Quotes of the Day:
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them."
- John F. Kennedy
"May we never forget our fallen comrades. Freedom isn't free."
- Sgt. Major Bill Paxton
"Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it. It flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it."
- Unknown
A Message to the American People from Commander- in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine General Valeri Zaluzhnyi
To the American people,
On behalf of the men and women of the armed forces of Ukraine I would like to express my gratitude and condolences for your fallen on this Memorial Day 2022.
Since the founding of your United States Army on June 14th, 1775, your military has fought for freedom around the world with over one million Americans making the ultimate sacrifice in over 20 major wars.
Unlike any other major world power in history the United states has fought against totalitarian dictators, liberated the oppressed, and then left the nation to the people. Western Europe owes its freedom to your leadership and sacrifices in World War II by defeating the Nazis. Eastern Europe owes its freedom to your contribution to breaking up the Soviet Union. Your sacrifices, both in combat and in training, have led in large part to the spread of democracy around the globe.
We here in Ukraine are grateful to your military for helping to fight for freedom, both with weapons, ammo and training.
Your American tradition of honoring your fallen, who made the ultimate sacrifice so that others may live free, dates back to 1868 and is an inspiration. For now, we are fighting for our survival, as your soldiers were in June 1775 when your army was founded.
Thank you for your continued American leadership in the fight for freedom.
Never forget.
Commander- in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
General Valeri Zaluzhnyi
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 29 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. Ukraine suffers on battlefield while pleading for U.S. arms
3. How to Break Russia’s Blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea Ports
4. Why Putin will never truly conquer Ukraine
5. Putin Hasn’t Gone Far Enough for Russia’s Hawks
6. A Lack of Morality and Courage
7. Russian Academics Aim to Punish Colleagues Who Backed Ukraine Invasion
8. Heavy fighting as Russian troops enter outskirts of Sievierodonetsk
9. What is America’s end-game for the war in Ukraine?
10. Zelensky: Conditions in Donbas ‘indescribably difficult’
11. China’s Push for Agreement With Pacific Island Nations Stalls
12. Is Russia Gaining the Upper Hand in Ukraine’s East?
13. How India Influences the Quad
14. China, Russia Again Veto UN Statement on Myanmar Conflict
15. Retired Special Forces officer comes out of retirement to help in Ukraine
16. Lebanon’s Spy Chief Visits Washington to Cooperate on American Hostages
17. US to transfer long-range rocket systems to Ukraine amid Donbas struggle: reports
18. China urged to deepen Asean ties as US becomes India’s biggest trading partner
19. Believe Biden When He Says America Will Defend Taiwan – Analysis
20. Opinion | Despite the war in Ukraine, Biden understands China matters most
21. More than 100 members of Putin's 'private army' were fired for refusing to fight in Ukraine
22. The mystery of China’s sudden warnings about US hackers
23. Putin's Nightmare: A Ukrainian Guerrilla Movement Has Emerged
24. NGA Plays Crucial, Albeit Top-Secret, Role in Major Military Successes,
25. Negative views of Russia mainly limited to western liberal democracies, poll shows
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 29 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 29
Karolina Hird, Mason Clark, and George Barros
May 29, 5:30 pm ET
New reports confirmed that Ukrainian forces conducted a successful limited counterattack near the Kherson-Mykolaiv oblast border on May 28, forcing Russian forces onto the defensive. This Ukrainian counterattack is likely intended to disrupt Russian efforts to establish strong defensive positions along the Southern Axis. While the Ukrainian counterattack does not appear likely to retake substantial territory in the near term, it will likely disrupt Russian operations and potentially force Russia to deploy reinforcements to the Kherson region, which is predominantly held by sub-standard units. Ukrainian counterattacks may additionally slow Russian efforts to consolidate administrative control of occupied southern Ukraine.[1]
Russian forces continued to assault Severodonetsk on May 29 but did not make any confirmed advances; Russian progress in intense urban combat will likely be slow. The Russian campaign in eastern Ukraine—which previously aimed to capture the entirety of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts—is now focused almost entirely on Severodonetsk. Russian troops are unlikely to be able to conduct multiple simultaneous operations and will likely further deprioritize advances southeast of Izyum and west of Lyman in favor of concentrating available forces on Severodonetsk in the coming days.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces continued attempts to take full control of Severodonetsk.
- Russian forces continued offensives southeast of Izyum but did not make any confirmed advances toward Slovyansk.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations to cut Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) northeast of Bakhmut and appear unlikely to attempt to directly assault the city.
- The Ukrainian counteroffensive in northwestern Kherson Oblast has forced Russian troops to take up defensive positions and will likely disrupt Russian efforts to effectively dig in and consolidate control of occupied areas along the Southern Axis.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those 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 population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
ISW has updated its assessment of the four primary efforts Russian forces are engaged in at this time. We have stopped coverage of Mariupol as a separate effort since the city’s fall. We had added a new section on activities in Russian-occupied areas:
- Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv City;
- Supporting effort 2—Southern axis;
- Activities in Russian-occupied areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued offensive operations southeast of Izyum toward Slovyansk but did not make any confirmed advances on May 29. Russian troops unsuccessfully attacked Bohorodychne, about 30 km southeast of Izyum.[2] Russian forces additionally shelled Ukrainian positions southwest of Izyum around Husarivka, Velyka Komyshuvakha, and Virnopillya, and to the southeast of Izyum around Dovehenke and Raihorodok.[3] Russian efforts south of Izyum have likely shifted from being a key effort to a subordinate action increasingly intended to support offensive operations around Lyman. Advances in both southeastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast are now subordinate to the dominant Russian effort in the Donbas, the encirclement of Severodonetsk.[4]
Russian forces continued ground assaults against Severodonetsk itself on May 29, though ISW cannot confirm any specific advances. The Ukrainian General Staff stated on May 29 that Russian troops intend to encircle Severodonetsk and Lysychansk and cut the main Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in the area, as ISW has previously assessed.[5] Russian forces additionally attempted to advance northward toward Severodonetsk from Bobrove and Ustynivka.[6] Head of Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai emphasized that Ukrainian troops are still in control of Severodonetsk, denying Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s false claims that Severodonetsk is under full Russian control as of May 28.[7] Haidai additionally claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a limited counterattack and drove a Russian grouping out of Toshkivka, which may put pressure on Russian operations in the vicinity of Popasna.[8]
Russian forces continued offensive operations to push westward of the Luhansk Oblast administrative border and cut Ukrainian GLOCs northeast of Bakhmut, rather than advancing toward Bakhmut itself, on May 29. The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Russian troops are fighting around Volodymyrivka, Vasylivka, Komyshuvakha, and Myronivka those troops likely intend to reach and block the Bakmut-Lysychansk T1302 highway.[9] Russian forces around Donetsk City continued unsuccessful assaults around Avdiivka.[10] The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Russian troops intensified air, mortar, artillery, and rocket strikes in western Donetsk Oblast around Kurakhove on May 29.[11] The Ukrainian General Staff has not reported any Russian offensive operations around Kurakhove since May 16, and this report may indicate Russian efforts to renew offensive operations in this sector to support stalled Russian operations towards Zaporizhia.[12]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Withdraw forces to the north and defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum)
Russian forces focused on maintaining their positions north of Kharkiv City and fired on surrounding settlements on May 29.[13] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces fired on Cherkasy Tyshky, Ruski Tyshky, Petrivka, and Ternova to deter further Ukrainian advances toward the international border.[14] A Russian Telegram channel claimed that Ukrainian forces took heavy losses during fighting in Ternova and that Russian troops have subsequently stopped Ukrainian pushes toward the international border.[15]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
The ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in northwestern Kherson Oblast did not make any confirmed advances on May 29, and Russian forces focused on maintaining their defensive positions and launching limited attacks to regain lost ground.[16] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces took up defensive positions in Kostromka, a settlement in northwestern Kherson Oblast within 10 km of the Kherson-Mykolaiv oblast border.[17] Reporting by Russian and Ukrainian sources indicates that Ukrainian troops likely conducted a counter-offensive south of the village of Davydiv Brid and east of the Inhulets River on May 28.[18] The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Russian forces are attempting to recapture positions in Andriivka, Bilohirka, and Bila Krynytsia, indicating the Ukrainian counteroffensive south of Davydiv Brid recaptured these positions on the Kherson-Mykolaiv border on May 28.[19] Russian forces are reportedly fighting around Vysokopillya, Dobryanka, and Kochubeivka, all settlements in northern Kherson Oblast.[20] Russian forces conducted artillery strikes against Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts and a missile strike against Kryvyi Rih.[21]
Activity in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian forces continued to consolidate their administrative control of occupied regions on May 29. Russian occupation forces are reportedly shipping looted rolled steel and metal to Russia through the Port of Mariupol.[22] The Russian-backed head of Kherson’s civil-military administration, Kirill Stremousov, told Reuters that the decision for Kherson to join Russia will likely occur next year and walked back his previous statements that Kherson would join Russia automatically by stating there will be a “referendum.”[23] Stremousov said that the occupation administration is focusing on restoring order in Kherson before making decisions on a potential referendum to join the Russian Federation, indicating that Ukrainian partisan activities may be disrupting ongoing efforts to consolidate full Russian administrative control of Kherson Oblast.
2. Ukraine suffers on battlefield while pleading for U.S. arms
Excerpts:
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, told The Post that the Ukrainian government refuses any plan other than a military loss for Russia on the battlefield.
“If Russia doesn’t lose, they won’t have any internal transformation,” Podolyak said. “A Russia that doesn’t lose will, on the contrary, be more chauvinist and have an even more revanchist outlook, because they will hate us for humiliating them in front of the rest of the world … and, accordingly, in two years they will come back and kill us even more brutally.”
Zelensky, who said Kissinger was living in 1938 — a reference to attempts to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II — chided “great geopoliticians” trying to give away parts of Ukraine in a post on Instagram on Saturday, saying they were unwilling to see the people who live in those territories as real people.
“Ordinary Ukrainians. Millions of those who actually live in the territory they propose to exchange for the illusion of peace,” Zelensky said. “You must always see people. And remember that values are not just a word.”
Ukraine suffers on battlefield while pleading for U.S. arms
By Siobhán O'Grady, Paul Sonne, Max Bearak and Anastacia Galouchka
‘They’re just raining down metal on us,’ said a soldier fresh from the front line where Russia is advancing
May 29, 2022 at 3:04 p.m. EDT
DONETSK OBLAST, Ukraine — The ambulances hurtled into the parking lot one after the other, each carrying wounded troops directly from the nearby front line. One young man stared straight ahead, his face swollen, his neck and back dripping with blood. Others lay silently under foil blankets.
Some stumbled out the back doors and collapsed into wheelchairs as staff members rushed to push them inside. Nearby, bloodied cots sat propped against a tent and other wounded soldiers lingered about, their faces grim, their heads, arms or legs bandaged as the sound of outgoing artillery boomed across the sky.
About 10 wounded soldiers arrived at this hospital in eastern Ukraine in less than an hour Sunday morning — the latest military casualties as Ukrainian forces, outgunned by Russia in the country’s east, continue to lose territory at a critical moment in the war.
Soldiers also helped one civilian woman with leg wounds out of a military ambulance.
The Washington Post is withholding the name and precise location of the hospital out of concerns from staff members that it could be targeted by Russian forces.
“Seventy people from my battalion were injured in the last week,” said a soldier and ambulance driver just outside the hospital gates who identified himself only as Vlad, 29. “I lost too many friends; it’s hard for me. I don’t know how many. … It’s getting worse every day.”
The night before, he said, the shelling was so loud he hardly got any sleep. “It’s all artillery bombing down,” he said. “All the wounded are coming from shrapnel. Most guys in the trenches haven’t even seen the enemy face-to-face.”
Last week, one battalion of young soldiers on a road near Kramatorsk spent their days digging defensive trenches in a pocket not far from the front line.
They were gearing up to provide additional support for the soldiers battling the Russians head-on, preparing for a worst-case scenario in which Russian forces continue or accelerate their current advance. That would be a potential turning point on the battlefield.
It would come at a particularly desperate moment for the Ukrainians. Kyiv is already enraged that some Western voices are floating the idea of ceding territory to Moscow. And the Biden administration is taking weeks to decide whether to provide heavier weaponry that could aid Ukrainian troops at this critical juncture in the war.
“Everyone’s tired,” said Bohdan, a 30-year-old soldier and officer in the battalion who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used and his precise position not be given. “But we are ready to stand and protect until the last man.”
In recent days, Russian troops have captured the towns of Svitlodarsk and Lyman and have closed in on Severodonetsk, a large regional hub, where Russian forces have entered a hotel on the city limits. If Russian troops manage to encircle and take the city, Moscow would occupy nearly all of Ukraine’s easternmost Luhansk region, which makes up roughly half of Donbas.
“I mainly hope the boys don’t get encircled in Severodonetsk,” Bohdan said of his fellow troops. “They need more guns, they need more weapons.”
If he could send one message to Washington, he said, it would be this: “Help us with weapons. The most important is antiaircraft. Close the sky — it’s the civilians who are suffering the most.”
The situation in the country’s east marks a shift from an earlier stage of the war, when staunch Ukrainian defenses forced a broad Russian retreat in Kyiv and other areas, increasing confidence among Ukrainians and their Western backers about the prospects of all-out victory over a poorly organized and equipped Russian force.
Having now regrouped, Russian troops are making incremental but steady progress in their campaign in the east and are regularly employing heavy flamethrowers and long-range artillery that Ukrainian forces lack, leaving Kyiv on the back foot. Though Ukrainian resistance has made the fight a slog for Russian forces, Moscow is inching closer to encircling Ukraine’s biggest strongholds in the Donbas region, while fighting on territory contiguous to Russia with easier supply lines.
In a video address early Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation on the battlefield in Donbas was “very difficult,” with Russian forces attacking Ukrainian positions with “maximum artillery and maximum reserves.”
“We are defending our land insofar as the defense resources we have today will allow. We’re doing everything we can to strengthen them — and we will strengthen them,” Zelensky said. “If the occupiers think Severodonetsk or Lyman will be theirs, they are mistaken. Donbas will be Ukrainian.”
For weeks, Zelensky and other top Ukrainian officials have been asking the United States to provide multiple launch rocket systems, or MLRS, which would give Kyiv the ability to strike targets from much farther away and a better chance of resisting the assault in the east.
U.S. officials and congressional staffers told The Post on Friday that the administration is preparing to send the weaponry and could announce the move as early as this week, but the White House must still make a final decision on the transfer.
Some White House officials had expressed concern that providing MLRS weaponry with a range of more than 180 miles would allow Ukrainian forces to hit targets far into Russian territory, potentially prompting an escalatory response from Moscow, but the White House is now comfortable managing that risk by withholding the longest-range ammunition for the system, a senior U.S. official told The Post.
Whether the weaponry will get to Ukrainian forces in time to stave off a significant defeat in the east is now unclear, as Russian forces unleash a wave of attacks with gruesome weaponry on Ukrainian positions, forcing an exodus of people from the country’s embattled easternmost regions.
In an Instagram post on Friday, Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, said Ukrainian forces needed the weaponry “yesterday,” as well as other systems that have been requested, such as air defense systems and tanks.
Outside the hospital Sunday, men who were recently wounded in Severodonetsk lamented the difficult conditions on the ground. “We need more Javelins,” said Lapa, 26, who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his call sign.
On Saturday, he said, many dead soldiers slain in fighting nearby were carried out. Now, he said, “Ukrainian soldiers are pulling back.”
He was at the hospital to be treated for a fracture in his leg and a wounded arm. Another soldier in his unit, who identified himself as Adik, 41, had broken ribs. A bloody bandage covered the side of his head where he had been hit with shrapnel.
“They’re just raining down metal on us,” Lapa said. Nearby, a 25-year-old with his head wrapped in a bandage puffed on a cigarette. He goes by Koleh and had recently hit a mine, he said, although he didn’t know how exactly he ended up wounded.
Severodonetsk, he added, “is the worst.”
Ukrainians waiting for help away from the front lines are suffering too.
On Saturday, at the train station in the eastern city of Pokrovsk, a hub where civilians have arrived to evacuate from cities across Donbas, four elderly women lay crammed side-by-side in the back of a van, a mix of dirty blankets and pillows covering their frail legs. Underneath, they wore nothing but diapers.
