Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“People have only as much liberty as they have in the intelligence to want, and the courage to take.”

- Emma Goldman

“I will always be on the side of those who have nothing, and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.”

- Federico García Lorca

“In this treacherous world

Nothing is the truth nor a lie.

Everything depends on the color

Of the crystal through which one sees it”

― Pedro Calderón de la Barca

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 29, 2023

2. Ukraine's Counter-Offensive: Setting Expectations by Lawrence Freedman

3. Could economic indicators signal China’s intent to go to war?

4. Russia Says It Downed Three Ukrainian Drones Over Moscow

5. Wagner troops moving towards Polish border and could try sneaking across, PM says

6. "A World Transformed and the Role of Intelligence" Director William J. Burns Ditchley Annual Lecture July 1, 2023

7. How the US is using open-source intel to track Russia's war in Ukraine

8. ‘We Can Never Forgive This’: In Odesa, Attacks Stoke Hatred of Russia

9. The Next Frontier for Warfighters Might Be Implants in Their Brains. Is the Pentagon Ready for the Consequences?

10. U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations

11. 'The Few. The Proud' aren't so few: Marines recruiting surges while other services struggle

12. Pentagon probes ‘compromise’ of Air Force, FBI communications after engineer stole $90K worth of tech

13. Zelensky: Special Operations Forces inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists

14. Why Japan Should Be Vigilant on China’s Intentions Toward Okinawa

15. Occupation Authorities In Eastern Ukraine On The Prowl For Supposed Ukrainian Military 'Spotters'

16. Mysterious Chinese COVID Lab Uncovered in City of Reedley CA

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 29, 2023

Maps/ graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-29-2023

Key Takeaways:

Segments of the Russian pro-war ultranationalist information space appear to be coalescing around a Kremlin narrative effort to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure, increasingly overstating Ukrainian losses and writing less about Russia's losses and challenges than they had been.
Select Russian milbloggers may be shaping their depiction of the wider Ukrainian counteroffensive for fear of Kremlin punishment following the arrest of prominent pro-war critic Igor Girkin.
The Kremlin’s ability to establish a more cohesive narrative about the war within the Russian information space remains uncertain, and subsequent Russian failures or significant Ukrainian successes could disrupt the Kremlin’s progress in this effort.
Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced in some areas on July 29.
Ukrainian forces likely targeted Russian military and logistics assets in occupied Crimea on July 28 and 29.
Russian forces conducted a missile strike on Dnipro City, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on the evening of July 28.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line and the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and made claimed advances along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line, around Bakhmut, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and advanced around Bakhmut.
Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and south of Orikhiv and advanced along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and south of Orikhiv but did not make confirmed or claimed advances.
A Ukrainian report indicates that Russian occupation authorities continue crypto-mobilization efforts in occupied Ukraine to replenish losses from combat casualties.
Russian authorities continue to forcibly deport Ukrainian children in occupied Ukraine to Russia under the guise of rest and rehabilitation programs.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 29, 2023

Jul 29, 2023 - Press ISW

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Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 29, 2023

Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 29, 2023, 3:40pm ET

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 11:30am ET on July 29. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 30 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Segments of the Russian pro-war ultranationalist information space appear to be coalescing around the Kremlin’s narrative effort to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure, increasingly overstating Ukrainian losses and writing less about Russia's losses and challenges than they had been. Prominent Russian milbloggers have been increasingly presenting Ukrainian counteroffensive operations inaccurately as a series of failed Ukrainian assaults along the entire line of contact.[1] Russian milbloggers widely amplified footage on July 29 claiming that it showed a single Russian tank defeating an entire Ukrainian company with armored vehicles as if the event had occurred recently, but the footage is actually from June 7 and shows Russian artillery units striking the Ukrainian column.[2] Russian sources have previously recirculated old footage to support claims that Ukrainian forces are suffering significant armored vehicle losses, and the amplification of the footage on July 29 indicates that Russian sources are deliberately amplifying old footage to support the Kremlin narrative.[3] Russian President Vladimir Putin recently claimed that Ukrainian forces lost 39 armored vehicles in a few days of fighting in western Zaporizhia Oblast, a notable inflection in his exaggeration of Ukrainian losses during the Ukrainian counteroffensive.[4] ISW previously assessed that the Kremlin is likely shifting its policy about the coverage of the war to downplay the possibilities of a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and to promote itself as an effective manager of the war effort.[5] Russian milbloggers continue to report on localized Ukrainian advances and some issues with Russian defensive operations, but the pro-war Russian information space’s wider operational framing of the Ukrainian counteroffensive aligns with the likely shift in the Kremlin’s portrayal of the counteroffensive.[6]

Select Russian milbloggers may be shaping their depiction of the wider Ukrainian counteroffensive for fear of Kremlin punishment following the arrest of prominent pro-war critic Igor Girkin. A Russian insider source claimed on July 28 that sources within the presidential administration stated that the Kremlin recently encouraged Kremlin-affiliated milbloggers to reduce their coverage of the war in Ukraine in general and to post more positive content on topics of nationalistic pride.[7] ISW has not observed Kremlin-affiliated milbloggers reducing their coverage of the war, although Kremlin-affiliated milbloggers have begun to argue more emphatically that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is a failure.[8] The arrest of notable critics of the Russian war effort in Ukraine such as Girkin along with ongoing Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) efforts to consolidate control over the Russian information space may be prompting select milbloggers to align their portrayal of the war with the Kremlin’s more than they have normally done.[9]

The Kremlin’s ability to establish a more cohesive narrative about the war within the Russian information space remains uncertain, and subsequent Russian failures or significant Ukrainian successes could disrupt the Kremlin’s progress in this effort. Segments of the Russian information space do continue to complain about systemic issues within the Russian war effort in Ukraine, and many Russian milbloggers would likely reverse course on their portrayal of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the event of significant Ukrainian gains. The milblogger community continues to be highly reactive and motivated by salient topics of outrage, and many milbloggers would likely abandon efforts to align themselves with the Kremlin’s messaging about the war in the event that a controversy about Russian failure prompts renewed intense ire towards the Russian military leadership.[10] A cohesively amplified and unchallenged Kremlin narrative concerning the tactical and operational situation in Ukraine would make accurate coverage of battlefield realities more challenging, particularly in the absence of more detailed reporting from the Ukrainian side.

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced in some areas on July 29. Geolocated footage published on July 28 confirms that Ukrainian forces have advanced close to the northwestern outskirts of Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[11] Geolocated footage published on July 29 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced to positions near the northern outskirts of Pryyutne (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area.[12] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued assaults near Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka, and Andriivka south of Bakhmut.[13] Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[14] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks near Rivnopil, Staromayorske, and Urozhaine in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area.[15] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast, and one milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces captured a forest northeast of Robotyne.[16] A Russian milblogger stated that Russian defensive fortifications will not matter if Ukrainian forces inflict heavy losses on Russian forces to the point that there are not enough Russian personnel to man the fortifications.[17] The milblogger also stated that the depth of Ukrainian advances into Russian defensive lines matters less than the degree to which the balance of forces has shifted to favor Ukraine during the course of the counteroffensive.

Ukrainian forces targeted Russian military and logistics assets in occupied Crimea on July 28 and 29. The Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that Ukrainian forces struck the Chonhar bridge between occupied Crimea and occupied Kherson Oblast on the morning of July 29.[18] Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo claimed Ukrainian forces launched 12 Storm Shadow missiles at the Chonhar rail bridge, but claimed that Russian air defenses intercepted all 12 missiles.[19] Some social media sources stated that locals reported explosions in the Chonhar area, but there is currently no visual evidence of the strike or claims about the consequences of the strike at the time of this publication.[20] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that saboteurs set explosives against a Russian ammunition depot in Kozacha Bay near Sevastopol, Crimea on July 28 and that locals reported primary and secondary detonations.[21] Sevastopol occupation head Mikhail Razvozhaev claimed on July 28 that any explosions in the Kozacha Bay area were due to Russian military exercises.[22]

Russian forces conducted a missile strike on Dnipro City, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on the evening of July 28. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces struck a residential building and a Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) building in Dnipro City with two Iskander cruise missiles.[23]

Key Takeaways:

Segments of the Russian pro-war ultranationalist information space appear to be coalescing around a Kremlin narrative effort to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure, increasingly overstating Ukrainian losses and writing less about Russia's losses and challenges than they had been.
Select Russian milbloggers may be shaping their depiction of the wider Ukrainian counteroffensive for fear of Kremlin punishment following the arrest of prominent pro-war critic Igor Girkin.
The Kremlin’s ability to establish a more cohesive narrative about the war within the Russian information space remains uncertain, and subsequent Russian failures or significant Ukrainian successes could disrupt the Kremlin’s progress in this effort.
Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced in some areas on July 29.
Ukrainian forces likely targeted Russian military and logistics assets in occupied Crimea on July 28 and 29.
Russian forces conducted a missile strike on Dnipro City, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on the evening of July 28.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line and the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and made claimed advances along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line, around Bakhmut, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and advanced around Bakhmut.
Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and south of Orikhiv and advanced along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and south of Orikhiv but did not make confirmed or claimed advances.
A Ukrainian report indicates that Russian occupation authorities continue crypto-mobilization efforts in occupied Ukraine to replenish losses from combat casualties.
Russian authorities continue to forcibly deport Ukrainian children in occupied Ukraine to Russia under the guise of rest and rehabilitation programs.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line on July 29 and reportedly advanced in some areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Novoyehorivka (16km southwest of Svatove), the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna, and Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna).[24] The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian Western Grouping of Forces conducted offensive operations near Kuzemivka (15km northwest of Svatove).[25] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) captured Novoyehorivka and are currently clearing surrounding areas.[26] The milblogger also claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces from heights between Novoyehorivka and Nadiya (15km west of Svatove).[27] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults near Nadiya but did not specify the results.[28] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of recent Russian claims of extensive Russian advances along the Svatove-Kreminna, and the Russian MoD and select Russian milbloggers may be exaggerating claims of advances to draw attention from Ukrainian counteroffensives elsewhere.[29]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on July 29 and did not advance. The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces repelled two Ukrainian assaults near Raihorodka (12km west of Svatove) and the Serebryanske forest area and that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled a Ukrainian assault near Bilohorivka, Donetsk Oblast (33km south of Kreminna).[30]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian Objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Bakhmut and advanced on July 29. Geolocated footage published on July 28 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced to the northwestern outskirts of Kurdyumivka (11km southwest of Bakhmut).[31] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attacking Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) but that Russian defenses held.[32] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces reduced the intensity of their attacks against Klishchiivka due to bad weather in the area, and weather forecasts show limited rain near Klishchiivka during the morning of July 29.[33] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also repelled Ukrainian attacks near Andriivka (8km southwest of Bakhmut), Yahidne (2km north of Bakhmut), and Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut).[34]

Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted limited offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and did not advance on July 29. The Ukrainian General Staff and a Russian milblogger reported that Russian forces conducted ground attacks near Avdiivka and Marinka (immediately southwest of Donetsk City).[35] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks near Avdiivka, Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), and Krasnohorivka (immediately west of Donetsk City).[36]

Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on July 29 and advanced in the area. Geolocated footage published on July 29 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced north of Pryyutne (14km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[37] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast area) direction.[38] The Russian MoD claimed that unspecified units of the Russian 36th Combined Arms Army (Eastern Ministry District) and Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) repelled two Ukrainian attacks near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[39] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on July 29 that Ukrainian small infantry groups conducted unsuccessful attacks against Russian positions west of Staromayorske.[40]

Russian forces reportedly continued limited ground attacks along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on July 29 and did not advance. Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Rivnopil (10km southwest of Velyka Novosilka), Staromayorske, Urozhaine, and Pryyutne, but did not specify an outcome.[41] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on July 29 that Russian forces are shelling Ukrainian positions in Staromayorske to prevent Ukrainian forces from advancing further south.[42]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 29 and reportedly made marginal advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) direction.[43] Several milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted assaults near Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) with artillery support but did not break through to the settlement.[44] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces captured a small forest area northeast of Robotyne.[45]

Russian forces reportedly conducted a tactical rotation in place in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 29.[46] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces took advantage of a claimed lull in Ukrainian ground attacks near Robotyne due to poor weather to conduct engineering training and an unspecified force rotation.[47] While the milblogger did not provide details of the rotation, Russian forces likely conducted a tactical rotation in place with another unit of the same formation rather than rotating fresh units into the area as Ukrainian forces did recently.[48] A prominent Russian milblogger posted footage on July 29 claiming to show elements of the 292nd Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment (19th Motorized Rifle Division, Southern Military District) operating in the Zaporizhia direction.[49] Another milblogger posted footage indicating that unspecified elements of the Russian 810th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet) continue operating near Robotyne.[50] The 19th Motorized Rifle Division and the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade have been defending this area since the start of the counteroffensive.

Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)

A Ukrainian report indicates that Russian occupation authorities continue crypto-mobilization efforts in occupied Ukraine to replenish losses from combat casualties. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian occupation authorities are forcing civilians in eastern and southern Ukraine to serve in Russian military units and that the Russian military command has staffed the 33rd “Margolev” Detachment with Ukrainians living in occupied territories.[51]

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian authorities continue to forcibly deport Ukrainian children in occupied Ukraine to Russia under the guise of rest and rehabilitation programs. Kherson Oblast occupation administration amplified an announcement on July 26 that a second group of 40 children from Skadovsk Raion in occupied Kherson Oblast arrived at the Raduga Social and Rehabilitation Center for a 21-day rehabilitation course in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria Republic.[52] The Kherson Oblast occupation administration claimed that the program will provide Ukrainian children with medical and psychological treatment and participate in sports and educational excursions in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic.[53]

The Kremlin continues attempts to legitimize the Russian occupation authorities by including them in international discussions. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky reported on July 29 that Zaporizhia Oblast occupation State Unitary Enterprise State Grain Operator representatives met with unspecified African representatives at the Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg, Russia to establish the Crimean-African Business Council and discuss delivering grain from occupied Ukraine to African countries.[54]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus).

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated on July 29 that over 100 Wagner Group personnel have moved to northwestern Belarus near the Suwalki Corridor (the border between Poland and Lithuania that separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, Russia).[55] Morawiecki reported that Wagner forces may pose as Belarusian border guards to help migrants cross into the EU or themselves pose as migrants to enter the EU.[56] A Wagner-affiliated source claimed that Wagner forces may be training with Belarusian forces at the 6th Separate Mechanized Brigade training ground in Grodno and that Wagner and Belarusian forces will jointly train until at least August 6.[57] Wagner forces have been in Belarus since at least July 14 when the Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed that Wagner instructors were training Belarusian forces near Asipovichy, Mogilev Oblast.[58]

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

2. Ukraine's Counter-Offensive: Setting Expectations by Lawrence Freedman

Excerpts:

It does the Ukrainians no favours to assess their military progress by the most demanding criteria. The effort to liberate territory is bound to be painful, and this will be the case not because the Ukrainian army has failed to master the art of manoeuvre. Without superiority in firepower any army would find this hard. Of course the Russian army has taken huge losses, shows many signs of wear and tear, and may not cope well should its defensive lines be breached. We may see it pull back when put under irresistible pressure, even if not along the whole front line. What is important is that Ukraine keeps the initiative, and does not exhaust itself so much that the Russians get a chance to regroup and counter-attack. Outside cheerleaders and anxious supporters should not force the pace and beware of talking up gains before we can be sure of their significance or their consolidation. That way only leads to disappointment.

This is an argument for caution not pessimism, for gearing expectations to a range of scenarios. One of the problems with the fixation on a manoeuvre strategy is that it suggests that only a decisive military victory can deliver an acceptable political outcome. It may not require the Ukrainian army to go the whole way and liberate all occupied territory for steady advances to add to the pressure on Moscow.

This war was started with a decision in Moscow and a decision in Moscow is required for it to end, because Ukraine will continue to fight under all circumstances. As we have so little insight into Kremlin deliberations we may get pleasantly surprised if a decision comes sooner than expected but we dare not suppose that one is imminent. Ukraine must be supported on the assumption that it is not. As I noted earlier the original idea of an attritional strategy was largely about how to cope with a long war, and that is the sort of strategy Ukraine needs.

Ukraine's Counter-Offensive: Setting Expectations

https://samf.substack.com/p/ukraines-counter-offensive-setting?utm

samf.substack.com · by Lawrence Freedman

In a recent blog for Foreign Affairs I argued that even as Putin’s original objectives drift out of reach another objective takes over - that of ‘not losing’, for with losing comes the reckoning. Failure is measured not only in the objectives that will forever stay unmet, but the casualties and costs accumulated during the course of the war, and the damage to Russia’s standing as a great power and Putin’s position as a competent leader.

The consequences of Putin’s determination to avoid loss have been heavy for Ukraine as well as Russia. A futile war has continued and will only stop when Putin, or a successor, recognises the failure. Because he lacks a convincing victory Putin has instead sought to coerce Ukraine into capitulation, first by attacking its critical infrastructure and now its grain exports. None of this has led to a more conciliatory attitude in Kyiv. If anything it has had the opposite effect. At most it may give Putin some malign comfort that Ukrainians are being harshly punished for refusing to join his dominion and an opportunity to remove a competitor in agricultural trade. He has spoken positively about how shortages allow Russian grain exporters to charge more.

Why an offensive is both necessary and difficult.

What will it take to persuade the Kremlin of the futility of this war? Ukraine has shown resilience in the face of attacks on its society and economy and despite gloomy prognostications to the contrary, support from NATO countries and others has not fallen away. It has shown through various means that Russian assets can be attacked, including the bridge link to Crimea. The most compelling message it can send, however, depends on its armed forces liberating territory. Success in battle can have knock on effects elsewhere. All Putin’s other worries - about the economy, public opinion, and the state of his armed forces - become more serious if there are further military setbacks. This is why so much was invested by Ukraine’s supporters in training and equipping new brigades - reportedly about 63,000 Ukrainian troops and more than 150 modern battle tanks, along with many older tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. This is why so much now rides on the success of the offensive they have made possible.

Will this investment pay off? In a war in which both sides have struggled against determined defences it has always been unclear what could realistically be achieved and over what time. Prior to this offensive getting underway expectations were raised up and down. Now it has been going for almost two months observers are still unsure what to make of it. Ukraine has had to adjust its tactics after initial setbacks, so that we are now assessing progress against different criteria than were in place when it began.

I found it salutary to look back at what I wrote a year ago (13 August 2022). when Ukraine had also embarked on offensive operations, this time against Russian positions in Kherson, which had also yet to show much progress. As this followed a Russian offensive in which they had made only limited headway in the Donbas, the overall impression was of a developing stalemate, with defence confirmed as the stronger form of warfare and the strategies adopted by both sides, by necessity, attritional.

I noted that because attritional wars can only be won if the enemy army collapses through depletion and exhaustion, generals prefer to win through manoeuvre, involving bold offences that lead to territory being seized and a victory imposed. This was much to be preferred to waiting for the enemy to give up. Attrition therefore tended to get

‘disparaged as an inferior and undesirable form of warfare, requiring patience and an ability to absorb pain, without necessarily offering a plausible route to victory.’

Yet, I argued, while attrition lacked ‘dash and drama’, it could still lead to victory, by creating the conditions for manoeuvre warfare or by forcing the enemy to recognize that its position could only get worse. ‘Moreover’, I added, ‘there are different ways of fighting an attritional war, and some strategies can be more effective than others.’

Not long after this post, Ukraine achieved an effective advance, not in Kherson but in Kharkiv, where the Russians had thinned out their forces in order to reinforce their positions in Kherson. Very quickly the Russians lost a lot of ground and for a moment their war effort appeared to be wobbling.

At this point I was optimistic that Putin might move to cut his losses by finding a way to end the war. Instead he doubled down, resorting to mass mobilization to address the shortages of troops at the front and, claiming four Ukrainian oblasts for the Russian Federation, in addition to Crimea. From that moment on it became even harder than before to imagine a negotiated settlement. This demand that these territories be recognized as Russian has been re-iterated at every meeting with well-meaning delegations on peace missions. This is why these initiatives have faltered before they have had a chance to get going. Only when this demand is abandoned might we suspect that he is looking for a way out.

A stalemate suits Putin no more than Zelensky. At the start of this year he ordered a winter offensive. This not only achieved little but exposed divisions among the Russian military. Notably Yevgeny Prigozhin complained that his Wagner group, which had the capture of the devastated city of Bakhmut to its credit, had been let down by the leadership of the Ministry of Defence which kept on pushing forces into futile ‘meat-grinding’ assaults. This led to Prigozhin’s brief and curious mutiny, taking Wagner out of the equation, at least for now, and destabilizing Russia’s high command. As the Russian offensive ran out of steam it was Ukraine’s turn to take the initiative.

Early problems

Ukraine’s offensive was launched on 4 June. It was soon apparent that the attempt to achieve an early breakthrough had failed. This has led to a number of post-mortems on what went wrong.

The problems faced were not surprising. Russian defences in the south are extensive and were never going to be easy to breach. They were well designed. NATO would wish to pummel such defences in advance using airpower, but that was not an option available to Ukraine. Nor did they have sufficient equipment for de-mining purposes. These were known problems that turned out to be as limiting as feared. They were aggravated by a lack of close coordination between advancing units and the artillery required to suppress defences. Once vehicles were disabled at the front of a column those stuck behind were targeted by Russian fire, whether from artillery, anti-tank missiles, attack helicopters or drones. All of this was not helped by unusually rainy weather which kept the ground boggy and hampered mobility.

As the Economist noted it was possibly never realistic to expect brigades ‘put together in a hurry with unfamiliar equipment’ and with barely a month of training, to be proficient when it came to ‘co-ordinating complex attacks involving multiple units using different sorts of weapons.’ Ukrainians are working not only with many different types of equipment, each with their own operational and maintenance issues, but also different philosophies. This is an army with strong Soviet roots, that learned to adapt after the Russian enclaves were forged in 2014, and then grew quickly after the full-scale invasion of February 2022. But any of its most professional soldiers were lost in the intense fighting of the first three months of the war, and those that survived are pretty exhausted by now. These points were emphasised in another Economist piece, reflecting on a recent visit to the frontlines, Mike Kofman and Frans-Stefan Gady stress the difficulties the Ukrainians faced fighting in a combined-arms fashion at scale, largely because of deficiencies in training and experience.

‘Ukrainian soldiers’ ability to master Western tech quickly led to misplaced optimism that the time it takes to develop cohesive fighting units could be short-circuited. Putting these units in the vanguard of a difficult assault, instead of more experienced formations, now looks like a mistake that reflected the prioritisation of Western kit over time in the field.’

Even if been better prepared, the lack of key capabilities would have hampered Ukrainian advances. Kofman and Gady argue that remedying these deficiencies requires better equipment and more time. The focus should not be encouraging Ukraine to follow best Western practice but to help it ‘fight the way it fights best’ – which means accepting the logic of attrition.

Beyond the manoeuvre/attrition dichotomy

I agree with the analysis but would take it a bit further. Perhaps we have become too mesmerized by the manoeuvre/attrition dichotomy. It came to the fore in US military discourse in the 1980s when some theorists were lamenting a decline in the art of generalship and over reliance on firepower. Instead of preparing for intensive artillery exchanges they wanted to encourage imaginative and decisive operations that could bring wars to an end quickly at low cost. They had in mind German type blitzkriegs, which used speed to bypass the enemy’s strongest positions and catch them by surprise. With new technologies the possibilities for such operations appeared to grow. After the Iraqi army was roundly defeated in February 1991, enthusiastic theorists started to describe forms of warfare based on exceptional situational awareness combined with precision weapons, fired from a distance, and marked by swift, audacious moves that would leave the enemy discombobulated and in disarray.

Manoeuvre, therefore, did not simply mean covering a lot of ground quickly, for that can happen when there are few enemy positions in the way. It required bringing together the whole suite of advanced technologies to defeat the enemy rapidly in such a way as to minimize casualties. There was always a degree of mythology in this. The US successes in the conventional stages of recent wars were as much the result of superior firepower as superior manoeuvre. Enemy forces could not cope with the fire directed at them, whether from air strikes, cruise missiles, artillery or tanks. During the 1991 Gulf War Iraqi forces had already given up and fled the scene by the time the great ‘left hook’ manoeuvre had been completed.

As the Russians found in February 2022, catching the enemy by surprise and advancing quickly does not guarantee on early victory, and once the enemy has had a chance to compose itself and adapt then an anticipated triumph can soon turn into a long hard slog. The war becomes a test of endurance. When it started to be used to describe a distinctive strategy in the run up to and during the First World War, attrition was about accepting that the victor would be the side that could outlast the other when it came to coping with the costs and calamities of war. It became a default strategy when decisive battlefield successes seemed elusive.

Unsurprisingly it led to a search for new ways to achieve battlefield success, focused after 1918 on the potential of the tank. This line of strategic thinking remains influential, especially as it suggest the potential for keeping the number of casualties down. But if the enemy has sufficient firepower, any advance risks casualties and equipment losses. ‘Attrition’ describes what regularly happens in war. It is not really a type of war or a distinctive strategy. Even the cleverest manoeuvres do not preclude attrition in the short-term. And if they fail to achieve decisive victories the likely consequence is attrition in the long-term.

In these circumstances how can armies advance? The Russian approach is not to worry too much about casualties, especially those troops, such as convicts or poorly-prepared ‘mobiks’, deemed expendable. Russian offensives since the first month of the war have largely involved trying to break into urban areas and then moving forward methodically, through the rubble of its own creation, pushing hapless disposable troops against Ukrainian positions in order to expose them. The defenders could then be hammered with artillery until they were forced to withdraw. This not only took time and destroyed the areas being taken, but led to troop shortages, which is why the issue of further mobilization is once again under consideration in Moscow. This is not an option for the Ukrainians. They want to limit their casualties and avoid urban warfare.

The basic problem is that all large formations are vulnerable once spotted, and with numerous drones flying overhead the risk of being spotted is high, and once a unit is caught by obstacles, including mines, the vulnerability is even greater. After the early June setback, the Ukrainians went back to relying, as so often the case in this war, on actions more at platoon and company level, with small groups of soldiers rushing from one tree line to another, or creeping forward to clear a way through a minefield. In this they have been helped by the far better protection provided by Western vehicles compared to old Soviet systems, which reduce casualties even when vehicles are struck.

Russian forces have adapted in a similar way, if only to prevent Ukrainians consolidating even limited gains. They have sought to reverse any Ukrainian gain. The challenge for units from either side moving forward has been to find positions with some cover that can be held against enemy counters. It rarely makes sense to stop in an open field. This explains the ebb and flow of the front lines of recent weeks as small settlements regularly change hands. One difficulty with fighting this way is that it can disrupt the chain of command, because of the responsibility this puts on junior officers, so that it then can make coordination between different units and scaling up to take advantage of any opportunities for rapid movement.

The American approach is to get your attrition in first, by taking out the bulk of enemy capabilities before the armies start moving. Ukraine lacked that option. There is too much Russian firepower in the way for it to be eliminated, but can take out as much as possible, especially artillery pieces and their support systems. If ammunition dumps become vulnerable at the rear they have to be held even further back. The more the front line advances the greater the supply challenge can become.

Ukraine has a qualitative (though not quantitative) advantage in artillery. Since they first received US HIMARS last summer, and more recently, the UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles, followed by the French equivalent, they have been putting a lot of effort into counter-battery fire and messing generally with Russian logistics. Anecdotal evidence, including from Russian bloggers, suggests that this campaign has had some success, which has not removed the danger but may create gaps in Russia’s ability to cover the front line.

Can Ukraine now advance?

I noted in a previous post, drawing on the UK’s Chief of Defence Staff, that Ukraine’s strategy could usefully be described as ‘starve, stretch and strike,’ with starve referring to the regular attacks on Russian logistics and command structures, and stretch to the ‘multiple axes being probed and feints by Ukraine.’ Strike would be the moment when the rest of the fresh brigades, would be pushed forward and the real counter-offensive could start in earnest. This requires attacks in multiple areas across the long front lines, trying to find ways to dismantle mine fields to get closer to the enemy’s main defensive line, limiting the impact of their artillery, while also requiring Russian forces to commit their reserves so that they would struggle to respond in numbers once a breakthrough was achieved.

The importance of stretch can be seen in the interaction between the two main areas in contention (more may develop) – in the east, particularly around Bakhmut, and in the south moving towards the sea from Zaporizhia. This is similar to a year ago, when the main effort was directed against Kherson, which was strategically more important, though the most exploitable Russian vulnerabilities were found to the northeast in Kharkiv.

Bakhmut and the wider Donbas area is important to Russia. It was the main focus of their earlier offensive. They are still committing substantial resources to holding on occupied areas and even extending them. Because Bakhmut matters so much to Moscow it has come to matter to Kyiv, and they have been making steady progress to make it harder for the Russian to hold the city although they are some way from encircling it. The Russians also took an opportunity to distract the Ukrainians by undertaking a mini-offensive of their own when Ukrainian forces were rotated in one area and less experienced troops came in. The Russians advanced a few kilometres though they had insufficient combat power to take it much further and no obvious objective to take and hold. The Ukrainians now claim to have stabilized this situation, but this is another example of the fluidity of the battlefield.

The south is more important to Ukraine’s objectives, not least because of the possibility of isolating Crimea. Unfortunately this is where Russian defences are at their most formidable and where the initial Ukrainian offensive faltered. Last Wednesday evening the New York Times, quoting anonymous US officials, suggested that the moment of ‘strike’ had come. Then equally anonymous officials talking to the Washington Post seemed less sure. What was agreed is that Ukraine’s is that a new brigade had been brought into the action, taking some of the pressure of the brigade that had borne the brunt of the fighting, and looking to take advantage of a perceived weakness in the Russian lines at this point. By Thursday the New York Times had modified its view. Other American officials were saying that the most recent Ukrainian attack might be preparatory operations for the main thrust or reinforcements to replenish war-weary units.

The problem might not only be officials and journalists getting ahead of themselves but the assumption that any major new development had to be assessed as an example of manoeuvre warfare. The Institute for the Study of War Tweeted:

Western officials are unhelpfully raising expectations for rapid and dramatic Ukrainian advances that Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to meet, as well as offering forecasts of the likely Ukrainian avenues of advance that should probably not have been shared publicly.

It does the Ukrainians no favours to assess their military progress by the most demanding criteria. The effort to liberate territory is bound to be painful, and this will be the case not because the Ukrainian army has failed to master the art of manoeuvre. Without superiority in firepower any army would find this hard. Of course the Russian army has taken huge losses, shows many signs of wear and tear, and may not cope well should its defensive lines be breached. We may see it pull back when put under irresistible pressure, even if not along the whole front line. What is important is that Ukraine keeps the initiative, and does not exhaust itself so much that the Russians get a chance to regroup and counter-attack. Outside cheerleaders and anxious supporters should not force the pace and beware of talking up gains before we can be sure of their significance or their consolidation. That way only leads to disappointment.

This is an argument for caution not pessimism, for gearing expectations to a range of scenarios. One of the problems with the fixation on a manoeuvre strategy is that it suggests that only a decisive military victory can deliver an acceptable political outcome. It may not require the Ukrainian army to go the whole way and liberate all occupied territory for steady advances to add to the pressure on Moscow.

This war was started with a decision in Moscow and a decision in Moscow is required for it to end, because Ukraine will continue to fight under all circumstances. As we have so little insight into Kremlin deliberations we may get pleasantly surprised if a decision comes sooner than expected but we dare not suppose that one is imminent. Ukraine must be supported on the assumption that it is not. As I noted earlier the original idea of an attritional strategy was largely about how to cope with a long war, and that is the sort of strategy Ukraine needs.

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3. Could economic indicators signal China’s intent to go to war?

