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The Kremlin is cutting Russia’s last information ties to the outside world

Mercedes Sapuppo — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 20:02:49 +0000

On August 8, millions of Russian internet users found that they were no longer able to access YouTube. This disruption was widely interpreted as the latest step toward blocking the popular video sharing site in Russia, where it has served since 2022 as one of the last remaining platforms connecting Russian audiences to the outside world.

Russians first began reporting significantly slower YouTube loading speeds in the weeks preceding the August shutdown. Officials in Moscow claimed this was the result of technical problems, but the Kremlin has also recently signaled its mounting dissatisfaction with YouTube. In July, Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor called on Google’s CEO to restore over 200 pro-Kremlin YouTube channels that had been blocked for violations. Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the platform of carrying out “the political directives of Washington.”

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The recent crackdown on YouTube is the latest milestone in a war against free speech in Russia that began when Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. During the 1990s, the Russian media sector had briefly flourished amid unprecedented freedoms. One of Putin’s first major acts as president was to reverse this trend and reassert Kremlin control over Russia’s mainstream media.

The Russian authorities have continued to expand their campaign against the country’s shrinking independent media sector for much of the past two decades. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin moved to block or restrict major Western social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These measures were imposed in parallel to Orwellian new restrictions banning any references to “war” and forcing Russian media outlets to refer to the invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation.”

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Recent steps to limit access to YouTube are seen as somewhat risky due to the video sharing platform’s status as the most popular social media site in Russia. Indeed, it came as no surprise when the apparent shutdown of YouTube sparked significant alarm and anger on Russian social media. Notably, no genuine alternative currently exists in Russia. The Kremlin has promoted similar domestic platforms such as VK Video and RuTube, but these options have not been able to rival the popularity or audience reach of YouTube itself.

There are additional indications that the Kremlin may now be seeking to strengthen its control over the information space and further cut Russia off from the outside world. On August 9, Roskomnadzor blocked access to Signal, a messaging app that allows for end-to-end encrypted communications. Reports also continue to circulate that the Kremlin is preparing to take similar steps against messenger platform WhatsApp.

Recent measures to prevent Russians from accessing YouTube represent the latest escalation in the Kremlin’s campaign to dominate the domestic information space and eliminate all independent media in today’s Russia. Over the past twenty-four years, Vladimir Putin has created a powerful propaganda machine that has proved instrumental in legitimizing his own increasingly dictatorial rule and mobilizing public support for the invasion of Ukraine. Popular social media platforms like YouTube remain outside of Moscow’s control and therefore pose a significant threat to the Kremlin censors. With Ukrainian troops now advancing inside Russia itself, it would seem that this threat can no longer be tolerated.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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Ukraine’s dramatic change in tactics comes after almost a year of slow but steady Russian gains in eastern and southern Ukraine. Since 2023, Russian commanders have been deploying their country’s overwhelming manpower and firepower advantages to gradually pummel Ukrainian forces into submission. The Kremlin’s reliance on brute force has proved costly but effective, leaving the Ukrainian military with little choice but to think outside the box.

It has long been obvious that fighting a war of attrition is a losing strategy for Ukraine. The country’s military leaders cannot hope to compete with Russia’s far larger resources and have no desire to match the Kremlin’s disregard for casualties. The Kursk offensive is an attempt to break out of this suffocating situation by returning to a war of mobility and maneuver that favors the more agile and innovative Ukrainian military. So far, it seems to be working.

While bringing Vladimir Putin’s invasion home to Russia has undeniable strategic and emotional appeal, many commentators have questioned why Ukraine would want to occupy Russian territory. The most obvious explanation is that Kyiv seeks bargaining chips to exchange for Russian-occupied Ukrainian lands during future negotiations.

The significant quantity of Russian POWs captured during the offensive also opens up possibilities to bring more imprisoned Ukrainian soldiers home. Meanwhile, control over swathes of Kursk Oblast could make it possible to disrupt the logistical chains supplying the Russian army in Ukraine.

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Beyond the military practicalities of the battlefield, the Kursk offensive is challenging some of the most fundamental assumptions about the war. Crucially, Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has demonstrated that Putin’s nuclear threats and his talk of red lines are in reality a big bluff designed to intimidate the West.

Ukrainians have long accused Western policymakers of being overly concerned about the dangers of provoking Putin. They argue that since 2022, the international response to Russian aggression has been hampered by a widespread fear of escalation that has led to regular delays in military aid and absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons. Ukraine’s offensive has now made a mockery of this excessive caution. If the Kremlin does not view the actual invasion of Russia by a foreign army as worthy of a major escalation, it is hard to imagine what would qualify.

As the Kursk offensive unfolds, Ukraine is hoping the country’s allies will draw the logical conclusions. Initial indications are encouraging, with US and EU officials voicing their support for Ukraine’s cross-border incursion despite longstanding concerns over any military operations inside Russia. At the same time, restrictions on the use of certain categories of weapons remain in place. This is hindering the advance of Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast. It is also preventing Kyiv from striking back against the airbases used to bomb Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive represents a powerful signal to the country’s partners. It demonstrates that the Ukrainian military is a highly professional force capable of conducting complex offensive operations and worthy of greater international backing. It also confirms that Putin’s Russia is dangerously overstretched and is militarily far weaker than it pretends to be.

The muddled and unconvincing Russian response to Ukraine’s invasion speaks volumes about the relative powerlessness of the Putin regime. This should persuade Kyiv’s allies of the need for greater boldness and convince them that the time has come to commit to Ukrainian victory.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

New US-Ukraine partnership proposal from influential senators is a recipe for bipartisan success

Andrew D’Anieri — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 20:56:31 +0000

Since February 2022, dozens of US senators and representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, have made the long journey to Kyiv to show support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. It’s a challenging trip from Washington involving multiple flights, a sometimes-jammed border crossing, and a long train ride. But the chance to show US support and learn more about Ukraine’s struggle up close evidently makes the journey worthwhile.

Perhaps none have been as active, nor shown a greater commitment to bipartisanship, than Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who made their sixth trip to Kyiv on August 12. This was no recess joyride down Kyiv’s Khreshchatyk Street. Most notably, the two senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then quickly announced what could be a blueprint for US policy toward Ukraine in the waning months of the current Congress.

In a joint press release, Blumenthal and Graham outlined four pillars for a strong US policy on Ukraine through 2024 and 2025. First, they called on NATO to “issue an invitation this year to Ukraine for membership,” an obvious but crucial next step to more formally bind the country into the Alliance.

Second, the two announced that Blumenthal would introduce the Stand with Ukraine Act when Congress returns to Capitol Hill in September to “codify the bilateral security agreement” that the Biden and Zelenskyy administrations reached in June. This, too, is a sensible and necessary move. While Ukraine has signed security pacts with a host of Western partners, nearly all of them have been non-binding, including the US-Ukraine agreement. An act of Congress would seal its implementation over the length of its ten-year lifespan.

The senators joined a growing chorus of US lawmakers and experts calling on the Biden administration to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US weapons against military targets in Russia. After months of pressure, the administration assented in May to allow limited strikes inside Russia, but only under specific conditions. Blumenthal and Graham see the folly in limiting when and how Ukraine can use US weapons and vowed to “urge the Biden administration to lift restrictions on weapons provided by the United States so they can strike the Russian invaders more effectively.”

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, the senators offered the prospect of a strategic economic partnership between the United States and Ukraine centered on metals and rare earth elements development. Their press release hinted that their suggestion was a welcome surprise for Zelenskyy, whose government has expressed hopes of leveraging Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth to become a major exporter of lithium and rare earths, raw materials key to new technologies and the energy transition. In a veiled reference to China’s dominant position in the rare earths market, the senators noted that “an agreement with Ukraine in this area would make the US less dependent on foreign adversaries for rare earth minerals.”

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After the House of Representatives belatedly passed the national security supplemental package that unlocked further US aid to Ukraine in April, experts and lawmakers alike began to wonder how Washington might continue to support Ukraine throughout the rest of 2024. The Blumenthal-Graham priorities outline what could be an ambitious, re-energized US policy on Ukraine through the end of the current year.

US President Joe Biden has been skittish at the last two NATO summits about pushing for Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance, largely for fear of escalating tensions with Russia. But with Biden now out of the 2024 presidential race, he may be thinking more about his foreign policy legacy. Having already helped usher Finland and Sweden into the Alliance, opening Ukraine’s accession bid in earnest would be the third in a hat-trick of transatlantic security wins for Biden. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s underwhelming response to Ukraine’s offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast should certainly tamp down any misplaced fears of escalation.

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Blumenthal’s Stand With Ukraine Act will likely run up against latent partisanship and electoral jitters when he introduces it in September. Much of Congress will be campaigning this fall, avoiding difficult votes while trying to score political points against the other party. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could very well bring the bill to a floor vote, both to support Ukraine and to force a vote from anti-Ukraine Republicans, but Speaker of the House Mike Johnson may be loath to spend political capital to do the same. Even so, the bill may get the ball rolling on further Ukraine legislation, especially as some pro-Ukraine Republicans indicate they want funding to continue uninterrupted, even under the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency.

As for dropping restrictions on the use of US weapons, only the Biden administration can reverse this policy, something it has repeatedly declined to do. It may take further public and private calls from Democrats such as Blumenthal before the White House agrees to a change. In the meantime, Russian rockets will continue to kill Ukrainian civilians using launch systems that could have been taken out by US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and other Western-supplied weapons.

The senators’ proposal for a US-Ukraine economic partnership has all the ingredients for bipartisan consensus in Washington: Support for Ukraine without US taxpayer dollars, reduced dependence on China, and the potential for economic gain by importing one of the few materials the United States can’t make itself. A formal agreement would likely be highly technical and take many months to negotiate, but all the incentives are there for a new element in US-Ukraine relations.

Congressional delegations can sometimes be high on style and discussion but low on action and deliverables. This time, Blumenthal and Graham delivered on all counts and laid out a road map outlining US support for Ukraine through the end of 2024. Their list is as ambitious as it is sounds, both in its support for US interests and in helping Ukraine move toward victory on the battlefield. That combination of vision and vigor is exactly why their initiatives deserve bipartisan support.

Andrew D’Anieri is a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Belarus’s political prisoners must not be forgotten

Hanna Liubakova — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 17:32:28 +0000

As Belarus marked the fourth anniversary of the fraudulent August 2020 presidential election that sparked nationwide protects and a brutal crackdown, the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom all unveiled new sanctions targeting the regime of Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka. In a joint statement that was also signed by Canada, the three called on the Belarusian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release the country’s almost 1,400 political prisoners.

These steps are encouraging and indicate welcome Western awareness of the repression that continues to define the political climate in today’s Belarus. Nevertheless, there is still a sense that not nearly enough is being done by the international community to challenge the impunity enjoyed by Lukashenka and members of his regime.

These concerns were amplified recently when the largest prisoner swap between the Kremlin and the West since the Cold War went ahead without featuring any Belarusian political prisoners. Lukashenka himself was closely involved in the complex negotiations behind the exchange. The Belarusian dictator agreed to free German national Rico Krieger, who was being held in Minsk on terrorism charges, as part of efforts to convince the German government to release Russian secret service assassin Vadim Krasikov.

Many have questioned why prominent Belarusian pro-democracy leader Maria Kalesnikava, who had previously lived for many years in Germany, was not also freed as part of the trade. Kalesnikava was jailed amid nationwide protests following Lukashenka’s rigged 2020 election. One of the figureheads of the anti-Lukashenka protest movement, she has reportedly been suffering from deteriorating health for the past year and a half. Similar questions were also asked regarding fellow political prisoners Ales Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Ihar Losik, a prominent blogger and journalist for RFE/RL’s Belarus Service.

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Four years since the sham ballot that sparked the biggest protests of Lukashenka’s three-decade reign, he appears more comfortable than ever with the idea of holding large numbers of political prisoners as hostages. This must change. With no regime-linked Belarusians in Western custody who are anything like as valuable as Krasikov was to Putin, other approaches are clearly needed to increase the pressure on Lukashenka and convince him to release political prisoners.

Economic measures can be used to target the largely state-controlled Belarusian economy, but this is more likely to have an impact as part of a long-term strategy. One alternative approach would be to engage third parties such as China, which has considerable influence in Minsk. Earlier diplomatic efforts succeeded in securing the release of US citizen Vital Shkliarau, indicating that negotiations of this nature can yield results.

Finding the right formula to keep up the pressure on individual members of the Lukashenka regime is crucial. At present, comparatively few of those involved in repressive measures are subject to international sanctions. For example, I was recently sentenced in absentia by a Belarusian court to ten years in prison alongside nineteen other independent Belarusian analysts and journalists. The judge in our case has a history of handing down lengthy sentences to prominent opposition figures, but has yet to be sanctioned.

During the past four years, only 261 Belarusians have been placed on the EU sanctions list. While the work of sanctions teams is commendable, their capacity is limited. Past experience has also demonstrated how sanctions can be sabotaged, as was the case in 2020 when Cyprus was accused of blocking the introduction of new restrictions against Belarus. There is also room to improve cooperation between Western partners, with a view to developing a more unified approach to sanctions.

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Strikingly, the quantity of Belarusians currently facing Western sanctions is far less the almost 1,400 political prisoners in the country’s prisons. According to human rights groups, tens of thousands of Belarusians in total have been detained in recent years for political reasons. Behind these arrests and prosecutions stands an army of enablers including government officials, security personnel, and judges. The vast majority of these people have yet to be held accountable by the international community for their role in the repressive policies of the Belarusian authorities.

There are some indications that Western policymakers are looking to broaden the scope of sanctions and increase individual accountability. However, while the recent round of sanctions included new measures targeting officials responsible for regime propaganda, other representatives of the Belarusian state media received international accreditation to cover the Olympics in Paris.

The West already has powerful tools at its disposal that can realistically make Belarusian officials consider the consequences of their actions. Standard personal sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes go far beyond mere symbolism and are capable of creating problems that can have far-reaching practical implications in everyday life. However, more leverage is required in order to maintain the pressure on the regime and on the individuals responsible for specific abuses.

Looking ahead, the West needs to make the issue of political prisoners far more uncomfortable for the entire Lukashenka regime. There is no single solution to this problem; instead, a range of options should be explored including broad economic restrictions, personal sanctions, and diplomatic pressure. Crucially, sanctions should be applied to thousands of officials rather than just a few hundred. The end goal must be to significantly raise the costs of the repressive policies pursued by Lukashenka and all those who enable his regime.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive proves surprise is still possible in modern war

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 15:19:36 +0000

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia is now in its second week and the sense of shock is still tangible. The Ukrainian military was able to achieve almost total surprise when it crossed the border into Russia’s Kursk Oblast on August 6. While the ultimate goals of the operation remain subject to much debate, Ukraine’s success in catching the Russians completely off-guard is a considerable accomplishment in its own right.

The Ukrainian military’s ability to maintain a veil of secrecy around preparations for the current operation is all the more remarkable given the evidence from the first two-and-a-half years of Russia’s invasion. The war in Ukraine has been marked by the growing importance of drone and electromagnetic surveillance, creating what most analysts agree is a remarkably transparent battlefield. This is making it more and more difficult for either army to benefit from the element of surprise.

Given the increased visibility on both sides of the front lines, how did Ukraine manage to spring such a surprise? At this stage there is very little detailed information available about Ukraine’s preparations, but initial reports indicate that unprecedented levels of operational silence and the innovative deployment of Ukraine’s electronic warfare capabilities played important roles.

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Ukraine’s political leaders have been unusually tight-lipped about the entire offensive, providing no hint in advance and saying very little during the first week of the campaign. This is in stark contrast to the approach adopted last year, when the country’s coming summer offensive was widely referenced by officials and previewed in the media. Ukraine’s efforts to enforce operational silence appear to have also extended to the military. According to The New York Times, even senior Ukrainian commanders only learned of the plan to invade Russia at the last moment.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive appears to have been a major surprise for Ukraine’s Western partners. The Financial Times has reported that neither the US nor Germany were informed in advance of the planned Ukrainian operation. Given the West’s record of seeking to avoid any actions that might provoke Putin, it is certainly not difficult to understand why Kyiv might have chosen not to signal its intentions.

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It is also likely that Ukraine benefited from Russia’s own complacency and overconfidence. Despite suffering a series of defeats in Ukraine since 2022, the Kremlin remains almost pathologically dismissive of Ukrainian capabilities and does not appear to have seriously entertained the possibility of a large-scale Ukrainian invasion of the Russian Federation. The modest defenses established throughout the border zone confirm that Moscow anticipated minor border raids but had no plans to repel a major Ukrainian incursion.

Russia’s sense of confidence doubtless owed much to Western restrictions imposed on Ukraine since the start of the war that have prohibited the use of Western weapons inside Russia. These restrictions were partially relaxed in May 2024 following Russia’s own cross-border offensive into Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast, but the Kremlin clearly did not believe Kyiv would be bold enough to use this as the basis for offensive operations inside Russia. Vladimir Putin is now paying a steep price for underestimating his opponent.

It remains far too early to assess the impact of Ukraine’s surprise summer offensive. One of the most interesting questions will be whether Ukraine can force the Kremlin to divert military units from the fighting in eastern Ukraine in order to defend Russia itself. Much will depend on the amount of Russian land Ukraine is able to seize and hold. Putin must also decide whether his military should focus on merely stopping Ukraine’s advance or liberating occupied Russian territory.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has succeeded in demonstrating that surprise is still possible on the modern battlefield. This is a significant achievement that underlines the skill and competence of the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian invasion has also confirmed once again that Putin’s talk of Russian red lines and his frequent threats of nuclear escalation are a bluff designed to intimidate the West. Taken together, these factors should be enough to convince Kyiv’s partners that now is the time to increase military support and provide Ukraine with the tools for victory.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia is erasing Vladimir Putin’s last red lines

Peter Dickinson — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 02:15:22 +0000

In the early hours of August 6, units of the Ukrainian army crossed the border into Russia’s Kursk Oblast in a surprise move that ended a two-and-a-half year taboo over military operations on Russian soil. The goals of this ambitious Kursk incursion are still shrouded in mystery and subject to much debate, but it is already clear that Ukraine’s decision to invade Russia has succeeded in making a complete mockery of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and the West’s fears of escalation.

Ukraine’s summer offensive is a watershed moment in the current war and an historic milestone in its own right. For the first time since World War II, Russia has been invaded by a foreign army. Initial reports indicate that this ambitious operation was prepared amid great secrecy over a period of months. Ukraine managed to catch the Russians completely off-guard, with Ukrainian forces advancing tens of kilometers into Kursk Oblast during the first days of the campaign.

Ukraine’s political and military leaders have so far remained remarkably tight-lipped about the invasion, saying very little publicly and providing few details. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a number of likely objectives.

Ukraine’s most obvious intention is probably to ease the military pressure in the south and east of the country, where Russia has been slowly but steadily advancing in recent months. By attacking across the lightly defended border and seizing Russian territory, Ukrainian commanders believe they can force the Kremlin to withdraw troops from the front lines of the war in Ukraine in order to redeploy them for the defense of Russia itself.

The offensive also creates opportunities for Ukraine to regain the military initiative after a year of costly and demoralizing defensive operations. It has long been obvious that Ukraine cannot realistically hope to win a war of attrition against the far larger and wealthier Russian Federation. Kyiv’s best chance of military success lies in returning to a war of mobility and maneuver that allows Ukrainian commanders to take advantage of their relative agility while exploiting the Russian army’s far more cumbersome decision-making processes. This is exactly what the invasion of Kursk Oblast has achieved.

In psychological terms, bringing the war home to Russia has allowed Ukraine to strike a powerful blow against enemy morale. The Ukrainian army’s advances in Kursk Oblast are spreading panic throughout the surrounding region and undermining Putin’s efforts to prevent the invasion of Ukraine from disrupting the daily lives of ordinary Russians. On the home front, Ukraine’s surprise summer offensive has provided Ukrainian society with a desperately needed morale boost, reviving hopes that the war-weary nation can still achieve meaningful military success.

The Kursk offensive may ultimately be part of Ukraine’s preparations for a future peace process, with Kyiv looking to occupy as much Russian territory as possible to use as a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the Kremlin. Indeed, during the initial days of the invasion, there was widespread speculation that Ukraine’s primary target may be the Kursk nuclear power plant, with a view to trading it for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. An eventual land swap on a far larger scale may be part of Kyiv’s calculations.

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The Ukrainian army’s advance into Russia has profound implications for perceptions of the war. It directly challenges the widespread belief that Russia’s invasion has reached a stalemate and can no longer be decided on the battlefield. Crucially, it also exposes the emptiness of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and the folly of the West’s emphasis on escalation management.

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the international response has been hindered by fear of escalation. Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin, who has used thinly veiled nuclear threats and frequent talk of Russian red lines to restrict the flow of military aid and convince Ukraine’s partners to impose absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons inside Russia. As a result, Ukraine has effectively been forced to wage war with one hand tied behind its back.

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What we are currently witnessing is entirely in line with a well-established pattern of Russian threats being exposed as bluffs by Ukrainian boldness. During the first year of the war as Putin prepared to announce the annexation of occupied Ukrainian city Kherson, he warned that any attempt to reclaim this “Russian land” would result in a nuclear reply. “I’m not bluffing,” he famously declared. But when Ukraine liberated Kherson just weeks later, Putin did not reach for the nuclear button. Instead, he ordered his beaten troops to quietly retreat.

Russia’s reaction to wartime setbacks in Crimea has been similarly underwhelming. The 2014 seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula remains Putin’s crowning glory and serves as the basis for his claim to a place in Russian history alongside the country’s greatest rulers. Nevertheless, when Ukraine deployed missiles and marine drones to sink or disable around one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, there was no apocalyptic response from the Kremlin. On the contrary, Putin instructed his remaining warships to withdraw from Crimea and seek safety in Russian ports.

This record of inglorious Russian retreats makes the West’s frequently voiced fear of escalation all the more difficult to justify. Ukrainians will now be hoping Putin’s characteristically weak response to the Kursk offensive can persuade Western leaders to belatedly abandon their failed policies of escalation management and acknowledge that the quickest way to end the war is by arming Ukraine for victory.

There are some indications that attitudes among Ukraine’s Western allies may finally be changing. The EU has led the way, with European Commission spokesperson Peter Thano responding to the Ukrainian cross-border push into Kursk Oblast by saying Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to defend itself, including inside Russia. Berlin has reacted in the same manner, with the German Foreign Ministry issuing a statement confirming that Ukraine’s right to self defense “is not limited to its own territory.” Meanwhile, US officials have also signaled their approval. “Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to be successful on the battlefield,” commented a Pentagon official.

This broadly supportive international reaction is welcome news for Ukraine, but officials in Kyiv are also well aware that further steps are required in order to set the stage for Putin’s eventual defeat. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy underlined this point in his August 11 evening address, when he once again called for the lifting of all Western restrictions on long-range strikes against military targets in Russia. Until that happens, Moscow will retain the ability to pummel Ukrainian cities at will and Putin will have little reason to end his invasion.

The West has spent more than two years slow-walking military aid to Ukraine for fear of provoking Putin. And yet time after time, Ukraine has proved that whenever the Russian dictator is confronted with the prospect of defeat, he is far more likely to retreat than escalate. Now that the Ukrainian military has crossed the last of Putin’s red lines and invaded Russia without sparking World War III, there are no more excuses for restricting Kyiv’s ability to defend itself or denying Ukraine the weapons it needs to win the war.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Long-range attack drones are a good fit for Ukraine’s limited offensive capabilities. Kyiv needs to be able to strike military targets inside Russia, but is prevented from doing do with Western-supplied missiles due to restrictions imposed by the country’s partners. While Ukraine has some capacity to produce its own missiles domestically, this is insufficient for a sustained bombing campaign.

Drones are enabling Ukraine to overcome these obstacles. Ukrainian drone production has expanded dramatically over the past two-and-a-half years. The low cost of manufacturing a long-range drone relative to the damage it can cause to Russian military and industrial facilities makes it in many ways the ideal weapon for a cash-strapped but innovative nation like Ukraine.

Ukraine’s drone industry is a diverse ecosystem featuring hundreds of participating companies producing different models. The Ukrainian military has used a variety of drones with different characteristics for attacks inside Russia, making the campaign even more challenging for Russia’s air defenses.

The decentralized nature of Ukraine’s drone manufacturing sector also makes it difficult for Russia to target. Even if the Kremlin is able to identify and hit individual production sites located across Ukraine, this is unlikely to have a major impact on the country’s overall output.

Since 2022, Ukraine has taken a number of steps to reduce bureaucracy and streamline cooperation between drone makers and the military. The result is a sector capable of adapting to changing battlefield conditions and able to implement innovations quickly and effectively. This includes efforts to create AI-enabled drones capable of functioning without an operator, making it far more difficult for Russia to jam.

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As it expands, Ukraine’s drone bombing campaign is exposing the weaknesses of Russia’s air defenses. Defending a territory as vast as Russia against air strikes would be problematic even in peacetime. With much of Russia’s existing air defense systems currently deployed along the front lines in Ukraine, there are now far fewer systems available to protect industrial and military targets inside Russia.

During the initial stages of the war, this shortage of air defense coverage was not a major issue. However, Ukraine’s broadening bombing offensive is now forcing Russia to make tough decisions regarding the distribution of its limited air defenses.

In addition to strategically important sites such as airbases, the Kremlin must also defend prestige targets from possible attack. In July, CNN reported that air defenses had been significantly strengthened around Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summer residence. Protecting Putin’s palace from attack is necessary to avoid embarrassment, but it means leaving other potential targets exposed.

Ukraine’s drone program is the biggest success story to emerge from the country’s vibrant defense tech sector, and is helping Ukraine to even out the odds against its far larger and wealthier adversary. The country’s partners clearly recognize the importance of drones for the Ukrainian military, and have formed a drone coalition to increase the supply of drones from abroad. This combination of international support and Ukrainian ingenuity spells trouble for Russia. It will likely lead to increasingly powerful and plentiful long-range strikes in the months ahead.

Marcel Plichta is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews and former analyst at the US Department of Defense. He has written on the use of drones in the Russian invasion of Ukraine for the Atlantic Council, the Telegraph, and the Spectator.

F-16 jets will help defend Ukrainian cities from Russian bombardment

Olena Tregub — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 12:44:30 +0000

The recent appearance of F-16 fighter jets in the skies above Ukraine is a victory for all Ukrainians, and particularly for the relatively small group of people who worked tirelessly to promote the idea of delivering the planes. The push to secure F-16s began as a grassroots effort initiated by Ukrainian civil society and the military, before being taken on by the country’s political leadership. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was then able to convince Ukraine’s allies to create an F-16 coalition. In many ways, the process was a great example of teamwork involving different segments of Ukrainian society.

Ukraine’s efforts to persuade partner countries focused on the US, which had to grant permission as the manufacturer of F-16s. Ukrainian pilot Andriy Pilschikov deserves a special mention for the key role he played in the campaign to win American backing. A fluent English speaker and experienced air force pilot known to many by his callsign “Juice,” Pilschikov became the unofficial public face of Ukraine’s appeal for F-16s. Crucially, he was able to articulate why the F-16 was the best choice for Ukraine, arguing that it was the most widely available modern jet and relatively easy to use.

In the initial months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, there was no consensus over which aircraft Ukraine should request from the country’s allies. Various Ukrainian government officials mentioned a range of different models, leading to some confusion. Pilschikov provided much-needed clarity and managed to convince everyone to focus their efforts specifically on the F-16. With support from Ukrainian civil society, he personally travelled to the US and established productive relationships with a number of US officials and members of Congress.

US President Joe Biden finally gave the green light to supply Ukraine with F-16s in summer 2023. However, it would take another year before the the Ukrainian Air Force received the first batch of jets. Sadly, Pilschikov did not live to see this historic day. The pilot who did so much to secure F-16s for his country was killed in a mid-air collision during a training exercise in August 2023.

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Despite achieving a breakthrough in summer 2023, the process of preparing for the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine proved frustratingly slow. Ukrainian pilots spent many months training, with only a limited number of slots made available. As a result, Ukraine still has very few pilots able to fly F-16s. Identifying and upgrading Ukrainian airfields capable of accommodating F-16s also created challenges.

The planes that Ukraine has received from the country’s European partners are from the older generation, which is being phased out elsewhere as air forces transition to more modern models. This imposes some limitations on the functions Ukraine’s F-16 fleet can perform. Limited radar reach means that deployment of F-16s on the front lines of the war is seen as too risky, as they could be shot down by both Russian aircraft and Russian air defenses.

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With a combat role unlikely at this stage, Ukrainian F-16s will primarily be used to strengthen the country’s air defenses. The planes Kyiv has received are ideally suited to the task of shooting down the Russian missiles and drones that are regularly fired at Ukrainian cities and vital infrastructure.

Their effectiveness in this role will depend on the kinds of missiles they are armed with. F-16s can carry a range of armaments that are more advanced that the types of weapons used by the majority of planes in service with the Russian Air Force. Initial indications are encouraging, with the first F-16s arriving in Ukraine complete with weapons ideally suited to air defense. It is now vital for Ukrainian officials and members of civil society to focus their advocacy efforts on securing sufficient numbers of missiles from partner countries.

Ukraine should also prioritize the supply of long-range radar detection aircraft, such as the planes recently promised by Sweden. In May 2024, the Swedes announced plans to deliver two surveillance aircraft as part of the Scandinavian nation’s largest support package to date. These “eyes in the sky” can monitor airspace for hundreds of kilometers. Together with Ukraine’s growing F-16 fleet, they will significantly enhance the country’s air defenses.

As Ukraine acquires more F-16s in the coming months, and as the country’s limited pool of pilots grows in size and experience, we will likely see these jets used in more adventurous ways. This may include targeting Russian planes and helicopters operating close to the front lines with long-range strikes. For now, though, the main task of Ukraine’s F-16s will be to improve the country’s air defenses and protect the civilian population from Russian bombardment.

Olena Tregub is Executive Director of the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO), a member of the Anti-Corruption Council under the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Russia is destroying monuments as part of war on Ukrainian identity

Yevhenii Monastyrskyi, John Vsetecka — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 20:14:30 +0000

Throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine, efforts continue to systematically erase all traces of Ukrainian national memory. This campaign against monuments and memorials is chilling proof that Russia’s invasion goes far beyond mere border revisions and ultimately aims to wipe Ukraine off the map entirely.

The modern history of a single park in east Ukrainian city Luhansk offers insights into the memory war currently being waged by the Kremlin. In 1972, the Communist authorities in Soviet Luhansk decided to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the USSR by transforming a local cemetery into a Friendship of Peoples Park. Once construction got underway, workers soon began uncovering mass graves of people murdered during the Stalin era. This news was suppressed until 1989, when it was belatedly reported in the local newspaper. One year later, a memorial to the victims of Stalinist mass killings was erected at the site.

This initial monument was part of a broader movement for historical justice that emerged in the twilight years of the USSR as local historians, journalists, and officials sought to document the crimes of the Communist authorities in the Luhansk region. Following Ukrainian independence, the opening of national archives made it possible to identify and honor victims of the Communist regime and end decades of censorship that had suppressed knowledge of Soviet crimes against humanity including the Holodomor, an artificially engineered famine in 1930s Ukraine that killed millions of Ukrainians.

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During the early years of Ukrainian independence, Luhansk’s Friendship of Peoples Park remained a space of contested memory. While retaining its old Soviet era name, it gradually acquired a range of new memorials including a monument to Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, a cross marking the grave of the city’s former mayor, and a memorial to the victims of the Holodomor.

In 2009, following decades of public pressure, the park was renamed as the Garden of Remembrance. At this point, it seemed as though the long task of restoring historical memory in Luhansk was finally complete. However, the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 transformed the memory politics of the region once again and revived many of the darkest chapters of the Soviet years.

When Kremlin forces occupied Luhansk in the spring of 2014, they soon began attempting to transform remembrance of the Soviet era. While monuments to Lenin were being dismantled elsewhere in Ukraine, the Russian authorities in Luhansk were erecting new monuments glorifying the Soviet past and celebrating the “liberation” of the city from Ukrainian rule. This mirrored similar processes that were underway in other Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including nearby Donetsk and the Crimean peninsula.

Curiously, many memorials in Luhansk honoring the victims of the Soviet era initially remained untouched. This changed with the full-scale invasion of February 2022, which led to a more aggressive approach to the eradication of Ukrainian historical memory. In the second half of 2022, the Holodomor memorial in Mariupol was demolished. By summer 2024, the Russian occupation authorities had also dismantled monuments in Luhansk honoring the victims of the Holodomor and the Stalinist Terror.

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The occupation authorities in Luhansk have attempted to justify these measures by framing the Holodomor as a Ukrainian propaganda myth and positioning memorials to the victims of Soviet crimes as “pilgrimage sites for Ukrainian nationalists.” They have also argued that the dismantling of monuments is in response to grassroots demands from the local population.

Russia’s selective monument removals are part of a deliberate strategy to rehabilitate favorable aspects of the Soviet past while whitewashing the crimes of the Communist era. A similarly partisan approach has been adopted toward the historical role of Tsarist Russia. Throughout occupied regions of Ukraine, the Kremlin seeks to craft a narrative glorifying Russian imperialism that legitimizes Moscow’s land grab while suppressing any traces of a separate Ukrainian national identity. In this manner, Putin is weaponizing the past to serve his own present-day geopolitical ambitions.

The demolition of memorials is only one aspect of Russia’s war on Ukrainian national identity. In areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control, anyone deemed pro-Ukrainian is at risk of being detained or simply disappearing. Speaking Ukrainian is considered a serious offense. Ukrainians are pressured into accepting Russian citizenship, while thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted and sent to Russia, where they are subjected to indoctrination in camps designed to rob them of their Ukrainian heritage.

Unlike earlier attempts to erase entire nations, today’s Kremlin campaign to extinguish Ukrainian identity is taking place in full view of international audiences in the heart of twenty-first century Europe. This poses fundamental challenges to the entire notion of a rules-based international order and represents a major obstacle to any future peace process. As long as Russia remains committed to the destruction of Ukraine, a truly sustainable settlement to today’s war will remain elusive.

Yevhenii Monastyrskyi is a PhD student of history at Harvard University and a lecturer at Kyiv School of Economics. John Vsetecka is an assistant professor of history at Nova Southeastern University.

Russia’s Black Sea defeats get flushed down Vladimir Putin’s memory hole

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:51:05 +0000

There was much pomp and pageantry on display recently in former Russian imperial capital Saint Petersburg as Vladimir Putin presided over the country’s annual Navy Day festivities. In truth, however, Putin and his assembled admirals had very little to celebrate. Over the past year, Russia’s once-vaunted Black Sea Fleet has been decimated by Ukrainian drones and missiles in what must rank as the most remarkable series of naval defeats in modern military history.

Despite barely having a navy of its own, Ukraine has managed to sink or severely damage approximately one-third of Putin’s fleet, forcing the bulk of his remaining warships to retreat from occupied Crimea. The war at sea has gone so badly for Russia that by spring 2024, Britain’s Ministry of Defense was already declaring the Black Sea Fleet “functionally inactive.”

The details of this year’s Russian Navy Day program provided some hints of the inglorious reality behind Moscow’s efforts to project naval strength. Tellingly, the traditional parade of Russian warships along the Neva River to the Kronstadt naval base, which usually serves as the centerpiece of the entire holiday, was canceled due to security concerns. In its place, a reduced flotilla took part in a significantly scaled down event that featured around half as many vessels as in previous years.

Despite being by far the smallest Russian Navy Day since the holiday was reinstated in 2017, this year’s event nevertheless represented an excellent opportunity for Putin to honor Russia’s fallen sailors and vow retribution for the country’s unprecedented losses in the Black Sea. In fact, he did nothing of the sort. Throughout his official address, Putin barely mentioned the casualties suffered or the sacrifices made by the Russian Navy during the invasion of Ukraine. Instead, the Kremlin dictator preferred to flush Russia’s Black Sea defeats down the memory hole. He was aided by the loyal Russian media, which carefully avoided any awkward references to the disaster that has befallen the country’s Black Sea Fleet.

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All this brings to mind an old Soviet joke that begins with Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great looking down from heaven at a Red Army parade on Red Square. Caesar indicates the endless rows of Soviet troops and says, “with so many men, I could have held Germania.” Alexander points to the tanks and missiles and declares, “with such weapons of war, I could have conquered all India.” Napoleon, meanwhile, completely ignores the parade and is instead engrossed in a copy of Pravda. “If I had such a newspaper,” he proclaims, “nobody would have heard of Waterloo.”

Many Soviet jokes have not aged well, but this particular punchline remains as relevant as ever in modern Russia, where Putin has succeeded in creating a propaganda machine every bit as potent as its Soviet predecessor. Today’s Kremlin-controlled multimedia ecosystem is far more sophisticated than its Communist forerunner, but it serves the same basic function of bending reality to suit the whims of Russia’s ruling elite.

For the past decade, Putin has used this unrivaled information weapon to fuel the biggest European invasion since World War II. Kremlin propagandists have managed to convince millions of ordinary Russians that democratic Ukraine is actually a “Nazi state” whose very existence poses an intolerable threat to Russia. Ukrainians have been demonized and dehumanized to such an extent that genocidal anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is now a routine feature on prime time Russian TV.

The success of these efforts is all too apparent, with a wide range of opinion polls, research, and anecdotal evidence pointing to consistently high levels of Russian public support for the invasion. Meanwhile, there is no meaningful anti-war movement in the country, despite widespread knowledge of the horrors taking place in neighboring Ukraine. This is not surprising. After all, as Voltaire once warned, those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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Putin’s ability to distort Russian reality is genuinely terrifying, but the sheer scale of his propaganda operation could also inadvertently offer hope for the future. Many commentators have argued that failure in Ukraine would lead to the fall of the Putin regime and quite possibly the breakup of Russia itself, but these concerns may be exaggerated. While a third Russian collapse in a little over a century cannot be ruled out, the experience of the past two-and-a-half years gives good cause to believe that Moscow’s disinformation industry is more than capable of rebranding any future retreat from Ukraine in a favorable light, or of burying it completely. In other words, if the Russian media can manufacture a major war, it can also fabricate a suitably plausible peace.

Anyone who still doubts the Kremlin’s capacity to whitewash military defeat in Ukraine hasn’t been paying attention. We have recently witnessed Putin hosting the biggest naval event of the year while studiously ignoring the historic humbling of his southern fleet. It was the same story in 2022, when he ceremoniously announced that Kherson had joined Russia “forever,” only to order his beaten troops to abandon the city just weeks later. Likewise, when Russia lost the Battle of Kyiv during the initial phase of the invasion, the Kremlin refused to acknowledge defeat and absurdly insisted that the retreat from northern Ukraine was a mere “goodwill gesture.” If Putin is eventually forced to end his invasion, it seems safe to assume he will downplay this humiliation in similar fashion.

Since February 2022, Western leaders have found numerous reasons to limit their support for Ukraine. Some are restricted by modest defense budgets and competing domestic priorities. Most are afraid of possible escalation and have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s talk of Russian red lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says many of his country’s Western partners are also reluctant to arm Ukraine because they fear the unpredictable geopolitical consequences of a Russian defeat. This Western alarm over a possible Russian collapse is exaggerated and fails to account for the power of Putin’s propaganda.

If Russia suffers a decisive defeat in Ukraine, past experience indicates that the Kremlin will almost certainly seek to move the goalposts, change the narrative, or devise some other way of rewriting history and claiming victory. Any embarrassing evidence of failure would simply be flushed down the memory hole, along with all the sunken Russian warships of the Black Sea Fleet.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Europe can do more to help Ukraine counter Russia’s energy attacks

Aura Sabadus — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 20:54:59 +0000

Russian bombing of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure has forced millions of Ukrainians to spend the summer months adjusting to rolling power blackouts, with record high temperatures adding to the practical challenges of living without electricity. The Ukrainian response to this latest episode of wartime adversity has been marked by typical grit, resourcefulness, and good humor. Nevertheless, there is now widespread awareness that the country is facing what may be the toughest winter in modern Ukrainian history.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia has destroyed, damaged, or occupied approximately eighty percent of Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure. The situation has deteriorated sharply since March 2024 following a wave of Russian attacks on Ukrainian power plants that have devastated the country’s thermal capacity.

Ukrainian energy sector officials believe that during the coming winter season, peak demand could be above eighteen gigawatts, with average consumption likely to hover around fifteen gigawatts. However, remaining capacity is just over ten gigawatts. Unless significant new sources can be secured, Ukrainians will have to deal with extended blackouts amid subzero temperatures. This could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and create new waves of refugees fleeing to the EU.

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Looking ahead, there is no substitute for much needed air defenses to protect Ukraine’s remaining energy production capacity. However, additional steps from the Ukrainian authorities and Kyiv’s partners could help prepare the country for the coming winter season.

A July 2024 report funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research has identified a number of short-term measures that could be adopted swiftly to at least partially plug current shortfalls. Fast repairs of thermal and hydro plants together with the deployment of small-scale gas-fired turbines and solar panels could bring approximately 3.4GW of additional capacity online before temperatures start to drop. Donations of spare equipment are also absolutely vital, while Ukraine should intensify work with partners to establish stockpiles of components to rebuild generation capacity.

One of the most promising initiatives would involve increasing cross-border capacity with neighboring EU countries operating under the umbrella of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E). Ukraine synchronized with the ENTSO-E grid in March 2022. Since then, Kyiv has increased cross-border capacity significantly, but there is still scope for a further expansion of interconnection capacity by approximately 0.3GW ahead of the coming winter season. This may be easier said than done, however.

Hungary and Slovakia are key exporters of electricity to Ukraine but are currently threatening to cut flows after Kyiv introduced a partial ban on the transit of Russian oil to refineries in the two EU countries. Budapest and Bratislava have long benefitted from cheap Russian energy imports and have faced accusations of acting in the Kremlin’s interests by blocking EU financial and military support to Ukraine. Both countries could now undermine efforts to boost energy exports to Ukraine.

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While there has not yet been any disruption to electricity flows from the EU into Ukraine, it is clearly in Kyiv’s interests to avoid disagreements where possible and to seek enhanced energy partnership with the country’s European neighbors. Closer cooperation with Slovakia and Romania in particular could pay major dividends. Indeed, recent research has found that transmission capacity could be more than doubled to five gigawatts. This could provide greater energy security, create jobs, and attract significant investments.

If completed, one existing power line project linking Slovakia and Ukraine could bring additional capacity of one gigawatt, enough to supply a million consumers. Work on this line began in 2013 and is seventy percent complete on the Ukrainian side, but nothing has yet been done on the Slovak side. Similarly, a proposed electricity power line linking Ukraine’s Pivdennoukrainska nuclear power plant to Romania would not only bring an additional one gigawatt of transfer capacity, but could also potentially end nearby Moldova’s dependence on electricity generated in the Kremlin-controlled Transnistria enclave.

Despite the numerous benefits offered by these projects, the Romanian and Slovakian governments remain unwilling to commit. This lack of political cooperation may contribute to a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine during the coming winter months that could spill over into neighboring countries. With the countdown to the cold season now already underway, there is no time to lose. Helping Ukraine to keep the lights on should be a priority for the whole of Europe.

Dr. Aura Sabadus is a senior energy journalist who writes about Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Ukraine for Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), a London-based global energy and petrochemicals news and market data provider. Her views are her own.

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The F-16 models that Ukraine has now begun to receive are a clear step up from the Soviet-era jets inherited from the USSR, boasting superior radar capabilities and longer range. At the same time, Ukraine’s F-16s should not be viewed as a game-changing weapon in the war with Russia.

One obvious issue is quantity. Ukraine has so far only received a handful of F-16s, with a total of 24 jets expected to arrive by the end of 2024. To put this number into context, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated in recent weeks that in order to effectively counter Russian air power, his country would require a fleet of 128 F-16 jets. So far, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands have committed to supply Ukraine with eighty F-16s, but there is no clear time frame for deliveries or for the training of additional pilots.

Ukraine’s fledgling F-16 fleet will likely have access to a limited selection of weapons, with partner countries currently pledging to provide a number of short-range munitions. It remains unclear whether Kyiv can count on longer range strike capabilities, despite recent reports that the US has agreed to arm Ukrainian F-16s with American-made missiles and other advanced weapons. The effectiveness of Ukraine’s new jets will also be constrained by restrictions on the use of Western weapons against targets inside Russia.

The limited number of F-16s in Ukraine means that these new arrivals will initially be deployed primarily to strengthen the country’s air defenses. The jets will considerably enhance Ukraine’s ability to prevent Russian pilots entering Ukrainian air space, and can also target Russian cruise missiles in flight. This is particularly important as Russia has recently demonstrated its growing ability to bypass existing surface-to-air defense systems and strike civilian infrastructure targets across Ukraine.

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Ukraine’s F-16s enter service in what is an extremely challenging operating environment, with Russia’s sophisticated battlefield air defenses likely to make any combat support roles extremely risky. Acknowledging these difficulties, Ukraine’s commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskiy recently stated that the country’s F-16s would operate at a distance of at least forty kilometers from the front.

Another key challenge will be protecting Ukrainian F-16s on the ground against Russian attempts to destroy them with ballistic missiles. The Kremlin has made no secret of the fact that the jets are priority targets that will be hunted with particular enthusiasm. The Ukrainian Air Force will have to adapt quickly in order to counter this threat, and must rely on a combination of Patriot air defenses, decoy F-16s, and frequent airfield changes.

While the long-awaited arrival of F-16s in Ukraine has sparked considerable excitement and provided Ukrainians with a welcome morale boost, these new jets are not a wonder weapon that can change the course of the war. Instead, Ukraine’s small fleet of F-16s will bolster the country’s air defenses, helping to protect Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure from Russian bombardment.

Over the coming year, Ukraine will face the task of gradually integrating and expanding its F-16 fleet. Based on past experience of Western weapons deliveries, Kyiv can expect to receive additional munitions, and may also eventually be given the green light to strike some categories of military targets inside Russia. This would open up a range of offensive options that could change the battlefield dynamics of the war in Ukraine’s favor. For now, though, the biggest change is likely to be in terms of enhanced security for Ukraine’s civilian population.

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The controversy over Kharlan’s refusal to shake hands with her Russian opponent has been mirrored elsewhere in the sporting arena, highlighting the complex moral issues facing Ukrainian athletes as they compete internationally while their country is fighting for national survival. Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina in particular has attracted headlines for her decision to avoid handshakes with Russian and Belarusian players.

Some critics have accused Ukrainians of politicizing sport, and have argued against holding individual Russians accountable for crimes committed by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, supporters of Ukrainian protest efforts have noted the Kremlin’s frequent use of sport as a propaganda tool, and have also pointed to the often close links between some Russian athletes and the Putin regime.

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For Ukraine’s Olympic team, participation in this year’s Summer Games is an opportunity to provide their war weary compatriots back home with something to cheer, while also reminding the world of Russia’s ongoing invasion. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, many of Ukraine’s Olympic athletes have had to train in exceptionally difficult conditions. Some have been forced to relocate from areas that have fallen under Russian occupation, while all have grown used to the daily trauma of the war and the regular disruption caused by Russian air raids.

Ahead of the Paris Olympics, Olga Kharlan was widely seen as one of Ukraine’s best medal hopes. Born in Mykolaiv, she has been fencing since the age of ten. Prior to the 2024 Olympics, she had already amassed four Olympic medals in a glittering career that has also seen her win six world titles. The thirty-three-year-old Ukrainian star demonstrated her mental strength during the third place playoff in Paris, overcoming South Korea’s Choi Sebin in a dramatic comeback win.

Thanks to her new bronze medal, Kharlan now shares top spot among Ukraine’s leading Olympians with a total of five medals. She claimed her first medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 before securing further honors in 2012 and 2016. However, the Ukrainian star says her success in the French capital stands out. “This medal is totally different,” commented Kharlan in Paris this week. “It’s special because it’s for my country. This is a message to all the world that Ukraine will never give up.”

Mark Temnycky is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

The West should articulate the possibility of a European future for Belarus now

Richard Cashman — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 20:12:28 +0000

Belarus is often overlooked by the Euro-Atlantic policy-making community, with many taking for granted the relative stability represented by Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka during his three decades in power. In reality, however, today’s Belarus may soon reach a fork in the road that will force its people to choose between European democracy and Eurasian autocracy. The choice they make will have significant implications for Euro-Atlantic security. Articulating the possibility of a European future for Belarusians now can help shape their thoughts and actions when the time comes.

During the 1990s, some Russians claimed the dictatorial Lukashenka model was exactly what the troubled and oligarchic Russian Federation needed. Although always opposed to the Belarusian language and broadly aligned with Moscow, Lukashenka tenaciously maintained his independence when Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia, skillfully extracting benefits from both the Kremlin and the West.

This independence was severely undermined by the massive grassroots protests that erupted in Belarus in the wake of the country’s 2020 presidential vote. Large numbers of Belarusians believed reformist opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya had won the election and took to the streets to protest. Lukashenka only survived thanks to Russian support. This left him far more reliant on the Kremlin and significantly reduced his room for maneuver.

In February 2022, Lukashenka allowed Putin to use Belarusian territory to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, it soon became clear that things were not going according to Putin’s plan. Russia’s heavy losses during the initial weeks of the invasion restored some of Lukashenka’s independence, while disquiet in his own armed forces and some quarters of the security services convinced him that further direct involvement in Russia’s war would be folly. Since then, Lukashenka has provided training and equipment to Russian forces, but has resisted pressure to join the invasion.

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Putin remains eager to exploit Belarus’s resources and strategic position to threaten Kyiv once more and to target Western supplies entering Ukraine from Poland. Belarus could also play an important role in the future, if Russia seeks to intensify hybrid hostilities against the Baltic states or to launch a direct attack. This looks unlikely as long as Lukashenka remains in power. The Belarusian dictator may therefore represent a status quo which fundamentally favors Ukraine and its allies more than Russia.

If Putin continues to fail in his immediate objective of occupying all of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, there is a real possibility that he will ultimately lose patience with Lukashenka and move to either replace him or otherwise compel Belarus to join the invasion. Moreover, it is almost certain that Putin will attempt to secure Belarusian human and material resources if Lukashenka dies before him.

Many Belarusians already know what would await them if Putin fully incorporated and militarized their country. They would experience an oligarchic raiding of businesses, covert or overt mobilization, and the extinguishing of the traditionally Western-looking aspect that is an important part of Belarusian national identity.

In contrast, if Belarusians manage to maintain their independence and empower a reformist leadership, they can begin moving towards European integration, with European Union membership an eventual possibility. In this context, it is vital that all Belarusians, including political elites along with members of the military and security forces, receive assurances that they have a viable alternative to the Kremlin vision for their country’s future.

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Articulating a European future for Belarus does not need to entail talk of NATO membership. Instead, it should involve acknowledging the possibility of removing sanctions, enhancing access to EU travel, education, and capital, and eventually embracing Belarus’s modest population of 9.2 million people under democratic leadership and after deep structural reforms.

From a purely practical standpoint, European integration would not be an insurmountable task. Lukashenka’s repressive regime has actually resulted in relatively good infrastructure conditions for Belarusians, especially in rural areas, compared to most other former Soviet republics. Belarus boasts a highly educated and comparatively young demographic. Prior to the 2020 protests, the country had burgeoning IT and entrepreneurial sectors.

A Belarus free of Russian military entanglements and increasingly aligned with the Euro-Atlantic community instead of the developing Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis of autocracies would contribute significantly to the security of Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states. A Belarusian geopolitical pivot toward the West could also encourage transformation inside Russia itself and compel more Russians to embrace a post-imperial identity.

Failure to articulate the possibility of a European future for Belarus leaves the Euro-Atlantic community at risk of being caught off guard without a plan when Belarus does, indeed, reach its fork in the road. This may come sooner than many are prepared for. By taking steps now to engage with Belarusian society, the EU can strengthen its own foreign policy credentials as a major geopolitical player, mitigate against the risk of a rapid Russian militarization of Belarus, and set the stage for a cooperative relationship with Belarusians in the years to come.

Richard Cashman is a nonresident fellow at the Centre for Defence Strategies.

Putin is convinced he can outlast the West and win in Ukraine

Mykola Bielieskov — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 18:16:56 +0000

The annual NATO summit in early July resulted in a range of encouraging statements and practical measures in support of Ukraine. However, this widely anticipated gathering in Washington DC failed to produce the kind of decisive steps that could convince Vladimir Putin to end his invasion.

It was already clear some time before the NATO summit that there would be no serious discussion of a membership invitation for Ukraine. Instead, the emphasis would be on improving the existing partnership, with alliance leaders preserving as much room to maneuver as possible when dealing with the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Post-summit coverage focused on the official communique declaring Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to future NATO membership, but not everyone saw the wording of the joint statement as a breakthrough. Indeed, some skeptics interpreted this latest rephrasing of NATO’s open door for Ukraine as an indication that the alliance is still no closer to agreeing on a specific time frame regarding Ukrainian membership.

The summit was not a complete anticlimax, of course. A number of countries pledged additional air defense systems to Ukraine, meeting one of Kyiv’s most urgent requests to help protect the country from Russian bombardment. There were announcements regarding the imminent arrival of the first F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine, while additional mechanisms to coordinate weapons deliveries and enhance cooperation were unveiled.

NATO members also agreed in Washington to allocate forty billion euros for Ukrainian military aid next year. While this figure is certainly significant, it falls far below the level of funding needed to ensure Ukrainian victory. This is not a new issue. While the collective GDP of the West dwarfs Russia’s, Western leaders have yet to mobilize their financial resources to provide Ukraine with an overwhelming military advantage. As a consequence, it is the much smaller Russian economy that is currently producing more artillery shells than the entire Western world.

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The modest progress made at the NATO summit reflects a lack of urgency that has hampered the Western response ever since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. There is little chance this hesitancy will provoke a change of heart in Moscow. On the contrary, Russian policymakers are far more likely to regard the West’s current posture as proof that the war is going according to plan.

Unlike the West, the Kremlin has a clear and coherent vision for a future Russian victory in Ukraine. This involves gradually wearing down Ukrainian battlefield resistance with relentless high intensity combat along the front lines of the war, while extensively bombing civilian infrastructure and population centers across the country.

In parallel to these military measures, Russia will also continue to conduct diverse influence operations targeting Ukrainian and Western audiences, with the goal of undermining morale and sowing division. This will leave Ukraine increasingly isolated and exhausted, leading eventually to collapse and capitulation.

The Russian authorities believe Ukraine will struggle to maintain the attention of its Western allies, and are encouraged by growing signs that many in the West now view the invasion as a stalemate. Putin himself appears to be more confident that ever that the West will lose interest in the war, and expects Western leaders to reluctantly pressure Kyiv into a negotiated settlement on Russian terms.

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Since the invasion began nearly two and a half years ago, Western leaders have failed to demonstrate the kind of resolve that would force Putin to revise his expectations. Instead of flooding Kyiv with the very latest tanks, jets, drones, and missiles, Ukraine’s partners have consistently slow-walked military aid while imposing absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons.

The West’s messaging has been equally inadequate. Rather than publicly committing themselves to Ukrainian victory, Western leaders have spoken of preventing Ukrainian defeat and of standing with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” This is not the language of strength that Putin understands.

Confronted by continued signs of Western indecisiveness, the Russian dictator is now escalating his demands. His most recent peace proposal envisaged Ukraine ceding all lands already occupied by Russia along with significant additional territory not currently under Kremlin control. There can be little doubt that he remains as committed as ever to the complete surrender and subjugation of Ukraine.

Putin knows he could not hope to match the collective might of the democratic world, but this does not discourage him. Instead, he fully expects continued Western weakness to hand Russia an historic victory in Ukraine. Unless the West is finally prepared to translate its vast financial, military, and technical potential into war-winning support for Ukraine, he may be proved right.

Putin accused of jailing US journalists as ‘bargaining chips’ for prisoner swap

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 19:14:45 +0000

On July 19, Wall Street Journal reporter and US citizen Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to sixteen years in Russian prison on espionage charges. The same day, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist who holds dual American-Russian citizenship, was sentenced to six and a half years by a Russian court for supposedly spreading false information about the Russian military. Both trials took place largely behind closed doors under a veil of secrecy.

Gershkovich is the first US journalist to be convicted in Russia on charges of espionage since the Cold War. So far, the Russian authorities have not provided any credible evidence to support their accusations. Kurmasheva was convicted on a charge frequently used by the Kremlin to suppress unfavorable reporting on the realities of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The imprisonment of two US journalists marks a new escalation in the Kremlin’s confrontation with the West. Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor Emma Tucker released a statement calling Gershkovich’s sentence “a disgraceful, sham conviction.” RFE/RL President and CEO Steve Capus deemed Kurmasheva’s conviction “a mockery of justice.”

US citizens Gershkovich and Kurmasheva are now facing the prospect of long prison sentences in extremely harsh conditions. An AP series published earlier this year described the “physical and psychological pressure, sleep deprivation, insufficient food, heath care that is poor or simply denied” and “dizzying set of arbitrary rules” that the pair are likely to encounter in Russian jails. Both journalists have already spent an extended period in pretrial detention.

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The Russian authorities have a long record of targeting journalists. These efforts have gained further momentum since February 2022 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the Kremlin using draconian new legislation to silence anti-war voices and shut down any remaining independent Russian media outlets. In May 2024, the United Nations human rights office reported that the number of journalists imprisoned in Russia had reached an all-time high.

While the Putin regime is notorious for seeking to censor the media, that may not actually be the main motive in this case. Instead, there has been widespread speculation that the Kremlin ultimately aims to use Gershkovich and Kurmasheva as bargaining chips in negotiations with the US to secure the release of Russian citizens currently serving prison sentences in the West.

Putin is no doubt well aware that the United States will go to considerable lengths to free the two American journalists. Following Gershkovich’s conviction, the White House issued a statement that the US government has “no higher priority” than seeking the release and safe return of Gershkovich “and all Americans wrongly detained and held hostage abroad.”

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Speculation about a potential prisoner swap has swirled ever since Gershkovich was first detained in 2023. Typically, Russia only engages in prisoner exchanges once suspects have been convicted and sentenced. This has led some analysts to suggest that the relative speed of the two recent trials could indicate the Kremlin’s desire to proceed with an exchange in the near future.

Moscow will likely demand a high price for the release of Gershkovich and Kurmasheva. This may include handing over Vadim Krasikov, a Russian secret service colonel who is currently serving a life sentence in Germany for gunning down a Chechen dissident in a Berlin park in 2019. Sentencing Krasikov in 2021, a Berlin court called the killing “a state-ordered murder.”

US Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin said Gershkovich’s trial and conviction were “stark reminders of the lengths to which tyrants like Putin will leverage innocent people as bargaining chips, stifle free speech, and suppress the truth.” While many now expect a prisoner swap to take place sooner rather than later, the targeting of US journalists in this manner highlights the Kremlin’s retreat from international norms and underlines the potential dangers facing any Western nationals who choose to visit Putin’s Russia.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Andriy Yermak: Ukraine and NATO are restoring Europe’s security architecture

Andriy Yermak — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 12:04:47 +0000

As I listened to world leaders announce the signing of the Ukraine Compact on the sidelines of NATO’s 75th anniversary summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, my mind drifted back to September 13, 2022. On that cold, rainy day, Anders Fogh Rasmussen and I first unveiled the Kyiv Security Compact concept.

President Zelenskyy’s idea, which Anders and I began to implement together, was that allies should provide Ukraine with everything necessary to defeat Russia on the battlefield and to deter further aggression. The proposal outlined a set of measures designed to ensure that Ukraine could defend itself independently until it joins NATO.

Specifically, it included commitments from a group of guarantor states to provide weapons, conduct joint exercises under the EU and NATO flags, share intelligence, and assist in developing Ukraine’s defense industry. We claimed that security commitments were not an end in themselves, but a transitional phase towards Ukraine’s full-fledged membership in both the European Union and the NATO Alliance.

At the time, one journalist asked if I truly believed we could find even half a dozen countries willing to support this initiative. I responded with a line from John Lennon’s song: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” This has proved to be an accurate forecast.

At the NATO Vilnius summit in July 2023, G7 leaders issued a Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine, based on our initiative. Other countries began joining soon after. Before long, their number exceeded thirty. By that time, we already had several bilateral security agreements in place. This work is ongoing, with 23 bilateral agreements currently signed. Together with our allies, we set out on the path to restore the European security architecture. We are determined not to stray from it again.

The Ukraine Compact, open for others to join, became the final piece in creating an ecosystem of security guarantees for our country. It is designed to enhance Ukraine’s resilience and ability to defend itself in the future, and to serve as a bridge during the period when Article 5 does not yet apply. I’m pleased that this aligns perfectly with Anders’ and my original draft. The bridge metaphor is also enshrined in the NATO summit’s final declaration. This is a crucial detail. Since 2008, Ukraine has been hitting a glass wall trying to enter the Alliance’s supposedly “open doors,” and now it has been removed.

The summit declaration’s statement on Ukraine’s irreversible path to NATO is another strong step. Throughout the past year, Anders and I have emphasized again and again: NATO leaders need to make it clear to Vladimir Putin that his war is futile, that support for Ukraine will not waver, and that Ukraine will sooner rather than later become a NATO member. Finally, this signal has now been sent: Russia’s war of choice has been stripped of its stated pretext.

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Currently, the Ukraine Compact bears 25 signatures. It has been supported by the United States and Canada, nineteen European countries, and the European Union. Japan is also among the signatories. This is very telling, as Ukraine is a cornerstone not only of European but also of global security.

The Washington summit demonstrated that the Alliance can no longer limit itself to the Euro-Atlantic space as it seeks to effectively counter global challenges and threats. Aggressive autocracies are increasingly collaborating and taking on the shape of a military-political alliance. For all democratic countries this means one thing: Russia is not alone in its aggression against Ukraine, and the possibility of new conflicts elsewhere depends on Moscow’s ability to succeed. It is therefore in our common interest to do everything to ensure that Ukraine emerges victorious from this war, and that this victory is convincing.

I note that the recent NATO summit’s decisions are aimed precisely at this. Three key points are worth mentioning here. First, the institutionalization of aid formats that have emerged ad hoc during the war. Second, building Ukraine’s defense capabilities and strengthening the potential of its defense-industrial base. And third, the course toward deepening Ukraine’s political and military interaction with NATO structures.

We are sincerely grateful for these steps and extend thanks to our allies, whose unwavering leadership has allowed us to successfully defend ourselves despite Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in terms of resources. Your dedication and your value-based choices strengthen the chances of our common victory over a lawless and cynical enemy.

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Looking ahead, I need to outline several critical points. The further strengthening of Ukraine’s air defense system is crucial. Russia intends to continue terrorizing our civilian population by destroying residential buildings, power grids, and other critical infrastructure. The recent strikes on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, as well as two additional health clinics, have once again clearly demonstrated that for the Russian military, there are no red lines in terms of international law and ethics. There is therefore no alternative to strengthening the air shield over Ukraine.

One of the key components of this air shield will be F-16 jets. Ukraine’s allies have committed to delivering the first batch this summer. However, I have to emphasize that this is not enough. The Russians boast about using three-ton guided bombs against Ukraine. Their bombers are based at airfields in Russia’s border regions. In order to neutralize this threat, we still need long-range capabilities. Simply put, if there is a hornet’s nest in your neighborhood, you can hunt them one by one with varying success, or you can destroy the nest itself. Currently, only the first option is available to us, and even that is quite limited.

Addressing this problem will not only reduce the number of casualties; it will also further enhance the operational compatibility of Ukrainian defense forces with NATO. We sincerely welcome steps in this direction, in particular the creation of the NSATU (NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine) program.

We are also extremely grateful to member states for their specific commitments to aid Ukraine, and for implementing a system of proportional contributions that will provide base funding of forty billion euros over the next year. We expect these funds to be spent specifically on purchasing weapons, rather than alternative forms of support, which are undoubtedly important as well.

At the same time, it is worth noting that this burden could be reduced by fine-tuning mechanisms for transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. A related issue is the further intensification of sanctions pressure on both Russia and the partners who enable Moscow to continue making weapons using microelectronics produced in the West. This has made it possible for Russia to manufacture the type of missile that hit the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital with Western components.

Our relationship with NATO has always been a two-way street, and we remain committed to this principle. We fully understand that one of the leading factors in Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration is our capacity for transformation. President Zelenskyy and his team remain dedicated to reforms aimed at strengthening institutional resilience and democratic processes in the country.

Changes continue despite the war, and they are irreversible. We unhesitatingly and without reservations agree that the reforms mentioned in the summit’s final declaration are of utmost importance for Ukraine’s prospects. At the same time, common sense suggests that all these changes will only matter if Ukraine withstands this war. Withstands and wins. Only a strong, free, and successful Ukraine can be a reliable outpost of democracy in Eastern Europe. Comprehensive and long-term assistance to Ukraine is not charity. It’s an investment in a secure future for the entire Euro-Atlantic community.

Andriy Yermak is the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President.

Hungarian PM Orban poses as unlikely peacemaker for Russia’s Ukraine war

Dmytro Tuzhanskyi — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 21:03:06 +0000

As perhaps the most pro-Kremlin and anti-Western leader of any EU or NATO member state, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban makes for an unlikely mediator in efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. This did not prevent the Hungarian leader from embarking on an ambitious series of international visits in early July that he dubbed as a “peace mission.” In the first ten days of July, Orban visited four different countries on three continents, during which he claimed to have held twelve hours of talks with world leaders.

Orban’s intensive bout of shuttle diplomacy began with a visit to Kyiv on July 2, where he met with President Zelenskyy. This was the Hungarian leader’s first trip to neighboring Ukraine since 2015, and came just one day after his country took up the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. The presidency, a position which rotates through all EU member states, is designed to coordinate the agenda and chair meetings of EU member state officials. It is limited in power, and the presidency carries no responsibility for representing the EU abroad.

A few days later, Orban was in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he then lavished with praise in an interview with Germany’s WELT Documentary. On July 8, the Hungarian PM was in Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping. He subsequently flew to the US for the annual NATO Summit, before rounding off his diplomatic mission by meeting with US presidential candidate Donald Trump in Florida.

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While Orban’s globetrotting itinerary was certainly impressive, there is little indication that this diplomatic initiative achieved much beyond generating media buzz and upsetting Hungary’s EU partners. Orban pushed the idea that a ceasefire in Ukraine could “speed up peace talks” and has tried to pitch his peace plan in a letter to European Union leaders, but so far he has faced little enthusiasm and a significant backlash. Crucially, both Zelenskyy and Putin have ruled out an immediate ceasefire.

This lack of progress toward peace might not be a major issue for Orban. Indeed, some believe his recent diplomatic efforts may actually have been designed primarily to strengthen his own position, both domestically and on the international stage. Crucially, it has allowed the Hungarian leader to balance his country between the key global centers of Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and Brussels. It has also served as a welcome backdrop for the creation of the new Patriots for Europe grouping within the European Parliament, as part of Orban’s self-styled effort to “change European politics.”

This international outreach allows Orban to maintain the stability of his own domestic position via continued NATO security, EU funding and market access, cheap Russian energy imports, and Chinese investments. He has been pursuing a similar model since 2010, and has consistently attempted to make himself useful to all key players. In the current geopolitical context, this means playing the role of potential peacemaker in the broader geopolitical confrontation that has emerged as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Orban’s current peacemaker posturing could prove particularly timely if Donald Trump wins this year’s US presidential election and returns to the White House in January 2025. This would set the stage for a likely increase in tensions between Washington and Beijing, with the Hungarian PM potentially positioned to serve as an intermediary on key issues such as Ukraine peace initiatives.

Critics have accused the Hungarian leader of handing Putin a significant PR victory. At a time when the Russian dictator is eager to demonstrate that he is not internationally isolated, their Moscow meeting was particularly welcome. This explains why Orban was careful to begin his world tour in Kyiv, allowing him to deflect accusations from the West that he is doing the Kremlin’s bidding. Instead, Orban sought to portray his outreach efforts as an example of the “third way” that the current crop of populist European politicians often seek to champion.

There can be little doubt that Orban’s tour was also an attempt to troll the entire EU leadership. By seizing the initiative and unilaterally embarking on high-profile visits to Moscow and Beijing while holding the EU presidency, Orban was hoping to contrast his own dynamic leadership with the perceived indecisiveness of the European Union’s more cautious diplomacy. In doing so, he succeeded in boosting his international profile while causing significant embarrassment in Brussels.

Despite generating much media interest and favorable headlines, it would be wrong to portray Viktor Orban’s peace mission as an unqualified success. At this stage, his peace proposals appear to have little genuine substance, and have so far gained virtually no traction. Nevertheless, the Hungarian leader will likely continue to view the invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to advance his own balancing act between Russia, China, and the West.

Dmytro Tuzhanskyi is director of the Institute for Central European Strategy. This article is published in his capacity as an analyst of the Institute for Central European Strategy and does not reflect any other institution’s position.

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Speaking in summer 2023, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov outlined the country’s drone strategy of bringing together drone manufacturers and military officials to address problems, approve designs, secure funding, and streamline collaboration. Thanks to this approach, he predicted a one hundred fold increase in output by the end of the year.

The Ukrainian drone production industry began as a volunteer project in the early days of the Russian invasion, and quickly became a nationwide movement. The initial goal was to provide the Ukrainian military with 10,000 FPV (first person view) drones along with ammunition. This was soon replaced by far more ambitious objectives. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, more the one billion US dollars has been collected by Ukrainians via fundraising efforts for the purchase of drones. According to online polls, Ukrainians are more inclined to donate money for drones than any other cause.

Today, Ukrainian drone production has evolved from volunteer effort to national strategic priority. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the country will produce more than one million drones in 2024. This includes various types of drone models, not just small FPV drones for targeting personnel and armored vehicles on the battlefield. By early 2024, Ukraine had reportedly caught up with Russia in the production of kamikaze drones similar in characteristics to the large Iranian Shahed drones used by Russia to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure. This progress owes much to cooperation between state bodies and private manufacturers.

Marine drones are a separate Ukrainian success story. Since February 2022, Ukraine has used domestically developed marine drones to damage or sink around one third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, forcing Putin to withdraw most of his remaining warships from occupied Crimea to the port of Novorossiysk in Russia. New Russian defensive measures are consistently met with upgraded Ukrainian marine drones.

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In May 2024, Ukraine became the first country in the world to create an entire branch of the armed forces dedicated to drone warfare. The commander of this new drone branch, Vadym Sukharevsky, has since identified the diversity of country’s drone production as a major asset. As end users, the Ukrainian military is interested in as wide a selection of manufacturers and products as possible. To date, contracts have been signed with more than 125 manufacturers.

The lessons learned from the successful development of Ukraine’s drone manufacturing ecosystem should now be applied to the country’s cybersecurity strategy. “Ukraine has the talent to develop cutting-edge cyber products, but lacks investment. Government support is crucial, as can be seen in the drone industry. Allocating budgets to buy local cybersecurity products will create a thriving market and attract investors. Importing technologies strengthens capabilities but this approach doesn’t build a robust national industry,” commented Oleh Derevianko, co-founder and chairman of Information Systems Security Partners.

The development of Ukraine’s domestic drone capabilities has been so striking because local manufacturers are able to test and refine their products in authentic combat conditions. This allows them to respond on a daily basis to new defensive measures employed by the Russians. The same principle is necessary in cybersecurity. Ukraine regularly faces fresh challenges from Russian cyber forces and hacker groups; the most effective approach would involve developing solutions on-site. Among other things, this would make it possible to conduct immediate tests in genuine wartime conditions, as is done with drones.

At present, Ukraine’s primary cybersecurity funding comes from the Ukrainian defense budget and international donors. These investments would be more effective if one of the conditions was the procurement of some solutions from local Ukrainian companies. Today, only a handful of Ukrainian IT companies supply the Ukrainian authorities with cybersecurity solutions. Increasing this number to at least dozens of companies would create a local industry capable of producing world-class products. As we have seen with the rapid growth of the Ukrainian drone industry, this strategy would likely strengthen Ukraine’s own cyber defenses while also boosting the cybersecurity of the wider Western world.

Anatoly Motkin is president of StrategEast, a non-profit organization with offices in the United States, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan dedicated to developing knowledge-driven economies in the Eurasian region.

Russia’s retreat from Crimea makes a mockery of the West’s escalation fears

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 20:52:12 +0000

This week marked another milestone in the Battle of the Black Sea as the Russian Navy reportedly withdrew its last remaining patrol ship from occupied Crimea. The news was announced by Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk, who signaled the historic nature of the Russian retreat with the words: “Remember this day.”

The withdrawal of Russian warships from Crimea is the latest indication that against all odds, Ukraine is actually winning the war at sea. When Russia first began the blockade of Ukraine’s ports on the eve of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, few believed the ramshackle Ukrainian Navy could seriously challenge the dominance of the mighty Russian Black Sea Fleet. Once hostilities were underway, however, it soon became apparent that Ukraine had no intention of conceding control of the Black Sea to Putin without a fight.

Beginning with the April 2022 sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship, the Moskva, Ukraine has used a combination of domestically produced drones and missiles together with Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike a series of devastating blows against Putin’s fleet. Cruise missiles delivered by Kyiv’s British and French partners have played an important role in this campaign, but the most potent weapons of all have been Ukraine’s own rapidly evolving fleet of innovative marine drones.

The results speak for themselves. When the full-scale invasion began, the Russian Black Sea Fleet had seventy four warships, most of which were based at ports in Russian-occupied Crimea. In a little over two years, Ukraine managed to sink or damage around one third of these ships. In the second half of 2023, reports were already emerging of Russian warships being hurriedly moved across the Black Sea from Crimea to the relative safety of Novorossiysk in Russia. By March 2024, the Russian Black Sea Fleet had become “functionally inactive,” according to the British Ministry of Defense.

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Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea has had significant practical implications for the wider war. It has disrupted Russian logistics and hindered the resupply of Russian troops in southern Ukraine, while limiting Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian targets from warships armed with cruise missiles. Crucially, it has also enabled Ukraine to break the blockade the country’s Black Sea ports and resume commercial shipping via a new maritime corridor. As a result, Ukrainian agricultural exports are now close to prewar levels, providing Kyiv with a vital economic lifeline.

The Russian reaction to mounting setbacks in the Battle of the Black Sea has also been extremely revealing, and offers valuable lessons for the future conduct of the war. It has often been suggested that a cornered and beaten Vladimir Putin could potentially resort to the most extreme measures, including the use of nuclear weapons. In fact, he has responded to the humiliating defeat of the Black Sea Fleet by quietly ordering his remaining warships to retreat.

This underwhelming response is all the more telling given the symbolic significance of Crimea to the Putin regime. The Russian invasion of Ukraine first began in spring 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, which occupies an almost mystical position in Russian national folklore as the home of the country’s Black Sea Fleet. Throughout the past decade, the occupied Ukrainian peninsula has featured heavily in Kremlin propaganda trumpeting Russia’s return to Great Power status, and has come to symbolize Putin’s personal claim to a place in Russian history.

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Crimea’s elevated status was initially enough to make some of Ukraine’s international partners wary of sanctioning strikes on the occupied peninsula. However, the Ukrainians themselves had no such concerns. Instead, they simply disregarded the Kremlin’s talk of dire consequences and began attacking Russian military targets across Crimea and throughout the Black Sea. More than two years later, these attacks have now become a routine feature of the war and are taken for granted by all sides. Indeed, the Kremlin media plays down attacks on Crimea and largely ignores the frequent sinking of Russian warships, no doubt to save Putin’s blushes.

The Russian Navy’s readiness to retreat from its supposedly sacred home ports in Crimea has made a mockery of Moscow’s so-called red lines and exposed the emptiness of Putin’s nuclear threats. Nevertheless, Kyiv’s international allies remain reluctant to draw the obvious conclusions. Instead, Western support for Ukraine continues to be defined by self-defeating fears of escalation.

For almost two and a half years, Ukraine’s partners have allowed themselves to be intimidated into denying Ukraine certain categories of weapons and restricting attacks inside Russia. This is usually done while piously citing the need to prevent the current conflict from spreading any further. Western policymakers apparently prefer to ignore the overwhelming evidence from the Battle of the Black Sea, which confirms that when confronted by resolute opposition, Putin is far more likely to back down than escalate.

The West’s fear of escalation is Putin’s most effective weapon. It allows him to limit the military aid reaching Kyiv, while also preventing Ukraine from striking back against Russia. This is slowly but surely setting the stage for inevitable Russian victory in a long war of attrition. Western leaders claim to be motivated by a desire to avoid provoking a wider war, but that is exactly what will happen if they continue to pursue misguided policies of escalation management and fail to stop Putin in Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Back in the summer of 2020, there were unmistakable signs of growing political engagement throughout Belarusian society. More and more ordinary people were volunteering to join the campaigns of opposition candidates in the country’s upcoming presidential election, or simply expressing their political opinions. Although I was studying outside the country at the time, I also made a conscious decision to continue writing about the political situation in my homeland.

When Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka was then proclaimed the winner of a deeply flawed presidential ballot in August 2020, I was among the thousands of journalists, activists, and academics to speak up against election fraud and condemn the violent Kremlin-backed crackdown that followed. Like me, some had already left Belarus to advance their careers abroad. Others were forced to flee as the regime sought to silence domestic dissent. This large community of exiled Belarusians has continued its open criticism of the Lukashenka regime.

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Lukashenka was able to suppress the 2020 protest movement in Belarus thanks to Russian support. Ever since, he has remained heavily dependent on Moscow for his political survival. In exchange for this backing, he has allowed the Kremlin to expand its influence over Belarus in a process that some have likened to a creeping annexation. Lukashenka has also agreed to play the role of junior partner in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s hybrid war against the West.

In February 2022, Lukashenka allowed Putin to use Belarus as a base for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. During the first month of the invasion, the country served as a gateway for the Russian march on Kyiv, which the Kremlin hoped would be the decisive offensive of the war. Russia has since used Belarus as a training ground for troops and as a launch pad to bomb targets across Ukraine.

In 2023, Putin announced the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus, further involving the country in the confrontation between Russia and the West. Moscow is also accused of funneling migrants through Belarus to the border with the EU as part of its efforts to weaponize illegal immigration.

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While tensions with the West have escalated, the domestic situation in Belarus has continued to deteriorate. Approximately one thousand four hundred people remain in prison on politically motivated charges, while up to six hundred thousand Belarusians are believed to have fled the country, representing more than five percent of the overall population.

In recent years, the Lukashenka regime has signaled its intention to target critics who have left the country. In January 2023, five administrators of a Telegram channel run by exiled Belarusians were each sentenced in absentia to twelve years. Since then, several more opposition politicians and activists have been convicted in the same fashion on charges of attempting to seize power, threatening national security, and organizing extremist groups.

On January 24, 2024, I woke up to news that I also faced similar charges along with nineteen colleagues. While we were arbitrarily grouped together as analysts of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, many of us had never actually met each other. Our trial started in May. None of us were able to get in touch with assigned lawyers, receive court materials, or join the hearings online. Instead, the case proceeded amid an almost complete information blackout until we learned of our guilty verdicts and prison sentences on July 1.

When I received confirmation of my sentence, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of anger at the injustice and absurdity of the entire process. At the same time, I have also been filled with gratitude for the solidarity expressed by international organizations and colleagues.

Our trial is the latest indication of the increasingly authoritarian political climate in today’s Belarus. In my opinion, this attempt to punish critical voices located outside the country and beyond the reach of the Belarusian authorities reflects the insecurities of a man who knows he has long since lost any remaining legitimacy as ruler of the country. Lukashenka’s growing desperation makes him an even greater threat to Belarusians, and means that he is also significantly more dangerous internationally as an ally of the Kremlin.

Those inside Belarus are well aware of the Orwellian reality they must deal with on a daily basis. They know that any public opposition to the regime will likely have grave consequences. In contrast, Belarusians living abroad still have the opportunity to voice our political opinions and share information about the horrors unfolding in our homeland. It is vital we continue to do so. The fact that Lukashenka is now attempting to intimidate us confirms that our efforts are not in vain.

Alesia Rudnik is a PhD Fellow at Karlstad University in Sweden and director of Belarusian think tank The Center for New Ideas.

Hospital bombing was latest act in Russia’s war on Ukrainian healthcare

Olha Fokaf — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:58:08 +0000

The bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital in Kyiv on July 8 has sparked a wave of global condemnation, with US President Joe Biden calling the attack a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality.” Meanwhile, others have noted that this latest airstrike was not an isolated incident. “Once again, Russia has deliberately targeted residential areas and healthcare infrastructure,” commented France’s representative at the UN.

Ever since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost two and a half years ago, the Kremlin has faced repeated accusations of deliberately targeting Ukrainian medical facilities. On the first anniversary of the invasion, CNN reported that “nearly one in ten” Ukrainian hospitals had been damaged as a result of Russian military actions. Underlining the frequency of such incidents, Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital was one of three separate Ukrainian medical facilities to be struck by Russian missiles on July 8.

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The Russian military has killed a large number of Ukrainian healthcare professionals over the past two and a half years. Monday’s bombings resulted in the deaths of an least six Ukrainian medics. They joined hundreds of colleagues from the healthcare industry who have been killed since the invasion began. Russian military actions have also resulted in billions of dollars worth of damage to Ukrainian healthcare facilities. In many cases, this has made it impossible to continue providing essential medical support, leading to significant further human costs.

The campaign against Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is in no way exceptional and appears to align with Russian military doctrine. Similar patterns of attacks on clinics and hospitals have been identified during Russian military campaigns in Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, and beyond. Unless Russia can be held accountable for the targeting of healthcare infrastructure, it potentially opens the door for other countries to adopt similar military tactics in future conflicts.

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According to international humanitarian law, healthcare institutions and medical personnel are afforded specific and enhanced protection in conflict zones. Despite this status, Russia is accused of systematically targeting medical facilities across Ukraine. These attacks have been documented by the “Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine” project, which is run by a coalition of Ukrainian and international civil society organizations.

In addition to direct military attacks on healthcare infrastructure, research carried out by this civil society initiative has also identified a clear pattern of Russian behavior in occupied areas involving restricted access to essential healthcare services. Throughout regions of Ukraine that are currently under Kremlin control, the occupation authorities reportedly withhold medical care unless Ukrainians accept Russian citizenship and are otherwise cooperative.

It is also crucial to acknowledge the indirect impact of the Russian invasion on Ukrainian healthcare. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 has created a range of long-term challenges including unprecedented demographic changes and a dramatic increase in mental health disorders. The healthcare ramifications of Russian aggression extend beyond Ukraine’s borders, including the burden placed on foreign healthcare systems by millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.

Prosecuting Russia for war crimes related to the targeting of Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is likely to be an extremely challenging and time-consuming process. Potential obstacles include slow judicial systems, difficulties in identifying individuals responsible for deliberate attacks, and problems establishing clear links between the perpetrators and the crime. Collecting evidence that meets international prosecution standards is also a complex task during ongoing combat operations.

In order to break the cycle of impunity, the international community must prioritize the investigation and prosecution of those who deliberately target healthcare infrastructure and medical personnel. This process should involve international and domestic legal systems along with the relevant UN investigative bodies.

Russia is clearly targeting the Ukrainian healthcare system and weaponizing the provision of medical services as part of a campaign aimed at breaking Ukrainian resistance and strengthening Moscow’s grip on occupied regions of the country. Unless there is accountability for these crimes, Russia’s actions will set a dangerous precedent that will lead to similar offenses in other conflict zones.

Olha Fokaf is a healthcare specialist currently serving as a consultant to the World Bank in Kyiv.

Five reasons why Ukraine should be invited to join NATO

Paul Grod — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:33:21 +0000

NATO leaders have this week declared that Ukraine’s path to membership is “irreversible,” but once again stopped short of officially inviting the country to join the alliance. This represents another missed opportunity to end the ambiguity over Kyiv’s NATO aspirations and set the stage for a return to greater international stability.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine was high on the agenda as alliance leaders gathered in Washington DC for NATO’s three-day annual summit. This focus on Ukraine was hardly surprising. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 is the largest European conflict since World War II, and poses substantial security challenges for all NATO members.

Since the invasion began almost two and a half years ago, Russia has strengthened cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea, who all share Moscow’s commitment to undermining the existing rules-based world order. The emergence of this Authoritarian Axis has helped underline the need for a decisive NATO response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Alliance members are acutely aware that China in particular is closely monitoring the NATO reaction to Moscow’s invasion, with any Russian success in Ukraine likely to fuel Beijing’s own expansionist ambitions in Taiwan and elsewhere.

While there is widespread recognition that the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will shape the future of international relations, this week’s summit confirmed that there is still no consensus within NATO over Ukrainian membership. On the contrary, the alliance appears to be deeply divided on the issue.

Objections center around the potential for a further dangerous escalation in the current confrontation with the Kremlin. Opponents argue that by inviting Ukraine to join, NATO could soon find itself at war with Russia. Meanwhile, many supporters of Ukrainian NATO membership believe keeping the country in geopolitical limbo is a mistake that only serves to embolden Moscow and prolong the war.

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There are five compelling reasons to invite Ukraine to join NATO. Firstly, it would end Russian imperial ambitions in Ukraine. By formally inviting Ukraine to join NATO and announcing the commencement of accession talks, the alliance would send a clear message to Moscow that its dreams of subjugating Ukraine and restoring the Russian Empire are futile. This would represent a watershed moment for modern Russia that would likely force the country to rethink its role in the wider world.

Secondly, Ukrainian membership would significantly strengthen NATO. Ukraine boasts one of Europe’s largest, most capable, and innovative armies. For almost two and a half years, Ukrainian troops have defied expectations and successfully resisted the Russian military, which is widely regarded as the world’s second most powerful army. As a member of the NATO alliance, Ukraine would bolster Europe’s security, contributing its unique combat experience and knowledge of the most advanced battlefield technologies.

Third, inviting Ukraine to join NATO would help deter Russia from engaging in aggression or malign actions in other parts of Europe. It would confirm the counter-productive nature of Russia’s revisionist agenda and the likelihood of further negative consequences if the Kremlin continues to pursue policies hostile to the West. The security of Ukraine, eventually guaranteed by Article Five of the Washington Treaty, would ensure stability and peace throughout the Euro-Atlantic space.

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Fourth, Ukraine would be a particularly committed member of the NATO alliance. Polls consistently indicate that around three-quarters of Ukrainians back NATO membership, representing a higher level of public support than in many existing alliance members.

Ukrainian officials and Ukrainian society as a whole have a very good understanding of the responsibilities that would come with joining NATO. Throughout the past decade, Ukraine has demonstrated a high level of financial discipline, complying with NATO’s defense spending guidelines stipulating two percent of GDP. The Ukrainian military has also made major progress toward interoperability and the adoption of NATO standards.

The fifth compelling argument for Ukrainian NATO membership is the signal this would send to the international community. Inviting Ukraine to join the alliance would demonstrate the unity and resolve of the collective West at a time when Russia and other autocracies are looking for signs of weakness.

Few expected this year’s NATO summit to produce any meaningful breakthroughs toward Ukrainian membership. Nevertheless, the lack of progress will be welcomed by Russia, and will inevitably fuel frustration in Ukraine. Once again, NATO leaders have offered strong words but been unable to back this up with decisive actions.

Despite this setback, it is important to continue the debate over Ukraine’s future accession in the months ahead. Crucially, Ukrainians are not asking to join NATO immediately, and do not expect to receive the benefits of the alliance’s collective security in the context of Russia’s current invasion. Instead, they seek an invitation that will create a realistic and practical road map toward future membership.

Most Ukrainians see NATO membership as the only way to guarantee the long-term security of their nation against Russia and create the conditions for a sustainable peace in Eastern Europe. Unless a firm invitation to join the alliance is forthcoming, they fear that any ceasefire agreement with Moscow will only provide a temporary pause before Russia’s next attack.

Paul Grod is President of the Ukrainian World Congress.

Ukraine’s prayer breakfast challenges Kremlin claims of religious persecution

Steven Moore — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 19:50:38 +0000

On June 29, more than eight hundred participants from fifteen countries representing a dozen different religious denominations gathered in the historic heart of Kyiv for Ukraine’s annual National Prayer Breakfast. The day before the breakfast, two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests, Father Ivan Levytsky and Father Bohdan Geleta, had been released from Russian captivity in a prisoner exchange brokered by the Vatican Diplomatic Corps. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the priests back to Ukraine in a speech that drew tears.

I was honored to be seated close to the two freed holy men. Their features were tight and drawn from months of captivity and starvation, but this only served to accentuate the smiles on their faces from being able to once again worship without threat of Russian violence. Their strength and courage permeated the room like incense.

The Ukrainian National Prayer Breakfast, organized by Ukrainian evangelical Christian leader Pavlo Unguryan, first emerged from the regional prayer breakfast movement in Ukraine almost twenty years ago. The late June event was Ukraine’s tenth national prayer breakfast and notably, the first held under the auspices of the Office of the President. This presidential backing reflects the importance attached to religious freedom in Ukraine’s fight for national survival.

A former member of the Ukrainian Parliament from Black Sea port city Odesa, Ukrainian Prayer Breakfast organizer Unguryan has been building bridges between the American and Ukrainian evangelical communities for more than a decade. His relationships with key members of the US Congress reportedly helped provide the spiritual and emotional connection that convinced many Republicans to vote for a major new Ukraine aid package in April 2024. US officials were among the participants at this year’s breakfast in Kyiv, with a series of video addresses from members of Congress including Speaker Mike Johnson along with senators Richard Blumenthal and James Lankford.

The event was held in Kyiv’s Mystetskyi Arsenal, a cavernous former munitions plant located across the street from the one thousand year old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, one of the holiest sites in Orthodox Christianity. The list of attendees reflected the diversity of religious belief in today’s Ukraine. At one table close to mine, a Japanese Buddhist monk broke bread with Crimean Tatar Muslims during a service led by an evangelical Protestant, with prayers offered in Hebrew by Ukraine’s chief rabbi.

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Ukraine’s National Prayer Breakfast represents an important reality check to Russian propaganda, which seeks to accuse the Ukrainian authorities of engaging in religious persecution. In fact, it is the Russian Orthodox Church itself that has declared a “Holy War” against Ukraine and the West. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has offered spiritual justification for the current invasion, and has said that Russians who die while fighting in Ukraine will have all their sins washed away.

Kirill has allies in today’s Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is historically the local Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church and remains the second largest Orthodox denomination in the country in terms of parishioners. Despite some effort to distance itself from the Kremlin following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the UOC remains closely associated with the Russian Orthodox Church and is staffed with clergy who have spent their entire careers reporting to Moscow. Around one hundred members of the UOC clergy are currently in prison or awaiting trial for a range of national security-related offenses including actively aiding the Russian military.

Recent research and polling data indicates that large numbers of former adherents are now leaving the UOC, while as many as eight-five percent of Ukrainians want their government to take action against the Russian-linked Church. However, while the Ukrainian authorities attempt to address this complex national security challenge, Kremlin-friendly public figures in the US such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owen, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have accused Ukraine of persecuting Christians. A team of lobbyists, allegedly funded by a prominent pro-Kremlin Ukrainian oligarch, is currently canvassing Capitol Hill giving this message to members of Congress.

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Claims of religious persecution by the Ukrainian authorities are not only deliberately misleading; they also serve to obscure the very real crimes being committed against Ukraine’s Christian communities by Russian occupation forces. In areas of Ukraine that are currently under Kremlin control, virtually all churches other than the Russian Orthodox Church have been forced out. Even more alarmingly, a significant number of Christian community leaders have been abducted, imprisoned, tortured, or killed.

The details of Russia’s alleged crimes are often shocking. Baptist children’s pastor Azat Azatyan says Russians attached electrical wires to his genitals. In many cases, Russian Orthodox Church clergy are directly implicated. Evangelical pastor Viktor Cherniiavskyi claims to have been tortured with a taser while a Russian Orthodox priest tried to cast demons out of him. His alleged crime? Being an evangelical Christian.

International awareness of Russia’s hard line campaign against religious freedom in occupied regions of Ukraine is now finally growing. This is shaping attitudes among Christians toward the Russian invasion. While waves of Russian propaganda succeeded in sowing doubt among some Republicans during 2023, recent research has found that seventy percent of Republicans who identity as evangelical Christians are more likely to support aid to Ukraine when they learn of Russia’s oppressive policies against Christians in occupied Ukrainian regions.

The Kremlin is openly using religion to further the Russian war effort. The Russian Orthodox Church routinely portrays the invasion of Ukraine in religious terms, while members of the ROC clergy promote the war as a sacred mission. Throughout occupied Ukraine, all other Christian denominations are prevented from operating, with individual community leaders at risk of being detained or worse.

In stark contrast, the recent Ukrainian National Prayer Breakfast in Kyiv highlighted the Ukrainian government’s commitment to values of religious tolerance and diversity. This is the pluralistic Ukraine that millions of Ukrainians are now struggling to defend. They deserve the support of everyone who values freedom of religion.

Steven Moore is the Founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project.

Britain’s new government pledges ‘unwavering commitment’ to Ukraine

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 20:34:03 +0000

Ukrainians responded calmly to news of the Labour Party’s landslide victory in the UK’s July 4 general election, reflecting widespread confidence that British support for Ukraine will continue despite the change in government in Westminster. At a time when the rise of the far right in France and the prospect of a second Trump presidency are fueling concerns in Kyiv over the future of international backing for the Ukrainian war effort, Britain is widely viewed as one of the country’s most dependable partners.

“Ukraine and the United Kingdom have been and will continue to be reliable allies through thick and thin,” commented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a post congratulating Labour Party leader Keir Starmer on his historic win. “We will continue to defend and advance our common values of life, freedom, and a rules-based international order.”

Zelenskyy was one of the first international leaders to speak to Starmer during the new British Prime Minister’s first day in office, underlining what Starmer referred to as the incoming Labour government’s “unwavering commitment” to maintaining the UK’s strong support for Ukraine. The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine was also reportedly high on the agenda during Starmer’s discussions with other world leaders including US President Joe Biden.

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Starmer has long been an outspoken advocate of British backing for Ukraine. As the country prepared to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion in February 2023, he visited Kyiv to offer assurances that the UK would remain a steadfast partner under his leadership. “I’ve said throughout this conflict there will be no difference between the political parties on this,” he commented while in the Ukrainian capital.

The Labour Party has vowed to continue providing Ukraine with current levels of military, financial, and diplomatic support, while also pushing to hold Russia accountable for the invasion, including support for efforts to establish an international tribunal for the crime of aggression. The Labour Party is also committed to helping provide Ukraine with a clear path toward future NATO membership.

Starmer’s stance is a continuation of the leading role played by the British government in support of Ukraine since the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion. With the Russian military concentrated on the Ukrainian border in January 2022 and posed to invade, Britain was among the first countries to provide Ukraine with anti-tank weapons. This set the tone for British military aid to Ukraine, with the UK repeatedly setting the standard for other partners to follow by delivering new categories of weapons such as modern tanks and cruise missiles.

Britain has also provided Ukraine with vocal diplomatic backing in the international arena. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson was a particularly prominent supporter of the country, visiting Kyiv on numerous occasions and speaking powerfully of the threat to international security posed by Russian aggression. This advocacy helped earn Johnson something approaching cult status in Ukraine, with streets named and a pastry dish created in his honor.

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The firm stance adopted by successive UK governments reflects British public opinion, which strongly favors continued support for Ukraine. This is very much in line with British tradition. Indeed, for many Brits, Ukraine’s current struggle against Russia’s invasion echoes their own fight against Nazi Germany almost a century earlier.

Starmer will have an opportunity to emphasize his commitment to Ukraine at the 2024 NATO Summit, which takes place this week in Washington. While there is no realistic prospect of any breakthrough toward Ukrainian membership of the alliance, this high-profile event will allow the new British leader to lay out his vision for continued international support for the Ukrainian war effort.

The bipartisan consistency of British support for Ukraine comes as a welcome relief to Ukrainians. The Ukrainian military is heavily dependent on continued international deliveries of weapons and equipment, but this aid has proven vulnerable to disruption due to political shifts in various Western capitals. Amid uncertainly over the implications of elections in key partners including France and the United States, Britain’s clear position gives Ukrainians much-needed confidence as they continue to fight for national survival.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The Kremlin’s crimes will continue to escalate until Russia is defeated

Serhiy Prytula — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 20:04:56 +0000

Almost two and a half years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Kremlin still retains the ability to shock with the scale of its crimes. On July 8, the targets were Ukrainian children. Not just any children, but kids being treated for cancer, whose daily lives were already full of fear and pain.

The exact number of dead and wounded as a result of Russia’s targeted missile strike on the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in central Kyiv has not yet been confirmed. Nor is it possible to calculate the death and suffering that will result from lack of treatment due to the partial destruction of what is Ukraine’s biggest pediatric clinic.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, large numbers of distressed and in some cases injured children lined the pavement around the ruins of the wrecked hospital, many still attached to drips. Providing them with the specialized medical support they so urgently require will now be extremely difficult.

Doctors were also among the victims. Those killed in Monday’s missile strikes included thirty year old Svitlana Lukyanchuk, a nephrologist from Lviv. Svitlana was an orphan who overcame challenging personal circumstances to qualify as a doctor. She dedicated herself to saving children’s lives, but will never now experience the joy of motherhood herself.

Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital was one of three separate Ukrainian medical facilities to be struck by Russian missiles on July 8. One such attack could potentially be attributed to human error or explained as a tragic mistake. Three targeted attacks on the same day suggests a deliberate Russian strategy to destroy Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure, just as the Kremlin has already targeted and destroyed much of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. Moscow appears intent on making large parts of the country unlivable.

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It is no doubt hard for many outside observers to fully appreciate that such horrors are taking place in the heart of twenty-first century Europe. After all, just three years ago, it would also have been difficult for most Ukrainians to believe such things were possible. Sadly, that is no longer the case.

As a result of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Ukrainians have been confronted by an astonishing array of war crimes that recall the worst excesses of bygone eras. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, abducted, or subjected to forced deportation. Large numbers of vulnerable children have been sent to Russian indoctrination camps and robbed of their Ukrainian heritage. In regions of Ukraine under Kremlin control, all traces of Ukrainian identity have been ruthlessly erased.

The evidence of Russian war crimes is now so overwhelming that the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin himself and many of his most senior officials. Nevertheless, the nightmare continues. A genocide is being live-streamed to the watching world, but Western leaders choose not to call it by its name for fear of being obliged to act.

Today’s Russia did not become a rogue regime overnight. On the contrary, the crimes we are now witnessing reflect unresolved historic issues that have been allowed to fester since the early days of Putin’s reign. Unlike all other European empires, post-Soviet Russia never rejected imperialism and was not forced to confront the crimes of the imperial era. This has allowed for a revival of Russia’s imperial identity and has helped fuel a sense of impunity that directly paved the way for the invasion of Ukraine.

Rather than address the growing threat posed by Putin’s Russia, the Western world has consistently sought to avoid confrontation. When a newly anointed Putin crushed Chechnya, Western leaders chose to look the other way. After he invaded Georgia, they scrambled to reset relations and return to business as usual.

Inevitably, this approach only emboldened the Kremlin. The West’s weak response to the 2014 seizure of Crimea led directly to Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine. When this, too, failed to produce a decisive reaction, the stage was set for today’s full-scale invasion.

Even now, Western policy remains defined by a reluctance to provoke Putin, with Western leaders hopelessly preoccupied by fears of escalation. This has left Ukraine unable to adequately defend itself, while encouraging Russia to escalate further. As a result, we are now closer to a major global war than at any time for a generation.

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It is delusional to think Russia can be stopped by appeasement, concessions, or compromise. Any ceasefire would merely provide the Kremlin with a pause to rearm before resuming the campaign to wipe Ukraine off the map entirely.

Nor are Putin’s imperial ambitions limited to Ukraine alone. He has repeatedly portrayed the invasion of Ukraine as part of a sacred mission to correct the historical injustice of the Soviet collapse and “return” historically Russian lands. If Putin achieves his goals in Ukraine, he will inevitably look to press home his advantage and “reclaim” other countries that were once part of the Russian Empire. The list of potential targets is long and includes Finland, Poland, the Baltic States, and Moldova. The only way to guarantee their security is by defeating Russia in Ukraine.

Western leaders now have a simple choice: They can provide Ukraine with the support necessary to defeat Russia, or they can prepare to face the Russians themselves in the near future. With every day of delay, the cost of stopping Putin grows. At the moment, it is the Ukrainians alone who are paying this terrible price. However, until Russia is beaten, nobody in the West can take their security for granted. Instead, the threat will only increase.

Ten years ago when the Russian invasion of Ukraine first began, a cautious Putin deployed Russian soldiers without identifying insignia in an attempt to mask his aggressive actions. A decade later, he is now bombing children’s hospitals in the center of a European capital city while his priests and propagandists preach holy war against the West. Clearly, he will not stop until he is stopped.

Vladimir Putin represents the greatest threat to European peace since Adolf Hitler. Today’s generation of Western leaders should recall the lessons of that earlier era before it is too late. They must reject the appeasement of the 1930s and embrace the mantra of “never again” that rose from the ashes of World War II. Until that happens, the Kremlin’s crimes will continue to escalate.

Serhiy Prytula is a Ukrainian volunteer fundraiser and founder of the Prytula Charity Foundation.

Putin is using Belarus to escalate his nuclear threats

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 20:09:39 +0000

Belarus engaged in a bout of nuclear saber-rattling on June 30, with Chief of the Belarusian General Staff Pavel Muraveiko declaring that his country would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if provoked. “We’ve learned how to handle these weapons. We know how to apply them confidently. And you can be sure that we will do it if the sovereignty and independence of our country is threatened,” Muraveiko stated.

The Belarusian army commander’s hawkish comments came just weeks after Belarus and Russia conducted joint nuclear drills that were widely interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the West. This followed on from Vladimir Putin’s spring 2023 announcement of plans to store Russian tactical nukes on Belarusian territory. By the end of the year, the weapons had reportedly arrived in Belarus.

Muraveiko’s recent statement illustrates how the Kremlin is using Belarus to escalate its campaign of nuclear blackmail against the West. Clearly, any Russian nuclear weapons deployed across the border in Belarus remain firmly under Moscow’s control. If Belarusian officials are now issuing nuclear threats of their own, they are doing so on behalf of Putin.

This is very much in line with the supporting role played by Belarus throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. When hostilities first began in February 2022, Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka allowed the Russian military to use his country as a base for the invasion of northern Ukraine. Following Russia’s spring 2022 defeat in the Battle of Kyiv, Putin’s army then retreated back into Belarus to regroup.

While Lukashenka has so far been able to resist Kremlin pressure to enter the war directly, he has allowed Russia to conduct air strikes on targets across Ukraine from Belarusian territory. He has also been one of the few international leaders prepared to publicly align himself with Putin, meeting with the Russian dictator on multiple occasions.

Lukashenka’s slavish loyalty to his Russian patron comes as no surprise. The Belarusian ruler has been heavily dependent on the Kremlin since 2020, when Putin intervened to prevent the Lukashenka regime from collapse amid nationwide protests over a rigged presidential election. For the past four years, Russia has been steadily strengthening its grip on Belarus, a process some have likened to the creeping annexation of the country.

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With Russian influence in Belarus now at unprecedented levels, Lukashenka has had little choice but to back the invasion of Ukraine. Naturally, this support includes playing along with Putin’s nuclear intimidation tactics. Perhaps more surprising is Putin’s readiness to involve Russia’s small western neighbor in his incredibly reckless game of nuclear brinkmanship.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began almost two and a half years ago, Putin has become notorious for frequently issuing thinly-veiled nuclear threats. This trend was first evident during his initial address announcing the decision to invade, with Putin warning Western leaders that any attempts to intervene would lead to consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Four days later, he ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on high alert.

Perhaps the most infamous example of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling came six months later. With the Russian army retreating in disarray in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin ruler referenced his country’s nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

With Western support for Ukraine regaining momentum in recent months, Putin has once again made regular references to a possible nuclear war. Western leaders “should keep in mind that theirs are small and densely populated countries,” he commented chillingly in late May.

Other Kremlin leaders have gone even further. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, recently stated that it would be a “fatal mistake” for Western leaders to believe Russia was not ready to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or NATO member states. “This is, alas, not an attempt at intimidation or a nuclear bluff,” he declared.

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While Ukraine has refused to be cowed by Russia’s repeated nuclear threats, many in the West have allowed themselves to be intimidated. Indeed, widespread alarm over the potential use of nuclear weapons is believed to be a key factor fueling the fear of escalation that has consistently hampered the international response to Russia’s invasion.

Putin is well aware of the low risk tolerance in many Western capitals and has used it to his advantage. He has skillfully exploited the West’s escalation phobia to reduce the flow of military aid to Kyiv, and has even managed to convince Ukraine’s partners to impose absurd restrictions on how the embattled country can defend itself.

Russia’s readiness to employ nuclear threats could have grave implications for international security that would be felt far beyond the battlefields of Ukraine. If nuclear blackmail enables Putin to succeed in Ukraine, he will inevitably use the same tactics again elsewhere. Other countries will then draw the logical conclusion and decide that they, too, must also possess nuclear weapons, sparking a scramble for nukes that will undo decades of nonproliferation efforts. The entire world will be plunged into an era of insecurity marked by a dramatically heightened risk of nuclear war.

If Western leaders wish to avoid this bleak future, they must finally stand up to Russia’s nuclear bullying. At this point, Putin evidently regards his nuclear bluster as an effective foreign policy tool. Far from being deterred, he appears determined to raise the stakes further by involving Belarus.

Putin will continue to pursue policies of nuclear intimidation until the costs outweigh the benefits. This can be achieved by increasing Western military support for Ukraine and lifting all remaining restrictions on Kyiv’s ability to strike back against Russia. Unless that happens, there is a very real danger that the international security climate of the coming decades will be defined by nuclear-backed expansionism and further wars of imperial aggression.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Bombing Europe’s breadbasket: Russia targets Ukrainian farmers

Hanna Hopko — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 19:07:28 +0000

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Kremlin has identified Ukraine’s vast and strategically vital agriculture industry as a priority target. This offensive against Ukrainian farmers has included everything from the blockade of the country’s seaports to the systematic destruction of agricultural produce and infrastructure.

On the eve of the invasion in February 2022, the Russian Navy began blocking Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, cutting off long-established trade routes taking Ukrainian grain and other agricultural goods to international markets. This represented a devastating blow to the Ukrainian economy, while also increasing the threat of famine in countries throughout the Global South dependent on Ukrainian food supplies.

For more than two years, this attack on the Ukrainian agricultural sector has continued to accelerate. From Odesa to the Danube Delta, the southern Ukrainian port facilities that are so crucial to the export of agricultural produce have been subjected to relentless bombardment. According to Odesa Military Administration head Oleh Kiper, this has made it impossible to accumulate large quantities of grain in warehouse facilities, and is forcing the country’s agricultural exporters to operate under constant threat of attack.

Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure is also being systematically targeted across the country, with regular Russian attacks on equipment, storage facilities, and transport hubs. According to recent research, the total value of destroyed agricultural assets amounts to more than ten billion US dollars. Meanwhile, approximately two billion dollars worth of Ukrainian agricultural products have been destroyed or stolen and shipped to Kremlin allies such as Syria and Iran.

The scale of the damage done to Ukraine’s farmlands is staggering. More than one-third of the Ukrainian agricultural land dedicated to cereal production has been directly affected by the war, with about four million hectares currently unusable due to mining, munitions, or ongoing hostilities. A further eight million hectares of Ukrainian farmland is currently under Russian occupation. Beyond the front lines, Russia is also accused of deliberately setting fire to Ukrainian grain fields.

The Kremlin’s goal is clear: Russia aims to inflict irreparable damage on Ukraine’s agricultural industry, leading to economic collapse and depopulation. Ukraine has historically been known as Europe’s breadbasket, with the country’s agricultural sector serving as a key engine of the national economy. By blocking agricultural exports, destroying agricultural infrastructure, and preventing farmers from growing crops, Moscow hopes to undermine the economic foundations of Ukrainian statehood and pave the way for the country’s subjugation.

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Russia’s campaign against the Ukrainian agricultural industry also has a broader international dimension. The Kremlin is using food as a weapon to expand its influence throughout the Global South while employing a combination of blackmail and bribery. Moscow seeks to prevent Ukraine from exporting foodstuffs to countries in Africa and Asia, while at the same time looking to “replace Ukrainian grain” with Russian supplies.

In summer 2022, there were hopes of some relieve for the Ukrainian agricultural sector when Russia signed up to a UN-brokered grain deal. This apparent breakthrough sparked initial optimism, but ultimately highlighted the Kremlin’s readiness to exploit global food security concerns. The UN-backed grain agreement allowed for limited exports of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, but it soon became apparent that Moscow saw the deal primarily as an opportunity to secure further concessions. The Kremlin consistently sabotaged implementation of the grain agreement, before unilaterally withdrawing one year later when its escalating demands were not met.

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Ukraine has achieved some notable successes in defense of the country’s farming industry. Beginning in August 2023, Ukraine has managed to partially unblock the country’s Black Sea ports and resume grain deliveries through the creation of a new corridor for merchant shipping. Maritime agricultural export volumes are now close to prewar levels, underlining the remarkable resilience of wartime Ukraine.

The resumption of agricultural exports via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports represents one of the country’s most significant victories since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. This was made possible by the innovative use of Ukrainian drone technologies and the effective deployment of missiles provided by the country’s international partners, allowing Ukraine to significantly reduce the Russian Navy’s effectiveness in the Black Sea.

Despite this progress, much more still needs to be done in order to safeguard shipping lanes and allow for the free passage of agricultural produce across the Black Sea to global markets. As the trade routes that Russia is targeting lie in international waters, this is not an issue for Ukraine alone. Instead, there are implications for the wider international community, especially for other Black Sea region countries. It is important to hold Russia accountable for jeopardizing the security of vital maritime trade routes and for engaging in conduct that could be classified as piracy.

Ukraine has proven that it can fight back effectively against Russia with even limited resources. The Ukrainian military has damaged or destroyed around one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and has forced Putin to withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from occupied Crimea to Russia itself. Ukraine now urgently needs to receive fighter jets, long-range missiles, and air defenses from the country’s international partners. With the right tools, Ukraine will be able to protect its ports and agricultural infrastructure, enforce international law in the Black Sea, and safeguard the breadbasket of Europe from further Russian attack.

Hanna Hopko is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory and head of the ANTS Network. She was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and served as head of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.

US signals long-term support for Ukraine with new security pact

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 17:59:59 +0000

The United States and Ukraine signed a bilateral security agreement on June 13 in a bid to underline Washington’s long-term support as Ukraine fights for national survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion. The agreement is the latest in a series of similar bilateral security pacts concluded by Kyiv since the start of 2024, but has attracted additional attention due to the critical role of US support for the Ukrainian war effort.

Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the United States has been the single biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine. Without US hardware, ammunition, training, and intelligence, Ukraine would not have been able to defend itself in a high intensity conventional war for so long. In other words, the US has emerged over the past two and a half years as an indispensable partner for Ukraine, both in terms of the country’s current military operations and long-term security.

The new US-Ukraine security agreement contains no major surprises. Rather than breaking new ground, it aims to establish a more long-term commitment to existing forms of military cooperation including training and weapons supplies, while also setting the stage for deepening partnership in defense production. “A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself now, and to deter future aggression,” President Biden commented.

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Crucially, the US-Ukraine bilateral security pact is not a formal treaty or military alliance and does not oblige the US to defend Ukraine. Instead, the terms of the agreement commit the United States to engage in high-level consultations with Ukraine within twenty-four hours of any future attacks on the country. This cautious approach is in line with well documented concerns within the Biden administration over the possibility of a direct clash between the US and Russia.

Critics claim the terms of the security agreement are deliberately broad and open to interpretation, reflecting what they see as Washington’s reluctance to provide Ukraine with anything approaching binding security guarantees. The absence of any official ratification procedures also leaves the ten-year agreement vulnerable to potential future changes in US foreign policy if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election in November.

The Biden White House is not the first US administration to face claims of adopting an excessively cautious approach toward Russian aggression in Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine first began in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, three successive US presidents have all been accused of failing to effectively deter the Kremlin.

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While welcomed by both sides, this latest security initiative is unlikely to convince Moscow of any fundamental change in the US stance or persuade Putin to end his invasion. It comes weeks after the end of a prolonged pause in US military aid to Ukraine caused by political deadlock in Congress over the passage of a sixty billion dollar support bill.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought to put an optimistic spin on the signing of the new security agreement, hailing it as “historic” and saying the pact would serve as a bridge toward his country’s future NATO membership. Others have been less generous, noting that the absence of specific military commitments underlines the limitations of Western support for Ukraine.

Ukraine remains heavily dependent on continued Western military aid and is clearly in no position to demand greater commitment from the country’s Western partners. However, many Ukrainians believe the US and other Western nations have a vital self-interest in maintaining their support for the country.

Amid mounting frustration at the failure to offer Kyiv any fully-fledged military alliances, advocates of stronger support for Ukraine argue that the West’s unprecedented material and political investment since the outbreak of hostilities in 2022 means a Ukrainian defeat would represent a massive blow to Western prestige. It would therefore make more sense for the US and other partners to back Ukraine now, rather than face the far higher costs that would follow a Russian victory.

In a best case scenario, this new security agreement could create the conditions to anchor Ukraine firmly within the Western world, and could serve as a gateway to eventual Ukrainian NATO membership. However, without the requisite political will in Washington, the pact could come to be seen as the successor to the infamous 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which saw Ukraine unilaterally surrendering the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances that were exposed as worthless by Russia’s subsequent invasion.

A realistic appraisal of the recently signed US-Ukraine security pact is particularly important as both countries look to strengthen their partnership amid the largest European invasion since World War II. If Kyiv and Washington wish to convince Moscow to abandon its hopes of outlasting the West, they will need to match the sentiments expressed in the security agreement with concrete steps that will set the stage for Ukrainian victory.

More senior Russian officials join Putin on war crimes wanted list

Andrii Mikheiev — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 19:31:45 +0000

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has this week issued arrest warrants for former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian army chief Valeriy Gerasimov for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the invasion of Ukraine. Both men face charges related to the bombing of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure during the first winter of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Shoigu and Gerasimov are the latest in a series of senior Kremlin officials including Russian President Vladimir Putin to be targeted with criminal charges relating to the invasion of Ukraine.

The ICC first opened proceedings into Russia’s invasion in March 2022. One year later, arrest warrants were issued for Putin himself and the Russian President’s human rights ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. Ukrainian officials say thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion, with many adopted into Russian families or sent to camps where they are subjected to ideological indoctrination designed to erase their Ukrainian identity. This may qualify as an act of genocide, according to the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute.

In March 2024, the ICC announced new arrest warrants for Russian Air Force long range aviation chief Sergei Kobylash and Russian Black Sea Fleet commander Viktor Sokolov in connection with the bombing of Ukraine’s power grid. ICC prosecutors aim to charge the Russian commanders with the alleged commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity because they say the bombing campaign was part of a state policy of widespread attacks on the civilian population.

This week’s warrants represent a significant step forward in efforts to hold Russia legally accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine. The latest suspects are top Russian military officials and key figures alongside Putin in the leadership of the invasion. Both Gerasimov and Shoigu would be potential suspects in a future prosecution for the crime of aggression. However, the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this crime, while plans to establish a special tribunal remain at the early stages.

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News of the arrest warrants for Shoigu and Gerasimov was welcomed in Ukraine, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling the ICC decision “a clear indication that justice for Russian crimes against Ukrainians is inevitable.” At the same time, there is little prospect of Russian leaders standing trial in The Hague any time soon.

All member countries of the ICC are expected to hand over suspects to the court, but Russia is not a member. Predictably, Russian officials have denounced the court’s latest warrants as part of a “hybrid war” being waged against the country. Ukraine is also not a member of the ICC but has granted the court jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes committed since the start of Russia’s invasion.

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While it remains unlikely that the ICC will be able to enforce its arrest warrants, the charges do have potential practical implications including restrictions on international travel. Indeed, concerns over possible arrest for war crimes are believed to have been instrumental in convincing Putin not to attend last summer’s annual BRICS summit in South Africa. If Shoigu and Gerasimov had any plans to travel internationally, they may now be forced to rethink.

It is also significant that the latest charges include allegations of crimes against humanity. While there is no such thing as an official hierarchy of international crimes, it is generally accepted that crimes against humanity are more serious offenses than war crimes and incur graver penalties. This may help Ukraine to consolidate support for Kyiv’s peace initiatives, while also strengthening international efforts to bring Russia to justice for crimes committed during the invasion.

Russia’s bombardment of the Ukrainian electricity grid has been a particular focus for ICC investigators. This year’s arrest warrants address the period from October 2022 to March 2023, which saw the first campaign of intensified attacks. However, the bombing has continued, with Russian missile and drone strikes during the first half of 2024 damaging or destroying around half of Ukraine’s remaining power-generating capacity.

This destruction has left Ukraine facing a possible humanitarian catastrophe during the coming winter months. Officials are currently warning that the civilian population may be restricted to six hours of electricity per day at a time when temperatures typically fall well below freezing for extended periods. This underlines the urgency of challenging Russian impunity and demonstrating that senior Russian officials will be held responsible for crimes committed in Ukraine.

Andrii Mikheiev is a lawyer at the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory.

Ukraine’s innovative drone industry helps counter Putin’s war machine

David Kirichenko — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 13:02:03 +0000

Since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022, Ukraine’s domestic drone industry has emerged as an increasingly crucial element in the struggle to resist and outmaneuver the formidable Russian war machine. Ukraine’s innovative use of drones has allowed the country to counter Russia’s far greater resources and strike back at targets everywhere from the Black Sea to oil refineries deep inside Russia itself.

For more than two years, Ukrainian commanders have been adapting to rapidly evolving battlefield conditions shaped by the use of drones. In the initial weeks of the war, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones were instrumental in allowing Ukraine to strike over-stretched Russian lines as Putin’s invading army attempted to take Kyiv. A range of countermeasures, including increasingly sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities, have since created an environment where Russian and Ukrainian forces are constantly competing to gain an innovative edge over their adversaries. Many view this military tech contest as the decisive front of the war.

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As the front line stabilized during the first winter of Russia’s invasion, trench warfare became the defining feature of the conflict, with drones filling the skies and searching for targets. This has created unprecedented visibility on both sides of the front lines and made offensive operations increasingly challenging. A large proportion of the drones buzzing above the Ukrainian battlefield in winter 2022 were Chinese in origin, which placed Russia at a significant advantage due to Moscow’s close ties with Beijing.

Meanwhile, many of the Western drone models used in Ukraine have proved costly and ineffective, according to the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, delays in military aid have underlined the risks for Ukraine of relying too heavily on the country’s Western partners. These factors have helped convince policymakers in Kyiv to concentrate on the development of their own domestic drone industry. They have been able to call upon Ukraine’s vibrant tech sector to support these efforts.

With Ukraine typically losing thousands of drones per month, keeping production costs as low as possible is vital. Flexibility in drone operations is also essential, as drone units frequently use 3D printing to modify and adapt parts to meet specific needs. With this in mind, Ukraine has adopted a decentralized approach to drone development that allows for rapid testing and deployment.

Ukraine’s emphasis on agility contrasts with the more centralized military structure favored by the Kremlin. While Russia can produce vast quantities of military equipment, comparatively slower decision-making processes and bureaucratic inefficiencies often hinder the Kremlin’s ability to respond swiftly to new battlefield realities. Many analysts believe this was a factor behind the recent appointment of a technocrat economist as Russia’s new defense minister.

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The growth of Ukraine’s domestic drone industry over the past two years has been striking, with more than 200 drone-manufacturing companies created. The Ukrainian authorities have allocated $2 billion for the production of drones in 2024, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy setting an annual production target of one million FPV drones.

Ukraine’s leaders hope more drones will mean less reliance on traditional munitions and fewer casualties. “We don’t have as many human resources as Russia. They fight, they die, they send more people, they don’t care, but that’s not how we see war,” commented Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation.

A key element in Ukraine’s drone strategy is the BRAVE1 initiative, a government-led defense tech cluster established in spring 2023 to streamline cooperation between the public and private sectors. This cluster has helped numerous companies cut through red tape, speeding up the implementation of new technologies to support Ukraine’s defense.

The race to innovate is relentless, with Ukraine’s steadily improving drone capabilities mirrored by Russia’s own rapidly expanding electronic warfare arsenal. Ukrainian engineers are now attempting to overcome the Kremlin’s increasingly sophisticated jamming efforts by embedding artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into drones. This innovation has already played a part in Kyiv’s long-range drone strike campaign against Russia’s energy industry, with CNN reporting that Ukraine has employed AI-enabled drones to hit targets as far away as Russia’s Tatarstan region, well over one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Ukraine’s partners certainly seem to recognize the importance of drones and have set up an international drone coalition to aid deliveries. In a further example of institutional innovation, Ukraine has this year become the first nation to establish a separate branch of its military dedicated to drone warfare.

Looking ahead, Ukraine’s drone warfare strategy will continue to focus on flexibility, innovation, and the daily challenge of maintaining a technological advantage over Russia. Ukraine’s leaders know they cannot hope to defeat Russia in a traditional war of attrition, and must instead make the most of the agility and technological ingenuity that the country has demonstrated since February 2022. As Ukraine’s understanding of drone warfare continues to evolve, the outside world will be watching and learning.

David Kirichenko is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Historic day for Ukraine as EU launches official membership talks

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 19:43:21 +0000

Ukraine began official membership talks with the EU on June 25, providing the embattled East European nation with a powerful morale boost as it continues to fight for survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

The talks, which took place within the framework of an intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg, marked the launch of a process that could still take years to complete. While much work lies ahead, Ukrainian officials were keen to emphasize the symbolic importance of this latest milestone in the country’s long journey toward European integration.

“Today is an historic day,” commented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a celebratory social media post. “We will never be derailed from our path to a united Europe, to our common home of all European nations. A home that must be peaceful!”

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna, who headed the country’s delegation in Luxembourg, called the talks “a truly historical moment for my country.” Stefanishyna noted that Tuesday’s breakthrough would give Ukrainians “the moral power to continue withstanding” Russia’s invasion.

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While the official start of accession talks was widely toasted in Kyiv, formal negotiations are unlikely to get underway for several more months. Ukraine must then implement a wide range of reforms in thirty-five separate policy areas in order to bring the country’s laws and regulations into line with EU standards. Ukrainian officials have spoken tentatively of aiming to join the EU by 2030, but even this timeline might be overly optimistic.

Nor does the start of negotiations represent any guarantee of future Ukrainian EU membership. A host of other European countries including Türkiye, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Albania are all also bidding to join the bloc. The experience of the Western Balkans in particular illustrates the challenges of transitioning from EU candidate to member status, with numerous countries still struggling to advance despite in some cases more than a decade of talks.

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Ukraine’s progress on the road to EU membership has been remarkably rapid since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Days after the outbreak of hostilities, President Zelenskyy announced the country’s application to join the European Union in a video address delivered from Kyiv as columns of Russian troops advanced on the city. Four months later, EU leaders granted Ukraine official candidate country status. The decision to begin talks then followed amid much fanfare in December 2023. Rarely has Brussels bureaucracy seemed so dramatic.

For millions of Ukrainians, the quest for EU membership represents the country’s civilizational choice of a European future and the decisive rejection of Russian authoritarianism. This historic shift began in 1991, when more than ninety percent of Ukrainians backed the country’s declaration of independence and voted to leave the Soviet Union.

The next major milestone in Ukraine’s geopolitical divorce from Russia was the 2004 Orange Revolution, which saw Ukrainians from across the country flood into Kyiv to protest a rigged presidential vote and prevent the election of a Kremlin-backed candidate. This was to prove a watershed moment in post-Soviet history; the Orange Revolution established Ukraine’s European integration aspirations and sparked a rift with Russia that would only grow more pronounced over the coming decades.

Nine years after the Orange Revolution, Ukrainians once more took to the streets to oppose a renewed Russian bid to force the country back into the Kremlin orbit. The 2013-14 Euromaidan Revolution further cemented Ukraine’s pivot toward the West, while deepening the divide separating the country from Russia. Days after Ukraine’s ousted pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych fled across the border to Russia, Vladimir Putin began the invasion of Ukraine with the seizure of Crimea, sparking a war that continues to this day.

The past decade of Russian aggression has had a profound impact on Ukraine’s commitment to European integration. Prior to the start of Russia’s invasion in 2014, many Ukrainians still favored close ties with Moscow and other former Soviet republics. However, the war unleashed by Putin has transformed Ukrainian public opinion, with the vast majority in today’s Ukraine now backing EU membership.

Ukrainians understand that joining the European Union will not protect them from further Russian aggression. They are also realistic enough to recognize that huge challenges remain before they can finally achieve the goal of member status. Nevertheless, the start of official EU membership talks sends a strong signal that the country is moving in the right direction toward a future that is worth fighting for.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Kyiv Pride event highlights changing attitudes in wartime Ukraine

Aleksander Cwalina — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 21:38:28 +0000

On June 16, members of Ukraine’s LGBTQI+ community and allies gathered in central Kyiv to celebrate the first Pride March in the Ukrainian capital since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago. The event highlighted changing attitudes in wartime Ukraine as the country stands defiant against Russia and embraces a European future.

Hundreds of kilometers from Kyiv on the front lines of the war with Russia, the Ukrainian LGBTQI+ community is also present within the ranks of the military among Ukrainians of all ethnic backgrounds and religions defending the country. While calculating the exact number of LGBTQI+ soldiers is challenging, a 2023 article in Britain’s Daily Telegraph estimated that between two and seven percent of serving personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are members of the LGBTQI+ community.

Some serve openly, sporting symbols such as a unicorn patch below the blue and yellow national colors of Ukraine on their military uniform. In many cases, they do so to demonstrate that, contrary to assertions from Russian propagandists and other opponents, LGBTQI+ Ukrainians are just as willing to defend their country as other Ukrainians.

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The increasing openness in Ukraine toward issues of sexual orientation and identity stands in stark contrast to the deteriorating situation in regions of the country currently under Kremlin control. Throughout occupied Ukraine, the LGBTQI+ community faces the reality of draconian Russian legislation that often prevents them from defending their rights and sets the stage for serious human rights abuses.

According to Nash Svit, a Ukrainian LGBTQI+ organization, these abuses include public humiliation, torture, extortion, and sexual violence. The National LGBTQ Consortium in Ukraine has documented a similarly oppressive atmosphere of increased fear and violence in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and the Crimean peninsula following Russian occupation in 2014.

In Russia itself, LGBTQI+ individuals have long featured in the ever-growing category of scapegoated groups, where they are joined by representatives of the free media, civil society, and the country’s tiny anti-war opposition as proxy targets in the Kremlin’s campaign against the West. Scores of LGBTQI+ Russians have fled the country in recent years, citing a mounting climate of insecurity and oppression. Those who remain face routine discrimination along with threats to their livelihood and personal safety.

In line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly radical anti-Western rhetoric, last year Russia’s Supreme Court declared the “international LGBTQ movement” a terrorist and extremist organization. The Russian authorities have since used this ruling to convict Russians of displaying the rainbow flag, raid LGBTQI+ clubs, and brand LGBTQI+ activists as foreign agents.

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The oppression of the LGBTQI+ community in Putin’s Russia has sparked debate across the border and helped persuade many in traditionally conservative Ukraine to reject homophobia. A June 2023 poll found that more than 70% of Ukrainians believe members of the LGBTQI+ community should have the same rights as any other Ukrainian citizen, representing a significant increase from prewar levels of social acceptance.

Despite indications of progress, significant challenges remain. While LGBTQI+ individuals can now serve openly in the Ukrainian military, many say they face difficulties not experienced by non-LGBTQI+ soldiers. Efforts are ongoing to secure equal partner rights, including the right of same-sex partners to make medical decisions on behalf of their partner in case of injury, and to receive the same state benefits for military service.

Amid the unprecedented trauma and turbulence of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the issue of LGBTQI+ rights remains on Ukraine’s political agenda and continues to gain traction. In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged growing demand for recognition of same-sex civil unions. A year later, Ukrainian MP Ivana Sovsun formally introduced a bill on civil unions.

Current trends look set to continue. As Ukraine takes additional steps toward membership of the European Union, the accession process will include a growing focus on Ukrainian human rights legislation. This will include measures to bring Ukrainian law into line with EU standards, meaning the likely introduction of greater legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Ukraine’s LGBTQI+ community is in many ways at the forefront of the struggle against Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian brand of Russian imperialism. From the LGBTQI+ soldiers on the front lines of the war to the activists pushing for social change in Kyiv, the community plays a vital role in Ukraine’s ongoing European integration and defense against the Kremlin’s anti-Western crusade.

Aleksander Cwalina is a program assistant for the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Russia’s flagship international forum showcases Putin’s pariah status

Edward Verona — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 13:18:28 +0000

Not so long ago, the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) was widely seen as one of the “be there or be square” events for the world’s business elites, political leaders, and global influencers. Often called Russia’s Davos, SPIEF takes place every June in Russia’s second city, which also happens to be Vladimir Putin’s hometown. Throughout Putin’s reign, it has served as a showcase for the country’s economic, scientific, and technological achievements.

For years, multinational corporations by the score would pay handsomely to be partners of the forum, and would invest heavily in state-of-the-art exhibition stands. Participation was by invitation only, with careful vetting of those who were to have, once inside the entrance gate, virtually unrestricted access to the senior Russian government officials, CEOs, and other notables in attendance. The evening social and entertainment agendas were replete with over-the-top extravaganzas featuring many of the luminaries of Russia’s cultural beau monde.

SPIEF was also seen as a measure of Russia’s standing in the world as an economic and geopolitical power, and a reflection of the esteem in which world leaders held Vladimir Putin. Typically, no less than half a dozen heads of state or government from the world’s most important industrial and emerging market economies would typically join Putin on stage during the keynote address.

Most VIP political guests at SPIEF were democratic leaders, reflecting a desire to embrace Russia as a new member of the democratic club, albeit one that did not yet fully abide by the rules. Some leaders of a more authoritarian hue would also attend, but diplomatic politesse ensured that everybody was well behaved. The long days and mild weather, combined with the undeniable beauty of St. Petersburg, created an upbeat atmosphere and friendly spirits. As one who attended five SPIEFs, I can attest to the enchantment of it all.

While the weather and the venue have remained the same, SPIEF has experienced a gradual and then abrupt decline in status over the past decade. This process first began in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea. It has accelerated dramatically following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and was all too evident in June 2024.

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Prior to 2014, SPIEF attendance had been regarded as more or less obligatory for the CEOs of all the largest international oil and gas companies. This year, however, the picture was strikingly different, with SPIEF attracting virtually no business leaders from G7 or EU member countries. Instead, there was only a relatively small contingent representing state-owned enterprises from other countries, mostly those that trade in sanctioned Russian oil and gas.

As far as can be gleaned from the official SPIEF website (personal attendance is now out of the question), the only partners and exhibitors at this year’s event were Russian companies, mostly state-owned or controlled. SPIEF claims to have attracted 21,200 participants, but this figure likely includes offsite events open to the public.

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The most striking thing about the 2024 SPIEF program was the absence of high-level international political participation. Indeed, it must have been particularly painful for Vladimir Putin to share a stage with the presidents of Bolivia and Zimbabwe. Having lived in Bolivia, I do not mean to disparage that beautiful country; nor do I harbor any ill will toward Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that Putin most certainly does not see those leaders as peers. Nor do they compare to the global heavyweights who traditionally participated in previous SPIEFs.

The only other “heads of government” in attendance in St. Petersburg this June were the leader of Georgia’s Russian-occupied Abkhazia region, and the head of Republika Srpska, a sub-national entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This underwhelming international guest list at Russia’s flagship annual economic forum speaks volumes about Putin’s pariah status.

The reasons for the absence of democratic leaders at SPIEF are obvious and require no further explanation. At the same time, it is interesting to note that numerous putative allies of Russia also gave the event a miss. Perhaps Chinese President Xi’s recent visit to the Shangri-La Conference in Singapore was too close in timing. Significantly, Iran chose not to send any senior officials. The leaders of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba similarly stayed away.

The absence of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad came as no surprise as he rarely travels. But what about Russia’s BRICS partners Brazil, South Africa, and India? Meanwhile, the most glaring absence of all was Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka. No other head of state is as personally indebted to Putin, who saved Lukashenka in 2020 after anti-regime protests erupted across Belarus following a sham presidential election.

Russia’s remaining partners are clearly in no hurry to engage in public demonstrations of support for Moscow. Nor can the Kremlin necessarily count on Putin’s fellow pariahs. If SPIEF is Russia’s showcase, then the glass evidently needs a thorough cleaning.

Edward Verona is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center covering Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Ukrainian reconstruction aid.

Putin just reminded the world why Russia must lose

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 21:26:06 +0000

On the eve of last weekend’s Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, Vladimir Putin unveiled a peace proposal of his own. The presentation of this rival peace plan was an obvious attempt to undermine Ukraine’s Swiss initiative, but it also served as a timely reminder that Putin is waging an old-fashioned war of imperial conquest and will continue to escalate his demands until he is defeated.

Putin’s uncompromising vision for a future peace in Ukraine was widely condemned, with Kyiv officials and world leaders rejecting it as an “ultimatum.” Crucially, the terms outlined by the Kremlin leader would leave around twenty percent of Ukraine under Russian control, including significant portions of the country that Putin’s army has so far been unable to capture.

This new peace proposal is the latest example of the growing territorial demands that have accompanied Russia’s ten-year invasion of Ukraine. Time after time over the past decade, Putin has rejected accusations of an expansionist agenda, only to then escalate his invasion of Ukraine further.

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When Russia first attacked Ukraine in February 2014, Putin insisted Moscow had no territorial ambitions beyond the seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. “We do not want to divide Ukraine,” he assured the watching world. Within weeks, however, Kremlin forces posing as locals had sparked a separatist war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

For the following eight years, Putin steadily strengthened his grip on the so-called “separatist republics” of eastern Ukraine, while consistently denying any direct involvement. The failure of the international community to hold Putin accountable for this shameless duplicity fuelled a sense of impunity in Moscow that set the stage for the largest European invasion since World War II.

In his February 2022 address announcing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin once again denied harboring any ambitions to annex additional Ukrainian lands. “It is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory,” he stated. “We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.” Just six months later, Putin demonstrated the true value of his word by solemnly announcing the annexation of four more Ukrainian provinces.

Significantly, the invading Russian army did not fully control any of the Ukrainian provinces claimed by Putin in September 2022. This created a degree of ambiguity regarding the exact geographical extent of Russia’s goals, with Kremlin officials typically limiting themselves to vague calls for Ukraine to recognize the “new territorial realities” created by the front lines of the invasion.

Putin’s new peace plan has now removed all doubt. Indeed, he took special care to clarify that he expects the Ukrainian military to withdraw completely from the four Ukrainian provinces in question, including unoccupied areas. Among other things, this would mean handing over the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, with a prewar population of more than seven hundred thousand, along with Kherson, which was the only Ukrainian regional capital captured by the Russians before being liberated in November 2022.

Ukraine would also have to voluntarily demilitarize, accept geopolitical neutrality, and submit to “denazification,” Kremlin code for the suppression of Ukrainian national identity and the imposition of a Russian imperial ideology. In other words, Putin is insisting Ukraine admit defeat and surrender.

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The terms offered by Putin confirm that he has no intention of reaching a sustainable peace with Ukraine. On the contrary, the Russian dictator evidently remains as committed as ever to his overriding war aim of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and erasing the Ukrainian nation. As if to underline the point, Putin accompanied his latest demands with a chilling warning that “the existence of Ukraine” depends on Kyiv’s readiness to accept his conditions.

In fact, there is even more at stake than the continued existence of the Ukrainian state. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of global security is currently being determined on the battlefields of Ukraine. If Putin’s invasion succeeds, it will signal the dawning of a new era marked by rising international insecurity, ballooning defense budgets, and increasingly frequent wars of aggression.

A victorious Russia would almost certainly remain at the forefront of this descent into lawlessness for many years to come. Throughout the past decade, Putin has steadily escalated his invasion of Ukraine while shifting his entire country onto a war footing. By this point, it should be painfully clear to all objective observers that he will not stop until he is stopped. Indeed, Putin has openly compared today’s war to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Peter the Great, and frequently speaks in terms of a sacred mission to “return historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are at least fifteen other countries beyond Ukraine that were once part of the Russian Empire and therefore meet Putin’s definition of “historically Russian.” All are now potential targets. While it is impossible to know exactly what Putin will do next if he defeats Ukraine, the idea that he will simply choose to stop is perhaps the most far-fetched scenario of all.

Nor will Putin be the only authoritarian ruler looking to embrace a new age of imperial aggression. China, Iran, and North Korea are all already providing the Russian war effort with varying degrees of support, and make no secret of their eagerness to overturn the existing world order. If Moscow achieves an historic victory in Ukraine, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang will also be emboldened, along with a whole host of fellow autocrats throughout the Global South.

The only way to avoid a geopolitical future shaped by rising insecurity and resurgent imperialism is by ensuring Russia loses in Ukraine. Putin’s recent bogus peace proposal is essentially a call for Kyiv’s capitulation and the absorption of Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. This is entirely in line with the policies of escalation he has pursued throughout the past decade, and reflects an imperial agenda that leaves no room for meaningful compromise.

The Russian dictator still clearly believes he can overwhelm Ukraine with brute force while intimidating the wider Western world into inaction. If he succeeds, the consequences for international security will be devastating. Ukraine’s leaders have already responded to Putin’s latest demands with characteristic defiance. Kyiv’s international partners must now go further and provide the military support to secure Ukrainian victory.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

FPV drones in Ukraine are changing modern warfare

Tomas Milasauskas, Liudvikas Jaškūnas — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 20:27:42 +0000

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is often referred to as the world’s first large-scale drone war. But what exactly does “drone war” mean in practical terms, and how is this war being waged?

Media coverage of the drone war often focuses on particular models such as the Shahed drones used by Russia to attack Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure, or the Bayraktar drones that played an eye-catching role in Ukraine’s fight back during the initial stages of the invasion. However, behind these brands lies a much more complex and rapidly expanding drone ecosystem.

By far the most prevalent type of drone on the Ukrainian battlefield is the First Person View (FPV) drone—a type that our company sells in Ukraine and elsewhere. Despite their relatively low cost compared to other aerial platforms, FPV drones possess a number of capabilities that have resulted in a dramatic shift in our understanding of modern warfare. Given their navigation capabilities, these drones have become the preferred platform for mounting explosives and executing targeted strikes.

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Originally emerging from the realm of civilian hobby drone racing, FPV drones have robust motors and frames that are built to withstand the rigors of high-speed races and multiple crashes.

Relative to their fixed-wing cousins, copter-type drones have greater maneuvering capabilities, which, in the hands of skilled pilots, convert into precision targeting unique to FPV drones. It is not uncommon for pilots to fly their drones through the window of a building or into the open hatch of an armored vehicle, unleashing an explosion on exposed personnel inside. FPV drones are also well-suited for targeting specific equipment like optics, radars, and antennas mounted on the exteriors of armored vehicles.

FPV pilots in Ukraine do not normally operate from front-line trenches. Instead, they typically serve in specialized teams located around two to five kilometers away from the front line. This distance provides them with relative security from small arms and larger systems mounted on armored vehicles as well as from the indirect fire of mortars.

The nature of drone piloting equipment offers an additional layer of protection. Since everything is controlled remotely, only the antenna transmitting between the drone and operator needs to be exposed. The remaining equipment and the team can conduct their operations from the safety of a bunker or basement.

While hubs of drone operators are now recognized as high-value targets, in practice most attention is focused on blocking or destroying the drones themselves. This shift of lethal danger from personnel in forward positions to drones has accelerated the proliferation of FPV drone usage. It appeals to soldiers, who naturally seek to minimize the dangers of combat, and also appeals to Ukrainian and Russian commanders as they wage a war of attrition amid growing manpower shortages.

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The main feature that has made FPV drones such a key weapon in the Russian war on Ukraine is their relatively low cost, with prices for a single unit sometimes lower than five hundred US dollars. This affordability, coupled with performance and tactical versatility, helps to explain the ubiquity of FPV drones on the front lines of the war. For Ukraine, which has not always had access to predictable weapons supplies from its Western partners, the affordability of FPV drones has helped its military stay in the fight, despite being outgunned by Russia.

In technological terms, FPV drones are currently in the early stages of their development. Most components are still sourced from the civilian market, while many models offer only a relatively limited range of frequencies. This is significant, as jamming is considered the Achilles’ heel of FPV drones. Many skeptics argue that it won’t be long until jammers are employed everywhere, rendering radio controls useless. However, jammers have their own hardware limitations that can be difficult to overcome.

Creating signal interference relies on sending a stronger signal than the one it is aiming to jam. In other words, effective jamming capabilities require considerable electrical power and bulky hardware. This is why most infantry units can only operate with small jamming devices that create a limited protection bubble for short periods of time. Stronger jamming systems can be employed on armored vehicles, but the prevalence of tank “cope cages” and the recent appearance of “turtle tanks” hints that physical armor is still the go-to protection against FPV drone attacks.

Despite efforts to counter them with jamming technology, FPV drones have proven resilient and have managed to adapt effectively to electronic warfare measures. Ongoing innovations in areas such as customized frequencies, frequency-hopping, and automated flight patterns promise to further enhance their effectiveness.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought FPV drones to prominence as a component of modern militaries and it appears that they are here to stay. This can be seen in the way the Ukrainian and Russian armies are both incorporating this technology into existing military structures. Indeed, in early 2024, Ukraine launched a new branch of the country’s armed forces dedicated exclusively to drones.

There are few reasons to believe the role of FPV drones will diminish in the coming years. On the contrary, as technologies advance and military tactics evolve, FPV drones are likely to become even more prominent in the wars of the future. This new reality is already being digested by military planners and commanders around the world. As they look to assess how best to incorporate FPV drones into their own defense doctrines, they will be studying the significant shifts currently taking place on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Tomas Milasauskas is CEO of RSI Europe, a Lithuania-based remotely controlled systems manufacturer for the defense sector. Liudvikas Jaškūnas is head of marketing and communications at RSI Europe.

Ukraine’s peace summit offers solidarity but no breakthroughs

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 19:06:16 +0000

Over the weekend of June 15-16, almost one hundred representatives of countries from around the globe and several international organizations gathered in Switzerland for a Summit on Peace in Ukraine. Described by some commentators as “the largest diplomatic effort” in Ukraine’s history, the summit was designed to rally international support for the Ukrainian vision of a peaceful, sustainable, and just settlement to the war sparked by Russia’s invasion.

While the event produced some encouraging signals and shone a light on how Russia’s invasion affects the broader international community, it did not produce any major diplomatic breakthroughs. Instead, the summit represented a small but significant step forward in what looks set to be a far longer peace process.

The absence of many leading nations from the Global South did much to weaken the summit’s potential impact, suggesting that Ukrainian diplomats still have much work to do at the bilateral level. Significantly, key participating countries including Brazil, India, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia chose not to sign the official summit communique supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Since 2022, these countries have all been hesitant to back Ukraine or openly condemn Russia’s invasion.

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The event in Switzerland came during a period of intense diplomatic activity for Ukraine. On the eve of the peace summit, G7 leaders agreed to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan financed by interest on Russian assets that remain frozen in Europe and the US. On the sidelines of the G7 meeting, the US and Ukraine signed a landmark ten-year bilateral security agreement. During the peace summit itself, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also able to hold bilateral meetings with a number of leaders from Global South nations including Argentina, Chile, and Côte d’Ivoire.

Ukraine came to the summit hoping to galvanize international support for President Zelenskyy’s ten-point peace plan. In particular, Kyiv officials sought to emphasize the importance of advancing nuclear safety, protecting food security, releasing prisoners of war, and returning Ukrainian children abducted by Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion. In a broader sense, the event also aimed to keep ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine in the international spotlight.

Ultimately, seventy-eight countries signed the final communique recognizing that respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty must serve as the basis for any future peace agreement. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sought to downplay expectations regarding the event, noting that peace could not be achieved in a single step. The summit was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war, she commented. “He is insisting on capitulation. He is insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory, even territory that today is not occupied by him. He is insisting on disarming Ukraine, leaving it vulnerable to future aggression. No country would ever accept these outrageous terms,” stated von der Leyen in reference to a rival peace plan unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the eve of the Swiss summit.

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Russia did not receive an invitation to participate in the peace summit. Crucially, China also chose not to attend. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan suggested Putin had asked China to turn down Ukraine’s invitation. In the build-up to the event, President Zelenskyy also accused Beijing of working to discourage others from attending Ukraine’s peace initiative. Meanwhile, a number of participating countries from the Global South spoke in Switzerland of the need to involve Russia in any future peace process.

While the Kremlin’s apparent spoiling tactics failed to derail Ukraine’s peace initiative entirely, Russian influence did nevertheless loom large over the Swiss summit and is clearly still a significant factor. China’s decision not to back the event was arguably even more important, with many observers arguing that Beijing’s stance succeeded in preventing the emergence of a more global consensus on the path toward peace in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the participation of numerous countries regarded as being on good terms with the Kremlin underlined the potential of this peace initiative, with the likes of Qatar, Hungary, and Serbia all signing the final communique. While some had hoped for a more meaningful outcome, this modest progress should be enough to convince Kyiv officials and the country’s partners that additional diplomatic efforts in this direction are worthwhile and may yet produce results.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Holding Putin’s propagandists accountable for crimes in Ukraine

Kristina Hook, Anna Vyshniakova — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 13:12:25 +0000

At dawn in May 2020, a French police raid on a sleepy village near Paris ended a 26-year manhunt for one of the Rwanda genocide’s most notorious fugitives. By October 2022, 89-year-old Felician Kabuga was standing trial in The Hague for crimes without a statute of limitations: Genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, and conspiracy to commit genocide, among other human rights violations. Prosecutors singled out his role as founder of a notorious Rwanda radio station, calling this dehumanizing media a key cause of the genocide.

In early June, new developments in The Hague served as a reminder to key Russian propagandists, including one of Russia’s former presidents, that they may one day face similar charges. As allowed by Article 15 of the Rome Statute, a coalition of non-government organizations jointly submitted a formal Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into six Russian nationals involved in state propaganda. Notably, this coalition included international and Ukrainian groups, as well as one Russian NGO.

The Communication urged the ICC to investigate the Russians for criminal hate speech. The accused include Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current Security Council Deputy Chairman; Vladimir Solovyov, a popular host on Russian state-owned television channel Rossiya-1; Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia Today; Dmitry Kiselyov, head of the state-owned media consortium Rossiya Segodnya; and Sergey Mardan, a popular television and radio host. The Communication also named Alexey Gromov, First Deputy to the Presidential Executive Office’s Chief of Staff, stating his role in ordering or failing to prevent over 300 examples of criminal incitement to violence from February 24, 2022 to February 24, 2024.

This initiative is arguably long overdue. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than two years ago, Russian state and state-aligned actors are accused of committing a daily litany of horrific atrocities against Ukrainians. In such a context, it is tempting to overlook the rhetoric behind these actions, but the Russia-Ukraine War illustrates the dangers of ignoring the threats made by powerful Russian media figures. Many in the Russian media have openly telegraphed eliminationist rhetoric against Ukrainians for years, setting the stage for the largest military attack in Europe since World War II. Their continuing threats against the existence of Ukraine, and against other Western countries, pose a direct threat to international security.

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Since 2022, it has become increasingly apparent that Russia’s highly sophisticated propaganda machine requires novel legal and policy responses. New dangerous and diffuse platforms for Russia’s inciting language and other disinformation continue to emerge. In addition to the kind of conventional propaganda most are familiar with, Russian actors now spread public incitement and more subtle disinformation through social media, bot farms, video games, movies, and manipulated content (including deepfakes). International law does not yet cover each of these categories, as older legal frameworks concentrate on historical understandings of propaganda in legacy media formats.

These realities pose serious challenges for anyone seeking to protect victimized groups from atrocity crimes. International law, including the United Nations Genocide Convention, prohibits all means of disseminating direct and public incitement. Still, Russia’s sophisticated networks of propaganda platforms make upholding these provisions difficult. As these challenges increase, Russian techniques of shaping subconscious dehumanization continue to evolve. This fostering of cascading radicalization within Russian society may prove even more impactful than one-time calls for violence, while being more difficult to trace and prosecute.

Some Russian efforts to stay ahead of judicial accountability are clear. Even the Russian authorities felt compelled to respond to Russian journalist Anton Kravosky’s call to drown Ukrainian children in a river (he was suspended from RT for these comments, although an investigative committee later stated he had committed no crime). After these events, some Russian propagandists became noticeably more careful, cloaking their rhetoric through allusions and metaphors. Still, even this “hidden rhetoric” often meets legal requirements for incitement and other criminal propaganda.

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The gravity of alleged Russian atrocities against Ukrainians compels international urgency to disrupt Moscow’s escalation in direct violence and associated inciting propaganda to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. Days after posting a profanity-filled acknowledgement of the NGO-led Communication to the ICC, Dmitry Medvedev followed up with a video showing all of Ukraine as “belonging” to Russia. This complete obliteration of Ukraine from world maps was the first time a top Kremlin official had overtly claimed the entirety of Ukraine as a stated goal, showing a link between words and projected actions.

The international community now faces a critical moment. It also has a unique chance to create a legal framework and enforcement mechanism capable of implementation through international cooperation. Beginning at home, Ukraine’s legal system requires amendments to systematize prosecutions in absentia for genocidal incitement. International partners must support these efforts by surging law enforcement resources to monitor the flood of calls for violence emanating from Russian media and from more shadowy Kremlin-backed propaganda platforms.

For Russian propagandists to face the criminal consequences of their conduct, international arrest warrants are indispensable. Bolstering political will for judicial accountability and opening criminal proceedings should be the two major areas of focus. To ensure accountability, Ukraine and its partners must now plan for realistic enforcement mechanisms that implement trial verdicts and deny safe havens of non-extradition. The words and actions of Kremlin propagandists have combined to fuel unimaginable atrocities in Ukraine. To protect Ukrainians and other victims, and to prevent further armed conflicts fuelled by propaganda, the international community must break the cycle of Russia’s real or imagined impunity.

Kristina Hook is assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Anna Vyshniakova is a war crimes lawyer and a legal consultant, head of legal NGO LingvaLexa, and author of the book “Incitement to Genocide: How to Bring Propagandists to Justice.”

Ukraine’s recovery cannot begin without enhanced air defenses

Edward Verona — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 09:50:48 +0000

“United in defense, united in recovery, stronger together,” was a key slogan at the 2024 Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) held in Berlin on June 11-12. It is an apt summation of Ukraine’s aspirations as it copes with the unprecedented destruction of approximately half of the country’s electric power and district heating capacity by targeted Russian missile attacks.

Without adequate air defenses it is futile to build new fixed capacity; without adequate power and heating, the prospects for Ukraine’s economic recovery are gloomy. While severe already, this problem will become critical in the coming winter months.

From Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who spoke at the opening session, to Ihor Terekhov, mayor of the beleaguered front line city of Kharkiv, the message was driven home: Air defense and electric power are inextricably intertwined, and both are desperately needed.

Ukraine’s partners appear to recognize the urgency of the situation. German Chancellor Olaf Sholz used the conference to announce that Germany will provide Ukraine with additional IRIS-T and Gepard air defense batteries. Italy confirmed plans to deliver another SAMP/T anti-missile battery. Just hours after the conference, Washington announced that it will be sending another Patriot anti-missile system to Ukraine.

This was certainly welcome news for Kyiv. However, the breadth and intensity of Russia’s attacks will require many more such deliverables to provide some assurance of the survivability of any new or rebuilt power plants.

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Another takeaway from the URC was the role of private sector investment in Ukraine’s recovery. Speaking at the conference, an IFC representative said the ratio of private sector investment to official funding for Ukraine’s reconstruction should be seven-to-one. As was acknowledged by many speakers, including US Special Representative for Ukraine Reconstruction Penny Pritzker, this will not be feasible without affordably priced political and war risk insurance, along with export credit guarantees backed by foreign governments.

Here, too, the message seems to have reached Western capitals. The US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced a $300 million expansion of political risk coverage on top of the more than $1 billion of coverage already extended both prior to and since the full-scale invasion. The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced a new $1 billion lending facility, while the EBRD unveiled a planned $700 million credit for Ukrenergo on top of a total loan portfolio of $4.2 billion, and the IFC confirmed a total of $1.4 billion invested in Ukraine since the invasion.

The export credit agencies of Denmark, Germany, Japan, and Poland all reported substantial coverage and very low default rates. Nevertheless, Rostislav Shurma, Energy Advisor to the President of Ukraine, cited continuing impediments to lending and insurance coverage. These include high pricing, short maturities, lending caps, and less than one hundred percent coverage.

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The Berlin conference addressed a wide range of additional topics related to the idea of Ukraine’s reconstruction. Representatives of local and regional governments, civil society, and the private sector were active participants in the many lively sessions. Attendance was more than 1500, with the plenary session standing room only for those who dawdled on the way in (this writer included).

The atmosphere in the breakout sessions was akin to a revival meeting, with frequent applause and eager participation from audience members. The photographs and displays lining the corridors dramatically illustrated the human tragedy of Russia’s brutal invasion, the resilience of the Ukrainian people, and their determined defense of their country.

Still, the question remains whether the measures announced in Berlin will be enough to launch a sustainable recovery. They are a good start, and show a steady increase since the 2022 and 2023 URC events, but significant challenges remain.

Many speakers referred to frozen Russian Central Bank reserves and other Russian assets, with Ukrainians urging Western governments to allow these funds to be used for Ukraine’s reconstruction. The $300 billion plus this represents would go a long way toward rebuilding much of Ukraine’s damaged and destroyed infrastructure. Unfortunately, there was no sign from Western government officials at the Berlin URC that their governments are quite ready to take that step. However, the issue remains very much on the agenda, with progress possible before the 2025 URC, to be hosted by Italy.

Edward Verona is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center covering Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Ukrainian reconstruction aid.

The view from Kyiv: Why Ukrainian NATO membership is in US interests

Alyona Getmanchuk — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 14:40:58 +0000

In his recent interview with TIME magazine, US President Joe Biden indicated that his skepticism about Ukrainian NATO membership is deep-rooted and goes far beyond any practical opposition to granting Kyiv an invitation to join the alliance while the current war with Russia is still ongoing. It would seem that President Biden does not regard Ukrainian NATO membership as a prerequisite for lasting peace in the region.

Unsurprisingly, the view in wartime Kyiv is strikingly different. Record numbers of Ukrainians now support NATO membership, which is widely seen as the best way to preserve the country’s sovereignty and prevent any future invasions. Crucially, many Ukrainians are also convinced that their country’s NATO accession would be in the national interests of the United States as well as Ukraine itself.

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There are a number of reasons to believe Ukrainian NATO accession would also be beneficial for the US. These range from military practicalities to potential strategic advantages and geopolitical gains.

First, the United States has an obvious and immediate interest in ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as this would allow the US to focus on other pressing domestic and foreign policy priorities. But it is equally clear that the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 will never truly end as long as the issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership remains undecided.

Second, the apparent reluctance of the United States to make a clear commitment regarding future Ukrainian NATO membership sends a dangerous signal to Putin. It encourages him to believe his policy of invading and occupying neighboring countries to prevent them from joining NATO is successful and should be continued.

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Third, Ukrainian NATO membership is the best way to protect the considerable US investment in Ukrainian security. The United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in security assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion began more than two years ago. This investment can only be regarded as successful if Ukraine is secure from further Russian attack. At this stage, the only credible way to guarantee Ukrainian security is by providing the country with a road map to NATO membership.

Some critics of military aid to Ukraine have complained about so-called “blank checks” in support of the Ukrainian war effort. While this characterization of aid is misleading, it is worth underlining that NATO accession would likely be a far more economical way of safeguarding Ukraine’s future security than the regular financial support packages the country’s partners currently provide.

Fourth, as a NATO member, Ukraine would be a considerable asset. The Ukrainian military is large, combat-hardened, highly skilled, and boasts unrivaled experience in the realities of modern warfare. In other words, Ukraine’s army is ideally suited to become the core of NATO’s eastern flank. This would significantly enhance European security while reducing the current military burden on the United States, potentially freeing up US forces for deployment elsewhere.

Lastly, Russia’s imperial ambitions did not begin with Vladimir Putin and do not end in Ukraine. Nevertheless, inviting Ukraine to join NATO would represent a powerful blow to the imperial identity cherished by many ordinary Russians and members of the Kremlin elite. Indeed, granting Ukraine membership of the alliance is perhaps the only way to fully convince Russian society that neither the Soviet Union nor the Russian Empire will ever be restored in any form. This would represent a huge gain for the US and for the future of international security.

Alyona Getmanchuk is the founder and director of New Europe Center and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Eurasia’s Center.

Ukraine officially embraces English as historic westward pivot continues

Oleksiy Goncharenko — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 11:27:03 +0000

The Ukrainian Parliament took another small but meaningful step on the road toward European integration in early June with the adoption of a new law officially establishing English as the language of international communication in Ukraine.

In line with this legislation, a wide range of Ukrainian government officials will now be expected to reach a degree of English language fluency, while various state services will be made available in English. The law also envisages expanded English language educational opportunities, and support for the screening of English language movies featuring subtitles rather than dubbing.

Ukraine’s recent decision to grant the English language elevated official status reflects a much broader national transformation that has been underway since the country first regained independence more than three decades ago. This historic process has helped transform the Ukrainian linguistic landscape.

In 1991, Ukrainian was officially recognized as the only state language of the newly independent country. In practice, however, Ukraine remained deeply embedded within a Russian language culture inherited from the Soviet era. This informal empire extended from schools to popular culture, with generations of post-independence Ukrainians growing up in an information space that was still dominated by Moscow.

While old imperial ties remained strong, only the privileged few could afford to travel to most Western countries. Strict visa regimes acted as an additional barrier to engagement with the Western world until Ukrainians finally secured visa-free travel to the EU in 2017. Despite these obstacles, the popularity of English language studies in the decades following 1991 reflected Ukraine’s growing openness to the outside world.

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Research indicates that demand for English language learning has increased significantly since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. This interest in language skills may at first glance appear somewhat unexpected, given the enormous challenges facing Ukrainian society over the past two years. For many Ukrainians it makes perfect sense. In wartime Ukraine, studying English is an attractive route toward greater personal development that can also provide opportunities to boost the country’s defense and support integration into the wider European community.

The war with Russia has dramatically underlined the importance of the English language as a tool for international communication. At the most immediate and practical level, knowledge of English has been a huge asset for Ukrainian soldiers and commanders learning new skills and encountering new weapons systems for the first time. Indeed, it was striking to see English language fluency specifically cited as a key requirement during discussions with Western partners over plans to train Ukrainian pilots.

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The same linguistic logic has applied to non-military engagement with international partners at the governmental and nongovernmental levels. As Ukrainians have sought to develop new relationships and address complex wartime issues with officials and volunteers from dozens of different countries, English language skills have proven absolutely crucial.

This deepening dialog is very much a two-way street. While greater English language proficiency is proving important for Ukrainians in their engagement with the international community, it is also allowing foreign partners to learn more from the Ukrainian side. In the military sphere, for example, no other country is currently able to match Ukraine’s experience in modern warfare. Speaking the same language makes it far easier to share this experience and pass on important lessons to allies.

As Ukraine moves closer to the rest of Europe and continues to make progress toward the goal of EU membership, the role of the English language within Ukrainian society will only increase. The recently adopted law on the status of English reflects this reality, and should help create an environment that supports the country’s broader Euro-Atlantic integration aspirations.

For centuries, Russia has used language as a tool to suppress Ukrainian independence and impose an artificial imperial identity on Ukrainians. By officially embracing English as the language of international communication, Ukrainians now aim to support their country’s historic pivot away from Moscow and return to the European community of nations.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

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Reports of fresh Ukrainian air strikes on Russian military assets in Crimea are now an almost daily occurrence. On June 10, for example, Ukraine claimed to have struck three advanced Russian air defense systems. Additional high value targets have included Russian airfields, radars, command posts, and communications centers. The majority of recent attacks have been possible thanks to the delivery of ATACMS missiles from the US as part of the military aid bill that was finally passed by Congress in April following months of delays.

In addition to steadily depleting Russia’s defensive capacities, Ukraine also appears intent on isolating Crimea by targeting the Kremlin’s logistical connections to the occupied peninsula. According to Britain’s Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian air strikes in late May damaged two rail ferries on the Crimean side of the Kerch Strait, putting them temporarily out of service. This represented a significant blow as Moscow has grown reliant on these ferry services to resupply its army in Crimea following a series of Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Bridge connecting the peninsula to Russia.

Ukraine’s recent ferry service attack has reportedly forced Russia to resume the transportation of military supplies and fuel over the vulnerable Crimean Bridge. Moscow has sought to protect the bridge from possible attack by deploying a series of barges in addition to extensive existing defenses. However, the apparent ease with which Ukraine has been able to hit Russian air defenses and logistical hubs throughout Crimea has led some to suggest that the destruction of the Crimean Bridge may now only be a matter of time.

The Kremlin appears to be well aware of this vulnerability. For the past year, Russian engineers have been constructing a series of railway lines running from Russia itself through occupied regions of mainland Ukraine along the coast of the Sea of Azov to Crimea. This should help Moscow maintain connection with the peninsula and supply Russian forces in southern Ukraine, but the new railway routes will also serve as key targets for Ukrainian missiles and saboteurs.

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It is now evident that Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are placing Russian occupation forces in Crimea in a precarious position. By utilizing Western-provided cruise missiles and domestically produced naval drones, Ukraine has already succeeded in forcing most of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to withdraw from its home port of Sevastopol in Crimea. This has also restricted the ability of Russian warships to operate in the western Black Sea.

The next stage of this effort is now underway, with Ukraine methodically depleting Russian air defenses and exposing the entire peninsula to further attack. Ukraine is expected to receive the first F-16 fighter jets in the coming months, setting the stage for what is likely to be a broader air campaign against Russia’s extensive surviving military infrastructure throughout Crimea. With its air defenses decimated and supply lines under threat, the Russian army in Crimea may soon face the realization that its position is no longer sustainable.

Russia’s declining fortunes in Crimea represent a very personal humiliation for Vladimir Putin. The 2014 seizure of the peninsula marked the start of Russia’s Ukraine invasion and is still widely regarded as the greatest single achievement of Putin’s entire reign. With this in mind, he is likely to resist calls to reduce the Russian military presence in Crimea unless absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, it is already clear that Crimea is no longer the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” it once was. Instead, it is becoming a weak link in Russia’s invasion that Ukraine will continue to exploit.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Victory in Ukraine would dramatically strengthen Putin’s war machine

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 20:58:43 +0000

What will Vladimir Putin do next if he wins in Ukraine? In recent months, more and more Western policymakers have reached the conclusion that a victorious Russia would almost certainly expand the war deeper into Europe as Putin seeks to rewrite the existing world order and continue on his crusade to return “historically Russian lands.” This realization is helping to rally support for Ukraine, with leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron now openly warning that a Russian victory would have disastrous consequences for the rest of Europe.

Not everyone is convinced, of course. Many skeptics point to the Russian army’s surprisingly poor performance during the invasion of Ukraine, and argue that Putin is clearly in no position to embark on further military adventures. According to the doubters, Russia’s obvious difficulties in Ukraine mean Moscow cannot be regarded as a genuine threat to the far greater military might of the NATO alliance. Indeed, some are convinced that any direct Russian attack on the West would amount to a suicide mission.

This argument is dangerously shortsighted. Crucially, it ignores the profound impact military success in Ukraine would have on the Kremlin’s ability to wage war. A Russian victory over Ukraine would transform the geopolitical situation, greatly strengthening Russia militarily, economically, and strategically, while at the same time severely weakening the West. Faced with such uniquely favorable circumstances, it is delusional to believe a triumphant Putin would simply stop and go no further.

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The Russian army has clearly failed to live up to its inflated prewar reputation in Ukraine, but it would nevertheless be reckless to underestimate Moscow’s military potential. Putin’s commanders have learned a series of important lessons since the start of the invasion in February 2022, and have acquired combat experience that no other major power can match. With a battle-hardened and rapidly modernizing army backed by a defense industry operating around the clock, Putin is now arguably in a stronger position relative to his slowly rearming Western adversaries than any Russian ruler since 1945. Victory in Ukraine would further widen this already alarming gap in military capabilities.

The Russian and Ukrainian armies are currently by far the largest and most formidable fighting forces in Europe. If Putin triumphs in Ukraine, he will control them both. While many Ukrainian soldiers would doubtless continue to wage a partisan war or seek to regroup abroad, a victorious Russia would look to rapidly conscript hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians into military service, just as it has already done in areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control. In addition to a massive manpower boost, Russia would also take possession of Ukraine’s extensive military equipment stores, ranging from stockpiles of artillery shells and attack drones to Western-supplied tanks and missile systems.

Control over Ukraine would allow Russia to reintegrate the vast Ukrainian military-industrial complex that played such a central role in arming the Red Army during the Cold War. For much of the Soviet era, Ukraine produced a large proportion of the USSR’s missiles, tanks, aircraft, and warships. This colossal industrial inheritance was neglected during the first three decades of Ukrainian independence and fell into a state of disrepair, but a Russian occupation administration or Kremlin-loyal puppet regime in Kyiv would likely prioritize the revival of military production. This increased output would allow Russia to rapidly recover from the punishing losses of the Ukrainian campaign, while also enabling Moscow to overcome many of the obstacles created by Western sanctions.

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Economically, the conquest of Ukraine would significantly improve Russia’s financial position and strengthen Moscow’s ability to shape world affairs. The Kremlin would acquire Ukraine’s sizable untapped energy reserves along with potentially trillions of dollars in mineral assets. Meanwhile, the famed Ukrainian breadbasket would enable Russia to establish itself virtually overnight as the dominant force on international agricultural markets. Putin has already demonstrated his readiness to weaponize global food security by blockading Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Control over the Ukrainian farming industry would present the Kremlin with powerful new tools to reward allies and punish opponents.

Many in the Global South would not wait to be bribed with grain shipments or coerced by the threat of famine. Instead, they would readily recognize Russian victory in Ukraine as a major geopolitical turning point and would queue up in Moscow to pay their respects. The emphasis on diplomatic neutrality that is currently evident in much of Asia, Africa, and beyond, would be replaced by a scramble to strengthen ties with the Kremlin. Countries throughout the Global South would begin to ship arms and other military supplies to Moscow, while the West’s already limited ability to impose sanctions on Russia would become hopelessly compromised. Commentators everywhere would soon be trumpeting the dawn of a new post-Western era in international affairs.

Where would a strengthened and emboldened Putin be most likely to strike next? The Kremlin dictator has made clear that he sees the current war as an imperial quest to return “historically Russian lands.” Beyond Ukraine, there are more than a dozen other countries including Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, and Moldova that were once part of the Russian Empire and therefore meet Putin’s definition of “historically Russian.” All would be potential targets. During the build-up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late 2021, Putin underlined the scale of his ambition by calling on NATO to retreat to the borders of the former Warsaw Pact. It seems reasonable to assume that success in Ukraine will only make him more ambitious.

There is certainly little to indicate that Putin is in any way intimidated by the West. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Russian ruler has proven so skilled at intimidating his enemies that almost two-and-a-half years into the largest European invasion since World War II, Kyiv’s partners remain preoccupied with avoiding escalation and continue to impose absurd restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. This escalation management is the appeasement of the twenty-first century, and risks inviting the same tragic consequences.

If Russia does expand the war further, the one thing Western leaders cannot do is claim they were not warned. Putin has placed the whole of Russian society on a war footing and is openly preparing his entire country for a protracted struggle against the West. The current invasion is an important part of this struggle, but it is only the beginning. Russian victory in Ukraine would set the stage for even bolder acts of international aggression. It would supercharge Putin’s war machine and radically increase the cost of stopping him. The only way to avoid this disastrous outcome is by making sure the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends in defeat.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The terrible cost of Russia’s war is being felt far beyond the battlefield

Mark Temnycky — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 19:48:34 +0000

Delegates from around 160 countries will gather in Switzerland on June 15-16 as the country hosts a Summit on Peace in Ukraine. The goal of the two-day event is to develop a “common understanding” on a possible path toward a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

This new peace initiative comes at a critical point in the Russia-Ukraine War. More than two years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, there remains no end in sight to what is the largest European conflict since World War II. Instead, Vladimir Putin’s invading army is once again advancing, and has recently attempted to open a new front with a cross-border offensive close to Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv.

In parallel to these front line advances, the Russian military is also conducting in a nationwide bombing campaign that appears designed to terrorize Ukrainian civilians and force millions to flee their homes by making large parts of the country uninhabitable. Since the beginning of 2024, Russia has damaged or destroyed around half of Ukraine’s remaining energy generation capacity, leading to rolling blackouts. Meanwhile, recent air strikes against civilian targets such as shopping centers have left dozens dead. This air offensive illustrates how the escalating costs of the conflict are being felt far beyond the battlefield.

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The most immediate consequences of Russia’s invasion have been carnage and destruction on an unprecedented scale for twenty-first century Europe. Military losses on both sides have not been officially disclosed and remain hotly disputed, but are widely believed to be in the hundreds of thousands. A similar number of soldiers have suffered life-changing injuries.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have likely been killed during the invasion. Large numbers of Ukrainians have been subjected to forced deportation to Russia, including thousands of children. Many more have been abducted and remain missing. A long list of Ukrainian towns, villages, and entire cities have been reduced to rubble.

Even for those who have escaped physical injury or the loss of property, Russia’s invasion has often had a devastating impact. Almost everybody in Ukraine has lost a friend, acquaintance, or family member in the war. Experts are already warning that Ukrainian society must prepare to deal with major mental health challenges for decades to come.

The demographic situation is equally alarming. Around a quarter of Ukraine’s prewar population have been forced to flee their homes, becoming either internally displaced or leaving the country for the neighboring EU. This has led to a dramatic decline in Ukraine’s overall population. The longer the war continues, the less likely it becomes that Ukrainian refugees will return home.

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In areas such as education, the costs of Russia’s invasion are severe and will likely be long-lasting. Prior to the full-scale invasion, Ukraine ranked among the world’s most educated populations. However, ongoing hostilities now threaten this status. A generation of young Ukrainians have had their schooling and university studies disrupted or derailed entirely by the war. Inevitably, many have chosen to continue their studies abroad. The same is true for Ukrainian academics. This wartime brain drain represents a massive blow to Ukraine’s future.

The Ukrainian economy has displayed remarkable resilience over the past two years of full-scale war, but even this cannot disguise the harm done by Russia’s invasion. With almost twenty percent of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation or close enough to the front lines to make normal business activities impossible, many companies have had to relocate or cease operations entirely. Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports has created further logistical problems, while also reducing export revenues and depriving the Ukrainian authorities of taxes.

Finally, with Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies focused on war-related priorities and as employment options become more limited, crime is becoming a mounting challenge. According to recent research, most Ukrainian organized crime groups have severed longstanding ties with their Russian counterparts, but remain active and continue to seek opportunities created by wartime realities.

From mental health and population decline to the economy and education, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has had a profoundly negative impact on Ukrainian society that will be felt for generations to come. This should be at the forefront of people’s minds as they gather in Switzerland to discuss how to end the war and establish a sustainable peace for Ukrainians.

Mark Temnycky is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Allies stand with Ukraine as Russian threat looms over D-Day anniversary

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 20:27:45 +0000

World leaders gathered in Normandy on June 6 to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Allied landings in France during World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited to attend, but the war he unleashed more than two years ago in Ukraine cast a long shadow over commemorations.

In his official address, French President Emmanuel Macron directly referenced the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. “When we look at war coming back to our continent, when we look at people questioning the values for which we fought, when we look at those who want to change borders by force by rewriting history, let us stand with dignity and look at those who landed here. Let us have their courage,” he commented.

US President Joe Biden struck a similar note. In a speech to thousands of dignitaries and around 180 surviving veterans of the 1944 Normandy landings, Biden compared the current challenge of confronting Putin’s Russia with the threat Hitler’s Germany posed to an earlier generation. “We know the dark forces that these heroes fought eighty years ago. They never fade,” he said. “Aggression and greed, the desire to dominate and control, to change borders by force, these are perennial. The struggle between dictatorship and freedom is unending.”

Referring to Putin as a “tyrant bent on domination,” Biden used the anniversary to issue a rallying cry for Western unity in the fight against Russian aggression. This was accompanied by a stark warning of the grave consequences for the future of European security if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine. “We will not walk away,” Biden declared. “Because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there.”

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The presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at anniversary events in France this week served as a timely reminder that eighty years since Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, Europe is once again at war. Zelenskyy received a very warm welcome, including hearty cheers from the French public and praise from Macron. In one particularly touching exchange, the Ukrainian leader was greeted by a US veteran who told him, “You’re a savior of the people!” “No,” replied Zelenskyy, “You saved Europe. You are our heroes.”

This week’s D-Day anniversary comes as the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters a crucial phase. Russian troops currently hold the battlefield initiative and continue to advance, with a recently launched offensive in the north further stretching Ukraine’s already depleted forces. Meanwhile, a large-scale Russian bombing campaign targeting Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure has succeeded in damaging or destroying around half the country’s available power-generating capacity, leaving millions of Ukrainians without access to electricity for extended periods.

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Thursday’s gathering in Normandy marked the start of a particularly intensive period of Ukrainian diplomatic activity. A major Ukraine Recovery Conference will take place in Berlin on June 11-12. Zelenskyy is then expected to attend next week’s G7 summit in Italy, before traveling to neighboring Switzerland for a global peace summit that seeks to consolidate international backing for the Ukrainian leader’s peace plan.

Zelenskyy will be looking to use these meetings to underline the gravity of the current situation in Ukraine and push for more military support. Ukraine recently achieved a significant breakthrough in its quest to bring the war home to Russia, securing the green light from Kyiv’s international partners to use Western-supplied weapons for strikes on Russian territory. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian military is still outnumbered and outgunned, while a lack of sufficient air defenses means the country’s critical infrastructure remains extremely vulnerable to Russian attack.

The Ukrainian President’s star billing at one of the most important World War II commemorations in recent years will have been particularly galling for Vladimir Putin to witness. Throughout his reign, Putin has sought to position the Soviet World War II experience at the heart of modern Russia’s national identity, transforming it into a quasi-religious cult complete with its own sacred symbols, dogmas, feast days, and the ruthless suppression of heresy.

A key element of this cult is the routine denigration of all opponents as “Nazis.” For years, Kremlin propaganda has portrayed independent Ukraine as a “Nazi state,” despite the inconvenient fact that support for Ukrainian far-right political parties is among the lowest in Europe and the country’s president is Jewish. Predictably, when Putin announced the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he named “de-Nazification” as his key war aim.

Putin’s relentless attacks on “Nazi Ukraine” have helped strengthen pro-war sentiment inside Russia, but have largely failed to convince international audiences. Instead, as this week’s D-Day events illustrated, it is Putin himself who is widely seen as the greatest single threat to peace in Europe since the days of Adolf Hitler.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Russia is winning the energy war and plunging Ukraine into darkness

Elena Davlikanova — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 13:52:33 +0000

Electricity blackouts are the new normal in Ukraine as the country struggles to cope with the consequences of a devastating Russian air offensive that has destroyed around half of Ukraine’s wartime power-generating capacity since the start of 2024. Millions of Ukrainians are now adapting to the reality of regular power cuts, with electricity in many cases restricted to just a few hours per day and the buzz of generators becoming a routine feature of life throughout the country.

Russia’s first attempt to destroy the Ukrainian power grid, which began in October 2022 and continued until March 2023, ultimately failed to achieve its objective. However, the current campaign has so far proved much more successful. Russia has clearly learned important lessons from its earlier air offensive, and has also benefited from growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses caused by delays in Western military aid.

In the past five months, Russia has managed to damage or destroy all of Ukraine’s thermal and hydroelectric power plants. The latest large-scale wave of missile and drone strikes on June 1 resulted in damage to power-generating facilities in five different regions across Ukraine, leading to warnings from officials that extended periods without electricity are now inevitable and will likely remain a feature for many months to come.

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The Kremlin’s bombing campaign has a number of goals. Russia seeks to undermine the Ukrainian economy by reducing industrial capacity, including in the rapidly expanding Ukrainian defense sector. By forcing Ukrainians to live without regular access to electricity, Russia also aims to demoralize the civilian population and weaken the country’s resilience. Moscow hopes this will fuel public calls for an end to the war and set the stage for a future peace agreement on Russian terms.

Thanks to sunny summer weather and long hours of daylight, the regular power outages currently being experienced across Ukraine are highly disruptive but not yet disastrous. Once temperatures begin to drop and winter draws closer, the implications of Russia’s bombing campaign are expected to become far more serious. Experts predict it will take years to repair Ukraine’s power grid, but urgent steps are required now in order to prevent a potential humanitarian catastrophe from unfolding during the coming winter season.

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The Ukrainian authorities have established a coordination center to address the mounting energy crisis in the country. Current measures to compensate for power shortages include the installation of gas-fired energy generation plants. Imports from neighboring EU countries represent another key source of additional electricity.

The loss of thermal and hydroelectric power generation means Ukraine is now increasingly reliant on the country’s nuclear power plants. The Ministry of Economy is investing in Energoatom to expand capacities, but constructing new plants is both extremely expensive and time consuming.

Renewable energy currently constitutes a significant portion of Ukraine’s remaining energy output, with much of this segment concentrated in the south of the country. While there is considerable room to expand renewable power generation, green energy options offer unstable power output, creating additional practical challenges for the Ukrainian energy grid.

One of the main focuses of the government’s strategy is the decentralization of the Ukrainian energy system. This is expected to involve smaller power plants that will be less vulnerable to Russian bombardment. To support this transition, efforts are underway to streamline procedures for the connection of small-scale power generation facilities to the national grid. A government program is also offering incentives for housing associations to install solar panels on residential buildings.

The biggest security challenge remains protecting the Ukrainian power grid from further Russian attack. In recent months, Ukrainian officials have consistently communicated that additional air defense systems are the country’s top priority. First and foremost, this means US-produced Patriot air defense systems.

So far, Ukraine’s pleas have largely gone unanswered. Although Ukrainian diplomats claim to have identified one hundred “available” Patriot systems worldwide, there has been no rush to supply Ukraine. Only Germany has committed to deliver one system, with talks continuing over possible delivery of Patriots from a number of other partner countries including Romania. Unless Ukraine’s air defense deficit is resolved, all other efforts to counter the Russian bombing campaign of the country’s energy sector may prove futile.

Dr. Elena Davlikanova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and an associate professor at Sumy State University in Ukraine.

Russia’s use of nuclear blackmail is no longer particularly surprising, of course. Since the very first days of the Ukraine invasion, Putin has engaged in frequent bouts of nuclear saber-rattling as part of a broader Russian effort to establish so-called red lines and undermine Western support for Ukraine. Nevertheless, this latest example of nuclear bluster is worthy of closer attention as it inadvertently provides revealing insights into the political realities behind Putin’s lofty imperial rhetoric of conquest and annexation.

With his chilling references to “small and densely populated countries,” Putin clearly hoped to intimidate his opponents and signal that the use of Western weapons on Russian territory is a major red line for the Kremlin. But according to Russia’s own logic, this particular red line has already been crossed on hundreds of occasions. Since 2022, Ukraine has routinely used Western weapons throughout the occupied Ukrainian regions that Putin says are now part of Russia, without triggering any discernible escalation from Moscow. In Putin’s new Russian Empire, it would seem, some places are more Russian than others.

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Officially, at least, there is no ambiguity in Moscow over the status of the Ukrainian regions claimed by the Kremlin. According to the Russian Constitution, Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson provinces along with the Crimean peninsula are now all part of the Russian Federation. Russia proclaimed the “return” of Crimea in March 2014, just a few weeks after the lightning military takeover of the peninsula that marked the start of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. More recently, Putin announced the “annexation” of four more Ukrainian provinces in a lavish September 2022 Kremlin ceremony.

Technically speaking, the five Ukrainian provinces subject to unilateral Russian “annexation” should all now enjoy the same protections as the rest of Putin’s realm. In practice, however, it has long been apparent that Moscow has no intention of expanding its nuclear umbrella to cover these regions, or of even attempting to impose its red lines regarding the use of Western weapons.

The Battle of Kherson provides a particularly vivid demonstration of the credibility gap between Russian rhetoric and Russian reality. The only regional capital captured during the entire Russian invasion, Kherson was liberated in November 2022, less than two months after Putin had declared it to be “Russian forever.” Rather than reach for his nuclear button, Putin responded to this embarrassing setback by ordering his defeated troops to quietly withdraw across the Dnipro River.

The evolving Battle of Crimea is perhaps even more revealing. For over ten years, Putin has insisted the occupied Ukrainian peninsula is now part of Russia, and has rejected all attempts to discuss its status. During this period, the seizure of Crimea has emerged as arguably the most important single element in modern Russia’s national narrative; it has come to be seen as the greatest achievement of Putin’s entire reign, and is widely regarded as a symbol of the country’s return to the top table of international affairs. This official Russian reverence for Crimea initially persuaded many in the West to view the peninsula as off-limits, but failed to deter Ukraine.

Since the early months of the war, Ukraine has been attacking Russian forces in Crimea with every available weapon, including those provided by the country’s Western allies. Western-supplied missiles have played a central role in the Battle of Crimea, enabling Ukraine to methodically deplete Russian air defenses throughout the peninsula and sink numerous Russian warships. The most eye-catching attack of all came in September 2023, when Ukraine used Western cruise missiles to bomb and partially destroy the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. If Kherson was an embarrassment for Putin, this was a very personal humiliation. Crucially, it did not lead to World War III. Instead, Putin withdrew most of his remaining warships from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

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The obvious inconsistency in the Kremlin’s public position regarding attacks on Russian soil has a number of practical implications for the further conduct of the war. It highlights the flexibility of Russia’s red lines, and strengthens perceptions that Moscow is primarily seeking to exploit the West’s own fear of escalation rather than establish any genuine boundaries.

Clearly, no responsible Western leader can afford to completely disregard the threat of nuclear war. At the same time, it is increasingly apparent that Russia’s relentless nuclear saber-rattling is losing its potency. By engaging in regular nuclear threats that never lead to action, the Kremlin has weakened the entire concept of nuclear deterrence and left Russia looking toothless. Based on the experience of the past two years, it now seems safe to conclude that while carpet-bombing the Kremlin might force Putin into some kind of drastic response, targeted attacks on Russian military bases and firing positions across the border from Ukraine are highly unlikely to fuel any kind of major escalation.

The Kremlin’s obvious reluctance to treat “annexed” regions of Ukraine as fully Russian directly contradicts Moscow’s own efforts to portray the occupation of Ukrainian lands as irreversible. While Putin likes to compare himself to Peter the Great and boast of “returning historically Russian lands,” he is evidently in no hurry to grant his Ukrainian “conquests” the kind of unequivocal security commitments that are the ultimate marker of sovereignty. Indeed, after more than a decade, the hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens who have been shipped to occupied Crimea since 2014 will no doubt be wondering how much longer they must wait before the Kremlin finally considers them worthy of protection.

Far from being set in stone, Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine are largely opportunist and will expand or contract based on the military situation. Putin and his colleagues often call on Ukraine to accept the “new territorial realities” created by the current front lines of the war, but their actions send an unmistakable signal that the future of the “annexed” Ukrainian regions is still very much up for debate. Meanwhile, the multiple retreats from “historically Russian land” conducted by Putin’s invading army since 2022 suggest the chances of a nuclear apocalypse have been wildly exaggerated. This should help Kyiv’s Western partners overcome their self-defeating fear of escalation, and encourage them to finally provide Ukraine with the tools, along with the free hand, to finish the job of defeating Russia.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The consequences of Russian success in Ukraine would be equally far-reaching. If the West continues to demonstrate weakness in Ukraine and supports calls for some kind of ceasefire or negotiated settlement, Russia will claim an historic victory and will become even more internationally aggressive. This aggression will not be limited to Ukraine, and will be targeted against the whole Western world.

Nor will the Kremlin be acting alone. On the contrary, Russian victory over the West in Ukraine would embolden the Alliance of Autocracies that has emerged in recent years, bringing together Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. While further Russian aggression is likely to focus on Europe, Putin’s fellow autocrats will be encouraged to embrace their own expansionist agendas elsewhere.

This is why the international community needs to accept that only Ukrainian victory can open the door to a sustainable peace, both for Ukraine and the wider world. Any attempt to reach a compromise peace agreement with Putin would not only hand Russia victory and allow Moscow to continue occupying entire regions of Ukraine; it would also be a dangerous repetition of the 1938 Munich Conference, which had such tragic consequences for the entire international community. The British and French leaders who agreed to hand Hitler part of Czechoslovakia in Munich also hoped they were securing peace. Instead, they were setting the stage for World War II. Europe cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

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At present, the West appears to be split into two main camps over the issue of how to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One camp recognizes the importance of Ukrainian victory for European security, and sees Russian defeat as its clear goal. These countries are committed to supporting the Ukrainian war effort and refuse to rule out sending troops to defend Ukraine if necessary.

The other camp favors a negotiated settlement and typically frames this readiness to compromise with the Kremlin as a desire for peace. Such posturing is intellectually dishonest. After all, nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians themselves. However, Ukrainians understand that peace cannot be secured by offering territorial concessions to the Putin regime that would abandon millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of permanent Russian occupation. They know that accepting a ceasefire without victory would make it impossible to hold Russia accountable for war crimes.

Crucially, Ukrainians also recognize that unless Putin is defeated, he will inevitably go further. Encouraged by the impunity of a ceasefire agreement, Russia would use any pause in hostilities to rearm and prepare for the next phase of its war against Ukraine and the West. This would create dangers similar to the threat faced by the Allies during World War II, when Churchill and Roosevelt warned against a premature peace and instead declared the goal of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender. Today’s Western leaders must now recognize that offering Putin a ceasefire will not bring about a lasting peace. Instead, it will pave the way for more war.

Future Western support for Ukraine must be built around a clear and unambiguous commitment to Ukrainian victory. This is currently missing. When Western leaders and policymakers gather in the coming weeks, the need to work toward a Ukrainian victory should be at the very top of the agenda. Meanwhile, Ukrainians must continue to explain the difference between a temporary ceasefire and a lasting peace. In 2023, Ukrainian civil society experts did their part by developing their own vision, which was outlined in the Sustainable Peace Manifesto, describing the importance of bringing Russia to justice and providing Ukraine with unambiguous security guarantees.

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After more than ten years of Russian military aggression against Ukraine, it is time for Kyiv’s partners to learn the lessons of this war and avoid falling into further Russian traps. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, it did so under a veil of deniability using so-called “little green men,” or Russian soldiers without insignia. A decade later, Russia is now openly waging the largest European invasion since World War II, and is supported by an alliance of fellow tyrannies who share the Kremlin’s goal of destroying the rules-based international order. Russia is now attacking Ukraine with Iranian drones and North Korean missiles, while receiving military supplies and vital economic support from China. If the West is unable to counter this growing threat, it will forfeit its position at the heart of the international security architecture and be replaced by the rising authoritarian powers.

In 2014, Western leaders were naive enough to expect a diplomatic solution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It should now be painfully obvious that such hopes were unrealistic. Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine engaged in more than 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia, but this failed to prevent the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

Even while talks continued, Russia made its genocidal intentions clear with relentless propaganda denying the existence of the Ukrainian nation and dehumanizing Ukrainians. This genocidal rhetoric has since been implemented in practice by Putin’s invading army, with well-documented massacres in places like Bucha and Izium, mass abductions and forced deportations, and the eradication of all symbols of Ukrainian national identity in areas under Russian occupation. While the international community sees what is happening in Ukraine, most remain reluctant to accuse Russia of genocide as this would oblige them to act. But turning a blind eye cannot change the fact that we are witnessing a genocide in the center of twenty-first century Europe.

Everybody understands what is needed for Ukraine victory. They know how much Western military assistance is required, and exactly which weapons should be delivered. Everybody knows what sanctions, tribunals, and security agreements are necessary in order to establish a sustainable peace. At the same time, the leaders of the democratic world have yet to address why they have so far shied away from policies that could facilitate Ukrainian victory. The answer is very simple: Western leaders are still heavily influenced by the twin fears of a possible Russian escalation and a potential Russian collapse. In other words, they are unable to commit fully to Ukrainian victory because they are afraid of Russian defeat. This is now the greatest single obstacle to a sustainable peace in Europe.

Perhaps the best advice for Ukraine’s Western partners comes from Pope John Paul II, who said “be not afraid” as he led the fight for freedom and democracy in Central Europe during the 1980s. Europe must now overcome its fears once again if it is to safeguard the freedoms that define the continent. Sustainable peace cannot be achieved at the expense of justice. European security will remain elusive if Putin is allowed to gain from his aggression and consolidate his genocidal occupation of Ukrainian lands.

With the Russian invasion now in its third year, Ukraine’s partners must finally acknowledge that European security depends on Ukrainian victory. The sooner they develop and implement a strategy to achieve this victory, the more lives will be saved. Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win.

Hanna Hopko is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory and head of the ANTS Network. Andrius Kubilius is a member of the European Parliament, former Prime Minister of Lithuania, and chair of the United for Ukraine global parliamentary network.

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The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is the latest international organization to voice its support for an end to restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons. Lawmakers from all 32 NATO states adopted a declaration on May 27 urging alliance members to allow strikes on military targets inside Russia. “Ukraine can only defend itself if it can attack Russia’s supply lines and Russian bases of operation. It is time to recognize this reality and let Ukraine do what it must,” stated NATO Parliamentary Assembly President Michal Szczerba.

This declaration echoed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenburg’s May 24 interview with Britain’s The Economist calling on NATO allies to end their prohibition on the use of Western weapons against Russian targets. “The time has come for allies to consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions they have put on the use of weapons they have donated to Ukraine,” commented Stoltenberg. “Especially now when a lot of the fighting is going on in Kharkiv, close to the border, to deny Ukraine the possibility of using these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes it very hard for them to defend themselves.”

A number of senior Western officials have also recently backed an end to restrictions. During an early May visit to Kyiv, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced that Ukraine had the “right” to use British-supplied weapons for attacks inside Russia. Speaking in Germany on May 27, French President Emmanuel Macron noted that Ukraine was being attacked from Russia. “We must allow them to take out the military sites the missiles are fired from,” he commented. The following day, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said the present ban was forcing Ukraine to fight “with one hand tied behind its back” and argued that lifting restrictions “should not be subject to debate.”

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Not everyone is convinced. For now, the Biden administration remains unwilling to revise its position limiting the use of US weapons. Meanwhile, a number of European countries including Germany and Italy have also called for caution. This reluctance to escalate the existing confrontation with Russia was on display in Brussels on Tuesday, when Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced plans to provide Ukraine with thirty F-16 fighter jets, but informed visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the planes were not to be used inside Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to mounting talk of an end to Western restrictions on attacks inside Russia by warning of “serious consequences” and hinting at a possible nuclear response. “If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons,” he commented in Tashkent this week. “Do they want a global conflict?”

Putin’s nuclear threats are nothing new, of course. Since the start of the Ukraine invasion, he has made numerous thinly-veiled references to nuclear escalation as part of efforts to intimidate the West and reduce the flow of weapons to Ukraine. These nuclear blackmail tactics have proved highly effective, encouraging Western leaders to embrace policies of escalation management that have significantly undermined the international response to Russia’s invasion.

The Kremlin dictator is now clearly hoping the same approach can deter the US and other key allies from giving Ukraine the green light to strike Russia using Western weapons. If he succeeds in this latest act of nuclear intimidation, it will bring Russian victory in Ukraine closer and set a dangerous precedent for the future of international security.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

This has caused levels of damage far beyond anything witnessed during previous Russian air offensives. Ukraine’s largest private power producer, DTEK, confirmed in early May that more than ninety percent of its thermal power plants had been destroyed. Meanwhile, the news from state-owned power generator Centrenergo was even grimmer, with all coal-fired units wrecked by Russian bombardment.

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For the time being, the situation is not critical. With the days currently getting longer and Ukraine basking in glorious spring sunshine, power consumption remains relatively low and can mostly be covered by the country’s remaining nuclear and renewable generation. Nevertheless, when electricity demand spikes during evening hours or when the weather turns cloudy, Ukraine is already facing shortfalls that cannot be entirely met with imports from neighboring EU markets.

In order to balance the power grid, Ukraine’s transmission system operator, Ukrenergo, has introduced a schedule of rolling power cuts that leave households and industrial consumers without access to electricity for hours on end. This is impacting the production capacity of the Ukrainian defense industry, which is expanding rapidly in a bid to reduce the country’s reliance on faltering Western supplies of weapons.

Ukraine’s current electricity shortages are relatively straightforward compared to the far more serious challenges posed by the rapidly approaching winter season. While the sun is now shining in Ukraine, within five months the country will enter a half-year period of freezing temperatures and long, dark nights with much of its energy generation capacity wrecked and demand for electricity likely to double. This is a recipe for potential humanitarian catastrophe that requires urgent international attention.

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Ukraine’s heroic energy engineers are currently hard at work mending torn transmission lines, rebuilding power plants, and attempting to fix damaged transformers. In many cases, these repairs need to be carried out from scratch. Power companies are appealing to EU countries to donate old kit from decommissioned stations or share spare stocks ahead of the coming winter season. Efforts are also underway to increase border capacity with EU countries by around one-third in the coming months.

If Ukrainian power producers succeed in restoring a large portion of damaged thermal capacity, the country will be relatively well equipped to cope with the seasonal surge in demand once winter arrives. Some small-scale generation capacity using natural gas may also be added to the system, helping to bring more flexibility during periods of peak consumption.

However, it is crucial to underline that this is a highly optimistic scenario. Without significantly enhanced air defenses, the danger of fresh Russian air strikes will remain. Any energy infrastructure repaired between now and October may well be destroyed once again on the eve of the first big winter chill.

A number of alternative solutions to Ukraine’s energy sector crisis have been pitched so far. These include building decentralized electricity clusters around urban areas that would be less vulnerable to Russian bombardment. Other proposals depend on the possibility of expanding interconnection capacity with EU countries and increasing production specifically for export to Ukraine. While such steps could play a vital role in enabling Ukraine to survive the coming winter season, they would likely require complex political negotiations.

The most immediate challenge facing Ukraine is defending the country’s remaining power grid and preventing Russia from destroying repaired facilities. This should be the top priority for all of Ukraine’s partners. While recovery and investment conferences offer hope for the future, Ukraine desperately needs additional air defenses to keep the lights on right now. If this does not happen, millions of Ukrainians will face the prospect of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation as the winter season draws closer.

Russia is bombing book publishers as Putin wages war on Ukrainian identity

Maria Avdeeva — Mon, 27 May 2024 12:05:35 +0000

On May 23, Russia launched a missile strike against Ukraine’s largest printing house, killing seven employees and leaving the facility in ruins. The attack on Kharkiv’s Factor Druk printing plant is the latest indication that Russia is deliberately targeting the Ukrainian book publishing industry.

Factor Druk owner Serhiy Polituchy said the loss of the plant could reduce Ukraine’s overall printing capacity by as much as forty percent. Around one-third of all new books published in Ukraine last year were printed at the Kharkiv facility. “We are now trying to figure out what we can do in the short term to prevent the book publishing industry from collapsing,” commented Polituchy.

Thursday’s bombing followed a number of similar air strikes on publishing houses and print facilities in Kharkiv, which serves as the unofficial capital of Ukraine’s publishing industry. The Kharkiv printing presses accounted for more than eighty percent of new Ukrainian books on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion just over two years ago. The city remains the primary source of new books in wartime Ukraine.

As Russia has escalated its air war against Kharkiv since the beginning of 2024, the publishing industry has been repeatedly hit. In a single March attack, Russian missiles destroyed another of Kharkiv’s largest print facilities and a publishing house, killing five. Mykhailo Khrypak, who serves as commercial director at one of Ukraine’s biggest printing plants, says Russia is systematically attempting to destroy the country’s book publishing industry, and warns that production capacity will be difficult to restore.

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With Kharkiv desperately short of air defenses and located dangerously close to advancing Russian troops, the city’s remaining publishers are taking steps to ensure the safety of staff. Oleksandr Popovych, director of the Unisoft printing plant, has established a bomb shelter for his more than three hundred employees. Despite the recent escalation in attacks, he says he currently has no plans to relocate, pointing to the extreme difficulty of moving bulky printing equipment and relocating his highly skilled staff along with their families.

Ukraine’s domestic publishing industry has flourished over the past decade following the onset of Russian military aggression against the country in 2014. With the Kremlin openly weaponizing the Russian language to justify the invasion of Ukraine, demand for Ukrainian-language literature has risen to unprecedented levels. A new generation of Ukrainian authors has emerged, becoming part of a broader cultural renaissance that has also had a profound impact on the country’s music, fashion, and art scenes.

This trend has not proved popular in Russia, to say the least. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has made no secret of the fact that he bitterly opposes the consolidation of an independent Ukrainian national identity, which he views as a direct threat to Russia’s own imperial identity.

Putin is notorious for insisting Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”). He published an entire essay in July 2021 denying Ukraine’s right to an independent existence. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, Putin called Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” More recently, he declared that “no Ukraine ever existed in the history of the world.” According to Putin, occupied regions of Ukraine are “historically Russian lands.”

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Many believe Russia’s recent attacks on the Ukrainian book publishing industry are part of a coordinated Kremlin campaign to erase Ukrainian national identity that qualifies as genocide. Responding to the latest bombing, Yale historian Timothy Snyder said the targeted missile strikes were “an example of a larger genocidal policy.”

The evidence of Russia’s intention to extinguish Ukrainian national identity is overwhelming. In virtually every area of Ukraine occupied by Russia since February 2022, strikingly similar reports have emerged of efforts to eradicate all traces of Ukrainian nationality. The Ukrainian language has been outlawed in schools and public spaces, with all symbols of Ukrainian statehood dismantled and removed.

Meanwhile, Russian occupation forces work with local collaborators to detain community leaders and anyone deemed pro-Ukrainian, including elected officials, journalists, civil society activists, military veterans, and cultural figures. Thousands of people detained in this manner are unaccounted for. Those who remain are pressured into accepting Russian citizenship and threatened with the loss of access to essential services such as healthcare.

Throughout occupied Ukraine, the Kremlin is going to great lengths to indoctrinate Ukrainian children and rob them of their Ukrainian heritage. Large numbers of Russian teachers have been brought to occupied regions to manage the indoctrination process in Ukrainian schools, while tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia and sent to reeducation camps. This is a textbook act of genocide, according to the UN’s own 1948 Genocide Convention.

The actions of Putin’s army in Ukraine are very much in line with Russian imperial tradition. For centuries, generation after generation of Russian rulers sought to suppress Ukraine’s statehood aspirations and prevent the emergence of a separate Ukrainian nation. This insistence that Ukrainians be made to accept an imperial Russian identity was perhaps best expressed in a notorious mid-nineteenth century tsarist decree stating that the Ukrainian language “never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.”

Kharkiv’s Slovo Building is a particularly striking symbol of these efforts to eradicate Ukrainian culture. Designed and constructed in the 1920s to host prominent Ukrainian writers, it was home to many of the country’s leading authors and poets who were later killed by the Soviet authorities. Today, they are known as the “Executed Renaissance.”

The efforts of successive Russian tsars and Soviet commissars failed to extinguish the Ukrainian desire for a country and an identity of their own. Putin’s own war on Ukrainian national identity is now proving similarly counter-productive. From poetry to pop music, contemporary Ukrainian culture is experiencing a golden age amid the horror and trauma of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Indeed, as news of Russia’s recent air strikes spread, it was no surprise to see various fundraising initiatives quickly emerge in support of the country’s beleaguered publishing industry. Putin may be able to burn Ukrainian books and bomb Ukraine’s printing presses, but his imperial crusade to erase Ukrainian identity is destined to fail.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

Pride of Ukraine: Oleksandr Usyk’s historic victory boosts wartime morale

Joshua Stein — Thu, 23 May 2024 20:57:55 +0000

Ukrainian heavyweight boxer Oleksandr Usyk’s victory over Britain’s Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia on May 19 was historic in many ways. The fight was the first unification bout in the heavyweight division for more than twenty years, with the heavyweight title belts from all four recognized governing bodies on the line. By defeating Fury, Usyk therefore made boxing history, becoming the first undisputed heavyweight champion this century.

In fact, Usyk’s claim to a place in boxing history does not only hinge on his most recent win. The Ukrainian has now held both the undisputed heavyweight title and the undisputed cruiserweight title. Usyk first began his professional career as a cruiserweight and unified the division before moving up to heavyweight in 2019.

For the millions of Ukrainians cheering him on, Usyk’s success in Saudi Arabia was also historic in a far broader sense. Usyk is an undersized heavyweight in an era of giants who defeats much bigger opponents with a combination of skill and grit. This makes him in many ways the ideal symbol of today’s Ukraine as it defends itself against the far larger Russian army. Tyson Fury isn’t Russian, of course, but not all metaphors are perfect.

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During the buildup to last weekend’s unification bout, Usyk repeatedly drew international attention to Ukraine and highlighted the Russian invasion of his country. At the weigh-in prior to the fight, he unfurled the flag of a Ukrainian Special Forces unit. During his ring walk, Usyk showcased Ukrainian history by donning an elaborate costume reminiscent of seventeenth century Ukrainian Cossack military leaders. In the emotionally charged aftermath of his split decision win, Usyk dedicated his victory to the Ukrainian soldiers currently defending his homeland.

Usyk’s compatriots were quick to acknowledge the significance of his boxing success for Ukraine. Retired Ukrainian heavyweight legend Wladimir Klitschko hailed the win as “an historic victory for us Ukrainians.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered his congratulations while making a thinly-veiled reference to the war with Russia. “Ukrainians hit hard! And in the end, all our opponents will be overcome,” he posted on social media.

In addition to raising awareness of Ukraine’s current plight, the fight also raised money in support of the country. Usyk accepted a seventy-thirty split of the overall purse in Fury’s favor, but the agreement also included a stipulation that the British boxer would donate more than one million US dollars to Ukrainian causes. However, this goodwill gesture was somewhat undermined by Fury’s post-fight claim that the judges had sided with Usyk because Ukraine was a country at war.

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Heavyweight boxing has often been a stage for international intrigue and political symbolism. The most famous example of this was probably the 1938 “Battle of the Century” between American heavyweight world champion Joe Louis and German boxer Max Schmeling. As Louis was Black and Schmeling was something of a poster boy for Nazi myths of Aryan superiority, the fight had strong racial and geopolitical undertones. This made it a truly global event, with over one hundred million people listening in around the world. Louis won the fight by knocking Schmeling out in the first round, leaving the Nazis embarrassed. Despite his role in Nazi propaganda, Schmeling never joined the Nazi Party and would go on to become close personal friends with Louis.

For the past two years, Usyk has used his high public profile to keep Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression in the spotlight. During the initial stages of the full-scale invasion, he joined a local territorial defense unit in the Kyiv area. However, conversations with officials and soldiers helped convince him that he could do more for the country by defending his world heavyweight boxing title. “We have to go ahead, be strong and keep moving. This fight is very important. The people of Ukraine need to feel pride,” he commented.

In addition to regularly speaking about the Ukrainian war effort, the heavyweight champion fighter has established the Usyk Foundation, which auctions off boxing memorabilia to raise money for humanitarian aid. He is also involved in a range of other Ukrainian charitable and fundraising initiatives.

Usyk is the latest in a series of Ukrainian boxers to emerge as unofficial global ambassadors for their country. For much of the 2000s, Wladimir Klitschko and his older brother Vitali dominated the heavyweight division and introduced fight fans around the world to Ukraine at a time when the country was still relatively unknown.

Usyk clearly understands the power of his platform and intents to use it in support of a free Ukraine. His remarkable achievement in unifying the heavyweight division has garnered global headlines and has succeeded in reminding international audiences of the war currently raging in Eastern Europe. It has also provided a much-needed national morale boost to millions of his fellow Ukrainians.

Joshua Stein is a researcher with a PhD from the University of Calgary.

Ukraine faces long-term mental health challenges among veteran community

Claire Szewczyk — Thu, 23 May 2024 20:11:53 +0000

Far away from the front lines of the country’s ongoing war with Russia, growing numbers of Ukrainian veterans are facing up to the psychological aftermath of their military service. These mental health challenges include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Given the sheer numbers involved, there are serious concerns over Ukraine’s ability to address this issue effectively.

Over the past decade, the number of Ukrainian military veterans has expanded dramatically. Prior to the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, approximately half a million Ukrainians had served in the military campaigns underway in the east of the country since 2014. Over the past two years, this figure has mushroomed. Ukraine’s Ministry of Veteran Affairs has estimated that up to five million Ukrainians may be eligible for veteran status by the end of the war.

In 2024, Ukraine allocated approximately $350 million to support veterans and their families through the Ukrainian Veterans Fund. Nevertheless, there has been considerable criticism over the use of this funding. In a survey of Ukrainian army veterans conducted earlier this year, many said they believed veterans were not having their post-service needs met and required better access to support.

Current Ukrainian legislation offers benefits to veterans such as housing provisions. A range of support is also available for those with disabilities incurred during wartime service and for family members of service personnel. However, critics say there is significant confusion over the availability of support, and complain of inconsistencies along with a frequent lack of funding. In practice, many veterans say they are unable to access the care they need.

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The current healthcare struggles of Ukrainian veterans resonate with the US veteran community, which continues to face similar struggles with post-service mental health issues. Like their Ukrainian counterparts, large numbers of American veterans deal with PTSD, depression, and anxiety.

According to a recent survey, nearly one in four American veterans are diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder following military service. This statistic illustrates the widespread nature of mental health concerns among veterans everywhere, and gives an idea of the sheer scale of the challenge facing the Ukrainian authorities.

Ukraine may be able to learn from US experience in the provision of support for military personnel. US veterans can call upon a more structured support system under the Department of Veteran Affairs. However, this approach is not always effective, with veterans often encountering long wait times, bureaucratic hurdles, and a shortage of healthcare providers adequately trained in military cultural competence. This last point is crucial; research has highlighted that more than three-quarters of veterans find it extremely important to receive care from providers who they feel understand them and can treat them appropriately.

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The challenges Ukraine faces in providing the necessary support for the country’s veteran community echo the issues encountered in the United States and elsewhere. Ukraine currently struggles with underfunded and understaffed mental health services. These shortages mean that even when veterans take the appropriate steps to seek help, the necessary resources may not be available or might come too late.

Another issue is lack of financial support. While healthcare is a major concern for Ukrainian veterans, access to financial resources is also critical for general well-being. When surveyed earlier this year, more than half of veterans indicated that they struggled to remain financially secure.

A further significant barrier to effective mental health treatment in Ukraine is the lack of providers with a good understanding of military culture. Ukrainian veterans often comment that their experiences are misunderstood by the medical professionals who are treating them, leading to misdiagnosis and ineffective treatments.

The stigma associated with mental health issues in Ukraine is an additional issue, particularly due to the emphasis on “toughness” and “strength” within military communities. This can lead to veterans failing to acknowledge their struggles and refusing to seek the help they need and deserve.

Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach that includes increased funding for mental health services, enhanced training in military culture for healthcare providers, and an active approach to challenging the narrative around mental health, especially in relation to Ukraine’s military and veteran communities. The task of addressing the stigma attached to mental health is something the wider community can participate in, as Ukrainians seek to create a more compassionate environment for the country’s defenders.

Claire Szewczyk is a digital content coordinator for Hill & Ponton. She formerly worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

President Zelenskyy’s term is over but he’s still a legitimate wartime leader

Elena Davlikanova — Thu, 23 May 2024 08:43:10 +0000

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s five-year term in office ended on May 20, but he will remain in his post until security conditions allow for elections to be held. Predictably, the Kremlin is already exploiting this technicality to question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy, but Russia’s claims ignore the many obvious obstacles to holding a credible democratic vote in wartime Ukraine.

In the years following the start of Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014, the Ukrainian authorities were able to conduct multiple presidential and parliamentary elections that were consistently rated as free and fair by international democracy watchdogs. Following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, this is no longer possible.

The key issue is security. In order for any election to take place in Ukraine, the authorities must be able to ensure the safety of millions of voters and thousands of election officials at polling stations and election commissions across the country. That is clearly out of the question at present, particularly in light of Russia’s record for repeatedly targeting civilians. This also rules out the presence of international election observers.

It is even more difficult to imagine how the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men and women currently serving in the armed forces could participate in a wartime ballot, both as voters and as candidates. Russia would certainly view any gatherings of voting soldiers as priority targets. “It would be unfair if those defending our land were denied the opportunity to vote,” commented President Zelenskyy in March.

Security concerns are also one of the key factors that make it impossible to stage anything resembling a normal election campaign. With election rallies and public meetings of any kind at high risk of being bombed by Russia, the campaign would largely have to take place online. This would fall well short of Ukraine’s established democratic standards, while also creating an inviting environment for Russian interference.

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It is hard to see how Ukraine could hope to overcome the huge administrative challenges created by the displacement of millions of Ukrainian citizens following the Russian invasion. There are currently believed to be approximately six million internally displaced people in Ukraine. Enabling them to vote would require a huge effort to update voter registers. This would likely raise all manner of additional questions regarding issues such as official and temporary addresses.

Meanwhile, at least five million Ukrainians are currently residing outside Ukraine as refugees, half of whom are eligible to vote. Existing voter registration procedures for Ukrainians living abroad are not designed to accommodate such large numbers, while Ukraine’s embassies and consulates would be unable to cope with so many voters. Without the participation of Ukrainian refugees, any wartime election would fail to meet basic democratic standards.

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Recent research indicates that Ukrainian society recognizes the impracticality of wartime elections and is broadly supportive of the government’s decision to postpone any national votes until the security situation improves. A February 2024 poll conducted by the Rating Sociological Group on behalf of the International Republican Institute found that 67 percent of Ukrainians opposed holding presidential elections amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

There is also a consensus among Ukraine’s rival political parties that elections should wait until after the war. In November 2023, all parliamentary factions endorsed a memorandum backing the postponement of presidential and parliamentary votes until the end of hostilities. Ukraine’s vibrant civil society agrees, with more than 100 organizations releasing a joint statement in September 2023 rejecting the idea of wartime elections.

While there is virtually no indication of any appetite for wartime elections inside Ukraine itself, Russia and its allies are expected to continue pushing the notion of Zelenskyy’s alleged illegitimacy in the coming months. Indeed, some of the most prominent Kremlin-friendly figures in Congress have already begun promoting this narrative as part of ongoing efforts to argue against further US support for Ukraine.

Ukraine is not the first country to delay elections due to wartime conditions, of course. For example, During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill repeatedly postponed the country’s scheduled general election, but nobody accused him of undermining the democratic legitimacy of the British parliament.

Ukrainians have impeccable democratic instincts, having staged two separate pro-democracy revolutions in the past twenty years. Indeed, the current war is in part a struggle to defend the country’s democratic identity against Putin’s authoritarian imperialism. At the same time, Ukrainians are sufficiently sensible to understand that the idea of holding elections amid the largest European invasion since World War II is absurd.

Dr. Elena Davlikanova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and an associate professor at Sumy State University in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Western allies should fear Russian victory not Russian defeat

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 21 May 2024 21:33:07 +0000

Since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, Western military support for Ukraine has been plagued by endless delays, restrictions, and half-measures. This underwhelming response has typically been blamed on concerns over possible Russian retaliation and the desire to avoid a wider war. In reality, however, some Western leaders may also be motivated by perceptions of Russian weakness rather than fear of Russian strength.

This was the argument set out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week as he bemoaned the inadequate Western reaction to Russia’s invasion. Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said he believes Ukraine’s partners “are afraid of Russia losing the war” because this would lead to “unpredictable geopolitical consequences.”

Zelenskyy’s comments are not entirely new, of course. There have long been suggestions that the West’s hesitant approach to aiding Ukraine reflects worries that a Russian defeat could lead to the fall of the Putin regime. Some have even speculated that the Russian Federation itself would be unlikely to survive, and would instead break up into a number of new states, in a continuation of the process that began in 1991.

It is easy enough to imagine why Western policymakers might be alarmed by the prospect of a new Russian collapse. Indeed, the Western response to the disintegration of the USSR was equally cautious, with US President George H. W. Bush traveling to Ukraine on the eve of the country’s declaration of independence in August 1991 to deliver his infamous “Chicken Kiev speech” warning against “suicidal nationalism.”

President Bush was far from alone in prioritizing geopolitical stability over the statehood aspirations of Ukraine and the USSR’s other captive nations. One year earlier, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had visited Ukraine and offered a similarly skeptical view of the country’s independence struggle. Bush and Thatcher were primarily concerned with the fate of the Soviet Union’s colossal war machine and vast nuclear arsenal. Allowing this to be redistributed among a collection of newly independent states seemed the height of recklessness. So rather than hasten the fall of the Soviet Empire, they sought to prevent or at least manage the process.

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These same concerns are now hampering support for Ukraine as it fights against Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reverse the verdict of 1991. But is today’s Russia really at risk of collapse?

The Wagner mutiny of June 2023 would certainly suggest that Putin’s grip on the country is far more fragile than the Kremlin would like us to believe. While the mutiny was a short-lived affair, it was nevertheless revealing that rebellious troops were able to seize control of one of Russia’s largest cities without encountering opposition. Equally noteworthy was the absence of establishment figures rushing to rally around the throne. At the same time, the demands of the Wagner rebels did not amount to regime change, never mind anything that might constitute a threat to Russia’s territorial integrity. On the contrary, they sought a stronger Russia with more effective wartime leadership.

This is not to say that the break-up of the Russian Federation is impossible, of course. The invasion of Ukraine has underlined Russia’s status as the last of the great European empires, and has sparked a long overdue debate over the need for decolonization. However, talk of an impending collapse may be wishful thinking. While Russia has a history of unraveling in sudden and dramatic fashion, there is currently little evidence of serious independence movements in any of the country’s ethnic minority republics.

Rather than sparking the next stage in Russia’s long retreat from empire, defeat in Ukraine would be far more likely to bring about the fall of the Putin regime and usher in a period of national reflection and reform. This has been the case following numerous other notable Russian military defeats. After losing the Crimean War in the middle of the nineteenth century, Russia abandoned serfdom. Defeat to Japan in 1905 led to a brief flirtation with parliamentary democracy.

Meanwhile, the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s fueled public demands for reform that helped end the Cold War. If the current invasion also ends in defeat, there is every reason to believe Russia will survive intact. After all, while a retreat from Ukraine would be deeply wounding for Russian national pride, it would hardly pose an existential threat to Russia itself.

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Rather than scaring themselves into self-deterrence with nightmare scenarios of future Russian collapse, Western leaders should be laser-focused on the far more immediate dangers posed by Russian victory. After a series of initial setbacks, the Russian army has now regained the initiative in Ukraine and is advancing. Putin is more confident than ever and is clearly preparing his entire country to wage a long war of attrition. Unless the West dramatically increases its military support for Ukraine, there is every chance he will succeed.

If Putin achieves victory in Ukraine, he will almost certainly go further. The Kremlin dictator is already boasting of his Ukrainian “conquests” and comparing himself to all-conquering eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great. At the beginning the war, Putin had sought to frame the invasion as a defensive measure by blaming it on NATO expansion and imaginary “Ukrainian Nazis.” As his battlefield fortunes have improved, he has begun to talk openly of reclaiming “historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are currently at least a dozen other countries beyond Ukraine that could also fit Putin’s definition of “historically Russian lands.” The list of potential targets includes Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the whole of Central Asia. None of these countries can feel safe. Putin’s entire reign has been defined by his desire to reestablish Russia as a Great Power and end the era of Western domination. If he achieves victory in Ukraine, it is ludicrous to suggest he will simply stop.

Some commentators are inclined to downplay the risk of further invasions by pointing to the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine and claiming that Russia is in no position to engage in further military adventures. Unfortunately, such arguments fail to take into account the impact of Russian success in Ukraine. A Russian victory would transform the geopolitical climate, leading to a surge in international support for the Kremlin and the demoralization of the West. Countries throughout the Global South would abandon neutrality and rush to foster closer ties with Moscow.

In material terms, the Russian conquest of Ukraine would have even more profound consequences for European security. Putin already commands Europe’s largest army. With Ukraine subjugated, he would also have control over Europe’s second-largest army, along with Ukraine’s long neglected but rapidly reviving military-industrial capabilities. Possession of Ukraine’s fabled black earth would make Russia the dominant power on global agricultural markets, providing Putin with a formidable tool to bribe and blackmail the international community.

Even if a victorious Russia did not immediately embark on new conquests, every government in Europe would be obliged to radically increase defense spending. Many are just starting to rearm now in reaction to the Russian war against Ukraine. Expenditures could soon rise far beyond the current cost of arming Ukraine. There would also be a very real danger of a new nuclear arms race. Given the evident effectiveness of Putin’s naked nuclear blackmail in deterring the West from aiding Ukraine, it would be entirely logical for other nations to conclude that they will only be truly safe with a nuclear deterrent of their own.

The international repercussions of a Russian victory in Ukraine would be equally disastrous. Autocrats around the world would view Putin’s triumph as a sign of unprecedented Western weakness and an open invitation to pursue their own expansionist agendas. The period of relative peace and progress that followed the end of the Cold War would be replaced by a new era of international instability and insecurity.

None of this is inevitable. Russia can still be defeated in Ukraine if the West takes the decisive step of committing itself to Ukrainian victory. This means supplying Ukraine with sufficient weapons to not only defend itself but to actually defeat Russia. Crucially, it means ending absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons and allowing strikes on legitimate military targets inside Russia. And it means providing Ukraine with the kind of guaranteed long-term military support that will convince Putin his hopes of outlasting the West are futile.

Confronting the Kremlin effectively will require considerable political will and courage. Russia will inevitably respond to any hardening of Western resolve by escalating its nuclear intimidation tactics, but the usefulness of nuclear saber-rattling diminishes when Western governments don’t allow such threats to cloud their strategic calculus.

It is now painfully obvious that the hesitancy and indecisiveness of the past two years have not succeeded in appeasing Putin or reducing the challenge posed by a resurgent Russia. Instead, the West is now facing the very real prospect of a defeat that would have catastrophic consequences for the future of international security. In order to avert disaster, Putin must lose in Ukraine. Any worries about the future of the Russian Federation will have to wait until this far more urgent threat has been addressed.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukrainian national team coach Serhiy Rebrov has voiced similar sentiments. Following Ukraine’s March 2024 victory in the Euro 2024 play-off final against Iceland, Rebrov said qualification for this summer’s tournament was “for our supporters, for our country, for our people, and for our soldiers who are now protecting our freedom.”

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The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has had a dramatic impact on almost every aspect of daily life, including the country’s football industry. In the days following the invasion, the Ukrainian Premier League abandoned the 2021-2022 season entirely. The league returned months later, with matches now mostly staged in western Ukraine without the presence of supporters in stadiums. Games are often interrupted by air raids.

For security reasons, the Ukrainian national team has been forced to train and play outside the country since February 2022. Ukraine narrowly missed out on a berth at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, but made it through the Euro 2024 play-offs to secure a place at the European Championship for only the fourth time in the country’s history.

Many of Ukraine’s soccer stars have become prominent supporters of the country’s war effort, providing humanitarian and military aid while also using their high public profiles to keep the invasion in the international spotlight. National team captain Andriy Yarmolenko is one of numerous players to donate significant sums, while colleague Taras Stepanenko was nominated for an award from FIFPRO, the worldwide representative organization for professional footballers, for his work aiding Ukrainians whose lives have been impacted by the Russian invasion.

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Oleksandr Zinchenko is one of Ukraine’s most recognizable faces thanks to stints with English Premier League heavyweights Manchester City and Arsenal. He was appointed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an ambassador for the country’s official UNITED24 fundraising initiative, and teamed up with fellow Ukrainian footballing icon Andriy Shevchenko to organize a star-studded charity match in London last summer to support Ukrainian humanitarian efforts.

Zinchenko has spoken about the conflicting emotions of supporting his country’s war effort from afar. “I really want to be in Ukraine,” he told BBC Newsnight in April. In common with many of Ukraine’s most prominent sports personalities, Zinchenko has concluded that he can have a bigger impact by leveraging his public profile on the international stage. “The question is where we are more helpful for our country,” he commented.

As well as individual efforts, Ukrainian footballers have also worked together to found the Stands of Heroes organization. This initiative was established to support the relatives of football fans defending the country. So far, Ukrainian footballers have assisted more than 200 families impacted by the war. “This is one way for Ukrainian footballers to help football supporters who are fighting and volunteering on the front,” said Ukrainian national team defender Yukhym Konoplya.

Despite frequent claims that sport should be kept separate from politics, Ukraine’s appearance at the European Championship will inevitably help draw international attention to the ongoing Russian invasion of the country. The Ukrainian squad will also be acutely aware of their role as ambassadors of a nation that is currently fighting for survival.

Ukraine can expect no favors at Euro 2024 and will have to overcome Romania, Slovakia, and Belgium if they are to progress beyond the group stages of the tournament. Serhiy Rebrov’s players will be motivated by the knowledge that victory on the football pitch could provide their war-weary compatriots with a much-needed morale boost.

Mark Temnycky is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Anger and defiance in Kharkiv as advancing Russian troops draw closer

Maria Avdeeva — Thu, 16 May 2024 11:03:17 +0000

Residents of Kharkiv have been monitoring reports with increasing urgency for the past five days as a new Russian offensive edges closer to the city. The stresses of war are nothing new to the Kharkiv population, which has been under daily bombardment since the start of the current year. Nevertheless, the opening of a new front less than half an hour’s drive from the city’s northern suburbs has raised the stakes dramatically.

Since the Russian offensive began last Friday, harrowing footage of burning villages and fleeing civilians has flooded social media, adding to the sense of mounting danger. Evacuation efforts are still underway in the border region, with around eight thousand people so far brought from nearby communities to Kharkiv.

So far, Russian troops have made modest progress, advancing up to eight kilometers into Ukraine and capturing a number of Ukrainian villages. While the incursion is currently regarded as too small in scale to threaten Kharkiv itself, the reappearance of Russian soldiers in the region for the first time since 2022 has sparked considerable alarm and dismay.

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Russia’s new offensive did not come as a complete surprise, of course. On the contrary, the build-up of Russian troops across the border had been common knowledge for weeks. Kharkiv Regional Council member and political sciences professor Halyna Kuts says she has been preparing for some time, and has a bag of emergency items packed and ready.

Kuts is one of many people in Kharkiv to express anger at restrictions preventing Ukraine from using Western weapons to strike targets inside Russia. Due to fears of possible Russian retaliation, most of Kyiv’s partners insist the military aid they supply only be used within Ukraine’s borders. These restrictions prevented Ukraine from attacking concentrations of Russian troops as they prepared for the current offensive. “We could have destroyed them, but we were not allowed to,” says Kuts.

With Russian troops now gradually moving toward the city, Kuts believes the only option is to “dig in” and prepare to defend Kharkiv. “This is no longer a center of culture and science; this is a military fortress. Everyone should be carrying a gas mask, bandages, and water with them at all times,” she says.

In recent days, it has become much rarer to encounter children on the streets of the city. Some families have now left Kharkiv due to the deteriorating security situation, heading west for the relative safety of Poltava, Kyiv, or beyond. Youngsters who remain are obliged to attend classes underground or online.

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Olha Kashyrina, the co-founder of a Kharkiv publishing house specializing in children’s books, has spent recent evenings watching the glow of artillery fire on the horizon as fighting edges closer and closer to her home in Kharkiv’s Saltivka residential district. She estimates that there is now less than twenty kilometers separating her from the Russian army. For the time being, Kashyrina continues working in her publishing business and volunteering to help evacuees find temporary accommodation. However, if Russian troops advance further and the city comes within artillery range, she plans to leave.

Others insist they will not leave Kharkiv under any circumstances. Kashyrina’s publishing house colleague Svitlana Feldman has spent recent days stockpiling power banks, generators, and headlights for employees. “Adaptability is the key skill now,” she explains. One of the most dangerous aspects of daily life in Kharkiv is commuting to the office, so the company now encourages working from home.

Some Kharkiv residents have already fled from the Russian invasion once and do not intend to do so again. Liudmila, who came to Kharkiv from Donetsk when it was first occupied by Russia ten years ago, says she will not evacuate and is instead placing her faith in the Ukrainian army to defend the city, much as it did in 2022. This is a common refrain in today’s Kharkiv. While almost everyone is watching anxiously for signs of an escalation in the current offensive, there is also a mood of defiance and plenty of confidence in the city’s ability to defend itself.

Defiance can be expressed in different ways. For Halyna Kuts, this means proceeding with Kharkiv’s annual Vyshyvanka Day parade on May 16 in one of the city’s underground metro stations. This colorful annual event, which features people sporting Ukraine’s traditional embroidered shirts, is widely seen as a celebration of Ukrainian patriotism and national identity. With Russian troops advancing toward the city, Kuts says it is now more important than ever to host this year’s parade as planned.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

Georgia’s government uses Kremlin playbook to consolidate grip on power

Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland — Wed, 15 May 2024 23:13:15 +0000

Georgia is currently at the crossroads as the government pushes through contentious Kremlin-style legislation that opponents say will stifle civil society and prevent the country’s further European integration. At stake is the future trajectory of this small but strategically significant nation that plays an important role in the broader geopolitics of the post-Soviet space.

On May 14, the ruling Georgian Dream party passed the controversial “foreign agents” bill, which will oblige organizations that receive more than 20 percent of funding from abroad to register with the government or face fines. Despite claims to the contrary, this law resembles Russia’s own foreign agents legislation far more than the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.

EU officials responded to the news from Tbilisi by suggesting adoption of the legislation could hamper Georgia’s bid to join the European Union. “The EU stands with the Georgian people and their choice in favor of democracy and of Georgia’s European future,” commented the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell. US officials have also voiced concern over the issue.

Georgian Dream officials appear unmoved by these appeals. Indeed, critics say the passage of the foreign agents law is part of intentional efforts to derail the country’s Western integration and bring Georgia back into the Kremlin orbit. They claim the legislation is intended to suppress civil society in the lead-up to parliamentary elections in October, and note that Georgian authorities are now adopting tactics that closely mirror Russia’s own efforts to stamp out domestic dissent and silence opponents.

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As unprecedented numbers have taken to the streets of Tbilisi to protest the country’s turn toward Moscow, the Georgian authorities have sought to crush protests with heavy-handed policing, including beatings, tear gas, and water cannons. Journalists and elected officials have been among those on the receiving end of violence.

In a further echo of tactics widely employed in Putin’s Russia, individual members of Georgia’s political opposition and activists have been assaulted in apparently targeted attacks that have taken place far from the protests. Others have been subjected to threatening phone calls and additional forms of harassment.

Meanwhile, the Georgian authorities are accused of copying the longstanding Russian practice of stage-managing pro-government rallies designed to distract attention from protests and create the illusion of popular support. One rally in late April featured thousands of public sector workers who had apparently been bussed into the Georgian capital from around the country and instructed to attend.

The rhetoric coming from Georgian Dream officials in recent weeks has increasingly resembled the anti-Western narratives and conspiracy theories favored by the Putin regime. In thinly veiled attacks on Georgia’s Western partners, Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the unofficial leader of Georgian Dream, has decried civil society organizations as “pseudo-elites” controlled by patrons abroad, and has accused them of attempting to instigate revolution in Georgia. These allegations are virtually indistinguishable from Vladimir Putin’s complaints regarding so-called “color revolutions.”

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Officially, the Georgian authorities deny they are seeking to turn the country away from the path of European integration and reject claims of a pro-Kremlin agenda. Indeed, Ivanishvili continues to insist Georgia is currently closer than ever to joining the EU. The ruling party’s careful rhetoric around Georgia’s European choice is understandable given that 81% of Georgians support EU membership. However, the fact that Georgian Dream moved forward with the foreign agents law despite condemnation from the EU and large-scale public protests has severely undermined the credibility of the government’s claims.

Georgian Dream officials say the foreign agents law is intended to ensure transparency and prevent undue foreign influence in the country, but critics remain unconvinced. They argue that the legislation will be used as a tool to suppress civil society, and point to the chilling role similar legislation has played in Russia. If it comes into force, many fear the law will strengthen the ruling party’s grip on power ahead of Georgia’s coming elections and set the stage for a more authoritarian form of government.

If Georgian Dream is able to secure a convincing result in the October ballot, Ivanishvili has already outlined plans for a strict “political and legal condemnation” of his party’s domestic opponents. In light of the mounting violence against opposition figures and pro-democracy protesters in Tbilisi in recent days, such statements must be taken seriously.

Hundreds of thousands of Georgians have joined protests this spring in an emphatic display of support for the country’s European future, but the struggle looks likely to continue throughout the coming months. The Georgian government has already demonstrated its readiness to employ Kremlin tactics. The question now is how far they are willing to go.

Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland is a master’s student in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia at Harvard and a Research Assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Russia’s growing kamikaze drone fleet tests Ukraine’s limited air defenses

Marcel Plichta — Tue, 14 May 2024 15:59:46 +0000

The past few months have been a particularly challenging period for Ukraine’s overstretched air defense units. With the country suffering from mounting shortages of interceptor missiles, Russia has exploited growing gaps in Ukraine’s defenses to bomb cities and vital civilian infrastructure with deadly frequency. These escalating attacks have led to renewed calls from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Kyiv’s partners to provide the country with more air defense systems in order to safeguard lives and prevent the collapse of basic municipal services.

While most attention has focused on the many Russian ballistic and cruise missiles that have reached their targets, Ukraine has actually managed to shoot down a strikingly high number of Russian kamikaze drones. On May 13, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ukraine had intercepted 82 percent of kamikaze drones over the past six months, just one percentage point lower than the total for the previous half-year period. This figure is even more remarkable given that Russia typically launches waves of drones as part of complex attacks that also feature a range of different missiles.

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Many in the Ukrainian media and beyond have been quick to publicize the numerous improvised and ingenious measures adopted by Ukraine to counter Russia’s drone attacks. These steps have included the establishment of mobile teams using older anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks to shoot down drones at a fraction of the cost of more sophisticated air defense systems. In spring 2024, US General James Hecker, head of US Air Forces in Europe, described how Ukrainians had set up a detection network using cheap cell phones on poles to warn of incoming drones. German-supplied Gepard systems have also proved extremely cost-effective drone destroyers, as have newer systems such as the US-made VAMPIRE.

While Ukraine’s high interception rates are impressive, the threat posed by this form of aerial warfare remains grave and continues to evolve. Even when the majority of drones are shot down, those that do reach their targets often cause significant damage and loss of life. Indeed, when it comes to air defenses, even a 99 percent success rate is not good enough. While it is better to shoot down drones than allow them to hit their targets, interceptions can also be costly, with debris from falling drones frequently causing death and destruction in a terrifyingly random manner.

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Russia’s fleet of kamikaze drones is growing. During the first year of the invasion, the Kremlin organized regular deliveries of Shahed kamikadze drones from Iran. Moscow has since set up domestic production facilities and is now far less dependent on Tehran. This is allowing Russia to scale up its own output, making it possible to increase the frequency of attacks. As production continues to expand, more and more drones will be launched against targets across Ukraine. These increasing quantities of drones will deplete Ukraine’s anti-drone ammunition and could potentially overwhelm the country’s limited defenses.

In addition to producing a domestic version of Iran’s Shahed drone, Russia is also experimenting with a range of modifications. These efforts have included spraying drones to reduce detection and adding cameras to stream video footage of drone flights back to Russian operators. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly continues to receive new drone models from the country’s Iranian partners.

While these upgraded models and modifications have so far failed to make a big difference to Russia’s air offensive, they do serve as a reminder that this is a war of innovation and underline the need for Ukraine to maintain the highest degree of vigilance. Throughout the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has demonstrated its ability to learn from earlier mistakes and incorporate new technologies. Ukrainians cannot afford to assume that today’s defenses will necessarily be sufficient to stop tomorrow’s drones.

An additional drone-related headache for Ukrainian military planners is the need to spread air defenses across as wide an area as possible. While mobile anti-drone teams have proved relatively effective, they are only one part of a much wider network of air defenses centered around Ukraine’s major cities and key infrastructure sites. Given that air defenses are desperately needed to support military operations on the battlefield, guarding against frequent kamikaze drone attacks far away from the front lines weakens the Ukrainian war effort.

As long as Russia continues to build and deploy kamikaze drones, they will remain a significant problem for Ukraine. The country’s partners can help address this problem in two ways. They can supply more air defense systems, especially models that are designed to intercept slow-moving but plentiful drones rather than far faster missiles. They can also support Ukraine’s efforts to strike targets such as air bases, production facilities, and drone storage sites inside Russia. Destroying Russian drones before they are launched is the most effective way to protect Ukraine from further bombardment.

Putin appoints economist as defense minister as Russia plans for long war

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 14 May 2024 14:54:02 +0000

Vladimir Putin has appointed technocrat economist Andrei Belousov as Russia’s new defense minister in a shake-up that underlines his determination to wage a long war of attrition against Ukraine.

The relatively unknown Belousov replaces long-serving Sergei Shoigu, who will now take up a new post as Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council. Shoigu had led the Defense Ministry since 2012. Known as both a Putin loyalist and a personal friend of the Russian dictator who accompanied him on hunting holidays, he is the most senior figure to be dismissed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

While Shoigu’s tenure in office coincided with Russian military success stories such as the 2014 occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the 2015 Russian intervention in Syria, his reputation had been severely tarnished in recent years by the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine. The many battlefield setbacks suffered in Ukraine have been particularly embarrassing for Putin, who has long pointed to the revival of Russia’s military strength as one his greatest achievements.

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Shoigu’s removal took many by surprise but was not entirely unexpected. The announcement came just weeks after his deputy defense minister, Timur Ivanov, was arrested on corruption charges. At the time of Ivanov’s removal in late April, many speculated that Shoigu’s days as defense minister may also be numbered.

Shoigu’s replacement, Andrei Belousov, is a former deputy prime minister and minister of economic development who also served for a number of years as an economic advisor to Putin. The appointment of a civilian technocrat suggests that Putin aims to control military spending and improve efficiency at the ministry of defense as he looks to outproduce Ukraine and the country’s Western partners in a protracted confrontation.

Unlike his predecessor, Belousov has played no significant role in the invasion of Ukraine and is not tainted by the military defeats of the past two years. His long record of government service and relative anonymity make him in many ways a typical pick for Putin, who is notoriously reluctant to raise ambitious new faces to senior positions within the Kremlin leadership.

Speculation over Shoigu’s future has been mounting ever since the failure of Russia’s blitzkrieg offensive in the spring of 2022 during the initial stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has frequently been singled out for criticism by Russia’s military blogger community, and was repeatedly accused of corruption by former Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a series of explosive video addresses on the eve of the short-lived June 2023 Wagner mutiny.

Unsurprisingly, Shoigu’s departure was widely cheered within Russia’s so-called “Z-patriot” pro-war community. Media tycoon and prominent Russian nationalist Konstantin Malofeyev toasted the news, while suggesting Belousov’s appointment would now make defense “the absolute priority” of Russian state policy. “We’ll have both guns and butter,” he commented.

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Putin’s decision to finally remove Shoigu and replace him with a veteran economist comes as he begins a fifth presidential term while bogged down in the largest European invasion since World War II. His new defense minister is now expected to focus on boosting domestic Russian arms production while channeling resources toward the development of the country’s defense tech sector. “Today on the battlefield, the winner is the one who is more open to innovation,” commented Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on the recent ministerial changes in Moscow.

Belousov appears well qualified to meet the twin challenges of improving armament output and aiding Russia’s efforts to regain the technological advantage in the war against Ukraine. His long career in government gives him detailed knowledge of the Russian economy and the intricacies of state budgets, while he has a record of supporting the development of Russia’s drone capabilities. Belousov will now join a number of other senior government officials with similarly strong defense tech credentials including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, and Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev.

Despite being removed from his defense post, Shoigu has not been kicked to the curb. His appointment as Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, replacing longtime Putin confidant Nikolai Patrushev, should allow him to retain significant influence within the Kremlin. At the same time, it is not clear whether Shoigu will be able to exercise the same kind of power as his predecessor, who now takes on a new role as an aide to Putin. While this has the appearance of a slight demotion for Patrushev, the parallel promotion of his son Dmitry to the position of deputy prime minister would suggest that he will remain an influential figure.

The recent changes in the leadership of Russia’s Defense Ministry do not signal any fundamental shift in Putin’s war aims. On the contrary, this week’s appointment confirms Putin’s continued commitment to the invasion of Ukraine and his readiness to prioritize the war effort over all other considerations. Putin clearly intends to place Russia on an indefinite wartime footing, and hopes Belousov is capable of managing the process with maximum efficiency.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Putin expands invasion as outgunned Ukraine waits for Western weapons

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 14 May 2024 13:08:20 +0000

Russia launched a cross-border offensive into northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on May 10, opening a new front in its ongoing invasion. The attack had been widely anticipated, but the apparent ease with which Russian forces were able to penetrate the Ukrainian border sparked considerable alarm and allegations of security blunders.

The debate over Ukraine’s apparent failure to secure the border overlooks the fact that fortifications are typically located some 15 to 20 kilometers behind forward positions. Nevertheless, the renewed presence of Russian troops in northern Ukraine marks a significant escalation in the war.

During the first five days of the offensive, Russia has been able to establish two separate bridgeheads on Ukrainian territory and advance between five and seven kilometers into the country. These modest gains reflect the relatively small numbers of Russian troops involved in the initial incursion. However, that may change in the coming days as the Kremlin has concentrated approximately 30,000 to 35,000 soldiers across the border and continues to reinforce the ongoing offensive.

Ukrainian officials had earlier predicted the start of Russian offensive operations in the Kharkiv region toward the end of May or in early June. The recent US decision to grant Ukraine a major new aid package may have convinced the Kremlin to attack earlier than planned in order to exploit the remaining window of opportunity before fresh deliveries of US weapons reach the front lines.

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At this point, Russia’s immediate military goals look to be rather limited, as can be seen from the numbers of troops involved. The initial objective may be the establishment of a buffer zone along the Ukrainian border in the Kharkiv region. This is something Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin leaders have spoken about repeatedly in recent months. If Russian forces do manage to advance further and establish a foothold around 15 kilometers inside northern Ukraine, this would place Kharkiv itself within range of Russian artillery.

Ukraine’s former capital and second-largest city with a prewar population of more than one and a half million, Kharkiv has been subjected to intensive Russian bombing since the beginning of 2024. The city’s power plants were destroyed in March, while residential districts are frequently subjected to missile, drone, and glide bomb attacks. There are now fears that Russian artillery could take this campaign of destruction to the next level. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov has repeatedly warned that his city risks becoming a “second Aleppo,” a reference to the Syrian city reduced to rubble almost a decade ago following relentless bombardment by Russian and Syrian forces.

Russia’s end goal appears to be the depopulation of Kharkiv. Moscow aims to make the city unlivable and force the vast majority of its over one million residents to flee. By emptying Kharkiv of its civilian population, the Kremlin hopes to create the conditions for the city’s capture. However, this would require far more troops than Russia currently has available in the region.

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While many observers assume Kharkiv remains Russia’s primary objective, the new offensive may actually be an attempt to destabilize Ukraine’s broader defenses. By opening up a new front in the north of the country, Russia creates dilemmas for Ukrainian commanders and forces them to divert key units that are currently holding the front line in the east of the country.

The present military situation is rapidly evolving and extremely challenging for Ukraine, but it is not yet critical. Indeed, given the clear battlefield advantages enjoyed by defensive forces since the start of the war more than two years ago, the Ukrainian military theoretically has every chance of preventing any major breakthroughs and should also be able to inflict significant losses on advancing Russian forces. However, Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself are currently being severely hampered by an inability to strike Russian targets across the border.

Throughout the war, most of Ukraine’s international partners have insisted that the weapons they provide only be used on Ukrainian territory. These restrictions contradict all military logic and have created uniquely favorable conditions for Russia, which is able to concentrate troops close to the Ukrainian border and prepare to attack without fear of being targeted. Unless Ukraine is granted the right to hit military targets inside Russia, it will be extremely difficult to defeat the current offensive or prevent more cross-border attacks similar the recently opened front in the Kharkiv region.

Russia’s new Kharkiv offensive is an attempt by the Kremlin to capitalize on considerable advantages in both manpower and firepower. Despite suffering staggering losses over the past two years, Putin has succeeded in creating a force far larger than the army that first invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been seriously weakened by more than half a year without major arms deliveries, and is unable to strike back effectively due to restrictions imposed by the country’s Western partners. None of this means Russia is guaranteed to succeed, but it does make it far more difficult for Ukraine to prevail.

Russia’s Georgia strategy offers hints of Kremlin vision for Ukraine

Nicholas Chkhaidze — Thu, 09 May 2024 21:19:57 +0000

Recent efforts by the Georgian government to adopt a Kremlin-style law imposing restrictions on civil society have laid bare the geopolitical struggle currently underway to define the country’s future. The escalating crisis in the southern Caucasus nation also offers some indications of the end game Russia may have in mind if it succeeds in defeating Ukraine.

Georgia’s contentious Foreign Agents Law, which was proposed but shelved in 2023 following an initial round of protests, was revived in spring 2024 by the ruling Georgian Dream party. Unsurprisingly, these efforts have sparked renewed protests on an even larger scale.

Critics say the bill is an attempt to crack down on the country’s political opposition and civil society, and have dubbed it “the Russian law” due to its striking similarity to legislation used by the Kremlin to muzzle domestic opponents of the Putin regime. The bill is also notable for positioning Georgia’s traditional Western allies as adversaries while refraining from mentioning Russia, which currently occupies around twenty percent of the country.

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The Georgian government’s bid to adopt legislation reminiscent of Putin’s Russia is all the more remarkable as polls show that around eighty percent of Georgians favor integration with NATO and the EU. This has provoked a major public backlash within Georgia and has led to harsh criticism from the country’s Western partners. In a recent statement, the US State Department warned that the contentious legislation along with accompanying anti-Western rhetoric from Georgian Dream representatives placed the country on a “precarious trajectory” that could “jeopardize Georgia’s path to Euro-Atlantic integration.”

None of these appears to have deterred the Georgian authorities. As the crisis escalated in late April, the founder and unofficial leader of the Georgian Dream party, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, doubled down on his party’s increasingly conspiratorial, anti-Western posturing in a rare public address that was reminiscent of Kremlin propaganda. Ivanishvili’s speech was widely viewed as a major milestone in his party’s attempts to turn Georgia away from the West and toward Russia.

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With Georgian society at a geopolitical crossroads and engulfed in increasing violence amid a draconian crackdown on mass protests, many observers are drawing parallels with Ukraine’s 2013-14 Euromaidan Revolution. Some are even asking whether the country is now experiencing its own “Yanukovych moment,” a reference to the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president who fled to Russia following months of unrest.

The two situations certainly appear to have much in common. On both occasions, the country’s pro-Western political forces and civil society protested against an increasingly authoritarian and Kremlin-friendly government in order to defend their basic democratic rights. On both occasions, the brutality of the regime’s response fueled a surge in public support for the protests.

Georgia’s broader political trajectory may also provide some insights into Russia’s plans if its invasion of Ukraine proves successful. The Georgian Dream party first came to power in 2012 at a time when the wounds of Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia were still raw. Over the past 12 years, the party has been able to gradually consolidate its grip on power, becoming steadily bolder in its promotion of pro-Kremlin and anti-Western positions. This has been achieved despite the overwhelmingly pro-Western mood in the country.

This kind of scenario appears to be what Russia had in mind for Ukraine at the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Moscow’s initial plan was to decapitate the government in Kyiv and install a puppet regime that would end Ukraine’s Western integration and anchor the country firmly in the Kremlin orbit, despite strong Ukrainian public support for a European future.

While Russia’s initial blitzkrieg failed, the war continues and Moscow has clearly not abandoned its efforts to subjugate Ukraine. Indeed, recent reports of a foiled Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials suggest the Kremlin still hopes to install a friendlier regime in Kyiv. As they look to address the realities of fierce public opposition to Russia throughout Ukrainian society, Russian policymakers will surely draw on their experience in Georgia over the past decade or so.

The current protests in Georgia are taking place as the country prepares for parliamentary elections in October. The fate of the Foreign Agents Law is expected to significantly impact the course of the coming vote, with Georgian Dream officials accused of planning to use the legislation to silence opponents. The outcome of the October election will tell us much about Georgia’s likely future geopolitical direction. It will also serve as a verdict of sorts on Moscow’s efforts to regain influence in the country despite the painful legacy of the 2008 invasion and the ongoing occupation of Georgian land. This will have huge implications for the wider southern Caucasus region, and may also help shape Russia’s approach to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Nicholas Chkhaidze is a Research Fellow at the Baku-based Topchubashov Center.

In addition to exposing the Kremlin’s dwindling supply of tanks, this year’s strikingly modest Victory Day festivities have also drawn attention to other negative consequences of Russia’s ongoing Ukraine invasion. During the buildup to the holiday, a number of major Russian cities including Pskov, Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod announced they would not be staging traditional Victory Day parades this year. These cancellations were justified on security grounds, highlighting the growing threat posed by Ukraine to targets inside Russia.

Since the start of 2024, Ukraine has brought the war home to Russia with a highly successful long-range drone campaign against the country’s oil and gas industry, including air strikes against refineries located more than one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border. While Kyiv has largely refrained from attacks on civilian targets, Ukraine’s proven ability to strike deep inside Russia is a major blow to the Kremlin, which has vowed to shield the Russian public from the war and prevent any disruption to everyday life.

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The downgrading of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations is a personal blow for Putin, who has sought to place the holiday at the heart of efforts to revive Russian nationalism following the loss of status and perceived humiliations of the early post-Soviet period. This approach marked a departure from the Soviet years, when Victory Day was overshadowed by a number of more ideologically driven holidays such as May Day and the annual anniversary of the October Revolution. Indeed, during the 46-year period between the end of World War II and the fall of the USSR, the Soviet authorities held just three Victory Day military parades in Moscow.

It was Putin who masterminded the rise of Victory Day to its current position as Russia’s most important public holiday. Since the early 2000s, he has transformed Victory Day into the propaganda centerpiece of a pseudo-religious cult, complete with its own sacred symbols, feast days, saints, and dogmas. Anyone who dares question the Kremlin’s heavily distorted and highly sanitized version of the Soviet role in World War II is treated with the kind of ruthless severity once reserved for medieval heretics. Meanwhile, in a further nod to the continued potency of the World War II narrative in Putin’s Russia, opponents of the Kremlin are routinely branded as “fascists” and “Nazis.”

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The mythology surrounding Putin’s Victory Day cult is not just a matter of repairing battered Russian national pride. It has also helped strengthen perceptions of the Russian army as unbeatable. Both inside Russia and among international audiences, the pomp and propaganda surrounding the holiday have encouraged people to view the Russian army as simply too big and powerful to be defeated. This is complete nonsense. The past few centuries of Russian history are littered with resounding military defeats including the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Russia even managed to lose World War I, despite starting the war on the winning side.

The historically unjustified but widespread belief that Russian victory is somehow inevitable has helped shape the West’s weak response to the invasion of Ukraine. When the war began, most Western observers were convinced Ukraine would fall in a matter of days. Even after the Ukrainian military shocked the world by winning battle after battle and liberating half the land occupied by Russia, many have clung to the assumption that eventual Russian victory remains assured. This defeatist thinking has been an important factor hampering efforts to arm Ukraine adequately. It may yet become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The sight of a lone tank on Red Square this week is a timely reminder that behind the facade of overwhelming strength, Putin’s Russia is far from invincible. For years, the Kremlin has sought to intimidate the outside world with carefully choreographed displays of military muscle-flexing. However, the invasion of Ukraine has revealed a very different reality. Since February 2022, Putin’s once vaunted army has seen its reputation plummet and has suffered a series of stinging battlefield defeats while failing to achieve a decisive breakthrough against its much smaller neighbor. The Russian military remains a formidable force and should not be underestimated, but the events of the past two years have demonstrated that it is also very much beatable. If Ukraine is finally given the necessary tools by the country’s partners, it will finish the job.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukraine’s second city is struggling to survive amid relentless Russian bombing

Maria Avdeeva — Tue, 07 May 2024 14:50:36 +0000

Everywhere you look in Kharkiv today, there is evidence of Russian bombing. After four months of relentless aerial attacks, Ukraine’s second city is dotted with ruined buildings, while boarded-up windows have become a ubiquitous feature of the urban landscape. A little over two years ago, this had been a vibrant city known for its many universities and robust industrial economy. It is now becoming the latest symbol of the human suffering inflicted by Russia’s invasion.

There are still plenty of reminders that Kharkiv remains home to over a million people. Freshly planted flowerbeds bloom in bright spring colors. Downtown traffic is still sometimes congested, with delivery boys on bikes and scooters weaving their way through jams of taxi drivers, private cars, and public transport. Supermarkets and many small businesses remain defiantly open, while municipal workers emerge to diligently clear up the mess after each new explosion. But there is no mistaking the menace of sudden death and destruction that now hangs over the city.

Located just thirty kilometers from the Russian border, Kharkiv is Ukraine’s most vulnerable major city and has been on the front lines of the war for more than two years. Russia’s initial blitzkrieg attack on Kharkiv in early 2022 was repelled, with Ukraine’s successful September 2022 counteroffensive then pushing Putin’s invading army further away from the city. However, since the beginning of 2024, Kharkiv has become the principle target in a new Russian offensive which aims to take advantage of Ukraine’s mounting ammunition shortages and lack of air defenses.

Bombings are now a daily occurrence. Russia employs a mix of weapons including everything from ballistic missiles and drones to vast quantities of long-range glide bombs that are steadily destroying the city from a safe distance. These attacks target residential neighborhoods and critical civilian infrastructure in what appears to be a calculated campaign to make the entire city unlivable.

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Amid the constant threat of bombing, Kharkiv residents continue to display the kind of remarkable resilience that is now synonymous with Ukraine. The city’s Makers coffee chain is a good example of this dogged determination. The chain has actually expanded since the start of the war, doubling its presence in Kharkiv from two outlets to four, while also opening a new branch in the front line city of Kupyansk. Dmytro Kabanets, the twenty nine year old owner of the chain, believes it is vital for local residents to have a sense of community. “The feeling of not being alone is invaluable. People need to know there are others ready to lend a hand, both emotionally and practically,” he says.

Despite this upbeat attitude, he admits staying in business in today’s Kharkiv is becoming more and more difficult. The windows of the chain’s flagship coffee shop are boarded up as a precaution against further bomb damage. Due to Russian attacks on the city’s energy infrastructure, electricity supplies are a major challenge for all local businesses. After both of Kharkiv’s biggest power plants were destroyed in March, the city has experienced rolling blackouts. The rumble of generators has become a background feature of everyday life, with restaurants offering “generator-friendly’ menu items that require minimal power to prepare.

Many analysts believe Russia’s objective is to depopulate Kharkiv ahead of a summer offensive that will aim to seize the city and deliver a decisive blow to Ukrainian resistance. Rumors of looming encirclement and evacuations swirl around on social media, often fueled by Russian disinformation. For now, there is no indication of a mass exodus from Kharkiv, but the strain and trauma of recent months are forcing residents to make hard decisions.

Yevhen Streltsov, who runs the city’s Radio Nakypilo, says everyone approaches the issue of whether to stay or go in a highly personal manner. Some residents are bracing themselves for a repeat of the artillery barrages that rocked Kharkiv in the first months of the war. Others say they will only leave if the city is under direct threat of Russian occupation. “The situation is tense, but there is no panic,” he says, noting that he and his team are determined to continue their mission of broadcasting to the local population.

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For some Kharkiv residents, the stress has already become too much. Exhausted and emotionally drained by months of Russian bombardment, they are heading westward to Kyiv or beyond. Many are leaving their homes for the second time, having returned to Kharkiv after initially fleeing the city in the first days of the invasion.

Inevitably, the outflow of people is having an impact on the local economy. Revenues at the Makers coffee chain have dropped by up to 40 percent in recent weeks. Across Kharkiv, companies are reluctantly shutting down as people move their families to safety, with some businesses being put up for sale. Many of the city’s public spaces now feel eerily empty, especially once evening arrives.

It is still far too early to write Kharkiv off. While more and more residents are understandably seeking to escape the horrors of daily bombing, many remain determined to stay put. The population is clearly declining, but it remains nowhere near the lows witnessed during the early months of the invasion, when only around 300,000 people remained in the city.

If Russia does launch a serious campaign to capture or encircle Kharkiv in the coming months, this would represent by far the Kremlin’s most ambitious undertaking since losing the Battle of Kyiv in early 2022. The Ukrainian army will fight hard to defend the country’s second city, and they will be supported by a still sizable local population. Given the considerable difficulties Russia has encountered in seizing much smaller towns such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka, it is far from certain that Putin’s invading army currently has the offensive capabilities to take Kharkiv.

As the summer campaigning season approaches, the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe in eastern Ukraine is rising and requires urgent international attention. Kharkiv is now the focal point of Russia’s entire invasion and is in desperate need of increased air defenses. This is the only way to prevent it from becoming the largest in a long line of Ukrainian cities reduced to rubble by the Russian military.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

Putin cannot be allowed to use chemical weapons in Ukraine with impunity

Emma Nix — Tue, 07 May 2024 13:23:14 +0000

After years of Ukrainians sounding the alarm over Russia’s alleged use of chemical weapons, the US Department of State has now substantiated these claims and has announced new sanctions on Russian actors for their role in enabling the country’s chemical and biological weapons programs. In an official statement, the United States charged Russia with using “the chemical weapon chloropicrin against Ukrainian forces in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.” Why does this matter, and what comes next?

Historically, chemical weapons have been used to break a stalemate, weakening an enemy’s front line troops and providing an opening to push forward. Russia’s use of chemical weapons might suggest that strategists consider the invasion of Ukraine to be a stalemate, or are desperate to avoid one. As fears of a stalemate persist across Ukraine, Russia, and the West, it isn’t difficult to predict a scenario in which Russia could use chemical weapons more widely to achieve a breakthrough.

Chloropicrin, a chemical agent frequently used for riot control, is banned for use in a warfare setting under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Russia has been a signatory to since its inception. Over the past two years, Ukraine has reported some 1,400 cases of chemical weapons use, but these claims had not been confirmed by third parties until the May 1 statement released by the US State Department.

If Putin has no qualms about using banned weapons, why choose chloropicrin? As far as chemical weapons go, chloropicrin is less lethal than other weapons suspected to be in Russia’s arsenal. By using a weaker agent, Putin’s goal does not seem to be maximum death and destruction in this case. Rather, he may be testing the waters to gauge the international response and determine just how far he can go. A strong reaction from the international community is therefore vital to make clear that widespread use of chemical weapons is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

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Russia’s previous uses of chemical weapons outside of Ukraine have been met with a tepid response at best. For example, after Sergei Skripal was poisoned in the UK with a Novichok agent (a class of nerve agents developed in the Soviet Union) in 2018, the US and a handful of its European partners released a statement condemning the attack, expelled diplomats, and the US levied sanctions under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act. Did this rein in Russia’s chemical weapons tactics? Alexey Navalny’s subsequent poisoning with Novichok in 2020 would suggest not.

In response to the latest allegations, the United States has so far announced sanctions on seven Russian government programs and companies associated with the Kremlin’s chemical and biological weapons programs. These measures are an attempt to reduce Moscow’s ability to wage chemical warfare. More must now be done. Failing to curb the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine would have potentially catastrophic consequences, both for Ukrainians and for international security more broadly. The United States and its partners therefore cannot afford to wait and see whether current sanctions measures are effective.

In the early phases of Russia’s full-scale invasion, US President Joe Biden pledged that “Russia will pay a severe price if they use chemical weapons.” Do sanctions alone constitute a severe response? If such measures have not convinced Putin that he cannot use chemical weapons after recent assassination attempts, can we expect them to work when his back is against a wall trying to win a major war?

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Looking to the past provides little clarity on possible actions available to Ukraine’s partners. After the Bashar al-Assad regime used chemical weapons in Syria in 2013, the United States and Russia worked together to force Syria to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its stockpiles. Without Russia’s participation and considering its veto on the United Nations Security Council, something similar on this occasion looks impossible. When Syria continued to use chemical weapons, the United States, United Kingdom, and France targeted chemical weapons facilities with missiles, another option Western leaders have seemingly taken off the table in relation to Russia.

The best option available to the United States and its allies might be to deny Russia the opportunity to use banned weapons. If Putin’s strategy would dictate using chemical weapons in the case of a stalemate, then Ukraine’s partners must ensure it gets the military aid needed to avoid such a situation. While the United States might be unable to strike inside Russia as it did in Syria, providing Ukraine long-range weapons and the intelligence support to carry out strikes against chemical weapons facilities could take away Russia’s chemical capabilities while sending a strong message against using banned weapons.

This is not to say the United States should not explore options for international cooperation. At the end of the day, Russia using chemical weapons endangers more than Ukraine. Galvanizing broader support from around the world can help preserve critical norms and is a necessary step to protect against chemical weapons proliferation globally. While the West has struggled to work with China or partners in the Global South on Ukraine, a coalition rejecting the use of chemical weapons presents an opportunity to protect Ukrainian lives while reinforcing international norms and building trust that chemical weapons are unacceptable in all contexts.

Emma Nix is an assistant director with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

UK gives Ukraine green light to use British weapons inside Russia

Peter Dickinson — Fri, 03 May 2024 21:23:35 +0000

Ukraine can use British-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated during a May 2 visit to Kyiv. “Ukraine has that right,” Cameron told Reuters. “Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself.”

The British Foreign Secretary’s comments represent a departure from the cautious position adopted by most of Ukraine’s Western partners over the past two years. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the majority of countries backing Ukraine have insisted that Western weapons can only be used within Ukraine’s international borders and must not be deployed against targets inside the Russian Federation.

These restrictions reflect widespread concerns in Western capitals over a possible escalation of the current war into a far broader European conflict. Moscow has skillfully exploited the West’s fear of escalation, with Kremlin officials regularly warning of Russian red lines and Vladimir Putin making frequent thinly-veiled nuclear threats.

So far, Russia’s intimidation tactics have proved highly effective. By threatening to escalate the war, Moscow has been able to slow down the flow of military aid to Ukraine, while also deterring the delivery of certain weapons categories and limiting Kyiv’s ability to strike back against otherwise legitimate targets inside Russia.

This has placed Ukraine at a significant military disadvantage. Already massively outgunned and outnumbered by its much larger and wealthier Russian adversary, Ukraine has had to defend itself without the ability to deploy Western weapons against Russia’s military infrastructure. Critics of this approach claim the West is effectively making Ukraine fight against a far larger opponent with one hand tied behind its back.

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With the existence of their country under threat, Ukrainians have bristled at Western restrictions and are using their own limited range of weapons to strike back. These attacks include a recent campaign of long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries that have hurt the Russian energy sector and divided opinion among Ukraine’s partners. While US officials have voiced their disapproval and urged Kyiv to focus on military targets, France has indicated its support.

The situation regarding the use of Western weapons on Russian territory has been further complicated by the Kremlin’s territorial claims inside Ukraine. In September 2022, Moscow declared the “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and officially incorporated them into the Russian Constitution. Fighting has continued in all four of these partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, with the Ukrainian military free to deploy Western weapons despite the Kremlin’s insistence that these regions are now part of Russia.

In contrast to the caution displayed by Western leaders, Ukraine has repeatedly called Putin’s bluff and exposed the emptiness of Russia’s nuclear blackmail. Weeks after the Kremlin dictator ceremoniously announced the entry of Kherson into the Russian Federation, Ukrainian troops liberated the city. Rather than retaliating by deploying the might of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, Putin simply accepted this humiliating defeat and withdrew his beleaguered army across the Dnipro River.

The Kremlin’s reaction to mounting Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula has been similarly underwhelming. Since first occupying Crimea in 2014, Putin has portrayed the peninsula in almost mystical terms as a symbol of Russia’s return to Great Power status. However, when Ukraine used a combination of locally developed naval drones and Western-supplied cruise missiles to sink or damage around one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Putin quietly ordered the bulk of his remaining warships to retreat from Crimea and head for Russian ports. Despite the crucial role played by Western weapons in this Ukrainian success, there has been no sign of any escalation from Russia.

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With the Russian invasion now in its third year, there are indications that Western leaders may now finally be overcoming their self-defeating fear of escalation. In addition to David Cameron’s landmark comments regarding the use of British weapons inside Russia, the US has recently begun providing Ukraine with large quantities of long-range ATACMS missile systems capable of striking targets throughout occupied Ukrainian territory. Moscow had consistently warned against such deliveries, but has yet to provide any meaningful response to this highly conspicuous crossing of yet another Russian red line.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron is actively attempting to reclaim the escalation initiative from Moscow by refusing to rule out the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine. This development has clearly riled the Kremlin. Putin has reacted to Macron’s newfound boldness by engaging in more nuclear blackmail, while the nuclear saber-rattling continued last weekend on Russia’s flagship current affairs TV show. None of this seems to have put Macron off. On the contrary, he remains adamant that direct Western military involvement in the defense of Ukraine must remain on the table.

This apparent strengthening of Western resolve comes at a pivotal moment in the war. With Ukrainian forces suffering from shortages in both ammunition and manpower, Russia has recently been able to regain the battlefield initiative and make significant advances for the first time in two years. Preparations are now underway for a major Russian summer offensive that could potentially break through Ukraine’s weakened front lines and deliver a knockout blow to the war weary country.

Removing restrictions on attacks inside Russia would enable Ukraine to disrupt preparations for the coming offensive. It would also limit Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian cities and destroy the country’s civilian infrastructure with impunity. This will not be enough to transform the course of the war, but it will go some way to evening out the odds.

By giving Kyiv the green light to use Western weapons in Russia, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has established an important new precedent. This is in many ways fitting. After all, Britain has consistently set the tone for international aid since the eve of the Russian invasion, providing Ukrainians with anti-tank weapons, tanks, and cruise missiles in advance of other allies. Ukrainians will now be hoping the country’s other partners follow suit soon.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Ukraine’s mobilization bill was subject to approximately 4500 amendments, underlining the complexity of the issue. The final version focused on regulating the process of identifying and registering potential conscripts, reviewing eligibility for mobilization, and revising penalties for evading service. Key points include the introduction of an online registry for recruits and the lowering of the age for draft eligibility from 27 to 25.

In line with the new regulations, men of military age will now be obliged to update their registration details within 60 days of the law entering into force, either at regional offices or via an online portal. They will be required to carry their military registration documents and present them upon request or when applying for a passport. Meanwhile, penalties for evading mobilization remain relatively mild. These include modest fines and the potential revocation of drivers licenses.

The new mobilization law does not extend to military-age females. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had earlier stated his opposition to obligatory military service for women. While they are not subject to conscription, many Ukrainian women do choose to enlist in the armed forces voluntarily, with approximately 60,000 currently serving in a variety of positions including front line roles.

To further boost the mobilization process, the Ukrainian army plans to open a network of 27 new recruitment centers in the coming months in major cities across the country. These centers will function as advisory and information hubs, providing guidance to those interested in joining the armed forces and allowing candidates to choose which unit they prefer to serve in. The first recruitment centers have already opened in Lviv and Zaporizhzhia. Initial reports are positive and indicate this modern approach to military service could help address some of the key concerns among potential recruits.

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Most of the criticism leveled at Ukraine’s new mobilization law has focused on the removal of earlier provisions regarding demobilization. Initial drafts envisaged the demobilization of military personnel after 36 months of service, and the rotation of those serving on the front lines for over six months. However, these clauses were taken out of the legislation at the last minute following appeals from Ukraine’s military leadership, who argued that they would weaken Ukraine by facilitating the withdrawal of the country’s most experienced military personnel without providing sufficient trained replacements. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is now working on a separate law to handle the demobilization issue.

While opinion remains divided over the fairness and effectiveness of Ukraine’s new mobilization law, few would argue that the country urgently needs to address manpower issues within the armed forces. Many analysts cite troop shortages as one of main challenges facing the Ukrainian military, along with insufficient weapons and ammunition deliveries from the country’s Western partners.

Russia does not currently appear to be encountering any such problems. In recent weeks, Ukrainian commanders have reported that their forces are now outnumbered by as many as ten to one at certain points along the front lines of the war. This overwhelming superiority in numbers is enabling Russia to advance on the battlefield despite suffering consistently high casualty rates.

With Russia’s initial blitzkrieg invasion now transformed into a war of attrition, the Kremlin aims to avoid a politically risky second wave of mobilization and maintain a steady stream of volunteers by offering a range of cash incentives for new recruits, including extremely high salaries and generous financial support for the families of servicemen. Recent reports indicate Russia is aiming to sign up hundreds of thousands of additional troops in the near future amid preparations for a major summer offensive.

Ukraine is now racing against the clock to strengthen its military before Russia’s summer offensive can get fully underway. The recent breakthrough in Washington DC regarding desperately needed US military aid will boost these efforts, as will the new mobilization law. However, with no end in sight to Russian aggression, Ukraine must also find long-term solutions to the country’s lack of new recruits and the thorny issue of demobilization.

Dr. Elena Davlikanova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and an associate professor at Sumy State University in Ukraine. Kateryna Odarchenko is a partner at SIC Group Ukraine.

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Officials in Kyiv hope this new wave of weapons deliveries will arrive in time to help stabilize the front lines of the war and prevent further Russian advances. In recent months, Russia has taken advantage of the Ukrainian military’s mounting supply problems to edge forward at various points along the one thousand kilometer front line, often overwhelming Ukrainian defenses with sheer numbers and relentless bombardments.

During Stoltenberg’s Kyiv visit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged NATO partners to send additional military aid as quickly as possible. The Ukrainian leader said the battlefield situation “directly depended” on the timely delivery of ammunition supplies to Ukraine. “Today, I don’t see any positive developments on this point yet. Some supplies have begun to arrive, but this process needs to speed up.”

The sense of urgency in Kyiv reflects widespread expectations that Vladimir Putin will launch a major summer offensive in late May or early June. Having already succeeded in regaining the battlefield initiative, Russian commanders now hope to smash through Ukraine’s weakened defensive lines and achieve major territorial gains for the first time since the initial stages of the invasion in spring 2022. Ukraine’s international partners currently find themselves in a race against the clock to strengthen the country’s defensive capabilities before Russia’s anticipated offensive can get fully underway.

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Ukraine’s recent supply issues and battlefield setbacks have highlighted the need for a more reliable long-term approach to arming the country against Russia. At present, Ukraine’s ability to defend itself depends heavily on the changing political winds in a number of Western capitals. This makes it difficult for Ukraine’s military and political leaders to plan future campaigns, while also encouraging the Kremlin to believe it can ultimately outlast the West in Ukraine.

In order to address this problem, Stoltenberg has proposed the creation of a $100 billion, five-year fund backed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 32 members. While in the Ukrainian capital, he reiterated his support for this initiative. “I believe we need a major, multi-year financial commitment to sustain our support. To demonstrate that our support to Ukraine is not short term and ad hoc, but long-term and predictable.”

Crucially, Stoltenberg believes a five-year fund would help convince the Kremlin that Ukraine’s NATO partners have the requisite resolve to maintain their support until Russia’s invasion is defeated. “Moscow must understand: They cannot win. And they cannot wait us out,” the NATO chief commented in Kyiv.

Stoltenberg’s message has never been more relevant. With the Russian invasion now in its third year, Putin is widely believed to be counting on a decline in Western support for Ukraine. Following the failure of his initial blitzkrieg attack in 2022, the Russian dictator has changed tactics and is now attempting to break Ukraine’s resistance in a long war of attrition. Given Russia’s vastly superior human and material resources, this approach has a good chance of succeeding, unless Ukraine’s Western partners remain committed to arming the country.

The issue of a long term military fund for Ukraine will likely be high on the agenda at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington DC in July. With little hope of any meaningful progress on Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations, a commitment to provide reliable long-term support may be the most realistic summit outcome for Kyiv. This would not solve the existential challenges posed by resurgent Russian imperialism, but it would bolster the Ukrainian war effort and dent morale in Moscow while sending a message to Putin that time is not on his side.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Kharkiv has been on the front lines of the war ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Situated approximately half an hour by car from the Russian border, the city was one of the initial targets of the invading Russian army and witnessed heavy fighting in spring 2022. Following Ukraine’s successful September 2022 counteroffensive, which liberated most of Kharkiv Oblast and pushed Russian troops further away from the city itself, the Kharkiv population rose from a wartime low of around 300,000 to well over a million.

With delays in US military aid creating growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses, Russia has intensified the bombardment of Kharkiv since early 2024. A series of strikes in March destroyed the city’s main power plants, creating an energy crisis that has led to widespread blackouts. In mid April, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov warned that the city was now at risk of becoming a “second Aleppo,” a grim reference to the Syrian city partially destroyed almost a decade ago following heavy bombing by Russian and Syrian government forces.

The extensive use of highly destructive glide bombs has further exacerbated the situation and added to the psychological strain on the Kharkiv population, with many attacks on residential districts taking place in broad daylight. One of the most recent blows was the destruction of Kharkiv’s iconic television tower, a city landmark and also an important element of local communications infrastructure.

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Russia’s escalating bombing campaign has been accompanied by a major information offensive. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is one of numerous senior Kremlin officials to encourage a mood of mounting insecurity among Kharkiv residents by publicly speaking of a coming campaign to seize the city. In April, Lavrov noted Kharkiv’s “important role” in Vladimir Putin’s plans to create a demilitarized “sanitary zone” inside Ukraine.

This message has been reinforced throughout Russia’s tightly-controlled mainstream media space. During a revealing recent lecture to Russian students, prominent Kremlin propagandist Olga Skabeyeva argued that patriotic journalists should portray the bombing of Kharkiv region not as evidence of Russian aggression, but as part of efforts to establish a “sanitary zone” along the Ukrainian border with Russia.

Statements from Russian establishment figures on the need to destroy and depopulate Kharkiv have been accompanied by a steady stream of similar chatter on social media. Since January 2024, there have been growing signs of a coordinated campaign to flood the online information space with intimidating and alarmist posts pushing the idea that Kharkiv will soon become an uninhabitable grey zone.

The role of social media in Russia’s information offensive against Kharkiv cannot be overstated. Platforms like Telegram, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter) have become battlegrounds for competing narratives and serve as platforms for carefully choreographed Russian propaganda. Groups of pro-Kremlin accounts frequently engage in the intensive promotion of key propaganda messages. These include the alleged hopelessness of Ukraine’s military position, the inability of the Ukrainian state to protect its citizens, and the likelihood of Kharkiv suffering the same fate as Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city with a prewar population of around half a million that was largely destroyed by the invading Russian army during the first months of the war.

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Russia’s information offensive features a strong disinformation component. This includes the distribution of fake statements supposedly released by the Ukrainian authorities. On one occasion, Kremlin accounts spread disinformation that the Ukrainian government was calling on residents to leave Kharkiv urgently in order to avoid imminent Russian encirclement. In a separate incident, Russian sources pushed fake Ukrainian government reports stating that Kharkiv was on the brink of a humanitarian collapse.

These elaborate fakes are typically presented in a convincing manner and closely resemble official Ukrainian government communications. They have even been accompanied by detailed information about “safe evacuation routes.” Inevitably, many Kharkiv residents are fooled by this disinformation and become unwitting accomplices in the dissemination of weaponized Russian fakes.

Russian accounts have also taken genuine news reports and distorted them in ways designed to mislead the public and maximize panic. For example, a series of planned evacuations from specific front line settlements was repackaged by Kremlin trolls as a complete evacuation of entire Kharkiv region districts.

In addition to fake government announcements and deliberate distortions, Kremlin-linked social media accounts are also actively spreading misleading video footage. One widely shared recent video purported to show long lines of cars evacuating Kharkiv while proclaiming that an “exodus” of the “ruined” city was underway. However, this video was later debunked as archive footage shot during the early days of the invasion in spring 2022.

Russia’s disinformation campaign seeks to sow fear and confusion among the Kharkiv population, says local resident Nataliya Zubar, who heads the Maidan Monitoring Information Service. “Disinformation clouds people’s judgment, leading to emotional reactions and stress,” she notes. “This fuels instability and places additional strains on the limited resources that are needed for the city’s defense and to address the growing humanitarian crisis Russia is creating.”

Kharkiv officials and civil society organizations are well aware of Russia’s ongoing information offensive. Work is currently underway to debunk false information and reduce the city’s vulnerability to information attack. These efforts include methodically exposing false claims, while also informing city residents of Russian information warfare tactics and educating them on ways to detect and counter disinformation. The stresses and strains of the emotionally charged wartime environment in today’s Kharkiv make this is a particularly complex task.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities are developing a draft law to target the spread of deliberate disinformation via social media. This initiative mirrors similar undertakings in a number of other countries, but skeptics question whether legislative measures will prove effective against sophisticated state-backed information operations conducted across multiple media platforms.

Russia failed to take Kharkiv in the early weeks of the invasion more than two years ago. As the city braces for the possibility of a new Russian offensive in the coming summer months, local residents are equally determined to defy the Kremlin once again. In order to do so, they must withstand unprecedented aerial bombardment, while also guarding against the demoralizing impact of relentless Russian disinformation.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

US takes big step toward making Russia pay for Ukraine invasion

Kira Rudik — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:13:22 +0000

The landmark US aid bill signed by President Biden on April 24 has visibly boosted morale in Ukraine. Many analysts believe the $61 billion package will significantly improve Ukraine’s military outlook, easing months of critical supply shortfalls and creating new opportunities to strike back at the invading Russian army.

While most attention has so far focused on the military aspects of this new US aid package, the bill passed in Washington DC also includes an important step toward holding Russia financially accountable for the invasion of Ukraine. The Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunities for Ukrainians Act, or REPO Act, paves the way for seizures of Russian Central Bank holdings that have been frozen in the United States for more than two years, while also setting the stage for a more global approach to confiscating Russian assets.

Western countries froze approximately $300 billion in Russian assets following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin has been unable to access these assets ever since, but they still technically belong to Russia. The REPO Act could now make it possible to seize Russian assets and use them for the benefit of Ukraine. Only around $5 billion of the overall $300 billion is located in the US, but the United States is setting an important precedent by taking a leadership position in the confiscation of Russian state funds.

We should not expect any immediate action. The REPO Act obliges the White House and US Treasury Department to identify Russian assets in the US within a 90-day period and report back to Congress in 180 days. After a further month, the president is then authorized to “seize, confiscate, transfer, or vest” any Russian state sovereign assets located within the United States.

The US is unlikely to act unilaterally. Instead, United States officials have indicated they wish to move forward in conjunction with other Western governments. The issue is set to be high on the agenda during the next G7 summit, which is scheduled to take place in Italy in June. “The ideal is that we all move together,” commented US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on April 24. This would send a message to Moscow that the democratic world is united in its commitment to make Russia pay for the largest European invasion since World War II.

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In order to appreciate the significance of the REPO Act, it is helpful to track Russia’s reaction. Since the aid bill passed, there has been plenty of outrage in Moscow. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed his wish for the United States to be “plunged into a new civil war,” and threatened to seize the assets of US citizens in Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia would make the United States answer for the confiscation of frozen assets.

Meanwhile, Russian Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Russia could now pass “symmetrical” legislation allowing Moscow to confiscate Western assets located inside the Russian Federation. Volodin was one of many Russian officials to claim that the US step was intended to “provoke” the adoption of parallel measures in EU countries. He predicted that this would be “devastating” for the European economy.

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Skeptics in the West have voiced concerns that the seizure of Russian assets could undermine the global financial system and weaken Western economies. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is one of numerous senior figures in Europe to express unease over the confiscation of Russian assets, arguing that it could mean “breaking the international legal order that you want to protect, that you would want Russia and all countries around the world to respect.”

This caution ignores the fact that Russian state assets in Western jurisdictions have now been frozen for more than two years without sparking any noticeable negative consequences for the international financial system. If measures against Russian assets were sufficient reason to trigger a loss of confidence in the existing financial system among other authoritarian states, they have already had ample time to react.

The statements coming out of Moscow over the past week underline the sensitivity within the Kremlin to the confiscation of frozen Russian money. While the REPO Act represents a meaningful milestone in the debate over Russian assets, it is not decisive. Nevertheless, this aspect of the aid package has attracted almost as much attention as the very significant additional military support that is now being sent to Ukraine.

It would certainly seem that members of Russia’s ruling elite are more concerned about the security of their own financial resources than the safety of the Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Indeed, many observers have long argued that Putin’s top priority is safeguarding his own ill-gotten wealth and that of his inner circle. If the West is serious about defeating Russia in Ukraine, it should seek to exploit this apparent vulnerability.

Following the adoption of the REPO Act, the next stage in the process should be the promotion of similar draft laws by the European Union and G7 countries. The recent US decision on Russian assets can provide the impetus others have been waiting for. Russia only understands the language of strength, and views hesitation as an invitation to go further. Western leaders can now demonstrate their resolve by acting together to make Russia pay for its criminal invasion of Ukraine.

Kira Rudik is leader of the Golos party, member of the Ukrainian parliament, and Vice President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

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Since late 2023, the negative impact of delaying military aid to Ukraine has been all too apparent. With Ukrainian troops often at a ten-to-one disadvantage in terms of artillery firepower, Russia has been able to advance at various points along the approximately 1000 kilometer front line of the war, capturing the town of Avdiivka in February and pushing further forward in recent weeks. Russian commanders have also taken advantage of growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses to launch a new bombing campaign targeting the country’s cities and civilian energy infrastructure. This has led to the destruction of multiple power plants, sparking fears of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

As soon as it begins to arrive in the coming days, US aid will go some way to addressing the most immediate challenges facing Ukraine. The package approved this week in Washington DC includes air defense systems and interceptor ammunition that will help protect residential areas and vital infrastructure from further Russian bombardment. Likewise, the delivery of artillery shells and long-range missiles should make it far more difficult for the Russian army to advance and occupy additional Ukrainian territory. Russian dominance of the skies above the battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine will also soon become increasingly contested.

At the same time, this new US military aid package will not provide Ukraine with anything like the quantities it needs to defeat Russia. This has been a problem ever since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. While the West has provided significant amounts of military aid, weapons have consistently been delivered to Ukraine after extended delays and in insufficient quantities. The first meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which brings together more than 50 countries in support of Ukraine, did not take place until more than two months after the onset of Russia’s invasion. It would be almost a year before NATO member countries agreed to supply Ukraine with a modest number of modern tanks. With the invasion now in its third year, Ukraine is still waiting for the arrival of the first F-16 fighter jets.

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The underwhelming international response to Russia’s invasion has led to accusations that Ukraine’s partners seek to provide Kyiv with sufficient weapons to avoid defeat but not enough to actually win. This cautious approach is primarily due to the West’s well-documented fear of escalation. It also reflects widespread concerns over the potentially destabilizing geopolitical consequences of a Ukrainian victory.

Many in the West seem to sincerely believe that if confronted by the prospect of imminent battlefield defeat, a desperate Vladimir Putin may be prepared to use nuclear weapons. Putin himself has skillfully exploited these fears, intimidating Western leaders into self-deterrence with his frequent and thinly-veiled nuclear threats. Meanwhile, if Russia does lose the war, there is considerable anxiety that this could lead to the collapse of the Putin regime and the breakup of the Russian Federation into a series of smaller successor states. Faced with these nightmare scenarios, Kyiv’s Western backers have repeatedly shied away from bold decisions that could have turned the tide of the war decisively in Ukraine’s favor.

Russia’s war effort suffers from no such uncertainty or indecision. On the contrary, Putin has succeeded in mobilizing the entire country in support of his invasion. He has moved the Russian economy onto a war footing, and is now comfortably outproducing the far wealthier West in key categories such as artillery shells. The Kremlin-controlled Russian media and the Russian Orthodox Church have led efforts to consolidate popular backing for the invasion of Ukraine, which has been presented to the Russian public as a “holy war” and an existential struggle against the West. With no sign of domestic opposition and ample supplies of both men and equipment, Russia is clearly preparing for a long war.

There are growing indications that Europe now recognizes the scale of the threat posed by Russia. This week, Britain confirmed its largest Ukrainian military aid package to date. In recent months, French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged that Ukrainian victory is vital for European security, and has refused to rule out sending French troops. Across Europe, initiatives to boost armament manufacturing are gradually gaining momentum and will lead to far greater production volumes by the end of the current year. This is encouraging but it is not enough.

The recent scare over US aid has underlined the fragility of the current Western approach to arming Ukraine. With the future of US support for Ukraine still uncertain, European leaders must accept a far greater share of the burden. This means taking the necessary steps to move toward a wartime economy capable of supplying the Ukrainian military for years to come. Such a shift is likely to prove politically unpopular with domestic European audiences, but the alternative is even more unpalatable. Unless Putin is stopped in Ukraine, he will go further. Europe can either support Ukraine today or face a resurgent Russia tomorrow, with all the additional costs this would involve.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

A decentralized power grid can help Ukraine survive Russian bombardment

Yuri Kubrushko — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 01:10:41 +0000

In recent months, Russia has launched a major new bombing campaign targeting Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. Building on key lessons learned from an earlier air offensive conducted during the first winter of the war, the current wave of Russian airstrikes has concentrated on Ukraine’s largest power plants with devastating results. Since the beginning of 2024, a large part of Ukraine’s thermal and hydro power generation capacity has been damaged or destroyed.

“Rather than continuing to focus their attacks on Ukraine’s transmission systems, from late March Russia began launching massive attacks on our energy generation infrastructure,” Maxim Timchenko, CEO of Ukrainian energy producer DTEK, told CNN. “Unfortunately, the enemy has evolved his tactics and is using high-precision weapons. The result is a huge increase in its destructive effectiveness compared to 2023.”

This is placing unprecedented pressure on Ukraine’s embattled power grid. Problems are arising not only due to a severe shortage of generation capacity, but also because the destroyed facilities played a vital role in ensuring the flexibility of the system. Fears are now growing that Ukraine will face rolling blackouts in the coming months, with potentially grave consequences for the wartime Ukrainian economy and the humanitarian situation in the country.

Ukrainian government officials and energy sector representatives anticipate that it could take years to repair the extensive damage done to power plants targeted in Russia’s recent attacks. Nor would this necessarily solve the problem. As numerous commentators have already pointed out, repaired facilities would remain vulnerable to future Russian airstrikes. Indeed, some of the plants struck since the beginning of 2024 had only recently been fixed following earlier bombardment.

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There are alternatives to simply repairing Ukraine’s old power grid and hoping for the best. Looking ahead, many industry experts and officials favor a more diverse and decentralized model for the Ukrainian energy sector. Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, CEO of Ukrainian electricity transmission system operator Ukrenergo, recently argued that instead of relying on 15 to 20 large electricity generation facilities dating back to the 1960s and 1970s, Ukraine should be aiming to construct a nationwide network featuring hundreds of far smaller power plants.

This national energy upgrade should incorporate the latest technologies and take maximum advantage of Ukraine’s considerable renewable electricity generation capabilities. From a military perspective, it would be significantly more challenging for Russia to inflict critical damage on such a decentralized Ukrainian power grid. With a large number of potential targets spread out across the country, the cost of doing so would also likely be prohibitive.

The Ukrainian private sector can play a critical role in the transformation of the country’s energy industry. For the past two years, Ukrainian companies have demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of Europe’s largest invasion since World War II. They have successfully adapted to incredibly challenging conditions and have overcome a wide range of obstacles, including in the energy sector. But in order to lead the way in building a new generation of power plants, the country’s energy entrepreneurs require access to the necessary financial tools.

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While Ukraine’s energy industry has received considerable financial support since 2022 from international donors and development institutions, most funding has gone to the public sector. This is understandable, given the need to keep state-run critical infrastructure functioning. However, in order to advance to the next stage, the Ukrainian authorities and the country’s international partners must look to make new projects economically viable for Ukraine’s private sector.

Without access to financing along with additional efforts to minimize the economic risks involved in new projects, the large-scale construction of decentralized energy facilities is unlikely to happen. Ukraine’s state-owned energy companies are already occupied with the restoration of their existing assets, and are not realistically in a position to embark on dozens of new projects in parallel. Providing access to financing could help spur competition within the Ukrainian private sector and pave the way for significant investment.

Much of the financial support for Ukrainian energy initiatives currently comes from international financial institutions. At present, many of Ukraine’s largest private sector players do not meet their criteria, while others are too small to appear on their radar. With little prospect of overcoming financial obstacles, some Ukrainian energy sector companies are already turning their attention to more economically viable projects outside Ukraine. Unless the situation changes, others may follow.

Financing the decentralization of Ukraine’s energy sector should be recognized as a strategic priority. Russia is clearly aiming to destroy the Ukrainian power grid and hopes this will break the country’s ability to resist. Withstanding the Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is therefore vital for the wider war effort. The Ukrainian private sector is a logical partner in this undertaking, but needs access to the financial tools that only the country’s international partners can provide. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Give Ukrainian entrepreneurs the financial tools, and they will finish the job.”

Yuri Kubrushko is co-founder of the Green Recovery Fund.

Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s power grid may force millions to flee

Olga Aivazovska, Andriy Savchuk — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 15:28:47 +0000

In October 2022, the Kremlin launched what was then the most comprehensive bombing campaign of the war. For the next five months, waves of Russian missiles and drones struck Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure on an almost daily basis. The attacks aimed to break Ukraine’s resistance by making life as unbearable as possible for tens of millions of Ukrainian civilians.

At the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov openly stated that Ukraine could “end the suffering” of the civilian population by fulfilling Russia’s demands. Instead, the Ukrainian authorities worked with the country’s partners to improve air defenses and import large quantities of electricity generators. Ukrainians endured a dark and often terrifying winter, but the country survived.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has recently issued arrest warrants for high-ranking Russian military officials on suspicion on committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the winter 2022-23 bombardment of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. However, this has not prevented the Kremlin from embarking on a new air offensive against Ukraine’s power grid and other essential infrastructure targets across the country. Once again, Russia appears intent on depopulating entire regions of Ukraine.

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In March 2024, large-scale Russian bombing of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure resumed with a series of massive barrages involving drones and a variety of missiles. Russian military planners appear to have learned from the mistakes of Moscow’s earlier bombing campaign; instead of focusing on the Ukrainian electricity grid’s transmission systems, this new wave of airstrikes has concentrated on energy generation infrastructure.

The results have been devastating. Within a matter of weeks, Ukraine has lost many of its most important thermal power plants and key hydroelectric plants. Major cities including Kharkiv and Odesa have experienced periodic blackouts and prolonged disruption to energy supplies. Experts believe it will take years to repair damaged facilities and replace equipment.

Russia has been able to achieve such success by exploiting the growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses due to extended political deadlock in the US over critical military aid. With Ukrainian air defense crews forced to ration dwindling supplies of interceptor missiles, Russia has been able to hit and destroy high-value targets such as the biggest power plant in the Kyiv region. With further US aid now expected, Ukrainians may soon see a marked improvement in the country’s air defenses. However, the clock is ticking and Russian attacks continue.

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By making large parts of Ukraine unlivable for the civilian population, Russia hopes to create a new wave of Ukrainian refugees. Analysis of the winter 2022-23 bombing campaign indicates that Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid did lead to an increase in the number of people exiting Ukraine for the safety of neighboring EU countries.

Unless Ukraine urgently receives additional air defense systems and ammunition from the international community, there is a very real danger that millions of Ukrainians will be forced to flee their homes in the coming months. If that happens, many would be likely to join the millions of Ukrainians who have already left the country for the European Union since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Russia’s depopulation tactics have serious consequences for Ukrainian morale and for the country’s wartime economy. Research has found that economically active Ukrainians are the most likely to leave as a result of persistent bombardment. Many Ukrainian companies are already finding it increasingly difficult to fill vacancies, especially in labor-intensive sectors of the economy.

Meanwhile, fresh influxes of Ukrainian refugees would create challenges for the country’s European partners, who have already accommodated extremely large numbers of Ukrainians since 2022. A major new wave of refugees could create social tensions and undermine political support for Ukraine within the EU. This potential for destabilization is also very much part of the Russian strategy.

Depopulating entire regions of Ukraine will pave the way for new Russian advances, while also weakening Ukraine’s wartime economy and making it more difficult to preserve the country’s independence. The resulting surge in Ukrainian refugees could also have a range of negative consequences for Kyiv’s partners in the EU.

It is clear that both Ukrainian and Western leaders have a vital interest in protecting the country against Russia’s new air offensive. In the short term, this means delivering sufficient air defenses to guard cities and critical civilian infrastructure against Russian bombardment, while also providing the necessary equipment to repair Ukraine’s battered energy infrastructure. News of a recent breakthrough regarding US aid is encouraging, but all of Ukraine’s allies need to contribute to the strengthening of the country’s air defenses.

Ultimately, the international community must hold Russia’s military and political leaders accountable for war crimes against the civilian population. However, the wheels of international justice turn notoriously slowly, while Ukraine’s needs are urgent.

Olga Aivazovska is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory (ICUV) and head of the board at Civil Network OPORA. Andriy Savchuk is a data analyst at Civil Network OPORA.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the vote “a bad day for Putin” and “a bad day for anyone who dared to believe that America could waver when it comes to defending what and who it stands for.” Ukraine’s top diplomat also stressed the role of the bill in bolstering the US position on the international stage. “Everyone who made this decision a reality made the right choice. The United States has reaffirmed its global leadership.”

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Saturday’s vote in the United States was closely monitored by Ukrainian troops stationed thousands of miles away on the front lines of the war in eastern and southern Ukraine. Ukrainian ambassador-at-large Olexander Scherba shared a message sent to him by one soldier serving in the Donbas, who recounted the enthusiastic reaction among his comrades. “The whole unit was watching. After the vote, you could hear shouts of “YESSS!” along the entire trench.”

For many Ukrainians, the House of Representatives vote has helped rebuild faith in the country’s international partners following months of mounting frustration and feelings of abandonment. Since late summer 2023, Ukrainians have watched in dismay as their country’s survival has become hostage to US domestic politics. Meanwhile, Russia has taken advantage of Ukraine’s dwindling ammunition and air defenses to regain the battlefield initiative in eastern Ukraine and launch a nationwide bombing campaign targeting the country’s increasingly unprotected residential districts and civilian infrastructure.

With major new US weapons shipments reportedly “ready to go” once final confirmation of the aid package is received from the Senate and the White House, there are now renewed hopes that Ukraine will receive the military support it needs in order to push Russian forces back and defend the country. This boost could not be more timely, with Ukrainian weapons shortages rapidly approaching critical levels and preparations well underway for what is expected to be a major Russian offensive in the coming months.

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In the wake of Saturday’s vote, Ukrainian army medic Yulia Paievska was one of numerous prominent figures from the country’s military community to praise Ukraine’s American partners and stress the importance of their continued support in the struggle against Russia. “They have lived up to their promises, which once again proves that justice and freedom are not empty words to the American people,” she commented. “Despite all the obstacles, we advance toward victory.”

These upbeat sentiments were echoed by a number of front line soldiers quoted by CNN. “We thought our partners had forgotten about us. This news gives us a sense of support and an understanding that we have not been forgotten,” one Ukrainian intelligence officer serving on the Zaporizhzhia front noted. “When we feel support from the outside, it motivates us. After all, the military knows it cannot win with sticks and bows and arrows,” stated another.

While the House of Representatives vote clearly boosted Ukrainian morale, many in Ukraine were also realistic about the scale of the challenges that remain. With the US presidential election set to take place later this year, further large-scale US military aid cannot be taken for granted. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European partners are working to boost defense production but have so far struggled to fill the gap created by the recent pause in US security assistance.

If Western leaders are serious about preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine, they will have to look beyond the current $61 billion US aid package and develop the necessary resources to prevail in a long confrontation with the Kremlin. “Please don’t forget that Russia’s annual military budget is more than $100 billion,” noted Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko on Saturday evening. “We have won time today, but we have not won the war. We will still need to finish the job.”

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Experts on the REPO Act: A good deal for the United States and for Ukraine

John E. Herbst — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 19:57:14 +0000

Speaker Mike Johnson introduced three bills on April 17 to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel, and the Western Pacific, and a fourth bill that includes provisions of the REPO Act among other policies. The REPO Act would provide a legal basis for the transfer of Russian state assets in the United States to Ukraine to compensate for the damage Moscow has inflicted on Ukraine in its war of aggression. Ensuring Ukraine has the military and economic aid from the United States presented in the Ukraine aid bill is essential to US security interests in Europe. Approving the provisions of the REPO Act provides additional resources to Ukraine—not coming from the US taxpayer—to help Ukraine win this war and successfully rebuild its economy afterwards. Despite the views of some skeptics, this can be done without undermining the international financial system and the role the dollar plays in that system. Below we provide a sampling of expert evaluations of the REPO Act.

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Ambassador Robert Zoellick, former President of the World Bank, former US Deputy Secretary of State, and former US Trade Representative: The REPO Act achieves elegant justice by using Russia’s own money to help Ukraine resist Putin’s brutal aggression. The REPO Act represents a rare combination: sound policy, good politics, and ethical values. Why would any American oppose that combination?

In a war of attrition, economic support is as vital as arms and ammunition. The REPO Act creates an opportunity for the Biden administration to press Europeans to use the assets of the Russian government to help Ukraine survive economically.

Philip Zelikow, Botha-Chan Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and former Counselor of the US Department of State: At this decisive hour in Ukraine’s war for survival, the REPO Act can finally start to mobilize the financial firepower that can help turn the tide. Enormous sums sit idle, helping no one. They will go back to the aggressor, or they will help the victims. The time has come to choose.

Some of the best international lawyers in the world have looked hard at this question. They find the REPO Act’s approach to be sound. And those who have actually analyzed the financial repercussions find positives, not negatives. So, the way is clear to act.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Lester Crown Professor of Leadership Practice, Yale School of Management: It is well past time to pass the REPO Act and stop dithering over the seizure of Russia’s $300 billion in foreign exchange reserves. Ukraine desperately needs these funds: some estimates are that the costs of Ukrainian reconstruction will run easily over $500 billion, not to mention the continued heavy costs of resisting Russian aggression. The direct destruction attributed Russia’s cruel unprovoked invasion of this peaceful sovereign nation is worth well in excess of these assets. It’s impossible to see how Ukraine would possibly fund its massive reconstruction burden without a reparation payment, with the cost and risks prohibitive to both the private sector and western governments. Only the REPO Act can ensure justice prevails

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Elina Ribakova, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics: It is a brave and principled act by the US Congress. It ensures that those who do not abide by the rules of the global financial architecture and economic cooperation should not be entitled to enjoy its benefits.

Ambassador Daniel Fried, Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and former State Department Coordinator for Sanctions Policy: Having started a war of aggression and national extermination against Ukraine, Russia should pay for the consequences. The REPO Act provides authority to the U.S. Government to use the Russian sovereign assets that it immobilized at the start of the full Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to benefit Ukraine. The purpose is the right one. Passage will strengthen efforts to build international support for taking more Russian sovereign assets to help Ukraine resist and rebuild.

Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum: The REPO Act is an important precedent. It makes clear that military might is not right, but that Russia has to pay war reparations for all the damage it causes through military aggression. It shows the way forward for Europe so that it does the same. A violator of so many international laws must not have its property protected from due compensation. Ukraine needs huge funds for reconstruction and Russia must pay.

John E. Herbst is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and served for thirty-one years as a foreign service officer in the US Department of State, retiring at the rank of career minister. He was US ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006.

Hospitals, businesses, and homeowners are now scrambling to secure generators and other alternative power sources in anticipation of further blackouts, with children forced to study online or in makeshift underground classrooms. For now, most Kharkiv residents appear intent on staying put. However, if the situation does not improve in the coming months, there may be a mass exodus ahead of the winter season. Indeed, many fear that without enhanced air defenses, conditions inside the city could become intolerable much sooner.

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The destruction of Kharkiv would certainly be a major war crime, but it would be far from unprecedented. On the contrary, the methodical depopulation of Ukraine’s second city would be very much in keeping with the destructive tactics employed by Russia ever since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine first began more than two years ago.

From Mariupol to Bakhmut, the Russian military has reduced a long list of Ukrainian towns and cities to rubble as it has slowly steamrollered forward along the largely static front lines of the war. Although it is not possible to accurately determine casualty figures in areas currently under Russian occupation, tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians are believed to have been killed in Mariupol alone.

While the Kharkiv region has been the worst hit, the recent escalation in Russian bombardments has impacted the whole country, with attacks on the power grid in particular creating unprecedented challenges for the entire Ukrainian energy sector. This appears to be the result of extensive planning in Moscow, with Russian military officials learning important lessons from the failure of their winter 2022-23 energy infrastructure bombing offensive.

“Rather than continuing to focus their attacks on Ukraine’s transmission systems, Russia has began launching massive attacks on our energy generation infrastructure,” the CEO of Ukrainian energy provider DTEK, Maxim Timchenko, told CNN. “Unfortunately, the enemy has evolved his tactics and is using high-precision weapons. The result is a huge increase in its destructive effectiveness compared to 2023.”

The timing of the current bombing campaign also suggests Moscow is looking to take advantage of growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses. With a vital aid package held up in the US Congress for more than half a year, the Ukrainian military is currently suffering from a wide range of shortages, leaving front line commanders and air defense crews with no choice but to ration dwindling supplies of ammunition.

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Ukraine’s main port city and international maritime gateway, Odesa, has been heavily targeted in recent months. Attacks on residential areas in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions of northern Ukraine have also accelerated noticeably. In early April, a massive barrage of missiles succeeded in penetrating Ukraine’s depleted air defenses close to the country’s capital, destroying the largest power plant in the Kyiv region. “Why? Because we had zero missiles. We ran out of all missiles,” a clearly exasperated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told PBS NewsHour.

Ukrainian officials are now urgently appealing for extra air defenses to help counter Russia’s bombing campaign. So far, the response has been muted, with only Germany confirming plans to hand over a Patriot system. Others, such as the Netherlands, have offered to purchase Patriot systems on behalf of Ukraine. While these steps are welcome, much more needs to be done to protect Ukraine’s civilian population and the country’s infrastructure.

Many analysts believe improved air defenses are not enough and argue that in order to effectively counter Putin’s terror-bombing tactics, Ukraine must be given the necessary long-range weapons to target Russian launch sites. However, this would require Ukraine’s partners to overcome their well-documented fear of escalation and reverse a longstanding ban on the use of Western weapons for attacks inside Russia. At present, there is little sign of that happening.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has already issued arrest warrants for two high-ranking Russian military officers over the 2022-23 bombing of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, but this is of little comfort to the beleaguered Ukrainian population, who know it will be years before they see even symbolic justice served. Meanwhile, the current bombing campaign continues to gain momentum. This new air offensive is far more ambitious than Russia’s earlier efforts, with the apparent end goal of rendering entire Ukrainian regions uninhabitable.

Unless Ukraine’s air defenses are dramatically upgraded in the near future, the country will face a humanitarian catastrophe that could potentially define the future course of the war. Putin has been unable to defeat Ukraine decisively on the battlefield, but his bombing campaign may yet succeed in breaking Ukrainian resistance by forcing millions of civilians to flee their blacked out homes and ruined cities.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Grassroots diplomacy can help unlock international support for Ukraine

Benton Coblentz — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:15:28 +0000

Amid growing uncertainty over the future of international aid for Ukraine, diplomatic initiatives at the local and regional levels can play a critical role in securing continued public support around the world for Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression. These grassroots efforts, also known as subnational diplomacy, can go far beyond merely symbolic support, and have the potential to strengthen economic, cultural, and political ties between Ukraine and the country’s international partners.

Kyiv Oblast and the US state of Washington recently took a major step in this direction. In March 2024, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and his Kyiv Oblast counterpart Ruslan Kravchenko signed the first Sister State Agreement between a US state and a Ukrainian region.

Washington’s Sister State Agreement with Kyiv Oblast is emblematic of the benefits that robust subnational diplomacy can provide. In Ukraine’s case, subnational diplomacy creates opportunities to highlight the strengths of Ukraine’s many diverse regions. Strong local and regional partnerships can also be maintained regardless of the changing political winds that envelop national capitals.

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The recently signed agreement with Kyiv Oblast was not the start of Washington State’s efforts to support Ukraine. Since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Washington has provided a powerful example of the role regional governments can play in responding to global events.

In March 2022, Governor Inslee directed state agencies to begin reviewing and severing ties with Russian state institutions and companies. In the initial weeks of the invasion, local nonprofits worked together with the state’s Ukrainian diaspora community to organize the delivery of 32 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine. During 2022, Washington State officials allocated nearly $20 million to support the influx of Ukrainian refugees.

According to the Seattle Times, more Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Washington State over the past two years than any other US state. This warm welcome owes much to the state’s vibrant Ukrainian-American community, according Geoffrey Potter, director of international relations and protocol for Governor Jay Inslee. He says the new Sister State Agreement and Washington’s other efforts to support Ukraine are “an expression” of the way local residents with Ukrainian roots have become an integral part of the Washington community.

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Ukraine’s honorary consul in Seattle, Valeriy Goloborodko, believes the Sister State Agreement will pave the way for closer ties and can help “further relationships between academics, industries, and regional governments for the benefit of the people.” Meanwhile, Potter notes a number of common interests linking the Kyiv region and Washington including clean energy, forestry, and the aerospace industry.

As wartime Ukraine looks ahead toward the challenges of recovery and reconstruction, subnational diplomacy can open up a range of new business opportunities. Major Washington State-based business brands including Boeing and Microsoft are already active in Ukraine. The state’s many small businesses are also playing an important role in strengthening ties. In Tacoma, Washington-based SAFE Boats is currently outfitting eight patrol boats destined for Ukraine’s navy. BRINC Drones, based in Seattle, is supplying drones for Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression.

At a time when the issue of vital military aid for Ukraine has become hostage to domestic US political tensions, grassroots relationships can help individual Ukrainian regions bypass the kind of obstacles that might otherwise hamper progress at the national level. With this in mind, Ukraine’s regional leaders and their counterparts across the globe should now be seeking to develop stronger subnational ties that can solidify relationships for the long term.

Washington State’s agreement with Kyiv Oblast offers an attractive model that others can follow, both in the US and beyond. In Goloborodko’s view, the recently signed Sister State Agreement “is a way to show leadership in supporting democracy.” The initiative is the first of its kind for a US state, but Potter is “pretty sure” it will not be the last. “We’re forging a model for what a meaningful, substantive collaboration looks like,” he says.

Benton Coblentz is a program assistant with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Although nonbinding, the House’s condemnation officially formalizes individual remarks made by Congressional Representatives indicating that Russia is conducting a campaign of genocide in Ukraine. Specifically, this super-majority of Representatives, including key leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson, affirmed that Russia’s abduction, transfer, and forcible adoption of Ukrainian children is “contrary to Russia’s obligations under the Genocide Convention and amounts to genocide.”

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By invoking the UN Genocide Convention, the House’s resolution stresses the severity of Russian crimes in Ukraine. Critically, it also denotes the resulting legal obligations to prevent and punish further genocidal acts against Ukrainians. In other words, Congress has finally recognized what countless experts and advocates have been asking them to acknowledge for much of the past two years.

As a principal author and a key contributor on two independent legal inquiries into the question of Russian genocide in Ukraine published by the New Lines Institute (Washington, DC) and Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (Montreal, Canada), we applaud the House’s unequivocal language regarding these crimes and resulting legal obligations.

Our investigations have detailed the Kremlin’s escalating violence against the Ukrainian population over the past two years. Russia’s most recent actions targeting the civilian population fit into a broader pattern of genocidal objectives evident throughout the invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, prominent Russian media personalities closely tied to the Kremlin continue to advocate for the eradication of Ukraine.

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Amid mounting international efforts to hold Russian perpetrators to account for crimes taking place in Ukraine, it is important to stress that the central duty of the UN Genocide Convention is prevention rather than punishment. This implies active steps from signatories to ensure that further crimes are not committed and to keep Ukrainian children safe from abduction.

At the same time, the stark reality remains that no genocide has even been stopped in a courtroom. While accountability is vital for surviving victims, international legal processes often take decades and lack the enforcement mechanisms required to decisively end genocides in real-time. Instead, the duty to stop a genocide in motion falls squarely on every country that has ratified the Genocide Convention.

Human rights advocates are currently racing against the clock to locate Ukraine’s missing children and end the daily deportations that continue in Russia-occupied Ukraine. Once Ukrainian children are seized, experts have traced the Kremlin’s efforts to hide these young victims, while subjecting them to frightening surveillance and camps designed to eradicate their Ukrainian identity. The resolution adopted by the US House of Representatives in March confronted this issue squarely, declaring that “the Russian Federation is attempting to wipe out a generation of Ukrainian children.”

Numerous survivor testimonies confirm that the best genocide prevention mechanism in Ukraine today is a fully-equipped Ukrainian army with staunch Western backing. Ukrainian officials know this all too well. With their troops now forced to ration ammunition amid growing supply shortages, they are urgently appealing for the international military aid they need to save their nation.

While the recent US House of Representatives resolution’s clear articulation of Russia’s genocidal crimes in Ukraine is a step in the right direction, Western leaders must follow such statements with the necessary actions. It is vital for Congress, along with the rest of the US government and governments around the world, to act without further delay and enact policies worthy of Ukraine’s courage and sacrifice. History is watching, and so is Vladimir Putin.

Kristina Hook is Assistant Professor of Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Christopher Atwood is a specialist on Eastern Europe and the Head of the Advisory Board at the Souspilnist Foundation.

Western fear of escalation will hand Putin an historic victory in Ukraine

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 18:07:03 +0000

Millions of Ukrainians watched with mixed emotions over the weekend as a coalition of countries came together to protect Israeli airspace from Iranian bombardment. Ukraine’s reaction was hardly surprising. After all, this impressive display of international air defense efficiency was exactly what the Ukrainians themselves have been pleading for ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country began in February 2022.

In the aftermath of the operation to defend Israel, Western officials moved quickly to reject any direct comparisons with Ukraine. “Different conflicts, different airspace, different threat picture,” commented US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron was even more explicit, stating that the use of British jets to shoot down Russian drones in Ukraine would lead to a “dangerous escalation” in the war.

For Ukrainian audiences, Cameron’s anti-escalation argument was all too familiar. For the past two years, Ukraine’s Western partners have sought to strike a delicate balance between aiding the country’s self-defense and avoiding anything that could lead to a wider European war. This overriding fear of escalation has shaped the Western response to Russia’s invasion, and has been masterfully exploited by Putin to restrict military support for Ukraine.

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On the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion, fear of escalation was already deterring Western leaders from delivering weapons to Ukraine. Once the attack had begun, it took precious months for the Biden administration to send artillery and HIMARS missile systems. Almost an entire year had passed before Western partners finally agreed on plans to deliver a relatively small number of modern tanks.

This pattern of delays and half-measures shows no signs of changing. With the Russian invasion now well into its third year, Ukraine is still waiting to receive the first batch of F16 fighter jets. Meanwhile, officials in Kyiv are desperately calling on partners to provide them with long-range missiles and air defense systems.

The West’s preoccupation with avoiding escalation at all costs goes against basic military doctrine and has been instrumental in preventing greater Ukrainian battlefield success. When Putin’s invasion force was at its weakest in 2022, Ukraine was denied the support it needed to break through Russia’s vulnerable defensive lines in the south. By the time Kyiv’s partners had agreed to create the necessary offensive force, it was too late; Moscow had mobilized an additional 300,000 troops and fortified the front lines of the war.

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Throughout the invasion, Russia has consistently fed Western fears of escalation through a mixture of bellicose statements, back channel signalling, and clever influence operations. The Kremlin’s most effective intimidation tactic has been nuclear blackmail. In late 2022, for example, US intercepts began picking up vague but alarming “chatter” about Russian preparations for the use of nuclear weapons.

Many believe this was a deliberate ploy to boost the credibility of Putin’s public nuclear saber-rattling. It appears to have worked. The intel led to heated debate in the White House and nuclear wargaming in the Pentagon, with Biden administration officials engaging in renewed diplomatic outreach to Moscow. Crucially, concerns over a possible Russian nuclear response dampened Western enthusiasm to press home Ukraine’s advantage at a time when Putin’s army was retreating in disarray.

In addition to blunting Ukraine’s offensive capabilities, the West’s desire to avoid escalation is undermining Kyiv’s ability to defend itself. For the past two years, Ukraine has been blocked from using Western weapons against targets inside Russia. In recent weeks, US officials have even objected to Ukraine using its own weapons to attack Russian refineries.

These artificial restrictions have created an unprecedented situation that aggravates the existing imbalance of forces between Russia and Ukraine. While Russia is able to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure at will, Ukrainian commanders are severely limited in their ability to target the air bases, production facilities, and logistical hubs inside Russia that are being used to attack Ukraine.

The West’s emphasis on escalation management has prolonged the war in Ukraine, allowing Russia to overcome initial setbacks and regain the initiative. It has prevented the Ukrainian military from building on the momentum of late 2022, and has turned a dynamic war of movement into an attritional fight that heavily favors Russia. By allowing themselves to be intimidated by the threat of Russian escalation, Western leaders have granted Putin an effective veto over various categories of military aid for Ukraine. This lack of Western resolve has inevitably emboldened the Russian dictator.

Policymakers in Europe and the US must now decide whether they wish to continue with this losing strategy or finally commit to a Ukrainian victory. It is still not too late to adopt a more sensible military strategy, but the clock is ticking. Unless Ukraine is given the tools to defeat Russia on the battlefield, Putin will secure an historic victory that will transform the international security climate. If that happens, today’s emphasis on avoiding escalation will come to be seen as the biggest geopolitical blunder since the appeasement policies of the 1930s.

Ukrainian nuclear energy can fuel country’s recovery and power Europe

Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 13:42:13 +0000

Even while recent Russian attacks on energy infrastructure have once again thrust Ukraine’s besieged energy sector into the headlines, the country’s energy potential remains undiminished. Ukraine’s competitive advantage in clean power including wind, solar, and especially nuclear, is extraordinary. This capacity can play a leading role in funding the country’s reconstruction and could also help carve out a future place for Ukraine in Europe.

The cost of rebuilding Ukraine is currently estimated by the World Bank at $486 billion. Some of this, hopefully, will be paid for by Western governments and with seized Russian assets, but private investment and Ukrainian ingenuity will have to foot a large portion of the bill. However, with no end in sight to hostilities, global investors are more likely to put their money into longer term projects, of which large energy infrastructure is a prime example. Nuclear power is among the most promising options.

Ukraine has been a nuclear energy country since 1977. With the very high-profile exception of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, which was much more a failure of Soviet bureaucracy and politics than of Ukrainian nuclear energy management, the country actually boasts a strong record of nuclear power success. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion forced the shutdown of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in 2022, Ukraine had 15 reactors running, constituting approximately 54% of its baseload power generation.

Ukraine has a well developed nuclear energy industry including a national regulator and a large nuclear workforce. It also has a bilateral civilian nuclear power agreement with the US, known as a 123 Agreement, which means it is authorized to receive most US civilian nuclear technology. With US and European nuclear ambitions bogged down by over-regulation, spiraling construction and commodity costs, a limited nuclear labor force, underdeveloped supply chains, and a near irrational fear of nuclear accidents, Ukraine’s nuclear sector has a number of clear advantages.

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Ukraine’s nuclear agility is unparalleled. Now that it is a fully integrated member of ENTSO-E, the potential for the country to export nuclear-generated clean power to Europe is huge. While building new nuclear power plants in Ukraine is hardly a quick option, once full commercial power exports are authorized, Ukraine could make many billions per year on electricity sales to the rest of Europe.

With its preexisting nuclear industry, Ukraine could also potentially expand its nuclear capacity much faster than any newcomer to nuclear power generation. In the West, nuclear power plants can take 8-15 years to build, depending on regulatory approval times. They can cost approximately $2-3 billion for a single small modular reactor and as much as $15 billion for a large plant. In the past, Ukraine has been able to build nuclear power plants with significantly lower costs and in shorter time frames.

By purchasing Ukrainian power, Europe could save billions and reinforce its energy security. The EU’s energy transition plan is mostly focused on renewables, but a baseload is required to make renewable power sources usable as peak load. With war in the Middle East shutting down the Red Sea and Suez Canal shipping routes, new EU sanctions under consideration targeting Russian liquified natural gas (LNG), Russia bombing Ukrainian gas storage facilities holding European gas supplies, and the end of the Gazprom-Naftogaz transit contract in December 2024, nuclear power is the only scalable baseload available that is secure and zero emission.

Ukraine can also offer much cheaper power than other European countries. Although current Ukrainian prices are regulated according to wartime restrictions, and while Russian devastation of Ukrainian power generation capacity in March and April 2024 has affected markets, Ukraine will remain extremely competitive with the rest of Europe even once controls are lifted.

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The path forward will not be straightforward. In addition to the obvious challenges presented by Russia’s ongoing invasion, the biggest obstacles Ukraine faces in expanding its nuclear power capacity are investor fears and the need for reform at the country’s state-owned nuclear power company, Energoatom.

The possibility of private nuclear power plants is a huge opportunity for Ukraine’s economy and thus reconstruction, because the private sector almost invariably moves faster and more efficiently than the public sector. Many countries have privately owned and operated nuclear power plants, including the US and UK. This model makes it possible to raise funds quickly. It also brings security and rule of law benefits, along with operational benefits and the anti-corruption protections of Western business standards. Moreover, private companies can get started now, potentially years before state-owned entities.

As to public nuclear development, meaning with and through Energoatom, success will depend on achieving de-monopolization and reform of the state-owned company. Despite its nuclear power prowess and ownership and operation of all four of Ukraine’s nuclear plants, Energoatom is hampered in its nuclear expansion plans by a legacy Soviet corporate culture based on monopoly status. Its monopoly position in Ukraine has eliminated any internal incentive to adopt Western corporate standards, including anti-corruption norms.

In recognition of this, Ukraine’s parliament enacted a law in February 2023 requiring the corporatization of Energoatom in order to “open up additional opportunities for attracting significant investments in the industry and development of domestic nuclear energy, which is the key generation in the country,” according to Ukraine’s Minister of Energy German Galushchenko. This corporatization process is currently underway.

Intended to bring the nuclear behemoth into line with international corporate governance and structure standards, the reform of Energoatom requires the selection of an independent international supervisory board and the implementation of numerous internal policies and standards. It is seen as so important that its completion is a requirement for Ukraine to receive up to $100 million in financial support from the US under the recently signed Ukraine-US Memorandum of Understanding regarding Collaboration on Ukrainian Energy System Resilience.

Once the reform of Energoatom advances and possibilities for private nuclear power open up, Ukraine could lead the rest of Europe in constructing new nuclear power plants. Energy is one of Ukraine’s great strengths, as are an educated labor force and technological skills. Taken together, these assets can help fuel Ukraine’s reconstruction and power Europe’s energy transition through new nuclear development.

Suriya Jayanti is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Organizing for victory

Ben Hodges — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 16:34:40 +0000

Ten years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began with the illegal annexation of Crimea, it is clear that a Russia containment strategy 2.0 is inevitable. I am convinced Ukraine will be our best partner for such a strategy in terms of intelligence, understanding of Russian psychology, and military defense. It will be a bulwark against Putin’s clearly articulated plans for further European conquest. Ukraine’s survival and the necessity of bringing it into NATO as soon as possible are paramount to a new European and global deterrence and containment strategy.

We are currently witnessing the continuing collapse of the USSR, which began in 1991. This process is not a straight-line decline, but it is unmistakable. Putin’s unprovoked war against Ukraine has undermined Russia’s economy and severed it from much of the West. His military has been exposed for its many shortcomings and corruption. Nearly all the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact members have turned their backs on Russia. Finland and Sweden have joined NATO.

We should not fear this Russian decline. In fact, we should seek to accelerate it by helping Ukraine defeat Russia and eject it back to its 1991 borders. Ukraine defeating Russia now is the best way to ensure NATO never has to fight directly against Russia. This is in our own strategic interest.

Does the West have the combined political will, industrial strength, and military capabilities to address the strategic challenges posed by Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China? These challenges are all linked and must be viewed as parts of a strategic whole, leading to the conclusion that it in the West’s interests to prioritize the defeat of Russia in Ukraine.

A “Russia first” approach would echo the example set by the allies during World War II. In 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on a “Germany first” strategy. One year later, they defined their war aim as the “unconditional surrender” of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. This provides a model for the kind of strategic clarity the current generation of Western leaders should be looking to emulate.

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An assessment of today’s battlefield confirms that the Ukrainian military faces a very difficult situation. However, present narratives are overly gloomy and defeatist. After ten years of war, and despite holding every advantage, Russia still only controls just under twenty percent of Ukraine.

The Russian army has suffered hundreds of thousands of losses, while the weaknesses of the Russian navy and air force have been revealed. The Black Sea Fleet has lost around one-third of its ships and is in retreat from Sevastopol. The Russian Air Force has failed in its two main tasks of securing air superiority over Ukraine and cutting the supply lines bringing military equipment into Ukraine from the EU.

Much has been made of minor Russian victories such as the recent capture of Avdiivka, but these advances should be put in a proper geopolitical and operational context. Despite efforts by many of the doom-mongers to make it sound like Stalingrad, Avdiivka is in reality a small town located close to the 2022 front lines in eastern Ukraine. Indeed, it is currently far from clear whether the Russians have the operational capability to exploit even local tactical successes.

At this stage of the war, neither side appears capable of delivering a knockout blow. For Ukraine’s new military Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky, the key task this year is to stabilize the situation in order to buy time, build combat power, and fix the country’s personnel system. Worn-out units need to be reconstituted and new units built. Training should include a focus on countering Russia’s advantages in electronic and drone warfare.

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What does Ukraine need in order to actually win? The Ukrainian military needs the capacity to make Crimea, the decisive terrain of this war, untenable for the Russian navy, air force, and logistics. Every square inch of Crimea is within ATACMS range. Ukraine has already proven the concept with a relatively small number of cruise missiles provided by Britain and France. This has made it possible to seriously damage the Black Sea Fleet HQ and naval maintenance capability in Sevastopol, forcing the fleet to partially withdraw to Russia. There are no good reasons for not providing Ukraine with ATACMS missiles, only excuses from an administration that is unwilling or unable to develop a strategy for Ukrainian victory.

The Ukrainian military also needs a long-range strike capability to neutralize the Russian army on land by destroying Russian troop concentrations, command posts, artillery, and logistics. Significantly enhanced air defense and counter-drone capabilities are essential, along with more naval drones and anti-ship missiles to allow Ukraine to build on the country’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea.

One of the most important steps toward securing Ukrainian victory is a clear declaration from the US and EU that it is in our own strategic interest to help Ukraine win. The failure of the current US administration to clearly explain this to the American people has led to incoherent and self-deterring policies along with incremental decision-making and a drip-feed approach to military aid for Ukraine. This has left the door open for disinformation and made it possible for a MAGA-led minority within the Republican Party to block aid despite majority support.

The current year is a year of industrial competition that the West can and must win. Western countries should collectively be dwarfing Russia’s output but there is currently a lack of urgency. Encouragingly, ammunition production is finally picking up some momentum in Europe and the US. We just need the US Congress to approve delivery. Meanwhile, EU nations must reassess their priorities and address the large percentage of ammunition production that is currently heading to customers outside Europe. Greater efforts are also required to source existing ample ammunition stockpiles globally.

The West needs a return to the clarity of Churchill and Roosevelt, who communicated clear strategic priorities to the public, industry, and the military. Identifying these priorities was a vital step, making it possible for the allies to organize the war effort and secure victory. The lessons of this approach should now be applied to the confrontation with Putin’s Russia, Iran, and China. At the end of the day, it’s all about political will and leaders speaking to their populations as adults.

Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ben Hodges is the former Commander of US Army Europe.

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Ukraine’s hunt for Patriot air defense systems is taking place against the backdrop of an escalating Russian air offensive that is capitalizing on months declining Western military support and prolonged deadlock in the US Congress over a major Ukrainian aid package. With gaps now growing in Ukraine’s air defense network and individual air defense units increasingly obliged to ration their dwindling resources, Russia has launched a series of overnight attacks in recent weeks that have decimated much of Ukraine’s power grid.

Ukraine’s second-largest city and former capital, Kharkiv, has been particularly hard hit. Located just a few dozen miles from the border with Russia in eastern Ukraine, the city has been subjected to an intensive bombing campaign since mid-March that has caused extensive damage to residential districts and civilian infrastructure. In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands have been left without power for extended periods.

The destruction in Kharkiv has been so severe that some analysts now believe Russia’s objective is to empty the city of its more than one million residents ahead of an anticipated summer offensive. “The Kremlin wants to make Ukraine’s second city unlivable,” reported Britain’s The Economist in early April.

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The latest wave of Russian missiles and drones struck targets across Ukraine early on April 11. In an indication of Ukraine’s increasingly ineffective air defenses and mounting vulnerability to Russian bombardment, all of the Kremlin’s hard-to-intercept hypersonic and ballistic missiles reportedly reached their objectives, according to the Kyiv Post.

A major power plant close to Kyiv was among those destroyed in the overnight attack, dealing a further significant blow to Ukraine’s energy resilience. The Trypilska Thermal Power Plant, the largest supplier of electricity to central Ukraine’s Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Zhytomyr regions, suffered a series of direct hits and was left in ruins.

“The scale of destruction is terrifying,” commented Andriy Hota, the chairman of Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo. Speaking to the BBC, Hota said the Kyiv region plant can be rebuilt with the help of spare parts from elsewhere in Europe, but warned that the facility will remain vulnerable to Russian attack unless Ukraine’s partners provide powerful air defenses. “We can repair. We can do the impossible. But we need protection.”

With each new Russian bombardment destroying more of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, there is a growing sense that time is now running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the country. Unless Ukraine urgently receives additional air defense systems and ammunition, entire regions could soon face rapidly deteriorating conditions without access to electricity and other basic services. This could fuel a new refugee crisis, with millions of Ukrainians entering the EU.

The collapse of the country’s power grid would also cause economic mayhem and dramatically undermine the Ukrainian war effort. This would set the stage for a Russian military victory that would have disastrous consequences for Ukraine itself and for the future of international security. Russia has so far been unable to break Ukraine on the battlefield, but there is now a very real chance that a lack of air defenses will allow the Kremlin to achieve its goals by targeting Ukraine’s increasingly undefended civilian infrastructure.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukraine’s veterans can transform the country’s postwar political landscape

Kateryna Odarchenko — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 16:30:58 +0000

What kind of Ukraine will emerge from the horrors of Russia’s invasion? While it is obviously difficult to make any specific predictions amid ongoing hostilities, it already seems clear that postwar Ukraine will have a vastly strengthened sense of national identity as a democratic country firmly embedded within the wider European community. It also looks likely that the evolution of Ukraine’s postwar democracy will be shaped by a new generation of military veterans entering the political arena.

Millions of Ukrainians have served in the country’s armed forces since the onset of Russian aggression ten years ago. This large pool of veterans has the potential to transform Ukraine’s political landscape. Military veterans can bring a range of qualities to Ukrainian politics including patriotism, pragmatism, accountability, and an acute awareness about the costs of corruption. Crucially, Ukraine’s military veterans also enjoy unprecedented levels of trust among their compatriots.

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Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, a number of Ukrainian MPs and local officials have joined the military. Their experiences will inevitably influence their future political activities and may result in increased attention to issues including national security and the rights of veterans. However, these serving politicians are likely to form a small percentage of the military veterans active in postwar Ukrainian politics.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are currently defending their country against a threat that most view as existential. With Russia openly denying Ukraine’s right to exist and erasing all traces of Ukrainian identity in areas currently under Kremlin control, the stakes could hardly be higher. This experience is transforming Ukraine and producing an entire generation of Ukrainians defined by the courage and sacrifices of the struggle against Russian aggression.

Many of Ukraine’s military veterans will seek to continue serving the nation in the postwar environment. They will be driven by a profound sense of duty and by a deeply felt desire to build a Ukraine that will honor the memory of their fallen comrades. These veterans will be highly sought after by Ukraine’s existing political parties, but they also have the potential to become a potent political force in their own right.

The single greatest political asset Ukraine’s military veterans possess is the trust of their fellow Ukrainians. In a country where faith in the political classes is notoriously low, military veterans enjoy an enviable reputation for trustworthiness. One recent survey conducted in March 2024 found public levels of trust for different categories of veteran ranging from 84 to 96 percent. In contrast, a January 2024 poll found that 75 percent of Ukrainians distrust state officials.

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An influx of military veterans into the political arena would not necessarily create a more militarized Ukraine. Instead, it would likely enhance democratic accountability while also bringing valuable practical experience along with patriotic judgment that prioritizes the national interest. This has long been the case throughout the democratic world, where military veterans have frequently pursued political careers. For example, almost 20 percent of currently serving Congress members in the US come from military backgrounds.

The Ukrainian authorities should now be looking to create the conditions for more military veterans to play a role in building the country’s future. This means safeguarding their rights and status, while making sure they and their families enjoy maximum government support. State programs, private grants, and international initiatives should offer veterans free education. Efforts should also be made to improve employment opportunities, including initiatives to hire veterans in public service positions.

In light of the major challenges Ukraine will continue to face for many years to come, including the twin threats of further Russian aggression and economic instability, the active engagement of veterans in Ukrainian politics is more crucial than ever. Their proven commitment to serving their country, coupled with their firsthand knowledge of the realities of war, make them highly qualified to lead Ukraine.

From Dwight Eisenhower to Charles de Gaulle, there are many examples in modern history of military men who have gone on to become pivotal political figures in the democratic world. In many ways, it would be entirely natural if Ukraine’s own evolution as a European democracy follows a similar path.

Ukrainian policymakers need to recognize the potential of the country’s military veterans and provide them with opportunities to take on leadership roles in the political arena. This will allow Ukraine to tap into the wealth of talent, dedication, and experience that veterans can offer, while also strengthening the country’s democratic institutions and rebuilding public trust in the political classes.

Kateryna Odarchenko is a partner at SIC Group Ukraine.

Russian Orthodox Church declares “Holy War” against Ukraine and West

Brian Mefford — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 13:10:18 +0000

The Russian Orthodox Church has approved a remarkable new document that spells out the Kremlin’s intention to destroy Ukraine while also making the ideological argument for a broader confrontation with the Western world. The decree was issued during a March 27-28 congress of the World Russian People’s Council, which is headed by Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill. It calls the invasion of Ukraine a “Holy War” with the explicit aim of extinguishing Ukrainian independence and imposing direct Russian rule.

Churches often issue decrees stating official positions on key issues, but rarely do these proclamations involve calls to violence or territorial ambitions. Russia is mentioned 53 times in the 3000-word document, underlining the very clear focus on the Russian state’s earthly interests. “From the spiritual and moral point of view, the Special Military Operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people are defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia,” the document states, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The decree goes on to stress Ukraine’s status as part of the wider “Russian World,” while underlining the need to extinguish Ukrainian statehood once and for all. Following the conclusion of the current war, it states, “the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter Russia’s exclusive zone of influence. The possibility of a political regime hostile to Russia and its people existing on this territory must be completely excluded.”

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The sentiments expressed in this recently approved document expand on previous statements made by Patriarch Kirill since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has frequently asserted that Ukrainians and Russians are “one nation,” and is widely viewed as a key ideological supporter of the war. Kirill’s comments have led to widespread criticism, including a warning from Pope Francis to avoid becoming “Putin’s altar boy.”

The new decree positions Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as part of a larger spiritual struggle against the West, which it accuses of having “fallen into Satanism.” This is strikingly similar to the ideological arguments favored by Islamist radicals, who have long sought to portray the United States and other Western nations as “Satanic” as part of efforts to justify their extremist agenda. In addition to the Russian Orthodox Church, numerous senior Kremlin officials have sought to frame the war in Ukraine as an existential fight with Western “Satanism.” In a further chilling echo of the Islamist doctrine, Patriarch Kirill has also claimed Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine would have their sins “washed away.”

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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The Russian Orthodox Church’s endorsement of language more typically associated with religious extremism should come as no surprise. After all, the entire Russian invasion of Ukraine has been framed as a crusade from the very beginning. Following the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Putin compared the occupied Ukrainian peninsula to Temple Mount and spoke of its spiritual importance to the Russian nation. He routinely insists Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), and has labeled Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

The recent confirmation of a holy war against Ukraine and the West comes at a pivotal point in Russia’s full-scale invasion. Since February 2022, Putin’s invading army has been unable to overcome Ukrainian resistance or break the country’s will to defend itself. With little current prospect of a decisive military breakthrough, the Kremlin is now turning increasingly to terror tactics, including a sharp escalation in the bombing of Ukrainian cities and the methodical destruction of Ukraine’s civilian power grid.

By defining the invasion in explicitly spiritual terms, the Russian Orthodox Church hopes to whitewash the war crimes being committed in Ukraine and encourage more ordinary Russians to volunteer. Moscow’s recent declaration of a holy war also sends an unmistakable message to anyone in the West who still believes in the possibility of striking some kind of compromise with the Kremlin. While Putin initially sought to justify the invasion as a pragmatic response to the growth of NATO, it is now apparent that he views the war as a sacred mission and will not stop until Ukraine has been wiped off the map of Europe.

Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Georgia launches new push to adopt Russian-style foreign agent law

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 12:00:24 +0000

Georgia’s ruling party is pushing ahead with plans to pass legislation tightening restrictions on civil society, despite widespread domestic alarm along with expressions of concern from the EU and US. The new law mirrors earlier draft legislation that was shelved in spring 2023 following widespread protests and comes as the country prepares for parliamentary elections in October.

The proposed legislation would oblige civil society organizations receiving more than 20% of annual funding from sources outside Georgia to openly state that they are “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” They would be required to register as foreign agents and subjected to extensive additional reporting requirements. Organizations that fail to do so could face large fines.

Critics say the bill is very similar to Russia’s draconian foreign agents legislation, which is widely seen as a tool for the Kremlin to target potential dissidents and silence civil society. The similarities between the law proposed by the Georgian authorities and restrictions already in place inside Russia helped fuel large-scale protests in Tbilisi last year, with many denouncing what they termed as the “Russian law.”

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Renewed efforts to pass last year’s foreign agents bill have sparked fresh debate over Georgia’s future. Opposition groups see the return of the draft law as a further indication of the ruling Georgian Dream party’s intention to steer the country away from Europe and toward Russia. The move comes just months after Georgia achieved a major breakthrough by securing official EU candidate nation status in December 2023.

EU officials voiced “regret” that Georgia’s foreign influence legislation was once again under consideration despite being “unconditionally” withdrawn last year. “Transparency should not be used as an instrument to limit civil society’s capacity to operate freely,” read an EU statement. “We encourage the political leaders in Georgia to adopt and implement reforms that are in line with the stated objective of joining the European Union, as supported by a large majority of Georgia’s citizens.”

The United States also voiced its concerns over the reappearance of the contentious foreign agents law. The largely unchanged draft legislation “undermines Georgia’s commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration and risks pulling Georgia off its European path,” commented US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller.

When officials from the ruling Georgian Dream party first proposed new legislation to curb foreign influence in February 2023, the backlash was so strong that the draft law was ultimately withdrawn from consideration. Thousands rallied against the bill in Tbilisi, leading to clashes with police that generated global headlines.

Criticism also came from a range of international human rights watchdogs. “The foreign agent bill seeks to marginalize and discredit independent, foreign-funded groups and media that serve the wider public interest in Georgia,” commented Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia Director for Human Rights Watch.

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The reintroduction of the foreign agents law ahead of parliamentary elections in October casts a shadow over Georgia’s democratic progress. Critics say this renewed push to pass legislation virtually identical to last year’s abandoned bill is part of the Georgian Dream party’s efforts to silence opponents. They accuse the Georgian authorities of backsliding on the core values underpinning the country’s declared goal of securing a democratic, European future.

These concerns reflect fears over Russian influence. Despite widespread public opposition to Russia’s role in the country, the Georgian Dream party has long faced accusations of seeking to foster closer ties with the Kremlin. Russia continues to occupy approximately 20 percent of Georgia, and has recently announced plans to construct a major naval base on the Black Sea coast in Georgia’s occupied Abkhazia region.

Over the past two years, the Georgian authorities have responded ambiguously to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Georgia has refused to join international sanctions or restrict trade with Russia, while Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili echoed the Kremlin in May 2023 by claiming NATO enlargement was one of the main reasons for the war in Ukraine. Georgia also recently relaunched direct flights to Russia.

In the coming weeks, Georgia’s revived foreign influence legislation is expected to be reviewed by a parliamentary committee. A new round of protests against the law has already begun in the capital, and could serve as a focal point for opponents of the current authorities. The further passage of the law will reveal much about the Georgian Dream party’s grip on power, while also providing an indication of the country’s future geopolitical trajectory.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Western weakness in Ukraine could provoke a far bigger war with Russia

Oleksiy Goncharenko — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 01:15:19 +0000

Does the West actually want Ukraine to defeat Russia? That is the question many in Kyiv are now asking amid continued signs of Western indecision as the biggest European invasion since World War II approaches its third summer with no end in sight.

The mounting sense of frustration among Ukrainians is easy to understand. Encouraged by delays in military aid for Ukraine, Russia has intensified the bombing of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure over the past month, plunging entire cities into darkness and leaving millions without access to electricity, heating, water, or internet. Despite the looming prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe, the Western response has been notably lacking in urgency.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has begun striking back with drone attacks on Russian refineries, and has succeeded in disrupting more than ten percent of Russian refining capacity. Rather than supporting this seemingly effective campaign to weaken Putin’s war machine, The US has reportedly called on Kyiv to end its drone strikes due to concerns over global oil prices and possible retaliation. Viewed from Ukraine, these do not look like the actions of partners who are fully committed to Ukrainian victory.

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Over the past two years, Ukrainians have grown accustomed to excessive Western caution and insufficient Western support. While the democratic world deserves considerable credit for delivering the weapons that have allowed Ukraine to survive, the military aid provided since February 2022 has been subject to frequent delays, and has consistently fallen far short of the quantities required to defeat a military superpower like Russia.

The West’s inadequate response to Russia’s invasion is primarily due to a crippling fear of escalation. Putin sees this indecisiveness and acts accordingly. He easily intimidates Western leaders with nuclear blackmail, while escalating his own attacks on Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure.

In March 2024 alone, Russia attacked Ukraine with 264 missiles and 515 drones, according to Ukrainian Air Force data. Some were intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, but ammunition is rapidly running out. With no clear idea of when the next batches of interceptor missiles may arrive, Ukrainian troops must ration supplies, leaving millions vulnerable to the horrors of Russian bombardment.

The situation on the front lines of the war is equally critical. With half of promised weapons deliveries arriving late and vital US military aid held up in Congress for the past eight months, Ukrainian troops are running short of crucial ammunition and are currently in danger of being overwhelmed by Russian firepower. In late March, President Zelenskyy admitted that if US aid is not forthcoming, Ukraine will be forced to retreat. If that happens, he warned, Russia could break through Ukraine’s defensive lines and attempt to seize the country’s biggest cities.

Despite this deteriorating picture, there is currently a surreal sense of business as usual in much of the West. The political classes are increasingly preoccupied with upcoming elections and appear largely unaware of the geopolitical disaster unfolding on Europe’s eastern frontier. Many seem to think Ukrainian courage alone will be enough to hold Russia back until the invasion runs out of steam. This is wishful thinking. In reality, if Ukraine does not urgently receive increased support, there is a very real chance that Putin will win. And if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will go further.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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At present, the West appears content to wage of a slow war of attrition while drip-feeding Ukraine minimal supplies. This is a recipe for defeat. Russia enjoys huge advantages in terms of manpower and weapons, while the Kremlin has successfully shifted the entire Russian economy onto a war footing. Putin clearly believes he can outlast the West in Ukraine, and is confident time is on his side.

This does not mean a Ukrainian victory is unachievable, but Ukraine’s partners need to demonstrate far more resolve if they genuinely hope to secure Putin’s defeat. Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks on Russian refineries have exposed the vulnerability of Russia’s economically crucial energy industry, but the Western response has so far been predictably cautious. This needs to change. Ukraine cannot win a war against such a powerful enemy with one hand tied behind its back.

Likewise, Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea debunks notions of Russian red lines and offers a road map toward victory over the Kremlin. Despite not having a conventional navy of its own, Ukraine has used drones and missile strikes to sink around a quarter of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This has forced Putin to quietly withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from Crimea.

Similar success is possible on land if Ukraine’s Western partners give the country the tools it needs. Ukraine’s requirements are already well known; the Ukrainian military needs vast quantities of artillery shells and drones along with increased deliveries of armored vehicles, combat aircraft, air defense systems, electronic warfare technologies, and long-range missiles.

Without this military aid, Ukraine’s prospects look grim. Nor would the consequences of a Russian victory be confined to Ukraine alone. On the contrary, the shock waves would be felt around the world as Putin and his fellow autocrats sought to capitalize on Western weakness.

A triumphant Putin would almost certainly look to build on the considerable geopolitical momentum created by success in Ukraine. In practical terms, this would mean expanding his quest to reverse the verdict of 1991 and reclaim “historically Russian lands.” Putin’s revisionist agenda would place more than a dozen independent states that formerly belonged to the Russian Empire at risk of suffering the same fate as Ukraine. The most probable initial targets would include Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, but his ambitions would likely expand further.

The fall of Ukraine would leave NATO demoralized and discredited, creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Russian dictator to achieve his ultimate goal and instigate the break-up of the alliance. NATO leaders have already demonstrated that they are afraid of escalation and inclined to back down when confronted by the Kremlin. In a post-Ukraine environment, Putin may look to exploit this lack of resolve by testing NATO’s own red lines while stopping short of full-scale hostilities. If the alliance failed to rise to this challenge, it would risk losing all credibility overnight. While NATO could technically survive such a crisis, the alliance would struggle to maintain any legitimacy without its cast-iron commitment to collective security.

Fellow authoritarian powers like China and Iran are also watching the West’s weakness in Ukraine and are drawing the obvious conclusions. This is already helping to fuel insecurity in the Middle East and increasing the threat to Taiwan. The global security architecture established over the past eighty years is clearly crumbling, and Ukraine is the front line in the fight to shape the future of international relations.

The West’s fear of escalation is Vladimir Putin’s secret weapon. It has deterred Western leaders from arming Ukraine, and has prolonged the war by preventing the Ukrainian army from building on its early battlefield successes. Unless the West can overcome this self-defeating fear, it may ultimately lead to Russian victory.

Russian success in Ukraine would almost certainly set the stage for a far bigger military confrontation between the Kremlin and the democratic world. Since February 2022, Putin has placed his entire country on a war footing and has positioned Russia as the leader of an anti-Western coalition of authoritarian states aiming to transform the world order. As the invasion of Ukraine has escalated, he has become increasingly open about his own imperial ambitions. It is dangerously delusional to suggest Putin will simply stop if he wins in Ukraine. Instead, Western leaders must decide whether they would rather arm Ukraine for victory today, or find themselves confronted with a resurgent and emboldened Russia tomorrow.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

Ukraine’s Belarusian volunteers create headaches for Putin ally Lukashenka

Alesia Rudnik — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:58:45 +0000

In late March, Ukrainian MP Ihor Guz unfurled the flag of the Belarusian Kalinouski Regiment in the Ukrainian Parliament and paid tribute to the Belarusian volunteers helping to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. This gesture was a reminder that Belarusians currently make up one of the largest contingents of foreign nationals fighting for Ukraine. Their growing presence is helping to shape the battlefield in Ukraine and has broader implications for regional security.

Belarusians have been part of the Ukrainian struggle against Russian aggression since 2014, when dozens joining the volunteer battalions that emerged in response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. When Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Febuary 2022, Belarusians responded by forming their own battalion and naming it after Kastus Kalinouski, a nineteenth century Belarusian national hero who led an uprising against imperial Russia.

This Belarusian battalion has since expanded to become a regiment, with representatives claiming as many as 5,000 volunteers. Belarusian troops have taken part in some of the biggest battles of the war including the fighting around Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and Bakhmut. The Kalinouski Regiment now has its own recruitment and training structures, and has acquired a considerable arsenal of military equipment. While casualty figures are not publicly disclosed, there are reports of more than 40 Belarusian volunteers killed while defending Ukraine, with the total number likely to be significantly higher.

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The presence of so many Belarusians fighting alongside the Ukrainian military has long been a source of concern for Belarus’s pro-Kremlin dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Speculation over the potential dangers posed by Belarusian fighters in Ukraine has intensified in recent weeks amid a series of cross-border raids conducted by Russian volunteer units entering Russia from Ukrainian territory. Many are now asking whether Ukraine’s large Belarusian contingent may mount similar border zone operations inside Belarus.

For now, there is no sign of any plans for offensive activity along the Ukrainian border with Belarus. Instead, there are indications that Ukraine’s political and military leaders would rather avoid any escalation in the confrontation with Minsk at a time when they are fighting for national survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

In an October 2023 interview, Ukrainian Military Intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov spoke favorably of Lukashenka’s ability to prevent his country from becoming a direct participant in the Russian invasion. This caused considerable disquiet among the Belarusian pro-democracy opposition, with many viewing it as a signal of renewed readiness in Kyiv to deal with the Lukashenka regime.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Despite the absence of any offensive operations against Belarus, Lukashenka clearly views the Belarusians fighting in Ukraine as a serious threat to his own regime. He is well aware that many Belarusian volunteers regard victory in Ukraine as a stepping stone toward the overthrow of the current pro-Russian authorities in Minsk. Unsurprisingly, volunteer fighters face criminal prosecution if caught inside Belarus. Some family members have also reportedly been detained by the Belarusian authorities.

Lukashenka has good reason to be wary. His position has been precarious since 2020, when nationwide protests over a rigged presidential election threatened to topple his regime until Kremlin intervention and a brutal crackdown enabled him to cling onto power. While there is only relatively limited cooperation between the domestic population and Belarus’s exiled pro-democracy opposition, the danger of renewed protests remains.

Some Belarusians have accused the country’s exiled opposition of not doing enough to confront the Lukashenka regime. Leaders of the Kalinouski Regiment have urged opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to play a more active role in efforts to mobilize support for the regiment and increase assistance for Belarusians fighting for Ukraine.

There are some indications that the Kalinouski Regiment may have political ambitions of its own. The regiment has strengthened ties with the Cyberpartisans hacktivist group, which is a member of the Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council. In January 2024, Kalinouski Regiment leaders announced plans to visit 12 European cities to meet Belarusian supporters. While in Warsaw, they spoke of their interest in developing a “political track.”

The Kalinouski Regiment is playing a significant role in Ukraine’s armed struggle against Russian imperialism and its leaders clearly have ambitions to eventually liberate their own country. However, the regiment is currently far too small to challenge the Lukshenka regime on its own.

Meanwhile, there is little sign of any Ukrainian appetite to expand the war. On the contrary, the absence of cross-border raids and the softer tone adopted in recent months by some in Kyiv hints at a more pragmatic approach toward ties with Belarus. Until this changes, the Kalinouski Regiment may keep Lukashenka awake at night, but it is unlikely to orchestrate his downfall.

Alesia Rudnik is a PhD Fellow at Karlstad University in Sweden and director of Belarusian think tank The Center for New Ideas.

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