3 Ideas to Explore

1. President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia’s Kursk region with longer-range ATACMS missiles supplied by the U.S. has sparked a furious response in Russia, including warnings of WWIII and a nuclear exchange, according to BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg and Republic.ru’s contributor Timofei Panov.¹ While angry with Biden’s choice, which was reportedly prompted by Vladimir Putin’s decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight, some Russian commentators saw it coming. For instance, Komsomolskaya Pravda’s pro-war writer Alexander Kots called it "a predictable escalation.” “What really counts, however,” is how Putin responds, and he has “so far stayed silent,” Rosenberg writes.² The Moscow-based BBC editor ended his hot take by wondering whether the fact that President-elect Donald Trump has been more skeptical than Biden about military aid for Ukraine—and whose son, Donald Trump, Jr., has criticized Biden’s ATACMS decision—will be a factor in Putin’s response. NYT, which broke the news on the new authorization, reported that some on Biden’s team feared that Putin’s response would be to “widen the war,” citing a U.S. intelligence assessment that warned Putin could direct his secret services to use lethal force against the U.S. and its European allies. Putin’s response could also include arming the West’s adversaries to strike Western targets, according to BBC’s Rosenberg. At the time this digest was produced, the chancellor of Germany continued to refuse to allow use of its Taurus missiles against targets in Russia, but it was not entirely clear whether the leaders of the U.K. and France have agreed to follow Biden’s lead and allowed Ukraine to use their long-range Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles inside Russia, The Economist and ISW reported. “These missiles, like ATACMS, require considerable Western involvement for effective targeting,” The Economist acknowledged, effectively confirming Putin’s accusations of such involvement. Given the reportedly limited quantities of such missiles³ possessed by Ukraine and the limitations on the range of their employment to the Kursk region, it is highly unlikely that they can become a game-changer. Moreover, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s recent remarks that "there is no silver bullet. No single capability will turn the tide. No one system will end Putin’s assault” indicates that the U.S. doesn’t see any weapon system that could be supplied to Kyiv as game-changing.*
2. Donald Trump should push Ukraine into talks even though these would result in lost territory, according to Megan K. Stack, an NYT opinion writer who has reported from Russia and Ukraine. “Mr. Trump should seize the chance to save lives. Nobody is coming to save Ukraine. A settlement will eventually be needed,” she argues in a commentary for NYT. One alternative to talks would be for the U.S. to send troops to fight in Ukraine, whose forces are struggling to stop the Russians from “slowly clawing the land back,” Stack wrote. However, “nobody sensible—this writer included—wants to risk igniting a direct war between the nuclear-armed nemeses Russia and the United States” by having U.S. troops fight in Ukraine, Stack acknowledges. Thus, “America is not going to save Ukraine,” she writes, concluding that “maybe we need Mr. Trump—brazen and unscrupulous—to finally say so out loud and act accordingly.” Stack’s commentary was published one day after Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv would like to end the war with Russia next year through "diplomatic means.”
3. “Russia’s preference is for a diplomatic Iran under moderate sanctions” because such a configuration “reduces risks of military escalation and limits Iran’s need to pursue nuclear capabilities for self-defense,” Russian researcher Adlan Margoev and his co-authors argue in a recent issue of the Russian Academy of Science’s Vostok journal. It also “fosters an environment where Iran is incentivized to maintain cooperative relations with Russia,” according to Margoyev and his co-authors, Alexey Tokarev and Lana M. Ravandi-Fadai.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

"Fighting a ‘Holy War’: North Korea’s Role in Putin’s Crusade Against Ukraine," Martin Kragh, The National Interest, 11.12.24.

• “Putin has insisted that Russia, with its invasion of Ukraine, is defending its “traditional values” in a fight against threats as diverse as Western liberalism, Satan, and Nazism. The Foreign Minister of North Korea, Choe Son-hui, recently remarked that her country supports Russia in its "holy war."
• “Russian President Vladimir Putin seems undeterred by the apparent contradiction in his claims of Russia being, on the one hand, a sovereign, self-sufficient power with the capacity to independently influence events in world affairs, and on the other hand, a victim of Western dominance.”
• “It is plausible that Putin, somehow, can reconcile the two conflicting perspectives, with Russia being an empire and a paragon of anti-imperialism at the same time. Performing the role of the victim was always politically convenient, and his grievances about a Western menace may also resonate with audiences abroad.”
• “Pondering whether the world is dealing with a new axis or not, one should recall that the cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea in certain regards already goes beyond whatever cooperation Nazi Germany was able to achieve with Italy and Japan during the Second World War.”
• “The deepening ties between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea constitute a grave threat to all countries in their geopolitical crosshairs, from Ukraine to Taiwan.”

For more commentary on this subject, see:

• "North Korean Soldiers Fighting in Ukraine Could Spark World War III", Ji-Yeon Yuh, The National Interest, 11.15.24.
• "N Korea troops are in Russia. What’s the deal?", Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash, Observer Research Foundation, 11.18.24.

Iran and its nuclear program:

“False Choice Between Pro-Russian and Non-Nuclear Iran: Why Russia Needs Nuclear-Free Iran,” Adlan Margoev, Alexey Tokarev and Lana M. Ravandi-Fadai, Russian Academy of Science Journal’s Vostok journal, 10.27.24.

• “Russia’s preference is for a diplomatic Iran under moderate sanctions. This reduces risks of military escalation and limits Iran’s need to pursue nuclear capabilities for self-defense. It also fosters an environment where Iran is incentivized to maintain cooperative relations with Russia.”
• “Iran exiting the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and developing nuclear weapons presents major risks for Russia. Such actions could destabilize critical regions, including the Caucasus, Caspian, and Central Asia. It would also complicate Russia’s foreign policy by forcing it to choose between non-proliferation principles and its relationship with Iran.”
• “A functioning JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) allows Russia to strengthen economic ties with Iran, expanding cooperation in energy, trade, and nuclear technology sectors without facing Western sanctions, while reinforcing Russia’s influence as a mediator and powerbroker in the Middle East.”
  • “In 2018, the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, opting for a maximum-pressure strategy on Iran. This withdrawal heightened tensions and increased instability in the region, leaving little room for diplomatic recovery.”
  • “Efforts to revive it under the Biden administration were unsuccessful due to geopolitical tensions. Most likely the new Trump administration will maintain the hardliner stance.”
• “The expiration of UN Resolution 2231 in 2025 presents a complex scenario for Russia. While automatic sanctions on Iran may no longer be enforceable, the possibility of their continuation has allowed Russia to maintain leverage over Iran, fostering economic and political cooperation without direct Western interference. However, sanctions also limit the full economic potential of Russian-Iranian relations. Strategically, Russia benefits from using the resolution’s framework to prevent Iran’s nuclear weaponization while balancing the risk of driving Iran closer to Western adversaries if sanctions are lifted entirely. Russia seeks a scenario where Iran remains slightly sanctioned and thus cooperative, non-nuclear, and diplomatically aligned with Moscow’s regional goals.”
• “Rising tensions between Iran and Israel heighten the risk of broader regional instability. A larger regional war would negatively impact Russia:”
  • “Refugee flows could destabilize Russia’s predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region.”
  • “Broader conflict in the Middle East would increase global energy prices, complicating Russia’s oil exports and creating competition for influence in key regions.”
  • “Russia might face pressure to directly support Iran, draining resources already committed to conflicts like Ukraine and Syria.”
• “Russia’s long-term strategy prioritizes preventing Iran from becoming nuclear-armed. While supporting peaceful nuclear development, Russia remains wary of Iran’s ability to weaponize nuclear technologies.”
• “A nuclear Iran may deter direct attacks but introduces significant risks. These include accidental escalation or miscalculations during regional crises. Iran’s enhanced status could also embolden it to act against Russian interests in neighboring regions.”
• “For Russian interests, managing the balance between friendship with Iran and non-proliferation commitments is crucial. Overextending support for Iran risks establishing harmful precedents for global nuclear proliferation, weakening international norms that Russia has a vested national security interest in upholding. If Iran develops nuclear weapons, it could trigger a domino effect in the Middle East.”

“Where Asia Meets Europe, Allies Become Rivals in a Tangle of Interests,” Anton Troianovski, NYT, 11.12.24.

• “In a rare interview last week, Iran’s ambassador in Armenia, Mehdi Sobhani, acknowledged the diverging interests of Russia and Iran in the region, rather than the “strategic partnership” they often profess, banding together against the United States. “We are not allies,” Mr. Sobhani said. “We have some differences, and we have some mutual interests. It doesn’t mean that we are allied.”
• “Russia and Iran are allies in the broad sense of the word,” said Konstantin Zatulin, a Russian lawmaker, “which does not at all exclude some differences in the details.”
• “Russia is racing to contain Iran’s expanding influence in Armenia, a former Soviet republic at a crossroads of trade routes that Moscow needs to replace Western imports. Complicating matters, some Western countries currently in conflict with Iran see their interests in the Caucasus — preventing war and reducing Russian influence — aligned with those of Tehran.”

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

For more commentary on this subject, see:

•  "Ukraine Is Running Out of Optimists," Andrey Kurkov, NYT, 11.15.24.
• "Russian Missile Strike Hits Ukrainian Clinic, Killing 6 and Injuring 30," Andrew E. Kramer, NYT, 11.17.24.

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

"Russia’s War Economy Is Hitting Its Limits," Marc R. DeVore, FP, 11.14.24.

