The assault on the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday prompted by the nature of the threat from Russia
There is a global affairs analyst named Michael Bociurkiw. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesman for the organization. He contributes to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
Recent days have meanwhile shown that sites beyond the current theater of ground fighting are far from immune to attacks. The fact that a target so deep in Russian-held territory could be successfully hit seemed to indicate a serious Ukrainian threat towards key Russian assets.
The assault damaged civilian infrastructure in cities all across Ukraine, killing multiple people and knocking out power in pockets of the country. They were “an indication of the nature of the threat from Russia,” Giles said. For many months now, the Russians have been wanting to destroy Ukranian rather than having it.
The strikes occurred as people headed to work and while kids were being dropped off at schools. A friend in Kyiv texted me that she had just exited a bridge span 10 minutes before it was struck.
As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet in between air raid sirens, with reports that three missiles and five kamikaze drones were shot down. Normally at this time of day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers, and chatter of upcoming weddings and parties.
The attacks on Monday came a day after the city of Zaporizhzhia was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.
Ukraine’s energy operators are getting used to repairing power plants. Zelensky said Tuesday that most of the towns and villages which had been targeted by terrorists already have electricity and communication.
In scenes reminiscent of the early days of the war when Russian forces neared the capital, some Kyiv media outlets temporarily moved their operations to underground bomb shelters. In one metro station serving as a shelter, large numbers of people took cover on platforms as a small group sang patriotic Ukrainian songs.
Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.
Just as many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home, the attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence.
The only bridge connecting mainland Russia and Crimea has a lot of symbolism for Putin. The fact that the attack took place a day after his 70th birthday is considered an added blow to an aging autocrat’s ability to survive humiliation and shame.
Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. The Chinese president decided to connect the former Portuguese and British territories with the world’s longest sea crossing bridge after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.
Is Putin Really Interested in the War in Ukraine? The Implications for American Foreign Policy and Military and Energy Policy on Ukrainian Self-Determination
The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was instantaneous: humorous memes lit up social media channels like a Christmas tree. Many people shared their jubilation with text messages.
The Western logic on what is happening in the war could be masking insight into Putin’s mindset. The Russian leader long saw the world through a different strategic and historic lens. Many foreign observers didn’t think it was in Russia’s interest to go ahead and invade Ukraine, but that wasn’t true. He’s showing no sign of being deterred by a year of defeats and a stunning influx of sophisticated NATO weapons and ammunition into Ukraine. Russian recruits are being sent to their deaths in futile World War I-style advances even though their forces have already suffered massive losses.
Putin has been placed on thin ice due to increasing criticism at home, which was also an act of selfish desperation.
Petraeus is the one. Well, Putin recently made General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, the commander of the war in Ukraine, presumably to ensure that the Russian Military and Ministry of Defense are doing all that they can to generate additional forces for the battlefield in Ukraine. Russia has been seeking more weapons from other countries in order to make up for shortfalls in their military industries that are constrained by export controls.
Washington and its allies must use urgent telephone diplomacy to persuade China and India to not use more deadly weaponry, because the two nations still have some leverage over Putin.
The first reason, and the one that prompted an immediate response from the West, is the moral and ethical obligation of the world’s democracies to help a nation whose freedom is threatened by an authoritarian power. National self-determination has long been a guiding principle of American foreign policy. It has been honored imperfectly by many U.S. administrations. It’s important to find a way forward. Mr. Putin made a grave violation of the principle when he sent an armored column toward the Ukrainian government and threatened to return Europe to the state it was in in the past.
In addition, defense systems are needed to protect important energy infrastructure around the country. There is a need to safeguard heating systems in the upcoming winter season.
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The time has also come for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions – but for that to have sufficient impact, Turkey and Gulf states, which receive many Russian tourists, need to be pressured to come on board.
Ukrainian air defense battalions have become innovative: One video from Monday, referenced by Zelensky, showed a soldier using a shoulder-held missile to bring down a Russian projectile, purportedly a cruise missile.
Until more arrive, there is the risk – all too familiar to the government and people of Ukraine – that the Russian mix of missiles will wreak much greater havoc among the civilian population, especially if the Russians persist with the tactic of using swarms of missiles, inundating air defenses.
The Russian Federation does not have the stocks of precision munitions to maintain that type of high-tempo missile assault into the future, meaning the barrage of missile strikes is going to be an occasional feature.
Estimating Russian missile inventories is guesswork. In May, President Volodymr Zelensky said Russia had launched 2,154 missiles and had probably used up 60% of its precision-missile arsenal. That now looks like wishful thinking.
The Russians have been modifying their air defense missile, known as the S-300, into an offensive weapon. These have wrought devastation in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, among other places, and their speed makes them difficult to intercept. But they are hardly accurate.
The first time that Russia has attacked energy infrastructure was at the beginning of the war, he told Richard.
A senior Defense Department official added that work was continuing on improving Ukrainian air defenses, including “finding Soviet-era capabilities to make sure that countries were ready (and) could donate them and help move those capabilities.”
The Ukrainian military said that the majority of cruise missiles fired at Ukraine on Thursday were intercepted, with its defense forces shooting down 54 of 69, according to preliminary data. Klitschko said 16 missiles were destroyed by Ukraine’s air defenses over Kyiv.
Estimating the proportion of Iranian-made Shahed drones being eliminated is more difficult, because so many are being used. Zelensky said that “every 10 minutes I receive a message about the enemy’s use of Iranian Shaheds.” He said the majority of them were being shot down.
The US announced a new $1.8 billion aid package to Ukraine, which included the “first-ever transfer to Ukraine of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, capable of bringing down cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and aircraft at a significantly higher ceiling than previously provided air defense systems.”
Ukraine’s wish-list – circulated at Wednesday’s meeting – included missiles for their existing systems and a “transition to Western-origin layered air defense system” as well as “early warning capabilities.”
Speaking after the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, he said such a system would not “control all the airspace over Ukraine, but they are designed to control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect. What you’re looking at really is short-range low-altitude systems and then medium-range medium altitude and then long-range and high altitude systems, and it’s a mix of all of these.”
Western systems are starting to flow in other countries. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Tuesday that a “new era of air defense has begun” with the arrival of the first IRIS-T from Germany, and two units of the US National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAM) expected soon.
Ukraine “badly needed” modern systems such as the IRIS-T that arrived this week from Germany and the NASAMS expected from the United States ,Bronk said.
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Ukraine’s senior military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, tweeted Tuesday his thanks to Poland as “brothers in arms” for training an air defense battalion that had destroyed nine of 11 Shaheeds.
He said that Poland gave systems to Ukrainians to destroy the drones. Last month there were reports that the Polish government had bought advanced Israeli equipment (Israel has a policy of not selling “advanced defensive technology” to Kyiv) and was then transferring it to Ukraine.
Not for the first time, the war is teetering towards an unpredictable new phase. “This is now the third, fourth, possibly fifth different war that we’ve been observing,” said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme.
“We are on the edge of a very active phase of hostilities, February and March will be very active,” Andriy Yusov, representative of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, said on national television.
It means that winter has raised the stakes of the war again. Giles said that Russia would like to keep it up. But the Ukrainian successes of recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin, too. “They are able to do things that take us by surprise, so let’s get used to it,” Giles said.
After a series of setbacks in the war, it was clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin was angry, and he lashed out over the last week.
The Battle of Donbas, Ukraine, as a Test of the Ukrainian Resilience in the First Months of the December 31st Crimeny War
The commander of the Ukrainian military said last week that they have regained control of 120 settlements since late September. On Wednesday, Ukraine said it had liberated more five settlements in its slow but steady push in Kherson.
Russia said Thursday it would help to evacuate people from occupied Kherson to other parts of the country. The announcement came shortly after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way, in the latest indication that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.
The counter-offensives by the Ukrainian army have shifted the focus of the war and disproved a suggestion that it lacked the ability to seize ground, which was built up during the summer.
The Russians hope to avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter sets in, according to the senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
If the Russians can make it to Christmas with the frontline looking decent, that will be a huge success.
Russian forces are most likely to defend Starobilsk and the Luhansk region as Ukrainian troops push eastward, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
The damage a big blow in Donbas would do to the Ukrainians’ cause would be felt around Europe, and it would also send a strong signal that the country is on the right track.
“There are so many reasons why there is an incentive for Ukraine to get things done quickly,” Giles said. “The winter energy crisis in Europe, and energy infrastructure and power being destroyed in Ukraine itself, is always going to be a test of resilience for Ukraine and its Western backers.”
NATO leaders have vowed to stand behind Ukraine regardless of how long the war takes, even as several European countries depend on Russian energy and are staring down a crisis which could endanger public support.
Russia launched missiles at the country on Monday and Tuesday, which disrupted the power supply to the central regions of Ukraine, but the national electricity company, Ukrenergo, says that it has been restored. The Ukrainian Prime Minister wants Ukrainians to reduce their energy usage during peak hours in order to fix damaged equipment.
Jeremy Fleming said in a speech on Tuesday that Russian commanders on the ground knew that their supplies were running out.
The I SW found that Putin may no longer have options to disrupt Ukrainian counter-offensives due to his limited supply of precision weapons.
There is a possibility that further involvement in the war could have a psychological impact. He said that the focus in the West and in some parts of Ukraine is on fighting one army. Inside Russia, Belarus joining the invasion “would play into Putin’s narrative that this war is about reuniting the lands of ancient Rus states.”
The reopening of a northern front is a new challenge for Ukraine according to Giles. He said that if Putin prioritized an effort to regain the territory, a new route into the area would be provided.
Now Zelensky will hope for more supplies in the short-term as he seeks to drive home those gains. More than half of the missiles and drones fired at Ukrainian territory in a second wave of strikes were brought down, according to the leader.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that Ukraine needed “more” systems to better halt missile attacks, ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
Justin Bronk, a military expert with the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), agreed with that assessment, telling CNN that, “Ukrainian interception success rates against Russian cruise missiles have risen significantly since the start of the invasion in February.”
Giles said that Russia can try to make the war personal, not just for people of Ukraine but around Europe as well, to pressure governments to remove their support forUkraine.
Petraeus said something. It could if Putin mobilized all of Russia successfully. The mobilizations have so far been partial, as Putin fears how the country might react to total Mobilization. More Russian soldiers left the country than were reported to the stations in response to the call up of reserves.
For some time Ukrainian officials have warned of a renewed Russian offensive and have requested more powerful weaponry from Western allies.
American officials say there is little chance of a widespread collapse in Russian forces that would allow Ukraine to take another huge swath of territory, similar to what it claimed last month. The city of Kherson is a major prize in the war and could possibly be captured by the Ukrainian army if the Russian units break.
Grisly videos filmed by Ukrainian drones showing Russian infantry being struck by artillery in poorly prepared positions have partly supported those assertions, as has reporting in Russian news media of mobilized soldiers telling relatives about high casualty rates. The videos have not been independently verified and their exact location on the front line could not be determined.
Russian forces are staging up to 80 assaults per day, according to the statement, which also described a telephone conversation with an American general.
“We discussed the situation at the front,” General Zaluzhnyi wrote. He told his colleague in the U.S. that the Ukrainian forces had been fighting back against the attackers.
An assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based analytical group, also said that the increase in infantry in the Donbas region in the east had not resulted in Russia’s gaining new ground.
The assessment said that seeking a quick advance, the Russian Army was “wasting the fresh supply of mobilized personnel on marginal gains” by attacking before massing sufficient soldiers to ensure success. The attacks have been directed at several towns and villages, including Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
The Ukrainian military said that it had fired more than 160 times at Russian positions over the past 24 hours, but also reported Russian return fire into Ukrainian positions.
With Russian and Ukrainian forces apparently preparing for battle in Kherson, the remaining residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel to survive combat.
However, the Kremlin denounced the transaction and said the US supplying Ukraine with Patriot missile systems will prolong the Ukrainian people’s “suffering.”
“Earlier, many experts, including those overseas, questioned the rationality of such a step which would lead to an escalation of the conflict and increase the risk of directly dragging the US army into combat,” Zakharova said at a briefing in Moscow.
The Patriot system is expensive and complicated and requires intensive training for the multiple people it takes to operate it, but could help the country guard against Russian attacks that have left millions without power.
The Pentagon’s press secretary was asked about the Russian warnings that the system would be provocative. Those comments would not affect US aid to Ukraine, said Gen. Pat Ryder.
“I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that brutally attacked its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion … that they would choose to use words like provocative to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder told reporters.
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Petraeus: In the future, Putin still wants to makeUkraine part of the Russian Federation. In Putin’s grievance-filled, revisionist version of history, Ukraine does not have a right to exist as an independent country.
Russia’s defense ministry shared a video of the installation of a Yars missile into a silo in the Kaluga region which was shown to the Kozelsky missile formation commander.
Nuclear threats are Russia’s most effective tool of deterrence. The talk of Russia using nuclear weapons has stopped in the last few years but a decade or more of driving home the nuclear response if Russia is cornered has already had an effect.
Commander Alexander Khodakovsky said on Russian state TV that Russia could not defeat the NATO alliance in a conventional war.
Smaller air defense systems only need a few people to operate, whereas the Patriot missile batteries need dozens of people. The training for Patriot missile batteries normally takes multiple months, a process the United States will now carry out under the pressure of near-daily aerial attacks from Russia.
In an interview with The Economist published Thursday, Zelensky also rejected the idea recently suggested by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Ukraine seek to reclaim only land seized by Russia since February 2022 and not areas like Donbas and Crimea, which have been under Russian control since 2014.
The NATO mission remains the same, according to the Secretary General of the alliance Jens Stoltenberg, who said to France 24 this week that the alliance still wants to provide aid to Ukraine and not get involved in the war.
There was an old gun. CNN’s Ellie Kaufman and Liebermann reported earlier this week on a US military official who says Russian forces have had to resort to 40-year-old artillery ammunition as their supplies of new ammo are “rapidly dwindling.”
An official told reporters that when loading the bullets, they cross their fingers that it will fire or that it will explode.
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Military aid has an effect. It’s a completely different scale, but CNN reported last month the US is running low on some weapons systems and munitions it provides to Ukraine. Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives in a few weeks, and will promise to scrutinize US aid for Ukraine, so this could become part of the US aid debate.
In the trenches. CNN cameraman Will Ripley filmed trenches and forts being built on the Ukrainian side of the border with Belarus to report on Russia assembling troops again. Ripley talks to a person who is a machine repairman.
An official announcement is expected on a European Union cap on natural gas prices, the most recent measure to tackle an energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak makes his first appearance as prime minister before the Commons Liaison Committee, where the Ukraine war and other global issues are discussed. Sunak met with members of a U.K. led European military force inLatvia on Monday.
According to the Russian news reports, the presidents of Russia and China will meet in virtual talks later this month.
And Ukrainians and Russians are heading into their first Christmas or Hanukkah festivities since the Kremlin launched its full-on invasion of Ukraine in late February.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Dec. 13 it made an agreement with Ukraine’s government to send nuclear safety and security experts to each of the country’s nuclear power plants.
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An American was freed from Russian-controlled territory as part of a 65-person prisoner exchange. Suedi Murekezi told ABC News he spent weeks in a basement, where he was tortured, and months in a prison in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
The European Union approved $19 billion in financing for Ukraine and harsher sanctions against Russia. The aid package followed pledges earlier in the week from dozens of countries and global institutions to support more than $1 billion in winter relief funds for Ukraine, helping the country with power, heat, food and medical supplies.
You can read past recaps here. You can find more context and in-depth stories here. Listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine for daily updates.
Keir Giles works at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank in the UK. He is the writer of “Russia’s War on Everybody”. What does it mean to you? The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author. Read more opinion on CNN.
Of course, Russia and its backers around the world will present this as a massive and dangerous escalation. That is nonsense, but it is highly effective.
The US in particular has felt its way forward through incremental increases in the capability of weapons supplied to Ukraine, wary at each stage of Russia’s supposed “red lines” – but finding in each case that the red lines evaporate, and all Russia’s threats are empty bluster.
To apply a special example of negotiation to a complex, fluid and much wider rivalry is a category error. While the danger of Russian nuclear escalation may rise and should be studied carefully, there is no special, separate category of actions that the West or Ukraine might take that would automatically trigger it. Russia has no red lines, it only has a range of options and views of relative risks and benefits at each moment. The West should continually aim, through its diplomacy, to shape these perceptions so that Russia chooses the options that the West prefers.
Meanwhile, Russia will continue to look for sources of replacement weapons as it scrapes the barrel for repurposed or adapted missiles to launch at Ukraine. And Iran may not be the only country willing to supply Russia in the future.
That sets a disastrous example for other aggressive powers around the world. It says possession of nuclear weapons allows you to wage genocidal wars of destruction against your neighbors, because other nations won’t intervene.
If that’s not the message the US and the West want other aggressor states around the world to receive, then supply of Patriot should be followed by far more direct and assertive means of dissuading Moscow.
German Chancellor Scholz and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Maria Zakharova in Kiev: “We need the enemy of the enemy” Zelensky
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday that it is “wise to be prepared for a long war” in Ukraine, adding that Kyiv’s allies will remain together for the duration.
The foreign ministry of Russia denounced the “monstrous crimes” of the “regime in Kyiv” after US President Joe Biden promised more military support to Ukraine during Zelensky’s summit.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that no matter how much military support the West provides to the Ukrainian government, “they will achieve nothing.”
“As the leadership of our country has stated, the tasks set within the framework of the special military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on the ground and the actual realities,” Zakharova added, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Zelensky delivered a historic speech from the US Capitol, asking for more American aid to fight Russian aggression since the war began.
Peskov added that “there were no real calls for peace.” But during his address to the US Congress on Wednesday, Zelensky did stress that “we need peace,” reiterating the 10-point plan devised by Ukraine.
The meeting showed the US is fighting a proxy war against Russia and its ally, the people of the last Ukrainian, according to Peskov.
“Russian terrorists have been saving one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion for the last days of the year,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Twitter Thursday. “They dream that Ukrainians will celebrate the New Year in darkness and cold. But they cannot defeat the Ukrainian people.”
When air raid sirens and an explosion woke up Hryn, she and her son went to the basement shelter. They weren’t surprised nor did they let it affect their spirits.
Hryn was in the elevator with her neighbors and their child when things started to return to normal in the capital. Parents took their children to school and people went to work, while others continued with holiday plans in defiance.
Zelensky’s invasion of Lviv and the destruction of infrastructure in Kiev: an opinion piece by Lavrov, Peter Bergen, and David Petraeus
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has proposed a 10-point peace plan, which included Russia’s withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow will not negotiate on it.
In an opinion article for CNN’s Peter Bergen, retired US General and former CIA Chief David Petraeus said the conflict would end in a negotiated resolution when Putin realized the war was unsustainable on the home front.
In western Ukraine, Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said 90% of the city was without power, cautioning that the city’s waterworks could also to stop working with electricity down.
Two people were pulled from a damaged house on Thursday, and at least three people, including a 14-year-old, were injured. Homes, an industrial facility and a playground in the capital were damaged in attacks on Kyiv, according to the city military administration.
At least two people were killed in attacks on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. Four rockets hit the city and the city’s critical infrastructure was the intended target according to Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the military administration in the region.
There is senseless barbarism. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said those were the only words that came to mind watching Moscow launch a fresh wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities ahead of the New Year, adding there could be “no neutrality” in the face of such aggression.
At the time, Putin insisted his forces were embarking on a “special military operation” — a term suggesting a limited campaign that would be over in a matter of weeks.
War against Ukraine: The State has Left Russia Isolated and Structuring with More Tumult Ahedrally Ashed
Yet the war has also fundamentally upended Russian life — rupturing a post-Soviet period in which the country pursued, if not always democratic reforms, then at least financial integration and dialogue with the West.
Draconian laws passed since February have outlawed criticism of the military or leadership. Nearly 20,000 people have been detained for demonstrating against the war — 45% of them women — according to a leading independent monitoring group.
Lengthy prison sentences have been given to high profile opposition voices for questioning the conduct or strategy of the Russian army.
There are more and more organizations added to the list of “foreign agents” and “non-desirable” organizations intended to damage their reputation in Russia.
The Human Rights group in Russia was forced to stop their activities because of the foreign agents law.
The state has also vastly expanded Russia’s already restrictive anti-LGBT laws, arguing the war in Ukraine reflects a wider attack on “traditional values.”
For now, all repressions continue to be targeted. Some of the laws are not enforced. But few doubt the measures are intended to crush wider dissent — should the moment arise.
New “Fake news” laws that criminalized differing government line led to the shutting down of leading independent media outlets and relocations abroad of several vibrant, online investigative startups.
Restrictions extend to internet users as well. They banned American social media giants in March. Since the beginning of the conflict, more than 100,000 websites have been unblocked by the internet regulators in the Kremlin.
Technical workarounds such as VPNs and Telegram still offer access to Russians seeking independent sources of information. Older Russians like state media propaganda and angry TV talk shows.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/31/1145981036/war-against-ukraine-has-left-russia-isolated-and-struggling-with-more-tumult-ahe
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The early days of the war saw many perceived government opponents leave due to fear of persecution.
Yet Putin’s order to mobilize 300,000 additional troops in September prompted the largest outflow: Hundreds of thousands of Russian men fled to border states including Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Georgia in an attempt to avoid the draft.
Putin argued it was good riddance, part of a “self-cleansing” of Russian society from traitors and spies. Russian officials have suggested stripping those who left the country of their passports. Russia may not be able to thrive without many of its best and brightest.
While the swelling presence of Russians is a concern for former Soviet republics, countries that have absorbed the Russian exodus expect their economies to grow.
The banking and trading markets in Russia appeared to be shaky during the initial days of the invasion. Many global brands, such as McDonald’s and ExxonMobil, have completely stopped their Russian operations.
The West continues to try and crimp Russian energy profits, by capping the amount countries will pay for Russian oil and limiting seaborne oil imports. There are signs the efforts are already cutting into profits.
Ultimately, President Putin is betting that when it comes to sanctions, Europe will blink first — pulling back on its support to Ukraine as Europeans grow angry over soaring energy costs at home. He announced a five-month ban on oil exports to countries that abide by the price cap, a move likely to make the pain more acute in Europe.
The economic damage has destroyed Putin’s reputation as astability, a key factor for his support among Russians who remember the chaotic years after the fall of the USSR.
The government has not changed its tone in regards to Russia’s military campaign. Russia’s Defense Ministry provides daily briefings recounting endless successes on the ground. Putin, too, repeatedly assures that everything is “going according to plan.”
Yet the sheer length of the war — with no immediate Russian victory in sight — suggests Russia vastly underestimated Ukrainians’ willingness to resist.
Russian troops have proven unable to conquer Ukraine’s capital Kyiv or the second city of Kharkiv. Kherson, the sole major city seized by Russia, was abandoned amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive in November. Russian forces have shelled the city repeatedly since retreating.
Russia’s illegal annexation of four territories of Ukraine following unrecognized referendums in September has only underscored Moscow’s problems: it hasn’t been able to establish full control over the lands it now claims as its own.
It is a highly taboo subject in the home, that the number of Russian losses is under 6,000 men. Western estimates place those figures much higher.
Petraeus: This question gets at one of the ironies of the situation. Putin set out to “Make Russia Great Again.” However, what he has done is make NATO great again – with two very capable, historically neutral powers (Finland and Sweden) seeking NATO membership; with substantially increased defense spending by NATO members, most notably Germany; with augmentation of NATO forces in the Baltic states and eastern Europe; and with the greatest unity among NATO members since the end of the Cold War.
Russia’s actions have drawn rebuke from their long time allies in Central Asia, who fear for their own sovereignty, which would have been unimaginable in Soviet times. India and China have eagerly purchased discounted Russian oil, but have stopped short of full-throated support for Russia’s military campaign.
The Status of the State of the Nation: Why the Decline of the December Red Line Address in the Russian Kremlin is Preferable After 10 Months of War
A state of the nation address, originally scheduled for April, was repeatedly delayed and won’t happen until next year. The annual direct line in which Putin answers questions from ordinary Russians was canceled.
The December large press conference that allows the Russian leader to handle questions from the pro-Kremlin media was tabled until 2023.
The Kremlin did not give any reason for the delays. Many believe that after 10 months of war, the Russian leader has run out of good news to share.
America has done this before. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the most dangerous nuclear confrontation so far, the Soviet Union’s position shifted in a matter of days, ultimately accepting an outcome that favored the West. If red lines had been in vogue, America might have accepted a compromise that weakened its security and credibility.
The U.S. and Germany each announced they would send tanks to Ukraine, after months of resistance to the Ukrainian government’s repeated requests. Germany also said other countries, like Poland, can give Ukraine their German-made Leopard 2 tanks.
Biden talked to the German Chancellor on Thursday about the new commitment. New fighting vehicles and a Patriot missile battery will also be sent by Germany to Ukranian.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Danilov: The Russia-Ukraine War in Ukraine
Those systems had been at the top of Zelensky’s wish list because it will allow his military to target Russian missiles flying at a higher altitude than they were able to target previously.
Ukrainian troops will begin training in the United Kingdom to use the country’s Challenger 2, following the British government’s pledge to send a squadron of the tanks to Ukraine.
The International Monetary Fund releases its latest World Economic Outlook (Tuesday morning in Singapore, Monday night ET). The Russia-Ukraine war is causing some countries to go into recession, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Europe’s leaders are expected to hold a summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the following day.
Ukraine’s military acknowledged the Russian takeover of Soledar, retreating from the eastern town after a tough battle. Russian forces continued their offensive around Bakhmut and other parts of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
New U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy arrived in Moscow, at a time of strong tensions between the two governments over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tracy was heckled by protesters while entering the Russian Foreign Ministry to present her credentials.
The ambassador’s of Russia were told to leave by the two Baltic states because of what the Kremlin said wasRussophobia.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said that there are indications that Russia is readying for a renewed offensive in southern Ukraine.
“These will be defining months in the war,” Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Sky News in an interview broadcast Tuesday.
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The ministry said that military representatives from the two countries will practice joint planning of use of troops based on the previous experience of armed conflicts.
Yet one thing makes this battle distinctive from all previous air wars of the past century: pilots are rare. And this goes very much against the traditional perception of air combat.
“Top Gun: Maverick” is an Oscar nominee. We are tuning in to watch an air war happening. And it looks very different from anything that we see in Top Gun,” said Kelly Grieco, with the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.
“There are [piloted] aircraft that are still flying at times. Grieco said that the number of sorties compared to past wars was very small.
He knows how to follow the tenets. Gersten flew combat missions as an F-16 pilot early in his career, and later commanded U.S. drone operations in the Middle East. He saw drones assume a prominent role in the U.S. air campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. was dominant in the skies during the conflicts and it was piloted by war planes.
We are, however, seeing some glimpses and hints of what the future of warfare might look like. The use of drones by the Ukrainians is seen by us as aerial observers identifying Russian headquarters and other targets for precision munitions given to the Ukrainians by the US.
“We were contacted by an American (aid group) that couldn’t get their ambulances into besieged cities and asked if it could use our drones,” said Chell, who’s based in Vancouver.
I never heard of a problem with the supply chain or the spare parts for F-16. The answer was normally, ‘Oleksii, you know, it’s a very long period of training courses for your pilots.'” President Biden has made it clear. Fighter jets would put more vulnerable pilots and expensive planes in the sky, because the U.S. is not sending air defenses.
Zelensky’s War with Ukraine: Why did the U.S. Operation Become Hot in the 1980-90 Cold War?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise Europe tour, meeting leaders in London, Paris and Brussels, and reiterating his call for allies to send fighter jets to Ukraine.
For the second year in a row, Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. was at the State of the Union speech, but the war in Ukraine received far less attention.
According to the investigation, there’s strong evidence that Putin gave the go-ahead to supply anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels.
“It’s unlikely Russian forces will be particularly better organized and so unlikely they’ll be particularly more successful, though they do seem willing to send more troops into the meat grinder,” a senior British official told CNN.
They had enough manpower to take a couple of small cities, but that was it, said the senior Ukrainian diplomat. They were trying to build in Ukranian and it was overwhelming.
The Defense Secretary of the United States said that the US isn’t seeing Russia massing its aircraft for an aerial operation against Ukraine.
Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. There is more opinion on CNN.
Petraeus is the director of US Central Command. I think we should recognize that, with a few exceptions, Ukraine is not the future of warfare. In large measure, it is what we would have seen had the Cold War turned hot in the mid-1980s – with largely Cold War weapons systems (albeit with some modernization).
Petraeus: Not completely. In an interview with The Atlantic I stated that the Russian invasion force of some 190,000 was less than what I anticipated and if the Ukrainians were as determined as I thought they would be, that would be less of a problem.
Petraeus: It is not Russia. It has been proved that Russia had lost the Battles of Ukrainian cities, as well as failing to take the rest of the southern coast.
Russia and the Ukrainians have been engaged in fighting for a long time, and the situation is still stalemated, with both sides preparing for an offensive in the late winter or spring.
What the Future of War between Advanced Powers Would be: Indications, Criteria, and Expectations for Russia, Turkey, and the United States
Perhaps most notably, of course, we see a war taking place, for the first time, in a context that includes the widespread presence of smart phones, internet connectivity, and social media and other internet sites.
But, again, these are just hints of what the future of war between advanced powers would be. The intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems would be able to perform better in such a conflict, as precision munitions would have a vastly greater range and speed.
And there would incomparably greater numbers of vastly more capable unmanned systems (some remotely piloted, others operating according to algorithms) in every domain – not just in the air, but also at sea, sub-sea, on the ground, in outer space, and in cyberspace, and operating in swarms, not just individually!
I recall an adage back in the Cold War days that stated, “If it can be seen, it can be hit; if it can be hit, it can be killed.” In truth, we didn’t have the surveillance assets, precision munitions and other capabilities needed to truly “operationalize” that adage in those days. In the future, however, just about everything – certainly every platform, base and headquarters – will be seen and thus be susceptible to being hit and destroyed (unless there are substantial defenses and hardening of those assets).
Imagining all this underscores, of course, that we must take innumerable actions to transform our forces and systems. We must deter future conflict by ensuring that there are no questions about our capabilities or our willingness to employ them – and also by doing everything possible to ensure that competition among great powers does not turn into conflict among them.
NATO’s unity and staying power has confounded skeptics, largely due to Biden’s leadership. Political conditions in Washington and allied nations are not static, and could affect Putin’s thinking.
Petraeus: All of the above and more. Poor campaign design, wholly inadequate training and poor command, control, and communications are a few of the things on the list.
Petraeus: Not at all. Russia still has enormous military capacity and is certainly still a nuclear superpower, as well as a country with enormous energy, mineral and agricultural blessings. Germany and Turkey have populations of less than 80 million, while it has a population of more than 150 million.
What Have We Learned to Help the Ukrainians During and After the Ukrainian War? The Initiative State of the Ukraine Regime
The leader of it is a kleptocratic dictator who embraces many grievances and extreme revanchist views that severely undermine his decision-making.
Stalin’s observation is thatQuantity has a quality all of its own. Will Russia’s larger population make a difference in the Ukraine war over the long term?
Nonetheless, it is estimated that as many as 300,000 new recruits and mobilized reservists are being sent to the frontlines, with up to 100,000-150,000 more on the way. And that is not trivial – because quantity does, indeed, matter.
Ukrainians know what is at stake in the war, while most of the Russian soldiers are from minority groups in the Russian Federation.
What technologies have proven keys to the success of the Ukrainians in this war? Several newish technologies seem to have been important, for instance, when the Starlink mobile satellite systems kept communications open for the Ukrainians after the Russians had partially destroyed the phone system. US-supplied HIMARS precision rockets have decimated Russian targets. The Ukrainians were able to identify their Russian adversaries using facial recognition technology that was used by some US police departments. TB2 Turkish armed drones have proven devastating to Russian targets and cheap commercial drones have helped the Ukrainians find targets.
The Ukrainians have shown an amazing ability to learn how to use new weapon systems and vehicles much more quickly than anyone anticipated, as they want to return to the fight as quickly as possible.
It’s much easier to make difficult decisions in office than it is from the outside, even when you’re in the White House. I’d like to see us introduce some additional capabilities quicker, including advanced drones, even longer range precisionmunitions, fighter aircraft and air defense capabilities.
Ukraine is destined to have to transition from eastern bloc aircraft to western ones. They do not have any more MiGs, and they have more pilots than aircraft.
So, we might as well begin the process of transition, noting that it will take a number of months, regardless, to train pilots and maintenance personnel. All that said, again, I think the Administration has done a very impressive job and proven to be the indispensable nation in this particular situation – with important ramifications for other situations around the world.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/opinions/petraeus-how-ukraine-war-ends-bergen-ctpr/index.html
Can mercenaries play a role in Afghanistan? An open-source war in Ukraine: What is it like to invade Taiwan, and where to send them?
That force that Putin has sent into the toughest battles is the quasi-privateWagner Group. Can there be thoughts on using mercenaries as a tactic?
Russia has done what it does with mercenaries, in other words, throwing soldiers into battle as cannon fodder, and with little, if any, concern for their survival, but that is somewhat innovative.
These are not practices that help develop well-trained, disciplined and cohesive units that have the trust of their leaders and soldiers on their left and right.
Bergen: What are the lessons of Ukraine for the Chinese if they were to stage an invasion of Taiwan, which would not be over a neighboring land border but over a 100-mile body of water? Does the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea navy, reshape how the Chinese might think about this question?
If the target of such an operation has a population willing to fight for its survival and is supported by major powers – not just military, but also substantial economic, financial and personal sanctions and export controls.
Bergen: Is this the first truly open-source war? Zelensky is involved in the war in Ukraine because of social media, commercial overhead satellites capture Russian battle groups moving around in real-time, and the social media accounts of Russian mercenaries are being documented.
Petraeus said something. Yes, I believe it is. This is the first war in which smartphones and social media have been so widely available and also so widely employed. The result is unprecedented transparency and an extraordinary amount of information available – all through so-called “open sources.”
With trained soldiers, he said more would be deployed very soon and warned that many of Ukraine’s partners wouldn’t be able to deliver modern models of fighting vehicles.
The End of the Cold War in the US and the Western Front: NATO, the U.S., and the War in Ukraine: How Does It End?
Bergen: In 2003, at the beginning of the Iraq War, you famously asked a rhetorical question: “Tell me how this ends?” For the war in Ukraine: How does this end?
When Ukraine reaches its limits of being able to absorb missile and drone strikes, the US and G7 developed a Marshall-esque plan to help rebuild the country, and gained NATO membership or, if not, a US-led one.
Ahead of next week’s anniversary of the Russian invasion, US and Western leaders are gearing up for a show of unity and strength designed to establish once and for all that NATO is in the conflict for the long haul and until Moscow’s defeat.
Mark Milley said that Russia has lost strategically, operationally, and tactically. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Wednesday that “Putin must realize that he cannot win” as he explained the rationale for rushing arms and ammunition to Ukrainian forces. And Julianne Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, told CNN’s Becky Anderson that Washington was doing all it could to “continue to apply pressure on Moscow to affect (Putin’s) strategic calculus.”
VP Harris heads to the Munich Security Conference this week which will lead to more rhetorical and diplomatic offensives. President Joe Biden will be visiting Poland next week, as well as a frontline NATO state, bolstering his legacy of offering the most effective leadership of the Western alliance since the end of the Cold War.
The Importance of the End of the Cold War for the United States and the Emergence of a United Global Order in the 21st Century
Some members of the new Republican majority in the US House are hesitant. Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz last week demanded an end to aid to Ukraine and for the US to demand all combatants “reach a peace agreement immediately.” There is a bipartisan majority in the House and the Senate. It is not certain that Biden can assure huge aid packages for the country in the future. And US aid might be in serious doubt if ex-President Donald Trump or another Republican wins the 2024 election.
The outside world knows Putin is not contemplating defeat or an exit from the war because of the complete lack of any diplomatic framework for ceasefire talks.
I think the picture is grim due to the fact that Putin wasn’t deterred in the first place. Russia may be pushed into a break in Putins resolve by China, who feel that he has support from the rest of the world.
Even though US-China relations have been strained by the Chinese spy balloon flight across the US, the likelihood of China leaning on Putin for an end to the war is not even thought of.
And even if Beijing might be embarrassed at Putin’s performance in Ukraine after the two sides declared a “no limits” partnership last year, it may see an advantage in seeing the US preoccupied with a proxy war against Russia as it escalates its challenge to American power in Asia.
“You’re going to end up with an albatross around your neck,” Sherman said at an event at the Brookings Institution, though admitted the US was concerned about tightening ties between China and Russia at a time when it is locked in simultaneous showdowns with each power.
It is essential that the decision we take together is saying that we are willing to do it for as long as necessary and that we will do the best we can.
I’m certain that Putin did not think that Europe would become a united world. He didn’t think that the transatlantic partnership would work well.
“We just do it together with our friends and partners, and especially with the United States,” Scholz said, adding that he really appreciates his government’s “strong alliance” with the US.
Security Conference Summary: Implications for the Ukrainian War on NATO, the Middle East, and the Spherically-Symmetric Middle East
“I learned many are not able to deliver the most modern things … but in the ones they are delivering we will give the support as well,” Scholz said. “And as you know, there is also a big number of older tanks which we will deliver.”
Confronted on concerns over dwindling ammunition stockpiles, Scholz stressed the need for a “permanent production of the most important weapons,” including ammunition.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was present at Friday’s meeting and said the conference was more important than ever.
“From the beginning, the security conference has always been a place of understanding and dialogue. The war of aggression between Russia andUkraine is being waged on European soil and this is happening at the same time. “That raises the stakes for the conference even higher.”
The United States and its allies have supportedUkraine in its fight, and the people of the United States have accepted the enormous cost. In the US, the political resistance has been limited to a few people on the right and left. As the war goes on, questions will become more common. Kevin McCarthy, a Republican and strong supporter of Ukraine, has warned that there should be no blank check.
According to the Post, the administration is even talking about the meaning of President Biden’s pledge to support Ukrainians as long as necessary. It quotes an administration official saying, “‘As long as it takes’ pertains to the amount of conflict,” but “it doesn’t pertain to the amount of assistance.”
This idea is dangerous. Despite the remarkable success of the Ukrainian military thus far, pushing Ukraine to mount a premature offensive could have catastrophic results. It will take time for Ukraine to receive the deliveries of advanced Western tanks, for example. And deploying those tanks before Ukrainian soldiers are fully trained and before Ukraine has a maintenance infrastructure in place could result in unacceptable losses and squandered resources.