Russia Analytical Report, Apr. 3-10, 2023
6 Ideas to Explore
1. The Biden administration needs to articulate a coherent endgame for the Ukraine war, according to WaPo’s David Ignatius. If that endgame entails a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive that would allow Zelensky to “persuade his country to begin talks over Crimea and other tricky issues,” then the Ukranian leader should get “every ounce of American firepower he can get, now,” according to Ignatius.
2. Nothing about Putin or Zelensky indicates that either of them will back down, “which means this war’s defining signal is unlikely to come before November 2024,” according to FT’s Edward Luce. If Joe Biden wins the U.S. presidential election of November 5, 2024, Putin’s big gamble is likelier to fail, according to Luce. If Trump is the victor, or a Republican nominee with Trumpian views, then “Putin will have a golden opportunity to tilt the bloody playing field,” according to the FT columnist.
3. The United States should call on other nuclear states to work with Washington to establish cyber-nuclear “rules of the road,” according to Ernest Moniz and Sam Nunn of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Current geopolitical tensions must not stand in the way of a dialogue on such rules among nuclear powers, all of which would benefit from defining “norms to protect their nuclear arsenals from cyberattacks,” Moniz and Nunn write in FA.
4. Russian strategist Dmitri Trenin claims Moscow’s announcement of plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus could be part of “practical preparations for a transfer of hostilities” to Poland. In fact, Warsaw could become “a potential military target, including for nuclear strikes, Trenin claimed. Trenin – who has repeatedly lamented what he sees as the West’s loss of fear of nuclear war – interprets the announcement of Russia’s plans to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus – as a signal to the West that its “involvement in the military conflict in Ukraine could lead to the use of nuclear weapons.”
5. Ukraine’s “donors are not afraid of the old oligarchs … they’re afraid of new ones that could feed off of a Marshall plan for Ukraine,” former chairwoman of Ukraine’s Central Bank Valeriya Gontareva told Bloomberg. With the oligarchs weakened and politics as usual suspended, now is time for Ukraine to “strengthen institutions and remove the conditions that allow graft to flourish,” according to Bloomberg.
6. The sequence of events surrounding WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich's arrest suggests that it was a setup, according to Tatyana Stanovaya of R.Politik. “Russia's security services knew full well that he was going to visit sites connected to arms production, talk to employees and meet with people from the Ministry of Defense” in what “formally would be enough” to charge just about anyone collecting material about Russia's armed forces with espionage, according to Stanovaya. Thus, the selection of Gershkovich for prosecution “can only have been a political decision, doubtless aimed at securing a hostage in order to negotiate another prisoner swap with Washington,” she writes.
I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda
Nuclear security and safety:
- No significant developments.
North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:
- No significant developments.
Iran and its nuclear program:
- No significant developments.
Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:
- No significant developments.
Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:
- No significant developments.
Punitive measures related to Russia’s war against Ukraine and their impact globally:
- No significant developments.
Ukraine-related negotiations:
- “After running its diplomatic activity at reduced speed for almost three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing has recently launched a number of foreign-policy initiatives. The most prominent of these is the so-called peace proposal on Ukraine, with which China aims to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the United States among three specific audiences: the global south, Europe, and postwar Ukraine.”
- “First, China aims to present itself to the global south as a future peace broker.”
- “Second, China’s Ukraine proposal is part of Beijing’s attempt to reset its relationship with Europe.”
- “Third, China’s peace proposal is part of Beijing’s effort to position itself in the reconstruction of postwar Ukraine.”
- “In the end, however, China has only limited ability to bring a peaceful solution to the Russo-Ukrainian war. The peace plan Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented to the G-20 summit in Bali last November calls for the full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and a complete withdrawal of Russian troops. Beijing is not likely to ask Moscow to act accordingly.”
- “But even though its peace initiative will do little to end the Russo-Ukrainian war, Beijing had nothing to lose by forwarding a rather vague proposal on Ukraine. On the contrary, it enables Beijing to tap into the disconnect between the West and the global south about the war. And if the proposal also helps China to improve its deteriorating relationship with Europe, including by engaging with postwar Ukraine, that would be no small achievement at all.”
Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:
- “The cache of 100 or so newly leaked briefing slides of operational data on the war in Ukraine is distinctly different [from WkilLeaks and Snowden’s revelations]. The data revealed so far is less comprehensive than those vast secret archives, but far more timely. And it is the immediate salience of the intelligence that most worries White House and Pentagon officials.”
- “Some of the most sensitive material — maps of Ukrainian air defenses and a deep dive into South Korea’s secret plans to deliver 330,000 rounds of much-needed ammunition in time for Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive — is revealed in documents that appear to be barely 40 days old.”
- “It is an enormously sensitive subject among South Korean officials. ...One official said South Korea did not want to violate its own policies, or risk its delicate relationship with Moscow. Now the world has seen the Pentagon’s ‘delivery timeline’ for sea shipments of those shells, along with estimates of the cost of the shipments, $26 million.”
- “The [slides and documents] leave no doubt about how deeply enmeshed the United States is in the day-to-day conduct of the war, providing the precise intelligence and logistics that help explain Ukraine’s success thus far. … One senior Western intelligence official summed up the disclosures as ‘a nightmare.’ Dmitri Alperovitch, the Russia-born chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, [said] ‘a number of ways this can be damaging.’ He said that included the possibility that Russian intelligence is able to use the pages, spread out over Twitter and Telegram, ‘to figure out how we are collecting” the plans of the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence service, and the movement of military units.’”
- “Mixed in are a series of early warnings about how Russia might retaliate, beyond Ukraine, if the war drags on. One particularly ominous C.I.A. document refers to a pro-Russian hacking group that had successfully broken into Canada’s gas distribution network and was ‘receiving instructions from a presumed Federal Security Service (F.S.B.) officer to maintain network access to Canadian gas infrastructure and wait for further instruction.’”
- “’It doesn’t look ideological,’ Mr. Alperovitch said. The first appearance of some of the documents seems to have taken place on gaming platforms, perhaps to settle an online argument over the status of the fight in Ukraine. ‘Think about that,’ Mr. Alperovitch said. ‘An internet fight that ends up in a massive intelligence disaster.’”
"Why Does This Good Moment for America Feel so Bad?", columnist David Ignatius, WP, 04.06.23.
- “Let's step back and think about the positives in national security policy. We'll explore the angst later, but by many important metrics, the world is going America's way.”
- “Russia's failure to achieve its objectives in Ukraine is the most stunning gain. At relatively small cost to the United States (although with terrible suffering for brave Ukrainians), a Russia that had seemed the dominant military power in Europe has effectively been neutered as a conventional threat.”
- “Europe's unity in the Ukraine crisis has been a remarkable success.”
- “The West is stronger, however the Ukraine war ends, because Europe has weaned itself from Russian energy.”
- “NATO, the bedrock of Western security, is vastly stronger, too.”
- “Now for the ‘feel bad’ part. At a recent gathering of prominent foreign policy pundits and think-tankers, a.k.a. ‘the Blob,’ a deepening pessimism about the United States' strategic position was pervasive. Why? U.S. national security policy seems to be less than the sum of its parts because the Biden administration hasn't communicated a cohesive strategic vision.”
- “Let's start, again, with Ukraine. The administration hasn't articulated a coherent endgame for the war. President Biden says he wants a settlement. But the negotiating condition that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set - liberation of all Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea - probably can't be achieved soon, according to Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.....So, the Ukrainians fight on ‘for as long as it takes.’ The implication is that Russia will bleed out faster than Ukraine. I doubt it. So, let's be honest, this strategy makes sense only if Ukraine can deliver a counteroffensive that would push Russia back far enough that Zelensky can persuade his country to begin talks over Crimea and other tricky issues. If that's so, Zelensky needs every ounce of American firepower he can get, now.”
- “Biden is looking for the sweet spot: Stopping Russian aggression without triggering a catastrophe; curbing China without sliding toward war. He needs to articulate those goals more clearly and use America's immense power to achieve them.”
- “Putin is bracing for Ukraine’s spring or early summer offensive. To judge by earlier pushes, there will be tactical feints, audacious maneuvers and some geographic gains. It is hard to imagine, though, that Ukraine will have the manpower to expel Russia from its territory. With hundreds of thousands dead or wounded, this war thus looks set to grind on in a bloody equilibrium in which the battle of wills and patience will be the determinative factor.”
- “Nothing about Putin’s character should lead us to expect he will cut his losses and call it a day — except via a temporary ceasefire to regenerate Russia’s capacity. Nothing about Zelensky, or Ukrainian public opinion — which shows no signs of wobbling — should lead us to think he will split the difference either. Europe, meanwhile, remains largely dependent on US leadership. Which means this war’s defining signal is unlikely to come before November 2024. If Biden wins, Putin’s big gamble is likelier to fail. If Trump is the victor, or a Republican nominee with Trumpian views, then Putin will have a golden opportunity to tilt the bloody playing field his way.”
- “The one potential deus ex machina is China. If Xi Jinping were to turn decisively against Russia’s ‘special military operation’, or conversely, decided to back Putin with serious weaponry, either of these could change the equation. My bet is that Xi will not want to get that deeply involved.”
"The Cost of Biden's 'Democracy' Fixation," columnist Walter Russell Mead, WSJ, 04.03.23.
- “Biden... wants to frame world politics as a contest between liberal democracy and autocracy. That's unfortunate.”
- “If the U.S. is serious about an Indo-Pacific strategy, it is going to have to assemble and cultivate a coalition of countries that are anything but liberal and democratic.”
- “In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan all rate as ‘not free.’ Do we write off this part of the world?”
- “If we want to keep Middle East oil producers from aligning with our enemies, we need to work with some very undemocratic governments.”
- “And if we want to counter China in Africa, there are very imperfect governments in Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Sudan that we can't afford to ignore.”
- “Many countries share America's concerns about Chinese, Russian and Iranian expansionism. China's abuse of the World Trade Organization harms the whole world. The American-led global system that Russia and China want to break brought many countries unprecedented prosperity and security. These arguments carry more weight than abstract democracy talking points, even in Europe.”
- “Mr. Biden should remember that his global coalition is held together more by common interests and common sense than by common values. And he should never underestimate the domestic and the international cost of overhyped, underthought democracy rhetoric.”
- “All geopolitics demands calculations in which justice, fairness and freedom play only a limited role. A host of people today say: ‘If the Russians are allowed to keep one hectare of Ukrainian soil, democracy and Western security will be shockingly compromised.’ This is true. But just as most of the peoples of the democracies were unwilling to fight a new war for Poland in 1945, so it seems unlikely that they will support a fight to the finish today, to free Crimea. That is ugly, but it is a reality that cannot be reversed.”
- “Perhaps the most telling sign of increasing unease with official neutrality is that the Swiss, the Austrians and even the Irish — who say they are militarily but not politically neutral on the war in Ukraine — have announced sharp increases in defense spending. That suggests a dawning realization that in today's Europe, upended by Russia's marauding illegality, neutrality no longer translates into nothing to fear.”
- “Putin is not giving any indication that he will sue for peace anytime soon. He still hopes to outlast the West, and he leads a vast country with a lot of staying power. No one can yet see how or when this conflict will end. But we shouldn't lose sight of the central facts revealed by the war: namely, the skill of the Ukrainians and the ineptitude of the Russians. ‘It's been an unbroken string of bad news for Putin and Russian forces,’ retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told me. told me, ‘and I see no bright lights on the horizon.’ Perhaps that's why, after a hiatus of a few months, Putin has returned to nuclear saber-rattling — this time by announcing plans to deploy tactical nukes in Belarus. That's not a sign that he is planning to actually use nukes. It's a sign that he's trapped in a quagmire and doesn't know what to do next.”
China-Russia: Allied or aligned?
“The False Choice of Confronting Russia or China,” commentator Janan Ganesh, FT, 04.04.23.
- “The following facts become impossible to ignore: The US is willing to draw down its arsenal to equip a nation that it has no formal obligation to defend. In doing so, it can tie down a military power as strong as Russia for more than a year. US-led Nato is now larger than it was at the start of the war. European states have accepted that Washington was right to press for an increase in their defense budgets over recent decades. America’s importance as an energy exporter has grown as those same allies wean themselves off Russian fossil fuels.”
- “In supporting Ukraine, the US is not just doing the right thing. It is shoring up its own long-term position in Asia. Imagine the consequences for the US in Asia had the past year gone differently. Had Ukraine (which America recognizes as a state) been left to fall, what price Taiwan (which it doesn’t)? How secure would even explicit security allies of the US now feel? Why should the end of sovereign Ukraine not be filed alongside the 2008 financial crash and the Iraq fiasco as proof of a losing century for liberalism?”
- “Anyone can look at China, see that it is more populous than Russia, and pronounce it the real problem. This is less analysis than arithmetic. The question is how to go about rivaling China.”
“The Ukraine War Will Define EU-China Relations,” editorial board, FT, 04.05.23.
- “The EU needs to redefine the terms of its engagement with China. As von der Leyen put it, China has ‘turned the page on the era of ‘reform and opening’ and is moving into a new era of security and control’. For the EU that means treating China first of all as a systemic rival and adopting policies to mitigate risks that stem from it. It does not mean abandoning partnership on issues such as climate change or nuclear proliferation (or Russian nuclear brinkmanship). Nor does it mean economic decoupling, which is neither realistic nor desirable. On the other hand, the breaking of trade ties with Russia has shown that European businesses cannot ignore their reliance on China’s vast market for sales and profits.”
- “A de-risking approach allows the EU to be more proactive and discerning. It must identify its own vulnerabilities and supply chain dependencies. It should use its trade and other defenses to stop China exploiting the EU’s market openness. It should add new ones, such as EU-wide review powers on outward investment in sensitive and dual-use technologies.”
- “Now more than ever the EU needs a single voice on China.”
- “The China-Russia economic and commercial partnership threatens to undermine Western punitive measures taken against Russia. As a result of its channels to Beijing, Moscow is not facing the costs that it was assumed it would. Meanwhile, the West faces uncertainties, dislocation, and the strains of limited access to Russian resources.”
- “At the same time, the China-Russia economic and commercial partnership affects China’s global standing. It could strengthen Beijing’s international presence and confidence, a reality with significant implications for companies and governments.”
- “China’s ability to message effectively to both sides of the conflict has allowed it to avoid consequences for its significant, and profitable, support of Russia’s wartime economy. In fact, Beijing has increased inroads with key European economic partners and political leaders, as those grapple with the specter of long-run instability and resource scarcity.”
Missile defense:
- No significant developments.
Nuclear arms:
“Thoughts on the Unthinkable: Why Russia is Sending Nuclear Weapons to Belarus," Dmitri Trenin of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, RIAC/Profil, 04.05.23. [1] Clues from Russian Views.
- “Moscow's decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons and their means of delivery on the territory of Belarus ... indicates that the conflict between Russia and the West is developing toward a direct armed clash between Russia and NATO, and also [sends] a signal to Washington that a further deepening of the American-Western involvement in the military conflict in Ukraine could lead to the use of nuclear weapons.”
- “What could become the point of no return? Many military experts believe that transfer of modern Western combat aircraft and long-range missiles to Kyiv would [amount to a crossing of] the red line. … American strategists have set a mission that has seemed impossible until recently: to defeat a nuclear superpower on the battlefield, excluding the use of nuclear weapons by this power. Faced with a threat to the existence of the state, Russian strategists are being forced to rethink many seemingly unshakable truths. … The conflict in Ukraine demonstrated, above all, that … Russia's nuclear shield does not compensate, as was believed in the 1990s, for the country's relative weakness in conventional weapons.”
- “It must be borne in mind that the strategy for achieving goals in the course of armed confrontation can be adjusted. In this regard, the decision to deploy — for the first time in modern Russian history — nuclear weapons and their carriers outside the borders of the Russian Federation may mean that [the Russian leadership’s] views — on how victory can be achieved — have seriously changed.”
- “We can talk about practical preparations for the transfer of hostilities ... to the territories of countries with which Russia, in the recent words of the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev, ‘is in a de facto state of war’ ... has become the main logistical base of the Ukrainian conflict Poland from the very beginning … thus, becoming a potential military target, including for nuclear strikes.”
- “It is likely that the United States is approaching the boundaries of a safe [for the American side] escalation of the Ukrainian conflict. Russia, which has the advantage of escalation potential as a much more interested party, has already signaled that it could take the initiative and decisively expand the scope of the use of force. This seems to be the deep meaning of the promotion of Russian nuclear weapons to the forefront in Belarus.”
- “Russia has not transferred and is not transferring nuclear weapons to [Belarus]. We are talking about the presence of nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus, and this is yet to become a fact. This may happen in the future, after the appropriate storage facilities are put into operation.”
- “The wording of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons does not say under what conditions it is forbidden to transfer them for exploitation [by other countries] ... But from a practical point of view, everyone understands perfectly well that when a nuclear war of superpowers is at stake, few people care about compliance with the NPT.”
- “You cannot perceive a nuclear weapon as ‘just another weapon.’ If you look at the calculations carried out during the Cold War … then you will arrive at a paradoxical conclusion that nuclear weapons begin to matter as a means on the battlefield only if you use them massively; [otherwise] … their use makes no military sense.”
- “Could China stop Putin from using nuclear weapons? Allison answers with a ... reference to the Cuban missile crisis: ‘Remember that JFK said that nuclear powers must avoid confrontations that force an adversary to choose between humiliating retreat and nuclear war.’ Beijing can keep Putin from pressing that button for as long as the Russian president does not face comprehensive humiliation, he argues. Xi has strong incentives to avoid such an escalation, given Beijing’s concern about Asian states such as South Korea pursuing their own nuclear weapons. Yet here, Allison adds: ‘If Putin has to choose between losing everything and nukes, I’m betting he chooses the latter. I’m betting that he strikes Ukraine with a tactical nuclear weapon.’”
Counterterrorism:
- No significant developments.
Conflict in Syria:
- No significant developments.
Cyber security/AI:
- No significant developments.
Energy exports from CIS:
- “For four months Ukraine’s friends have implemented the sanctions many thought would have the biggest impact on Vladimir Putin’s ability to wage war: a price cap on seaborne Russian oil sales serviced by western shippers, insurers and legal providers. A similar cap on refined products has been added. But now that they have bedded in, the verdict on their effect is mixed at best.”
- “There are many signs that things are not what they seem.”
- “The Urals discount cannot be seen in pricing in Russia’s Pacific ports, where much of the export has been diverted and trades above the cap.”
- “The refined products price cap is more complicated still. Loopholes are created by the common practice of blending and the difficulty of establishing provenance. And many different petroleum derivatives are shoehorned into just two price categories.”
- “The task now is to make the policy work better. Steps would include intensifying monitoring and scrutiny, to establish as far as possible what prices are really paid. More transparency of contracts and transactions would help. The ambition should also be to adjust the level of the caps downward over time.”
U.S.-Russian economic ties:
- No significant developments.
U.S.-Russian relations in general:
“The Arrest of Evan Gershkovich,” founder Tatyana Stanovaya, R.Politik, 04.10.23. Clues from Russian Views.
- “The sequence of events surrounding Gershkovich's arrest suggests that it was a setup: Russia's security services knew full well that he was going to visit sites connected to arms production, talk to employees and meet with people from the Ministry of Defense. Formally (according to current legislation concerning state secrets) this would be enough to get him convicted of espionage in a Russian court — the same applies to anyone collecting even relatively unimportant information, including material about Russia's armed forces which has not even been officially labelled 'classified'. It is hardly surprising that his trip to Yekaterinburg and specific plans to visit Nizhny Tagil attracted the FSB's attention.”
- “However, this alone would not have been enough to trigger his arrest. Many western journalists still based in Russia continue to cover military affairs and visit cities with arms factories. Gershkovich's arrest can only have been a political decision, doubtless aimed at securing a hostage in order to negotiate another prisoner swap with Washington.”
- “Gershkovich's arrest is another throwback to the Cold War era, when only diplomats were guaranteed immunity from arrest under international law. In recent decades, a similar immunity has de facto applied to journalists from leading western media outlets in Russia. However, it is clear that such times are now over. Even if the Kremlin has its sights set on getting a particular individual back, Gershkovich's detention likely marks an underlying shift in the Kremlin's thinking (or at least the culmination of a shift that was already taking place) rather than a specific action targeting a specific person.”
- “While several Russian agents have recently been detained (and more may yet be caught), Moscow believes that this development requires a new degree of severity in its response. Americans who remain in Russia are now in an increasingly vulnerable position — they run the risk of being arrested in order to expand Russia's general ‘pool” of hostages. Gershkovich's detention also marks a new phase of the intelligence war between Russia and the West: both sides will be forced to interact with one another more, and it is likely that there will be a series of prisoner swaps in coming years. Russia could increasingly target relatively public 'civilian' figures, as well as professionals.”
- “Had the Russian president read Gershkovich's reporting over the past year, he might have read a story or two that would have pleased him, like one from last summer about young Russians largely ignoring the war. (That was before a partial draft sent many Russians fleeing to Dubai, Bali and even a remote Alaskan island.)”
- “Yet Putin would also have learned, thanks to Gershkovich's solo reporting in Belarus in the earliest days of the war, that the war was not ''going to plan,'' in contrast to what Russia's defense minister kept telling him. He would have learned how utterly incompetent his war machine is, thanks to an inside account from a Russian paratrooper who participated in the invasion and later fled to France. He would have learned that despite last year's energy-revenue windfalls, Russia's economy is coming undone under Western sanctions and that his old pal Oleg Deripaska has warned: ‘There will be no money next year. We need foreign investors.'’”
- “The most fitting tribute we can pay him [Gershkovich] is to continue to report the truth about Russia, despite the risks. Putin has sought to wage a disinformation campaign in the West for decades. Western news organizations can repay his abuses with an information campaign about Russia, in Russian, for Russians. They, too, deserve to have the benefit of facts Putin wants nobody — including even himself — to know.”
“My Time in a Moscow Prison,” journalist Nicholas Daniloff, WSJ, 04.04.23.
- “I was Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report, on Aug. 30, 1986, when the KGB arrested me and falsely accused me of being a spy. I know what Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and his family are going through.”
- “Reporting in Russia has always been risky. The authorities there have never been comfortable with the open flow of information, and they have recently imposed new restrictions on public protests. Several Western news organizations pulled their correspondents to protest recently passed laws that essentially ban independent reporting about the Ukraine invasion. Much of Russia's independent media have been forced to shut down or to persevere outside the country.”
- “We need to protect and honor the bravery of foreign correspondents, photographers and stringers all over the world, reporting in difficult and dangerous circumstances. And to my fellow Russian correspondent Evan Gershkovich: Courage.”
- “The journalist’s arrest in Russia comes as free press is being squeezed around the world. An annual prison census from the Committee to Protect Journalists, an American advocacy group that promotes press freedom and safety, finds that over 360 reporters were jailed last year, a record high. His case highlights the vital work journalists do in an increasingly hostile world for reporters, as some even in liberal democracies tend to forget. Journalism is not a crime. Like all other journalists unlawfully held, Gershkovich must be released with haste.”
II. Russia’s domestic policies
Domestic politics, economy and energy:
"How Putin’s 'Special Military Operation' Became a People’s War," senior fellow Andrei Kolesnikov, Carnegie Endowement, 04.10.23. [3] Clues from Russian Views.
- “Until recently … the model in place in Russia [was as follows]: in exchange for relatively decent conditions, ordinary people kept quiet, stayed out of the authorities’ affairs, and automatically voted in favor of any initiatives. Following Russia’s partial mobilization last year, the social contract model changed. Now Russians are expected to share responsibility with the autocrat and express their voice in support of his actions with increasing frequency. It’s no coincidence that denunciations are the new social norm, along with violence and a ramping up of talk of nuclear strikes. As Russia progresses to a hybrid totalitarian model, this behavior is effectively encouraged.”
- “The Kremlin has managed to transform the ‘special operation’ into a ‘people’s war,’ a shared task that should unite the nation. Anyone who is against the Kremlin—’national traitors,’ in Putin’s words—must be fought against.”
- “If we view society through the German economist Albert Hirschman’s triad of options open to disgruntled consumers or citizens, the ‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty’ model, then the signal Putin sent out in 2022 was answered by the bulk of the population with varying degrees of aggression and indifference, but also with ‘Loyalty.’”
- “Russian society is giving Putin carte blanche to continue both his war on the country’s borders and the repressive practices within it.”
“A post-Putin Russia may look like Serbia after Milošević,” editor Tony Barber, FT, 04.06.23.
- “Putin turned 70 in October. The longer he stays in office, the larger the succession question looms. To understand what a post-Putin Russia might look like, consider Serbia after the strongman rule of Slobodan Milošević. He fell from power in 2000 after fomenting wars in former Yugoslavia, as Putin has done in former Soviet republics such as Georgia and Ukraine.”
- “Serbia after Milošević was no longer a warmongering, hyper-nationalist state. But it evolved into a flawed democracy and remained at odds with the west.”
- “No future Kremlin leader seems likely to give up Moscow’s claim to Crimea, whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine. A far larger power than Serbia, Russia will certainly not tailor its foreign policy to suit the west. At home, the ruling group will ensure that nationwide elections always keep it in power... As in Serbia, no turn to western-style liberal democracy is plausible in the near future in Russia.”
- “One feature of Serbian politics after Milošević has been the existence of an ultranationalist opposition. … There is likewise an ultranationalist tendency in Russian politics, once too unruly for Putin’s taste, but now with a louder voice because of the Ukraine war.”
- “To judge from Serbia’s experience..., even the end of Putin’s authoritarianism and the war in Ukraine will bring neither genuine democracy to Russia nor smooth relations with the west.”
- “While it is exceptionally difficult in the current situation to predict the future, we can sketch out three possible scenarios.”
- “First, there is the scenario of an intra-elite open fight, which could lead to a civil war-type of evolution.”
- “Another scenario that could develop is that of a full-scale military dictatorship, with Putin still in power or after his departure.”
- “Third, perhaps the most likely scenario is that the current regime continues to limp on out of lack of alternatives.”
- “While these scenarios remain speculative, there is one development that seems certain. However the war ends, the return of hundreds of thousands of men for whom war is no longer an abstract concept but an immediate reality to their communities will likely see the further brutalization of Russian society.”
- “Psychologically scarred individuals with little to no job prospects, but training in violence, may well read the signs given to them by the universe and extend Russia’s culture of paramilitary gangs and mercenaries.”
“Putin’s Paranoia Deviates from Its Soviet Roots,” columnist Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg, 04.04.23.
- “None of what the regime has undertaken so far compares even remotely with the horrible scale of Stalinist reprisals — and, of course, not even the elite, and especially not senior officials, were exempt from those. Putin, however, appears intent on showing the nation that he could go down that route if faced with more visible dissent than the current sporadic, rather timid antiwar protest. The ultra-patriots and the people around Prigozhin also have every reason to worry: For Putin, only the state and people who represent the state stand for Russia; all others are automatically suspect, even if they can be useful at times.”
“Violence and Lawlessness Darken Russia,” editor Tony Barber, FT, 04.08.23.
- “The longer Putin’s reign lasts, the more obvious it becomes that political repression at home goes hand in hand with military aggression abroad. The arrest of Evan Gershkovich, a Moscow-based Wall Street Journal reporter, illustrates this combination of factors. But the death in a bomb blast of blogger Maxim Fomin, better known by his nom de plume Vladlen Tatarsky, suggests something else — that the war in Ukraine is generating politically inspired violence in Russia itself.”
- “The trial of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician, is nearing an end in a Moscow municipal court. ..This week, prosecutors sought a 25-year prison sentence for Mr. Kara-Murza on charges of treason, based on three public speeches he delivered decrying the collapse of democracy in Russia and the rise of repression under Mr. Putin.”
- “Mr. Kara-Murza, 41, represents a threat to Mr. Putin because of his unflinching defense of democracy.”
- “While imprisoned, Mr. Kara-Murza has experienced numbness in his feet and hands, probably as a result of being forced into tight solitary confinement, and nerve damage from the poisonings. He has lost about 40 pounds.”
- “The trial is closed to outsiders, but Mr. Kara-Murza's lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, related events from the session Tuesday. Mr. Kara-Murza, he said, declared that his criticism of the authorities "can in no way be identical with causing damage to the country" and that "the main motive of all his speeches is to protect the honor, dignity and reputation of our country." The lawyer recalled that Mr. Kara-Murza insisted the time had come to prepare Russia for a future after Mr. Putin, confident that such a day is coming.”
- “That's the essence of Mr. Kara-Murza, fighting to remove the stain of despotism that has so deeply besmirched Russia in the Putin years. His speeches and words are not treason and not criminal. They are brimming with aspirations for a free Russia, a vision that seems distant at this grim moment but remains worth fighting for.”
Defense and aerospace:
- See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.
Security, law-enforcement and justice:
- No significant developments.
III. Russia’s relations with other countries
Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:
“Russia’s New Foreign-Policy Concept: The Impact of War,” editor Nigel Gould-Davies, IISS, 04.06.23.
- “On 31 March, Russia released its latest foreign-policy concept … The war dominates the new concept in three ways.”
- “Focus on the Global South.”
- “A contradictory, even schizophrenic, view of the West. .. On the one hand, the concept portrays the West as emphatically hostile. ... On the other hand, the concept envisages a future security order once European states ‘realize the futility of their confrontational policy and hegemonic ambitions’, free themselves from US dominance and are ready to cooperate in a ‘new model of coexistence’ with Russia. As for America, the ‘main inspirer, organizer and executor’ of anti-Russian policy, the concept suggests that in due course it could seek a more constructive relationship to secure a balance of interests. There is a whiff of Cold War detente in its revival of the Soviet term ‘peaceful coexistence’ and its reference to ‘strategic parity’.”
- “The concept outlines Russia’s response to the escalation of Western coercive economic statecraft against it.”
Ukraine:
- “Ukraine is clinging to a financial lifeline via tens of billions of dollars in aid from the US and European Union, with substantially more needed for postwar reconstruction. A failure to more systematically root out graft would endanger that. An IMF staff report in December identified the re-entrenchment of ‘oligarchic interests’ as a high risk to Ukraine’s reform and future external financing.”
- “Yet oligarchs are as much a symptom as a cause of the poisonous cocktail of corruption and politics that has hobbled growth since Ukraine gained independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. The worry, for a country hoping to make the transition to European integration from post-Soviet kleptocracy, is that their power revives.”
- “‘Donors are not afraid of the old oligarchs,’ said Valeriya Gontareva, who as Ukraine’s central bank governor from 2014-2017 shuttered more than 80 commercial banks that were making forever-loans to their owners’ companies. ‘They’re afraid of new ones’ that may feed off a Marshall plan for Ukraine.”
- “Much will depend on the decisions that Zelensky, the EU, the US and international organizations such as the IMF take today – mid-war, with the oligarchs weakened and politics as usual suspended — to strengthen institutions and remove the conditions that allow graft to flourish. Key allies from Group of Seven nations are pressing the government in Kyiv to resume reform programs now, according to a European diplomat familiar with the matter.”
- “Effective anti-corruption measures will require the Ukrainian government and its allies to focus on several areas.”
- “Any type of profound governance shift requires political will, and it is obvious that effective reform in Ukraine will require strong and sustained leadership from the Zelensky administration. Donors often treat political will as something that is either present or absent when instead it needs to be nurtured. Domestically, this requires political anti-corruption coalition building and, for donors, continued strong pressure to ensure anti-corruption is a political must for the government.”
- “It will also require the government and donors to be assertive, and this means challenging vested interests, including oligarchs and individuals who have benefitted from corruption for decades. Vested interests will corrupt and undermine anti-corruption initiatives, including anti-corruption political coalitions. Excluding anyone with a history of corruption is impractical, but the most egregious individuals should be prohibited from joining.”
- “Generating political and societal collective action in support of change will also be vital. Investing in efforts to bolster collective action on corruption – for example, increasing demands for good governance and empowering citizens – will be more effective than formal institutional measures or top-down political drives alone.”
- “The war in Ukraine is about far more than expelling Russian troops from the country. It is about building a model of government which, in contrast to Russia’s, effectively provides public services to its citizens. The war has also strengthened Ukrainians’ solidarity, a foundation from which to build effective collective action against corruption. It is now up to the government and its allies to ensure that this is translated into effective governance.”
- “Why have the two countries [Russia and Ukraine] followed such different political paths? A large part of the answer has to do with how the Russian and Ukrainian governments responded to the rise of oligarchs.”
- “Ukrainians have benefited from their government's failure to bring the country's oligarchs to heel, while Mr. Putin's success in crushing Russia's oligarchs has helped him stamp out all sources of dissent, following in the footsteps of earlier Russian tyrants from Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin.”
- “Ukraine's current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, began a ‘de-oligarchization’ campaign shortly before the Russian invasion, and the war has only intensified it. .... Good riddance to these oligarchs, you might say. Let Ukraine move beyond their corruption and meddling in national politics.”
- “It is very unlikely that after three decades Ukraine would imitate Russian-style authoritarianism. Still, wars endanger civil and political liberties even in mature republics, and Mr. Zelensky's status as a war hero multiplies the usual temptations of unlimited power.”
“Ukraine’s Gay Soldiers Fight Russia — And for Their Rights,” The Economist, 04.05.23.
- “When Pasha Lagoyda joined the Ukrainian army in 2021, he didn’t tell anyone he was gay. In his first weeks his roommates at training camp found some “spicy texts”, as he puts it, and he was bullied. ‘There was aggression. They called me a faggot — all that stuff.’ As his fellow recruits got to know him better, the intimidation died down. Now Mr Lagoyda is serving on the front line and all the 180 people in his unit know he’s gay.”
- “He is not alone. Thousands of gay people are serving in the Ukrainian armed forces, often sporting a rainbow badge next to the Ukrainian blue and yellow on their uniform. LGBT groups have also been at the forefront of humanitarian volunteering. Their visibility has led to a sea-change in Ukrainian society.”
- “War changes everything. Last summer, the parliament finally ratified the Council of Europe’s Istanbul convention on violence against women, after a decade-long delay, caused by the objections of church groups to the use of “gender” in the text. It is now drafting a bill that would give same-sex couples the right to register civil partnerships, something that was unimaginable even a year ago...Protecting the rights of gay people in the military gives a big push for the bill.”
Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:
[1] Translated with the help of machine-translation.
[2] Translated with the help of machine-translation.
[3] Also see: “The War in Ukraine Has Become a Battle for the Russian Psyche,” Andrei Kolesnikov, FA, 04.07.23.
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