Highlights:

• Former NATO deputy secretary general Rose Gottemoeller thinks that “at least eight different factors account for Putin’s erratic and dangerous behavior.” Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists she describes a “dangerous brew: part personal grievance, part bullying behavior, part scorn for his adversaries, and part dictates for staying on top in the Russian system. Given his grave isolation, a part may also be his sense of genuine threat. Trying to back him off this precipice will take a good deal of finesse.” Will Xi Xingping be “the hero of the tale”?
• In a thought-provoking article for Foreign Affairs, Liana Fix of the German Marshall Fund and Michael Kimmage of Catholic University argue that “the consequences of a Russian loss in Ukraine would present Europe and the United States with fundamental challenges” as “history has shown that it is immensely difficult to build a stable international order with a revanchist, humiliated power near its center, especially one of the size and weight of Russia.”
• Several experts on nuclear security—including George M. Moore of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Matt Bunn of Harvard’s Belfer Center and Carnegie’s James Acton—consider the risks for nuclear facilities in Ukraine. Moore concludes that a Russian attack on a nuclear reactor “is unlikely … [to] result in a large number of immediate radiation-induced deaths”; the other two authors seem to agree.
• Head of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, and former commander of U.S. Army Europe Gen. Mark Hertling, as well as Air Force officers Mike Pietrucha and Mike Benitez, argue against a no-fly zone in Ukraine. Milley also tells The Washington Post that, despite Putin’s threatening language about nuclear weapons, “we are not now seeing anything out there in the alert postures of the actual nuclear forces of Russia that would indicate any increased set of alerts.”
• As the conflict in Ukraine unfolds, all eyes are on China. Harvard’s Graham Allison bets “that in both word and deed, China will support Russia, … walking a tightrope between insisting on Russia’s ‘legitimate security concerns’ and reaffirming its own commitment to ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity.’” Meanwhile, Meia Nouwens of IISS points out that “Beijing has subtly changed the focus of its statements regarding Ukraine several times,” suggesting that “it is finding it difficult to adhere to one policy line that bridges its long-held principles of non-interference and territorial integrity and also shows support for Russia.”
• While Masha Gessen writes in the New Yorker about how Putin wants Russians to see the war in Ukraine, Lauren McCarthy of UMass Amherst investigates what will happen to Russian protesters for PONARS Eurasia: “The state will likely continue to escalate … harsh sanctions and violence and the costs may soon be too high for ordinary Russians to risk,” she writes. “Those who do will be confronted with the banality of a system that mechanistically processes cases and issues fines and jail time without actually examining the evidence.”

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

Nuclear security and safety:

“How international law applies to attacks on nuclear and associated facilities in Ukraine,” George M. Moore, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 03.06.22. The author, a scientist-in-residence at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, writes:

• “It is unlikely that an attack by the Russian Federation on a VVER reactor, unless it purposefully set out to create overwhelming damage, could trigger a scenario that would result in a large number of immediate radiation-induced deaths. Fatalities at Chernobyl were due to high doses received by first responders; Fukushima and 3 Mile Island resulted in no immediate deaths due to radiation. However, in each of these accidents some experts have predicted significant numbers of future cancer deaths and radiation-induced cancers, particularly thyroid cancer in children, as has been observed in exposures from Chernobyl.”
• “Absent the driving force of burning graphite from the Chernobyl core, an attack on the VVERs would not likely result in widespread contamination on the scale of what occurred at Chernobyl. Note, however, that large economic consequences could result from an attack that seriously damaged a VVER. Significant economic loss and humanitarian impact would result even in the absence of fatalities and/or widespread contamination. The reactors themselves are billion-dollar investments and the loss would not result in a huge economic impact but would have a significant humanitarian cost from the loss of power production.”
• “While the international legal system and international law provide norms that arguably forbid attacks like those already witnessed in Ukraine, the postwar international system will need to consider putting in place stronger legal measures and will need to consider how to enforce such measures. Hopefully, the Russian military will follow its own guidance with regard to humanitarian law and exercise future self-restraint with regard to not attacking nuclear and associated facilities in Ukraine. If so, we may be past the current danger point.”

On Russia’s shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant: Twitter thread by Matthew Bunn, 03.03.22. The author, a professor of the practice of energy, national security and foreign policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, writes:

• “This is shockingly reckless, and a violation of multiple agreements. The member states of the IAEA unanimously agreed years ago that attacking a nuclear power plant ‘constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency,’ as IAEA DG [director general] Rafael Grossi has pointed out.”
• “The most crucial thing for maintaining safety of a nuclear plant is keeping the core cooled. … If it’s not kept continuously cooled, bad things happen, as we saw at Fukushima.”
• “That cooling requires off-site electricity to run the relevant pumps and so on. Because sometimes electricity goes down, all nuclear reactors have on-site diesel generators as a backup (and typically batteries that can last for a few hours). Shelling could cause what’s called ‘station blackout’ – if the off-site power goes down, and either the diesel generators don’t work or they run out of fuel.”
• “The spent fuel pool, outside the heavily protected reactor building, is also an issue. If IT loses electricity, the water will eventually boil/evaporate away, the fuel would melt and make a nasty mess in the pool, which might NOT lead to a radioactive release, depending on the design of the fuel building. If the fuel building was shattered by shelling, then any fission products released from the melted fuel could get out into the surrounding countryside. Shelling could also cause a water leak that could lead to fuel melting, even if the electricity stayed on.”
• “IF the fuel pool is really overstuffed with spent fuel, AND the hot fuel assemblies recently discharged from the reactor are stored next to each other (rather than interspersed throughout the pool) the fuel can get so hot it catches fire – that, plus a shattering of the building, is really the worst-case scenario. That could release a quantity of radioactivity even worse than Chernobyl, potentially.”
• “Exactly under what circumstances fire would occur is hotly debated, as there is very little real data on the subject. … None of these plants are ‘walk-away safe.’ Nevertheless, the main hazard to Ukrainians today is bullets, shells and bombs, not radiation.”

"The Most Immediate Nuclear Danger in Ukraine Isn’t Chernobyl," James M. Acton, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 02.24.22. Writing before Russian forces in Ukraine seized Europe's biggest nuclear power plant on March 4, the author, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at CEIP, concluded:

• “There is a small but real risk of inadvertent escalation, which could be sparked, for example, by an engagement between NATO and Russian aircraft on the border between Poland and Ukraine. The most immediate nuclear danger, however, comes from Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already stated that ‘Russian occupation forces are trying to seize’ the Chernobyl nuclear plant… Various storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste are located nearby. However, the bigger risk comes from the potential for fighting around Ukraine’s four active nuclear power plants, which contain 15 separate reactors and generated over half of the country’s electricity in 2020.”
• “To put it simply, nuclear power plants are not designed for war zones. It seems exceedingly unlikely that Moscow would authorize deliberate attacks on these facilities, but they could nonetheless become targets in a war that will, in any case, disrupt their operations. … For Ukrainian nuclear power plant staff, merely traveling to work may be a dangerous act—making it potentially challenging to ensure the reactor can be operated safely. … Even if Moscow doesn’t authorize direct attacks against nuclear power plants, such attacks might occur anyway."
• “I set out these scenarios with some hesitation. The likelihood of a serious nuclear accident is probably quite small. Drawing attention to it risks a loss of focus on the certain consequences of Putin’s invasion—Ukraine’s loss of autonomy, the deliberate killing of its service members, the unintentional killing of its civilians and the war crimes that inevitably accompany any military operation of this scale.”
• “Nonetheless, even if a nuclear accident is still quite unlikely, its effects could be severe and would add significantly to the long-term consequences of this invasion for Ukraine’s population. Moscow will be directly responsible for any nuclear accident that is caused, directly or indirectly, by its aggression. If it doesn’t want such an accident to be added to its growing list of crimes, it must take exceptional measures to avoid one.”

Nuclear Issues in the Ukraine Crisis, Samuel M. Hickey and Monica Montgomery, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 02.28.22. The authors, research analysts at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, write:

• “Chernobyl is inside of a large exclusion zone—meaning the space is uninhabited—and its distance from major population centers would mitigate the consequences of a second nuclear accident. Still, there are two potential areas of concern.”
  • “The first is the shelling of the nuclear reactor that melted down back in 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history. However, in November 2016, the world’s largest movable metal structure was slid over Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant to contain further radiation leaks. It is reported that the containment structure is secure against tornadoes and covers gaps in the initial sarcophagus.”
  • “The second is the disturbance and dispersion of radiation in the ground. After Russia occupied Chernobyl, higher radiation measurements were taken, likely due to Russian trucks and tanks kicking up radiation [radioactive dust] in the ground. However, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog (the IAEA) confirmed that higher radiation measurements ‘do not pose any danger to the public.’ It is unlikely that Russia would intentionally target any reactors.”

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

“Will Team Biden give Moscow relief to help save a flawed Iran deal?” Wall Street Journal editorial board, 03.06.22.

• “Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday [March 6] on ‘Face the Nation’ that it wants to put Iran’s nuclear program ‘back in the box,’ but it’s a box made of cardboard. Even if Iran abides by the deal again, its provisions already have started to expire and by 2031 Tehran will be able to freely produce and stockpile weapons-grade uranium.”
• “A new deal will also shower Iran with tens of billions of dollars to stir mayhem in the Middle East. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg suggested last week that ‘all options are on the table’ when asked whether the U.S. could purchase Iranian oil. Brilliant: Impose sanctions on Russia—then support Russian ally Iran. Venezuela could be next.”
• “No agreement will stop Iran from its determination to become a nuclear power, and Russia won’t enforce the deal. The two malign powers will work together to harm U.S. interests around the world.”

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

“What If Russia Loses? A Defeat for Moscow Won’t Be a Clear Victory for the West,” Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage, Foreign Affairs, 03.04.22.  

What’s Eating Putin? Rose Gottemoeller, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 03.03.22. The author, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and deputy secretary general of NATO from 2016 to 2019, writes:

• “What’s eating Putin? What has driven him to start the largest war in Europe since World War II? What is driving him to threaten World War III, including the use of nuclear weapons? My answer has been: It’s complicated. No single answer fully accounts for the display we are seeing of Vladimir Putin’s anger and grievance. Many Russian experts who know Putin well have been commenting on his mindset, but I want to lay out how I think about the picture. As I see it, at least eight different factors account for Putin’s erratic and dangerous behavior:”
  • “Genuine nostalgia. Putin has done a lot to stir up nostalgia for Russia’s imperial past and the nationalist trappings that go with it—Russian Orthodoxy, protection of Russian-language speakers, and conservative interpretations of Russian national identity.”
  • “Righting past wrongs.”
  • “A different reality. Putin is surrounded by a fortress-like inner circle that has long jealously guarded what information gets to the boss. Its members are allergic to wider viewpoints breaching the wall and Putin likes it that way.”
  • “Scorn for Ukraine’s leadership and system.”
  • “The global bully.”
  • “‘Look at Me… Putin does not like disappearing from sight and so has done what he can do—brandish his military might, insisting that the world look at me.’”
  • “Domestic bargaining. Putin is 70 years old this year… He has to keep everybody off balance, and claiming an existential external threat is a time-honored way to do so.”
  • “Real frustration. When Putin was first briefed on the nature of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), he reportedly got angry that the limitations in the treaty meant that he could not move his own forces around on Russian territory.”
• “What’s eating Putin is therefore a dangerous brew: part personal grievance, part bullying behavior, part scorn for his adversaries, and part dictates for staying on top in the Russian system. Given his grave isolation, a part may also be his sense of genuine threat. Trying to back him off this precipice will take a good deal of finesse. No foreign counterpart has found the means thus far to tempt him off the cliff, although many have tried. President Macron of France is still trying. Perhaps now that China has taken an interest in facilitating diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia, President Xi Xingping will be the hero of the tale. That would be interesting.”

"Russia, Ukraine and the 30-year quest for a post-Soviet order," Mary Elise Sarotte, Financial Times, 02.25.22. The author, a Cold War historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University, writes:

• “It is now beyond question that that order has crumbled, and that Europe will once again, as in 1989, bear a line of division between Moscow-centric and Washington-centric blocs. It is also beyond question that the source of this tragedy is Vladimir Putin’s insistence on eliminating Ukraine’s independence — because that independence, representing Ukraine’s intolerable freedom (in the Russian president’s eyes) to choose between Russia and the West, is the ultimate reason why violence has come.”

