5 Ideas to Explore

1. Russians will continue backing Putin for as long as he retains the ability “to inflict more pain on Ukraine” (at least for a year), while Russian soldiers are being paid “handsomely” for their participation in the war and their families and other Russian civilians are kept happy by “many consumer goods,” according to Alexander Gabuev of CEIP. “The heavy price that Russia will pay for this war will come later on. Now, we are in the stage of the party that people are consuming a lot of booze and they’re happy about that… [T]he difference between Afghanistan, Chechnya and now is indeed that the government is paying handsomely and that keeps people happy,” Gabuev told FT’s Gideon Rachman. Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev holds a somewhat similar view. In his analysis, Russian opposition leaders are unable to win support of the Russian public because they “focus either on moral issues—such as the immorality of war and the need for justice—or on institutional reforms like fighting corruption, democracy and government accountability,” while “the Kremlin is focused on what resonates with atomized individuals: handing out money and touting unattainable geopolitical ambitions.”
2. Russia will have to build new plans and may have to mobilize so-far-untapped human resources, such as the reserve officer cadre, to reconstitute equipment and personnel, respectively, for its ongoing military effort, according to Dara Massicot of CEIP. What can lead “to rapid transformational change in the Russian military” is ascent in ranks by groups of surviving junior officers whose experiences can be harnessed and introduced widely in the postwar years, she writes in her CEIP paper. “The Russian military has historical experience with capturing lessons learned from wars and implementing them throughout the force… This process will be impeded if the process is compromised due to political sensitivities or false reporting,” she writes.
3. “Why is Ukraine still helping fuel Russia’s war machine?” energy analyst Mikhail Krutikhin asks in MT regarding the continued operation of the Druzhba pipeline system, which carries Russian oil to Europe via Ukraine. “By stopping the transit of oil and gas from Russia to Europe, Kyiv would benefit hugely from choking off a huge source of revenue for Russia’s war machine at a relatively low cost to its own budget,” Krutikhin argues.
4. Vice President Kamala Harris’ episodic remarks on foreign policy and national security issues, do not add up to a well-defined philosophy or an integrated point of view, according to Thomas Graham of CFR. This is particularly true of her views on Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, Graham writes in a commentary for RM. “To the extent that matter figures in their calculations, in picking Harris, voters will have decided that the unknown quantity of Harris was the better bet than the known quantity of Donald Trump,” he argues. In fact, “the first real inkling we will have of her foreign policy will come when she announces the individuals who will assume the critical national security posts in her administration—the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Adviser and the intelligence chiefs,” Graham predicts, noting that “that will come only after Nov. 5.”
5. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov sought to underscore that the second unsuccessful attempt on Donald Trump’s life was beyond the Kremlin’s purview.  Moscow is following the situation in the U.S., but is not interfering because “this is not quite our business,” Peskov claimed. When asked what the Kremlin thinks about the possible connection of suspected gunman Ryan Wesley Routh to Ukraine, Peskov said: "It is not us but the U.S. security services who should be thinking about that.” Peskov did say the attempt indicates that “the political struggle is intensifying” in the U.S. In his turn Putin’s deputy in the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev sought to play up Routh’s reported pro-Ukrainian behavior, but Russian political scientist Yuri Svetov said that Ukraine is unlikely to be involved in the assassination attempt on Trump, in his view. The attack is evidence that competitors are attempting to break Trump’s “fighting spirit,” according to Aleksey Pushkov, chairman of the Federation Council of Russia's Information Policy Commission.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

“Chernobyl Roulette by Serhii Plokhy — an occupation story like no other,” Tim Judah, FT, 09.10.24.

• “[Serhii] Plokhy teaches Ukrainian history at Harvard and 'Chernobyl Roulette' is his third book since February 2022, when the Russians began their full-scale invasion of his country. … Clearly no one else was better placed to tell the tale of the 35 days of the Russian occupation of Chernobyl than him and, given the risk of a new catastrophe caused by the fighting, this is an occupation story like no other.”
• “Although journalists covered this story, it is the details that Plokhy recounts, including how the Ukrainian staff at the plant turned the tables on the Russians, that are extraordinary. … The Russians used the area as one for rest and resupply. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian team played up fears of a disaster at the decommissioned plant.”
• “A third of the Russians at the plant were classed as 'obsessed' by one Chernobyl worker. They believed Putin’s propaganda about freeing Ukrainians from the nationalist radicals. Hunts were conducted for mythical American or Ukrainian nuclear, biological or chemical warfare laboratories.”
• “The core of [the book] is built around a series of interviews mostly conducted by Oleksiy Radynski of The Reckoning Project, an organization set up to gather testimonies of war crimes. … It is also only a first draft of history. A full history will only be possible when the Russians who participated in the occupation can talk and the archives in Moscow are opened.”
• “The book’s conclusion is that this story is 'a warning for the future.' There are 440 nuclear reactors on the planet, and Plokhy says that 'If the world is to survive, it must make warfare against nuclear sites as much a taboo as the use of nuclear weapons became after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”'

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

“Clearing Ukraine’s mines is crucial for global food security, say Howard Buffett and Tony Blair,” The Economist, 09.09.24.

• “Ukraine is now the most heavily mined country on Earth, with up to 139,300 square kilometers of land—an area larger than England—studded with millions of landmines. It is a huge impediment to Ukraine’s post-war recovery and economic development—and to safeguarding the food security of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people. Clearing those mines will require a historic investment and new approaches to demining.”
• “Vast minefields were left behind by Russian troops who advanced and were then forced to retreat, in some of the most productive agricultural soil in the world. The war has also led to the proliferation of other unexploded ordnance, including grenades and cluster munitions, which can retain the ability to detonate for years.”
• “Beyond their humanitarian impact, the presence of landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) poses an enormous challenge for the Ukrainian economy. In particular, landmines and ERW have forced farmers to abandon large swathes of land, threatening the productivity of the country’s agricultural sector.”
• “In a new report, “From Economic Recovery to Global Food Security: The Urgent Need to Demine Ukraine”, produced in co-operation with Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) estimates that landmines and ERW cost the Ukrainian economy $11.2bn in lost GDP each year—equivalent to 5.6% of the country’s pre-war GDP. Agricultural exports have been most affected; the TBI estimates that annual Ukrainian exports are $8.9bn (13.2%) lower than they otherwise would be owing to landmines and ERW.”
• “The costs stretch far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide rely on Ukrainian agricultural production. Loss of agricultural exports from Ukraine has hit the most food-insecure communities of the global south hardest. Before the war, nearly 90% of Ukraine’s wheat exports went to food-insecure countries in Africa and Asia.”
• “It will take significant funding—the World Bank estimates $34.6bn—and extraordinary innovation to demine Ukraine safely and at a pace that ensures its ability to recover economically. At current levels of funding and using conventional approaches to demining, it would take more than 100 years. … Innovative financing models can help Ukraine tap into new pools of private capital. … In terms of innovations in mechanised demining, the combination of drone surveys and ai technology has shown great promise in driving down the cost of demining and increasing the effectiveness and safety of operations.”

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

“Russian Military Reconstitution: 2030 Pathways and Prospects,” Dara Massicot, CEIP, 09.12.24. 

• “Russia is reconstituting its force in the short term by refurbishing older equipment at sufficient rates, mobilizing personnel, and recruiting volunteers. The majority of Russia’s equipment delivered to the front lines is refurbished equipment. It is suitable for soldiers’ needs but is qualitatively worse than newer equipment. If early 2024 loss rates continue, Russia risks depleting available Soviet-era stockpiles for certain types of equipment possibly in 2026.”
• “Presently, several structural factors limit the rate at which new Russian military equipment can be produced. Space at Russian defense factories is in high demand for multiple purposes (new builds, repairs, and exports) and cannot easily be converted to increase new domestic production without resulting in tradeoffs. Further, Russia’s production capacity cannot be expanded much beyond 2024 levels unless new factories are built or Russian leaders accept the risk in temporarily halting exports (which is unlikely) or halting production while factories can be retooled and updated (which is incompatible with production rates needed to sustain wartime demands).”
• “Reconstituting personnel and proficiency in the postwar years will also be a complex challenge for the Kremlin. ... Russia is resorting to providing higher wages and social benefits to attract wartime recruits, but maintaining this high per capita spending in the postwar period would add more internal pressure on an already high defense budget.”
• “Russia has large untapped human resources that so far have not been utilized to staff the war effort. Russia has not reached far into its large reserve officer cadre, and nor have they lifted restrictions on the types of positions Russian women can hold in the military or the defense industrial base. Instead, authorities have chosen other stopgap measures, such as condensing military training for new cadets or recruiting from prisons or abroad to fill its military billets and some defense industry jobs. Changes to these policies would be a signpost that Russia intends to expand the military or defense industry workforce.”
• “Groups of junior officers and experienced noncommissioned officers (NCOs) have sustained the heaviest casualties in the war, but the survivors will have extended combat experience and compressed formal military education. This combination may lead to rapid transformational change in the Russian military in the future, if the survivors’ experiences can be harnessed and introduced widely in the postwar years.”
• “The Russian military has historical experience with capturing lessons learned from wars and implementing them throughout the force. ... This process will be impeded if the process is compromised due to political sensitivities or false reporting.” 

