3 Ideas to Explore

1. Former high-ranking American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad believes four critical issues would need to be tackled if there were a “push for serious negotiations toward a diplomatic settlement” of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. First, the issue of territory would need to be resolved. One option for doing so is to have Russia pull back to areas it controlled before the start of the 2022 war while “the remaining areas of Ukraine now occupied by Russia will be administered by a UNSC-mandated administration,” and Ukraine would pledge not to use force to try to liberate them, according to Khalilzad’s proposal. Second, while membership in NATO is presently not an option, Ukraine can be provided with “robust” security guarantees, which could include a “U.S.-Ukraine defense treaty of the kind” the U.S. is considering with Saudi Arabia, according to Khalilzad’s roadmap for peace in NI. Third, there must be an internationally-assisted reconstruction of Ukraine, which has suffered “colossal damage.” Fourth, Russia’s relations with the West would have to be normalized. “For Russia, an essential motivation in agreeing to any Ukrainian settlement will be the benefits of future relations with the West,” according to the ex-diplomat.
2. Since last Fall, Ukraine’s armed forces have been pushed steadily backward and things have become “very difficult” for the ZSU. This follows from Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi’s interview with The Guardian. In the interview, Syrskyi acknowledged that the Ukrainian forces are outgunned and outmanned, but insisted Russia’s recent creeping advances were nothing more than local gains. However, some Ukrainians professionally tracking the conflict are worried. “The situation is critical, as the pace of the enemy’s advance is worrying,” Yuri Butusov, a Ukrainian military journalist, was quoted as saying in a NYT piece entitled “Russia, adapting tactics, advances in Donetsk and takes more Ukrainian land.” According to WP’s analysis of recent “steady gains” by Russian units in eastern Ukraine, these gains are occurring while the Ukrainian army continues to lack “desperately needed reinforcements.” While admitting difficulties, Syrskyi noted positive developments, such as the effective use of attack drones by his forces and the pending arrival of F-16s, which he expects to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses. However, it remains unclear how much impact these warplanes might have, given that only about 10 of them would be flying combat missions this year, according to NYT.
3. “There is a difference between the political use to which Putin is putting nuclear threats … and what we see in terms of the military nuclear establishment in Russia taking action,” Rose Gottemoeller said in an interview with BAS. “We do not see the readiness of Russian nuclear forces really being raised in any way, do not see any changes in the status of Russian nuclear forces that would give rise to alarm, [and we do not see] that they are getting closer to pursuing some kind of nuclear use scenario,” the former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control said. In the interview, Gottemoeller predicted a “long period when we’ll have very little trust or confidence in the Russians,” but argues that it’s still “important to think about nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons arms control as being associated with constraining and ensuring that an existential threat to humanity does not get out of hand.” The interview was published one day after Putin threatened to end Russia’s moratorium on the deployment of medium-range nuclear capable missiles, which Russia claims to be observing, if the U.S. deploys long-range precision missile systems in Germany.

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda

Nuclear security and safety:

“The Non-Proliferation Problem,” Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Project Syndicate, 07.09.24.

• Some theorists have long been skeptical about efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, even arguing that proliferation can be a stabilizing force. If the horrors associated with nuclear weapons are one reason why there have been no wars between great powers since 1945, they argue, perhaps the same effect can be replicated at the regional level.
• Until recently, Russia had a long history of supporting non-proliferation. … Now that Vladimir Putin is becoming dependent on North Korean military supplies to sustain his war in Ukraine, however, he has ended Russia’s cooperation on non-proliferation.
• [W]ith Russia relying on Iranian drones, China relying on Iranian oil, and Donald Trump having foolishly scrapped the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, international cooperation on non-proliferation has broken down here, too. … Moreover, some believe (probably mistakenly) that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if the Ukrainians had kept the nuclear weapons that they inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed. If this assumption gains traction, the prospects for non-proliferation will worsen.
• Following the oil crisis of 1973, the conventional wisdom was that the world would need to turn to nuclear energy. … Forecasts at the time suggested that some 46 countries would be reprocessing plutonium by 1990. If so, the world would be awash in weapons-grade material, and the risk of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism would increase catastrophically.
• As many other countries quietly explored their options [for nuclear energy], it appeared as if a nuclear-arms race was underway. Fortunately, it never materialized. US President Jimmy Carter pursued a non-proliferation policy that succeeded in slowing the momentum. Only two additional countries have developed the bomb since the 1970s, rather than the 25 that Kennedy feared.
• Even if proliferation cannot be stopped, it can be slowed, and that can make all the difference.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

“The Uncomfortable Reality of Russia and Iran’s New Defense Relationship,” Hanna Notte and Jim Lamson, War on the Rocks, 07.24.24.

• Given the mix of drivers of and weakened constraints on Iran-Russia cooperation, the U.S. playbook from the 1990s and 2000s — which included diplomatic pressure, the threat and use of sanctions, and the offer of incentives — will be far less effective today to confront the defense relationship. The further institutionalization of Iranian-Russian defense ties will additionally complicate efforts to undermine or unwind the relationship through traditional instruments. The best Washington and its partners can therefore do is to disrupt cooperation on the margins and prevent it from materializing in the most sensitive areas.
  • First, they should strengthen trade sanctions on both countries and export controls, especially those that target critical “chokepoint” technologies and their suppliers.
  • Second, they should improve intelligence collection and their use of “strategic disclosures” on Iranian-Russian cooperation, especially those that highlight negotiations of concern, transfers that are planned or underway, and the key organizations and officials involved.
  • Third, the United States and its partners should prepare for enhanced Iranian and Russian capabilities by improving their own air and missile defenses.
  • Lastly, Washington should engage Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and possibly China, to exert quiet pressure on Moscow to refrain from giving certain technologies to Iran. 

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• No significant developments.

Military and security aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

“‘I know we will win – and how’: Ukraine’s top general on turning the tables against Russia,” Luke Harding, The Guardian, 07.24.24. 

• Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi is Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief. His unenviable task is to defeat a bigger Russian army. ... [Russia’s] original 100,000-strong invasion force has grown to 520,000, he said, with a goal by the end of 2024 of 690,000 men. The figures for Ukraine have not been made public.
• “When it comes to equipment, there is a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 in their favor,” he said. Since 2022 the number of Russian tanks has “doubled” – from 1,700 to 3,500. Artillery systems have tripled, and armored personnel carriers gone up from 4,500 to 8,900. “The enemy has a significant advantage in force and resources,” Syrskyi said. “Therefore, for us, the issue of supply, the issue of quality, is really at the forefront.”
• It is this man and machine superiority that explains recent events on the battlefield. Since last autumn Ukraine’s armed forces have been going steadily backwards. ….The Russians, …are…. seizing fields and villages in the eastern Donbas, using airdropped bombs to blast a path forward. They have gobbled up territory north-west of Avdiivka, towards the garrison town of Pokrovsk, and besieged the hilltop settlement of Chasiv Yar. In May Russian forces opened a new front in the Kharkiv region, storming the city of Vovchansk. Ukraine anticipated this attack. Seemingly it couldn’t stop it.
• Syrskyi admitted things were “very difficult.” “The Russian aggressor attacks our positions in many directions,” he said. Could Russia’s advance be halted? “Yes, of course. First of all, it depends on our brave soldiers, our officers,” he said. Quite frequently “resilient and heroic” Ukrainian units defeated bigger enemy groups, he said.
• Overall, Syrskyi sought to put recent setbacks in context. He described Russia’s creeping victories as “tactical” ones – local gains rather than an “operational” breakthrough, such as the capture of a major city.

“Russia, adapting tactics, advances in Donetsk and takes more Ukrainian land,” Francesca Ebel and Serhii Korolchuk, WP, 07.27.24. 

• Russian forces have mounted an arc of attack in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, pushing through intense summer heat in a bid to extend Moscow's steady territorial gains and capture the city of Pokrovsk, a key transit junction.
• Putin's troops are now pressing along an arc of three key points:
  • Chasiv Yar, just west of the city of Bakhmut, which Russia captured in spring 2023;
  • the small industrial city of Toretsk; and
  • in rural terrain west of Ocheretyne, a village on strategic high ground seized in May after Russian forces advanced northwest from Avdiivka, which they occupied in February.
• While there is intense fighting elsewhere, including in Kupyansk in the northeast and on some spots along the southern front, the offensive in Donetsk represents a notable shift in tactics by Russian commanders who appear to have learned from past mistakes and are now achieving steady gains for the Kremlin, also threatening the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka, which sits on a strategic highway.
  • "This new push in the Donetsk region is very interesting as it indicates that there is wider operational planning change," said Karolina Hird, an analyst at ISW.... "Russian operational commanders are now learning how to do simultaneous and mutual reinforcing offensive efforts and maintain constant pressure on Ukrainian resources."
• A new mobilization law adopted by Ukraine's parliament has yet to provide desperately needed reinforcements, as new conscripts are still undergoing training, and some draft-eligible men have fled the country or are hiding at home to avoid conscription.
• Last week, Russian forces managed to advance four miles west from Ocheretyne, forcing the retreat of a Ukrainian infantry brigade holding the line in the village of Prohres. Ukraine's 47th Mechanized Brigade was forced into a "chaotic retreat" due to a lack of soldiers.

“Russia Punches Through Weakened Lines in Eastern Ukraine,” Constant Méheut, NYT, 07.28.24. 

• Russian forces have made rapid gains in the eastern Donetsk region over the past week or so, capturing a few villages and closing in on the city of Pokrovsk, one of the main Ukrainian defensive strongholds in the area.
  • Russian forces are now only a dozen miles from Pokrovsk after Moscow’s troops pushed along a railway line and advanced about three miles toward the city, according to open-source maps of the battlefield based on combat footage and satellite imagery. The Russian progress contrasts sharply with the slow but steady gains that Moscow had made so far this year in the Donetsk region, sometimes measured in only a few hundred yards a week.
    • Military analysts say the swift gains reflect Moscow’s improved ability to exploit cracks in Ukrainian defensive lines, which have been thinned by manpower shortages and strained by relentless Russian attacks along a more than 600-mile front.
• “Russians probe the lines to see if a battalion holds or retreats,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst at the government-run National Institute for Strategic Studies in Ukraine. Once they “find weakened battalions and brigades,” he added, “they press them no matter the losses.”
  • An example was Russia’s capture last week of the eastern village of Prohres. DeepState, an analytical group with close ties to Ukraine’s army, said the capture followed what it described as a chaotic Ukrainian retreat, as soldiers north of the village were encircled by the Russians and escaped only after the troops ignored their commander’s order not to break out of the encirclement, DeepState said. The hasty retreat appears to have allowed Russian forces to quickly capture more land.
• “The situation is critical, as the pace of the enemy’s advance is worrying,” Yuri Butusov, a Ukrainian military journalist said.

“As F-16s Arrive, Ukraine Still Faces Steep Challenges in the Skies,” Marc Santora and Eric Schmitt, NYT, 07.28.24.

• Ukraine’s strategy was to counter Russia in the air war with the aid of long-coveted F-16 fighter jets from the West that it says it will deploy this summer.  But the assaults on Ukrainian air bases underscore Russia’s determination to limit the impact of the planes even before they enter the fight. They also highlight the challenges Ukraine faces as it prepares to deploy the sophisticated aircraft for the first time.
• Ukraine is hoping the F-16s, which come with powerful electronic warfare systems and an array of other weapons, can be used in coordination with other Western weapons like Patriot air-defense systems to expand the area deemed too dangerous for Russian pilots to fly. They also hope the jets will add another layer of protection for Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure from relentless attacks.
• But a shortage of trained pilots and a limited number of jets will constrain the immediate impact, experts say. “Russia has had so much time to fortify its defenses, especially along the frontline areas,” said Hunter Stoll, a defense analyst at RAND, a research organization. “The F-16s and their pilots will face stiff resistance from Russian air defenses, both on the ground and in the sky.”
  • About 20 airmen in the various U.S., Dutch and Danish training pipelines are expected to be ready this year, according to U.S. officials. Air commanders say they typically allot at least two pilots per aircraft — for crew rest, training and other matters. So that would allow Ukraine to fly only about 10 F-16s, at most, on combat missions this year. Another major limiting factor, these officials say, is the number of trained maintenance and support personnel on the ground to keep the F-16s flying.¹ Contrast this with earlier commentary, in which F-16s have been described as a “potential game-changer.”*

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• “Russia, refocusing on Donetsk, takes more Ukrainian land,” Francesca Ebel and Serhii Korolchuk, WP, 07.27.24. 