• “Russia’s war economy is heading toward an impasse. Signs that the official data masks severe economic strains brought on by both war and sanctions have become increasingly apparent. No matter how many workers it tries to shift to the defense industry, the Kremlin cannot expand production fast enough to replace weapons at the rate they are being lost on the battlefield. Already, about around half of all artillery shells used by Russia in Ukraine are from North Korean stocks. At some point in the second half of 2025, Russia will face severe shortages in several categories of weapons.”
  • “Perhaps foremost among Russia’s arms bottlenecks is its inability to replace large-caliber cannons. … Russia is losing around 320 tank and artillery cannon barrels a month and producing only 20.”
  • “Russia is consuming other weapons, too, at rates far faster than its ability to produce them. Open-source researchers have counted the loss of at least 4,955 infantry fighting vehicles since the war’s onset, which comes out to an average of 155 per month. Russian defense contractors can produce an estimated 200 per year, or about 17 per month, to offset these losses. Likewise, even Russia’s expanded production of 3 million artillery shells per year pales in comparison to the various estimates for current consumption at the front. While those estimates are lower than the 12 million rounds Russian forces fired in 2022, they are much higher than what Russian industry can produce.”
• “Some important lessons emerge.”
  • “First, Russia’s economy cannot indefinitely sustain its war against Ukraine. Labor and production bottlenecks will condemn Russia to defeat as long as Ukraine’s allies sustain it beyond the second half of 2025. Contrary to the myth of infinite Russian resources, the Kremlin’s armies are far from unbeatable. But Russia’s defeat demands a level of Western patience and commitment that a combination of vacillating Western leaders and volatile domestic politics renders questionable.”
  • “Second, the cessation of full-scale fighting in Ukraine will not end the West’s problems with Russia. Russia’s supersized military sector incentivizes the Kremlin to use its military to extract rents from neighboring states. The alternatives—demobilizing and incurring a recession or indefinitely funding a bloated military and defense industry—pose existential threats to Putin’s regime.”
  • “However Russia ends its current war, the country’s economic realities alone will generate new forms of insecurity for Europe. Far-sighted policymakers should focus on mitigating these future threats, even as they focus on how the current round of fighting in Ukraine will end.”

“Overcoming the Challenges of Building a Future Force for Ukraine,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, RUSI, 11.14.24. Clues from Ukrainian Views.

• “Defining long-term security arrangements for Ukraine requires a comprehensive set of military and strategic measures for maintaining stability and defending Ukraine’s territory, society, economy and rule of law against future foreign aggression.”
• “While Ukraine’s immediate security remains under severe threat, it still needs ongoing support for operations, including additional weapons, funding and domestic mobilization.”
• “Long-term strategizing remains essential, as lacking a clear security vision creates a void that complicates any future planning.”
• “For Putin, territory is not the ultimate goal – ending Ukraine's sovereignty and independence is. Concessions would not end hostilities but instead encourage further aggression.”
• “NATO membership offers a natural path forward. Once active hostilities conclude, Ukraine’s admission to NATO will be crucial to stabilizing the region.”
• “Deterrence by denial, which means Ukraine having sufficient defensive capabilities to thwart any future invasion, would serve as an effective defense.”
• “The costs of building a credible deterrent force are easy to underestimate. Simply sending older Western equipment to Ukraine will not achieve the necessary deterrent effect.”
• “Ukraine’s industrial capabilities, which are currently operating on a war footing, have the potential to significantly reduce the costs of building this force if fully engaged.”
• “The speed of technological advancement today is unprecedented, and keeping up the pace of adaptation and technological development is now a critical requirement to remain relevant.”
• “Strategically planning Ukraine's future military force, anticipating evolving trends, and conducting rapid assessments is not just essential for Ukraine's survival; it is critical for the security of Western allies as well. The urgent need to innovate and collaborate in defense capabilities cannot be overstated. Only by embracing change and acting decisively can the West ensure that this conflict does not become a harbinger of greater crises in the future.”

“The Ukrainian Defense of Pokrovsk Has Compelled Russia to Change Its Approach in Eastern Ukraine,” Angelica Evans, ISW, 11.17.24.

• “Russian forces launched offensive operations intended to seize Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast during Spring 2024 at the moment of greatest constraints on Ukraine's manpower and materiel following the suspension of US assistance in Fall 2023. Russian forces have not taken Pokrovsk after eight months of grinding but consistent advances in western Donetsk Oblast.”
• “Ukrainian defensive operations, based on the integration of successful Ukrainian drone innovators and operators with ground forces combined with constraints on Russia's strategic and operational-level manpower and materiel reserves have forced the Russian military command to abandon its original campaign design of a frontal assault on Pokrovsk.”
• “The Russian military command is currently attempting to envelop Pokrovsk from the southwest via Selydove and to even out the frontline west of Kurakhove and north of Vuhledar. Russian forces recently seized Selydove and are currently leveraging the seizure of Vuhledar to advance towards Kurakhove, but Russian advances have come at very high costs in troops and armored vehicles and months of time. Ukrainian drone operations continue to play a critical role in constraining Russian mechanized maneuver and preventing Russian forces from fully exploiting Ukraine's ongoing manpower constraints.”
• “Ukraine’s ability to stave off the seizure of Pokrovsk thus far and force the Russian military to divert its efforts to advances in arguably the least operationally significant sector of the frontline is a positive indicator of Ukraine’s ability to continue fighting this war despite the challenges Ukraine faces and the setbacks it has suffered.”

Military aid to Ukraine

“Ukraine can, at last, use its American missiles inside Russia,” The Economist, 11.18.24.

• “President Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to launch strikes inside Russia using American-supplied long-range missiles—a decision America has been reluctant to take for fear of Russian escalation.”
• “Mr. Biden’s decision now leaves three significant questions.”
  • “One is the extent of his reversal. Reports have suggested that Ukraine, at least initially, will only be permitted to use ATACMS in Kursk province, where Ukraine has seized territory that Russia is now battling to reclaim. ... Many of the juiciest Russian targets are elsewhere.”
  • “The second question is whether Britain and France will now follow suit and allow Ukraine to use their own advanced cruise missiles—known as Storm Shadow and SCALP respectively—inside Russia. These missiles, like ATACMS, require considerable Western involvement for effective targeting.”
  • “The decision might also put pressure on Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, to reconsider his own refusal to provide Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. He is likely to come under growing attack on the issue from Friedrich Merz, head of the opposition center-right Christian Democrats. But Mr. Scholz publicly doubled down on his position a week ago in the Bundestag, during an election campaign in which has portrayed himself as the “prudent” choice in contrast to the more hawkish Mr. Merz.”
  • “The third and most consequential issue is how Mr. Putin will choose to respond.”
    • “Concerns over the use of nuclear weapons are overblown, not least because there is little prospect of a Russian collapse on the front lines in the short term.”
      • “Russia has been hinting that it might expand its aid to the Houthi rebel group in Yemen, which has been firing missiles at shipping in the Red Sea.”
      • “It has also considered supplying more advanced missiles to the group—a risk that Western officials describe as “horizontal escalation”, i.e., beyond Ukraine.”
      • “There are also concerns that Russian spies might intensify their campaign of sabotage, subversion and attempted assassination inside Europe, which has included the placement of explosive devices on airliners.”
• “Mr. Biden may be hoping that Mr. Putin will not respond aggressively in order to keep open the prospect of cutting a deal with Mr. Trump next year. The president-elect reportedly told Mr. Putin on a phone call that he should not escalate the war. If that is true—the Kremlin denies that the phone call took place—then both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump will have had their answer in the skies above Ukraine in the early hours of November 17th: the largest air attacks since last year, crippling Ukraine’s power grid and killing a reported 18 people.”

 “Fury in Russia at 'serious escalation' of missile move,” Steve Rosenberg, BBC, 11.18.24.

• “President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the US has sparked a furious response in Russia.”
  • “President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that “if such a decision has been taken it means a whole new spiral of tension and a whole new situation with regard to US involvement in this conflict". Mr Peskov accused the Biden administration of “adding fuel to the fire and continuing to stoke tension around this conflict".”
  • "Departing US president Joe Biden… has taken one of the most provocative, uncalculated decisions of his administration, which risks catastrophic consequences," declared the website of the Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Monday morning.”
  • “Russian MP Leonid Slutsky, head of the pro-Kremlin Liberal-Democratic Party, predicted that the decision would "inevitably lead to a serious escalation, threatening serious consequences".”
  • “Russian senator Vladimir Dzhabarov called it "an unprecedented step towards World War Three".”
• “Anger, yes. But no real surprise.”
  • “Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, called it "a predictable escalation". What really counts, though, is what Vladimir Putin calls it and how the Kremlin leader responds. So far he’s stayed silent.”
  • “Arming Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad is something [Putin] has been considering.... "The Houthi [rebels] might come to Putin and ask for coastal weapons systems that can carry out terrifying strikes on ships,” according to Lukashenko.”
• “Some of the media reaction in Russia appeared designed to play things down.”
  • “The Russian armed forces had already [previously] intercepted ATACMS missiles during attacks on the Crimean shore," a military expert told the Izvestia newspaper, which went on to suggest that President-elect Trump might "revise" the decision.”
    • “The Kremlin knows that President-elect Trump has been far more sceptical than President Biden about military assistance for Ukraine. Will that be a factor in Vladimir Putin’s calculations as he formulates Russia’s response?”

“Escalation that brings the third world war closer,” Timofei Panov, Republic, 11.18.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• “The United States has allowed Ukraine to use long-range ATACMS missiles to strike at the recognized territory of Russia, as reported by American media. ... According to the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, the decision to strike with ATACMS missiles deep into Russia means “a qualitatively new round of tension.” “If such a decision was really formulated and communicated to the Kyiv regime, this is a qualitatively new round of tension and a qualitatively new situation from the point of view of the involvement of the United States in this conflict,” the Kremlin spokesman told reporters.”
• “Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova recalled Putin’s September statement that the use of Western long-range weapons to strike Russia “would mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are at war with Russia.”
• “Pro-government political scientist Sergei Markov said: “This is their joint decision to escalate the war in Ukraine. … The US President, the French President, and the British Prime Minister have made a leap toward nuclear war. In the worst-case scenario, a nuclear war could begin before the end of this year.”
• “State Duma deputy Andrei Gurulev also threatened the West with a nuclear strike. He warned that “there will essentially be nothing left of America, which is trying to drag us into escalation. … America is suffering 95 percent total damage.” “Today, we are quite ready to destroy the entire nuclear potential of England and France with a single strike. This would be one of the options for deterring the US from striking Russia,” the deputy specified.”
• “Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov stated that the US decision "brings closer the beginning of the third world war."
• “[Russian pro-war military journalist] Alexander Kots believes that the latest decisions of Kyiv's Western allies are a "predictable escalation." In his opinion, this is a kind of "demobilization chord" of the current White House administration, associated with the deterioration of the situation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front.”
• “Editors of the "Military Informant" Telegram channel write that the key targets for ATACMS and Storms Shadow missiles will be ammunition depots, military equipment parking lots, personnel locations, command posts and airfields.”
• “In turn, the Rybar Telegram channel, which is close to the Russian Defense Ministry, recalls that Kyiv has always had a short-term euphoria after the transfer of any weapons systems and permissions for their use, but they did not have a fundamental change in the course of the war. The editors of Rybar claim that at the beginning of October, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had only 6 to 8 ATACMS missiles on their balance sheet, as well as 20 to 30 Storm Shadow / SCALP cruise missiles, which in total allows for up to four salvos.”