“Russia dials up pressure on Ukraine’s Kursk offensive,” Isobel Koshiw and Polina Ivanova, FT, 09.16.24. 

• “Ukrainian forces achieved a morale-boosting tactical victory when they seized roughly 1,200 sq km of Russian territory after their surprise attack [in the Kursk region] on August 6. The operation helped to restore some faith in Ukraine’s offensive potential, changing the narrative of the war.”
• “But there has so far been little success for Ukraine in its aim of forcing Moscow to divert substantial forces away from the country’s east, where Kyiv’s exhausted troops are steadily losing ground. Russia has, if anything, stepped up the pressure within Ukraine, particularly around the important railway hub of Pokrovsk.”
• “The overall success of the Kursk invasion will now hinge on the costs Ukraine incurs in holding on to territory, potentially for months, according to analysts. And those costs will depend on the tactics Russian forces use to try to push the Ukrainian invaders out.”
• “Russia on Wednesday launched a counteroffensive in Kursk and claimed to have quickly retaken about 63 sq km from Ukrainian forces on the left flank of the area that Kyiv seized, though Deepstate, a military analysis outlet with links to Ukraine’s defense ministry, said Ukraine was still edging forwards in the north.”
• “Despite being outmanned and outgunned against Russia, Ukraine had saddled itself with a 'new commitment' with its Kursk offensive, said [FPRI’s Rob] Lee — 'and it’s a lasting commitment.'”
• “Ruslan Leviev, a military analyst monitoring Russian troop movements who is head of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an investigative group, said: 'Despite the fact that Putin was obviously extremely angry about the breakthrough in Kursk Oblast, he did not make emotional decisions, so we did not see the strategy of ‘quick, grab everyone and send them to retake Kursk’'”
• “A senior Ukrainian military intelligence official said Russia had so far committed 38,000 men, including assault brigades redeployed from southern Ukraine, but the counter-attack was “still not large-scale”. It would need to send in more of its battle-hardened assault brigades to make more than “tactical” gains, the official added.”
• “A Ukrainian defense official said that Ukraine was not planning to take more territory in Kursk and was instead working on digging in and protecting its flanks.”
• “Kursk could be a drain on Russian strength in the same way, Lee said. Alternatively, if Moscow took the more “minimal” approach in Kursk, Lee said, then 'this gambit may not pay off for Kyiv.'”

“Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion Is a Two-Edged Sword,” Mark Episkopos, The American Conservative, 09.09.24. 

• “Ukraine, like any belligerent nation that finds itself heavily dependent on external forces, is waging two wars: the actual, corporeal war against Russia, and the information war to court, consolidate, and deepen Western support. The second is just as important as the first, as there can be no viable Ukrainian war effort without a program of sustained Western succor. These two poles have an uneasy relationship, with imperatives of diplomatic and political courtship all too often grinding against the rigors of cold military logic. To see these dynamics at work, one needs only to turn their gaze to the war-torn Donbas region, where the Zelensky government has been loath to withdraw from besieged cities out of concern that the optics of large Ukrainian retreats would dampen Western political enthusiasm.”
• “The Kursk incursion proceeded from the correct assumption that Ukraine is running out of time to end this conflict on advantageous terms, but this strategically muddled attempt to force a negotiated settlement through maneuver warfare has only bolstered Russia’s prosecution of an attrition war that, as both sides know, Ukraine cannot win.  There is now a clear sense of strategic urgency in Kiev, but there are no signs yet that this nascent sentiment is on a path to crystallizing into what Ukraine and its Western backers need the most: a clear-headed, practical framework for drawing the curtains on a ruinous war in which there are no winners, but one that poses real and growing risks for U.S. interests and fabric of European security.”

“The Once-Dominant Tank Is Getting Humbled on the Battlefield,” Alistair MacDonald, Gordon Lubold and Ievgeniia Sivorka, WSJ, 09.13.24.

• “Even as tanks help Ukraine push into Russia, armies are rethinking how the powerful vehicles are made and deployed after a recent history of being humbled in combat. Tanks were once the king of the battlefield. But the proliferation of drones in Ukraine means the large, noisy vehicles can be spotted and targeted within minutes. That has seen dozens of cutting-edge Western tanks used only sparingly in the battle they were meant to shape, while others have been damaged, destroyed or captured. In response, armies are adding technology to tanks to spot and protect against drones while also exploring design changes to make the heavy, armored vehicles more maneuverable. Battlefield tactics are already changing and lessons from Ukraine are being integrated into training.”
• “In the near term, we absolutely need to urgently make some adjustments to maintain the survivability of our armored formations,” said Gen. James Rainey, who heads the U.S. Army Futures Command, which looks at ways to equip and transform the Army. The rethink is another sign of how drones are reshaping warfare. Adapting tanks for the drone age is vitally important if Western armies, some of which have placed the vehicles at the heart of their land strategy for decades, are to maintain their edge in conventional warfare. Tanks have adapted to new adversaries before, including planes and antitank missiles.”
• “In recent weeks, tanks have helped Ukrainian forces sweep through Russia’s Kursk region, an area where a pivotal World War II battle took place in 1943. Ukraine’s use of tanks shows how a military vehicle that the British army first rolled out in 1916 still has a role in fast-paced maneuvers, though in this case Kyiv’s forces were met by lightly armed conscripts with little drone cover. For much of the war, Ukrainian forces equipped with the best Western tanks saw them incapacitated within hours. “As soon as you hit the road a drone sees you and then you’re hit with artillery, mines, antitank missiles, drones, guided air bombs,” said the Ukrainian driver of one Abrams whose call sign is Smilik.”
• “At the start of the war, commanders would often hide their tanks and other armored vehicles by digging trenches and camouflaging them. They would then emerge to shoot at the enemy when they came into range. “Now everything is being watched, so you can’t even dig a hole to hide,” said Lubomyr Stakhiv, a junior sergeant in another brigade. These days they stay out of the range of drones and drive into position to hit the enemy, he said. A tank commander’s skill was once determined by their ability in tank duels and protecting infantry, but now it is about the ability to covertly fire and quickly retreat, said Anton Havrish, the commander of a tank company equipped with Leopards.”
• “Ukrainian forces are modifying their tanks to protect against drones. Crews often build metal cages around a tank’s turret, some rising like miniature forts. Tanks are more vulnerable to drones than other armored vehicles because of their sheer size and their large turrets, the top of which is thinly armored. A tank’s cannon also isn’t suited to shooting down drones, and the vehicles typically carry only 30 to 40 shells.”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• "Putin’s Controlling the Escalation Management in Ukraine," Marc Champion, Bloomberg, 09.16.24.

Military aid to Ukraine:

“Ukraine is bleeding out. It cannot fight forever. Supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes” does not match the reality of this conflict, David Ignatius, WP, 09.15.24.

• “Ukraine is bleeding out. Its will to fight is as strong as ever, but its army is exhausted by a ceaseless drone war that’s unlike anything in the history of combat. The Biden administration’s rubric of support — “as long as it takes” — simply doesn’t match the reality of this conflict. Ukraine doesn’t have enough soldiers to fight an indefinite war of attrition. It needs to escalate to be strong enough to reach a decent settlement. That’s the lesson I took from a visit here to attend a conference sponsored by [Ukranian businessman Viktor]  Pinchuk’s group YES, which stands for Yalta European Strategy.”
• “A recurring theme of the conference was that President Joe Biden should remove current limits on Ukraine’s use of American ATACMS long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia. A procession of speakers said Biden should stop worrying about the danger of Russian escalation — and implied he was weak for even considering the issue. That strikes me as wrong; a primary responsibility of any American president is to avoid war with a nuclear superpower. But I came away from the conference thinking the United States should take more risks to help Ukraine. It matters how this war ends. If Putin prevails, it will harm the interests of America and Europe for decades.”

“In tense Kyiv, Ukrainians fear the war could be decided within months. Ukraine’s capital remains vibrant, but worries of a possible Trump victory fuel a sense of urgency,” Fareed Zakaria, WP, 09.13.24. 

• “The greatest fear in Ukraine, however, which I heard often and from many people, both in government and on the streets, is about the West’s resolve — in particular, of the United States. One Ukrainian told me: “We will never become a Russian colony. We will keep fighting, but we worry that we will be fighting alone.” The delay in American aid during the past year, caused by infighting among stubborn Republicans in Congress, has contributed to the deterioration of the situation on the ground, and many now fear what will happen if Trump wins in November.”
• “The discussion in the West needs to move from airy abstractions to urgent reality. Ukraine needs help on all fronts — economic, political and military — and it needs that help now. The Biden administration should recognize the possibility that the next four months of aid to Ukraine could be the last major American help for that country and act accordingly. Better to hope for the best and plan for the worst.”

“Biden’s ‘Escalation Management’ in Ukraine Makes the West Less Safe,” Edward Hunter Christie, FP, 09.11.24. 

• “Keeping the war from going beyond Ukraine’s borders or escalating to the nuclear weapons stage is the thread running through the Biden administration’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the start.”
• “To keep the war small, Washington has placed a very tight leash on Kyiv’s prosecution of the war. The result is a pattern of politically chosen limitations on the type of weapons and munitions delivered, the amount and speed of the aid, the numbers of Ukrainians trained on critical weapons, and the permitted uses of the equipment. Washington has also made sure that European allies abide by the same limits.”
• “By essentially micromanaging Ukraine’s strategy and tactics, the White House has sought to keep the war small. The Biden administration’s theory of escalation management also finds its expression in the nebulous formula of helping Ukraine “as long as it takes”—rather than declaring the goal to be a Ukrainian victory and using the formula of “whatever it takes,” which is preferred by many European allies.”
• “The overall concept...  should not be escalation management but threat removal: the demolition of the means that Russia uses to attack Ukraine. Ukraine isn’t asking the United States or Europe to do any fighting. It just needs the tools and permissions to do what the United States or any other nation would not hesitate to do if it were under attack: stop the threat.”
• “The alternative is to continue with the slowness inherent to the escalation management approach. That approach costs Ukraine time, which it pays for in lives, and gives Russia more time to learn to fight more effectively. In sum, escalation management is failing to secure a Russian defeat and is instead generating an even more dangerous Russian war machine.”
• “Switching from a demonstrably costly and failing approach of escalation management to a policy of threat removal would go hand-in-hand with a new Western framing for the war. The United States and its European allies should agree on the political goal that the war should end with Russia feeling both beaten and deterred. This implies the need to deepen the support to Ukraine with the aim of ensuring that it liberate all of its territory, including Crimea and the Donbas, and that it is able to durably deter Russia from future aggression.”
• “The outcome, then, is not a war that stays small but no war at all. To achieve that vision—the only vision that will secure long-term peace in Europe—Washington needs a new algorithm.”

“America keeps Ukraine fighting with its hands tied. Russian missiles blast its cities, but it still cannot strike back,” The Economist, 09.16.24. 

• “Hopes ran high on September 13th that Ukraine might finally be allowed to use British and French Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles against targets inside Russia. Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister, had spoken for two hours at the White House, and many thought the American president would finally grant his permission—needed, it is thought, because the missiles may draw on targeting information from American satellites and other sources in order to evade Russian defenses, and some of them may contain American components. But after the meeting, the situation remained just as uncertain. The American side merely confirmed that the policy of restricting Western-supplied long-range systems to targets within Ukraine had not changed.”
• “The notion that restraint on missile targeting might improve future relations with Russia seems far-fetched. Mr. Putin has declared himself an enemy of the West and seeks the destruction of NATO. A “reset” would be possible only if Donald Trump wins America’s presidential election in November and agrees to give Mr. Putin most of what he wants.”
• “The claim that there are insufficient targets within ATACMS range to make much difference, meanwhile, is contested by the Institute for the Study of War, a think-tank. It has identified at least 230 targets, such as communications stations, logistics centers and ammunition warehouses, that would be hard for Russia to move but are currently off-limits to Ukraine’s missiles.”
• “The real reason for Mr. Biden’s reluctance is almost certainly fear of Russian escalation. Yet so many supposed Russian red lines have been crossed that Mr. Putin’s warnings have lost much of their power.”
• “America overplays Putin’s threats, says Kurt Volker, an American former special representative for Ukraine. They are aimed at 'deterring us from doing things, not that it has any bearing on what he’s really going to do.'”
• “If Mr. Biden does relent after meeting Mr. Zelensky [in US at UNGA later this month], there is unlikely to be a public announcement. A decision may be quietly communicated to Kyiv, to downplay its significance and to keep it secret. It may not be until targets in Russia are struck with Western missiles that a change will be confirmed. For Ukraine that cannot come a moment too soon.”

“As the Money Dries Up, Lawmakers Eye Even More Aid for Ukraine,” Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, The American Conservative, 09.10.24.

• “Pro-Ukraine aid lawmakers have learned their lesson. As the allotment for new weapons in the $61 billion Ukraine aid package is set to drain out by January, machinations are in play to get more to Kyiv without the kind of political debate that overtook Congress this year.”
• “According to Mark Cancian, probably the most astute chronicler of current arms spending by the federal government today, most of the $61 billion—passed by Congress in April after months of wrangling and opposition by Republicans—is being spent in the United States, not Ukraine.”
• “[M]oney is running out fast to get weapons to Ukraine to fight a war it has recently taken directly to the Russians in their own territory by way of Kursk. … Will more weapons even help?”
• “While aid supporters like Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) say 'Ukraine has shown, if we give them the resources, they’ll fight for their own country very effectively,' others insist that more weapons cannot make up for the lack of manpower and a solid strategy. 'The cautious answer is ‘probably not,’' says Nicolai Petro, professor of international politics at the University of Rhode Island … 'The Kursk incursion is very telling in this regard. Touted as a bold and innovative move, it has bolstered morale at the cost of undermining the defenses of Ukraine's frontlines in Donbass.' 'I'm afraid there is no Wunderwaffe in anyone's arsenal that can overcome that sort of strategic blunder,' he told TAC.”
• “Nevertheless, if you are one of the voices pledging to help Ukraine achieve total victory over the Russians for “as long as it takes,” you are looking for ways to assure more funding after this latest tranche dries up. And there seems to be a lot going on in this regard.”
• “Rather than try to ram new money through, or risk what might happen if Trump takes another term in office (he says often that he does not endorse carte blanche for Zelensky’s war effort) some GOP senators are already suggesting tweaking the existing Pentagon authorities in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to allow for more aid that way. … Democratic leadership is already on board.”

For more analysis on this subject, see: 

• "Why Trump Won’t Say He Wants Ukraine to Win," David French, NYT, 09.15.24.
• "The Forever Wars Were a Mistake. Supporting Ukraine Is Not," Matt Gallagher, Politico, 09.09.24.

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

“Transshipments from the EU to Russia,” Robin Brooks, Brookings, 09.12.24

• “Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, there has been a surge in exports from around the world to countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus. This export boom is so large… it seems highly likely that this export boom reflects transshipment of goods to Russia. We use the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) direction of trade data to show just how massive these transshipments are.”
• “Countries in the European Union—especially Germany and Italy—are the main drivers of this transshipment trade among advanced economies, while Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States have seen less of an export spike. Compared to the size of total exports, these transshipments are a rounding error for Germany and Italy. There is little reason therefore to think that prohibiting this trade would have material adverse repercussions on either country, while these goods may be disproportionately important for Russia.”
• “One telltale sign of transshipment is that a country like Germany will report exports far above what Kyrgyzstan reports as imports coming from Germany… The post-invasion surge in exports never arrives in Kyrgyzstan and—most likely—goes directly to Russia. False invoicing is very widespread.”
• “A common defense for these transshipments is that German and Italian manufacturing, for example, depend on Russia as an important export destination. This is not the case. Exports to Russia as well as Central Asia and the Caucasus are a rounding error for the German and Italian export machines… Prohibiting these exports is therefore unlikely to have a material adverse effect on growth in Germany or Italy, while these goods may be disproportionally important for Russia.”

“The Art of Punishing Putin; A new book offers a masterful glimpse into the world of economic warfare,” Keith Johnson, FP, 09.13.24.

• “Stephanie Baker, a veteran Bloomberg reporter who has spent decades covering Russia, has written a masterful account of recent U.S. and Western efforts to leverage their financial and technological dominance to bend a revanchist Russia to their will. Two and a half years into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, Russia’s energy revenues are still humming along, feeding a war machine that finds access to high-tech war materiel, including from the United States. Efforts to pry Putin’s oligarchs away from him have driven them closer. Moscow has faced plenty of setbacks, most recently by losing control of a chunk of its own territory near Kursk, but devastating sanctions have not been one of them.”
• “More than a good tale, [Baker’s book] is a clinical analysis of the very tricky balancing acts that lie behind deploying what has become Washington’s go-to weapon. The risky decision just after the invasion to freeze over $300 billion in central bank holdings and cut off the Russian banking system hurt Moscow, sure. But even Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh, one of the architects of the Biden administration’s response, told National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that he feared the sanctions’ “catastrophic success” could blow up global financial markets. And that was before the West decided to take aim at Russia’s massive oil and gas exports, which it did with a series of half-hearted measures beginning later that year.”
• “The bigger reason to cherish Punishing Putin is that it offers a glimpse into the world to come as great-power competition resurges with a vengeance. The U.S. rivalry with China plays out, for now, in fights over duties, semiconductors, and antimony. As Singh tells Baker, 'We don’t want that conflict to play out through military channels, so it’s more likely to play out through the weaponization of economic tools—sanctions, export controls, tariffs, price caps, investment restrictions.'”
• “Despite U.S. sanctions’ mixed record, the almighty dollar can certainly strike fear in countries that are forced to toe a punitive line they might otherwise try to skirt. Banks in third countries—say, a big French lender—could be forced to uphold Washington’s sanctions on Iran regardless of what French policy might dictate. Those so-called secondary sanctions raise hackles at times in places such as Paris and Berlin, prompting periodic calls for 'financial sovereignty' from the tyranny of the greenback. But little has changed.”
• “The Western sanctions on Russia, as sweeping and unprecedented as they are, have not ended Putin’s ability to prosecute the war. They have made life more difficult for ordinary Russians and brought down Russia’s energy export revenues, but they have not yet severed the sinews of war. “But, in fact, the West didn't hit Russia with the kitchen sink, Baker writes. Greater enforcement of sanctions, especially on energy, will be crucial to ratchet up the pressure and start to actually punish Putin, she argues.”

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

“More Ukrainians Want to Negotiate an End to the War. Soldiers Don't Agree. The debate highlights a tension in Ukrainian society between those who are in combat and those who aren't,” Ian Lovett and Nikita Nikolaienko, WSJ, 09.10.24.

• “Two-and-a-half years into the war, with tens of thousands dead and Russia advancing in the east, some Ukrainians are asking a question that had until recently been taboo: Is it time to try to negotiate?”
• “Opinion polls show that support for some kind of negotiations with Moscow has been creeping upward since Ukraine's counteroffensive last year failed to retake significant territory—though a majority of Ukrainians still say they want to keep fighting to retake all Russian-occupied land. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hopes to use the territory Kyiv has seized in Russia's Kursk region as leverage for a peace deal.”
• “But one key group remains particularly skeptical about any deal with Russia: the military. One recent survey found that 18% of veterans and active-duty members of the military believed Ukraine should seek to end the war through negotiations, the lowest of any demographic group in the study. Fifteen percent of soldiers and veterans said they would join an armed protest if Kyiv signed a peace treaty that they didn't agree with.”
• “Many soldiers fighting in the east say a divide has opened between those who are fighting and those in the country's major cities, who pay little attention to the war, like in the years from 2016 to 2022, when the front line was nearly frozen. ...'I don't understand why society pretends nothing is happening,' said one 45-year-old major fighting in the east. 'The government has created circumstances where those who are really motivated won't accept agreements that give territory away. But those who aren't fighting will make decisions. It's painful.'”
• “Volodymyr Dubovyk, director of the Center for International Studies in Odesa, Ukraine, said the shifting public opinion has given Zelensky an opportunity to forge some kind of deal. 'The very fact that people appear to be more ready to have negotiations with Russia is a big change,' Dubovyk said. But he added that any cease-fire came with significant political risk: 'It would probably be seen by a lot of Ukrainians as a bad deal.'”

“Vance Describes Plan to End Ukraine War That Sounds a Lot Like Putin’s,” Julian E. Barnes, NYT, 09.13.24

• “Senator JD Vance outlined a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. But objectively, it sounds a lot like Vladimir Putin’s. Mr. Vance said Mr. Trump would sit down with Russians, Ukrainians and Europeans and say, “You guys need to figure out what a peaceful settlement looks like.” He went on to outline what he thinks a deal would entail: The Russians would retain the land they have taken and a demilitarized zone would be established along the current battle lines, with the Ukrainian side heavily fortified to prevent another Russian invasion.”
• “While the remainder of Ukraine would remain an independent sovereign state, Mr. Vance said, Russia would get a “guarantee of neutrality” from Ukraine. “It doesn’t join NATO, it doesn’t join some of these sort of allied institutions,” Mr. Vance said. “I think that’s ultimately what this looks like.'”
• “Victoria J. Nuland, a former senior State Department official who helped shape the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, said Mr. Vance’s plan was very similar to what Mr. Putin had repeatedly offered as peace terms. 'This is essentially the proposal put forward in February,' she said. 'And why? Because it is a great gift to him.'”
• “Ms. Nuland questioned who would enforce a demilitarized zone, given that there was little appetite for a large international peacekeeping force. Absent that or other robust security guarantees, Mr. Putin would simply bide his time and then restart the war, she said. 'Putin will just wait, rest, refit and come for the rest,' Ms. Nuland said.”
• “Another problem with Mr. Vance’s vision is that it ignores the will of the Ukrainians, who insist they want to keep fighting to regain their lost territory, said Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. 'I don’t think he offered a realistic proposal for peace,' Mr. Coffey said. 'He offered a plan for a Russian victory.'”

For more analysis on this subject, see: 

• “VIDEO: Can and Should the U.S. Negotiate With Russia to End Russia’s War in Ukraine?”, Paul J. Saunders, Dov S. Zakheim and Thomas Graham, NI, 09.14.24.
• "Biden Must Let Zelenskiy Bomb Putin to the Negotiating Table," Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg, 09.16.24.

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

“The partially convergent Trump and Harris defense policies,” Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings, 09.12.24

• “At one level, national security policy appears to be an area where there is more accord, and less debate, between the candidates than is the case in many other policy realms. However, national security policy may also be the place where there is the greatest potential for divergence based on the characters, personalities, and decision-making styles of the two candidates, should the nation face a crisis and have to consider the use of military force.”
• “Both the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the Trump-Pence administration under Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and the 2022 National Defense Strategy of the Biden-Harris administration under Secretary Lloyd Austin prioritize roughly the same things. Both promote a focus on great-power rivalry and deterrence over the emphasis on “rogue states” and terrorist organizations of the previous three decades.”
• “Trump focused in equal measure on Russia and China; Biden emphasized China more, calling it the “pacing challenge” rather than an adversary but clearly underscoring that given its resources and size, it was the potential challenger to watch most closely. Few that I know in Trump world would disagree with the Biden/Austin tweak to Mattis’ strategy; few in the Biden-Harris administration have anything critical to say about Jim Mattis and his earlier 2018 document as well as the budgetary priorities that went along with it. Neither Trump nor Biden sought to enlarge the military; both sought to modernize it more quickly than had been the case in recent decades to make it more lethal, survivable, and resilient.”
• “So, as best I can tell, the real differences boil down to civil-military relations and also to possible decisions on the use of force. First, to be fair to Trump, his tendency towards bellicosity in his rhetoric and his political style was not matched by his actual decisions on the use of force as president… To be fair to Biden, although the Afghanistan withdrawal went badly, it was a decision on a given timeline that Trump had initiated, so if you don’t like the results of that withdrawal (and I don’t) you should probably blame both recent presidents (and I do).”
• “Bottom line: On policy and spending, there is probably only modest difference of opinion between Trump and Harris. But on decision-making style on matters of war, peace, and civil-military relations, there is an enormous gulf between them that could have important consequences for how the United States handles any national security crises that might arise on the next president’s watch.”

“Answer to a media question. Following his address to the plenary session of the United Cultures Forum, Vladimir Putin answered a question from a media representative,” Kremlin.ru, 09.12.24. Clues from Russian Views

• “Question: Over the past few days, we have been hearing statements at a very high level in the UK and the United States that the Kiev regime will be allowed to strike targets deep inside Russia using Western long-range weapons. Apparently, this decision is either about to be made, or has already been made, as far as we can see. This is actually quite extraordinary. Could you comment on what is going on?”

• “Answer: President of Russia Vladimir Putin: What we are seeing is an attempt to substitute notions. Because this is not a question of whether the Kiev regime is allowed or not allowed to strike targets on Russian territory. It is already carrying out strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles and other means. But using Western-made long-range precision weapons is a completely different story.”

  “The fact is that – I have mentioned this, and any expert, both in our country and in the West, will confirm this – the Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites. This is the first point.”

  “The second point – perhaps the most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.”

  “Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.”

  “If this decision is made, it will mean nothing short of direct involvement – it will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.”

  “This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

“Speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S.V. Lavrov during the embassy round table on the topic of resolving the situation around Ukraine,” Mid.ru, 09.12.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• “We understand that the "collective West" has labeled this war against Russia as existential. The goal is to inflict a "strategic defeat" on us.”
• “The war waged by the West against the Russian Federation would have been impossible without the massive supply of Western weapons, ammunition and military equipment to Ukraine.”
• “In addition to providing increasingly long-range weaponry, NATO forces are supplying Kyiv with data from their space-based military intelligence. This information is used to locate and target objectives deep within Russian territory. Moreover, Western military specialists are literally coordinating high-precision strikes on exclusively civilian targets in a hands-on manner. Flight missions are planned and loaded into the system by instructors and representatives of the NATO countries supplying these weapons to Kyiv. Our experts are certain that without such specialists, nothing could be done with these complex weapons. Only those who have worked with them for a long time and know how to operate them can manage this. It is impossible to train someone for this in just a few weeks.”

“NATO Frontline States Need an Air Defense Shield Now,” Fredrik Wesslau, FP, 09.10.24.

• “In the early hours of Sunday, Sept. 8, a Russian drone flew into Romanian airspace during a nighttime attack on Ukraine’s Danube River ports. Romania scrambled two F-16s to monitor the situation, according to the Romanian Defense Ministry. … Throughout the war, by accident or design, Russian missiles and attack drones have repeatedly infringed the airspace of Romania, Latvia, Poland, and other NATO members —and hit the alliance’s territory.”
• “In late August, Kyiv asked European Union and NATO ministers to start shooting down Russian missiles and drones heading toward NATO over Ukraine. At first glance, this might seem like a request for NATO to step into the firing line and become a party to the war.”
• “Establishing an air defense shield to protect NATO’s own eastern flank, however, does not translate to NATO’s entry into the war. The escalatory risk of NATO protecting its own territory can be controlled—even while a shield to head off Russian missiles and drones would have the secondary effect of providing parts of western Ukraine with much-needed air cover. Ultimately, a firm decision by NATO to act against repeated breaches of its airspace is likely to be de-escalatory.”
• “Ground-based air defense from various NATO member states—including Britain, France, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and other willing allies—could be deployed on the territory of Poland, Slovakia, and Romania at strategic locations along their borders with Ukraine. Allied aircraft operating in NATO airspace could also be used. … Such an operation could be carried out on a bilateral basis or by a coalition of the willing. And it would not be a NATO-wide operation, given that Hungary would likely block any action by the alliance.”
• “An air defense shield to protect NATO would be a clear response to that Russian probing, with the welcome secondary effect of helping Ukraine. It would signal a more serious posture by Ukraine’s supporters and show that they are willing to regain the strategic initiative rather than merely reacting to events and drawing no red lines for Russia.”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• “Putin Has Issued Many Warnings to the West. Is This One Different?” Anton Troianovski and Ivan Nechepurenko, NYT, 09.13.24.
• "Even With $1 Trillion a Year the US Military Is Falling Behind," Hal Brands, Bloomberg, 09.16.24.

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“Why Russia’s increased co-operation with China and Iran spooks Europe,” Henry Foy, FT, 09.16.24. 

• “European officials are increasingly concerned about Russian military co-operation with both China and Iran, as Moscow shares cutting-edge defense knowhow with two of its most important suppliers for the war in Ukraine.”
• “Over the past week, US and European officials have shared intelligence on how much military knowhow and defense insight Russia is providing China and Iran, with potentially major ramifications for the two countries’ future military capabilities.”
• “Kurt Campbell, the US deputy secretary of state [and former Belfer Center senior fellow], briefed senior EU and NATO officials on Russia assisting China with advanced submarine, missile and stealth capabilities, in exchange for Chinese supplies for its war machine. UK and US officials have also discussed Russia sharing technology with Iran that could help its nuclear weapons program ... These quid pro quo arrangements spook European defense officials for two reasons.”
  • “One, they’re worried about how China and Iran could use Russian technology to beef up their military capabilities, and threaten their — or their allies’ — defense assets around the world.”
  • “Two, there’s deep concern about what such steps say about the Kremlin’s frame of mind. Russia had in the past heavily guarded its military advances, especially from potential future rivals such as China. Trading its knowledge now is seen by some as sign of increased recklessness.”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• "How to Keep Putin — and Xi — Out of the Balkans," James Stavridis, Bloomberg, 09.16.24.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

“Biden focused on strategic stability. His successor should embrace arms control,” Stephen Cimbala and Lawrence J. Korb, BAS, 09.13.24. 

• “Three elements of Biden’s nuclear policies promise to particularly challenge his legacy:
  • “The usefulness of New START as a prospective framework for organizing US-Russian strategic nuclear arms control;
  • “The implications of China’s apparent determination to become a third nuclear superpower; and
  • “The potential game changers to a (so far) successful nuclear nonproliferation regime.”
• “Biden’s nuclear legacy will be one of continuation of preexisting plans for US strategic nuclear modernization. But this trajectory has been increasingly called into question by political leaders and national security experts—and promises to remain as such in the years to come. China’s nuclear modernization and the potential collaboration of China and Russia (and, to a lesser extent, North Korea) in military and security policy do require superior US and allied intelligence collection and assessment. However, nuclear strategizing demands more than force building. US nuclear forces support the United States’ grand strategy and foreign policy in the largest sense, but they are not a one-size-fits-all solution. The question of “how much is enough?” has no unique answer: It depends on the nature of the threat and the priority of nuclear deterrence compared to other missions. Capabilities for conventional deterrence and war fighting, for space domain mastery and control, and for cyber dominance are equally important.”
• “Contrary to the pessimistic assumptions of some, arms control can play an important role here: It provides a means for understanding the strategic priorities of other powers, for exerting influence over their decisions about nuclear modernization, and for avoiding nuclear arms races or nuclear war based on misunderstandings and inadvertence. The next administration, whatever its color, must ensure that nuclear arms control is high on its foreign policy agenda.”

“The Crumbling Nuclear Order. How to Save the Norms Against Testing, Building, and Using the Ultimate Weapon,” Doreen Horschig and Heather Williams, FA, 09.16.24. 

Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev’s post on Telegram, 09.14.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• “What do Western leaders and their political establishment, playing at war, think about our country's reaction to probable missile strikes 'deep into the territory?' Here's the thing: Russians talk a lot about responding with weapons of mass destruction, but do nothing. These are just 'verbal interventions.' Russians will not cross the line. They are just trying to scare. They don't need a nuclear conflict, they can lose more, including the support of the 'Global South.' And anyway - who needs the apocalypse? Well, and so on in the same spirit.”
• “What can you say: no one needs a nuclear conflict. This is a very bad story with a very difficult outcome. That is why the decision to use nuclear weapons (non-strategic or even more so strategic) has not been made so far. Although, frankly speaking, there are formal prerequisites for this, understandable to the entire world community and consistent with our doctrine of nuclear deterrence. The same Kursk, for example. But Russia is showing patience. After all, it is obvious that a nuclear response is an extremely difficult decision with irreversible consequences.”
• “However, the pompous Anglo-Saxon imbeciles do not want to admit one thing: all patience comes to an end. And in the end, the moderate Western analysts will be right who warned: 'Yes, the Russians will most likely not respond in this way… although there is still a possibility. Besides, the response could also be using new means of delivery in non-nuclear equipment.'”
• “And then that’s it. A giant gray melted spot on the site of the mother city of Russia. Holy shit! It’s impossible, but it happened.

“The current nuclear doctrine does not fulfill the deterrence function. Political scientist Sergei Karaganov on the change in Russia’s policy on the use of nuclear weapons,” Elena Chernenko, Kommersant, 09.11.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• “Russia's responsibility is to sharply intensify the nuclear factor in global politics and convince our adversaries that we are ready to use nuclear weapons in case of any encroachments on our territory and our citizens.”
• “Naturally, I do not know what wording will be included in the final version of the [Russian nuclear doctrine] document. ... However, I will say that the current doctrine and policy on the use of nuclear weapons are simply irresponsible. ... This doctrine essentially disables — by 99.9% — the most powerful tool of our military and foreign policy arsenal. This is not only wrong, but also highly immoral.”
• “It is time to declare that we have the right to respond to any massive strikes on our territory with a nuclear strike. This also applies to any territorial seizures. Moreover, [the doctrine] should introduce the concept of 'nuclear escalation,' so that such steps are preceded by actions that would convince a potential or real adversary that we are ready [to use nuclear weapons]. The main goal of the doctrine should be to ensure that all current and future adversaries are confident that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons.”
• “The 'threat to the state's existence' [the fourth scenario in which the Russian authorities, according to the 'Foundations...,' can use nuclear weapons] is such a hypothetical scenario that it is not even worth discussing seriously. It is a mockery of common sense, in my view.”
• “Our current doctrine does not fulfill the function of deterrence and hinders the use of many other useful functions of nuclear weapons. We have reached the point where adversaries have come to believe that we will not use nuclear weapons under almost any circumstances.”
• “As far as I know, William Burns threatened Russian representatives that if we strike NATO countries, there will be a devastating conventional weapons strike on us and our forces in Ukraine and around it. I do not overestimate my importance in history, but I responded that then we would have the right to a second nuclear strike on a much larger number of targets in Europe. And if they continue to escalate, we would have the right to strike American bases in NATO countries and around the world, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of military personnel.”
• “We must understand that a war of annihilation is being waged against us. Many do not fully realize this. Our Western "partners" will not rest until we are toppled. Either they will calm down when they realize that toppling us is impossible without immense damage to themselves.”
• “If a drone hits the Kremlin again, then why not launch a conventional missile strike on the Reichstag to start with? Let it burn. ... In any case, nuclear strikes should be preceded by warning non-nuclear strikes. ... The first strikes, of course, should not be nuclear. According to the theory of escalation, we still need to go through about 10-15 more steps before reaching nuclear strikes; we've only gone through five so far. But after that, obviously, strikes should be made on targets in NATO countries that play an important role in supplying the Kyiv regime. If that doesn't stop them, then we go further.”

"Us and Atomic Bombs," Timofey Bordachyov, Valdai Club, 09.13.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• “From the perspective of any normal state, the reason for war with another state is only direct aggression from the other side against national territory. Perhaps that’s why the U.S. does not currently believe that its actions in the Ukrainian case could lead to a direct conflict with Russia. However, it remains unknown how well this logic works now, when the conflict is occurring in close proximity to the capital of the Russian state, unlike, say, in distant Afghanistan.”
• “We also cannot ignore the still unclear connection between the foreign policy position of great powers and their internal stability. We see that much of the American nervousness about world events is linked to the need to continue extracting benefits from the functioning of the global political and economic system. Accepting changes here is not only difficult for the U.S. due to inertia of thought but may also be dangerous until the American establishment finds other effective ways to keep the situation under control domestically. Especially since the overall crisis of the socio-economic system created by the West since the mid-1970s is not going away but is only gaining momentum. Yes, in general, the existence of colossal nuclear stockpiles in two or three great military powers reduces the likelihood of global war in its traditional sense. However, the "peace that is no peace" promised by [George] Orwell still looks like balancing on the edge of rendering any theoretical constructs meaningless.”

Counterterrorism:

“Don’t Hype the Terror Threat. The Dangers of Official Alarmism,” John Mueller, FA, 09.10.24. 

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

“Why Is Ukraine Still Helping Fuel Russia’s War Machine?”, Mikhail Krutikhin, MT, 09.16.24. 

• “Would the USSR have allowed cargo from Hirohito’s Japan or Hitler’s Germany to pass through its lands during the Great Patriotic War? Obviously not, which makes it all the stranger that Kyiv is still allowing Russian fossil fuels to transit through Ukrainian territory.”
  • “By stopping the transit of oil and gas from Russia to Europe, Kyiv would benefit hugely from choking off a huge source of revenue for Russia’s war machine at a relatively low cost to its own budget.”
  • “Second, the move would not result in legal issues for Russia’s clients in Europe. Ukraine’s decision would constitute a force majeure that would avoid the necessity of paying penalties for stopping purchases early.”
  • “Third, pro-Russian elements in Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia would lose their main argument against completely disconnecting Russian fossil fuels from the European market.”
  • “And finally, Kyiv’s leaders would no longer face the difficult question of why it is facilitating the enrichment of the same country that is committing war crimes on its own soil.”
• “There are forces in Kyiv that are in favor of stopping gas transit, but their opinion seems to have no influence on the decisions made. We can only wonder whether corruption is to blame, as there is no rational explanation for it, especially during wartime.”

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general: 

“In Search of a Harris Foreign Policy,” Thomas Graham, RM, 09.11.24.

• “When it comes to foreign policy, Vice President Kamala Harris is an unknown quantity. To be sure, she does not lack foreign policy experience: As vice president, she has visited more than 20 countries and met over 150 foreign leaders. Nevertheless, her episodic remarks on foreign policy and national security issues, including those during the Sept. 10 presidential debate, do not add up to a well-defined philosophy or an integrated point of view.”
• “This is particularly true of her views on Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. She has had little to say about those matters, other than at fora, such as the Munich Security Conference, for the past three years or, more recently, at the Ukraine peace summit in June, where she subbed for President Joe Biden. As was to be expected, she delivered prepared speeches advocating administration policy. Such remarks offer limited insight into her own personal views. What principles would guide her decision-making, and what issues would she prioritize, if elected president? On those and related questions she has offered little grist for reflection.”
• “At least at the declaratory level, we can thus expect Harris to remain committed to helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty, maintaining and strengthening transatlantic unity and preventing escalation to direct conflict with Russia and the risk of a nuclear cataclysm that would entail, as the party platform indicates. If elected, Harris would also call for countering Russia’s disruptive actions across the globe, in part by seeking to disrupt its growing strategic alignment with China, Iran and North Korea. As has been true for Biden since he took office, a reset with Russia would be out of the question.”
• “The first real inkling we will have of her foreign policy will come when she announces the individuals who will assume the critical national security posts in her administration—the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Adviser and the intelligence chiefs. But that will come only after Nov. 5. If she wins, domestic issues are likely to have proved decisive—polls indicate that the economy is the top concern for voters by a wide margin. Nevertheless, foreign policy is also an important issue for voters. To the extent that matter figures in their calculations, in picking Harris, voters will have decided that the unknown quantity of Harris was the better bet than the known quantity of Donald Trump.”

“Clues to imagining Harris as commander in chief,” David Ignatius, WP, 09.13.24. 

• “To get a better sense of her potential strengths and weaknesses, I interviewed more than a half-dozen current or former officials who have observed her in the Situation Room or other sensitive national security meetings.  They all expressed versions of the same basic theme: Harris behaves like the prosecutor she was for much of her career. She's skeptical, probing, sometimes querulous. She can be impatient and demanding. But she asks good questions. And if she's convinced of the need, she's not afraid to act. "She's more hard-line than most people think," said one retired four-star general who has briefed her many times.”
• “The Ukraine war has been the administration's biggest foreign policy challenge.”
  • “Harris was fully involved in the run-up. When Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the administration in October 2021 that the Russians were preparing to invade, one participant in the briefing remembers Harris pressing him for details: 'How fast can the Russians move? What kind of units do they have? What are their capabilities?'"
  • “On the eve of the invasion, Harris personally delivered to President Volodymyr Zelensky the decisive intelligence that the Russians were coming. The meeting took place at the Munich Security Conference, days before the Russian invasion on Feb. 22. Zelensky was still dubious about the invasion and questioned Harris's troop numbers. "You're wrong," Harris told him bluntly. "They're going in." She pressed Zelensky on whether he had a plan to defend Kyiv and to leave the city if necessary. The Russians did indeed come across the border. Zelensky bravely stayed and fought. He reportedly tweaked the administration later for having talked about possible evacuation, saying: 'I need ammunition, not a ride.'”
  • “Through the Ukraine war, Harris has shared Biden's twin objectives of supporting Ukraine's armed resistance and avoiding a U.S. war with Russia - goals that have sometimes been in conflict. This debate now focuses on whether the United States should remove its limits on Ukrainian use of long-range ATACMS missiles, to allow them to strike targets deep inside Russia. Harris, characteristically, has made a lawyerly assessment of pros and cons. She and her advisers have queried whether, given the limited number of ATACMS available, they might be more useful striking Russian targets in occupied Crimea - especially given intelligence reports that Russia has pulled its aircraft that target Ukraine back to bases beyond the missiles' 300-kilometer range. Another concern for the Harris team is whether the Russians might retaliate by giving long-range missiles to adversaries, such as the Houthis in Yemen, further threatening Red Sea shipping and perhaps Israel.”
• “Harris hasn't been convinced that helping Ukraine strike deep inside Russia would be a good trade-off for the United States. But Biden is said to be exploring a possible relaxation of rules, and Harris undoubtedly will support his decision. Colleagues say she has taken a similarly measured approach to other issues of escalation risk.”
• “A key moment was October 2022, when Russia signaled it might use tactical nuclear weapons to prevent a collapse of its forces after they had fled Kharkiv and Kherson. Harris joined a discussion of 'what if' questions: Might the Russians demonstrate using a tactical nuke, over the ocean, say, or fire one in Ukraine? How big a bomb? How many casualties would result? How would the United States respond? In the end, the Russians conveyed to senior U.S. officials that they didn't intend to use tactical nukes.”

“How to stop rogue states like Russia from interfering in our politics,” Richard Fontaine, WP, 09.10.24.

• “New revelations that Russia has mounted a sophisticated, covert campaign to influence the 2024 U.S. election are shocking but not surprising.”
• “The U.S. government employed a range of appropriate responses to the new Russian effort, including indictments, sanctions, taking down websites and publicizing Moscow’s activities. But unilateral responses are not enough to stop foreign political interference. Western democracies should coordinate their defenses by creating a formal response mechanism that would bind allies to aid one of their own in the event of attack. The stakes have grown too high and the threats too pervasive to leave every democracy to its own devices.”
• “A coalition of key democracies — the Group of Seven members, NATO countries and other like-minded countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Korea — should adopt a similar mechanism [to NATO’s Article 5] to handle political interference. In a multilateral agreement, they should declare their intent to consider a significant, state-based attack on one member’s democratic processes to be an attack on all, and they should pledge to collectively respond to the attack.”
• “Combined responses should include publicizing ongoing foreign interference campaigns, especially ahead of elections, sanctioning individuals and entities engaged in malign activities, coordinating the expulsion of diplomats, harmonizing criminal indictments, integrating efforts to shut down the meddlers’ financing, and joint offensive cyber operations aimed at taking down foreign interference networks or interrupting their work. These measures should be in addition to more routine collective defense efforts, including intelligence sharing, working together on cyberdefense and coordinating diplomatic messaging.”
• “A sweeping attack like the one Russia launched in 2016 might be the kind that rises to the level of a collective response. Had the United States combined with many nations to impose costs on Moscow after that episode, and to demonstrate their determination to defend against and punish future attacks, Russia might be less damaging to our democracy today.”

Compilation of Views: Prominent Russian Nationals (and Residents) React to 2^nd Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump. Clues from Russian Views.

• “Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia: "It’s interesting to imagine what would happen if it turned out that the latest failed shooting attempt on Trump by [Ryan Wesley] Routh, who has been recruiting mercenaries for the Ukrainian military, was actually hired by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv for this assassination attempt.” (News.ru/Medvedev’s Telegram channel, 09.16.24)
• “Alexey Naumov, expert at the Russian International Affairs Council, suggested that the assassination attempt "will give additional ammunition to Republican activists-propagandists," but it will have little impact on their candidate’s ratings. "I don’t think it will have much effect because the narrative that Trump is a people’s hero whom his enemies are trying to kill has already been played out, at least partially. I don’t think Trump can continue to ride that wave in the ratings," Naumov predicts. In his opinion, in the remaining weeks before the election, Trump needs to challenge Harris on her own turf by presenting concrete political initiatives. (RBC, 09.16.24)
• “Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary:
  • “Moscow is folloing the situation in the U.S., but is not interferring because “this is not quite our business. 'We are, of course, closely following the information coming from the United States. We see how tense the situation is, including among political competitors. The political struggle is intensifying, and quite various methods are being used,' he said. (TASS/News.ru, 09.16.24)
  • “When asked what the Kremlin thinks about the possible connection of shooter Ryan Wesley Routh to Ukraine, Peskov said: 'It is not us but the U.S. security services who should be thinking about that. Anyway, playing with fire has consequences. First of all, this should be a great concern and a headache of the U.S. security services.' (Interfax, 09.16.24)
• “Aleksey Pushkov, chairman of the Federation Council of Russia's Information Policy Commission, wrote that competitors are staging assassination attempts on Trump to break his fighting spirit. He also noted that there have been no attempts on the current president of the country, Joe Biden, or on another presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. This, in his opinion, is absolutely logical. “The minimum goal of such attempts may not even be elimination, but the constant intimidation of Trump to break his fighting spirit ... For the ‘deep state,’ there is only one target in the USA — Trump,” wrote Pushkov. (News.ru, 09.16.24)
• “Russian business news agency RBC: The first assassination attempt in Pennsylvania followed Trump’s victorious TV debates with Biden and allowed Trump to mobilize his fellow party members, some of whom even spoke of divine intervention that saved their candidate’s life (similar statements are still being made). At the Republican Party convention, where Trump was officially nominated for the U.S. presidency, some of the delegates wore armbands on their right ear as a sign of solidarity with Trump. Now the political situation is different: Trump lost the TV debate to Harris, who replaced Biden, and he is trailing her by an average of 2-3 percentage points in national opinion polls. Moreover, according to a Morning Consult study, for the first time since 2012, Republicans risk losing Florida to the Democrats. The circumstances of the two assassination attempts also differ greatly. In July, Trump was actually injured; the rally was being broadcast live, and many saw how, as he left the stage accompanied by Secret Service agents, he raised his fist and called on his supporters to "Fight!" This time, there was neither an injury nor heroic footage, and rather vague wording was used.” (RBC, 09.16.24)
• Edward Snowden: “We know little so far, but w alleged Trump shooter's personal and public participation in military activity in Ukraine, it is hard to imagine this White House's agencies can claim zero contact—'clean hands.’ Something of an Oswald vibe, here. Congress should get answers ... I'm not saying this guy was some pro on somebody's payroll, obviously—in my opinion, the guy just looks deranged. But that doesn't mean the government didn't have a hand in encouraging his past militancy, as we once did with Bin Laden.” (Snowden’s Twitter account, 09.16.24)
• “Yuri Svetov, a Russian political scientist, believes that Ukraine is unlikely to be involved in the assassination attempt on Trump. The expert emphasized that an ordinary American, who believes that problems should be solved with weapons, could be behind the attempted attack. (News.ru, 09.16.24)  For Graham Allison’s op-ed “Assassination and the American Presidency: What History Tells US” in NI on July 19, 2024, click here.

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• "Fighting Russian Disinformation Must Be a Team Sport," Barbara L. McQuade, Bloomberg, 09.11.24.

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Why Russians are still backing Putin. Gideon Rachman talks to Alexander Gabuev, director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center,” FT, 09.12.24. 

• “He [Putin] will probably run into the wall on hardware, tanks, armored vehicles, but that will be towards early 2026. So in the 12 months ahead, he’s not short of tools to inflict more pain on Ukraine. And his hope is that that will be sufficient to really change the trajectory into steady Russian gains and the goalpost he’s obviously waiting is the U.S. election on November 4th. And after that, he may calibrate his strategy again according to the political reality in the west and the situation in Ukraine itself.”
• “Russia is rapidly trying to expand its military industry by refurbishing the existing plants and introducing three, four shifts. So 24 hours a day, these plants are producing or repairing tanks, armored vehicles and stuff that Russian military needs. With that, workers in those plants will need to be attracted by higher salaries. Civilian industries are also competing for workers. So the labor cost goes up and that delivers the consumption drive that is very much visible in the Russian economy for now. It’s unsustainable but in the short to medium run, that’s indeed creating a mini-boom that Putin is capitalizing on for his war support, and that’s keeping the population actually happy and increasingly supportive of the war effort or at least of this confrontation.”
• “I think that the hangover and the heavy price that Russia will pay for this war will come later on. Now, we are in the stage of the party that people are consuming a lot of booze and they’re happy about that… the difference between Afghanistan, Chechnya and now is indeed that the government is paying handsomely and that keeps people happy.”

“What Will Shake Russians' Apathy Toward the War?” Vladislav Inozemtsev, MT, 09.12.24. 

• “A number of analysts have recently attempted to explain why Russian society is so indifferent to the ongoing war, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ incursion into the Kursk region. Russians are also indifferent to the recent elections, which ended without a single surprise, and to corruption, which has reached a completely unprecedented scale.”
• “Researchers attribute this to a societal tendency: “In response to radical and significant external changes, which to us as observers seem colossal, Russian society tends to minimize changes in its way of life, thinking, and emotions.” This may be true, but it is not quite clear to me why we are discussing “Russian society” in the first place. It seems that this society does not even exist in a meaningful sense—there is only a collection of individuals who are profoundly alienated from one another. But in this case, the source of indifference becomes clearer—and much more rational and thorough.”
• “The passivity of Russian citizens (not “society,” in the absence thereof)… is not driven by apathy or emotion, but by a pragmatic calculation of interests.”
  • “Do people feel the injustice of corruption? Undoubtedly. But does it directly impact their personal interests? More often than not, the answer is no. In Russia, fighting corruption offers no tangible benefit to individual prosperity. Even if officials steal less, the money saved would likely go toward more bombs and missiles aimed at Ukraine, not toward better hospitals in remote regions.”
  • “Do people view the war as criminal and immoral? It’s not out of the question. Yet apart from the brief period of mobilization in the fall of 2022, the war has left most citizens unscathed. Any future consequences—such as reparations to Ukraine in the event of defeat, or the need to reconstruct occupied Ukrainian territories instead of roads and hospitals in Russia in the event of victory—seem distant and unthreatening. Few believe these outcomes would affect their pensions or salaries.”
• “All of this explains the Russian opposition's complete inability to engage the public. Their slogans tend to focus either on moral issues—such as the immorality of war and the need for justice—or on institutional reforms like fighting corruption, democracy and government accountability. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is focused on what resonates with atomized individuals: handing out money and touting unattainable geopolitical ambitions.”

“What Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion Tells Us About Putin’s Russia,” Olga Khvostunova, FPRI, 09.12.24.

• “On the night of August 6, the Ukrainian Armed Forces crossed the border at Russia’s Kursk region and launched a surprise offensive on several regional towns. Moscow’s reaction to this unprecedented development has been and remains of dual nature.”
• “On one hand, following a long-established tradition, Russian authorities maintain the appearance that the Kursk incursion is not a serious threat, but something akin to a natural disaster in a remote region.”
• “On the other hand, the Kremlin did take some drastic action in response to the incursion, although these actions were barely discussed in the state media. A federal emergency situation was declared in the Kursk and the neighboring Belgorod regions and a counter-terrorist operation regime was introduced in the Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions—the largest in modern Russian history in terms of the affected population.”
• “According to Meduza’s sources in the Russian government, despite appearances, the incursion did come as a shocking surprise to the Russian elite who did not anticipate the audacious move by the Ukrainian army, which partially explains the Kremlin’s slow response… The key message is that while “enemies” indeed broke into Russia, they will be inevitably defeated, although this might take some time.”
• “Does this new reality have the potential to galvanize a fierce protest of the Russian public against the Kremlin’s policies? The short answer is that it seems unlikely, if the Russian public opinion data are to be trusted.”
• “On balance, the Kursk incursion did not result in public pressure inside Russia that could undermine Putin’s position, but it did create a public image problem for the Russian president, even as he tries to shrug it off. This precedent also sent a strong message to Western policymakers about the validity of Putin’s red lines.” 

“Russia’s Local Elections Expose Limits on Kremlin Power,” Andrey Pertsev, CEIP, 09.16.24. 

• “The Russian local elections that took place at the beginning of September did not produce any surprises. All the Kremlin-approved candidates for governorships won emphatic victories, and the ruling United Russia party gained majorities in all the regional parliaments that were up for grabs. Kremlin officials were able to boast of a record turnout, and the use of electronic voting in Moscow ensured an almost clean sweep for pro-government candidates (the opposition traditionally does well in the Russian capital). At the same time, a few hiccups showed that the system does occasionally malfunction.”
• “In certain circumstances… the system occasionally fails to produce the sought-after result.”
  • “The incumbent governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, only got 59 percent—a very modest result by current Russian standards.” 
  • “Similarly, Grigory Filimonov, governor of the Vologda region, got just 62 percent.”
• “The system’s limits were also evident in regional parliament elections.”
  • “In the six ethnic republics where parliamentary elections took place, the Communists came in second. It proved impossible to elevate the LDPR because voters remember how that party sought to curtail the autonomy of ethnic republics.”
• “It’s for these reasons that the Kremlin intends to continue increasing the number of levers at its disposal to influence elections. Above all, this means expanding electronic voting, which makes it much easier for the authorities to achieve the desired outcome, and has already extinguished the impact of anti-regime sentiment in the Russian capital.”
• “Russia’s September local elections showed that there are distinct limits on the Kremlin’s ability to achieve its desired electoral outcomes—and even small anomalies have the potential to turn into big problems.”

“Is Russia’s overheated economy finally starting to cool?” Alexander Kolyandr and Alexandra Prokopenko, The Bell, 09.13.24. 

• “Recent data suggests that the overheated Russian economy is starting to cool. This includes a fall in retail lending, slowing wage increases, and dropping industrial growth.”
  • “'We are seeing signs of a slowdown in the growth of consumer demand and economic activity in general,' the Central Bank said in a report issued last week. The same day, German Gref, the influential head of state-owned Sberbank, said at a conference in the Far East that Russia had passed the peak of its economic overheating.”
  • “A fall in retail lending in July and August is one of the indicators of cooling. A Sberbank executive last week highlighted a 3% month-on-month decline in consumer loans (which is untypical for July). That fall has been caused, in part, by tighter regulation. In August the fall continued: compared with July, the overall volume of consumer loans was down 4.2%. Compared with last August it had fallen by a third.”
  • “Wage increases—a key driver of inflation—are also slowing. In the first quarter of this year, real wage increases hit 11% year-on-year. Since early April, however, the increases have been smaller and, in June, the most recent available figure, real wages were only growing 6.2% year-on-year. That’s the lowest level since April 2023.”
  • “A summer slowing has also been visible in industry. Industrial production growth, which has been above 4% year-on-year since the second quarter of 2023, was just 2.7% in June and 3.3% in August. These are the lowest levels since March 2023.”
• “Despite these signs of a slowdown, the Central Bank on Friday raised interest rates from 18% to 19%. Evidently, the regulator would like the slowdown to be faster, and deeper. In a press release, the Central Bank said cooling was a result of limitations on supply, and not falling demand—and that inflation remained high.”
• “This trend is partly explained by the high base effect caused by last year’s rapid growth. But it is also the result of high borrowing costs, and the difficulties with international payments triggered by Western sanctions.”
• “Despite the signs of cooling, the fundamental drivers of overheating remain in place: growing military production, and an intense labor shortage. In some sectors related to the military (like for example finished metal products and optics and computers), there is no sign of any cooling. Inflation also remains high.”

“Russia Is on a Slow Path to Bankruptcy, But How Slow?”, Pierre-Marie Meunier, WoTR/Le Rubicon, 09.11.24.

• “Russia is faced with an insoluble equation: how to finance a war in the long term, for which expenditure is soaring while budget revenues are falling, against a backdrop of tightened sanctions.”
• “Now spinning at breakneck speed on the momentum of its “war economy,” this Russian spinning top cannot slow down, or it will fall. But it may soon run out of momentum as well as finances. Russia’s economic future after 2024 rests essentially on the price of oil from the Urals and on the quantities exported, two subjects that are all the more uncertain for Russia in the near future. Russia may soon no longer be able to rely on its depleting financial reserves.”
• “With no possibility of borrowing on international financial markets, and constrained by a limited domestic financial market (in the context of China’s gradual disengagement), Russia risks nothing less than bankruptcy in the medium term.”
• “What could happen when Russia runs out of financial reserves? It’s an exercise in foresight, but several scenarios are conceivable.”
  • “The first is the most unrealistic: For lack of funding, Russia stops its military spending, abandons its 'special operation' in Ukraine, acknowledges its defeat, and goes back to 'business as usual.'”
  • “A second scenario could involve massive Chinese intervention (financial loans, supply of equipment, munitions, troops, etc.) in exchange for even greater access to Russia’s natural resources, or even in exchange for territories such as Siberia.”
  • “The third scenario is the most likely: change nothing and try to adapt.”
• “In a country where more than half the population lives directly off state subsidies, where the poverty rate will exceed 13 percent in 2021 (even though poverty criteria are much lower than in the West), and where 62 percent of Russians have neither savings nor enough to buy more than clothes and food, the long-term risk for Russia is to find itself in an economic situation identical to that which preceded the fall of the Soviet Union.”

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

“Russia Is Riding an Anti-Colonial Wave Across Africa,” Benjamin R. Young, FP, 09.12.24

• “In May, pro-independence demonstrations spread across New Caledonia, a small Pacific island territory that has been ruled by France since 1853. Waving the flags of the Indigenous Kanak people as well as the flag of the pro-independence Socialist National Liberation Front, demonstrators took to the streets to protest voting reform measures that would give greater political power to recently arrived Europeans. Curiously, however, they also waved another flag—that of Azerbaijan.”
• “Since March 2023, Baku has strategically cultivated support for the New Caledonian independence movement under the guise of anti-colonial solidarity. As payback for French diplomatic backing of Armenia after Azerbaijan’s 2020 invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku has disseminated anti-French disinformation related to New Caledonia. Following the outbreak of protests this May, France publicly accused Azerbaijan of doing so.”
• “Baku’s influence campaign successfully inflamed long-simmering hostilities toward French descendants in New Caledonia… The incident in New Caledonia is hardly an isolated one. Anti-colonialism, which rose as a powerful ideological force during the 1960s and 1970s, is having a resurgence, and its philosophical underpinnings continue to shape some of the biggest geopolitical crises of the day, from Gaza to Ukraine. But unlike the decolonization movements of the Cold War era, this wave is being driven by opportunistic illiberal regimes that exploit anti-colonial rhetoric to advance their own geopolitical agendas—and, paradoxically, their own colonial-style land grabs.”
• “Today, the anti-colonial movement is less about securing independence for the few remaining colonial outposts or debating the proper developmental pathway for countries in the global south. Bolstered by powerful state-backed media corporations in the capitals of authoritarian states, the current movement is largely a Trojan horse for the advancement of global illiberalism and a revision of the international rules-based order.”
• “Authoritarian governments in Eurasia have taken their influence operations to social media, where they hope to inflame grievances—possibly into actual conflicts—to divert the attention of Washington and its allies from areas of strategic importance. But more than any other country, it is Russia that is attempting to ride the resurgent anti-colonial wave and position itself as a leading voice of the global south. Russian leadership describes itself as the vanguard of the 'global majority' and claims to be leading 'the objective process of building a more just multipolar world.'”

“The Soviet Roots of Putin’s Foreign Policy Toward the Middle East,” Mark Katz, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 09.12.24

• “There are significant differences between the former Soviet Union’s Middle East foreign policy and that of current Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the Soviet era, Moscow strongly supported revolutionary regimes at odds with pro-Western conservative ones in the region. But during the Putin era, Moscow has established good working relations with all governments in the Middle East, including those traditionally aligned with the West.
• “Yet despite the clear dichotomy between Moscow’s ideologically driven Soviet-era support for anti-Western regimes on the one hand and its more interest-driven Putin-era support for both pro- and anti-Western regimes on the other, there are several similarities between Soviet policy and Putin’s more recent policy toward the region. Indeed, Putin’s Middle East policy could even be said to be a continuation of several aspects of Soviet era policy.”
• “One key similarity between Soviet-era and Putin-era Middle East policies is that despite Soviet support for revolutionary regimes, the USSR also sought to have good relations with both revolutionary and non-revolutionary regimes. Another key similarity between Soviet-era and Putin-era policies toward the Middle East is that, like Putin’s Russia, the Soviet Union often (though not always) sought to maintain good relations with opposing sides simultaneously in the Middle East’s many conflicts. A third similarity between the Soviet-era and Putin-era foreign policies toward the Middle East is that both the Soviets and Putin have advanced ambitious conflict resolution proposals—which, while unsuccessful at resolving conflict, were mainly intended to strengthen Moscow’s diplomatic role in the Middle East as well as weaken or limit Washington’s.”
• “One problem not experienced by Putin’s predecessors is that Russian mediation is no longer the only serious alternative to American mediation. Middle Eastern states can now turn to Beijing—and they have already begun doing so. In sum, not supporting revolution like the Soviets did, or were feared that they might do, has helped Putin’s foreign policy toward the Middle East avoid some of the problems that his Soviet predecessors encountered. However, Putin still faces a host of other problems, both old and new.”

Ukraine:

• “Is Ukraine’s New Law on ‘Spiritual Sovereignty’ all Bark and no Bite?” Georgy Chizov, Russia.Post., 09.12.24. 

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“The west needs to prepare for a crisis in Georgia,” Tim Judah, FT, 09.10.24. 

• “Georgia is adrift. As the nation counts down towards elections next month, many who oppose the ruling Georgian Dream party believe it will resort to anything to maintain its grip on power. Russian leaders already foresee a violent denouement in the wake of the poll. After years of integrating into Euro-Atlantic structures, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s de facto leader, sensing power draining away from him and those in his camp who run the regions, has wrenched it from this course. Georgia is now floating in the no man’s land between the west and the Russian-cum-BRICs world.”
• “Analysts and pollsters suggest that Georgian Dream and the opposition are attracting about a third of the electorate each, with the rest undecided. This means things could turn nasty in October. Sergei Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, has said that if the opposition loses, the U.S. is planning a “Tbilisi Maidan,” by which he means a coup. That is absurd. But if Georgian Dream falls short of victory, it might still claim it, provoking angry demonstrations and even violence. If it wins fair and square, Tbilisi will continue to drift away from the west. If it loses but tries to cling on to power, Georgians will look to the west, in which case the actions of those governments could be decisive. Eka Metreveli, who heads the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, says her country is now moving towards neutrality and into the Russian sphere of influence. The vast majority of Georgians, she insists, 'do not want that.'”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• “The old "New Kazakhstan." What have Tokayev's reforms changed?” Aliya Tlegenova, Serik Beysembayev,” CEIP, September 2024. In Russian.
• “What are Chinese private security companies doing in Central Asia?” Odil Gafarov, CEIP, September 2024. In Russian. 

For an interactive timeline of the United States’ history of military bases throughout Central Asia by Alexander Cooley and Emma Larson, click here.

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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.

^Translated with the help of ChatGPT.

 Slider photo is AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky.