Russia Analytical Report, Oct. 11-17, 2022
4 Ideas to Explore
- There are seven ways in which the Cuban Missile Crisis was different from the current standoff between the U.S. and its allies on one side and Russia on the other, according to Andrei Kortunov of RIAC. First and second, the CMC lasted less than two weeks and was a "purely nuclear crisis.” Additionally, the U.S. and Russia today possess much more advanced nuclear weapons than they did 60 years ago. Then, there was also mutual respect between the U.S. and Russian leaders, both of whom personally experienced the hardships of a world war, according to Kortunov, who concludes his commentary with a quote from John F. Kennedy: “Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.”
- The Vietnam war offers three lessons for Ukrainians as they try to get a stronger nuclear power out of their country, according to Gideon Rose of CFR. First, it is important to succeed on the battlefield. Second, resist bullying. “Loud threats of escalation are a sign of weakness, not strength; if Russia had good options for changing the situation in its favor, it would have used them already,” Rose argues. The third lesson is to integrate force and diplomacy, according to Rose.
- Putin’s war in Ukraine is diminishing Russia’s capability to influence its post-Soviet neighbors, according to Marlene Laruelle of George Washington University and Daniel Baer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. However, “Western countries would be wise not to celebrate Russia’s unwilling abdication of its role as security guarantor for the countries to its south ... [for the] waning of Russian influence may ... create waves of regional tensions,” Laruelle warns. In contrast, Baer argues that the United States and Europe should “exploit Russia’s colossal strategic mistake to work toward a better status quo—and avoid a worse one—in the places where Russia’s now-receding power projection has proven so nefarious and calcifying in the past.”
- If and when Zelensky wins and Putin falls, the best thing the West can do is to avoid inflicting humiliation on Russia, according to Boris Bondarev, a Russian diplomat who resigned in May to protest the invasion of Ukraine. Rather, the West should support a post-Putin Russia, making such support “heavily conditioned on political reform,” Bondarev argues.
I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda
Nuclear security and safety:
- No significant developments.
North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:
- No significant developments.
Iran and its nuclear program:
- No significant developments.
Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:
- No significant developments.
Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:
- No significant developments.
Punitive measures related to Ukraine and their impact globally:
- No significant developments.
Ukraine-related negotiations:
- “Russian President Vladimir Putin was not bluffing when he said, ‘If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people.’”
- “Stopping a war while the aggressor still occupies someone else’s territory is bad. Yet, it is much less bad than the alternative of pressing on until Russia detonates nuclear weapons. … To prevent an escalation that involves nuclear weapons, world leaders must step in to encourage Ukraine to propose a cease-fire.”
- “To achieve a viable cease-fire”
- “Russia needs to give up on its goals of destroying an independent Ukraine and carving up its territory beyond the quickly diminishing areas that it currently controls.”
- “Ukraine and NATO need to recognize that Russia will not cede all the territory it has taken since 2014 right now (though it might eventually if it gets fed up years later with the hassle and cost of retaining it and the sanctions it endures for doing so).”
- “Ukraine will need the equivalent of an international Marshall Plan to rebuild—whenever the fighting stops.”
- “Some experts argue that anything less than total Russian withdrawal would be a victory for Putin and therefore must be resisted. But Putin has already lost strategically.”
- “NATO is working to expand its membership to include Finland and Sweden and has supported Ukraine in ways unimaginable before.”
- “The Russian army has been devastated and embarrassed.”
- “The economy has shrunk as well as lost capital and technology that are unlikely to return absent major changes in Russia’s government.”
- “Russian citizens, especially the most talented youth, have become disaffected or have fled.”
- “A negotiated cease-fire would not change these facts.”
- “If Ukrainian forces cannot expel Russia from all these lands without a cornered Putin using nuclear weapons as a last recourse, it is better for the people of Ukraine, Europe, and the United States to act on this realization before a nuclear war begins.”
Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:
- “The direction of Ukraine policy is unclear, apart from the week by week, month by month incrementalism. But the Biden pattern is clear: Try to ratchet up and down the pace and quality of arms deliveries to Ukraine, calibrating and recalibrating what might anger Putin. And as Biden’s fears (whether real or political drama) about a tactical nuclear strike in Ukraine take further hold of his imagination, he will worry all the more about poking the tiger.”