"I’m a Cold War Historian. We’re in a Frightening New Era," Mary Elise Sarotte, The New York Times, 03.01.22. The author, a professor of historical studies at Johns Hopkins University, writes: 

• “I am awe-struck by the bravery of Ukrainians. But as a Cold War historian, I fear that Russia’s invasion, regardless of its outcome, portends a new era of immense hostility with Moscow — and that this new cold war will be far worse than the first.”
• “That 20th-century conflict was characterized by avoidance of direct Western-Russian engagement, producing instead proxy wars in other countries. President Vladimir Putin’s brazenness calls this practice into question. If he is reckless enough to pulverize Ukrainian civilians and risk popular rebellion, he may be reckless enough to provoke NATO.”
• “In addition to the economic consequences for the West — increased oil prices, possible stagflation — there are worse scenarios. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, Washington and Moscow still control more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads — more than enough to devastate most life on earth. … Mr. Putin has already put his nuclear forces on high alert and made veiled threats about using them if the West intervenes in Ukraine.”
• “The longevity of the Cold War also gave both sides time and incentive to negotiate arms control agreements. Washington and its allies concluded a host of detailed treaties with Moscow that, while flawed, at least provided predictability and monitoring — all while serving to build a long-term relationship in managing nuclear danger. In recent years, however, both sides rashly shed many of these accords, seeing them as outdated and inconveniently constraining. … Even if Moscow can be brought back to the negotiating table, which seems highly unlikely for the foreseeable future, it would take years of painstaking talks to resurrect these treaties.”
• “Becoming a historian requires the ability to develop a sense of periodization. I sense a period ending. I am now deeply afraid that Mr. Putin’s recklessness may cause the years between the Cold War and the Covid-19 pandemic to seem a halcyon period to future historians, compared with what came after. I fear we may find ourselves missing the old Cold War.” 

“U.S. can't absolve itself of responsibility for Putin's Ukraine invasion,” Andrew Bacevich, The Boston Globe, 02.28.22. The author, president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes:

• “[T]he United States cannot absolve itself of responsibility for this catastrophe. Indeed, the conflict renders a judgment on post-Cold War U.S. policy. That policy has now culminated in a massive diplomatic failure. The failure stemmed from two defects that permeate contemporary American statecraft. The first involves hypocrisy and the second a penchant for overreaching.”
• “Condemnations of Putin emphasize his disregard for what U.S. officials like to call a ‘rules-based international order.’ Russia's invasion of Ukraine violates ostensibly sacrosanct ‘norms’ that prohibit military aggression and demand respect for national sovereignty. This is rather rich coming from the United States, to put it mildly. During the post-9/11 war on terror, successive administrations made their own rules and established their own norms — for example, embarking on preventive war in defiance of international opinion. If Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a crime — as I believe it to be — then how should we classify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003?”
• “Putin appears intent on using violence to impose ‘regime change’ in Kyiv, installing his own preferred leadership there. Biden administration officials express outrage at that prospect, and rightly so. Yet coercive regime change undertaken in total disregard of international law has been central to the American playbook in recent decades.”
• “President Biden has been equally clear in indicating that he does not consider Ukraine worth fighting for. That is, it does not qualify as a vital U.S. interest. At the same time, he has refused to concede the legitimacy of Russia's claim. In concrete terms, he has rejected Putin's demand that NATO's eastward march, adding to its ranks various former Soviet republics and allies, should cease without incorporating Ukraine, which Russia deems an essential buffer.”
• “The argument made by several recent U.S. administrations that NATO expansion does not pose a threat to Russian security doesn't pass the sniff test.”
• “As is so often the case, this is an unnecessary war. But the United States is no more an innocent party than the European countries that in 1914 stumbled into war.”

“We must end the war on Ukraine — and put an end to perpetual wars,” Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post, 03.01.22. The author, a columnist for the newspaper and publisher of The Nation, writes:

• “Putin has simply (and brutally) reasserted Russia’s role. The old order — with its Cold War attitudes, militaries, alliances and enmities — is reclaiming center stage. NATO, adrift since the Soviet Union ended, now claims new purpose and energy. Hawks in Russia and the United States alike are emboldened. Weapons-makers are drawing up plans to profit in the coming arms buildup, and ideologues and demagogues are dusting off familiar rhetoric. China, clearly helping Russia mitigate its sanctions, now weighs heavily in the balance.”
• “Rather than build up weaponry in Europe, could the United States initiate negotiations about shared security, disarmament and a military stand-down? Could this war lead us to think more seriously about how to build peace rather than how to build weapons? What’s needed above all is a courageous and transnational citizens’ movement demanding not simply the end of the war on Ukraine but also an end to perpetual wars. We need political leaders who will speak out about our real security needs and resist the reflex to fall into old patterns that distract from the threats we can no longer afford to ignore.”

"UN Vote Signals Trouble for Washington’s Global Coalition Against Russia," Ted Galen Carpenter, The National Interest, 03.03.22. The author, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest, writes:

• "On March 2, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russian military forces. …The Biden administration was pleased with the outcome, and on the surface, U.S. officials had reason for satisfaction since the vote was overwhelmingly in favor. 141 countries voted for the resolution, while just five voted against it. The negative votes came from Russia, three reliable client states—Belarus, Syria and North Korea—and Eritrea.”
• “An examination beneath the surface of the vote, however, reveals some interesting and troubling results for Washington’s goal of forging an impregnable global coalition to inflict financial and political pain on Vladimir Putin’s government for its aggression against Ukraine.”
• “One factor that stands out immediately is the large number of abstentions. Because of the high priority that Washington has given to creating an overwhelming coalition against Moscow, it takes some courage for other governments to refuse to go along. … Yet 35 countries refused to placate the United States, choosing instead to abstain.”
• “The biggest sign of potential trouble for U.S. policy, though, was China’s decision to abstain even with respect to a toothless, symbolic measure. Given the growing ties between Moscow and Beijing, it would be unrealistic for U.S. leaders to expect China to support any truly coercive measures against Russia. Indeed, there are ample signs that Washington’s clumsy, antagonistic policies have driven Russia and China into a close strategic partnership bordering on an outright alliance.”
• “Nevertheless, voting for the resolution would have been an easy way for Beijing to maintain the image of some balance in its policy regarding Russia, as well as emphasize to Moscow that its sympathy and support have definite limits. The decision by the Chinese delegation to avoid endorsing that resolution suggests just how close bilateral ties have become. It is likely that China will be a major impediment in implementing meaningful sanctions to pressure Russia to abandon its war in Ukraine.”

“The Return of Containment. How the West Can Prevail Against the Kremlin,” Ivo H. Daalder, Foreign Affairs, 03.01.22 

“Ukraine and a Guide to Avoiding World War III,” Aaron Stein, War on the Rocks, 03.03.22. The author, director of research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, writes:

• “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has gone poorly thus far, but the correlation of forces still slants heavily in Moscow’s favor. And Putin will likely increase the brutality of his campaign, substituting mass for operational cleverness in his effort to subdue Ukraine. The West needs to be prepared for this fact, and the potential that the war will move westward.”
• “If Putin chooses this course of action, bringing the two sides into far closer contact, it will be important to manage force-on-force friction to keep the conflict limited and to ensure that it does not spill over into Europe. The United States and NATO can manage escalatory risks, but it is important to think clearly about what is at stake, proactively increase transparency with Moscow about certain NATO actions in Poland and explore a clear deconfliction mechanism to manage flights in certain air corridors. The West has stood remarkably united in the face of Russian aggression, but all parties involved should be thinking about how to manage spillover from what may turn out to be a longer and bloodier war than Moscow planned for.”

"What the U.S. Can Do for Ukraine," Natalie Jaresko, The Wall Street Journal, 03.06.22. The author, who formerly served as Ukraine’s finance minister (2014-2016) and in the U.S. State Department (1989-1995), writes:  

• “America must stop Vladimir Putin now to avoid the worst catastrophe in Europe since World War II. If Washington doesn’t act decisively, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will die, and other countries may be invaded as well. The U.S. has underestimated Mr. Putin’s appetite too many times, and Washington’s leniency has given him the confidence to commit the war crimes we see in the news today.”
• “Mr. Putin must be stopped on two fronts — in Ukraine, by the Ukrainian army, with direct and unwavering U.S. support; and in Russia, by cutting off its economy and financial system to block the war’s funding. For this to work, the U.S. must increase its involvement at all levels: federal, state and business.” 
  • “At the federal level, that means substantially increasing the delivery of military equipment to the Ukrainian army, in particular air defense and electronic warfare systems, fighter jets provided through allies, and Patriot and Stinger missiles. It also means tightening economic sanctions.”
  • “At the state level, every U.S. governor should follow the example of Kathy Hochul, who signed an executive order Feb. 27 preventing New York state from doing business with or investing in any Russian entities.”  
  • “The American business community must also stop financing Mr. Putin. U.S. imports from Russia totaled some $24 billion in 2019 — the equivalent of about 15 new Russian tanks a day. Our purchases are indirectly financing the weapons killing Ukrainians.”
• “The words and symbols of solidarity with Ukraine shown over the past few days are important, but getting arms to the Ukrainian army and taking finances away from Moscow are the only things that can stop this unprovoked war and save lives.” 

“Putin Loses No Matter How This Plays Out, But We Might Too,” Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, 03.02.22, War on the Rocks. The author, director of the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM) at the French Ministry of the Armed Forces and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Europe Center, writes:

• “No matter how the war in Ukraine plays out, Putin loses. Even if Russian forces prevail on the ground and in the air, he loses. Even if he takes Kyiv tomorrow, he loses. Russia lacks the forces (and perhaps the will) to occupy Ukraine in the face of a restive civil society and guerrilla movement. And that would be on top of having already reinforced NATO, awakened Europe, isolated his country, ruined its economy and alienated many Russians, including his ‘friends.’ What happens next depends less on the military outcome of the conflict than on other factors he has already put in motion and that will further affect him.”
• “What this war is destroying is the future of Russia and its people know it.”
• “Putin could also choose to open a new front. It could be in the region (for instance in the Balkans), in space (by attacking satellites under the pretext that they are being used to help the Ukrainian forces), under sea (by cutting internet cables) or elsewhere, wherever you least expect it. He would do it not only to maximize … chances of winning for the same cost (if he believes that international sanctions have already reached their peak), but also to create a diversion, i.e., to hide what will be a relative or absolute failure in Ukraine. However, this hypothesis comes up against a material and psychological reality. It is not at all certain that Russia has the means for other ambitions, and above all it is not certain that the generals — some of whom, it can be assumed, were already not in favor of the Ukrainian adventure — follow Putin elsewhere, which would only increase his frustration.”
• “The worst-case scenario is improbable but not impossible, as is the risk of major war in general. As Putin is visibly locked in a paranoid and hubristic delirium, nothing can be excluded. It is also in this tragic sense that this could be the beginning of the end.”

“War in Ukraine Reminds Us That Maps Can Be Weapons. Spatial display of data can be powerfully illuminating but also used to advance territorial claims,” John Gapper, Financial Times, 03.04.22. The author, a business columnist for the newspaper, writes:

• “When Apple suspended sales of iPhones and other products in Russia this week, it also made a subtler intervention. Along with Google, it turned off traffic updates for its live mapping service in Ukraine as a precaution against the invading army using it to attack.”
• “The first external sign of the invasion came when a traffic jam caused by a military column appeared on the Ukrainian border, and was spotted on Google Maps by a professor in California. It was a visual clue in the information war.”
• “Maps are essential in wartime. … We cannot grasp the scale of the conflict without seeing the locations of Kyiv and Kharkiv, or how the Dnipro river crosses the country.”
• “Vladimir Putin’s rambling address about the links between Russia and Ukraine on the eve of his invasion was hard to understand. Kremlin apologists quickly flourished a map of Ukraine showing zones allocated to the country by Russian tsars and Soviet communist rulers, including Nikita Krushchev. The map’s message was clear: what Russia gave, it can also reclaim. … Russian manipulation of maps has often involved concealment as well as propaganda.”
• “The better news is that it is getting harder for empire builders to control the visual narrative. Enormous amounts of mapping and spatial data are now available through private providers … and public databases. Open-source intelligence can paint a vivid picture. … A small but telling example is the Russian Oligarch Jets Twitter account.”
• “Like consumers of other forms of news and information, map readers must beware of being misled. Indeed, the psychological power of maps is so strong that the danger is greater.”