Military aid to Ukraine:

“The Right Way to Quickly End the War in Ukraine. Instead of Abandoning Kyiv, Washington Should Give It the Tools to Win,” Jakub Grygiel, FA, 07.25.24. 

“Ukraine's Plan to Survive Trump,” Simon Shuster, Time, 07.24.24. 

• Officials in Kyiv have spent months gaming out what Donald Trump’s victory could mean for their war against Russia, and many have come away worried that his history of deference toward autocrats like Vladimir Putin, and his transactional approach to foreign affairs, would add up to disaster for Ukraine. But not all of their predictions are as dire as one might expect.
• “The first eight or ten months, basically all of 2025, would be very hard,” a senior Ukrainian official tells TIME, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Trump would be likely to slash aid to Ukraine and push Zelensky to accept a peace deal skewed heavily in Russia’s favor. Like previous U.S. presidents, Trump could also seek a reset in relations with Vladimir Putin at the start of his term.  “But over time he will see that Putin cannot be trusted,” the Ukrainian official says. More important, he adds, Trump will eventually realize “that Putin can’t care less about Trump and his agenda. That’s when we could start to see some advantages from Trump. He will not want to be played by Putin.”
• In trying to win over Trump and Vance, the Ukrainians are also counting on help from their allies in Europe and from the U.S. military industrial complex, which stands to earn enormous profits from the continued production of weapons for Ukraine. “They can explain to [Trump] why this benefits many people in America, especially in red states,” says the senior official. “It creates jobs. It supports the economy.”

Punitive measures related to Russia’s war against Ukraine and their impact globally:

“The Illicit Flow of Technology to Russia Goes Through This Hong Kong Address,” Aaron Krolik and Paul Mozur, NYT, 07.25.24.

• From a nondescript seventh-floor office at 135 Bonham Strand near Hong Kong’s financial district, at least four companies are operating with a shadowy mission: facilitating the illicit trade of Western technology to Russia.
• [T]he companies are a crucial link in a chain connecting U.S. research laboratories to Chinese factories, Russian arms makers and the battlefields of Ukraine — and a sign that the U.S. government and tech giants cannot control where their technology goes.
• Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, nearly $4 billion of restricted chips have poured into Russia from more than 6,000 companies, including those at Hong Kong’s 135 Bonham Strand, according to a Times analysis of Russian customs data, corporate records, domain registrations and sanctions data.
• Even as the West sought to cut off access to semiconductors through trade restrictions, Russia established such a robust parallel supply chain that it imported almost the same number of critical chips in the last three months of 2023 that it did in the same period in 2021, according to the analysis of Russian customs data.
• Russia’s technology imports begin with U.S. chipmakers selling their products to international distributors. The chip companies are not legally required to track where their goods go from there. Russia has then turned to the international distributors — which are in Hong Kong, China, Turkey, India, Serbia and Singapore, according to The Times’s analysis — to maintain a steady supply of tech.
• With limited domestic manufacturing capacity, the United States has little option but to continue sending chips into China for manufacturing, packaging and assembly. “The tide has shifted,” said Elina Ribakova, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank. “We have lost control of chip production.”

“Western companies are still fuelling Putin’s war machine,” Elina Ribakova, FT, 07.24.24. 

• Russia’s latest horrendous attack on a children’s cancer hospital in Kyiv earlier this month has raised serious questions about how the country can produce missiles and drones at scale using western components.
• US companies have a responsibility not to violate export control regimes. This involves preventing Russia from accessing certain products and restricting almost all exports to Russia for military end-use or by military end-users. Companies must invest more effort into strengthening due diligence across their distribution networks to comply with export controls. When this fails, only multibillion-dollar penalties for export control evasion, similar to those faced by banks for money laundering and terrorist financing, might change corporate risk-reward calculations.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

“Ending the War in Ukraine: A Potential Roadmap for Peace,” Zalmay Khalilzad, NI, 07.24.24. 

• If the Trump-Vance ticket prevails, there is likely to be a push for serious negotiations toward a diplomatic settlement.
• Any peace initiative will have to deal with four critical issues and bridge some very significant differences between the parties and other stakeholders.
• Territory. … One option that some experts believe might work is the following: a) Russian forces pull back to areas Moscow controlled before the start of the 2022 war, i.e., Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk. b) Ukraine agrees not to use force to liberate these areas but to seek the resolution of their ultimate future through negotiation and peaceful means only. c.) the remaining areas of Ukraine now occupied by Russia will be administered by a UNSC-mandated administration (a kind of protectorate) for ten years or so. At the end of that period, an internationally administered referendum would determine whether the people of these areas choose to rejoin Ukraine, join Russia, or have another option.
• A robust security guarantee for Ukraine. … Ukraine and the alliance might be willing to consider some defined buffer zones and distances that NATO and Russian combat forces shall maintain from the Ukraine-Russia border.  One other option is likely to appeal to a future Trump administration: the EU provides guarantees by signing a security treaty with Ukraine, a future member of the entity. … There is also the option of a U.S.-Ukraine defense treaty of the kind we are considering with Saudi Arabia.
• Ukraine’s reconstruction. Ukraine has suffered colossal damage.
• Russia’s diplomatic standing. For Russia, an essential motivation in agreeing to any Ukrainian settlement will be the benefits of future relations with the West and particularly with the United States.

“Ukraine will have a just peace or no peace at all,” Editorial Board, FT, 07.27.24. 

• The prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House and his nomination of JD Vance, a hardline isolationist, as his running mate have raised the difficult question of what price is it worth paying to bring peace to Ukraine. Trump has boasted, ludicrously, that he could end Vladimir Putin’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine overnight, without explaining how.
• For Kyiv to accept any deal — and for it to stick — its allies would have to offer meaningful security guarantees that would dwarf the support they have provided so far. Are they ready to do so? Given the hesitation in Washington and other capitals over arming Ukraine during the past two and a half years, promises of further weaponry will not suffice.
• Ukraine will be in a better position next year to go on the offensive, and improve its negotiating position. Indeed, Kyiv’s friends must maintain the resolve to tilt the war more to Ukraine’s advantage. 

“China Seizes Chance to Play Peacemaker in Ukraine Before US Vote,” Bloomberg News, 07.29.24. 

• President Xi Jinping is stepping up efforts to position himself as a peacemaker for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite growing criticisms from the US and Europe that Beijing is propping up the Kremlin’s battlefield efforts.
• With both Moscow and Kyiv facing pressure at home and abroad to find a way to end the war, China last week hosted its first senior official from Ukraine since the conflict began in 2022. While Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba the time was “not yet ripe” for peace talks, he said both sides were signaling a willingness to negotiate.
• Beijing followed up that outreach on Sunday by dispatching its special envoy Li Hui to Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia to “build up conditions to resume peace talks” — countries that have also skipped imposing US-led sanctions on Russia.
• China hasn’t shifted position but sees a window to establish itself as a more powerful player, said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, adding that negotiations could take place as soon as this year.... “Beijing wants its own share of the success and to position itself to play a constructive role and be celebrated for that.”
• Beijing’s outreach comes after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government announced it was open to Russian leader Vladimir Putin attending a second peace summit it’s targeting before the US vote in November — a condition for Beijing’s attendance.
• Zelenskiy [had] stressed Beijing could become a “mediator” with the US in ending the war.
• “Right now, the optics suggest Beijing is using Ukraine for its own purposes rather than offering any practical steps toward peace,” said Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

“Can Ukraine Force Russia to Peace?” Alexander Zhelenin, Republic.ru, 07.29.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• Recent statements by Zelenskyy himself confirmed [the renewal of] Kyiv’s contacts with Moscow. At a meeting with the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “This is the first step toward peace… We all understand that we must complete this path as quickly as possible so as not to lose human lives.”²  Shortly before this, in an interview with the BBC, the Ukrainian president expressed himself even more clearly: “…we can end the hot stage of the war. We can try to do this by the end of this year.”
• Another important admission Zelenskyy has made in an interview with the BBC: “This does not mean that we need to recapture all the territories in battle. I believe that this can be achieved through diplomacy.” In other words, the Ukrainian president realizes that a territorial compromise with the aggressor is possible. ... At the same time, Zelenskyy immediately adds the thesis he has repeated time and again that negotiations with the Russian Federation should be conducted “from a position of strength.”
• Let us also note ... that Zelensky did not rule out even direct negotiations with Putin at the next peace summit, provided that Russia is ready to discuss the Ukrainian ceasefire plan. “And it makes no difference whether it is Putin or not. If the world is united around Ukraine, we will talk with those who decide everything in Russia,” the head of the Ukrainian state clarified. The person who “decides everything in Russia” is, of course, no secret to anyone.
• Putin wants peace. Not because he has become smarter or kinder. He is simply running out of resources to wage this war. 

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

“The real danger that Trump would pose for Ukraine,” Gideon Rachman, FT, 07.29.24.

• Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate for the presidency, came out in favor of a neutral Ukraine ... On the surface, a neutral Ukraine sounds like an interesting option. ... However, the Biden administration remains wary of Russia’s demand for a neutral Ukraine, believing that Vladimir Putin’s ambitions would not stop there. ...There is no indication that Russia has backed down from [its] maximalist demands.
• The biggest obstacle to peace is not Ukraine’s deep reluctance to make territorial concessions — real though that is. It is the fact that Russia would still demand a settlement that involved the subjugation of the 80 per cent of Ukraine that it did not control.   That is why security guarantees for Ukraine would be central to any future peace talks.
• Admitting Ukraine to NATO, while Russia still occupies some of the country’s territory, would be tricky. West Germany during the cold war could be a model. But West German membership of NATO was backed by the stationing of significant numbers of US troops on West German soil. There is no guarantee that the US Congress would agree to deploy American troops in Ukraine.
• Another idea that has powerful advocates in Washington is the “Israel option” ... but even the porcupine option would fall foul of Russia’s demand for a neutered Ukraine.
• Putin seems to be waiting on events in America. The Biden administration will not agree to the neutering of Ukraine. But a Trump-Vance administration might. As long as the US election result remains in doubt, Putin has every incentive to keep fighting.

“Should Ukraine join NATO?” Victoria Somoff et al., The Guardian, 07.27.24. 

• Assuming that appeasing Russia’s demands will resolve the war, or somehow de-escalate it, is naive. Impunity for Russia’s war crimes in Syria, Georgia and Ukraine has only emboldened the Kremlin. The question of Russia’s escalation is thus not “if”, but “how far?” How far will its escalation be allowed to go before democracies muster the political backbone to halt it? Western democracy must stand in unity and determination against the growing threat to global security represented by the Kremlin.
• There is still time for the most powerful military alliance in the world to make a historically and politically justified decision to neutralize the existential threat posed to Ukraine by Russia. Sacrificing Ukraine in the interest of avoiding a NATO-Russia war only increases the likelihood of such war, and of further wars, as Russia will conclude that NATO’s vaunted article 5 may be negotiable, if a broader war can be averted.
• Inviting Ukraine to join NATO would mark a definitive step away from the politics of appeasement and back to the rule of international law and protection of human rights. A decision to extend security guarantees to Ukraine would not only safeguard the Ukrainian state, via the only means yet shown to be successful, but would also reassert NATO and the western democracies as effective political agents on the world stage.

“How inevitable is the ‘icebreaker race’?” Andrei Kortunov, RIAC, 07.29.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

• On July 11, 2024 ... the United States, Canada and Finland announced the creation of a new trilateral consortium, the Ice-Breaker Collaboration Effort (ICE), with the clear intention of challenging Russia and China in the construction and deployment of next-generation icebreakers.
• By launching ICE, Washington is pursuing the goal of radically changing the balance of power in the North: the White House hopes to build up to 70-90 modern icebreakers for various purposes over the next 10-15 years.
• Unlike the West, Russia has been consistently implementing a long-term and very large-scale program for the construction and subsequent use of icebreakers: it has more than 40 icebreaking vessels of various classes at its disposal, seven of which are equipped with nuclear propulsion plants.
• For Russia, the construction of icebreakers is not a matter of geopolitical choice or great power status, but a social and economic necessity. Of the four million people in the world who currently live north of the Arctic Circle, about half are Russian citizens.
• The current Arctic reality is that the United States today simply has no compelling economic or social reason to urgently build a large and expensive fleet of new icebreakers ... the emerging ICE alliance has a more obvious geopolitical and geostrategic rationale than an economic one. In all likelihood, this is ultimately not about Arctic development per se, but about confronting Moscow and then Beijing in the struggle for control of the vast Eurasian Arctic ocean space. 

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• "NATO Needs Better Bridges — and Bulwarks," Editorial Board, Bloomberg, 07.25.24.

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

“Interview: Rose Gottemoeller on the precarious future of arms control,” Laurel Baker, BAS, 07.29.24.

• There is a certain stability—often, it seems like a tenuous stability—to the fact that the United States and Russia, which are the two biggest nuclear powers, each have around 4,000 warheads, of which roughly 1,500 are deployed.
• I do think that there is a difference between the political use to which Putin is putting nuclear threats at this moment, rattling the nuclear saber, and what we see in terms of the military nuclear establishment in Russia taking action. This is something that [U.S. President Joe] Biden and his administration have [said] several times—that we do not see the readiness of Russian nuclear forces really being raised in any way, do not see any changes in the status of Russian nuclear forces that would give rise to alarm, [and do not see] that they are getting closer to pursuing some kind of nuclear use scenario.
• [That Moscow has justified non-participation in the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, START II, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and other treaties on grounds that the United States was non-party or non-compliant] ... is another case of the pot calling the kettle black.
• I’m concerned that, as time goes by, we may be undermining the security of that second-strike deterrent if new technologies give us an excellent capability to find and target second-strike retaliatory capabilities such as submarines.
• think a lot of Russian science and technology is falling behind for that reason. But the United States and China are very much in the race, and that’s what concerns me here—that there could be different thought patterns that could be going on between Beijing and Washington on a number of issues having to do with the implications of AI.

“The unacceptable, growing risk of nuclear war,” Stephen Kinzer, BG, 07.26.24.

• Leaders of nuclear-armed nations seem unaware of the dangers of their combative talk. But the heads of smaller countries are sounding alarms. For years it has been clear that the greatest threat to the survival of humanity is climate change. No more. The specter of a baked planet is horrific, but over recent months another threat has become even more frighteningly real: nuclear war.
• This danger has been growing for years, but war in Ukraine has made it more acute. Russia has signaled that it may consider using nuclear weapons if that is the only way to avoid losing the war. Ukraine's NATO allies, also nuclear-armed, are in an equally combative mood. Add to that the possibility of war over Taiwan, plus the wild card of North Korea, and you have the makings of a perfect nuclear storm.
• Russian military units are being trained in the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, and Russia has launched a satellite that American analysts fear could be a prototype for an orbiting nuclear platform. Both China and the United States are engaged in major “modernization" of their nuclear arsenals. Some of Donald Trump's supporters are hoping that if he is elected president, he will resume nuclear weapons tests, which the United States and other nations halted more than 30 years ago.
• Why are major world leaders more focused on defeating adversaries than preventing nuclear catastrophe?
  • One reason is that nuclear war is almost unimaginable; what we have never experienced seems diffuse and faraway.=
  • Another is that leaders in Russia, the United States, and other nuclear-armed nations may consider their war aims so vital that they must be pursued regardless of risk.

Statement by the Deputy Head of Russia’s Delegation to the 2nd Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 11th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Russian Foreign Ministry, 07.25.24. Clues from Russian Views. 

• In the current extremely adverse international security environment, we believe it to be twice as obvious that any concepts involving "shortcuts" to a nuclear-weapon-free world, including immediately outlawing nuclear weapons as a means of ensuring security, are unworkable. We continue to consider such initiatives, including the TPNW, counter-productive, as they cannot bring us any closer to reaching nuclear zero, but rather deepen the divide between the parties to the NPT, shaking the foundations of its regime.
• Any ideas involving "compartmentalized" development of some "universal" measures of nuclear arsenals transparency and nuclear disarmament verification, appear to be equally inadequate. What we have here at hand is highly sensitive national security aspects that should not be addressed without due regard for strategic situation and outside any substantive negotiations on specific future arms control and disarmament agreements.
• We remain consistently committed to the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought, which the N5 States reaffirmed in January 2022 in their joint statement.
• Particular emphasis should be put on the destabilizing practice of the NATO's so-called "nuclear sharing" involving forward-based U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.
• Washington's steps to replicate such schemes in other parts of the world where the United States already practices its so-called "extended nuclear deterrence," also have extremely negative implications for regional and global security.
• Until Washington and the U.S.-led NATO, who renounce the principle of equality and show no readiness to respect our security interests, abandon their profoundly hostile anti-Russian policy, strategic dialogue with the West remains pointless to Russia.
• While the conditions for such dialogue are missing, Russia continues to take a number of relevant measures to reduce nuclear danger and maintain acceptable level of predictability and stability in the nuclear and missile sphere. 

“On Russia’s Navy Day, President of Russia, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin reviewed the Main Naval Parade held in St. Petersburg,” Kremlin.ru, 07.28.24. Clues from Russian Views.

• We will continue boosting support for surface and submarine forces as well as naval aviation and will increase our efforts to equip ships with high-tech new-generation gear and hypersonic missile systems, improve and strengthen coastal infrastructure, and develop reconnaissance, surveillance and air defense systems at near and far borders.
• The US administration and the German government made a noteworthy statement concerning their plans to deploy US long-range precision missile systems in Germany in 2026. The missiles could reach ranges of major Russian state and military facilities, administrative and industrial centers, and defense infrastructure. The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, would be about ten minutes.
• If the United States implements these plans, we will consider ourselves free from the previously assumed unilateral moratorium on the deployment of medium and shorter-range strike weapons, including increasing the capabilities of the coastal troops of our Navy. Today, the development of such systems in Russia is nearing completion. We will take mirror measures to deploy them, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.
• One more thing. Today, we are paying increasing attention to Washington’s efforts to escalate tensions in connection with the flights by Russian strategic aircraft. Just to remind you, Russian strategic missile carriers have not performed any air patrols far from our borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia thought this was no longer needed, with the world having changed and the Cold War becoming a thing of the past. However, the United States chose to ignore this unilateral gesture of goodwill and continued patrolling the space in the proximity of our borders. 

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

“Russia’s Cyber Campaign Shifts to Ukraine’s Frontlines,” Dan Black, RUSI, 07.22.24.

• Russian intelligence services have now adapted their thinking about how to optimally integrate cyber and conventional capabilities.
• Russia’s intelligence services have adapted their posture in cyberspace to the demands of a long war. Mounting evidence, stretching back to the months preceding Ukraine’s counteroffensive in 2023, indicates that multiple Russian cyber units have shifted their sights away from strategic civilian targets toward soldiers’ computers and mobiles endpoints in order to enable tactical military objectives on Ukraine’s frontlines. This change in operational focus has been cross-cutting, with Russian military intelligence (GRU) and the domestic security service (FSB) – long renowned for rivalry and mistrust – unifying their earlier disjointed cyber efforts and systematizing a series of tradecraft adaptations intended to increase their military effectiveness.
• The refocusing of Russia’s cyber campaign to meet what is almost certainly an increasing demand for tactical-relevant signals intelligence (SIGINT) has largely fallen into a few main lines of effort.
  • The first has been penetrating devices used by Ukrainian soldiers.
  • Another major line of effort has been to penetrate the digital systems used by the Ukrainian army for command and control, situational awareness and other operational needs.
  • Beyond targeted efforts to gain access to devices and systems used by Ukrainian soldiers, Russia has also reoriented its cyber forces to help locate Ukrainian military equipment and positions.
• The main takeaway for Western policymakers is that mobile devices have become a critical center of gravity for Russia’s cyber campaign in Ukraine. The war’s technology-dense and sensor-rich frontlines have placed a premium on the ability to collect signals from soldiers’ devices and the digital networks that connect them. With new technologies continuing to shape the battlefield and drive tactical innovations on the front lines, these types of operations are only likely to grow more common as the war continues.

“A.I. May Save Us, or May Construct Viruses to Kill Us,” Nicholas Kristof, NYT, 07.27.24.

• Here’s a bargain of the most horrifying kind: For less than $100,000, it may now be possible to use artificial intelligence to develop a virus that could kill millions of people. That’s the conclusion of Jason Matheny, the president of the RAND Corporation, a think tank that studies security matters and other issues.
• One reason biological weapons haven’t been much used is that they can boomerang. If Russia released a virus in Ukraine, it could spread to Russia. But a retired Chinese general has raised the possibility of biological warfare that targets particular races or ethnicities (probably imperfectly), which would make bioweapons much more useful.
• Managing A.I. without stifling it will be one of our great challenges as we adopt perhaps the most revolutionary technology since Prometheus brought us fire.
  • “The Need for a Strategic Approach to Disinformation and AI-Driven Threats,” Ann M. Fitz-Gerald and Halyna Padalko, RUSI, 07.25.24. 

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• “Beyond Open vs. Closed: Emerging Consensus and Key Questions for Foundation AI Model Governance,” Jon Bateman et al., CEIP, 07.23.24. 

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:

“Russia wary of U.S. and France election surprises, especially Kamala Harris,” Catherine Belton, WP, 07.26.24.

• Biden’s withdrawal in favor of Vice President Harris has upended a race that the Kremlin and its backers believed Donald Trump could win, creating “a window of opportunity” to settle the war in Ukraine on Russia’s aggressive, expansionist terms, according to analysts and current and former Russian officials.
• “If Kamala Harris wins the election, it will be a huge disappointment for the Kremlin,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of R.Politik … “Not because they expect some concrete anti-Russian steps but because the nature of American politics will become, from their point of view, irrational and unpragmatic and self-destructive.”
• Harris, largely unknown to the Russians, is viewed with alarm. “The deep state will lead under Harris,” said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst. … The Kremlin has steered clear of publicly commenting on Biden’s departure. But propagandists inside Russia have begun pouring vitriol on Harris. One TV host called her “crazy” and a leading academic, Andrei Sidorov, made a racist comment, calling the biracial vice president “worse than a monkey with a grenade.”
• [A] Russian academic said longer-term hopes for change rested with Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate on the Republican ticket. Vance repeatedly has espoused a pro-Moscow isolationist line. … “Vance is a very interesting figure,” the Russian academic said, noting Trump’s age of 78. “We still don’t know if Trump will make it to the end of his term if he is elected. It can’t be ruled out that Vance could become president. This would change a lot in U.S. politics.”
• Stanovaya suggested other ways Moscow could win. “The best scenario for Russia is if a U.S. leader appears who is strong enough to implement what he has proposed and can bring through Congress agreements that have been reached with Russia,” she said. 

“Vice President Harris’s Views on the War in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus,” Michael McFaul’s Substack, 07.26.24. 

• “Will U.S. policy change if she [Harris] wins the presidential election in November? No. There may be some subtle changes between a Biden and Harris administration regarding the war in Gaza, attention to climate change, and greater engagement with Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In Europe in general and Ukraine in particular, continuity will outpace discontinuity. From my perspective, that’s a good sign. Though we don’t yet know what President Harris’s foreign policy toward Europe will be, we can make some assumptions from her past speeches and actions.”
  • “On June 15 and 16 this year, VP Harris attended the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland, organized by President Zelenskyy. ... In opening remarks, right before a bilateral meeting with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the main event, Harris stated, “President Biden and my support for the people of Ukraine is unwavering. We support Ukraine not out of charity but because the people of Ukraine and their future is in our strategic interests. It is in our interest to uphold international rules and norms, such as sovereignty and territorial integrity and the international system we helped create following World War Two, which bolsters America’s security and prosperity. It is in the interest of the United States to defend democratic values and stand up to dictators.  It is in our interest to stand with our friends, such as Ukraine.”
• “Regarding Russia, there are some good signs about Harris’s approach too. Vice President Harris has repeatedly and clearly spoken out against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his brutal crackdown at home. Right after the news of Alexey Navalny’s death broke at the Munich Security Council (more on this here), to which Harris was leading the American delegation, she stated if such news were confirmed, “this would be a further sign of Putin’s brutality.”

“Why A Second Donald Trump Presidency Won’t Necessarily Constitute a Win for Putin,” Ivan Kurilla, RM, 07.26.24.

• Trump’s policies during his presidential tenure can give us some understanding of his potential visions and, more importantly, his reactions to critical situations. I am willing to make three predictions in that regard. A second Trump term will likely:
• Alter U.S. policy toward Russia and Ukraine, but is most likely to result, at best, in a “frozen” conflict in which a ceasefire comes at the expense of tabling both Ukraine’s aspiration to achieve a guarantee it will be able to join NATO; and its ambition to recover all its lost territories, including Crimea.
• Insist that all the costs of maintaining the ceasefire, and any reconstruction costs, be borne by America’s European allies.
• Attempt, as it did initially in Trump’s first term, to mend relations with Putin in order to prevent closer ties between Russia and China. Unlike eight years ago, Russia policy is unlikely to dominate Trump's ongoing domestic battles, but expect major challenges to his plans to come from Ukraine, Europe and naturally, Russia itself.
• Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, two of Trump’s top foreign policy advisors, published their plan to stop the war on June 25. While Trump has not expressed support for the plan… the authors suggest increasing pressure on Ukraine to agree to a cease-fire and peace talks without immediately attempting to regain lost territories, and threatening the Kremlin that if Russia does not agree to peace talks, the volume of American military assistance will increase to help the Ukrainian army prevail.

“Former US ambassador [John Sullivan] says US ‘asleep’ amid Russia threat,” Semafor, 07.28.24.

• I think we need to talk to the Russians, but we need to talk to them, we need to tell them things, and we need to listen to what they tell us, but as soon as a Westerner says all wars end in negotiations, and we have to negotiate with the Russians. When a Westerner talks about negotiations, it is doomed to fail. You start talking about things — ‘We’ll start things off with a good-faith gesture.’ A good-faith gesture? I mean, that is just a sign of weakness to the Russians and will be pocketed and the Russians will want more.
• What I often say to audiences when talking about the discussion in Congress on support for Ukraine and our attitude towards Russia and in general the situation today in the world with the unlimited friendship … between Russia and Beijing. We in the United States, we’re asleep. We’re asleep now. We’re asleep to the threat that Russia and that Russia, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang pose to not just the international system but to the United States in particular… We’re asleep and we think that history ended in the 1990s and that yeah there are problems around the world, we cause a lot of them. We start wars, we end wars badly, but we’ll just stumble along and continue to be prosperous and happy and that is not guaranteed.
• When I talk to my fellow Republicans, and particularly when they bring up Ukraine and make statements like, ‘Why are we spending money on Ukraine’s border and not our southern border in the United States,’ I say to them, ‘You’re focused on Ukraine, you need to be focused on Russia.’

“Russia isn't prosecuting U.S. journalists. It's taking them hostage,” Editorial Board, WP, 07.24.24. 

• The fact Russia tried journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva in secret says a lot about the charges against them, and about the system that staged these proceedings. Closing the trial, in violation of basic international human rights standards, reflects the reality that the case against these two U.S. citizens is trumped up and could not withstand even manipulated and limited public exposure, which is the only kind the Kremlin-friendly news media would have afforded.
• The accusations against Mr. Gershkovich and Ms. Kurmasheva are both false on their own terms and based on provisions of Russian law that lack elementary democratic legitimacy. In a normal country, their activities wouldn't even be crimes, let alone result in such draconian sentences.
• The conclusion of bogus proceedings against Mr. Gershkovich and Ms. Kurmasheva could be a sign that the Kremlin is putting the finishing touches on its preparations to trade them, possibly along with at least one other American, Paul Whelan, for a Russian assassin, Vadim Krasikov. Mr. Krasikov is serving a life term in Germany, having been convicted in open court of a brazen daylight assassination of a rebel Chechen militia commander in a Berlin park.
• The State Department designated Mr. Gershkovich and Mr. Whelan as wrongfully detained, a status that elevates their cases as a matter of official U.S. interest. It should do the same for Ms. Kurmasheva, and for Post Opinions contributor and Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza. The latter, though a Russian citizen, is a U.S. legal permanent resident. He is serving 25 years for "treason" — speaking out against Mr. Putin's war. All of the above should be released immediately. Journalism — asking questions, gathering facts, holding officials to account — is essential democratic work, not a crime.

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Kremlin Looks to Moscow in Switch to Universal Electronic Voting,” Andrey Pertsev, CEIP, 07.26.24. Clues from Russian Views. 

• The Russian authorities are set to test new ways of manipulating election results during the Moscow City Duma elections in September. In addition to filtering candidates, they will also expand Russia’s electronic voting system, almost entirely ditching paper ballots.
• As long as the electronic voting experiment in Moscow is a success, it will be rolled out across Russia for the 2026 State Duma elections. The Kremlin will use it to iron out occasional “problems” that are still thrown up by national and regional elections.
• At the same time, electronic voting will allow the Kremlin to dispense with the services of local elites. The presidential administration can put forward faceless bureaucrats and party functionaries as candidates without worrying that they could be defeated
• Electronic voting will also mean that Russia’s party system, which faces a legitimacy crisis because of the unpopularity of in-system parties, can be preserved—by fraudulently boosting the number of votes in-system parties receive.
• There’s only one drawback. If Russia experiences a period of political turbulence, this sort of virtual electoral system could collapse overnight. The deputies elected via electronic voting won’t be able to influence their “voters,” who don’t know who they are, and don’t ascribe them any authority. Officials in the Kremlin, however, prefer not to think about such scenarios.

“‘Talk of the Collapse of Russia is Pure Propaganda’,” Grigorii Golosov, Russia.Post, 07.24.24.

• There are three points of view on [whether Russia is bound to collapse]. One of them, officially shared by the country’s authorities, is that everything is fine with Russian federalism; it is flourishing, providing each region with the freedom to develop in harmonious unity with other regions. [This position] … does not imply any changes for the foreseeable future.
• The second viewpoint, favored by many opposition intellectuals and foreign-based Russian politicians, is that Russia will experience “real federalization.” … after democratization, Russia should return to federalism, which simply does not exist now, at least to the extent provided for by the 1993 Constitution. But in that precise order: first restore democracy in the center, and then regulate relations between the center and the periphery.
• The third viewpoint, which is widely proliferated among opposition media sources, is that Russia as a state has no future and after the military defeat predicted by supporters of this position, Russia will certainly collapse. The main beneficiary of this position is the Ukrainian government, for whom, in order to patriotically raise public morale, it’s important to convince their citizens that after a complete victory — which from this perspective, must seem inevitable, of course—the Russian problem will be solved once and for all. The simple … logic in this case boils down to the thesis “No Russia, no problem.” The second beneficiary is the Russian authorities, who intimidate the population by claiming that Russia’s enemies want to “dismember” it, and that the only way to avoid this is to rally around Putin.

“Artists say Putin's push for patriotism is killing Russian culture,” Francesca Ebel and Mary Ilyushina, WP, 07.29.24. 

• Not even the famed Bolshoi Theater has been spared President Vladimir Putin's wartime push for Russian culture to prioritize patriotism over artistic freedom. Several Bolshoi stars have fled the country. The theater no long tours in Europe and America. And its longtime director resigned last year and was replaced with a staunch Putin loyalist, after publicly admitting that its repertoire was censored to remove works by directors or choreographers who criticized the Ukraine invasion.
• The Bolshoi is hardly the only iconic Russian institution under pressure. The longtime directors of Moscow's Tretyakov and Pushkin fine art museums were also replaced. Musicians, actors and writers who oppose the war are being hounded into exile or driven underground — while artists remaining in Russia are compelled by the government to echo a new nationalist zeal in their work. Those who actively voice support for the war are rewarded with fame and fortune. Movies or music glorifying the army or upholding patriotic values receive hefty government subsidies.
• President Vladimir Putin's push to re-engineer his country as a militarized superpower in conflict with liberal Western values is sterilizing Russia's once-vibrant cultural landscape, artists say. By demanding that the new turbocharged patriotism pervade everything from fine art exhibits to rap music to ballet performances, the Kremlin is stifling creativity and squashing free expression. The changes represent the starkest shift since the 1930s, when the Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin, adopted socialist realism as its official cultural doctrine — requiring artists to depict and promote Marxist-Leninist ideals in every form of their work.

“Will the Reduction in Inequality in Russia Survive the War?” Tatiana Rybakova, Russia.Post, 07.26.24.

• The Russian middle class, increasingly filled with officials in recent years, is now seeing more people from disadvantaged social strata, which previously seemed doomed to poverty and debt. Meanwhile, the part of the middle class that is usually called the “creative intelligentsia” is visibly struggling – besides those who are on the pro-war side. What do these shifts mean?
• Now, Russia’s Far East is invigorated. For example, the largest construction companies in Russia have rushed in to build new residential complexes in Vladivostok, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk and Nakhodka. The boom is driven not only by more money in the wallets of the local population but also the Far Eastern Mortgage program, with interest rates of 2% per annum – versus the 20% prevailing in the market – spurring demand.
• “If we take into account that now a significant part of the army is people who get paid not the average but the minimum wage, which this year is about EUR 192 [a month], then compensation in the event of their death for their families is up to 60 years of their potential income. In Russia, these people do not work that long, so the compensation covers the income of two or three generations of Russian men at once, who have finally become economically attractive to their partners. In other words, the payment immediately compensates for lost income from unborn children,” Pastukhov wrote on his Telegram channel.
• Even now, many in Russia, including high-ranking officials, are asking a completely reasonable question: what will happen when those 300,000-400,000 soldiers, who are accustomed to mortal risk and good money and know how to handle weapons, come back? Of course, the authorities will probably give them benefits, perhaps some kind of regular payments or a preferential mortgage. 

Defense and aerospace:

“Russia's Space Program After 2024,” Pavel Luzin, FPRI, 07.23.24.

• Since 2022, Russia’s space program has been in a state of turbulence and uncertainty. However, the deterioration started in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and began the first round of the war against Ukraine. Multiple factors have made the sustainable development of the Russian space program impossible: sanctions, an embargo on advanced industrial equipment, workforce shortages, limited financial resources spread among too many projects, cancellation of space cooperation with Western partners except operations on the International Space Station (ISS), and the economic inefficiency of the Russian space industry.
• Russia has two main priorities by the 2030s.
  • First, it must maintain the presence of Russian astronauts in outer space even after the ISS era and without any significant scientific outcomes.
  • Second, it must switch satellite manufacturing from space-grade electronics to relatively simple and cheap consumer-grade electronics. This preference for quantity over quality of satellites would allow Russia to boost its manufacturing of short-lived satellites, which will be replaced quickly and provide the armed forces with communication and intelligence capabilities.
• Key Findings:
  • Russia’s space program suffers from a deficit of financial resources, limited access to advanced machine tools and space-grade electronics, a shrinking workforce, and low workforce productivity.
  • These challenges force Russia to focus efforts on the military space activity and leave manned spaceflights and space exploration only to maintain its international status as a space superpower and sense of domestic legitimacy of authoritarian governance.
  • Russia’s military space program is becoming more and more asymmetric. Russia—unable to develop advanced communication, navigation, and reconnaissance military space capabilities—is trying to rely on a horde of small, short-living but relatively cheap satellites mostly made from consumer and industrial-grade imported electronic components and on technologies of nuclear power to increase its counter-satellite electronic warfare capabilities.
• 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 external policies, including  relations with “far abroad” countries:

“Ukraine: The Day After,” Max Primorac, NI. 07.28.24. 

• One of the top foreign-policy priorities for the next president will be bringing the war in Ukraine to a peaceful settlement. But what will happen to Ukraine after that?  Upon such a settlement, the reconstruction of the country would ensue. The World Bank estimates that it will cost half a trillion dollars to rebuild Ukraine. Ukraine says it needs twice that sum.
• Many will be tempted to simply throw foreign aid at the problem. But that won’t work.
• It is no secret what Ukraine must do to attract the private capital it needs to rebuild. The starting point is combatting corruption, which will be an uphill battle.  Ukraine has yet to liquidate its 3,500 state-owned enterprises that feed endemic crony capitalism, corruption, and massive budgetary deficits, sustaining anti-foreign investment lobbies fearing external competition. Kyiv, instead, wants to establish strategic state-owned monopolies, especially in the energy sector.
• Should Kyiv move to privatize these companies ... and remove regulatory burdens and decrease its high taxes, it could unlock substantial private capital, especially in its competitive agriculture, energy, technology, and now defense sectors. 

Ukraine:

• No significant developments.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant developments.

Footnotes

1. Only six Ukrainian pilots have reportedly been trained by European NATO members to fly F-16 fighter jets due to be delivered to Kyiv next month, according to The Guardian.
2. On July 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Secretary of State of the Holy See Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “This is a strong signal from the Holy See, thank you for such support. And we are grateful for your participation in the summit in Switzerland. This is the first step toward peace, all steps are valuable. It is important that you also support this. We all understand that we must complete this path as soon as possible in order not to lose human lives,” according to Zelenskyy’s official web site. According to a Turkish news agency, however, Zelenskyy told Parolin: “"I think we all understand that we must end the war as soon as possible, of course.”

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 11:00 am Eastern time on the day this digest was distributed. Unless otherwise indicated, all summaries above are direct quotations. 

*Here and elsewhere, the italicized text indicates comments by RM staff and associates. These comments do not constitute a RM editorial policy.

^Machine-translated.

Photo by U.S. Army Europe shared in the public domain.