Excerpts:

Some of these actions may come too late to be useful signals of war. Others may prove illusory as indicators. When talking about national security, Mr Xi says “stormy seas” are ahead. The state’s efforts to batten down the hatches could be mistaken for something worse. To a certain extent, that is the point. Part of China’s strategy is to convince the world that it is ready and willing, if not about to invade Taiwan. But its behaviour risks confirming the most pessimistic assumptions of Western analysts.

So it went during the last cold war. In 1983 NATO held a military drill that was to culminate in a simulated nuclear attack. Relying on the kind of indicators the KGB had identified, some Soviet officials feared the exercise might be cover for the real thing. Today, as China practises invading Taiwan, Western analysts must be careful not to suffer from their own confirmation bias. But if economic and financial indicators—along with satellite imagery, signals intelligence and human sources—can help America and its allies see a war coming, perhaps they can prevent it.

Could economic indicators signal China’s intent to go to war?

Before any missiles are launched, food and fuel must be bought

The Economist

In the early 1980s, during a tense period in the cold war, the Soviet Union feared that America and its allies were considering a nuclear strike and went looking for warning signs. The KGB’s list of indicators ranged well beyond the military sphere. Big campaigns to donate blood, the slaughter of livestock and the movement of art might signal that an attack was coming.

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Today a new kind of cold war pits America against China. And again analysts are looking for signs of a potential conflict. The most likely flashpoint is Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims and America supports. Were China planning to invade Taiwan, its military preparations would be hard to hide. But before troops begin to muster, other actions, of an economic and financial nature, might signal China’s intent.

The Soviet Union mistook ordinary activities, such as blood drives, for possible indicators of war. When it comes to China, finding signals in the noise is even harder. The country has spent decades improving its armed forces. It routinely stockpiles food. And it has hardened its economy against potential sanctions. All of these actions have fed fears of war—yet they do not necessarily mean that one is imminent. The challenge for Western intelligence agencies, then, is to imagine how China might deviate from this wary baseline in the run-up to an actual attack.

One area to focus on is commodities, namely energy, food and metals. China would want to secure adequate supplies of each before launching an invasion. Many of these goods come from abroad and are bought by the state, so trade data are a useful gauge of the government’s intentions. Patterns that would warrant attention include large and continuous increases in supplies, sudden changes in imports or exports, purchases that go against the market and moves that are out of line with historical trends. No single data point will indicate that a war is coming. But a plausible early-warning system might be formed by pooling observations.

Energy is a good place to start. China imports nearly three-quarters of the oil it uses. The substance accounts for only 20% of the country’s energy use, but it would be crucial to any war effort. Military vehicles run on it, as do the lorries that transport supplies. If China were to start increasing its reserves—it currently has enough to last three months at today’s consumption rate—that would be one of the best indicators that it is preparing for war, says Gabriel Collins of Rice University in Texas.

Detecting increases that deviate from recent trends will be tricky. Chinese imports of oil have been rising for a decade. The country is expanding its storage capacity, building underground caverns that are both more secure and harder to spy on than tanks out in the open. But in wartime China might restrict use largely to the armed forces. Signs of such rationing would be a more obvious, if late, indicator.

Gas makes up a far smaller share of China’s energy mix, but it may still hold clues to a coming conflict. If China feared being cut off from foreign supplies it would probably burn more coal, of which it has plenty. It might also go on a buying spree. Such was the case in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, when Russia’s main gas company curbed supply. In the six months before the attack, Chinese entities bought more than 91% of all the liquefied natural gas purchased worldwide under term deals (typically spanning four years or longer), according to Mr Collins and his colleague, Steven Miles.

The firms signed contracts that locked in near-term supplies, breaking from China’s past practice of focusing on future deliveries. Nine of the 20 state-owned outfits involved in the purchasing had never bought gas before. China may simply have decided to stock up before prices rose even higher (as they did). But Messrs Collins and Miles say the deals raise questions about China’s complicity with Russia.

Whereas fuel would be needed to power China’s war machine, food must be procured to sustain its people. China imports more agricultural produce than any other country. Obsessed with food security, it already has enormous stockpiles. In 2021 an official said its wheat reserves could meet demand for 18 months. Over the past decade China has greatly increased its purchases of wheat, corn, rice and soyabeans (see chart).

How might China change its behaviour if war were on the horizon? The answer is that it would probably buy even more food. One product to watch is soyabeans. China imports 84% of its stock. Much of it is used to feed pigs. (Pork accounts for 60% of all meat consumption in China.) The country currently has enough beans to feed its pigs for under two months. A rapid increase in buying could indicate that it was preparing for conflict, says Gustavo Ferreira, an agricultural officer in the US Army, particularly if these purchases were not matched by a rise in livestock production or if they went against market trends.

Some of this activity may be hard to see. The size of China’s grain hoard, for example, is hotly debated. When it comes to metals, the challenge may be even greater. Items such as beryllium and niobium are used to make military gear. Platinum and palladium go into engines. How much China has of these metals, most of which are imported, is difficult to say because its consumption patterns are unclear.

As with fuel and food, unusual metal-buying patterns could be a signal. Changes in China’s exports would be a more visible indicator. It might become more reluctant to part with the rare-earth metals crucial to many technologies. China has a near-monopoly on many of these. In July it announced export controls on gallium and germanium, two metals used in chips. This was part of its tech battle with America, though, not a sign of a looming hot war.

China buys many of its commodities from countries that might not mind if it invades Taiwan, nor adhere to a Western-led embargo. But China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has told his security chiefs to prepare for the “worst-case scenario”. They would probably want to make China as self-sufficient as possible in the case of war.

Similar thinking infuses China’s approach to the financial system. It has introduced a cross-border payment mechanism that could, if necessary, bypass Western financial institutions—though at present most transactions still go through foreign platforms. China and its state-owned firms increasingly push trade partners to sign contracts in yuan, to reduce the country’s dependence on the dollar. If it were planning for war, China might also move its foreign-exchange reserves out of dollars and euros and into assets that are harder to sequester, such as gold.

Financial markets tend to react late to geopolitical dangers. But if investors got wind of China’s plans, there would be capital flight. The government would probably tighten its capital controls. State entities would also cash in assets held by overseas custodians and repatriate the proceeds. They might renege on some overseas investments or delay payments. In the days leading up to an attack the government might freeze all foreign funds in China.

Some of these actions may come too late to be useful signals of war. Others may prove illusory as indicators. When talking about national security, Mr Xi says “stormy seas” are ahead. The state’s efforts to batten down the hatches could be mistaken for something worse. To a certain extent, that is the point. Part of China’s strategy is to convince the world that it is ready and willing, if not about to invade Taiwan. But its behaviour risks confirming the most pessimistic assumptions of Western analysts.

So it went during the last cold war. In 1983 NATO held a military drill that was to culminate in a simulated nuclear attack. Relying on the kind of indicators the KGB had identified, some Soviet officials feared the exercise might be cover for the real thing. Today, as China practises invading Taiwan, Western analysts must be careful not to suffer from their own confirmation bias. But if economic and financial indicators—along with satellite imagery, signals intelligence and human sources—can help America and its allies see a war coming, perhaps they can prevent it. ■

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.

The Economist

4. Russia Says It Downed Three Ukrainian Drones Over Moscow

A drone war?

Russia Says It Downed Three Ukrainian Drones Over Moscow

Ukrainian military says it destroyed eight Russian drones in latest barrage

By Ann M. Simmons

July 30, 2023 7:17 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-says-it-downed-three-ukrainian-drones-over-moscow-b80944cf?mod=hp_lead_pos6

A drone attack Sunday damaged an office building in central Moscow. PHOTO: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Russian authorities said they downed three drones targeting Moscow early Sunday, in an attack that Russian state media said injured one person and forced the temporary closure of one the capital city’s main airports.

The Ukrainian Air Force, meanwhile, said on its Telegram messaging channel that it destroyed eight Russian drones overnight, including four Iranian-made Shahed drones and four reconnaissance drones over the Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said two drones were brought down over Moscow with electronic jamming equipment, and then crashed into a commercial building complex in the city. The other was destroyed in the air over the Odintsovo district in the Moscow region.

The assault, which Russian officials described as an “attempted terrorist attack” by Ukraine, marked the fourth such strike on the capital this month, exposing serious vulnerabilities in the Kremlin’s ability to defend its territory since invading Ukraine nearly 18 months ago.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat told Ukrainian state television that “now the war is affecting those who weren’t concerned [about it],” and that “no matter how the Russian authorities would like to turn a blind eye on this by saying they intercepted everything…something does hit.”

Debris litters a Moscow street after Sunday’s attack. PHOTO: YURI KOCHETKOV/SHUTTERSTOCK

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that the facades of two office buildings in central Moscow were slightly damaged, but there were no fatalities. People were evacuated from the complex, and traffic was restricted on streets in the area. Russia’s state news agency TASS reported that a security guard was injured, citing emergency officials.

The capital’s Vnukovo airport was closed for arrivals and departures due to the incident, but was later reopened, the agency reported.

Sunday’s attacks on Moscow followed a series of drone strikes deep into Russian territory in recent weeks, including a strike on Friday in the country’s southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine. Authorities said at least 16 people were wounded by debris falling in the city of Taganrog.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has been facing a persistent barrage of Russian drones in what appears to be an effort to deplete its air defenses.

The recent assaults come as Ukraine steps up its counteroffensive in the country’s south and east in an effort to dislodge Russian forces from land they are occupying. They follow comments last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin that while Moscow is ready to begin peace talks, Kyiv is unwilling to negotiate an end to the conflict.

“We cannot impose these negotiations,” Putin told a meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg on Friday, adding on Sunday that an African-led plan for a cease-fire isn’t possible while Ukraine’s counteroffensive continues.

Wagner troops moving towards Polish border and could try sneaking across, PM says

By Martin Goillandeau, Sharon Braithwaite and Oleg Racz, CNN

Updated 5:12 PM EDT, Sat July 29, 2023

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/29/europe/wagner-poland-suwalki-intl/

CNN —

More than 100 troops from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are moving towards a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, Poland’s prime minister says, who warned they could pose as migrants to cross the border.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Saturday that his government had received information that the Wagner mercenaries were not far from Grodno, a city in western Belarus close to the land, which is also known as the Suwalki gap or corridor.

Thousands of Wagner troops are reportedly in Belarus following a failed military uprising in Russia.

Morawiecki repeated allegations that Belarus, a key ally to Russia, has been sending migrants westward in an attempt to overwhelm Polish border forces.

The troop movements, Morawiecki said, appeared to be another element in this campaign to destabilize the border.

“They will probably be disguised as Belarusian border guards and will help illegal immigrants to enter Polish territory, destabilize Poland, but they will also probably try to infiltrate Poland pretending to be illegal immigrants and this creates additional risks,” he said.

So far this year, there have been about 16,000 attempts by migrants to cross the border illegally, “pushed to Poland” by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Morawiecki said.

What exactly Wagner troops are doing in Grodno is unclear, as Wagner has not commented on the reports. But deploying Russian-allied forces near the Suwalki corridor would represent an escalation that could rattle NATO and EU members.

Though just 60 miles long, the corridor is strategically important to NATO, the EU, Russia and Belarus. The border region connects the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to Belarus and it is the only overland link between the Baltic states and the rest of the EU.

Analysts feared in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that the Kremlin would target the Suwalki corridor in an attempt to protect Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost territory and the only part of the country surrounded by EU states.

It is not clear exacttly how many Wagner troops are in Belarus. They were invited to the country as part of a deal negotiated by the Belarus president to end the mercenary group’s armed insurrection against the Kremlin last month.

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Lukashenko then asked Wagner to help train his country’s military. The two plan to hold joint military exercises near the border with Poland, a move likely to further raise tensions.

At a summit Lukashenko joked with Russia’s President Putin that Wagner fighters had begun to stress him as they wanted to go west on “an excursion.”

Poland has said its borders are safe but has moved troops east due to possible threats posed from Wagner.

CNN’s Tim Lister and Rob Picheta contributed to this report

6. "A World Transformed and the Role of Intelligence" Director William J. Burns Ditchley Annual Lecture July 1, 2023

Link to DCIA's 01 Jul 23 remarks: https://www.cia.gov/static/62739354dfed5cc1942997d3f1899d94/DCIA-Ditchley-Remarks-01-July-2023.pdf

As Delivered

"A World Transformed and the Role of Intelligence"

Director William J. Burns Ditchley Annual Lecture July 1, 2023

Good afternoon. And thanks so much for that kind introduction, and for welcoming back to Ditchley.

I first came here in 1979, as a young and unformed Marshall Scholar at Oxford, with just enough cash to rent a black tie for the formal conference dinner and buy a bus ticket.

I must admit that my memory of the conference itself is hazy, but the effect it had on me was profound. It gave me an enduring appreciation of the power and purpose of the Transatlantic Alliance, and of the particular significance of Anglo-American partnership.

A decade later, I was a career American diplomat, working for Secretary of State James Baker. It was one of those rare "plastic moments" in history, moments which come along only a few times each century. The Cold War was ending, the Soviet Union was about to collapse, Germany would soon be reunified, and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait would soon be defeated.

It was a world of uncontested American primacy. History's currents seemed to flow inexorably in our direction, the power of our ideas driving the rest of the world in a slow but irresistible surge toward democracy and free markets. Our sometimes overbearing self-assurance seemed well-founded in the realities of power and influence, but it also obscured other gathering trends.

Our moment of post-Cold War dominance was never going to be a permanent condition. History had not ended, nor had ideological competition. Globalization held great promise for human society, with hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty, but it was also bound to produce counter-pressures.

In a transition memo that I drafted for the incoming Clinton Administration at the end of 1992, I tried to capture the dim outlines of the challenges ahead. "While for the first time in fifty years we do not face a global military adversary," I wrote, "it is certainly conceivable that a return to authoritarianism in Russia or an aggressively hostile China could revive such a global threat."

I tried, however imperfectly, to highlight the risks that democracies and free markets would inevitably face, in a world in which economies were globalizing but, as I put it at the time, "the international political system was tilting schizophrenically toward greater fragmentation." And I tried, as best I could, to sketch the shared global threats already posed by climate change and global health insecurity, especially the raging HIV-AIDS epidemic.

For the next quarter-century, I remained a proud and very fortunate American diplomat, serving mostly in Russia and the Middle East, and in senior positions in Washington. I shared in

diplomatic successes, and made my share of mistakes, as America's unipolar moment faded, and some of what I had tried to foresee in that long-ago transition memo began to unfold.

Today, as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I’m afraid to say that I’ve now lived and served long enough to face another plastic moment –in a world that is far more crowded, complicated and contested than the one I experienced in those heady days as a young diplomat three decades ago. It is a world in which the United States is no longer the only big kid on the geopolitical block – a world in which humanity faces both peril and promise.

My job now is to help President Biden and senior policymakers understand and shape a world transformed. So what I’d like to do this afternoon is sketch the main features of the new landscape before us, and what it means for the role of intelligence.

A World Transformed

We are, as President Biden reminds us, at an inflection point. The post-Cold War era is definitely over. Our task is to shape what comes next -- investing in our foundational strengths, and working in common cause with our unmatched network of alliances and partnerships -- to leave for future generations a world that is more free, open, secure and prosperous.

That is a very tall order.

Our success will depend on our ability to navigate a world with three distinctive features. First is the challenge of strategic competition from a rising and ambitious China, and from a

Russia which constantly reminds us that declining powers can be at least as disruptive as rising ones.

Second are the problems without passports, like the climate crisis and global pandemics, which are beyond the reach of any one country to address, and are growing more extreme and existential.

And third is the revolution in technology, which is transforming how we live, work, fight and compete, with possibilities and risks we can't yet fully grasp.

Those singular challenges sometimes conflict with one another, with cooperation on shared global problems both more vital and more difficult, too often the victim of strategic competition. And the revolution in technology is both a main arena for that competition, and a phenomenon in which some basic partnership is crucial to set rules of the road, to maximize the benefits of emerging technologies and minimize their dangers.

The most immediate and acute geopolitical challenge to international order today is Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine -- the biggest war in Europe since Winston Churchill sat in his bedroom here at Ditchley, dictating wartime messages to Franklin Roosevelt.

I've spent much of the past two decades trying to understand and counter the combustible combination of grievance, ambition and insecurity that Putin embodies. That experience has not only contributed to all this gray hair; it has also given me a healthy dose of humility about pontificating about Putin and Russia.

One thing I have learned is that it is always a mistake to underestimate Putin's fixation on controlling Ukraine and its choices, without which he believes it is impossible for Russia to be a major power or him to be a great Russian leader. That tragic and brutish fixation has already brought shame to Russia and exposed its weaknesses, and evoked the breathtaking determination and resolve of the Ukrainian people.

Putin often insists that Ukraine is "not a real country," that it is weak and divided. Well, as he has discovered, real countries fight back. And that is what Ukrainians have done, with remarkable courage and tenacity, as I have seen in frequent travels to Kyiv over the course of the war. They will not relent, nor will all of us who support Ukraine.

Putin’s war has already been a strategic failure for Russia – its military weaknesses laid bare; its economy badly damaged for years to come; its future as a junior partner and economic colony of China being shaped by Putin’s mistakes; its revanchist ambitions blunted by a NATO which has only grown bigger and stronger.

This time last Saturday, we were all riveted by the scenes of Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s armed challenge to the Russian state, with Wagner paramilitary forces briefly seizing Rostov and moving two-thirds of the way to Moscow before turning back. As President Biden has made clear, this is an internal Russian affair, in which the United States has had and will have no part.

It is striking that Prigozhin preceded his actions with a scathing indictment of the Kremlin’s mendacious rationale for its invasion of Ukraine, and of the Russian military leadership’s conduct of the war. The impact of those words and those actions will play out for some time, a vivid reminder of the corrosive effect of Putin’s war on his own society and his own regime.

Russia's aggression poses a formidable test. But 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 so.

China's transformation over the past five decades has been extraordinary. It is a transformation for which the Chinese people deserve the credit, and one which our countries supported because

-- as Foreign Secretary Cleverly eloquently said in April at Mansion House, "a stable, prosperous and peaceful China is good for Britain and good for the world."

The issue, therefore, is not China's rise per se, but the actions which accompany it. President Xi is embarking on his third term with more power than any Chinese leader since Mao. And rather than use that power to reinforce, revitalize and update the international system that enabled China's transformation, he seeks to rewrite it.

In the intelligence profession, we study carefully what leaders say. But we pay special attention to what they do, and here President Xi's growing repression at home and his aggressiveness abroad -- from his no-limits partnership with Putin to his threats to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait -- are impossible to ignore.

What's also impossible to ignore is the fact that, in this new era, our competition is taking place against the backdrop of thick economic interdependence and commercial ties. That has served our countries, our economies and our world remarkably well -- but it has also created strategic dependencies, critical vulnerabilities, and serious risks to our security and prosperity.

COVID made clear to every government the danger of being dependent on any one country for life-saving medical supplies, just as Putin's aggression in Ukraine has made clear to every government the risks of being dependent on one country for energy supplies. In today's world, no country wants to find itself at the mercy of a cartel of one for critical minerals and technologies -- especially a country that has demonstrated the will and capacity to deepen and weaponize those dependencies. The answer to that is not to decouple from an economy like China's, which would be foolish, but to sensibly de-risk and diversify by securing resilient supply chains, protecting our technological edge, and investing in industrial capacity.

In a more volatile and uncertain world, in which power is more diffuse, the weight of the hedging middle is growing -- economically, politically and militarily. Democracies and autocracies, developed and developing economies, and countries from the Global South and other parts of the globe, are intent on diversifying their relationships in order to expand their strategic autonomy and maximize their options.

These countries see little benefit and lots of risk in monogamous geopolitical relationships. Instead, we're likely to see more countries pursue more open relationships than we were accustomed to over several post-Cold War decades of unipolarity. And if past is precedent, we ought to be attentive to rivalries between so-called middle powers -- which have often been the match that ignited collisions between major powers.

We do not have the option of focusing on a single geopolitical pacing threat. We face an equal threat to international order and indeed to the lives and livelihoods of our people from shared or transnational challenges, of which the climate crisis poses the most clear and present danger. We can no longer talk about "tipping points" and "catastrophic climate impacts" in the future tense.

They are here and now, imperiling our planet, our security, our economies, and our people.

Last month in Washington DC, you could not see across the Potomac River from CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, or take a breath without subjecting your lungs to hazardous materials because of smoke from hundreds of wildfires across Canada. Climate change is the quintessential "threat multiplier" -- fueling energy, health, water and food insecurities, setting back our progress on economic and human development, turbocharging what is already the worst period of forced displacement and migration in history, and further exacerbating instability and geopolitical tensions and flashpoints.

These two threats -- geopolitical and transnational -- are impossible to disentangle. We have to be honest, as I noted before -- competition in many ways makes cooperation more difficult. But we’re going to have to do both.

To outcompete our rivals and still deliver on shared challenges, our leaders will need to deal with another immensely powerful force: a revolution in technology more profound than the industrial revolution or the dawn of the nuclear age.

Advances in computing-related technologies -- from chips to quantum to artificial intelligence -- are leading to breakthroughs of remarkable scale and scope. In just a few short months since the first public version of ChatGPT debuted last November, we’ve seen newer models outperform humans in graduate level entrance exams, and in assessments of doctor-to-patient engagements in medical training programs.

We see this "hockey stick" trendline time and again, outstripping our expectations, imaginations and capacity to govern the use of enormously powerful technologies -- for good or for ill.

Nowhere is that more evident than in biotechnology and biomanufacturing -- which can unlock extraordinary climate and health solutions and boost our economies, but whose abuse and misuse could lead to catastrophe.

Leadership in technology and innovation has underpinned our economic prosperity and military strength. It has also been critical to setting rules, norms and standards that safeguard our interests and our values. Our Chinese rivals understand that as well as anyone, and it is therefore no surprise that they are investing heavily in emerging technologies, as a central dimension of our strategic competition.

Strategic competition, common transnational imperatives and a revolution in technology without precedent in human history make for a hugely complicated international landscape. It certainly keeps my nostalgia for diplomacy and policymaking under control, but it also sharpens my focus on transforming how we approach the role of intelligence in this transformed world.

Intelligence Transformed

Across the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community, we are working hard to meet this moment with the urgency and creativity it requires. Let me offer a few examples, from the challenges of strategic competition with Russia and China, to initiatives to harness emerging technologies, invest in the people who animate the CIA, and build the intelligence partnerships which will shape our future.

I'm proud of the work that CIA and our partners across the U.S. intelligence community have done to help President Biden and senior policymakers, and especially Ukrainians themselves, thwart Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine. And I'm proud of our close partnership with our British allies, in particular the women and men of the Secret Intelligence Service, led by my friend Sir Richard Moore, for whom I have the greatest respect.

Together, we provided early and accurate warning of the war that was coming -- the essential function of any intelligence service. When the President sent me to Moscow before the war, in early November of 2021, I found Putin and his senior advisors unmoved by the clarity of our understanding of what he was planning, convinced that the window was closing for his opportunity to dominate Ukraine. I left even more troubled than when I arrived.

Good intelligence has helped President Biden mobilize and sustain a strong coalition of countries in support of Ukraine. Good intelligence has helped Ukraine defend itself with such remarkable bravery and resolve, and to launch the crucial counter-offensive that is now underway.

And the careful declassification of some of our secrets, part of a novel and effective strategy shaped by the President and senior policymakers, has helped deny Putin the false narratives that I have watched him so often invent in the past -- putting him in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on his back foot.

Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership, beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression. That disaffection creates a once-in-a- generation opportunity for us at CIA, at our core a human intelligence service.

We're not letting it go to waste. We recently used social media -- our first video post to Telegram, in fact -- to let brave Russians know how to contact us safely on the dark web. We had

2.5 million views in the first week, and we’re very much open for business.

If Putin's war in Ukraine is the most immediate challenge in strategic competition, Xi Jinping's China is our biggest geopolitical and intelligence rival, and most significant long-term priority.

We've been organizing ourselves at CIA over the past couple years to reflect that priority. We've set up a new mission center -- one of the dozen or so organizational building blocks of the Agency -- focused exclusively on China. It is the only single-country mission center we have at CIA, and it provides a central mechanism for coordinating work on the China mission, which extends today to every part of CIA.

I learned long ago that priorities aren't real unless budgets follow them. That's why we've concentrated substantially more resources on intelligence collection, operations and analysis on China -- more than doubling the percentage of our overall budget supporting China activities over just the last two years. We're hiring and training more Mandarin speakers. And we're stepping up efforts across the world to compete with China, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.

We've also sought to quietly strengthen intelligence channels with China, including through my own travels. These discreet channels are an important means of ensuring against unnecessary misunderstandings and inadvertent collisions, and complementing and supporting policymaking channels, such as Secretary Blinken's recent visit to Beijing.

Even as Russia and China consume much of our attention, we can't afford to neglect other pressing challenges on today's new and complicated landscape, from counter-terrorism to regional instability. Hardly a day goes by when I'm not reminded that CIA is an agency with global responsibilities and global reach. As we meet here this afternoon, our officers are doing hard jobs in hard places around the world, often operating in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind, the risks they take and the sacrifices they make rarely well-understood.

The successful U.S. strike last summer against Ayman al-Zawahiri, the co-founder and former leader of al-Qaeda, was a reminder of the capability and determination still focused on terrorist threats. For many years to come, we will have to perform a delicate balancing act, juggling renewed major power rivalry with all sorts of other challenges.

Meanwhile, we're transforming our approach to emerging technology issues. We've created a second new mission center, focused on technology and transnational challenges. It is already significantly expanding our partnerships with the private sector, without which we will not be able to keep pace with intelligence rivals like China, or keep ahead of them. We've also established a new Chief Technology Officer position, a first for CIA. And CIA Labs, another new program, supports research and development in crucial technologies with academic and private sector partners.

Our in-house talent remains superb. More than 60 years ago, CIA pioneered the technical collection capabilities of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. We were an early investor in the technology you now know as Google Earth. And our specialists also developed the precursors to the lithium-ion batteries that power your smartphones today. We're constantly looking for the next breakthrough.

We're also in the midst of the most profound transformation of espionage tradecraft since the Cold War. In an era of smart cities and ubiquitous technical surveillance, spying is a formidable challenge. For a CIA officer working overseas in a hostile country, meeting sources who are risking their own safety to provide us information, constant surveillance is a very risky business. But the same technology that sometimes works against us -- whether it's mining big data to expose patterns in our activities or massive camera networks -- can also be made to work for us, and against our rivals.

Technical collection platforms are enormously important in today's intelligence world. But there will always be secrets we need a human to collect, and clandestine operations that only a human can execute.

That requires intensive training, an intensive team effort to support operations, and immense creativity and appetite for risk. It still, however, remains central to our mission.

The ongoing revolution in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the avalanche of open source information in today's world, creates new opportunities for our analysts. When harnessed properly, AI can find patterns and trends in vast amounts of open source and clandestinely- acquired data that the human mind can't, freeing up our officers to focus on what they do best: providing reasoned judgments and insights on what matters most to policymakers, and what

means most for our interests. Our adversaries are moving fast to exploit open source information, and we have to do it faster and better than they do.

Another key priority, and my most profound responsibility as Director, is to invest in the people of our Agency. While mastery of emerging technologies will shape our future in many ways, it is the remarkable men and women at the heart of CIA who will always drive it forward. They have been operating at an incredible tempo for more than two decades, since the terrible attacks of 9/11, and we're determined to provide them the support they need and deserve.

We've completely revamped our in-house medical team, sent more medical officers out to the field, strengthened programs for families and two-career couples, and appointed our first-ever chief wellbeing officer. We're also looking for more ways to attract and retain technological talent, improving pay packages and encouraging more flexible career patterns, so that officers can move into the private sector and later return to CIA.

We're also making progress toward a more diverse workforce, taking full advantage of the richness of American society. For an intelligence service stretched across a very diverse world, that is not only the right thing to do for Americans, but also the smart thing. This past year, we reached historic highs in hiring women and minority officers. Perhaps even more importantly, we promoted into our senior ranks the highest percentages of women and minority officers in our 75-year history.

Our final priority in this new era is to deepen our intelligence partnerships around the world, and renew our commitment to intelligence diplomacy. At its core, the intelligence profession is about human interactions, and there is no substitute for direct contact to deepen ties with our closest allies, communicate with our fiercest adversaries, and cultivate everyone in between. In the nearly four dozen trips I've taken overseas in my two and a half years as Director, I've run the gamut of those relationships and challenges.

Sometimes it's more convenient for intelligence officers to navigate difficult terrain or deal with historic enemies, where diplomatic contact might connote formal recognition. That's why the President sent me to Kabul in late August of 2021, to engage the Taliban leadership just prior to our final withdrawal. Sometimes, intelligence ties can provide ballast in relationships full of political ups and downs. And sometimes intelligence diplomacy can encourage convergence of interests, support the efforts of policymakers and diplomats, and enhance competitive advantages.

Our allies, from the Five Eyes network to our other treaty partners across NATO and the Indo- Pacific, are the bedrock of our intelligence diplomacy. No relationship is stronger or more trusting than our alliance with Britain and SIS. That's a point that my friend "C" and I have reinforced to our workforces in two unusual joint town hall discussions in recent months, in Langley and in Vauxhall.

I've experienced that reality ever since I trudged up to Ditchley Park from the Oxford bus all those years ago. I saw it as a diplomat, in our collaboration with British diplomats and intelligence officers to persuade Muammar Qaddafi to get out of the business of terrorism and

give up his rudimentary nuclear program -- an adventure full of strange meetings in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert with Qaddafi, to this day the strangest leader I've ever met.

I saw it during secret nuclear talks with the Iranians, and in the tangled dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan.

And I saw that remarkable intelligence partnership in the run up to Putin's war in Ukraine, where it got a little lonely for the two of us, way out on a limb in our public predictions of the coming storm.

It is comforting to face this transformed world together, and to learn from one another as we transform our services. And it is an honor to highlight that partnership here at Ditchley, where so much of the Transatlantic spirit found its spark.

Thanks so much.

7. How the US is using open-source intel to track Russia's war in Ukraine

Excerpts:

In a way, social media platforms and news organizations provided credibility to the intelligence DIA and other government agencies were collecting—something that wasn’t possible more than a decade ago. But combining other types of intelligence, like human and signals, with open-source and AI algorithms, has also been crucial.

“It's been a game-changer for my analysts to go from…focusing on the who, what, when, and where, and really focusing on the why,” a senior defense intelligence official said. “All of this data that we try to pull together, the open source that brings in so much richness into the environment, but also all that exquisite intelligence that we pull together, combining that and really having the effect of AI to be actually able to aggregate and winnow the information that we need to focus on.”

How the US is using open-source intel to track Russia's war in Ukraine

Analysts are moving beyond who-what-when-where to "really focusing on the why,” a senior defense intelligence official said.

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

The Pentagon’s lead military intelligence agency has been relying on public and commercially available information to keep tabs on Russia’s movements in Ukraine.

The Defense Intelligence Agency recently invited a small cadre of reporters to view recovered remnants of unmanned aerial vehicles made in Iran and used by Russia in its war on Ukraine, noting that open-source intelligence has played “an outsized” and “critical” role.

“When we get a requirement, in this case, monitoring the Russian military and their aggression, the general public around the world is our source,” a senior defense intelligence official told reporters. “There's a lot more data outside in the world than there is that the IC’s collected, and so we're getting better organized to use it, and it's paying great dividends to understand what's happening.”

The White House has flagged increased defense ties between Iran and Russia, and DIA confirmed Russia was using Iran-made drones earlier this year. Iran admitted last year that it sent Russia drones before the war started, but denied continued involvement, despite reports and public accusations that it was sending materials and working with Russia to build a factory. The declassification is part of a broader push to reduce disinformation, officials said.

Analysts walked reporters through recovered drone parts from the Middle East and Ukraine that were known to be Iran-made, identified by things like device design, markers, materials, such as a distinct “honeycomb” lining found between the devices’ layers, and corroborated classified intel with information that had already been made public.

News reports in April 2022 were the first indication, defense intelligence officials said. But one of the key uses of open-source intelligence is inspiration.

Making such attributions is routine intelligence work, but for the DIA, stitching together data from open source intelligence is more novel.

“Almost everything…from Ukraine is open source, like we were picking that up off of social media...those pieces had come out in such a way the public had already seen them be attributed to them to Ukraine, and they knew where that they were. So it was hard to have disinformation against that,” the analyst said, referring to an unclassified visual report on Iran-made UAVs in Ukraine.

“We were able to then match up our classified photographs in the way that like, no one's going to look at that Shahed-136 in Kyiv and say, 'oh, that was somewhere else, that was Yemen'.”

The DIA stood up the Open Source Intelligence Center almost four years ago, and has since worked to craft open source intelligence, or OSINT, collection and analysis as a formal discipline. The data often comes from social media, news reports, and commercially available databases, among other sources with a focus on foreign military targets.

“This isn't a typical product for us. We don't normally come out and release this type of information,” the analyst said of the open-source report. “It was what social media, the press, that you guys were able to provide us, we were able to quickly match it with what we had in the classified side and come out with a product like this…There was a lot of unique value that just was not possible in an earlier era.”

In a way, social media platforms and news organizations provided credibility to the intelligence DIA and other government agencies were collecting—something that wasn’t possible more than a decade ago. But combining other types of intelligence, like human and signals, with open-source and AI algorithms, has also been crucial.

“It's been a game-changer for my analysts to go from…focusing on the who, what, when, and where, and really focusing on the why,” a senior defense intelligence official said. “All of this data that we try to pull together, the open source that brings in so much richness into the environment, but also all that exquisite intelligence that we pull together, combining that and really having the effect of AI to be actually able to aggregate and winnow the information that we need to focus on.”

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

8.‘We Can Never Forgive This’: In Odesa, Attacks Stoke Hatred of Russia

This (and many other events like this) will likely have long term effects that could hinder negotiations and potential settlements and could prevent support of the population for any compromise agreements.

‘We Can Never Forgive This’: In Odesa, Attacks Stoke Hatred of Russia

By Valerie HopkinsPhotographs by Emile Ducke

Valerie Hopkins spent several days reporting in Odesa, Ukraine, after a week of Russian shelling.

The New York Times · by Valerie Hopkins · July 29, 2023

A priest surveyed the damage inside the Odesa Transfiguration Cathedral after it was heavily damaged in Russian missile attacks on Odesa, Ukraine, this month.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia views Odesa as a culturally important part of his nation. But many in the Ukrainian city reject the connection and view the country that has been attacking it with loathing.

A priest surveyed the damage inside the Odesa Transfiguration Cathedral after it was heavily damaged in Russian missile attacks on Odesa, Ukraine, this month.Credit...

Photographs by Emile Ducke

Valerie Hopkins spent several days reporting in Odesa, Ukriane, after a week of Russian shelling.

July 29, 2023

Standing on a bridge overlooking the road to Odesa’s main port, Nina Sulzhenko surveyed the damage wrought by a recent Russian missile strike: The House of Scientists, one of the Ukrainian city’s best-loved buildings, was in shambles. The mansion’s destroyed gardens spilled down over a ruined residential complex, and burned bricks lay strewn across the sidewalk.

“I feel pain, and I want revenge,” said Ms. Sulzhenko, 74. “I don’t have the words to say what we should do to them.”

She gestured toward other buildings in various stages of ruin. “Look at the music school! Look at what they did! The fact that those who live next to us, and lived among us, could do this to us — we can never forgive this. Never.”

Hers was a common sentiment in Odesa this past week after a series of missile strikes damaged the city’s port and 29 historic buildings in its Belle-Èpoque city center, including the Transfiguration Cathedral, one of Ukraine’s largest.

Odesa plays an important role in the mind of imperial Russians, and especially President Vladimir V. Putin, who views it as an integral part of Russian culture. But if Mr. Putin believed that Odesans would feel a reciprocal bond, he could not have been more mistaken, residents and city officials interviewed this past week said. Especially after the recent spate of missile attacks.

Krystyna Syrota, 7, and her 75-year-old great-grandmother, Kilina, sheltering during an air raid in Odesa on Wednesday.

Pedestrians walk their dogs past anti-tank obstacles in a park in central Odesa.

“The Odesan people are tired,” the city’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov, said. “People are tired of uncertainty, tired of anxious nights, of not falling asleep. But if the enemy is counting on this, he is wrong. Because this fatigue turns into the strongest hatred.”

The missile attacks — accompanied by hours of air raid alerts — have been part of the escalating hostilities in the Black Sea after Russia pulled out of a deal that had enabled millions of tons of food to be exported out of Ukraine’s ports.

Moscow’s attachment to Odesa owes to the Ukrainian city’s literary tradition. Prominent Russian-language authors wrote some of their most important works here. Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia’s beloved poet, spent 13 months in Odesa writing “Eugene Onegin,” his novel in verse, during a period of exile from Moscow. Many other writers Russia claims as its own spent crucial parts of their careers in the city.

But it is a connection that Odesans, many of whom still speak Russian, increasingly reject — something that Mr. Trukhanov said has not been lost on Mr. Putin.

“We still don’t know if the missiles landing into the city are old and inaccurate,” he said. “But if this was a targeted attack on the church, then one thing is clear: Finally, in the second year of this war, Putin understands that this is not a Russian city and that not only is no one waiting to welcome his soldiers there, but that they hate him.”

Dancing at a concert by Serhiy Zhadan, one of Ukraine’s best-loved contemporary poets and writers, in Odesa’s central park.

Freight cranes at the Port of Odesa at dusk.

His outrage was echoed by many of his colleagues and constituents.

“I am even trying not to speak the Russian language,” said Marat Kasimov, 60, the city’s deputy head of city planning and architectural preservation, as he looked at the wasteland next to the House of Scientists, which was originally built by Russian aristocratic relatives of the writer Leo Tolstoy.

In other parts of Ukraine, people are increasingly speaking Ukrainian instead of Russian, a relatively recent development for Odesa.

Though Odesa had been largely spared the barrage of attacks that ravaged other cities, the war now feels very close. Many residents seek shelter when the air-raid sirens blare. Tourism, the lifeblood of the regional economy along with its important ports, has contracted.

Derybasivska Street, a central thoroughfare previously crowded with visitors, feels surreally empty. The smaller streets, where grapevines poke out from old houses, do, too. The hedonistic beach clubs in the coastal Arkadia district are sparsely attended.

And there are no ships visible in the waters as far as the eye can see.

Among the buildings struck by Russian missiles this past week was the Transfiguration Cathedral, Odesa’s largest church.

Workers clearing debris from the heavily damaged House of Scientists in Odesa after it was struck by Russian missiles.

It used to be difficult to secure a table at Dacha, a chic restaurant on the city’s coast-hugging Frantsuzkyi Street, or French Boulevard. But with an exodus of Odesans from the city after last year’s full-scale invasion, and with another wave of departures since the missile strikes, the clientele has halved, said the owner, Savva Libkin.

On a recent breezy summer evening, less than one-third of the tables were occupied. The menu no longer includes fish from the Black Sea waters, the staple of the region’s Jewish-infused cuisine. Mussels are also off the menu because of the environmental damage wrought by the explosion of the Kakhovka Dam. And with the regular air-raid alarms, many Odesans have been staying home.

“There is no one who is not scared,” said Mr. Libkin. “But there is no Odesan who does not drink to Putin’s death. Every day in this country begins with a toast to Putin’s death.”

Mr. Libkin said that much of his staff had joined the army, but he wants to keep his restaurant open to maintain the pleasure-seeking character of the city. Each morning, his chefs prepare food for the soldiers trying to defend the skies over Odesa.

“For now we will continue to work, but no one knows what will happen tomorrow,” he said.

Despite the anxiety, Odesans are trying to find ways to forget the war. Four mines washed up on shore Wednesday morning, but there were still sun bathers on the beach in the afternoon.

Oleksandr Klochay, a Ukrainian soldier from the Kyiv region, playing with his 5-year-old son on the beach.

Passengers arriving at Odesa’s main train station on Thursday.

Among them were Illia Matiushchak, 24, and his fiancée, Khrystyna Kukhar, 22.

Mr. Matiushchak, lounging next to his pea-green army backpack, was on a 10-day break from the front, his first in six months.

“I’m so happy to see Illia, I can’t put it into words,” said Ms. Kukhar.

The couple, from western Ukraine, was nervous about coming to Odesa in the wake of the strikes. “It would be stupid to die here, and not on the front,” Mr. Matiushchak said.

It was their first time visiting Odesa together, and the soldier found some parts of his visit unnerving: the prevalence of people speaking Russian, and the streets and locations named for figures linked to the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It was “triggering,” he said as party music blared in the background.

That dynamic may soon change; a law banning place names that glorify Russian historical and political figures went into effect on Thursday.

Not everyone is rejecting ties to Russia. Older Odesans, especially, still appreciate some of the Russian-language culture shunned in other parts of Ukraine. On Tuesday, about 30 Odesans gathered for a celebration of Vladimir Vysotsky, a Moscow-born singer-songwriter, on the anniversary of his death.

While some Ukrainians might chafe at such an event, those in attendance said they did not want to completely disavow cultural touchstones because of Russian connections.

A celebration of the Soviet singer Vladimir Vysotsky, a Moscow-born singer-songwriter, on the anniversary of his death.

Clearing up debris inside the Odesa Transfiguration Cathedral.

“In all situations, times change, regimes change,” said Stepan Matsiyuk, 75, a craftsman who attended. “But what right do those who take over as the new authorities have to destroy what they did not create? I honor Pushkin. I think he’s the greatest person. He loved Odesa. And it’s none of your business to interfere with history.”

As much as he wanted to honor his literary heroes, though, he said he was disgusted at the way the Russian state news media spoke about the city’s history. Odesa was officially founded by Catherine the Great in 1794, but on top of a pre-existing settlement that the occupying empire chose not to acknowledge in its history.

“You did not create it. What right do you have to ruin all this? None.”

On Wednesday, there were three air-raid alerts during the day, some lasting more than an hour. One delayed a concert by Serhiy Zhadan, one of Ukraine’s best-loved contemporary poets and writers, and also a musician, in the city’s central park.

Hundreds of people waited more than 90 minutes for the all-clear signal before the rock concert, which doubled as a fund-raiser for the Ukrainian Army.

“We waited in the bomb shelters, but we will not hide,” said Katia Dubyshkyna, 26, an interior designer. “They want us to be scared, but they cannot take away our lives, nor our love for life.”

The city’s residents are wrestling with their relation to Soviet-era landmarks, including the Monument to the Unknown Sailor.

Dzvinka Pinchuk contributed reporting.

Valerie Hopkins is an international correspondent for The Times, covering the war in Ukraine, as well as Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. More about Valerie Hopkins

The New York Times · by Valerie Hopkins · July 29, 2023

9. The Next Frontier for Warfighters Might Be Implants in Their Brains. Is the Pentagon Ready for the Consequences?

It is going to be a brave new world. We will start with implants and then move to genetics. For those needing a refresher on the novel. Are we ready for this?

Brave New World is set in 2540 CE, which the novel identifies as the year AF 632. AF stands for “after Ford,” as Henry Ford’s assembly line is revered as god-like; this era began when Ford introduced his Model T. The novel examines a futuristic society, called the World State, that revolves around science and efficiency. In this society, emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children at a young age, and there are no lasting relationships because “every one belongs to every one else” (a common World State dictum). Huxley begins the novel by thoroughly explaining the scientific and compartmentalized nature of this society, beginning at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where children are created outside the womb and cloned in order to increase the population. The reader is then introduced to the class system of this world, where citizens are sorted as embryos to be of a certain class. The embryos, which exist within tubes and incubators, are provided with differing amounts of chemicals and hormones in order to condition them into predetermined classes. Embryos destined for the higher classes get chemicals to perfect them both physically and mentally, whereas those of the lower classes are altered to be imperfect in those respects. These classes, in order from highest to lowest, are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. The Alphas are bred to be leaders, and the Epsilons are bred to be menial labourers.

The Next Frontier for Warfighters Might Be Implants in Their Brains. Is the Pentagon Ready for the Consequences?

military.com · by Thomas Novelly,Zachary Fryer-Biggs · July 28, 2023

The boy couldn't have been older than six or seven. Brown hair with a streak of bright orange. It was 2003, and Geoffrey Ling, a young Army doctor, was looking down at a new patient who'd arrived at his medical unit in Afghanistan missing a hand.

The Soviet Union during its long and ultimately losing campaign to quell the restive corners of the country had taken to dropping thousands of land mines out of the back of helicopters. Like little butterflies, the mines would twist and flit to the ground, a bright green that would fade to gray with time.

Almost daily, Ling would stare down at a child who had answered the siren call of the toy-like miniature bombs. A boom, a lost appendage, and they'd find their way to Ling, who'd be tasked with patching them up for a life where the best prosthesis still relied on hooks and pulleys.

The limited options got Ling thinking. What if he could come up with a better way to make an artificial hand respond to the whims of the brain, maybe by connecting the two? He'd been approached by the Pentagon's pie-in-the-sky research wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, shortly before he left for Afghanistan, so when he got back, he started what would become a decades-long march to make the connection between brains and computers possible.

What started as theoretical research quickly took on greater relevance when scores of service members began facing roadside bomb attacks in Iraq in the following years, leaving many missing limbs. All of a sudden, the concepts Ling had been contemplating became a national priority.

Early on, scientists realized that the same medical research that would allow them to make prosthetics respond to the brain might also be used to enhance how troops fight, such as special operators communicating on the battlefield without uttering a word, interacting with a drone, or maybe even helping eradicate the fear of entering a room filled with enemies and the post-traumatic stress that can follow a firefight.

If you can understand the signals within the brain -- a task entirely impossible before the advent of artificial intelligence, which allows the digestion of massive data sets, you might be able to alter them, or otherwise change the nature of the closed system the brain had been since humans developed oversized thinking lobes.

"Now, you think about the what-ifs. That was very clear. Collect the brain signals, get the robot arm, clear use case, show the science can be done," Ling told Military.com in a 2021 interview. "Now what's next? Well, what's next is where does your imagination take you?"

Ling described how early on the laboratory conducting the research connected one patient to a flight simulator instead of a robotic arm. Using just her brain, she was able to achieve liftoff on the screen.

"When you talk to her, and you ask her what she's doing, she'd go, 'Oh, I think I want to fly. I think about looking up, and the plane goes up,'" Ling detailed. "She's not thinking about moving a joystick or a rudder, she's thinking about flying, and the plane flew."

The potential medical applications of access to the brain for treating ailments are far-ranging, but pressure to compete with America's adversaries might tempt leaders with the next step: enhancement.

The fear of being surpassed by "near-peer" competitors -- Pentagon parlance for Russia and China -- is driving all kinds of technology pushes by the military, including hypersonics, artificial intelligence and bioenhancement.

Both China and Russia can move at an expedited pace when it comes to military research due to their authoritarian government structure, and both have different standards when it comes to ethical guidelines in medical testing.

"There's a very real set of scenarios where neurotechnology plays a role in our national security moving forward," Justin Sanchez, the former director of DARPA's biological technologies office, told Military.com in a 2020 interview. "We cannot lose sight of that. It has to be a priority for us."

In the 20 years since Ling began work on what scientists call brain-machine interface, the ability to understand and even alter the brain has progressed rapidly. What started as a discovery to heal the wounds of war kick-started research designed to make America's warfighters more efficient and more lethal in battle.

The Air Force is testing how hand-held devices and skull caps that use electrical current to stimulate the brain could help pilots learn more efficiently and get into aircraft cockpits faster. DARPA has also funded tests using electrical currents funneled through electrodes implanted in the brains of those suffering from epilepsy, piggybacking on a recognized treatment to see what else the currents could do.

DARPA's Restoring Active Memory program was launched in November 2013 with the goal of "developing a fully implantable, closed-loop neural interface capable of restoring normal memory function to military personnel suffering from the effects of brain injury or illness."

By 2018, DARPA announced it was working with researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the University of Southern California to actually implant devices in "neurosurgical patient volunteers who were being treated for epilepsy" and found the technology gave a boost to natural memory function, according to a press release.

Early results from the testing showed the ability to substantially alter the mood of patients with targeting stimulation.

A year later, in 2019, a report from the Army's Combat Capabilities Development Command predicted that brain enhancement technology, particularly in the form of implants, could be common by 2030.

"As this technology matures, it is anticipated that specialized operators will be using neural implants for enhanced operation of assets by the year 2030," the report details. "These operators will include teams from the Special Forces, military pilots, operators of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) such as drones, and intelligence personnel."

That means that in less than a decade, if the technology experts are right, the Pentagon could be using brain implants for troops, special operators and pilots to be connected to technology.

But while the technology is advancing, neuroethicists, futurists and medical researchers are asking whether the military is ready for the responsibilities entailed with messing around in people's heads. These experts have told Military.com in more than a dozen interviews that the brain is so incredibly complicated and the technology is so new that we don't fully understand the implications.

"The brain is, arguably and ironically, the most complex, least understood technology that there is, and that is the fundamental problem and opportunity that we're wrestling with here," Peter Singer, a scholar on 21st century military technology and an author who focuses on the future of warfare, told Military.com in an interview.

If DARPA's technology ever becomes a device that is implanted in the brain of a warfighter, what responsibility would the government have for maintaining that technology? Will the Department of Veterans Affairs be servicing degrading brain implants for decades after young Americans take off the uniform? Will mental health or cognitive disorders emerge decades from now, and will those who suffer them receive care?

"I would say the government has a huge responsibility," Dr. Paul Appelbaum, one of the country's leading scholars in legal and ethical issues in the medical field, told Military.com. "They have introduced into this person's head -- whether they've done it invasively or noninvasively -- a technology that was designed to change their brain function. And by intervening in that way, I think they have created a responsibility to follow these people down the road and try to ensure that adverse consequences don't result from their participation."

Special Forces, Super Soldiers

One of the DARPA programs that showed early promise in the 2010s, Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies, involved testing how implants inside of brains might be helpful for altering moods. The program targeted the creation of a device that could regularly provide stimulation to manage patients' conditions -- partially inspired by the ongoing issues helping veterans combat the trauma of war.

Given the ethical concerns tied to fishing around in people's heads, the subjects for the research were a group of patients already due to have electrodes implanted to combat epilepsy. But while doctors were in there, they agreed to let researchers test out how stimulation from inside the brain might make them feel.

"There's one patient that stands out in particular, a relatively young woman, very personable. This was actually the second time she'd had to have brain surgery for epilepsy," said one of the researchers, who spoke to Military.com on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to discuss the program.

The researchers didn't tell the patients when they would be using the stimulation, to prevent the placebo effect, instead maintaining a running dialogue. This particular patient suffered from severe anxiety.

"We said, 'Are you feeling different right now?' She said, 'I feel great, I feel energized,'" the researcher recalled. "I said, 'Oh, is this something you sometimes feel or do you never feel like this?' And she said, 'Oh, this is me on a good day. This is the way I want to feel.'"

That kind of shift in mood could be revolutionary for veterans suffering from the bonds of post-traumatic stress, if the technology proves viable.

DARPA Illustration of the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology program (Image Courtesy of DARPA)

Brain implants, if that's where the research leads, wouldn't stand as the first time the government has overseen and serviced devices in bodies.

The closest equivalent might be how the VA monitors pacemakers -- a medical device that sends electrical signals to the heart to help it keep its rhythm and function.

A 2020 Veterans Health Administration's directive ordered all VA patients with pacemaker-type devices to enroll in its National Cardiac Device Surveillance Program, which diligently keeps tabs on battery levels, heart health and other problems that may arise with the technology.

Subsequent virtual or in-person appointments can be scheduled, depending on what work needs to be done. As of 2019, American Heart Association research says that nearly 200,000 veterans have these devices monitored through the VA.

But pacemakers have been in use since the 1950s, a well-understood technology where VA doctors can follow decades of medical research.

There are other historic examples of military technology that have, over time, been shown to cause harm, often when rolled out with less scientific rigor. Agent Orange -- a Vietnam War-era herbicide that was contaminated with dioxin during the production process -- was eventually linked to leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and various types of cancers in service members. What was once quickly sent to the battlefield to provide a tactical advantage later turned into a health nightmare.

The brain is the human body's most sensitive and complex organ. Side effects of high-risk surgeries and electric stimulation are constantly being evaluated by the medical community. But there are some people, who despite not knowing all of the potential problems that could one day be discovered from this technology, are eager to try it out if only for the slightest tactical advantage.

Elite warfighters -- the Navy SEALs, the Army Green Berets, Air Force special warfighters and Marine Corps' Raider Regiment -- are already experimenting with electrical stimulation delivered through the surface of the head. Due to the long-standing culture within those units, often accompanied with gallows humor about dying young and pretty, they'll do whatever is necessary to become, and stay, the most lethal men and women in uniform.

"That community, by and large, is all about improving human performance," said an Army Special Forces officer, who spoke to Military.com on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to speak to the media. "From some perspective, they're always trying to push us to a more lethal edge."

And for a community facing deep-seated issues from decades of intense operations, the prospect of being able to alter not only how the brain reacts from a tactical standpoint, but also how it might react emotionally, holds enormous appeal.

"I think some guys would be scared or hesitant, but if you're telling me I could go into a room and not have the same stresses and worries confronting an enemy, I'd have a really hard time not signing up for it either," the Army Special Forces officer said. "You're going to see a line outside the door, especially if it's a drastic improvement."

Chris Sajnog, a Navy SEAL who served for 20 years and is now a master training specialist, told Military.com that the possible applications of such technology to train better or maybe even eliminate mental barriers such as post-traumatic stress disorder present a unique dilemma.

As medical researchers, and even DARPA, look at how this technology could be used to help with PTSD, memory loss and depression, Sajnog wonders about the unintended consequences.

Part of what bonds special warfighters together are the horrors and stresses they see in conflict. And, Sajnog said, that's part of the reason that units like the Navy SEALs train so hard. Being able to potentially wipe those traumas away changes the dynamic of what brings that team together.

But Sajnog said he's having a hard time not supporting an innovation that could one day get rid of debilitating mental health problems.

"The stress that we endure together is what makes our bond so special and so different from other units," Sajnog said. "But if it gets to a point where people are having anxiety and stress, I think you can look at ways to reduce that."

Some special operators also voice concerns that such technology, especially if it's used to alter moods and behaviors, could make deployments more frequent. If the men and women aren't complaining or are more numb to the frequent combat they are experiencing, military leadership would have a hard time standing them down.

Training the Brain

The device is pressed under the chin, like a knife held to the jugular of a hostage in a Hollywood action movie. The user slowly dials up the electricity coursing toward their brain, triggering muscle contractions in the neck that creep upward.

Once the lower jaw starts vibrating, and the lip pulls slightly to the side from the current, it's time to switch off the device and focus on learning how to be a pilot.

The voltage is part of a program at the Air Force Research Laboratory designed to help cut pilot training time in an era where the service is struggling to find and retain airmen capable of flying.

Andy McKinley, who runs the testing of brain stimulation that's part of the Individualized Neural Learning System, known as iNeuraLS, which kicked off in 2020, has been studying the effects of electricity on the brain for more than a decade and a half.

"There's always a lot of variability in any physiology signal," McKinley said in an interview. "Your current brain state matters. If I'm trying to enhance your attention and arousal, but you're already super amped up, I'm either not going to have an effect or it may decrease your attention. ... People say they feel more alert, but not jittery."

McKinley said he's heard anecdotally about the positive effects some special operations airmen have had with stimulating their brains.

"There was one guy down there at AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command], who said he was highly addicted to caffeine. He had to have energy drinks and coffee all day long to stay awake," McKinley recalled. The special operator started using a device called a gammaCore, which sends electronic signals to the brain to feel more alert.

"So using that, he completely got off caffeine, didn't feel like he needed any caffeine anymore."

In the early 2010s, McKinley co-authored several research papers suggesting that zapping brains might help speed up learning, something researchers had initially seen in animal studies but had only just begun to consider for people.

The program involves electric stimulation and monitoring of the impact that stimulation is having on the brain so that it can be adjusted. That involves both miniaturizing brain scanning technology like MRI machines so that they're small enough to be wearable -- hopefully tucked into a hat -- and using advanced artificial intelligence to decipher the meaning of the brain signals those scans detect, as no two brains are exactly alike.

The Air Force Research Laboratory-led Individualized Neural Learning System project, known as iNeuraLS, aims to give Airmen the ability to rapidly acquire knowledge and skills through neurotechnology. (U.S. Air Force graphic by Richard Eldridge)

The early data from McKinley’s studies show an improvement in learning, with people retaining roughly 20% more information initially, and 35% more 90 days on from the training. "The processes that are occurring under the hood with this type of stimulation [are] the same that would be occurring with a lot of practice. It's just that we're speeding up that natural process."

If the technology proves successful, the Air Force has plans to see how else it could use this variety of brain enhancement.

"We're starting with the use case of a pilot training, but the idea is to expand that to a variety of other types of training," McKinley said.

What makes this approach so appealing is that it doesn't require implanting devices in the brain, a high hurdle for any medical program. By using stimulation from outside of the skull, McKinley's team is starting to see performance enhancement that would be a much easier sell to many service members.

Implanted devices that stimulate the vagus nerve, the same neural tunnel from the lower part of the brain down through the neck and chest to the stomach that is zapped externally by the Air Force team, have received FDA approval for some methods of stroke rehabilitation; devices used outside the skin have been approved by the FDA for migraines and headaches, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Side effects from an implanted vagus nerve stimulation device can include voice changes, throat pain, headaches, trouble swallowing or tingling or prickling of the skin, according to the Mayo Clinic. Side effects observed thus far for the hand-held devices are minimal, often relating to slight pain or irritation from too much stimulation.

Transcranial direct current stimulation -- sending electrical signals to the brain through the scalp as military researchers are also testing -- saw some reported side effects such as some itching, burning, tingling, headache and other discomfort, according to the National Library of Medicine.

The Air Force Research Laboratory's experiment with pilot training is one of the most public-facing applications of neuro-enhancing technology, but only one small demonstration of the technology that DARPA has been advancing for years. Programs like N3, that sought to create a brain-machine connection without implantation, have been undertaken alongside more invasive approaches like the mood-altering current tests using implants.

So far, science hasn't advanced enough to make some of the wildest dreams of researchers come true, like being able to easily control battlefield weapons systems directly from the brain or enhancing human senses. The brain is still too complicated, and deciphering what specific electrical signals signify is still too daunting. But talking to key researchers, it's clear it's where the agency wants to go.

Global Competition Heating Up

Even if a surgical knife isn't taken to skulls, it's unclear whether harm might still be done to America's service members if electronically stimulating the brain becomes commonplace. The technology is just too new.

But the pressure to gain an edge over international competitors such as China and Russia continues to push the research forward, both in the U.S. and overseas.

"China has even conducted human testing on members of the People's Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities," former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe wrote in The Wall Street Journal in 2020. "There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing's pursuit of power."

In late 2021, the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security sanctioned the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 of its research institutions because its research posed "a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests," including development of "purported brain-control weaponry."

In 2021, prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia's Kommersant Business Daily reported the government approved a program to research controlling electronic devices with the use of the human brain by implanted computer chips. President Vladmir Putin reportedly personally approved the project. A Kremlin spokesman later said he could neither confirm nor deny the report, according to Tass – A Russian state-owned news agency.

But troops taking part in medical research is often morally tricky. Some ethicists have questioned whether a service member, whose primary responsibility is to follow orders, can fully participate in a brain-computer-interface program when it becomes a reality unless the government develops ways for troops to object without consequence to using the technology.

"Limited personal autonomy among military personnel, as well as a lack of information about long-term health risks, have led some ethicists outside of government to argue that [brain-computer-interface or BCI] interventions, such as noninvasive brain stimulation techniques, are currently inappropriate for a military or security sector setting," detailed a 2020 report from Rand, a nonprofit think tank that researches issues in the military.

Department of Defense civilians and active duty service members attend a Traumatic Brain Injury Open House event March 20, 2014, at Tripler Army Medical Center located in Honolulu. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal)

The Rand researchers wrote that the military services should consider "arbitration mechanisms" or ways for troops to civilly discuss the concerns of orders "so that service members and their commanding officers may discuss or object to unethical or harmful uses of BCI technology."

Gene Civillico, a neuroscientist who has prior stints at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, told Military.com in an interview that the ethical questions of neurotechnology can be solved for the military pending the right regulatory and research processes, but there will always be an extra level of scrutiny paid to anything involving the brain.

And enhancement, rather than just curing ailments, raises further concerns.

"It's hard to distinguish sometimes between what's medical and what might be useful from a military mission standpoint," Civillico said. "The FDA might approve a device to enhance memory, because it would be seen as a medical indication that this device alleviates memory loss that's associated with Alzheimer's or something else. But suppose that the military wanted to make it so that someone could remember more than they had ever been able to remember before?"

Service members could also find more than their memories altered by enhanced brain performance.

"There's also this really complicated question of what do you do when you give somebody enhancing technology that becomes integral to their own self-identity," Nita Farahany, a Duke University professor, futurist and author of "The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology," told Military.com.

"Then they leave the military and they no longer can use that enhancing technology, which has become core to the way that they understand and interact with the rest of the world," added Farahany, who served on then-President Barack Obama's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues and recently resigned from DARPA's ethical, legal and social implications committee.

Shortly after laying his eyes on that young, wounded boy in Afghanistan two decades ago, Ling knew quickly that research into connecting the mind to machines would open up all kinds of possibilities for the brain.

He's confident the military will keep ethics at the forefront of pioneering research, he said. But he can't promise that America's adversaries will do the same.

"You could change the human experience, and this little project that we did opens the possibility," Ling said.

"You can't put the genie back in the bottle."

-- Thomas Novelly can be reached at thomas.novelly@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly.

-- Zachary Fryer-Biggs is the managing editor for news at Military.com. He can be reached at zach.biggs@monster.com.

military.com · by Thomas Novelly,Zachary Fryer-Biggs · July 28, 2023

10. U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations

U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations

By David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes

David Sanger has reported on the evolution of cyberconflict for more than 15 years. Julian Barnes covers the intelligence agencies. They reported from Washington and Aspen, Colo.

The New York Times · by Julian E. Barnes · July 29, 2023

American intelligence officials believe the malware could give China the power to disrupt or slow American deployments or resupply operations, including during a Chinese move against Taiwan.

A U.S. F-15 fighter jet taking off from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam earlier this year. The Chinese code, the officials say, appears directed at ordinary utilities that often serve both civilian populations and nearby military bases.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

By David E. Sanger and

David Sanger has reported on the evolution of cyberconflict for more than 15 years. Julian Barnes covers the intelligence agencies. They reported from Washington and Aspen, Colo.

July 29, 2023, 11:27 a.m. ET

The Biden administration is hunting for malicious computer code it believes China has hidden deep inside the networks controlling power grids, communications systems and water supplies that feed military bases in the United States and around the world, according to American military, intelligence and national security officials.

The discovery of the malware has raised fears that Chinese hackers, probably working for the People’s Liberation Army, have inserted code designed to disrupt U.S. military operations in the event of a conflict, including if Beijing moves against Taiwan in coming years.

The malware, one congressional official said, was essentially “a ticking time bomb” that could give China the power to interrupt or slow American military deployments or resupply operations by cutting off power, water and communications to U.S. military bases. But its impact could be far broader, because that same infrastructure often supplies the houses and businesses of ordinary Americans, according to U.S. officials.

The first public hints of the malware campaign began to emerge in late May, when Microsoft said it had detected mysterious computer code in telecommunications systems in Guam, the Pacific island with a vast American air base, and elsewhere in the United States.

More than a dozen U.S. officials and industry experts said in interviews over the past two months that the Chinese effort predated the May report by at least a year, and that the U.S. government’s effort to hunt down the code, and eradicate it, has been underway for some time. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential and in some cases classified assessments.

They say the Chinese effort appears more widespread — in the United States and at American facilities abroad — than they had initially realized. But officials acknowledge that they do not know the full extent of the code’s presence in networks around the world.

The discovery of the malware has touched off a series of Situation Room meetings in the White House in recent months, as senior officials from the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the Homeland Security Department and the nation’s spy agencies attempt to understand the scope of the problem and plot a response.

Biden administration officials have begun to brief members of Congress, some state governors and utility companies about the findings, and confirmed some conclusions about the operation in interviews with The New York Times.

There is a debate inside the administration over whether the goal of the operation is primarily aimed at disrupting the military, or at civilian life more broadly in the event of a conflict. But officials say that the initial searches for the code have focused first on areas with a high concentration of American military bases.

In response to questions from The Times, the White House issued a statement Friday night that made no reference to China or the military bases.

“The Biden administration is working relentlessly to defend the United States from any disruptions to our critical infrastructure, including by coordinating interagency efforts to protect water systems, pipelines, rail and aviation systems, among others,” said Adam Hodge, the acting spokesman for the National Security Council.

He added: “The president has also mandated rigorous cybersecurity practices for the first time.” Mr. Hodge was referring to a series of executive orders, some motivated by concerns over SolarWinds, commercial software used widely by the U.S. government that was breached by a Russian surveillance operation, and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack by a Russian criminal group. That attack resulted in the temporary cutoff of half the gasoline, jet fuel and diesel supplies that run up the East Coast.

The U.S. government and Microsoft have attributed the recent malware attack to Chinese state-sponsored actors, but the government has not disclosed why it reached that conclusion. There is debate among different arms of the U.S. government about the intent of the intrusions, but not about their source.

The public revelation of the malware operation comes at an especially fraught moment in relations between Washington and Beijing, with clashes that include Chinese threats against Taiwan and American efforts to ban the sale of highly sophisticated semiconductors to the Chinese government.

The discovery of the code in American infrastructure, one of Mr. Biden’s most senior advisers said, “raises the question of what, exactly, they are preparing for — or whether this is signaling.”

If gaining advantage in a Taiwan confrontation is at the heart of China’s intent, tabletop exercises conducted by the government, think tanks and other outside experts suggest time is of the essence. Slowing down American military deployments by a few days or weeks might give China a window in which it would have an easier time taking control of the island by force.

Chinese concern about American intervention was most likely fueled by President Biden’s several statements over the past 18 months that he would defend Taiwan with American troops if necessary.

Another theory is that the code is intended to distract. Chinese officials, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed, may believe that during an attack on Taiwan or other Chinese action, any interruptions in U.S. infrastructure could so fixate the attention of American citizens that they would think little about an overseas conflict.

Chinese officials did not respond to requests for comment concerning the American discovery of the code. But they have repeatedly denied conducting surveillance or other cyberoperations against the United States.

They have never conceded that China was behind the theft of security clearance files of roughly 22 million Americans — including six million sets of fingerprints — from the Office of Personnel Management during the Obama administration. That exfiltration resulted in an agreement between President Obama and President Xi Jinping that resulted in a brief decline in malicious Chinese cyberactivity. The agreement has since collapsed.

Now, Chinese cyberoperations seem to have taken a turn. The latest intrusions are different from those in the past because disruption, not surveillance, appears to be the objective, U.S. officials say. At the Aspen Security Forum last week, Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, said China’s recent hack targeting the American ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, and the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, was traditional espionage. But he said the intrusions in Guam were “really disturbing” because of their disruptive potential.

The Chinese code, the officials say, appears directed at ordinary utilities that serve both civilian populations and nearby military bases. Only America’s nuclear sites have self-contained communication systems, electricity and water pipelines. (The code has not been found in classified systems. Officials declined to describe the unclassified military networks in which the code has been found.)

While the most sensitive planning is carried out on classified networks, the military routinely uses unclassified, but secure, networks for basic communications, personnel matters, logistics and supply issues.

Officials say that if the malware is activated, it is not clear how effective it would be at slowing an American response — and that the Chinese government may not know, either. In interviews, officials said they believe that in many cases the communications, computer networks and power grids could be quickly restored in a matter of days.

But intelligence analysts have concluded that China may believe there is utility in any disruptive attack that could slow down the U.S. response.

Anti-landing spikes along the coast of the Kinmen Islands of Taiwan. If a Taiwan confrontation is at the heart of China’s intent in spreading malware, exercises conducted by the government, think tanks and other outside experts suggest time is of the essence.

The first hints of the new campaign by China came in May, when experts at Microsoft released some details of the malware found in Guam — home to major U.S. Air Force and Marine bases — and elsewhere in the United States. The company attributed the intrusion to a Chinese state-sponsored hacker the experts called Volt Typhoon.

A warning from the Homeland Security Department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Security Agency and others issued the same day said the state-sponsored hacker was able to avoid detection by blending its attack in with normal computer activity but did not outline other details of the threat.

Officials briefly considered whether to leave the malware in place, quietly monitor the code they had found and prepare plans to try to neutralize it if it was even activated. Monitoring the intrusions would allow them to learn more about it, and possibly lull the Chinese hackers into a false sense that their penetration had not been exposed.

But senior White House officials quickly rejected that option and said that given the potential threat, the prudent path was to excise the offending malware as quickly as it could be found.

Still, there are risks.

American cybersecurity experts are able to remove some of the malware, but some officials said there are concerns that the Chinese could use similar techniques to quickly regain access.

Removing the Volt Typhoon malware also runs the risk of tipping off China’s increasingly talented hacking forces about what intrusions the United States is able to find, and what it is missing. If that happens, China could improve its techniques and be able to reinfect military systems with even harder-to-find software.

The recent Chinese penetrations have been enormously difficult to detect. The sophistication of the attacks limits how much the implanted software is communicating with Beijing, making it difficult to discover. Many hacks are discovered when experts track information being extracted out of a network, or unauthorized accesses are made. But this malware can lay dormant for long periods of time.

George Barnes, the deputy director of the National Security Agency, said the Volt Typhoon attacks made public in May demonstrate China’s ability to penetrate government networks.Credit...Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

Speaking earlier this month at an intelligence summit, George Barnes, the deputy director of the National Security Agency, said the Volt Typhoon attacks demonstrated how much more sophisticated China had become at penetrating government and private sector networks.

Mr. Barnes said that rather than exploit flaws in software to gain access, China had found ways to steal or mimic the credentials of system administrators, the people who run computer networks. Once those are in hand, the Chinese hackers essentially have the freedom to go anywhere in a network and implant their own code.

“China is steadfast and determined to penetrate our governments, our companies, our critical infrastructure,” Mr. Barnes said.

“In the earlier days, China’s cyberoperations activities were very noisy and very rudimentary,” he continued. “They have continued to bring resources, sophistication and mass to their game. So the sophistication continues to increase.”

David E. Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent. In a 38-year reporting career for The Times, he has been on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2017 for international reporting. His newest book is “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age.” More about David E. Sanger

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. More about Julian E. Barnes

The New York Times · by Julian E. Barnes · July 29, 2023

11. 'The Few. The Proud' aren't so few: Marines recruiting surges while other services struggle

'The Few. The Proud' aren't so few: Marines recruiting surges while other services struggle

AP · July 29, 2023

PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Not long ago, Marine Col. Jennifer Nash, a combat engineer with war deployments under her belt, made a vow to fellow officers as they headed to a dinner in Atlanta: She would get two new recruiting contacts by the end of the evening.

She admits recruiting is not the job that she or other Marines had in mind when they enlisted. But after stints as a recruiter and senior officer at the Eastern recruiting command, she has become emblematic of the Corps’ tradition of putting its best, battle-tested Marines on enlistment duty. They get results.

Marine leaders say they will make their recruiting goal this year, while the active-duty Army, Navy and Air Force all expect to fall short. The services have struggled in the tight job market to compete with higher-paying businesses for the dwindling number of young people who can meet the military’s physical, mental and moral standards.

On that night, Nash achieved her own goal. She had gotten the valet at the hotel and the hostess at the restaurant to provide their phone numbers and to consider a Marine career.

Nash’s boss, Brig. Gen. Walker Field, who head the Eastern recruiting region, says the Corps has historically put an emphasis on selecting top-performing Marines to fill recruiting jobs. He says that has been a key to the Marines’ recruiting success, along with efforts to increase the number of recruiters, extend those who do well and speed their return to high schools, where in-person recruiting stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said his recruiters — who cover the territory between Canada and Puerto Rico and as far west as Mississippi — will meet their mission and expect to have 30% of their 2024 goal when they start the next fiscal year, Oct. 1. More broadly, Marine officials say they expect the Corps to achieve its recruiting target of more than 33,000.

Last year, the Navy, Air Force and Marines had to eat into their pools of delayed entry applicants in order to make their goals. The Marines will avoid that this year.

“That would be a great ending,” said Field, speaking to The Associated Press on a recent steamy day at South Carolina’s Parris Island, along the Atlantic Coast. “I’m bearish for not only concluding FY23 on a strong footing, but also how we set the conditions for FY24.”

The Marine Corps may get some help from its small size. The Army, for example, has a recruiting goal of 65,000 this year, which is nearly double the Corps’, and expects to fall substantially short of that. Air Force and Navy officials say they will also miss their goals, although the Space Force, which is the smallest service and does its recruiting within Air Force stations, is expected to meet its goal of about 500 recruits.

Sitting in the shadow of Parris Island’s replica of the Iwo Jima monument, Field said his biggest challenge is that a number of Marine hopefuls cannot pass the military’s academic test, known as the Armed Services Voluntary Aptitude Battery.

That is a widespread problem, but the Army recently set up a program that targets recruits who score below 30 on the test and provides schooling for several weeks to help them pass. Already more than 8,800 recruits have successfully gone through the classes, raised their scores and moved on to basic training.

The Navy is taking another route with a pilot program that allows up to 20% of their recruits to score below 30 on the test, as long as they meet specific standards for their chosen naval job. Marine leaders, however, do not take those lowest scoring recruits, and so far have no plans for any type of formal improvement program such as the Army’s.

Field said the Marines are repositioning recruiting stations, moving them around based on where population totals have increased in the latest census. More important, he said, the Corps maintains its focus on choosing the right recruiters, encouraging successful ones to stay in the job and increasing the number of Marine reservists tapped for recruit duties from the current 31 to 96 by the end of next year.

Nash, who until last month was assistant chief of staff for the Eastern region, said Marines are hand-selected for recruiting command jobs. Many three- and four-star Marines, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, will cite their years doing enlistment duty.

“We put our best and brightest in those positions,” said Nash, adding that those chosen for recruiting posts have a proven track record of success in previous assignments and have demonstrated critical leadership skills. “That’s why they got selected, because they were above their peers.”

She acknowledged that the first time she was picked for a recruiting job she was “voluntold.” But now, recounting her sales pitch in Atlanta, her rapid fire pitch comes without taking a breath.

“I say, ‘Hey, ever thought about being Marine? We’re a bunch of Marines. And, you know, I think you potentially could be a good Marine. You ever thought about it?’ And usually you get, ‘Yeah, I thought about it.’ And I’m, like, ‘What’s holding you back? Would you like to learn more about your opportunities?’ ‘Absolutely.’ `OK. Mind giving me your name and phone number? I’ll have one of my recruiters give you a phone call.’”

The Marines have resisted increasing bonuses to attract recruits — something the other services have found helpful.

Gen. Eric Smith, the acting Marine Corps commandant, got some ribbing for his response when he was asked about bonuses during a naval conference in February.

“Your bonus is you get to call yourself a Marine,” he said. “That’s your bonus, right? There’s no dollar amount that goes with that.”

Field, Nash and others also say the Corps prefers to give a lot of recruits a few thousand dollars, rather than increasing the amount and giving money to far fewer people.

Field said that getting Marine recruiters in uniform back into high schools this year, after several years of COVID-19 restrictions, has been a key driver. There, young people line up to compete in pull-up contests, vying for a free T-shirt if they can do 20. And recruiters say many are drawn to the cache of being a Marine.

“If you told me you’ll give me $10 million worth of advertising and I can do something with it, or you’ll give me 10 great-looking Marines in a Marine uniform — what’s going to get the most value? Give me those 10 Marines and give me a day,” Nash said. “We’ll go out and we’ll get more out of that, I think, than $10 million in advertising.”

AP · July 29, 2023

12. Pentagon probes ‘compromise’ of Air Force, FBI communications after engineer stole $90K worth of tech

Pentagon probes ‘compromise’ of Air Force, FBI communications after engineer stole $90K worth of tech

New York Post · by Isabel Vincent · July 29, 2023

A Tennessee-based engineer stole $90,000 worth of government radio technology, creating a “critical compromise” of communications systems impacting 17 Air Force facilities, according to a search warrant.

The breach could also impact FBI communications, according to the warrant which was obtained by Forbes.

The government was tipped off by a contractor working with the Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma, Tenn., and recently raided the engineer’s home.

The engineer, 48, who has not been charged with a crime, was not identified by Forbes.

He allegedly had “unauthorized administrator access” to radio communications technology used by the Air Education and Training Command, or ATEC, “affecting 17 Department of Defense installations,” according to the magazine’s report Saturday.

The Pentagon is probing what it called a “critical compromise” across 17 Air Force facilities, according to a search warrant obtained by Forbes.

Shutterstock

The potential AETC compromise, which is one of nine “major commands,” defined by the Pentagon as “interrelated and complementary” and provides support to Air Force headquarters, comes just three months after another breach of Pentagon security.

Air National Guard employee Jack Teixeira allegedly leaked sensitive information related to the war in Ukraine on the social platform Discord.

Teixeira pleaded not guilty last month.

A Pentagon search warrant says that an engineer working at an Air Force base in Tennessee is allegedly behind security breaches in the Air Force and the FBI.

Getty Images

The Pentagon said that some of the communications breaches may affect the headquarters of the US Air Force.

Getty Images

During the raid on the Air Force engineer’s home, authorities found an open computer screen showing the suspect was running radio programming software “which contained the entire Arnold Air Force Base communications system,” Forbes reported.

Authorities also said they found evidence that the engineer had access to FBI and Tennessee state agencies, although they did not elaborate on what information may have been compromised.

Neither the Pentagon nor the FBI has commented publicly on the search warrant.

New York Post · by Isabel Vincent · July 29, 2023

13. Zelensky: Special Operations Forces inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists

Zelensky: Special Operations Forces inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists

ukrinform.net

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this in a daily video address, Ukrinform reports.

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you good health!

Today – in Donetsk region. Chasiv Yar, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka. With our warriors, our heroes.

I congratulated and had the honor to personally congratulate, shake hands, and award warriors of the Special Operations Forces on the occasion of their professional day. They are always at the hottest areas of the front, on the most responsible, special tasks. And now is the same – near Bakhmut, I came to them. I thanked the guys for their strength and heroism, for their professionalism, and their extremely professional defense of Ukraine.

Special Operations Forces mean such heroism about which impossible to tell the details. Only years later – such specifics of operations. The guys inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists.

What we can talk about now, of course, is participation in key combat operations. Bakhmut in particular, Avdiyivka, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka. Soledar. Together with everyone, they defended Kyiv and Hostomel, and Bucha, and Irpin, and Moschun, and Makariv. Snake Island – also SOF together with intelligence, together with the Alpha group and the Navy. Kinburn Spit. Kherson. Now – the liberation of Staromayorske, this is also a result, in particular, of the SOF.

