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Quotes of the Day:
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. It people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.” - William Faulkner
“You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are good people behaving decently in an indecent society.” - Kurt Vonnegut
Fascist and Nazi totalitarianism do not occur because a Hitler or Mussolini decides to seize power. When a nation is psychologically and spiritually empty, totalitarianism comes in to fill the vacuum; and the people sell their freedom as a necessity for getting rid of the anxiety which is too great to bear any longer. ~Rollo May (Book: Man's Search for Himself)
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 24 (Putin's War)
2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (24.09.22) CDS comments on key events
3. Kremlin stages votes in Ukraine, sees protests in Russia
4. Musk activating Starlink satellite internet in Iran after Biden administration relaxes sanctions
5. China says US sending ‘dangerous signals’ on Taiwan
6. Wang: China’s Reunification Key to Peace in Taiwan Strait
7. Russian conscripts sent into Ukraine with RUSTY AKs
8. Flashes of bold UN talk on feminism, masculinity, patriarchy
9. Changing Equations: The Complexities of Armed Strength in Warfare
10. Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action (2nd Edition)
11. 'To Hell With Your Mobilization': Russian Who Denounced Ukraine War On His Storefront Could Face Prison
12. With Kalashnikov rifles, Russia drives the staged vote in Ukraine
13. Propaganda newspapers show how Russia promoted annexation in Kharkiv
14. Opinion | Authoritarians want to spread their methods. Democracies must stand guard.
15. How Should the West Respond to Putin’s Military Mobilization?
16. Sanctions, ‘strategic clarity’ needed (China/Russia)
17. China’s War on History Is Growing
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 24 (Putin's War)
Maps/graphics: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-24
Key Takeaways
- Local military commissars are carrying out mobilization orders in a way that suggests a possible disconnect between Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s guidelines for partial mobilization and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands for haste.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely continuing to address systemic issues in Russian senior command by replacing individual senior subordinates.
- Russia may be preparing to forcibly mobilize Ukrainian prisoners of war in what may constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War.
- Ukrainian forces likely continued to make gains along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border and northwest of Lyman.
- Ukrainian military officials indicated that the continued Ukrainian interdiction campaign in southern Ukraine is degrading Russian combat capabilities.
- Russian sources identified three locations where Ukrainian troops conducted ground operations in Kherson Oblast- northern Kherson Oblast, western Kherson Oblast near the Inhulets River, and northwest of Kherson City near the Mykolaiv-Kherson Oblast border.
- Russian forces conducted ground attacks around Bakhmut, Donetsk City, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
- Russian authorities continue to coerce residents of occupied Ukrainian territory into voting in sham referenda.
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 24
understandingwar.org
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 24
Karolina Hird, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan
September 24, 9 pm 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.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s declarations about which categories of Russian males will be exempted from partial mobilization may not reflect Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions or orders. A Russian media insider claimed on September 24 that officials of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reprimanded military commissars in person for negligence in carrying out mobilization and sending out summonses in “excess,” and contrary to the explicit MoD guidance regarding exemptions for age, disability, or other limiting factors.[1] Another Russian source claimed that certain heads of federal subjects acknowledged that they have mobilized citizens who are technically ineligible.[2]
Responsibility for the partial mobilization appears to be divided and complex, possibly contributing to confusion, disorganization, and violations of Shoigu’s commitments regarding exemptions. The mobilization decree specifies that Russian federal subjects are responsible for executing the mobilization while the MoD sets quotas and deadlines for filling them.[3] A Russian milblogger, in fact, criticized the governor of Russia’s Belgorod Oblast for not being an active participant in the mobilization process and noted that the mobilization decree places the onus of carrying out mobilization orders on the heads of federal subjects and not on military commissars.[4] Military commissars likely work for the heads of federal subjects, however, rather than directly for the MoD, making both responsible for mobilization and creating a possible gap between them and the Defense Ministry.
The military commissars are generally acting as if they had received orders to prioritize getting bodies to training centers over adhering to Shoigu’s guidelines, and the seemingly confused chains of responsibility for executing the mobilization decree may be responsible for the divergence between Shoigu’s statements and commissars’ actions. Shoigu emphatically reiterated on September 21 that mobilization is partial and will only rely on those already in the reserve and with combat experience and military experience, but military commissars failed to adhere to Shoigu’s guidance, practically from the onset of the mobilization order.[5] Continued reports of military commissars conducting chaotic distribution of mobilization summonses indicate that they feel significant pressure to carry out mobilization as quickly as possible. Ukrainian sources reported that Russian authorities are immediately mobilizing individuals in occupied areas of Ukraine after “rewarding” them with Russian passports for participating in sham referenda rather than waiting until annexation makes the mobilization of eligible males in Russian-occupied areas legal under Russian law. This haste suggests that military commissars feel pressure to expedite mobilization which is not reflected in Shoigu’s statements.[6] The MoD is evidently not in full control of mobilization, raising questions about which Russian males actually will be mobilized and how effective the mobilized force will be.[7]
Positions held by senior Russian military leadership are continuing to change hands, suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin is continuing to see systemic problems as the result of the personal failings of senior subordinates. The Russian MoD reported on September 24 that Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev has been appointed Deputy Defense Minister and will oversee logistics for the Russian Armed Forces, replacing Army General Dmitry Bulgakov.[8] Mizintsev previously acted as head of the Russian National Defense Control Center and served during Russian operations in Syria, notably commanding troops on the operational-tactical level during the encirclement of Ukrainian forces in Mariupol.[9] The replacement of individual senior leaders is very unlikely to fix fundamental structural problems in the Russian military. It reflects Putin’s personality-driven approach to leadership and relative disdain for system-building—both factors that contributed to the overall failures of the Russian military in this war.
Russian forces may be preparing to forcibly mobilize Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) to fight for Russia, which would constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War. Russian state media reported on September 24 that Ukrainian POWs detained at the Olenivka prison camp orally “requested” Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) authorities to allow them to fight in the DNR’s volunteer “Bohdan Khmelnitsky” Cossack Battalion. [10] If Russian or Russian proxy forces coerced Ukrainian POWs into combat, it would be a violation of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, which stipulates that “no prisoner of war may at any time be sent to or detained in areas where he may be exposed to the fire of the combat zone” and shall not “be employed on labour which is of an unhealthy or dangerous nature.”[11]
Key Takeaways
- Local military commissars are carrying out mobilization orders in a way that suggests a possible disconnect between Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s guidelines for partial mobilization and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands for haste.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely continuing to address systemic issues in Russian senior command by replacing individual senior subordinates.
- Russia may be preparing to forcibly mobilize Ukrainian prisoners of war in what may constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War.
- Ukrainian forces likely continued to make gains along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border and northwest of Lyman.
- Ukrainian military officials indicated that the continued Ukrainian interdiction campaign in southern Ukraine is degrading Russian combat capabilities.
- Russian sources identified three locations where Ukrainian troops conducted ground operations in Kherson Oblast- northern Kherson Oblast, western Kherson Oblast near the Inhulets River, and northwest of Kherson City near the Mykolaiv-Kherson Oblast border.
- Russian forces conducted ground attacks around Bakhmut, Donetsk City, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
- Russian authorities continue to coerce residents of occupied Ukrainian territory into voting in sham referenda.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Southern and Eastern Ukraine
- Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
- Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
- Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
- Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)
Eastern Ukraine: (Vovchansk-Kupyansk-Izyum-Lyman Line)
Ukrainian forces likely continued to make localized gains along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border on September 24. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian assault detachments occupied the settlements of Hrianykivka and Horobivka in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast (about 70km east of Chuhuiv).[12] Russian sources additionally indicated that Ukrainian forces are continuing positional battles further south along the Oskil River near Kupyansk.[13] These Russian claims are consistent with a statement made by the Ukrainian General Staff that Ukrainian troops repelled a Russian attack on Petropavlivka, 7km east of Kupyansk, which indicates that Ukrainian forces have made further gains east of Kupyansk.[14] Geolocated combat footage posted on September 23 showing Ukrainian forces destroying a Russian tank just east of Petropavlivka supports this assessment.[15]
Voice of America reported that recent rainfall has slowed Ukrainian attempts to advance further east of positions along the Oskil River because muddy cross-country terrain makes it difficult to effectively transport heavy weapons and equipment.[16] The recent weather patterns in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast may explain why recent Ukrainian advances near the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border have largely been along existing roadways to the east, which allows Ukrainian troops to threaten Russian positions without having to risk traversing muddy terrain under Russian artillery fire. To the extent that Ukrainian advances are confined to roadways, however, the limited effective Russian forces in the area are more able to concentrate to slow their advances. The fact that Ukrainian forces continue to make gains nevertheless suggests that Russian troops on this axis are weak and vulnerable.
Ukrainian troops also likely continued offensive operations around Lyman on September 24. A Russian source claimed that Ukrainian troops took control of Nove (18km due north of Lyman) and are continuing to push south of Lyman from the Ridkodub-Nove line.[17] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian troops also took control of half of Novoselivka, 10km northwest of Lyman.[18] Russian forces identified the Russian defenders of Lyman to BARS-13 and BARS-16 detachments (the latter of which is known as the “Kuban” detachment), which are sub-battalion formations comprised of Russian reservists from the Russian Special Combat Army Reserve.[19]
Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)
Ukrainian military officials maintained operational silence regarding Ukrainian ground maneuvers in Kherson Oblast on September 24 but reiterated that the current Ukrainian interdiction campaign in southern Ukraine is continuing to have tangible impacts on Russian capabilities on this axis. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command noted that Russian units are attempting to rotate units and conduct limited ground maneuvers in unspecified areas and are setting up new defensive lines that are further removed from the current frontline.[20] These statements suggest that Russian forces are trying to restore and preserve current combat capabilities by rotating likely exhausted units and moving further back into rear areas in the face of continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian concentration areas. Unit rotation suggests that the Russians will be unable to add additional forces to this axis since it implies removing exhausted units likely on a one-for-one basis with relatively fresher units.
Social media footage provides visual evidence that corroborates both Ukrainian and Russian claims of strikes comprising the continued Ukrainian interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast. Residents of Nova Kakhovka (60km east of Kherson City) reported explosions on September 23 to 24, which corroborates Russian and Ukrainian claims that Ukrainian strikes hit Nova Kakhovka and the nearby Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and Bersylav district.[21] Footage from Kherson City shows damage to the Antonivskyi Bridge following consistent Ukrainian strikes on the bridge and other Russian transportation assets and concentration areas in the Kherson City area.[22] A Russian source claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Russian positions south of the Dnipro River in the Henichesk area (about 170km southeast of Kherson City and 40 km north of Crimea), which is consistent with a statement made by Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command that Ukrainian forces hit a Russian control point near Henichesk.[23]
Russian sources identified three locations where Ukrainian troops conducted active ground operations in Kherson Oblast on September 23 and 24—northern Kherson Oblast, western Kherson Oblast near the Inhulets River, and northwest of Kherson City near the Kherson-Mykolaiv Oblast border. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian troops are preparing to push south of Novovoznesenske (about 16km south of the Dnipropetrovsk-Kherson Oblast border) and are pulling forces to Osokorivka (25km northeast of Novovoznesenske) to continue efforts to push southwards.[24] Russian sources additionally claimed that Ukrainian troops are continuing to fight in northern Kherson Oblast near Olhyne and Arkhanhelske.[25] Russian sources additionally claimed that Ukrainian troops are fighting in western Kherson near the Inhulets River and continuing positional battles near Sukhyi Stavok.[26] Russian milbloggers additionally indicated that Ukrainian troops are continuing ground maneuvers and positional battles northwest of Kherson City in the Posad-Pokrovske area and pulling reserves from Mykolaiv City to reinforce positions along the Mykolaiv-Kherson Oblast border.[27]
Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian troops continued ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast on September 24. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled Russian attacks northeast of Bakhmut near Soledar and Bakhmutske, and south of Bakhmut near Odradivka, Kurdyumivka, Zaitseve, and Mayorsk.[28] Russian sources claimed that Wagner Group fighters are attacking Ukrainian fortifications in Zaitseve (8km southeast of Bakhmut) and that Wagner detachments are fighting within Bakhmut itself, although ISW cannot independently confirm these claims.[29] Russian forces also continued routine ground assaults along the western outskirts of Donetsk City and attempted attacks on Kamyanka, Avdiivka, Opytne, and Nevelske.[30] Russian sources claimed that the 5th Brigade of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) repelled a Ukrainian assault on Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[31] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported that Russian troops conducted a limited ground assault on Novomykhailivka, about 25km southwest of Donetsk City.[32] Russian forces otherwise continued routine shelling throughout Donetsk Oblast and in eastern Zaporizhia Oblast.[33]
Supporting Effort—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)
Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks west of Hulyaipole on September 24 and continued routine strikes in Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts.[34] Ukrainian sources reported that Russian troops launched Kh-31 missiles at port infrastructure in Ochakiv, Mykolaiv Oblast, and continued rocket strikes on Zaporizhzhia City and Mykolaiv City.[35] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command stated that Russian forces shelled the coast of the Kakhovske Reservoir near Chervonohryhorivka, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (just across the water from Enerhodar).[36] This strike is a likely continuation of a recent Russian campaign to target Ukrainian hydrotechnical assets, which the UK Ministry of Defense assessed is unlikely to significantly impact Ukrainian operations due to the distance between these hydrotechnical assets and frontline combat zones.[37] Geolocated social media footage confirmed the location of an Iranian Shahed-136 drone attack on Odesa on September 23.[38]
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
The Kremlin’s “partial mobilization” continues to hastily press thousands of men across Russia into military service but remains unlikely to generate effective combat power.[39] Russian sources state that some mobilized men will receive 1-2 months of training.[40] Others may receive even less. Mobilization has drafted men in their upper 50s with serious medical conditions to fight in Ukraine.[41] Social media videos posted on September 24 show mobilized personnel receiving badly maintained and rusted small arms unfit for service.[42] Social media videos of mobilized men show they have low morale and are undisciplined and unruly.[43] Russian civilians continued protests against military mobilization and conducted arson attacks against polling stations in Russia on September 24.[44]
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian occupation forces continue coercively conducting sham referenda in occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Oblasts on September 24.[45] The Kremlin presented a few “international observers” it managed to attract to occupied Ukraine (including Stefan Schaller - the managing director of German energy company Energie Waldeck-Frankenberg GmbH) in an effort to imbue the referenda with a thin veneer of legitimacy.[46] Armed Russian occupation forces continue harassing Ukrainian citizens by going door-to-door to collect referenda votes.[47] Russian occupation forces are reportedly counting dead persons’ votes in the referendum in Alchevsk, Luhansk Oblast.[48] Ukrainian partisans are reportedly providing Ukrainian forces with targeting information for referenda voting stations despite increased security in occupied territories.[49]
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.
