million of the Marshall Islands’ annual $173.9 million revenue as of fiscal year 2023.[48],[49] The Presidents of Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands sent a letter to the leaders of the United States Senate on February 6 stating that they “cannot overstate the importance to all of our nations of final approval [of COFA funding] by the U.S. Congress” and that its delay “has resulted in undesirable opportunities for economic exploitation by competitive political actors active in the Pacific.”[50] “Competitive political actors” is a veiled reference to the Chinese Communist Party.

Tuvalu

Tuvalu is considering reviewing its diplomatic ties with Taiwan after electing its new prime minister.[52] The sixteen representatives elected on January 26, 2024, who comprise the Parliament of Tuvalu, planned to choose a prime minister the week of February 5. Poor weather conditions continue to delay the vote, however, by preventing four elected members of parliament from reaching the capital Funafuti.[53] Tuvalu has not set a new date for the election of the new prime minister.

21. US military not ready for low-tech war: 'Crisis'

US military not ready for low-tech war: 'Crisis'

Experts warn drones as cheap as $500 can threaten bases or naval vessels

By Michael Lee Fox News

Published February 23, 2024 4:00am EST

foxnews.com · by Michael Lee Fox News

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The U.S. military is the most powerful and technologically advanced fighting force in the world, but changes in battlefield tactics may cause leaders to adjust to inexpensive technology that has proven lethal around the world.

"The war in Ukraine is a perfect example of how multimillion-dollar military technology is going to be rendered obsolete by $500 drones," Brett Velicovich, a drone expert, former Army intelligence and special operations soldier, told Fox News Digital.

The Ivanovets lists after several drones struck lethal blows. (East2West)

Velicovich's comments come as Ukraine has continued to use inexpensive and widely available drones against Russian tanks, ships and bases with great success since the start of the war, a vital tactic to combat what most view as a lopsided fight between Ukrainian forces and their technologically superior Russian foes.

"One of Russia's top navy ships in the Black Sea was destroyed by what was essentially a jet ski-esque drone that probably cost no more than a couple thousand dollars to build, yet two or three of those slammed into a Russian massive naval vessel and sunk it," Velicovich said.

PUTIN’S NUKE THREAT ENDANGERS SOME OF AMERICA’S COOLEST TECHNOLOGY

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist Seaman David Flewellyn/Handout)

But it's not just the Russian military confronting this changing battlefield reality, with inexpensive tech also being used against U.S. forces engaged in operations throughout the world.

In January, the USS Gravely destroyer was forced to use its close-in weapon system to fight off an anti-ship missile fired at the vessel by Houthi militants. According to a report in National Interest, an international relations magazine, the missile closed to within a mile of the Navy vessel before it was engaged by the CIWS system, a radar-guided Gatling gun designed to be the last line of defense for an American warship.

Earlier this week, the U.S. responded by hitting Houthi targets in Yemen in what the Defense Department called "self-defense strikes."

"CENTCOM identified the anti-ship cruise missiles, unmanned underwater vessel, and the unmanned surface vessel in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region," U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

A missile is launched from a warship during the U.S.-led coalition operation against Yemen's Houthi rebels this month. (U.S. Central Command)

American naval vessels are equipped with weapons systems and defenses designed to neutralize a threat from miles away, though such munitions are both in lower supply and are expensive to build and purchase.

CARGO SHIP ‘TAKING IN WATER’ FOLLOWING ATTACK BY HOUTHIS IN THE GULF OF ADEN

According to the National Interest report, the unit cost for the Navy's Standard Missile family can range in price from $2.4 million per round for the SM-2 and $4.3 million per round for the SM-6. The SM-3, a ballistic-missile interceptor, costs the Navy $36 million per round, the report notes, all large expenses to combat lower-tech drones operated by militants like the Houthis.

Iran shows video of a Shahed drone on Feb. 24, 2023. (IRINN via AP)

American ground forces have also been forced to confront the new battlefield reality, most notably when a drone attack on the U.S. Tower 22 base in Jordan killed three American soldiers and wounded 41 more last month.

Jordanian soldiers patrol the border with Syria to prevent drug trafficking on Feb. 17, 2022. (Khalil Mazraawi/AFP via Getty Images)

Even before that attack, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlant was raising the alarm about America's need to acquire more anti-drone capabilities.

"It is an urgent issue," LaPlante said at a December defense conference, calling the situation a "crisis."

According to a report from the online publication Task & Purpose, the Army is now rushing to purchase more counter-drone defenses via a $75 million contract with Raytheon for 600 Coyote 2Cs, which the report notes is a "loitering counter-drone munition." The Army is using its rapid acquisition authority for the purchases, allowing the branch to quickly get the vital defenses to troops around the world.

"The Coyote is a key component of the counter-UAS system of systems," the Army said in a release. "It is a ground-launched, radar-guided interceptor, with kinetic and non-kinetic variants, that integrates into fixed site-low, slow, small-unmanned aircraft system integrated defeat systems and mobile-slow, small-unmanned aircraft system integrated defeat systems."

US LAUNCHES 5 AIRSTRIKES AGAINST HOUTHI ANTI-SHIP MISSILES

According to Velicovich, the proliferation of drone technology means the issue is not going away any time soon.

"It used to be if you bought a drone, it would cost millions of dollars … only nation-states could afford them, only nation-states could understand the technology," Velicovich said. "Now, that's no longer the case."

Brent Sadler, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that low-tech threats to the U.S. military are "nothing new," noting the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, that was carried out by a suicide bomber in an inexpensive boat. But Sadler also noted the danger of pairing inexpensive tech such as drones with "high-tech missiles," arguing that the U.S. will still have to better prepare for the changing landscape.

The USS Abraham Lincoln ships out from San Diego. (K.C. Alfred/San Diego Union-Tribune via AP/File)

"The realities of naval warfare demonstrated in recent years makes clear the U.S. Navy will need to catch up with the Chinese and Russians in developing hypersonic and deadly high-end cruise missiles while developing low-cost options, too," Sadler said. "Top of the list, drones that can swarm and overwhelm a defender's sensors to execute an attack or enable a well-defended target to be distracted enough to allow higher-end weapons to reach their mark."

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Meanwhile, Velicovich says the U.S. must begin "understanding how wars are being fought" around the world and adapt, pointing to the seemingly inferior fighting forces that have shown new and effective tactics in current conflicts.

"Countries or terrorist groups or different organizations are defending or fighting wars with very little money," Velicovich said. "The future of warfare is going to be in AI, it's going to be in [vehicles], water, land, air and sea, small, low-cost drones. That has to be in the toolkit of our defense industry, not simply just billion-dollar fighter aircraft."

foxnews.com · by Michael Lee Fox News

22. Report of the Expert Study Group on NATO and Indo-Pacific Partners

​The 64 page report can be downloaded here: https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/report-expert-study-group-nato-indo-pacific-partners.pdf

The key takeaways are below.

Report of the Expert Study Group on NATO and Indo-Pacific Partners

usip.org

Key Takeaways

NATO’s interests in the Indo-Pacific are both historic—based on relations with regional countries, operations, and transnational threats—and current. These interests precede the alliance’s focus on China as a security challenge.

NATO began regular contact with Japan in the 1990s, with New Zealand in 2001, and with Australia and the ROK in 2005. It has also had regular contact with China since 2010. Australia, the ROK, and New Zealand all contributed personnel to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan (2003–2014), while Japan was a significant financial contributor for Afghanistan. In addition to ISAF and a follow-on mission in Afghanistan, NATO led three counter-piracy missions in the Indian Ocean, including Operation Ocean Shield (2009–2016). Australia and New Zealand participated in Ocean Shield, and Japan and the ROK, as well as China, ran or participated in parallel counter-piracy missions that coordinated with Ocean Shield.

NATO formalized its partnerships with Australia, Japan, the ROK, and New Zealand by signing Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme documents with each of these countries between 2012 and 2014. Beyond NATO’s operations in the region and Afghanistan, the four countries and NATO connected over shared values and over transnational threats such as terrorism, challenges to maritime security, and cyberattacks, as well as North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, which has been a regular subject of NATO summit declarations and North Atlantic Council statements since 2006. NATO did not mention China in a high-level public document until December 2019, after a period of reckoning within Europe about security challenges posed by the country’s behavior and ambitions. By June 2022, China as a challenge to alliance interests, security, and values was formalized in NATO’s Strategic Concept. Aside from China, North Korea, existing and emerging transnational threats, and relations with its partners in the region, NATO’s contemporary Indo-Pacific interests are based on growing perceived ties between security in the region and in the Euro-Atlantic.

NATO engages with its Indo-Pacific partners both on a bilateral basis and, increasingly, as a group, the IP4. Each partner country’s bilateral relationship with NATO is of primary importance and is the product of unique priorities, perceptions, and circumstances. Although the IP4 format, which brings these countries together, is not new, the frequency and levels at which the group meets have increased over time, as have its relevance and visibility.

In terms of bilateral relations, Australia is the most integrated into NATO’s military operational structure of the Indo-Pacific partners and enjoys the status of an Enhanced Opportunities Partner. Canberra sees NATO as a partner for crisis response and protecting the rules-based international order, as a more effective way of engaging with the European security community than bilateral efforts with individual nations, and as a platform for specialist technical and professional resources. Japan has had the longest relations with NATO of the Indo-Pacific partners and is the most openly enthusiastic about its association with the alliance. Tokyo’s priorities for NATO include informing European understanding of China and of the importance of Indo-Pacific security, and coordinating on transnational security challenges. NATO is also relevant to Tokyo’s interest in increasing ties between US alliances in response to China’s growing power relative to the United States. Relations between the ROK and NATO have been relatively superficial until recently. Seoul has viewed NATO in a positive light as an extension of the US-ROK alliance and as an organization of states with which it shares values and can undertake political dialogue and cooperation on transnational threat issues of mutual relevance. NATO has seemed largely incidental, however, to Seoul’s main security focus, North Korea, and therefore of limited priority. That said, ROK-NATO relations are currently in a dynamic state as a result of external and internal changes, including the war in Ukraine and the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s interest in cultivating supportive partners in Europe. The key benefits of NATO relations for New Zealand include interoperability, capability enhancement of its armed forces, information exchange and dialogue, and the ability to contribute to the global security environment and to the protection of the rules-based international order. Various contextual realities have colored Wellington’s perceptions of NATO, including New Zealand’s antinuclear stance, its small size, and its attachment to an independent foreign policy. Wellington has traditionally seen the direct practical benefits of NATO partnership as limited for its regional security interests, especially in the South Pacific.

NATO began to engage intermittently with the Indo-Pacific partners as a group of four at least six years before the IP4 grouping burst onto the global stage in June 2022 with the historic participation of the leaders of Australia, Japan, the ROK, and New Zealand in the summit of NATO heads of state and government in Madrid. Although initial meetings focused on North Korea, engagement in the IP4 format subsequently expanded to include such things as transnational threats and China and has picked up considerably since 2019. Meetings have taken place at various levels of the North Atlantic Council, from ambassadors to ministers and leaders, as well as with the NATO Military Committee. The IP4 grouping is not meant to replace or be privileged above bilateral relations between NATO and each of its Indo-Pacific partner countries, but understanding of the grouping outside narrow policy circles remains limited.

Indo-Pacific partner countries are a relatively cohesive grouping, but their views and interests are far from uniform. In this regard, the four countries’ perspectives on China are similar in some respects but differ in others; they have similar basic expectations of NATO on the Indo-Pacific but various nuances beyond these; and they share the most consistency in views on Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The expert study group examined the relevant perceptions and positions in the partner countries on several key areas of overlap with NATO—China, expectations of NATO on the region, and Russia’s war against Ukraine. All four partner countries appear interested in being invited to participate in relevant internal discussions on China at NATO, although none appear to want their cooperation with NATO to be characterized in terms of China. More broadly, perceptions and positions regarding China reflect each country’s unique circumstances, with varying overlap, just as they do for NATO member states. Canberra and Tokyo both proactively engage on China at NATO and tend to see the alliance’s increased interest in China as highly positive. Wellington and Seoul both feel vulnerable to disruptions of trade relations with China and have been careful about managing relations with Beijing, although each is growing more willing to push back against China. Traditionally, Seoul’s threat perceptions of China have been fundamentally different from those of the other Indo-Pacific partner capitals because of China’s perceived importance in addressing the ROK’s greatest security threat, North Korea. Although Seoul is cognizant of the threats China poses in the longer term, these concerns have come second to the immediate danger posed by North Korea.

Regarding NATO on the Indo-Pacific, none of the partner countries appear to expect NATO to be a significant direct actor in the region. Instead, they expect the alliance to coordinate with them on issues of mutual concern in, stemming from, or affecting the Indo-Pacific. In this regard, all four appear interested in coordinating with NATO on identified areas of mutual concern such as cyber defense, emerging and disruptive technologies, and resilience. There is also interest in all four countries in NATO increasing public diplomacy efforts toward them and the region. More broadly, Indo-Pacific partner views on NATO and the region are nuanced and varied. On the Russian war against Ukraine, meanwhile, the four countries hold largely similar views. Their governments make up four of only six outside the Euro-Atlantic area to place sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. All have provided financial assistance and nonlethal military aid, and all have channeled some of that assistance through NATO. The war in Ukraine and its impacts on the Indo-Pacific region have greatly raised awareness in all four countries about the security implications of events in Europe on the Indo-Pacific. The war has also raised concerns in all four about growing China-Russia relations. Successful cooperation between Indo-Pacific and European partners on Ukraine may provide a model for potential coordination between the two regions on a contingency in the Indo-Pacific. European understanding of expectations the unified response to Ukraine might create for a future contingency with China in the region appears nascent.

There is little indication that Indo-Pacific partner countries currently see the IP4 grouping as a strategic asset beyond its tactical utility as a platform for information sharing, coordination, and cooperation. The extent of NATO’s ambition for the grouping is also unclear. What is clear is that neither NATO nor the partner countries appear interested, at this time, in formalizing the IP4.

Relevant officials are fleshing out areas of practical cooperation between NATO and the IP4. Additionally, the IP4 format has already been valuable as a platform for discussion, consultation, information sharing, and exchange with NATO. The IP4 and NATO have also coordinated positions on issues such as North Korea. The IP4’s role as a talk shop and coordination mechanism may have particular added value when demonstrating widespread support and unity on a topic is seen as critical, when all four countries have a stake in an issue and hold similar views or can benefit from one another’s input, and when coordination between the partners before engagement with NATO may be beneficial.

Partner country participants were able to identify strategic benefits of IP4 engagement, such as the access, inclusion, and safety in numbers the grouping provides. The four countries get much greater attention and space at NATO as a group than any of them would enjoy alone, and the grouping facilitates valuable diplomatic opportunities on the sidelines of high-level meetings. The IP4 has also served as a platform for Japan-ROK engagement that would have been controversial bilaterally due to tensions between Tokyo and Seoul at the time. Increased ties within the group may also make it more difficult for China to pressure individual countries against closer relations with NATO. However, despite these benefits, there is little indication that Indo-Pacific partner countries see the IP4 grouping as a strategic asset for maximizing national and regional gains from NATO engagement.

Similarly, the extent to which NATO sees the IP4 as a useful unit rather than as just a collection mechanism or a way to emphasize the importance of the Indo-Pacific remains unclear. This may relate to differing views within NATO, where some allies are more ambitious about the IP4 format and some less so. Despite its increased prominence, the IP4 grouping also remains informal, unlike NATO’s regionally based, formalized partnership frameworks (Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative). This appears consistent with the views of both allies and partners, however, with no current demand from either side for greater formalization. The benefits of informality include greater flexibility and providing less of a hook for China to raise false alarms about a so-called Asia-Pacific version of NATO.

Understanding of NATO and the benefits of NATO partnership in Indo-Pacific partner countries remains limited, and public diplomacy aimed at these countries has been uneven. Growing disinformation efforts by Russia and China about NATO increases the significance of this issue.

Understanding of NATO’s remit, processes, and relevance to national interests is relatively limited at public levels in all four countries and varies even within policy circles across countries. Similarly, although NATO has been meeting with the IP4 grouping for a number of years, this was not readily visible outside diplomatic circles in Brussels or a topic of much discussion in capitals. Since the relatively sudden emergence of the IP4 into public view in 2022, awareness of the grouping has largely exceeded understanding of it within the partner countries. Although part of the reason for this lack of understanding is a result of domestic factors such as bureaucratic silos, finite government resources for NATO, and sparse interest within expert communities, part is also due to NATO’s limited reach into Indo-Pacific partner capitals, including through public diplomacy efforts. In this regard, the contact point embassy model—through which NATO shares information with partner governments and coordinates public diplomacy in partner countries via a designated NATO member state embassy—has not functioned well or consistently across Indo-Pacific partner countries in the past.

High-profile visits by NATO officials to capitals and participation by national officials in high-level NATO events, meanwhile, have raised NATO visibility in public discourse and interest in NATO at all levels in each of the Indo-Pacific partner countries. Intermittent visits by delegations from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly have also provided opportunities to engage lawmakers and the public. It is significant that NATO is aware of shortcomings in its public diplomacy outreach to Indo-Pacific capitals and is working to address them. The inclusion of public diplomacy goals in Individually Tailored Partnership Programs may also help. Such efforts become even more important in light of Russian disinformation efforts and as China increases its negative messaging about NATO.

NATO has used two main narrative frames to communicate the strategic rationale for its relations with Indo-Pacific partner countries over time: transnational threats and shared values. Although these frames are still relevant today, there is room to identify new strategic benefits for mutual engagement between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners.

Structural changes to the international system that have solidified in recent years and affect both NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners suggest space for the identification of new strategic benefits to mutual engagement that may resonate with both sides. Three additional strategic rationales stem naturally from the changed geopolitical circumstances. One centers around an exploration of the connections between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions that make them more relevant for each other’s security than previously understood. A second has to do with the critical role of the United States in deterrence and defense in both regions and how—given that the return of strategic competition in the international system means that the United States and its allies need to deter two major power competitors simultaneously—deterrence dynamics in the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are more interdependent today than during the Cold War. A third links transnational threats to the return of strategic competition and notes how existing transnational threats may be more acute or take on different relevance in the face of strategic competition and how responses to transnational threats like cyberattacks can have implications for both the threats themselves and for strategic competition.

Policy Options

As Indo-Pacific ministers and leaders meet increasingly in the IP4 format with NATO, partner governments can seize the opportunity to advance national and regional agendas in areas of agreement. To do so, Indo-Pacific partner governments should identify any common agenda or goals for NATO engagement, given both similarities and differences between these partners on key issues like expectations for NATO’s role on the Indo-Pacific and threat perceptions regarding China. Track 1.5 dialogues involving experts and officials from the Indo-Pacific partner countries may be a helpful way to approach this task, increasing mutual understanding of national perceptions and highlighting areas where all four countries could benefit from working together with NATO.

Relatedly, while continuing to maintain a focus on advancing bilateral relations with NATO, Indo-Pacific partner governments should consider internally and then in consultation with one another how they can take greater strategic advantage of the IP4 grouping. Indo-Pacific partners generally recognize the tactical utility of the IP4 grouping as a platform for information sharing, coordination, and cooperation. The grouping does have strategic benefits as well, however, and is a fact on the ground, even if informal. Rather than interpreting the IP4 format as a convenience for NATO, partner countries should consider how they can take better advantage of its strategic potential so as to maximize the effectiveness of engagement with NATO for their own national and regional benefits.

NATO should increase regular public diplomacy outreach to Indo-Pacific partner countries about what NATO does and how relations with NATO benefit each country’s national and regional interests, as well as shared global priorities. Public diplomacy efforts could, inter alia, focus on increasing the consistency and effectiveness of contact point embassies in partner capitals, taking advantage of more regular participation by national officials in high-level NATO events, and, as with much of the effort to deepen relations with the Indo-Pacific partners, making greater use of existing mechanisms such as exchanges between national parliamentarians and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. In this regard, NATO’s already increased efforts regarding public diplomacy for Indo-Pacific countries should be recognized and welcomed. A NATO liaison office in Tokyo, if approved by the alliance, could help further shore up public diplomacy outreach to Indo-Pacific partners.

Relatedly, given Chinese and Russian disinformation about NATO, NATO officials should publicly both highlight the alliance’s long-standing engagement with these partners and their region and clarify the nature of the IP4 grouping. Messaging about the Indo-Pacific could underscore that NATO’s engagement with its Indo-Pacific partners and the region precedes the alliance’s acknowledgment of China as a security challenge. Messaging about the IP4 grouping might explain that it is not a formalized, regionally based partnership framework, is not new, and is not meant to replace or be privileged over bilateral relations with Indo-Pacific partner countries. Such messaging is relevant not only for the broader Indo-Pacific region but also for media and domestic audiences in Indo-Pacific partner countries, whose familiarity with both NATO’s history regarding the Indo-Pacific and with the IP4 grouping remains low.

In light of the changed geopolitical circumstances that have brought them closer together, NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners should explore new strategic rationales for their mutual engagement that go beyond shared values and transnational threats. Three potential strategic rationales are worth exploring: connections between the regions that make them more relevant for one another’s security; the growing interdependence of deterrence dynamics in the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific with the rise of strategic competition between the United States and China and Russia; and the impact of strategic competition on transnational threats. More systemic discussion between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners on these issues would also help improve each side’s situational awareness and coordinate perceptions.

NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners should explore, at least privately, the relevance of successful cooperation between Indo-Pacific and European countries on Ukraine as a potential model for coordination on a contingency in the Indo-Pacific and clarify views and expectations on all sides. NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners have recognized Russia’s war against Ukraine as not only a regional European problem but also one with global reach that affects the Indo-Pacific. Any contingency involving China and the United States in the Indo-Pacific region will similarly have global reach and inevitably require economic, political, and diplomatic coordination between Indo-Pacific partners and Europe, as well as the coordination of any nonlethal military assistance. NATO, along with the European Union, is an important Euro-Atlantic institution relevant for this kind of coordination and one through which regular avenues for security consultation with Indo-Pacific partners already exist.

About the Expert Study Group on NATO and Indo-Pacific Partners

The dynamics of influence, deterrence, and defense in the Indo-Pacific have changed, with potentially far-reaching consequences for peace and security in the region. European allies’ recognition of the strategic challenges posed by China; US efforts to invigorate alliances with Australia, Japan, and South Korea; Russia’s war in Ukraine; and China’s reactions to these developments will play a major role in shaping the Indo-Pacific’s future. To increase understanding of these changes and their impacts, the United States Institute of Peace convened a study group consisting of experts from NATO countries and Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea—the alliance’s partners in the Indo-Pacific. The group explored Indo-Pacific partner perspectives on NATO and the opportunities and challenges of NATO and Indo-Pacific partner relations.

Expert Study Group Members

Mirna Galic, Chair

Senior Policy Analyst, China and East Asia, United States Institute of Peace

Joe Burton

Professor of International Security, Politics, Philosophy, and Religion, Lancaster University

David Capie

Director, Centre for Strategic Studies and Professor of International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington

Jean-Dominique Dulière

Former Head, Crisis Response Systems and Exercises Section, NATO

Stephan Frühling

Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Gorana Grgić

Senior Researcher, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zürich; Senior Lecturer, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

Yoko Iwama

Professor and Director, Strategic Studies Program, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies

Kwang-Jin Kim

Brigadier General (Retired), Republic of Korea Air Force; Chair Professor, Sookmyung Women’s University; Consultant Board Member, Republic of Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff

Geunwook Lee

Professor of Political Science, Sogang University; Advisory Board Member, Republic of Korea Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Joint Chiefs of Staff

Jonathan Berkshire Miller

Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign Affairs, National Defence, and National Security, Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Senior Fellow, Japan Institute of International Affairs; Senior Fellow on East Asia, Asian Forum Japan; Director and Co-founder, Council on International Policy

Philip Shetler-Jones

Senior Research Fellow for Indo-Pacific Security, International Security, Royal United Services Institute

Luis Simón

Director, Centre for Security, Diplomacy, and Strategy, Brussels School of Governance; Director, Brussels Office, Elcano Royal Institute; Senior Nonresident Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Michito Tsuruoka

Associate Professor, Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University; Visiting Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University; Senior Fellow, Centre for Security, Diplomacy, and Strategy, Brussels School of Governance

usip.org

23. Ex U.S. spies warned the Hunter Biden scandal had Russian fingerprints. They feel vindicated now.

Yes, this will engender some partisan attacks (from both sides). But I think we should remember this quote that I continue to emphasize from the 2017 NSS that former President Trump signed. Instead of our partisan bickering we need to focus on the real enemies which are not the "other" in the US but the revisionist, rogue, and revolutionary powers that threaten our nation and the rules based international order. But if we cannot support this quote below then all hope is lost and those who do not support this quote are not just part of the problem, but the problem. Pogo says we have met the enemy....

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

​As an example of Americans who no longer support democracy we have this statement. This is kind of a problem for us I think.

• "Welcome to the end of democracy!" online activist Jack Posobiec proclaimed in his speech. "We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn't get all the way there on January 6th, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it."

https://www.axios.com/2024/02/24/trump-gop-extreme-maga-ivf-cpac-putin

Ex U.S. spies warned the Hunter Biden scandal had Russian fingerprints. They feel vindicated now.

The Justice Department said this week that informant Alexander Smirnov invented a story about $5 million bribes paid to Joe and Hunter Biden and is also "peddling new lies."

