This Week's Highlights

• The Washington Post’s David Ignatius writes that “courageous Ukrainians and foreign reporters” are revealing “the butchery” of Vladimir Putin’s style of war, with city names like Bucha, Mariupol, Kharkiv and Trostianets “now written in infamy, alongside Guernica and Srebrenica.” Carnegie’s Andrei Kolesnikov, meanwhile, condemns the silent assent that made such horrors possible: In “extreme situations,” like Putin’s war in Ukraine, “any silence is for, not against. This is the case for collective responsibility. This is why the majority … doesn’t want to believe in ‘fakes’ (i.e., the truth) and justifies Putin’s actions. Passive conformity is no less terrible than active and aggressive conformity.” 
• “Ukraine is bracing for a new and potentially more challenging phase in its war to repel Russia's invasion,” according to Washington Post reporters Liz Sly and Dan Lamothe: As the battles shift east, the new, wide open terrain “could give more of an advantage to the Russians.”   
• “Assuming an eventual peace settlement in Ukraine that permits the scaling back of sanctions, the Western democracies should remain open to cautious and selective cooperation with Moscow,” Georgetown University professor Charles Kupchan writes in The New York Times. “Areas of potential collaboration include furthering nuclear and conventional arms control, sharing best practices and technologies on alternatives to fossil fuels and jointly developing rules of the road to govern military and economic activity in the Arctic.” 
• One possibility for quickly ending the nightmare of the Ukraine war “is for Chinese President Xi Jinping to see that he has a ‘Teddy Roosevelt Moment,’” Harvard’s Joe Nye writes for Project Syndicate. Roosevelt stepped in to mediate after the brutal war between Russia and Japan in 1905, pressing hard for compromise and ultimately succeeding. “The question is whether Xi has the imagination and the courage to use it,” Nye writes, adding that “the answer, thus far, is no.” Nye’s Harvard colleague Graham Allison and his co-author Fred Hu, the founder and chair of Primavera Capital Group, consider the same prospect in The Washington Post, concluding: “If Xi can take the lead to make peace in Ukraine, it would certainly be a mighty good thing for the world.” 
• Many Americans “will be asking what more the Biden administration can do” about the war in Ukraine, Harvard’s Graham Allison writes in Foreign Affairs. “Already, a chorus of pundits and politicians has been calling on Biden to impose a no-fly zone over regions of Ukraine or to transfer Polish MiG-29 aircraft to Kyiv… What these demands fail to take into account, however, is a central lesson of the Cold War: If military forces of nuclear superpowers should ever be engaged in a hot war in which each is killing or seriously considering choices that could kill hundreds or thousands of the other, the escalation ladder from there to the ultimate global catastrophe of nuclear war can be surprisingly short. The textbook case is the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.” 
• “Westerners and Ukrainians have cheered U.S.-based corporations as they have chosen to suspend their operations in Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine,” political science professor Molly Melin writes in War on the Rocks. After doing research on Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, she has found that such “conflicts with active private-sector involvement last longer since it is more difficult to find an agreement that is acceptable to all parties with interests at stake.”  
• “The act of isolating Russia is not a true global trend,” foreign affairs reporter Adam Taylor writes in The Washington Post. “Though the United States, the European Union and other allies have imposed sanctions on Russian oligarchs and armed enemies of the Kremlin, most of the world’s population lives in countries that have not.”  

 

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:

“The horror of the Kramatorsk station attack,” Editorial Board, Financial Times. 04.08.22. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “The Russian missile attack on Kramatorsk railway station that killed at least 50 people, five of them children, is the most horrifying atrocity in a week that has brought news of many others.”
• “Russia, to be clear, does not have a monopoly on alleged war crimes. A video posted online this week appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers executing captured Russian troops.”
• “Western democracies are rightly reacting to Russia’s alleged war crimes by amassing evidence for potential future tribunals. ... However, countering the insidious effect of Russia’s media propaganda is also vital to western efforts to squeeze the Kremlin’s ability to sustain its war.”

“The Bucha massacre marks grim turning point in Russia’s war,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 04.04.22. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “Even before this week, Russia’s unjust destruction of Ukraine—the smashing of people’s hopes and dreams along with their homes, hospitals and theaters by indiscriminate shelling and bombs—was a war crime. But its scale grew over the weekend as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops retreated from Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, revealing indelible evidence of the slaughter of innocent civilians.”
• “To begin with, the horrors must be documented. … Next, the 27-nation European Union must wean itself from Russian fossil fuels.”
• “In the end, the war against Ukraine is about whether a people who want to build a democracy, to choose their own leaders and to shape their own future, can be cowed into submission by an armed force; whether the sickening inhumanity of murdering residents in Bucha with a bullet to the back of the head will destroy the will of all Ukraine to resist. Instead, it must strengthen their resolve and boost the willpower of all nations supporting Ukraine to decisively defeat the Russian invasion.”

“Has Putin's brutality finally hit a wall in Ukraine?” David Ignatius, Washington Post, 04.06.22. The author, a columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “Putin's whole life has converged on the catastrophic war in Ukraine. His delusional, messianic ideas of Russian history have fused with the disdain for the laws of war he displayed in the bloody campaign in Chechnya about two decades ago. The Russian leader fabricated the case for war in Ukraine and lied about his plans, and when he failed to achieve the easy victory he had expected, his army appears to have taken savage revenge on civilians.”
• “Has Putin finally hit a wall in Ukraine? Thanks to courageous Ukrainians and foreign reporters, we are seeing the butchery that his style of war produces—in Bucha, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Trostianets—places most of us had never heard of a few weeks ago but are now written in infamy, alongside Guernica and Srebrenica. ‘Unbearable’ was how French President Emmanuel Macron described the latest images. ‘A punch to the gut,’ said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Putin ‘is a war criminal,’ said President Biden.”

Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

“Battles may be tougher for Ukrainians as war shifts to wide open terrain in east,” Liz Sly and Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post, 04.09.22. The news outlet reports:

• “Ukraine is bracing for a new and potentially more challenging phase in its war to repel Russia's invasion as the battles shift east to new terrain that could give more of an advantage to the Russians. ... The wide open spaces will make it harder for the Ukrainians to run guerrilla operations as they did in the forests of the north and west and play to Russia's ability to muster large mechanized formations of tanks and armored vehicles.”
• “In one sign that Russia is trying to fix some of the problems it initially encountered, the Russians have appointed a general [Gen. Alexander Dvornikov] with extensive experience in Syria and the Donbas to oversee the war effort, marking the first time a single commander has taken control of the entire Ukraine operation, a senior U.S. official said Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.”
• “The new focus of the battle is expected to be the Donbas region ... The Russians are widely expected to attempt to push south from the Kharkiv area and north from the city of Donetsk to encircle the Ukrainian troops in Donbas, maneuvers that will play to Russia's numerical superiority in terms of tanks and armored vehicles.”

“How Kyiv was saved by Ukrainian ingenuity as well as Russian blunders,” Tim Judah, Financial Times, 04.10.22. The news outlet reports:

• “The Russian attempt to take Kyiv was defeated by a combination of factors including geography, the attackers’ blundering, Ukrainian ingenuity and modern arms—as well as smartphones: used for the first time in military history as weapons powerful in their own way as rockets and artillery. Moscow’s forces were thwarted, too, by pieces of foam mat. The mats prevent Russian thermal imaging drones from detecting human heat.”
• “Other failures in those first days compounded Russia’s overall defeat on the outskirts of the capital, said Serhii Kuzan, chair of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre, a think-tank. The Russians failed to knock out important parts of Ukraine’s military infrastructure, such as Kyiv’s air defense system, at the very beginning of the campaign ... Commanders of different units continued to follow their original orders, even though events were not going to plan, thus compounding problems which arose as Ukraine’s military rose to the challenge.”
• “The recent military reforms and a new generation of battle-hardened commanders, were central to the defense of Kyiv. Coordination between the army, Territorial Defense, the police and several other armed units of Ukraine’s security services worked well, in a way which they had failed to do in 2014.”

“Ukraine’s History Rhymes With Finland’s,” Jeffrey Meyers, The Wall Street Journal, 04.10.22. The author, a biographer, writes:

• “The Soviet invasion of Finland in November 1939 is strikingly similar to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia is now making many of the same mistakes as in its earlier military failure. Finland had been under Swedish and Russian rule until 1918; Ukraine didn’t break away from the Soviet Union until 1991. Both countries had recently gained their precious independence and were determined to fight for it.”
• “Khrushchev confessed: ‘All of us—and Stalin first and foremost—sensed in our victory a defeat by the Finns. It was a dangerous defeat because it encouraged our enemies’ conviction that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay.’ Even if Russia achieves a military victory in Ukraine, it faces another economic and political disaster.”

Punitive measures related to Ukraine and their impact globally:

“CEOs Beware: ‘Feel-Good’ Isolation of Russia Might Make Things Worse,” Molly M. Melin, War on the Rocks, 04.11.22. The author, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago, writes:

• “Westerners and Ukrainians have cheered U.S.-based corporations as they have chosen to suspend their operations in Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. ... Some global leaders have gone so far as to say they have a ‘moral imperative’ to isolate Russia as punishment for its aggression. As Russia’s invasion stumbles forward, will such corporate action help to pave the way for peace?”
• “After gathering data from and doing field research in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, I have found that one-sided corporate engagement can actually prolong a conflict and make it harder to negotiate a peace agreement. Private corporations, as profit-oriented organizations, ought to consider the business side of peace and violence. Any agreement will have implications for the future business environment. When firms act in a wartime setting, they become political actors. Thus, taking a stand in a conflict adds the preferences of the business sector to the complexities of wartime bargaining, often making it more difficult to build a peace agreement that all sides will accept.”
• “Corporations looking to promote more peaceful societies are better suited to engage in violence prevention by filling gaps in governance or, in wartime settings, acting as neutral champions of peace processes. If corporations want to really have an impact on peace and stability, they should invest in places that are at risk of conflict but where violence has yet to occur, or they should encourage negotiations without taking a side.”

“Foreign companies continue to prop up the Kremlin,” Jura Liaukonyte, The Washington Post, 04.08.22. The author, Dake family associate professor at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, writes:

• “While sanctions are a vital part of imposing financial ramifications on Russia, consumers and investors also play a key role by holding companies accountable for their relationships with Russia, even those that fall outside of official sanctions. Public pressure campaigns have proved effective, depending on whether there is long-term and deep commitment. Advocacy campaigns for divestment from South Africa in the 1980s, for instance, helped generate stigma around company decisions to operate there, and global pressure helped bring down the apartheid regime.”
• “Public pressure continues against companies active in Russia—and companies such as Danone, Decathlon and TotalEnergies recently increased the scope of their withdrawals from Russia. In the U.S. and across Europe, publics overwhelmingly support isolating Russia economically to end Russia's invasion and occupation of Ukraine.”
• “It remains to be seen whether public pressure for companies to exit Russia will continue. Our research suggests that rapidly shifting news cycles may leave a limited window for public pressure on companies that have only suspended or scaled back their Russian operations before the uptick in attention to revelations of Russian atrocities in places like Bucha fades.”

“Time for Even Tougher Sanctions on Russia: How the United States and Europe Can Target Energy and Finance,” Edward Fishman and Chris Miller, Foreign Affairs, 04.05.22. The authors, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and an assistant professor at the Fletcher School, write:

• “The economic sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia have been unprecedented in their speed, scale and scope ... But these sanctions are not yet comprehensive, nor are they imposing enough economic costs to have any hope of changing Russia’s short-term calculus.”  
• “Despite the damage caused by sanctions, the Russian government’s financial position is strong and the country’s current account is in surplus. This is because sanctions have left by far the biggest sector of the Russian economy—energy—basically untouched.”
• “The United States and the EU retain ample room for escalating sanctions. … The easiest step for sanctions escalation is expanding restrictions on Russia’s banking sector. … [I]t makes sense for the United States and the EU to… expand blocking sanctions and SWIFT bans to all major Russian banks.”
• “In parallel, the United States and the EU should expand their sanctions campaign to nonfinancial state-owned companies. … focusing on sectors that generate the most export earnings, including the energy sector. Blocking sanctions on Rosneft and Gazprom would greatly complicate these companies’ efforts to sell oil and gas on global markets.”
• “The most important step of all, however, is for the West to target Russia’s oil sales directly. …, there’s a ready playbook for sharply reducing a country’s oil sales: the one that the United States used against Iran since 2011. It consists of three components.”
  • • “First, the West—which accounts for about 55 percent of Russia’s oil sales—would reduce its own purchases substantially.”
    • “The second step is to require all payments for Russian oil to accrue in bank accounts outside of Russia.”
    • “The final step would be to ask governments around the world to slash their purchases of Russian oil every six months—or risk secondary sanctions.”

Ukraine-related negotiations:

“Putin’s Occupation Options for Ukraine: Keep or Trade?” Serhiy Kudelia, PONARS Eurasia, April 2022. The author, associate professor of political science at Baylor University, writes:

• “The only feasible alternative for Russia is now to use the newly seized territories as collateral in ongoing talks with Ukrainian leadership. Moscow could then offer to cede them back to Ukraine in return for Ukraine’s fulfillment of key terms. This approach allows Russia to avoid the costs of establishing its own governance structures and, instead, rely on local elected officials to ensure the continued provision of basic services.”
• “Without necessarily coopting local authorities, Russia could still dampen internal backlash by allowing municipal officials to continue working for their communities. Russia could expect collateral occupation to incentivize Ukrainian leaders to make costly concessions once they realize that Ukraine lacks capacity in the short-term to reclaim these territories militarily. In some ways, however, collateral occupation may also complicate the bargaining process.”
• “First, Putin already articulated his claim that the entire Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts should be part of the LNR/DNR. … Secondly, Russia’s capture of the southern parts of Ukraine fueled discussion of establishing a ‘land bridge’ between Crimea and the rest of the Russian state … Thirdly, ongoing occupation has already been accompanied by coercion of local officials, journalists and civic activists. The only oblast that Russia managed to occupy fully, Khersons’ka, also displayed the strongest will to fight Russian occupation and the greatest skepticism about the Novorossiya narrative as the basis for Russia’s territorial claims compared to the rest of southeast Ukraine.”
• “This suggests that a prolonged collateral occupation would require increasingly greater repressiveness on the Russian side. If such repressions would particularly entail widespread civilian abuse, as documented in Bucha, the prospects for a diplomatic settlement would dim further. Russia can then use collateral occupation for bargaining purposes only if the talks with Ukraine are finalized rapidly. If negotiations are stalled, Russia would have to shift its occupation strategy and face the uncertainty of rising costs from civil resistance and administrative hurdles to keep the territories it seized.”

“The Meaning of Ukraine’s Coming Neutrality. History offers clear examples of what neutral status means—and what it doesn’t,” Anatol Lieven, Foreign Policy, 04.04.22. The author, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes:

• “A treaty of neutrality for Ukraine would have to include certain essential conditions guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty and independence.”
• “The first is that Ukraine should have the complete ability to develop its own armed forces to defend itself. … Secondly, Ukraine must retain the right to develop close links with and eventually join the European Union. … Finally, a treaty of neutrality must include a commitment by all the signatories and members of the United Nations Security Council to Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity (with a proviso, suggested by Ukraine, that the status of the disputed territories of Crimea and the Donbas be subject to future negotiation while the use or threat of force by either side to resolve these disputes be banned).”  
• “If Russia can achieve an agreement that meets basic Russian conditions, it seems highly unlikely that any future Russian government would wish to repeat the awful experience of that war.”

“What can the US really do to protect civilians in Ukraine? George Beebe and Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 04.07.22. The authors, vice president at the Center for the National Interest and a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, write:

• “Western sanctions and military aid that are coupled to a pragmatic negotiating strategy stand a better chance of ending the bloodshed and reducing the chances of more atrocities against Ukrainians. What might that look like? Ukraine itself is proposing terms that, if backed by a combination of U.S. and European sticks and carrots, stand some prospect of success:”
  • “A Ukrainian treaty of neutrality, with guarantees from the members of the United Nations Security Council plus Turkey, Israel, Canada, Germany and Poland that they would defend Ukraine from future attack.”
  • “Ukraine remains free to join the European Union.”
  • “Russian troops withdraw completely from all the territories that they have occupied since invading Ukraine.”
  • “Ukraine and Russia hold bilateral negotiations on the status of Crimea and Sevastopol within the next fifteen years, promising to take no military action to resolve the issue.”
  • “The status of certain districts of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces (i.e., the ones forming part of the separatist Donbas republics before the war) to be discussed separately with Russia.”

“When do we lift the sanctions? Sooner or later a diplomatic compromise will have to be reached,” Anatol Lieven, The Critic, April 2022. The author, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes:

• “If in more than two weeks the Russian army has not been able to capture cities less than 20 miles from the Russian frontier, then the idea of them invading Poland or even the Baltic states, let alone Germany, is simply absurd.”
• “The Russian invasion is no longer aimed at unconditional Ukrainian surrender, but at putting pressure on the Ukrainian government to agree to more limited Russian terms. … This still leaves open the question of what these Western sanctions are for.”
• “It is of critical importance that Europe and the USA reject tying sanctions to regime change, and instead link them explicitly to a diplomatic process to end the war. Some of the basic terms of any possible peace settlement are already clear.”
• “Moscow will obviously have to withdraw its troops from all the new areas it has occupied, and guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. … Kyiv would have to sign a treaty of neutrality. … As for the status of Crimea and the Donbas, the only plausible way to resolve these disputes—if resolution is what outsiders actually want—is local democratic referendums under the supervision of the United Nations.”
• “Since Putin started his war, I’ve been told repeatedly that such terms are ‘unacceptable’ for Ukraine and the West; but unless you believe in the fantasies either of a complete Russian conquest of Ukraine or of unconditional Russian surrender in Ukraine then, whatever happens, a compromise peace will sooner or later be necessary. If not on these terms, then on what terms? And if not now, when? How good is your ulterior motive that Ukrainians should bleed and die for it?”

Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:

“Putin’s War in Ukraine Is a Watershed. Time for America to Get Real,” Charles A. Kupchan, The New York Times, 04.11.22. The author, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes:

• “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exposed a gap between America’s ideological aspirations and geopolitical realities that has been widening since the 1990s.”
• “It’s true that Moscow’s dismay at the prospect of Ukraine’s membership in NATO most likely is fed in part by nostalgia for the geopolitical heft of the Soviet days ... but it is also true that the West erred in dismissing Russia’s legitimate security concerns about NATO setting up shop on the other side of its 1,000-mile-plus border with Ukraine. … Indeed, Moscow’s objections to NATO membership for Ukraine are very much in line with America’s own statecraft, which has long sought to keep other major powers away from its borders.”
• “NATO’s open door policy has meanwhile encouraged countries in Europe’s east to lean too far over their strategic skis. … NATO encouraged Ukraine to beat a path toward the alliance ... Given its unenviable proximity to Russia, Ukraine would have been better off playing it safe, quietly building a stable democracy while sticking with the neutral status that it embraced when it exited the Soviet Union. ... NATO’s unwillingness to protect Ukraine has exposed a troubling disconnect between the organization’s stated goal of making the country a member and its judgment that defending Ukraine is not worth the cost.”
• “The next Cold War may well pit the West against a Sino-Russian bloc stretching from the Western Pacific to Eastern Europe ... The United States should exploit opportunities to put distance between Moscow and Beijing.”
• “Assuming an eventual peace settlement in Ukraine that permits the scaling back of sanctions, the Western democracies should remain open to cautious and selective cooperation with Moscow. Areas of potential collaboration include furthering nuclear and conventional arms control, sharing best practices and technologies on alternatives to fossil fuels, and jointly developing rules of the road to govern military and economic activity in the Arctic.”

“I Tried to Put Russia on Another Path: My policy was to work for the best, while expanding NATO to prepare for the worst,” Bill Clinton, Atlantic, 04.07.22. The former U.S. president writes:

• “Throughout it all, we left the door open for Russia’s eventual membership in NATO, something I made clear to Yeltsin and later confirmed to his successor, Vladimir Putin.”
• “I understood that renewed conflict was a possibility. But in my view, whether it happened depended less on NATO and more on whether Russia remained a democracy and how it defined its greatness in the 21st century. Would it build a modern economy based on its human talent in science, technology and the arts, or seek to re-create a version of its 18th-century empire fueled by natural resources and characterized by a strong authoritarian government with a powerful military?”
• “The failure of Russian democracy, and its turn to revanchism, was not catalyzed in Brussels at NATO headquarters. It was decided in Moscow by Putin. He could have used Russia’s prodigious skills in information technology to create a competitor for Silicon Valley and build a strong, diversified economy. Instead he decided to monopolize and weaponize those abilities to promote authoritarianism at home and wreak havoc abroad, including by interfering in the politics of Europe and the U.S. Only a strong NATO stands between Putin and even further aggression. We should therefore support President Joe Biden and our NATO allies in giving as much assistance to Ukraine, both military and humanitarian, as possible.”

“The Price of Hegemony. Can America Learn to Use Its Power?” Robert Kagan, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022. The author, Stephen and Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes:

• “Now that Putin has made his mistakes [in Ukraine], the question is whether the United States will continue to make its own mistakes or whether Americans will learn, once again, that it is better to contain aggressive autocracies early, before they have built up a head of steam and the price of stopping them rises.”
• “The United States would be better served if it recognized … its true interest in preserving the liberal world order. In the case of Russia, this would have meant doing everything possible to integrate it into the liberal order politically and economically while deterring it from attempting to re-create its regional dominance by military means.”
• “Americans should not lament the role they play in the world. The reason the United States has often found itself entangled in Europe, after all, is because what it offers is genuinely attractive to much of the world—and certainly better when compared with any realistic alternative. If Americans learn anything from Russia’s brutalization of Ukraine, it should be that there really are worse things than U.S. hegemony.”

“Why Putin Underestimated the West. And How to Sustain Its Newfound Unity,” Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, Foreign Affairs, 04.07.22. The authors, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, write:

• “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has proved to be a strategic miscalculation of historic proportions.”
• “How did Putin get things so wrong? In part, he clearly overestimated Russian military power and underestimated the Ukrainian resistance. But just as important was his misreading of the West.”
• “Putin’s failure to anticipate this unified response reflects a misunderstanding of how democracies operate. His flawed analysis is partially rooted in the reality that given that they are responsible to their people, democracies tend to be more concerned about problems at home than about threats gathering abroad. … But as Kennan noted, although democracies are slow to anger, they react with fury when their interests are directly threatened.”
• “The West’s unified front against Russia’s invasion must not be allowed to weaken or erode as the war progresses.”

“How Do We Deal With a Superpower Led by a War Criminal?” Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 04.10.22. The author, an opinion columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “How does the world have an effective U.N. with a country led by a war criminal on the Security Council, who can veto every resolution? The answer is that we don’t know. Which is another way of saying that we are entering a period of geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty the likes of which we have not known since 1989—and possibly 1939.”
• “It appears that Putin is gearing up for a two-pronged strategy. … First, he’s regrouping his ravaged forces and concentrating them on fully seizing and holding this smaller military prize. … Second, he’s doubling down on systematic cruelty—the continued pummeling of Ukrainian towns with rockets and artillery to keep creating as many casualties and refugees and as much economic ruin as he can.”
• “Ukraine and NATO, therefore, need an effective counterstrategy. It should have three pillars.”
• “The first is to support the Ukrainians with diplomacy if they want to negotiate with Putin—it’s their call—but also to support them with the best weaponry and training if they want to drive the Russian Army off every inch of their territory. … The second is to broadcast daily and loudly—in every way we can—that the world is at war ‘with Putin’ and ‘not with the Russian people’—just the opposite of what Putin is telling them. … And the third is for us to double down on ending our addiction to oil, Putin’s main source of income. … The hope is that the three together would set in motion forces inside Russia that topple Putin from power. ... Only the Russian people have the right and ability to change their leader.”

“We are at war with the West. The European security order is illegitimate,” Sergei Karaganov’s interview with Corriere della Sera, 04.08.22. In this interview, the head of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, says:

• “It was clear that Ukraine had become something like Germany around 1936-1937. The war was inevitable, they were a spearhead of NATO. We made the very hard decision to strike first, before the threat becomes deadlier. … We saw deep divisions and structural problems within Western societies, so we believed that anyway a war was more and more likely. So the Kremlin decided to strike first. Also, this military operation will be used to restructure Russian elite and Russian society. It will become a more militant-based and national-based society, pushing out non-patriotic elements from the elite.”
• “The West is failing and losing its position in the world, so it needs an enemy—for the moment we are the enemy. I don’t think the unity will last, Europe will not commit the suicide by choosing to lose its independence. I hope our European neighbors will recuperate from this dizziness of hatred.”
• “There is no question about that: we will be more integrated and more dependent on China. It has positive elements but overall we will be much more dependent.”
• “We will be victorious because Russians always are in the end. But in the meantime we will lose a lot. We will lose people. We will lose financial resources and we will become poorer for the time being. But we are ready to sacrifice in order to build a more viable and fair international system.”
• When asked “What are the elements to agree at least on a real ceasefire?” “First, Ukraine must be a completely demilitarized neutral country—no heavy arms, for whatever of Ukraine remains. This should be guaranteed by outside powers, including Russia, and no military exercises should take place in the country if one of the guarantors is against it. Ukraine should be a peaceful buffer, hopefully sending back some of the arms systems deployed in recent years.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“Why China Won’t Mediate an End to the Ukraine War,” Joe Nye, Project Syndicate, 04.01.22. The author, a professor at Harvard University, writes:

• “Is there any way to end this nightmare quickly? One possibility is for Chinese President Xi Jinping to see that he has a ‘Teddy Roosevelt Moment.’ After the brutal war between Russia and Japan in 1905, Roosevelt stepped in to mediate. He pressed hard for the parties to compromise and ultimately prevailed, thereby boosting America’s global influence and winning himself a Nobel Peace Prize.”
• “The question is whether Xi has the imagination and the courage to use it. The answer, thus far, is no.” 
• “While Putin’s invasion has upended world politics, it has not changed the underlying balance of power. If anything, it has slightly strengthened the U.S. position. NATO and America’s alliances have been reinforced, with Germany embracing a far more muscular defense posture than at any time in decades. At the same time, Russia’s reputation as a formidable military power has suffered a serious blow. Its economy is weakened, and its soft power lies in tatters. China can no longer tout the alliance of autocracies as proof that the East wind is prevailing over the West.”

“How Xi and Biden can broker peace in Ukraine,” Graham Allison and Fred Hu, The Washington Post, 04.08.22. The authors, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard Kennedy School and the founder and chair of Primavera Capital Group, write:

• “Could Chinese President Xi Jinping take a page from Roosevelt's playbook [of mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese war in 1905] to end the war in Ukraine? … Today, history has dealt Xi a much stronger hand — if he were to decide to play it.”
• “First, China has much thicker relations with both … Second, China's diplomatic position strengthens its hand as a mediator.”
• “China has strong incentives to end the war. The Russian invasion and ferocious U.S.-led Western response are upending the global economy. … A Chinese initiative for peace could also improve China's global standing.”
• “Deciding when the time is ripe for mediation also requires calculated judgment. But Russia's announcement of a pivot in its campaign, together with Zelensky's recent signals that he is willing to make significant concessions, suggests it may be soon.”
• “As Roosevelt put it at the signing of the peace treaty between Russia and Japan: ‘It's a mighty good thing for Russia and a mighty good thing for Japan.’ If Xi can take the lead to make peace in Ukraine, it would certainly be a mighty good thing for the world.”

“The Next Sino-Russian Split? Beijing Will Ultimately Come to Regret Its Support of Moscow,” Odd Arne Westad, Foreign Affairs, 04.05.22. The author, Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University, writes:

• “The new Cold War battle is between democracy and authoritarianism and between market-oriented and state-centered economics. But China and Russia today have very different political systems and very different economies.”
• “China is a communist state where the party rules in what is claimed to be a meritocratic manner on behalf of the people. … Russia is a personalized kleptocratic dictatorship that masquerades as a democracy. Both economies are increasingly controlled by the government, but that does not ensure any commensurability. On the contrary, the Cold War shows that state-directed economies are usually less compatible with each other than are capitalist economies. Moreover, in government-controlled economies, everything becomes political, often complicating bilateral relations further. In the Russian-Chinese case, profound cultural differences add to the picture.”
• “While Beijing sizes up its options, what should the West do now? Some actions are obvious. It should arm itself better, as Europe is now beginning to do. It should support the Ukrainian resistance. … It should strengthen relations with friends along Russia’s and China’s borders. … It should put maximum pressure on the Putin regime, short of engaging his forces in combat. … In communicating with Chinese officials, it should underline that Western policymakers see them as at least partly responsible for Putin’s misdeeds.”
• “Ramping up pressure against Russia while showing China how its close association with Putin works against stabilization of Sino-American or Sino-European relations is the best we can do. It might not be enough to save Ukraine from further destruction. But it may make great-power war less likely by convincing at least some Chinese policymakers that Putin’s interests and their own are not as easily compatible as both sides now seem to believe.”

“Security Cooperation in a Strategic Competition, RAND Corporation, 2022. The authors of the report write:

• “In this study, RAND researchers examined the current role of security cooperation efforts as a tool in the emerging strategic competition among the United States, Russia and China. Their main findings are as follows:” 
• “Neither China nor Russia has a formal doctrine or strategy for security cooperation.”
• “Russia's and China's security cooperation profiles are very different.”
• “Russia and China enjoy some comparative advantages over the United States with some clients.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Preventing nuclear war:

“Putin’s Doomsday Threat. How to Prevent a Repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Ukraine,” Graham Allison, Foreign Affairs, 04.05.22. The author, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard Kennedy School, writes:

• “[A] central lesson of the Cold War: if military forces of nuclear superpowers should ever be engaged in a hot war in which each is killing or seriously considering choices that could kill hundreds or thousands of the other, the escalation ladder from there to the ultimate global catastrophe of nuclear war can be surprisingly short. The textbook case is the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.”
• “Biden’s response to Putin’s challenge has demonstrated unblinking strategic clarity about American national interests. He understands the real risks that dynamics in Ukraine, if mishandled, could lead to nuclear war. He also knows that the United States has no vital interest in Ukraine. … Biden and his senior advisors have reflected on the fact that while U.S. strategic nuclear forces can erase Russia from the map, at the end of any such confrontation, the United States would also be gone.”
• “Among the many lessons from the Cuban missile crisis, one may prove particularly important to the Biden administration in the weeks ahead—particularly if Putin finds himself backed into a corner. As JFK said … ‘Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.’ If those were the only two options between which Putin had to choose, there is no guarantee that he would pick the former.”
• “[Kennedy] crafted an imaginative alternative that consisted of three components: a public deal in which the United States pledged not to invade Cuba if the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles, a private ultimatum threatening to attack Cuba within the next 24 to 48 hours unless Khrushchev accepted that offer, and a secret sweetener that promised the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey within six months after the crisis was resolved.”
• “In the complicated multilevel negotiations and diplomacy that will be required to create a similar off-ramp for Putin in Ukraine, the United States and its allies will need even more imagination … But as Biden and his team rise to this challenge, they can find inspiration in JFK’s finest hour.”

“Was Ukraine Wrong to Give Up Its Nukes? The Real Legacy of Kyiv’s Post-Soviet Disarmament,” Mariana Budjeryn, Foreign Affairs, 04.08.22. The author, a research associate with the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom, writes:

• “The United Kingdom and the United States should have taken a wider view of their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum and used it as a framework for more expansive defense cooperation with Ukraine over the last eight years. Such an approach would have reassured Ukrainians that they would not suffer for their decision to disarm and would have boosted the credibility of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. By visibly bolstering Ukraine’s defenses, especially its air and missile defenses, the United Kingdom and the United States would have raised the costs of a Russian invasion and possibly even deterred it.”
• “That ship has unfortunately sailed. But it is not too late to help Ukraine defend itself and, in so doing, defend the nonproliferation regime. Ukraine should have everything it needs in terms of armor, air and coastal defenses, aircraft, and intelligence support to successfully repel the Russian invasion and recover its territory. The United States and the United Kingdom should also communicate clear redlines—such as the use of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons—that if crossed would prompt them to reconsider their nonintervention stance.”
• “Much is riding on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, not least the value of nuclear weapons around the world. If Ukraine beats back the Russian invasion, then countries may come to place less stock in nuclear weapons, potentially paving the way for a world in which no one has the power to unleash nuclear Armageddon. If Ukraine falls to a rogue nuclear power while the United States and its allies stand by, deterred by the specter of nuclear escalation, nuclear renunciation will come to be seen as folly—even if, in Ukraine’s case, it was the only sensible choice.”

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

“The Myth of the Missing Cyberwar. Russia’s Hacking Succeeded in Ukraine—And Poses a Threat Elsewhere, Too,” David Cattler and Daniel Black, Foreign Affairs, 04.06.22. The authors, assistant secretary general for intelligence and security at NATO and principal analyst in the cyber threat analysis branch at NATO, write:

• “After a month of fighting, a host of prominent scholars and analysts of cyberconflict have reached the opposite conclusion. Russia’s activities in cyberspace, they claim, have been paltry or even nonexistent. This is a dangerous misdiagnosis. All available evidence indicates that Russia has employed a coordinated cyber-campaign intended to provide its forces with an early advantage during its war in Ukraine.”
• “On the day the invasion began, Russian cyber-units successfully deployed more destructive malware—including against conventional military targets such as civilian communications infrastructure and military command and control centers—than the rest of the world’s cyberpowers combined typically use in a given year. The cumulative effects of these attacks were striking.”
• “In the hours prior to invasion, Russia hit a range of important targets in Ukraine, rendering the computer systems of multiple government, military, and critical infrastructure sectors inoperable. … Cyber-enabled sabotage also knocked offline the satellite Internet … U.S. defensive cyberspace operations prevented further Russian attacks from disrupting the railway networks that were being used to transport military supplies and help millions of Ukrainian citizens evacuate.”
• “Indeed, Russian cyber-units have demonstrated their ability to succeed without a great deal of advance warning and direction, and despite the overarching difficulties hampering Russia’s military effort.”
• “Cyber-operations have been Russia’s biggest military success to date in the war in Ukraine. They will continue to provide Moscow a flexible tool capable of hitting a range of targets in Ukraine and beyond. Disregarding their unprecedented use will only leave policymakers and analysts unprepared for what’s next. A clear-eyed view of the role cyberwarfare has played so far in Ukraine and a better understanding of its place in modern warfare are imperatives for NATO’s collective security and for managing the risks of escalation looming in cyberspace.”

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“The US can help Putin lose the war — for Russia’s future,” Graham Allison, The Hill, 04.05.22. The author, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard Kennedy School, writes:

• “President Biden has a rare opportunity to hurt Vladimir Putin’s Russia and help Team USA at the same time. He has already announced a humanitarian initiative to allow 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to come to the U.S. As a complement to this program, the administration should create 100,000 special Scientific Freedom visas to attract superstars from Russia to come to the U.S. and show Putin and those who stick with him what free individuals in an open society can create.”
• “Since Putin came to power two decades ago, more than 2 million Russians have left the country in what has been called the ‘Putin Exodus.’ Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, hundreds of thousands of additional Russians have fled—many of whom are in the tech sector now trying to work remotely from neighboring countries. These include some of Russia’s great minds. The United States should actively recruit from this talent pool as vigorously as college basketball coaches recruit for their teams.”
• “As they see Putin’s push and America’s pull attracting the best and brightest of Russia’s next generation, we can hope that patriotic members of Russia’s governing class will conclude that Putin is an intolerable threat to Russia’s future.”

“The Boston Marathon’s Brainless Bigotry,” Bret Stephens, The New York Times, 04.10.22. The author, an opinion columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “In Wednesday’s decision by the Boston Athletic Association to prohibit runners from Russia and Belarus from competing in this year’s Boston Marathon, we recall the words of Otter, one of the frat house characters from ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’: ‘I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.’”
• “In announcing its decision—which applies to residents of both countries but not to Russians or Belarusians living abroad—the president of the B.A.A. explained in a news release that ‘we believe that running is a global sport, and as such, we must do what we can to show our support to the people of Ukraine.’ In an email, the association told me that a total of 63 athletes will be removed from the marathon and a five-kilometer race that precedes it.”
• “Superficially, the decision is of a piece with other recent cancellations of Russian performers: the removal of Valery Gergiev as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic for refusing to denounce the invasion of Ukraine; the nixing of the planned summer performances at London’s Royal Opera House of the Bolshoi Ballet, which has long been an arm of the Russian state; the Met’s cancellation of the soprano Anna Netrebko for her past association with Putin (though she subsequently did issue a statement denouncing the war).”
• “At least there’s the argument that Gergiev, Netrebko and the Bolshoi are associated with the Kremlin’s power structure. What about those 63 runners who just want to complete a famously challenging 26.2- mile course? I asked the B.A.A. what responsibility the banned athletes have for the policies of their government. No reply. I also asked whether exceptions would be made for runners who made public statements denouncing the invasion of Ukraine. No reply on this, either.”

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“How Silent Assent Made Bucha Possible,” Andrei Kolesnikov, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 04.06.22. The author, a senior fellow and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “In extreme situations, such as Putin’s ‘special military operation,’ any silence is for, not against. This is the case for collective responsibility. This is why the majority—the so-called public opinion—doesn’t want to believe in ‘fakes’ (i.e., the truth) and justifies Putin’s actions. Passive conformity is no less terrible than active and aggressive conformity. Collective lack of responsibility (‘it has nothing to do with me’) gives rise to collective responsibility. It’s collective voluntary blindness. The nation follows Putin like the blind leading the blind. When a nation becomes blind, deaf and dumb, Mariupol and Bucha become possible.”
• “This is what in Nazi times was termed Gleichschaltung: the cowardly adaptation of ordinary people to the political regime in which they exist. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas described it as the ‘voluntary switching to the prevailing ideology.’ The concept characterized the mass consciousness of the nation from 1933, when Hitler became chancellor. A similar phenomenon was seen under Stalin, and in the twilight years of the Soviet Union.”
• “Gleichschaltung explains the latest polls, which show that 80 percent of Russians support their country’s ‘special military operation.’ Not all of those who said they backed it really support the fighting, destruction and killing, of course. But in saying that they do, they have joined the silent ‘for,’ so we must take these numbers seriously.”
• “This explains both the rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium in support of the war, and the scenes in Bucha, as well as the 80 percent of people who support the war or are silent. ‘It’s nothing to do with us.’ ‘That’s just the way things have worked out.’ ‘We were told that there are Nazis there.’ ‘We were just carrying out orders.’ ‘We were afraid of losing our jobs.’ ‘We had a mortgage to pay.’”
• “And indeed, there was nothing they could do. Because they voluntarily gave up free elections and democracy: a tool for maintaining the nation’s conscience and ensuring the efficiency of the administration. Because they stopped thinking, and made endless compromises. And those compromises ended in the disaster of a general Gleichschaltung.”

“The Stain of Bucha Will Stay With Russians Forever, Yevgenia Albats, The New Times/The Moscow Times, 04.06.22. The author, chief editor of The New Times, writes:

• “The photographs of murdered civilians, their hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head and tossed like animals onto the street—that we will not forget, and no one will let us forget.”
• “Even if we investigate openly and completely, make public the findings and repent, we will not be saved from the shame. But at least our children can make the argument that ‘our parents committed terrible acts, but we investigated, admitted it and pray for forgiveness…’”
• “Bucha, Irpin, Motyzhin—we will now have to live with them forever.”

“Manufacturing Support for War: Russia’s Preppers, Fellow Travelers, and Activist Networks,” Marlene Laruelle and Ivan Grek, PONARS Eurasia, April 2022. The authors, co-director of PONARS Eurasia at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University and the founder of The Bridge Research Network, write:

• “Manufacturing support for [Russia’s Ukraine] war has been and will remain more difficult than the easy rally-around-the-flag effect of 2014. The Russian population has moved from the epic moment of Crimea’s annexation to a bitter ‘no other choice than resilience’ position. Western sanctions and actions cancelling Russian culture may generate a form of passive support that would benefit authorities. The latest Levada-Center survey, though its results should be interpreted with caution, shows 83 percent of Russians support Putin, confirming a dynamic of defensive consolidation. Russian political elites, after two weeks of shock and surprise, seem to have reconsolidated around the regime after recognizing that they have no future outside of Russia and no way to return to their previous way of life.”
• “But even among those ordinary citizens who support their president and the war—or, at least, the war as they know it—there are and will be nuances that Western policymakers must keep in mind when seeking to accurately assess the limits of Putin’s popular support. Crafting a more granular approach to Russian citizens, avoiding cancelations of everything Russian and talking to all those who have left Russia as a sign of protest will help prevent a new Iron Curtain from falling on Europe.”

“How Putin aged into a classic oil state autocrat,” Ruchir Sharma, Financial Times, 04.11.22. The author, chair of Rockefeller International, writes:

• “Putin is now often described as a uniquely Russian leader, eager to reclaim its imperial sphere of influence. Looked at from an economic standpoint, however, he is a universal type. My research shows that economic performance tends to be far more erratic under autocratic than democratic leaders, that it deteriorates the longer a leader hangs on and that it is particularly unreliable in oil states. Putin is all three: a long-serving autocrat in an oil-producing country.”
• “Looking back in 150 countries to 1950, autocracies account for 35 of the 43 cases in which a nation sustained gross domestic product growth of more than 7 percent for a decade. However, autocracies also account for 100 of the 138 cases in which a country grew a full decade at slower than 3 percent—a rate that feels like a recession in a developing country.”
• “In extreme cases, 36 countries have been whipsawed for decades by swings between years of rapid growth and years of negative growth: 75 percent of those were autocracies, many in petro states such as Nigeria, Iran, Syria and Iraq. Putin is at risk of putting Russia in this extreme class. Markets now signal a 99 percent chance the country will default on its debt, exactly the fate the early Putin worked so hard to prevent.”
• “Once a reformer, he now looks every bit the archetypal ageing autocrat. Similar economic crises are unfolding under longstanding strongmen from Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus to Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey to Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka.”

“Russia’s Tragic Failure to Reform Its Economy,” Howard J. Shatz, The Moscow Times, 04.07.22. The author, a senior economist at RAND, writes:

• “Throughout the past two decades, several reform plans have been introduced to Russians that would have raised productivity and growth, diversified the economy, and improved standards of living. Yet none were carried out to any great extent. Instead, the economy was laced with official corruption and dominated by inefficient and corrupt state-controlled enterprises run by close associates of Putin.”
• “Russia’s leaders have pursued wasteful import substitution and other forms of economic autarky, building barriers to exchange with the country’s richest and closest markets in Europe. Excessive dependence on price-volatile oil and gas has remained paramount to the Russian economy. The one laudable economic achievement has been macroeconomic stability, but the accumulation of vast foreign exchange reserves has come at the cost of lower investment and living standards, as well as lack of growth.”
• “Putin has been compared by some of his supporters and others to Peter the Great, who effected numerous reforms and expanded Russia’s territory and power.  While Putin may have emulated that historic ruler in expanding central and repressive power, his repression at home and his aggressive impulse abroad have soured ties with the wealthy and most technologically advanced economies of the world and set back his country by a generation, if not more. Kremlin leaders had a choice but decided unwisely. Perhaps a future Kremlin will establish a sound economy, build friendly relations with the West, and give the Russian people an opportunity for better lives.”

Defense and aerospace:

•  See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

“Could the Siloviki Challenge Putin?  What It Would Take for a Coup by Kremlin Insiders,” Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, Foreign Affairs, 04.11.22. The authors, investigative journalists, write:

• “To understand why the siloviki may be unlikely to turn against Putin, it is necessary to first understand the historic relationship between the military and the state. Historically, the Russian army has never posed much of a threat to the country’s rulers. Unlike in other heavily militarized societies, there have been very few successful or attempted military coups in Russia.”
• “In fact, quite apart from Putin’s systematic elimination of opposition forces, there is a deeper structural reason for the military’s inability to launch an effective challenge to the Kremlin. During the Soviet years, the secret police kept the army under its watchful eye. ... Since coming to power, Putin [gave...] the FSB wide latitude to monitor dissent within the military.”
• “If anyone is expecting members of the security services to rise up against Putin, however, they would do well to consider the negligible record of effective FSB dissent.”
• “The present generation of FSB officers, men in their 30s and 40s, have no memory of any president other than Putin and have built their careers under one director, Aleksandr Bortnikov, who has led the agency since 2007.”
• “Lacking political experience and a broad base of support, the siloviki—both the security services and the military—are hardly capable of producing and leading a coup d’état on their own. Nor are they likely to be swayed if popular sentiment in Russia turns dramatically against Putin. But the siloviki are ruthless in protecting their own interests, and there is one way, at least, that they might lose faith: if Russia’s economic troubles reach the point that its regional governors begin to break ranks with Putin and the economic order that has sustained Putin’s security state for more than twenty years begins to collapse, then the siloviki may well conclude that the Kremlin is losing control of the country and that their own future is threatened. In that case, they could step aside and let it happen—or even provide a hand.”

“Why is a Russian Intelligence General in Moscow Lefortovo Prison?” Andrei Soldatov, The Moscow Times, 04.11.22. The author, an investigative journalist, writes:

• “Col. Gen. Sergei Beseda, head of the Fifth Service of the FSB, is being held in Lefortovo prison. Beseda was placed under house arrest in March. Rumor had it that Beseda fell out with Putin – it was his Fifth Service of the FSB which was largely in charge of providing intelligence about the political situation in Ukraine and, more importantly, for cultivating political support for the Kremlin in Ukraine.”
• “The FSB tried to downplay Beseda’s arrest, presenting it as a mere questioning of the powerful general. But now I’ve learned from my sources that this ‘mere questioning’ didn’t save Beseda from a cell in Lefortovo Prison. This is a good indicator of how the relationship between Putin and his beloved secret services had changed by the second month of the war.”
• “The Fifth Service is the only department in Lubyanka that was created by Putin when he was director of the FSB. In 1998 Putin established a tiny directorate to supervise regional sections in charge of recruiting foreign nationals and gave the directorate a large mandate to spy in the former Soviet Union. In twenty years, it became the powerful Fifth Service, Putin’s chosen weapon to keep former Soviet countries in the Russian orbit. And it was run by one of Putin’s most trusted generals at Lubyanka, Sergei Beseda.”
• “The most likely explanation is that Beseda’s Fifth Service was also still in charge of maintaining official contacts with the CIA. Many people in Moscow and the Kremlin have been asking themselves why U.S. intelligence before the war was so accurate.”

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:

“‘Reissuing’ of the Russian Federation” The contours of Russian foreign policy for the period of hybrid war,” Dmitri Trenin, Russia in Global Affairs, March/April 2022.  The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “The priority tasks of Russia's foreign policy in the new conditions seem to be quite obvious:”

• “Strategic deterrence of the adversary - the United States and its NATO allies, preventing, despite the active hybrid confrontation with them, sliding into a nuclear war;”
• “Creating favorable conditions for Russia's self-development, relying primarily on internal resources and maintaining/reorienting its foreign economic relations during the outbreak of the economic war with the West; maximum assistance to Russian business within the country and in foreign economic activity;”
• “Development of close coordination and interaction with the main ally of the Russian Federation - Belarus; development of economic integration and strengthening of military cooperation with the countries of the EAEU and the CSTO;”
• “Further expansion of areas of practical interaction and strengthening of mutual understanding with the main strategic partners of the Russian Federation - China and India;”
• “Active development of ties with Turkey, Iran, and other countries of Asia, Latin America, and Africa that have not joined the sanctions regime against Russia;”
• “Gradual formation, together with partners in the SCO and BRICS, and other interested states, of the foundations of a new international financial architecture that does not depend on the U.S. dollar.”

• “The conditions of a hybrid war do not leave much room for cooperation with unfriendly states - the actual enemies of Russia. Nevertheless, it is worth maintaining, as far as possible, a situation of strategic stability with the United States and the prevention of dangerous military incidents with the United States and NATO countries.”
• “It is necessary to shift the focus of foreign policy information and propaganda from Western countries, where a strong anti-Russian consensus has been formed in societies, to non-Western countries, the development of meaningful, respectful dialogues, primarily with the societies of states that have taken a neutral position in the global hybrid war.”
• “We need a modern-sounding ‘Russian idea’ based on a set of values ​​that are organic for the people of Russia, and which includes a number of goals and principles: the sovereignty of states; the indivisibility of international security; justice based on law; co-development; maintaining cultural diversity; dialogue of civilizations.”

“We need to think about a Le Pen presidency: France’s far-right candidate could still defeat Macron, plunging NATO and the EU into turmoil,” Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 04.11.22. The author, chief foreign affairs columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “The fact that Le Pen is so close to the presidency testifies to her success in ‘detoxifying’ her image. ... [S]he has used the Ukraine war to distance herself from Vladimir Putin, claiming that her view of the Russian leader has ‘changed.’  But Le Pen’s previous open admiration for Putin and Donald Trump is still telling. Like them, Le Pen claims to represent the people against the elite and the nation against the ‘globalists.’ Her campaign slogan—'Give the French back their country’—has strong echoes of Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ and the Brexit campaign’s ‘Take back control.’”
• “The direct consequences of a Le Pen presidency for the EU would also be grave—indeed life-threatening.”
• “Le Pen is not just an enemy of the EU. She has also called NATO a ‘warmongering organization’ and pledged to take France out of its command structure. And she opposes energy sanctions on Russia—ostensibly because they would increase the cost of living in France. Putin has had a disastrous few weeks. But the voters of France could yet offer him some hope.”

“Putin’s long shadow hangs over an unpredictable French election,” Sylvie Kauffmann, Financial Times. 04.08.22. The author, editorial director and columnist at Le Monde, writes:

• “As petrol and food prices steadily increased, voters started to realize that Putin’s war in Ukraine was not just a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster, but one that would have an impact on their daily lives in France. One candidate understood this better than all the others: the far-right politician Marine Le Pen.”
• “The war has provided Le Pen with a magic weapon: the cost of living issue. She has deftly refocused her campaign, promoting herself as the protector of those most affected by price rises. Sanctions against Russia, she argues, should not hurt the French people. She has promised to suppress the value added tax on a basket of basic goods and to erase petrol hikes. Soon enough, the cost of living became the number one concern on voters’ minds. Le Pen’s poll numbers went up. Macron’s went down.”
• “The French president has already started to take aim at Le Pen’s admiration for the man in the Kremlin; his campaign is promoting a video clip of an election poster of her which, when torn up, exposes Putin’s face underneath. Meanwhile Le Pen is busy trying to justify her program, which advocates a ‘security alliance’ with Russia and the end of joint defense projects with Germany. ‘This was before the war,’ she replied in a television interview this week when asked about the co-operation with Russia. But sure enough, ‘in a few years’ time,’ she said, Russia will have to be reconnected to Europe to prevent it from falling into China’s arms — ‘just as Mr. Macron wanted.’”
• “Putin’s shadow looms large over the French political scene and the stakes are even higher. Le Pen’s election, following Viktor Orban’s re-election in Hungary, would provide the Russian leader with a trophy at least as valuable as a military victory in Donbas. His dream of destabilizing Europe would finally come true. There are two weeks left for France to wake up, debate the price of democracy and prove him wrong.”

“Macron faces the fight of his life to win France’s presidential election,” Tony Barber, Financial Times, 04.11.22. The author, Europe editor for the news outlet, writes:

• “A victory for Le Pen would have repercussions far beyond France. It would be a shattering blow to liberal democracy in the western world and plunge the 27-nation EU into turmoil just when the U.S. and its allies are locked in a struggle over Ukraine with President Vladimir Putin’s nationalist, authoritarian Russia.”

“Macron wins a reprieve—for himself and liberal democracy,” E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post, 04.10.22. The author, a columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “Most Western leaders—center-left and center-right—will be rooting hard for Macron for fear that Le Pen, whose party was supported financially by Russian banks, will threaten the European Union and unified Western support for Ukraine. Macron will surely use Le Pen’s ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin against her. After Russia invaded Ukraine, her campaign had to discard more than 1 million leaflets containing a picture of her smiling alongside Putin.”
• “By allowing Macron to cast himself as a global statesman, the Ukraine conflict was initially a boon to the president. But Macron used it to stay off the campaign trail, which offended many voters and fed his image for imperiousness, and his poll numbers fell.”

“Marine Le Pen’s surge raises the stakes for Europe’s Russia policy,” Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal, 04.10.22. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “Ms. Le Pen talks as if she thinks Mr. Putin should be a French ally, and she is deeply hostile to NATO. Her economics are a right-wing version of dirigiste government intervention hostile to free trade. But such politicians can prosper in times of economic insecurity and a war in Europe’s east. Mr. Macron will have to fight for a second term, and he can start be renewing his case for revitalizing the French economy.”

“The War in Ukraine Raises New Questions for EU Foreign Policy,” Giuseppe Famà and Lisa Musiol, International Crisis Group, 04.05.22. The authors, head of EU Affairs and EU Research and Advocacy Analyst at the International Crisis Group, write:

• “In response to the war in Ukraine, the EU has demonstrated that it can act decisively and unitedly, albeit in a major crisis with the potential to upend Europe’s own security. But behind the show of unity hides the inconvenient truth that Brussels has, more often than not, lacked the will and cohesion to act in its day-to-day foreign policy. It has been especially diffident in the periods of tension before crises break out. As the EU response to the war in Ukraine may allow Brussels to carve out a greater role in foreign, security and defense policy for itself, it should make sure that it surpasses this shortcoming and starts addressing the thorny questions that would come with such a role. It should take up this task with the same determination and unity it showed during the early days after Russia’s invasion.”

“How isolated is Russia, really?” Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, 04.08.22. The author, a reporter for the news outlet, writes:

• “The act of isolating Russia is not a true global trend. Though the United States, the European Union and other allies have imposed sanctions on Russian oligarchs and armed enemies of the Kremlin, most of the world's population lives in countries that have not.”
• “Only a relatively small number of different countries have imposed sanctions on Russia—just seven national governments have done so, along with the European Union which imposed sanctions as a bloc.”
• “Even in the United Nations votes, condemners did not represent a majority of the global population—abstainers and supporters of Russia did.”

Ukraine:

“Ukraine needs an ambitious new Marshall Plan from Europe,” Martin Sandbu, Financial Times, 04.10.22. The author, European economics commentator for the news outlet, writes:

• “Physically rebuilding what Putin has destroyed must wait until his war stops, but other aspects of  Europe is today in a position to do the same for Ukraine. We should not wait for the country to be at peace: reconstruction must be prepared now. Last week, the Centre for Economic Policy Research think-tank published an excellent blueprint for just such a plan.”
• “They argue for six principles. First, prepare Ukraine to qualify for EU membership. Second, manage reconstruction funds and planning through a new EU-sponsored body. Third, leave sufficient control in Ukraine’s hands. Fourth, encourage inflows of both foreign capital and technology. Fifth, use grants rather than loans. And sixth, ‘build back better’ — align reconstruction with a zero-carbon economy.”
• “George Marshall’s stated goal in his 1947 speech was “to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist”. The unstated aim was to protect European countries from an imperialist dictator in the Kremlin. The plan’s requirement for recipients to remove economic barriers spurred the integration that became the EU. All three outcomes are today in the balance for Ukraine. It is time for the EU to pay it forward.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Saving Central Asia from Putin’s Embrace,” Gregory Gleason, War on the Rocks, 04.08.22. The author, professor of security studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, writes:

• “Western partners should encourage rather than fight this trend. Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are too dependent and too vulnerable to be expected to act independently. But their economic activity is so marginal that it will not weaken the sanctions. Turkmenistan can be expected to retain its ‘positive neutrality.’ Georgia’s position regarding Russia is unambiguous. The states that matter are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The Kremlin is making a simple argument, in essence: ‘join us completely to help offset sanctions or your economy won’t survive.’ But key people in these countries know the sanctions are ‘pro-Ukraine,’ not ‘anti-Russian.’ They know the sanctions are not against them, and they don’t want to be dragged into the Kremlin’s slipstream. That is exactly why they should be helped.”