Hours earlier, volunteers had evacuated them from a nursing home in Chasov Yar, a small town less than 50 miles from Severodonetsk. Now, one by one, they moaned and wailed in pain as they were lifted onto pieces of tarp and carried from the van into an evacuation train heading west — a trip their caretakers hoped might save their lives.
“They’re shooting a lot, they’re bombing a lot,” said a woman named Halya, who was 73 and missing the lower half of her right leg. “Now the war has gotten to us and it’s gotten a bit scary.”
Many elderly evacuees — all with red bracelets strapped around their wrists — said they did not know exactly where they were going. One said her family was trapped nearby in occupied territory. Another couldn’t speak at all, tears streaming down her face as she grasped the hands of two reporters.
On a main road heading east from the city of Dnipro on Saturday, even a gas station attendant urgently appealed to a Washington Post reporter for more support from the United States — begging for antiaircraft weapons to help protect her two sons serving on the front line near Donetsk. At a nearby checkpoint, a Virgin Mary statue draped in a Ukrainian flag sat propped up high, another plea posted beneath her: “Pray for Ukraine.”
As Ukrainian forces seek to hold the line, officials in Kyiv have been disheartened to see suggestions from the West that Ukraine should give up part of its territory to satisfy Russian President Vladimir Putin and end the war.
For days, top Ukrainian officials have been fending off suggestions from European leaders, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and the New York Times editorial board that Kyiv should enter talks with Russia and make concessions.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have been pushing peace talks, and top Italian officials submitted a peace plan to the United Nations that would freeze the current front lines, leading to a significant loss of territory for Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials believe that any concessions to satisfy Putin now will only lead to Russia regrouping and launching a far more vicious war against Ukraine in the future.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, told The Post that the Ukrainian government refuses any plan other than a military loss for Russia on the battlefield.
“If Russia doesn’t lose, they won’t have any internal transformation,” Podolyak said. “A Russia that doesn’t lose will, on the contrary, be more chauvinist and have an even more revanchist outlook, because they will hate us for humiliating them in front of the rest of the world … and, accordingly, in two years they will come back and kill us even more brutally.”
Zelensky, who said Kissinger was living in 1938 — a reference to attempts to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II — chided “great geopoliticians” trying to give away parts of Ukraine in a post on Instagram on Saturday, saying they were unwilling to see the people who live in those territories as real people.
“Ordinary Ukrainians. Millions of those who actually live in the territory they propose to exchange for the illusion of peace,” Zelensky said. “You must always see people. And remember that values are not just a word.”
In Pokrovsk, many of those people rushed to board the evacuation train, some carrying animals or children. One young couple held each other close — then kissed before the woman took her seat inside, leaving the man on the platform to watch her through the window.
They stayed on the phone until the train pulled out of the station — not knowing if or when they might see one another again.
Bearak and Sonne reported from Kyiv.
3. How to Break Russia’s Blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea Ports
The UN, NATO, and the US must take this on and act to open the sea lines of communication so food can be transported around the world.
Excerpt:
Ukraine supplies a significant portion of the world’s wheat (roughly 7% of global exports), sunflower oil and other critical agricultural products. Russia’s actions are not only illegal under international law but may well cause famine in the Middle East and North Africa — already unstable hotspots.
How to Break Russia’s Blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea Ports
Putin’s illegal actions are destroying Kyiv’s economy and causing global hunger. The US and allies need to protect grain ships.
May 29, 2022, 3:00 AM EDT
When I was operations officer on an Aegis guided-missile destroyer in the late 1980s, we were given a mission in the Arabian Gulf. The Iranians, amid the so-called Tanker War with Iraq, were trying to close off the vital Strait of Hormuz.
The rest of the world needed to keep oil flowing, and chose a fairly dramatic solution: escorting convoys of oil tankers, which were flagged by the US, in and out of the tight waterway. Called Operation Earnest Will, it was mostly successful, running from the hot summer of 1987 to the fall of 1988. (Admittedly, there was a great tragedy during this time, the downing of an Iranian jetliner with 290 people killed.)
Earnest Will kept the oil flowing and took away leverage from the Iranians. My cruiser, the Valley Forge, had a successful deployment, and the mission had an important impact on global geopolitics and energy supplies.
As the world faces food shortages due to the illegal blockade of Ukraine by Russia, the US and its allies should consider a similar response.
Ukraine supplies a significant portion of the world’s wheat (roughly 7% of global exports), sunflower oil and other critical agricultural products. Russia’s actions are not only illegal under international law but may well cause famine in the Middle East and North Africa — already unstable hotspots.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has maritime control of the northern Black Sea because his fleet, with more than two dozen significant combatant ships, is by far the most powerful in the region. With 25,000 mariners and around 40 surface warships and seven submarines, the fleet is formidable even after the loss of its massive Slava-class flagship, the Moskva, to a Ukrainian cruise missile strike in April.
While North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria have capable forces in the Black Sea, Ukraine has virtually no navy left to challenge the Russian blockade. Russian forces are arrayed along its coast and are in position to choke off the economy, with the side-effect of preventing agricultural products from reaching their intended markets.
Moscow is using a strategy reminiscent of the one employed by the Union military against the agrarian South in the US Civil War. Called the Anaconda Plan, after the snake that chokes its victims to death, the seagoing portion deprived the Confederacy of hard currency by preventing the export of cotton. Several European countries challenged the maritime blockade, to little avail.
Putin is taking a page out of Lincoln’s playbook, and it is having an effect. The Russians have now proposed negotiations to allow the shipment of grain in return for a lifting of Western sanctions, which the US and its allies will not accept.
Which brings us to the idea of breaking the blockade by escorting merchant ships. The first challenge is the most obvious: Who will do the escorting? This could be done under the auspices of the United Nations, by NATO or by a coalition of nations willing to undertake what will be a provocative and dangerous mission.
The most likely approach would be the latter, led by the US and probably including the UK and France, and perhaps Black Sea nations Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria.
A second challenge will be clearing mines, because both the Ukrainians and Russians have used them to try and control the seas along the Ukrainian coast. NATO has a standing force of minesweepers for exactly this purpose. This flotilla is operating under the command of one of my successors as supreme allied commander, General Tod Wolters.
Third, the nations carrying out any blockade would need to work with the major shipping countries and the international merchants who carry and own the grain and other products. This could be organized by the International Maritime Organization, headquartered in London. Part of the UN, the IMO played a similar role in organizing international responses to piracy off the coast of Africa when I was NATO commander.
This will probably also require some of the merchant ships to be re-flagged to the nationality of the countries participating in the operation, as the US did in the Gulf.
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Lastly, there is the task of informing Russia of the plan and ensuring that it understands that the coalition conducting the operation will tolerate no interference — but also has no wish to enter combat with the Russian Black Sea fleet. Moscow will likely bluster, but the idea of it attacking NATO warships in international waters is low. If, against the odds, the Russians did something stupid, it would be met with a proportional use of force.
We have reached a pivotal point: Grain shipments are cut off, the Ukrainian economy is devastated, and the coming food crisis must be avoided. The democratic allies should explore an Operation Earnest Will-style approach. Simply allowing Putin to have his way on the high seas cannot continue.
More From Bloomberg Opinion:
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Russia’s Sunken Warship Is a Warning to All Navies: James Stavridis
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What Ukraine Can Learn From Finland’s Stand 80 Years Ago: James Stavridis
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Russia Is Right: The U.S. Is Waging a Proxy War in Ukraine: Hal Brands
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4. Why Putin will never truly conquer Ukraine
Excerpts:
In order to keep hold of what he already has, Putin has imposed puppet administrations in the occupied territories. He has recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk so-called people’s republics, and he may well arrange plebiscites for their incorporation in the Russian Federation on similar terms to Crimea. He has already deported thousands of Ukrainian citizens deep into Russia. A further campaign of ethno-political cleansing is probable. The Russian language will be re-imposed. Russian business interests will be privileged. All this is possible but it would require a massive enduring presence of security forces to stamp out Ukrainian resistance.
A Russian military victory even in Donbass and along the Black Sea coast could never be without horrendous costs for Russia’s ruling group and big business. Russia would remain the world’s pariah state and economy. Resentment of Russia both in the conquered and still-free parts of Ukraine would be greater than anything known to Nicholas II, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Putin will surely at some point – let’s hope it is soon – be asked whether his ‘special military operation’ was worth it all. And it will be the Russians, including some of their ruling group, who will be putting the question.
Why Putin will never truly conquer Ukraine
29 May 2022, 2:00am
Vladimir Putin has never been completely clear about his war aims. But he gives clues. He endlessly talks of the brotherhood of Russians and Ukrainians – and in this relationship he always puts Russia first. In Ukraine he wants Russian language schooling to be restored and he of course wishes to annex more Ukrainian territory. He would like Russian businesses to receive privileged access and for Ukraine to be barred from having an independent foreign and security policy. In other words, he wishes to pursue ‘Russification’.
Russification is an objective that has taken changing forms over the centuries. Under the Russian Empire, the tsars saw Ukraine as a problem as they feared the growth of nationalism. The Ukrainian language was restricted in the press. Ukraine made no appearance on official maps. The territories around Kyiv were called Malorossia (Little Russia) while those near the Black Sea were dubbed Novorossia (New Russia). These names expressed an insistence that the entire destiny of Ukrainian speakers lay with Great Russia.
Imperial Germany coveted Ukraine’s wheat fields and iron mines during the Great War. When Soviet Russia went down to defeat in 1918, the Germans established a Ukrainian puppet state which was obliged to supply them with the grain and labour they craved. Ukrainians nevertheless cherish those brief months as their first experience of statehood. When the communists took charge after the ensuing civil war, Vladimir Lenin saw that Ukraine would remain difficult to rule inside the USSR unless granted the status of a Soviet republic and permitted a degree of cultural and linguistic autonomy – as Putin sees it, this was a cardinal blunder of statecraft that prepared the way for a split between Moscow and Kyiv.
The collapse of Ukrainian statehood now seems unlikely thanks to the bravery of its politicians and armed forces
Joseph Stalin eyed Ukraine as crucial for his forcible imposition of collective farming from the late 1920s. Ukrainian agriculture had been central Europe’s breadbasket before 1914 and the intention was to fund Soviet industrialisation by means of massive cereal exports. Instead there was searing damage to peasant farms and millions of Ukrainians perished in the avoidable famine. Stalin also reintroduced restrictions on the Ukrainian language. More Russians than ever moved to Ukraine seeking work in the mines and steel plants. Moscow offered the Ukrainian people little except poverty and repression. This was one of the reasons why many initially welcomed the Nazi invaders in 1941 – another event that Putin has not forgotten.
Throughout the decades that followed, Soviet rulers met with trouble in Ukraine. Stalin’s occupation forces at the end of the second world war had to contend against partisans who fought to thwart the reimposition of Soviet rule. The communist order was restored by the 1950s. The Ukrainian Soviet republic acquired a seat at the United Nations – perhaps Putin thinks this a blunder on Stalin’s part. Ukraine never became the ‘model’ of Marxist-Leninist affluence that Lenin and Stalin had envisaged and the USSR failed to grow enough food for itself, far less to export grain to foreign parts.
When Mikhail Gorbachëv announced reforms of communism in the late 1980s, he tried to keep a lid on Ukrainian nationalism. But the collapse of the Soviet economy intensified Ukrainians’ resentment about their treatment by Moscow. Leonid Kravchuk, the communist leader in Kyiv, sniffed the nationalist wind in 1991 and aligned himself with Ukrainian opinion by demanding a referendum on independence. That December, after Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to secede, the USSR fell apart – an event described by Putin as the century’s ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe’.
Throughout the 1990s the Ukrainian economy was in a deep depression and was mocked by Russian rulers who themselves had little to boast about. Ukraine’s politics, however, were looser than Russia’s. In the present century they have given rise to presidential electoral contests won by candidates who wanted close ties with the European Union and an open democratic system under the rule of law. Under Volodymyr Zelensky this orientation was consolidated. Putin’s Crimean land grab in 2014 persuaded even the millions of pro-Russia Ukrainian citizens that Ukraine should prioritise cooperation and alliance with the West. Putin’s bullying of Russia’s ‘brother people’ turned that nation into hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism.
So how could Putin ever go about denationalising Ukraine and making it more Russia-friendly? The collapse of Ukrainian statehood now seems unlikely thanks to the bravery of its politicians and armed forces. Territorial annexation is another matter. Large parts of the Donbas, apart from Kharkiv, are occupied by Russian forces. The Black Sea coast has also been overrun. Currently what is left of Ukraine is blockaded by the Russian navy.
In order to keep hold of what he already has, Putin has imposed puppet administrations in the occupied territories. He has recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk so-called people’s republics, and he may well arrange plebiscites for their incorporation in the Russian Federation on similar terms to Crimea. He has already deported thousands of Ukrainian citizens deep into Russia. A further campaign of ethno-political cleansing is probable. The Russian language will be re-imposed. Russian business interests will be privileged. All this is possible but it would require a massive enduring presence of security forces to stamp out Ukrainian resistance.
A Russian military victory even in Donbass and along the Black Sea coast could never be without horrendous costs for Russia’s ruling group and big business. Russia would remain the world’s pariah state and economy. Resentment of Russia both in the conquered and still-free parts of Ukraine would be greater than anything known to Nicholas II, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Putin will surely at some point – let’s hope it is soon – be asked whether his ‘special military operation’ was worth it all. And it will be the Russians, including some of their ruling group, who will be putting the question.
WRITTEN BY
Robert Service is Emeritus Professor of Russian History, St Antony's College Oxford and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
5. Putin Hasn’t Gone Far Enough for Russia’s Hawks
Excerpts:
The last straw for many appears to have been Russia’s catastrophic attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets River in early May, which is thought to be one of the single deadliest episodes in the war so far. Russia is estimated to have lost almost 500 troops and some 80 pieces of equipment, which were closely arrayed like sitting ducks on the riverbank. A Telegram user who goes by the name Rybar posted a scathing critique of Russian commanders, which began to gain traction among other military bloggers on the platform, who until then had been championing the war effort, said Stepanenko, who monitors the accounts. It opened the floodgates as users began to question the pace of the war, comparing the Russian and Ukrainian military operations, reposting images from Western sources, and questioning Russian propaganda.
“It seems to me to be a clear indication that they need to be worried about this,” said Fred Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “They’re engaged in a whole process of trying to talk these bloggers down,” said Kagan, who noted that the bloggers could have a potent impact on the already flagging morale of Russian troops.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu this week acknowledged for the first time that the war was behind schedule, which analysts interpreted as an attempt to manage public expectations about the war.
Other analysts are more skeptical about the impact of the military bloggers. “They do not have an important political influence,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The real risk, Stanovaya said, comes from dashed expectations as promises by Russian officials and state television of a rapid victory look ever more elusive.
“In this way we can talk about some kind of political danger, because they heat the society, and it creates political pressure on Putin that he must finish this war, to win, to go to the end,” she said.
Putin Hasn’t Gone Far Enough for Russia’s Hawks
There’s dissent—but not from peaceniks.
By Amy Mackinnon, a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy.
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A man walks past a building with a banner in support of Russian military action in Ukraine
A man walks past a building with a banner in support of Russian military action in Ukraine in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 8. Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images
Discontent about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is growing inside Russia—but it’s not coming from dissidents, who have been jailed or forced into exile. Instead, it’s coming from hawkish veterans groups and military bloggers in Russia, who are expressing growing agitation with the slow pace of the war, with some calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to institute national mobilization.
The rumblings from staunchly nationalist figures offer a glimpse at the corner into which Putin has painted himself into as he contends with a public hungry for much-promised victory and a military too exhausted to deliver one. British defense intelligence reported this week that Russia is estimated to have lost more troops in the first three months of the war in Ukraine than during the Soviet Union’s nine-year war in Afghanistan.
A rapid crackdown at the outset of the war made it all but impossible for independent media and opposition figures to openly critique the war, while thousands of street protesters were quickly arrested. But Russian military bloggers have been given a free hand on the social media app Telegram, offering a rare avenue of dissent.
Discontent about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is growing inside Russia—but it’s not coming from dissidents, who have been jailed or forced into exile. Instead, it’s coming from hawkish veterans groups and military bloggers in Russia, who are expressing growing agitation with the slow pace of the war, with some calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to institute national mobilization.
The rumblings from staunchly nationalist figures offer a glimpse at the corner into which Putin has painted himself into as he contends with a public hungry for much-promised victory and a military too exhausted to deliver one. British defense intelligence reported this week that Russia is estimated to have lost more troops in the first three months of the war in Ukraine than during the Soviet Union’s nine-year war in Afghanistan.