NBC News · by Ken Dilanian

The Justice Department’s assertions this week that a longtime FBI informant was seeking to “spread misinformation” designed to hurt President Joe Biden after speaking to Russian intelligence operatives has put a new spotlight on an old debate:

To what extent, if any, has the Russian government manufactured or amplified unproven allegations of corrupt Ukraine dealings by Joe and Hunter Biden?

In a request to revoke his bail, prosecutors said that former informant Alexander Smirnov, charged last week with lying to the FBI in 2020 when he said Joe Biden had received a $5 million bribe, “is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials” as recently as last fall.

The allegation that Smirnov was spreading new falsehoods about Joe Biden with an election looming hearkened back to an episode from the 2020 election, when the question of whether Russian spies were trying to smear Joe Biden was first raised.

Derogatory information, purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop, had surfaced in a New York Post article. Soon afterward, 51 former intelligence officials signed and blasted to the media a letter warning that the laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

The letter continued: “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails … are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

The laptop data included embarrassing photos of Hunter Biden with prostitutes — and emails that detailed his business dealings in Ukraine and China. The mainstream media largely ignored it, while Twitter and Facebook put restrictions on the sharing of the New York Post story.

After mainstream news organizations verified portions of the laptop material, the letter became a focus of anger among Donald Trump and his supporters. They branded the group of mostly Biden supporters as “spies who lie” and accused them of election interference, saying their letter suppressed coverage of a story that reflected poorly on their candidate.

The House Judiciary Committee hauled some of them in for sworn interviews, and in May published a report titled, “How senior intelligence community officials and the Biden campaign worked to mislead American voters.” Some received death threats.

Alexander Smirnov, left, at Las Vegas courthouse on Tuesday.AP

Now, many of those former officials say they feel vindicated by the allegations against the FBI informant.

No public evidence has emerged pointing to a Russian government role in how the laptop materials were made public. But the former officials say the materials fueled stories consistent with Russian efforts to accuse Biden of corruption that persist to this day — and that therefore they were justified in sounding the alarm.

“It validates exactly what we were warning about,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a 26-year CIA veteran who supervised operations involving Russia. “Ours was a prudent warning. The Russians were going to push this narrative of Hunter Biden and corruption, to hurt Joe Biden.”

Polymeropoulos, who spent much of his career in counterterrorism, said he received emails saying he and his family should be hung, and a barrage of crank phone calls. Another signatory, former CIA operations officer John Sipher, says he was also targeted by threats.

Sipher said the group never claimed that material about Hunter Biden was made up — only that the story fit a narrative being pushed by people with ties to Russian intelligence, including some who had met in Ukraine with Trump’s lawyer and adviser Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani had provided the laptop materials to the New York Post.

“This has always been an ugly political game from the beginning,” Sipher said. “Anyone who actually bothered to read the letter would realize that the focus was on warning about Russian subversive efforts prior to the 2020 election.”

He added, “The recent revelations show that we were prescient. While I would love to gloat, the important issue remains the same — foreign interference in American democracy, and unethical, cynical and faithless behavior by members of Congress entrusted to provide oversight of our important institutions.”

Russell Dye, a spokesman for the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, responded:

“The Hunter Biden laptop was always real and always authenticated. They knew, or should have known, that and they still ran with their verifiably bogus letter. The people who signed the letter should feel zero vindication.”

The Judiciary Committee report included excerpts of an interview with Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, who said he asked Polymeropoulos to draft the letter. Morell acknowledged that he did so after being contacted by then-candidate Biden’s senior foreign policy adviser Antony Blinken, who flagged the New York Post story.

That revelation was characterized by Republicans as more evidence the letter had been a political maneuver. Most if not all the signatories preferred Biden over Trump in the 2020 election. Among them were James Clapper, who served as President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, and Leon Panetta, an Obama CIA director and defense secretary.

There is little doubt the letter helped Democrats rebuff allegations of Biden family corruption. Biden cited it during a presidential debate when Trump raised the issue, asserting that “there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan.”

But the signatories said they were expressing a genuine concern that went beyond who would win an election. And it wasn’t only those 51 former officials who were concerned about possible Russian attempts to smear Biden. NBC News reported in October 2020 that the CIA and other spy agencies gathered intelligence on Giuliani’s dealings with alleged Russian intelligence agents as he searched for dirt on Biden and passed his findings on to the Trump White House.

American intelligence agencies were not spying on Giuliani, but on the people with whom he was talking, including Andrii Derkach, who had been identified by the Treasury Department as a Russian agent. In the process, the U.S. spy agencies learned that Derkach and other Russian operatives were in touch with Giuliani, and wanted to feed him information in an attempt to discredit Joe Biden.

In that context, the emergence of the laptop around the same time raised suspicions, especially because the New York Post reported that it obtained the material from Giuliani, who got it from the owner of a Delaware computer repair shop. The shop owner said Hunter Biden brought it in and never picked it up.

Material from the laptop became evidence in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, which ultimately resulted in a pair of indictments accusing him of tax and gun crimes. He has pleaded not guilty. A recent court filing by the lead prosecutor in the case, special counsel David Weiss, says investigators authenticated the laptop material — and the fact that a computer had been left in a store.