“Has Putin’s invasion changed the world order?” Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Spectator, 03.01.22. The author, a professor emeritus at Harvard University, writes:

• “A strategy of great power competition between a democratic and an authoritarian bloc may help America mobilize support at home, but it lumps together very different types of states. Russia is a declining power and China a rising one. The U.S. must appreciate the unique nature of the threat that Russia poses. As the world sadly discovered in 1914, on the eve of the first world war, a declining power (Austria-Hungary) can sometimes take the biggest risk in a conflict. Today, Russia is in demographic and economic decline. Its economy is dependent on the export of oil and gas and it has failed in its efforts to transform its economy as the U.S. and China have.”
• “Russia retains enormous resources, including mercenaries and proxies, that it can employ as a spoiler in cyber conflict and in the Middle East and Africa. Now Putin has employed those resources in his effort to ‘Make Russia Great Again’ by invading Ukraine. But if this cuts Russia off from European and American technology, history may judge Putin to have been a great tactician but a failure as a strategist who achieved his goal of restoring Russia’s place in the world.”

“Gen. Mark Milley: Why No-Fly in Ukraine Is a No-Go,” David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 03.05.22. The author, a columnist for the newspaper, interviews Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

• “‘If a no-fly zone was declared, someone would have to enforce it, and that would mean someone would have to then go and fight against Russian air forces,’ Milley explained. ‘That is not something that NATO Secretary [Jens] Stoltenberg, or member states’ political leadership, has indicated they want to do.’”
• “Milley made another comment to journalists here that was perhaps meant to check rising tensions about Russian escalation, spawned by Putin’s announcement last Sunday [Feb. 27] that he was putting Russian nuclear forces on ‘special combat readiness’ because of ‘aggressive comments’ from the West. Despite Putin’s threatening language about nuclear weapons, Milley said, ‘we are not now seeing anything out there in the alert postures of the actual nuclear forces of Russia that would indicate any increased set of alerts.’ He said the United States was monitoring the situation closely.”
• “The remarks here by America’s top military leader illustrate once again the delicate balance the United States and its NATO allies are trying to strike between supporting Ukraine with lethal weapons and other aid—but avoiding direct confrontation with Russian forces that could lead to a wider conflict and increase the cataclysmic risk of nuclear war.”

On why instituting a U.S./NATO no-fly zone (NFZ) in Ukraine is not a good idea: Twitter thread by Mark Hertling, 03.05.22. The author, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, writes:

• “There's a couple problems… First, in order to ENFORCE a NFZ, you have to be prepared to shoot the other aircraft down. If you're not worried about doing that because you have the power that nothing else bad could happen, you're okay.”
• “The US instituted a NFZ after Desert Storm in Iraq, and during the uprising in the Balkans. … In both of these operations, there was overt contesting of US Actions. In Ukraine - a country big as Texas, 233,000 sq miles - there's this problem of active combat from two other sides. … But what Russia also has that neither Iraq nor the former Yugoslav states have is nuclear capabilities. And, unfortunately, Putin has implied he will use them.”
• “Additionally, at every Russian ‘exercise’ I ever attended, the commander always used nukes to ‘ENDEX.’ … Changing the dynamic from a regional conflict to a potential global nuclear conflict is a pretty big gamble.”
• “What is causing the vast majority of the horrific civilian casualties in UKR today are RU Artillery, Missiles, and Rocket systems, some of which are in Russia or Belorus [sic]. A NFZ does not address ground systems.”
• “Best to continue to provide Ukraine technologically superior weapons, intelligence & humanitarian aid. The Russians are on the verge of culmination.”
• “Bottom line: NFZ is a catch phrase, that most don’t understand. Zelesky [sic] wants any help he can get, and he sees this as a way to get allies into the fight. The US and NATO are not gambling on global nuclear war.”

“The Dangerous Allure of the No-Fly Zone,” Mike Pietrucha and Mike Benitez, War on the Rocks, 03.04.22. The authors, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and an active-duty Air Force officer, respectively, write:

• “In Ukraine, the potential no-fly zone is fundamentally a political statement. In this case, the political statement is much more than the threat of escalation—it is a direct escalation against Russia and a general widening of the conflict to include NATO as a direct combatant.”
• “As such, a no-fly zone imposition serves only Ukraine, which would gain NATO as a co-belligerent without the precursor of a formal alliance. In effect, this political use of airpower would mirror the entangling alliances that brought Europe into World War I. The no-fly zone is the wrong tool for the wrong job and would create dangerous and destructive outcomes for the United States and its NATO allies.”

"Dominating Ukraine’s Sky," Volodymyr Duovyk, PONARS Eurasia, 03.05.22. The author, an associate professor of International Relations at Mechnikov National University in Odesa, Ukraine, writes:

• “It has now been made clear by the West/NATO/Unites States that they are not contemplating the introduction of an NFZ over Ukraine. Their absolute imperative, which clearly takes priority over aiding Ukraine, is to keep their personnel out of Ukraine (including its air space) and minimize chances for possible, even accidental, direct confrontation with Russian military forces.”
• “That being said, these calls should not be dropped. These demands serve a positive purpose, even in the face of evidence of the NFZ not being introduced. First, they keep the global and regional focus on the need to help Ukraine in general, including, immediately, defensively. If not the NFZ, the boundaries of military assistance can and must be expanded.”
• “The refusal to offer an NFZ may help unlock the situation with the supply of fighter jets to Ukraine. The EU has initiated a limited transfer of around 70 fighter jets from the stockpiles of three Eastern European countries (all NATO members). Unfortunately, since that announcement was made, it has become clear that there are barriers to doing this. Would such a supply mean intervention by NATO in the eyes of Moscow? How do you deliver them to Ukraine? These hurdles can be assessed and removed if there is a political will. People here in Ukraine say: if not the NFZ, then at least provide Ukrainians with those airplanes.”
• “There are various types of weapons systems that Ukraine needs but will most probably not receive. These include defensive missile systems, such as the Patriot, or surface-to-sea missile systems. Creating something similar to an Iron Dome over Ukraine is out of the question. Improving Ukraine’s naval power is not going to happen now. But many other types of military assistance can be considered, with the theme of pushing for an NFZ helpful here as a lever to press Ukraine’s allies to provide more.”

“America Must Do More To Help Ukraine Fight Russia,” Alexander Vindman and Dominic Cruz Bustillos, Foreign Affairs, 03.06.22. 

“Russian Attack on Ukraine: A Turning Point for Euro-Atlantic Security,” German Institute for International Security Affairs (SWP), 03.02.22. In a survey of experts, the SWP takes a look at Russian domestic politics, the situation in Ukraine, Western sanctions, the EU’s and NATO’s response, China’s role and international law:

• Margarete Klein: “With the invasion of Ukraine, talks with Russia regarding the Euro-Atlantic security order are obsolete for the time being. NATO and the EU must prepare for further Russian provocations and the possibility of escalation beyond the territory of Ukraine. Putin implicitly threatens nuclear escalation if Western states intervene; clashes at sea and in the air also possess the potential for further escalation. Above all, EU and NATO states must realize that they have long been part of Russian warfare: In Russian military thinking, modern wars are no longer formally declared. Rather, they simply evolve and are waged significantly by non-military means. Against this background, disinformation forms an integral part of psychological warfare (‘mental’naya voyna’) in which interpretational sovereignty of the conflict is to be won. Parallel to cyberattacks, an expansion of subversion and intelligence activities is to be expected.”
• Sabine Fischer: “Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine is not motivated by domestic politics. It is not an attempt to repeat the mobilization effect of the Crimean annexation. Rather, it is about achieving neo-imperialist and revisionist goals… The war against Ukraine could well have a destabilizing effect on the Russian autocracy. In the short term, however, this is hardly to be expected. Talks about the beginning of the end of Putin’s rule, which can now be heard on various occasions, may be justified. However, it will not save Ukraine, which is currently being overrun by Russian tanks.”
• André Härtel: “A sudden end of the war caused by subsequent regime instability in Moscow could be a possibility. But this option comes with the risk of high casualties and destruction in Ukraine. Another option would be to ask Moscow to enter into negotiations quickly, whereby sustained and above all successful military resistance would be the key to at least dissuading Russia from maximum demands such as a change of government or the deployment of Russian troops. This has failed so far with the negotiations at the Belarusian border on Feb. 27 and 28.”
• Nicolai von Ondarza: “The EU is challenged in its very foundations by the Russian attack on Ukraine—as a peace project, as a champion of a multilateral world order, in its responsibility for the security of its members and in its economic order.”

“Putin’s war on the liberal order,” Francis Fukuyama, Financial Times, 03.04.22. The author, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, writes:

• “The current war in Ukraine matters to all of us. The unprovoked Russian aggression and shelling of the peaceful Ukrainian cities Kyiv and Kharkiv has reminded people in the most vivid way possible what the consequences of illiberal dictatorship are.”
• “Putin’s Russia is seen clearly now not as a state with legitimate grievances about NATO expansion but as a resentful, revanchist country intent on reversing the entire post-1991 European order. Or rather, it is a country with a single leader obsessed with what he believes to be a historical injustice that he will try to correct, no matter the cost to his own people.”
• “Contrary to Putin’s plans, NATO has emerged stronger than ever, with Finland and Sweden now thinking of joining. The most remarkable change has occurred in Germany, which previously had been Russia’s biggest friend in Europe. By announcing a doubling of the German defense budget and willingness to supply arms to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has reversed decades of German foreign policy and thrown his country wholeheartedly into the struggle against Putin’s imperialism.”
• “Although it is hard to see how Putin achieves his larger objectives of a greater Russia, we are still facing a long and dispiriting road ahead. Putin has yet to bring to bear all of the military force Russia has at its disposal. Ukraine’s defenders are exhausted and running out of food and ammunition. There will be a race between Russia resupplying its own forces, and NATO seeking to bolster Ukrainian resistance. … There is also a danger of escalation of the fighting to direct clashes between NATO and Russia as calls mount for a ‘no-fly’ zone. But it is the Ukrainians who will bear the cost of Putin’s aggression, and they who will be fighting on behalf of all of us.”
• “The travails of liberalism will not end even if Putin loses. China will be waiting in the wings, as well as Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and the populists in Western countries. But the world will have learned what the value of a liberal world order is, and that it will not survive unless people struggle for it and show each other mutual support. The Ukrainians, more than any other people, have shown what true bravery is, and that the spirit of 1989 remains alive in their corner of the world. For the rest of us, it has been slumbering and is being reawakened.”

“Putin’s Act of Aggression Must Fail,” Boris Johnson, Wall Street Journal, 03.06.22. The author, prime minister of the United Kingdom, writes:

• “We must begin a six-point plan for Ukraine, starting today.”
  • “First, we must mobilize an international humanitarian coalition.”
  • “Second, we must do more to help Ukraine to defend itself.”
  • “Third, we must maximize the economic pressure on Mr. Putin’s regime. We must go further on economic sanctions, expelling every Russian bank from SWIFT and giving our law enforcement agencies unprecedented powers to peel back the facade of dirty Russian money in London. We must go after the oligarchs. So far, the United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on more than 300 elites and entities, including Mr. Putin himself. But these measures will be insufficient unless Europe begins to wean itself off the Russian oil and gas that bankroll Mr. Putin’s war machine.”
  • “Fourth, no matter how long it takes, we must prevent any creeping normalization of what Russia does in Ukraine.”
  • “Fifth, we should always be open to diplomacy and de-escalation, provided that the government of Ukraine has full agency in any potential settlement.”
  • “Sixth, we must act now to strengthen Euro-Atlantic security. This includes not only bolstering NATO’s eastern flank but also supporting non-NATO European countries that are potentially at risk of Russian aggression, such as Moldova, Georgia and the nations of the western Balkans. And those that participate or enable Russian aggression, such as Belarus, will be subject to maximum sanctions.”

“Help Us in Ukraine Show Putin The Mistake He Is Making,” Andriy Yermak, New York Times, 03.02.22. The author, head of the presidential administration of Ukraine, writes:

• “We have been able to withstand intense fighting in recent days despite the vicious brutality of the Russian aggressors, and we will continue to fight—even if Russia becomes an occupying force in Ukraine. We are united around the Ukrainian flag, the symbol of our identity, our resolve and our will, but our state's future and survival largely depend on the West.”
• “This war could be a prologue to a greater European or even global massacre. As President Zelensky wrote on Twitter after a strike hit near Ukraine's sacred memorial to Jews massacred in World War II, ‘what is the point of saying “never again” for 80 years, if the world stays silent?'”
• “Standing with us today and helping us is the only way to achieve peace for all and ensure that history does not repeat itself—so that our future does not echo Europe's darkest time.”

“Putin’s actions make no sense. That is his strength,” Tim Harford, Financial Times, 03.04.22. The author, a columnist for the newspaper, writes: 

• “In ‘The Strategy of Conflict,’ written in 1960, the economist Thomas Schelling noted: ‘It is not a universal advantage in situations of conflict to be inalienably and manifestly rational in decisions and motivation.’”
• “A madman—or a toddler—can get away with certain actions because he cannot be deterred by threats or because his own threats seem more plausible. But Schelling’s point is more subtle than that: You don’t need to be mad to secure these advantages. You just need to persuade your adversaries that you might be.”
• “Putin holds a weak hand, except for the one card that no rational person would ever choose to play. But the essence of brinkmanship is to introduce a risk that nobody can entirely control. If the risk becomes intolerable, you may win concessions. I am 99% sure that Putin is bluffing, but a 1% chance of the end of the world is and should be more than enough to worry about.”

“Everything America Won’t Do on Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal editorial board, 03.04.22.

• “Blinken makes an important point that a no-fly zone could require NATO pilots engaging with Russian planes. For that and other reasons we’ve said a no-fly zone would be hard to implement and might divide NATO. But why tell Mr. Putin that he has nothing to fear no matter what he does in Ukraine? If he had some doubt about greater military assistance to Ukraine, the Russian might not be so willing to bomb cities with indiscriminate artillery and cluster bombs.”

“Taking Dictators Literally and Seriously,” Wall Street Journal editorial board, 03.04.22.

• “Anyone purporting to be shocked by Mr. Putin’s actions in Ukraine shouldn’t be. He told the world he was going to do it. As far back as 2007, in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, Mr. Putin excoriated the European security order and teed up NATO enlargement as a ‘serious provocation’ that would justify a serious Russian response. His tone was fierce. In 2008 he reportedly told then-President George W. Bush he didn’t consider Ukraine a real country.”
• “The fall of Soviet communism in Europe and China’s economic development tempted many to think the West would only face opponents like us—motivated by economic self-interest and ready to make a deal. For years those rivals have told us they have other plans, and told us what they are willing to do. Mr. Putin is demonstrating that it’s time to stop lying to our ourselves about the mission of the deadly serious men who run these threatening regimes.”

“Putin the Not So Great,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr, Wall Street Journal, 03.04.22. The author, an opinion columnist and member of the newspaper's editorial board, writes:

• “Flipping through the playing-card deck of the Putin coterie, a few still boast reputations for ability and spine, like Rosneft chief Igor Sechin, Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu and central banker Elvira Nabiullina. These people might be smart to do something about Mr. Putin before he does something about them, given that his choice of scapegoats is likely to begin with those whose competence he finds most threatening. Mr. Putin perhaps already is fighting in Ukraine merely to improve his bargaining position. The Russian leader may soon be looking for an out. Then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Joe Biden will have some agonizing choices to make.”

“Can Intelligence Tell How Far Putin Will Go?” Calder Walton, War on the Rocks., 02.28.22. The author, assistant director of the Applied History Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and Internatioanl Affairs and the director of research of the center’s Intelligence Project, writes:

• “Cold War archives show that accurate warnings about an adversary’s intentions and capabilities were seldom, if ever, the result of a single kind of intelligence. Rather, they were invariably achieved through combinations of intelligence from human and technical sources. Today, open-source intelligence is also playing an increasingly important role. The specific mix of intelligence sources can influence what information a government publicly shares. As demonstrated during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, presidents can best deploy intelligence in their diplomacy when the risk of burning sources is low.”

"Russia's Plan C and Plan D," Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed (Substack), 03.02.22. The author, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London, writes:

• “This is a war that Vladimir Putin cannot win, however long it lasts and however cruel his methods. From the start the Russian campaign has been hampered by political objectives that cannot be translated into meaningful military objectives. Putin has described a mythical Ukraine, a product of a fevered imagination stimulated by cockeyed historical musings. His Ukraine appears as a wayward sibling to be rescued from the ‘drug addicts and Nazis’ (his phrase) that have led it astray. It is not a fantasy that Ukrainians recognize.”
• that some strikes are directed against key military and government targets, but no serious effort has been made to avoid civilian death and destruction. … Third, to make a strategic difference these attacks need to be related to other military moves. … We know, from Stalingrad to Grozny, that defenders can fight amongst the rubble. Even at that desperate stage, urban settings remain a challenge for invading force.”
• “A siege is unlikely to bring results quickly enough for Putin. … Putin needs this war to be over sooner rather than later. He can’t afford to be too patient. Little about his demeanor has been reported, other than intense frustration.”
• “If there was ever any possibility that this war would end with the complete subjugation of Ukraine by force of arms this has now gone. Nor will it end with Russian forces being chased out of the country. Most likely there will be a negotiated conclusion, probably at the cease-fire talks. … It is now as likely that there will be regime change in Moscow as in Kyiv.”

"How seriously should the U.S. take Putin's nuclear threat: An Interview with Stephen Walt," Zach Dorfman, Yahoo News, 03.02.22. Stephen Walt, the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international affairs at Harvard University, told the interviewer:

• "I think [Putin’s nuclear threat] was essentially an attempt at deterrence, a reminder, in my view, from Putin to the rest of us that Russia is a nuclear-armed power and that it regards the issue of Ukraine as a vital interest. And that therefore outside powers should think very carefully about how they proceed here."
• “So for example, it would be a warning to the West, basically: Do not get militarily involved. Don’t start thinking about sending troops here. Don’t start thinking about a no-fly zone over Ukraine, as some people have proposed. He’s basically saying, we really care about this, and we have options if things start going against us in a serious way. So I think it was in that sense — at this level, at least, just a warning.”
• “Now, how dangerous it is is almost impossible to say. If in fact there hasn’t been a significant change in command and control and other tactical elements — in other words, the ways in which local commanders are either authorized or not authorized to behave — if that hasn’t changed very much, it’s probably not immediately very risky. To the extent that you have forces on higher levels of alert, forces where the level of central control may be relaxed at least to some degree, maybe that does at least under some circumstances increase the danger of accidents, misunderstanding, the kind of thing that nobody wants to see.”
• “How much it raises that probability is really hard to know, in part because right now there aren’t any signs that outside powers are preparing to intervene militarily. It’s worrisome but not, I think, alarming, if that’s a distinction I can make.”
• “And one way to think about it is, if the risk of some kind of nuclear use was one chance in a billion a month ago, and now this has raised it to one chance in a hundred million, that’s a significant shift, but on the other hand, it’s still very unlikely. And, of course, I’m making up those numbers. Again, I don’t think it was the first step toward nuclear use or anything like that. I think it was a reminder to everybody that this is serious business, and everyone should conduct themselves accordingly, and be careful with what they’re trying to achieve.”

“‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes,” Maura Reynolds, Politico, 02.28.22. In this interview with Politico, Fiona Hill, a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings Institution and former senior director for Europe and Russia on the U.S. National Security Council, says:

• "Putin is usually more cynical and calculated than … in his most recent speeches. There’s evident visceral emotion in things that he said in the past few weeks justifying the war in Ukraine. The pretext is … almost nonsensical for anybody who’s not in the echo chamber or the bubble of propaganda in Russia itself."
• "[Putin's goal is] reestablishing Russian dominance of what Russia sees as the Russian 'Imperium.' … [T]he lands of the Soviet Union didn’t cover all of the territories that were once part of the Russian Empire. ... He’s said, repeatedly, that Russian and European borders have changed many times. ... Putin’s view is that borders change, and so the borders of the old Russian imperium are still in play for Moscow to dominate now."
• "If there is serious resistance, he may not have sufficient force to take the country [Ukraine] for a protracted period. It also may be that he doesn’t want to occupy the whole country, that he wants to break it up, maybe annex some parts of it, maybe leave some of it as rump statelets or a larger rump Ukraine somewhere, maybe around Lviv. … [H]e may even suggest other parts of Ukraine get absorbed by adjacent countries."
• "President Putin has said quite explicitly in recent days … that if anybody interferes in Ukraine, they will be met with a response that they’ve 'never had in [their] history.' And he has put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert. So he’s making it very clear that nuclear is on the table. … [I]f anybody thinks that Putin wouldn’t use something that he’s got that is unusual and cruel, think again. Every time you think, 'No, he wouldn’t, would he?' Well, yes, he would. And he wants us to know that… It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared. … We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off."
• "Sanctions are not going to be enough. … [W]hat we need is a suspension of business activity with Russia until Moscow ceases hostilities and withdraws its troops."
• "Ukraine has become the front line in a struggle … for maintaining a rules-based system in which the things that countries want are not taken by force."

"How the world can influence Putin’s fateful choices in Ukraine," Richard N. Haass, The Boston Globe, 02.28.22. The author, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes:

• “Ukraine, for which Putin has made clear his utter contempt, has stood up, mounting an effective defense. President Volodymyr Zelensky has caught the imagination of the country and much of the world. The Russian advance is going much more slowly than was anticipated. Russian casualties are reportedly substantial. A cake walk it is not.”
• “Bad news for Putin is in many ways good news for the rest of us. His war violates the most basic of international norms, that sovereignty is to be respected and borders are not to be changed by military force. Respect for this norm is the difference between world order and anarchy. And order is best understood as oxygen: We don’t see it and take it for granted except when there is not enough of it, at which point what is required for societies and economies to function normally disappears.”
• “The problem comes from what Putin’s frustration and fear of failure might prompt him to do. He has already made nuclear threats and put Russian nuclear forces on a higher state of alert. He may be hoping this frightens the West or Ukraine or both into standing down. When it becomes clear this threat will not succeed, he might be tempted to make another bad choice and escalate. Options include even more indiscriminate conventional military strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, massive cyberattacks against the West, expanding the war to one or more NATO countries, or introducing chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons.”
• “There is one other way out. Talks between Russia and Ukraine have begun on Ukraine’s border with Belarus. There are as yet no signs of progress. At some point, though, Putin may well see the value in compromising in order to avoid an outcome that threatens his rule and his country’s future. Ukraine’s government has the incentive to compromise — to offer Russia a diplomatic off-ramp that does not sacrifice core Ukrainian interests and rights — in order to avoid further death and devastation. Diplomacy failed to prevent this war; the question is whether before too much longer it can help end it.”

"Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Has Changed the World," Mykola Kapitonenko, The National Interest, 03.04.22. The author, an associate professor at the Institute of International Relations in Kyiv, writes:

• “If Russia achieves victory in Ukraine in the coming days or weeks, the world order will be transformed in at least six ways.”
  • “First, the West will be more united but less powerful. Western countries’ policies towards Russia have traditionally been the result of disintegrating factors, even after Crimea’s annexation in 2014. Today a threat is taken much more seriously, both concerning Russia alone and in its strategic alliance with China. Western unity becomes not a matter of choice, but of strategic necessity.”
  • “Second, military might will prove to be a costly but effective instrument of power. If Russia prevails in Ukraine, regardless of its miscalculations, political failures, and a dramatic lack of soft power, it will only be possible due to military preponderance.”
  • “Third, nuclear weapons will prove even more costly and even more effective.”
  • “Fourth, state sovereignty will be suspended. Sovereignty, the foundation of the Westphalian world order, will be further undermined.”
  • “Fifth, small states with no coalitions will remain extremely vulnerable. Ukraine’s chronic security problem has been a lack of allies. NATO’s “open door” policy and other cooperative security initiatives fell short of providing a security guarantee.”
  • “Sixth, international security organizations will become obsolete … The management of international disputes in multilateral fora has been profoundly poor, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has set a new low.”
• “By invading Ukraine, Putin has taken the riskiest and costliest decision in his twenty-two years in power. Its impact will go far beyond Russia’s security interests and reshape the way states perceive international politics. In the long-term, Russia will find itself in a much more dangerous environment—a consequence that the Kremlin may have, thus far, completely overlooked.”

"Putin’s strategic failure and the risk of escalation," Nigel Gould-Davies, IISS, 03.01.22. The author, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at IISS, writes:

• “After six days, it is clear that Vladimir Putin’s invasion was based on delusions about Ukraine, the West and Russia. Whatever the outcome on the battlefield, Putin has unleashed forces that weaken his country’s, and his own, position.”
  • “Firstly, Putin drastically underestimated Ukraine’s cohesion and will to resist.”
  • “Secondly, Putin badly underestimated Western cohesion and resolve.”
  • “Thirdly, Putin underestimated domestic opposition. More significantly, Russian elites are disquieted.”
• “The invasion is emerging as a grand strategic mistake. As Ukraine’s resistance, Russia’s international isolation and Putin’s isolation within Russia all deepen, the Kremlin suddenly finds itself much weaker on every political front. This continues a pattern of successive failures. When controlled instability through occupation and the Minsk Accords failed, Putin resorted to compellence. When compellence failed, he went to war. War is now producing even greater adverse effects.”
• “Putin has every incentive to end the war as quickly as possible. There are two ways he could do this.”
  • “The first, which he has now begun to try, is to win the war through drastic escalation. But the meaning of victory is now less clear than ever. While Russia can occupy Ukraine at great human cost, no Russian puppet regime it installs will be legitimate or stable. Russia’s international isolation and domestic crisis will intensify.”
  • “The second is for Putin to scale back his goals and negotiate a peace short of regime change in Kyiv. But given Putin’s obsession with Ukraine and the stakes he has raised, this would be a humiliating setback that he would consider only if his own regime’s survival were in doubt.”
• “Driven by visibly angry resentment of the West, Putin is making serious misjudgements. We are in uncharted and frightening territory.”

"What Putin’s Invasion Means for Foreign Policy Realism," Rand Paul, The National Interest, 03.07.22. The author, a U.S. senator from Kentucky, writes:

• “Realism in foreign policy means that tactics and strategy change as the facts on the ground change. The best tools for deterring Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine are less relevant now that Russia has invaded. … Prior to Putin’s invasion, sanctions and threats of an embargo were levers to deter his ambition. Many sanctions were levied, including sanctions on the Nord Stream II pipeline from Russia to Germany. Absent an invasion, many diplomats considered sanctions or an embargo provocative, akin to killing the hostage without seeking any demands.”
• “We live in a new world, where Putin has shown his stripes and invaded another sovereign nation. History will remember this aggression, not as genius, but as folly. Time will show Putin miscalculated not only the will of Ukrainian resistance but the coalescing of European and American wills to oppose him.”
• “More often than not, war ends with some form of negotiation. But how does Ukraine negotiate any of its land away? Before the invasion, Crimea’s fate seemed certain to remain a part of Russia. But I find it unlikely to be conceded in a negotiated settlement. Likewise, I find it unlikely Ukraine agrees to cede any of eastern Ukraine. It is more likely that even a militarily occupied Ukraine fights on and on, killing occupying soldiers one by one with no end in sight.”
• “I still believe that the one carrot Ukraine could offer, if it meant Russia’s complete removal from Ukraine, would be to remain a neutral country with one foot in the East and one in the West. The hawks in Congress will gnash their teeth and lament that no such promise should ever be made but a promise of neutrality gives up nothing and actually positions Ukraine to have both Russia and Europe compete for her interest.”
• “Any such agreement, I fear, only comes about if and when Ukraine succeeds in making the price of occupation unacceptable to Russia. While I will hope for saner minds without the bloodshed, I fear Ukraine has a long and violent road ahead.”

"The West Is Rewriting the Rules of Foreign Policy Over Ukraine," Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch, Foreign Policy, 03.03.22. The authors, reporters for the outlet, write:

• “The Ukraine crisis is shattering a series of long-held foreign-policy shibboleths in a frenzied blur of headlines, and U.S. and European officials are still struggling to figure out the implications.”
• “On Saturday [Feb. 26], Germany sent anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, ending a three-decade-long streak of not sending arms to active war zones. By the next night, the European Union was dangling membership to Ukraine, and Switzerland—whose neutrality survived even World War II—had forsworn its neutrality to join in EU sanctions on Russia.”
• “And by Monday [Feb. 28], the United States reportedly sent Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to help the Ukrainian military target low-flying Russian aircraft and helicopters, a powerful weapon that the Pentagon has mostly kept on the shelf since arming the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.”  
• “NATO countries are rearming to deal with the threat of a revanchist Russia after years of cajoling from the United States to spend more on defense. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a budget that would increase defense spending to 2 percent of GDP, in line with NATO’s long-held target. Meanwhile, Poland, inundated with a flood of more than 547,000 Ukrainian refugees crossing the border, has boosted defense spending to 3 percent, above the alliance’s threshold.”
• “The Biden administration is frantically rewriting its foreign-policy strategies to catch up with the news. … ‘When the history of this era is written, Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger,’ Biden said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.”

Sanctions

“The sanctions that will really stop Putin,” Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post, 03.04.22. The author, a foreign affairs columnist for the newspaper and CNN host, writes:

• “Economic sanctions have rarely forced a country to reverse its path, let alone caused regime change. In the few cases where they do appear to have had some effect—South Africa with apartheid, Iran with its nuclear enrichment—sanctions were usually widely enforced and comprehensive. Because key countries including China, India and the Gulf states are unlikely to boycott Russia, sanctions will lack that long-term bite.”
• “Biden should announce that he is going to respond to this massive challenge to the international order by expediting as much production and export of U.S. petroleum as possible to replace Russian energy. With natural gas, he should urge his regulators to facilitate production and he should help more with the financing of liquefied natural gas, so that it can be sent to Europe.”
• “But this will not be enough. Biden should also help to unlock two large sources of oil that are currently not getting to the market fast enough or in sufficient quantities. All we must do is take some steps to support all non-Russian energy, and that policy shift will become a deadly weapon that strikes at Putin's real Achilles' heel.”

“All of the Putin tycoons must be scrutinized for sanctions. No escapes on their fancy yachts,” The Washington Post editorial board, 03.05.22.

• “Any attempt to isolate Mr. Putin for his barbaric attack on Ukraine must examine every one of the tycoons, and their family members and shell companies that have in the past been used to shield assets. As British financier and Putin critic William Browder put it, speaking of the Navalny list, ‘You don’t get to be an oligarch unless you’re basically in cahoots with Putin.’”

"America’s Sanctions on Russia Are Not a Slam Dunk," Cameron Abadi, Foreign Policy, 03.01.22. The author, a deputy editor for the magazine, interviewed Edward Fishman, a former Obama administration State Department official who worked on sanctions policy and a current senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, who said:  

• “These [sanctions imposed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] are sanctions without precedent—what I believe is the largest and probably most significant sanctions action in modern history, which is to block transactions with the Central Bank of Russia. Why did it happen? I think it really was driven by good preparation. The United States, the EU, and the G7 have been coordinating very proactively over the last few months to build sanctions options, and I think there’s a high level of trust among the key officials in the government who came out with these sanctions. … Europe is waking up to the realities of the threat that Russia poses and, as a result, the European Commission felt empowered to put together these types of sanctions.” 
• “I think it’s important to separate near-term and long-term goals. In the near term, the goal of these sanctions is quite clear. It’s to persuade Putin to stand down in Ukraine, to persuade Putin to sue for peace. And I would suspect, by the way, if Putin were to retreat from Ukraine that you would see the West quite willingly pull back some of the most draconian sanctions. There’s also a long-term goal of sanctions. And I think what we’ve all come to realize, some of us sooner than others, is that so long as Putin is president of Russia, there can be no friendly relationship between Russia and the West. As a result, I do think that it is a legitimate goal of sanctions moving forward to degrade Russia’s capacity to do harm, what I call economic and technological attrition.”
• “The Central Bank of Russia started [responding to the sanctions] Monday [Feb. 28] by hiking interest rates to 20%, much like it did in responding to the economic fallout from invading Ukraine in 2014. And we’ve also seen a riskier move to prevent Russians from paying foreign debt, imposing capital controls in Russia, which could risk significant defaults. I think that’s a very risky game to play, but it seems to be driven by the Kremlin. That’s why I don’t foresee a way out for the Russian economy. These sanctions are just orders of magnitude stronger than what happened in 2014.”

"How to Stop Oil Companies From Propping Up Kleptocrats," Alexandra Gillies, Foreign Policy, 03.04.22. The author, an advisor at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, writes:

• “This week, BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, and Shell announced they will exit partnerships with state-owned Russian oil and gas companies, citing their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. … However, it was years of standing by that helped create the current situation, in which emboldened kleptocrats collected oil profits via legitimizing partnerships with international companies.” 
• “Following these overdue divestments, progress in three areas can wind down the oil industry’s damaging partnerships with kleptocrats:” 
  • “First, oil companies, shareholders, and investors should recognize, as BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell have belatedly done, that partnering with a regime enables its activities.”
  • “Second, as investors and financial markets increasingly adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, they should treat oil assets controlled by corrupt dictators as toxic.”
  • “Third, kleptocrats should be among the first to lose out in the oil industry’s eventual decline.”
• “With Russia becoming more of a pariah, Western governments and companies seeking energy security may further embrace other kleptocratic oil producers. Industry players will also likely try to frame Russia’s divestments narrowly: as reactions to a unique situation of military aggression. But Western oil companies supported the emergence of an emboldened, unaccountable Putin regime that enriched political insiders. As the industry reassesses what is acceptable in the wake of these historic events, oil company support for kleptocratic regimes should no longer be seen as normal, necessary, or permissible.” 

"Nicholas Mulder, who studies sanctions, declares a watershed moment in global economic history," The Economist, 03.04.22. The author, an assistant professor in the history department of Cornell University, writes: 

• “The barrage of Western sanctions against Russia has moved political and economic systems around the world into uncharted territory. … Although Vladimir Putin’s sudden and brutal invasion shocked us all, the Western economic response has been just as astonishing.”
• “An initial round of sanctions on February 24 targeted Russian banks and technology exports; a second round on February 26 severed access to the SWIFT financial messaging network, seized the foreign wealth of Russian oligarchs and, most significant of all, froze most Russian overseas central-bank reserves. Before this, no G20 economy had ever faced such drastic economic sanctions, nor experienced so many of them in such a short span of time.”
• “Sanctions are no longer scalpel-like instruments that exploit globalization. At their current scale, they are a tempest that will change the nature of globalization itself in major ways. Given the criminality of Mr. Putin’s invasion, punishing Russian aggression with economic, financial and diplomatic measures is necessary.”  
• “But Western policymakers should be very careful in designing these interventions. Sanctions have a chilling effect that will persist in private-sector decision-making. Once the perception that the measures are permanent sticks, any chance of using them to steer towards peace in Eastern Europe will be lost.”
• “In an already fragile world economy, the unintended political and economic effects of sanctions can quickly spiral out of control. Instead of rushing forward with further sanctions, Western policymakers must focus on directly helping the Ukrainians defend their independence. They must also promptly outline clear conditions for the removal of sanctions to encourage de-escalation and an end to this catastrophic war.” 

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

"Ukraine Crisis: Will China Have Putin’s Back?," Graham Allison, The National Interest, 02.25.22. The author, a professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School, writes:

• “While asking for China’s help in his phone call with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, Secretary of State Antony Blinken also delivered a warning. If Putin went ahead with an invasion, unless China had made a serious, visible effort to stop it, Washington would indict China as a co-conspirator.”
• “In a bit of diplomatic jujitsu, Blinken took a line from China’s talking points highlighting the dangers of a ‘new Cold War mentality.’ As Blinken reportedly put it bluntly: If China were to give Putin a green light for a military invasion of a sovereign European country, it should expect to see a U.S.-Euro-Asian alignment against what might even be named a new Russo-Chinese ‘axis of evil.’”
• “Weighing the pros and cons, it is impossible to escape the uncertainties. … Since no one can know the answers to these questions, it seems likely that Xi was conflicted. Nonetheless, if I were betting about what Xi said to Putin when they met in Beijing for a summit at the Feb. 4 opening of the Winter Olympics … his bottom lines were four.”
  • “First, this is your initiative, not mine—and not one China would have chosen at this moment.”
  • “Second, an invasion would create considerable discomfort for us—for all the reasons you appreciate.”
  • “Third, nonetheless, we understand that you will do what you have to do.”
  • “Fourth, if you go ahead, unless things go off the tracks, you can depend on China to have your back.”
• “My bet is that in both word and deed, China will support Russia. In allocating blame for causing what has happened, it will focus on the United States as the ‘culprit.’ Of course, it will not endorse what is an unambiguous violation of China’s fundamental concepts and principles. But it will attempt to minimize damage to its own standing on these principles—walking a tightrope between insisting on Russia’s ‘legitimate security concerns’ and reaffirming its own commitment to ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity.’”
• “But where it matters, when hard choices have to be made, China will have Russia’s back. And the analytic basis for my bet is my judgment that Xi has essentially defied geopolitical gravity in building a functional ‘alliance’ between China and Russia that is operationally more significant than most of the formal alliances the United States has today.”

"China's Difficult Balancing Act in Russia-Ukraine Crisis," Meia Nouwens, IISS, 03.04.22. The author, a senior fellow for Chinese defense policy and military modernization, writes:

• “Since the outbreak of conflict, Beijing has subtly changed the focus of its statements regarding Ukraine several times. This suggests that it is finding it difficult to adhere to one policy line that bridges its long-held principles of non-interference and territorial integrity and also shows support for Russia. On Feb. 26, Wang Yi published China’s official position on the Ukraine crisis, covering five points:”
  • “China maintains that all states’ (including Ukraine’s) sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected and protected according to the U.N. Charter;”
  • “China believes that the legitimate security concerns of all countries should be respected. Here, NATO’s expansion raised legitimate security demands in Russia;”
  • “China doesn’t want to see the current situation in Ukraine, and all parties should exercise restraint;”
  • “China supports a diplomatic resolution and peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis, and states that the Ukraine issue has evolved in a ‘complex historical context';”
  • “China stands against the invocation of U.N. Charter Chapter VII that authorizes the use of force and sanctions in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, but believes that the UNSC should play a constructive role in resolving the Ukraine issue."
• “There are contradictions in China’s position on some of these points, however, and Beijing appears to be finding it difficult to find its exact footing with regards to the conflict. … Despite all this, on Feb. 26 China did not exercise its veto of a draft UNSC resolution instructing Moscow to stop attacking Ukraine and to withdraw all troops immediately.”
• “Any hopes in the U.S. and Europe – or Ukraine, which has asked China to mediate with Russia – that Beijing could influence Moscow’s actions towards Ukraine will be dashed. Beijing publicly deepened its relationship with Russia through a joint statement on Feb. 4, and continues to factor US–China competition into its foreign-policy decision-making. Certain Chinese government-affiliated think tank commentary exemplifies this.”

“China’s Strategic Assessment of Russia: More Complicated Than You Think,” Yun Sun, War on the Rocks, 03.04.22. The author, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, writes:

• “How can we square the circle between the Chinese policy community’s negative and critical view of Russia, and the seemingly ever-growing alignment between the two countries? Indeed, as the Feb. 4 joint statement seems to suggest, China and Russia are leaning on each other in many domains of international politics. The declaration of a ‘no limits’ partnership between China and Russia seems to be playing out in the Ukraine crisis, where China has refrained from opposing Russia.”
• “The joint statement and China’s acquiescence (or even tacit support) in the Ukraine crisis illustrates a difficult reality: In response to increasing strategic competition with the United States, China is turning to Russia for support, despite misalignment between Beijing and Moscow’s national interests, as well as Russia’s history as a destructive and exploitative neighbor. There is no better example of ‘marriage of convenience’ than this, and China will pay dearly for this choice.”
• “It’s hard to predict the longevity and stability of the current Sino-Russian alignment. It begins and ends with China’s anti-U.S. agenda and is strengthened by Xi’s personal preferences. There is a famous Chinese saying among Russia hands that China and Russia can only share miseries, but not happiness (中俄只能共苦，不能同甘). Without shared visions, goals, and approaches, China and Russia will align against a common enemy. Yet it will split, in a destructive way, when that delicate equilibrium is disrupted by any structural change.”

China faces a new, uneasy balancing act on Russia and Ukraine, Keith B. Richburg, The Washington Post, 03.05.22. The author, director of the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Center, writes:

• “By signing on to its ‘no limits’ friendship pact with Russia, China now finds itself facing isolation on the global stage. Beijing has since tried to inch away from its pro-Russian position to a more neutral stance. For example, it has abstained in votes condemning the invasion in the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly. But neutrality seems increasingly untenable, with U.S. officials warning that China could be hit with countermeasures if it tried to help Russia evade sanctions.”
• “China now faces a new balancing act, feeling obligated to help Russia economically survive sanctions, but not help too much, to avoid collateral damage to its own economy and banking system. The Sino-Russian friendship agreement might have sounded promising to Beijing when it was signed. But Xi might find that with friends like Putin, China could end up making a lot more adversaries.”

Dear China: Whose Side Are You on in Ukraine? Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 03.06.22. The author, a columnist for the paper, writes:

• “There are signs that China recognizes some of the new realities — that no country is too big to be canceled in the wired world. But its initial instinct seems to be to try to insulate itself from that reality, rather than step up to help reverse Putin’s aggression. To which I say: Good luck with that. China cannot be connected and disconnected at the same time.”
• “So I hope not only that China’s leaders don’t bet their farm on a quick grab of Taiwan. I hope Beijing joins instead with the West and so much of the rest of the world in opposing Putin. China would emerge as a true global leader if it did that. If it chooses instead to ride with the outlaws, the world will be less stable and less prosperous for as far as the eye can see — especially China. What will it be, Xi?”

China’s Bad Ukraine War, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, 03.03.22.

• “It’s common outside of China to assume that the Communist Party regime plays multidimensional chess while the rest of the world plays checkers. Perhaps not this time, where what was supposed to be a major strategic friendship is hurting Mr. Xi’s interests barely a month after the ink dried.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

Russia’s nuclear alert means NATO must tread carefully Jeremy Shapiro, Financial Times 03.04.22. The author, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, writes:

• “Now, the Russian military is heavily engaged in Ukraine and thus particularly vulnerable to a NATO conventional attack in Belarus and western Russia, as well as in Ukraine. So in the current scenario, Russian leaders are most likely to use a tactical nuclear weapon to prevent or put an end to NATO intervention. In theory, therefore, it should be straightforward to avoid that outcome by not intervening. The West, in the minds of its own leaders, has no intention of intervening so they may not feel there is much chance of nuclear escalation.”
• “If it is truly not the intention of western leaders to intervene, they should make sure that their forces act in ways that will convince Russian leaders of that. The world may depend on it.”

“Russia’s Menacing Mix of Religion and Nuclear Weapons In the Kremlin: Faith and Force Go Hand in Hand,” Dmitry Adamsky, Foreign Affairs, 03.05.22.

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

“Competition and Restraint in CyberspaceThe Role of International Norms in Promoting U.S. Cybersecurity,” Michael J. Mazarr, Bryan Frederick, Emily Ellinger, Benjamin Boudreaux, RAND, March 2022. The authors—senior political scientists (Mazarr and Frederick), a policy analyst (Ellinger) and a policy researcher and professor of policy analysis (Boudreaux)—write: 

• “There is no clear, emerging consensus on the precise shape of cyber norms.”
• “The gap on cybersecurity issues between the United States and both China and Russia remains very wide, and there is limited room for mutually agreed restraints on behavior.”
• “Cyberspace has specific characteristics that may impede the development of norms to restrict state behavior.”
• “Norms can affect state behavior even when leaders disagree with them, and they can become established through ‘bottom-up’ efforts rather than being imposed by governments.”
• “Norms tend to be more effective when they are simple rather than complex and emotive rather than dry.”
• “The current status of international discussions does not provide the basis for believing that any universal agreements on cyber norms are feasible in the near term.”

“The Biggest Cyber Risk in Ukraine? How Russian Hacking Could Threaten Nuclear Stability,” Jacquelyn Schneider, Foreign Affairs, 03.07.28. 

Energy exports from CIS:

“The chilling effect of sanctions on Russia. Economic warfare against Vladimir Putin cannot be fine-tuned to spare the energy sector,” Jonathan Guthrie, Financial Times, 03.06.22. The author, an associate editor with the newspaper, writes:

• “I am told some big international banks are quietly shunning Russian peers who remain on international payments messaging system SWIFT after the expulsion of seven big lenders, including VTB, VEB and Otkritie. This would make it harder for Gazprombank, the banking arm of gas giant Gazprom and Russia’s third-largest lender, to receive payments.”
• “The fallacy this illustrates is that sanctions can be fine-tuned to spare the Russian energy sector from damage. The U.S. and EU have sought to provide energy companies and their affiliates with a carve-out from sanctions. The reason is that Germany and Italy are heavily dependent on Russian gas as the result of multiple energy policy errors by their politicians. Despite the carve-out, Urals oil has been trading at a sharp discount to Brent, reflecting reticence among foreign buyers.”
• “Russian slaughter of Ukrainian civilians obliges the West to intensify sanctions with an embargo on Russian exports of oil and gas. Fans of financial shock and awe might prefer sanctions on both immediately. But it would be better to threaten oil and gas exports separately and impose bans if Russia refuses to negotiate.”
• “Game theory points to offering Putin exit ramps, as Sven Behrendt of German political consultancy GeoEconomica points out. Tactics are needed to win financial wars as well as the military kind.”

“From Pledges to Action? Europe’s Move Away From Russian Fossil Fuels,” Gregory Brew, War on the Rocks, 03.04.22. The author, a fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University, writes:

• “For now, the European Union’s proposed energy transition remains inchoate. Vows to end dependence on Russia were common in the wake of Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. It is possible that E.U. policy now will be similarly contradictory. Should the European Union carry out its plans, however, the global energy economy, European energy security, and the future security and economic viability of the Russian petro-state will all be significantly impacted. E.U. consumers will face prolonged high prices as gas supplies struggle to fill the void left by Russia. Coal plants may be reactivated to help fill the gap, potentially delaying the European Union’s transition toward renewable energy. Russia’s competitors in the export field — particularly companies in the United States — will benefit from new markets in Europe. The global liquified natural gas market will continue its rapid expansion.”
• “Russia, meanwhile, will face isolation as it loses one of its oldest and most lucrative economic relationships. This will place immense strain on the Russian economy and potentially push it toward a closer relationship with China, the only other natural customer for its energy resources.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine signals a new era of energy geopolitics, The Washington Post Editorial Board, 03.05.22.

• “As we work toward less reliance on fossil fuels, the United States and its allies must make sure that the oil and gas we still do use comes in sufficient quantity from suppliers politically compatible with the West. The alternative would be shortages and crippling cost increases, for consumers and businesses, and that could undermine the political consensus for a strong stand against Russia. Indeed, it could directly strengthen Russia by increasing prices for its remaining oil and gas exports.”
• “Germany has taken a step in the right direction by suspending the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia and announcing that it will expedite the construction of two new liquefied natural gas terminals that could receive supplies from other countries, including the United States. Europe is also willing and able to prevent shortages this year by tapping its reserves. Soon, it may have to do more: extending the life of Germany’s last three nuclear power plants, or building new ones elsewhere; increasing production at gas fields in the Netherlands despite possible increased seismic risks.”
• “The United States can and should expand gas production for export, consistent with environmental safeguards. From now on, democracies need to set energy policy not only to save the planet but also to stop Russia from dominating it.”

"Why the West Isn’t Sanctioning Russia’s Oil and Gas Sector," Osama Rizvi, The National Interest, 02.28.22. The author, an economic and energy analyst at Primary Vision Network, writes:

• “Despite Russia’s aggression, Western sanctions have steered clear from targeting its oil and gas sector—where Russia is most economically vulnerable. Why is that the case? The timing of Putin’s attack is impeccable in that it is strategically exploiting a global economic and energy crisis. Inflation is rampant around the world and has reached the highest level in decades… Along with inflation, supply chain disruptions have affected every country and global businesses are facing pressure to increase wages. Consequently, 2022 started with most countries being focused on internal problems.”
• “Furthermore, Europe and Asia alike are being afflicted by an ongoing energy crisis. After the global economy began to open up after the worst period of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a surge in demand for electricity and energy more broadly. Simultaneously, Europe’s domestic gas production and gas stores have been declining… [E]xorbitant energy prices have been harming European consumers.”
• “This context explains why the West has opted to not sanction Russia’s oil and gas sector.”
• “Russia is aware of these dynamics and understands that it has leverage over the West. Yet Vladimir Putin also recognizes that there is a correlation between Moscow’s aggressive behavior and higher oil prices, which only serve to increase his financial leverage”
• “It is, therefore, practically difficult to sanction such a key sector as it will create ripples across the socio-politico domain. Gasoline prices in the United States are at their highest since the summer of 2014, at $3.64, and rising oil prices stand to make it worse. This means that the West must walk a fine line between punishing Russian aggression and balancing their own economic and political needs.”

