Syrians voted in 8,151 polling stations that opened across the country, with the exception of areas not controlled by the Assad regime. To cater to residents displaced from opposition-held areas, the government established special polling stations scattered throughout the country. For example, stations were set up for Raqqa residents in the Hama, Damascus, Hasakah, Homs, Latakia, and Tartous governorates. For Quneitra residents, more than 111 out of 175 stations were located outside the governorate.

In northeastern Syria, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) prevented elections by establishing a security cordon around the Qamishli “government quarter,” in which the Assad regime provides administrative services to the residents of the area. SDF-affiliated social media and news outlets broadcasted warnings that the election sites might be subject to unspecified terrorist attacks. In Idlib and northern Aleppo, areas controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA), there were no electoral activities.

Of all the areas under governmental control, the most disruptions were reported in the southern areas of Sweida. Before the polls, and continuing into Election Day, demonstrators protesting against the elections entered several polling centers, took away ballot boxes, and set election materials on fire. The anti-election protests were a continuation of the anti-regime protests that have been regularly occurring for the past year. On Election Day, demonstrators in Sweida’s al-Karama Square came under fire by security forces, and a civilian was injured. It’s worth noting that protests were not limited to Sweida—violence and demonstrations were reported across the governorate, as well as in the towns of Qarya and Mazraa and the villages of Melh, Slim, and Koraya. In Daraa governorate, protests and threats of violence forced the government to relocate twenty-five polling stations. For example, stations in the town of Mahja were moved to the city of Izraa, stations from al-Karak were moved to al-Musayfrah, and those in the city of Jasem were relocated to a safer part of the city.

Where the polls were conducted without disruption, the process unfolded identically to the 2020 election. Because the election authorities neither register voters nor compile the voters list in advance of elections, the first step at the polling station was to register a voter using the blank forms used to write in voters. This way, the voters list was compiled on Election Day rather than being available to the committees before the elections.

Voters would then be handed a ballot and needed to choose to either use ballots pre-filled with the Baath Party-sponsored candidates on the National Unity (NU) list or, if they dared, a blank ballot. Those who opted for a blank ballot had to write in the names of the candidates by hand, ranging from five names in al-Quentra to thirty-two names in rural Aleppo, which is a burdensome process. In some areas, the non-NU candidates would also distribute pre-printed ballots, such as the “Sham” list in Damascus, which features the incumbent Mohamed Hamsho (sanctioned by the European Union and the United States). The practice is fully permitted by law.

To ensure high turnout, public institutions, companies, committees, factories, banks, and unions were instructed by the government not to give employees a day off, which prevented them from ignoring the polls, and to compel them to vote en masse, likely under supervision. Many polling stations were set up in or near their workplaces—like factories and universities—to boost turnout. However, in contrast with the previous elections, there was no information on turnout either during the day or immediately after the close of the polls. According to our research, the Supreme Judicial Election Committee (SJEC), governors, and heads of polling committees used vague language to describe the turnout in the media, with statements like “turnout was good,” “nice,” “high,” “not bad,” and “it got better in the afternoon” being used throughout the day. During a live interview on state television with the polling station committee in rural Damascus, the reporter abruptly changed the subject and asked the polling station president not to share any information about the number of voters or the station’s results.

There is little to be said about the credibility of the polling process itself. As described in a previous article on electoral administration, the process did not meet fundamental standards for impartial management of elections nor the standards of transparency. There were no independent national or international observers, and there were no systematic, evidence-based reports of the polling process. For what it is worth, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of mass proxy voting, underage voting, voting without secrecy, and voting in military barracks without a chance for supervision.

The same lack of transparency shrouds the process for resolving election disputes. The president of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Jihad Lahham, announced on July 28 that all forty-seven appeals were rejected for “not meeting the conditions stipulated in the laws” and “not supported by any document or evidence.” Nothing is known about the nature of the appeals or those filing them.

The Syrian opposition was campaigning against the legitimacy of the elections. These efforts were led by the Syrian Negotiation Committee, several Syrian nongovernmental organizations, and the media. The key slogan of the campaign was “No to Assad and his elections” alongside “Resolution 2254,” which also appeared as hashtags on X (formerly Twitter). The campaign messages were of a general anti-elections character, pointing out that they were against the framework set by the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 2254. The campaign was launched late and was effectively active only on Election Day. It does not appear to have gained any significant traction.

The Baath Party endorsed NU lists that included 185 candidates across the country. As expected, the electoral system ensured that all of them were elected, making the partisan composition of the assembly identical to the previous one: 67 percent for the Baathists (a total of 74 percent for all the NU candidates) and 26 percent for those elected to seats not contested by the NU. The number of seats not contested by the NU candidates, a maximum of sixty-five, is not random; it is by design. It avoids the perception of single-party rule and allows for a semblance of diversity, but protects the regime by securing a two-thirds majority needed to fend off legislative challenges, enact constitutional amendments, or accuse the president of treason. This golden ratio has been the formula in place since the 2016 legislative elections held in the aftermath of the 2012 constitutional reforms.

Are there any other conclusions besides the predictable 100 percent victory for all of the NU candidates? Detailed analysis is difficult because of the lack of transparency; there is simply not enough data published for a granular view of the results. If elections were ever to be held under the framework of the UNSC Resolution 2254 and within international standards, the authorities would be obliged to publish the complete election results, including turnout with gender breakdown, numbers of invalid ballots, registered voters, and votes for all the candidates. Currently, the results published by the SJEC present only the votes of the winning candidates, not all the candidates. This makes election analysis impossible, as by how much the election losers lost will never be known.

Because the voting data are missing, and because the competition was, in practice, resolved before Election Day through internal elections and the primaries, the analysis is reduced to levels of participation. The SJEC only announced an overall number of voters in elections: 7,325,844 out of 19,200,325 claimed by the government to be eligible, which results in a turnout of 38.16 percent, about a 5 percent increase since the 2020 elections. This overall number says nothing about regional differences.

Voting patterns are even harder to analyze because of elections used a block vote system with multiple candidates. The workaround is to consider the top candidate on the list as representative of the support received by the list. Employing this method reveals a pattern of some voting shifts between the governorates and between the 2020 and 2024 elections. Countrywide, the NU lists received 5 percent fewer votes than in 2024. Some drops in the votes were dramatic, such as in Damascus, where NU lost 49 percent of the votes, followed by Hasaka with 43 percent. On the other hand, votes for NU in rural Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, and Hama dramatically increased (42 percent, 51 percent, and 71 percent, respectively.)

It will take some time to understand the cause of these changes. They could be simply the result of the redeployment of the military and the return of internally displaced persons, especially to Damascus. The only solid conclusion at this point is that the actual increase in the total number of those who voted by 1.1 million has not resulted in increased support for the NU lists, as they lost two hundred thousand votes compared to the 2020 elections. And, when compared with the 2016 elections, the increase in 2.2 million voters led to a decrease in support for the NU by 1.2 million votes.

Shifts in support for the NU lists do not seem to be related to whether the candidates on the lists were incumbents. As in the previous elections, the rates of turnover were high. Out of the 250 elected to the new parliament, ninety-three are incumbents, which is only 37.2 percent of the total—and almost exactly the same as in the 2020 elections, when 37.6 percent of incumbents were re-elected.

However, turnover is not uniform across the country. The variations between the regions are significant. In Idlib, Tartous, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and Damascus, more than 80 percent of representatives were replaced. On the other side of the spectrum is Sweida with only 33 percent, followed by Daraa at 40 percent, and Hassaka at 42 percent.

Besides analysis of the turnout and the turnover in the parliament, what are the election results saying about the structure and political dynamics of the newly elected assembly? On an individual level, it might be of interest that six of the eight members serving in the governmental delegation to the UN-sponsored Constitutional Committee were not re-elected, including Ahmed Kuzbari, the co-chair. In Damascus, the “Sham” list led by Hamsho, a sanctioned businessman closely affiliated with Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother, won twelve seats that were not contested by the National Unity list. One of the new independent members of parliament from Aleppo, Mohammed al-Ruslan, is a former leader of a militia faction reportedly affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Madoul al-Aziz, a former leader of a militia affiliated to al-Nusra, was re-elected as an independent candidate for Deir ez-Zor.

But, as explained in the previous article on candidates, if there was any political competition, it played out in advance to general elections, in the intra-Baath Party elections and primaries. The conclusion from observing those processes is that the new parliament might be rejuvenated with significant turnover, but will likely remain in the service of the top Baath leadership.

Vladimir Pran advises electoral authorities, governments, and political leaders on transitional, electoral, and political processes.

Maroun Sfeir advises international and local civil society organizations, political groups, and electoral authorities on electoral and political processes.

The post Syrian elections ended. What have we learned from the results? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

We still don’t know the military significance of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast, which marks the first time that foreign troops have occupied Russian territory since World War II. But judging from the Kremlin’s whiny initial response—in which Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top officials decried and downplayed the offensive as a “terrorist attack” and an “armed provocation”—the political fallout promises to be enormous.

This is because the invasion and occupation of parts of Kursk Oblast marks the third major military humiliation the Kremlin leader has suffered since launching his full-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022.

The first humiliation: February-September 2022

First, of course, there was the routing of Russian forces in the battle of Kyiv in the early phase of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The embarrassing withdrawal of Russian forces from near the Ukrainian capital in March 2022 was quickly followed by more military humiliations for the Kremlin, including Ukraine’s April 2022 sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

And if you thought it couldn’t get much worse for Russia than losing its flagship in a land war to a country without a navy, you would be wrong. In September and October 2022, Ukraine launched lightning counteroffensives to liberate large swaths of Russian-occupied territory in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

UkraineAlert Aug 11, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has erased the last of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and made a complete mockery of the West’s frequently voiced escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Aug 15, 2024

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia exposes the folly of the West’s escalation fears

By Oleksiy Goncharenko

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has shown that Putin’s talk of red lines and his nuclear threats are just a bluff to intimidate the West, writes Oleksiy Goncharenko.

Conflict Defense Policy

New Atlanticist Aug 9, 2024

Is Ukraine’s raid into Russia a ‘crossing the Delaware’ moment?

By Daniel Fried

With echoes of earlier raids, Ukraine’s recent push into the Kursk region of Russia shows its tactical cunning, audacity, and tenacity against a superior foe.

Conflict Russia

The result of these first humiliations was, for lack of a better term, the shrinkage of Putin in the international arena. When Russia launched its invasion in the beginning of 2022, most analysts believed the war would be over in a matter of weeks. But by the end of 2022, Russia’s war machine no longer looked invincible—instead, it looked quite fallible and beatable. And Putin no longer looked like a ten-foot-tall master strategist—instead, he looked small.

The dismal performance of the Russian Armed Forces in 2022 weakened Putin domestically and divided the Russian elite into hawks, who wanted nothing short of the complete conquest of Kyiv, and kleptocrats, who wanted to go back to the prewar status quo. Ukrainian forces prevented Russia’s complete conquest, while Putin continued to isolate and impoverish his country, and therefore neither group was happy. Which set the stage for Putin’s next humiliation.

The second humiliation: June-August 2023

Putin’s second great military humiliation came not at the hands of Ukraine, but from within his own inner circle. The June 2023 mutiny of Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his Kremlin-connected mercenary army, the Wagner Group, exposed deep cracks in the Russian political elite as well as the hollowness and rot of the Russian Armed Forces.

The fact that Prigozhin, a Putin crony since the 1990s, would launch a rebellion against the Kremlin illustrated the perils of Putin’s “venture-capital foreign policy,” which outsources key military and security tasks to nominally private-sector actors. These informal patronage networks, in which Putin is the ultimate arbiter, only function well when the Russian leader is strong. When Putin is weak, it can lead to events like the Wagner Group mutiny.

And the fact that Prigozhin could effectively take control of the city of Rostov-on-Don—to a hero’s welcome, no less—and march his Wagner mercenaries north to the outskirts of Voronezh, roughly three hundred miles from Moscow, further punctured Putin’s aura of omnipotence.

Prigozhin, of course, paid a price for his mutiny. He died in a plane crash together with nine others, including Wagner co-founder Dmitry Utkin, on August 23, 2023. The crash, to state the obvious, was not an accident. It was, according to sources in Western intelligence agencies, an assassination organized by longtime Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev.

Putin’s second humiliation did not just deepen the divisions in Russia’s ruling elite exposed by the invasion of Ukraine. It also exposed the fundamental weakness of the armed forces in performing their core mission: protecting the homeland. And this, in turn, set the stage for Putin’s most recent humiliation.

The third humiliation: August 2024

The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ invasion of Kursk Oblast—conceived, planned, and executed in strict secrecy—came as a shock and instantaneously transformed the narrative of the war. Instead of the steady drumbeat of news about incremental Russian gains in the Donbas, a headline in the New York Times said it all: “Deception and a Gamble: How Ukrainian Troops Invaded Russia.”

From the mass surrenders of unprepared and outmanned Russian troops, to the chaotic evacuation of civilians, to the steady advances of Ukrainian forces deeper into Russian territory, the Kursk operation exposed the weakness not just of the Russian Armed Forces, but of the Russian state itself.

Over his more than two-decade rule, the Putin regime’s social contract with Russian society has been based on restoring lost greatness and reestablishing the empire. But today, it seems to have failed at achieving the most fundamental responsibility of a state: protecting its territory and citizens from foreign invasion. And the fact that Putin is rumored to have tasked one of his former bodyguards, Aleksei Dyumin (whom some Russian Telegram channels have dubbed Russia’s “shadow defense minister”), with ending Ukraine’s cross-border offensive, suggests that panic is in the air and that recently appointed Defense Minister Andrei Belousov may not be up to the task.

The military fallout of Ukraine’s bold invasion of Russia is still unclear. It may turn out to be, as former US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Daniel Fried suggested, a George Washington “crossing the Delaware moment.” In a smart post on Substack, retired Australian Army Major General Mick Ryan noted that as a result of the incursion, Ukraine has options: It can try to hold on to the territory it has seized, it can retreat to more defensible positions inside Russia, or it can withdraw to Ukraine after embarrassing the Kremlin. Putin, meanwhile, faces the difficult choice of whether to move troops from the front in eastern Ukraine to take back Russian territory in the Kursk region.

Regardless of how this plays out militarily, the political damage is done, and it is rooted in the nature of Russian politics. As I have written, under Putin, the Russian state has become, in essence, an organized crime syndicate. Its internal logic, processes, incentive structure, and behavior resemble those of a mafia family. And the most destabilizing moment for a crime syndicate is when the mafia boss looks weak.

Brian Whitmore is a nonresident senior fellow at the Eurasia Center, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas-Arlington, and host of the Power Vertical podcast.

The post Ukraine’s Kursk offensive marks Putin’s third major humiliation of the war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.”

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.”

UkraineAlert Aug 15, 2024

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia exposes the folly of the West’s escalation fears

By Oleksiy Goncharenko

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has shown that Putin’s talk of red lines and his nuclear threats are just a bluff to intimidate the West, writes Oleksiy Goncharenko.

Conflict Defense Policy

New Atlanticist Aug 15, 2024

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive marks Putin’s third major humiliation of the war

By Brian Whitmore

Ukrainian forces’ recent incursion into Kursk Oblast in Russia came as a shock and instantaneously transformed the narrative of the war.

Conflict Politics & Diplomacy

New Atlanticist Aug 9, 2024

Is Ukraine’s raid into Russia a ‘crossing the Delaware’ moment?

By Daniel Fried

With echoes of earlier raids, Ukraine’s recent push into the Kursk region of Russia shows its tactical cunning, audacity, and tenacity against a superior foe.

Conflict Russia

It is easy to see why Putin may now have decided to block YouTube. After all, reports of a widespread freeze came just days after Ukraine launched a surprise cross-border offensive into Kursk Oblast, marking the first invasion of Russia since World War II. While the Kremlin-controlled Russian state media has sought to downplay the invasion, ordinary Russians have used YouTube to post information about the Ukrainian advance and publish videos contradicting the official Moscow narrative.

As Ambassador Daniel Fried has emphasized, this ongoing Ukrainian offensive “upends the Kremlin narrative of inevitable Russian victory” in Ukraine, and threatens to lift the veil of propaganda that the Russian authorities have created since the start of the full-scale invasion. By slowing down or blocking access to YouTube, Moscow may be hoping to prevent any public panic over Ukraine’s Kursk offensive.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 13, 2024

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

By Mykola Bielieskov

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has succeeded in demonstrating that surprise is still possible despite the increased transparency of the modern battlefield, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Aug 11, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has erased the last of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and made a complete mockery of the West’s frequently voiced escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Aug 1, 2024

Ukraine’s new F-16 jets won’t defeat Russia but will enhance air defenses

By Mykola Bielieskov

Ukraine’s fledgling fleet of F-16 jets will not win the war but should strengthen the country’s air defenses and help protect the civilian population from Russian bombardment, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post The Kremlin is cutting Russia’s last information ties to the outside world appeared first on Atlantic Council.

During the first week of Ukraine’s counter-invasion, Ukrainian forces established control over approximately one thousand square kilometers of land in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, according to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky. This is comparable to the total amount of Ukrainian land seized by Russia since the start of 2024. Ukraine is now moving to establish a military administration over areas of Russia under Kyiv’s control.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive is a remarkably bold gamble that could prove to be a turning point in the wider war. Defining the strategy and motives behind the operation is a matter for Ukraine’s political and military leadership. However, at this early stage, I believe it is already possible to identify a number of initial successes.

The attack clearly caught the unsuspecting Russians completely off-guard, despite the near ubiquity of surveillance drones on the modern battlefield. This represents a major achievement for Ukraine’s military commanders that has bolstered their already growing international reputation.

New Atlanticist Aug 15, 2024

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive marks Putin’s third major humiliation of the war

By Brian Whitmore

Ukrainian forces’ recent incursion into Kursk Oblast in Russia came as a shock and instantaneously transformed the narrative of the war.

Conflict Politics & Diplomacy

UkraineAlert Aug 11, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has erased the last of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and made a complete mockery of the West’s frequently voiced escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

New Atlanticist Aug 9, 2024

Is Ukraine’s raid into Russia a ‘crossing the Delaware’ moment?

By Daniel Fried

With echoes of earlier raids, Ukraine’s recent push into the Kursk region of Russia shows its tactical cunning, audacity, and tenacity against a superior foe.

Conflict Russia

Ukraine’s unexpected offensive has also exposed the weakness of the Putin regime. Throughout his twenty-five year reign, Putin has positioned himself as the strongman ruler of a resurgent military superpower. However, when Russia was invaded for the first time since World War II, it took him days to react. As the BBC reports, he has since avoided using the word “invasion,” speaking instead of “the situation in the border area” or “the events that are taking place,” while deliberately downplaying Ukraine’s offensive by referring to it as “a provocation.”

The response of the once-vaunted Russian military has been equally underwhelming, with large groups of mostly conscript soldiers reportedly surrendering to the rapidly advancing Ukrainians during the first ten days of the invasion. Far from guaranteeing Russia’s security, Putin appears to have left the country unprepared to defend itself.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 13, 2024

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

By Mykola Bielieskov

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has succeeded in demonstrating that surprise is still possible despite the increased transparency of the modern battlefield, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Aug 8, 2024

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

By Olena Tregub

The first batch of F-16 fighter jets arrived in Ukraine in late July and are now expected to be used primarily in an air defense role against Russian missile and drone attacks, writes Olena Tregub.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Aug 11, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has erased the last of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and made a complete mockery of the West’s frequently voiced escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine’s invasion of Russia exposes the folly of the West’s escalation fears appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This article analyzes the evolving dynamics of Syria-Turkey relations, focusing on the key diplomatic milestones and the underlying factors influencing their interactions, and providing a comprehensive understanding of the path toward potential reconciliation. The objective is to identify the critical factors that could facilitate or hinder the normalization of relations between Damascus and Ankara.

Turkey’s intentions

The ongoing situation in Syria presents risks for Turkish security, prompting a search for viable solutions to its multifaceted challenges. Starting in 2019, developments in Syria have been shaped by shared Russian-US interests in preventing Turkish intervention in the country and, in particular, safeguarding the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The presence of the Russian military and the prospect of economic sanctions from the United States have repeatedly prevented Turkish efforts to launch military operations in Syria. At least three planned Turkish military operations appear to have been prevented because of these factors.

Turkey urgently needs to address the situation in northeastern Syria, mainly because it has lost hope in the United States resolving its security concerns related to the YPG-dominated SDF. Ankara views the US partnership with the YPG, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—a designated foreign terrorist organization—as a national security threat.

As mentioned earlier, Turkey has three main objectives in Syria: to eliminate the YPG threat, facilitate the return of refugees, and seek a political solution for long-term stability. There is growing anti-refugee sentiment in Turkey and the Turkish opposition is gaining strength, putting pressure on the government to address the refugee crisis. Domestic politics significantly influence Turkey’s involvement with Damascus as the government aims to ease public discontent and bolster its political position.

Furthermore, Russia has conducted a successful propaganda campaign targeting the Turkish public and decision-makers, shaping perceptions, and influencing policy decisions. This campaign has further emphasized the supposed benefits of talking with Damascus.

Turkey didn’t perceive a realistic policy option to cooperate with the United States in Syria and pursue talks with Damascus. Speculation about a possible US withdrawal from Syria due to the upcoming US elections in November and a new momentum in Turkish-US relations resulted in Ankara hoping for a joint approach with Washington. However, the United States’ refusal to abandon the YPG continues to be the main barrier to reaching any agreement.

As Turkey cannot achieve its objectives given opposition from Russia and the United States, and Washington has yet to provide Ankara with a viable alternative, Turkey is willing to consider the option proposed by Russia. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged the need for an exit strategy from Syria, a reality recognized across the Turkish political spectrum. The main issues concern Syria’s conditions and the nature of governance there. Erdogan has emphasized the need for a new social contract in Syria that would ensure the safe return of refugees and address Turkey’s security concerns.

The Russian strategy

Russia’s efforts to pressure Turkey into a military retreat from Syria suffered a significant setback in 2020, when the Turkish Armed Forces effectively defeated regime forces after the unfortunate loss of thirty-four Turkish soldiers. This event exposed the limits of Russia’s power and necessitated a reassessment of its strategy toward Turkey and the broader Syrian crisis.

While Russia has been focused on the invasion of Ukraine, its strategy in Syria has been aimed at preventing a situation in which a fait accompli by another actor diminishes its influence. Russia is actively pursuing a plan to secure its ongoing presence and control in Syria, while also preventing Western powers or their regional allies from establishing a solid position in Damascus. This strategic maneuvering is essential for Moscow to maintain its geopolitical leverage in the Middle East.

Turkey remains the primary obstacle to a decisive Russian victory in Syria. Moscow recognizes that, to surmount this impediment, it must actively involve Ankara in a manner congruent with Turkey’s interests, which only sometimes coincide with those of Western countries. Russia believes that Turkey is pursuing an autonomous agenda in Syria, which might deviate from the objectives of Western countries. This autonomy presents both a challenge and an opportunity for Russian diplomacy.

Russia is greatly concerned about the possibility of a Turkish-US agreement regarding Syria, particularly considering the potential future withdrawal of US forces from the area. This agreement could weaken Russian interests, leading Moscow to influence Turkey’s position actively. In the worst-case scenario for Russia, negotiations between Ankara and Damascus could serve as a stalling tactic, buying time until the situation in Ukraine stabilizes or the United States withdraws from Syria.