- “At what point will the president’s concerns dictate increased pressure on Kyiv to freeze the conflict and come to the negotiating table, per Henry Kissinger’s hyper-realist counsel? It’s impossible to know. At what point will Biden start leveraging the prospect of post-war reconstruction assistance to Ukraine (estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars already) to compel Ukraine to end the war before complete victory? Maybe he won’t. But the history of Biden’s national security team, the evidence of financial aid and arms sales, and the president’s own ever-more panicked rhetoric suggest that the specter of Obama-era Ukraine policy will loom ever larger, and promise ever more constrained support for the forces of freedom in Ukraine.”
“The Sources of Russian Misconduct. A Diplomat Defects From the Kremlin,” former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, FA, November/December 2022. Clues from Russian Views.
China-Russia: Allied or aligned?
- “One interesting new phenomenon is that while China’s corps of civilian leaders has included a disproportionate number of Western-educated, and especially U.S.-educated, returnees … an increasingly large number of military officers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been trained in Russia.”
- “In 2017, a total of 66,100 Chinese nationals studied in countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, including Russia, which saw a 16% increase in Chinese students over the prior year. ... [T]he number of Chinese students studying in Russia has grown significantly over the past decade. It is expected that the number of students returning to China from Russia will increase in the near future.”
- “[When it comes to]foreign countries and regions in which members of the 19th Central Committee (CC) studied. The United States ranks at the top (42.9%), followed the United Kingdom (8.3%) and Germany (8.3%) … There are, however, six CC members (7.1 %) who studied in Russia (most of whom are military officers).”
- “Compared with civilian universities and research institutions, China’s military academies and PLA forces were latecomers when it came to foreign education and training. … [T]he Central Military Commission (CMC) began sending officers for overseas training in the mid-1990s. Between 1996 and 2017, China sent more than 1,600 military students to more than 70 universities, miliary academies and research institutions in 29 countries … The first batch of 42 PLA officers attended nine Russian military academies in 1996. An article in the PLA Daily stated that ‘due to historical, political, geographical and other reasons, Russia accounted for the majority of PLA officers trained abroad.’”
- “At a time when the relationship between China and U.S.-led NATO countries has rapidly deteriorated, one can expect that China-Russia military ties will likely become even stronger. Chinese participation in ‘Vostok 2018,’ … and more recently in ‘Vostok 2022,’ reflects this trend. This development makes the examination of the status of Russian-educated military elites––as well as civilian leaders––in the Chinese leadership critically important.”
- “On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden, who was vice president when the earlier document was drafted, released his own National Security Strategy. And it couldn’t strike a more different tone. ‘We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over [China],’ the document pledges, blasting China for trying ‘to become the world’s leading power.’ Russia, too, is no longer described in rosy terms as a potential partner but as an ‘immediate and persistent threat’ to global peace and stability. Put simply, the Biden strategy is a 180-degree turn from the last Democratic administration. Instead, the new document affirms what the Trump administration first concluded in its 2017 strategy: ‘[G]reat power competition [has] returned.’”
- “In their perception of threats, the Trump and Biden strategies converge fully on the pivotal issue of great-power rivalry. But there are many ways to deal with the same threat, as illustrated by the wide range of Cold War-era strategies that all fell under the heading of containment. But even on the level of policy, Biden’s 48-page strategy provides surprisingly few indications of whether and how his approach will differ from former President Donald Trump’s.”
- “The three pillars of Biden’s strategy toward China ... remain ambiguous.”
- “The first is ‘to invest in the foundations of our strength at home—our competitiveness, our innovation, our resilience, our democracy.’
- “The second pillar is ‘to align our efforts with our network of allies and partners.’”
- “Finally, the strategy says the United States will ‘compete responsibly with [China] to defend our interests and build our vision for the future.’”
- “It is perilous to read too much into any National Security Strategy. Their importance is that they set the tone for U.S. security policy and indicate its direction.”
- “In case you haven’t noticed, let me alert you to a bracing turn of events: The U.S. is now in conflict with Russia and China at the same time. Grandma always said, ‘Never fight Russia and China at the same time.’ So did Henry Kissinger. Alas, there is a strong case in the national interest for confronting both today. But have no doubt: We are in uncharted waters. I just hope that these are not our new ‘forever wars.’”
Missile defense:
- No significant developments.
Nuclear arms:
“Deterring Putin from going nuclear,” Brookings’ Michael O'Hanlon, The Hill, 10.09.22.