A rapid crackdown at the outset of the war made it all but impossible for independent media and opposition figures to openly critique the war, while thousands of street protesters were quickly arrested. But Russian military bloggers have been given a free hand on the social media app Telegram, offering a rare avenue of dissent.
While these groups are far from the inner sanctum of Kremlin politics, the rumblings underscore the fact that if Putin is to face any real challenge over the war in Ukraine, it will likely come from hawks who feel it hasn’t gone far enough.
“These people are not calling for Russia to stop the war,” said Kateryna Stepanenko, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War. “All of the military channels that I follow, they are explicitly saying that ‘we are criticizing the Russian government and military command for the sole purpose of Russian victory.’”
In an open letter sent last week to Putin and other senior officials, a Russian veterans group described the inability to capture Kyiv as a “failure” and condemned the army’s shortages of drones, ammunition, and thermal imaging. The letter from the All-Russian Officers Assembly was deeply infused with ethnonationalist language and conspiracy theories, describing the battle as a battle for the “preservation a white and Christian Europe.”
One of the most vocal critics of the war is former FSB officer Igor Girkin, better known by his nom de guerre Strelkov, who helped initiate the war in the Donbas in the spring of 2014 when he led a group of militants to seize the city of Sloviansk before rising to briefly become the minister of defense of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic. This week, Girkin amplified reports that fighters from the Donetsk region were allegedly forced to mobilize at the beginning of war and were pushed into battle poorly equipped with little training, sustaining high losses. While unable to independently verify the claims, the Institute for the Study of War noted in its daily report on Wednesday that such critiques of the war would not have gained such traction earlier in the campaign, “demonstrat[ing] the strong resonance anti-Kremlin narratives can now have.”
Telegram channels have offered a new and unique platform for analysis and discussion about Russia’s highly secretive military. “In three months of the war, something completely unprecedented has emerged—a space for debate within the Russian army, uncensored, and beyond the control of the Ministry of Defense,” Russian journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan wrote in a blog post for the think tank the Center for European Policy Analysis. “Don’t be misled—these are not peaceniks in the making. If they criticize the army and the Kremlin, they do so from more radical positions,” the wrote.
The last straw for many appears to have been Russia’s catastrophic attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets River in early May, which is thought to be one of the single deadliest episodes in the war so far. Russia is estimated to have lost almost 500 troops and some 80 pieces of equipment, which were closely arrayed like sitting ducks on the riverbank. A Telegram user who goes by the name Rybar posted a scathing critique of Russian commanders, which began to gain traction among other military bloggers on the platform, who until then had been championing the war effort, said Stepanenko, who monitors the accounts. It opened the floodgates as users began to question the pace of the war, comparing the Russian and Ukrainian military operations, reposting images from Western sources, and questioning Russian propaganda.
“It seems to me to be a clear indication that they need to be worried about this,” said Fred Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “They’re engaged in a whole process of trying to talk these bloggers down,” said Kagan, who noted that the bloggers could have a potent impact on the already flagging morale of Russian troops.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu this week acknowledged for the first time that the war was behind schedule, which analysts interpreted as an attempt to manage public expectations about the war.
Other analysts are more skeptical about the impact of the military bloggers. “They do not have an important political influence,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The real risk, Stanovaya said, comes from dashed expectations as promises by Russian officials and state television of a rapid victory look ever more elusive.
“In this way we can talk about some kind of political danger, because they heat the society, and it creates political pressure on Putin that he must finish this war, to win, to go to the end,” she said.
Amy Mackinnon is a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @ak_mack
6. A Lack of Morality and Courage
A harsh critique.
A Lack of Morality and Courage
May 29, 2022 9:06 PM
With shock and dismay, I read this statement that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, made on May 23:
Many countries in the world depend on Ukrainian grain. As for what we’re doing about it, we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea. We don’t intend to. . . . It’s a no-go for commercial shipping.
Note the use of the pronoun “we.” Milley is the top military adviser to the president. So it is reasonable to assume that the “we” refers to both General Milley and President Biden.
There is a moral component to Milley’s words. Both the president and the chairman profess to be devout in their religion. Tens of thousands of the world’s poor will starve to death because, as Milley put it, “we don’t intend to place naval assets in the Black Sea.” Thus were morality and compassion dismissed.
More important, the president and the chairman are charged with defending our beloved nation. Putting morality aside, we expect courage from those whose job is to protect us. By fleeing from the Black Sea when Putin sailed in, they jointly abandoned the bedrock principle of freedom of the seas. No commercial shipping, General Milley declared, not with Putin glowering. And so they have established the precedent for Xi to push us out of the South China Sea or the Taiwan Straits.
Both morality (feeding the poor) and courage (standing up for the principles of our nation) have been abandoned in the Black Sea. President Biden and General Milley’s peremptory decision to give up is discouraging. The least they could have done was organize a humanitarian convoy, including the United States and many other nations, to escort out the grain ships.
Why haven’t they done it? Do they believe that Putin would go to war against dozens of countries in order to starve the poor? Sadly, our president and the chairman of the joint chiefs took counsel of their fears. It is past time to put aside fear and do the right thing.
BING WEST, a former assistant secretary of defense and combat Marine, is the author of a dozen books about Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. His latest is THE LAST PLATOON: A Novel of the Afghanistan War. @bingwest
7. Russian Academics Aim to Punish Colleagues Who Backed Ukraine Invasion
Excerpts:
Some researchers fled Russia as a result of the war. Universities and institutions around the world have allotted positions to academics from Russia and Ukraine under programs like Scholars At Risk. Anna Abalkina, a sociologist of Russian origin at the Free University of Berlin, said was aware of some who relocated to her university.
Another problem is the deepening isolation of scientists who remain in Russia, with many being barred from participating in certain projects, working with international collaborators and attending certain conferences.
Another factor, Dr. Albakina said, is the decision of influential international databases, including Web of Science and Scopus, to stop offering their services in Russia.
“It means that the quality of publications will go down immediately,” she said.
Ultimately the future of Russian science hinges on whether President Vladimir V. Putin stays in power, Dr. Nozik added.
“It is my belief that it is not possible to do modern science in Russia under Putin’s regime,” he said.
Russian Academics Aim to Punish Colleagues Who Backed Ukraine Invasion
A campaign is circulating a list of dozens of researchers in the hopes they will be denied the prestige of election into the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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The Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.Credit...Felix Lipov/Alamy
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May 27, 2022
Some academic researchers in Russia are quietly working to prevent colleagues who have supported their country’s invasion of Ukraine from being elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences this month.
If they succeed, they will deny those who back the war a prized credential that confers prestige in Russian institutions of higher learning. Their campaign could also show that some acts of protest remain possible despite a government crackdown on dissent.
The Russian Academy of Sciences is a nonprofit network of research institutes in a variety of disciplines across the Russian Federation. It has just under 1,900 members in Russia and nearly 450 nonvoting foreign members.
The academy elects new members every three years. The upcoming poll, starting on Monday, is for 309 seats, including 92 for senior academicians and 217 for corresponding members. The competition is steep: More than 1,700 candidates have applied.
This month, a group of Russian researchers started circulating a list of dozens of candidates who have publicly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by signing pro-war declarations or letters their universities or institutions released or by making such statements themselves.
But many academic researchers have taken an antiwar stance. More than 8,000 Russian scientists and science journalists have signed an open letter opposing the invasion since it was first published in February.
Three academic researchers — who were not identified because they risk job loss, imprisonment and their safety by publicly opposing the war — said in interviews that they helped create the list of those who supported the war to prevent them from being elected to the academy.
Members of the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences did not respond to a request for comment.
Some voters think the list could make a difference in the elections.
“Most of the scientific community is definitely antiwar,” said Alexander Nozik, a physicist at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology who was not involved in creating the list. “Being in such a list could significantly reduce chances to be elected.”
Some outside observers say that the Russian Academy is not as powerful as it once was.
“It used to be a vast network of research institutes containing the best scientists in the country,” said Loren Graham, a historian who specializes in Russian science, with emeritus positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. “Those institutes have now been stripped away by the Putin government, given to the Ministry of Education, and leaving the academy as an honorific society without genuine heft in science.”
Members of the academy have also been implicated in ethical shortcomings in recent years. In 2020, a commission the body appointed found that Russian academic journals and research publications were riddled with plagiarism, self-plagiarism and gift authorship, where scientists were listed as co-authors of manuscripts without contributing to the work. As a result of the report, Russian journals retracted more than 800 research papers in which the authors were thought to have committed ethical violations.
And some say such problems diminish the importance of the academy’s upcoming election.
“A lot of people in Russian science still believe that the academy is the oldest structure that can do something — not because it is good but because others are worse,” said Dr. Nozik.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
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In Kharkiv. Several neighborhoods in the northeastern city, where the Ukrainians repelled an attempted Russian encirclement in mid-May, came under fire again. At least nine people were killed in the attack, which shattered the sense of relative peace that had begun returning there.
Talks in Europe. European Union leaders will gather on May 30 and 31 to discuss Ukraine’s financial needs for reconstruction and the effect of the war on the global economy. But hopes that the summit would also see the end to a standoff with Hungary over a possible Russian oil embargo appear to have faded.
This is not the first time the Russian Academy of Sciences has found itself pulled into disputes over the invasion of Ukraine. On March 7, it released a statement about the war. Some observers saw it as the closest any official institution in the country came to condemning Russia’s aggression, but critics believed it was not as explicitly antiwar as it should have been.
But the statement did address the repercussions of the war and how the international response to it would affect Russian science, a concern shared by Russian academics.
“We condemn any attempts to exert political pressure on researchers, teachers, graduate students and students on the grounds of nationality or citizenship,” the academy said in its statement.
Some researchers fled Russia as a result of the war. Universities and institutions around the world have allotted positions to academics from Russia and Ukraine under programs like Scholars At Risk. Anna Abalkina, a sociologist of Russian origin at the Free University of Berlin, said was aware of some who relocated to her university.
Another problem is the deepening isolation of scientists who remain in Russia, with many being barred from participating in certain projects, working with international collaborators and attending certain conferences.
Another factor, Dr. Albakina said, is the decision of influential international databases, including Web of Science and Scopus, to stop offering their services in Russia.
“It means that the quality of publications will go down immediately,” she said.
Ultimately the future of Russian science hinges on whether President Vladimir V. Putin stays in power, Dr. Nozik added.
“It is my belief that it is not possible to do modern science in Russia under Putin’s regime,” he said.
8. Heavy fighting as Russian troops enter outskirts of Sievierodonetsk
Heavy fighting as Russian troops enter outskirts of Sievierodonetsk
- Summary
- Russian forces enter fringes of Sievierodonetsk - governor
- Ukraine pleads for more weapons from West
- Borrell says EU will agree on next sanctions package
KYIV, Ukraine, May 30 (Reuters) - Russian troops have entered the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor said on Monday, describing "very fierce" fighting in the ruins of a city that has become the focus of Moscow's offensive.
Russia has concentrated its firepower on the last major population centre still held by Ukrainian forces in the eastern Luhansk province, in a push to achieve one of President Vladimir Putin's stated objectives after three months of war.
Incessant shelling has left Ukrainian forces defending ruins in Sievierodonetsk, but their refusal to withdraw has slowed the massive Russian offensive across the Donbas region.
Luhansk region governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian troops had advanced into the city's southeastern and northeastern fringes. But he said Ukrainian forces had driven the Russians out of the village of Toshkivka to the south, potentially frustrating Moscow's push to encircle the area. read more
"Capturing Sievierodonetsk is a fundamental task for the occupiers ... We do all we can to hold this advance," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a televised speech.
"Some 90% of buildings are damaged. More than two-thirds of the city's housing stock has been completely destroyed."
European Union leaders were due to meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss a new sanctions package against Russia, potentially including an oil embargo.
But EU governments have been unable to reach agreement in a month of talks, with Hungary in particular saying it cannot afford to shut off the Russian oil that supplies its refineries through the huge Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, whose name means "Friendship".
Ahead of the summit, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck expressed fears that EU unity was "starting to crumble". Draft conclusions, seen by Reuters, indicated there would be little in terms of new decisions. read more
But EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that "there will be an agreement in the end", with a deal on the next sanctions package by Monday afternoon.
'UNCONDITIONAL PRIORITY'
After failing to capture Kyiv in March, Russia announced that the focus of its "special military operation" was now to seize the entire Donbas region, consisting of two provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk, that Moscow claims on behalf of separatist proxies.
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A police officer checks an area during an evacuation of local residents between shelling, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the village of Novomykhailivka, in Donetsk region, Ukraine May 29, 2022. Picture taken May 29, 2022. REUTERS/Anna Kudriavtseva
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday said the "liberation" of the Donbas was an "unconditional priority" for Moscow. read more
Capturing Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river would give Russia effective control of Luhansk province, a point at which the Kremlin might be able to declare some form of victory.
But by focusing its effort on a battle for the single small city - Sievierodonetsk housed only around 100,000 people before the war - Russia might be leaving other territory open to eventual Ukrainian counterstrikes.
The past few days have seen initial signs of a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south, where Moscow is trying to consolidate its control of Kherson province, captured in the early weeks after it launched its invasion in February.
Kyiv says its forces pushed back Russian troops in recent days to defensive positions in three villages - Andriyivka, Lozove and Bilohorka - all located on the south bank of the Inhulets River that forms the border of Kherson.
The Institute for the Study of War think tank said this Ukrainian counterattack so far did not appear likely to retake substantial territory in the near term, but could disrupt Russian operations and force Moscow to reinforce the area.
Just to the north of the Kherson front, a suspected Russian strike damaged the centre of the Ukrainian-held town of Novyi Buh overnight, the town council said on Telegram.
Russia said it had also struck a shipyard in Mykolayiv, a major Ukrainian-held port just west of Kherson.
Separately, French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna was due to meet Zelenskiy in Kyiv later on Monday to offer more support, the French foreign affairs ministry said.
The Ukrainian government urged the West to provide more longer-range weapons to turn the tide in the war, now in its fourth month. Zelenskiy said he expected "good news" in the coming days.
A Ukrainian soldier on patrol in trenches near the town of Bakhmut, southwest of Sievierodonetsk, spoke of a nagging fear that his government could be drawn into negotiating an end to the conflict that would result in Ukraine losing territory.
"You know now what I'm most afraid of, now that the fighting is so intense, so tough?" Dmytro, a former English language teacher, told Reuters television. "That we would be told: That's it, stop it, we have a ceasefire."
"A negotiated settlement can only happen on Ukrainian terms, and at present if it happened it would be a horror."
Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk, Stephen Coates, Peter Graff; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Kevin Liffey
9. What is America’s end-game for the war in Ukraine?
But how effective is our military support? It seems as if we have been piecemealing it and not providing fully mission capable systems.
What is America’s end-game for the war in Ukraine?
The US is trying to provide effective military support to Kyiv while keeping the support of allies worried about a long conflict
Shortly before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February, General Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a pessimistic view of the likely outcome. One possible outcome, he told a closed congressional hearing, was that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours.
Speaking on Monday, after three months in which the Ukrainians have not only fended off the initial assault on the capital but are holding their own in a grinding ground war in the south east of the country, Milley struck a very different note.
The US, he said, would continue supporting the Ukrainian war effort because it was important to demonstrate that “the big can’t just destroy and invade the weak and the small”. And as for how the war might end, Milley said it was for the Ukrainians to decide “the end state inside the boundaries of Ukraine”.
Ukraine’s successes on the battlefield have prompted an almost triumphalist mood in some parts of Washington in recent weeks. In contrast to the gloom of the early days of the conflict, some leading politicians and officials now see the opportunity to deliver a decisive blow to Russia.
Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, said after a visit to Kyiv and a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky that America stands “with Ukraine until victory is won.” US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said “we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
Washington has lined up an unprecedented $54bn in aid since the war began to sustain the fight for months to come. Most of that was approved last week, when US President Joe Biden signed legislation that will funnel $40bn more to the war effort, including about $20bn in military assistance.
Joe Biden takes a selfie with US troops stationed in Poland, who are helping to reinforce Nato’s eastern flank © Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
But behind the confident rhetoric, there is much less clarity about what Washington actually believes can and should happen in Ukraine. There is little detail about what a strategic defeat for Russia would actually look like or what sort of territorial settlement the US might end up encouraging the Ukrainians to accept.
According to recently drafted internal talking points from the US National Security Council viewed by The Financial Times, Washington “seeks a democratic, sovereign, and independent Ukraine” and aims to make sure Russia’s effort to dominate Ukraine “ends in a strategic failure”.
“We are focused on giving Ukraine as strong a hand as possible on the battlefield to ensure it has as much leverage as possible at the negotiating table,” according to the talking points.
Some analysts say that the administration may be keeping elements of its war aims deliberately vague.
“The goal is to ensure that Russia fails in its aggression against Ukraine . . . what’s not exactly clear is, how do you define failure?” says Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine and William Perry Fellow at Stanford University. “To maintain a degree of flexibility, they’re not going to want to go too far down into detail on that.”
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The Biden administration is now trying to conduct a delicate balancing act. It wants to provide effective military support to Ukraine and avoid any impression that it is trying to push it into eventual compromises on territory that would create political problems in Kyiv.
But at the same time, it is trying to hold together an international coalition in support of Ukraine that includes some European allies who worry loudly and openly about the impact of a long protracted war, both on Ukraine and its society and on their own economies.
In recent weeks, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy have all made statements encouraging some sort of ceasefire and negotiated settlement.
And while all the members of the international coalition members insist that the final decisions on war aims lie with the Ukrainians, they know that Kyiv’s ability to keep fighting depends heavily on the weapons and financial assistance it receives — most of all from the Americans.
“The Europeans wish they knew what was America’s end game plan, because the idea of Russia losing — or not winning — has not been defined,” says Stefano Stefanini, Italy’s former ambassador to Nato.
Heavy weapons
The significant new American assistance signals Washington’s commitment to Ukraine for the long haul. But it is also being carefully calibrated.
The US has sent billions of dollars of heavy weapons into Ukraine, and officials said they are discussing additional Ukrainian requests as they plan how to distribute the newest package.
Ukrainian forces see longer range fire as critical in a fight that is becoming one of attrition, where both sides are shelling each other with heavy artillery and sustaining heavy losses.
The US has pledged dozens of American-made 155mm howitzers — which have a longer range and are more accurate than standard Russian canons. The majority have arrived in Ukraine and are beginning to be used on the battlefield, US defence officials said.
The administration faces domestic political pressure to go further. Rob Portman, a Republican senator from Ohio, and other senators have called on the administration to send multiple launch rocket systems, which are the subject of active debate.
Ukrainian solders carry out maintenance on American-made 155mm howitzers in the Donetsk region © Ivor Prickett/New York Times/Redux/eyevine
“We’ve got to be sure that we are giving them what they actually need,” he said earlier this week. “We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that if we stop providing certain systems like MLRS that somehow we will therefore not be provoking Russia and that President [Vladimir] Putin will gracefully acknowledge that gesture and somehow cease his assault or lessen his assault on Ukraine.”
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly asked for longer weapons such as himars, a type of rocket launcher that fires in rapid salvos. However, the US hasn’t made a decision on that system yet and one Congressional official said the administration has been hesitant to send them. Such a move has support in the Pentagon and the state department and a decision could come next week.
The Biden administration doesn’t want to see US military aid used to help Ukraine attack inside Russia and it is not providing targeting information for senior Russian military leaders in the field, officials said.
The careful deliberations over weapons is part of a broader discussion in Washington about what a “strategic defeat” for Russia actually means.
US officials argue that Russia will be left weaker after the war no matter how it unfolds, particularly because of the global sanctions and export controls that will continue to weaken its economy.
Chris Coons, a Democratic senator from Delaware and a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, says “Putin has already lost in a larger strategic sense”.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a ceremony to mark Sweden and Finland’s application to join the military alliance © Johanna Geron/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Sweden and Finland have both submitted applications to Nato, and Coons said they have strong bipartisan support in the Senate, which must back the applications before the president signs off. American officials have said they see Turkey’s concerns about the new entrants as something that can be addressed in talks with Ankara rather than an insurmountable obstacle.
“Russia is going to be weakened regardless of what happens in the war,” says Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation. “Russia is going to be isolated, impoverished, surrounded by more Nato with a much weaker military and a global pariah in a lot of ways.”
However, despite the setbacks that the Russian military campaign has suffered, US officials say that it still has the ability to significantly weaken Ukraine, by pressing ahead with a protracted conflict that will keep the country in financial crisis. Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea ports has essentially halted Ukrainian grain exports in a significant blow to world food supplies.
Keeping the allies onboard
Many of Washington’s European allies share the same fears about a prolonged war.
So far the United States has kept Nato and other partners together. Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, recently told Congress that Russia’s President Putin is banking on the notion that such unity will eventually fall apart.
“He is probably counting on US and EU resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation, and energy prices get worse,” she said.
However, some cracks have started to show as the Ukraine war has created new faultlines in Europe, with states like Poland and the United Kingdom in some cases getting out ahead of where Washington is, while France, Italy and Germany have preached more caution.
“There are disturbing voices appearing within Europe demanding that Ukraine should acknowledge the demands of Russia. I want to say clearly that only Ukraine has the right to decide about itself,” Polish President Andrzej Duda told the Ukrainian parliament last week.
He appeared to be referring to recent calls from other European countries to press ahead with peace proposals.
French president Emmanuel Macron caused consternation in Kyiv when he urged western capitals in a speech in Strasbourg on May 9 to “never give in to the temptation of humiliation nor the spirit of revenge” when it comes to dealing with Russia. But at the same time he said it was up to Ukraine to determine the “conditions of negotiations” with Moscow.
Polish president Andrzej Duda, who says only Ukraine has the right to decide its future, meets Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv © ABACA/Reuters
Macron stressed the need for a ceasefire even though Kyiv is urging its allies to supply it with more heavy weapons so that it can launch a counter-offensive and push Russian forces back to the positions they occupied before the invasion on February 24, and possibly out of Ukrainian territory altogether.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told Biden in a May meeting that Italy wants to see a ceasefire to prevent further humanitarian suffering as well as the resumption of political dialogue to settle outstanding issues between Russia and Ukraine.
“In Italy and in Europe now, people want to put an end to these massacres, this violence, this butchery. And people think about what we can do to bring peace,” said Draghi. “People think that — at least they want to think about the possibility of bringing a ceasefire and starting again some credible negotiations . . . I think we have to think deeply on how to address this.”
These tensions are sharpest over the question of what sort of territorial settlement could potentially end the war.
Ukraine has bristled at suggestions that it should conclude a ceasefire with Russia before it has reclaimed all of its lost territory — and thus codifying Russia’s gains.
Ukrainian officials have mused about recapturing Donbas and even Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, in a counteroffensive if the west supplies enough weaponry.
Ukrainian soldiers assist wounded comrades near the frontline in the Donbas region. Both sides are shelling each other with heavy artillery and sustaining heavy losses © AFP/Getty Images
Some politicians in Ukraine responded angrily this week when Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, suggested Kyiv might have to give up territory in order to end the suffering of a prolonged war. Pursuing the war beyond the situation that existed at the start of the invasion “would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself”.
However, in an interview with Ukrainian television last week, Zelensky suggested Kyiv would be satisfied with the pre-invasion status quo. “I’d consider it a victory for our state, as of today, to advance to the February 24 line without unnecessary losses. Indeed, we are yet to regain all territories as everything isn’t that simple. We must look at the cost of this war and the cost of each deoccupation,” said Zelensky.
Zelensky suggested recently that a Russian withdrawal to those lines could create the conditions for peace negotiations, though he said he sees no Russian interest in negotiations.
Washington appears to be somewhere in the middle of its European allies, as officials are not pressing for an immediate return to peace talks but are also more cautious than some about potential escalation.
American officials have at times been annoyed with the tough talk from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and foreign secretary Liz Truss, who gave a speech in April calling to push Russia out of “the whole of Ukraine”.
They have bristled at British calls for more aid or a more muscular response when the US has been the largest provider and has moved mass amounts of assistance into Ukraine at record speeds.
“The British are actually a step out in front of the Americans, they keep looking over their shoulder to make sure they are being followed,” said Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Foreign secretary Liz Truss has annoyed some American officials with her tough talk when the US feels it is doing a lot of the heavy lifting © Victoria Jones/PA
Increasingly diplomats and analysts are debating how far Ukraine will go as the war drags on. America’s promises to leave the final borders up to Ukraine have left some allies uneasy, analysts said.
Stefanini, Italy’s former ambassador to Nato, criticises the lack of clarity about the eventual objectives. “Does it mean getting back to the pre-February 24 situation? Does it mean rolling back the territorial gains that Russia made in 2014? Does it mean regime change in Moscow?” he asks. “Nothing of that is clear.”
Charap, of the Rand Institute, said the US and Ukraine’s interests are aligned on the war’s outcome, but that could change in the months ahead.
“If they decide victory looks like something the US finds to be hugely escalatory, our interests may diverge. But we’re not there yet,” he said.
European countries also fear that the looming food crisis from the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports — to stop grain exports — will devastate the fragile nations of Africa and the Middle East, fuelling a new wave of migration to Europe.
“No European would want a never-ending war that bleeds Russia white but maintains a continuous situation of instability next door,” Stefanini said. “Europeans wish for a peaceful settlement as soon as acceptable conditions are met.”
10. Zelensky: Conditions in Donbas ‘indescribably difficult’
Zelensky: Conditions in Donbas ‘indescribably difficult’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said conditions in the Donbas region are “indescribably difficult” as Russia’s invasion of his country entered its 95th day.
In a presidential address Saturday evening, Zelensky noted battles in areas with heavy Russian occupancy, including Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Bakhmut and Popasna.
“But our defense holds on,” he said. “It’s indescribably difficult there. And I am grateful to all those who withstand this onslaught of the occupiers.”
Zelensky added that Russia had launched “absolutely senseless, openly barbaric strikes at the Sumy region,” leaving one person dead, seven wounded and two in critical condition. He noted that the shells hit a residential area that was 20 meters from a kindergarten.
“These are the enemies chosen by the Russian Federation,” the Ukrainian president said.
Russian troops also stormed the eastern city of Sievierodonets and engaged in close combat with Ukrainian defense forces in an effort to gain strategic footholds, according to The Associated Press. The fighting led to knocked out power and cellphone services, as well as terrorized civilians who haven’t fled the country.
Zelensky in his remarks urged world leaders to recognize Russia as a terrorist state.
“This is fair and reflects the daily reality that the occupiers have created in Ukraine and are eager to bring further to Europe. And this must be legally enshrined,” he said.
Zelensky also said he is preparing to address the European Council on Monday and Tuesday regarding the “terror on the land of Ukraine,” as well as “terror in the energy market of Europe” and “in the food market, on a global scale.”
He noted that he discussed defensive support and fuel supply to Ukraine with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He also discussed how Ukraine can unblock ports to prevent the food crisis from unfolding.
Additionally, the Ukrainian president said that Russian troops are preventing Ukrainians in temporarily occupied areas of the Kherson region from leaving the country.
“Those who are confident in their position would definitely not make such decisions,” Zelensky said. “This is clearly a sign of weakness. Manifestation that they have nothing to give people. And people do not want to take anything from them. So they try to take people hostage.”
Last week, Zelensky said the violence by Russian troops in the Donbas region could “make the region uninhabited.”
In an effort to aid Ukraine’s fight against Russia in the Donbas region, the U.S. reportedly sent the country long-range rocket systems, which Ukraine had requested
11. China’s Push for Agreement With Pacific Island Nations Stalls
Some good news. Small victory perhaps?
China’s Push for Agreement With Pacific Island Nations Stalls
Summit in Fiji ends without comprehensive deal amid concerns proposal could give Beijing too much influence in the region
May 30, 2022 6:51 am ET
SUVA, Fiji—A proposal for deeper security and trade ties between China and Pacific island nations didn’t advance at a summit involving top officials from those countries, after at least one leader said it could give Beijing too much influence in the region.
China had planned at the summit to press for the regional agreement, which would have expanded law enforcement and cybersecurity cooperation, while exploring the possibility of creating a free-trade zone between China and Pacific island countries. But days before the meeting, a letter from the president of the Federated States of Micronesia, which has close ties with Washington, became public and warned Pacific nations to be cautious about the deal.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, visiting Fiji for Monday’s summit as part of a 10-day tour of the region, said that China and Pacific island nations had come to agreements in certain areas, such as supporting national sovereignty, pursuing common development and prosperity and advocating multilateralism. Another Chinese official said the regional proposal would be discussed later.
“There has been general support,” Qian Bo, China’s ambassador to Fiji, said after the summit, when asked about the proposed regional agreement. “Of course, there are some concerns on some specific issues.”
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David Panuelo, Micronesia’s president, wrote ahead of the summit that signing on to that deal would increase the likelihood that the Pacific would end up as collateral damage amid the rivalry between the U.S. and China, and take attention away from efforts to mitigate climate change, a crucial issue in the region. In the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, he expressed concerns that the deal would give China too much control over communications infrastructure, allowing calls and emails to be intercepted.
Some foreign-policy experts didn’t expect China to get many Pacific nations to sign on to a regional deal all at once, but such an arrangement could still be tempting for some countries that would be drawn to China’s focus on climate change, alleviating poverty and boosting regional economies following the Covid-19 pandemic.
“These are important issues and these are precisely the issues that China is addressing in its regional plan,” said Steven Ratuva, a Pacific scholar and professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. “The only thing China might be able to do is pick off countries one by one—I think they’re already doing it.”
The Pacific, home to major shipping lanes and fisheries, has become a renewed focus of competition between the U.S. and China. Some Pacific island nations fought alongside the U.S. in World War II and have longstanding ties with Washington, but China has recently sought to gain influence through security pacts and funding infrastructure in the region.
Illustrating that competition, Mr. Wang last week concluded a trip to the Solomon Islands, where he signed several accords that include enabling closer engagement of diplomats and more cooperation on infrastructure, energy and other industries. Those deals came around a month after China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, alarming the U.S. and its allies who were concerned the agreement could eventually allow for a Chinese military presence in the country.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare met with the Chinese foreign minister in Honiara last week.
PHOTO: GUO LEI/ZUMA PRESS
Mr. Wang said on Monday that people don’t need to be anxious or nervous about China’s actions in the Pacific, given that China is a major developing country and that it is helping other developing countries all over the world out of a sense of responsibility.
“The common development and prosperity of China and all the other developing countries would only mean greater harmony, greater justice, and greater progress of the whole world,” he said.
Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama on Monday also didn’t directly address the proposed regional agreement with China, but he said that consensus is important among Pacific island nations. Fiji is one of the largest and most developed countries in the region and Mr. Bainimarama, who ousted the national government in a 2006 coup, but has served as prime minister since elections were restored in 2014, is seen as an influential figure in the area.
Underscoring Fiji’s important role, Australia’s new foreign minister, Penny Wong, also visited the country last week. She discussed how Australia’s new center-left government would have a renewed focus on climate change, which is considered by many Pacific island nations to be an existential threat, as low-lying areas could be inundated by rising sea levels from warmer temperatures.
Ms. Wong took questions from journalists outside government buildings in Suva, Fiji’s capital, but Mr. Wang’s visit to Fiji has been tightly controlled and media access was restricted at several of his events. Mr. Wang didn’t take any questions from reporters during a press conference with Mr. Bainimarama and the Chinese delegation moved around the capital under heavy police escort. A Chinese flag fluttered outside the Grand Pacific Hotel, where meetings between Fijian and Chinese officials were held.
After his meeting with Mr. Wang, Mr. Bainimarama, the Fijian prime minister, tweeted: “The Pacific needs genuine partners, not superpowers that are super-focused on power.”
12. Is Russia Gaining the Upper Hand in Ukraine’s East?
Quite a statement from George Soros.
Excerpt:
But the Biden administration—which has invested $53 billion in aid to ensure Ukraine’s victory—and like-minded Western governments appear intent on staying the course. "We need to make sure that [Vladimir] Putin loses in Ukraine and that Ukraine prevails ... that Russian aggression is never again allowed to threaten peace in Europe,” said British foreign secretary Lizz Truss on Thursday. The war in Ukraine largely continues to be framed by Western policymakers as a chiliastic struggle between good and evil—a global crusade against “dictatorship and autocracy” into which the entire Free World has been conscripted. “Therefore, we must mobilize all our resources to bring the war to an early end. The best and perhaps only way to preserve our civilization is to defeat Putin as soon as possible. That’s the bottom line,” said financier George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Is Russia Gaining the Upper Hand in Ukraine’s East?
Kyiv’s carefully cultivated image of military invincibility is running up against harsh battlefield realities.
As Russian forces press their advantage in Ukraine’s east, the Western maximum-pressure campaign against the Kremlin faces its toughest test yet.
Severodonetsk, the last Ukrainian stronghold in the Luhansk region that sits just across the river from nearby Lysychansk, is being pounded by Russian airstrikes and artillery fire. “There are battles on the outskirts of the city. Massive artillery shelling does not stop, day and night,” Severodonetsk mayor Oleksandr Stryuk told the AP. “The city is being systematically destroyed – 90 percent of the buildings in the city are damaged.”
Russian troops have advanced on the city from three directions since early May in an attempt to trap the Ukrainian forces located in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk salient. Officials belonging to the pro-Russian breakaway Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) told Russian news outlet RIA on Friday that Severodonetsk is now fully encircled. “At the moment, in the city of Severodonetsk, in the city itself [and not on the outskirts], the retreat paths of Ukrainian troops are cut off, because there are three bridges there that they could have used to leave. One bridge was destroyed, the second will not support any equipment because it’s in dire condition, and the [third] Proletarian Bridge is controlled by our forces. Anyone who tries to leave the settlement will be destroyed,” said LPR military spokesman Andrei Marochko. “We cut off all routes through which they could escape, and we control, surveil, absolutely the entire territory… if they want to return to their loved ones, they need to make the right decision,” Marochko added.
The siege of Severodonetsk comes on the heels of steady Russian advances in the Donbass over the past month. Russian forces control almost the entire Donbass region and several surrounding areas, effectively depriving Ukraine not only of its industrial heartland but also of some of its biggest wheat-producing regions. The Russian military reportedly occupies most of the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, with only the administrative city of Zaporizhzhia and adjacent farmlands remaining in Ukrainian hands. To the southwest, Russian forces appear firmly in control of the Kherson region.
Reports of Ukrainian troops refusing to fight and surrendering en masse, previously confined to Russian state television, have made their way to Western media. In a video uploaded to Telegram on May 24, members of the 115th Brigade 3rd Battalion, based in Severodonetsk, announced that they will no longer fight due to a lack of military equipment and proper leadership. “We are being sent to certain death,” said one of the volunteers, as per The Washington Post. “We are not alone like this, we are many.”
The government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has largely kept Ukrainian casualty numbers a secret in an effort to bolster morale, instead pivoting international attention to the losses sustained by Russia over the course of the invasion. The Russian Defense Ministry said this week that Kyiv is writing off Ukrainian soldiers lost in combat as “deserters,” an accounting trick used to keep official casualty figures low. “On Ukrainian TV we see that there are no losses … there’s no truth,” Ukrainian officer Serhi Lapko told The Washington Post.
But Kyiv’s carefully cultivated image of military invincibility is running up against harsh battlefield realities.
The invading Russian forces, buoyed by a slate of logistical, numerical, and qualitative advantages, are forging ahead with their strategy of encircling pockets of Ukrainian troops while choking off major Ukrainian-held cities from supplies and reinforcements. Russian troops outnumber their Ukrainian counterparts seven to one in the war’s eastern theater, according to senior Ukrainian officials. “The Russian side managed to gather its reserves before we did. We’re lagging behind, which makes the situation at the front extremely difficult,” admitted Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych.
As the reality on the ground appears to slowly shift away from the prospect of a decisive Ukrainian victory, some prominent voices are calling on Western leaders to revise their maximum-pressure policy toward Moscow.
Former U.S. secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger warned in Davos that the Western campaign to “inflict a crushing defeat” on Moscow poses fatal risks to European and global stability. “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante,” he said, suggesting that Ukraine should at least tacitly acknowledge Russia’s control over Crimea and the status of the pro-Russian separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic (DPR and LPR) in Donbass.
Kissinger’s comments drew sharp rebuke from Kyiv, which has categorically rejected any prospective peace settlement involving territorial concessions. "Mr. Kissinger emerges from the deep past and says that a piece of Ukraine should be given to Russia so that there is no alienation of Russia from Europe. It seems that Mr. Kissinger's calendar is not 2022 but 1938, and he thought he was talking to an audience not in Davos but in Munich of that time," said Zelenskyy in his nightly address. Kissinger’s comments earned him a spot in Myrotvorets, a controversial Ukrainian nationalist website and NGO that maintains a running list of “enemies of Ukraine.” Myrotvorets accused the senior statesman of spreading “Russian-fascist propaganda” and acting as an “accomplice to the crimes of Russian authorities against Ukraine and its citizens.”
But the Biden administration—which has invested $53 billion in aid to ensure Ukraine’s victory—and like-minded Western governments appear intent on staying the course. "We need to make sure that [Vladimir] Putin loses in Ukraine and that Ukraine prevails ... that Russian aggression is never again allowed to threaten peace in Europe,” said British foreign secretary Lizz Truss on Thursday. The war in Ukraine largely continues to be framed by Western policymakers as a chiliastic struggle between good and evil—a global crusade against “dictatorship and autocracy” into which the entire Free World has been conscripted. “Therefore, we must mobilize all our resources to bring the war to an early end. The best and perhaps only way to preserve our civilization is to defeat Putin as soon as possible. That’s the bottom line,” said financier George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.
Image: Reuters.
13. How India Influences the Quad
Is this the kind of influence we want? Is it good for the Quad and for the US?
How India Influences the Quad
From its stance on Russia to the tilt toward non-traditional security and public goods, India’s fingerprints on the Quad agenda are clear.
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The Quad is “a positive, constructive agenda so we don’t target a country or region for that. What we look forward to is that peace and stability in Indo-Pacific region should be adhered to.” So said India’s Ambassador to Japan S. K. Verma ahead of the recent Quad summit in Tokyo. This just reiterated the consistent Indian position that the Quad is not “against someone” (meaning China) but “for something.”
Since the re-emergence of the Quad in 2017, the grouping has been struggling to identify a foundational philosophy on which to build a sustainable framework. It has been an uphill battle to generate substance, even as the symbolism of the grouping generated curious debates within the strategic community. Recent developments, however, suggest that the Quad may finally be getting the much-needed direction to build a credible and sustainable framework.
From its rebirth in working-level meetings on the sidelines of some other multilateral engagements, the Quad has come a long way. Quad leaders have engaged in two summits this year, with the earlier one in March a virtual meeting occasioned by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and apparently divergent viewpoints on it within the Quad. The recently concluded in-person summit is another indication that Quad countries might have finally identified the “common denominator” in their individual policies in the region, enabling them to take the strategically significant grouping to its logical next level.
The optics and the substance of the recently concluded summit both suggest that India is playing a major role in normatively ordering the Quad to ensure it becomes an institutionalized framework suitable to address the existing and emerging issues in the Indo-Pacific and is not just limited to responding to one pressing military reality – i.e. the rise and expansionism of China.
India’s keenness to ensure that Quad doesn’t become an alliance-like structure is well recognized. India’s historical hesitations in getting involved with alliance politics notwithstanding, there are other critical Indian sensitivities. First, India is the only country among the Quad members that directly shares a land border with China – a disputed border, at that, with a troubled history. It is therefore reasonable for India to not want to be seen as being part of an arrangement that is overtly against China. Apart from this, India is conscious of the fact that any grouping with undertones of an alliance will invite apprehensions from Southeast Asian nations that have direct stake and responsibility in the stability of the region.
Also, a standalone military logic for the Quad is not in the long-term interest of the region, which is staring at an array of other concerns, including terrorism, climate change, and other critical issues. Addressing these challenges would require a forum that inspires confidence and cooperation from countries in the region.
Thus, India has always insisted that the Quad becomes an open, constructive forum that ties together the capabilities of member countries to ensure security and stability in the region in a comprehensive way, not limited to security aspects. Making sure the Quad does not overtly identify with “alliance politics” is one reflection of this attitude, which became clear in the way the Quad addressed the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Consistent with the earlier joint statement issued in March after the Quad leaders’ discussion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the statement this time also eschewed direct mention of Russia. Instead, it focused on the humanitarian aspect of the entire conflict. This was in direct contrast to the joint readouts resulting from the bilateral meetings which United States had with Japan as well as Australia. In case of the Australia-U.S. meeting, the readout was categorical in pointing out “Australia’s strong support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion,” adding that “the leaders agreed on the importance of continued solidarity, including to ensure that no such event is ever repeated in the Indo-Pacific” – an obvious hint at China’s overtures toward Taiwan.
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The United States’ joint statement with Japan was even more explicit. It maintained that two countries “shared the view that the greatest immediate challenge to this [rules-based international] order is Russia’s brutal, unprovoked, and unjustified aggression against Ukraine. The two leaders condemned Russia’s actions, and called for Russia to be held accountable for its atrocities.”
Compared to such rhetoric, the joint statement of Quad was extremely toned down when it referred to the developing situation in Ukraine as “tragic humanitarian crisis.”
The conspicuous stress on multilateralism in the Quad joint statement was another example of incorporating core Indian sensitivities. Generally, India has been reluctant to endorse unilateral or plurilateral actions in security and conflict matters and instead has preferred multilateral alternatives, specifically those endorsed by the United Nations. The joint statement was indicative of this trend when it stressed multiple times the Quad’s support for numerous multilateral initiatives.
New Delhi has also been keen on ensuring that Quad members are sensitive to India’s direct concerns, emanating from its immediate neighborhood. The concern was concretely reflected with the statement’s emphasis on unequivocally condemning terrorism in all forms. The statement denounced “the use of terrorist proxies” and “emphasized the importance of denying any logistical, financial or military support to terrorist groups which could be used to launch or plan terror attacks, including cross-border attacks.”
Particularly striking was the mention of the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks in the statement, alongside the possibility of Afghan soil being used for the perpetration of terror. Considering the complicity of Pakistan in these dastardly attacks and the active support Islamabad continues to accord to the perpetrators, this allusion in the joint statement was a direct reflection of the willingness of the other Quad members to incorporate issues that are core to Indian interests. The timing of this mention is even more pertinent with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) having recently noted the apparent “progress” made by Pakistan with regards to an action plan to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, despite extending Pakistan’s classification on the FATF gray list.
The Quad’s increasing bandwidth in terms of interest areas is another example of how it is incorporating core Indian concerns. As noted above, New Delhi does not want to see the Quad assuming the nature of an exclusivist group focused only on security matters. The diversification of the Quad’s areas of focus to include global health, infrastructure, climate change, new and emerging technologies, space, and maritime domain awareness among others informs the evolving nature of the grouping. This diversification is also strategically pragmatic, as cooperation in these functional areas would provide the necessary impetus for cooperation in other defense and security matters alongside providing a forum to comprehensively deal with the emerging issues in the Indo-Pacific, something India has consistently argued for.
The course the Quad has taken so far indicates that India has invested extensive diplomatic capital in normatively ordering the strategically crucial Indo-Pacific grouping. India’s efforts are meant to evolve an acceptable normative framework that will serve as a vision document for the Quad’s future course – a framework which structures the Quad as a forum promoting freedom, transparency, and openness, and aims at sustaining multipolarity in the region.
One of the effects of China’s rise has been the distortions to the regional order brought about by Beijing’s imperial and revisionist tendencies. The normative framework of the Quad should therefore challenge these distortions by promoting a regional order based on sovereign equality, openness and respect for international law. That would require a strong institutional response, which not only balances China but provides a strong normative response to it. The success of Quad will be determined by its ability to emerge as forum that will shoulder these realities in the Indo-Pacific.
Akshay Ranade
Akshay Ranade is an assistant professor of international relations at Symbiosis International University, Pune, India.
14. China, Russia Again Veto UN Statement on Myanmar Conflict
China and Russia showing their true colors.
Excerpt:
While the release of a statement of concern by the UNSC would have achieved little, the fact that it stalled over relatively small details indicates the extent of the gap separating the international efforts aimed at resolving Myanmar’s crisis from the situation on the ground. In particular, if the expressions of support for the Five-Point Consensus, which assumes the good faith of the Myanmar military, point to the dearth of workable alternative options for resolving the country’s crisis.
China, Russia Again Veto UN Statement on Myanmar Conflict
The U.K.-drafted statement expressed its concern about the country’s growing humanitarian crisis and the “limited progress” on an ASEAN peace plan.
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On Friday, Russia and China once again wielded their vetoes to forestall the release of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution expressing its concern over the escalating humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.
The two nations’ delegations reportedly objected to the wording of the statement, which was debated following an in camera session on Myanmar, during which Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s special envoy on Myanmar, and his U.N. counterpart Noeleen Heyzer briefed council members on efforts to resolve Myanmar’s crisis.
According to the Associated Press, which obtained a copy of the draft statement authored by the United Kingdom’s delegation, the statement expressed its concern at the violence and serious humanitarian situation in Myanmar, 16 months on from the February 2021 coup that overthrew the government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. It also expressed misgivings about the “limited progress” on the implementation of ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus peace plan.
The proposed statement stressed the central role of ASEAN “in facilitating a peaceful solution to the crisis” and reiterated council members’ calls to pursue dialogue “with all parties concerned” in the interests of the people of Myanmar, the AP reported.
“However, they expressed concern at the limited progress against the Five-Point Consensus over a year since it was agreed, and called for concrete actions to effectively and fully implement the consensus,” the proposed statement said.
According to other reports, the delegations from the U.K. and China blamed each other for the failure of the day-long negotiations. For the U.K. officials, Beijing was asking for “too much,” which led to the collapse of the negotiations, according to AFP. One of the sticking points for the Chinese delegation was the use of the word “limited” to refer to the progress on ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus, which it suggested replacing with the word “slow.” A spokeswoman told AFP that China’s proposed wording was “factual but less condescending,” adding that “it’s a real shame” that there was no agreement.
ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus, agreed at a special meeting of the bloc in April 2021, calls for an immediate cessation of violence and an inclusive political dialogue involving the various parties to Myanmar’s interlocking conflicts. But the plan has received little buy-in from the military junta itself, which has unsurprisingly used the pact to placate regional opinion without taking any meaningful steps toward implementing its terms.
Prior to briefing Friday’s council meeting, ASEAN Special Envoy Prak Sokhonn announced that he would make a second official trip to Myanmar next month. AFP cited unnamed diplomats as saying that the military junta had also approved Heyzer for her first official trip to Myanmar, but that she has not yet received the necessary authorizations. Heyzer was appointed to the post last October.
While the release of a statement of concern by the UNSC would have achieved little, the fact that it stalled over relatively small details indicates the extent of the gap separating the international efforts aimed at resolving Myanmar’s crisis from the situation on the ground. In particular, if the expressions of support for the Five-Point Consensus, which assumes the good faith of the Myanmar military, point to the dearth of workable alternative options for resolving the country’s crisis.
Sebastian Strangio
Sebastian Strangio is Southeast Asia Editor at The Diplomat.
15. Retired Special Forces officer comes out of retirement to help in Ukraine
Retired Special Forces officer comes out of retirement to help in Ukraine
| Hendersonville Times-News
After seeing the destruction caused by the Russian invasion, a local man's convictions brought him out of retirement and from Waynesville to Ukraine, where he is training and assisting in the removal of dangerous munitions.
Retired U.S. Army Special Forces Lt. Col. John Culp left the U.S. on April 5 to volunteer with Bomb Techs Without Borders, a non-profit dedicated to preventing deaths by landmines, IEDs and other explosive remnants of war.
"I was already making plans to come anyway, but I was looking for the right fit. I didn't want to just show up in Ukraine and not have a plan, so I linked up with (Bomb Techs Without Borders), and their initial reaction was, 'We were planning to go over there when the shooting stops,'" Culp said from Kharkiv, where he was helping war crime investigators study blast sites on May 24. "I said, 'I'm not waiting until the shooting stops. I'm going. Do you want me to work for you?'"
Culp's army career began as an Explosive Ordinance Disposal Technician, and he spent much of his time working with and training others on the disposal of explosives. In Kharkiv, he said he was also training an International Legion Unit, a collection of volunteers from other countries.
According to the May 24 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, significant fighting happened to the North-East of Kharkiv near the Russia-Ukraine border within 24 hours of the report's release. Despite Kharkiv still being under attack by Russian artillery, Culp said he had not seen any fighting and that things in the city were looking up.
"People we have talked to down here are saying the same thing, 'Each day there is another restaurant opening, another store opening,'" he said.
When he first arrived in Ukraine, Culp was in Kyiv helping train the National Police at the National Academy of Internal Affairs. He said life in Kyiv, which was upended during Russia's attack on the city earlier in the year, is returning to normal.
On Victory Day, a holiday celebrating Russia's victory over Germany in WWII, Culp said he went to Maidan Square and was surprised by what he saw.
"It was just alive. There were live music being played on the streets, and there were people all over the place, and people riding bicycles. There were people doing Tai Chi to demonstrate against the Chinese Communists. There was all kinds of stuff going on," he said.
Culp then helped to clear and destroy munitions in Hostomels, Irpin and Bucha. He also did training with police in Zhytomyr before traveling to Kharkiv. He said he would be traveling back to Kyiv on May 26 to meet back up with Bomb Techs Without Borders CEO Matthew Howard.
In church, Culp said he was learning about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran priest from Germany who was executed in the 1930s by Germany for his anti-Nazi views and actions. After watching a video on bomb technicians in Ukraine struggling with a lack of modern supplies and training, Culp felt like he needed to help.
"I'm 69 years old and, although I am in pretty good shape, I don't flatter myself to think that I'm particularly front-line duty," he said. "But I looked at that, and I said, "That's something I could offer some expertise.'"
Culp's wife Donna, a retired Air Force Captain and president of the Western North Carolina Chapter of the Military Officer's Association of America, which meets at Kenmure Country Club in Flat Rock, said she is fully in support of her husband.
"I said the selfish side of me would say, 'We are retired, you just need to stay here and support from whatever remote possibility you can, you know, donating money or whatever," she said. "But I said, 'You know what, you do bring a lot to the table, and this is a place where you can really make a difference.'"
Because Bomb Techs Without Borders is a non-profit, Culp isn't paid for his time in Ukraine. Donna Culp said they funded the trip by selling an old car they were thinking of selling anyway.
She also said that, while the first few weeks were hard, because she can talk to him every night, she is used to him being deployed and through her faith in God, she is able to get used to the "new rhythm of life."
"Every day I get a sign of life, and we can't really talk about details or anything, but I can just see in his demeanor, in his voice, in his countenance and everything that he really is feeling like he's making a contribution," she said.
Donna Culp said right from the start, her husband was a humble person with a big heart.
"He told me when I first met him, he said, 'I'm just a certified nice guy,'" she said.
They met after she already retired from the Air Force. At the time, they were both single parents and met up through a classifieds ad she put in the paper to expand her group of single parent friends.
"I told him, I said, 'I'm not interested in getting married again. That's just not for me ... Now if you ever decide you want to get married again, you find Mrs. Right. You can invite me to the wedding and I'll support you.' And the rest is history," she said.
John and Donna Culp's children, who all have the Culp name after he adopted her kids, are as supportive of their father as his wife.
"They've always been proud of what we have done, and they understand the gravity of the situation in Ukraine," Donna Culp said. "If they were in positions in their life right now to be able to just pull up stakes and go over with some humanitarian effort, I know for sure one of them would in particular."
Travis Culp, who lives in Forth Worth, Texas, is doing fundraising efforts for Bomb Techs Without Borders.
"If you believe in this fight, support it," John Culp said. "You know, everyone can spare a dime or two, or $10, and I'm not saying send it to BTWOB. I'm saying send it to whatever charity you think motivates you. Send it to people that are providing food. Send it to people who are providing medical supplies."
16. Lebanon’s Spy Chief Visits Washington to Cooperate on American Hostages
Excerpts:
For example, during the previous Trump administration, two American diplomats, including Roger Carstens (who is the third special envoy for hostage affairs since the Obama administration created the position in 205), visited Damascus to meet with Syrian government officials in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of American hostages, including Austin Tice. The meeting ended in no breakthroughs: the Syrians were fairly uncooperative but delivered a list of demands that would require significant shifts in U.S. policy towards Syria and its president, Bashar al-Assad, including the withdrawal of American troops from Raqqa. However, now with a new U.S. administration in office, negotiations have resumed with Damascus.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden met with Tice’s parents and reiterated his own commitment to securing Austin’s “long overdue return to his family.” Ibrahim told the National that there now exists a window of opportunity for Tice’s release, despite that he still could not verify Austin’s health or the conditions of his detention. Ibrahim stated that he will be visiting Syria soon to obtain all the relevant facts. The next few months will be critical, and the Biden administration is hoping to score a political victory with Tice’s release. If Ibrahim’s U.S.-backed effort succeeds, it will further reaffirm his good standing as a trustworthy negotiator.
Lebanon’s Spy Chief Visits Washington to Cooperate on American Hostages
If Abbas Ibrahim’s U.S.-backed effort succeeds, it will further reaffirm his good standing as a trustworthy negotiator.
Lebanon’s top internal security chief, Abbas Ibrahim, visited Washington, DC this past week to meet with senior officials in the Biden administration and discuss the release of American hostages in Iraq and Syria. Although six Americans are missing and believed to be held in the Middle East, the Biden administration has recently focused its efforts on Austin Tice, a freelance journalist and veteran U.S. Marine Corps officer, who was abducted near the Syrian capital of Damascus while traveling in 2012 to cover the country’s civil war.
According to U.S. intelligence services, it is widely believed that Tice is alive and being held against his will by the Syrian government. The Syrians deny having him in their custody.
Now Washington wants to use its relationship with Lebanon’s Ibrahim to help in the ongoing investigation into Tice’s condition.
Ibrahim, officially a major general, is seen as a man who has strong connections with all internal and foreign regional actors, making him a valuable figure in mediating disputes between political rivals. His reputation as a skilled negotiator made him America’s go-to man in releasing Western hostages from captivity in adversarial countries, though he has received criticism for being too close to Hezbollah (a U.S. designated terrorist organization). Indeed, Ibrahim forged a relationship with the Shia, Iran-backed organization when he was an army intelligence chief in south Lebanon. It is precisely that trust that his supporters say makes him an ideal mediator with a track record of successful outreach.
In 2019, the sixty-three-year-old security chief was decisive in freeing Canadian and U.S. tourists Kristian Lee Baxter and Sam Goodwin from their imprisonment in war-torn Syria. In a touching moment, Baxter and Canada’s then-ambassador to Lebanon thanked Ibrahim for his role in mediating with Syrian authorities to secure his release.
That same year, the top Lebanese spymaster helped secure the freedom of U.S.-based Lebanese businessman Nizar Zakka from the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2015 on the charges of spying for the United States. In a previous visit to Washington, where had also met Austin Tice’s parents, Ibrahim had received the James W. Foley International Hostage Freedom for his role in freeing, Zakka, Baxter, and Goodwin. Now, he is being asked by the White House and Tice’s parents to apply his skills in negotiating Austin’s release.
During his trip to Washington, Ibrahim also spoke briefly with members of the Lebanese American community, including leaders of the American Lebanese Foundation. They discussed ways in which the Lebanese diaspora in the United States can help improve Lebanon’s deteriorating economic situation. He also commented on Lebanon’s social ills, expressing his fear that it could lead to an implosion in the society due to the economic collapse brought on by the banking meltdown in 2019.
“We are worried about social instability in Lebanon more than political one, the people have the right to respond to the currency collapse, but we don’t want it to turn into chaos,” he said.
His warning comes at a time when 80 percent of Lebanese are living under the poverty line, with 36 percent in extreme poverty.
Now with the election results finalized, and with Hezbollah’s political rivals gaining a slight upper hand in the parliament, there may be an opening for dialogue between Lebanon and the United States on economic assistance. Still, at the present time, a top foreign policy objective in the Biden White House is bringing all American hostages in the Middle East home safely, and Washington decisionmakers have frequently broken official taboos to see it through.
For example, during the previous Trump administration, two American diplomats, including Roger Carstens (who is the third special envoy for hostage affairs since the Obama administration created the position in 205), visited Damascus to meet with Syrian government officials in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of American hostages, including Austin Tice. The meeting ended in no breakthroughs: the Syrians were fairly uncooperative but delivered a list of demands that would require significant shifts in U.S. policy towards Syria and its president, Bashar al-Assad, including the withdrawal of American troops from Raqqa. However, now with a new U.S. administration in office, negotiations have resumed with Damascus.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden met with Tice’s parents and reiterated his own commitment to securing Austin’s “long overdue return to his family.” Ibrahim told the National that there now exists a window of opportunity for Tice’s release, despite that he still could not verify Austin’s health or the conditions of his detention. Ibrahim stated that he will be visiting Syria soon to obtain all the relevant facts. The next few months will be critical, and the Biden administration is hoping to score a political victory with Tice’s release. If Ibrahim’s U.S.-backed effort succeeds, it will further reaffirm his good standing as a trustworthy negotiator.
Adnan Nasser is an independent Middle East analyst with a BA in International Relations from Florida International University. Follow him on Instagram @revolutionarylebanon.
Image: Reuters.
17. US to transfer long-range rocket systems to Ukraine amid Donbas struggle: reports
I hope we are sending fully capable systems.
US to transfer long-range rocket systems to Ukraine amid Donbas struggle: reports
BY LEXI LONAS - 05/28/22 7:55 AM ET
The U.S. will transfer long-range rocket systems to Ukraine to help aid the country’s fight against Russia in the Donbas region, officials told multiple outlets.
Ukrainian officials have been asking the U.S. to send the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) or the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), CNN first reported, citing U.S. officials.
The weapons would be a significant improvement from Ukraine’s current artillery — an MLRS is able to fire hundreds of kilometers away and HIMARS is able to fire the same type of ammunition as an MLRS.
Defense officials did not specify to The New York Times what kind of weapons transfer would be announced. However, the outlet noted that the transfer would likely be made next week.
The Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System is the most common system that the U.S. uses.
“Certainly we’re mindful and aware of Ukrainian asks, privately and publicly, for what is known as a multiple launch rocket system. And I won’t get ahead of decisions that haven’t been made yet,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday.
The Defense Department told The Hill they have nothing further to add beyond Kirby’s comments.
The officials told the Times the Biden administration has been hesitant to provide Ukraine with these types of weapons as it could be seen as provocation by Russia.
According to CNN, prominent Russian commentators decried any weapons transfer shortly after the new outlet’s report.
“The US intends to discuss the issue of supplying Ukraine with these weapons as soon as next week,” Olga Skabeeva, a prominent Russian TV host, said on her show. “At the present moment, the issue is being addressed by the US presidential administration. So now, we are not even talking about tactical weapons anymore, but about the operational-tactical weapons.”
“The US MLRS can launch shells over 500 kilometers. And if the Americans do this, they will clearly cross a red line, and we will record an attempt to provoke a very harsh response from Russia.”
The war in Ukraine has continued for more than three months, with Russian forces currently focusing their efforts on the Donbas region after they failed to take over the capital city of Kyiv.
18. China urged to deepen Asean ties as US becomes India’s biggest trading partner
Excellent headline but there appears to be more to the story.
Excerpts:
Lu Xiang, a researcher on US issues with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China’s exports to India have been affected by trade and investment restrictions from New Delhi, which have coincided with heightened tensions between the neighbours.
“But the two markets are different and the US market cannot completely replace China for India,” he said.
Closer US-India ties are among a number of risks facing China. Western powers are increasingly critical of the country’s trade with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, while Beijing’s zero-Covid restrictions are slowing the economy and forcing investors to consider diversifying.
China urged to deepen Asean ties as US becomes India’s biggest trading partner
- The value of merchandise trade between the United States and India rose by 48.3 per cent to US$119.4 billion in the 2021-22 financial year
- Indian imports from China rose 44.4 per cent to US$94.2 billion, but its China-bound shipments grew only 0.3 per cent to US$21.3 billion
Published: 7:30pm, 30 May, 2022
By Frank Tang South China Morning Post3 min
China lost its title as India’s biggest trading partner to the US last year. Photo: AFP
Fast growing trade between India and the United States has raised eyebrows in China, fuelling concern that the Biden administration is moving swiftly to use its new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to contain the world’s No 2 economy.
China lost its title as India’s biggest trading partner to the US last year, according to new data from the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The value of merchandise trade between the world’s two most populous countries reached a high of US$115.4 billion in the 2021-22 financial year that ended in March, an increase of 33.6 per cent from a year earlier.
But it was surpassed by trade with the US, which rose 48.3 per cent to US$119.4 billion.
01:29
India halts wheat exports as food security threatened by heatwave, Ukraine war
Indian imports from China, mainly machines and electronics, rose 44.4 per cent to US$94.2 billion, but its China-bound shipments grew only 0.3 per cent to US$21.3 billion.
On the contrary, its exports to the US jumped 47.4 per cent from a year earlier to US$76.11 billion, while imports rose 50 per cent to US$43.31 billion.
India recorded a US$32.8 billion trade surplus from the US last year, compared with a deficit of US$72.9 billion with China.
India’s top 10 trading partners were rounded out by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia.
“Trade between India and the US are complementary, as seen from the outsourced IT service from the Silicon Valley,” said He Weiwen, a former commercial counsellor at Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco.
“It is a trend that their trade value will surpass China-India trade. However, it is far lower than China-US trade.”
He, who is now a senior fellow with the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based think tank, said China should concentrate on fixing domestic weak links and manage its relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), its top trading partner with which it has complete supply chains.
“China should also remedy the negative impact of the recent pandemic on foreign funded firms,” he said.
05:58
Why India is walking a diplomatic tightrope over Ukraine-Russia crisis
“Competition with India and Vietnam is not the most important because their size is too small. We should do a good job on our own things first.”
China was India’s top trading partner from 2013-18, before being replaced by the US, then topping the list again in 2020-21.
Lu Xiang, a researcher on US issues with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China’s exports to India have been affected by trade and investment restrictions from New Delhi, which have coincided with heightened tensions between the neighbours.
“But the two markets are different and the US market cannot completely replace China for India,” he said.
Closer US-India ties are among a number of risks facing China. Western powers are increasingly critical of the country’s trade with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, while Beijing’s zero-Covid restrictions are slowing the economy and forcing investors to consider diversifying.
Zhong Zhengsheng, chief economist of Pingan Securities, said China should integrate more deeply with Asean to counter Washington’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
“[The framework] is a replacement for the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership as the Biden administration tries to re-establish its influence in Indo-Pacific regions and lure members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership ,” he wrote in a note on Monday.
India is not a member of the China-led RCEP, but signed up for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework launched by Biden during his Asia trip last week.
Frank Tang joined the Post in 2016 after a decade of China economy coverage and government policy analysis.
Ji Siqi joined the Post in 2020 and covers China economy. She graduated from Columbia Journalism School and the University of Hong Kong.
19. Believe Biden When He Says America Will Defend Taiwan – Analysis
Excerpts:
Many things have changed since Biden criticized Bush’s position on Taiwan in 2001. Through massive investments in its armed forces, China has tilted the balance of power in the Western Pacific in its favor. It is seeking to use that newfound power to coerce Taiwan into “reunifying.” While Beijing’s preference is for such an eventuality to occur peacefully, China’s 2005 Anti-Secession Law states that when “possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Public opinion in the United States is positive toward Taiwan. In 2021, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs conducted a poll in which 69 percent of Americans favored recognizing Taiwan as an independent country and 57 percent agreed that the United States should sign a free trade agreement with Taiwan. Most importantly, the poll found that 52 percent of Americans supported sending US troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Public opinion favors Taiwan, and the president’s statement essentially backs this viewpoint.
There was a general worry in the past that Taiwan could spark a conflict by attempting to declare independence. Under the Tsai Ing-wen administration, which favors the maintenance of the status quo, that fear no longer exists. Taiwan is viewed as an important US partner in the Indo-Pacific, and any potential conflict would be caused by Beijing acting aggressively. Biden no longer seems to hold the beliefs that he espoused in his op-ed over 20 years ago, which is a good thing since it demonstrates that his views have changed with the times and US priorities.
Biden finished his 2001 op-ed saying, “Words matter.” He was right then, and he is right now. As president, Biden has made clear that the policy under his administration is to defend Taiwan.
Believe Biden When He Says America Will Defend Taiwan – Analysis
eurasiareview.com · by Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute · May 29, 2022
By Thomas J. Shattuck*
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(FPRI) — During a press conference in Tokyo on May 23, a reporter asked President Joseph Biden, “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” The president responded with a clear answer: “Yes . . . that’s the commitment we made.” This answer sent shockwaves across the Indo-Pacific. As expected, Beijing strongly denounced the statement, claiming that Taiwan is “purely China’s internal affair that brooks no foreign interference.” Beijing is also now planning to conduct drills near Taiwan in response.
To many, Biden just upended the decades-long US policy of strategic ambiguity, in which Washington has never explicitly confirmed whether or not the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense, or under what conditions such involvement would occur. (This policy gave the United States the ability to decide on its own terms, without over-committing, how to approach a military contingency regarding Taiwan.) To others, it was just another gaffe from Biden who doesn’t quite fully understand US policy towards Taiwan.
Since Biden answered that question, commentators have speculated whether his statement was a gaffe or a misstatement. Considering that this is the third time since August 2021 that the president has said something like this, it seems safe to assume that his answers are not gaffes. A gaffe would be a sloppy answer to a question one time. Biden has been consistent in his response, using similar or identical language when asked about Taiwan. His answer is what he believes to be the truth. In short, the president believes that the United States has made a commitment to defend Taiwan.
If the United States will, in fact, come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese military invasion, then Congress and the administration need to prepare for such a contingency. Given China’s military buildup in recent decades, defending Taiwan has never been more challenging. Such preparations should include a Ukraine-like “lend lease” agreement in order to streamline Taipei’s ability to acquire the necessary arms to defend itself before the US military can enter the conflict. As it stands, the process for Taiwan to acquire weapons from the United States is lengthy, with several years between the initial request and final procurement.
Beyond arms, Washington should increase its training to Taiwan’s military and rally a coalition of like-minded countries like Japan and Australia to make similar pronouncements, as a Taiwan-centered conflict would undoubtedly have ramifications for them. For Japan’s part, Biden’s pronouncement almost fits perfectly with former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s April 2022 call for the United States to end strategic ambiguity. Biden’s statement is just a first step. Saying that the United States would defend Taiwan is one matter; successfully defending Taiwan is a whole other challenge to prepare for—one that the United States cannot, and should not, do alone.
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Biden’s Words on Taiwan
As noted, this is not the first time that the president has given his view on US policy toward Taiwan. In August 2021, in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden compared the US commitment to defend Taiwan to NATO’s Article 5, “We made a sacred commitment to Article Five that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with—Taiwan.” Comparing the US commitment to Taiwan to NATO’s Article 5 is a much more explicit statement—and more far-reaching—than what he recently said in Japan.
The foundational document that established the framework for US policy is the Taiwan Relations Act. The legislation provides the legal rationale for US arms sales to Taiwan. It states that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.” Every president over the last 43 years has sold arms to Taiwan to bolster its defenses.
Beyond arms sales, the law establishes how the United States interacts with Taiwan without formal diplomatic relations. Even though it is domestic law and not a security treaty, as RAND’s Raymond Kuo noted, some of the language is framed in a similar way as a defense treaty, with the president consulting with Congress on “appropriate action . . . in response to any such danger.” All three times that Biden has answered this question about Taiwan’s defense as president, he has not mentioned the US commitment to provide Taiwan with weapons; he has specifically referred to the US commitment to defend Taiwan and to come to Taiwan’s defense. He has seemingly taken the “defense treaty” interpretation of the Act’s language.
Biden’s own view on this matter has evolved over time. It took decades for him to come to the conclusion that the United States has a commitment to defend Taiwan, even taking the opposite position over 20 years ago. While he voted for the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979, he criticized President George W. Bush in 2001 after Bush made remarks quite similar to what Biden has now said three times.
In 2001, Bush was asked if the United States was obligated to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, and he responded, “Yes, we do . . . and the Chinese must understand that. Yes, I would.” He followed up by saying that he would do “whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself.” That answer inspired Biden to write an op-ed criticizing Bush’s statements. Biden wrote, “The United States has not been obligated to defend Taiwan since we abrogated the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty signed by President Eisenhower and ratified by the Senate.” Biden added, “As a matter of diplomacy, there is a huge difference between reserving the right to use force and obligating ourselves, a priori, to come to the defense of Taiwan. The president should not cede to Taiwan, much less to China, the ability automatically to draw us into a war across the Taiwan Strait.” Biden even quoted parts of the Act, saying that they did not constitute the requirement to defend Taiwan.
For Biden, who during the Bush administration served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and at one point served as the committee’s chairperson, to eventually come around to the Bush position should speak volumes about the importance that he now places on the security of Taiwan. Biden knows what he is saying and the ramifications of such a commitment since US involvement in the defense of Taiwan would result in American casualties. Bottom line: Biden means exactly what he says when it comes to Taiwan.
The Taiwan Relations Act Isn’t Just About Arms Sales
Even after administration officials attempted to “clarify” Biden’s remarks, reporters followed up with Biden himself about strategic ambiguity. He said that strategic ambiguity was not “dead,” but would not elaborate further. However, the president did say, “The policy has not changed at all. I stated that when I made my statement yesterday.” His own clarification implies that US policy has always been to defend Taiwan. It is not entirely clear what the president meant by that. It is likely Biden’s personal interpretation of the Taiwan Relations Act, which he voted for while in the Senate in 1979. There are two key points in the Act that Biden could be referring to—even though neither explicitly commit the United States to defend Taiwan:
It is the policy of the United States . . .
to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States. . .
to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.
These two elements of the Taiwan Relations Act are not ironclad security guarantees like the United States has with NATO members and certain Asian allies (e.g., Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand). However, the language is framed in a way that resembles a security treaty. Biden could very well be interpreting them as such. The second point, in particular, which says US policy is to “resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan,” sounds an awful lot like a traditional military guarantee. In Biden’s own view, the Act commits the United States to get involved in a Taiwan conflict, and that has been the policy since 1979. Presidents from different parties have made varying interpretations about the US commitment to defend Taiwan. Until at least 2024, Biden’s interpretation is the final word on the matter.
While he may be misinterpreting historic US policies, like the content of the Taiwan Relations Act, Biden is clear in his belief about the US commitment to Taiwan. No matter how many times the administration attempts to walk back and clarify Biden’s remarks, it is still the case that the president has said on three occasions that the United States has a commitment to defend Taiwan.
There are still a number of questions that arise from Biden’s statements. He only referred to “Taiwan,” and given Taiwan’s complicated international status, it is unclear what constitutes the defense of “Taiwan.” Does he only mean the island of Taiwan? Does he mean the entirety of the Republic of China, which is colloquially referred to as “Taiwan?” There’s a key difference between “Taiwan” and the “Republic of China” as the defense of “Taiwan” would likely exclude the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu, which were not covered in the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of China. Washington, understanding the particular vulnerability of Kinmen and Matsu to a Chinese attack (which did occur in a failed 1949 invasion of Kinmen), excluded them from the security umbrella. That treaty—and security guarantee—was abrogated in 1980 after Washington switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
The treaty is quite clear about what parts fall under the defense obligation: “The terms ‘territorial’ and ‘territories’ shall mean in respect of the Republic of China, Taiwan and the Pescadores.” The treaty included Penghu (Pescadores) since they are much closer to Taiwan proper than Kinmen or Matsu. Given the disputed status of the features in the South China Sea, it is likely that the United States would not defend Taiwan-held Taiping Island or Dongsha/Pratas Islands. After all, the United States did not militarily defend the Philippines (a formal treaty ally) in 2016 when the Chinese military pushed the Filipino military off Scarborough Shoal.
In this regard, Biden has not entirely killed strategic ambiguity: The conditions of the “commitment” are somewhat clearer—though it’s unclear if Biden only views the US commitment to defend from an invasion or also a military blockade—but not the territory that would trigger a US response.
Looking Ahead
With strategic ambiguity on life support, it is incumbent upon the Biden administration to plan in earnest to back up Biden’s views on the US commitment to Taiwan. For the United States to successfully intervene against China in a Taiwan invasion scenario, it would require the US military to respond quickly and decisively. Given China’s military advancements, an American victory is not guaranteed. The longer the debate over whether or not Biden’s statements have been gaffes, the less time there is for more meaningful and impactful policy debates on how the US should prepare itself and Taiwan for this potential conflict. Biden’s recent statements have received bipartisan support, with Sens. Bob Menendez, Richard Blumenthal, and Lindsey Graham applauding the president, so greater congressional action in this regard should not be difficult to achieve.
Many things have changed since Biden criticized Bush’s position on Taiwan in 2001. Through massive investments in its armed forces, China has tilted the balance of power in the Western Pacific in its favor. It is seeking to use that newfound power to coerce Taiwan into “reunifying.” While Beijing’s preference is for such an eventuality to occur peacefully, China’s 2005 Anti-Secession Law states that when “possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Public opinion in the United States is positive toward Taiwan. In 2021, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs conducted a poll in which 69 percent of Americans favored recognizing Taiwan as an independent country and 57 percent agreed that the United States should sign a free trade agreement with Taiwan. Most importantly, the poll found that 52 percent of Americans supported sending US troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Public opinion favors Taiwan, and the president’s statement essentially backs this viewpoint.
There was a general worry in the past that Taiwan could spark a conflict by attempting to declare independence. Under the Tsai Ing-wen administration, which favors the maintenance of the status quo, that fear no longer exists. Taiwan is viewed as an important US partner in the Indo-Pacific, and any potential conflict would be caused by Beijing acting aggressively. Biden no longer seems to hold the beliefs that he espoused in his op-ed over 20 years ago, which is a good thing since it demonstrates that his views have changed with the times and US priorities.
Biden finished his 2001 op-ed saying, “Words matter.” He was right then, and he is right now. As president, Biden has made clear that the policy under his administration is to defend Taiwan.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.
*About the author: Thomas J. Shattuck, a non-resident Fellow in the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), is the Future of the Global Order: Power, Technology, and Governance Program Manager at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House.
eurasiareview.com · by Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute · May 29, 2022
20. Opinion | Despite the war in Ukraine, Biden understands China matters most
Excerpts:
Several points warrant emphasis when assessing the challenges that China poses. For starters, the administration’s policy is a work in progress. As a senior State Department official previewed in a call on Thursday, near-term announcements are expected that will refine U.S. tariffs and support for Taiwan’s national security. The administration seems determined to pursue a policy that is more robust, realistic and diplomatically adept than its predecessors.
Second, the senior State Department official conceded that regarding Ukraine, China’s conduct has been “mixed.” The official stressed that the administration has not seen China extend military aid or help Russia avoid sanctions. Nevertheless, China continues to defend Russia rhetorically and excuse its war crimes.
Finally, China’s failure to match the West in developing effective coronavirus vaccines, resulting in continued shutdowns and an anemic recovery, should dispel the notion that it has some inherent advantage over the West. To the contrary, newfound collaboration among Western democracies and a swiftly revived U.S. economy offer evidence that free societies retain substantial advantages over closed ones. The challenge remains in harnessing that collective strength against a nation that still relies on intellectual property theft, military intimidation and state propaganda to compete with the West.
Opinion | Despite the war in Ukraine, Biden understands China matters most
President Barack Obama operated under the mistaken assumption that China wanted to be a responsible member of the international community. President Donald Trump — with his nasty, xenophobic rhetoric, indifference toward human rights, alienation of democratic allies and counterproductive tariff wars — left the United States in a weaker position against China.
President Biden has taken a different tack: tougher than Obama’s and smarter than Trump’s. There’s growing evidence that this approach is paying off.
When Biden entered office, he — like his predecessors — promised to focus on the Indo-Pacific region. His withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan was largely to facilitate that refocus. But like other presidents, he faced a world full of challenges, including an ongoing pandemic, worldwide economic setbacks and Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine.
Fortunately, Biden’s foreign policy remains devoted to democratic alliances and revived diplomacy. The result has been a sea change in China policy, as he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made clear during the president’s trip to Asia.
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Biden’s remarks at a joint news conference with Japan’s prime minister last Monday stirred discussion that the United States was migrating away from its strategic ambiguity about Taiwan. "Yes,” Biden replied when asked if he would defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China. “That’s the commitment we made.” He then clarified, “We agree with the one-China policy. We signed on to it, and all the attendant agreements made from there, but the idea that it can be taken by force … is just not appropriate.”
Had Biden omitted the initial “yes,” his response likely would not have raised eyebrows. Blinken later recited the traditional formula on U.S. policy toward Taiwan: “The United States remains committed to our one-China policy,” he said. He added that “we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” Nevertheless, as is often the case with Biden’s foreign policy remarks (most plainly on Russia), his telltale bluntness was welcome.
On Thursday, Blinken reiterated the degree to which this administration takes the multifaceted threats from China seriously. “China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,” he said. “Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years.” Blinken added that “this is one of the most complex and consequential relationships of any that we have in the world today.”
More so than previous administrations, the Biden team has linked domestic economic policy (from infrastructure to supply chains to chip manufacturing) to the need to bolster the U.S. economy against China. With a bill designed to make U.S. tech production more competitive against China’s making its way through conference committee, Biden might claim a significant legislative victory.
Equally important would be revamping the U.S. immigration system. While, as Blinken said, “we’re lucky when the best global talent not only studies here but stays here,” the United States could be strategic in expanding visas both for students and for tech workers. America could also bolster democracy at home (e.g., pass voting rights reform) to demonstrate the inferiority of China’s authoritarian system and effectively denounce its human rights violations. As Blinken remarked, “Our task is to prove once again that democracy can meet urgent challenges, create opportunity, advance human dignity; that the future belongs to those who believe in freedom and that all countries will be free to chart their own paths without coercion.”
The Biden administration deserves credit for making good on its pledge to revive democratic alliances and use them as force multipliers in confronting China. It developed a new agreement with Australia and Britain to provide Australia with nuclear submarines. It also elevated the “Quad” — an informal group of nations that includes Australia, India, Japan and the United States — and enhanced the ASEAN alliance. Beyond national security, the administration has maximized the United States’ leverage by acting in concert with allies on climate change and trade. (While not directly applicable to Asia, the success in revitalizing NATO has not gone unnoticed in Beijing.)
Several points warrant emphasis when assessing the challenges that China poses. For starters, the administration’s policy is a work in progress. As a senior State Department official previewed in a call on Thursday, near-term announcements are expected that will refine U.S. tariffs and support for Taiwan’s national security. The administration seems determined to pursue a policy that is more robust, realistic and diplomatically adept than its predecessors.
Second, the senior State Department official conceded that regarding Ukraine, China’s conduct has been “mixed.” The official stressed that the administration has not seen China extend military aid or help Russia avoid sanctions. Nevertheless, China continues to defend Russia rhetorically and excuse its war crimes.
Finally, China’s failure to match the West in developing effective coronavirus vaccines, resulting in continued shutdowns and an anemic recovery, should dispel the notion that it has some inherent advantage over the West. To the contrary, newfound collaboration among Western democracies and a swiftly revived U.S. economy offer evidence that free societies retain substantial advantages over closed ones. The challenge remains in harnessing that collective strength against a nation that still relies on intellectual property theft, military intimidation and state propaganda to compete with the West.
21. More than 100 members of Putin's 'private army' were fired for refusing to fight in Ukraine
More than 100 members of Putin's 'private army' were fired for refusing to fight in Ukraine
The Rosgvardia are often called Putin's "private army."
ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images
- More than 100 members of Russia's Rosgvardia were fired for disobeying orders to fight in Ukraine.
- They filed a collective lawsuit to challenge their dismissal as illegal, but it was rejected.
- Their lawyer said they had been given a choice by their commanders not to fight, per The Guardian.
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More than 100 soldiers of Russia's national guard have been sacked for disobeying orders to fight in Ukraine, according to multiple media reports.
The 115 national guardsmen were part of the Rosgvardia, a force separate from the military that is often used by the Kremlin as an internal security force against terrorism and to quash dissent, The Guardian reported.
The dismissal of the 115 guardsmen surfaced on May 25 after a Russian military court rejected their lawsuit to challenge their termination. In a decision posted online last week, the judge ruled the soldiers had been rightfully fired.
The soldiers were "refusing to perform an official assignment" and had returned to a duty station instead of carrying out their orders in Ukraine, the court said, according to The Guardian.
Russia conducted the hearing behind closed doors to prevent "military secrets" from leaking, independent local outlet The Moscow Times reported.
Andrei Sabinin, the lawyer representing the 115 soldiers, told The Guardian that the national guardsmen weren't allowed to call up certain witnesses and had documents rejected by the court.
He also said that the men had been given a choice by their Rosgvardia commanders not to fight, making their sacking illegal.
This isn't the first time that members of the Rosgvardia have been punished for refusing to join the war in Ukraine. In a separate case in March, 12 national guardsmen were fired for the same reason.
According to Reuters, the 12 men said they didn't have passports and were afraid they would have to do something illegal in Ukraine.
The Rosgvardia has often been called President Vladimir Putin's "private army" because they were created in 2016 to serve the Russian leader as something akin to the ancient Roman empire's Praetorian Guard.
The national guardsmen's refusal to fight fits a consistent pattern of reports that Russian troops have been running low on morale since the initial weeks of the war in Ukraine. Some Russian soldiers reportedly didn't know they would be fighting in Ukraine or why Russia had invaded Ukraine, according to their families and footage from Ukraine.
22. The mystery of China’s sudden warnings about US hackers
The mystery of China’s sudden warnings about US hackers
China has recently begun saber-rattling about American cyberespionage.
Enlarge / Chinese flag with digital matrix -Innovation Concept - Digital Tech Wallpaper - 3D illustration
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Since the start of 2022, China’s Foreign Ministry and the country’s cybersecurity firms have increasingly been calling out alleged US cyberespionage. Until now, these allegations have been a rarity. But the disclosures come with a catch: They appear to rely on years-old technical details, which are already publicly known and don’t contain fresh information. The move may be a strategic change for China as the nation tussles to cement its position as a tech superpower.
“These are useful materials for China’s tit-for-tat propaganda campaigns when they faced US accusation and indictment of China’s cyberespionage activities,” says Che Chang, a cyber threat analyst at the Taiwan-based cybersecurity firm TeamT5.
China’s accusations, which were noted by security journalist Catalin Cimpanu, all follow a very similar pattern. On February 23, Chinese security company Pangu Lab published allegations that the US National Security Agency’s elite Equation Group hackers used a backdoor, dubbed Bvp47, to monitor 45 countries. The Global Times, a tabloid newspaper that’s part of China’s state-controlled media, ran an exclusive report on the research. Weeks later, on March 14, the newspaper had a second exclusive story about another NSA tool, NOPEN, based on details from China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center. A week later, Chinese cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360 alleged that US hackers had been attacking Chinese companies and organizations. And on April 19, the Global Times reported on further National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center findings about HIVE, malware developed by the CIA.
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The reports are accompanied with a flurry of statements—often in response to questions from the media—by China’s Foreign Ministry spokespeople. “China is gravely concerned over the irresponsible malicious cyber activities of the US government,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in April after one of the announcements. “We urge the US side to explain itself and immediately stop such malicious activities.” Over the first nine days of May, Foreign Ministry spokespeople commented on US cyber activities at least three times. “One cannot whitewash himself by smearing others,” Zhao Lijian said in one instance.
While cyber activity undertaken by state actors is often wrapped in highly classified files, many hacking tools developed by the US are no longer secret. In 2017, WikiLeaks published 9,000 documents in the Vault7 leaks, which detailed many of the CIA’s tools. A year earlier, the mysterious Shadow Brokers hacking group stole data from one of the NSA’s elite hacking teams and slowly dripped the data to the world. The Shadow Brokers leaks included dozens of exploits and new zero-days—including the Eternal Blue hacking tool, which has since been used repeatedly in some of the largest cyberattacks. Many of the details in the Shadow Brokers leaks match up with details about NSA which were disclosed by Edward Snowden in 2013. (An NSA spokesperson said it has “no comment” for this story; the agency routinely does not comment on its activities.)
Ben Read, director of cyberespionage analysis at the US cybersecurity firm Mandiant, says China’s state media push of alleged US hacking seems to be consistent, but it mostly contains older information. “Everything that I've seen they've written about, they tie back to the US through either the Snowden leaks or Shadow Brokers,” Read says.
Pangu Lab’s February report on Bvp47—the only publication on its website—says it initially discovered the details in 2013 but pieced them together after the Shadow Brokers leaks in 2017. “The report was based on a decade-old malware, and the decryption key is the same” as in WikiLeaks, Che says. The details of HIVE and NOPEN have also been available for years. Neither Pangu Labs or Qihoo 360, which has been on the US government sanctions list since 2020, responded to requests for comment on their research or methodology. A Pangu spokesperson previously said it recently published the old details, and it had taken a long time to analyze the data.
Megha Pardhi, a China researcher at Takshashila Institution, an Indian think tank, says the publications and follow-up comments from officials can serve multiple purposes. Internally, China can use it for propaganda and to send a message to the US that it has the capability to attribute cyber activity. But beyond this, there is a warning to other countries, Pardhi says. “The message is that even though you're allied with the United States, they're still gonna come after you.”
“We oppose and crack down in accordance with law all forms of cyberespionage and attacks,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the US, says in a statement. Liu did not respond directly to questions around the apparent uptick in finger-pointing at the US this year, the evidence that was being used to do so, or why this may be happening years after details originally emerged. China is widely considered to be one of the most sophisticated and active state cyber actors—involved in spying, hacking for espionage, and gathering data. Western officials consider the country to be the biggest cyber threat, ahead of Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
“Recently, there have been many reports of US carrying cybertheft and attacks on China and the whole world,” Liu says in a statement that reflects comments made by China’s Foreign Ministry spokespeople this year. “The US should reflect on itself and join others to jointly safeguard peace and security in cyberspace with a responsible attitude.”
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Many of the disclosures in 2022—there are only a handful of previous Chinese accusations against the US—stem from private cybersecurity companies. This is similar to how Western cybersecurity companies report their findings; they are not always incorporated into government talking points, however, and state-backed media is all but nonexistent.
“One explanation is, possibly, that we are engaged in a kind of ideological—or if you want to put it more prosaically, a marketing—battle with China,” says Suzanne Spaulding, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and previously a senior cybersecurity official in the Obama administration. The US-China relationship has been fraught in recent years, with tensions rising over national security issues, including concerns about the telecom giant Huawei. “China is offering, around the world, a competing model to Western-style democracy,” Spaulding says, noting that China may be responding to Western countries coming together on multiple issues since Russia invaded Ukraine.
In July 2021, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published plans to boost the private security industry by 2023. Companies based in China should spend more on their defenses against cyberattacks, the government department said at the time. It also said the whole cybersecurity industry within China should look to grow in size in the coming years, as well as bolster the development of network monitoring systems and threat detection techniques. “What we've started to see over the last couple of years, increasingly, is that companies in China are building their own capabilities,” says Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at the US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. “There's been a few that have waded into the threat intelligence space.”
But publicizing details of the long-known incidents still raises plenty of questions. Mandiant’s Read says he wonders exactly how many cyberespionage cases Chinese companies and authorities are finding. The answer would provide significant clues about their true capabilities. Read says: “Is this 50 percent of what they're finding? Is this 1 percent of what they're finding? Is this 90 percent of what they're finding?”
The move appears to be strategic, says TeamT5’s Che. “Considering the close relationship between China's cybersecurity firms and the Chinese government, our team surmises that these reports could be a part of China’s strategic distraction when they are accused of massive surveillance systems and espionage operations.”
23. Putin's Nightmare: A Ukrainian Guerrilla Movement Has Emerged
Excerpt:
There are also reports of partisan activity in Crimea. According to a Ukrainian official, “Today we see in the Crimea the appearance of local partisans who slash the tires of cars with Russian symbols, write slogans on park benches, and distribute pro-Ukrainian leaflets.”
Putin's Nightmare: A Ukrainian Guerrilla Movement Has Emerged
A new front in the war for Ukraine: Ukrainian officials had announced in early April that they expected a full-scale Ukrainian guerrilla movement to emerge in the late spring. They were right. As the below list of recent partisan activity shows, Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories have mobilized and embarked on the traditional forms of resistance: sabotage, assassinations, and propaganda.
I gathered the data from Ukrainian websites that explicitly identified the perpetrators of these actions as partisans. It is, of course, possible that Ukrainian special forces may have been involved in some of these actions; it is also likely that the data are incomplete, inasmuch as some actions probably went unreported. Even so, the number of guerrilla actions is impressive and bespeaks a trend toward ever-greater partisan activity.
The data indicate that most of the partisan activity is located in and around the city of Melitopol. This conclusion is corroborated by the Institute for the Study of War’s map of Assessed Control of Terrain in Ukraine and Main Russian Maneuver Axes.
But that distinction may not last long. The Berdyansk Partisan Army, whose size is unknown, has unleashed an extensive propaganda campaign on Telegram. It has disseminated slogans, provided advice to civilians regarding forms of resistance, and identified the names and addresses of collaborators. It has not, to date, engaged in any kind of active resistance.
It’s likely that Ukrainian partisan activity has affected the morale of Russian soldiers, close to 200 of whom have been victims of fatal knifings and shootings. Some Russians appear to think that learning a few words of Ukrainian may enable them to survive nighttime attacks. It’s also likely that several assassinations of pro-Russian Ukrainian civilians have dampened the spirits of actual and potential collaborators.
The real impact of the partisan movement will be felt if it spreads to most of southern Ukraine, intensifies its efforts, and—most important—coordinates its activities with the counter-offensive the Ukrainian armed forces, bolstered by deliveries of western heavy weaponry, are expected to launch in late July or August.
The Ukrainians expect their counter-offensive to be successful: they believe that their soldiers are better than their Russian counterparts and that their Western-made weapons will also be better than most of the increasingly outdated Russian equipment. If the guerrillas can strike the Russian lines from behind, while the army attacks from the front, the effect could be tantamount to an encirclement of the Russian armed forces.
Naturally, the Russian authorities will try to crack down on and neutralize the guerrillas. Indeed, they already have. Inasmuch as the local populations are almost uniformly supportive of the Ukrainian resistance movement, the authorities are unlikely to succeed, certainly in the short term. In any case, whether successful or not, a crackdown will divert needed resources from the front to the rear, thereby aiding the Ukrainian war effort.
List of Partisan Activities in Ukriane
May 25, leaflets appeared in Berdyansk, Tokmak, Melitopol, Velykiy Burluk: “Russian soldier, if you don’t want to be a Nazi of the 21st century, then leave our land! Otherwise, the fate of Hitler’s soldiers and a Nuremberg tribunal await you!”
May 23, Melitopol, railroad tracks were damaged and a shipment of weapons and ammunition was disrupted.
May 22, near Melitopol, radar stations were destroyed.
May 22, Energodar, Zaporizhzhya province, unsuccessful assassination attempt against the collaborationist mayor, Andrii Shevchyk.
May 18, near Melitopol, railroad tracks were destroyed and a military train was derailed.
May 17, Melitopol, two officers were killed.
April 30, Berdyansk, the Berdyansk Partisan Army declared: “Russian occupiers and their collaborators, you think you’ve established control over Berdyansk? You have no idea of the mouse trap you’ve stepped in. We, the Berdyansk Partisan Army, are already growing our forces and are ready to emerge from the shadows.”
April 28, Akimovka, Zaporizhzhya province, a railroad bridge was destroyed.
April 25, Kremenna, Luhansk province, the city council and police station were bombed, with many casualties.
April 22, Melitopol, another 30 soldiers were reported killed since April 12.
April 20, Kherson, pro-Russian blogger, Valerii Kuleshov, was killed.
April 16, Berdyansk, the Berdyansk Partisan Army maked its first appearance in Telegram. It defined itself as a “movement of engaged Berdyansk residents, who defend their city in the struggle against the Russian fascist occupier.”
March-April 26, Kherson province, 80 soldiers were reported killed.
March 20-April 12, Melitopol, 70 soldiers were reported killed during nighttime patrols.
Early March, Kremenna, Luhansk province, the collaborationist official, Vladimir Struk, was killed.
There are also reports of partisan activity in Crimea. According to a Ukrainian official, “Today we see in the Crimea the appearance of local partisans who slash the tires of cars with Russian symbols, write slogans on park benches, and distribute pro-Ukrainian leaflets.”
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
24. NGA Plays Crucial, Albeit Top-Secret, Role in Major Military Successes,
I understand the Ukraine military needs maps with UTM coordinates. Does NGA have any maps in storage that can be provided to Ukraine?
Sometimes the basics of blocking and tackling are what is needed more than the high speed high tech capabilities.
NGA Plays Crucial, Albeit Top-Secret, Role in Major Military Successes, by Daily Editorials
What happens way over there has a lot to do with what happens right in St. Louisans' back yard. Perhaps the least-touted and least-understood aspect of global intelligence and warfare is what happens behind the walls of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is building a $1.8 billion new western headquarters northwest of downtown. If St. Louisans are typical of many Americans, they dismiss a lot of news from overseas as having little or nothing to do with them. What they don't realize is that thousands of their fellow St. Louisans play key roles in determining U.S. military and intelligence responses, with thousands more support jobs opening around the city to support the NGA's growing mission.
There's no way to know exactly what role the St. Louis facility has in overall NGA operations, but it's safe to conclude from the attention it receives from top U.S. defense and intelligence officials that the role is major. The agency is so secretive that even its budget is classified. Any mention of the NGA in news stories tends to come from obscure publications like SpyTalk, SpaceNews and BreakingDefense.com.
But from parsing details of various major global military events, including the current war in Ukraine, it's safe to say that the NGA's role has been so crucial that Ukraine would not have been able to beat back the invasion by far-stronger and better-equipped Russian forces without the kinds of pinpoint intelligence on troop movements and equipment deployments that the agency's spy satellites provide.
Consider the Ukrainian attack last month that sank the guided missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet. Russia has warned of World War III should the United States become directly involved in Ukraine. So American officials have been tight-lipped about any role U.S. intelligence or military assets played in the Moskva's sinking — the biggest humiliation Moscow has suffered so far in the war.
But unless Ukrainian forces were incredibly lucky with their shot-in-the-dark missile launch from miles away, they required the kinds of over-the-horizon satellite monitoring and targeting capabilities that only agencies like the NGA can provide. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, responding to an NBC News report about U.S. intelligence assistance with the sinking, insisted the Pentagon had no prior knowledge of the Ukrainians' plans.
The 2011 Navy SEAL Team 6 raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is another example of how intelligence that only the NGA could obtain helped guide special operations forces to their target and relay the results, including live video of bin Laden's killing, back to the White House.
Like the code of silence that guides the SEALs' work, what happens at the NGA stays at the NGA. St. Louisans can be certain, nonetheless, that the city owns a little piece of many major news-making military victories abroad.
REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Photo credit: 12019 at Pixabay
25. Negative views of Russia mainly limited to western liberal democracies, poll shows
Negative views of Russia mainly limited to western liberal democracies, poll shows
Annual global survey of attitudes to democracy finds many countries maintain positive views of Russia
The sharp polarisation between mainly western liberal democracies and the rest of the world in perceptions of Russia has been laid bare in an annual global poll of attitudes towards democracy.
Within Europe, 55% of those surveyed for the Alliance for Democracies said they were in favour of cutting economic ties with Russia due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, whereas in Asia there was a majority against, and in Latin America opinion was evenly split.
Negative views of Russia are largely confined to Europe and other liberal democracies. Positive views of Russia have been retained in China, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The annual Democracy Perception Index, carried out after the invasion of Ukraine, covers 52 highly populated countries in Asia, Latin America, the US and Europe.
Majorities in a total of 20 countries thought economic ties with Russia should not be cut due to the war in Ukraine. They included Greece, Kenya, Turkey, China, Israel, Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, South Africa, Vietnam, Algeria, the Philippines, Hungary, Mexico, Thailand, Morocco, Malaysia, Peru, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. Colombians were evenly split.
By contrast, among the 31 countries that favoured cutting ties, 20 were in Europe.
Although Russian diplomats will point to the findings as evidence that global public opinion does not share western interpretations of events in Ukraine, the level of distrust of Russia in some countries was high.
The countries with a widely held most negative view of Russia included Poland (net negative 87%), Ukraine (80%), Portugal (79%), Italy (65%), UK (65%), Sweden (77%), US (62%) and Germany (62%). Even in Hungary – whose leader Viktor Orbán is an ally of Putin – a net 32% have a negative view of Russia. In Venezuela, often seen as propped up by Russia, the local population has a net negative view of Russia of 36%.
Countries with a net positive view of Russia included India (36%) Indonesia (14%), Saudi Arabia (11 %), Algeria (29%), Morocco (4%), and Egypt (7%).
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Despite the mixed views about Russia, strong sympathy was shown for Ukraine. Most people surveyed in Asia, Latin America and Europe thought Nato, the US and the EU could do more to help Ukraine. In Latin America, 62% of respondents thought Nato has done too little and only 6% too much. In Europe 43% said Europe has done too little and 11% too much. In China, 34% said the US has done too much to help. Nearly half (46%) globally said that the European Union, United States and Nato were doing too little to assist Ukraine, while 11% said they are doing too much.
Negative perceptions of China are not as widespread as for Russia. British respondents were the most likely to want to cut economic ties with China if it invaded Taiwan.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