During the war, 17 warriors of the Special Operations Forces were awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. Thirteen of them, unfortunately, posthumously. In total, 2,520 SOF warriors were awarded state awards. Thank you, warriors, for your results for Ukraine, for all our people! Thanks for the chevron, it's a real honor! And once again I wish you the most important thing – victory! Victory over Russian evil.

Dnipro. The work at the site of yesterday's missile strike was completed already in the morning. Nine people were injured, including two children and teenagers. Everyone was given the necessary help. For every such blow, for all Russian terror, the enemy will surely feel the force of justice. We will not forget or forgive anything and none of them.

Today is the anniversary of Olenivka, one of the most vile and cruel crimes committed by Russia. The deliberate, pre-planned killing of captured Azov warriors.

Let every loss of Russia be retribution for its evil, and let every occupier, every Russian murderer, all those responsible for this terror against Ukraine and Ukrainians know – while they are still alive – that justice wins. Ukraine will win!

Thanks to everyone who brings our victory closer! Eternal memory to everyone who gave their lives for the sake of Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

ukrinform.net

14. Why Japan Should Be Vigilant on China’s Intentions Toward Okinawa

Excerpts:

The strategic value of Okinawa is enormous. This is why the Japanese government has been taking steps to strengthen its defense capabilities, including the deployment of Self-Defense Force missile units to the Nansei Islands, with an eye toward deterring China’s designs on the region. The U.S. military has about 30 bases and military-related facilities in Okinawa, which will be of great importance if China invades Taiwan. Because of its strategic importance, Okinawa has been called the “keystone of the Pacific” by the U.S. military.

It is within this context that China’s renewed attention to Okinawa should be taken more seriously by Tokyo and its like-minded partners.

Why Japan Should Be Vigilant on China’s Intentions Toward Okinawa

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp · by Yuko Mukai · July 29, 2023

POLITICAL PULSE

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Members of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force train with an amphibious vehicle on a beach in the Nansei Islands.

8:00 JST, July 29, 2023

Okinawa Prefecture, at the southern tip of Japan, was once an independent kingdom called Ryukyu, which became unified in the 15th century. The people of the Ryukyu Kingdom were known for their boldness in venturing out to sea and trading extensively with Japan and other neighbors, including China and Southeast Asian countries. The Ryukyu Kingdom, which had a tributary relationship with Ming dynasty China, was invaded by Japan in the 17th century, after which it maintained a subordinate relationship with Japan — while simultaneously seeming to continue its relationship with China, which at that time was ruled by the Qing dynasty.

In 1879, the Ryukyu Kingdom was officially incorporated into Japan as Okinawa Prefecture. In 1945, during the final period of World War II, Okinawa became a battleground when U.S. troops landed there. More than 120,000 Okinawan people lost their lives for the “defense of mainland Japan.” After the war ended, Okinawa remained under U.S. occupation until 1972. Its war-torn history contributed to Okinawa’s economic disparity with the rest of Japan — according to a central government survey, the average income of Okinawans is among the lowest in the nation. The economic gap with the rest of Japan remains wide.

Okinawa has a complicated and tragic history. It also has a geopolitically strategic location halfway between the major Japanese island of Kyushu and Taiwan. The southern islands of Japan, centered on Okinawa, are collectively called the “Nansei Islands.” The Senkaku Islands are also located in Okinawa Prefecture. Okinawa faces China across the East China Sea and is relatively close to the Korean Peninsula, known as one of the world’s “powder kegs.”

The strategic value of Okinawa is enormous. This is why the Japanese government has been taking steps to strengthen its defense capabilities, including the deployment of Self-Defense Force missile units to the Nansei Islands, with an eye toward deterring China’s designs on the region. The U.S. military has about 30 bases and military-related facilities in Okinawa, which will be of great importance if China invades Taiwan. Because of its strategic importance, Okinawa has been called the “keystone of the Pacific” by the U.S. military.

It is within this context that China’s renewed attention to Okinawa should be taken more seriously by Tokyo and its like-minded partners.

The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), reported on its front page on June 4 that President Xi Jinping had made a telling statement concerning China’s deep relationship with the Ryukyu Islands. Xi reportedly said that when he was working in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, he learned that the roots of exchanges with the Ryukyu Islands were deep.

Following Xi’s remarks, another unusual event occurred in early July, when the Chinese government extended a warm welcome to a delegation that included Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki and others visiting Beijing. Tamaki and other delegation members met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, a close ally of Xi. They received a positive response regarding Okinawa’s request to resume direct flights between China and Okinawa. Tamaki also visited Fujian Province, in regard to which Xi mentioned historical relationships with Okinawa, and had dinner with senior provincial leaders.

The People’s Daily’s recent coverage of Xi’s remarks is not the first time that the party’s official mouthpiece focused its propaganda on Okinawa. The People’s Daily had previously covered the Ryukyu Islands in an article in 2013 at the height of tensions over the Senkaku Islands. The paper cited two scholars’ claims that if the Ryukyu Islands had belonged to China’s Ming dynasty, it was questionable whether Okinawa really belongs to Japan even now. At that time, experts analyzed this to mean that China aimed to influence the Japanese side on the issue of ownership of Okinawa’s Senkaku Islands, which China claims as its territory.

Now, 10 years later, China’s intentions seem even darker. The aim appears to be to emphasize a direct relationship between Okinawa and China and further drive a wedge into Okinawa’s relationship with the rest of Japan.

Why does China think this tactic might work? Because Okinawa, with its roots in the Ryukyu Kingdom, has a unique sense of its own identity. According to an opinion poll released in 2023 by Meisei University in Tokyo and others, only about 15% of the respondents defined themselves solely as “Japanese.” More than half said they were “Both Okinawan (Uchinanchu) and Japanese.”

In addition, there is strong, longstanding antipathy among the Okinawan public toward the central government. Each local election is a close contest between the conservative, nationally ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the liberal opposition parties. The current governor used to be a member of the House of Representatives as part of the former Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and has vocally expressed concern about the policies of current LDP Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government to strengthen defense capabilities in the Nansei Islands. Tamaki has also called for the relocation of U.S. military bases.

It is not only Tamaki but also average Okinawans who have a deep-seated distrust of Japan’s central government due to the history of war and occupation and the problems of the U.S. military presence in Japan.

But for China, Okinawa is part of the “first island chain,” which the CCP views as a defensive line to prevent U.S. forces from entering the East China Sea. There should be no doubt that the Chinese side sees Okinawa as strategically important for its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy. Therefore, it is not surprising that China would renew its overt political maneuvers directed at Okinawa.

Several research institutes in the U.S. and Europe have already sounded the alarm, although they have received little notice in Japan. An analysis published by the Jamestown Foundation in the U.S. in 2019 states, “Growing local opposition to U.S. military bases in Okinawa, and animosity towards the Japanese central government, have coincided with increased CCP attempts to engage with the island.” Both Institute for Strategic Research at France’s Military College (IRSEM) and the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published separate reports to ring alarm bells concerning Chinese political warfare directed against Japan and how China may be encouraging an independence movement in Okinawa.

The chairman of the U.S. Congressional Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, told The Yomiuri Shimbun that although he knows only a little about Okinawa politics, “to me, it’s obvious that the CCP has ambitions [that] extend well beyond the borders of China and beyond Taiwan.” He added, “My view is that China not only wants to be the dominant power in the region, but the dominant power globally, and so I think we should be very careful about their ambitions.”

Indeed, Japan should be more aware of China’s manipulative intentions and activities — particularly as they relate to strategically important places like Okinawa. The Japanese people should be more vigilant against Chinese political maneuvering.

Political Pulse appears every Saturday.

Yuko Mukai

Mukai is a Washington correspondent of The Yomiuri Shimbun.

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp · by Yuko Mukai · July 29, 2023

15. Occupation Authorities In Eastern Ukraine On The Prowl For Supposed Ukrainian Military 'Spotters'

Live for resistance!

Excerpts:

But later, in private conversations with other former colleagues, Lyudmyla learned that the occupation authorities in the Russian-held parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions had launched an active campaign to ferret out civilians who might be helping the Ukrainian military to locate targets behind the front lines.

The phone call to Lyudmyla came the day after Ukrainian shelling hit the Luhanskteplovod locomotive factory, which has been used as a military base since 2014.

Locals from Luhansk, Donetsk, Sorokyne, and elsewhere confirmed to RFE/RL’s Donbas.Realities that such searches have begun, with one person calling them “witch hunts.” The campaign comes as Ukraine accelerates the crucial counteroffensive it launched in early June.

Occupation Authorities In Eastern Ukraine On The Prowl For Supposed Ukrainian Military 'Spotters'

rferl.org · by Olha Modina · July 29, 2023

Lyudmyla, who retired from law enforcement in the city of Luhansk in 2014, received an unexpected phone call from her former colleagues earlier this month. The caller asked if she was receiving her pension and if she needed any assistance. He also asked, as if in passing, whether she had accepted a Russian passport.

“At first I thought an election must be coming up and suddenly everyone is paying attention to their constituents,” she told RFE/RL. The names of all those interviewed for this story who are living in Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation have been changed for their safety.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

But later, in private conversations with other former colleagues, Lyudmyla learned that the occupation authorities in the Russian-held parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions had launched an active campaign to ferret out civilians who might be helping the Ukrainian military to locate targets behind the front lines.

The phone call to Lyudmyla came the day after Ukrainian shelling hit the Luhanskteplovod locomotive factory, which has been used as a military base since 2014.

Locals from Luhansk, Donetsk, Sorokyne, and elsewhere confirmed to RFE/RL’s Donbas.Realities that such searches have begun, with one person calling them “witch hunts.” The campaign comes as Ukraine accelerates the crucial counteroffensive it launched in early June.

Mykola, a retired military veteran living under the Russian occupation, said the searches have targeted specific categories of people, including military retirees like himself and disabled veterans.

Others in the crosshairs include people whose children live in government-held parts of Ukraine, particularly if they have not accepted Russian citizenship, and people working for the occupation administration but who they feel have not demonstrated sufficient loyalty on social media.

In addition, former law enforcement employees like Lyudmyla, particularly veterans of the Berkut riot police, are under the microscope.

“After all,” Mykola said, “they think if these people betrayed Ukraine, they might betray them too.”

Sowing Fear

Media controlled by the occupation authorities have reported Ukrainian strikes targeting the Luhansk mine and the Luhansktsentrokuz ironworks this month. Explosions were also reported on July 25 in the center of Donetsk near a factory that has been used as a Russian staging area.

Mykola said the “witch hunt” is a sign that the occupation authorities are concerned about the counteroffensive, in which Ukraine has reported small territorial gains both in eastern Ukraine, which includes the Donbas, and in the south. The progress is making them “nervous,” Mykola said.

The authorities routinely blame Ukrainian rocket strikes on so-called “waiters,” or civilians who are waiting for Kyiv to restore control over its territories. Yelena, a woman from Luhansk, noted that after each successful strike the occupation authorities report the arrest of a supposed “spotter.”

“But the attacks continue,” Yelena said. “As if in occupied Luhansk there is some sort of factory stamping out one spotter after another. Of course, everyone understands they merely arrested some random person.”

Firefighters battle a blaze late last year after three oil-storage tanks in Shakhtarsk in occupied Donetsk were set alight by Ukrainian shelling, the de facto authorities said.

Mykola said the arrests are an attempt by the occupation authorities to prove to Moscow that they are vigilant and have control over their regions. In addition, the high-profile well-publicized arrests sow fear among locals who might be quietly cheering on the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

In addition, he said, the detainees become an additional bargaining tool in exchange negotiations with Kyiv.

Other locals who spoke with RFE/RL said it is easy to get arrested in the occupied territories, even if one has never expressed pro-Ukrainian sentiments. Sometimes all it takes is a house or car or business that attracts the attention of some de facto official or militia figure. Denunciations also play a role.

“If you have a conflict with a neighbor and he has a contact in the [de facto police], you might find yourself locked in a basement,” Yelena said. “An estranged wife or husband might decide to take revenge.… If you argue with the babushka next door about the state of the fence, she might write a denunciation that she heard you speaking Ukrainian.”

People arrested in such cases can easily be portrayed as “spotters,” she added.

Such arbitrary arrests might be counterproductive for the authorities, said Artem, a former resident of the Luhansk region who did provide intelligence assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces before he left for Kyiv-controlled territory. Now, as an army volunteer, he coordinates information coming from various sources in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine.

It is difficult to intimidate people with possible arrest when they know they might end up “in a basement” without actually doing anything, Artem said.

Written by RFE/RL’s Robert Coalson based on reporting by RFE/RL Donbas.Realities correspondent Olha Modina.

rferl.org · by Olha Modina · July 29, 2023

16. Mysterious Chinese COVID Lab Uncovered in City of Reedley CA

????

Mysterious Chinese COVID Lab Uncovered in City of Reedley CA

Code enforcement check uncovers illegal lab making COVID-19 and pregnancy test kits, bacterial and viral agents and 900 white mice

By Katy Grimes, July 28, 2023 7:38 am

californiaglobe.com · by Katy Grimes · July 28, 2023

Why would a COVID lab run by a shady Chinese company be operating in Reedley, CA in the central San Joaquin Valley? The lab, which was supposed to be an empty building, was discovered by Reedley city code enforcement officers when they saw a garden hose attached to the building and investigated.

Darren Fraser at the MidValley Times reported earlier this week that the building has been illegally operated since October 2022 by Wang Zhaolin of Prestige Biotech, and the lab was used to produce COVID-19 tests and pregnancy tests.

City of Reedley officials called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FBI, the State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the State Department of Health, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Fresno County Department of Public Health (FCDPH).

“Reedley officials and personnel from CDPH and FCDPH executed a warrant on March 16 to inspect the warehouse at 850 I Street,” MidValley Times reported. “According to a declaration from Humero Prado, Assistant Director of Fresno County Public Health, which was filed in superior court, investigators discovered that one room of the warehouse was used to produce COVID-19 and pregnancy tests. In other rooms, investigators found blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples. They also found thousands of vials that contained unlabeled fluids.”

And they found 900 genetically engineered mice, engineered to catch and carry COVID-19, living in “inhumane” conditions. 773 of the mice had to be euthanized, and officials found another 178 mice already dead.

We have a few questions:

Why was a Chinese company making COVID-19 tests in California?

Where were these tests to be used? California public health agencies? Medical groups and hospitals?

Is the California Department of Public Health involved?

Who authorized this lab?

What does the Newsom administration know about this?

Mid Valley Times further reports:

“From May 2 through May 4, the CDC’s Division of Select Agents and Toxins inspected 850 I Street. Court documents confirm the CDC found potentially infectious agents at the location. These included both bacterial and viral agents, including: chlamydia, E. Coli, streptococcus pneumonia, hepatitis B and C, herpes 1 and 5 and rubella. The CDC also found samples of malaria.”

“Court documents identify Xiuquin Yao as the alleged president of Prestige. Neither Reedley nor FCDPH was able to obtain from Yao any substantive information regarding Prestige or why infectious agents and mice were being stored at 850 I Street other than to say that the company was developing diagnostic testing kits.”

“Court documents include copies of an email exchange Prado conducted with David He, who identified himself as a representative of Prestige, beginning May 31 and continuing through June 13. Over the course of numerous emails, Prado repeatedly asks He to provide documentation regarding licensed medical waste disposal, Prestige’s reasons for storing infectious agents and how the company will respond to the biological abatement orders handed down by FCDPH.”

“They (Prestige) completely avoided the questions,” Prado said. “This individual (He) was either unaware or was intentionally trying to mislead us.”

As a start, the Globe made Public records requests to the City of Reedly and the Fresno County Department of Public Health for information and communications between the all of the agencies, as well as any documents and materials found at the illegal lab location. Read the entire article at MidValleyTimes.com.

As we reported in February 2021 about the thousands of inconclusive test results coming out of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $100 million COVID-19 testing lab with the $1.7 billion contract with PerkinElmer, “Is anything about the COVID-19 virus true, or is this the biggest political manipulation this country has ever seen?”

The Globe will report back on this bizarre story.

californiaglobe.com · by Katy Grimes · July 28, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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