- “It is good that Putin knows there are a range of options—especially options that do not require us to use nuclear weapons in response, given the dangers of escalation—and that we would continue to develop more, if and when he took such a horrible and foreboding step in his war in Ukraine. Consider these:”
- “First, the United States should join the International Criminal Court and pursue indictments of Putin and his top military leadership.”
- “Second, if a comprehensive policy of cutting off Russia from the world economy proved too much, the notion of a price cap on Russian oil exports could be dramatically expanded and tightened.”
- “Third, the world community could dismantle the existing United Nations and build a new one without Russia.”
- “Fourth, deploy NATO forces in defensive positions onto Ukrainian territory for the duration of the war.”
- “Vladimir Putin's nuclear arsenal is immensely more varied and formidable than Khrushchev's. And Putin's frenzy intensifies as his Ukraine blunder reveals the hollowness of the great-power strutting it was intended to validate. In contrast, Khrushchev quickly recognized that he needed what Kennedy ultimately provided—an escape from the strategic cul-de-sac into which his impulsiveness had driven him. Putin validates nostalgia for Khrushchev: The world today might be closer to a use of a nuclear weapon than it was then.”
- “As Max Hastings, a British historian, reports in his upcoming ‘The Abyss: Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962,’ the delicate military and diplomatic task is to counter ‘Putin's obsessive resentment, his craving for respect and willingness to take huge risks and to initiate hideous atrocities around Russia's borders in pursuit of a pan-Slav fantasy.’ So, ‘the scope for a catastrophic miscalculation is as great now as it was in 1914 Europe or in the 1962 Caribbean.’”
- “Khrushchev was fond of a quote that Vladimir Lenin attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: ‘On s'engage et puis on voit’—more or less, ‘Start something, then see what happens.’ Putin has seen what happened after he started something in Ukraine—NATO energized, Russian power revealed as suited only for war crimes. What happens next, or doesn't, will depend on the sort of skill and luck seen 60 Octobers ago.”
“Seven ways the Caribbean crisis [Cuban missile crisis] was different,” RIAC’s Andrei Kortunov, RIAC/Izvestia, 10.17.22. Clues from Russian Views.
- “First. The Caribbean crisis was fleeting—less than two weeks.”
- “Second. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a purely nuclear crisis. ... The current crisis is not limited to the nuclear sphere, it is aggravated by the fact that the United States has long been indirectly involved in a large-scale military conflict with Russia on the European continent, providing comprehensive military-technical, intelligence, economic and other support to Ukraine.”
- “Third. For both sides, the stakes in the current crisis are higher than they were 60 years ago.”
- “Fourth. The structure of the nuclear missile arsenals that Moscow and Washington have today is fundamentally different from everything they had at their disposal in 1962.”
- “Fifth. 60 years ago, the level of mutual respect and even mutual trust between the leaders of Moscow and Washington was much higher than it is today.”
- “Sixth. During the Caribbean crisis, lines of communication continued to operate: the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, met with Robert Kennedy many times, and also maintained constant personal contacts with Secretary of State Dean Rusk.”
- “Seventh. Both the main actors of the Caribbean crisis—Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy—personally experienced all the horrors and hardships of the Second World War.”
- “In spite of all the differences, however, the words of John F. Kennedy … remain quite relevant: ‘Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective death-wish for the world.’”
“On the Way to The Last Line,”, IMEMO’s Dmitri Trenin, Kommersant, 10.12.22. Clues from Russia Views.
- “Despite this apparent mirror image, it is not necessary to equate Cuba [CMC] and Ukraine. The differences between these situations are profound and fundamental.”
- “In 1962, Washington viewed Moscow as an equal military-political and ideological rival ... 60 years later, Russia appears before the American political class as a second-rate or even a third-rate country.”
- “Another difference is the degree of demonization in the U.S. of Russia and its leadership.”
- “Despite the abundance of communications and technical means to communicate, it is difficult for U.S. leaders to talk to the Kremlin other than in terms of Russian capitulation.”
- “The trajectory of the current crisis, in my opinion, is leading Russia and the United States to the last line, when the question of the physical survival of both countries and the whole world will arise. This is the main thing that unites the two crises. 60 years ago, prudence prevailed at the last moment. Will it be the same now?”
- “This month humanity will mark the 60th anniversary of what American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. described as the most dangerous moment in human history. But has his 1999 proposition remained valid? Or has the current crisis in relations between the U.S. and its allies on one side and Russia on the other become more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis? If yes, then why? If not, then why not? These are the questions we have posed to some of America’s top experts on U.S.-Russian relations. We have also searched for answers to these questions in parallels drawn by not only experts, but also officials in the U.S. and Russia, between the current crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC). Given the fog of crisis, it should, perhaps, come as no surprise that our search has revealed a significant divergence in answers to the questions we have raised. For instance, while Harvard’s Graham Allison and IMEMO’s Alexei Arbatov don’t believe the current crisis has reached the level of risk seen during the CMC yet, Stephen Cimbala of Penn State Brandywine and Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress see the ‘likelihood of a deliberate or miscalculated escalation to nuclear first use’ as greater today than it was 60 years ago.”
- “If Putin were to use a nuclear weapon (God forbid), that might also very likely deliver the final blow to his hold on power in Russia. No world leader would support him. The democratic world would be compelled to respond, both with more sophisticated weapons for Ukraine—fighter aircraft (MiG-29s), longer-range missile systems (ATACMS) and better air defense weapons (Patriots) as well as genuinely crippling sanctions, such as designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
- “After a nuclear attack, no Ukrainian leader would call for surrender. Instead, Zelensky would have every reason to bring the war to Russia, including attacks on targets in Moscow and other major cities. (Who doubts that Ukraine has sleeper cells in Moscow?)”
- “At the same time, it is hard to believe a majority of Russians would welcome the use of nuclear weapons against their Slavic neighbors. A few shouting television propogandists and a couple of neo-fascist politicians might support this horrific act, but we should not confuse them with Russia's silent majority. Putin would likely end up looking alone in his own country, a madman who must be stopped.”
- “The best way for Putin to hold on to power is to end his invasion today. He could declare victory regarding the defense of Donbas, and then order his diplomats to settle into a long negotiation about the borders and political rights of those living in Donbas. Most Russians—elites and the masses—would support him. Fanatic imperialists do not have the means nor popular appeal to overthrow Putin. That is pure fantasy. But does Putin share these same assessments? I don't know. And that's what makes his recent moves of escalation so frightening.”
- “Biden’s comparisons of the current war to the Cuban missile crisis are wrong as history. The Cuban missile crisis was a standoff in which the Soviet Union moved to station nuclear weapons in an allied state abutting the U.S. As the political scientist Marc Trachtenberg has shown, it was the final act of earlier Berlin crises. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not a direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation; the better analogies are proxy wars in third countries during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.”
- “President Biden’s public expressions of anxiety are also wrong as strategy, because they reward Russia for making nuclear threats. … Worse yet, Biden’s public anxiety telegraphs to every aspiring authoritarian the value of having nuclear weapons.”
- “The right response to Putin’s nuclear threats is the one that Ukrainians—who are the people likeliest to be victims of Russia’s nuclear use—have already given: This will not change the outcome of the war. That message signals our commitment and diminishes the power of nuclear threats.”
- “Biden ought also to make explicit what the United States will do if it detects Russian preparations to use a nuclear weapon.”
- “At a minimum, the U.S. should make public what it knows and should provide Ukrainians with all the intelligence and military assistance necessary for them to preempt such an attack.”
- “If that stance fails to prevent it, NATO nations should send military nuclear-cleanup teams immediately to Ukraine to help deal with the consequences, accelerate weapons deliveries to Ukraine, bury any hesitation about Ukraine striking Russian territory, and pledge that Americans will hunt down and bring to justice everyone involved in the policy decision and execution of the orders.”
- “Next week NATO plans to conduct a major exercise in Europe. The two-week-long exercise, known as Steadfast Noon and set to begin Oct. 17, will practice the handling of and attacks with non-strategic nuclear weapons and aircraft from more than half a dozen NATO countries. The NATO exercise will more or less overlap with a Russian nuclear exercise—Grom (or Thunder)—that will practice deployment of strategic nuclear forces and possibly include test launches of nuclear missiles.”
- “These exercises happen every year and officials insist they are not directly linked to any current world events. Except this year, they are happening at the height (so far) of the worst NATO-Russia crisis since the Cold War. Russia is continuing its seven-plus-month brutal war in Ukraine but is losing, and Russian officials are threatening use of nuclear weapons if NATO interferes directly or attacks Russian territory. The rhetoric from both sides is escalating day by day. This is inherently dangerous because it increases the perception of threats even further and can lock the two sides deeper into escalating nuclear posturing.”
- “When asked about the delicate timing of Steadfast Noon, Stoltenberg instead emphasized that the exercise, despite being long-planned, serves as a warning to Moscow … Moscow, of course, is using Steadfast Noon in its own rhetoric.”
- “Coinciding nuclear exercises in the middle of a large-scale war with escalating operations and rhetoric are inherently dangerous because they can fuel further escalation. It’s a textbook example of what happens in a tense crisis where both sides escalate to demonstrate that they are serious about deterring each other, but therefore can’t de-escalate because it would make them look weak. It indicates that deterrence posturing is on autopilot.”
- “By refusing to cancel—or at least delay—Steadfast Noon, NATO may unintentionally be creating a false perception that both sides are rattling their nuclear swords in the middle of a major war. It could undercut NATO’s ability to stigmatize Russia’s irresponsible nuclear behavior. NATO has many other capabilities to deter Russia and it’s not like the dual-capable aircraft mission in Europe will crumble if it is not exercised right now.”
“Beyond nuclear deterrence,” Stephen Herzog of the Center for Security Studies, Science, 10.13.22.
- “Just as the Cuban Missile Crisis changed nuclear thinking, the war in Ukraine necessitates new research programs. Social scientists can draw on perspectives of nuclear and non-nuclear states alike to identify strategies for protecting populations and vital interests without nuclear risks to survival. After all, only a minority of states actually rely on nuclear weapons or protection pledges from nuclear-armed allies. These international political realities should be reflected in the scientific literature. Interrogating nuclear deterrence calls for rigorous scholarship on nuclear disarmament and alternative frameworks of security in public discourse, peer-reviewed journals and academic syllabi.”
- “Moving beyond nuclear deterrence requires research into nuclear disarmament’s feasibility. An oft-repeated critique of complete disarmament is that it is desirable but ultimately unachievable. Yet, innovations in neutron detection, noble gas monitoring and sensor technology offer ways to verify warhead dismantlement and the absence of fissile material production and nuclear test explosions.”
- “The Cuban Missile Crisis may seem distant, but nuclear dangers are not speculative fiction. Thousands of cities are mere minutes away from nuclear destruction by weapons far more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is the legacy of ‘protection’ by nuclear deterrence. If scientists draw a lesson from October 1962, it is that existential risks demand novel thinking. Like climate change, solving the nuclear disarmament puzzle requires improved understanding of system-altering change. Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling sends a clear message: Now is the time to fund and pursue scientific research for a world beyond nuclear deterrence.”
- “Kennedy and Khrushchev gave each other a face-saving way out of a crisis that could easily have erupted into nuclear war. It was an elegant solution—but the key was secrecy. Kennedy insisted that he could not be publicly seen to have made the missile-swap deal. Khrushchev agreed to keep it secret. Given today's all-penetrating media, that would probably be impossible now.”
- “Nonetheless, President Biden has evidently understood the fundamental lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is that opponents in a game of nuclear chicken should talk and deal, not bluster and threaten. ‘We are trying to figure out, what is Putin's off-ramp?’ he mused this month. ‘Where does he find a way out?’”
- “With luck, both leaders will act according to a principle that Khrushchev enunciated in one of his letters to Kennedy 60 years ago: ‘One cannot give way to passions. It is necessary to control them.’”
- “Airlines also face ... devastating risk: the risk of a Russian nuclear attack against Ukraine. All airlines’ insurance policies have exclusions for war and nuclear attacks. This nuclear exclusion clause has been around since the Cold War and has fortunately never had to be invoked. But because it was written during the Cold War, it foresees a nuclear attack leading to an all-out nuclear war, in which all insurance would be canceled simply because the world would face total destruction.”
- “Although these weapons would cause devastation in the affected area, the harm would be nothing like Cold War-style nuclear Armageddon. But because insurance policies’ nuclear exclusions haven’t had to be tested by any such attacks—and long predate the current discussion about Russia’s so-called escalate-to-deescalate strategy—they simply stipulate that a nuclear attack would cause the insurance to be canceled.”
- “That means if Russia uses a battlefield nuclear weapon against Ukraine, the world’s airlines will stop flying.”
“Artificial Intelligence and Arms Control,” CNAS’s Paul Scharre and Megan Lamberth, CNAS, 10.12.22.
- “There are several steps that policymakers, scholars and members of civil society can take today to explore the potential for AI arms control. These include meetings and dialogue at all levels to better understand the technology, how it may be used in warfare, and potential arms control measures. Academic conferences, Track II academic-to-academic exchanges, bilateral and multilateral dialogues, and discussions in various international forums are all valuable for helping advance dialogue and mutual understanding among international parties. Analysis of potential arms control measures must be tightly linked to the technology itself and the conduct it enables, and these dialogues must include AI scientists and engineers to ensure that policy discussions are grounded in technical realities. Additionally, because AI technology remains fluid and rapidly evolving, those considering arms control must be prepared to be adaptive and to shift the focus of their attention to different aspects of AI technology or the military capabilities it enables as the technology matures. Metrics for tracking AI progress and proliferation will also help illuminate both possibilities for arms control and future challenges.”
- “Policymakers can take steps today that may make the technology more controllable in the long run by shaping its development, particularly in hardware. Enacting export controls on key choke points in the global supply chain may help to control the spread of underlying technologies that enable AI, concentrating supply chains and enhancing future controllability. Export controls can have the effect of accelerating indigenization of technology, however, as actors who are cut off from a vital technology redouble their efforts to grow their national capacity.”
- “At the dawn of the AI revolution, it is unclear how militaries will adopt AI, how it will affect warfare and what forms of arms control states may find desirable and feasible. Policymakers can take steps today, however, to lay the groundwork for potential arms control measures in the future, including not only shaping the technology’s evolution but also the political climate.”
Counterterrorism:
- No significant developments.
Conflict in Syria:
- No significant developments.
Cyber security:
- No significant developments.
Energy exports from CIS:
- No significant developments.
Climate change:
- No significant developments.
U.S.-Russian economic ties:
- No significant developments.
U.S.-Russian relations in general:
- No significant developments.
II. Russia’s domestic policies
Domestic politics, economy and energy:
- “Some civil servants believe that by remaining in their posts, they can at least make sure that life does not get worse for Russians, thereby possibly making amends for their silence on the war. ‘It’s practically impossible to influence anything while remaining in Russia but outside the system of government,’ said another official. ‘Naturally, I don’t influence anything much from here either in the grand scheme of things, but I am close to the action, and perhaps one day I might find myself in the right place at the right time to make a difference.’”
- “The focus on efficiency extends even to the ‘special military operation’ itself. Instead of judging it from a moral point of view, the technocrats view it in terms of efficiency, or lack thereof. ‘Those ham-fisted blockheads could be more careful and humane, of course: they could look out for civilians, watch where the missiles are coming down, and time the bombardments more carefully,’ said one. ‘The old man [Putin] is an idiot for getting us into this. God only knows what he was thinking. But what can we do now?’ commented another.”
- “There is no longer any need to be oriented by the public mood, nor by that among the ruling elites, and Putin’s favor is bestowed on anyone who is prepared to anticipate his wishes and carry them out unswervingly. There is no shortage of such people working within the state apparatus. The new rules of the game don’t appear unreasonable to the technocrats; their professionalism is replaced by loyalty.”
- “And so now we see them coolly signing laws forcing businesses to become involved in the special operation, setting out the parameters for military mobilization and agreeing to serve a tour in the military administrations of occupied parts of Ukraine. The problem is that it’s impossible to be efficient amid the moral and institutional smoldering ruins left by the war. Any success will be short-lived. In the end, the technocrats face a growing deficit of resources followed by disappointment and, ultimately, radicalization.”
- “Although it is easy to depict the North Caucasus as a powder keg ready to explode, leading to a domino effect in Russia, the situation on the ground appears more complex. While strong political actors like Ramzan Kadyrov are drawn away from the region and growing grievances and political struggles are fostered across the region, the grassroots forces remained ill-equipped to challenge Moscow’s control over the North Caucasus.”
- “In the context of Western sanctions and Russia’s exclusion from the European Court of Human Rights, Moscow is free to address any existing issues in the North Caucasus through heavy coercive means. Without a clear commitment from external actors, including the European Union and the United States, Russia has the tools to maintain its control over its southern border.”
- “However, the fallouts of the war in Ukraine, combined with the mobilization within the diaspora and the local population, set the table for growing unrest in the region.”
Defense and aerospace:
- See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.
Security, law-enforcement and justice:
- No significant developments.
III. Russia’s relations with other countries
Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:
- “On Sept. 25, Italian voters replaced Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi—one of the most hawkish European leaders on Russia and a leading proponent of a European price cap on gas to curtail the Kremlin’s revenues—with a right-wing coalition made of opportunistic anti-Putin hard-liners (Brothers of Italy), outright Kremlin apologists (the League) and a supposedly moderating and pro-European Union force that just can’t help justifying Russia’s aggression (Forza Italia).”