"Trump risks unraveling world order with his Ukraine approach", Timothy Snyder, BG, 11.12.24.

• “If Trump sells out Ukraine, in other words, the present world order collapses around him, and he will look weak, for the very good reason that he has behaved like a weakling. He might well think that he can change the subject from Ukraine after he betrays it — and it seems he has already prepared for that with his notion that Ukraine is already completely destroyed. If people believe that lie, then they wouldn't worry — Trump could hope — about the destruction that actually follows when Trump abandons Ukraine. ... And the consequences beyond Ukraine will be far greater. The legal order will be ignored; nuclear weapons will proliferate; Russia will triumph; and China will rejoice.”
• “Getting to yes would involve strengthening Ukraine rather than weakening it, because one bargains from strength, not weakness. If Trump actually wanted to look like a competent negotiator, he would plan to arm Ukraine.”
• “Trump will have plenty of room for maneuver. He is not bound by the various taboos the Biden administration set for itself. He could choose to distinguish himself from his predecessor by delivering more weapons more quickly and by talking about victory for Ukraine. This would not only be good in itself but would also make an actual peace deal far more likely.”
• “It does not matter in the end whether Trump blusters or whether Putin mocks him. What matters is whether Trump concedes America's great source of strength or nourishes it. The logic of all this is simple and strategic. It goes beyond the personalities concerned. Trump's problem, though, is that he cannot seem to get beyond his own personality. And so while we might hope for strength from Trump, we cannot expect it.”

For more analysis and recent reporting on this subject, see:

• "Long-Range Missile Strikes in Russia: The Game-Changer Ukraine Needs?", Stavros Atlamazoglou, NI, 11.18.24.
• "Ukraine’s Secret Army in France: A New Force is Being Marshalled to Take on the Kremlin’s Men," The Economist, 11.17.24.

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

"How Biden Can Help Trump End the Ukraine War," Edward Fishman, WP, 11.14.24.

• “The first step Biden should take is to close the massive loophole for Russian energy. Since the beginning of the war, Biden's Treasury Department has maintained a general license that exempts payments for Russian oil and natural gas from financial sanctions. This license might have been reasonable in February 2022, when oil prices were skyrocketing and inflation soaring. But it's far past its sell-by date.”
• “The next step Biden should take is to broaden the application of secondary sanctions. Since December, Biden has threatened secondary sanctions on banks and companies that aid Russia's military-industrial complex. But he has refrained from threatening secondary sanctions against buyers of Russian oil. Instead, the Biden team has relied on a price cap, in which Western shippers and insurers can participate in Russian oil trades only below a price threshold of $60 per barrel.”
• “Giving Congress a say over any decision to lift sanctions would substantially enhance Trump's negotiating position with Putin. It would reduce the possibility that Putin could use flattery to persuade Trump to accept a bad deal. But most important, it would enable Trump to credibly tell Putin that his hands are tied, and that he must agree to a deal that can pass muster in a narrowly divided Congress.”
• “There is no greater contribution Trump could make to the cause of world peace than ending the Russia-Ukraine war. The Biden team should do everything it can to help him in the little time it has left.”

For more commentary on this subject, see: 

• "The Case for Stopping Russia Sanction-Busters," Stephen Blank and Mark Temnycky, FPRI, 11.12.24.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

“Trump Can Speed Up the Inevitable in Ukraine,” Megan K. Stack⁴, NYT, 11.17.24.

• “President-elect Donald Trump is inheriting a blood-soaked war in Ukraine. He has pledged to put a swift end to the carnage. Mr. Trump hasn’t explained his plan — if, indeed, he has one — but Vice President-elect JD Vance has called for Ukraine to cede captured land to Russia and drop its pleas to join NATO in exchange for peace. Mr. Trump’s national security adviser nominee, Representative Michael Waltz of Florida, has criticized the flow of U.S. aid to Ukraine and called for prompt negotiations, questioning whether the United States should support the complete liberation of Ukraine.”
  • “If Mr. Trump follows their advice and pushes Ukraine into talks that result in lost territory, his political rivals as well as hawks in his own party will accuse him of abandoning Ukraine and rewarding Vladimir Putin’s hunger for expansion. They would be right; there’s no way to sugarcoat it. Ukrainians would be hung out to dry, and Mr. Putin could end up attacking again or expanding his imperial designs to other neighbors. Mr. Trump should do it anyway.”
    • “Dozens of people, and often hundreds, are dying every day in this grinding war. Mr. Trump should seize the chance to save lives. Nobody is coming to save Ukraine. A settlement will eventually be needed.”
    • “Despite flashes of spectacular success by Ukrainian forces, the Russian position has gradually strengthened, and there is no reason to expect Mr. Putin to lose the upper hand now. That may sound like defeatism, but it’s also realism. ...Russia has been slowly clawing the land back.”
    • “Meanwhile, Ukraine is scrambling to find soldiers.”
• “Getting Ukraine and Russia to the table would be only the beginning of an arduous negotiation. Decisions about how much conquered Ukrainian land remains under Russian control are fraught, but that won’t even be the hardest part — after all, either country’s leader can frame those as temporary losses or gains to be reversed later through diplomacy or even force. .... The truly intractable problem is Mr. Zelensky’s demand that the West protect Ukraine from future Russian attacks by providing what diplomats euphemistically call “security guarantees.”
  • “On that point alone, talks could collapse. Mr. Putin has demanded, as a condition of peace, that Ukraine commit to remaining nonaligned (in other words, no NATO or security treaties) and nonnuclear (Ukraine is capable of developing nuclear weapons, and this could be a plausible, if extreme, backup plan if the West can’t provide protection)..... If the United States truly wanted Ukraine to win at all costs, it would send troops. But nobody sensible — this writer included — wants to risk igniting a direct war between the nuclear-armed nemeses Russia and the United States.”
• “I believe it’s right to call Ukraine a proxy war, because I think it’s reasonable to conclude that the Biden administration has supported the war not only in deference to righteous Ukrainian determination to fight off Russia but also because the war was a chance to debilitate our enemy without directly engaging it.”
  • “Both Russia and the United States have for decades exploited Ukraine’s internal divisions to undermine each other and jockey for regional influence, usually at the expense of ordinary Ukrainians.”
• “It is this uneasy dynamic — a Ukraine close to the West, striving for inclusion in the West, but not truly part of it — that has defined the U.S. management of this disastrous war. We want Ukraine to function as a protectorate, but ultimately, we are unwilling to protect it. A sensible, ugly strategy — tactically defensible but morally reprehensible. America is not going to save Ukraine. Maybe we need Mr. Trump — brazen and unscrupulous — to finally say so out loud and act accordingly.”

"What Russia and Ukraine Want from a Second Trump Presidency," Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 11.15.24.

• “Like much else in his agenda, Trump’s promise to end the war remains more a slogan than a policy ... despite Putin’s sympathy for a transactional, strictly business mode of geopolitics, it will prove difficult for the U.S. to reach an agreement with him. [Russian analyst Fyodor] Lukyanov doubted, for example, that Russia would accept the notion of a twenty-year hiatus for Ukraine joining NATO. “There’s no trust at all,” he said. “Russia won’t take seriously any commitments that aren’t set in stone.”
• “The problem of security guarantees runs at cross-purposes: what satisfies Russia leaves Ukraine perpetually insecure, and vice versa.”
• “Perhaps, the foreign-policy source mused, Putin could withdraw his claim to Ukrainian territories in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, which Russia formally annexed but does not fully control. But that would mean that the rest of those regions, and the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk, would end up inside Russia’s de-facto borders. Could the hawkish members of Trump’s Cabinet and the Republican Party, not to mention Zelensky and the whole of Ukrainian society, stomach such a clear victory for Putin? Would Trump himself agree to such a public display of weakness?”
• “Perhaps Trump and Putin could reach an agreement that would effectively freeze the front line.“There is a deeper contradiction at work,” a source familiar with policy discussions said. “For America, based on its own experience, ending a conflict means finding an exit strategy—how you withdraw, close things out, leave the theatre.” One could imagine Trump following this logic, the source said. The war has dragged on for nearly three years, it’s costly for Russia and has cut it off from markets and investment—Putin should want out. “But, from our side, the approach is exactly the opposite. No one is talking about an exit strategy but, rather, a more sustained victory: the West should admit that Russia has a right to certain inviolable prerogatives regarding its own security.”
• “The general mood in Moscow has hardened—or, rather, as a Russian expression goes, the appetite has grown with the eating. In an op-ed for Kommersant, a Russian newspaper, the analyst Dmitri Trenin—the former head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who has since become a Ukraine-war hawk—argued that freezing the current lines is far from enough to satisfy Moscow. The Kremlin believes it has a right to have a say over, as Trenin writes, “the nature of the future Ukrainian regime, its military and military-economic potential, and Ukraine’s military-political status.”
• “In Kyiv, I got the feeling that the Biden status quo had run its course—despite the President’s rhetoric of backing Ukraine “as long as it takes,” it felt as if Ukraine was on a path to sacrificing lives and territory on the way to eventual defeat. Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center, called this the “killing us softly” policy.”
• “An adviser to the Ukrainian government on relations with Western countries called the current situation a “drawn-out war of attrition with, at the end, a rather expected result.” The adviser went on, “People are tired. They don’t always think strategically, but, rather, emotionally. There’s a lot of wishful thinking.”