[3] https://telegra.ph/Intervyu-Ministra-oborony-Rossijskoj-Federacii-genera... ru/events/president/news/69391
[5] https://telegra dot ph/Intervyu-Ministra-oborony-Rossijskoj-Federacii-generala-armii-SKSHojgu-09-21
[7] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/69391
[8] https://t.me/mod_russia/20148; https://armyinform.com dot ua/2022/09/24/u-rosijskij-armiyi-prodovzhuyutsya-kadrovi-chystky/; https://tass dot com/defense/1512695; https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-minister-bulgakov-removed/32049316.html; https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5581014; https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5258163
[9] https://t.me/mod_russia/20148; https://armyinform.com dot ua/2022/09/24/u-rosijskij-armiyi-prodovzhuyutsya-kadrovi-chystky/; https://tass dot com/defense/1512695; https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-minister-bulgakov-removed/32049316.html; https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5581014; https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5258163; https://t.me/milchronicles/1136
[10] https://tass dot ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/15856985; https://antikor.com dot ua/ru/articles/576579-v_dnr_formirujut_kazachij_bataljon_iz_ukrainskih_plennyh_i_zastavljajut_ih_uchastvovatj_v_referendume; https://t.me/stranaua/65962
[31] ****GRAPHIC**** https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/40770; https://t.me/Sladkov_plus/6331
[39] https://t.me/mod_russia/20147; https://t.me/mod_russia/20137; https://... https://vologda-poisk dot ru/news/sobytia/cherepovets-otpravit-pervuyu-partiyu-rezervistov-uzhe-zavtra; https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSrWUbYL784BVXYa3a2sbDeVCK2r... https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/1573658686203068417; https://twitter.com/CITeam_ru/status/1573383442728980482; https://te.legra dot ph/Svodka-po-mobilizacii-v-RF-za-22-23-sentyabrya-09-23
[46] https://t.me/razvozhaev/1096; https://t.me/Stremousov_Kirill/380, https://t.me/Stremousov_Kirill/378; https://t.me/Stremousov_Kirill/375;... de/lokales/frankenberg/ewf-geschaeftsfuehrer-stefan-schaller-als-wahlbeobachter-bei-scheinreferendum-in-der-ukraine-91809239.html; https://www.tylaz dot net/2022/09/24/the-director-of-a-german-public-energy-company-invited-and-paid-by-russia-to-observe-the-annexation-referendum-4/
[48] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/09/24/na-luganshhyni-na-psevdoreferendumi-golosuyut-navit-mertvi/; https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1573440555572514823; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1573392246816243713; https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1573287407709048832
understandingwar.org
2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (24.09.22) CDS comments on key events
CDS Daily brief (24.09.22) CDS comments on key events
Humanitarian aspect:
As of the morning of September 24, 2022, more than 1,164 Ukrainian children are victims of full-scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation, Prosecutor General's Office reports. The official number of children who have died and been wounded in the course of the Russian aggression is 391, and more than 773 children, respectively. However, the data is not conclusive since data collection continues in the areas of active hostilities, temporarily occupied areas, and liberated territories.
Oleksandr Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, commented about the conditions in which the Russians kept Ukrainian POWs: "Today I spoke with a person who lost 63 kg. The day before yesterday, I spoke with a person who lost 70 kg. These are not isolated cases - they were systematically starved." All released POWs experienced physical and psychological violence. Some were kept in solitary confinement for 120 days. Currently, they receive psychological assistance.
However, no Ukrainian POW has been contacted by the Red Cross representatives. Dmytro Lubinetsplans plans to discuss with the leadership of the International Committee of the Red Cross the non-fulfillment of the ICRC's mandate regarding meetings with prisoners of war in early October in Geneva.
Olena Tolkachova, head of the Azov patronage service, in a commentary [on the state of released Azov defenders] to Ukrainska Pravda, said: "the state of our military is simply shocking. There are cases when relatives cannot recognize their relatives. Our guys are exhausted, shell-shocked; there are a lot of hidden fractures and exacerbations of varying degrees of chronic diseases."
According to the morning round-up of the regional military administrations, eight Oblasts of Ukraine were under shelling by Russian troops last night.
On September 23 and the night of the 24th, the Mykolaiv and Bashtan districts of the Mykolaiv Oblast were under enemy fire. 2 private houses were destroyed, and 3 residential buildings were damaged. At midnight, the Russians shelled at the waters of the South Bug River in Mykolaiv.
One person was killed and seven wounded due to the night shelling of Zaporizhzhya. One rocket hit the residential sector, causing a fire in a high-rise building. Polohy district was also under fire.
On September 23, 2 civilians were killed by enemy shelling in Bakhmut and Krasnohorivka in Donetsk Oblast. In addition, 3 more people were injured. The Russians hit the central part of Kurakhovo with rockets last night, damaging private and high-rise buildings and cars. Information about the victims is being clarified.
During the past day, the Russians shelled towns and villages in Kharkiv Oblast near the border with the Russian Federation and the contact line. There are 5 wounded in Kupyansk. In addition, two residents blew up on landmines in the Chuhuyiv and Izyum districts. During the day, the pyrotechnics of the State Emergency Service defused 578 explosive objects in Kharkiv Oblast.
At dawn, the Russians shelled with "Hrads" and "Hurricanes" Marganetska and Chervonogrigorivska communities in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The are two wounded. Over 20 private and high-rise residential buildings and 10 commercial buildings were damaged. As a result of the morning shelling of the bread factory in Marganets, three people were injured.
Occupied territories
The Russian invaders continue trying to hold pseudo-"referenda" on joining Russia.
In Kherson Oblast, according to the oblast Military Administration, for this purpose, Russian occupation authorities brought people in en masse from Crimea to vote, and local residents are forced to "vote" at gunpoint. The Russians are strengthening the administrative-police regime and continuing to pressure the local population. Collaborators accompanied by Russian servicemen with assault rifles go around residents' houses to force them to participate in a pseudo-referendum, the head of the Kherson military administration, Yaroslav Yanushevich, reported in his Telegram. He said that many who refuse to vote or speak out against the "referendum" are told by the invaders that they have 24 hours to leave. Kherson residents who took Russian passports are already being served with mobilization summons.
Russian propaganda mass media shoot stories about the alleged "active participation of local residents in voting." In reality, in the Kherson Oblast, the Russian occupiers are forcing people to "vote" twice because of very low turnout at the pseudo-referendum. According to the First Deputy Chairman of the Kherson Regional Council, Yuriy Sobolevskyi, the "family voting" scheme is used, meaning that if only one family member is found at home, they are forced to take several ballots and "vote" for the whole family.
In Mariupol, the so-called "referendum" on joining Russia also has a meager turnout of participants. According to Petro Andryushchenko, adviser to the legally-elected mayor of Mariupol, "Mobile brigades" were waiting for workers at their workplaces with a simple condition
- vote or lose your job and salary."
In Zaporizhzhya Oblast, three-quarters of the population left the temporarily occupied territories. Therefore, there are physically no people left to have a "turnout" for the sham "referendum." Oleksandr Starukh, the head of the Zaporizhzhya Military administration, wrote in his Telegram, "That is, it will be impossible even mathematically to prove that the majority of the population voted. There are no physical people there."
The Ukrainian authorities of the temporarily occupied Melitopol compiled a list of 58 collaborators who are the heads of so-called "election commissions." On the air of the national news telethon, Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov said personal sanctions would be imposed on
collaborators. "First of all, economic sanctions will be applied: the use of their property will be limited. We are collecting complete data on their families," he said.
The metallurgical plant in Alchevsk in the temporarily occupied Luhansk Oblast (so-called "LPR") came to a complete halt due to the full mobilization of all workers. This was reported by the head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, Serhii Gaidai. According to him, almost no men were left in the temporarily occupied Alchevsk - everyone the Russians could find was forcibly mobilized.
In Crimea, the occupation authorities massively hand out subpoenas for the military call-up to the Crimean Tatars. According to KrymSOS, 90% of the [mobilization] subpoenas on the peninsula were received by Crimean Tatars. At the same time, their number is 13-15% of the total local population. "Such a scale of mobilization can lead to a hidden genocide of the Crimean Tatar people," said Yevgeny Yaroshenko, an analyst at the publication.
Operational situation
It is the 213th day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to protect Donbas"). The enemy continues to concentrate its efforts on establishing full control over the territory of Donetsk Oblast and maintaining control over the captured territories, disrupting the Ukrainian troops' intensive actions in certain directions.
The enemy fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces along the contact line. The Russian military tries to restore their lost positions and constantly conducts aerial reconnaissance.
The Russian military continues striking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. The threat of Russian air and missile strikes persists throughout the entire territory of Ukraine.
Over the past day, the Russian forces launched 5 missile and 14 air strikes, and fired more than 60 MLRS rounds at military and civilian targets on the territory of Ukraine, violating the norms of international humanitarian law, the laws, and customs of war.
More than 60 Ukrainian towns and villages were affected by enemy strikes. In particular, Pechenihy, Yatskivka, Yarova, Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Bilohirka, Myrolyubivka, Mykolaiv, Sukhyi Stavok, Nova Hryhorivka, Pivdenne, Mali Shcherbaky, Hryhorivka, Pivnichne, Shcherbaky, Ochakiv, Solone, Orihiv and Arkhangelske. As a result of an enemy attack on Odesa with the use of attack UAVs, two people were killed, and two more were injured. At night, the city of Mykolaiv was subjected to enemy rocket shelling. The enemy fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the areas of Pavlivka, Myropilske, Krasnopillya, Mezenivka, and Slavgorod in the Sumy Oblast.
As part of the planned rotation of units of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus deployed near the state border of Ukraine, the units of the 11th separate motorized brigade (Slonim) will be replaced by units of the 103rd separate airborne brigade (Vitebsk). The 6th separate
motorized brigade (Grodno) units will be replaced by units of the 38th separate airborne assault brigade (Brest) of Belarus SOF.
It is planned to move from the territory of the Republic of Belarus 15 wagons from the 46th missile and ammunition storage arsenal (Bronna Gora, Brest region), 11 wagons from the 43rd missile and ammunition storage arsenal (Dobrush, Gomel region), and 11 wagons from the 391st artillery ammunition base (Bobruisk, Minsk region).
In the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson Oblasts, the occupation authorities began serving mobilization summonses to men of conscription age who renounced Ukrainian citizenship and received Russian passports.
Servicemen of the Russian occupation forces continue to commit illegal actions against the civilian population and engage in looting. For example, in Melitopol, the so-called "Kadyrov" units seized a dealer's agricultural machinery warehouse and tried selling the property.
Aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces made 25 strikes, hitting 18 enemy manpower and equipment concentration areas and 7 positions of anti-aircraft missile systems. Ukrainian air defense units destroyed one helicopter, one aircraft, and eight enemy UAVs.
Ukrainian missile troops and artillery struck six enemy command and control points, more than 20 enemy manpower and equipment concentration areas, 3 air defense positions, and 4 ammunition warehouses.
Iran continues to supply Russia with UAVs. On September 21, 12 "Shahed-136" UAVs were delivered to the Ashuluk training ground (Astrakhan Region), which will probably be moved to the "Vostochny" training ground (Toretsk, Donetsk region) in the future. From September 11 to 18, Iranian instructors trained UAV operators at this training ground. The "Shahed-131" and "Shahed-136" UAVs are based at the Kirovske airfield and the "Chauda" training ground (Crimea).
The morale and psychological state of the personnel of the invasion forces remain low. Kharkiv direction
• Zolochiv-Balakleya section: approximate length of combat line - 147 km, number of BTGs of the
RF Armed Forces - 10-12, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 13.3 km;
• Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments, 245th motorized rifle regiment of the 47th tank division, 6th and 239th tank regiments, 228th motorized rifle regiment of the 90th tank division, 1st motorized rifle regiment, 1st tank regiment of the 2nd motorized rifle division, 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 6th Combined Arms Army, 27th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Tank Army, 275th and 280th motorized rifle regiments, 11th tank regiment of the 18th motorized rifle division of the 11 Army Corps, 7th motorized rifle regiment of the 11th Army Corps, 80th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 14th Army Corps, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 1st Army Corps of so-called DPR, PMCs.
The Russian military fired tanks, mortars, and artillery in the areas of Ivashki, Strilecha, Oleksandrivka, Kolodyazne, and Dvorichna.
The enemy units of the 200th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 14th Army Corps of the Northern Fleet tried to restore lost positions in the east and south outskirts of Kupyansk but were unsuccessful and retreated.
Russian units of the 9th motorized rifle regiment of the 18th motorized rifle division carried out an armed provocation in the direction of Nova Tavolzhanka (in Russian Federation territory), Ohirtseve.
In the border areas of the Belgorod region, the enemy keeps deployed seven BTGs from the 6th Combined Arms Army, 11th Army Corps of the Baltic Fleet of the Western Military District, and Northern Fleet in the reserve of the 1st line.
Kramatorsk direction
● Balakleya - Siversk section: approximate length of the combat line - 184 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17-20, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;
● 252nd and 752nd motorized rifle regiments of the 3rd motorized rifle division, 1st, 13th, and 12th tank regiments, 423rd motorized rifle regiment of the 4th tank division, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Combined Arms Army, 35th, 55th and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, 2nd and 4th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Army Corps, 7th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Army Corps, PMCs.
The enemy fired at the Ukrainian Defense Forces using tanks, mortars, barrel and rocket artillery in the areas of Yarova, Raihorodok, Dibrova, Ozerne, Siversk, Spirne, Rozdolivka, Vesele, Bilohorivka, Yakovlivka, and Soledar, launched rocket attacks in the areas of Siversk (two missiles of an unknown type), Slovyansk (three missiles of an unknown type), airstrikes in the areas of Yarova (with a pair of Ka-52), Yatskivka (with Ka-52) and Belogorivka (with Su-25).
During the day, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled enemy attacks in the areas of Spirne and Soledar.
As a result of the successful actions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, the enemy withdrew:
- two BTGs of the 252nd motorized rifle regiment of the 3rd motorized rifle division of the 20th Combined Arms Army from Koroviy Yar to Glushchenkove and from Lozove to Maliivka;
- BTG of the 752nd motorized rifle regiment of the 3rd motorized rifle division of the 20th Combined Arms Army from Shandrigolove to Kolodyazi;
- 222nd rifle battalion of the mobilization reserve of the 2nd Army Corps from Koroviy Yar to Novomykhailivka.
The Russian military conducted defensive actions and tried to prevent the advance of Ukrainian troops. Russian troops equip the second line of defense in Honcharivka, Svatove, Kovalivka, Karmazynivka, and Novovodyane.
Separate enemy units and the command post of the 47th tank division of the 1st Tank Army of the Western Military District are concentrated in Volodymyrivka (Luhansk Oblast).
Donetsk direction
● Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 235 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 17 km;
● Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments, 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th tank regiment of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade, 24th separate SOF brigade, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 100th separate motorized rifle brigades, 9th and 11th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.
The enemy shelled the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces near Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Vesela Dolyna, Odradivka, Zaytseve, Mayorsk, New York, Shevchenko, Berdychi, Avdiyivka, Karlivka, Pervomaiske, Vodyane, and Opytne. In addition, the Russian military struck with army aircraft in the Pivdenne region.
Units of the PMC "Wagner" attacked in the direction of Kodema-Zaitseve; Vershyna-Zaitseve; Zaitseve (lower)-Mayorsk; Zaitseve (lower)-Kurdyumivka; Kodema-Odradivka. They did not succeed and retreated.
The 6th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps and PMC "Wagner" units attacked in the direction of Pokrovske, Bakhmutske; Streapivka, Soledar; suffered losses, and retreated to their original positions.
The enemy tried to attack in the direction of Verkhnotoretske, Kamyanka, with units of the 9th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps. The attacks were repulsed, and the enemy suffered losses.
Zaporizhzhya direction
● Maryinka – Vasylivka section: approximate length of the line of combat - 200 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 11.7 km;
● Deployed BTGs: 36th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 29th Combined Arms Army, 38th and 64th separate motorized rifle brigades, 69th separate cover brigade of the 35th Combined Arms Army, 5th separate tank brigade, 37 separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Combined Arms Army, 135th, 429th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments of the 19th motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the
42nd motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 136th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 58 Combined Arms Army, 46th and 49th machine gun artillery regiments of the 18th machine gun artillery division of the 68th Army Corps, 39th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 68th Army Corps, 83th separate airborne assault brigade, 40th and 155th separate marines brigades, 22nd separate SOF brigade, 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, and 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.
The enemy did not conduct active offensive actions. Maryinka, Paraskoviivka, Novomykhailivka, Velyka Novosilka, Zolota Nyva, Vuhledar, Mykilske, Yehorivka, and Novoukrainka were affected by enemy fire.
Kherson direction
● Vasylivka–Nova Zburyivka and Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line - 252 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 27, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.3 km;
● Deployed BTGs: 114th, 143rd, and 394th motorized rifle regiments, 218th tank regiment of the 127th motorized rifle division of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 57th and 60th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 135th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments of the 19th motorized rifle division, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division, 51st and 137th parachute airborne regiments of the 106th parachute airborne division, 7th military base of the 49th Combined Arms Army, 16th and 346th separate SOF brigades.
The enemy moved the Mohajer-6 UAV ground control station from the Kirovske airfield to the Olenivka region (Crimea) for effective control of the aircraft in the airspace of the Kherson and Mykolaiv Oblasts.
The Russian troops restored the transport connection across the Dnipro River at the Kakhovsk HPP by filling the lock chamber with rubble and metal structures and opened the third crossing (the previous two were damaged) through the HPP lock using MTU-90 tank town planners. Therefore, the operational efficiency of the supply of the enemy grouping in the Mykolaiv- Kryvorizka direction has increased.
Kherson-Berislav bridgehead
● Velyka Lepetikha – Oleksandrivka section: approximate length of the battle line – 250 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces – 22, the average width of the combat area of one BTG –
11.8 km;
● Deployed BTGs: 108th Air assault regiment, 171st separate airborne assault brigade of the 7th Air assault division, 4th military base of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 429th motorized rifle regiment of the 19th motorized rifle division, 33rd and 255th motorized rifle regiments of the 20th motorized rifle division, 34th, and 205th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 49th Combined Arms Army, 224th, 237th and 239th Air assault regiments of the 76th Air assault division, 217th and 331 Air assault regiments of the 98th Air assault division, 126th separate coastal defense
brigade, 127th separate ranger brigade, 11th separate airborne assault brigade, 10th separate SOF brigade, PMC.
More than 35 towns and villages were shelled, including Vysokopillya, Myrolyubivka, Ukrainka, Lozove, Blahodativka, Shyroke, Suhy Stavok, Bezimenne, Ternovi Pody, Olhyne, Lymany, and Myrne.
The enemy is strengthening the grouping of its troops in the Mykolaiv-Kryvyi Rih direction. On September 19, from Nova Kakhovka through Kozatske, the Russian military moved ten BMDs from the 104th parachute airborne regiment of the 76th Air assault division, ten BMPs of unknown origin, a combined unit (four BMPs, three BMDs, three Tiger BBMs, one tank, one TOS- 1A "Solntsepek," one fuel tank, nine trucks).
It is possible that Russian Airborne Forces units advanced in the direction of Shchaslyve to resume offensive actions in the direction of Blahodativka. A tank unit of the 124th tank battalion of the 76th Air assault division was also detected in this area. In addition, the enemy moved BTG of the 72nd separate motorized rifle brigade of the 3rd Army Corps to the Nadezhdivka area in the Kryvyi Rih direction.
In the Zeleny Hai area, two motorized rifle companies from the 37th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Combined Arms Army of the Eastern Military District reinforced the positions of the BTG of the 33rd motorized rifle regiment of the 20th motorized rifle division of the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District.
With the use of UAVs, the enemy dropped containers with a poisonous substance, probably a K- 51 chlorpicrin grenade, on the combat positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:
The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine and control the northwestern part of the Black Sea. The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the sea and connect unrecognized Transnistria with the Russian Federation by land through the coast of the Black and Azov seas.
Currently, there are 15 enemy warships at sea providing reconnaissance and blocking shipping in the Azov-Black Sea waters. Up to 28 Kalibr missiles on four carriers can be ready for a salvo on four carriers: two 1135.6 frigates, a Buyan-M missile corvette, and a 636.3 submarine.
Three submarines of project 636.3, which are in the Black Sea, are in the port of Novorossiysk due to fears of attacks.
On the night of September 24, rocket and artillery attacks continued in Mykolaiv and Ochakov. The enemy also used the Shahid-136 kamikaze drone against the Port of Pivdenny. The Iranian- made Mohajer-6 multi-purpose attack UAV was shot down over the sea area near the port of
Odesa. It has a maximum take-off weight of 600 kg, a payload of 100 kg, and a flight range of 200 km. The drone can carry up to four high-precision munitions.
Enemy aviation continues to fly from Crimean airfields Belbek and Gvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 12 Su-27, Su-30, and Su-24 aircraft from Belbek and Saki airfields were involved. The Russian Federation is intensifying aviation use in the south of Ukraine and the Black Sea.
"Grain Initiative": 8 more ships with agricultural products will depart today. On September 24, 8 ships carrying 131.3 thousand tons of agricultural products will depart from the ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk. The food is intended for the countries of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Since the beginning of the operation of the grain corridor, 211 ships have exported 4.7 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products to the countries of Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 24.09
Personnel - almost 56,300 people (+240);
Tanks – 2,262 (+8);
Armored combat vehicles – 4,807 (+11);
Artillery systems – 1,361 (+6);
Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 327 (+1); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 170 (0); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 3,681 (+22); Aircraft - 255 (+1);
Helicopters – 220 (+1);
UAV operational and tactical level - 956 (+6); Intercepted cruise missiles - 240 (0);
Boats / ships - 15 (0).
Ukraine, general news
As a result of enemy shelling, 349 objects of critical heat supply infrastructure were damaged in Ukraine, including 11 thermal power plants, four of which were destroyed. This was announced by the Minister of Community and Territorial Development, Oleksiy Chernyshov, at a headquarters meeting on preparation for the autumn-winter period of 2022/23.
International diplomatic aspect
Ukraine has downgraded its diplomatic ties with Iran over the Iranian kamikaze drone attack carried out by the Russian Forces. Two drones hit an administrative building in Odesa, while the Ukrainian air defence shut down one Mohajer-6 over the Black Sea. Iran publicly denounced the supply of UAVs to Russia when the first news appeared several weeks ago. The Iranian drones extend Russian capabilities and pose a serious threat to Ukraine. It was reported that an Israeli company would supply Ukraine with anti-UAV systems. If confirmed, it would be just another important step for Israel to revise its don't-irritate-Russia policy.
"The fundamental solution is to address the legitimate security concerns of all parties and build a balanced, effective, and sustainable security architecture," said the Chinese foreign minister. He went on to call on "all parties concerned to keep the crisis from spilling over and protect the legitimate rights and the interests of developing countries." Though China hasn't stepped up its material support of the Russian war effort, politically and diplomatically, it stands behind Moscow. In Beijing's view, "legitimate security concerns" means leaving Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence and disbanding NATO. China didn't support the illegal annexation of Crimea (it abstained during the vote for the UN General Assembly's resolution on Ukraine's territorial integrity in March 2014) but neither condemned it. While Moscow tries to draw parallels between its annexation of Crimea and Taiwan, Beijing believes these are different cases. One is about interstate conflict, while the other is about the domestic affair of China.
The anti-NATO sentiment of Beijing derives from alliances and partnerships the US is developing to restrain Chinese growing and threatening influence, particularly AUKUS and Quad. Russia's actions caused a ripple effect on the global scale, and Chine was affected too. But Beijing doesn't want Russia to vanish as a geopolitical factor because, in such a case, the US would be able to invest all its resources in competing with China.
Russia, relevant news
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law with amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provide for punishments (with imprisonment for up to 10 years) for desertion and surrender and introduces the concepts of "mobilization," "martial law," and "wartime" into the Criminal Code.
In Russia, airline employees receive summonses for mobilization. The trade union of air traffic controllers asks Prime Minister Mykhailo Mishustin not to mobilize controllers - several dozen of them have already received summonses. Aviation is one of many industries where mobilization can lead to catastrophic consequences. Myroslav Boychuk, the president of the trade union of flight crews of Russia (more than 20,000 people), says that the organization is already preparing an appeal to the head of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, Vitaliy Savelyev. According to sources, 50-80% of aviation employees can be potentially drafted. Most of the pilots in the airlines are reserve officers who were trained at military departments of flight schools or served in the army.Centre for Defence Strategies (CDS) is a Ukrainian security think tank. We operate since 2020 and are involved in security studies, defence policy research and advocacy. Currently all our activity is focused on stopping the ongoing war.
We publish this brief daily. If you would like to subscribe, please send us an email to cds.dailybrief@gmail.com
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3. Kremlin stages votes in Ukraine, sees protests in Russia
Excerpts:
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed regional leader of Chechnya who sent his forces to fight in Ukraine and repeatedly called for tougher action, suggested that Moscow should more broadly engage personnel from law-enforcement agencies in the fighting.
He denounced those fleeing the mobilization as cowards and argued that police and various paramilitary agencies that number a total of 5 million personnel together with the military would make a much better-trained and motivated fighting force.
“If we leave 50 percent of the personnel to fulfil their duties, 2.5 million others will blow any Western army away and we won’t need any reservists,” Kadyrov said.
Putin’s mobilization order followed a swift Ukrainian counteroffensive that forced Moscow’s retreat from broad swaths of the northeastern Kharkiv region, a humiliating defeat that highlighted blunders in Moscow’s military planning.
The Defense Ministry on Saturday announced the dismissal of Gen. Dmitry Bulgakov from the post of deputy defense minister in charge of logistics. It didn’t mention the cause for his ouster, but the move was widely seen as a punishment for the flaws in supporting operations in Ukraine.
Kremlin stages votes in Ukraine, sees protests in Russia
AP · by KARL RITTER and HANNA ARHIROVA · September 24, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces launched new strikes on Ukrainian cities Saturday as Kremlin-orchestrated votes took place in four occupied regions to create a pretext for their annexation by Moscow.
In cities across Russia, police arrested hundreds of people who tried to protest a mobilization order aimed at beefing up the country’s troops in Ukraine. Other Russians reported for duty, while the foreign minister told the U.N. General Assembly his country had “no choice” but to take military action against its neighbor.
Ukraine’s presidential office said the latest Russian shelling killed at least three people and wounded 19. Oleksandr Starukh, the Ukrainian governor of Zaporizhzhia, one of the regions where Moscow-installed officials organized referendums on joining Russia, said a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the regional capital, killing one person and injuring seven others.
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Ukraine and its Western allies say the referendums underway in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal force. They alleged the votes were an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory stretching from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.
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Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said the voting “looked more like an opinion survey under the gun barrels,” adding that Moscow-backed local authorities sent armed escorts to accompany election officials and to take down the names of individuals who voted against joining Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians in occupied regions to undermine the referendums and to share information about the people conducting “this farce.” He also called on Russian recruits to sabotage and desert the military if they are called up under the partial troop mobilization President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday.
“If you get into the Russian army, sabotage any activity of the enemy, hinder any Russian operations, provide us with any important information about the occupiers – their bases, headquarters, warehouses with ammunition,” Zelenskyy said.
Putin on Saturday signed a hastily approved bill that toughens the punishment for soldiers who disobey officers’ orders, desert or surrender to the enemy.
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To carry out the referendums that started Friday, election officials accompanied by police officers carried ballots to homes and set up mobile polling stations, citing safety reasons. The votes are set to wrap up Tuesday.
“Half of the population fled the Donetsk region because of Russian terror and constant shelling, voting against Russia with their feet, and the second half has been cheated and scared,” Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
In the Ukrainian capital, about 100 people from the Russia-occupied city of Mariupol, which is part of the Donetsk region, gathered to protest the referendum, covering themselves in Ukrainian flags and carrying posters “Mariupol is Ukraine.”
“They ruined the city, killed thousands of people, and now they are doing some kind of profanation over there,” said Vladyslav Kildishov who helped organize the rally.
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Elina Sytkova, 21, a demonstrator who has many relatives left in Mariupol even though the city spent months under bombardment, said the vote was “an illusion of choice when there isn’t any.”
It’s “like a joke, because it’s the same as it was in Crimea, meaning it’s fake and not real,” she said, referring to a 2014 referendum that took place in Crimea before Moscow annexed the peninsula in a move that most of the world considered illegal.
The mobilization ordered by Putin marked a sharp shift from his effort to cast the seven-month war as a “special military operation” that doesn’t interfere with the lives of most Russians.
Russian police moved quickly to break up demonstrations against the mobilization that were held in several cities across Russia on Saturday, arresting over 700 people. More than 1,300 protesters were arrested during a previous wave of protests on Wednesday, and many of them immediately received call-up summons.
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The Russian leader and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the order applied to reservists who had recently served or had special skills, but almost every man is considered a reservist until age 65 and Putin’s decree kept the door open for a broader call-up.
The Russian Ministry said that the partial mobilization initially aimed to add about 300,000 troops to beef up its outnumbered volunteer forces in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government stopped allowing most men ages 18-60 to leave the country immediately after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion under a general mobilization order intended to build a 1 million-strong military.
Across Russia’s 11 time zones, men hugged their weeping family members before being rounded up for service amid fears that a wider call-up might follow. Some media reports claimed Russian authorities planned to mobilize more than 1 million recruits, which the Kremlin denied.
Moving to assuage public fears over the call-up that could erode Putin’s grip on power, authorities announced that many Russians working in high tech, communications or finance would be exempt.
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After some of the pilots of the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot and other airlines reportedly received call-up notices, pilots and traffic controllers unions moved quickly to secure a government promise that they, too, would be excluded from the mobilization.
Many Russian men bought up scarce and exorbitantly priced airline tickets out of the country as as rumors swirled about a pending border closure. Thousands others fled by car, creating lines of traffic hours or even days long at some borders. The massive exodus underlined the unpopularity of the war and fueled public outrage.
In a sign the Kremlin was starting to worry about a backlash, the head of a top state-controlled TV station harshly criticized military authorities for hastily sweeping up random people to meet mobilization targets instead of calling up people with specific skills and recent military service, as Putin promised.
RT chief Margarita Simonyan lashed out at military conscription offices for “driving people mad” by rounding up those who weren’t supposed to be drafted. “It’s as if they were tasked by Kyiv to do that,” she said.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed regional leader of Chechnya who sent his forces to fight in Ukraine and repeatedly called for tougher action, suggested that Moscow should more broadly engage personnel from law-enforcement agencies in the fighting.
He denounced those fleeing the mobilization as cowards and argued that police and various paramilitary agencies that number a total of 5 million personnel together with the military would make a much better-trained and motivated fighting force.
“If we leave 50 percent of the personnel to fulfil their duties, 2.5 million others will blow any Western army away and we won’t need any reservists,” Kadyrov said.
Putin’s mobilization order followed a swift Ukrainian counteroffensive that forced Moscow’s retreat from broad swaths of the northeastern Kharkiv region, a humiliating defeat that highlighted blunders in Moscow’s military planning.
The Defense Ministry on Saturday announced the dismissal of Gen. Dmitry Bulgakov from the post of deputy defense minister in charge of logistics. It didn’t mention the cause for his ouster, but the move was widely seen as a punishment for the flaws in supporting operations in Ukraine.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
AP · by KARL RITTER and HANNA ARHIROVA · September 24, 2022
4. Musk activating Starlink satellite internet in Iran after Biden administration relaxes sanctions
How will Iran counter this? Can it? Can this have application in other authoritarian ruled countries? Is this a key capability to support information and influence activities?
Musk activating Starlink satellite internet in Iran after Biden administration relaxes sanctions
The Hill · by Jared Gans · September 24, 2022
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced on Friday that he is activating the company’s Starlink satellite internet service in Iran after U.S. officials eased sanctions to allow the Iranian people greater access to the internet.
The Treasury Department announced the policy change earlier on Friday to let companies provide additional online services as the Iranian government has cut off internet access for most of the country as protests continue nationwide.
Musk previously announced on Monday that he planned to request permission for Starlink to operate in Iran after the Treasury said it would welcome applications to support internet freedom in the country.
“We took action today to advance Internet freedom and the free flow of information for the Iranian people, issuing a General License to provide them greater access to digital communications to counter the Iranian government’s censorship,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet.
Pfizer CEO tests positive for COVID-19 again Russian foreign minister: U.S. ‘playing with fire around Taiwan’
Starlink, a division of the Musk-owned spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX, has operated since 2019, The Associated Press reported. It operates thousands of satellites internationally to provide internet access.
Iran has sought to cut off civilians’ access to the internet amid protests that began this past week following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. Amini was arrested by the morality police for allegedly wearing a hijab improperly and died a few days later.
Iranian authorities said she died from a heart attack, but her family said she was badly beaten, leading to mass protests throughout the country. The protests have led to more than a dozen confirmed deaths as many women have burned their hijabs and cut their hair in public in opposition to what happened to Amini and to Iranian policy.
The Hill · by Jared Gans · September 24, 2022
5. China says US sending ‘dangerous signals’ on Taiwan
Excerpts:
Since Pelosi’s visit “China has taken a number of provocative steps that have by design acted to change the status quo”, the US official said.
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, will discuss Taiwan security during bilateral meetings with the leaders of US allies Japan and South Korea when she visits them next week, another US official said.
Daniel Russel, the top US diplomat for Asia under president Barack Obama, said the fact Blinken and Wang had met was important after the turbulence brought by Pelosi’s visit, and hopefully some progress would have been made towards arranging a meeting between Xi and Biden on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in November, which would be their first in-person as leaders.
“Wang and Blinken’s decision to meet in New York does not guarantee the November summit will go smoothly or that it will even occur,” said Russel, now with the Asia Society. “But had they been unable to meet, it would have meant the prospects for a summit in November were poor.”
China says US sending ‘dangerous signals’ on Taiwan
Comments from Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi come after meeting with US secretary of state Antony Blinken on sidelines of UN general assembly
The Guardian · September 24, 2022
China has accused the United States of sending “very wrong, dangerous signals” on Taiwan after the US secretary of state told his Chinese counterpart on Friday that the maintenance of peace and stability over Taiwan was vitally important.
Taiwan was the focus of the 90-minute, “direct and honest” talks between the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, on the margins of the UN general assembly in New York, a US official told reporters.
“For our part, the secretary made crystal clear that – in accordance with our long-standing one-China policy, which again has not changed – the maintenance of peace and stability across the Strait is absolutely, vitally important,” the senior US administration official said.
Joe Biden again says US forces would defend Taiwan from Chinese attack
Read more
China’s foreign ministry, in a statement on the meeting, said the US was sending “very wrong, dangerous signals” on Taiwan, and the more rampant Taiwan’s independence activity, the less likely there would be a peaceful settlement.
“The Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese matter, and the United States has no right to interfere in what method will be used to resolve it,” the ministry cited Wang as saying.
Tensions over Taiwan have soared after a visit there in August by the US House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi - which was followed by large-scale Chinese military drills – as well as a pledge by the US president, Joe Biden, to defend the self-governed island.
Biden’s statement was his most explicit to date about committing US troops to the defend the island. It was also the latest instance of his appearing to go beyond a longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity”, which does not make it clear whether the US would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.
The White House has insisted its Taiwan policy has not changed, but China said Biden’s remarks sent the wrong signal to those seeking an independent Taiwan.
In a phone call with Biden in July, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, warned about Taiwan, saying “those who play with fire will perish by it”.
The state department had said earlier that Blinken’s meeting with Wang was part of a US effort to “maintain open lines of communication and manage competition responsibly”, and the senior official said Blinken had reiterated US openness to “cooperating with China on matters of global concern”.
Blinken also “highlighted the implications” if China were to provide material support to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or engage in wholesale sanctions evasion, the official added.
Biden’s bullish rhetoric on Taiwan risks provoking China with no gain in security | Stephen Wertheim
Read more
US officials have in the past said they had seen no evidence of China providing such support.
Blinken “underscored that the United States and China and the international community have an obligation to work to counter the effects of that invasion and also to deter Russia from taking further provocative actions”, the official said.
China sees Taiwan as one of its provinces. Beijing has long vowed to bring Taiwan under its control and has not ruled out the use of force to do so.
Taiwan’s government strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s 23 million people can decide its future.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry, responding to the meeting between Blinken and Wang, said China’s “recent provocative actions” had made the Taiwan Strait a focus of discussion, and China was trying to “confuse the international audience with arguments and criticisms that contradict reality.”
Blinken’s meeting with Wang was preceded by one between the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the US, which issued a statement, referring to the Indo-Pacific, saying that “we strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo or increase tensions in the region”.
Since Pelosi’s visit “China has taken a number of provocative steps that have by design acted to change the status quo”, the US official said.
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, will discuss Taiwan security during bilateral meetings with the leaders of US allies Japan and South Korea when she visits them next week, another US official said.
Daniel Russel, the top US diplomat for Asia under president Barack Obama, said the fact Blinken and Wang had met was important after the turbulence brought by Pelosi’s visit, and hopefully some progress would have been made towards arranging a meeting between Xi and Biden on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in November, which would be their first in-person as leaders.
“Wang and Blinken’s decision to meet in New York does not guarantee the November summit will go smoothly or that it will even occur,” said Russel, now with the Asia Society. “But had they been unable to meet, it would have meant the prospects for a summit in November were poor.”
The Guardian · September 24, 2022
6. Wang: China’s Reunification Key to Peace in Taiwan Strait
Excerpts:
He said Beijing supports efforts to peacefully resolve the crisis and its top priority is dialogue.
“The fundamental solution is to address the legitimate security concerns of all parties and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture,” he added.
Speaking of other issues, Wang said China stands “firmly against” the attempts to politicize human rights; opposes bullying by countries, as well as “group politics and bloc confrontation.”
Wang: China’s Reunification Key to Peace in Taiwan Strait
September 24, 2022 3:03 PM
voanews.com
United Nations —
China’s foreign minister told the U.N. General Assembly Saturday that only when China is “completely reunified” can there be “enduring peace” across the Taiwan Strait.
“Any scheme to interfere in China’s internal affairs is bound to meet the strong opposition of all Chinese, and any move to obstruct China’s reunification is bound to be crushed by the wheels of history,” Wang Yi told the annual debate.
Tensions have risen between Beijing and Washington in recent months, as several U.S. Congressional delegations have visited Taiwan. A visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in early August prompted an angry Beijing to fire at least 11 ballistic missiles into the waters around Taiwan in a live-fire military exercise a day after she left the island.
Pelosi was the highest-profile U.S. official to go to the island in 25 years, and China viewed her trip as an unacceptable challenge to its claims over Taiwan.
“Since ancient times, Taiwan has been an inseparable part of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Wang said.
He said to realize the goal of peaceful reunification, Beijing must preempt separatist activities.
“To realize this goal, we must combat Taiwan independence separatist activities with the firmest resolve and take the most forceful steps to oppose external interference,” he said.
Wang reaffirmed the “One China” principle, saying it has become a norm in international relations.
Russia’s war
China is Moscow’s closest ally but has started to express some concern about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“We call on all parties concerned to keep the crisis from spilling over and protect the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries,” Wang told the assembly.
He said Beijing supports efforts to peacefully resolve the crisis and its top priority is dialogue.
“The fundamental solution is to address the legitimate security concerns of all parties and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture,” he added.
Speaking of other issues, Wang said China stands “firmly against” the attempts to politicize human rights; opposes bullying by countries, as well as “group politics and bloc confrontation.”
voanews.com
7. Russian conscripts sent into Ukraine with RUSTY AKs
Someone has to clean those weapons. I guess one way to do that is to mobilize conscripts.
Photos at the link: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11247927/Civilian-reservists-forced-join-Putins-war-machine-handed-worn-weapons.html
Russian conscripts sent into Ukraine with RUSTY AKs
Daily Mail · by Will Stewart · September 25, 2022
Civilian reservists forced to join Vladimir Putin’s war machine are being issued with rusty worn-out old Kalashnikovs as weapons, a new video shows.
The recruits expressed dismay in a volley of swearwords after a tank crew were provided with long-discarded weapons from a military store in Primonsky region in the far east of Russia.
'It's the tank boys who were given this c*** [rusty Kalashnikovs],' says one voice as the men are given their war kit.
'They said: "You've got tanks, so don't give a **** about the Kalashnikovs".'
Russian tank crews were given weapons that looked decades old to take to war
The tank crew were provided with long-discarded weapons from a military store in Primonsky
Online sleuths identified the weapon as an AKM, a gas operated assault rifle introduced by the Soviets in 1959 as a replacement for the AK-47. It was officially replaced in Soviet frontline service in the late 1970s
One man said of the worn and rusty guns: 'These are the machine guns we're getting.
'F***** up, I'm f****** up…. I won’t comment on anything…. I’m shocked.'
They were told that, since they were part of a tank crew, the rusty weapons would be good enough.
Online sleuths identified the weapon as an AKM, a gas operated assault rifle introduced by the Soviets in 1959 as a replacement for the AK-47.
The AKM is lighter and cheaper to produce than the AK-47. It was officially replaced in Soviet frontline service in the late 1970s.
'There are WW2 re-enactors who have better equipment,' said Twitter user Magnus Canis.
'Are these the "real troops“ Russia has been holding back?' asked another user.
'Czar Nicholas is proud of his army,' joked a third.
A separate video close to the Ukrainian border shows 'aged' military trucks being transported for use by Russia’s newly mobilised reservists.
The recent videos underline increased Russian equipment problems, suggesting the military is digging through old Soviet equipment to use in its war against Ukraine.
Rusted military trucks were shown being transported for use by Russia’s newly mobilised reservists, suggesting that Russia is digging through old Soviet equipment to use in the war
Daily Mail · by Will Stewart · September 25, 2022
8. Flashes of bold UN talk on feminism, masculinity, patriarchy
Flashes of bold UN talk on feminism, masculinity, patriarchy
AP · by SALLY HO · September 25, 2022
Few men in power have delved deeply into gender equality on the main stage of the United Nations this month, but the ones who did went there boldly: claiming feminist credibility, selling “positive masculinity” and resolutely demanding an end to The Patriarchy.
On the first day of the General Assembly gathering of world leaders, Bolivian President Luis Arce touted 2022 as “The Year of the Cultural Revolution for Depatriarchalization” for his country, and urged the United Nations to adopt a decade-long effort to do the same.
Arce said his country wanted to promote policies to “transform this regrettable reality that is caused by patriarchy as the most ancient system of oppression, and that is also linked to colonialism and capitalism.”
Gender equality, as one of the United Nations’ primary goals, has long been a safe talking point for world leaders, and there were many brief and polite mentions of progress made toward female empowerment, including promoting women into prominent roles, ensuring equal educational opportunities for girls, and supporting women’s autonomy over their own bodies.
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There were also some leaders who did not say the words “women” or “girls” at all during their time on stage — the king of Jordan, the president of Cyprus, the prime minister of Japan.
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At other times, “feminism” — considered an f-word by many for generations — was used proudly.
Liberian President George Weah declared himself “feminist-in-chief.” Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora acknowledged that “feminism is one of the great challenges of the present moment.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez trumpeted “the feminist agenda and the struggle for gender equality.”
“We are living in times in which demanding basic rights is still a revolutionary act,” Sánchez said in his U.N. address. “The global threats to women’s sexual and reproductive freedom are yet another example of how painfully slowly the world is moving towards guaranteeing full equality. Worse still, is the fragility of our past social gains, which have fallen victim to backsliding in certain advanced democracies — something quite inexplicable at this stage of the 21st century.”
It was an impassioned jab, apparently directed at the event’s host country, where a recent Supreme Court ruling ended the constitutional right to abortion. In contrast, U.S. President Joe Biden offered only a passing mention of abortion rights — even as the court decision continues to ripple across the nation.
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“The future will be won by those countries that unleash the full potential of their populations, where women and girls can exercise equal rights, including basic reproductive rights,” Biden said in his speech.
The contrast was a stark reminder that words matter, said Sylvia Maier, a global gender studies professor at New York University, who said the unabashed use of progressive language by some world leaders on this prominent stage was new, unusual and surprising. The largest gathering of world leaders remains a forum that is dominated by men.
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“It’s about time we stop using euphemisms and beating around the bush,” Maier said. “It’s about time that we start talking about what we’re facing in no uncertain terms. … We cannot resolve these issues — which are all interlinked — without really calling it what it is.”
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said in his speech that he was a “champion for positive masculinity,” claiming a need for “radical change” while highlighting an African Union men’s conference to tackle a surge in violence against women. “Because equality is not a gift given to women,” Tshisekedi said.
The United Nations has defined positive masculinity as “an innovative approach to engaging and involving men, and making them allies in gender equality and peacebuilding efforts in conflict and post-conflict settings.”
Maier said it’s important to model the so-called idea of “what a good and honorable man should do” — from resisting violence and speaking up as a bystander, to understanding consent, believing survivors of gender violence and creating services to help those in crisis.
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“It’s hard work changing social norms, which are really gender stereotypes,” Maier said. “Positive masculinity really means a reinforcement of positive character traits but all of these character traits, they shouldn’t even have a gender.”
The issue is especially acute for Congo. One of the poorest and least developed nations in the world, the country has long struggled with high rates of sexual violence, domestic abuse and child marriage.
“The problem is not masculinity,” said Ousseina Alidou, a professor who leads the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University and serves as president of the African Studies Association. “Who we are is not the problem, but what we embrace as an ideology.”
Alidou said it is commendable that Africa is taking the issue seriously as part of the continent’s healing from its painful history of colonization.
“Patriarchy has been the framework for which colonialism has manifested itself, in the most inhumane way on the African continent,” Alidou said. “Patriarchy is not a monopoly of only one region of the world. It is a world phenomenon.”
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___
Follow Sally Ho on Twitter at http://twitter.com/_sallyho and for more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
AP · by SALLY HO · September 25, 2022
9. Changing Equations: The Complexities of Armed Strength in Warfare
A view from India.
Excerpts:
But these numbers are effective in a conventional conflict where things are ‘black’ and ‘white’, the outcome in a hybrid conflict or a grey zone environment is no longer dictated by the logic of these numbers. Recent conflicts, which have been characterised by blurring lines between war and peace, state and non-state actors, regular and irregular warfare, conventional and unconventional means the imponderables are many.
To quote Robert Gates, “The categories of warfare are blurring and no longer fit into neat, tidy boxes. One can expect to see more tools and tactics of destruction — from the sophisticated to the simple — being employed simultaneously in hybrid and more complex forms of warfare.”
A recent development as per Jennifer Kavanagh “has been the extensive influence of non-state groups that are able to act autonomously on the international stage. These actors have increased in number and independence in recent years, as well as in the types of power they are able to wield. Their actions not only amplify state power but also constrain state flexibility”. These non-state groups have also used their power in ways and speeds that were not possible before social media.
The other factor highlighted by Jennifer Kavanagh is the extent to which relationships between countries serve as key sources of power that are decisive in shaping conflict outcomes. Typically, power is measured by looking at capabilities, such as military weapons or GDP. However, as globalisation and changes in technology make it cheaper and easier for goods, services, and information to flow across borders and advance interconnectedness between countries, relationships such as alliances and trade networks have become as important to any assessment of national power as capability-based measures. Ukraine has benefitted from military and economic assistance, intelligence and infrastructure support.
I would just add that irregular warfare is the military component of political warfare and that we need to understand our adversaries' political warfare strategies and conduct our own superior form of political warfare.
Changing Equations: The Complexities of Armed Strength in Warfare
By: Maj Gen Jagatbir Singh
Last Updated: SEPTEMBER 24, 2022, 09:49 IST
New Delhi, India
news18.com · September 24, 2022
In his seminal book Vom Kriege (On War), Clausewitz devotes an entire chapter to the ‘Superiority of Numbers’. It is well known that ‘strategy fixes the point where, the time when, and the numerical force with which the battle is to be fought’. By this triple determination, it has, therefore a very essential influence on the issue of combat.
He further states that if we strip the combat of all modifications which it may undergo according to its immediate purpose and the circumstances from which it proceeds, if we set aside the valour of the troops — because that is a given quantity — then there remains only the bare conception of the combat; that is a combat without form in which we distinguish nothing but the number of the combatants. This number will therefore determine victory.
But superiority in numbers in a battle is only one of the factors employed to produce victory. Further, superiority has ratios — it could be two-fold, three-fold or four-fold — and increasing in this manner, it will at some point overpower everything else.
This is simplistic but the problem which has troubled many minds is what the size of a force should be beyond which it becomes excessive. The skill, therefore, lies in not absolute superiority, but producing relative superiority at the decisive point at the correct time.
Force concentration became integral to the Prussian military operational doctrine, which aimed to cause disproportionate losses on the enemy and therefore destroy the enemy’s ability to fight. The ratio of armed forces became the dominant factor. Concentration of force requires mobility to permit rapid concentration and power to be effective in combat once concentrated. Both elements were present in the tank which became the decisive weapon platform in World War II.
While commanders desire numerical superiority over their adversaries, they are not always able to achieve it. Instead, they use methods such as manoeuvre to achieve local superiority in combat power. Force multipliers, improving command and control, enhancing lethality, and seeking to possess better information than their opponents allow assets to contribute relatively more to a fight, thereby potentially offsetting a requirement for mass.
Success in battle is also a function of strategy, operational employment, doctrine, training, combat experience, leadership, force structures and morale.
However, in the past few years, more emphasis has been placed on ‘indirect mass’, command and control, precision weapons, lethality, robust networks and superior information as a substitute for ‘actual’ mass. However, what happens when an adversary combines these measures with actual mass? If both sides are lethal, networked, and effectively commanded, then what are the factors that determine the outcome on the battlefield?
The US first confronted the problems of traditional force superiority being unable to prevail in Vietnam, where it was argued that a 10:1 force ratio was required for counterinsurgencies. More recently, the world has been witness to their removal of ‘boots on ground’ from Afghanistan. That is in spite of the extreme overmatch in weapons and technology. Going by Western media, the Russian forces are heading on the same path in Ukraine.
Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine is the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II and has fundamentally altered the continent’s security landscape. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many observers looked at Russia’s overwhelming combat power and thought Russia would achieve a quick victory. Because Russia had numerical advantages in weapon systems such as tanks, artillery, attack helicopters and planes.
Russians had numbers on their side, or more precisely a number; the 3:1 rule, the force ratio by which attackers must outnumber defenders in the plains in order to prevail. Russia, clearly, could easily amass that advantage as it outnumbered the Ukrainian many times over no matter what the key determinant was, be it infantry, tanks, artillery, air defence systems or aircraft.
Based on historical battle analysis, the 3:1 rule of thumb suggests that attackers should have at least three soldiers for every defending soldier to overcome the defenders’ natural advantages and increase the probability of offensive success. An important condition for the 3:1 force ratio is that attackers’ and defenders’ military capabilities should be qualitatively similar. If one side enjoys significant qualitative and technical advantages over an adversary, then they might secure success without meeting that rule of thumb.
The force ratios of course vary from attack on prepared defences 3:1 to attack on hasty defences 2.5:1, for counter attack on a flank it is 1:1 and change drastically to upwards of 6:1 for attacks in extreme high-altitude areas. These calculations, of course, will change drastically once you enter built up areas and confront a conventional force, militias and have to deal with a civil population.
As per a recent article in the Economist, “Mariupol’s grim experience holds useful lessons for armies all over the world.” While all armies try to avoid fighting in cities, they are increasingly being forced to do so. Urban warfare is slow and costly for the troops waging it, particularly as you want to limit collateral damage to the civilian population and to key infrastructure. Over the years, cities have grown in size with more people living in urban than rural areas and ‘they can envelop armed forces’.
While the Russian army did not adhere to the 3:1 rule of thumb when structuring its invasion force, this does not necessarily indicate that it does not consider force ratios irrelevant. Instead, it is likely that Russian leadership underestimated the Ukrainian resolve. The Russian military planners incorrectly assumed that Ukrainian forces were qualitatively inferior and lacked the capability to exercise command and control of such a large operation.
Clausewitz proclaimed: “The defensive form of warfare is intrinsically stronger than the offensive.” By the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Prussians distilled this to require triple the attackers. World War I, with years of stalemate in the trenches as combatants struggled to break through defences, lent further credibility to the idea.
However, one of the major factors determining outcomes is the ability to control where and when to have decisive engagements. If in the course of battle, the sides commit their reserves and redeploy forces from other sectors the constant coefficient changes and the possibilities are immense.
This has been best summed up by Sun Tzu who said: “The musical notes are only five in number but their melodies are so numerous that one cannot hear them all. The primary colours are only five in number but their combinations are so infinite that one cannot visualise them all. The flavours are only five in number but their blends are so various that one cannot taste them all. In battle there are only the normal and extraordinary forces, but their combinations are limitless; none can comprehend them all. For these two forces are mutually reproductive; their interaction as endless as that of interlocked rings. Who can determine where one ends and the other begins?”
But these numbers are effective in a conventional conflict where things are ‘black’ and ‘white’, the outcome in a hybrid conflict or a grey zone environment is no longer dictated by the logic of these numbers. Recent conflicts, which have been characterised by blurring lines between war and peace, state and non-state actors, regular and irregular warfare, conventional and unconventional means the imponderables are many.
To quote Robert Gates, “The categories of warfare are blurring and no longer fit into neat, tidy boxes. One can expect to see more tools and tactics of destruction — from the sophisticated to the simple — being employed simultaneously in hybrid and more complex forms of warfare.”
A recent development as per Jennifer Kavanagh “has been the extensive influence of non-state groups that are able to act autonomously on the international stage. These actors have increased in number and independence in recent years, as well as in the types of power they are able to wield. Their actions not only amplify state power but also constrain state flexibility”. These non-state groups have also used their power in ways and speeds that were not possible before social media.
The other factor highlighted by Jennifer Kavanagh is the extent to which relationships between countries serve as key sources of power that are decisive in shaping conflict outcomes. Typically, power is measured by looking at capabilities, such as military weapons or GDP. However, as globalisation and changes in technology make it cheaper and easier for goods, services, and information to flow across borders and advance interconnectedness between countries, relationships such as alliances and trade networks have become as important to any assessment of national power as capability-based measures. Ukraine has benefitted from military and economic assistance, intelligence and infrastructure support.
Then there is the issue of holding captured territory. Russia appears to have changed course to a seemingly more limited strategy of expanding its control in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. There are no exact formulas regarding how many soldiers are required, but as per a report in CSIS a ‘force ratio of as many as 20 soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants has sometimes been necessary to pacify a hostile local population’. At the end of World War II, for example, there were 101 US soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants in the US controlled sector of Germany. More recently, there were nineteen US and European soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants in Bosnia in 1995 and twenty soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants in Kosovo in 2000.
Lower ratios are generally insufficient to pacify hostile populations. In Iraq, for instance, the US had seven soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants and faced persistent problems even with the help of Iraqi government forces and Sunni militia members. In Afghanistan, the figure was only one soldier per 1,000 inhabitants, along with the help of Afghan National Security Forces, the outcome is well known. The copy book remains the Indian Army’s spectacular success in East Pakistan and early exit after the birth of Bangladesh but that was backed by a ground swell of popular support.
The truth that endures is that the complexity in conflict stems from the interaction with the opponent. To accept superiority of numbers as the one and only rule, and to reduce the art of war to a formula of numerical superiority at a certain time in a certain place may be an oversimplification. Did the Americans miscalculate numbers in Vietnam and Afghanistan and are the Russians treading the same path?
At its core, war is about power, who possesses it, who doesn’t, and who can use it effectively. Russia has shown that it is willing to use military force to achieve its policy goals regardless of international opinion or condemnation. Hence, while we cannot eliminate paying attention to one of warfare’s oldest considerations, these numbers need to be recalculated in a multi-dimensional conflict. Numbers do matter but the essence lies in how you use these numbers.
The author is an Army veteran. Views expressed are personal.
Read all the Latest Opinion News and Breaking News here
news18.com · September 24, 2022
10. Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action (2nd Edition)
The 107 page monograph can be downloaded at this link: https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/strat-monograph/Crafting-Strategy-for-Irregular-Warfare_2ndEd.pdf
Note:
The framework is based on the pedagogical approach of the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) within the National Defense University (NDU), the only U.S. irregular warfare college.
Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action (2nd Edition)
By David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks
Strategic Monograph
ndupress.ndu.edu
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Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare
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VIRIN: 220920-D-BD104-001
The 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy made headlines by officially downgrading terrorism as a national security priority in favor of “inter-state strategic competition.” Many interpreted the statement as signifying a return to “conventional combat,” yet a closer reading suggests that even state-based competition is likely to be “irregular.” Much like insurgent adversaries, revisionist states blend separate lines of effort to offset military weakness, weaponize narratives to ease strategic progress, and exploit social and political contradictions to undermine and divide target societies. This approach is appealing because it allows for gains that, although incremental, are less likely to face backlash and are therefore more sustainable. Indeed, it was precisely when Russia abandoned this playbook, through its conventional invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that it succeeded in mobilizing significant local and global resistance, greatly complicating its military and political effort. Thus, for several reasons, irregular warfare is likely to be the strategy of choice for states seeking to contest international order.
The United States, and the West, struggle to understand and respond to irregular warfare, whether by states or nonstate actors. Attempts to master the art have generated much new jargon, ranging from “hybrid war” to “the gray zone,” and most recently “integrated deterrence.” The terminology belies a struggle to overcome entrenched presumptions about war—a confusion that generates cognitive friction with implications for strategy. To inform a better approach, this monograph presents an analytical framework to assess and respond to irregular threats. The framework is based on the pedagogical approach of the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) within the National Defense University (NDU), the only U.S. irregular warfare college. It is designed to cut through the analytical ambiguities of irregular warfare and map such strategies to design an effective counter. Though an analytical framework is no panacea for the malaise facing Western strategy, it is an indispensable starting point for all that must follow.
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ndupress.ndu.edu
11. 'To Hell With Your Mobilization': Russian Who Denounced Ukraine War On His Storefront Could Face Prison
'To Hell With Your Mobilization': Russian Who Denounced Ukraine War On His Storefront Could Face Prison
September 25, 2022 17:39 GMT
By North.Realities
rferl.org · by North.Realities
Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February, businessman Dmitry Skurikhin has covered the facade of his store in a village near St. Petersburg with anti-war messages to protest the Kremlin aggression.
Skurikhin has already been hit with fines for his anti-war activism since Russia's invasion of Ukraine for allegedly "discrediting" the Russian military.
"I think about my safety every day. But it's more important that people come around to my point of view. I'll do all I can to achieve that. What can happen to me? I might go to prison. That's OK," Skurikhin, who lives in the Leningrad region village of Russko-Vysotskoye, told Current Time in August.
Now, Skurikhin has been detained and had his apartment raided after he hung a sign on his storefront critical of the partial military mobilization that Putin announced on September 21 that read: "Go to hell with your mobilization. That's where the road leads for such management of the country."
Dmitry Skurikhin stands in front of his store in August, which is painted with the names of Ukrainian cities that have been bombed.
Skurikhin is facing criminal charges that could result in up to five years in prison, according to the Russian rights group Setevyye Svobody (Network Freedoms).
Russian authorities raided Skurikhin's home on September 23, an operation that his family said left the house trashed, and detained him pending a court hearing.
The Leningrad region's Lomonosov district court on September 25 released Skurikhin from custody but ordered him not to speak with witnesses or use messaging services or e-mail, Setevyye Svobody said in a Telegram post.
Skurikhin's attorney, Dmitry Gerasimov, was unable to provide details about the case against his client due to a gag order.
Skurikhin posted on his Facebook page on September 23 that the Russian Investigative Committee was raiding his home, posting several photographs from the scene.
The following day, rights activist Dinar Idrisov posted on Facebook that the raid had lasted 11 hours, and that officials had turned Skurikhin's home, where he lives with his wife and three underage children, upside down.
Idris wrote that officials had also confiscated all cash in his home, as well as all telephones, computers, and tablets, including those of his children.
Eleven hours of searches in the house of Dmitry Skurikhin and his family left it trashed.
"They left a family with several children completely without money," Idrisov told RFE/RL, adding that windows in the family's two-story home were broken during the raid as well.
Idrisov told RFE/RL that he and other activists suspected that an officer with Russia's powerful Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor agency to the Soviet KGB, was present during the raid but that nobody saw this person's documents.
According to Idrisov, the criminal case is linked to the sign denouncing Putin's military mobilization that Skurikhin hung on the facade of his store on September 21.
Skurikhin said in a Facebook post that his wife had asked him not to hang the sign and had refused to help him do so.
rferl.org · by North.Realities
12. With Kalashnikov rifles, Russia drives the staged vote in Ukraine
And remember as Stalin said, it is not the vote that counts, it is who counts the votes.
With Kalashnikov rifles, Russia drives the staged vote in Ukraine
By David L. Stern and Robyn Dixon
Updated September 24, 2022 at 7:05 p.m. EDT|Published September 24, 2022 at 2:08 p.m. EDT
The Washington Post · by David L. Stern · September 24, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine — Officials in Russian-occupied territories in eastern and southern Ukraine are forcing people to vote “under a gun barrel,” residents said on Saturday as staged referendums — intended to validate Moscow’s annexation of territory it occupies — entered their second day.
Voting is taking place in portions of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and will last five days, ending Tuesday. The outcome is not in doubt.
The purported referendums are illegal under Ukrainian and international law and would not remotely meet basic democratic standards for free and fair elections. Western leaders, including President Biden, have denounced the process as a “sham” to prepare the ground for Russia’s theft of Ukrainian land.
Moscow officials and their separatist proxies have said that they expect the vote to be in favor of absorbing the areas, a process that will be completed “promptly” once the results are official, according to the Kremlin.
The speed at which the referendums were announced and carried out and the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Russian reserves, all within one week, reflect the Kremlin’s tacit acknowledgment of its deteriorating position in Ukraine. After invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 and failing to take the capital, Kyiv, Russian forces have been pushed back in the country’s northeast and are coming under pressure along the front lines of the war.
Hundreds more people were arrested Saturday during demonstrations in Russia against the mobilization.
Ukrainians who are in contact with friends and relatives in the occupied territories describe groups of men armed with Kalashnikov rifles, accompanied by a person with a portable ballot box, going door-to-door in apartment buildings and houses.
“The referendum is taking place in the occupied city of Kherson under the muzzle of an automatic rifle,” said Galina Luhova, head of the Kherson City Military Administration, who now lives in Ukrainian-controlled territory. “They ring the doorbell of apartments, knock down the doors of those who don’t open them and demand that people come out and put a mark that they agree to join the Russian Federation.”
Luhova said she spoke to 11 people still living in the Kherson region who told her that they pretend they are not at home, or leave their apartments for extended periods, while the armed groups make their rounds. “People are frightened,” Luhova said.
Serhii Nikitenko, a Ukrainian journalist who said he’s spoken to three friends over the last two days, said that mobile groups also visit schools, hospitals and other workplaces where officials “can collect a certain number of votes.”
In a late-night address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the referendums a “sham” — echoing Western leaders.
“These are not just crimes against international law and the law of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “These are crimes against specific people, against the nation.”
Zelensky also said that occupation authorities had begun to mobilize local Ukrainians to fight against Kyiv forces, a prospect that Ukrainians should avoid “by any means.”
If they do end up drafted, however, Zelensky called on them to “sabotage any activity of the enemy, hinder any Russian operations, provide us with any important information about the occupiers” and, at the first opportunity, “switch to our positions.”
Meanwhile, the “partial mobilization” of Russian men to bolster beleaguered troops in Ukraine, announced by Putin this past week, appeared to be encountering obstacles.
Numerous videos have emerged of newly minted draftees staggering around drunk, throwing punches, shouting at military officers, cursing when told to form lines, and in Primorye territory in the Far East, swearing at the rusted-out Kalashnikovs they were handed.
On Saturday, Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya and a close Putin ally, appeared to acknowledge the problem of the poor quality of recruits, saying that half of Russia’s 5 million police and law enforcement officials should be drafted instead.
Also on Saturday, at least 132 750 people were arrested in protests throughout the country, according to rights monitor OVD-Info, with further protests expected in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Independent Russian outlets have posted multiple videos of police violently beating protesters, most of them young people, before dragging them to police vans. The total number of arrests since Putin announced the mobilization is 2080 according to OVD-Info.
A military enlistment office in the Krasnoyarsk region, according to local media outlet ChP Kansk, was one of at least 10 attacked in cities and towns across Russia since mobilization was announced.
At the same time, Putin signed a law toughening penalties for desertion and “voluntary surrender” during military operations. He also fast-tracked Russian citizenship for foreigners who joined the fight against Ukraine — a move designed to appeal to the many migrant workers in Russia from former Soviet Central Asian countries. On Wednesday, however, those countries’ Moscow embassies issued warnings to their citizens that it was illegal to participate in a foreign war.
Ukrainian officials said that their armed forces continued to make gains in the country’s south and east, though that information could not be verified because journalists are barred from reporting from front-line positions.
On Friday, Zelensky said that Russian forces sent Iranian-made drones to attack the Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine’s southeast and the city of Odessa on the Black Sea. Previously, U.S. officials said that Tehran had supplied combat drones to Russia.
Zelensky promised a “tough response” and “corresponding consequences” to the “collaboration with evil.” On Friday, Ukrainian officials announced they had stripped the Iranian ambassador to Ukraine of his accreditation and moved to significantly reduce the number of personnel at the Iranian Embassy in Kyiv.
Tehran officials said on Saturday that they regretted the Ukrainians’ move, which they said was based on “unconfirmed reports” and “media manipulation.”
As the staged referendums proceeded, Russian officials attempted to lend the process an appearance of legitimacy, following a playbook that they have used in previous orchestrated votes, such as a similar staged referendum setting up Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
Russian media showed images of people lined up outside voting stations, but Ukrainian officials said that they had either bused in from elsewhere or were soldiers wearing civilian clothing. So-called “international observers” gave their blessing to the proceedings. One of them, Eliseo Bertolasi from Italy, observed the 2018 general elections in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the unrecognized Moscow-supported separatist state in eastern Ukraine.
After one day, election officials said that about 15 percent of the total electorate in the Russian-controlled regions had voted, Russia’s RIA Novosti reported.
Luhova said her contacts “cried and cried and cried” because of what was transpiring: the staged referendum and the prospect that Russia would try to absorb the region.
“Russia is trying to paint a situation that doesn’t exist in Kherson,” she said. “People just clenched their teeth and clenched their fists, waiting for the armed forces of Ukraine to free the city.”
Dixon reported from Riga.
The Washington Post · by David L. Stern · September 24, 2022
13. Propaganda newspapers show how Russia promoted annexation in Kharkiv
Propaganda newspapers show how Russia promoted annexation in Kharkiv
By Siobhán O'Grady and Sergii Mukaieliants
September 24, 2022 at 2:10 a.m. EDT
The Washington Post · by Siobhán O'Grady · September 24, 2022
September 24, 2022 at 2:10 a.m. EDT
IZYUM, Ukraine — Over the months Russian troops occupied this northeastern Ukrainian city, puppet authorities regularly distributed propaganda newspapers to residents, pushing a narrative of normalcy and unity even as homes and infrastructure were demolished, stores were looted, and civilians struggled to find basic provisions to survive.
A trove of the Russian-language newspapers, provided to The Washington Post by a resident who said he kept them “for history,” paints a surreal version of events on the ground running in near total contradiction to the narrative from the Ukrainian government in Kyiv, and to accounts from residents who survived the violent takeover of the city in March.
Ukrainian forces recaptured Izyum in a surprise counteroffensive earlier this month, sparing the city from a staged referendum in an attempt to justify Russian annexation, like those that began Friday in parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
But the propaganda newspapers show how Russian forces tried to take advantage of the city’s information vacuum during the occupation when cellphone and internet service was mostly cut. The papers sought to evoke nostalgia among civilians for the Soviet era, to turn residents against Ukrainian forces and to promote deep historical and cultural ties with Russia, apparently in preparation for annexation.
The publications include two newspapers, The Izyum Telegraph and Kharkiv Z, the first of which pushed narratives that Russian soldiers were helping to rebuild areas destroyed by Kyiv’s forces as the community worked toward a brighter future. Kharkiv Z used more colloquial — and at times aggressive — language, similar to other current Russian propaganda outlets.
The rhetoric of both publications mirrored language from World War II, using the term “allied forces” to refer to Russia-backed troops from Luhansk and Donetsk, and words such as “Nazi” and “fascist” to describe the Ukrainians. The Red Star, a Russian propaganda newspaper that predates Russia’s invasion last February, was also distributed to locals.
In an April issue of the Kharkiv Z, the paper compared the Russian battle for control of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine to the 1943 Battle of Kursk between the armies of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
“Local citizens are mainly disloyal to Kyiv,” the paper stated. “People here think Ukrainian forces are occupants and Nazis. And forces of the [Luhansk and Donetsk People’s] Republics and Russia are their liberators.”
The battle would be difficult, the paper warned, describing how “teachers” from London and Washington, D.C. were helping Ukrainian forces.
“It seems that Donetsk battle will also be a competition between Russian and American strategists,” the paper stated.
Several Izyum residents said they barely acknowledged the papers when they were handed out, using them instead as kindling to cook outside or stay warm. “They burned really well,” one resident said.
On the front page of the first issue of The Izyum Telegraph, dated May 25, an article described how the new Russian-appointed mayor of the city, Vladislav Sokoliv, had pledged to residents that despite recent difficulties, the situation would soon improve.
“We have huge plans and the Russian Federation will help us to make them true, as opposed to Ukraine, which wants to completely destroy our territories, ruin infrastructure and eliminate people,” the paper quoted Sokoliv as saying.
An article in the same issue decried civilians for not participating in efforts to rebuild the area, where entire villages were bombed to the ground and the city center in Izyum was largely destroyed.
“We are doing everything to rebuild our towns and villages. But we feel a lack of working hands and experienced managers,” the article said. “I’m speaking to every one of you: STOP SITTING IN THE BASEMENTS.”
Residents described to The Washington Post how they slept underground for months due to near constant shelling, during battles for control of the city. Houses, apartment blocks, and government buildings were destroyed throughout the city and some people were killed in their own homes.
By the next issue of The Izyum Telegraph, dated June 1, the mayor ordered that Russian would be the city’s official language and that those who want to sell alcohol needed to apply for a liquor license.
On the front page, an article headlined “New people, new era,” announced the births of 10 children between Feb. 24 and May 30 — five boys and five girls. A doctor in the main hospital in Izyum said just four children were born in his hospital during the entirety of the Russian occupation.
Other details trying to suggest that the situation in occupied Izyum was entirely normal were interspersed throughout the newspaper alongside updates on the war. Music schools would reopen by Sept. 1, the paper said, thanks to the help of Russian troops “who saved it from thievery.”
One one page, an article about signing children up for summer camp in Russia was juxtaposed next to a report that 47 bodies had been retrieved from a damaged apartment building and that Russian forces were investigating who on the Ukrainian side was allegedly responsible for the attack.
Some 200 children from Kharkiv region left home on Aug. 27 for one of the camps advertised in Russian propaganda outlets and have still not returned, stranded due to the sudden change in territorial control. Others went to camp and returned earlier in the summer.
The newspaper also encouraged graduates to pursue their diplomas, and advertised free study in Russian universities.
In a May issue of the Kharkiv Z, an article reported that Russian forces were moving slowly in capturing territory because they are trying to protect civilian lives. The article described the amount of Ukrainian territory Russia had seized by comparing it to the equivalent of “five Crimeas, 20 percent of the whole of Ukraine.”
An illustration of Alexander Suvorov, a famed tsarist general who died in 1800, accompanied the article.
By the third issue of The Izyum Telegraph, released in June, the paper was announcing “cadet class” where children could learn the history of the region, develop their Orthodox Christian religious beliefs and engage in physical training.
At another point, the paper published warnings for residents to remain vigilant about potential saboteurs loyal to Ukraine. “Pay attention, don’t say anything about destruction or the military by phone,” the paper stated.
Announcements went out that local authorities were compiling lists of harvestable fields.
“To demine a field, you should make a request,” the paper stated. Mines remain commonplace throughout Izyum and the surrounding area and at least 10 victims of them visited a hospital in Izyum in the days after Ukrainian forces retook the city this month.
Officials also published reminders to turn off lights at night and to inform officials about graves “made in inappropriate places.”
After Russian troops retreated earlier this month, Ukrainian officials discovered a mass burial site in the forest near an official cemetery in Izyum, including a mass grave holding 17 Ukrainian soldiers.
Articles and poems published in the papers repeated in various ways that solutions to residents’ problems “can be found only by the Russian army.”
“The current Russian soldier is an honorable ancestor of his father and grandfather,” one article stated.
Izyum Deputy Mayor Volodymyr Matsokyn laughed as he recalled seeing clips from the papers while away from the city during occupation.
“There was an announcement to join the medical college,” Matsokyn said. “But this college doesn’t have a roof.”
By Sept. 16, less than a week after Ukrainian forces retook Izyum, the city;'s own newspaper, called Izyum’s Horizons, had resumed publication.
On the front page: an article about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raising the blue-and-yellow national flag over the city along with a photo collage of all the buildings in the city damaged during the war.
Izyum’s Horizons featured an analysis of the Russian propaganda newspapers, a photo of an alleged collaborator, and accusations against the Russia-appointed mayor, who the paper said had revealed the identities of residents who were members of Ukraine’s territorial defense units.
But perhaps in a sign Ukrainian officials believe the situation in the city is truly returning to normal, the bottom of the last page featured something far more routine: the weather forecast for the week ahead.
Anastacia Galouchka contributed to this report.
The Washington Post · by Siobhán O'Grady · September 24, 2022
14. Opinion | Authoritarians want to spread their methods. Democracies must stand guard.
This should be one of the underlying themes and messages of a US information and influence campaign.
Conclusion:
Democracies and open societies are easy targets. They must not be complacent about these malign threats.
Recognize our adversaries strategy, understand it, expose it (to inoculate citizens), and attack it with superior information and messages.
Opinion | Authoritarians want to spread their methods. Democracies must stand guard.
The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · September 23, 2022
The State Department’s cable to embassies on Sept. 12 laying out Russia’s covert political funding around the world had the overtones of a Cold War thriller: bags of cash, shadowy subversion and legions of trusty allies. But the reality is that this message just barely pulled aside the curtain on a much larger drive by authoritarian regimes to export dictatorship beyond their borders, a serious challenge for democracies.
The Biden administration made the cable public after carrying out an intelligence review of Russia’s political influence campaign. It says Moscow funneled at least $300 million to foreign political parties and candidates in more than two dozen countries since 2014 and planned to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more. The cable declares, “As Russia wages war against Ukraine, it is imperative that democracies identify and counter covert Russian political influence in our societies and systems of governance.” An administration official told reporters that the United States wanted to put foreign parties and candidates on notice “that if they accept Russian money secretly we can and we will expose it.” This is useful, just as it was important to expose how Russia attempted to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
But this spreading of political influence is part of a much larger story. China, Russia and other nations are routinely exporting methods for authoritarian rule. Christopher Walker, vice president for studies and analysis at the National Endowment for Democracy, writing in the October issue of the Journal of Democracy, asserts that autocrats have in recent years developed “more interactive, multidimensional, and often nuanced ways to project influence.” It is not military hard power, but extremely potent “sharp power,” he says. “Chinese authorities are training officials from developing countries on censoring the internet, controlling civil society, and building a single-party regime,” he writes.
In a just-published study examining China’s influence in 30 countries from January 2019 to last December, Freedom House found Beijing spent billions on propaganda but also increasingly used coercion, censorship and covert tactics to sanitize China’s image. The report concludes China has flooded the media in other nations with content favorable to Beijing, while aiming “harassment and intimidation” at outlets “that publish news or opinions disfavored by the Chinese government,” and China is using “cyberbullying, fake social media accounts, and targeted disinformation campaigns” against those it dislikes.
A disturbing underside is “transnational repression,” in which regimes that govern harshly think they can reach abroad with the same coercion, threats and violence. The murder of our Post Opinions colleague Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi Arabian hit team four years ago was an example but hardly the only one. Mr. Walker writes that the digital revolution has made it “even easier for dictators to hound and intimidate activists, journalists, and critics, no matter where they are.” Freedom House has recorded 735 incidents of direct, physical transnational repression that took place from January 2014 to December 2021, with 85 incidents in 2021 alone.
Democracies and open societies are easy targets. They must not be complacent about these malign threats.
The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · September 23, 2022
15. How Should the West Respond to Putin’s Military Mobilization?
How Should the West Respond to Putin’s Military Mobilization?
Foreign Policy · by Emma Ashford, Matthew Kroenig · September 23, 2022
Matthew Kroenig: Hi, Emma! I just returned from the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Awards on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York. We honored world leaders, like those from Finland and Sweden, for their contributions to global peace, but somehow Russia’s Vladimir Putin missed out on an award this year.
How have you been?
Emma Ashford: You could have awarded him the prize for “biggest strategic blunder of the year,” or perhaps “most unwilling to back down,” or even just “least popular world leader.” After all, everyone just saw him being treated like he had a communicable disease by his fellow leaders at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meetings in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Even China’s Xi Jinping gave him a hard time about the war in Ukraine.
MK: He clearly deserves those awards. We should add those categories next year!
The SCO meetings were interesting. Some doubted whether—in a reverse from the Cold War era—Putin would play the junior partner to Xi’s China. But, in Samarkand, he seemed willing, even eager, to play the supplicant to Xi.
China hasn’t yet provided military aid for Putin’s war in Ukraine, but it has supported Russia economically and diplomatically. In the past week, it seemed that even its diplomatic support may be wavering.
EA: This was the first time that Xi and Putin had met in person since their prewar meeting in February. And I do think it was notable how firm every leader at the SCO meeting was with Putin. The Indians, who have been buying vast quantities of Russian oil, were quite explicit in telling him he needs to end the war, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi openly telling Putin, “Today’s era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this.” Meanwhile, the Central Asian leaders were far less deferential to Putin than usual, and even Xi publicly suggested that Putin needs to get his house in order.
That said, the Chinese have been treading a really careful middle ground on the conflict, supporting Russia rhetorically but scrupulously avoiding the prospect of Western sanctions for providing actual material support to Russia’s war effort. I don’t think this was a shift in policy but rather a shift in their willingness to publicly acknowledge that there are gaps between Beijing and Moscow, perhaps as part of an effort to pressure Putin to think about a settlement.
MK: I think that is right. And I also agree that while Xi is partly concerned that Putin’s bloody war will stain China’s image and its pretensions at global leadership, he is much more worried about finding Beijing in the crosshairs of Western sanctions, which could further throttle China’s already slowing economy.
The even bigger news this week was Putin’s highly anticipated speech on Ukraine. The Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun to back Putin into a corner, and many analysts have been expecting some sort of Russian escalation. Putin responded this week, announcing a mobilization of reserve forces, issuing new nuclear threats, and promising a series of referendums in Russian-controlled territories, including occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
What is your take on these developments?
EA: Well, it’s not entirely surprising. The background to this move is the recent stunning Ukrainian gains on the ground in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian army was able to employ new Western weapons, along with some well-planned subterfuge to draw Russian forces away from the occupied northern areas of Luhansk province. This allowed it to stage a successful offensive to retake territory. The operation ended up being far more successful than I think anyone—even the Ukrainians themselves—expected, putting Russia on the back foot.
Putin was never going to simply concede when faced with the prospect of publicly losing a war on something he sees as a core national interest.
But, as many of us have warned for some time, Putin was never going to simply concede when faced with the prospect of publicly losing a war on something he sees as a core national interest. He faced increasing criticism in Russia from nationalist hawks who wanted him to escalate, and he was effectively stuck with a choice to back down or escalate. He chose to escalate, in a relatively spectacular fashion.
MK: But these were not easy moves for Putin. If so, he would have taken these actions weeks or months ago. He is worried that calling up reservists is going to undermine his political position at home. It undermines his narrative that this is a limited “special military operation.” And it could cause a larger portion of the Russian population to turn against the war. After all, look at all the young Russian men lining up at borders, selling out flights, and (reportedly) breaking their own arms to get out of military service.
And more nuclear threats? He has been talking a big game since February. Why doesn’t he do it already? The reason is: He is deterred. He is worried about the potential consequences, such as provoking a major war with the United States and NATO.
This week’s speech shows that he is desperate and running out of options. So, I think the takeaway for Western governments should be to double down, not back down, in helping Ukraine win the war.
EA: I take the exact opposite lesson from this move. This is an incredibly costly signal for Putin to take domestically. As you say, it could quite easily cause the large group of Russians who are pretty apathetic about the war—which doesn’t really cost them anything at the moment—to turn against it. It is already causing protests in Moscow and the regions. But it seems to me that if Putin is willing to take this step, then he views losing the war as far more costly, making him less likely to back down in future. Maybe he thinks it will imperil his domestic hold on power, or maybe he views keeping parts of Ukraine as a core Russian national security interest, but it hardly matters. He made the choice to escalate, and that suggests to me that he will be less willing to concede, and the stakes of the conflict are now higher for both sides.
MK: Political scientists sometimes assess threats according to capability and resolve. I agree this speech shows that Putin is highly resolved to avoid losing this war. But that was never in doubt. The speech also shows, however, that he is running out of options with regard to his capabilities. With his conventional forces mangled in Ukraine, he is reduced to relying on low-quality reservists and nuclear saber rattling.
If Ukraine and the West continue to press, they can win the war.
EA: It depends what you mean. I am all for continuing to arm Ukraine so it can achieve enough battlefield victories to land in a better position at the negotiating table. But I worry that what you’re suggesting is more than that: getting directly involved in the conflict. What exactly are you proposing?
I would recommend continuing to provide Ukraine with the arms it needs to win, including more advanced weapons.
MK: I would recommend continuing to provide Ukraine with the arms it needs to win, including more advanced weapons, such as the Army Tactical Missile System, which would roughly quadruple the range of Ukrainian strikes, giving them the ability to hit targets deeper in Russian-held territory.
But my fear is that some (perhaps you, the Western Europeans, or the Biden administration?) would respond to Putin’s speech with a more cautious approach, arguing that Washington should provide Ukraine weapons to keep fighting, but not enough to actually win for fear of Russian escalation. I think this would be the wrong approach. It would prolong the war, rather than help Kyiv win a swift victory.
EA: OK, so there are two problems here. One is the assumption that Ukraine can roll back Russian gains if the West simply arms it with enough advanced weapons. The Ukrainians have done a good job in making some early advances using Western aid, but I think the jury is still out on whether that will portend a long-term ability to push the Russians back consistently, particularly in areas where they’re stronger and better entrenched. And while it doesn’t seem likely that the Russian mobilization will make much of a difference in the short term, it’s possible that it will have more of an impact next year.
But that’s not the big problem. The big problem is the potential for escalation in the conflict, something that Ukrainian gains are probably going to make more, not less, likely. We’ve already seen Putin escalate by declaring a partial mobilization in response to these gains in one region of Ukraine. He’s also declared that they’ll hold referendums in the occupied regions about whether to absorb them into Russia, along with a sizable dose of nuclear bluster. What happens if Ukraine manages to roll the Russians back, threatens Crimea, and the Russians choose to escalate into the nuclear realm?
Washington should continue to support Ukraine, but in doing so, U.S. officials should have a clear idea of where they’re trying to go. It’s not enough simply to say, “We’ll support Ukraine until it wins.” There needs to be a much clearer idea of what a probable diplomatic settlement would look like and what Washington’s limits are in terms of the risks it’s willing to run.
MK: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated his goal: to reclaim all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. This is a legitimate goal under international law, and it is an outcome advantageous for U.S. strategic interests. Washington should support it. Negotiating a final settlement along those lines will be fairly easy after Ukraine’s military controls that territory.
To your question of Russian nuclear escalation, the goal is to achieve U.S. political-military goals, not to avoid Russian nuclear use. Washington should deter Putin from using nuclear weapons even as it helps Ukraine advance on the battlefield. I really liked the White House’s statement threatening “severe consequences” if Putin uses nukes. It reflects recommendations I made in a publication.
And, if deterrence fails and Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, then the goal doesn’t change. Washington should follow through on and execute its deterrent threat. And, if Kyiv is still willing, it should fight through and continue to win the war.
EA: You want Washington to call Putin’s nuclear bluff and escalate the war in the case of nuclear use? Wow.
I have a hard time understanding the logic here. What national security interest does the United States have in Ukraine that is serious enough to warrant a potential nuclear exchange with Russia?
I certainly agree with your earlier point that Putin’s nuclear threats are increasingly hard to take seriously. He’s basically the boy who cried nuclear wolf at this point. But in many ways that just makes it more dangerous going forward. How would U.S. President Joe Biden know when Putin has crossed the line from him bluffing about nuclear use to seriously threatening it?
MK: We won’t know until he has used them. And what is your alternative recommendation to my proposal? Back down and give Putin whatever he wants as soon as he uses a nuke? It would most likely be a small number of low-yield battlefield nuclear weapons against Ukrainian forces. It would be a meaningful military move, but it would not automatically win the war. What if the Ukrainians want to keep fighting? You would reward Putin for crossing the nuclear red line by cutting Ukraine off at that point?
I have a hard time understanding the logic there.
Read More
An archery target featuring the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin
Mobilization could be in the cards, escalation is in the air, and Russian nationalists are braying for blood.
EA: Your approach seems to be an escalation ladder that is entirely untethered from the notion of national interests. The United States has an interest in preventing Ukraine from being conquered by Russia, but that interest certainly doesn’t rise to the level of risking a nuclear exchange with Russia. Indeed, the U.S. government already made it clear that its interests in Ukraine don’t even rise to the level of getting involved with U.S. troops!
If the Ukrainians want to risk nuclear war, then that is their choice, but the Ukrainian national interest is not the same as the U.S. or French or British national interest. Let’s not forget that.
MK: Let’s tease this out. Let’s say Putin uses tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Kyiv continues to fight, with U.S. and Western support. The United States follows through on its threat and ensures Russia pays a real cost for breaking the nuclear taboo and using nuclear weapons for the first time since World War II. This could mean…
EA: Hold your horses. How does Washington “follow through” and “ensure Russia pays a real cost”?
MK: First, as I recommend in my recent “Memo to the President,” if Washington issues a clear deterrent threat and is prepared to back it up, Putin will likely be deterred from using nukes in Ukraine. He does not want a nuclear war either! Second, if for some reason deterrence fails, Washington needs to follow through with conventional military strikes on the Russian forces that launched the attack, tougher sanctions on Russia, more advanced weapons transfers to Ukraine, and NATO nuclear weapons deployments to Poland or Romania.
If Putin chooses to break the nuclear taboo, it would be a big escalation of the conflict.
So, yes, if Putin chooses to break the nuclear taboo, it would be a big escalation of the conflict. But it seems that you are making a logical leap from Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling to immediate U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear exchange. I don’t see that as a likely outcome at all. There are many steps that would have to happen before getting to that point, even after Putin uses the first nuke. And one should remember that Putin is afraid of nuclear war, too.
EA: You’ve never met a nuclear escalation ladder you didn’t want to climb, have you? But I’m not sure how a U.S. deterrent threat is particularly credible here. The United States has already committed not to engage directly in the fighting in Ukraine. Why would a threat to suddenly do so in the context of nuclear escalation suddenly become more believable?
Ultimately, the problem with your approach is this: Maybe Putin would back down. But if he doesn’t, the costs of your strategy could be literally existential for Americans.
As much as I hate to break up a good argument, I need to run. We didn’t even have time to get to Taiwan this week! America is flirting with nuclear-armed great-power conflict in more than one region, after Biden announced on television that the United States would commit troops to defend Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion, a complete reversal of the current U.S. position. Do you think you could refrain from trying to get us all killed until next time so we can discuss it?
MK: If you need to go, I will let you go in peace, so long as we can make it peace through strength.
Foreign Policy · by Emma Ashford, Matthew Kroenig · September 23, 2022
16. Sanctions, ‘strategic clarity’ needed (China/Russia)
Excerpts:
In claiming rigorous scrutiny over potential sanctions evasion, the US Department of State seems not to have noticed the loophole that China and India exploited. US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said that “we made very clear to the PRC [People’s Republic of China], both in public but also at the highest levels, the highest levels, that we will be watching very closely in any PRC effort to provide military assistance to Russia, or to help Russia on a systematic basis, circumvent the sanctions that had been put in place would incur significant costs, and we have not seen any change on the part of the PRC.”
Future sanctions should include a provision that prohibits any perceptible increase in purchases of exports from a sanctioned country beyond a baseline built on the average purchases from the previous 30 days. That would greatly enhance the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and other international miscreants.
Although such a baseline measure cannot be imposed retroactively, fresh baselines could be established if sanctioning countries are willing to toughen their economic approach as an alternative to kinetic responses.
China must be deterred from attacking Taiwan both by the prospect of far tighter sanctions than Russia has endured, as well as through an official statement of “strategic clarity” on US defense of Taiwan, which Biden has four times offered as an unofficial personal indication without the support of his administration.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2022/09/24/2003785833?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Sat, Sep 24, 2022 page8
Sanctions, ‘strategic clarity’ needed
- By Joseph Bosco
- Last week’s meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) rendered a split decision for the cause of peace and democracy. Of the eight members of the SCO — China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — India and Pakistan have the most democratic systems of government, yet Freedom House rates them as only “partly free.”
- Despite the erosion of political and religious freedom under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is often called the world’s largest democracy. As such, it has a special role in the global struggle between freedom and authoritarianism.
- Geopolitically, India has maintained a straddling posture toward the war in Ukraine, declining to condemn Russia’s aggression, while also roughly complying with international sanctions and increasing its purchase of discounted Russian oil. Its participation in the meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, was observed for signals of its position on Russia’s international behavior.
- Meeting in-person with Russian President Vladimir Putin before television cameras, Modi delivered a remarkably blunt and unprecedented public rebuke: “I know that today’s era is not an era of war and I have spoken to you on the phone about this.”
- Putin, who seemed only mildly annoyed, replied: “I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine, the concerns that you constantly express. We will do everything to stop this as soon as possible.”
- In his formal remarks surveying the state of the world, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) did not mention the war in Ukraine, but said that “regional conflicts keep flaring up. The cold war mentality and group politics are resurfacing.”
- Discussing his private conversations with Xi, Putin said: “We highly value the balanced position of our Chinese friends regarding the Ukrainian crisis. We understand your questions and concerns on this matter and during today’s meeting we will of course clarify all of these in detail.”
- After the meeting, neither made any public reference to Ukraine.
- Commentators have equated Modi’s public critique with whatever “questions and concerns” Xi expressed privately to Putin.
- The conventional assumption is that Xi criticized him for launching the war in the first place, or for conducting it in such a brutal manner that it has united NATO and the world against Russia, therefore hurting the global cause of authoritarianism.
- That would be a logical explanation for Xi’s discomfort with the situation in Ukraine, given his meeting with Putin at the Beijing Olympics, where they signed a joint statement as “no limits strategic partners.” They endorsed their “core interests” in Ukraine and Taiwan weeks before Russia unleashed its invasion.
- However, there is an alternative explanation for Xi’s unease over Russia’s predicament in Ukraine. As their joint statement makes clear, Xi sees his own ambitions to seize and crush Taiwan as parallel to Putin’s designs on Ukraine. So do the Taiwanese government and nation.
- Putin’s botched invasion of his small democratic neighbor has not only alerted the world to the danger presented by the two dictatorships, it has revealed inherent weaknesses of the aggressor and strengths of the defenders that could also apply to China and Taiwan.
- The quick, efficient decapitation of Ukraine’s government and the collapse of Ukraine’s power to resist did not occur as planned. Ukraine has provided inspirational lessons for Taiwan.
- Xi’s irritation with Putin might be that he has failed in his mission of authoritarian conquest and must take dramatic new steps to reverse the situation.
- Doubling or tripling down is often the response of aggressive powers facing existential defeat, short of committing “regime suicide.” This explains Xi’s attitude better than suggesting that it was a replication of Modi’s objection to war as an instrument of modern policymaking.
- Putin’s actions within days of the SCO meeting would seem to validate the thesis that Xi wants more decisive Russian action. He ordered a partial mobilization of Russian reserves, escalated his attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, hastened annexation referenda that the UN Secretary-General called illegal, and repeated earlier threats to deploy nuclear weapons.
- If those moves reflect Xi’s advice to Putin as a warning to US President Joe Biden’s administration that China would be even more relentless and effective if it decides to attack Taiwan, it is a gamble that both strategic partners could deeply regret.
- Beijing might come to realize that forestalling Putin’s eventual defeat or change of mind could have increased Russia’s costs — aside from Ukraine’s — and damaged the global authoritarian project.
- The end might have come sooner if China had not been so willing to undermine Western sanctions against Russia by continuing — and significantly increasing — permissible purchases of its oil. The boosted Russian revenues provided critical support to help finance Putin’s war. Democratic India also needs to reconsider its practices in that regard.
- In claiming rigorous scrutiny over potential sanctions evasion, the US Department of State seems not to have noticed the loophole that China and India exploited. US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said that “we made very clear to the PRC [People’s Republic of China], both in public but also at the highest levels, the highest levels, that we will be watching very closely in any PRC effort to provide military assistance to Russia, or to help Russia on a systematic basis, circumvent the sanctions that had been put in place would incur significant costs, and we have not seen any change on the part of the PRC.”
- Future sanctions should include a provision that prohibits any perceptible increase in purchases of exports from a sanctioned country beyond a baseline built on the average purchases from the previous 30 days. That would greatly enhance the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and other international miscreants.
- Although such a baseline measure cannot be imposed retroactively, fresh baselines could be established if sanctioning countries are willing to toughen their economic approach as an alternative to kinetic responses.
- China must be deterred from attacking Taiwan both by the prospect of far tighter sanctions than Russia has endured, as well as through an official statement of “strategic clarity” on US defense of Taiwan, which Biden has four times offered as an unofficial personal indication without the support of his administration.
- Joseph Bosco, who served as China country director in the office of the US secretary of defense, is a fellow of the Institute for Taiwan-American Studies and a member of the Global Taiwan Institute’s advisory committee.
17. China’s War on History Is Growing
China’s War on History Is Growing
The government is inviting snitches to report on “historical nihilism.”
By Johanna M. Costigan, a writer and junior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.
Foreign Policy · by Johanna M. Costigan · September 23, 2022
On Sept. 20, popular Chinese livestreamer Li Jiaqi, known as the “lipstick king” for his impressive ability to push sales of lipstick and other makeup products, reappeared on Chinese streams for the first time in three months. Li had disappeared from the Chinese internet for a mistake he probably had no idea he was making. In the middle of his summer sales push, on June 3, one of his employees brought out a cake in the shape of a tank. Alas, June 4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, and the Chinese authorities relentlessly police any hint of commemoration.
Li and many of his fans were born after the massacre occurred. They may not have even been aware it happened. China has long policed historical memory, deleting and rewriting references to past atrocities and insisting on adherence to official narratives. As President Xi Jinping said in a speech last year, “know history; love the party.” Today, that relentless censorship is increasingly focused online.
Ahead of the critical 20th Party Congress starting on Oct.16, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is inviting netizens to snitch on those guilty of “historical nihilism.”
The term has been used by officials for decades, but it was given new importance when it was listed as one of the seven ideological threats the party faces in Document No. 9, which was leaked in 2013 and hinted at Xi’s intellectual agenda as he began his tenure as party chairman. According to the document, historical nihilism is “tantamount to denying the legitimacy of the CCP’s long-term political dominance.”
Any fact, statistic, opinion, or memory that doesn’t fit into the official line can thus be framed as a violation of the party’s anti-historical-nihilism campaign. Authorities are taking action: More than 2 million social media posts alleged to be “disseminating historical nihilism” were reportedly deleted in the months before the centennial celebration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) last year. In a speech last April, CAC Director Zhuang Rongwen described the necessity of “powerfully refuting historical nihilism and other incorrect ideological standpoints” on the internet.
Historical nihilism is important enough to merit its own reporting center, where netizens can rat on each other for sharing posts that “distort the history of the party or the history of new China.”
The incentives to snitch are strong. In the context of restrained civil liberties and curtailed political and, increasingly, personal freedoms, defending the party’s version of China’s history, the only version of history it can safely be proud of, is one way to guarantee your own safety—or to advance your career.
The leadership’s incentives for tackling so-called historical nihilism are even clearer. Framing the past as a justification for present party leadership is existentially essential for the CCP and its leaders.
Subjects of Marxism and inheritors of Maoism, they argue the primacy of the party is the result of historical inevitability. As stated in Document No. 9, one facet of historical nihilism is “denying the historical inevitability in China’s choice of the socialist road.” The explicit need to exert historical control, even and especially as online platforms get more advanced and intertwined with everyday life, demonstrates party officials’ and, specifically, Xi’s belief that tolerating contested histories threatens the legitimacy and stability of the regime.
As the researcher Joseph Torigian has written in Foreign Policy, “Xi uniquely understands why historical grudges and differing views about the past are so potentially explosive.” That’s because his father, also a prominent CCP leader, was part of a revolution-era clique from the northwest rife with violence and, later, controversy over how to write or omit such violence into party history. As Xi Zhongxun said at a meeting held to resolve the history of party violence in the northwest in 1945, while it was “no big deal” if people were ignorant about history, “the most damaging is the distortion and falsification of history.”
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Xi’s focus on historical nihilism similarly emphasizes the crime of distortion. To him, distortions are defined by their deviation from the party line. History either is official history, or it’s nothing, nonbelief, nihilism.
Such a stark contrast gives the party power. The CCP’s official narrative positions its own rule as not only essential but inevitable—both in the past and the future. Part of this effort involves making explicit connections between past and current struggles.
“Xi’s nationalism is very much looking forward to the 21st century, but it also draws upon some aspects of the 20th to strengthen itself,” said Rana Mitter, a professor of history and politics of modern China at the University of Oxford.
The party has come up with two complementary terms to get at its envisioned future and its past failures. “‘National rejuvenation’ refers to restoring China to its rightful position and a global actor in its own right,” Mitter said. “‘National humiliation’ refers to all the factors that have prevented that.” Conveniently, only the CCP can deliver the Chinese people from humiliation to realized rejuvenation.
Along the way, it’s essential that the party comes up with a moral for every historical story—clear connective tissue between past events and their implications for the present and future.
“One of the lines that [Xi] uses about the Second World War is that it was the first time China was attacked by an outside power and was able to fight back, which gives it a particular kind of cachet,” Mitter explained.
This framing of World War II carries a strong nationalist narrative with clear contemporary applications in the context of U.S.-China competition. But coming up with a contemporary takeaway for every historical event is an ambitious project—and one that betrays the party’s degree of dependence on historical narratives.
The current leadership’s hefty investment in rewriting Chinese and international historians’ scholarship on Qing history, for example, demonstrates the depth of both its insecurity and its commitment to historical overhaul. Meanwhile, despite the official line that the Cultural Revolution was a disaster, authorities’ tolerance of neo-Maoist websites, which Mitter described as creating “a nostalgic, rose-tinted version of the era, painting it as one of camaraderie rather than violence,” shows there is more wiggle room to go beyond the party line if you’re going in a positive direction.
But Xi has clearly deduced that for his own political protection, he should be the gatekeeper not only of China’s history, but also of its historiography.
“Societies that don’t allow for nuance tend to create history that is more of use to politicians that it is to historians,” Mitter said.
In a ramped-up effort to tighten control over all discussions of history, China’s interagency speech control apparatus is also actively merging fighting “rumors” with taking down historical nihilism.
In 2021, a division of the CAC called the China Internet Joint Rumor Platform listed 10 historical events for which infringing on the official narrative constitutes clear historical nihilism. The Communist Party Member Website described the list of untouchables as “10 history-related rumors that have long flooded the online world.” The announcement seeks to put these rumors to bed, claiming they have been “disproved.”
Since the party is highly defensive of its own reputation and, separately, the issue of Chinese history, it is perhaps not so shocking that it is extra sensitive about the combination of the two: party history. According to the announcement of the 10 irrefutable events, “Online rumors involving party history severely pollute the ecology of the internet, mislead the public, and damage the party’s image.”
Even still, the 10 isolated events, posed in question form by the China Digital Times, appear laughably trivial: Was Hu Qiaomu, Mao Zedong’s secretary, the real author of a poem by Mao, “Snow—to the Tune of Spring in Qin Garden”? Was Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, martyred because he gave his position away while making egg fried rice? Was the Long March less than 25,000 li (7,767 miles)? Did the party center unseal Deng Yingchao’s diary to research its own history?
That diary, which belonged to former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s wife Deng Yingchao, reportedly includes suggestions that Zhou regretted supporting Mao’s policies. This rumor about the potential misgivings one long-dead former Chinese leader had about another was important enough to be the subject of an article released in 2018 by the Party Literature Research Center.
The article attempts to debunk the original allegations of Zhou’s opposition to Mao, arguing, “This kind of deliberate misrepresentation, this concocted story, recklessly slanders and damages the reputations of our leaders. It’s not just flawed history; it’s deranged history.”
This alleged intentional disparagement of CCP leaders will not go unpunished. The post concludes: “We should look into establishing responsibility for investigating [instances of historical nihilism] and punishing offenders, so we can regroup and come back even stronger.”
In the aftermath of a controversy concerning some key CCP “martyrs,” the Politburo Standing Committee passed the “Heroes and Martyrs Protection Act” in 2018. According to the official story, the Five Martyrs of Langya Mountain in 1941 fooled and then fought off the Japanese Army as civilians escaped.
Then, when they had exhausted their options, they jumped off a cliff in a heroic show of bravery and defiance. Descendants of these martyrs sued Hong Zhenkui, who wrote based on his research in an academic paper that the men had slipped, rather than jumped, off the cliff. He was found guilty on the basis that the stories of heroes and martyrs are the Chinese nation’s “common historical memory” and “the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs are protected by law.”
As the Chinese government continues to invest in advanced technologies that diminish private spaces, the degree of monitoring Chinese citizens face is likely to rise. In such a society, history becomes another risk—undiscussable unless and until it adheres to the party line.
Foreign Policy · by Johanna M. Costigan · September 23, 2022
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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