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

"Can America Adapt to the Multipolar Age?," Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The National Interest, 03.06.22. The author, a professor at the Naval War College, writes:

• “The intersection of … three cycles — geopolitical, technological, and political — means that it is now harder for the United States to either induce other centers of power in the international system to align their actions with Washington’s preferences or to take steps to dismantle or degrade the sources of their ability to resist America’s directives.”
• “Not only can other major powers more effectively resist U.S. directives in 2021 than in 1991, but the U.S. political system is less willing to write blank checks for maintaining pre-eminence — especially if that is disconnected from ‘doorstep’ concerns.”
• “The United States remains the dominant power in the international system, but the power shifts of the last 30 years are real and, in my opinion, not reversible. Global affairs will be defined not only by increasing multipolarity, but also by nonpolarity. International relations will be defined by the interactions — a mix of cooperation and competition—among major states, rather than coordination by a hyperpower. American strategists need to become more adept at analyzing the trends of this power transition and determine not how to stop it, but how to manage the levers of power to secure the U.S. position in the world.”
• “Even before the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, a serious process was already underway within the U.S. national security community, especially work done by the late Colin Powell, to consider the impact of possible major changes in the international system and the implications for how U.S. national security ought to be configured to meet these new conditions.”
• “The agility of the U.S. defense, diplomatic, and developmental communities allowed the United States to quickly take advantage of the window of opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe to move ahead with a vision of a Europe ‘whole and free.’ Conditions are changing once again, but we need to recapture that sense of agility and innovation — rather than attempt to recreate a past age.”

"How America Can Really Help Ukraine," David C. Hendrickson, The National Interest, 03.07.22. The author, president of the John Quincy Adams Society, writes:

• “One vital feature of the emerging standoff between Russia and the West is the mismatch between means and ends. The means are economic sanctions and military aid; the end is Russia’s defeat in the war it has launched against Ukraine. Although several other possible ends have been brought into play, including regime change in Russia, the immediate objective is to deny Russia a military victory in its invasion of Ukraine. And yet the means available, catastrophic though some may prove to be, will almost certainly not accomplish the objective in view.”
• “We have only begun to reckon with the tumbling dominos falling our way. Everyone is very angry, and understandably so. But please, America, carefully consider the situation the Ukrainians are in. Americans’ overwhelming desire to help the Ukrainians is matched by their real inability to help them. That’s a very unwelcome reality, but it is the reality. Economic sanctions against Russia do not relieve Ukrainians of their plight, and they are going to prove incredibly costly to the United States. Military aid to Ukraine won’t affect the outcome of the first great phase of the war. A no-fly zone means World War III.”
• “The United States has devoted all its thinking thus far to hurting the Russians. It needs to start thinking about solutions that will lessen the number of people killed in Ukraine. It also needs to start thinking about the terrifying economic fallout from its sanctions.”

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Will Putin Lose Russia? His Grip on Power Rests on Fantasy and Fear,”Andrei Kolesnikov 03.03.22, Foreign Affairs. 

“The Beginning of the End for Putin? Dictatorships Look Stable—Until They Aren’t,” Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz , Foreign Affairs, 03.02.22.

“Russian oligarchs don’t have the power — or inclination — to stop Putin, Anatol Lieven, The Washington Post, 03.04.22. The author, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes:

• “It’s time to start thinking about how President Vladimir Putin might be replaced. If his invasion of Ukraine continues to go wrong, it’s very difficult to see how he can long survive in power. … Crowds are unlikely to storm the Kremlin, but sufficient public unrest and mounting bloodshed could lead senior officials to ‘persuade’ Putin that it’s time to go.”
• “The West is hoping to undermine the regime through specific measures aimed at Russian ‘oligarchs’ with wealth and property abroad … [but] this is no longer the 1990s… [‘Oligarchs’] have no political power. That is exercised by a narrow circle of top officials and former officials appointed by Putin to control key sections of the energy sector. These men are drawn mainly from the former KGB. They have great wealth, but their primary loyalty is to Putin and the state.”
• “[The Russian elites] are a very disparate and disunited bunch of business executives, state officials, local political bosses opportunistically grouped in the United Russia Party and even to some extent loyal media figures and intellectuals. They have no collective identity and no collective institutions. It would be very difficult for them to generate … [sufficient] pressure on the inner circle, unless public unrest had become very great.”
• “The most likely scenario, it seems to me, is a sort of semi-coup, most of which will never become apparent in public, by which Putin and his immediate associates will step down ‘voluntarily’ in return for guarantees of their personal immunity from arrest and their family’s wealth. Who would succeed as president in these circumstances is a totally open question. This is pure speculation, but I have begun to wonder whether just possibly the invasion of Ukraine might be tied in with Putin’s own intention to resign in (or before) 2024.”
• “If the invasion of Ukraine had been a success, Putin could depart in a blaze of glory as a Russian national hero, bequeathing some of that glory to a chosen successor. If it failed, he could save his regime by resigning in favor of a successor from outside the inner circle who could shuffle off blame for the failure onto his predecessor—while of course guaranteeing his predecessor’s wealth and safety. That after all is very much how Putin succeeded Yeltsin in 1999 after the economic and military disasters of the 1990s.”
• “Replacing Putin raises a huge question, which did not exist in 1999. Members of the elite aiming to remove Putin would need to be confident that if they did this and agreed to withdraw from Ukraine, most Western sanctions would be lifted. Otherwise they would inherit a continuing economic disaster that would cripple their rule as it had his. … [S]uch a promise of withdrawal is extremely unlikely to include Crimea and the separatist republics of the Donbas. Their loss would be a political blow that would also cripple any new Russian regime. Failing a compromise over these territories, therefore, it will be vastly more difficult both for Ukraine and Russia to escape this war, and for Russia to escape rule by some version of the present regime.”

"Blowback: Will Russia’s War in Ukraine Undermine Putin’s Rule?," Thomas Sherlock, The National Interest, 02.28.22. The author, a professor of political science at the United States Military Academy at West Point, writes:

• “In contrast to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which was wildly popular in Russia in part because of its low cost in blood and treasure, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will likely exact a significant toll in casualties. Many Russians are also concerned with the safety of the Ukrainian population.”
• “Ever stronger Western sanctions will likely create widespread distress by damaging much of the Russian economy. Anxiety over these hazards as well as an uncertain future for Russia dampens or blocks Russian support for the invasion among elites and mass publics despite heightened efforts by Kremlin-controlled mass media to shape public opinion.”
• “The Kremlin’s long-standing reliance on narratives of external and domestic threats to mobilize political support or at least ensure public obedience is now a much-diminished strategy. Yet Putin will be reluctant to alter course due in part to the high reputational costs at home and abroad of backing down.”
• “Public dissent based on political and economic grievances that are created or exposed by aggression against Ukraine will increase but still encounter the repressive capacity of the state rooted in the unequal political power of different elites. If the siloviki as a group (and aligned elites) do not waiver in their support for Putin, the regime should survive through greater political regimentation.”
• “Much will depend on how the siloviki collectively view the different costs and benefits of the war. Their incentives for defection, for now, seem outweighed by the fact that Putin, even in his reckless invasion of Ukraine, continues to address their ideological, cultural, political, and institutional preferences. But this perception of the advantages of loyalty may change if Ukraine becomes a Russian quagmire and the West remains united in its opposition to Putin. Elements of the siloviki may come to view this external environment as well as the growing challenges of domestic repression as unacceptable, allowing a surge of protest from below.”

"How Putin Wants Russians to See the War in Ukraine," Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 03.01.22. The author, a staff writer for the magazine, writes:

• “From most appearances, Moscow is a city at peace. Anything that disrupts this appearance—whether it’s a person standing alone with a sheet of paper that says ‘No to War’ … or the thousands who have attended antiwar marches around the country…—is intercepted by police quickly and brutally.”
• “Russian authorities have banned words like ‘war’ or ‘invasion’ to describe what they want to call a ‘special operation’ in Ukraine. … In the absence of war, there can be no casualties. Eight years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine the first time, all the while denying that Russian troops were present in the country, investigative journalists … found ways to tell the truth. They used soldiers’ social-media posts to show that the fighters were on Ukrainian territory, and they found some of their graves. Last year, the military banned the use and possession of smartphones by soldiers. A new law that went into effect on February 1st of this year legalized the use of mass graves during wars and states of emergency.”
• “I called Valentina Melnikova, one of the founders of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, a once sprawling organization that was formed in 1989 to confront the brutality and secretiveness inside the Russian military. Melnikova, who is still active, told me that the organization was a shadow of its former self and … no longer had chapters in many southern Russian cities near the border with Ukraine. … On Sunday, the committee wrote to the International Red Cross to appeal for help in finding and bringing home the bodies of Russian soldiers who have died in Ukraine.”
• “While news channels around the world broadcast special reports from Ukrainian cities that are being bombarded by the Russian military, Russian newscasts on state-controlled channels, which have a monopoly on broadcast television, are short and uneventful.”
• “Tens of millions of people don’t go looking for news unless they think something big or frightening is happening, and right now a casual Russian internet user has no reason to think such a thing. I talked to Lev Gershenzon, who used to run the news arm of Yandex, Russia’s largest technology company and second-largest search engine… Yandex’s home page usually runs five headlines at a time. ‘Most people just look to see if anything has happened,’ Gershenzon said. ‘And if they have a sense that nothing is up, they never click through on a headline.’ … That’s why it’s so important for the authorities to avoid the word ‘war’… The Yandex home page is so boring, Gershenzon said, because, by agreement with the government, the search engine’s algorithm pulls headlines from only a small pool of state-controlled media outlets.”
• “The very presence of Ukraine, a familiar society that is developing a different political system, is a threat to Putin. ‘For him, it’s the anti-Russia,’ [sociologist Grigory] Yudin said. Putin decided to boost his legitimacy by conquering Ukraine, but his actions are based on false premises and on bad information, which may break his legitimacy-perpetuation cycle.”

"What WIll Happen to the Protestors?," Lauren McCarthy, PONARS Eurasia, 03.03.22. The author, an associate professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, writes:

• “As has become standard procedure during protests, many police stations in Moscow and St. Petersburg have implemented the Fortress Plan, and access to detainees has been nearly impossible for lawyers. In cities across Russia, police have forcibly taken protestors’ phones, and forced detainees to take mug shots, give their fingerprints or submit DNA samples. In some cases, they have even prevented detainees from using the bathroom.”
• “Projecting into the future, arrests for protesting the war will likely exceed the unprecedented numbers from the 2021 protests with Team Navalny now calling for daily protests in city and town squares (7pm each weeknight and 2pm on weekends).”
• “The state will likely continue to escalate its approach to dissuading and limiting protest through harsh sanctions and violence and the costs may soon be too high for ordinary Russians to risk. Those who do will be confronted with the banality of a system that mechanistically processes cases and issues fines and jail time without actually examining the evidence. Whether this protest wave will mobilize societal activism around legal defense as previous protest waves have remains to be seen.”

“Russia is once again behind an iron curtain,” Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 03.07.22. The author, chief foreign affairs columnist for the newspaper, writes:

• “Hopes for Putin’s removal must rest largely on a palace coup. As the political scientist Milan Svolik has observed, ‘an overwhelming majority of dictators lose power to those inside the gates of the presidential palace, rather than to the masses outside.’ But Putin appears to be surrounded by loyalists, who share his nationalist and conspiratorial worldview and whose fates are closely tied to the leader.”
• “Even if some in the inner circle are harboring doubts, making a move against Putin would still be extraordinarily risky and difficult. The Russian leader has always looked after his bodyguards—some of whom have become very rich men in their own right.”
• “In other parts of the world, dictators such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela reduced their countries to poverty and isolation—but still managed to cling on to power for many years.”
• “Will that really be possible in modern Russia? Can Putin once again imprison his countrymen behind an iron curtain? The fate of Ukraine, Russia and much of the world will depend on the answer.”

“The Putin Endgame, “ Holman W. Jenkins, Wall Street Journal, 03.01.22. The author, an opinion columnist and member of the newspaper's editorial board, writes:

• “There can’t be a new cold war because the Russia of today can’t sustain a cold war. It’s not the U.S.S.R. Economically, it’s not even Spain. Operative all along hasn’t been Russia’s historical and geographic imperatives but the grotty nature of the current regime. A kleptocracy is reaching its natural ending. It couldn’t create a stable governance model any more than the one-man 1970s African dictatorships it resembles. Mr. Putin’s geopolitical posturing is absurd. His regime is destroying itself over an entirely fictional threat of NATO aggression from Ukraine.”

“Russia Has Suffered a Crushing Moral Defeat,” Alexey Kovalev, New York Times, 03.03.22. The author, investigations editor at the online news site Meduza, writes:

• “Shock and shame. That's the response of many Russians to the sight of rockets and artillery shells hitting Ukrainian tower blocks that in their concrete uniformity could easily be in Moscow.”
• “Feb. 24, when President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion, is the day Russia became an outcast, despised nation, not just economically isolated but actively shunned by the rest of the world—in sports, science and most other kinds of international cooperation. Whatever military 'victory' Mr. Putin might find acceptable in his twisted mind, Russia has already suffered a crushing moral defeat.”
• “And to a certain extent, it seems like the Russian people know it. Though dissent has been effectively outlawed, thousands of people have taken the risk to express their opposition to the invasion. And it's not just the usual suspects, the malcontents already known to the Kremlin. Major public figures, prominent journalists and artists have spoken out against the war.”
• “We may be far from a large-scale antiwar movement, but the seeds have been sown. And once they flower into outright defiance, it could spell trouble for Mr. Putin.”

Defense and aerospace:

"Did the World Overestimate the Strength of Russia's Military?," Kris Osborn, The National Interest, 03.05.22. The author, defense editor for the magazine, writes:

• “Pentagon assessments and news reports from Ukraine suggest that Russian forces may be experiencing major morale problems, a factor that is likely to undermine their will to fight.”
• “Unlike the Ukrainian defenders who are fighting for their homeland, Russian troops are being ordered to risk dying for reasons that are unlikely to be very important to them. Recognizing the expected impact of this morale deficit on the performance of Russian soldiers, some might raise what seems to be a fair and relevant question: has the world overestimated Russia’s military capabilities?”
• “Russia’s massive convoy headed toward Kyiv remains stalled, and the military is struggling to resolve substantial logistics and sustainment setbacks. Moreover, Russia’s force protection mechanisms are being challenged by Ukrainian ambushes that have decimated Russian combat vehicles at key choke points. While many observers likely underestimated the resolve, combat prowess, and sheer intensity of the Ukrainian military, it also appears that the strength of Russia's military may have been greatly overestimated.”
• “Is the invasion of Ukraine revealing that Russia’s integrated ground combat abilities, long thought to be exemplary, have been massively overestimated? Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall appears to believe so. While speaking at a conference on Thursday, Kendall said, ‘In my view, President Putin just made a very, very serious miscalculation.’ Kendall argued that Putin ‘severely underestimated the global reaction the invasion of Ukraine would provoke, he severely underestimated the will and courage of the Ukrainian people, and he overestimated the capability of his own military. Perhaps most importantly, he severely underestimated the reaction from both the U.S. and from our friends and allies.’”

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

"Discontent, Discussion, Dissemination: Mounting Grievances in Russia’s Security Services Leading Up to February 24," Emily Ferris, PONARS Eurasia, 03.06.22. The author, a research fellow studying Russia and Eurasia at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, writes:

• “Could it be that Russia’s key security services, designed to restore order and quash protests, are themselves not under control at a time when Putin needs them the most? Since Putin’s resumption of the presidency in 2018, there have been increasing numbers of former and serving security service members that have publicly criticized the government for presiding over abuses of power, violent hazing rituals, and suicides. While in themselves these acts are nothing new, the absence of an official and functional complaints department has resulted in the use of social media to document and amplify these claims.”
• “In April 2019 … a group of veteran OMON officers posted a video to YouTube personally addressing Putin and appealing for his help in increasing their pensions. The officers requested government housing upon completion of their service,  from which they are routinely evicted when they retire. Among others, the video made mention of the officers’ distinguished roles in suppressing protest movements during the 2012 elections, which saw Putin resume the presidency for a third consecutive term in office. But their years of long service apparently counted for little.”
• “The stifling of discontent within the security services, punishments for those who express it, and denials that there is a fundamental problem all suggest that Putin cannot afford to be seen to address these issues. … Amid a new hot war with Ukraine, Putin’s domestic legacy as the guarantor of stability is at risk.”
• “Anti-war demonstrations [sic] across the country are likely to be detained or met with violence from riot police—particularly if the protests take on an anti-Putin tone. However, it would be worth noting any hesitancy on the part of these officers to detain civilians, particularly if some of them share similar sentiments around the war. Most pressingly, if Putin is unable to call on the security services to put down anti-war demonstrations, ensure that the opposition remains weak and fractured, and protect him personally, there is a risk of an uneven transition of power in the years to come.”

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Ukraine:

"Putin’s antagonism toward Ukraine was never just about NATO – it’s about creating a new Russian empire," Emily Channell-Justice, Jacob Lassin, The Conversation, 02.23.22. The authors, director of Harvard’s Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program and a postdoctoral research scholar in Russian and East European Studies at Arizona State University, write:

• "In a speech on Feb. 21, 2022, Putin recognized the occupied territories in Ukraine of Donetsk and Luhansk and moved Russian forces into them. Putin’s speech showed that he has concocted his own view of history and world affairs. In his view, Ukraine’s independence is an anomaly — it’s a state that should not exist. Putin sees his military moves as a way of correcting this divergence. Largely absent from his discussion was his earlier emphatic grievance that an eventual spread of NATO to Ukraine threatens Russia’s security."
• "Many writers have debated how Putin has remained in power for over two decades. While his popular support in Russia has generally been high – especially during high-profile moves such as the annexation of Crimea – what may be more important in facilitating his longevity is this small circle of advisers who tell him what he wants to hear. ... Putin’s echo chamber keeps him insulated from needing to respond to public opinion that might otherwise discourage him from trying to bring Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit by force."
• “One of Putin’s most important ideas is that Ukrainians and Russians are the same, sharing history, cultural traditions and, in many cases, a language. Putin’s claims on Ukraine have made Ukrainians more united in their views of their own country and its European future. Ukrainians also feel more negatively toward Russia than they have in the past, with a sharp drop in pro-Russian attitudes since 2014.”
• “Putin’s anti-NATO rhetoric has also pushed Ukraine’s Western allies toward unity against Russia. These Western countries see a further Russian invasion of Ukraine as a European problem, and many support a NATO response to defend Ukraine. But we’d argue that Putin’s claims that NATO threatens Russia’s security, and that the only way Russia will back down is if NATO promises never to admit Ukraine, is a bait and switch.”
• “Ultimately, Russia’s actions are not caused by fears of NATO expansion. That is merely pretext. Rather, as Putin so clearly laid out on Feb. 21, they are motivated by an antagonism that refuses to recognize the reality of Ukrainian statehood.”

“Making the Most of Foreign Volunteers in Ukraine,” Austin C. Doctor, War On The Rocks, 03.07.22. The author, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, writes:

• “Just days into Russia’s attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the formation of a new military unit, the International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine.”
• “Much like the character of this war, the future of the International Legion remains unclear. It will depend on Ukraine’s leaders and their ability to develop the administrative capacity to quickly process, equip, and transport foreign recruits. The Ukrainian government should work to ensure they join and fight in regular combat units. Foreign volunteers should not be permitted to form or join independent pro-government militias. Ukraine should follow through on its stated intention to formalize the enlistment process as this may help to mitigate some of the downrange risks discussed here. While not a panacea, this can facilitate positive socialization, monitoring, and accountability for recruits with less discipline or nefarious motives.”
• “Ukraine has flung its military open wide to foreigners. As they pour in, the host may find many of their new guests to be capable and committed advocates of their cause. Foreign volunteers stand to offer a much-needed, immediate boost in manpower. But as more arrive and stay for longer, new vulnerabilities and points of friction may emerge.”

"What mobilizes the Ukrainian resistance?" Pippa Norris and Kseniya Kizlova, Harvard Kennedy School/Europpblog, 03.03.22. The authors are a lecturer in comparative politics at HKS and head of the World Values Survey (WVS) Association secretariat. According to their article’s abstract:  

• “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has met with fierce resistance from the Ukrainian military, but [also] from ordinary citizens. Drawing on survey evidence, Pippa Norris and Kseniya Kizilova explain who among the Ukrainian population is willing to fight, and what motivates their decision to take up arms.” 
• “Overall, WVS data suggests that willingness to engage in defending the country prior to the outbreak of war is predicted by strong feelings of Ukrainian nationalism, as many expect. But it is also associated with the endorsement of democratic values among ordinary citizens, controlling for the demographic characteristics of sex and age.” 
• “This is not just rhetoric; feelings of nationalism (our land), as well as the genuine desire to protect democratic freedoms (our rights), fuel activism in the resistance. In Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s words to the European Parliament: ‘Our people are very much motivated, very much so; we are fighting for our rights, for our freedoms, for our life.’” 

"Impacts of Russia's War in Ukraine," Expert Survey, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 03.03.22.

• John Holdren, Co-Director, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program: “Our hearts go out to the Ukrainian people in this time of trial and suffering.  But we should also not forget that the Russian people didn’t vote for this, and many don’t support it. Our good Russian colleagues and collaborators in so many domains of science and international relations deserve our sympathy and support, not isolation and demonization for an abomination not of their making.”
• Mariana Budjeryn, Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom: “Putin’s war against Ukraine is not going to his plan. Five days on, Ukrainian armed forces, territorial defense units, and the general population have mounted fierce resistance against the invading troops. Meanwhile, the West and most of the democratic world closed ranks with Ukraine in an unprecedented show of solidarity and support. Putin, however, cannot be seen as losing a war to Ukraine, a country he seems to deeply despise and is taking incredible risks to subdue. The danger of a bloody escalation remains high. The possibility that Putin would resort to the use of a tactical nuclear weapon or an attack on a Ukrainian nuclear power plant to shock Ukraine into surrender on his terms is no longer inconceivable. We are entering into a very dangerous phase of this war.”
• Rolf Mowatt-Larsen, Senior Fellow and Affiliate, Project on Managing the Atom: “Putin has started a war he cannot win. … Putin’s decision-making is fraught with miscalculation: He overestimated the desire among Ukrainians to rejoin Russia; underestimated their yearning for freedom; failed to grasp the extent to which NATO and the world would unify against him; and most of all, is unable to counter the power of truth in opposing Russian aggression. Even the Russian people will know the awful truth, soon enough.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Russia Swallows Belarus,” The Washington Post editorial board, 03.04.22.

• “For more than two decades, Alexander Lukashenko ping-ponged between Russia and the West, extracting what he could from both sides while ruling Belarus with autocratic fervor and more than a little eccentricity.”
• “Now, Russia has all but swallowed up Belarus to wage a war against Ukraine. For many years, there has been periodic talk about merging Belarus, population 9.4 million, and Russia, both former Soviet republics. But it was mostly just talk until the protests broke out over the election. Mr. Lukashenko reached for a life raft from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who advised him how to suppress the demonstrations and provided aid. Now, Mr. Putin is extracting his tribute.”
• “Recently, both the European Union and the United States have announced new sanctions on Belarusian banks, businesses and officials. But if Mr. Lukashenko is going to enable Russia's misbegotten war, then it is time that U.S. sanctions on his regime match those on Russia, including on all the oligarchs who support Mr. Lukashenko, on the central bank and on Mr. Lukashenko personally.”

“Central Asia’s Muslims and the Taliban,” Andrea Schmitz, German Institute for International Security Affairs (SWP), 03.03.22. The author, a senior associate with SWP's Eastern Europe and Eurasia division, writes:

• “The state authorities in Central Asia are trying to prevent the rise of radical groups’ propaganda by using military, police and educational means. By strengthening military preparedness and securing their countries’ borders, they want to prevent Islamists from entering Central Asian territories. The restrictive refugee policies of Afghanistan’s neighbors are not least due to such fears. Control of the religious scene in the Central Asian states has also become more rigid since the Taliban took power. Since August 2021, there have been more reports of raids and arrests in the Islamist milieu – especially in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. There, authorities are also working on a counter-extremism and counterterrorism action plan, which will initially cover the 2022–2026 period.”
• “Above all, however, the Central Asian governments are employing educational initiatives as a means of preventing ‘Talibanization’ in their own countries. State and religious institutions are required to pool their resources, for example by carrying out educational measures to help immunize the population against extremist ideas. Imams are instructed to conduct educational talks with mosque visitors and to warn the faithful of the dangers posed by extremism and terrorism. In Uzbekistan, imams are supported by additional personnel from the spiritual administration. Under the motto ‘enlightenment against ignorance,’ these professionals are tasked with teaching people about the ‘true Islam’ and protecting them from the threat of extremist indoctrination.”
• “Adherents with radical convictions will certainly not be swayed by such educational measures – and even less so as the extreme positions that the state wants to combat are tolerated, and in some cases even openly propagated by the religious elite. Nevertheless, these dialogue and educational initiatives are still useful if only because they make it possible to monitor the scene. In the long run, this should prove more effective in preventing Islamist-inspired violence than harsh censorship and repression, which leaves no room for ambiguity and also drives even moderate believers underground. The sympathies for the Taliban expressed on social media reveal a trend toward Islamist-inspired identity formation in Central Asia. While this trend may displease some, the pursuit of repressive religious policies will hardly stop it, but merely make it invisible.”