“In August 2019, IRS and FBI investigators obtained a search warrant for tax violations for the defendant [Hunter Biden]’s Apple iCloud account,” the filing said. “In response to that warrant, in September 2019, Apple produced backups of data from various of the defendant’s electronic devices that he had backed up to his iCloud account. Investigators also later came into possession of the defendant’s Apple MacBook Pro, which he had left at a computer store. A search warrant was also obtained for his laptop and the results of the search were largely duplicative of information investigators had already obtained from Apple.”

It was Weiss who filed charges last week against Smirnov, accusing the informant of lying to the FBI when he relayed information that Joe and Hunter Biden had each accepted bribes of $5 million in 2015 from Ukrainian executives of Burisma, the company that paid Hunter Biden millions of dollars to sit on its board.

NBC News has reported that the bribery allegations had been investigated and debunked by the Justice Department during the Trump administration. But they had become part of the push by House Republicans to impeach Joe Biden. And the prosecutor who investigated, former Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady, testified to the House Judiciary Committee in October that the FBI viewed the informant as a “trusted source.”

It’s not clear when and why that changed. In a filing this week seeking to revoke Smirnov’s bail, prosecutors said he had repeatedly “lied to his FBI Handler after a 10-year relationship where the two spoke nearly every day” — and that he had “extensive” contacts with Russian operatives. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. Hunter Biden’s lawyers said in a filing that the informant’s alleged lies have irreparably tainted the cases against him.

“Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign,” the filing says, adding that his “efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties in the United States continues. … What this shows is that the misinformation he is spreading is not confined to 2020. He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.”

NBC News · by Ken Dilanian

24. ‘Blob’: An Idea That’s Spreading in All Directions

Now for something a little lighter but still national security related.

‘Blob’: An Idea That’s Spreading in All Directions

Starting with a 1950s sci-fi movie starring Steve McQueen, the term has crept across politics and pop culture

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/blob-an-idea-thats-spreading-in-all-directions-07fea3a0?st=rifdxveym7bqujh&utm

By Ben Zimmer

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Updated Feb. 24, 2024 12:23 am ET

ILLUSTRATION: JAMES YANG

The 1958 cult science-fiction movie “The Blob” is getting a “reimagining,” according to a recent report in The Wrap. Director David Bruckner is attached to the 

Warner Bros. Discovery production, but plot details are being kept secret. Still, anyone who has seen the original (or previous remakes from 1972 and 1988) should have a fair idea of what to expect: an ever-growing amoeba-like alien descends on a small town and consumes everything in its path.Thanks to the cultural impact of the original film, which featured Steve McQueen in his first starring role, the very word “blob” has spread, in its own way, into many new contexts from science to politics—as an evocative term for a massive, amorphous force.

Before its cinematic debut, the word “blob” was usually applied to more innocuous little globules. In Scotland, as early as the 15th century, “blob” could be used as a verb for daubing with ink. The Oxford English Dictionary first records the noun in a medical book from 1597 by the Glasgow surgeon Peter Lowe, who wrote of “little blobs upon the skin,” referring to blisters or pimples. “Bleb” could be used for similar swellings.

While “blob” has continued to designate a small drop or lump made of a liquid or viscid substance, like honey or morning dew, it also has sprawled out in more figurative directions. The English scholar Walter Alexander Raleigh wrote in a 1905 letter about how Christianity has attracted “all the loose floating blobs of superstition.”

Steve McQueen (second from right) in ‘The Blob,’ 1958. PHOTO: EVERETT COLLECTION

How the 1958 movie got its title is a matter of some debate. The filmmakers were inspired by a report out of Philadelphia that policemen had encountered a large, quivering mass of jelly that fell from the sky, similar to other accounts of so-called “star jelly” presumed to come from meteor showers. The film’s working title was “The Molten Meteor,” but one story has it that screenwriter Kay Linaker started calling the gooey alien presence “the blob,” and the producers preferred that name.

According to another account from producer Jack H. Harris, an early suggestion for the movie title was “The Glob That Girdled the Globe,” which he shortened to “The Glob.” But when he discovered that “The Glob” was already the name of a children’s book illustrated by “Pogo” cartoonist Walt Kelly, Harris said he changed a letter to arrive at “The Blob.”

Regardless of how exactly the title came about, it has resonated in popular culture ever since. In the late 1980s, database software architect Jim Starkey came up with a new meaning for “blob”: a massive unstructured collection of data in binary code. While the term was later explained as an acronym for “binary large object,” Starkey has said that his coinage was directly inspired by the Steve McQueen movie.

Biologists, for their part, have used “the Blob” to refer to giant creeping slime mold and a large agglomeration of black algae off the coast of Alaska. For oceanographers, “the Blob” is a mass of warm water in the northeast Pacific Ocean caused by a marine heat wave.

“Blob” has also seeped into politics on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain in 2013, former Education Secretary Michael Gove called forces critical of Conservative education policies “the Blob,” and it has since been extended by Tory politicians to civil servants in general. Meanwhile in the U.S., Obama adviser Ben Rhodes used “the Blob” in 2016 to refer to the hawkish foreign-policy establishment, and the label stuck. Republicans have picked up on the usage as well: Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance recently characterized the emergency foreign aid package that passed the Senate as a nefarious plan by “the foreign policy blob/deep state.”

The poster for the 1958 movie screamed, “Indescribable! Indestructible! Nothing Can Stop It!” Ever since, the lexical growth of the word “blob” has been unstoppable.

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the February 24, 2024, print edition as 'An Idea That’s Spreading In All Directions'.

25. Options for Screening for Cancer in SOF

Options for Screening for Cancer in SOF

gsof.org · by Chelsea Hamashin · February 20, 2024

This blog comes directly from the Global SOF President and CEO, Stu Bradin.

———

This blog has been hard to write because I know most SOF folks really don’t want to talk about this subject – cancer.

I am now 62 years old, and I have survived some crazy stuff. Like many people, when I was younger, my life and health were not really things I thought much about.

But as I get older, I realize there are a lot of things I want to live for.

In units we constantly disregard our health to be with our teammates and we will “hide” injuries or health concerns. Once you retire there are no more missions, and you realize that one of the only things you have left is your health–and it really matters. In retirement, your health is a huge priority, and you just hope you’re not too late.

The Looming Fear of Cancer

Overall, my health is good. I suffer from what most older vets suffer from…back pain, ugly feet, and “senior moments.” I did also have my C3, C4, and C5 vertebrae fused in my neck in 2022. Oh, and I also tore my left and right biceps right before retirement, which also required some surgery. And apparently I didn’t get my wisdom teeth out as a teenager like everyone else, so that surgery is coming down the hopper right now…

All of that to say, these have been recoverable ailments and injuries that are typical of a 30+ year SOF veteran. I have taken steps to get and stay healthy, such as losing weight, working out safely, and most importantly, I have a solid regimen for doctor visits.

The one thing that still concerns me is cancer.

I have seen a lot written about SOF vets having a higher rate of cancer, and many cases are detected late. Worse, I personally know people facing it, and for every one I know about I’m sure there’s at least one other fighting the battle in silence.

There are efforts out there to detect and treat cancer in Veterans, like the PACT Act–which expands VA health care and benefits for Veterans exposed to “burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances.” Our friends at MSOFC did a Deep Dive in 2022 that had some great speakers and insights on cancer in SOF.

But for SOF warfighters who may have undetected cancer where every day matters, waiting for legislation or studies may not be an option.

Sometimes, we need to take matters into our own hands.

Taking the Next Step with HunterSeven

Many veterans get regular lab work done, but I’ve learned that the labs don’t always detect cancer. I have several good friends or friend’s family members who didn’t find out until they were already in Stage IV. At that point, you have limited options.

Besides regular blood work, what else can you do for early detection? I’ve heard about full body MRIs, but it felt like an extreme step when I didn’t have any signs or symptoms of a problem. Who am I to order a whole MRI just for my own peace of mind?

Well, I’m a SOF veteran who is prioritizing his health and found inspiration from the HunterSeven Foundation.

If you don’t know, HunterSeven is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that specializes in medical research and education specifically on the post-9/11 veteran cohort. The HunterSeven Foundation has quickly become the leaders in identifying potential toxic exposures and subsequent illnesses in military veterans and in turn is able to educate both the veteran population and the healthcare providers who care for them on critical health information relating to their exposures utilizing evidence-based practice.

I ran into Jillian Rowe with HunterSeven at Fort Liberty last November, and she is the one who talked me into doing the MRI scan.

So I promised to schedule and attend the MRI scan as soon as I could.

Getting My Elective MRI

I live in Tampa, but the closest place I could schedule my appointment with was Prenuvo in Boca Raton, Florida. I realize that distance could be a deterrent for some, but this is important so I drove the four hours to get to my appointment because I really wanted to do the scan to give myself some reassurance that I was doing everything I could do.

Prenuvo has a really nice office and they run a flawless operation. I was in and out in 1:15 minutes. The staff was amazing, and they made me feel relaxed–you could tell that they knew their business by their professionalism. I am not small, and stuffing me into an MRI tube could have been a challenge, but the team and capabilities at Prenuvo were great.

The best part is that you get to wear video glasses that allow you to watch videos during the scan…a cool and unexpected perk. The entire scan took about one hour and I really did not feel cramped or claustrophobic because all I could see was the video.

Obviously there’s a waiting period where it’s hard not to be nervous. You’re waiting for results that could define your life, but at least you know you took a huge step into answering the unanswered questions put on you by your life and career.

Prenuvo took about 3 weeks to send the final report, and when they did it was all housed in an app that made it easy to access and read. They also write the report in a way non-medical folks like me can understand.

My report was clean for cancer–after weeks and really years of concern, it was such a relief to see that in words.

They did find a few things that they recommended I talk to my doctor about. The items of concern would never have been detected had I not done the MRI. None of the issues are life threatening but they are things that can be corrected with meds and it would give me a better quality of life.

I don’t know much about cancer other than it is complicated and often it is hard to detect. I also know that early detection is critical, and labs are not 100%.

As we all get older, I recommend you reach out to HunterSeven and talk to them about getting the MRI scan. If I can do it, you can too.

Learn more about HunterSeven at the link below:

Home

gsof.org · by Chelsea Hamashin · February 20, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com