“Trump's Push for Ukraine Peace Finds Growing Acceptance in Europe; With U.S. support for Kyiv in doubt, many European officials see diplomacy as the best option for Ukraine,” Laurence Norman, Jane Lytvynenko and Alexander Ward, WSJ, 11.17.24.

• “While European leaders have started discussions to see whether they could fill any funding gap for Kyiv if the incoming Trump administration cuts off support, officials in many capitals recognize that an off-ramp to the conflict appears increasingly necessary. They note how Russia is gaining ground as Ukraine struggles for troops and weapons.”
• “The increased alignment between Europe and the Trump administration over the openness for talks is a sharp turnaround from even six months ago. Back then, European officials looked in dread at the Trump team's pledge to end the war with swift negotiations amid fears that the former president would cut a deal with the Kremlin at Ukraine's expense.”
• “Where concerns remain deep in Europe, however, is over the degree to which the Trump administration will deny Ukraine agency over the shape of a diplomatic settlement. European leaders also worry about which Russian demands the president-elect is willing to accept as part of a cease-fire or peace agreement.”
• “Ukrainian officials publicly affirm that their aim is still to liberate the nearly 20% of their territory that Russia is occupying. That position is broadly supported by Ukrainians, but acceptance of potential territorial concessions is growing as Russia is moving forward slowly but steadily on the main eastern front despite heavy losses.”
• “A poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in October showed 32% of respondents were ready to give up some territory in return for an end to the war and preservation of the country's independence. That was up from 14% a year earlier, while the majority are still against any acknowledgment of lost land.”
• “The big question that remains is how Trump will proceed—and whether Putin will engage in good faith negotiations. His advisers have come up with various plans, all of them significantly breaking from the Biden administration's "as long as it takes" approach. The proposals, if adopted into a final Ukraine-Russia deal, could see Ukraine refrain from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for 20 years while it accepts more weapons to deter a renewed Russian invasion.”
• “If Ukraine is kept out of NATO, European officials say Ukraine must be provided with sufficient military support so that it can fend off future Russian attacks—and the officials want to see the U.S. continue to support those efforts. They also want to ensure that both Ukraine and Europe have a seat at the table in deciding the fate of the conflict and Europe's future security.”

"Ukraine’s Trump Tightrope: Kyiv Must Convince the President-Elect That a Russian Victory Could Hurt Him," Nataliya Gumenyuk, FA, 11.15.24. Clues from Ukrainian Views.

"Trump needs concessions from Putin — they may be forthcoming," Rose Gottemoeller, FT, 11.14.24.

• “Trump has every opportunity to alter the dynamics, because Putin has strong motives to nurture his relationship with the US. The Russian president wants to get back on the world stage, arm in arm with the American one — something that would improve his position both domestically and internationally. And he wants relief from the crushing sanctions that have damaged the Russian economy, even if they did not destroy it. Thus, Trump can demand concessions. And, if they are cleverly crafted, they won’t be impossible for Putin to give. Three come to mind.”
  • “First, even if Ukraine’s territorial reality does change, the US should propose language for a ceasefire agreement similar to that used to describe West Germany’s status after the second world war.”
  • “Second, rather than accepting that Nato membership will be put off indefinitely, the US should propose that Nato accession will be worked out over an indefinite period.”
  • “Third, as a condition for coming to the table, the US can say that Russia must be ready to rejoin talks on nuclear arms control and strategic stability.”
• “The important thing is that Trump makes sure he doesn’t come out the loser during negotiations with Putin over Ukraine. He must know that Putin will be ready to make some concessions, carefully crafted to save face — his, Trump’s and Zelenskyy’s too. Nobody needs to emerge from this war having suffered a crushing defeat.”

"War in Ukraine May Only Intensify Under Trump, Says Dmytro Kuleba," The Economist, 11.13.24. Clues from Ukrainian Views.

• “The first question to pose [is] … how to pique Vladimir Putin’s interest in stopping the war? It is undeniable that Russia’s army is making progress in the creeping occupation of Ukraine. Mr. Putin reads that as hard evidence that the current strategy of Ukraine and its partners does not work. He disdains the West for its weakness and indecisiveness, and believes that he will eventually prevail because those partners will be incapable of providing Ukraine with sufficient support to match Russia’s impressive war effort. Yet, if Mr. Putin were as strong as he wants us to believe, why would he import thousands of North Korean troops and rely on North Korean ammunition?”
• “Analysts seem to build their peace models on the assumption that Mr. Putin is a rational decisionmaker. They miss the point that he is fighting the war of his life, and that his ambitions extend beyond mere territory. On the timeline of Russian history, he places himself as Vladimir III, following Peter I, who drowned Ukraine’s struggle for independence in blood following the victory at Poltava in 1709, and Catherine II, who dismantled Ukraine’s autonomy within the empire and destroyed its last Cossack stronghold in 1795. Mr. Putin views subjugating Ukraine as a core part of his legacy; any failure to do so would mark him as the first Russian tsar who fell short. That is to say, a loser.”
• “Across the Atlantic, Mr. Trump cannot afford to appear weak either. He must demonstrate to the entire world that his plan—whatever it is—is far better than Joe Biden’s. He may believe that the current strategy will not stop Russia’s advances and therefore must change. Fair enough. But he should realize that the strategy is failing not because it is fundamentally flawed, but rather because it was never fully implemented. Half-measures and half-resolve have led to half-results.”
• “If the Trump administration then imposed unpalatable peace terms on Ukraine, and if Mr. Zelensky agreed (an unlikely scenario), part of Ukrainian society would resist. Domestic unrest would risk the country’s internal collapse. That would give Mr. Putin the victory he has long desired, painting Ukraine as a failed state—but responsibility for it would fall squarely on Mr. Trump. He cannot afford for Ukraine to become his Afghanistan.”
• “Neither Mr. Zelensky nor Mr. Putin will agree to anything like the Minsk agreements that reduced but did not end hostilities after Russia’s annexation in 2014 of Crimea.”
• “Even if any temporary solution is reached it will simply be a pause before the next conflict. It may sound counterintuitive, but under these circumstances NATO membership would be the only way to prevent Ukraine from reclaiming its lands in the future. But Mr. Putin would not accept Ukrainian membership of NATO.”
• “Mr. Trump cannot simply throw Ukraine under the bus. That would make him look weak in the short term, and in the long one force him to restore assistance to a yet more weakened and bleeding Ukraine.”

"A Watershed Moment: Dmitri Trenin on What Trump's Victory Means for the U.S., Russia and the World", Dmitri Trenin, Kommersant, 11.07.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• “Awareness of the danger of the escalation of the current mediated conflict between the West and Russia into a direct collision is a positive element of Trump's campaign rhetoric. The policy of escalating the war, which was pursued by the Biden-Harris administration, aimed precisely at such a collision, fraught with nuclear war.”
• “As for the readiness to put an end to the war, it is necessary to understand that, firstly, "in 24 hours" it will not be possible to do it and, secondly, "to put an end to the war" means not to "stop hostilities", but to decide the problems that led to them.”
• “If the speech is about the termination of military actions along the existing line of military contact, it is unlikely that such an approach will be taken seriously in Moscow. Such a "stopping of war" will become no more than a pause, after which the conflict will flare up with new force and, probably, with greater intensity. The character of the future Ukrainian regime, its military and military-economic potential, as well as its military-political status, are of prime importance to Russia. In addition, it is necessary to take into account new territorial realities.”
• “It is difficult to count on the fact that the Trump administration will agree to a substantive dialogue on these issues, and even more so on account of the Russian interests. If he shows readiness - the dialogue will begin, but even in this case the agreement is far from guaranteed. A separate topic - what can be considered satisfactory guarantees in conditions when both parties do not trust each other at all.”

“Scholz’s call to Putin,” Tatiana Stanovaya, R.Politik Weekly Digest No. 40 (54), 11.18.24. Clues from Russian Views

• “The Scholz-Putin phone call was not unexpected. German media outlets reported as early as a month ago that Berlin was considering initiating a discussion with Moscow.”
• “Scholz’s attempt to posture as a “peace chancellor” may face challenges, given the shifts in the current geopolitical landscape. Politico notes that with Trump’s election, maintaining this relatively detached position may become increasingly challenging for Scholz (although he is not expected to be in office for long after the Trump administration takes over, given the SDP's weak third-place position in current polls and the general trend against incumbents in global elections). Even so, the opposite may also prove true. Trump's threatened pull-back from Europe and other policies could have multiple effects, including prompting European leaders to shift from steadfast support for Ukraine.”
• “For Moscow, the significance of Scholz’s call lies not in its content but in its positive implications: increasing resentment in Kyiv towards its Western partners, growing unease in the West about maintaining unwavering support for Ukraine, and the opportunity to revive the narrative that Europe cannot function without Russia and that isolation has failed. Moscow harbors no expectations of reaching any agreement on Ukraine with Berlin—regardless of who assumes office in February—or with other European capitals. Instead, Moscow views the call as part of a broader shift, coinciding with Trump’s election.”

“Trump’s Dealmaking Record Could Be Bad News for Ukraine,” Carl Bildt, FP, 11.15.24.

• “The assumption is that the Trump team will try to order the Kremlin and Ukraine to agree to a cease-fire, thereby freezing the conflict and hoping that it will go away. They will be in for a surprise when Russian President Vladimir Putin makes it clear, as he has consistently done since the start of the war, that he has no interest in any cease-fire that isn’t part of a Ukrainian capitulation to his main demands, including extensive limits to Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, as well as handing over even more of its territory to Russia.”
• “What happens once it becomes clear to Trump and his team that Putin is not abandoning his goals in Ukraine? Will Trump then try the Afghanistan model and engineer a surrender to Putin over the heads of the Ukrainians and Europeans? Acceptance of the fruits of aggression, no prospect of NATO membership, no military to speak of, an end to Western sanctions, and de facto Russian control of the politics and future of Ukraine?”
• “There is no doubt that this is what Putin is angling for. In his mind, it will then be up to the United States to force the Ukrainians and Europeans into compliance with the de facto surrender. If the record of Trump’s first term is any guide, he could well be tempted to follow the Afghanistan model. That’s the only deal that could conceivably be done in 24 hours. It sidelines allies and partners. And his campaign financier Elon Musk would probably approve.”
• “But that sort of deal would spell an even bigger disaster than U.S. capitulation in Afghanistan. Chinese President Xi Jinping would be a fool not to recognize it as a template for striking a deal to gain control of Taiwan. The regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang would consider themselves on the right side of history. Millions of Ukrainians would flee their country. Putin would be emboldened to advance further. Faith in the United States across Europe would collapse.”
• “Everyone learns by experience. Trump and his team might well look back and conclude that the United States doesn’t need another debacle—and that he has the opportunity to start his new term by holding the line and demonstrating that he will not reward aggression.”

"The Terrifying Perils of Appeasing a Warlike Russia," The Economist, 11.16.24.

• “Today, Finlandization is back, this time as a model for Ukraine’s post-war relations with Russia. On a doomed peace mission to Moscow, days before Russia’s invasion in 2022, France’s President Emmanuel Macron called Finlandization “one of the options on the table” for Ukraine. Mr. Macron might not use the term now, for his line on Russian aggression has hardened greatly since then.”
• “But if the war ends soon, as America’s president-elect Donald Trump insists it must, leaders in Kyiv can expect pressure from many quarters to make painful compromises. A loss of some territory will surely be one price of peace. Then will come a hard question: how to secure Ukraine’s sovereignty in the future. Some Western governments may put their faith in deterrence of Russia, encouraging Ukraine to build a strong army and economy and to align its political system with European values. Other world leaders may push Ukraine to appease its neighbor by declaring itself neutral and accepting a place in Russia’s sphere of influence.”
  • “In Helsinki, foreign-policy thinkers have strong views on those seemingly opposite approaches to security, because cold-war Finland tried both at the same time. Finland maintained armed forces strong enough to make Soviet leaders recoil from the potential costs of trying to occupy the country formally. At the same time, it bought peace with many compromises, some of which look distinctly shabby in hindsight. In Helsinki today, the term Finlandization is taken as a slur.”
• “Finland did not choose its geography. But—even in its darkest hour—it fought to choose its own fate. Literal Finlandization would be a terrible model for Ukraine, turning it into a Russian satellite. But Finland’s sense of itself as a nation, and its will to survive, is an example worth studying.”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• "Trump's Ukraine-Russia Peace Plan: What We Know," Mac William Bishop, Rolling Stone, 11.15.24.
• "Can Trump Do a Deal With Putin on Ukraine?", John Lough, Chatham House, 11.12.24.
• "Forcing Ukraine to Cede Land Will Only Increase Putin’s Imperial Appetite," Peter Dickinson, Atlantic Council, 11.14.24.

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

“Trump ushers in Europe’s high-stakes moment to defend Ukraine,” Ben Hall, FT, 11.16.24.

• “The EU and the UK do not have much time to waste if they want to have some say in deciding Ukraine’s future — and the repercussions for their own security arrangements. Trump has said he would try to end the war even before returning to office.”
• “One way to buy a seat at the table is to offer to carry more of the military aid burden. The US has so far provided some $60bn in weaponry and ammunition since February 2022 and the Europeans a similar amount (although more in financial aid). The Europeans can surely afford to do more.”
• “Jack Watling of the UK’s Royal United Services Institute makes a powerful argument for helping Ukraine turn the tide of the war before starting talks (and for Kyiv to play its own part by improving its army mobilization and training programs). Trump may not have the patience to wait for Ukraine’s fortunes to change for the better. Still, Watling, like many other western and Ukrainian analysts and officials, argues that with his troops grinding inexorably forward, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has no incentive to come to the negotiating table.”
  • “The historian Sergey Radchenko agrees. “Trump, in his anxious determination to bring the war to a prompt close, may soon discover that Putin has a different timeline, and indeed a different goal.”
  • “Zelenskyy hopes that once Trump sees Putin’s intransigence there will be a surge in US weaponry to Kyiv. But, as Radchenko argues, it is also possible that Trump blames his failure as peacemaker on Zelenskyy’s refusal to compromise.  In the end, the American President may well choose to give up on Ukraine altogether, and so end the war, as he had promised, by letting Russia win it.  With Ukraine acting as Nato’s first line of defense, that would be a disaster for the alliance, especially if the Kremlin interprets it as US disengagement from Europe’s collective defense. The stakes could not be higher.”

"Trump's 'Peace' Promises on Ukraine and Gaza Are a Mirage," Max Boot, WP, 11.12.24.

• “During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised, as one of his first orders of business, to end the war in Ukraine.”
• “If Trump is serious about getting a deal done that results in lasting peace - rather than a short interregnum before a final Russian victory - he should follow his own advice. In "The Art of the Deal," he wrote: "The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you have."
• “The problem for Trump, at this juncture, is that the United States has a lot of leverage over Ukraine but not over Russia.”
• “The best way to get a peace deal: Warn Putin that if he doesn't end the war now, the United States will ramp up weapons deliveries and give Ukraine permission to fire ATACMS and other U.S.-made missiles into Russia.”
• “Putin could survive an end to the war in Ukraine, particularly if it ends with him in control of 20 percent of Ukrainian territory.”
• “Of course, whatever the agreement is with Russia, the problem of enforcement would remain: how to prevent Russia from restarting its aggression after agreeing to a cease-fire? That's what it did after signing the 2015 Minsk peace agreement with Ukraine. Enforcement of a new agreement would probably require Western, and preferably U.S., troops on the cease-fire lines, along with security guarantees for Ukraine, preferably from NATO, but, failing that, from individual NATO states.”
• “If Trump is truly intent on achieving a lasting peace deal - rather than seeking, as Henry A. Kissinger and Richard M. Nixon did in Vietnam, a "decent interval" before the fall of a U.S. ally - he will need to get tough with Putin. This runs counter to his longtime boosterism for the Russian dictator and skepticism of Ukraine. I'm not optimistic Trump will change course, but he has every incentive to do so if he doesn't want to look like a failed dealmaker.”
• “Trump should realize that if Ukraine loses the war and its independence while he is in office, that will be a stain on his presidency - just as the botched Afghanistan pullout was a stain on Biden's presidency, from which Biden's popularity never recovered. If, on the other hand, Trump ends the war in Ukraine on terms that Ukrainians can live with, he would be able to brag of achieving something Biden could not.”

"Trump Had It Easy the First Time," Thomas L. Friedman, NYT, 11.12.24.

• “As for Trump’s Ukraine diplomacy, getting Putin to agree to some kind of cease-fire/peace agreement restoring a Russian border with Ukraine may be the biggest challenge of all, the Russia expert Leon Aron from the American Enterprise Institute told me, because “Trump wants peace in Ukraine and Putin wants victory.”
• “Putin, Aron added, cannot afford to come back to the Russian people after some 600,000 of their compatriots have been killed and wounded in Ukraine, and say, “Oops, sorry, we are not going to control Ukraine after all.” Putin cannot let this war end in defeat. But Trump cannot accept a peace that looks like a defeat for the West. Then he would look like a loser.”
• “If there is any chance of a mutually acceptable deal on Ukraine — a long-term cease-fire roughly on existing battle lines in return for some lifting of sanctions on Russia and accelerated membership for Ukraine in the European Union along with security guarantees but not formal NATO membership — it will most likely happen only after Putin suffers more defeats there and Trump makes clear that he would arm Ukraine even more heavily if Putin would not relent.”
• “The fact that Putin had to effectively hire 10,000 North Korean forces to help fight his reckless war in Ukraine shows two things: how afraid he is to stop without a visible victory “and how afraid he is of a societal backlash if he is forced to send into the trenches raw 18-year-old ethnic-Russian conscripts, especially from Moscow and St. Petersburg where the Russian elite lives,” said Aron, author of “Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War.”
• “Putin is not in a position to have a forever war,” concluded Aron. “He is running out of people.” All of which is to say that if Trump is capable of sustaining Ukraine in its current battlefield position for 12 more months, he might get the deal to end the Ukraine war in a year that he promised in the campaign to deliver in a day.”
• “A Trump administration could cause a new and very different set of red lines to be crossed if it pulls back from NATO or expresses any diminished willingness to protect longtime allies. Japan, Poland, South Korea and Taiwan have hostile nuclear-armed neighbors and the technology and resources to build nuclear weapons themselves...They have seen what happened to Ukraine after it gave the nuclear weapons stationed there back to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. If these countries lose faith in America’s promise — or that promise is withdrawn — and they develop their own nuclear weapons, that would be the end of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that has limited the spread of nuclear weapons since World War II. That would erase the mother of all red lines..”
• “That’s the thing about the world — it is always so much more complicated than it sounds on the campaign trail, and today more than ever. Or as the boxer Mike Tyson is said to have observed: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

“Why Russia May Live to Regret Trump’s Re-Election,” Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Politika, 11.18.24. Clues from Russian Views.

• “U.S. election result does present Putin with three... serious problems.”
  • “The first is that Trump’s victory could undermine Russia’s painstaking efforts over the past two years to carve out an image as the leader and selfless defender of the “global majority.”
  • “The second issue is that Trump may successfully oust the Russian president from what Putin considered his own niche: as the leader and inspiration for anti-liberal, conservative, and anti-elitist forces in the West.”
  • “Still, the main difficulty Trump’s victory poses for the Kremlin is that while Trump may well want to demonstrate his efficiency by forcing a truce in Ukraine or at least freezing the conflict, it is not currently in Putin’s interests for that to happen. Right now, the Russian president does not appear to want any concrete proposals from the West for a ceasefire in Ukraine, even if they entail concessions from the Ukrainian side. The absence of such proposals has allowed Putin to continue the war while blaming Ukraine and the West for failing to offer a realistic peace plan.”
    • “Putin seems confident that he can keep going, and that confidence has brought him back to the original goal of the invasion: to seize all of Ukraine, with some territory annexed directly by Russia, and other parts transformed into a satellite state akin to a second Belarus.”
• “Trump’s victory in the U.S. election effectively was Russia’s “plan for victory” in Ukraine. The Russian elite was hoping for precisely this turn of events, because in the global scheme of things, it’s hard to achieve anything greater than a new occupant in the White House who is ready to talk and listen to Russia’s arguments, including about amending the world order and making concessions in Europe. And if even a proposal from that same U.S. president is rejected by Putin, then it means the demise of the Russian “plan for victory” and any remote prospect of ending the war. And judging by the mood of Vladimir Putin, that’s exactly what will happen.”

"Countering China and Russia: The Hidden Advantages of Women, Peace, and Security," Kathleen McInnis, Benjamin Jensen, Audrey Alliser and Alexis Day, CSIS, 11.15.24.

• “War is a centrally human endeavor; gender is a core aspect of individual identity and of the human experience. Omitting gender, and gender perspectives, from defense planning and operations creates enormous blind spots toward adversary weaknesses and opportunities with allies and partners. If the [U.S.] DoD is to build its deterrent strategies in a tailored manner, considering gender more centrally in its war and defense planning is essential. A number of recommendations flow from the above analysis:”
• “Additional resources. Many of the applications of WPS for tailored, integrated deterrence purposes as outlined above are conceptual rather than resource That said, the current funding levels for WPS activities—particularly those involving allies and partners—is unlikely to be sufficient for these purposes. It is outside the scope of this brief to develop a concrete budgetary recommendation; partnering with Congress, the DoD should establish a WPS/Strategic Competition pilot fund for actioning these activities that includes an assessment of the resources required to increase their scale.”
• “Leverage gender advisers. The DoD has established a cadre of gender advisers (GENADs) across its command structures. In addition to the WPS-related training, education, and partner support work these GENADs perform, components should bring them into key planning and other processes to ensure that their perspective and ideas can be integrated into operational and strategic approaches.”
• “A broader gender lens. While women and women’s issues are often the starting point for considerations of gender, at the end of the day “gender” also includes how men view Do men living under repressive authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, or Iran agree with the policies of gender apartheid—and the promotion of hollow, militaristic versions of “manliness”? How do women in these societies relate to men? What are men’s own aspirations and how do they realize them?”

“Russia's War in Ukraine. Emerging Insights for UK and NATO Joint Doctrine,” James Black, Pauline Paillé, Charlotte Kleberg, Conlan Ellis, Maxime Sommerfeld Antoniou, RAND, 11.18.24.

• “Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, there has been a high volume of publications (articles, tweets, commentaries) purporting to offer insights into the ongoing conflict and its wider implications for the changing character of warfare. While much of this open-source analysis has focused on the technical and tactical levels, some analysts have provided observations about what the fighting means for the future of joint doctrine at the operational and strategic levels.”
• “To determine whether this outpouring of commentary and analysis may contain useful lessons for further consideration, the Doctrine team within the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) of the UK Ministry of Defense (which has subsequently become part of the new Integrated Warfare Centre [IWC]) asked RAND Europe to conduct a review of relevant open-source literature and to present implications for UK and NATO joint doctrine.”
• “Recurring themes emerging from the open-source literature include:”
• “The direction or outcomes of the war remain uncertain, and Ukraine and Russia are both fighting differently to how NATO would fight, complicating efforts to draw firm lessons from the war for joint doctrine.”
• “The latest innovations (e.g., drones, artificial intelligence) have been used alongside First or Second World War-era tactics and technologies (e.g., trench warfare), confounding simplistic ideas of military-technological revolution.”
• “Continuous learning and adaption remain imperative to support competitiveness in a context of rapid technological and tactical evolution.”
• “The war has emphasized the importance of endurance, both in terms of industrial capacity and broader societal will-to-fight, especially as the human, economic and equipment costs of the conflict have soared.”
• “Whole-of-society approaches, including cooperation with allies and partners, have been crucial to sustain both parties' warfighting capacity.”

“Russia’s Plans to Replace the Dollar Are Going Nowhere,” Agathe Demarais, FP, 11.18.24.

• “Photos of the annual BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan last month yields intriguing surprises. In several of them, Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a mock-up banknote featuring the flags of the five core BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Looking at the pictures, one could be forgiven for assuming that the BRICS had just launched a common currency. This is exactly what Moscow would like the world to think as part of its bid to demonstrate that Russia is far from isolated on the global scene.”
• “To the Kremlin’s chagrin, however, things did not go according to plan in Kazan. No BRICS currency was launched, and the official captions to Putin’s pictures do not even mention the banknote. The Kremlin also failed in its efforts to push for the adoption of BRICS Bridge, a financial mechanism that would help the group’s economies bypass Western channels. Interest from other BRICS members was so lukewarm that the scheme did not even make it into the final summit communiqué. Russia is unlikely to stop pressing, however: Developing non-Western financial mechanisms is an almost existential imperative for Moscow—and it highlights how finance has become a new arena for great-power competition.”
• “The reluctance of other BRICS economies to get on board highlights three reasons why the development of non-Western financial mechanisms is unlikely to prove straightforward.”
  • “The first obstacle has to do with BRICS members’ diverging views of the urgency of such plans.”
  • “A second factor hindering the development of BRICS Bridge is that the system can work only if all BRICS countries issue their own digital currencies.”
• “Should Western policymakers lose sleep over BRICS Bridge? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has turbocharged the fragmentation of the global trade landscape between geopolitically aligned blocs. It is therefore no surprise that financial systems are becoming increasingly geopolitical, as well. The threat posed by such schemes may be overestimated in the short term, since the dollar and Swift are nowhere near losing their global hegemony. However, we can bet that non-Western financial mechanisms will become more mainstream in the long run, further fueling the fragmentation of the global financial landscape. Perhaps the only certainty is that Russia will continue to pretend that it is successfully leading efforts to launch BRICS financial schemes—even when there are none to write home about for now.”

For more commentary on this subject, see: 

• "Der Untergang: As Trump Returns, Putin Will Reap the Rewards of Europe’s Inaction on Ukraine", Gustav Gressel, ECFR, 11.15.24.
• "Is NATO Truly Present in the Arctic?", Dmitry Danilov, RIAC, 11.18.24. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities. In Russian.)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Missile defense:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Nuclear arms:

"How Credible is Russia's Evolving Nuclear Doctrine?," Steven Pifer, Brookings Institution, 11.14.24.

• “The idea of threatening nuclear use to dissuade the West from supporting Ukraine apparently [has taken] hold within the Kremlin. The Russian military has given greater visibility to exercises involving non-strategic (tactical) nuclear arms, most recently last spring. On September 25, 2024, Putin described further changes to Russian nuclear doctrine, though they were not as radical as experts such as Karaganov sought.”
  • “First, Moscow would consider “aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state” as a “joint attack” on Russia.”
  • “Second, Russia would consider using nuclear arms on “receipt of reliable information about a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing of our state border,” to include an attack by “strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic and other aircraft.”
  • “Third, Russia would reserve “the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus as a member of the [Russia-Belarus] Union State,” including an attack in which the adversary “using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to our sovereignty.”
• “The latest changes to Russian nuclear doctrine introduce greater ambiguity, which the Kremlin undoubtedly hopes will give Western governments pause in decisions on providing weapons to Ukraine or lifting restrictions on their use. Vague Russian threats since 2022 apparently have slowed Western decisions about arming Ukraine but have not prevented those decisions. The kinds of weapons now provided—such as artillery, main battle tanks, ATACMS missile systems, and F-16 fighters—are far more sophisticated than the weapons provided to Ukraine prior to 2022.”
• “The problem confronting the Kremlin is that the nearly 80-year existence of nuclear weapons suggests they are useful for deterring a nuclear attack and, possibly, a major conventional attack. Beyond that, their influence appears limited. The possession of a large nuclear arsenal did not help the United States in Vietnam or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.”
• “Would Russia use nuclear weapons if its nuclear forces came under concerted Western attack? Almost certainly. Would Russia use nuclear weapons if Ukraine used U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles to strike military targets in Russia that were supporting Russian operations inside Ukraine? Moscow wants the West to think so. But such nuclear use would be fraught with political and military peril for Russia.”
• “Putin has accepted his ostracism from the West. Russian nuclear use against a non-nuclear weapon state would play badly in Beijing and New Delhi and likely make Putin a global pariah. Indeed, Putin suggests a lower nuclear threshold when his close partner China is again pressing for an agreement on no first use. More consequentially, using nuclear weapons would open a Pandora’s box full of nasty, unpredictable, and potentially catastrophic consequences—including for Russia.”
• “The Kremlin hopes the West will ignore all that and be dissuaded from further helping Ukraine. But Western governments can and should question whether the new elements of Russia’s nuclear doctrine and implied nuclear threats have any real credibility.”

“Will They Press the ‘Red Button?’,” Alexey Levinson, Levada Center, 11.15.24.^ Clues from Russian Views.

• “[I]n April last year, Levada Center asked a question: "Is the Russian leadership ready to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine during a special military operation, if it deems it necessary?" There are twice as many "no" answers as "yes" answers, three times more definite "no" than "yes." The opinion that "ours" will never go for such a thing seems to be dominant. And this, in turn, seems self-evident. Over the years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the idea that this should never happen again has spread in our society as an undisputable and, let's repeat, seemingly undisputed norm.”
• “However, along with the point of view of scientists [were] strategists and tacticians, practitioners from the army and security services. Their business is to think about how it will destroy and kill and how to win with its help. Accordingly, in response to ideas about the absolute power of [nuclear weapons], ideas are born that it is not absolute, there are ways to counteract it, to protect against it.”
• “In short, you can survive a nuclear war, you can win a nuclear war. The idea that there will be no winners in such a war is canceled. The militarization of our life, which at first was "creeping" and now "rises from its knees." means, in particular, the spread of the military's discourse to other social strata.”
• “This means that the old norm continues to dominate, but begins to [erode] intensively. What contributes to this blurring? The research materials allow us to identify those respondents who call television the source of information that inspires them the greatest trust. They accounted for 44% of all respondents last spring and this summer.”
• “Comparison of their answers from last year and this year showed that in this environment the erosion of the old norm and the transition to the new one ("justified"!) went much faster than the population as a whole. In the population, if it is rough, the ratio of opinions is "justified": "not justified" was last year as 3:6, it became as 3:5 in this year, and among those who especially trust television it was like 3:5, and it became almost 1:1. Whose views are broadcast by the current Russian television, all its viewers know.”
• “If in general in June 87% approved the activities of the president, then among those who especially trust TV—96%. The development of the SVO into a conflict between the Russian Federation and NATO was already believed last year by twice as many people in Russia as those who did not believe in it. And what was called the "threat of nuclear conflict" in the 2023 poll worried from 80 to more than 90 percent of Russians, that is, everyone. And this means that all Russians think: the Russian nuclear strike will lead to the growth of the current situation, where NATO's participation is only indirect, into a "real war." And thermonuclear at that.”

