3 Things to Know

1. On the same day that Ukraine fired ATACMS into Russia with U.S. permission, Vladimir Putin signed off on the promised amendments to Russia’s declaratory principles of nuclear deterrence, expanding the conditions under which the Kremlin asserts the right to use nuclear weapons. While the 2020 “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence” permitted Russia to use nuclear weapons “in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy,” the Nov. 19, 2024 version of this document says they can be used “in the event of aggression” against Russia and/or Belarus “with the use of conventional weapons, which creates a critical threat to their sovereignty and/or territorial integrity.” The 2024 edition also introduces such new conditions for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, as the use of nuclear weapons or other types of WMD by an adversary against military formations and (or) facilities of the Russian Federation located outside its territory; the identification of Belarus as an ally, aggression against which could prompt Russia to use nuclear weapons against the aggressor; and the receipt of reliable data on a massive launch of air and space attack weapons (strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, unmanned, hypersonic and other aerial vehicles) and their crossing into Russia. While it is important to identify and analyze the declaratory policies of nuclear powers such as Russia, one should keep in mind that they are, well, declaratory (and that, perhaps, could explain the absence of a doctrinal response by the U.S., whose own nuclear posture is considerably more vague than Russia’s). For instance, Putin reportedly considered employing nuclear weapons to respond to the Ukrainian counteroffensive within this republic’s 1991 borders in the second half of 2022 (chances of use were put at 50% by the U.S. intelligence community), even though neither the 2020 principles nor Russia’s 2014 military doctrine provided for using nuclear weapons in such a scenario. So, in the absence of access to top secret operational plans, it is important to not only follow what a nuclear power declares in its strategic documents (and what its leader says), but also what it does in terms of deployments and wargames.*
2. Following Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied ATACMS and U.K.-supplied Storm Shadows against targets in the western part of “mainland” Russia with Washington’s and London’s permission on Nov. 19–20, Vladimir Putin implemented his recent warnings that Russia would respond if this red line was crossed. He ordered his forces to launch what was described as an experimental dual-use mid-range Oreshnik ballistic missile carrying a conventional warhead to hit the capital of Ukraine’s missile-making, the city of Dnipro, in the early hours of Nov. 21.¹ In his Nov. 21 statement, Putin hinted that subsequent launches of this purportedly dual-use MRBM may be equipped with nuclear warheads that would create “danger zones” upon impact.² He also claimed in his Nov. 21 remarks, which included elements of his now traditional nuclear saber-rattling, that the use of swarms of these MRBM’s in combination with other attack systems would be “comparable in effect, in its power, with strategic weapons.”³ Putin also asserted that “we consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow others to use their weapons against our facilities” and warned that such use could lead to a world war. “From that point onward, as we have repeatedly emphasized in prior communications, the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has assumed elements of a global nature,” he declared. Putin continued to comment on the Oreshnik missile on Nov. 22, telling his top brass that this nuclear-capable MRBM “is another reliable guarantor of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Russia” and accepting the top brass’ proposal to officially commission this MRBM, even though testing has not been completed.⁴ This is not the first time Russia has commissioned a ballistic missile without completing its testing: recall the RS-28 Sarmat ICBM.
3. This week has seen various Western outlets continue to report the Russian armed forces’ estimated advances in Ukraine, as well as in Russia’s own Kursk region. So far this month, the Russian forces made a net gain of 487 square miles in Ukraine, according to RM staff’s estimate based on data provided for that period by ISW. According to FT, Ukraine’s forces have lost nearly half of the 1,100 square kilometers of territory they captured in an incursion into the Kursk region in August, while Russian forces have captured 1,200 square kilometers in Ukraine since that month. This newspaper cited Ukrainian officials as saying over the weekend that their defenses are “crumbling” as Russian forces advance at a faster rate than at any point since 2022.

NB: Next week’s Russia in Review will appear on Wednesday, Nov. 27, instead of Friday, Nov. 29, because of the U.S. Thanksgiving holidays.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Ukraine powered down most of the remaining operational nuclear reactors under its control following a massive overnight Russian missile and drone attack. Generation was dialed down to between 40% and 90% of capacity at some units, according to the IAEA. “The country’s energy infrastructure is extremely vulnerable, directly impacting nuclear safety and security,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. (Bloomberg, 11.17.24)
• Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy. The so-called Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program in the Russian Federation (MNEPR) had since 2003 brought together financial and technical resources from some of Europe’s biggest economies, as well as institutions like the European Commission, to launch massive efforts to clean up decommissioned Soviet nuclear submarines and the irradiated bases in the Arctic that served them. (Bellona, November 2024)
• See section on the military aspect of the conflict for more details on Russia’s Nov. 17 aerial attack.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• North Korea may deploy as many as 100,000 troops to aid Russia’s war on Ukraine if the alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow continues to deepen, according to people familiar with assessments made by some Group of 20 nations. (Bloomberg, 11.17.24)
• A senior North Korean general was wounded in a recent Ukrainian strike in Russia’s Kursk region, Western officials said Nov. 21. It is the first time Western officials have said that a high-ranking North Korean military officer has become a casualty in the escalating Russia-Ukraine conflict. (WSJ, 11.21.24)
• North Korea has supplied Russia with additional shipments of artillery and rocket launchers to help bolster its war against Ukraine, a South Korean lawmaker said Nov. 20. South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed shipments of 170mm self-propelled artillery and 240mm long-range rocket launchers, according to Lee Seong-kweun, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee. (MT/AFP, 11.20.24)
• In recent weeks, North Korea provided some 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems to Russia that can fire standard rockets and guided ones. (FT, 11.16.24)
• Russia has supplied North Korea with antiaircraft missiles in return for the deployment of its troops to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine, South Korea’s national security adviser said on Nov. 22. (NYT, 11.22.24)
• North Korean troops are reportedly training alongside Russian naval infantry and airborne units. (ISW, 11.21.24)
• In Ukraine the North Korean military will gain combat experience and learn lessons about modern warfare, such as the use of drones, said Doo Jin-ho, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. (NYT, 11.16.24)
• North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has ordered North Korean defense industrial enterprises to begin serial production of likely tactical strike drones – an example of how increasing Russian-North Korean military cooperation allows North Korea to learn from Russia's war in Ukraine. (ISW, 11.16.24)
• Kim Jong Un vowed to bolster the nation’s nuclear capabilities “without limit” to counter the threats posed by the security partnership between the U.S. and its allies in the region, North Korean state media reported Nov. 18.” (Bloomberg, 11.17.24)
• Kim Jong Un met with Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Alexander Kozlov in Pyongyang as visiting Russian delegations continue to highlight deepening ties between the two countries. A separate Russian military academy delegation also arrived in Pyongyang, although KCNA provided no further details on their visit. (MT/AFP, 11.19.24)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin gifted more than 70 animals from the Moscow Zoo to North Korea, Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry said. (MT/AFP, 11.20.24)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Iran sharply increased its stockpile of nearly weapons-grade uranium amid its confrontation with Israel, according to the United Nations atomic-energy agency, in a challenge to the incoming Trump administration. (WSJ, 11.19.24)
• The EU has widened its sanctions against Iran over the country's support of the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine, the European Commission said on Nov. 18, targeting firms, ports, and individuals involved in the transfer of ballistic missiles and drones to Russia for use on the battlefield. (RFE/RL, 11.18.24)
• U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s new administration will revive its “maximum pressure” policy to “bankrupt” Iran’s ability to fund regional proxies and develop nuclear weapons, according to people familiar with the transition. (FT, 11.16.24)
  • However, while those most eager for a U.S. assault on Iran, or even regime change, held sway in the last Trump administration, several GOP lawmakers and officials are cautioning that those voices will enjoy far less clout this time around. A secret meeting between Trump confidante Elon Musk and Iran's U.N. ambassador as a preliminary effort to defuse tensions between Washington and Tehran could be the first such indicator of a seismic shift, analysts said. (WP, 11.17.24)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• Ukrainian officials continue to launch investigations into Russian executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) and provide statistics on Ukrainians living in Russian captivity. The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office reported Nov. 20 that it launched an investigation into a case involving Russian forces executing two Ukrainian POWs near Novodmytrivka, Donetsk Oblast on Nov. 10, in clear violation of the Geneva Convention on POWs. (ISW, 11.20.24)
• Some 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have died since February 2022, including 650 children. 26,000 people have been wounded, of which about 1,700 are children. This is at least 12 dead and 26 wounded every day of the war. (Istories, 11.18.24)
• Nearly 50 civilians forcibly taken into Ukraine in recent months have returned to Russia following negotiations with Kyiv, presidential human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said Nov. 22. (MT/AFP, 11.22.24)
• Ukraine’s population has already decreased by at least 15% from the pre-war 42 million to 35.8 million people, of which 4.7 million live in the territories occupied by Russia. The consequences of the war could lead to the population of Ukraine decreasing by another 10 million people in the next 25 years. (Istories, 11.18.24)
• The international chemical weapons watchdog said Nov. 18 that banned CS riot gas had been found in shell and soil samples provided by Ukraine from the zone where it is fighting Russian forces. (MT/AFP, 11.19.24)
• The U.S. and several European embassies in Kyiv have temporarily closed their doors after Washington received intelligence that Russia is planning a large-scale attack on the Ukrainian capital. The embassies of Italy and Greece followed suit and also closed for the day. Ukraine’s authorities rely on their NATO partners for intelligence relating to potential strikes and such a statement by the embassy meant there was “a definite risk,” said Yuriy Ignat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air defense forces. (FT, 11.20.24)
• Ukraine’s Parliament canceled a session on Nov. 22 over a warning that Russia could target the building in an attack with a missile that Ukraine’s air defenses cannot shoot down, lawmakers said. This is the first time Parliament has canceled a session since Russia invaded Ukraine. (NYT, 11.22.24)
• The Biden administration told Congress it plans to cancel $4.65 billion in debt owed by Ukraine, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg News, the latest in a series of moves meant to bolster support for Kyiv before Trump takes office. (Bloomberg, 11.21.24)
• For military strikes on civilian targets see the next section.

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

• So far this month, Russian forces made a net gain of 487 square miles in Ukraine; according to RM editor Ivan Arreguín-Toft’s Nov. 20 estimate based on data provided for that period by the Institute for the Study of War. (RM, 11.22.24)
  • Russia controls 18% of Ukraine, including all of Crimea, 80% of the Donbas - the Donetsk and Luhansk regions - and more than 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. It also holds just under 3% of the Kharkiv region and a sliver of Mykolaiv. In total, Russia has over 110,000 sq km of Ukrainian territory. Ukraine holds about 650 sq km of Russia's Kursk region. (Reuters, 11.20.24)
  • Ukraine’s forces in Kursk have lost nearly half of the 1,100 sq km of territory they captured in a surprise August incursion, according to military analysts. Kyiv is trying to hold the 600 sq km still under its control to use as leverage in any future negotiations with Russia. (FT, 11.16.24)
  • Russian have captured some 645 sq km of Ukrainian territory in the past 30 days, according to the Economist’s daily war tracker. (The Economist, 11.20.24)
  • As of Nov. 15, Russia was reported to be threatening to make a major strategic breakthrough across Ukraine’s shaky front line, making stark the reality of the conflict’s dynamics even as Europe’s politicians fret about the geopolitical shifts taking place in the background. Ukrainian officials have admitted that their defenses are “crumbling.” (FT, 11.15.24)
• On Nov. 17, Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group reported in its interactive map that the Russian forces advanced in Chasiv Yar, Berestky, Dalne and near Voznesenka. (RM, 11.22.24)      
• On Nov. 17, Russia battered Ukraine with more than 200 missiles and drones in what Ukraine’s foreign minister said was one of the largest air attacks of the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia used 120 cruise, ballistic and aeroballistic missiles and 90 drones, including Iranian-made Shaheds, in the attack. Ukrainian forces shot down more than 140 of them, he said. In all, 144 of 210 targets were intercepted, according to the Ukrainian military. DTEK chief executive Maxim Timchenko said on social media site X that there had been “severe damage to Ukraine’s energy system, including to DTEK power stations.” The barrage marked the eighth attack on the company’s energy plants this year. (FT, 11.17.24, WP, 11.17.24, WSJ, 11.17.24)[5]
• On Nov. 18, Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group reported in its interactive map that the Russian forces advanced in Kalynivka, Toretsk, Kurakhove, Berestky, near Chasіv Yar, Pohrebky, Yuriyivka, Rozdolne. (RM, 11.22.24)
• On Nov. 18, Ukraine said at least 21 people were killed in missile attacks following a massive barrage on its energy infrastructure. Ten people were killed and 47 people, including four children, were wounded in Odesa in an attack Zelenskyy called “barbaric.” Eleven were killed when a residential building was hit late Nov. 17 in the town of Sumy near the northeastern border with Russia. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24, FT, 11.18.24)
• On Nov. 19, Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group reported in its interactive map that the Russian forces Nova Illinka and advanced near Dalne, Antonivka, Pustynka and Toretsk. (RM, 11.22.24)
• On Nov. 19, Ukraine struck a military target inside Russia using six U.S.-made long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time since U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration lifted restrictions on their use, according to Ukrainian officials. The missiles hit a large weapons arsenal near the town of Karachev in Russia’s Bryansk region on Nov. 19, more than 115km from the Ukrainian border, the officials said. Karachev is located near the 67th arsenal of Russia's Main Missile and Artillery Directorate. (WSJ, 11.20.24,  FT, 11.19.24, Bloomberg, 11.19.24. MT/AFP, 11.19.24, Meduza, 11.19.24)
  • The Russian Defense Ministry played down the effectiveness of the attack, however. "Ukraine's armed forces last night struck a facility in the Bryansk region with six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles, with five missiles shot down and one damaged," the ministry said in a statement. (WP, 11.19.24)
  • "This is a signal that they want escalation," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in response to the attack on Nov. 19, describing it as a new phase in the war. “Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles,” Lavrov said in comments quoted by Reuters. He also noted recent alterations to Russia’s nuclear doctrine on Nov. 19 that lower the thresholds for first use. (FT, 11.19.24, WSJ, 11.19.24, Gazeta.ru, 11.19.24)
• On Nov. 20, Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group reported in its interactive map that the Russian forces advanced in Daryino, Kurakhove, near Nyzhnyi Klyn, Kremenne, Rozdolne, Novodonetske, and Dalne. (RM, 11.22.24)
• On Nov. 20, Russian forces "destroyed and intercepted" 44 Ukrainian drones, including 20 "over the Novgorod region," Russia's Defense Ministry said in a social media post. (WP, 11.20.24)
• On Nov. 20, Russian forces pummeled Ukraine with waves of self-destructing drones and missiles. Ukraine's air force said that of 122 drones launched at targets across the country, 56 were shot down and 64 failed to reach their targets. (WP, 11.20.24)
• On Nov. 20, Ukraine’s armed forces fired British Storm Shadow cruise missiles at military targets inside Russia for the first time. The U.K. approved the use of Storm Shadow missiles in response to Russia deploying North Korean troops in its war against Ukraine. (Bloomberg, 11.20.24)
  • A Western official briefed on the strike said that multiple missiles had been fired at least one Russian military target. A Russian pro-war military blog said the fragments had landed near the village of Marino, a village in the Kursk region. Alexei Smirnov, the local governor, said that Russian air defenses had shot down two Ukrainian missiles. In reference to the posts, Yuriy Ignat, a Ukrainian air force official, wrote on Facebook that “there was a ‘strong storm’ in Kursk region.” (FT, 11.20.24)
  • Asked in Parliament whether Britain planned to "align with the United States" in granting Kyiv permission to use the British-supplied missiles, Maria Eagle, the minister of state for defense procurement, said the British government "absolutely" intended to "align with our allies in making sure that Ukraine can make use of the capability that has been offered" by its backers. (WP, 11.21.24)
  • Storm Shadow and SCALPs, like ATACMS, require considerable Western involvement for effective targeting. (The Economist, 11.18.24)
• In the early hours of Nov. 21, Russian forces struck a missile-making facility in the city of Dnipro,[6] in south central Ukraine, with what Russian President Vladimir Putin called an experimental Oreshnik ballistic missile. In his statement on the launch of the Oreshnik, Putin said the Russian armed forces launched a combination of attack systems, including what he claimed was an experimental Oreshnik missile. which had a “non-nuclear warhead” and which can travel at speeds of 10 Machs. This missile is similar in type to the Yars missile system. Although it is listed as an ICBM under the 2010 New Start nuclear arms treaty, some analysts have questioned whether the RS-26 qualifies as one and Western officials have hesitated to call it as such. The missile was launched from Astrakhan by the Caspian Sea, a distance of around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), according to Ukraine. (FT, 11.22.24, Bloomberg, RM 11.21.24, Istories, 11.22.24)
  • In his statement on the launch of the Oreshnik, Putin said the attack on Dnipro was a "test" of the weapon, in response to the Biden administration's recent decision authorizing Ukraine to fire its U.S.-supplied ATACMS. He said that the launch of ATACMS on Russia by Ukraine on Nov. 19 created a situation, in which “From that point onward, as we have repeatedly emphasized in prior communications, the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has assumed elements of a global nature.” He also hinted that subsequent launches of this MRBM may be equipped with nuclear warheads that would create danger zones upon impact. “It goes without saying that when choosing, if necessary and as a retaliatory measure, targets to be hit by systems such as Oreshnik on Ukrainian territory, we will in advance suggest that civilians and citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones. We will do so for humanitarian reasons, openly and publicly, without fear of counter-moves coming from the enemy, who will also be receiving this information,” he said. (RM, 11.21.24, WP, 11.22.24) For more comments by Putin and his top brass on Oreshnik see section “Defense and aerospace” below.
  • Dimitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that under protocol, Russia was not required to notify the American side in advance of the missile launch because the Oreshnik is not an intercontinental missile. But an automatic notification to the U.S. was triggered 30 minutes before the launch, Peskov told Tass, the Russian state media outlet. The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that it received that warning.  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Nov. 21 that the White House was aware that Russia had launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine. An unnamed U.S. official also told Reuters that “the U.S. was pre-notified through nuclear risk reduction channels.” (NYT, 11.22.24, Meduza, 11.22.24)
    • “The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities,” Peskov said on Nov. 22. “The contours of further retaliatory actions, if our concerns are not taken into account, have also been quite clearly outlined.” We have no doubt that the current administration in Washington has had the opportunity to familiarize itself with this announcement and understand it,” he said. (NYT, 11.22.24, MT/AFP, 11.22.24)
  • Ukraine has no radars capable of detecting such missiles in flight through the upper atmosphere, nor does it have air defense systems capable of shooting them down, said Ivan Kyrychevskyi, a military analyst with Defense Express, a Ukrainian consulting agency. (NYT, 11.22.24)
  • Zelenskyy on Nov. 21 called for decisive action from world leaders following Russia's use of an experimental hypersonic missile against Ukraine, warning that the strike marked a major increase in the war’s "scale and brutality." "This is an obvious and serious increase in the scale and brutality of this war," Zelenskyy said on Telegram. "This... is damning proof that Russia definitely does not want peace." (MT/AFP, 11.22.24)
  • NATO officials will meet their Ukrainian counterparts for emergency talks Nov. 26 to discuss Russia’s use of an experimental hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine. (FT, 11.22.24)
  • Moscow aimed to "intimidate those who support Ukraine," NATO spokeswoman Farah Dakhlallah said in an email. "Deploying this capability will neither change the course of the conflict nor deter NATO Allies from supporting Ukraine." Ever since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has tried to deter the West from supplying Kyiv with ever more potent weaponry by threatening retaliation and escalation of the war. This week the Kremlin finally followed through on its threat. (FT, 11.22.24, WP, 11.22.24)
• On Nov. 21, Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group reported in its interactive map that the Russian forces occupied Dalne, advanced in Toretsk, Kurakhove, near Zolota Niva, Pustynka, Selydove, Trudove, Antonivka and Dalne. (RM, 11.22.24)
• On Nov. 21, the air force of Ukraine said that Russia sent a salvo of nine missiles toward the Dnipro region, including an air-launched ballistic missile fired from a MIG-31 fighter and seven cruise missiles launched from strategic bombers. Ukraine said it shot down six of the cruise missiles. (NYT, 11.21.24)
• On Nov. 22, two people were killed and 12 wounded in Russian strikes on Sumy, Artem Kobzar, the mayor of the northeastern Ukrainian city, reported in a video statement on Telegram. (RFE/RL, 11.22.24)
• From January to October 2024, Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation opened 40,659 criminal cases on individuals going AWOL and another 19,826 on desertion. This is two and a half times more than for the whole of 2023. (BBC, 11.19.24)
• Outnumbered by more than six to one along some stretches of the front, Ukrainian soldiers and commanders say they are hindered by a lack of combat infantry after years of heavy fighting and, just as important, by a shortage of experienced platoon and company commanders to lead untested recruits into battle. That has led to a fraying of Ukraine’s lines that has allowed Russia to make its largest gains since the first weeks of the war. (NYT, 11.20.24)
• Journalists from the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service have been counting Russian soldiers who have died in Ukraine since the early months of the invasion. Their methods are based on collecting and cross-checking public information such as obituaries and cemetery burials. This work has produced the most comprehensive database of confirmed Russian combat deaths: 78,000 soldiers by November, not including the Ukrainian separatists and foreigners fighting for Russia. (A similar, but less transparent, account of Ukraine’s losses found 65,000 dead soldiers by mid-November.) Mediazona’s tally is incomplete: Some soldiers leave no trace when they die. The journalists estimate that they have recorded about half of all Russian military deaths. (NYT, 11.19.24)
• Ukrainian inventors have developed more than 200 different ground robotic systems in the last year. The devices can lay mines, destroy enemy positions, transport equipment and shells, or fire machine guns. (RFE/RL, 11.16.24)[7]
• In October, more than 2,000 drones were launched at Ukraine. (FT, 11.17.24) 
• At a secretive factory in Russia’s central grasslands, engineers are manufacturing hundreds of decoy drones meant to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses. The plant at Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone recently started churning out thermobaric drones alongside the decoys, the investigation found. The thermobaric warheads create a vortex of high pressure and heat that can penetrate thick walls. (AP, 11.14.24)
• The Russian military command reportedly arrested and removed several commanders within the Russian 3rd Combined Arms Army [CAA] following inaccurate reports they made about alleged Russian advances near Bilohorivka and repeated outcries from the Russian milblogger community. (ISW, 11.16.24)
• At least 1,010 soldiers from the Russian military’s 20th Motorized Rifle Division alone have gone AWOL since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a new report from iStories. (Meduza, 11.19.24)
• The commander and chief of staff of the 3rd combined arms Lugansk-Severodonetsk army, as well as the commanders of the 6th, 7th and 123rd brigades of the Russian Armed Forces were removed from their posts and arrested for a false report on the liberation of Serebryanka, Grigorovka, Belogorovka and Verkhnekamenskoye near Seversk in the Donetsk region. (Istories, 11.21.24)
• According to Ukrainian intelligence, the ground part of the Russian group participating in military operations against Ukraine is almost 580,000 Russian servicemen, taking into account the Kursk region. (Ukrainska Pravda, 11.22.24)
• Russian law enforcement authorities in annexed Crimea arrested a man and a woman suspected of killing a senior Russian naval officer in a car bombing last week, investigators said Nov. 19. Ukraine’s security service (SBU) claimed responsibility for the attack in Sevastopol, which killed Capt. First Rank Valery Trankovsky, chief of staff of Russia’s 41st missile ship brigade in the Black Sea. (MT/AFP, 11.19.24)

Military aid to Ukraine:

• On Nov. 18, Biden was reported to have for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia. (NYT, 11.18.24)
  • Officials said Biden was persuaded to make the change in part by the sheer audacity of Russia's decision to throw North Korean troops at Ukrainian lines. He was also swayed, they said, by concerns that the Russian assault force would be able to overwhelm Ukrainian troops in Kursk if they were not allowed to defend themselves with long-range weapons. Deputy U.S. national security adviser Jon Finer indicated that the introduction of North Korean troops had factored into the administration's thinking. One of the goals of the policy change, U.S. officials said, is to send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them. (NYT, 11.18.24, WSJ, 11.18.24, NYT, 11.18.24)
  • A U.S. official said that Biden's approval of ATACMS "is going to have a very specific and limited effect" on the battlefield, designed to limit concerns about escalation. (WP, 11.18.24)
  • Steven Cheung, communications director for Trump, didn't directly address the policy change. "As President Trump has said on the campaign trail, he is the only person who can bring both sides together in order to negotiate peace, and work toward ending the war and stopping the killing," he said. (WSJ, 11.18.24)
  • Donald Trump Jr, the president-elect’s son, wrote on X on Nov. 17: “The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.” (FT, 11.18.24)
  • Zelenskyy said: “The plan to strengthen Ukraine is the victory plan that I presented to our partners. One of the main points is long-range capabilities for our army. Today, the media is speaking a lot about us receiving permission for these actions. But strikes aren’t carried out with words. Such things aren’t announced. The missiles will speak for themselves.” (Meduza, 11.18.24, WSJ, 11.18.24)
  • Russian officials on Nov. 18 furiously condemned Biden's decision. (WP, 11.19.24)
    • Putin’s spokesman said the move added "fuel to the fire" and tensions to the relationship. "This is a qualitatively new round of tension and a qualitatively new situation in terms of U.S. involvement in this conflict," he said. "It's clear that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps to, they've said so, to continue to add fuel to the fire and to further provoke the level of tension." Asked if a Ukrainian attack with longer-range U.S. missiles could potentially trigger use of nuclear weapons, Peskov answered affirmatively. Peskov said Russia would view the use of Western non-nuclear missiles by Ukraine as an attack by a non-nuclear state with the support of a nuclear state against the country, potentially justifying the use of nuclear weapons by Moscow. Peskov said that the doctrine outlines that "aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state" would be considered a joint attack. (Xinhua, 11.20.24. WP, 11.19.24, NYT, 11.19.24, AP, 11.19.24)[8]
      • U.S. deputy national security adviser Jon Finer responded from the Group of 20 summit in Brazil to Peskov's statement, saying that "the fire was lit by Russia's invasion of Ukraine," while declining to publicly confirm the authorization of the weapons. (WP, 11.19.24)
    • "The standoff will become even fiercer, and the talks will become more difficult," said Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the parliamentary defense committee. "We expected them to escalate before the end of Biden's office — that was completely obvious." (WP, 11.18.24.)
    • A former Kremlin official told The Washington Post that Moscow now believes that NATO has gone to war with Russia and that "they will proceed accordingly." The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. (WP, 11.19.24)
  • European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell appeared to encourage other countries to follow Washington's decision to allow use of ATACMS against targets in Russia, expressing hope that the bloc's members could agree to allow Ukraine to use other weapons to strike inside Russian territory. (WP, 11.19.24)
  • German Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended his decision not to give Ukraine Taurus long-range missiles, even as the U.S. has decided to authorize Kyiv to use its weapons to strike inside Russia. “I am firmly convinced that many citizens in Germany are worried about security and peace in Europe,” Scholz said Nov. 18 on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
    • The German Chancellor's spokesman Wolfgang Buchner said that the U.S. informed the country's authorities about the permission granted to Ukraine for ATACMS missile strikes on Russian territory. "No, this does not change the position of the German government on the delivery of Taurus," Buchner also said at a press conference in Berlin. (Istories, 11.18.24)
    • German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has said the U.S. decision to allow Ukraine to strike Russian targets with long-range weapons was “important” and “essential.” “The decision by the U.S. side . . . is so important at this moment,” Baerbock said before a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Nov. 18. (FT, 11.18.24)
    • Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a senior German MEP, noted that the Greens, opposition Christian Democratic Union party and her party, the liberal FDP, were all in favor of supplying Tauruses to Ukraine. (FT, 11.18.24)
    • On Nov. 18, Polish President Andrzej Duda took aim at Scholz, saying it was a “pity” that Germany did not join France and the U.K. in aligning with the U.S. on helping Ukraine defend itself with more missiles. (FT, 11.18.24, Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
  • French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Nov. 18 that Paris remains open to allowing Ukraine to use French long-range missiles to target military sites inside Russia, following reports that the United States has permitted Kyiv to use American-supplied missiles for the same purpose. (MT/AFP, 11.18.24)
  • EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell on Nov. 18 said he hoped other EU member states would follow the U.S. decision to allow Ukraine to strike targets in Russia. (FT, 11.18.24, Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
  • French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Nov. 18 that France had been willing to lift restrictions for Ukraine for the past six months. (FT, 11.18.24, Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
• The U.S. Department of Defense announced its 70th tranche of military assistance under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) valued at $275 million, which includes HIMARS ammunition; 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition; 60mm and 81mm mortar rounds; drones; Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) missiles; Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems; small arms and ammunition; demolitions equipment; and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear protective equipment. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that the United States is providing Ukraine with antipersonnel landmines with controlled detonations to help defend against Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine. (ISW, 11.20.24)
  • Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with anti-personnel landmines — marking a significant policy reversal— stems from shifts in Russian battlefield tactics prioritizing infantry over mechanized units, Austin said Nov. 20. (MT/AFP, 11.21.24)
  • The Biden administration would have to rush $7.1 billion in weapons from the Pentagon’s stockpiles to spend all of those funds before Trump is sworn in. That includes $4.3 billion from a foreign aid bill passed by Congress earlier this year and $2.8 billion still on the books in savings due to the Pentagon recalculating the value of systems sent. (AP, 11.19.24)
• The German government announced on Nov. 20 that Germany has delivered additional weapons and equipment to Ukraine, including ammunition for Mardar infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), 47 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs), one TRML-4D aerial radar system, four Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers, 40,000 155mm artillery rounds, seven M109 155mm howitzer barrels, over 200 various reconnaissance drones, mine-clearing and logistics vehicles and small arms ammunition. (ISW, 11.20.24)
• The G-7 reiterated its members' "unwavering support for Ukraine for as long as it takes" as that country battles for its survival against invading Russian forces. The current Italian G-7 Presidency issued the statement in conjunction with the approach of the 1,000th day of the full-scale invasion. (RFE/RL, 11.16.24)
• Visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said in Ukraine on Nov. 16 that Tokyo and Kyiv have committed to increased dialogue between their respective defense and foreign ministers on security issues in light of the "extremely alarming situation" around the recent deployment of North Korean troops to Russia as Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues. (RFE/RL, 11.16.24)
• George Simion, Romania’s ultra-nationalist party leader, whose popularity has propelled him to No. 2 in the polls ahead of the country’s presidential election, said he would halt military aid to Ukraine if he gets the top job. (Bloomberg, 11.21.24)

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

• Five days after Russia imposed tit-for-tat restrictions on exports of enriched uranium to the U.S., the 14-year-old Atlantic Action II remains anchored outside the port of Saint Petersburg, its crew presumably unsure whether the radioactive cargo they were due to collect for a U.S.-based client can still be shipped. Moscow’s new measures, announced last week, come with caveats. Just as U.S. import restrictions introduced in May still allow companies to seek waivers allowing uranium shipments when they can’t obtain supplies elsewhere, so the Russians “didn’t say they’re outright ending all deliveries to the U.S.,” says Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, a consultancy specializing in the nuclear industry. (FT, 11.20.24)
• Raiffeisen Bank International AG is trying to raise new capital to replace an Additional Tier 1 bond more than six months after an earlier deal failed due to the lender’s struggle to exit its Russian operations. The Austrian bank is offering €650 million ($685.6 million) of new AT1 bonds on Nov. 18, with the coupon set at 7.375%, down from initial price talks of around 7.75%, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
• As of mid-November, Russian airlines have grounded 34 out of the 66 Airbus A320neo and A321neo planes in their fleets, Kommersant reports. The groundings stem from difficulties in sourcing replacement engines, manufactured by the U.S. company Pratt & Whitney, due to Western sanctions. (Meduza, 11.21.24)
• LetterOne Holdings, the U.K. investment company founded by sanctioned Russian billionaires, failed to overturn a British government-ordered sale of a broadband service provider after a London court ruled the decision was fair and reasonable. The High Court dismissed the case brought by LetterOne Holdings, founded by businessmen Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan, which challenged the forced sale. The U.K.’s decision was fair, proportionate and reasonable, said Judge Judith Farbey. “The judgment concludes that there was no duty to pay compensation” for any financial loss caused by the sale, the judge said in a summary of the ruling on Nov. 20. (Bloomberg, 11.20.24)
• As of August, Kyiv had confiscated Russian-owned assets worth an estimated 15 billion hryvnias ($362 million), according to the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Action Center. In the case of sanctioned Russian-Ukrainian businessman Ihor Naumets and his stone-and-sand mining and manufacturing company, Unigran, the state budget has not benefited, Schemes discovered. (RFE/RL, 11.21.24)

For sanctions on the energy sector, please see section “Energy exports from CIS” below.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

• Putin will not agree to freeze the war in Ukraine along the current front lines, the Kremlin said Nov. 20, countering reports that he might consider such an arrangement in discussions with Trump. “The [Russian] president has repeatedly said that any option of freezing the conflict won’t work for us,” Peskov told reporters during a daily briefing. “It’s important for us to achieve our goals.” Peskov’s remarks followed a Reuters report — citing anonymous sources — suggesting Putin might be open to freezing hostilities and negotiating the division of Ukrainian territories currently under Russian occupation. (MT/AFP, 11.20.24)
• In an interview with Russian state TV on Nov. 13, Lavrov appeared to preemptively reject any proposals to freeze the conflict and the current front lines — as have been proposed by people around Trump — calling the suggestion "even worse" than the Minsk Agreements that followed the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. (WP, 11.16.24)
  • "It is clear that Moscow will not start any negotiations until they have kicked out every last Ukrainian soldier from Kursk," Konstantin Remchukov, the editor in chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta who moves in Kremlin circles, told The Washington Post. (WP, 11.16.24)
• Zelenskyy emphasized that Ukraine must enter any future negotiations from a position of strength as Putin is not interested in a negotiated settlement – no matter the negotiating platform or mediator - that results in anything less than Ukrainian capitulation. Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine must be "strengthened by some important elements" to negotiate with Putin, emphasizing that Ukraine cannot enter negotiations from a position of weakness. (ISW, 11.16.24)
• Putin "is not interested in holding negotiations to end the war but wants to hold talks with foreign leaders to put an end to his international isolation," Zelenskyy said Nov. 16 following a telephone conversation between Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. (RFE/RL, 11.16.24)
  • Scholz said his conversation with Putin on Nov. 15 had given no indication of a shift in the Russian president's thinking on the war in Ukraine but defended his much-criticized decision to phone the Kremlin. (RFE/RL, 11.17.24)
  • Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave support to the decision by Scholz to speak directly with Putin on Nov. 15, saying that ending the war will require some engagement with Russia’s president. (Bloomberg, 11.16.24)
  • Poland’s head of state accused Scholz of trying to cut Trump out of talks over the future of Ukraine in a bid to revive Germany’s own relations with Russia. Polish President Andrzej Duda, who has cultivated a close relationship with Trump since the president-elect’s first term in office, said the telephone diplomacy had another purpose. “I believe it was an attempt to bring about a cease-fire in Ukraine before Donald Trump took office,” Duda said in an interview in Warsaw. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
• After almost 1,000 days resisting the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s allies are pushing Zelenskyy to consider new ways to lure Putin to the negotiating table as they seek an end to the fighting. France’s Emmanuel Macron said that he’ll speak to the Russian leader when the time is right. Two European officials said there is an increasingly recognition that Zelenskyy will have to compromise with Putin because it has become clear that neither side can secure a decisive victory. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
  • Two years ago, Gen. Mark Milley, then the chief military adviser to Biden, suggested that neither Russia nor Ukraine could win the war. A negotiated settlement, he argued, was the only route to peace. His remarks caused a furor among senior officials. But Trump’s win is turning Milley’s prediction into reality. Trump has made clear his distaste for continuing to help Ukraine take back territory seized by Russia, making a negotiated settlement the only real viable option left. (NYT, 11.22.24)
• “Nothing should be decided on Ukraine without the Ukrainians nor in Europe without the Europeans,” Macron said this week, after meeting Mark Rutte, the new NATO secretary-general. The trouble is the Europeans risk becoming mere bystanders unless they can work out what they want to achieve and how. (FT, 11.16.24)
• The Russian Defense Ministry has prepared a document with a forecast of the development of the military-political situation in the world until 2045, which it is possible that it will try to convey to the new U.S. administration through governments and representatives of foreign states, sources in the Ukrainian intelligence community told Interfax-Ukraine on Nov. 20. This document will try to promote the idea of ​​liquidating the political subjectivity of Ukraine and the division of its territory into three parts. The Russian Federation will insist on including one of the three parts in the fully and partially occupied regions of Ukraine. The second part, which the document calls a "pro-Russian state formation," includes Kyiv. The third appears in the document under the name "disputed territories" and includes the western regions of Ukraine. The Kremlin believes that their future can be decided between Russia and other neighboring states - Hungary, Poland, Romania. (Interfax, 11.20.24)
• Last month Ukraine and Russia sought to resume Qatar-mediated negotiations about halting strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, people familiar with the matter told the FT. Previous negotiations on the issue had come close to an agreement in August before being derailed by Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, said those people. Another person with knowledge of the talks said they had once again been suspended last week. (FT, 11.17.24)
• Surveys published on Nov. 19 and 20 by Gallup, a pollster, show that 52% of Ukrainians now support negotiating an end to the war as soon as possible, a sharp rise from just 27% a year ago. The share of those determined to fight “until victory” has dropped from 63% in 2023 to 38%. In Kyiv, Gallup data shows that support for war has dropped by 39 percentage points since 2022; in eastern regions close to the front line the figure is even starker: just 27% of respondents now favor pressing on, compared with 63% who want the war to end. Roughly half of those who favor talks are open to territorial concessions—Russia has seized 19% of Ukraine’s land since 2014. Less than 40% of them oppose ceding any land. (The Economist, 11.20.24.)
• Ukrainians who want negotiated peace are open to territorial concessions. When asked “Do you agree or disagree that Ukraine should be open to making some territorial concessions as a part of a peace deal to end the war?” 52% agreed, and 38% disagreed. Even among Ukrainians who favor fighting until their country wins the war, there is evidence that how they conceive of “victory” is shifting. In 2022 and 2023, the vast majority (92% and 93%, respectively) of Ukrainians who favored continuing to fight believed victory meant regaining all territory lost since 2014, including Crimea. While still a clear majority in 2024, this figure has slipped to 81%. (Gallup, 11.19.24)
  • Ukraine can’t afford to lose tens of thousands of lives to reclaim Crimea, but the peninsula could be returned through diplomacy, Zelenskyy said. (Meduza, 11.21.24)
• Gallup asked Ukrainians who favor a quick negotiated end to the war about their views toward foreign powers in helping bring this about. Most want countries of the EU (70%) and the United Kingdom (63%) to play significant roles in potential peace negotiations, more so than the U.S. under a Trump (49%) presidency. Turkey followed with 43%. (Gallup, 11.19.24)
• In Gallup’s latest surveys of Ukraine, conducted in August and October 2024, an average of 52% of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible. Nearly four in 10 Ukrainians (38%) believe their country should keep fighting until victory. In 2023, support for fighting until victory slipped, but more than twice as many Ukrainians favored a continued fight (63%) over a negotiated peace (27%). Fatigue has intensified this year, with support for negotiated peace rising to 52%, the first time it has reached a majority. (Gallup, 11.19.24)

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

• Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said a United States anti-missile base in Redzikowo, Poland "is a priority target for potential neutralization."The warning comes days after U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the use of long-range American missiles against Russian targets by Ukraine, the reported deployment of British Storm Shadow missiles by Kyiv against Russia, and the Kremlin's own expansion of the conditions under which Moscow may use its nuclear weapons. (Politico.eu, 11.21.24)
• Ukraine's former military Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said that the direct involvement of Russia's autocratic allies in its war on Ukraine means that World War III has started. "I believe that in 2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun," said Zaluzhnyi, who is now Ukraine's envoy to the United Kingdom. (Politico, 11.21.24)
• U.S. officials warned on Nov. 21 that Russia may be targeting American defense companies in a potentially stepped-up sabotage campaign. The new warning said that Russia’s intelligence services had conducted sabotage operations against European defense companies “in an attempt to undermine Allied support for Ukraine.” Russia’s campaign, officials said, increases the risk to American companies overseas and, at least potentially, in the United States. (NYT, 11.22.24)
• In response to Russia’s Nov. 16 aerial attack on Ukraine, the operational command of NATO member Poland’s armed forces wrote on X that Polish and allied jets had been scrambled “due to the massive attack by the Russian Federation using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles on objects located, among others, in western Ukraine.” (FT, 11.17.24)
• Hungary plans to shift newly acquired air-defense systems close to its border with Ukraine as it braces for potential fallout from the escalation in Russia’s war on Ukraine. (Bloomberg, 11.21.24)
• Key European countries may need to double defense spending to meet the challenge of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as well as the possibility of less American support in a Trump presidency, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report. The 15 largest European members of NATO might have to ramp up military investment by as much as $340 billion annually to $720 billion, BI analysts led by George Ferguson wrote. (Bloomberg, 11.19.24)
• Thousands of NATO troops are training with artillery in Finland just 100 kilometers from the Russian border. Soldiers from more than 20 countries are deployed in one of the largest drills in the organization's recent history. (RFE/RL, 11.20.24)
• In August, just over half of Ukrainians surveyed (51%) expected that Ukraine will become a NATO member in the next decade, down from well over 60% in the first two years of the Russia-Ukraine war. Twenty-two percent think Ukraine will never be accepted into the bloc, about double the rate from previous years. Ukrainians’ expectations for their country’s accession to the EU follow a similar trajectory. In 2022 and 2023, 73% of Ukrainians believed their country would be accepted within the next 10 years. While a majority (61%) in 2024 continue to expect this, it is 12 percentage points lower than before. Fifteen percent think Ukraine will never be accepted into the EU, more than double the 7% who said so in 2023. (Gallup, 11.20.24)
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Nov. 19 attacked the final declaration of the G-20 summit in Rio de Janeiro for not plainly stating that Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine. "It will be insufficient if these 20 [nations] cannot find clear words on Russia's responsibility in this matter. I would have liked to have seen something different," the chancellor said at the end of the summit of the 20 leading industrialized nations and emerging economies. (RFE/RL, 11.19.24)
• Scholz said voters should trust him to keep Germany out of a direct conflict with Russia. Scholz sought to distinguish himself and his party from the poll-leading opposition conservatives, saying that while Germany stands firmly by its pledge to support Ukraine, it’s also imperative to prevent the conflict escalating into a war between Russia and NATO.  (Bloomberg, 11.22.24)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Biden and Xi met for nearly two hours in a hotel conference room toward the end of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru. Sullivan said that Biden expressed concern about China’s support of Russia in its war against Ukraine and about Beijing’s military activity in the South China Sea. Biden also urged Xi to dissuade North Korea from deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, after Pyongyang’s deployment of troops in Moscow’s war with Ukraine have raised concerns in Washington, Beijing and European capitals. In their final meeting before the Trump administration takes over, the two leaders met Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Biden pointed out that China’s “publicly stated position with respect to the war in Ukraine is there should be no escalation, no broadening the conflict, and the introduction of (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) troops runs foursquare against that,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, adding that the president also pointed out China “does have influence and capacity, and should use it to try to prevent a further escalation or further expansion of the conflict with the introduction of even more DPRK forces.” (The Guardian, 11.17.24, WP, 11.16.24)
• China’s growing assistance to Russia for its war in Ukraine “will and must have consequences,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned as top European Union diplomats met in Brussels Nov. 18. Ukraine’s allies have been collecting intelligence about China’s alleged support to Russia’s drone program, which is a key topic of conversation in the meeting. No formal decisions related to Beijing are expected. The EU is trying to crack down on countries aiding Russia’s war effort. On Nov. 18, it approved steps to widen sanctions against Iran for supporting Moscow, including banning transactions with ports used to transfer missiles or drones or related technology. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

• See section “Military and security aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts” above for details of Russia’s launch of an MRBM into Ukraine and the subsequent reaction to it, including Putin’s warnings of a global war and hints that this MRBM may be equipped with a nuclear warhead for subsequent launches.
• The Kremlin has unveiled the new edition of Russia’s official nuclear doctrine, “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence.” The document, which Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on Nov. 18 as Ukraine tested his red line by striking the Bryansk region with U.S.-made longer-range missiles,¹ ushers in an expansion of conditions under which Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons, but contains few surprises for those who have followed the Russian leadership’s nuclear rhetoric since the re-invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including, most importantly, Putin’s Sept. 25 preview of changes that would be introduced into the 2020 edition of the document. While the 2020 “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence” said Russia could use nuclear weapons “in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy,” the Nov. 19, 2024 version of this document says they can be used “in the event of aggression” against Russia and/or Belarus “with the use of conventional weapons, which creates a critical threat to their sovereignty and/or territorial integrity.” The 2024 edition also introduces such new conditions for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, as the use of nuclear weapons or other types of WMD by an adversary against military formations and (or) facilities of the Russian Federation located outside its territory; the identification of Belarus as an ally, aggression against which could prompt Russia to use nuclear weapons against the aggressor; and the receipt of reliable data on a massive launch of air and space attack weapons (strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, unmanned, hypersonic and other aerial vehicles) and their crossing into Russia. (RM, 11.20.24)
  • Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, said: “This is a very important text… it should become a subject to very deep analysis.” (BBC News, 11.19.24)
  • Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council: “The use of alliance missiles [NATO] in this way can now be qualified as an attack by the bloc countries on Russia. In this case, the right arises to launch a retaliatory strike with weapons of mass destruction on Kyiv and the main NATO facilities, wherever they are. And this is already WWIII.” (Kommersant, 11.19.24)
• Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister: “I hope that they [in the West] will read this doctrine. And not in the way they read the U.N. Charter, seeing there only what they need, but the doctrine in all its fullness and interconnectedness.” (Kommersant, 11.19.24)
  • Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky, chairman of the PIR Center’s Council hopes that the West will “read the new doctrine carefully and will probably be upset, since the threshold for using nuclear weapons has been lowered doctrinally, and lowered quite significantly… But I think they won’t believe it. They won’t believe that Russia could actually resort to using nuclear weapons in response to actions that they themselves [the West] consider insignificant.” (Kommersant, 11.19.24)
  • Sergei Ryabkov, Russian deputy foreign minister: "Now the danger of a direct armed clash between nuclear powers cannot be underestimated, what is happening has no analogues in the past, we are moving through unexplored military and political territory." (Reuters, 11.19.24)
  • The United States was not surprised by Russia lowering its threshold for a nuclear strike and does not plan to adjust its own nuclear posture in response, the White House said on Nov. 19. "As we said earlier this month, we were not surprised by Russia’s announcement that it would update its nuclear doctrine; Russia had been signaling its intent to update its doctrine for several weeks," the White House National Security Council said in a statement. (Reuters, 11.19.24)
  • One American official said the U.S. is seeing no indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the aid package has not yet been made public. (NYT, 11.19.24, AP, 11.19.24)
• Moscow has made over 200 references to its nuclear capabilities since the start of the war, according to an analysis by the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS PONI). (MT/AFP, 11.19.24)
• Biden and Xi met for nearly two hours in a hotel conference room toward the end of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru. During the meeting, the two sides agreed that human control would be required to make any determinations on using nuclear weapons, and that artificial intelligence should not be a factor in making that call. (WP, 11.16.24)

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

• The Danish military is staying near a Chinese ship that may be linked to damaged data cables in the Baltic Sea. A high-speed fiber optic cable connecting Finland and Germany was cut early Nov. 18 by what was likely an external impact and a nearby link between Lithuania and Sweden was damaged Nov. 17. It was the second such incident in the Baltic Sea in just over a year. (Bloomberg, 11.20.24)
• Finland is stepping up preparedness with a new website aimed at ensuring citizens are ready in case of a crisis or conflict. The site, launched by the Interior Ministry on Nov. 18, is intended to get people thinking about what they would do in emergency situations that would have a broad impact on society. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
• Cyber attacks against Nordic banks, likely perpetrated by Russia-linked hackers, pose the biggest threat to financial stability in the region, Ulrik Nodgaard, the new deputy governor at the Danish central bank, said. (Bloomberg, 11.22.24)

Energy exports from CIS:

• The United States announced sanctions Nov. 21 targeting dozens of Russian banks, including Gazprombank, the largest remaining bank yet to face U.S. action, as part of its efforts to weaken Russia's capacity to wage war on Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 11.21.24)
  • Hungary said the U.S. decision to sanction Gazprombank jeopardizes the energy security of some central European countries, elevating the risks of an early cutoff of Russian natural gas to the continent. Hungary views the move as an “attack on our sovereignty,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an emailed statement Nov. 22. (Bloomberg, 11.22.24)
• An American investor with a history of dealmaking in Russia has asked the U.S. government to allow him to bid on the sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline 2 if it comes up for auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding. Stephen P. Lynch spent two decades doing business in Moscow and now wants to buy the natural-gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany. (WSJ, 11.22.24)
• France’s imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia have surged to a record, aided by deliveries from a German state-owned energy firm. The nation so far this year has received more LNG from Moscow, 5.34m metric tons, than in any full year since supplies began in 2018, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24) 
• Greece’s navy extended for a sixth time a series of naval drills, prolonging them by another four months as the country tries to deter Russian oil transfers off its coastline. The maneuvers, which had been due to end Nov. 15, will now continue until mid-March—more than ten months after they first started—according to a notice on the Hellenic Navy Hydrographic Service’s website. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
• Gazprom PJSC is sending natural gas to Europe via Ukraine at normal levels even after cutting off one of its longest partners, Austria’s OMV AG. (Bloomberg, 11.16.24)
• Austria’s top energy official said it’s up to OMV AG executives and shareholders whether to extricate the firm from a long-term Russian natural gas contract, now that it’s sufficiently guarded against what she described as potential blackmail over supplies. (Bloomberg, 11.21.24)
• Russian refined fuel exports rebounded to a nine-month high in the first half of November, with a ramp-up in refining activity as seasonal maintenance winds down. Oil product shipments averaged 2.33 million barrels a day in the first 15 days of this month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from analytics firm Vortexa Ltd. That’s about 409,000 barrels, or 21%, higher than the average flows for the same period in October. (Bloomberg, 11.20.24)
• The U.K.’s sanctions enforcement agency said it has identified cases where falsified documents are being used to evade a Group of Seven price cap on Russian oil exports. Fake certificates of origin are being used to make shipments of Russian fuel appear as though they come from locations that aren’t subject to sanctions, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in an advisory on Nov. 21. (Bloomberg, 11.21.24)
• Hungary is moving toward allowing an increase in the cost of a contract with Russia to expand its sole nuclear power station a decade after the deal was signed. The European Union nation agreed to a €12.5 billion ($13.2 billion) accord with Russia’s Rosatom Corp. in 2014 for the delivery of two new units to its existing plant at Paks, about an hour’s drive south of Budapest. (Bloomberg, 11.20.24)

Climate change:

• Climate talks at Azerbaijan’s Baku, scheduled to end on Friday (November 22, 2024), were extended by another day after the latest version of the draft agreement was deemed unacceptable by several developing countries.  (The Hindu, 11.22.24)
• Russia has urged Trump to remain in the Paris Agreement, while Saudi Arabia said at the U.N. COP29 summit in Baku that it was committed to making the transition to a green energy system. (FT, 11.16.24)
• The Caspian Sea is drying up. The world’s largest inland body of water has dropped by two meters since the mid-1990s, shrinking by 15,000 square kilometers, an area bigger than Connecticut. Each year in Aktau, a coastal city, the sea retreats further from the shore. Two factors lie behind the Caspian’s decline. Growing water use along Russia’s Volga river, which provides 80–90% of the Caspian’s inflows, has caused volumes entering the sea to drop. Meanwhile rising temperatures have pushed up evaporation rates, leaching more water from the sea itself. Researchers at the University of Bremen predict that if global warming continues on present-day trends, the Caspian could drop by around eight meters by the end of the century. If temperatures rise faster, it could fall by as much as 20 meters. (The Economist, 11.21.24)

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Jack Reed are demanding an investigation into conversations between Elon Musk and Putin, calling for the Departments of Justice and Defense to determine whether national security is at risk over contracts his company SpaceX has with the Pentagon and the intelligence community. (WSJ, 11.16.24)
• U.S. spy agencies have begun offering Trump regular intelligence briefings, according to U.S. officials. (NYT, 11.19.24)
• Richard Allen was a U.S. Navy Petty Officer First Class for the last two decades, stationed at a Naval base in Virginia that specialized in supplying naval ships with gear. Allen orchestrated a conspiracy that stole more than $850,000 worth of military gear earmarked for fellow Navy members to sell them for a profit. In addition to China and Russia, military equipment was delivered to paying customers in 50 different countries. (BG 11.22.24)

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Despite facing one of the tightest sanction regimes in modern history, the Russian economy has undergone its fastest expansion in more than a decade. Russia enjoyed growth of 3.6% last year and is expected to maintain such a pace this year. (The Economist, 11.18.24.)
• In a commentary published earlier this month, the Central Bank said growth next year will slow to somewhere between 0.5% and 1.5%. In 2026, it’s expected to be below 2%. (BELL, 11.16.24)
• Corporate bankruptcies have risen by 20% this year in Russia. (The Economist, 11.18.24.)
• Russia's inflation is expected to reach 8–8.5% this year, official projections show, up one percentage point from 2023 and 200%, or more, of the Central Bank's target rate of 4%. Other estimates suggest inflation may be even higher, with research company ROMIR showing a 22.1% year-on-year inflation rate in September, while official data showed a 9.67% increase. (MT/AFP, 11.21.24)
• At a plenary session of the State Duma on Nov. 19, Russian Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina denounced calls for freezing Russians’ savings and withholding interest payments on these accounts as “utter nonsense.” (Meduza, 11.19.24)
• Retail alcohol sales in Russia hit a record 184.2 million decaliters between January and October 2024, the RBC business news outlet reported Nov. 18, citing data from market regulators. This marks the highest volume recorded since 2017, when regulators began tracking the data. (MT/AFP, 11.18.24)
• Russia restricted cryptocurrency mining in more than a dozen regions where the practice is concentrated amid concern over electricity shortages that are weighing on the nation’s economy. (Bloomberg, 11.20.24)
• Russia needs migrant workers to sustain its development and address the pressures of a shrinking population, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with RIA Novosti. “Migrants are a necessity. The fact is, we are facing a very strained demographic situation. We live in the largest country in the world, but there are very few of us,” Peskov said, adding that Russia “only welcomes” migrant workers. (Meduza, 11.22.24)
• After a rather dramatic decline of almost 11% in 2021, the number of billionaires in Russia has grown in two years in a row and it is the provincial super-rich that account for most of the latest growth. In 2022 the number of Russian billionaires increased by 4.7% to 112 and in 2023 it grew by 5.4% to 118, according to Altrata, which researches the world’s wealthiest, conducting its Billionaire Census every year. Predictably, most of Russian-based billionaires prefer to live in Moscow: the Russian capital had 78 of these billionaires, which is just one less than London, as of 2023, according to Altrata’s Billionaire Census-2024. This number was sufficient to make Moscow No. 5 on that census’ list of cities with greatest number of dollar billionaires, (or, given the Russia sanctions, one should, perhaps, describe them as individuals whose wealth, if it could be converted into USD, would total $1 billion or more). In comparison, Moscow had 77 billionaires in 2022, ranking sixth on that year’s version of this list. Interestingly, the number of billionaires residing in Russia, but not in Moscow grew at a rate that was almost triple the rate at which the number of billionaires residing in Moscow grew. (RM, 11.20.24)
• Russian opposition figures headed a march in Berlin condemning President Vladimir Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The Nov. 17 event brought together Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny who died in a Russian jail last winter, with Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza—Kremlin critics incarcerated until a summer prisoner swap. "Freedom for Russia, victory for Ukraine!" was one of the slogans heard in the German capital. (RFE/RL, 11.17.24)
• A Russian court on Nov. 18 sentenced Sergei Lukashevsky, the former director of the Sakharov Center in Moscow, to eight years in prison. The conviction, handed down in absentia, accuses Lukashevsky of spreading "fake news" about the Russian military. (RFE/RL, 11.18.24)
• An Nov. 18 Levada Center survey of Russian attitudes toward homosexuality, LGBT rights and “the propaganda of homosexuality,” shows that negative attitudes toward LGBT people in Russia are growing: today more than half of the respondents report a negative attitude, while a little more than a quarter report a ‘neutral or friendly’ attitude. The proportion of Russians who believe that gays and lesbians in Russia should enjoy the same rights as other citizens [has fallen] from 50% to 30% in twenty years. Almost two-thirds of respondents fear that their children or grandchildren may become victims of "propaganda of homosexuality." More than half of Russians would communicate less or even stop communicating with acquaintances if they learned about their [acquaintances’] homosexuality. At the same time, a tenth of the respondents have gay or lesbian acquaintances, a figure that has doubled in ten years. (Levada Center, 11.18.24)

Defense and aerospace:

• On Nov. 22 Putin met with the Russian top brass and top management of some of Russia’s missile-making enterprises on Nov. 22 to further discuss Oreshnik. During the meeting he made the following claims: 
  • “The Oreshnik system doesn’t constitute a modernization of old, Soviet systems.”
  • “In today's conditions, when we are faced with new, growing threats and challenges, work on such weapons systems is of particular, one might say, vital importance for our country.”
  • “The weapons system that was tested yesterday is another reliable guarantor of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Russia. Reference to provisions of the newly amended “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence.”
  • “No one in the world has such a weapon yet.....The Oreshnik missile system is not just an effective hypersonic weapon. Due to its striking power, especially when they are launched in a massive group salvo, and in combination with other high-precision long-range systems, the results of such use against enemy targets will be comparable in effect, in its power, with strategic weapons... even though the Oreshnik system is not a strategic weapon, in any case, it is not an intercontinental ballistic missile, it is not a means of mass destruction.”
  • “There are no means of countering such a missile, there exist no means of intercepting it in the world today. And I will emphasize once again: we will continue testing the latest system.” Implicit threat to keep using it against Ukraine at least.
    • “We are developing a whole line of medium- and shorter-range systems.
  • “One of the participants designated to weigh in after Putin’s statement was veteran commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces Sergei Karakayev, who made the following claims
    • “The latest medium-range missile system Oreshnik has no analogues in the world in terms of its characteristics today. The missile’s combat equipment allows it to reliably overcome any existing and prospective anti-missile defense systems. o Based on the tasks set and the range of action of this weapon, it can hit targets throughout Europe, which distinguishes it from other types of long-range precision weapons. As you have already said, the massive use of this type of weapon will be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons.”
    • “The development of the Oreshnik missile system will expand the combat capabilities of the Strategic Missile Forces to hit various types of targets in accordance with the tasks set, both in non-nuclear and nuclear warheads. .”
    • “Taking into account the positive result of the launch, it is considered advisable to accept the system into service. (RM, 11.22.24, machine-translation of curated contents from Kremlin.ru’s transcript of the remarks by Putin and others) .”
• Russia’s State Duma has approved the federal budget for 2025, along with spending plans for 2026 and 2027, according to a statement posted on the Duma’s website on Nov. 21. The draft budget, submitted by the government on September 30, allocates 13.5 trillion rubles ($133.7 billion), or 6.31 % of Russia’s GDP, to “National Defense” in 2025—marking a record-high level in the country’s modern history. (Meduza, 11.21.24)
• Russia’s State Duma has passed a law in its second and third readings that will allow overdue loans of up to 10 million rubles ($100,254) to be written off for participants in the war in Ukraine, according to a draft published in the State Duma’s database. (Meduza, 11.20.24)
• Russia’s Roscosmos space agency successfully launched a cargo spacecraft toward the International Space Station (ISS) on Nov. 21, carrying New Year’s gifts alongside essential supplies. (MT/AFP, 11.21.24)
• See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• Russia, ranked the most corrupt of the world’s biggest economies, is intensifying a crack down on graft among officials that has risked undermining the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and further straining state coffers. Data from the courts and law enforcement agencies show a jump in the number of corruption-related criminal cases, sentences and asset seizures since the start of the war. Already this year, more than a dozen high-ranking military officials and three deputies of the former defense minister have been arrested. In total, around 400 people were convicted in the first half of the year under a bribery law, close to the total convicted in the entire year before the invasion, Supreme Court data shows. (Bloomberg, 11.16.24)

• Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Nov. 20 that its officers had detained a German citizen on suspicion of involvement in a March explosion that damaged a gas pipeline at a distribution center in Kaliningrad, the capital of Russia's western exclave of the same name. (RFE/RL, 11.20.24)

   

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• The Wagner Group, a private military company linked to the Russian state, has reportedly generated over $2.5 billion through illicit gold mining operations since the invasion of Ukraine, according to a World Gold Council (WGC) report. (BNE, 11.20.24)

Ukraine:

• The European Union will move ahead “swiftly” with an initial phase of accession talks for Ukraine and Moldova during the first half of 2025 under Poland’s rotating presidency of the bloc. (Bloomberg, 11.19.24)
• Six in 10 Ukrainians surveyed in August 2024 approved of the job Zelenskyy is doing. While Zelenskyy’s rating continues to be higher than in 2020 and 2021 (41% in both years), his current approval rating is down from levels north of 80% in the first two years of the war. (Gallup, 11.21.24)
• In 2024, Ukrainians’ approval of U.S. leadership has fallen to 40%, broadly in line with pre-2022 sentiments. Nearly as many now disapprove of U.S. leadership (37%) as approve, and the goodwill that the U.S. built up following Russia’s invasion has disappeared. (Gallup, 11.20.24)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• The president of Abkhazia resigned Nov. 19, his office said, after reaching an agreement with protesters who stormed the breakaway territory's parliament over a controversial Russian investment plan. Protests erupted last week in Abkhazia, located between the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea, over fears that a proposed economic deal with Moscow could lead to large-scale apartment construction. Abkhazia is recognized internationally as Georgian territory but has been under de facto Russian control since a brief war between Moscow and Tbilisi in 2008. (MT/AFP, 11.19.24)
• The suspect in a drug trafficking case was wanted in France in connection with three tons of cocaine seized near Marseille in 2020 but had fled abroad. He was placed on a list of fugitives flagged for arrest by Interpol, the international police organization, and later detained in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. France filed an extradition request with Dubai, but then the French authorities discovered that the suspect, Tarik Kerbouci, 39, had been removed from the Interpol list. Set free by Dubai, Kerbouci vanished. A long investigation by French and other law enforcement agencies into how the Interpol arrest flag, called a Red Notice, had disappeared led to an unlikely destination: the former Soviet republic of Moldova. There, a scheme that helped remove Kerbouci and at least 20 other wanted fugitives from the list unraveled this summer. (NYT, 11.18.24)
• Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung is leading a delegation of company executives to Lithuania (Bloomberg, 11.17.24)
• Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean on Nov. 18 appointed Daniela Misail-Nichitin as interior minister and Ludmila Catlabuga to the agriculture brief. Vladimir Bolea, the former agriculture minister, takes the infrastructure portfolio following the resignation of Andrei Spinu. (Bloomberg, 11.18.24)
• Authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina will expel a Russian citizen who was arrested on suspicion of instructing Moldovan nationals how to foment unrest in Moldova, Bosnia's Foreign Ministry said (RFE/RL, 11.19.24)

IV. Quotable and notable

• Matthew Bunn, Harvard professor with regards to Russia’s new nuclear deterrence policy document: “This is a signaling exercise, trying to scare audiences in Europe—and to a lesser extent, the United States—into falling off support for Ukraine. The actual short-term probability of Russian nuclear use hasn’t increased. The long-term probability of nuclear war has probably increased slightly—because U.S. willingness to support strikes deep into Russia is reinforcing Putin’s hatred and fear of the West, and will likely provoke Russian responses that will increase Western fear and hatred of Russia. (NYT, 11.19.24)
• ''This is an escalation,'' Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center said in reference to the launch of a Russian MRBM against a target in Ukraine on Nov. 21. ''I really believe the situation is very dangerous.'' (NYT, 11.21.24)

Footnotes

1. Putin claimed that the Oreshnik is not a modernized version of a Soviet-era missile, while the U.S. Department of Defense said it is based on Russia's RS-26 Rubezh ICBM. 
2. The missile can travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, according to Putin, and Ukraine has no radars capable of detecting such missiles in flight through the upper atmosphere, according to a Ukrainian expert cited by NYT.
3. Putin is not the only Russian official who occasionally rattles Russia’s nuclear saber. On Nov. 19, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov also did so. Asked on the day that his boss signed off on the new declaratory principles of nuclear deterrence if a Ukrainian attack with longer-range U.S. missiles could potentially trigger a nuclear response, Peskov answered affirmatively, according to PBS.
4. In doing so, he referred to the two new conditions for use of nuclear weapons cited in the new edition of the “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” which he signed off on Nov. 19, 2024. 
5. For details on missiles and drones employed by Russia in this attack and estimates of the damage they caused, see ISW.
6. The city of Dnipro houses what in Soviet times was called the Yuzhnoe missile design bureau and Yuzhmash missile-making plant. The two designed and made some of the most powerful Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as the RS-20.
7. In a significant step not previously reported, Ukraine's drone suppliers are ramping up output of robot attack drones to an industrial scale. Enabling the upshift is producers' integration of inexpensive computers into sophisticated, compact systems that replicate capabilities previously found only in far pricier equipment. "None of this is new," said Auterion founder and chief executive Lorenz Meier. "The difference is the price." Kyiv is set to receive tens of thousands of Auterion's miniature computers, which should hit the battlefield early next year. Vyriy Drone, a top Ukrainian drone startup, said it would produce several thousand autopilot drones starting this month. Other companies are also raising production. (WSJ, 11.18.24)
8. Putin has earlier warned that such use would amount to the U.S. and its allies’ direct participation in the war.

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 11:00 am East Coast time on the day it was distributed.

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

Photo by Kremlin.ru shared under a Creative Commons 4.0 license.