Russia has skillfully capitalized on Turkey’s concerns about migration to benefit itself. At first, it used the tactic of threatening to attack internally displaced persons (IDPs) along the border between Turkey and Syria to put pressure on Ankara. Presently, Russia is implementing an all-encompassing propaganda strategy intended to persuade the Turkish population that engaging in negotiations with Damascus is the definitive resolution to Turkey’s refugee crisis. This psychological and media campaign aims to alter public opinion and enable diplomatic talks.

Moscow is invoking the 1998 Adana Protocol, which would officially legitimize the Turkish military’s existence in Syria, to promote a consensus between Ankara and Damascus. Nevertheless, this proposal would require a thorough examination and possible protocol enhancement to make it more attractive to Ankara. Russia’s proposal for a formal and globally acknowledged military presence is intended to give Turkey a feeling of safety and credibility in its actions, thus creating a favorable atmosphere for diplomatic talks.

Damascus’s position

Reconciliation with Turkey, the last-standing primary regional adversary, is crucial to completing Syria’s narrative of victory. The prevailing sentiment in Damascus is that mending ties with Ankara would deliver a significant blow to the opposition, further impeding the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 (UNSCR 2254). By reconciling with Turkey, Syria could strategically undermine the opposition’s position in the negotiations and strengthen its stance. This would help Syria consolidate its control over its future political landscape.

Syria would have preferred to negotiate with a Turkish government other than the one led by President Erdogan. Opposition parties in Turkey have demonstrated more eagerness to engage with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and are less bound to impose burdensome conditions for reconciliation on Damascus. Syria must confront the current reality of Erdogan’s government, which holds power despite its contentious position. The general sentiment in Damascus is that a potential reconciliation with Ankara should lead to only a limited amount of diplomatic interaction, allowing Syria to maintain some influence for possible future negotiations with a more favorable Turkish government. By adopting this pragmatic approach, Damascus can effectively navigate the intricate dynamics of Turkish politics while maintaining flexibility in its long-term strategic choices.

Moreover, re-establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey would significantly influence opposition armed factions in northern Syria. If Ankara changes its position, these groups—many of which depend on Turkish support—would experience a substantial decline in their influence. By ensuring that Turkey is held responsible for their actions, the opposition from these factions is anticipated to decrease significantly. Additionally, this normalization could resolve the stalemate in negotiations with the YPG-dominated SDF. The process of reconciliation with Turkey has the potential to either result in Kurdish communities making further concessions or lead to the formation of a united anti-YPG front by antagonistic Arab communities, with the support of Ankara. This transition has the potential to result in a more united and secure northern Syria, which aligns with Damascus’s broader strategic objectives.

Reconciliation with Ankara also carries substantial economic and financial incentives. Regaining partial or complete control over Turkey’s borders would provide Syria access to international trade routes, which would be crucial for economic recovery. The Syrian economy, severely damaged by prolonged conflict and financial restrictions, urgently needs opportunities for expansion and progress. Despite Turkey’s interest in other regional connectivity projects, Syria’s connectivity remains more feasible and cost-effective. The strategic advantage of re-establishing trade links with Turkey highlights the economic imperative for Syria to pursue normalization.

Nevertheless, Damascus has substantial apprehension about the validation of the Turkish military’s presence in Syria. Damascus might lose vital leverage in future discussions with Ankara by acknowledging or temporarily legitimizing this presence. As a result, Syria, with Tehran’s backing, is expected to consistently insist on the complete withdrawal of the Turkish Armed Forces from northern Syria as a prerequisite for reconciliation.

As Syria and Turkey navigate this new phase of diplomacy, the path to reconciliation remains fraught with uncertainty and complex technical negotiations. While recent developments hint at a thaw in relations, the demands and concessions required from both sides are more complicated. A photo-op between leaders might offer a symbolic victory, but it is the most accessible milestone in a future filled with arduous discussions and complex agreements. The real test lies ahead as both countries strive to address deep-seated issues, balance regional interests, and forge a sustainable path forward amid enduring skepticism.

Sinan Hatahet is a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and vice president for investment and social impact at the Syrian Forum.

Ömer Özkizilcik is a nonresident fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

The post Red lines and reconciliation: Turkey and Syria’s diplomatic gamble appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Reuters article also quoted European intelligence sources as stating that “dozens” of Russian military personnel were being trained in Iran on Fath-360 short-range ballistic missiles, which are said to have a maximum range of 120 kilometers (75 miles). These intelligence sources also stated that delivery of these Iranian Fath-360s is expected “soon.” According to one source, the Fath-360 is based on the Fateh-100 design but is considerably smaller, and its launcher can be camouflaged as a civilian truck.

In addition, former Russian Defense Minister and current Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu was in Tehran on August 5, where he met with several officials, including Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. During their meeting, Pezeshkian reportedly told Shoigu that Iran was “determined to expand relations” with its “strategic partner Russia.” Various media sources indicate that Tehran has renewed its requests for Russian deliveries of advanced air-defense systems and that Moscow might have delivered radars, Iskander missiles, and other items, but these have not been verified.

The reports come at a time when Moscow and Tehran have experienced embarrassing setbacks. Israeli forces killed Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon—something Israel has admitted. Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was then killed in Tehran, for which Israel has not claimed responsibility but which it is widely believed to have been behind. Additionally, Moscow was unable to prevent an armed incursion by Ukrainian forces into a sizeable segment of Russian territory in the vicinity of Kursk near the Russian-Ukrainian border.

While the expansion of Russian-Iranian military cooperation might have already been in the works, these setbacks that Moscow and Tehran have experienced at the hands of US-backed Ukraine and Israel may only serve to increase it. Still, the policies pursued by Russia and Iran are not completely in harmony.

While Tehran has vowed to retaliate against Israel for the killing of Haniyeh in particular, Moscow has called for “all parties”—which presumably includes Iran—to refrain from taking steps that could lead to a wider war in the region.

Further, Tehran cannot be pleased by recent news reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin dropped plans to provide missiles to the Iran-backed Houthis at the request of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is unclear how accurate these reports are, as different intelligence sources on which they are based were not in complete agreement with one another. It was a reminder that even while Moscow’s relations with Iran’s adversary, Israel, may have soured after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on the Jewish state, Russia’s ties to Iran’s Sunni Arab adversaries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have not.

According to other reports, the Su-35 fighter aircraft Russia reportedly agreed to send to Iran have still not been delivered. An agreement on a new twenty-year Russian-Iranian cooperation agreement has yet to be finalized—with Russian sources pointing to Tehran as the reason.

Despite their differences, Russian-Iranian military cooperation will likely continue—and increase. But with both now on the back foot, the question is just how useful their cooperation is. Moscow is urging Iranian restraint in responding to Israel over the death of Haniyeh in Tehran not because of any inherent peace-loving nature, but because the Kremlin understands that, with its forces tied down in Ukraine, it is not in a position to do much to protect Iran in a wider conflict with Israel—especially if the Jewish state receives US military support. And it might have occurred to the Islamic Republic’s leaders that Iranian drones and ballistic missiles sent to Russia are no longer available for use against Israel or US forces in the Middle East.

However, while military assistance that Moscow and Tehran receive from one another has not allowed either Russia to prevail against Ukraine or Iran to prevail against Israel and the United States in the Middle East, it allows each to continue prosecuting these conflicts—something which leaders in Russia and Iran are clearly determined to do. Absent being able to somehow bring about an end to either conflict, the United States and its partners in Europe and the Middle East do not appear to have a viable means of forcing or persuading either Moscow or Tehran to reduce their military cooperation. 

Mark N. Katz is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and professor emeritus of government and politics at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.

The post Russian-Iranian military cooperation: How much can they depend on each other? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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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.

Further reading

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post New US-Ukraine partnership proposal from influential senators is a recipe for bipartisan success appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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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Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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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.

Further reading

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Belarus’s political prisoners must not be forgotten appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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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This approach seems to have worked. In recent days, the US, Germany, and the EU have all indicated their support for the Ukrainian operation. If Ukraine did indeed proceed without receiving a prior green light from the country’s partners, planners in Kyiv were likely counting on the reluctance of Western leaders to scupper Ukrainian offensive actions at a time when Russia is destroying entire towns and villages as it continues to slowly but steadily advance in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s expanding electronic warfare capabilities are believed to have been instrumental in safeguarding the element of surprise during preparations for the current campaign. The Ukrainian military appears to have succeeded in suppressing Russian surveillance and communications systems across the initial invasion zone via the targeted application of electronic warfare tools. This made it possible to prevent Russian forces from correctly identifying Ukraine’s military build-up or anticipating the coming attack until it was too late.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine’s Kursk offensive proves surprise is still possible in modern war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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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By Atlantic Council

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise raid into Russia’s Kursk region on Tuesday. Our experts explain how this could affect the course of the war.

Conflict Defense Policy

Ukraine’s offensive is now posing serious questions about the credibility of Russia’s saber-rattling and the rationality behind the West’s abundance of caution. After all, the Ukrainian army’s current invasion of Russia is surely the reddest of all red lines. If Russia was at all serious about a possible nuclear escalation, this would be the moment to make good on its many threats. In fact, Putin has responded by seeking to downplay the invasion while pretending that everything is still going according to plan.

In his first public statement following the start of Ukraine’s invasion, Putin euphemistically referred to it as a “large-scale provocation,” a phrase that seemed specially tailored to disguise the gravity of the situation. The Kremlin then declared a “state of emergency” in Kursk Oblast, which was subsequently upgraded to a “counter-terrorism operation.” The difference between this restrained law-and-order language and the usual soundbites trumpeting existential war with NATO could hardly have been starker.

Russian propagandists have adopted an equally low-key approach. There have been no appeals to the Russian people or attempts to rally the country against the invader. On the contrary, the Kremlin media has reportedly received instructions to avoid “stirring up the situation,” while Russian officials have been told to refrain from commenting on developments in the Kursk region altogether. These are most definitely not the actions of a self-confident military superpower on the verge of a major escalation.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 30, 2024

Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia

By Mark Temnycky

Ukrainian fencing star Olga Kharlan has won the country’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and dedicated her medal to the Ukrainian athletes “who couldn’t be here because they were killed by Russia,” writes Mark Temnycky .

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Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Aug 6, 2024

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Conflict Disinformation

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine’s invasion of Russia is erasing Vladimir Putin’s last red lines appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The post Panikoff joins BBC to discuss escalating tensions in the MENA region appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Some raids have no impact on the course of a war. In the summer of 1864, with Union forces besieging Richmond and Petersburg, Confederate General Jubal Early mounted a large and spectacular raid north into Maryland and then southeast into the District of Columbia. Early’s troops stopped just five miles from the US Capitol. It was spectacular but inconsequential, however: The raid distracted the Union command for a few days but made no difference to the outcome of the war.

Other raids do have strategic impact. In 1776, George Washington’s forces had been routed from New York and chased out of New Jersey. Morale was low and political support for the American fight for independence was flagging. In a risky maneuver that December, Washington led a large raid across the Delaware River, surprised enemy forces, and returned to Pennsylvania with captured prisoners and supplies. The raid revived morale and support for the war, demonstrated the Continental Army’s tactical cunning, audacity, and tenacity against a superior foe, and presaged eventual victory.

While it is too early to say with certainty, there is at least a case that the Kursk raid more resembles Washington crossing the Delaware than Early’s raid on Washington; namely, that it has strategic significance. In a war in which battlefield transparency is supposedly universal, the Ukrainians achieved surprise, demonstrating Russia’s failure of intelligence and weakness along its border. The attack thus upends the Kremlin narrative of inevitable Russian victory, a narrative that Kremlin propaganda deploys in Europe and the United States to advance its argument that Ukrainian resistance is useless and support for Ukraine is futile. The raid and the public alarm in Russia it has generated may compel the Kremlin to shift forces from its current offensive in the Donbas region to defend its own territory. Certainly, the raid is a morale booster for Ukrainians.

Politically, the raid undercuts the current Russian demand that, as a precondition for negotiations, Ukraine withdraw from all of the territory of the four Ukrainian provinces that Russia partially occupies and claims but does not totally control. The Russians were in effect demanding Ukrainian capitulation as a condition for opening peace negotiations. Even before the raid, the demand that Ukraine withdraw from its territory that Russia has tried but failed to conquer seemed an arrogant overstretch. This demand is now revealed as feckless in the face of Ukraine’s ability not only to limit Russian attacks to marginal advances, but also to launch successful surprise attacks of its own, defending its own land while seizing Russia’s.

It is premature to make final judgments about a raid still in progress. While some military analysts have suggested that the raid seeks to seize and hold Russian territory as a bargaining chip in eventual negotiations, that seems a stretch: Raids are one thing, a full-scale offensive is another. After all, Washington crossed the Delaware to attack exposed Hessian mercenaries. He then retreated back across the Delaware to avoid a full-scale British assault. But, in the end, Washington, with a lot of help from France, won the war. Ukraine’s current raid does not mean that Ukraine will win its war of national survival. It does suggest that Ukraine could win, given the right and timely help from its friends.

Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, former US ambassador to Poland, and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe.

The post Is Ukraine’s raid into Russia a ‘crossing the Delaware’ moment? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This progress has come as no surprise: Ukrainian military planners have been working to capitalize on Russia’s air defense vulnerabilities from the first year of the full-scale invasion. Ukraine’s attacks have escalated significantly since the beginning of 2024, with oil refineries and airfields emerging as the priority targets.

In a July interview with Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi confirmed that Ukrainian drones had hit around two hundred sites connected to Russia’s war machine. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to continue increasing the quality and quantity of Ukraine’s long-range drone fleet. Underlining the importance of drones to the Ukrainian war effort, Ukraine recently became the first country in the world to launch a new branch of the military dedicated to drone warfare.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 6, 2024

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By Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s readiness to flush Russia’s Black Sea naval defeats down the memory hole is a reminder that the Kremlin propaganda machine controls Russian reality and can easily rebrand any retreat from Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

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Conflict France

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine continues to expand drone bombing campaign inside Russia appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The August surprise came from Ukraine. Beginning on Tuesday, as many as a thousand Ukrainian troops reportedly crossed the border into the Kursk region in Russia, capturing an estimated seventeen square miles of territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the move a “major provocation,” while the Ukrainian government has largely declined to comment. The size and depth of the incursion adds a significant new dimension to the ongoing conflict. Below, our experts share their insights on the thinking in Kyiv and what could come next.

• Daniel Fried (@AmbDanFried): Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe
• John E. Herbst (@JohnEdHerbst): Senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine
• Konstantin Eggert (@kvoneggert): Deutsche Welle Russian affairs analyst and program host
• Shelby Magid (@shelbyjmag): Deputy director of the Eurasia Center

The element of surprise

• “In a war where battlefield transparency is supposedly universal, the Ukrainians achieved surprise, demonstrating a Russian failure of intelligence and weakness along its border,” says Dan. “The attack thus upends the Kremlin narrative of inevitable Russian victory,” which “Kremlin propaganda deploys in Europe and the United States to advance its argument that Ukrainian resistance is useless and support for Ukraine futile.”

• “Even if Ukrainian forces are soon forced out of Kursk, this is a clear shot in the arm for Ukraine,” John tells us. In recent weeks, Russia has made advances in eastern Ukraine, but this incursion may now “force the Kremlin to relieve its current pressure on Ukrainian positions in the Donbas or north of Kharkiv.” If Ukrainian forces do establish defensible positions on Russian territory, then “Moscow will have to consider even more adjustments of its forces in Ukraine” and “a ceasefire in place” would be “less attractive to the Putin clique.”

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A rattled Russia and uplifted Ukraine

• As with the short-lived mutiny by Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin in June 2023, Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk revealed “the vacuousness and inefficiency of modern Russia’s governance system, based on corruption and fear,” argues Konstantin. “Even reports in Russian state media (which are generally upbeat) had to mention the evacuation of the population and hint at the intensity of the fighting,” while “pro-Kremlin Telegram channels paint a picture of a major strike that took Russia’s military and civilian authorities by surprise.” 

• Dan notes that another risky and successful raid, George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River in December 1776, boosted troop morale and political support at a critical moment in the American Revolutionary War. Like Washington’s raid, Ukraine’s Kursk incursion reveals its “cunning, audacity, and tenacity against a superior foe” and could have “strategic significance.”

• Ukrainians are closely following reports of the raid. “As a further sign of success and a morale boost for the exhausted Ukrainian troops and society, video is circulating of dozens of Russian troops surrendering to Ukrainian forces,” Shelby points out.

• For Ukrainians, it’s an opportunity to “show to Russia’s ruling class how vulnerable the country is,” Konstantin explains, noting that the situation has been made all the more urgent by the fact that the Kursk nuclear power plant is within reach of Ukraine’s forces. The incursion also “shows Kyiv’s determination to incorporate the politico-psychological warfare factor into purely military operations.” 

What’s next?

• While some Ukrainians have characterized the raid as an effort to “seize and hold Russian territory as a bargaining chip in eventual negotiations, that seems a stretch,” according to Dan. “Raids are one thing, a full-scale offensive is another.” Shelby agrees, noting that “entering and seizing land is different than holding it.” 

• It’s “highly likely” that part of Ukraine’s goal is to demonstrate its capability to its partners, observes John. Kyiv faced a months-long delay in receiving additional US aid, and continues to be restricted by US and German reluctance to provide more advanced weapons in large quantities and allow their use against strategic targets deeper inside Russia, he explains. The Kursk incursion, John maintains, “should be a reminder to the more timid Western leaders that Ukraine can win this war if we enable and allow them to win.”

The post How Ukraine’s incursion into Russia could change the war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 6, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s readiness to flush Russia’s Black Sea naval defeats down the memory hole is a reminder that the Kremlin propaganda machine controls Russian reality and can easily rebrand any retreat from Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Jul 30, 2024

Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia

By Mark Temnycky

Ukrainian fencing star Olga Kharlan has won the country’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and dedicated her medal to the Ukrainian athletes “who couldn’t be here because they were killed by Russia,” writes Mark Temnycky .

Conflict France

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post F-16 jets will help defend Ukrainian cities from Russian bombardment appeared first on Atlantic Council.

These days, however, NATO is adapting its partnerships to respond to changed structural realities and the focus on strategic competition given the growing assertiveness and militarism of revisionist states such as Russia and China.

In that sense, there have been significant qualitative changes in the way NATO partnerships with the individual Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) countries—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea—and the minilateral grouping operate today and challenges they face compared to when they were first created. Namely, both sides now see their respective partners as significant for their own defense and deterrence, rather than as interlocutors in the provision of security for third parties, as was the case in out-of-area missions, where crisis management and cooperative security were the central organizing principles of these partnerships.

NATO’s interest in the Indo-Pacific

Last month’s NATO Summit in Washington demonstrated that the IP4 countries occupy a pivotal place in the ecosystem of NATO’s partner states. This role began to emerge in its present form at the 2022 Madrid summit, which unveiled NATO’s current Strategic Concept. Substantive engagement between NATO and the IP4 countries has continued to develop since then. This year’s summit, for example, marked the third consecutive year that IP4 leaders attended, making it clear that this informal grouping is becoming a mainstay of NATO’s outreach to and strategic thinking about the Indo-Pacific.

The 2022 Strategic Concept referred to the Indo-Pacific as “important for NATO, given that developments in that region can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security.” Such a diagnosis of the international security environment converges with the general assessment of trends as seen from Canberra, Tokyo, Seoul, and Wellington, which have also witnessed firsthand how Russia’s war against Ukraine is reverberating in their region. Furthermore, the Strategic Concept characterized China’s ambitions and policies as major challenges to the Alliance’s security, interests, and values. It also raised concern over increased China-Russia cooperation, which threatens to undermine the rules-based international order. The Washington Summit Declaration, issued on July 10, also underscored how these trends have continued to grow in pace and magnitude as North Korea and Iran provide direct military support to Russia.

In response, coordination and engagement channels between NATO and the IP4 have become even more relevant to the security of both Europe and the Indo-Pacific, creating a strong common basis for cooperation. However, the intra-Alliance consensus for engagement has not been easy to reach due to some notable differences among the thirty-two allies.

At the Washington summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted the “strong and deepening cooperation” between the Alliance and the IP4. Emblematic of the greater ambition behind NATO-IP4 cooperation has been a move to the Individually Tailored Partnership Programme agreements, which replaced the Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme, and which all of the IP4 countries signed over the past year.

Moreover, NATO has pursued engagement with these partners as a minilateral group rather than as a collection of four individual partnerships. This commitment has resulted in four joint projects, announced by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in July, which will focus on assistance to Ukraine, artificial intelligence, combating disinformation, and cybersecurity.

At the same time, IP4 countries have continuously demonstrated their commitment to Euro-Atlantic security by providing military and economic aid to Ukraine, sanctioning Russia, and initiating a range of direct and indirect capacity-building initiatives. Some of the IP4 members’ leaders, such as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, have even urged US lawmakers to continue aiding Ukraine.

The future of NATO-IP4 cooperation

If managed well, NATO’s IP4 partnerships can be a vital tool to enhance the Alliance’s core tasks of cooperative security and crisis management. More importantly, these partnerships have the potential to contribute to NATO’s defense and deterrence, strengthen the Alliance’s competitive advantages, and shape the global security environment in ways that serve its interests and values.

To be successful, NATO must recognize and cater to the spectrum of ambition for cooperation among IP4 partners. The Alliance should tailor its approach and maximize the benefits of cooperation at various levels. For countries with lower levels of ambition, the benefits to cooperation with NATO come primarily from political consultations, and these talks should continue. These consultations foster a shared strategic domain awareness and enhance the understanding of how events in one region impact the security of others.

For those with greater ambitions for strengthening ties with NATO, there should be an emphasis on expanding cooperation in science and technology. This includes capacity building, which can have significant positive effects on the security of both NATO and its partners. With sufficient political will and consensus from both sides, individual IP4 partners can further develop their relationships with NATO. This cooperation could then lead to achieving, strengthening, and maintaining interoperability—that is, operating together according to agreed-upon rules and procedures, as well as using similar equipment. It also could mean working together on international standards-setting and the co-production and joint maintenance of military assets, expanding on existing cooperation between NATO and its partners in other initiatives.

The NATO-IP4 format has already proven useful for information sharing and presenting a unified front to promote common values vis-à-vis revisionist states. The Alliance should build on the significant groundwork that has already been laid for integrating the IP4 into various NATO structures and processes to continue the multiparty coordination and “regularize” these partnerships in a way that would shield them from domestic politics. However, considering that Chinese and Russian disinformation campaigns have propagated the narrative that NATO is attempting to expand into the Indo-Pacific, it is crucial for the Alliance to consistently emphasize that the partnerships with IP4 nations, or any future potential partners from the region, are not a prelude to full membership.

Finally, while it may seem self-evident, managing and reconciling expectations is crucial, as NATO operates on a consensus basis. Therefore, given the past episodes of disagreements among allies around NATO’s outreach to the Indo-Pacific, it is imperative to handle these relations carefully to avoid creating unnecessary intra-Alliance tensions and to demonstrate how nurturing ties with the IP4 serves the interests of both sides.

Gorana Grgić is a nonresident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary is a milestone in a remarkable story of reinvention, adaptation, and unity. However, as the Alliance seeks to secure its future for the next seventy-five years, it faces the revanchism of old rivals, escalating strategic competition, and uncertainties over the future of the rules-based international order.

With partners and allies turning attention from celebrations to challenges, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative invited contributors to engage with the most pressing concerns ahead of the historic Washington summit and chart a path for the Alliance’s future. This series will feature seven essays focused on concrete issues that NATO must address at the Washington summit and five essays that examine longer-term challenges the Alliance must confront to ensure transatlantic security.

The post How NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners can work together in an era of strategic competition appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Shukr’s killing has put Hezbollah in a bind. The group has been hesitant to provoke Israel since Lebanon’s economy collapsed almost five years ago—recognizing that every altercation could spiral into an undesired conflagration and not wanting to be blamed by the Lebanese for compounding their economic miseries with a war from which the country may not recover. After Hamas spearheaded the October 7, 2023 attack against Israel, however, Hezbollah joined in the next day to support its Gaza-based allies—both expecting a short conflict and feeling secure that their intervention would not spark a war since the Israelis were too preoccupied with operations in the Gaza Strip and restrained by American opposition to the conflict’s expansion into Lebanon. The group split the difference with a war of attrition, as Nasrallah noted in his latest speech that “we have been balancing between the support front [for Gaza] and the conditions in our country.” But as that conflict dragged on, a fatal mistake was inevitable.

That came on July 27, when an errant Hezbollah missile struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, killing twelve Israeli children. Notwithstanding the group’s ongoing and desperate denials of responsibility, Israel had to exact a painful price on the group by killing Shukr in Hezbollah’s stronghold in the capital, Beirut. This wasn’t the first time the Israelis had assassinated such a high-ranking Hezbollah commander. In 2008, in a joint operation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Israel assassinated Imad Mughniyeh, then Hezbollah’s commander-in-chief and most storied military commander in Damascus, Syria. Eight years later, in 2016, the Israelis eliminated his successor Mustafa Badreddine in Syria.

Either of those assassinations should have also warranted serious responses from Hezbollah. However, both occurred outside of Lebanon, during periods of quiet with Israel and during sensitive periods for the group. Mughniyeh was assassinated amidst a political crisis in Lebanon that began in December 2006—mere months after Hezbollah’s war with Israel that summer—and only ended in May 2008. Meanwhile, Badreddine was killed while Hezbollah was fully engaged in Syria’s civil war, perhaps the most existential battle in the group’s history, and could ill afford to open a second front with a foe as powerful as Israel. Yet Israeli silence in both instances allowed Hezbollah to quietly absorb the blows—even blaming Sunni Islamist militants in the case of Badreddine—and focus on more pressing matters.  

Shukr’s assassination is fundamentally different. The location alone—Beirut—violated a serious red line for the group. Coupled with his stature and the fact that the Israelis claimed the attack amidst an ongoing confrontation, the strike denied Hezbollah an off-ramp. The group must now respond, but a routine retaliation, akin to the ones it has been conducting for killings of lower-level commanders in south Lebanon, will not suffice given Shukr’s stature and the location of his killing. To avoid looking weak and permitting Israel to set the redlines of the conflict, Hezbollah must mount a more severe response—but this risks an escalation the group would prefer to avoid right now. Hence the group’s dilemma.

Enter Nasrallah. True to form over the past five years, the talkative secretary-general sought to cover his group’s exposed vulnerability with propaganda. Highlighting Hezbollah’s very real destructive power—the group has amassed 200,000 projectiles of different levels of sophistication, after all—he inevitably veered into exaggeration by claiming it could wipe out most of northern Israel’s vital infrastructure “in one hour, half an hour.” He also stressed just how much Hezbollah had established an equilibrium of pain with the Israelis. “Airlines stop arriving in Beirut and Tel Aviv, foreigners flee Lebanon and the entity alike, the villagers of the south and the colonizers of northern Palestine are both displaced, their homes are destroyed like our homes, their factories burn like ours, and their people fear just like ours,” Nasrallah said.

He also stressed the need for Hezbollah to have entered the conflict to prevent an Israeli victory over Gaza. If that occurred, Nasrallah claimed, the Israelis would be so emboldened that “there will be no Palestine, there will be no Palestinian people, there will be no Palestinian refugees—meaning they will be naturalized—and there will be no holy sites [in Jerusalem],” he claimed, stressing that both “Al-Aqsa Mosque will be in grave danger” of being brought down “by one bomb”—as would the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Then he vacillated between talking points from this conflict. Nasrallah’s oft-repeated claim is that the Israeli army, which defeated several Arab armies in mere days, had become too weak to defeat Hamas over months, overlooking the differences in Israeli objectives and the added complexity of defeating a guerilla organization embedded in civilian areas. Namely, that Israel was “standing on a leg and a half” in anticipation of Hezbollah’s retaliation—and that “this Israeli anticipation for a week is part of the punishment, response, and battle, because the battle is psychological, one of morale and nerves and brains, [not just] weapons and blood.”

Here, Nasrallah was harking back to the last time the Israelis had flagrantly violated a Hezbollah redline by killing one of their fighters, Ali Kamel Mohsen, in Damascus in July 2020. “If you kill our fighters in Syria, we will kill you from Lebanon,” Nasrallah had thundered in August 2019. But when Mohsen was killed, with the COVID-19 pandemic further burdening Lebanon’s battered economy—which had practically imploded in October 2019—Hezbollah failed to act on its threats, quickly covering up their inaction by claiming that Israel’s fear of a response was, in and of itself, the punishment for Mohsen’s death.

But propaganda alone will not suffice now. Hezbollah will have to respond, and their responsibility must be obvious. Nasrallah promised—in his August 1 speech as with his last—that “our response is coming, God willing…precious blood [has been shed], and the resistance cannot, no matter the consequences, remain idle….our response will be strong, impactful, and effective,” without elaborating more.

It is quite possible the Israelis have crossed one of Hezbollah’s irreversible redlines, and the group, either alongside the rest of the Iran-backed Resistance Axis or separately, has decided to go to war or to undertake a retaliatory response that bears a high chance of leading to war—“no matter the consequences” for Lebanon. Nasrallah certainly hinted at that in his speech, both by detailing the alleged threat posed to the region by an Israeli victory in Gaza and by stressing, “No one can ask, in Lebanon or outside, that we deal with the aggression that happened last Tuesday [i.e., Shukr’s assassination] as if it was an ordinary aggression as part of the battle ongoing for ten months.”

But it’s likelier that Hezbollah is planning a more limited response. It’s not that the group does not desire a full war with Israel, one it hopes will bring about the Jewish state’s destruction, but it seeks to wage that war under optimal conditions that maximize its chances of success: when its arsenal is stronger and larger, Lebanon’s domestic conditions have improved, its regional partners are similarly positioned, and—preferably—when Iran can provide them with a nuclear umbrella. Indeed, Nasrallah indicated these conditions had not ripened by noting, “the objective of the current battle is not destroying Israel, but denying it victory and the ability to destroy the Palestinian resistance.” This was echoed the same day by Ibrahim al-Amine, Nasrallah insider and editor-in-chief of the secular left-leaning pro-Hezbollah daily Al-Akhbar. Al-Amine wrote that, whatever the nature of the retaliation against Israel, its effect on the central goal of the ongoing battle—“stopping the aggression against Gaza”—will remain the core consideration.

Therefore, Hezbollah and the Resistance Axis will not likely undertake any action that would complicate achieving a ceasefire in Gaza, the surest and quickest way to halt the Israeli campaign there.

Hezbollah could be planning a one-time, intense, individual retaliation. This would be the riskiest option for the group. It would carefully have to thread the needle between a retaliatory attack sufficiently painful to settle the score for Shukr while remaining below the threshold, which could lead to a spiral of escalation. Alternatively, the group could plan to participate in a one-time retaliatory strike alongside Iran and the remainder of the Resistance Axis. This would be more advantageous for Hezbollah, allowing the group to strike Israel with more intensity in that one instance but leaving it less exposed to individual consequences by blending its attack into the rest of the Resistance Axis retaliation.

Hezbollah could also be planning to overall permanently escalate the intensity, frequency, and depth of its attacks against Israel—but keep them limited below the threshold that would justify war. This could occur only on the Lebanon front or across all “support fronts” opened by the Resistance Axis.

David Daoud is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow him on X: @DavidADaoud.

The post Understanding Nasrallah’s speech: How will Hezbollah avenge Shukr? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Jul 30, 2024

Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia

By Mark Temnycky

Ukrainian fencing star Olga Kharlan has won the country’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and dedicated her medal to the Ukrainian athletes “who couldn’t be here because they were killed by Russia,” writes Mark Temnycky .

Conflict France

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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PKK penetration of the DAANES has also created a range of negative consequences for Syrians in the northeast, including relentless Turkish targeting of the area, anti-democratic governance by the PYD, systemic corruption, and armed clashes between the SDF and insurgents in Deir ez-Zor. To create conditions for a wider solution to the Syria crisis and satisfy their own interests, Washington and Ankara must find a mutually agreeable course of action; the two countries are due for a strategic dialogue on Syria later this year, where options can be scrutinized. A perennial idea for solving the impasse calls for the United States to facilitate delinking of the DAANES/SDF and the PKK. However, such a decoupling is easier said than done, and its feasibility hinges on US and Turkish willingness to make tough concessions.

Reign of the PKK

Despite unofficial US government claims to the contrary, the PKK has been intimately tied to the governance and security structures of northeast Syria from its inception. The foundational expertise and personnel that enabled the PYD and YPG to defend, administer, and expand their territorial holdings came from veteran PKK members. Turkish, Iraqi, and Iranian Kurds affiliated with the PKK and its franchises flocked to northeast Syria after the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, forming the core of the area’s administrative and military personnel. PKK veterans assumed greater responsibility as Syria’s security situation deteriorated and new adversaries like ISIS confronted the nascent self-administration. Senior YPG leaders were often Syrian Kurds who had spent time fighting abroad, such as future SDF commander Mazloum Abdi.

The network of experienced PKK operatives, or kadros in local parlance, subsequently became the chief conduit for PKK influence in the northeast’s civil and military architecture. While the DAANES has established myriad local political, security, and administrative councils and committees across its territory, power ultimately rests with the kadros assigned to “advise” them; no local authority can overrule the decisions handed down by the often foreign PKK veterans. Key economic functions, such as extracting, transporting, and selling oil from occupied fields in Deir ez-Zor, also fall under the kadros’ purview. Leaders in the DAANES-sponsored local councils have no oversight of the process, creating rampant opportunities for corruption. Smugglers allegedly seek the protection of kadros to protect their operations, and some experts contend that the YPG generates large swaths of its funding from kadros-linked oil diversion.

In the multi-ethnic SDF, kadros are a linchpin of the entire force; they comprise the most experienced fighters and often lead the forces’ non-Kurdish formations. An analysis of YPG casualty figures from 2013 to 2016 showed that nearly half of the militia’s battle deaths were Turkish citizens, demonstrating the importance of foreign fighters on the frontline. During the main phase of operations against ISIS in Syria, units of kadros frequently fought alongside embedded US troops in high-stakes operations, such as in amphibious crossings near Manbij and the liberation of Raqqa. The SDF’s—or, rather, the YPG leadership’s—lack of confidence in Arab partner forces tasked with holding Arab-majority areas like Deir ez-Zor, translated to the appointment of “shadow commander” kadros in these formations as well. PKK leadership reportedly even assigned kadros as minders for SDF commander Abdi.

Kadros are not the only PKK presence in the northeast. The party also works through a proxy known as the Revolutionary Youth (RY), a political organization that conducts civic and military programming but also engages in child recruitment for the PKK. The RY has also been instrumental in the recent PYD-instigated repression of opposing Kurdish political parties operating in the DAANES—a pattern dating back to the earliest days of the civil war in Syria. Offices of the Kurdish National Council (KNC), a Kurdish political alliance closely linked with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and opposed to the PKK, are frequent targets of RY-linked arson attacks. In spite of these actions, the SDF and other security elements make no public effort to stymie the RY. In March, the US Department of State delivered a rebuke to SDF leadership over its failures to halt attacks on KNC offices and officials.

Discord in the DAANES

The entrenchment of the PKK has further complicated the already complex dynamics in northeast Syria. Turkey has adopted a more aggressive strategy for countering the PKK in Syria and Iraq, leading to several major military operations, as well as recent assassination and airstrike campaigns targeting DAANES officials, SDF fighters, and civilian infrastructure in the northeast. Non-Kurdish Syrians have their frustrations with the kadros’ rule, as demonstrated by Arab grievances aired during last year’s uprising and ensuing SDF crackdown in DAANES-controlled Deir ez-Zor. The United States is well aware of Turkish concerns and the degree of PKK influence in the northeast, though it has little to show for its efforts to dilute the latter. In spite of years of US-facilitated negotiations between the two Kurdish parties, the PYD continues to obstruct any power-sharing agreement with the KNC.

The situation within the SDF and its civil Syrian Democratic Council counterpart is no less knotted. Insiders and analysts have noted signs of a schism between hardliners and pragmatists within the Kurdish power structures. The former dismisses the idea of delinking from the PKK and eschews any power-sharing settlement with other Kurdish parties; hardliners also allegedly maintain a firm hold on critical political and security functions in the northeast. Meanwhile, pragmatists are open to dialogue and compromise with groups like the KNC; they favor greater international engagement and, perhaps, even breaking with the PKK.

Mazloum Abdi, ostensibly the leader of the pragmatists, claimed in 2020 that the SDF was working to remove foreign kadros from positions of authority and eventually from Syria, stating that “regional Kurdish support” was no longer needed in the DAANES’s extensive network of civic and military bodies. Whether Abdi was unwilling or unable to follow through is an open question, but PKK influence remains just as strong, if not stronger, four years later. Observers on the ground in the northeast have also reported the training of fresh, local Syrian kadros who now operate in areas such as Manbij and Deir ez-Zor, according to speakers in an expert working group attended by the author.

The narrow path to a win-win-win

Beyond its firm grip on power in the area, a complete decoupling of the PKK from northeast Syria also faces obstacles from stakeholders. The PKK has little current incentive to abandon or reduce its presence in Syria while it is losing ground in its traditional refuge in northern Iraq. If claims of oil revenue diversion are correct, hypothesized to constitute 40 percent or more of DAANES oil production, the group also stands to lose a significant fundraising stream connected to the kadros-run extraction operations. The existence of the aforementioned pragmatists might demonstrate some willingness by certain DAANES authorities to delink, but their seeming lack of leverage compared to the more militant hardliners and the lack of incentives from Washington and Ankara dim the prospect of a peaceful transition.

Were the United States and Turkey to agree on the end of direct PKK influence over northeast Syria, a mutually acceptable result would require considerable policy gymnastics from each side. First, Washington must recognize, at least tacitly, that it has empowered the PKK, as refusal to recognize empirical links between the group and the US counter-ISIS campaign in Syria strains credulity and damages mutual trust. Meanwhile, Turkey cannot wish away all the PKK-sympathetic Kurds and others in northeast Syria, even if the party leadership’s grip on the area is broken. A more practical goal for both sides is elevating pragmatist local Syrian elements in the DAANES and SDF and brokering a sustainable peace with Ankara. Reporting on previous US-Turkish compromise attempts indicated that Turkey would accept an opening with the Syrian Kurds in tandem with the expulsion of foreign PKK-linked Kurds, though the path to this might be dubious.

To whatever degree the purging of PKK personnel is operationalized, the effort would presumably create gaps in local administrative, governance, and security capabilities, which would need to be filled. Can the United States contribute to filling such gaps? US policymakers are leaning toward ending the US presence in northeast Syria, and discussions have already occurred on potential exit strategies. However, if an agreement can be reached with Turkey that ejects the PKK from the DAANES, this may incline Washington to invest in its involvement in the northeast to ease the transition from kadros administration to the local bodies already incorporated under the DAANES. Especially critical would be ensuring the competence of security forces tasked with maintaining the fight against ISIS, necessitating closer collaboration between the United States and Turkey.

The odds are slim that the two countries will reach the preconditions and compromises necessary for a delinking deal, let alone smoothly execute it in the face of expected PKK opposition. Still, the strategic logic presents wins for the United States, Turkey, and northeast Syria: Washington eases conflict with Turkey and maintains its Syrian partner, hedged on a commitment of diplomatic energy and finesse rather than new troops or money; Ankara drives a bitter foe from its physical and financial haven on the Syrian border and advances its thaw with Washington; and Syrians in the northeast can take the reins back from foreign militants ruling from the shadows. An agreement on the northeast could also jumpstart wider collaboration on Syria at a critical moment, benefiting millions of Syrians throughout the country still suffering from the fallout of their civil war. With soaring violence and humanitarian needs throughout the country, a burst of joint US-Turkish leadership has the potential to bring the international community back to the table and address the most grievous symptoms of the Syrian crisis.

JP Reppeto is an assistant with the Syria Strategy Project and a former Young Global Professional with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs. Follow him on X: @jp_reppeto

The post Can northeast Syria delink from the PKK? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 1, 2024

Ukraine’s new F-16 jets won’t defeat Russia but will enhance air defenses

By Mykola Bielieskov

Ukraine’s fledgling fleet of F-16 jets will not win the war but should strengthen the country’s air defenses and help protect the civilian population from Russian bombardment, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Jul 30, 2024

Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia

By Mark Temnycky

Ukrainian fencing star Olga Kharlan has won the country’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and dedicated her medal to the Ukrainian athletes “who couldn’t be here because they were killed by Russia,” writes Mark Temnycky .

Conflict France

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Russia’s Black Sea defeats get flushed down Vladimir Putin’s memory hole appeared first on Atlantic Council.

At least two hundred people have been killed and thousands more injured in protests that included law enforcement firing on protesters, as Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government face the most serious popular challenge of the past decade. Many Bangladeshis have been arrested, and cases against thousands of people have been filed.

Two weeks of heightened violence has left visible damage to property in cities across the country. Burned buildings stand as testimonies to anger and mayhem, but what remains unknown is the exact number of deaths, injuries, and missing. The extent of the lethal force used by members of law enforcement agencies is unprecedented in the history of the country, which has all too often experienced bouts of political violence since its inception in 1971.

Despite the claim of a gradual return to normalcy, an overwhelming number of police and soldiers are patrolling the streets of major cities, and a shoot-on-sight order is still in place for curfew violators. The government is on edge, economic activity has stalled, and many citizens are in a state of shock and uncertain about what will come next. For Bangladesh watchers, the question is whether Hasina has weathered the political storm or if the current situation is a larger tempest in the making.

How did it begin?

This episode of protest began in early July as peaceful student demonstrations demanding reform of the quota system in public service. This quota system, which reserved 56 percent of government jobs to various categories, was widely considered by students to be discriminatory and was allegedly used by the government as a means of patronage dispensation. The system was scrapped in 2018 after students launched a movement against it, but it was reinstated by Bangladesh’s High Court in June 2024. The government appealed, and the Supreme Court suspended the verdict, scheduling a hearing for August 6. However, students demanded that the system be reformed by enacting a law. The government insisted that there was nothing it could do while the issue is being litigated. The students felt that this was a stealthy way of reinstating the system.

The situation took an ominous turn after activists aligned with the ruling party swooped in on the demonstrators as they protested Hasina’s comments at a press conference on July 14. In that press conference, Hasina likened the demonstrators with collaborators of the Pakistani army during the war of independence in 1971. As the quota system reserves a percentage of government jobs for the descendants of war of independence veterans, Hasina portrayed opposition to the policy as demeaning to veterans. In the following days, the students organized street protests and called for a general strike, which was confronted with force by police and ruling party activists, leading to the deaths of some students. On July 16, the government closed all educational institutions for an indefinite period.

The situation further deteriorated on July 18, as thousands of protesters joined the students on the street; at least twenty-five people died throughout the country and various public buildings were set ablaze in the capital and elsewhere. The government stopped services. Then the government backtracked and offered to negotiate, but by then the protests had transcended the quota issue.

On July 19, demonstrations engulfed the entire country. The number of deaths, the extent of the spread of protests, and the ferocity of police response made it one of the worst days in the history of the country. Curfew was imposed, the military was called in, a shoot-on-sight order was issued, and internet and broadband services were completely shut down. Yet the violence continued for days, and the death toll continued to mount. 

In the meantime, the government met a delegation of the agitating students, and the Supreme Court voided the High Court verdict, issuing guidance to drastically reduce the quota to only 7 percent. However, the government resorted to heavy-handed measures, including allegedly abducting six student leaders of the movement and detaining them without charges. While detained, the student leaders issued a video message on July 28 calling off the movement, but other leaders continued the organize protests.

A perfect storm?

The peaceful student protest transformed into an antigovernment upsurge because of simmering discontent among younger Bangladeshis, as well as in a large segment of the wider society. Economic and political disenfranchisement drove the youth. The economic growth they have heard about for a long time seems to have left them behind. They see very little prospect of a decent job while they witness unbridled corruption and the extravagant lifestyle of a new wealthy class. According to official accounts, unemployment among youth is 15.74 percent and at least 41 percent of youth between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four are not in school, employed, or engaged in job training.

Bangladeshi youth were supposed to be the kingmakers in a free and fair electoral process, the role their predecessors played in the election of 2008. But that opportunity was taken away through fraudulent elections. The government’s disregard for their demands regarding quota reform was symptomatic of a system that cares little for them. Violence perpetrated by the student wing of the ruling party was the instigation that unleashed the anger within the student community.

As for the larger population, resentments originating from rampant corruption by the cronies of the ruling party, impunity enjoyed by party henchmen, utter disregard to the sufferings of the common people, and concentration of power at the hands of one person—Hasina—all came together.

While the regime has a support base, it is bereft of moral legitimacy due to rigged elections. Increasingly, the government also lacked performance legitimacy as the development narrative has been unraveling since summer 2022. Skyrocketing inflation and dwindling foreign reserves have put the government in a precarious situation. In the past decade, Hasina has increasingly relied on force, leading many international organizations, including the Varieties of Democracy Institute, to describe Bangladesh as an autocracy.

What is next for Hasina?

This week, the city streets in Dhaka were filled with cars and buses, and shops and offices are being opened once again. A semblance of normalcy may return in the short run. But the political ground has shifted, and the possibility of a return to the status quo is unlikely. As such, the country is standing at a crossroads.

The number of deaths and the extent of police actions have laid bare the fact that the ruling party and Hasina are entirely dependent on brute force. The upheaval appears to have shaken the regime’s sense of invincibility.

By creating a narrative that her government is facing “terrorists,” Hasina is trying to gain sympathy and tacit support from the international community, or at least their silence. The international community, however, should see through this charade and raise its voice against the gross violations of human rights by a regime that wants to stay in power without a popular mandate.

So, what’s next? Dubbed “Asia’s Iron Lady,” Hasina may double down on more persecution and arrests in an attempt to stem further unrest. This may lead to a closed autocracy in Bangladesh. Alternatively, as discontent continues to grow and demands for her resignation become louder, the country may erupt. 

Ali Riaz is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council South Asia Center and a distinguished professor at Illinois State University.

The post A violent crackdown has put Bangladesh at a crossroads appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 25, 2024

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

By Mykola Bielieskov

The West’s collective fear of escalation and reluctance to commit to Ukrainian victory have convinced Putin that he can outlast his opponents and achieve an historic triumph in Ukraine, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Jul 30, 2024

Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia

By Mark Temnycky

Ukrainian fencing star Olga Kharlan has won the country’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and dedicated her medal to the Ukrainian athletes “who couldn’t be here because they were killed by Russia,” writes Mark Temnycky .

Conflict France

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Europe can do more to help Ukraine counter Russia’s energy attacks appeared first on Atlantic Council.

US President Joe Biden confirmed his support for the supply of F-16s in August 2023, but subsequent progress was slow. Training for Ukrainian pilots and ground crews has taken up to nine months, with an already technically complex and demanding process reportedly further complicated by language barriers. There have also been significant obstacles to identifying and preparing Ukrainian airbases with suitable facilities and adequate defenses.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Jul 25, 2024

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

By Mykola Bielieskov

The West’s collective fear of escalation and reluctance to commit to Ukrainian victory have convinced Putin that he can outlast his opponents and achieve an historic triumph in Ukraine, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 23, 2024

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

By Mercedes Sapuppo

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been accused of using American journalists as bargaining chips after jailing US reporters Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva on dubious charges ahead of a possible prisoner swap, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine’s new F-16 jets won’t defeat Russia but will enhance air defenses appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Two days, two earth-shaking strikes. This morning, an air strike killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, one day after a rocket strike killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut. Israel reportedly launched both strikes as it continues its response to Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, and an apparent Hezbollah attack that killed a dozen children in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights last week. Following Haniyeh’s death, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that “it is our duty to take revenge.” Is a wider war next? And how will these events affect the ongoing war in Gaza? Our experts explain below.

• Jonathan Panikoff (@jpanikoff): Director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and a former US deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East
• Beth Sanner: Member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project advisory committee and a former US deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration
• Ahmed F. Alkhatib (@afalkhatib): Nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and an American writer and analyst who grew up in Gaza City

Behind the attacks

• “In a matter of twenty-four hours, Israel killed not one but two of the most senior officials in the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance,’” Jonathan tells us. It is Israel’s “most impactful day of tactical successes in months.” But, he adds, “tactical success does not always beget strategic victory, and Israel’s short- and long-term strategy remains unclear.”
• Beth says the “audacious strike” on Haniyeh is part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim of “decapitating Hamas’s leadership.” But “more importantly, it clearly establishes, following Iran’s retaliatory strike on Israel and Israel’s counterstrike inside Iran, the new normal of direct strikes between Israel and Iran.”
• Qatar’s prime minister, who has been mediating negotiations between Israel and Hamas, denounced the “assassination” of the Qatar-based Haniyeh. Ahmed believes that “Israel could have killed Haniyeh months ago, but didn’t want to compromise the relationship with Qatar.” But when Haniyeh traveled to Iran, “which is known to be compromised by Israeli intelligence assets,” Ahmed notes, “opportunity presented itself to take him out.”

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Implications for Gaza

• Haniyeh was one of the primary negotiators for Hamas, Jonathan notes. His assassination “does not mean the chances of a hostage release and temporary ceasefire are over, but they will almost certainly be delayed—again.” More important, he adds, is that the ultimate decision on any hostage deal and ceasefire rests with Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza and the mastermind behind the October 7 terrorist attack. “That reality does not change because of the assassination.”
• Ahmed expects the killing to exacerbate rifts between Hamas’s political and military wings. “The group’s political wing may view this event as a monumental shift that necessitates ending the war quickly to ensure the continuity of Hamas’s political relevance,” he tells us. But Haniyeh had “limited” influence over Sinwar—acting as “a mere messenger” during negotiations.

The view from Tehran

• “Iran’s failure to prevent this will rightfully terrify the regime, but also force it to respond in some way,” Beth says. The statement from Iran’s mission to the United Nations that Tehran will respond with “special operations,” she says, “suggests that we will not see a missile attack on Israel as we did in April.”
• For Haniyeh to be killed on Iranian soil just after attending the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is “a huge, humiliating blow to the Islamic Republic’s prowess and prestige,” Ahmed tells us. Expect a “dramatic” response from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but not “an all-out confrontation with Israel,” Ahmed adds, as Tehran will “attempt to restore its deterrence capability, fearing that its people and regional proxies will start doubting the country’s power.”
• Pezeshkian “was viewed as the ‘reformist’ in the election and lacks the depth of ties to Iran’s security establishment and IRGC that some of the other candidates had,” Jonathan notes. While the supreme leader will decide any response, he adds, Pezeshkian may decide that “he needs to align with whatever response the IRGC prefers or risk diminished standing and immediate tensions with one of the most important power bases in the Iranian government.”

What to look for next

• Israel’s strike, which Beth notes may have come “without the full blessing, or even foreknowledge, of the United States,” could have “long-term implications” for the two countries’ relationship. “But for now, the question is whether Israel has calibrated correctly in deterring Iran and its proxies or if it has set off an escalatory cycle.”
• The fastest escalation, Ahmed says, is likely to come between Hezbollah and Israel. “While escalation on multiple fronts is inevitable,” he adds, “all players will be carefully assessing their options and avoiding risky moves that greatly destabilize their power, gains, and positions.”
• Jonathan reminds us that Iran “always prioritizes regime stability above everything else.” In this case, that means Tehran “might see the timing and targets of the assassination as an opportunity to claim retaliation while foisting the actual kinetic response off on Hezbollah and Hamas,” Jonathan says. “Iran’s, Hezbollah’s, and Hamas’s responses will drive the direction of the Middle East for the coming weeks and months.”

The post Will the killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders lead to a wider war? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In Season 2, Episode 4 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by former Blackwater—rebranded as Academi— contractor Morgan Lerette in a wide-ranging conversation. They discuss everything from Blackwater’s lax vetting procedures, the opacity surrounding the laws and regulations governing Private Military Companies (PMCs), the absence of a support system for former employees, and why Morgan considers his twenty-four-year-old-self as a “mercenary” in Iraq, despite the controversy this has ignited among his former colleagues. Morgan also explains the difference, from his perspective, between the efficiency and the efficacy of using private sector contractors, as well as how depending on PMCs means outsourcing the morality of law enforcement. 

Find the Guns For Hire podcast on the app of your choice

Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict.

The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare tells us about the world we currently live in, the future of the international system, and what war could look like in the coming decades.

Podcast Apr 24, 2024

American Hit Squad in Yemen

By Alia Brahimi

Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with BBC investigative journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi about her film on American mercenaries in Yemen.

Conflict Defense Industry

Podcast Jan 10, 2024

Mercenaries and Gaza

By Alia Brahimi

Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with Iraq expert Renad Mansour about what motivates the non-state actors who are leading the bid to avenge Gazans.

Conflict Crisis Management

Podcast Jul 7, 2023

Mercenary bloodline: The war in Sudan

By Alia Brahimi

Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with Africa experts Cameron Hudson and Munzoul Assal about the mercenary pedigree of the Rapid Support Forces.

Africa Conflict

Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.

Learn more

The post ‘I was a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq’ appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Kharlan’s Olympic victory has additional significance for Ukraine as she almost missed out on participating in Paris altogether due to her principled stand over the Russian invasion of her homeland. During the 2023 World Fencing Championship, Kharlan refused to shake hands with a Russian opponent in protest over the war, offering instead to tap blades. The Russian declined this offer and staged a protest of her own, leading to Kharlan’s disqualification and making it virtually impossible for her to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games.

The incident sparked a heated debate over the role of politics in sport and the continued participation of Russian athletes in international events at a time when Russia is conducting Europe’s largest military invasion since World War II. Following a considerable outcry, Kharlan was reinstated and received the personal backing of International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, himself a former fencer. Meanwhile, Kharlan’s gesture made her a hero to millions of Ukrainians.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 25, 2024

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

By Mykola Bielieskov

The West’s collective fear of escalation and reluctance to commit to Ukrainian victory have convinced Putin that he can outlast his opponents and achieve an historic triumph in Ukraine, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 22, 2024

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

By Andriy Yermak

Together with the country’s allies, Ukraine has set out on the path to restore the European security architecture, writes the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President Andriy Yermak.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia appeared first on Atlantic Council.

When reflecting over the last decade of the U.S. policy, especially in the Trump and Biden administrations, three consistent trends emerge (though to different degrees): insufficient support for the UN political process to restore legitimacy to Libya’s political; leadership, repeated appeals to eastern warlord and head of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Khalifa Haftar to participate in a political process; and most consequentially for the United States, a seeming lack of attention to Russia’s increased presence in Libya.

Libya will never be at the top of the agenda for the United States in the Middle East, let alone for the rest of Washington’s foreign policy agenda. However, through a higher degree of attention and engagement, the United States can make significant inroads toward stability in a country that has the potential to benefit its neighbors and the region through proper management of its oil wealth, investing billions of dollars still frozen from the Qaddafi era, and preventing Russian expansion in the wider area.

Insufficient Political Engagement

The Skhirat Agreement or the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) tried to end the 2014-2015 civil war between Haftar’s Dignity operation and the Dawn Coalition consisting mainly of militia groups around Misrata and Tripoli. Instead, the overall split of Libya remains mostly between Haftar (addressed below) and political survivor Aguila Salah in the east and the UN-recognized pseudo governments and armed groups in the West.  The LPA created two chambers: the legislature, the House of Representatives (responsible for making laws) based in Tobruk, and the High State Council (HCS) based in Tripoli. The HSC has a consultative role, but its legal role was never completely spelled out. The UN appointed Fayez Sarraj as prime minister.  Among other factors, Haftar’s refusal to accept that the military would be under civilian control, as stipulated in the LPA, effectively nullified one of its most important elements.

For the following years, the international community tried to forge a consensus by holding summits in Europe: including in France in first in 2017, 2018, then in Italy in 2018. These conferences elevated Haftar from a renegade general to an international statesman on par with Sarraj. Despite the presence of foreign heads of state, none of these summits resulted in an agreement to implement the LPA or to adopt a process for elections. After another civil war broke out in 2019, German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted an international conference on Libya in Berlin in January 2020 intended to halt the violence. When a ceasefire finally occurred in October 2020, the UN created the Libya Political Dialogue Forum, whose members chose a President and prime minister, Mohamed Menfi and Abdel-hamid Dbaibah. The Dbaibah government was supposed to implement elections at the end of 2021. The elections were delayed for a number of reasons yet Dbaibah remains prime minister of the Government of National Unity three years after his initial appointment and Haftar still controls of the East.

In this context, the U.S. stood mostly on sidelines, attempting to establish some progress between Sarraj and Haftar through direct meetings and attending the European meetings at a ministerial level or below. What the U.S. can always do, however, is pressure foreign actors, or “spoilers,” who support competing sides on the Libyan political spectrum to reach consensus.  At different times, the U.S. could have pressed Egypt, the UAE, France and Turkey, Qatar, and Italy to weigh in with their own Libyan allies to accept political compromise. The problem with organizing a coordinated and effective diplomatic effort is that Libya is routinely far down on the “call sheet” for senior level engagements and there’s usually more pressing issues in the bilateral relationships with the above states than Libya. Without the necessary backing from the White House or Secretary of State a  special envoy can be easily ignored.

The one positive thing the United States did in was to develop a new set of sanctions in 2016 targeting individuals that “threaten the peace, security, or stability of Libya, including through the supply of arms or related materiel.” Agulia Salah was named as the first target as well as western militia leader Salah Badi. However, because Salah had no U.S. bank accounts to be frozen and had not ambitions to travel to Washington, the sanctions on him were symbolic and European partners allowed him to travel and participate in conferences. Applying the sanctions to Haftar would have been a different story.

Overestimation of Haftar’s Influence and Value

General Khalifa Haftar emerged not during but after the 2011 revolution. Positioning himself as an anti-Islamist, he appeared as an alternative force to the growing influence of Islamist militias, who were killing individuals, whether they were members of the brutal security establishment or nonideological judges. Eventually he defeated the extremists in Benghazi and turned his sights on Derna, which hosted a strong Ansar alSharia presence. With the support of anti-Muslim Brotherhood countries such as Egypt, the UAE, and, to a certain extent, France, his domination over the so-called Libyan National Army grew. But the Obama administration who distinguished between political Islamists, like Tunisia’s Rachid Ghannuchi, and militant Islam, bristled at statements calling all Islamists terrorists. The war ended in a standstill and UN Special Representative Bernadino Leon forged the LPA, leaving the international community pressing Haftar to accept a temporary government and placing the army under civilian control, effectively giving him a veto over any political compromise.

As Haftar became implacable, he had the temerity to attack Tripoli the day Secretary-General Guterres was visiting to help launch his Special Representative Ghassan Salame’s national dialogue. If there ever were a reason for sanctioning someone for threating the “peace and stability” of Libya, this was clearly it. But the United States chose not to, and Haftar benefited from the support of Syrian, African, and most importantly, Russian Wagner Group mercenaries who almost succeed in capturing Tripoli. There continues to be a debate about what former National Security Advisor John Bolton told Haftar during the run-up to the war and whether he gave Haftar a “green or yellow light” to attack if he could take Tripoli quickly. Regardless, the war dragged on, and the United States ignored the consequences.

Shortly after the October 2020 ceasefire, the UN created the Libya Political Dialogue Forum. Seventy-Five members of Libyan society discussed future political issues and selected a temporary prime minister who would govern until national elections at the end of 2021. Abdul-hamid Dbaibah won a surprising if not controversial victory over Aguila Salah. Haftar once again played spoiler by taking various positions on the legality of a military presidential candidacy – one of the key issue blocking elections.

As elections moved into an indefinite delay, the United States (along with its allies) tried to engage with Haftar in an effort to get him to cooperate on the possibility of holding national elections and to expel Russian forces from the east. As movement restrictions in Libya ease for American officials, U.S. representatives have met Haftar at least six times during the Biden administration. One such visit was delayed after Haftar (or Russia) shot down a reconnaissance drone preparing for the visit of the U.S. special envoy. Haftar has made no moves toward accepting elections and he has only grown closer to the Russians.

The Russian Are Coming

The Wagner Group’s mercenaries have been in Libya since at least 2018 according to public estimates. Since then, their presence has only grown. The U.S. Africa Command documented Russian fighter jets and cargo carriers traveling from Syria to Jufra Airbase in central Libya in July 2020 as well as to the al-Khadim airbase close to Benghazi. Haftar also uses Wagner to secure control of key oil facilities. This relationship expanded toward the end of the 2019-2020 civil war when Russian snipers, and the combination of Chinese-origin drones and mobile air defense units almost changed the tide of the war until Turkey intervened with superior drones and operators. At the same, the UN Panel of Experts estimated there were between 1200-2000 Wagner personnel in Libya by the summer of 2020.

Initially, Russia denied its presence in Libya just as it denied Wagner deployments in Syria and eastern Europe. After Yevgeny Prigozhin died almost a year ago, Haftar was co-opted by the emerging “Africa Corps” of the Russian ministry of defense and received almost monthly visits from Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. In fact, just one day after hosting the commander of U.S. Africa Command, Haftar headed to Moscow for a meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Russian interests in Libya are clear: it seeks access to a port in Libya, airbases to monitor NATO across the Mediterranean, and transit to its emerging allies in the Sahel. It is on track to fulfill all these ambitions unless the United States and its NATO partners make a concerted effort to counter Russian ambitions.

To date that has not transpired as the United States is focused on more pressing issues. But it will be a huge detriment to U.S. interests if Russia is allowed to deepen its presence in Libya and Africa. Part of a strategy to counter Russia in Libya requires investing more in Libya’s frozen domestic scene. Only a more legitimate government can challenge Haftar and assert its own nationalist instincts that Libyans displayed during the initial phase of the post-2011 transition.

Ben Fishman is the Steven D. Levy Senior Fellow in the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on North Africa. He served from 2009 to 2013 on the National Security Council where he held several posts, including director for North Africa and Jordan.

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Russia’s withdrawal from the Middle East

Until the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent end to the Cold War, Russia maintained a strong foothold in the Middle East, recognizing the region’s potential importance to global power dynamics. During the Cold War in particular, Russia maintained its presence by creating allies among those Arab nations that would help it achieve its goal of creating an anti-Western camp, most notably Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Libya, along with Algeria, Yemen, and Sudan. Its relations expanded from diplomatic ties to arms shipments to support for liberation movements such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The Soviet influence in the region was most obvious in its support for the Arab states during the Suez Canal Crisis (1956), the Six-Day War (1967), and the Yom Kippur War (1973), conflicts that saw a strong involvement by the United States on the side of Israel.

The 1990s, however, saw a major shift in Russia’s presence in the Middle East and North Africa with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The subsequent economic crisis forced Russia to dramatically scale back its involvement in the region, reducing both military engagement and economic support in order to focus on domestic issues. Additionally, Boris Yeltsin, the then president, saw a window to improve relations with the West. Scaling back Russia’s presence in what had been confrontational states represented one way to resolve tensions at a time when the country was reeling from internal economic turmoil. As a result, Russia played a marginal role in major confrontations such as the First Gulf War (1990–91), the US invasion of Afghanistan (2001), and the Iraq War (2003–11).

The 2011 NATO-led intervention in Libya to topple Muammar Gaddafi represented the beginning of the end of Russia’s disengagement from the region. Due to the ongoing rapprochement with the West, Russia’s then president, Dmitry Medvedev, abstained from adopting the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. This allowed Western intervention in Libya to overthrow the longtime dictator, who had by then turned on his own people. To many experts, Medvedev’s decision not to veto the resolution signaled an important change in Russia’s support of its Arab allies and allowed for a regime change to happen. Among the most notable critics of this action was Vladimir Putin, the then prime minister, who described the West’s subsequent intervention as akin to “medieval calls for crusades.”

The intervention in Libya left an indelible mark on Russian elites, many of whom saw it as emblematic of Western attempts to meddle in foreign countries and impose Western-like values. This threat left Russia feeling disillusioned with the West, which it accused of hypocrisy because of its violations of international law by interfering in Libya. It also left Russia feeling isolated at a time when the United States had promised that a regime change in Libya would not occur, and when Russia-US relations were strong and based on the pursuit of mutual trust. It cemented Russia’s persistent belief in the principle of nonintervention as a means to maintain stability and the status quo in the rules-based order, a belief that it accused the West of not sharing, with the 2003 US-led intervention in Iraq and subsequent deposition of Saddam Hussein as an example.

Russian reengagement

Russia’s distrust of the West and recognition of the importance of the Middle East and North Africa region help explain its intervention in Syria in 2015 and in Libya in 2017. Following two decades of relative disengagement from the region, Russia saw a window of opportunity to reassert itself with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war and the request by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for help. Additionally, the United States’ lack of intervention, underscored by the failure of Barack Obama, the then president, to adhere to his “red line” commitment, cemented Russia’s belief that the United States would not interfere in its quest for increased influence in the area.

The end of two decades of Russian disengagement came with the recapturing of Aleppo from rebel forces in December 2016, thanks to Russian involvement, and Libyan General Khalifa Haftar’s request for help a month earlier. Libya, engulfed in a civil war, saw the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and France aiding Haftar, with Russia emerging as a prominent ally at a time when its presence in the region was becoming more entrenched.

Emboldened by its victories in Syria and the potential to exert influence in the region by supporting another Arab country, Russia began deploying mercenaries to Libya as early as 2018, marking a definitive turning point from the previous two decades of disengagement. From its marginalized position, Russia saw Libya not only as another window of opportunity to reemerge as a great power competing for influence in North Africa but also as a gateway to other regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa. With the deployment of troops under the Kremlin’s authority, the days of being second to Western regime change in neighboring regions were over, and the potential for the resurgence of Russian primacy once again became a real prospect.

Russia reemerged as a regional power in the Middle East when Haftar attempted a takeover of Tripoli in 2019, with Russian forces fighting alongside Haftar’s. Egypt and the UAE were also involved, while Qatar and Turkey supported the Government of National Accord forces of Libya’s then prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj. Libya became a military quagmire for foreign power interferences, with Russia refusing to be the marginal player it had been during the First Gulf War and the US invasion of Iraq. While Haftar’s objective of gaining control of Libya was thwarted by Turkish troops, Russian involvement in the country remained consistent, with around 2,000 mercenary troops permanently stationed in eastern Libya, evidence of Russia’s unabated goal to establish a continued presence.

Ongoing influence

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is keeping the Kremlin largely occupied with redefining its borders to the west. Yet, “Southern missions” have not been downgraded to lesser-scale priorities. On the contrary, some 800 – 1200 mercenaries from Wagner (now called Africa Corps) remain present in Libya, many controlling key oil production facilities and thus positioning the Kremlin to control output from Libya and affect world oil prices. Their continued presence illustrates the Kremlin’s conviction that North Africa and the Middle East is a region of vital importance, with enormous untapped resources that could help Russia’s economy in the long term. It also underscores that Russia is making a strategic bet during a time when the American presence is diminishing and the Chinese presence is growing, asserting itself alongside China as a main power by buying local support through influence and mercenary deployment.

This strategy of Russian reassertion is further exemplified by the ongoing activities of the Africa Corps in the wider Sahel region, where the mercenary group’s control has been well documented and is set to increase. In recent years, the area has been destabilized by numerous coups, creating power vacuums in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Russia and China have moved to fill these voids, seeking to expand their influence as French and American troops have withdrawn. While Western countries focus on short-term diplomatic solutions, Russia appears to be ahead in its strategy, providing military and financial support to nations it considers strategically important.

Indeed, it would be a mistake to frame Russia’s presence in Libya exclusively under its competition with the West. Its presence is driven primarily by national interests, many of which are linked to the continent of Africa. Libya serves as the crucial hub for Moscow’s mission in Africa due to its geographical location and political instability, which favors Russia’s actions. Strategically positioned at the crossroads of Africa and Europe, it provides Russia with a gateway to its operations in Sudan, Chad, Niger, and other Sahel and Central Africa countries, eventually projecting power and influence across these regions. Libya’s ongoing political chaos creates opportunities for Russia to establish footholds through alliances with both local factions and official authorities. This is exemplified by Russia’s support of General Haftar over the past few years and its more recent relations with the government of Tripoli. Not least, the country’s fragmented governance has guaranteed Russia much-needed access to air and naval military bases, especially across Cyrenaica, allowing it to coordinate its military expeditions. By maintaining a strong presence in Libya, Russia is able to pursue its broader geopolitical goals, including defying the West, expanding its military reach, and securing critical resources that are essential to sustain its economy and long-term strategic aspirations.

Chiara Lovotti is an Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) research fellow and scientific coordinator of the Rome MED-Mediterranean Dialogues, the annual flagship event of ISPI and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is a specialist in Middle Eastern and North African international relations, with a focus on Russia’s foreign policy in the area and associated political and security issues. 

Alissa Pavia is associate director of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program. She is responsible for providing research and analysis on North Africa while also expanding the program’s reach with like-minded centers, foundations, and government agencies.

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On July 5, 2017, Haftar announced the complete “liberation” of Benghazi, although fighting in the downtown area of Sidi Khreibish only ended in January 2018. Between 2014 and 2018, Benghazi underwent the most significant transformation in its modern history, with displacement, dispossession, and the killing of thousands overturning generations-old social and economic dynamics. The consequences shaped not only the city’s current trajectory but also political and social developments in Libya more generally.

The four-year conflict resulted in the destruction of large areas of Benghazi; in 2021, its municipality said it had documented more than 6,000 properties that had been partially or wholly damaged during the fighting. Moreover, it divided families and neighbors, prompted the most extensive displacement in postcolonial Libya, and created new forms of identity rooted in grievance and partisan narratives of what had sparked the conflict. In a country where the legacy of Muammar Gaddafi–era property redistribution remained an obstacle to reconciliation, widespread seizures of property and land both during and after the fighting drove further antagonism in Benghazi.

Soon after its launch, Operation Dignity gained significant public support among the residents of Benghazi, who were becoming increasingly frustrated with deteriorating security. A series of assassinations had roiled the city. Former regime security personnel were targeted, along with civil society activists, judges, and journalists. The killings—mostly drive-by shootings and car bombings—generated both fear and widespread anger. Many commentators blamed groups, including Ansar al-Sharia, designated an al-Qaeda affiliate by the United States in January 2014 after it was linked to the 2012 diplomatic mission attack in which US ambassador Chris Stevens and several of his colleagues were killed.

Apart from its suspected role in the assassinations and bombings that shook Benghazi, Ansar al-Sharia had long unnerved many. The debate over how to address the problem of the group and its associates’ growing presence and influence in the city had divided residents before the launch of Dignity, and subsequently proved one of the main drivers of the ensuing conflict.

Operation Dignity began with attacks—including air strikes—on Ansar al-Sharia, as well as several armed groups that identified as “revolutionary” rather than Islamist. Faced with a common threat, a number of these militias united with Ansar al-Sharia under an umbrella group they named the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council (BRSC). Some groups that did not join BRSC continued to fight alongside it. The prominence of Ansar al-Sharia within the BRSC alliance benefited Haftar and his allies, serving to buttress their claim that their opponents were terrorists. When an Islamic State group affiliate emerged in Benghazi in late 2014, it recruited scores of Ansar al-Sharia members, who joined returnees from Syria and foreign fighters. Beheadings and other brutal tactics associated with the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq became a feature of the fighting in Benghazi, and helped consolidate popular support for Dignity.

These developments reinforced the views of those who had warned that a “force only” approach to Benghazi’s extremism challenge, together with Haftar’s scattershot targeting of a wide range of factions he considered a threat to his personal ambitions, risked not only radicalizing a far larger cohort but also pushing Benghazi into a long internecine war.

After the war, it was clear several new societal dynamics had emerged in the city. These dynamics were often shaped by perceptions of who had lost and who had gained from the conflict. Among those who had fought for or staunchly supported Dignity, there was a triumphalist mood. Several appeared to benefit materially, taking over abandoned properties or participating in Benghazi’s war economy. There was a reshuffling of key posts in the city, with existing personnel replaced with individuals from eastern tribes now considered “victors” due to their support of Haftar and his operation.

Benghazi residents who had not participated in the conflict but who adopted the Dignity narrative of how and why it had started were relieved to see Ansar al-Sharia and its associates gone. Many bonded through a collective memory of the conflict as solely a battle against terrorism, and in the process created new social milieus and civil society organizations.

Other social dynamics brought about by the war caused concern among the city’s population. The influence wielded by the Madkhali Salafists prompted much trepidation. As Haftar advanced through Benghazi during the war, the armed Madkhalis he had recruited took over mosques and religious institutions in the city. Later fully entrenched, the Madkhalis issued rulings against women traveling without a male guardian; called for all gatherings to be gender segregated; denounced any celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, traditionally a popular holiday in Libya; prohibited demonstrations as sinful; and intimidated civil society actors and cultural institutions. 

Another dynamic was the emergence of a stronger regional identity. This was particularly evident among a younger generation that had little adult experience of pre- Dignity Benghazi. The black flag of the short-lived Emirate of Cyrenaica (1949–51)—more recently associated with federalists seeking greater autonomy for eastern Libya and hard-line separatists—became an increasingly common sight in the city.

Benghazi also began to look different. While the reconstruction of neighborhoods damaged during the war was piecemeal, other parts experienced a building boom. In many cases, the increased construction was related to economic predation by Haftar’s inner circle—particularly his sons, a number of whom were given military ranks without any background or training—and their Libyan Arab Armed Forces units. In 2021, Osama al-Kizza, head of municipal planning in Benghazi, warned that a surge in unregulated construction was resulting in districts that lacked roads, water, sanitation systems, and other infrastructure.

A decade after Operation Dignity tipped Benghazi into four years of fighting, the people of the city—whether residents, internally displaced, or displaced overseas—continue to disagree about what caused the war and why it lasted so long. The trajectory of the conflict has been the subject of much revisionism, but there is consensus that Benghazi experienced an unprecedented transformation as a result. The social and economic dynamics that emerged from the 2014–18 war not only upended what had been a generations-old status quo. They also gave rise to new identities, both among the majority of Benghazi residents who were broadly favorable toward Dignity and among those who opposed the operation and were exiled. Partisan narratives of the war have created powerful communal bonds in its aftermath. The disappearance, detention, or killing since 2018 of prominent figures who were erstwhile allies or supporters of Haftar, among them a female parliamentarian, a female lawyer, and a former Dignity commander, has in some cases prompted disquiet and the questioning of both the current Haftar-dominated status quo and the operation that led to it. 

While many of the displaced have resettled in Benghazi, others who were displaced due to their opposition to Dignity or wider political views believe it remains unsafe for them to return. The city presents a particularly difficult challenge for greater reconciliation in Libya. In the absence of any comprehensive reconciliation efforts, it is unlikely that the decade-old divisions among extended families, neighbors, and communities that once called Benghazi home can be resolved.

Mary Fitzgerald is a writer, researcher, and consultant specializing in the Mediterranean region, with a focus on Libya. She has worked on Libya for more than a decade. She spent several months on the ground during Libya’s 2011 uprising, lived in Tripoli in 2014, and continues to make regular trips to the country.

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The rise of Libya’s kleptocrats

By predicating political progress on agreement between the “five major actors” in Libya in order to reach elections, Bathily ensured a situation whereby those currently in power would have a monopoly over what comes next. In truth, however, only two of the five major actors he identified—Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces and Abdulhamid al-Dabaiba, the head of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU)—have a meaningful influence on what happens on the ground. The other three—the heads of the Presidency Council and the High State Council and the speaker of the House of Representatives—draw their influence from their formal mandates, as well as political support from Turkey and Egypt, respectively.

Even if Bathily had created a more inclusive and representative process, there is a strong chance that vested interests would have ensured its failure. Indeed, it has become increasingly apparent that any political strategy will be doomed unless efforts are made to tackle the growth of kleptocracy that is sustaining the status quo.

For proof of this, it is necessary to look at the leaders and interests at the heart of the discussions. The Dabaiba family’s vast wealth has been generated through the management of Libyan state funds that remain subject to investigation, and the expansion of spending under Dabaiba’s GNU has been connected to widespread corruption. Meanwhile, Haftar’s dominion over eastern and southern Libya has translated into direct control over parallel institutions and their publicly funded budgets, which are subject to no oversight. When a fund for reconstruction was established in eastern Libya in recent months under the leadership of Khalifa’s son Belqacem (who appears to have no qualifications for the role), it was declared that there would be no financial oversight from the Libyan state’s anti-corruption agencies. The two sets of kleptocrats, the Haftars and the Dabaibas, also appear to have an under-the-table understanding on the management of the National Oil Corporation, through which state spending is skyrocketing, with little to show for it.

Libya’s list of kleptocrats is not limited to the Haftars and the Dabaibas. Armed group leaders and corrupt businessmen continue to build wealth and influence at the populace’s expense. Taken together, the vast majority of what acts as Libya’s formal state is controlled by kleptocratic forces. A recent report by The Sentry found that an array of illicit industries results in enormous wealth and power not only with the tacit but often active support of public institutions. The resources of the state are being plundered through widespread contract fraud and several forms of trafficking, including large-scale abuse of fuel subsidies for smuggling purposes.

This ubiquitous barrage of corruption is hurting the population. Prices continue to rise, leaving ordinary Libyans in a position where they need to spend more for less. Tragedies such as the September 2023 floods in Derna and surrounding areas, where over four thousand five hundred deaths have been recorded and thousands more are missing and presumed dead, show the extent to which the state has become hollowed out, as vested rather than public interests prevail.

International complicity and partnership with the kleptocrats

While Bathily’s criticisms in his recorded remarks to the UN Security Council focused on Libyan leaders, much of his comments to the press afterward also took aim at the regional and wider international picture. “Libya today is a battleground,” Bathily noted. “We needed all of the support of all the international and regional players to achieve meaningful results. Unfortunately, we have seen… parallel tracks taken by different foreign actors which undermine efforts of the UN. As long as this exists, there is no room for a solution in the future,” he bleakly concluded before later stating that “Libya is the prey to foreign economic interferences.” 

This conclusion is accurate. Of course, there will continue to be a focus on security dynamics, particularly as a result of Russia’s growing presence in Libya and international concerns over the Sahel’s “arc of instability.” However, the economic plunder of the state continues at pace. In the oil sector, the 2022 deal to appoint a new chairman of the National Oil Corporation was brokered by the United Arab Emirates, while a Turkish-led and UAE-based energy merchant has grown increasingly involved in Libya’s fuel imports and crude exports. At the time of writing, recriminations over the contracting of oil concessions in Libya to international companies are rising, with widespread allegations that some newly formed companies are in fact fronts for Libyan kleptocrats and their international partners. These dynamics raise serious concerns over who is profiting from Libya’s oil sector and highlight a significant reduction in transparency at a time when expenditures on fuel subsidies have reached unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, the Belqacem Haftar-led reconstruction fund is busy signing contracts, primarily with companies from Egypt, which openly eschew any form of oversight.

These dynamics illustrate that the accumulation of wealth by Libyan kleptocrats comes with the full knowledge and, indeed, support of regional interests, making it harder for the United Nations to adopt firm positions or marginalize Libyan leaders who enjoy continuing support from regional actors. 

How to tackle these dynamics

Successive UN special representatives have found this fusion of Libyan and regional interests impossible to untangle. Ghassan Salamé sought to bring the international players with interests in Libya together through the Berlin process—which held one meeting in 2020 and another in 2021—with the support of the German government, but any consensus built remained short-lived. Today, it appears that the UAE and Turkey have found accommodation with one another through the alignment of economic interests. And, while Egypt has continued to interfere in the political process to achieve its goal of displacing the GNU, it has also pursued its economic interests through its partnership with Haftar’s dominant alliance in Libya’s east.

While the status quo, which keeps deteriorating and might collapse any day, seems comfortable for Libyan kleptocrats and their international partners, the Libyan population increasingly suffers the consequences, runaway inflation by way of a depressed dinar being only one of them. The situation is also harmful to the interests of the United States and like-minded states. Mounting corruption in the oil sector imperils the status of Libya as a key oil producer, and Haftar’s engagement with Russia has led to a growing influx of weaponry and men through eastern Libya in recent weeks.

The question then becomes how this kleptocratic boom can be addressed. In reality, it will fall to the United States and like-minded governments such as in the United Kingdom and Germany to impose greater pressure in a concerted and targeted way on the kleptocracy to address the cause of Libya’s governance crisis rather than its symptoms. This will require support for Libyan institutions that are trying to push back against these dynamics in highly challenging and dangerous circumstances. It will also require the use of targeted network sanctions on the kleptocratic elite and calling out their enablers in external states through clear diplomatic messaging. The UAE, recently removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s “gray list” for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, should be a particular point of emphasis. An ongoing Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project-led investigation has identified that the Gulf state remains a prime location for those seeking to invest despite being subject to allegations of criminality and corruption. The United States and its like-minded allies should seek enhanced engagement between the private and public sectors through the use of business advisories and intelligence-sharing mechanisms to ensure Libyan kleptocrats can no longer launder and then stash their ill-gotten gains in financial centers and wealthy states across the globe.

A forceful focus on the kleptocracy is not a silver bullet by any means, but it is an attempt to attack the underlying cause behind most of the country’s problems in a way that has, to date, been lacking. The challenge of delivering on promises of democratic change for the Libyan people seems as far away now as ever. However, with a change of focus, international stakeholders can start to help Libyans begin to right the wrong of decades of kleptocracy and start to exact some accountability for the ongoing plunder of the country’s public resources. Only in such an environment will the next special representative have a more meaningful chance of success.

Oliver Windridge is the Director of Illicit Finance Policy at The Sentry.

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By Karim Mezran, Valeria Talbot, Jonathan Panikoff, Sanam Vakil, Maha Yahya, Mark N. Katz, Gangzheng She, and Julien Barnes-Dacey

US President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s upcoming visit to the Middle East provides an opportunity to assess what role the United States will play in the Middle East and North Africa in the future. With the war in Ukraine further diverting US attention from the region, the big question is whether the region is entering a ‘post-US’ era.

Energy & Environment Middle East

Report Aug 29, 2022

North Africa’s transatlantic relations amid change and continuity

By Karim Mezran, Roberto Menotti, Alessia Melcangi, Emadeddin Badi and Alissa Pavia

The purpose of this report is to identify a potential role for Italy and its diplomacy to play in North Africa, in full agreement and collaboration with the United States and the other main European actors.

Italy Libya

The post Internationalized kleptocracy is on the rise in Libya appeared first on Atlantic Council.

From the authorization of the 2011 military intervention to the creation of the Governments of National Accord and Unity, the UN has had successes but also relevant failures in Libya. The recent resignation of UN Special Representative Abdullah Bathily points to the need for the UN to move beyond interim agreements between elites and to take a bolder stance. The volatile state of global affairs makes progress in Libya uncertain. Still, it is clear that the iteration of past mistakes in the transition process will not lead to a different outcome.

From the 2011 revolution to the arms embargo

The current situation in Libya can be traced back to the 2011 NATO-led military intervention, sanctioned by UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1973 (2011), and that led to the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Under the premise of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the UN mandated the international community to establish a no-fly zone to protect civilians against war crimes carried out by Gaddafi’s army. However, as the situation deteriorated, the mission turned into a full-fledged regime-change operation, and Russia and China criticized what they saw as a breach of the scope of the resolution. Ever since, consensus within the Security Council on Libya has been elusive, and at the global level, the concept of R2P will likely remain on the shelf for a long time.

The UN’s role in Libya is described mainly in UNSCRs 1970 (2011), 1973 (2011), and 2009 (2011) and can be summarized as follows: the establishment of an arms embargo, an assets freeze, and a travel ban; the creation of a Sanctions Committee and a Panel of Experts (PoE) to monitor the situation on the ground; a referral to the International Criminal Court for crimes committed during and after the civil war; and, most importantly, the creation of a body to promote political dialogue and the reestablishment of state authority. UNSCR 2146 (2014) also calls for UN member states to inspect high-sea vessels to prevent the illicit export of crude oil from Libya, a decision adopted days after the oil tanker MV Morning Glory departed from Cyrenaica without the consent of the authorities in Tripoli.

When it comes to the arms embargo, its lack of an enforcement mechanism is responsible for the current situation in Libya, much more than the looting of arsenals following the collapse of Gaddafi’s regime. Divisions among Security Council members and at the European Union, competition between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and the growing US disinterest in the Middle East and North Africa region are all factors that explain why the continuous flow of weapons has not been halted. The nine reports of the UN PoE detail persistent violations that have not been followed by specific actions and point directly at, among others, the responsibility of Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council. Interestingly, the embargo was the first to include a specific clause banning “the provision of armed mercenary personnel.” Despite this stipulation, today, Libya has become one of the main bases of operations for the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary group now operating under the banner of Africa Corps.

Guiding the peace process: The role of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya

Unlike with the embargo, the UN has taken a leading role in the transition process by creating a support mission, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and appointing six consecutive special representatives to the secretary-general. In its current form [UNSCR 2542 (2020)], the tasks of UNSMIL are to further political dialogue and guide the transition process, help maintain the ongoing cease-fire, and support key Libyan institutions, including securing uncontrolled arms. The latter state-building element of the mission has been watered down through the years, with an initial mandate to “restore public security and promote the rule of law” that never met its expectations. In practice, UNSMIL offers a setting for Libyan elites to bargain for political and economic influence.

The drafting of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) in Skhirat, Morocco, and the subsequent creation of the Government of National Accord (GNA) in 2015 were UNSMIL’s first major achievements, which nevertheless had little success beyond signaling to the international community who was Libya’s legitimate authority. This failure can be attributed to the weak institutional legacy of Gaddafi’s hyper-personalist regime and, most importantly, to foreign meddling. UN special representatives have constantly complained about the role of third actors in funneling arms and money into the conflict. For instance, Ghassan Salamé, who served as UN special representative from 2017 to 2020, described Libya as “a textbook example of foreign interference.” However, some inherent flaws in the design of the LPA can also be blamed on the UN.

The main weakness of the UN-inspired political agreement is that it prioritized political reunification at the expense of legal, economic, and security sector reform. This made the GNA dependent on the goodwill of militias, while counterfeit banknotes continue to this day to flow into the Libyan market. Neither did UNSMIL push for the drafting of a definitive constitutional text, and in its absence, the LPA now appears to act as the top of the Libyan normative hierarchy. Another caveat of the UNSMIL strategy was to include all major political factions within the framework of the LPA, ossifying institutions with little popular legitimacy, including the House of Representatives (HoR), which was elected a decade ago with a voter turnout of 18 percent. In addition, the emphasis on local and regional representation (for instance, within the Presidential Council, whose three members represent Libya’s three historical regions) has turned into local parochialism and clientelist competition.

The fact that all actors on the ground have international support has forced UN special representatives to be pragmatically dovish. But at times, it appears they have become victims of their narrative, ignoring bellicose behaviors and focusing on “reconciling” rivals that already have tacit understandings of how to share Libya’s riches. This is most evident in the case of Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), whose 2014 power grab was decisive in the collapse of Libya’s transition. UN personnel have periodically traveled to Haftar’s headquarters in Rajma, east of Benghazi, despite the irregular nature of the LAAF and its links with war crimes and human rights violations. In 2015, the HoR appointed Haftar as supreme commander of the Libyan army. Still, the LPA is clear that this process should have been done through a joint committee also comprising the executive and the upper chamber, the High Council of State. The fact that Haftar launched his 2019 offensive on Tripoli the same day UN Secretary-General António Guterres was on a visit to eastern Libya is evidence of his disdain for the organization.

By 2018, conferences in Paris and Palermo had shifted the international debate, emphasizing the need for organizing elections in Libya. This was a desire equally shared by the population, as confirmed in consultations organized by UNSMIL in the context of a new Libyan National Conference. Following the collapse of Haftar’s campaign on Tripoli, however, the UN mission organized a voting process with seventy-five electors instead of pushing ahead with the plebiscite. This Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) was to choose a new Government of National Unity (GNU) to organize presidential and parliamentary elections by December 24, 2021. In this sense, while the forum was another significant UN-led turning point, it seemed to replicate previous mistakes, extending an endless interim period and bringing to the table those most interested in maintaining the status quo. Some even described the LPDF as a rendezvous between “dinosaurs” and “kleptocrats.”

In addition to the questions of representativity, including the underrepresentation of women, the UN was not able to effectively address the allegations that the chosen and current Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dabaiba had bribed his way to power. If this was not enough, the HoR soon withdrew its recognition of the GNU, returning Libya to the previous stalemate and rendering the whole process pointless. As time passed, it became evident that neither Dabaiba nor the HoR felt particularly pressed to hold the election by December 2021. Surprisingly, before his resignation in April 2024, Bathily, who served as UN special representative from 2022 to April 2024, was working on yet another transitional government, ignoring the aspirations of the population and the already-expired UN-proposed election timeline.

The UN must break the Libyan impasse

International norms and institutions are being challenged worldwide. However, this does not make the UN a mere bystander, and it is certainly not the case in Libya. Willingly or not, all Security Council members made Gaddafi’s downfall possible and failed to agree on embargo measures to stop the flow of weapons into Libya. Regarding the transition process, UNSMIL has inadvertently trapped Libya in a far-too-complex institutional web.

Bathily’s farewell declaration describes Libya as a “mafia state” dominated by political and military elites that follow their narrow interests. It points to the need for a new UNSMIL strategy, moving beyond the emphasis on reconciliation and pact-making and instead pushing for elections and accountability. The UN should not push for the creation of a third transitional executive, giving its seal of approval to yet another clique of elites. At the very least, this principled stand would raise awareness of the situation on the ground, and it could serve as revulsive in the otherwise endless political impasse.

Álvaro de Argüelles is a PhD candidate at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Spain. He holds a double major in international studies and law from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and a master’s degree in Arab and Middle Eastern studies from UAM. Argüelles is a board member of the Foro de Investigación sobre el Mundo Árabe y Musulmán.

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US President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s upcoming visit to the Middle East provides an opportunity to assess what role the United States will play in the Middle East and North Africa in the future. With the war in Ukraine further diverting US attention from the region, the big question is whether the region is entering a ‘post-US’ era.

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North Africa’s transatlantic relations amid change and continuity

By Karim Mezran, Roberto Menotti, Alessia Melcangi, Emadeddin Badi and Alissa Pavia

The purpose of this report is to identify a potential role for Italy and its diplomacy to play in North Africa, in full agreement and collaboration with the United States and the other main European actors.

Italy Libya

The post The UN should take a bolder stance in Libya appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Mattei Plan is not supposed to operate in a vacuum but is solidly affected and conditioned by the wider international community. However, evolving international dynamics among superpowers and regional powers do not bode for much optimism. Despite some positive events—such as French center-left parties’ relative containment of what was initially expected to be a glamorous victory for right-wing populism and extremism, as well as some successes in cohesion and policymaking by international organizations and institutions such as the Group of Seven (G7), Group of Twenty (G20), and NATO—the trend doesn’t look positive at all. In the background lie the war in Ukraine, the Gaza war, and a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The renewed rivalry for world dominance and the great-power competition between the United States, China, and Russia loom above everything.

North Africa is particularly vulnerable to these dynamics. The ideal part of the Mattei Plan is that it can positively defuse regional tensions. It has been a long-held belief of the European Union (EU), the United States, and the main international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that, to create a beneficial environment for economic development and political evolution, the five North Africa states of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania should agree to form some sort of “union.”

The Union du Maghreb Arabe (UMA) was born out of this thinking in 1989. In reality, the regimes then in power created it to fight the Islamist-led popular revolts, which, starting in the mid-1980s, were occurring in each of the North African countries in increasing numbers. UMA was also created to facilitate the exchange of security personnel and intelligence cooperation by these regimes. Because of this, no other sectors—such as the social, political, and cultural sectors—were developed. And once each UMA country felt more secure, it de facto withdrew from the union.

For a brief moment following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings—which were poised to bring to power, in a more or less democratic way, new elites more responsible for the wellbeing of their populations—international actors thought there was a will to renew a pledge to the UMA. However, the five North African regimes were generally unresponsive to their populations’ demands. There was an expectation that things would improve through democratic elections and that, once in power, the populations would be more prone to engage their neighbors in some kind of integration. But that didn’t happen. Instead, each country backslid into authoritarianism and, thus, in a more isolationist direction.

With this in mind, the prevailing trend, as determined by today’s evolution of the international system, may lead North Africa not toward integration but toward creating rival blocs. Morocco, which has elites strongly tied to Western nations and with Western values, has adapted a policy of cooperation and alliance with Western countries, especially the United States, and institutions such as NATO and the EU. Clear evidence of this pro-Western position is King Mohammed VI’s adhesion to the Abraham Accords pushed by then President Donald Trump as a way to create a new peaceful path to collaboration between Arab states and the state of Israel, in exchange for the US president’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara.

Morocco’s ruler has exerted enormous effort for Moroccan banks and commercial entities to penetrate the West African region’s economy. The success of this action has also gained much support for the ruler’s political ambitions.

Just to the East of Morocco and in contrast to its policies and economic activities, is the country of Algeria. The military-backed regime in power—which values nationalism, Arabism, and third-worldism—finds its legitimacy in the Algerian people’s war for independence from France in the late 1950s.

Algeria has been a staunch supporter of revolutionary and liberation movements in Africa and elsewhere. Thus, support for the Palestinian struggle against Israel quickly became a rallying cry in Algeria. Its relative closeness with the Soviet Union, and with Vladimir Putin’s Russia today, is the natural outcome of these positions. It is easy to see how Algeria could constitute an bloc adversarial toward Morocco. Add to this the wide influence that Algeria exerts on Tunisian President Kais Saied’s quest for absolute power and the natural gravitation of western Libya toward Algeria and Tunisia, and it’s easy to see the formation of bloc in opposition to that represented by Morocco.

Eastern Libya today is controlled by the rogue General Khalifa Haftar and his family, which is almost entirely dependent on Egyptian military support, and will probably detach the region from the western part of the country. Sadly, this would mean the end of a united Libya. This is a scenario that the West should do whatever it can to avoid. The United States seems too distracted by other issues and incapable of reacting to these trends. On the other hand, Italy and some of its European partners could use the idea behind the Mattei Plan to play a neutral role in the North Africa contest and help a rapprochement between Algeria and Morocco. This requires not making Algeria feel isolated from Western countries.

Prime Minister Meloni’s personal visit to Algeria in January 2023 was important for this reason, as was the one made afterward. Italian diplomacy was also active in keeping relations open and ongoing with Tunisian President Saied and in the warm relationship with the United Nations-recognized government in Tripoli. While this might sound ideal, Italy and its allies must take one step forward, which would foster a faster and deeper rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey. This could lead to an agreement in Libya in which the western part, strongly under the influence of Turkey, and the eastern part, which is entirely dependent on Egyptian support, may be convinced to find a way out of their crisis that entails the unity of the country rather than separation. A united Libya under the protection of NATO member Turkey and longtime US ally Egypt will not fall into the radical bloc. On the contrary, it might even be able to help lure Tunisia away from the pro-Russian potential bloc, while exerting an opposing influence on Algeria’s historical pro-Russian tendency by showing the benefits of standing with the West and collaborating with the Mattei Plan.

The Piano Mattei, a new vision of cooperation and collaboration on all fronts with the emerging societies of Africa, will be a great engine for this Italian and, ergo, Western policy of utilizing soft power to overcome issues that have previously created many problems for European countries.

Those who criticize the plan as empty of content, or cite its lack of purpose or precise allocation of resources, are missing the point. It is not only an economic plan but a political intuition to move away from today’s stagnant international cooperation policies and toward new dynamics that could produce extraordinary results if carefully implemented.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

The post The Mattei Plan is an opportunity for North Africa appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This is the first international investigative report presenting factual findings and legal conclusions on violations during the conflict. The COI found that Hamas and other Palestinian militants committed war crimes and violated international humanitarian and human rights law in their October 7, 2023, attack, and Israeli authorities and security forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and violated international humanitarian and human rights law, in their military campaign in the Gaza Strip. These findings and the robust evidence backing them may support future accountability proceedings.

About the COI

The UN Human Rights Council established the COI in May 2021, mandating it to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Palestinian territories and Israel leading up to and since April 13, 2021—a date marking an increase in protests and violence in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza sparked by disruptions at the al-Aqsa Mosque and the anticipated eviction of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem.

The COI is led by three independent and impartial experts, supported by a team of investigators and analysts. The standard of proof is “reasonable grounds,” following most other UN human rights investigative bodies, including those on Myanmar, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela. Facts are reported “where, based on a body of verified information, an objective and ordinary prudent observer would have reasonable grounds to conclude that the facts took place as described,” and legal conclusions are reported where “facts meet all the elements of a violation or abuse.”

The COI based its June report on thousands of forensically verified open-source items, more than 350 items received from public calls for submissions, and witness and survivor interviews in Turkey and Egypt, where individuals had fled, as well as remotely. The COI sent one request for information to the state of Palestine (represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization), which provided “extensive comments.” Israel did not respond to the COI’s six requests for information and access to the territory. However, officials denounced the COI, alleging prejudice and antisemitism—echoing allegations from prior UN investigative mandates concerning Israel—and reportedly restricted witness communication.

October 7, 2023, attack

The COI found that members of Hamas’s military wing, other Palestinian armed groups, and Palestinian civilians committed war crimes and violated international humanitarian and human rights law in their October 7, 2023, attack.

The COI detailed the war crimes of murder and intentionally directing attacks on civilians, committed by shooting and killing eight hundred civilians at twenty-four kibbutzim and civilian locations on October 7, 2023. The report details the horrific methods by which militants killed—systematically moving from house to house, shooting at hiding and fleeing civilians, setting homes on fire, and killing civilians at a music festival, in public toilets, in public shelters, and at bus stops and along roads. Among the dead were forty children, including a nine-month-old shot and killed while hiding with her mother, and 130 people aged sixty-five and older. Through these acts, militants also committed the war crimes of torture and cruel or inhuman treatment and destroying or seizing the property of an adversary. The COI also described unlawful attacks at military outposts, including killings of soldiers who were hors de combat.

Palestinian militants’ indiscriminate rocket fire toward populated places in Israel—killing eighteen civilians on October 7, 2023, and in following weeks—also constitutes the war crimes of murder and intentionally directing attacks on civilians.

Palestinian fighters also committed the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity by desecrating corpses, including burning, mutilating, lacerating, decapitating, and undressing and subsequently exhibiting bodies.

The COI confirmed acts of sexual violence against women and men at the Nova music festival, Route 232, Nahal Oz military base, and kibbutzim Re’im, Nir Oz, and Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023. Evidence included restraints placed on women, positions of and signs of violence on victims’ bodies, and disseminated imagery of undressed bodies. The COI also found that gender-based violence was “perpetrated in similar ways in several locations and by multiple Palestinian perpetrators,” with patterns including abducting women with force or threats, coerced close physical proximity to abductors, treatment of women’s bodies as “victory trophies,” and gendered slurs. The COI could not verify reports of rape, sexualized torture, and genital mutilation due to lack of access to victims, witnesses, and crime sites, nor did it find evidence that militants were ordered to commit sexual violence.

Finally, the COI found that militants committed the war crime of taking hostages—often combined with outrages upon personal dignity and inhumane treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, assault, harassment, and intimidation—by abducting 252 people from Israel (approximately twenty security forces and the remainder civilians, including thirty-six children) and brought them to Gaza. As of May 21, half of the hostages were released or rescued, with the remainder in captivity, whether alive or dead.

Military response in Gaza

The COI found that Israeli authorities and members of the security forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and violated international humanitarian and human rights law, in their military campaign in Gaza.

Israeli authorities and forces perpetrated the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, evidenced by the imposition of a total siege for two weeks, from approximately October 9 to 20—with water shut off and no aid allowed in—followed by meager aid deliveries, with measures hampering entry of aid and restricting or blocking specific items. The COI concluded that authorities imposed the siege as retribution for militants’ October 7, 2023, attack and that aid restrictions were intended “to instrumentalize and weaponize the provision of necessities” and hold hostage the Gazan population “to achieve political and military objectives,” constituting collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli forces also attacked humanitarian convoys, further limiting aid availability and distribution.

Israeli authorities and forces also committed “[e]xtermination, as a crime against humanity”—”the killing one or more persons, including by inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population, … [as] part of a mass killing of members of a civilian population”—based on attacks on civilians and humanitarian aid restrictions.

Israeli authorities and forces also committed the war crimes of murder and intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, as well as the crime against humanity of murder. Israeli officials’ statements evidence permissive changes in targeting practices—launching more strikes than in prior conflicts, targeting locations with “an inkling of intelligence,” and using more intense weaponry with wider impact areas—resulting in significantly higher casualties than in prior Israel-Hamas conflicts and a higher proportion of women and children killed. The report detailed instances in which Israeli forces targeted civilians who were clearly unarmed, including civilians sheltering at a church, a child holding a white flag, and three unarmed Israeli hostages. The COI also found Israel’s military campaign consistent with the Dahya doctrine, a military strategy to use “overwhelming and disproportionate force against civilian areas and infrastructure” to defeat the enemy.

The COI noted it continues to investigate reports that Hamas and other militants operate from civilian locations, but it could not verify evidence Israeli authorities publicly presented. The COI made no finding regarding Hamas’s use of human shields.

The COI found that Israeli evacuation orders constituted the war crime and crime against humanity of forcible transfer. From October 7, 2023, to December 30, 2023, more than eighty orders instructed civilians to leave their neighborhoods and go to areas that effectively constituted safe zones with legal protections. However, many evacuation orders were unclear and confusing, had insufficient or unstated time frames, and/or were difficult or impossible to comply with due to chaos along evacuation routes—including Israeli checkpoints where individuals were forced at gunpoint to strip and “walk for prolonged periods without clothes,” a lack of transport, inadequate support for vulnerable persons, and Israeli and Hamas attacks on and harassment of evacuees. Moreover, evacuation orders were issued alongside or in the context of authorities’ statements dehumanizing Palestinians, labeling all Gazans as Hamas, referring to the second Nakba, and calling for the removal of Gazan civilians and the establishment of Israeli settlements. Accordingly, the evacuation orders did not constitute an advance effective warning to civilians, but instead amounted to forcible transfer. Israeli forces also attacked safe zones and destroyed entire communities and residential areas that were evacuated, leaving nothing for families to return to.

The COI also documented Israeli forces’ commission of the war crimes of sexual violence, outrages upon personal dignity, and sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture or inhuman and cruel treatment, as well as the crimes against humanity of gender persecution and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment. Israeli forces compelled public stripping and nudity “in many locations,” with victims “blindfolded, kneeling, and/or with their hands tied” while subject to interrogation, verbal or psychological abuse, and/or coerced physical acts. “[M]en and boys were targeted in particular ways,” including Israeli forces repeatedly filming and photographing them with images disseminated online and family and community members forced to watch. Women were also targeted with specific forms of psychological violence and sexual harassment, including online shaming and doxing, sexualized graffiti, and invasion of personal privacy, including by soldiers rifling through lingerie. These acts were aggravated by violating Gazans’ modest and private social practices and disseminating humiliating content online that would be almost impossible to remove. The COI concluded that the sexual and gender-based violence “was intended to humiliate and degrade the Palestinian population as a whole.” The pattern of forced public stripping and nudity indicated it was either ordered or condoned, and the prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes suggest they are part of Israeli operating procedures.

Impact of the report

The COI is not a court or a tribunal, and it cannot prosecute or ensure legal accountability. However, it can issue recommendations to promote accountability and support accountability mechanisms, including by sharing evidence with domestic, regional, and international courts. Thus, while the report itself will not result in trials, its documentation can advance investigations and contribute to future prosecutions of Palestinian and Israeli forces and authorities. These cases may proceed at the International Criminal Court (ICC)—where the prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli officials—or in domestic courts. The COI is also recommending these accountability steps—that ICC member states support and cooperate fully with the Office of the Prosecutor’s investigation and that states parties to the Geneva Conventions, Convention against Torture, and the Genocide Convention investigate core international crimes under domestic or universal jurisdiction.

While investigations and prosecutions may take years, legal accountability is essential to recovering and healing from a conflict that has resulted in “months of losses and despair, retribution and atrocities.” As the COI concluded: “The only way to stop the recurring cycles of violence…is to ensure strict adherence to international law.”

Elise Baker is a staff lawyer with the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project. Previously, she worked at the United Nations International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism on Syria and led Physicians for Human Rights’ Syria Mapping Project, which documented attacks on Syria’s health care system.

The post Unpacking the UN findings of war crimes by Hamas and Israel since October 7 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The turbulence of the current political climate cannot be overstated. Netanyahu’s schedule has been plagued by constant turmoil. Biden’s recent bout with COVID-19, the campaign obligations of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and confusion about who would preside over—or even attend—the joint session of Congress convened in the prime minister’s honor have all complicated logistics. This, at a time when the upcoming US elections in November are already absorbing the vast share of America’s attention. None of this commotion detracts from the importance of high-level engagement at this critical juncture.  

In his face-to-face encounter with Biden, Netanyahu had a pivotal opportunity—which one hopes that he didn’t squander—to synchronize Israeli and American objectives for the remaining six months of the Biden presidency. He would have done wisely to move beyond pithy slogans and platitudes and, instead, provide detailed outlines of his plans for the future of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the festering conflicts with Lebanon and Iran, and the drive to further Israel’s integration into the Middle East. Coordination with the United States is a force multiplier for Israel. Discord weakens its hand.

Netanyahu is advocating what his aides have dubbed a “new way” of confronting Iran—the same country that featured prominently in his previous, and no less controversial, appearance on Capitol Hill in 2015. Summoning memories of Pearl Harbor and Winston Churchill to draw parallels between World War II and the present moment, he appealed to Congress on July 24 for the United States to take a more aggressive approach toward combatting the Islamic Republic by bolstering support for Israel’s war on Hamas and helping to craft a new Abraham Alliance to “counter the growing Iranian threat.” That plea comes on the heels of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s July 19 warning that Iran is “probably one or two weeks away” from producing enough fissile material to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

The general themes of the prime minister’s case will undoubtedly resonate with the president. But significant gaps endure. The pace of ongoing negotiations to facilitate freedom for the captives in Hamas custody and an end to the fighting in Gaza has fallen short of Biden’s expectations. The US has also been known to encourage Israel toward restraint when responding to the provocations of Iran and its regional proxies.

When Netanyahu and Biden met privately in the Oval Office, both leaders came armed assuredly with extensive wish lists. The prime minister will have beseeched the president to continue having Israel’s back for as long as it takes the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to defeat its enemies resoundingly. (They likely disagreed on what that actually entails.) More specifically, Netanyahu will have repeated his request for unimpeded access to American weaponry and asked that the Biden administration remain steadfast as a bulwark to prevent the imposition of international sanctions against Israel. He will have sought US backing for his vision of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza—one where Israel will maintain security oversight while Palestinians who favor coexistence with their Israeli neighbors exercise civilian control—and for Israeli measures to defend against threats from Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Above all else, he will have implored Biden to leverage the full weight of America’s power in order to halt Iran’s malign influence and thwart its nuclear ambitions.

The president will have pushed the prime minister to line up behind US-sponsored efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and win the release of all those being held hostage. He will also have pressed Netanyahu to contribute to de-escalating rising tensions across the region. In that context, Biden will have reiterated his call for Israel’s government to articulate a pathway that can lead to eventual Palestinian statehood as a prerequisite to the creation of a broader multinational framework—analogous to the “Abraham Alliance” which Netanyahu previewed before Congress—that can function as a means to counter Iranian belligerence decisively.

Echoes of Biden’s words to Netanyahu would have surfaced in the prime minister’s subsequent conversation with Harris, who has now stepped further into the limelight as the senior-most administration figure to deliver public comment on the discussions with the Israeli leader. That said, the White House readout of her meeting with Netanyahu included a pointed reference to “extremist settler violence and settlement expansion” as destabilizing elements in the West Bank. Where the vice president appears also to have deviated from Biden is in the intensity of her reaction to Gaza’s humanitarian predicament, about which she intoned on July 25 that “we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent”—prompting a senior Israeli official to express concern that her remarks could “be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the US and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure.”

The clock is ticking. Biden, no longer inhibited by the constraints of a re-election bid, is primed to make legacy moves and determined, by his admission, to “keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages, and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war.” Caveats notwithstanding, these are all objectives that Israelis can embrace wholeheartedly. Given the uncertainty of what may transpire after January 20, Netanyahu—whose political legacy hangs in the balance—should hasten to roll up his sleeves, attach Israel’s wagon to Biden’s train, and pray it reaches that destination.

Shalom Lipner is a nonresident senior fellow for Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. From 1990 to 2016, he served seven consecutive premiers at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Follow him on X: @ShalomLipner.

The post Netanyahu comes to Washington on a ‘wing’ and a prayer appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 25, 2024

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

By Mykola Bielieskov

The West’s collective fear of escalation and reluctance to commit to Ukrainian victory have convinced Putin that he can outlast his opponents and achieve an historic triumph in Ukraine, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Jul 18, 2024

Ukraine’s drone success offers a blueprint for cybersecurity strategy

By Anatoly Motkin

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding domestic drone industry offers a potentially appealing blueprint for the development of the country’s cybersecurity capabilities, writes Anatoly Motkin.

Conflict Cybersecurity

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post The West should articulate the possibility of a European future for Belarus now appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Jul 18, 2024

Ukraine’s drone success offers a blueprint for cybersecurity strategy

By Anatoly Motkin

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding domestic drone industry offers a potentially appealing blueprint for the development of the country’s cybersecurity capabilities, writes Anatoly Motkin.

Conflict Cybersecurity

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Putin is convinced he can outlast the West and win in Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Below, our experts break down Netanyahu’s message to Congress and what his visit to Washington reveals about the future of US-Israel relations.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

William F. Wechsler: The “Abraham Alliance” idea is new, but not fully developed

Jonathan Panikoff: Netanyahu’s rhetoric today is less meaningful than his meetings tomorrow

Emilia Pierce: Netanyahu’s math that civilian casualties in Rafah have been “practically none” doesn’t add up

Thomas Warrick: Netanyahu lays out a vision for postwar Gaza, but the serious talks are just starting

Carmiel Arbit: The controversies plaguing Netanyahu at home followed him to Washington

The “Abraham Alliance” idea is new, but not fully developed

Netanyahu has proved once again that he is an excellent orator, but this address was almost entirely a collection of statements he’s made previously, packaged for a new audience and carefully balanced for the US election cycle to give talking points to both political campaigns.

The most important new policy idea offered was the creation of an “Abraham Alliance” that would build on the ad-hoc coalition that shot down Iranian missiles headed to Israel in April. Netanyahu knows that work on this is already underway, led by the United States. But these discussions are best held in private, through military-to-military channels. The Gulf states are reluctant to be seen as building mechanisms that will protect Israel but leave them on the front lines in any confrontation with Iran. Indeed, the Gulf’s public and diplomatic strategies toward Iran have gone in the opposite direction, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and now Bahrain working to reestablish formal ties and improve commercial relations with Tehran.

—William F. Wechsler is the senior director of Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. His most recent US government position was deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism.

Netanyahu’s rhetoric today is less meaningful than his meetings tomorrow

Before Netanyahu’s address to Congress began today, CNN posted a video report with the headline, “What to expect from Netanyahu’s high stakes speech to Congress.” It was curious framing—the speech was never high stakes and nothing in its delivered content altered that reality. 

For many on the left, represented by the large swath of Democratic lawmakers who didn’t attend, there was nothing that the prime minister could have said today that would have changed their opinion of him or Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza. For many center-left Democrats, centrists of both parties, and some Republicans, there was little he could have said to diminish their broader support for Israel, even while they maintain contempt for Netanyahu as its leader. And for many on the right, who view any criticism of Israel as inappropriate, there was unlikely to be anything the prime minister could have said to temper their support of him or Israel.

That does not mean that the speech wasn’t powerful and well-delivered. It was. Among the prime minister’s long-standing political gifts has been his eloquence in both Hebrew and English. His recognition of President Joe Biden’s support, especially in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on October 7, 2023, his criticism of those US protesters who have aligned themselves with Iran, and Hamas’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields were all points strongly delivered that deserve to be highlighted.

But how much more powerful would the speech have been if it had contained the same robust defense of Israel and its military operations in Gaza, while also acknowledging the humanitarian tragedy that exists there today? How much more impactful would the speech have been if it had recognized that even if the Hamas-led health ministry numbers are inaccurate by having inflated numbers and not distinguishing between civilian and terrorist deaths, that still leaves at least twenty thousand innocent Palestinians who have perished during this conflict? War always results in civilian casualties. It’s a horrid reality. But recognizing that reality would have shown light on Netanyahu’s own humanity, which many view to be lacking.

Juxtaposed against today’s speech, what will be rather high-stakes are tomorrow’s meetings between Netanyahu and Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Negotiators have been trying for months to reach an elusive temporary ceasefire in which hostages held in Gaza would be returned to Israel and Israel would pause military operations in the Gaza Strip.

For months, Netanyahu and Hamas’s leader in Gaza (and the mastermind of October 7) Yahya Sinwar have actually been aligned in their goals to avoid a ceasefire. Sinwar is convinced that more fighting, and more Palestinian deaths, are a long-term net positive for Hamas. Netanyahu, who has been changing the terms of Israel’s requirements, is desperate to try to stay in office. As a result, the press accounts of tomorrow’s meetings and the potential for a ceasefire, whether temporary or permanent, are likely to be far more important than anything the prime minister said today in the Well of the House.

—Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He is a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the US National Intelligence Council.

Netanyahu’s math that civilian casualties in Rafah have been “practically none” doesn’t add up

Whatever viewers started the day believing about Israel’s war in Gaza is almost certainly what they will end the day believing. If viewers can agree on any one thing, it is likely that the speech contained little if any new information and certainly no surprises. However, two points from Netanyahu’s speech do merit additional scrutiny.

The first is the civilian harm caused by the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF’s) air and ground operations in Gaza. As social media has been flooded with graphic images of the humanitarian devastation, Netanyahu would have been better served by acknowledging the ongoing human toll and making good-faith arguments about civilian harm. In his speech today, he claimed that civilian casualties in Rafah were “practically none,” when former members of his military forces paint a very different picture. It is not a good-faith argument to claim that civilian deaths are “practically none,” when sources both external and internal to the IDF have reported serious concerns about lax rules of engagement and a breakdown of discipline. Additionally, investigations have shown that after executing short-notice evacuations from densely populated areas, the IDF has established “no go” areas where individuals are considered a threat and shot on sight regardless of demographics or whether that person was armed. If Netanyahu wants to defend the IDF’s treatment of civilians, those arguments must at the very least be made in good faith and with a clear-eyed assessment of the facts.

The second is Netanyahu’s framing of the northern threat from Hezbollah. Though his remarks on Hezbollah were relatively brief, they made an impression. Right or wrong, he clearly framed Hezbollah as an existential threat to Israel that cannot be disentangled from their wider struggle against Hamas, the Houthis, and ultimately Iran. One possibility is that this speech was meant to set the stage for a ground incursion into southern Lebanon and soften global public opinion on such a decision. However, opening a new active front against Hezbollah would be catastrophic for many reasons, both humanitarian and strategic. For civilians living in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel, an active conflict would spell further displacement and suffering. For the beleaguered IDF, it would mean a full-scale war against a well-armed adversary and make further regional spillover ever more likely.

While Netanyahu’s fourth speech to Congress may go down in history as the highest number of congressional addresses by a foreign leader, it will likely be remembered for little else—except perhaps his commitment to a misleading representation of humanitarian realities.

—Emilia Pierce is the deputy director of operations and finance at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

Netanyahu lays out a vision for postwar Gaza, but the serious talks are just starting

Netanyahu’s speech to Congress laid out his vision for postwar Gaza: a civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel and are willing to live side by side in peace. While Netanyahu and his top advisers have said similar things before, the reported meeting convened on July 18 by UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed with top US and Israeli advisers shows that serious talks on postwar Gaza are just starting.

The key words to understand in Netanyahu’s speech are “de-militarization” and “de-radicalization.” Demilitarization means that Hamas should not be allowed to rule postwar Gaza, but it also means that Hamas cannot be allowed to follow the path of Lebanese Hezbollah—of letting someone else govern Gaza while Hamas rearms so that it can attack Israel again. Biden said something similar on May 31, as did US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 15 and July 1. Top US and Israeli officials are thus aligned on the goals, but with no agreement on a realistic, common plan to achieve them.

The key to how demilitarization can be achieved is a serious approach to what Netanyahu called de-radicalization. This will require taking control of Gaza’s institutions of governance away from Hamas or those who would tolerate Hamas’s re-armament. It will take a serious plan for keeping Hamas from killing the Palestinians who Netanyahu envisions would eventually govern Gaza. This is one of the practical steps that may come out of the discussions started in Abu Dhabi. There are a number of serious plans for how to do this, but as Netanyahu told Congress, it will take Israel, the United States, Arab nations, and Palestinians—all of them—to make this a reality.

—Thomas S. Warrick is a senior fellow and director of the Future of DHS Project at the Atlantic Council. He served in the Department of State from 1997-2007 and as deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy at the US Department of Homeland Security from 2008 to 2019.

The controversies plaguing Netanyahu at home followed him to Washington

Before heading to Washington for his fourth address to Congress, Netanyahu had promised to deliver a unifying speech—to stay above the political disarray that has overtaken Washington, promote bipartisan support for the US-Israel relationship, and commit to a path to ending the war in Gaza. Insofar as he praised both Biden and former President Donald Trump, he was certainly less partisan than he was in his 2018 address decrying the Iran nuclear deal. Yet Netanyahu, aided by the extremism of his far-right coalition, has continued to preside over the politicization—and potential weakening—of the US-Israel relationship. Very little he said in today’s speech—which also failed to address a path forward—will change that.

By some accounts, roughly half of the Democrats from the House and Senate were absent from the event; compare this with the fifty-eight who sat out his address in 2018 and the five who boycotted Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s speech earlier this year. Democratic legislators are fed up with Netanyahu, who has all but endorsed Trump publicly and whose right-wing rhetoric and kowtowing to extremists is anathema to the party’s values. Their patience for the war in Gaza has waned significantly in the months since October 7, as the death toll among Gazans and hostages alike only grows in the absence of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Yet despite this snub from so many members, Netanyahu will still have meetings with Biden, Harris, and both House and Senate minority and majority leadership. No matter how disliked Netanyahu may be, or how politically charged the war in Gaza may be for many Americans, the meetings underscore the enduring strength of the relationship between the two nations—or, as Netanyahu put it, that the victories of the countries are shared.

Still, Netanyahu’s addresses to the United States are never really intended for American audiences alone, and he is deft in leveraging both negative and positive receptions in Washington to bolster his standing at home. The divisions and controversies plaguing Netanyahu in Israel followed him to Washington. His tribute to the hostages rang hollow for many Israelis—including those present in the Capitol today. Several family members of hostages being detained during Netanyahu’s speech was a startling image for Americans—and a reminder of the complexities of what’s at stake almost a year into the war.

—Carmiel Arbit is a nonresident senior fellow in the Middle East Programs and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

The post Experts react: What Netanyahu’s address to Congress reveals about the state of US-Israel relations appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The absence is significant, as accountability for genocide is an integral part of a surviving community’s healing. Nadia Murad, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Yezidi survivor of ISIS enslavement, has spoken directly on the issue, stating, “Convictions of ISIS members for genocide are vital to our healing process; they let us know that the world has seen, and condemns, the efforts to eradicate the Yezidi people.”

Since 2016, the United States has made some progress in this regard with the State Department’s recognition of genocides in Iraq, Xinjiang, the Ottoman Empire, and Myanmar. But during the same period, US genocide law has failed to keep pace. While there are some logistical reasons for the lack of prosecutions—notably, the lack of direct perpetrators on US territory—the US justice system can instead pursue those otherwise complicit: corporations. However, alarming gaps in US genocide law shield corporations from accountability while denying comprehensive justice to victims and survivors.

Shortcomings in US genocide law and policy

In the US legal system, the Genocide Convention Implementation Act (codified under 18 US Code § 1091) constitutes most of the legal criminal bullwork aimed at genocide prosecution. The code mirrors much of the 1948 Genocide Convention’s language, prohibiting actions with the “specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”

In some ways, the law’s reach extends beyond the Genocide Convention’s scope, allowing authorities to hold corporations criminally liable for federal crimes, including genocide, committed by their employees, officers, or agents in their scope of employment. In contrast, the International Criminal Court, and even some countries, cannot hold corporations themselves accountable.

Despite this broader scope, the act remains poorly equipped to handle cases of genocide in general, let alone to prosecute corporations specifically. For instance, according to the Open Society Justice Initiative, the code’s wording renders the act less effective than the Genocide Convention. Possibly most damaging to the law’s breadth is the act’s (18 US Code § 1093) definition of “substantial part.” Where the Genocide Convention does not require “substantial” destruction in the first place, the act requires the destruction of “a part of a group of such numerical significance that the destruction or loss of that part would cause the destruction of the group as a viable entity within the nation of which such group is a part.”

US and international law also differ in defining the degree of mental harm constituting genocide. US code requires “the permanent impairment of the mental faculties…through drugs, torture, or similar techniques,” compared to the Genocide Convention’s broader protection of victims suffering “serious…mental harm.” Therefore, the code’s variation from international law substantially limits the recognized scope and qualifying acts of genocide.

Beyond wording, other legal factors continue to impede genocide prosecution. For example, temporal jurisdiction prevented prosecutors from bringing cases prior to the act’s passage in 1988, and the code only allowed for trying foreign nationals after the Genocide Accountability Act’s passage in 2007.

The issue of mens rea, or “mental state,” also poses a unique challenge to prosecutors seeking corporate accountability for genocide. Mens rea requires proof of express genocidal intent, but international interpretations of this requirement have remained vague and inconsistent. Mens rea under US law becomes even more complicated when introducing secondary liability, as some states’ caselaw interpretations require a complicit party to possess the same mens rea as the direct perpetrator, while other states’ caselaw does not. This divide reflects a broader international debate and complicates the legal considerations for possible US cases against corporations, potentially disincentivizing prosecutors.

But one of the greatest obstacles facing genocide prosecution is the lack of US policy prioritizing such cases. Genocide charges require political approval from the assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division of the DOJ, but little is likely to change without political support backing this approval. Gev Iskajyan, national grassroots director of the Armenian National Committee of America, acknowledged this fact in 2021, simultaneously praising President Joe Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide as “a fundamental step in that ladder to justice” and clarifying that true justice requires more substantive action from political leaders. Indeed, the lack of political support and accompanying legal obstacles have effectively dissuaded prosecutors from indicting anyone on genocide charges since the Genocide Convention Implementation Act’s passage in 1988.

Litigating the Yezidi genocide

Nowhere in recent litigation has this dissuasion been more apparent than with efforts to address corporate involvement in ISIS’s genocide against the Yezidi community. The genocide began on August 3, 2014, when ISIS launched a campaign in Sinjar, killing more than five thousand Yezidis and taking 6,800 more into captivity, where they faced brainwashing, physical abuse, and sexual slavery. ISIS did not achieve this persecution in isolation. The organization received material assistance and took advantage of lax oversight on social media platforms to further its genocidal program. Without criminal cases charging corporations with complicity in genocide—whether from lack of political will or the shortcomings of the law—American and Yezidi cases in the United States have instead used civil provisions that do not cover liability for genocide.

Legal cases against Lafarge, a French cement manufacturer, stand as an excellent example of this phenomenon. In 2022, as a result of a DOJ investigation, the company pled guilty to conspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations. The company was ordered to pay $777.78 million in fines and forfeitures for cooperating with ISIS and al-Nusrah Front in exchange for a Lafarge factory’s security in Syria. Emboldened by the DOJ’s success, American Yezidis have since opened a similar civil suit based on Lafarge’s alleged violation of the Antiterrorism Act.

Undoubtedly, prosecuting the company under the United States’ expansive legal framework for terrorism is more likely to succeed than a case under genocide law. The DOJ has historically prioritized terrorism cases, creating more robust legislation and caselaw that prosecutors can draw from, and often more favorable provisions. For example, extraterritorial jurisdiction over the crime of material support for terrorism is far-reaching, covering, e.g., an offense that “occurs in or affects interstate or foreign commerce.” Furthermore, any effort to hold Lafarge accountable while obtaining funds for Yezidi victims and survivors is laudable. However, Lafarge knowingly and willfully continued illegal payments to an organization actively committing genocide, yet has not had to answer for these uniquely harmful acts.

As another example, a separate group of Yezidi activists is looking to hold WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accountable for the illegal slave trade of Yezidi women, which the activists allege occurred on the platforms. According to the group, these companies acted slowly and inconsistently in removing harmful material related to trafficking Yezidi women, which could be in violation of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017. However, legal experts have noted that certain provisions may shield these tech companies from civil liability through wide-ranging immunities. But even if the civil suit succeeds, the companies’ liability will only extend to sex trafficking, without acknowledging the fundamental role that slavery played in this genocide. The civil suit would bring prosecution closer to specific acts of genocide but, like the Lafarge case, would still fall short of addressing genocide directly.

Better accountability measures needed

The United States needs far better genocide accountability measures if justice is ever to follow recognition. On a legal level, several reforms could work in favor of such a pursuit. Removing the word “substantial” from the act’s current language, and expanding qualifying instances of mental harm, would help bring the law closer in line with general improvements to US genocide recognition.

Similarly, a law delineating the requirements for mens rea between perpetrators and collaborators would establish clearer responsibilities for corporations in dealing with a genocidal group. Legislation along these lines could become as effective as terrorism legislation, which seeks to define a similarly nebulous crime, to punish companies for enabling both terrorist organizations and governments committing genocide.

At the same time, and arguably more crucially, prosecutors need to pursue genocide cases. DOJ officials must be willing to bring charges under reformed genocide law, the assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division must approve these charges when they are brought, and lawmakers need to move beyond mere genocide recognition by calling for prosecution. Though legal amendments are not retroactive and cannot influence any cases related to the Yezidi genocide, conflicts with genocidal allegations rage on in Russia, Sudan, and the Gaza Strip. It is time for the US legal system to meet this reality.

Charles Johnson is a former Young Global Professional with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs. He is a senior at the University of Kansas majoring in history, political science, and religious studies.

The post Ten years on, Yezidi cases expose a lack of corporate accountability in US genocide law appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The visa-free policy seems to be a strategic propaganda effort from Minsk to ease these tensions. Following new European Union (EU) sanctions in late June, Poland has significantly restricted the import of goods into Belarus by Belarusian individuals, while Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have banned cars with Belarusian license plates from entering their countries. These measures impact the people of Belarus, and against this backdrop, the visa decision is an attempt by Lukashenka and his regime to “demonstrate the openness and peacefulness of our country.”

In reality, Lukashenka is continuing his campaign of domestic repression, targeting Belarusians in exile (including the author of this article), and weaponizing allegations that neighboring countries are setting up camps to train militants intent on overthrowing his regime. On July 19, for example, the Minsk regional court sentenced German national Rico Krieger to death in Belarus on charges including an “act of terrorism” and the “creation of an extremist formation.” The regime is using Krieger as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Germany, showcasing its manipulative tactics. According to the human rights organization Viasna, at least thirty foreigners remain imprisoned in Belarus, and a Lithuanian citizen died in a Belarusian prison in March after being arrested at the border.

Even so, expect more rhetorical shifts as the 2025 Belarusian presidential election approaches and as Belarus tries to alleviate the economic pressures it faces from Poland and the Baltic states for Minsk’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. For example, newly appointed Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhankou has expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue with Poland, stating earlier this month that “the ball is on the Polish side.” This came after a slowdown in truck traffic at the Kazlovichy checkpoint on the Polish-Belarusian border on July 10.

Minsk accused Warsaw of halting the acceptance of Belarusian cargo. Poland has hinted at potentially closing its remaining border crossings with Belarus to counter Lukashenka’s hybrid tactics, the migration crisis that the regime helped engineer on the Polish border, and the imprisonment of journalist and Polish minority activist Andrzej Poczobut. The stabbing death of a Polish soldier by a migrant on the border in June prompted Polish President Andrzej Duda to discuss migration and economic cooperation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in late June, hoping that Beijing would exert its increasing influence on Minsk.

Recent developments may have influenced Lukashenka’s shift in rhetoric. These developments include threats from Poland and the Baltic states to close border crossings with Belarus, efforts to involve China in political pressure on Minsk, and new EU sanctions. Lukashenka now calls for “reciprocity” in diplomatic relations with Poland and Lithuania, a stark contrast to his comments in March. At that time, accompanied by his white Pomeranian, Lukashenka had inquired about the width of the Suwałki Corridor and told a commander, “You will have to confront the Baltic republics . . . And you will grab part of Poland.”

Lukashenka has also softened his rhetoric on Ukraine in recent days. June was a month of major rhetorical escalation between Belarus and Ukraine, as the Belarusian national intelligence agency accused Ukraine of amassing troops near the Belarusian border. This led to a sudden military readiness check in Brest and Homiel, including troop deployments to Belarus’s southern border and the establishment of new checkpoints. For weeks, Belarus’s Ministry of Defense warned of a Ukrainian threat, citing a drone interception and an explosives cache.

However, this escalation ended abruptly on July 13 when Lukashenka visited an air defense unit in Luninets, announced the resolution of border tensions, and ordered troop withdrawals. He appeared to resolve a crisis he had fabricated, saying that “we are not enemies for Ukrainians,” calling for urgent negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.

Some hoped for a real shift when, in early July, the regime freed eighteen political prisoners in a rare amnesty, nearly four years after Lukashenka’s crackdown on the opposition, following his announcements to release “seriously ill” prisoners. One of those released, Ryhor Kastusiou, who ran for president against Lukashenka in 2010, had been diagnosed with cancer. The names of the other released prisoners have not been disclosed. Both the United States and the EU welcomed these releases but urged the regime to free all remaining political prisoners.

While the release of some political prisoners is positive, many more are still incarcerated. An estimated 1,400 political prisoners are still being held in Belarus, hundreds of them in urgent need of medical assistance.

Belarus may continue to make gestures of goodwill to Ukraine and the West, but it’s crucial to differentiate between rhetoric and reality. Repression in Belarus continues. As recently as July 1, twenty Belarusian analysts were convicted and sentenced in absentia to between ten and eleven-and-a-half years by a Minsk court. The author of this article is among those convicted.

The regime accused me of four criminal charges, including an attempt to seize power, joining an extremist formation, harming national security, and inciting social discord. The regime-appointed lawyer never responded to my messages and emails. I was denied the right to a fair trial and refused legal assistance.

The regime is engaged in repression against Belarusians in exile, targeting their families abroad. In Belarusian jails, many prominent political prisoners are held incommunicado, and even their families don’t know whether they are alive. If the Belarusian regime wants to show Ukraine and the West that it is interested in real change, then it must take real actions to stop its brutal campaign of terror and repression at home.

Hanna Liubakova is a nonresident fellow with the Eurasia Center and a Belarusian journalist.

The post Lukashenka’s rhetoric toward Ukraine and the West has softened. His repression of Belarusians has not. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 22, 2024

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

By Andriy Yermak

Together with the country’s allies, Ukraine has set out on the path to restore the European security architecture, writes the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President Andriy Yermak.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Putin accused of jailing US journalists as ‘bargaining chips’ for prisoner swap appeared first on Atlantic Council.

That legacy, however, depends importantly on something he can no longer control: Ukraine’s ability over time to prevail against Russia’s criminal war.

That includes the inextricably linked question of whether the US president has contributed decisively to the United States’ ability, alongside its allies, to counter an emerging “axis of resistance” consisting of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Those countries are determined to prevent Ukraine’s success. More to the point, they seem to view Russia’s subjugation of Ukraine as a crucial step in remaking the global system of rules and institutions that the United States and its partners forged after World War II.

Biden, who on Sunday announced his decision to abandon his presidential campaign, will likely be remembered by historians for defining the enormous stakes of the era we’re entering. He called it an “inflection point,” which I’ve been doing in this space since 2018, having previously been introduced to the term through the US intelligence community.

“We’re facing an inflection point in history—one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come,” Biden declared this past October, in only his second speech to the nation from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

Significantly, in that speech he connected the dots between Russia’s war in Ukraine and Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, which was only possible with the support of Iran. “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common,” he said. “They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy—completely annihilate it.”

Historians may praise Biden for defining the historic stakes in such unmistakable terms. However, the coming months and years will determine whether he fell short in delivering the remedies by too cautiously supporting Ukraine due to his fears of Russian nuclear escalation.

The result was self-deterrence, where the United States provided Kyiv the weaponry it most urgently requested too slowly and in insufficient numbers. The Biden administration also worsened the situation by restricting Kyiv’s freedom to use US weapons, particularly longer-range fires, against military targets in Russia, from which deadly attacks on Ukrainians were being launched. When the US Congress held up aid for Ukraine last year and into this one, it made Ukraine’s challenges far more dangerous.

Many Republican leaders agree that Biden was mistaken in holding back crucial support and permissions for Ukraine, but they weren’t the ones nominated for president or vice president at the Republican National Convention last week. For the moment, the gathering in Milwaukee indicated the party’s desire to do less for Ukraine.

Many Republicans have wanted to meld former President Donald Trump’s populism with former President Ronald Reagan’s larger global purpose, which contributed to the United States’ Cold War victory against the Soviet Union without a shot being fired. That seems to be the furthest thing from the intentions of the Trump-Vance ticket, though Trump has been known to change direction on a dime, as he did to free up congressional funding for Ukraine.

John Bolton, who was Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019, wrote in the Telegraph that both Trump and his running mate JD Vance “are disinterested, or openly disdainful, of assisting Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s unprovoked aggression. For Vance, the US lacks both the military assets and the defense-industrial base to be a global power, meaning it must concentrate its resources to defend against China.”

My own view is that the best way to “defend against China” would be to counter Beijing’s unflinching and even increasing support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. At their seventy-fifth anniversary summit in Washington, NATO leaders called China a “decisive enabler” of that war by providing the wherewithal without which Moscow could not continue to wage it.

If the Republican Party truly believes Democratic leaders have provided inadequate defense budgets to address emerging challenges, “Trump should work to correct these deficiencies, not treat them as excuses for further reductions, thereby abandoning even more international positions of strength,” writes Bolton.

Instead, in a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Trump signaled that he may not be willing to defend Taiwan, likely the first place to fall next if Ukraine falters. “Taiwan doesn’t give us anything,” Trump said, noting that the island is 9,500 miles away from the United States and less than a hundred miles from China. “Taiwan should pay us for defense. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company.”

Where the Trump administration better understood the dynamics of this emerging autocratic axis was in its “maximum pressure” approach to Iran. The Biden administration, by contrast, at first hoped to resume nuclear talks with Iran and work over time to manage its threats to the region. Tehran then demonstrated its determination to disrupt the Middle East and threaten Israel, not with nuclear weaponry but through its proxies, including Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah.

Where the Trump administration fell short, and where the Trump campaign seems to be doing so again, is in its underestimation of the advantages provided to the United States through alliances and common cause at a moment of such significant and historic challenge.

At the NATO Summit in Washington, I had the chance to speak with officials from across the Alliance, as well as those from Indo-Pacific partner states Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. I found that there is consensus about one matter: They miss the certainty of the Cold War years, from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, when US foreign policy remained relatively consistent through Republican and Democratic administrations. During that period, US leaders were resolute in the belief that they faced a long-term struggle against Soviet communism and its confederates.  

Without US agreement in diagnosing the emerging autocratic challenge, which Biden has done well, and without US prescriptions for an allied and global response to address it, which he has done less well, the officials I spoke with expect a period of testing by US adversaries and hedging by US allies.

Biden defined the emerging geopolitical contest confronting the United States. He still has six months to give Ukraine the best chance of victory, including by removing restrictions on Ukrainian forces striking military targets in Russia. The outcome of the war and the larger contest, however, will increasingly be determined by forces that he can’t control, both within his own party and among Republicans, and among allies and adversaries around the world.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

The post Biden’s legacy depends most of all on Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 11, 2024

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

By Olha Fokaf

The bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital on July 8 was the latest in a series of similar attacks as Russia deliberately targets Ukrainian healthcare infrastructure, writes Olha Fokaf.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Jul 11, 2024

Ukraine’s prayer breakfast challenges Kremlin claims of religious persecution

By Steven Moore

Ukraine’s recent National Prayer Breakfast highlighted the country’s commitment to religious freedom and challenged Kremlin accusations of religious persecution in the country, writes Steven Moore.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Andriy Yermak: Ukraine and NATO are restoring Europe’s security architecture appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On July 18, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Sungmin Cho was quoted in the Diplomat regarding heightened geopolitical tensions in East Asia and the implications for South Korea. He emphasized the increased risk of unconventional action by an emboldened Kim Jong Un, such as terrorist attacks on South Korean infrastructure and civilians. 

Fellow

Sungmin Cho

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

The post Cho quoted in the Diplomat on geopolitical tensions in East Asia appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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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Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert May 30, 2024

If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

By Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius

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, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Hungarian PM Orban poses as unlikely peacemaker for Russia’s Ukraine war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This and similar incidents have highlighted the importance of the cyber front in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has invested significant funds in cybersecurity and can call upon an impressive array of international partners. However, the country currently lacks sufficient domestic cybersecurity system manufacturers.

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding drone manufacturing sector may offer the solution. The growth of Ukrainian domestic drone production over the past two and a half years is arguably the country’s most significant defense tech success story since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. If correctly implemented, it could serve as a model for the creation of a more robust domestic cybersecurity industry.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 16, 2024

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

By Peter Dickinson

The Russian Navy’s quiet retreat from Crimea highlights the emptiness of Putin’s red lines and the self-defeating folly of Western escalation management, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert May 30, 2024

If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

By Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius

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, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine’s drone success offers a blueprint for cybersecurity strategy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On June 17, IPSI nonresident fellow Brian Kerg’s recent New Atlanticist piece, “Think China can already take Taiwan easily? Think again,” was referenced by Taipei Times regarding the impact of a potential China-Taiwan conflict on countries close to Taiwan. 

Fellow

Brian Kerg

Nonresident Fellow

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Afghanistan Conflict

The post Kerg referenced in Taipei Times on impact of potential China-Taiwan conflict appeared first on Atlantic Council.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always supported the resistance of the people in the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian wrote. “Supporting the resistance is rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will continue with strength.”

In response to these comments, an Israeli researcher posted on her X account, “If anyone here dreamed that the new Iranian president Pezeshkian would bring about a change in the militant policy of the Iranian regime that strives to destroy Israel, this letter is for you.”

While the Israeli response to Pezeshkian’s election was understandably skeptical, the global reaction might differ. The international community, notably the West, is in no hurry to lay its trust and optimism in the incoming Iranian president, considering previous disappointments with Iranian behavior under earlier pragmatic presidents. For example, both the nuclear and ballistic missile programs saw significant progress under President Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005). Iran’s supported regional network of non-state groups was also expanded under pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani (2013–2021). Nonetheless, the new president will likely be given a chance.

The possible appointment of Abbas Araghchi, a former nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister, as Pezeshkian’s foreign minister has already raised some hopes for re-engaging Iran in diplomatic dialogue with the West to find a political solution to the nuclear issue—or even to the growing tension between Iran and the United States in the Middle East. On the other hand, the election of contender Saeed Jalili, the most extremist candidate in the presidential elections, could have helped Israel persuade the world community that there is no purpose in engaging with Iran and that additional pressure should be used against the Islamic Republic.

It is indeed highly improbable that the incoming Iranian president can or will change the Islamic Republic’s attitude toward Israel or its backing of its network of regional proxies. Not only are the president’s powers largely confined to domestic affairs, but the engagement of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—particularly the Quds Force—in regional affairs significantly inhibits the president’s capacity to intercede. It is, therefore, not surprising that President Rouhani’s term was marked by rivalries and tensions between his government and the IRGC.

In a leaked audiotape released shortly before the end of Rouhani’s term in 2021, then Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the IRGC calls the shots, overruling many government decisions and ignoring advice. “In the Islamic Republic, the battlefield rules,” Zarif said in a three-hour taped conversation that was part of an oral history project documenting the current administration’s work. “I have sacrificed diplomacy for the battlefield rather than the field servicing diplomacy.”

With that in mind, Pezeshkian’s views on Israel mirror the current consensus among Iranian decision-makers. After voting in the first round of the presidential election, the reformist candidate told journalists he hoped his country would try to have friendly relations “with all countries except for Israel.”

Israel’s attitude toward Iran: from skeptical hope to complete distrust

Twenty-seven years ago, the election of a reformist president in Iran raised significant expectations in Israel. At a discussion held in the Knesset on May 28, 1997, then Foreign Minister David Levy responded to Khatami’s election as president, stating that a momentous transition was taking place in Iran that needed to be followed closely. Levy emphasized that Iran’s foreign policy was largely dictated by the supreme leader, who opposed relations with the West, but also expressed hope that the long-awaited change would soon be felt thanks to Khatami, who was “a person with education and knowledge in various fields who is familiar with the Western world.”

He concluded, “We would be very happy to see Iran join the regional effort to reduce tensions, stop terrorism, and seek ways of cooperation and peace…Perhaps we will soon see the change that we all expect.”

However, during the last three decades, it has become evident that an Iranian president, no matter how reformist or pragmatic, has limited capacity to alter Iranian policy on issues concerning Israel’s national security. Furthermore, the confrontation between the two countries has escalated significantly. Iran’s nuclear progress, its development of sophisticated weapons systems such as long-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), its growing regional involvement, and its continued support for terrorist organizations—including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—all pose a strategic threat to Israel’s national security.

As a result, Israel, particularly under Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership, has increased its efforts to rally the international community against the Islamic Republic. Under these conditions, hardline presidents like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ebrahim Raisi, who openly called for Israel’s destruction, became assets to Israel. In contrast, more pragmatic presidents were viewed as a burden and a challenge that could make it more difficult to persuade the rest of the world to join the campaign against Iran and to avoid pursuing diplomacy with Tehran.

It is, therefore, no surprise that Prime Minister Netanyahu was quick to denounce President Rouhani shortly after his election in the summer of 2013. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in the fall of 2013, Netanyahu dismissed the new Iranian president’s charm offensive, saying, “Rouhani doesn’t sound like Ahmadinejad, but when it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf’s clothing; Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Where do things go from here?

Pezeshkian’s election comes at a time of rising concern in Israel about Iran. Israel’s hawkish opposition, Knesset member Avigdor Lieberman, argued on June 5 that Iran is planning a holocaust for Israel in the next two years. “We are in the midst of an Iranian extermination program,” the Yisrael Beytenu party chairman said, arguing that if Iran is allowed to create a “nuclear umbrella,” it will use the deterrence it has obtained to launch a devastating strike. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was quoted in Ha’aretz in mid-June warning that, in six months to a year, Iran will launch a multifront war of attrition against Israel aimed at its collapse and then annihilation. These statements come against the background of Iran’s continued implementation of the “unification of the arenas” strategy against Israel since October 7, 2023, as well as reports of alarming progress in its nuclear program.

Senior Iranian officials, led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have recently stated that the end of Israel is near, adding to Israel’s rising concerns about Iran’s intentions. At the anniversary ceremony commemorating the death of the founder of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s leader stated that the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, dealt a decisive blow to the “Zionist regime,” a blow from which there is no recovery. In a meeting with Hamas’s leader on the sidelines of President Raisi’s funeral, Khamenei said, “The divine promise to eliminate the Zionist entity will be fulfilled, and we will see the day when Palestine will rise from the river to the sea.”

These statements are interpreted in Israel as an expression of a shift in Iran’s mindset, as well as a possible indication that the Iranian leadership believes the ongoing campaign in Gaza and Israel’s weakening have created ripe conditions for the realization of its ideological vision of Israel’s destruction. Under these circumstances, the world might be willing to give the next president a chance, but Israel may be more anxious about the potential of needing to confront the Iranian menace alone.

Raz Zimmt is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is also a veteran Iran watcher in the Israeli Defense Forces. Follow him on X: @RZimmt.

The post Pezeshkian’s election could become a burden for Israel appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert May 30, 2024

If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

By Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius

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, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jun 4, 2024

Vladimir Putin just tacitly admitted Crimea is not really part of Russia

By Peter Dickinson

Russia claims to have annexed five Ukrainian provinces but refuses to extend security red lines to these regions. This highlights the pragmatic political realities behind Putin’s talk of historic conquests, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Russia’s retreat from Crimea makes a mockery of the West’s escalation fears appeared first on Atlantic Council.

News of my ten-year sentence provoked very conflicting emotions. While many colleagues congratulated me on what they saw as tacit recognition of my efforts in support of a democratic Belarus, I have struggled to find the right words when explaining to my Belarusian relatives that we may never meet again.

The charges against me and my co-defendants did not come as a complete surprise, of course. Nevertheless, at a time when the struggle for Belarusian democracy is no longer in the international spotlight, it is important to reflect on how we arrived at this point.

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.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

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.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

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.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jun 4, 2024

Vladimir Putin just tacitly admitted Crimea is not really part of Russia

By Peter Dickinson

Russia claims to have annexed five Ukrainian provinces but refuses to extend security red lines to these regions. This highlights the pragmatic political realities behind Putin’s talk of historic conquests, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert May 30, 2024

If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

By Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius

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, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post I was sentenced to ten years in absentia for highlighting Belarus’s descent into dictatorship appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On June 15, IPSI nonresident fellow Brian Kerg’s New Atlanticist piece, “There will be no ‘short, sharp’ war. A fight between the US and China would likely go on for years,” was referenced by the Australian Independent Media Network regarding the likelihood of a prolonged conflict with China over Taiwan.

Fellow

Brian Kerg

Nonresident Fellow

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Afghanistan Conflict

The post Kerg referenced in Australian Independent Media Network regarding US-China conflict appeared first on Atlantic Council.

At the core of the charges against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are allegations that the two were part of a “common plan” to use “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” in Gaza—a war crime. In addition, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is seeking charges for various crimes against humanity associated with the crime of starvation, including extermination and/or murder, persecution, and “other inhumane acts.”

This moment is especially significant for the ICC because—despite evidence indicating its commission in past and ongoing conflicts—the war crime of starvation has never before been prosecuted at the international level. The lack of precedent has until now made prosecutors hesitant to venture into untrodden legal territory, thus rendering the crime “an issue that floats at the periphery of [war crimes] prosecutions.” Given the prevalence of civilian starvation in armed conflict—particularly as a result of urban siege warfare—the decision by the ICC’s pretrial chamber in this matter could help shape international practice for identifying the war crime of starvation and associated starvation crimes, and create a clearer pathway to accountability for victims.

The recently alleged crimes, however, are not the first accusations that Israeli leaders have employed starvation tactics in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Since Gallant’s order for a “complete siege” of Gaza on October 9, the United Nations (UN), human rights organizations, and Khan himself have warned that the closure of border crossings, restriction of essential supply transfers, severing of water and electricity, attacks on humanitarian aid convoys, and the killing of Gazans gathering to receive aid could constitute starvation crimes. Just last month, the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Palestine released a report finding that through the siege of Gaza, Israeli officials have “weaponized the withholding of life-sustaining necessities” including food, water, electricity, fuel, and humanitarian assistance.

Israeli officials have consistently denied allegations that they are restricting aid deliveries to Gaza, instead citing diversion and black-market resale of aid by Hamas as primary causes of the hunger crisis. Hamas did recently manage to divert and temporarily seize a shipment of aid delivered through Jordan—the “first widespread case of diversion that we have seen” in Gaza, according to US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller. Officials have also accused UN agencies, including the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme, of bottlenecking aid distribution and exacerbating the conflict. Israel has further claimed that UNRWA is complicit in aid diversion and maintains the agency’s alleged links to Hamas.

What happens next?

The OTP’s requests now lie with a pretrial chamber of the ICC, which will review the applications and determine whether there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the parties “committed crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.”

To meet the “reasonable grounds” standard, the application should outline the crimes alleged, a “concise statement of the facts which are alleged to constitute those crimes,” and a summary of the evidence supporting the belief that an individual is responsible for those crimes. However, Khan has said that the OTP’s investigation and applications regarding Gaza have sought to exceed an even higher standard of proof—in his words, a standard of “realistic prospect of conviction.” It is probable that the prosecutor imposed a higher standard than what is required to ward off criticisms of bias from Israel and its allies, who have previously threatened the court and questioned its legitimacy.

Although Israel is not a member of the ICC, the Palestinian Authority’s 2015 accession to the Rome Statute allows the court to exercise jurisdiction over crimes perpetrated by Palestinian nationals—including Hamas fighters—and those crimes occurring at least partly on Palestinian territory, including those committed or ordered by Israeli officials. The decision of a pretrial chamber in February 2021 further affirmed ICC jurisdiction over Palestinian territory, including Gaza. This same principle enables the ICC to investigate and prosecute crimes committed in Ukraine despite Russia not accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC.

It also bears noting that the war crime of starvation initially only applied when committed in the context of an international armed conflict (IAC), and Palestine has not ratified the Rome Statute’s 2019 amendment extending the crime to encompass non-international armed conflicts. Khan, with the support of a report by a panel of international law experts, reasons that the war is an IAC due to Israel’s use of force or status as an occupying power in Gaza. The pretrial chamber may only opt to issue arrest warrants for the war crime if it determines that there is in fact an IAC underway between Israel and Palestine.

Should arrest warrants be issued against Netanyahu and Gallant, all states party to the ICC will be obligated to arrest and surrender them to the court. While it remains to be seen if states will actually comply with the order, statements from France, Belgium, Germany, and Slovenia have affirmed their support for the ICC since the requests were submitted.

What does the law say, and how does it apply to Gaza?

The weaponization of hunger is considered one of the oldest methods of warfare, but its recognition as a war crime within the ICC’s jurisdiction is relatively new.

More than twenty years after its prohibition in two additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions, the crime of starvation was codified under the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1998. Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) renders “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” a war crime, so long as perpetrators intentionally deprive civilians of “objects indispensable to their survival,” or OIS.

To prove the war crime of starvation, it must be shown that a perpetrator indeed deprived civilians of OIS—such as “foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works”—a non-exhaustive list defined in the Geneva Conventions. Directives by Israeli officials to impede aid delivery, and the razing of agricultural areas and cutting off fuel or water sources could suffice in this regard. Although recent reports have spurred debate over whether the situation in Gaza technically qualifies as a famine, such a determination is not required for the war crime to attach. It is not necessary to prove that the conduct in question resulted in civilians’ deaths or suffering—solely demonstrating that a perpetrator took action to deprive civilians of indispensable objects is enough.

However, it is required to prove two elements of intent: that the perpetrator intended (1) to deprive civilians of OIS and (2) “to starve civilians as a method of warfare.” Without the aid of prior case law, the threshold for satisfying the second element is uncertain. Must perpetrators aim to weaponize starvation specifically, or are acts that would foreseeably starve civilians sufficient?

In favor of the latter interpretation, the so-called default intent standard in the ICC Statute likely indicates that this second element may be established if a perpetrator took actions knowing that civilian starvation could result or was aware it would occur “in the ordinary course of events.” Under this understanding of intent, proving that Netanyahu and Gallant were virtually certain that civilians would starve without humanitarian aid deliveries, along with the severing of water and electricity to Gaza, could help establish intent.

What is the wider significance?

Already, the ICC has made a pivotal move in recognizing the need for accountability for starvation crimes. As UN-backed documentation from recent and ongoing conflicts in Yemen, South Sudan, and Myanmar has shown, the weaponization of food remains a pervasive feature of armed conflict. Notably, actions taken in the laying of sieges—as seen in Aleppo, Madaya, Eastern Ghouta in Syria, the Tigray region of Ethiopia, and Mariupol—exhibit increasing overlap with starvation tactics.

Khan’s application for arrest warrants here opens the door for further efforts to investigate and charge the war crime of starvation, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with starvation. Regardless of whether a trial ultimately results, a potential issuance of charges alone could help clarify the contours of the crime and create a clearer pathway to accountability for victims from other contexts.

Alana Mitias is the assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project.

Yousuf Syed Khan is a nonresident senior fellow with the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council. Several of his most visible legal contributions have centered on starvation-related crimes, including leading the drafting of the first ever report by a UN-mandated mechanism on starvation as a method of warfare.

The post Israeli officials are accused of weaponizing starvation in Gaza. Here’s what you need to know. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The roots of the current tension can be traced back to the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) withdrawals from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and Lebanon in 2006. Since then, Hamas and Hezbollah have been allowed to grow their capabilities, largely unchecked by Israel. While Israel has had a policy of “mowing the grass” in Gaza—i.e., regularly launching attacks into the strip to degrade Hamas’s capabilities—this has not prevented the Palestinian group from building more than five hundred kilometers of tunnel, its greatest asset in its war against Israel. For context, Hamas has built an underground system roughly the size of the London Underground. Israel’s actions toward Hezbollah have been even more hands-off since 2006, largely limited to strikes against Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria. This has allowed Hezbollah to greatly expand its stockpile of missiles, giving the group the ability to escalate a conflict against Israel far beyond previous wars. The result is a volatile situation akin to a tinderbox.

While recent events, such as an Israeli airstrike on July 3 that killed Mohammad Naameh Nasser, a senior Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, have exacerbated tensions, they are merely symptoms of a much deeper, long-standing conflict. The ongoing exchange of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border is part of a series of tit-for-tat attacks that have characterized the relationship between these adversaries for years.

The specter of a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah looms large. Hezbollah’s extensive rocket arsenal, which has significantly expanded since 2006, poses a grave threat to Israeli civilians. Israeli estimates put Hezbollah’s arsenal at roughly 150,000 rockets and missiles, while an IRGC Quds Force official boasted a stockpile of more than 1 million. Whatever the figure, these are not rudimentary missiles like Hamas’s Qassam rockets; Hezbollah’s arsenal is more sophisticated and dangerous—ranging from the smaller unguided Fajr-5, with a range of 75 kilometers, to powerful ballistic missiles such as the Fateh-110 and Scud variants, which can hit anywhere in Israel. So far, this has forced a mass evacuation of around sixty thousand Israeli residents from the north of the country.

The range and payload of these missiles have also allowed Hezbollah to threaten countries like Cyprus against providing any assistance to the IDF, meaning that the group has the ability to drag third parties into a wider conflict. Furthermore, an Israeli military offensive in Lebanon could potentially trigger responses from Hezbollah’s allies across the region, including Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The situation is complicated by the potential for direct conflict between Israel and Iran, which is no longer merely an academic concept after the retaliatory responses between the foes in April.

On the domestic front, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a multitude of challenges. Beyond the pressure to secure the northern border, he grapples with the ongoing hostage crisis, the lack of a clear “day after” plan for Gaza, and internal political strife. Corruption charges loom over Netanyahu but are currently held at bay by his immunity as prime minister. Political rivalries and domestic crises, such as that regarding the Supreme Court, have been put aside due to the unity government formed after October 7, 2023. However, these underlying issues are only delayed by the existential need to defeat Hamas. Once the threat subsides or the Israeli population tires of war, these issues will resurface.

The northern front with Hezbollah may serve as a distraction from these pressing issues, allowing Netanyahu to double down on security concerns. Hezbollah, too, faces domestic pressures. Lebanon has remained without a head of state for two years, and various political factions are pushing for accommodation in the presidency. The lack of a functioning and unified executive authority has led to political inaction over the country’s growing banking crisis, threatening to create one of the worst economic crises since 1857. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth contracted by 6.7 percent in 2019, followed by another contraction of more than 20 percent in 2020. Unemployment currently stands at more than 11 percent. Hezbollah must balance its ideological commitment to resistance against Israel with the complex realities of Lebanese politics and the potential consequences of escalation.

The Joe Biden administration also finds itself in a precarious position, with some officials raising the alarm over the evolving crisis and worries that Israel and Hezbollah might be underestimating the risks associated with their actions. The administration must navigate a delicate balance: showing unwavering support for Israel while simultaneously attempting to prevent a wider regional conflict. Domestic political considerations further complicate this balancing act, with the November US presidential election looming and the potential for criticism from both sides of the aisle. The diplomatic efforts to resolve this crisis face significant challenges. Even if a Gaza ceasefire were negotiated and Hezbollah ceased its rocket attacks, Israel is unlikely to sit quietly with the knowledge of such a big threat to its north. This places US diplomacy in a difficult position of finding incentives for Hezbollah to pull back from a position of strength while accommodating Israel’s security concerns.

Questions have been raised about the efficacy of current diplomatic channels, particularly the role of Amos Hochstein as the primary envoy. While Hochstein has experience in energy-related diplomacy between Lebanon and Israel, his background as a former IDF soldier and his lack of extensive experience in high-stakes geopolitical negotiations raise concerns about his suitability for mediating this potentially explosive situation.

The consequences of a war between Israel and Hezbollah would be catastrophic. Such a conflict would likely draw in the United States in a far more substantive way, potentially marking a return to the “forever wars” that recent administrations have sought to avoid. The potential for Iranian-backed fighters from across the region joining Hezbollah in a conflict against Israel adds another layer of complexity and risk to the situation. As the current state of affairs is assessed, it is clear that the situation in the Middle East remains extremely volatile and dangerous. This is not a fragile peace, but a combustible situation that threatens to escalate into what could be characterized as “a forever war on steroids.” The ongoing exchange of fire and the high risk of miscalculation make the prospect of a broader regional conflict a looming threat.

The international community, led by the United States, must double down on its diplomatic efforts and continue to urge restraint on all sides. However, these efforts must be led by experienced professionals with a deep understanding of the region’s complexities. The stakes are extraordinarily high, and the consequences of a full-scale war would be dire for both the region and global stability.

Daniel Elkins is the founder and president of the Special Operations Association of America. A former Green Beret and Special Operations combat veteran, he is also an Atlantic Council Counter-Terrorism Project member.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the positions of the United States government or the Department of Defense.

The post An increasingly thin blue line between Israel and Lebanon appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Online Event Fri, July 12, 2024 • 12:15 pm ET

The Czech president on next steps for transatlantic cooperation post-NATO Summit

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT—President Petr Pavel discusses the future of US-EU collaboration on support for Ukraine and European security.

The support required to allow Ukrainians to fully reclaim their territory is “not realistic at this time,” Czech President Petr Pavel argued on Friday. 

Pavel portrayed this sobering reality at an Atlantic Council Front Page event in Houston, Texas, following NATO’s Washington summit, where allies agreed to a “bridge” to membership in the Alliance for Ukraine.  

“In the foreseeable future, we cannot expect any significant breakthrough on the front line,” he argued, later clarifying that if Ukraine holds the line and Russia doesn’t achieve any major successes, breakthroughs could happen late this year or early next. “We have to have in mind who is the opponent, and Russia definitely has much greater resources . . . than Ukraine.” 

Following the NATO Summit, the Czech president said he was “positively surprised” by the Alliance’s response to Ukraine’s needs, with allies reaching bilateral security agreements with Ukraine and committing to send more financial and military support. “I believe that even [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] was assured, even though he didn’t receive an invitation to the Alliance.” 

As for when that invitation might be extended, Pavel said Ukraine’s military already works “seamlessly” with NATO in a number of areas—but the war is an “obstacle.” “Once we have a ceasefire, once we start negotiating peace, then we should also, in parallel, proceed with the integration,” he said. 

Below are more highlights from the conversation, moderated by Atlantic Council President and Chief Executive Officer Frederick Kempe, which touched upon the Czech Republic’s support for Ukraine, approach toward China, and hopes for European autonomy. 

Holding the line 

• Pavel argued that Ukraine’s partners should strive at this moment to “convince” Russia that it “cannot achieve any significant successes on the battlefield.” That, he said, would “bring them to the negotiating table.” 

• “And then once the negotiation starts . . . our position shouldn’t be to legalize occupied territories as Russian,” he clarified, “but rather declare them as temporarily occupied territories.” 

• “To achieve that, we have to equip Ukraine with all they need to really hold the line,” he said.  

• The Czech Republic took a “special forces approach” to support Ukraine, the president explained: “Act first, ask questions later,” he said. Low on stocks of artillery to send to Ukraine, Prague instead has located artillery in other countries and pooled funds from NATO allies to purchase rounds for Ukraine.
• “We have financial cover for about half of a million rounds,” he said, adding that “it will fully cover Ukrainian need” and even fill reserves. He said that he is looking to expand the model to other forms of equipment.

Unity on China

• Allies should concurrently work to convey to China that “it’s not in their interest to be so closely aligned with Russia,” Pavel said. 

• With four Indo-Pacific partner countries having attended the NATO Summit, Pavel explained that allies need to be “concerned” about security in that region because Euro-Atlantic security “cannot be separated” from security in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere.  

• A Russian victory “would [embolden] China and make it more assertive,” he said, adding that the Indo-Pacific countries and NATO “are together in this global security environment,” because they share the same values. 

• Pavel said that while China is in many ways a “superpower,” it is also somewhat “dependent” on the “democratic world,” for example for trade. But the West doesn’t have “a common policy towards China,” the president said, warning that China is using that to divide the West “for its own benefit.” 

Friendly autonomy

• Pavel said that while European countries including the Czech Republic have reduced their dependency on Russian oil and gas, there is “still room for more coordination.” This summer, the Czech Republic and Germany began to push the European Union (EU) to hold talks on how to officially end imports of energy from Russia. 

• With US elections approaching, and the possibility of another Donald Trump presidency raising concern about the US role in transatlantic defense, some European members of NATO have argued that they need to reduce their military reliance on the United States. The EU “loves the word autonomous” in defense, the economy, energy, and more, Pavel said. “But whenever Europe gets into trouble, we look over the ocean.” 

• Ideas such as creating an EU army, Pavel argued, “don’t make sense” because such efforts would “duplicate what already exists.” Rather, European countries should “work with what we have,” he said, by reinforcing the European pillar of NATO. 

• This effort to reduce military reliance shouldn’t be “aimed against” the United States but rather should be seen as building “along with” the United States, he said. “The United States will need an equal partner in Europe, not a dependent child.” 

Katherine Walla is the associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council. 

Watch the full event

The post Czech president: Don’t expect a ‘significant breakthrough’ in the war in Ukraine for the ‘foreseeable future’ appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Click to jump to an expert reaction:

John Herbst: There was progress for Ukraine, but it was neither sufficient nor decisive

Alyona Getmanchuk: Ukraine was offered a bridge. It needs a highway.

Peter Dickinson: Additional aid is welcome, but language on membership is a disappointment for Kyiv

Shelby Magid: Despite some wins, the week ends with a bitter taste for Ukrainians

There was progress for Ukraine, but it was neither sufficient nor decisive

This year’s NATO Summit will not be remembered as a seminal event, nor will it be remembered as a failure.

It is the eleventh summit since Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine began in 2014 and the third annual summit since Russia’s large-scale invasion in 2022. Like its ten predecessors, this summit has taken incremental steps to deal with the challenge posed by the first large-scale war in Europe since Adolf Hitler was defeated. There was progress, sure, but it was neither sufficient nor decisive.

On the plus side, the communiqué states plainly that “Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.” But the question is what steps NATO took this week to address that threat.

The answer came in two ways. The first was in its treatment of the NATO-Ukraine relationship. The hard fact is that neither Ukraine nor Europe will be secure until Ukraine joins NATO. Yes, the communiqué says the decision on Ukraine’s membership is “irreversible.” And it introduced steps to foster cooperation—putting a senior NATO representative in Kyiv, establishing a training program for Ukraine, and implementing a new venue for cooperation in the NATO-Ukraine Council.

But these steps are modest and contrast with the stronger interim advantages enjoyed by Sweden and Finland before they became members. For instance, why can’t the Ukrainian ambassador to NATO participate in the North Atlantic Council (NATO’s decision-making body)? And why can’t Ukrainian officials participate within the NATO apparatus? This might explain why Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, exhibited unease at the NATO Public Forum regarding the question of how he would assess the summit, before acknowledging that Ukraine was “satisfied.”