- “The Brothers of Italy—the bloc’s leading party, which won around 26% of the vote—formally supports the Ukrainian resistance against Russia.”
- “However, Meloni’s resolute anti-Putin stance is a relatively recent addition to the foreign policy of the Brothers of Italy, a post-fascist party that historically hosted some anti-U.S. instincts and more recently embraced a worldview in which Russia is the epitome of traditional values standing against noxious globalism blowing in from the West. Meloni used to be friendly with the Kremlin, and she still is with its European acolytes, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.”
- “Meloni is now engaged in tough negotiations with her allies to form a cabinet that will balance the diverging demands within the conservative coalition and, at the same time, may reassure Italy’s international partners. But the Brothers of Italy will have to plan a strategy to face a social crisis that is brewing under the surface. When rising energy costs and potential shortages hit the very people she pledged to defend from globalist elites and financial speculators, she will have to explain that her unreserved support for Ukraine was the right course of action. Or else, the Putin-friendly parts of her coalition will have an opportunity to force her onto their side.”
“European Summit in Prague Sets Agenda and Isolates Moscow,” SWP’s Barbara Lippert, SWP, 10.17.22.
- “The leaders of the 27 EU member states and 17 others met in Prague on Oct. 6 to inaugurate the European Political Community (EPC). In a series of statements, the wider Europe took a firm stance against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and brutal violation of the Helsinki Principles.”
- “While the heads of state and government did not issue a formal joint communiqué or founding statement, the meeting itself was the message. Countries large and small, from Iceland to the Southern Caucasus, held free and equal discussions about security, stability and Europe’s prosperity.”
- “The EU’s institutions and member states have yet to find a consensus on where the EPC should be heading—between discussion club and ‘community of action’—and how much political capital the member states should be investing in it. The EPC might turn out to be a step toward a Europe of concentric circles, grouped around the EU as graduated spaces of cooperation and integration. That would relieve Brussels of the pressure of enlargement, as Macron and perhaps others in the EU would like to see. EPC summits are to alternate between EU and non-EU states. The next is scheduled for 2023 in the Moldovan capital Chişinău. What will Europe look like by then?”
Ukraine:
“Putin Has Sent Us a Message, but Not the One He Meant To,” Margo Gontar, NYT, 10.12.22. Clues from Ukrainian Views
- “If Russia needs to resort to the lowest tactics, to terrorism against civilians, to hitting universities, museums, libraries, playgrounds, apartment buildings and infrastructure sites—11 of them across the country—then Ukraine obviously has the upper hand. After a string of successful counteroffensives in the northeast and the south, Ukrainian forces have gained momentum. Russia, suffering substantial losses on the frontline every day, is struggling on the battlefield. Monday’s escalation proved it.”
- “So, what now? Ukrainians will set about repairing the damage, of course, as we have done before. Yet we’re under no illusions: While Russia is weak and has no chance of winning in the long run, it still has plenty of leftover military ammunition from the Soviet era and a willingness to use it. We are braced for more disasters.”
- “But we are not back to Feb. 24, full of fear and trepidation. Now we see that the supposed second most powerful army in the world couldn’t take Kyiv—not in three days, not in seven and a half months. For those who were unsure whether it was wise to back Ukraine, it’s a good time to reconsider. And, while the wheel is still turning, to put their chips on the country that will win this war.”
“Ukraine’s Path to Victory. How the Country Can Take Back All Its Territory,” former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk, FA, 10.12.22. Clues from Ukrainian Views
Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:
- “Even as Western analysts and officials warn against placing too much hope on a quick Ukrainian victory, Russian power and influence is already visibly weakened. Russia is not withdrawing so much as it is deflating. Consequently, there is a kind of giant geopolitical sucking sound all around Russia’s periphery—from Eastern Europe to Central Asia—as a diminished Russia creates a vacuum that could unsettle an already fragile status quo.”
- “Although the West is primarily focused on its response to Russia’s war against Ukraine and the war’s impacts on energy supplies and inflation, the United States and Europe should not miss the chance to quietly but energetically exploit Russia’s colossal strategic mistake to work toward a better status quo—and avoid a worse one—in the places where Russia’s now-receding power projection has proven so nefarious and calcifying in the past.”
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