“More Exasperation than Anything,” Mariana Budjeryn[5] interviewed by Kevin Rothrock, Meduza, 11.18.24. Clues from Ukrainian Views.

• “As with most super-simplified statements, it's both true and false at the same time. The truth is that, yes, Ukraine has tons of fuel spent. Yes, especially the RBMK spent fuel in Chornobyl contains potentially lots of weapons-grade plutonium. Their main configuration would produce a large portion of different isotopes of plutonium in the spent fuel, including Plutonium-239, which could be separated.”
• “The Times article also claims that Ukraine could separate out enough plutonium for a simple nuclear explosive device… [I]t is possible that, within a year, Ukraine could potentially separate the nine kilograms of plutonium, which [could be used to] construct a nuclear bomb… for a yield like “Fat Man” [the codename for the type of nuclear weapon detonated over Nagasaki].”
• “All right, so, several months in, you’ve got your nine kilos of plutonium, and then what? Let’s assume Ukraine has preserved the kinds of engineering and radio chemical expertise and the physicists that could be mobilized into this urgent program to construct this warhead. Possibly, if Ukraine could somehow marshal the expertise and the engineering needed here, they could get to a “Fat Man” kind of bomb in several months. That's not an outlandish claim.”
• “But what do you do in 2024 with a “Fat Man” kind of device?... It’s an enormous thing that was loaded onto an aircraft. The aircraft had to fly over Nagasaki, open the hatch, and drop the friggin’ thing right over its target. To have a credible deterrent, you need a way to deliver it to the target.”
• “Certainly, if Ukraine today has some, even very distant, options for a nuclear program, it had double, triple that in the early 90s. And all of that was scrapped… They scrapped all of it in the spirit of: “Oh, let’s do non-proliferation and international security for everyone.” And “you're going to be protected by these assurances and brought into the fold of the international community.” You’ll also be secure with these collective structures, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the United Nations.”
• “Where’s all that now? Not only did it prove not to deter anything, but now Putin is issuing nuclear threats. And it’s working, at least partially, with the West.”

Counterterrorism:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Cyber security/AI: 

“War and Peace in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. What It Will Mean for the World When Machines Shape Strategy and Statecraft,” Henry A. Kissinger,⁶ Eric Schmidt, and Craig Mundie, FA, 11.18.24.

For more commentary on this subject, see:

• "AI Policy Directions in the New Trump Administration," John Villasenor and Joshua Turner, Brookings, 11.14.24.

Energy exports from CIS:

"Russia’s Great Energy Game in the Middle East," Sergey Vakulenko, CEIP, 11.12.24.

• “When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council resisted U.S. pressure to condemn the invasion. While they did eventually vote for the UN resolution that condemned the war, this action was largely symbolic and did not signify a substantial commitment. For the Gulf nations, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is viewed as a distant issue, and they appear to prefer to remain neutral rather than take sides.”
• “Western nations were contemplating embargoing Russian oil, but it would have to be replaced with oil from other sources. Despite numerous calls to Saudi Arabia, it refused to promise any additional production to alleviate potential shortages. The price cap mechanism introduced by EU and G7 countries to curb Russian oil income was also seen as a threat by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. If successful, a similar mechanism might be applied to other oil exporters, for example, under the auspices of another incarnation of the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC).”
• “The UAE has emerged as an important nexus in the Russian oil trade. The country has become a base for numerous newly established oil traders who manage a shadow fleet and facilitate transactions involving oil traded above the price cap and settled in dirhams (the UAE’s currency).”
• “For decades, the Persian Gulf has been a strategic focus for the United States, partly due to America’s reliance on oil imports from the region. But in recent years, the United States has transitioned from being an oil importer to being the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.”
• “At the same time, China’s energy imports continue to grow, despite China’s leadership in wind, solar, and Evs… At the same time, Russia is becoming increasingly dependent on China as the main buyer of its natural resources and the main supplier of Russia’s imports.”
• “Currently, Russia and Saudi Arabia are in mutually beneficial cooperation mode, but this cooperation is built around a narrow agenda of the oil market stability, which may be a shaky foundation for a long-lasting relationship.”
• “The two countries have been getting closer related to anti-Western sentiment and a desire for a multi-polar world. Both countries also seem natural players in China’s geopolitical camp—ambitious but waning regional powers with global aspirations, but limited chances to realize them. China may be most interested in luring these countries to its side and may be best positioned to placate the egos of Russian and Saudi Arabian leaders, while extracting the real benefits for Chinese national interest.”

For more commentary on this subject, see: 

• "Transatlantic Energy Security From a Baltic Perspective," Justina Budginaite-Froehly, FPRI, 11.13.24.

Climate change:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“The Russian perspective on Donald Trump's nominees,” Tatiana Stanovaya, R.Politik Weekly Digest No. 40 (54), 11.18.24. Clues from Russian Views.

• “Russia has not commented officially on the potential candidates being put forward occupy key roles in incoming U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow's standard response, stating that Russia does not intend to interfere in U.S. domestic affairs. However, skepticism persists in Russia regarding the Trump administration’s capacity to address Moscow's demands over the war in Ukraine.”
• “Unofficially, senior officials in Moscow express a certain gloating satisfaction over Trump’s ability to disrupt the traditional establishment with his high-profile appointments.”
• “A source close to the Kremlin told R.Politik that Trump’s foreign policy team is so inexperienced that it might be relatively easy for Putin to manipulate them in direct negotiations.”

“Marco Rubio on Russia and Ukraine,” Simon Saradzhyan and Angelina Flood, RM, 11.15.24.

• “When Donald Trump’s team announced Nov. 13 that it plans to appoint Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as the next Secretary of State, few were surprised or bewildered … while never missing a chance to co-sponsor punitive measures against Russia over its aggression in Ukraine or other transgressions (especially if these measures benefited the U.S. economy), Rubio has come to believe that a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine is the only realistic way to end the war.”
• “Rubio shares Trump’s view that the Russian-Ukrainian war should be ended through peaceful negotiations rather than through continued large-scale military aid by the West to Ukraine. In line with this belief, he voted against the $95 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine in April 2024, but voted in favor of aid to Ukraine in May 2022.”
• “Rubio has also (at least recently) been a loyal supporter of Trump on China, professing hawkish views on Beijing, which he sees as a greater threat than Moscow. … He is also seen as likely to toe Trump’s line on reinstating the maximum pressure campaign on another of Russia’s partners in the anti-Western alignment, Iran.”
• “Another issue on which Rubio appears to share views with Trump, is the risk of a nuclear war. Like his presumptive future boss, Rubio is concerned that the imposition of a no-fly zone by NATO over Ukraine could cause the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to escalate into a World War III. Such a convergence of views between the two (or rather Rubio’s support for Trump’s views) may explain why he was reportedly one of three finalists considered to be Trump’s pick for vice president. However, Rubio has deviated from Trump in some areas. For instance, Rubio has diverged from the NATO skeptics in Trump’s team by repeatedly co-sponsoring bills to strengthen U.S. entanglement in the NATO alliance, emphasizing that any U.S. exit from NATO should require congressional approval.” 

For more commentary on this subject, see: 

• "Vladimir Putin Will Take Advantage of the Presidential Transition," Raffaele Marchetti, NI, 11.17.24.

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

"The Dictator’s Reliable Rear: The Russian Economy During the War," Sergey Aleksashenko, Vladislav Inozemtsev and Dmitry Nekrasov, Center for Analysis and Strategy in Europe, 11.08.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• “In this report, we present a balanced assessment of the situation in the Russian economy at the end of the third year of the aggressive war—the Kremlin unleashed a war against Ukraine.”
• “The main conclusion of the report is that the Russian economy was able to withstand the onslaught of Western coalitions due to the confrontation of its market nature, the impossibility of finding a substitute for Russian raw materials on the world market, professionalism of government officials and the West's inability to isolate Russia on the world stage.”
• “Since mid-2023, the Russian economy has undergone important structural changes: military spending has increased, the geography of foreign trade has changed, and the level of income of the population has grown, which together have given it the necessary strength and stability. The current economic structure is capable of meeting the needs of the Kremlin's military machine in the coming years and financing social programs on a scale that does not imply an increase in protest sentiments.”
• “The current situation can be described as "growth without development" and is characterized by a quantitative increase in the volume of production of long-mastered products, an expansion of the service sector and limited modernization of infrastructure, not accompanied by technological progress.”
• “From the point of view of the international community, the most dangerous consequence of current trends is the formation around Russia of an economic model based on massive violations of intellectual property rights, non-transparent foreign trade and the use of non-traditional forms of international settlements. The Kremlin sees the potential for institutionalizing this model and is laying it down as the basis for its geopolitical claims, trying to play the role of leader of the “non-Western” world.”
• “An assessment of the potential of the Russian economy excludes the chances of a serious crisis caused by internal factors in the future for at least 3-5 years.”

"Are Russia’s Economic Resources Truly Inexhaustible?," Tatiana Rybakova, Russia.Post, 11.15.24. Clues from Russian Views.

• “As economist Oleg Itskhoki notes, two economies coexist in today’s Russia. One is state-owned, quasi-state or dependent on state orders. This economy knows no problems with orders or loans, which are provided at subsidized interest rates or forgiven altogether. It is, basically, the military economy. The other one is the nonmilitary economy, which gets the short straw: from government demands to stop raising prices to 30% interest rate loans.”
• “Many expect mass bankruptcies as early as next year. The first alarm bells have already gone off: the co-owner of one of Russia’s largest property developers, Samolet, is selling his 31.6% stake. Earlier, the well-known developer God Nisanov cashed out. The reason is that Samolet, having aggressively expanded construction using borrowed funds, has now found itself in a difficult situation after the government’s cancellation of subsidized mortgages (less than six months have passed since then) and Central Bank rate hikes.”
• “If “ineffective” nonmilitary business begins to die out, the structure of the Russian economy will start to look like its Soviet predecessor, with state enterprises fulfilling state orders using state money and the state being the main consumer of manufactured goods.”
• “Is private business ready to die without complaint? Are Russians willing to look on without complaint as products become out of reach?”
• “Many economists say that with the current budget deficit and low public debt, Putin can fight Ukraine indefinitely— and it is hard to argue with them. But will he be able to “fight” his own people and their businesses for that long? And if the Russian economy turns out to be less robust than observers think, which path will the Kremlin take: further beefing up its repressive apparatus or curbing its military appetite?”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• “Russia’s Local Government Reform Will Destroy a Rare Channel for Letting Off Steam,” Andrei Pertsev, Carnegie Politika, 11.14.24. Clues from Russian Views.
• "Russia’s Rising Stagflation Threat," Alexander Kolyandr and Alexandra Prokopenko, The Bell, 11.16.24. Clues from Russian Views.

Defense and aerospace:

"The Kremlin’s Implicit Deal with Soldiers Starting to Fall Apart," Alexander Golts, Russia.Post, 11.18.24. Clues from Russian Views. 

• “On November 13, the Russian government, under a presidential decree signed just hours earlier, issued a resolution establishing new compensation payment amounts for injured military personnel based on the severity of the injury. Whereas previously all injured soldiers were entitled to a payment of RUB 3 million (about $30,000) regardless of the severity of the injury, now only those with wounds deemed “severe” by military medical commissions will receive that sum. Those whose injuries are considered “minor” will now receive just RUB 1 million. For injuries not on a government list only RUB 100,000 will be paid.”
• “The Kremlin understood perfectly well that the government resolution would have a negative impact on the morale of Russian troops, who are currently engaged in tough, bloody battles in Ukraine and in Russia’s Kursk Region. For that reason, literally the next day, Putin signed another decree raising the one-time payment for disability due to injury to RUB 4 million (from RUB 3 million).”
• “But this trick is unlikely to fool anyone. The selfish calculations of the authorities immediately became obvious to Russian soldiers in Ukraine, who quickly began writing blog posts that the old system was not so unfair and that even before Putin’s recent decrees, compensation for the wounded still varied because of supplemental insurance payouts. For example, on top of the RUB 3 million for all injuries, insurance paid RUB 81,000 for those qualified as minor but RUB 327,000 for severe ones.”
• “Until recently, “deathonomics” worked, representing a new “social contract” between the Kremlin and the Russian people. The previous, prewar “contract” stipulated that the former would provide a certain level of well-being and the latter, for their part, would not aspire to participate in decision-making, allowing Putin to do whatever he wanted, both in domestic and foreign policy.”
• “While the Kremlin was doling out unthinkable sums for the Russian provinces to men ready to go fight in Ukraine, the majority of the country continued to live as they had before the war; in particular, well-off residents of big cities maintained their usual way of life. This “contract” allowed the Kremlin to recruit about 30,000 volunteers a month, making it possible to keep prosecuting the war in the form it had taken. But now the main player in this complex economy of war, apparently realizing that its financial resources are not unlimited, has shown that it might renege on its commitments. Other players in this economy, the ones risking life and limb for promised money, may now wonder whether they might be deceived again.”
• “It is only a matter of time before the government’s decision to drastically cut payments for injuries sustained in battle begins to weigh on volunteer numbers.”

“Desperate for New Army Recruits, Russian Authorities Resort to Planting Drugs and Posting Fake Job Ads,” Meduza, 11.13.24.

• “As Russia presses forward with its offensive in Ukraine, mounting casualties on the battlefield have forced the Defense Ministry to intensify recruitment efforts. Alongside raising sign-on bonuses for new contract soldiers, officials are using increasingly aggressive tactics, including manipulation and coercion: intimidating 18-year-old conscripts, posting fake job ads, and pressuring people under criminal investigation to sign contracts.”
• “Over nearly three years of war, at least 77,000 Russian soldiers have died fighting in Ukraine, based on a list of confirmed casualties compiled by Mediazona and the BBC. Meduza’s analysis of inheritance case data suggests the true number could exceed 120,000. The number of wounded may be up to three times higher, taking an additional 360,000 soldiers off the battlefield. Even these figures likely understate the scale of Russia’s losses, given the government’s continued secrecy around casualty data.”
• “To sustain their offensive in Ukraine, Russian officials have had to aggressively and continuously recruit more troops. According to Western intelligence agencies, by spring 2024, Russia was losing up to 1,000 soldiers per day, or roughly 30,000 per month. U.S. officials believe Russia is enlisting between 25,000 and 30,000 contract soldiers monthly to offset these losses.”
• “When one St. Petersburg man who’d applied for an engineering job googled the address for his interview, he discovered it was a military base. This is a common tactic, says Ivan Chuvilyaev from Get Lost. Had the man gone to the interview, recruiters would’ve assured him that the job involved only drone production and had nothing to do with combat. But if he signed any paperwork, he’d have been deployed straight to the front.”
• “Former prisoners are also being targeted. Fyodor Sorokin (name changed) told Holod that after serving time for drug possession, he received a WhatsApp message notifying him of new charges. He was instructed to turn himself in to the police, but the address led to a military enlistment office. Sorokin ignored the summons, but the authorities tracked him down and arrested him. “They gave me a choice: ‘Either you sign the contract now, or a bag of drugs will end up in your pocket,’” Sorokin said. He signed.”
• “Human rights advocates say these coercive tactics are now widespread. Previously, conscripts needed to complete higher education or serve at least three months before signing contracts. Since spring 2023, however, even recent high school graduates can be recruited immediately. Promises of easier service or specific assignments rarely hold up—once a contract is signed, recruits are considered volunteers for the duration of the war and can be sent anywhere, including the front lines.”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• "Russia is Expanding its Solid-Propellant Motor Production Facilities," Fabian Hinz, IISS, 11.18.24.

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

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s external policies, including relations with “far abroad” countries:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Ukraine:

"Volodymyr Zelensky Faces a Power Struggle in 2025," The Economist, 11.12.24.

• “For now, there are two dates on Kyiv politicos’ lips: January 20th 2025, the date of Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the first moment for any possible ceasefire and lifting of military law, and May 25th, the earliest mooted date for an election.”
• “Some groundwork appears to have begun. Regional election headquarters are mobilizing, and work on candidate lists is beginning.”
• “If elections were held tomorrow, Mr. Zelensky would struggle to repeat the success of the landslide win he secured in 2019. Nearly three years into the Russian invasion, he is no longer seen as the undisputed war leader he once was.”
• “The president fares better when pitched against other opposition figures, some of whom are actively disliked. But a former colleague of the president says his best move might be to step aside regardless, and keep to his original promise only to serve one term.”
• “Zelensky has only one way out to get out with an intact reputation,” a source says. “That is to run elections [without him] and go down in history as the man who united the nation in war.” The alternative is to risk being associated with a military collapse or an incomplete peace.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

"Relations Between Georgia and the West to Become Transactional," Emil Avdaliani, CEIP, 11.13.24.

• “Georgia’s ruling party, Georgian Dream, appears to have weathered the crisis sparked by the opposition’s allegations of electoral fraud during the October 26 parliamentary elections. Although protests continue on the streets of Tbilisi, the ruling party looks set to hold onto power.”
• “The EU approach will likely consist of freezing relations with Tbilisi as they stand now, i.e., no progress on EU membership, but at the same time refraining from reintroducing visa requirements, since visa-free travel to the EU is highly valued by most Georgians. As for the United States, given the new administration’s expected ambivalence on Ukraine and focus on the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region, Washington is expected to scale down its engagement with Georgia and the South Caucasus overall.”
• “Georgian Dream can also be expected to remain highly pragmatic. It might offer to repeal the recent controversial “foreign agents” law and perhaps even another on “LGBTQ propaganda” in exchange for normalizing ties with Brussels and resuming the EU membership process. This is what Josep Borrell, vice president of the European Commission, suggested on October 30, though no response has so far followed from Tbilisi.”
• “This transactional approach will further undergird Tbilisi’s multidirectional foreign policy by strengthening connections with Eurasian nations, including Russia, China, Turkey, and possibly Iran. Yet in a largely pro-European society, the ruling party will have to tread carefully. Recent polling still shows that 90% of Georgians favor EU membership, while 89% oppose alignment with Russia, pushing Georgian Dream to publicly maintain commitment to the EU, albeit selectively.”

For more commentary on this subject, see: 

• "Have Elections Pushed Georgia Further from Western Integration?," Maximilian Hess, IISS, 11.15.24.
• "How Russia Could Exploit Georgia’s Political Turmoil," Michal Kranz, FP, 11.12.24.

Footnotes

1. For English-language news articles reporting on Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use ATACAMS in the Kursk region and the reaction to this decision in the U.S., the West and Russia (including by Putin’s spokesman Peskov), visit the following links: NYT, 11.18.24, FT, 11.18.24, WSJ, 11.18.24, WP, 11.18.24, Bloomberg, 11.18.24, Meduza, 11.18.24.
2. Putin did earlier comment on the possibility of Western countries allowing Ukraine to fire Western-supplied missiles deeper into Russia. See RM’s take on his comments here.
3. The editors of Rybar claim that at the beginning of October, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had only six to eight ATACMS missiles on their balance sheet, as well as 20 to 30 Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles, which in total allows for up to four salvos, according to a recent commentary in Republic.
4. Megan K. Stack is a contributing NYT Opinion writer who has reported from Russia and Ukraine.
5. Rothrock interviews Mariana Budjeryn of Harvard Kennedy School’s Managing the Atom Project, responding to a report by The Times of London that “Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months.”
6. This essay is adapted from their book, “Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit” (Little, Brown and Company, 2024).

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.

Slider photo by AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky.