4 Ideas to Explore

1. Even if North Korea does send 10,000+ soldiers to fight against Ukraine, this will not tip the balance of the war in Russia’s favor. They would constitute less than a 1% increase in the Russian fighting forces’ personnel strength in the conflict, in which 600,000 Russian troops are believed to have been killed or wounded, according to FT’s Gideon Rachman as well as to CSIS’s Mark Cancian and Chris Park. However, while not decisive in the outcome of the conflict, this deployment¹ could help Vladimir Putin postpone a second wave of mobilization, which would be unpopular among Russians, according to the two CSIS experts and Olivia Yanchik of the Atlantic Council. As for Kim Jong Un, the benefits he could reap from this deployment² may include the transfer of technology and money for DPRK’s cash-strapped regime, according to Cancian and Park. “This kind of arrangement between rich and poor combatants is not unusual. The United States paid many allied expenses during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” this duo reminds us in their CSIS explainer.
2. Direct U.S.-Russian talks are a “necessary condition for settling” the Russian-Ukrainian war, but they are not sufficient, according to Thomas Graham of Yale. There also has to be a “Kyiv-Moscow bilateral channel” that would tackle “technical issues connected to the end of warfighting,” he writes in NI. In addition, “Europeans will have to be engaged in discussions of the broader issue of European security,” according to Graham. “Washington urgently needs to redefine success in a way that could be achieved at the negotiating table” in what would require “shifting the focus from Ukraine’s territorial integrity to the preservation of an independent and sovereign Ukraine steadily integrating into the Euro-Atlantic community,” according to Graham. Graham believes that this change of focus should be implemented by the next U.S. presidential administration and that “mutually-agreed coexistence” of the U.S. and its allies with Russia “is possible, even if it will be competitive.” According to FT contributing editor Ivan Krastev, not just the U.S., but also the EU “need to take back the initiative in dealing with Russia… The West has outsourced its Russia policy to Ukraine. If Putin believes that Russia is in a war with the West, such outsourcing is self-defeating,” according to Krastev.
3. “Instead of cratering as had been widely predicted with the Western sanctions regime after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine… , the Russian economy is running hot and in danger of overheating,” WP’s Robyn Dixon reports. One reason for that is Russia’s “massive military spending,” she writes in a piece that was published less than a week after the IMF had boosted its 2024 economic growth forecast for Russia. Russia can afford to fund its war on Ukraine for several more years, according to economists interviewed by Dixon. In an effort to cool the economy down, Russia’s Central Bank announced last week that it was raising the key interest rate from 19% to 21%, a level Russian economists Alexandra Prokopenko and Alexander Kolyandr described as “unprecedented” in their commentary for the Bell.
4. The parliamentary elections in the Republic of Georgia on Oct. 26, which its ruling party Georgian Dream claims to have won, were a crucial moment which its pro-European opposition saw “as perhaps the last chance to… put the country back on track towards membership of the EU,” according to the Economist.³ If the result, which the opposition has described as fraudulent and refused to recognize, stands, then “Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin is closer than ever to its goal of creating another client state,” this U.K. newspaper writes. One obvious way that could help to estimate whether there was massive fraud in the poll-casting, would be to ascertain whether these is a significant difference between official results reported by the authorities and the results of pre-election opinion polls conducted by internationally recognized pollsters, such as Pew or Gallup. Our search revealed no recent surveys by either Pew or Gallup on that subject, but we did find one exit poll conducted by Edison Research, which has worked with leading U.S. media outlets such as NBC. This pollster declared on Oct. 26 that its exit polls projected that the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party would win 41% of the vote (67 seats in the 150 seat Parliament), while Georgia’s four opposition parties would win a total of more than 50% of the vote (83 seats). In comparison, the preliminary official results showed the “Russia-appeasing” GD take 54% of the vote, while the four opposition parties took just 38%, according to the Economist.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

“North Korean Troops Deploy to Russia: What’s the Military Effect?” Critical Questions by Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park, CSIS, 10.25.24.

• “[When asked: Why does Russia want North Korean troops involved in its war effort?] Russia is desperate for manpower but wants to avoid a second mobilization, which would involve involuntarily calling up Russian citizens. Russia’s manpower problems have been widely reported. Western assessments estimate that Russia has suffered about 610,000 casualties. U.S. officials estimate that Russia is recruiting 25,000–30,000 new soldiers a month, barely keeping pace with the reported daily casualty rate of 1,000—or 30,000 a month. ... Putin has tried to avoid a second mobilization.”
• “[When asked: What is in this for North Korea?] technology transfer might be involved. Money is likely a factor as well. Russia needs manpower and has money from its oil exports. North Korea has manpower but is desperate for foreign currency. ... This kind of arrangement between rich and poor combatants is not unusual. The United States paid many allied expenses during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
• “This deployment is historic for North Korea, which has previously sent advisory or specialist groups abroad but never a large ground force.”
• “The effectiveness of the North Korean military as a whole is questionable.”
• “Neither Russia nor North Korea has announced what the role of these troops will be. Some have speculated that the troops might engage in deep reconnaissance and direct action for which they were trained (if, indeed, they are from North Korean special forces). However, having these troops fight on the front lines would be a risky strategy. It would make North Korea a direct combatant in the war, something that would be very difficult diplomatically. ... the troops might perform support activities like transportation and maintenance.”
• “[When asked: How much of a military impact will this North Korean deployment have?] This is more than symbolism. These troops will help Russia’s war effort by providing needed military functions and easing manpower shortages. However, their presence at the U.S. reported levels will not be decisive. Russia has an estimated half million troops in Ukraine. Three thousand North Korean troops would constitute less than a 1 percent increase.”

“Ukraine Is Evolving Into a Proxy Battlefield for Korean Peninsula Tensions,” Darcie Draudt-Véjares, CEIP, 10.24.24. 

• “Recent intelligence reports from the United States and its partners indicate the war in Ukraine has entered a hazardous new phase: North Korean troops have arrived in Russia, possibly to train to fight in Ukraine.”
• “These developments point to three critical implications for the global security landscape.”
  • “First, the Russo-North Korean defense treaty signals a fundamental shift in global power dynamics. Although the full terms remain opaque, the partnership has already manifested in significant ways that are just beginning to emerge.”
  • “More concerning is how Ukraine is evolving into an unexpected proxy battlefield for Korean Peninsula tensions. With North Korean KN-23 missiles being deployed (and frequently failing) in Russian attacks and South Korea contemplating its first-ever weapons transfer to an active conflict zone, the Ukrainian theater risks becoming the first direct test of opposing Korean military capabilities since the 1953 Armistice. This development could fundamentally alter the security balance on the Korean Peninsula—especially if North Korea gains combat experience while testing its advanced weapons systems.”
  • “Perhaps most significantly, this alliance signals Russia’s broader strategic pivot toward building an anti-Western coalition. By expanding its orbit to include North Korea (alongside Iran, with potential Chinese alignment), Russia is not merely seeking tactical advantages in Ukraine—it’s attempting to reshape the global security architecture. As Austin warned, this development raises the stakes for potential conflict in multiple theaters. This emerging alliance system challenges post-Cold War security arrangements and risks transforming regional conflicts into broader global confrontations.”
• “As we continue to find more details on the extent and terms of North Korean support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, officials are right to be alarmed due to the risk of expanding the conflict. The United States and its partners need to tread carefully and with long-term strategic clarity, or else risk drawing the Korean Peninsula into a renewed conflict of its own.”

“Crossing the Rubicon: DPRK Sends Troops to Russia. Critical Questions by Victor Cha,” IISS, 10.23.24. 

• “The dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia for the war in Ukraine effectively shows that Kim Jong-un is “all in” in helping Putin win his unjust war.”
• “[When asked: Why is Kim Jong-un doing this now?] Several reasons.”
  • “First, the Ukraine war is not only existential for Putin, it is also the case for Kim.”
  • “Second, DPRK support for Russia’s war allows the military to gain valuable experience with regard to the efficacy of its short-range ballistic missiles, as well as its munitions, although the latter is quite old and, in some cases, inoperative.”
  • “Third, the tactical nature of the DPRK-Russia relationship means that Kim will seek to extract a high price from Putin for sending troops, which is the ultimate sign of alliance support.”
• “Though the number of troops committed by DPRK will be limited, North Korea has effectively crossed the Rubicon. ...North Korea’s decision to send troops to kill Europeans will not easily be forgotten in European capitals.”
• “Although China has been supportive of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the North Korean piece of the puzzle cannot be comforting in the least. For one, China does not like Russia to have so much influence over the North.”

“The west underestimates North Korea at its peril,” Gideon Rachman, FT, 10.28.24.

• “In a war, in which over 600,000 Russian troops are believed to have been killed or wounded, the arrival of 10,000 or so North Korean special forces would be unlikely to tip the balance. But the country has 1.3mn active military personnel, the fourth largest force in the world. The bulk of those are ill-trained and ill-equipped recruits. But Putin could always use more cannon fodder for his “meat-grinder” offensives.”
• “And what is in it for Kim? Current speculation centers on technology transfer and money from Russia. But the North Korean leader may also be looking ahead to a possible future conflict on the Korean peninsula. If he backs Russia in a European war, might Russia one day return the favor in an Asian conflict?”
• “All of this poses very difficult questions for the US, the EU and South Korea. They have all sought to avoid escalation, both in Ukraine and on the Korean peninsula. But they may soon face a choice. Allow Russia to defeat Ukraine with North Korean assistance — and then contemplate the changed security picture in Europe and Asia. Or sharply increase their own support for Ukraine and their willingness to take risks in confronting an axis of adversaries.”

For more commentary on this subject, see: 

• “North Korean troops could help Putin avoid a risky Russian mobilization,” Olivia Yanchik, Atlantic Council, 10.24.24. 

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

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

“Ukraine Is Striking Deeper Inside Russia—and Reshaping the War; Restrictions on American missiles remain, but Kyiv has leveraged its own drone attacks to inflict growing pain across Russia,” Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, 10.26.24. 

• “Several times over the past three months, swarms of as many as 150 Ukrainian drones flew hundreds of miles into Russia, slamming into missile storage facilities, strategic fuel reservoirs, military airfields and defense plants. Once considered exceptional, these deep strikes now barely register in the news. Yet, Ukrainian officials and some of their Western backers increasingly see the pain that long-range attacks inflict as a game-changer that could force President Vladimir Putin into negotiating an acceptable peace.”
• “'Our capacity to return the war back to its home, to Russia, is what fundamentally alters the situation,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after one such attack last month. The attack, according to open-source intelligence analysts, destroyed some 58 warehouses and a railway terminal at an artillery and rocket arsenal northwest of Moscow. After meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week, Zelensky said Washington is readying an $800 million package to fund Ukrainian drone production.”
• “So far, Ukraine's long-range strikes—which have reached all the way to Russia's Arctic shores in the north and areas bordering Kazakhstan in the east—have been executed with domestically produced weapons. In addition to drones, Kyiv has also targeted Russia with Ukrainian-made Neptune cruise missiles, although in much smaller numbers. Zelensky recently said that Kyiv has developed ballistic missiles, but they don't appear to have been used yet.”
• “Though not as potent or fast as ATACMS or Storm Shadow, Ukraine's own long-range weapons have steadily increased in reach and power, turning from nuisance to a strategic lever in the war that is approaching a three-year mark. This development is a major shift from the first year of the war, when Russia pummeled military and civilian targets across Ukraine with drones and missiles without having to fear a significant response at home.”
• “'When Russia alone had the capacity to hit the logistics and military infrastructure in depth, while Ukraine was limited to hitting only front-line targets, it represented a huge asymmetry to Russia's benefit," said Mykola Bielieskov, a fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, a government think tank in Kyiv. 'So now we are showing our capabilities with rather effective strikes. The dynamic works in our favor because those who launch strikes hold the initiative, and Russia has a hard time defending its vast territory.'”
• “Serhiy Sternenko, a Ukrainian fundraiser who is providing drones to the military, pointed out that Western sanctions on Russian oil exports aren't being properly enforced, and that oil sales to nations such as India provide Putin with critical funds for the war. Ukrainian strikes on Russian crude export terminals could be considered another form of economic sanctions, he said. 'It's a war of survival for Ukraine,' Sternenko said. 'We have to destroy everything that helps the enemy to continue the war against Ukraine.'”

“Assessing Russian Firepower Strikes in Ukraine,” CSIS, 10.23.24. 

• “Maintaining an average of over 23 missiles launched daily over nearly two years demonstrates a high level of sustained military capability in Moscow and logistical support from countries like Iran, North Korea, and China. The United States and its partners need to do more to curb the ability of these regimes to replenish Russia’s arsenal.”
• “An overall intercept rate of 79.8 percent suggests effective defense mechanisms in place, potentially involving advanced missile defense systems capable of neutralizing a significant portion of incoming threats. Keeping this intercept rate high will require continued Western support for Ukraine.”
• “The 17 days with launches exceeding 82 missiles likely correspond to key strategic offensives or responses to specific events on the battlefield, signaling moments of heightened conflict intensity. A key intelligence task will be to develop indicators and warnings of larger salvos.”

Military aid to Ukraine:

“Europe's pledge to Ukraine tested by Trump, politics, public fatigue,” Ellen Francis, WP, 10.27.24. 

• “The White House announced Wednesday that the Group of Seven wealthy countries is committed to giving Ukraine $50 billion in loans, backed by windfall profits from frozen Russian assets. Finalizing the hefty loan before the end of the year has been part of an effort to "Trump proof" aid ahead of the U.S. election. But even as they vow continued funding and weapons for Kyiv, leaders in Europe are apprehensive that a second Donald Trump presidency could fracture alliances.”
• “They are also contending with internal forces that could jeopardize their security commitments to Ukraine. More than two and a half years into Russia's war, public fatigue risks taking hold in some countries. Some European leaders are now in politically precarious positions and more constrained in what they can do. And across the continent, parties from the hard right to the hard left are pushing narratives against sending cash or arms.”
• “What Trump might do about the war in Ukraine is among the open questions. He has said he wants to help Ukrainians, 'because I feel badly for those people.' But in the same breath, he blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the conflict and declared, 'That war's a loser.'”
• “To establish greater certainty, European policymakers have started bringing control of key elements of military aid for Ukraine under NATO command, even as they recognize that U.S. dominance at NATO, and the mammoth U.S. share of funding for Ukraine, means there’s little they could do if a new U.S. president pulls the plug.”
• “There are signs that public commitment may be flagging in parts of Europe. While majorities in many Europeans countries still in favor weapons delivery to Ukraine, that support has weakened over time, according to multiple public opinion surveys. Within Germany — Kyiv's second biggest military backer after the United States — the portion of people saying financial support for Ukraine is too high nearly doubled, from 21 percent in the early weeks of the war to 41 percent early this year, pollster Infratest Dimap found.”

“Why the U.S. Is Losing Ukraine,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr, WSJ, 10.25.24.

• “A new strategy is needed. The U.S., U.K., Poland and others should invest directly in Ukraine's military rather than trying to substitute for it. The solution for Ukraine -- helping Kyiv develop the military power and confidence to defend itself -- is the long-term solution for NATO too.”
• “But another lesson matters as long as the U.S. remains a guarantor of other countries' security. Mr. Trump likes to brag that Russia would never have invaded if he were still in office. But the truth is, any U.S. president, including Mr. Biden, has powers at his disposal to make the potential cost unacceptable to offenders like Mr. Putin. Such deterrence is credible, though, only when U.S. presidents are willing to accept the risks that go with it.”

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

“Why do the US and its allies want to seize Russian reserves to aid Ukraine?” Sam Boocker, Alexander Conner and David Wessel, Brookings, 10.25.24.

• “After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s foreign exchange reserves held by the U.S. and its allies were frozen. Since then, some officials and commentators have proposed seizing those assets, which amount to nearly $300 billion, and using the proceeds to defend and rebuild Ukraine. Russian reserves could provide Ukrainians much-needed support as the war drags into its third year. This policy is not without risk or controversy: Seizing foreign exchange reserves has little economic or legal precedent and uncertain long-run effects.”
  • “Advocates for seizure argue that Russia’s assets can be seized under the international law of countermeasures, which provides nations a pathway to implement certain otherwise unlawful remedies in proportional response to the unlawful actions of another state. But many officials and legal scholars argue that there is no precedent, and asset seizure is inconsistent with conventional understandings of how countermeasures should operate, including that they be reversible and primarily implemented by directly affected states.”
  • “Furthermore, reserves generally receive the strongest sovereign immunity protections; nations need confidence that their property rights will be honored under international law to participate in the global economy. Russia’s abhorrent, unlawful aggression in Ukraine may well disqualify them from enjoying reserve protections, but many nations will wonder what exactly the limits are if seizure becomes permissible. University of Virginia Professor Paul Stephan argues that “a transparent violation of a category of rules that the U.S. normally supports, simply because compliance would frustrate an immediate sense of justice, undermines the ability to use international law to shape a more peaceful and prosperous world.” Russia is already planning to challenge any seizure in national and international courts.”
  • “Russian officials have promised retaliatory asset seizures if the U.S. and allies send reserves to Ukraine. Russian state media reports that the Kremlin has identified roughly $290 billion in U.S. and allied assets in Russia.”
  • “Seizing Russian reserves could also pose long-term risks to the U.S.- and European-led global financial system. States, fearing the security of their dollar- or euro-denominated assets, may shift their reserves out of U.S. and allied jurisdictions and into alternate currencies, such as the Chinese renminbi.”

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

“America Must Lead Negotiations to End The Ukraine War,” Thomas Graham, NI, 10.21.24.

• “Direct U.S.-Russian talks are ... a necessary condition for settling the conflict. However, they are not a sufficient one.  Any negotiations need to be embedded in a broader network of talks that include variable configurations of countries working on specific issues associated with the conflict.”
  • “A Kyiv-Moscow bilateral channel, for example, is imperative for working out technical issues connected to the end of warfighting, such as the exchange of prisoners of war and the management of the line of contact separating the belligerents in Ukraine.”
  • “Europeans will have to be engaged in discussions of the broader issue of European security, including possible arms control agreements to ease tension along the NATO-Russia frontier, which now extends from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea.”
• “All these negotiations will proceed at different paces. The challenge will be to keep them moving in the same direction. Here, the U.S. role will also be critical. It is the country best suited to coordinate the positions of the West and Ukraine, as it plays a central role in all dealings with Moscow.”
• “Absent a U.S. willingness to lead and deal with Russia directly, the war of attrition will continue, with the cost to Ukraine in lives and property, and likely territory, only mounting. Given the stakes, Washington urgently needs to redefine success in a way that could be achieved at the negotiating table.”
• “That would almost assuredly entail shifting the focus from Ukraine’s territorial integrity to the preservation of an independent and sovereign Ukraine steadily integrating into the Euro-Atlantic community, which is achievable even if Ukraine loses land to Russia. Importantly, that would thwart Russia’s strategic design to subjugate all of Ukraine. The victory would, of course, be far from complete, but partial success, not losing, is not a small thing in any major war.”
• “This reassessment is not something the current administration can credibly undertake in its waning months. But it is a task the next administration should take up in earnest, that is, if it wants to show that it is a leader that can end the war with at least a partial success for Ukraine and the West.”

“The west only listens to what it wants to hear from Moscow,” Ivan Krastev, FT, 10.24.24. 

• “'A bit like talking to a mirror' is how diplomatic historian Sergey Radchenko describes Nikita Khrushchev’s preparation for negotiating with Dwight Eisenhower following the death of Joseph Stalin. ... I can detect a version of 'talking to a mirror' in the west’s approach towards Moscow today. We listen only in order to hear what we want to hear, namely that Putin wants to negotiate the end of the conflict in Ukraine. But does he?”
• “There are at least four factors which make the situation unpredictable.”
  • “First, when it comes to the outcome of the war, Russia and Ukraine are in markedly different situations. At present, the Kremlin is convinced that Russia is winning on the battlefield. ... Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, by contrast, is in a precarious situation. Ukraine’s military setbacks have weakened his political support. Ukrainians want the war to end as soon as possible but are still not ready to trade land for peace.”
  • “Second, many of those who prattle on about negotiations assume they know what Russian President Vladimir Putin wants and what he is ready to concede.....The problem is that no western leader has a firm grasp on Putin’s current motivations. The prewar Putin and today’s Putin are as different as the Stalin of 1940 was to the Stalin of 1944.”
  • “Third, Russia’s objectives have changed over time....Putin will not tolerate any US president, even his old friend Trump, playing the role of heroic peacemaker. Peace has to be a Russian victory. Fracturing Nato is one of Moscow’s war objectives.”
  • “The fourth difficulty is that neither the US nor the EU has a long-term Russia strategy.”
• “The west has outsourced its Russia policy to Ukraine. If Putin believes that Russia is in a war with the west, such outsourcing is self-defeating. US and European leaders need to take back the initiative in dealing with Russia. Any meaningful negotiations will not only be about Ukraine but the future of the European order. As the old Russian proverb goes: “If you invite a bear to dance, it’s not you who decides when the dance is over, it’s the bear.”

“‘They're starting to get smart and realistic,’” Tatiana Stanovaya, R.Politik Weekly Digest No. 37 (51) 2024, 10.27.24. Clues from Russian Views

• “During a press conference in Kazan, President Putin acknowledged that Turkey had informed Moscow a month before about new de-escalation proposals from Kyiv, which Moscow initially indicated it was open to considering. However, Ukraine reportedly withdrew the proposal the following day, with President Zelensky then presenting his “victory plan” and leaving Russia uncertain about Ukraine’s intentions. Putin reiterated that Russia remains  open to negotiations, contingent on Ukraine’s acceptance  of the “reality on the ground”, and stressed that any next steps are Kyiv's to take.”
• “Putin's remarks also revealed Russia's concerns about the escalating naval conflict in the Black Sea. ... This has increased international concerns over grain shipping disruptions.   In an interview with Olga Skabeyeva, Putin said that Turkey’s Erdogan, at the Kazan summit, suggested revisiting discussions on Black Sea navigation safety and “other issues”. The topic was also raised by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in Kazan, who conveyed Turkey's new proposals on safe navigation in the Black Sea to Putin.”
• “Putin indicated that Moscow would take time to consider these suggestions. “Today, however, the [Western] rhetoric has already changed; we see it, and, as I said, we can only praise them for this—for starting to think and really assess the situation,” Putin stressed. But he also emphasized that Russia's position will not allow any concessions and will remain firm: “Ukraine and its Western allies had better not dream that Russia would make any concessions against the interests of the country. There will be no freeze favorable to the West. Only a full-fledged settlement in Russia's favor.”
• “Putin’s recent statements hint at Moscow’s increased sensitivity to potential de-escalation measures, particularly those that might be seen as a way of reducing Ukraine’s offensive operations. However, they also betray Putin’s impatience and the urgency with which he wants a more flexible, "pragmatic" approach from the West, while keeping Russia’s own position unchanged.”

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

“NATO vs. Russia: How to Ensure Conflict Is Avoided,” Thomas Graham, NI, 10.23.24.

• “Being a great power lies at the center of Russian national identity. Even when Russia was weak compared to its rivals, Russian leaders continued to believe that their country was a great power, just one temporarily down on its luck. They did what they could to reassert Russia’s prerogatives as a great power on the world stage. This is exactly what Vladimir Putin did after he rose to power a quarter century ago at a time of economic collapse and political disarray in Russia. He has done that in large part by resisting what he sees as a U.S.-led effort to erode the foundations of Russian power.”
• “For that reason, the outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine, whether it is a win or loss, is unlikely to cause Putin, or his successors, to abandon his strategic ambitions, although he might adjust his tactics.  Three developments that could change that assessment: a democratic breakthrough, the breakup of Russia, or its economic collapse. These are all remote possibilities.   Rather, Russia will likely remain a recognizable version of its historical self: authoritarian in domestic political structure, expansionist in foreign-policy impulse, economically and technologically lagging behind the world’s leading powers, yet determined to play the role of a great power. It will retain formidable assets to advance its goals, including one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, significant space and cyber capabilities, the world’s largest endowment of natural resources, and a veto-wielding permanent seat on the UN Security Council.  As a result, Russia will remain a serious challenge to the United States and NATO.”
• “The inevitable tension [between Russia and West] does not, however, doom the United States and NATO to an intense adversarial relationship with Russia, forever teetering on the brink of direct military confrontation. Mutually-agreed coexistence is possible, even if it will be competitive. Achieving that end-state will require the United States and NATO to balance deterrence and diplomacy, containment and engagement, in their Russia policy.”
  • “While maintaining a strong deterrent posture, NATO members should restore normal diplomatic relations with Russia to engage in shared interests, such as climate change, and manage ongoing disputes over, for example, security arrangements.”
  • “NATO members should gradually ease sanctions to permit the restoration of mutually beneficial commercial activity and people-to-people exchanges. They should even allow Russia to reenter energy markets, as long as guardrails against excessive dependence are put in place.”
  • “Further, NATO members should pursue arms control measures, akin to those signed as the Cold War faded away, to ease tensions along the frontier.”
• “This end-state is far from the ideal of strategic partnership that enticed Western and Russian leaders as the Cold War ended. But it is perhaps the best possible outcome in the world of intensely competing global and regional powers that is rapidly emerging.”       

“Trump II: the military threat to Europe,” Simon Kuper, FT, 10.24.24. 

• “The 80-year-old Pax Americana in Europe might expire next month. There’s a 50-50 chance that Donald Trump is elected president and, let’s say, a 50-50 chance that he abandons the protection of Europe, just as Ukraine runs out of soldiers. He needn’t even bother leaving Nato. He could just let it go dormant. That means a 25 per cent chance of Europe facing its worst military threat since 1945.”
• “For years, think-tanks published reports telling European states to get ready to fight alone, but the Europeans didn’t. Even the possible imminency of Trump II hasn’t concentrated minds. The trouble is, Nato members cannot realistically plan for a future without the US, given that there is no Nato without the US.”
• “Now Europe’s two main military powers, the UK and France, have budget crises, while Germany’s economic outlook is scary. None feels much pressure from voters to save Ukraine, so they haven’t.”
• “What could Russia do after beating Ukraine? Steven Everts, director of the EU Institute for Security Studies, says Putin might pursue “the holy grail of Russian foreign policy” by testing whether Nato’s promise of mutual self-defense is real. Putin could do this by attacking a Nato member, probably a Baltic state, claiming to be protecting ethnic Russians there, as he did in Georgia and Ukraine.”
• “Europeans united could have defeated a country that has the GDP of Italy. But war is a contest of wills. And so, writes Everts, Europe “has subcontracted its fate to a handful of voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”

“Putin's Rising Price for Peace in Ukraine,” Walter Russell Mead, WSJ, 10.22.24.

• “When German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded Joe Biden the Grand Cross special class of the German Order of Merit in Bellevue Palace here last week, it was a moment of vindication for the beleaguered American president. The only other American so honored was George H.W. Bush, who supported German unification at the end of the Cold War against objections from Russia, Britain and France.”
• “But there's a fly in the ointment. Mr. Steinmeier went on to say, "And then, only a year later, came Putin's war. When Putin invaded Ukraine, he didn't just go after one country. He attacked the very principles of peace in Europe." As Mr. Steinmeier conspicuously did not say but undoubtedly knows, some 32 months in, Russia is winning. Despite draconian sanctions, a hobbled economy, a corrupt state, and poorly trained officers and troops, Mr. Putin's forces are driving Ukraine's army back step by step while Russian air attacks cripple Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, pro-Russia parties are expanding across the former East Germany, and a chorus of American voices are demanding an end to U.S. support for Ukraine.”
• “Most Western observers now believe Mr. Putin's hold on his country is rock solid.”
• “Mr. Putin, unfortunately, isn't in the business of offering easy off-ramps. Sensing Western war-weariness and Ukrainian weakness, he will probably demand a high price for peace. His territorial demands will likely be large. And letting Ukraine join NATO is not on his to-do list. There are three things Mr. Putin wants from the war: as much of Ukraine's territory and population as he can conquer, Russian vetoes over the foreign and economic policy of what is left of Ukraine after the war, and a substantial weakening of both NATO and the EU. Although the costs are high, every day of the war brings Mr. Putin closer to all three objectives.”
• “These are hard truths that neither Team Biden nor Team Scholz wants to face -- and to which they have no realistic response. Mr. Biden is welcome to his Order of Merit, but as he prepares to leave office, the partnership between Germany and the U.S. is failing its most important test since the presidency of George H.W. Bush.”

“Biden has a 76-day window after the election to get Ukraine right,” Lee Hockstader, WP, 10.23.24.

• “Biden will remain in office for 76 days after the election — a lame duck, but not an impotent one. On Ukraine, he'd be wise to use the interregnum as an opportunity to turn the tables on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in a war tilting in Russia's direction.”
• “Biden could immediately authorize Kyiv to unleash long-range strikes using U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, deep inside Russian territory.”
• “Putin's saber-rattling has proved empty so far, and Biden could justify that move now on several reasonable grounds.”
  • “He could cite Moscow's scorched-earth campaign to destroy Ukrainian power plants and other civilian targets, which provides a legal and moral basis for Kyiv to defend itself.”
  • “Biden could also point to Putin's intensifying hybrid offensive on NATO territory — a concerted strategy featuring sabotage, drone incursions, assassination plots and electronic jamming of civilian aviation in Europe.”
• “Even a small shift in momentum in Ukraine's favor could help prevent Trump from trying to force Kyiv to submit to Moscow's writ.”
• “Now consider what Biden could do to assist Ukraine if Harris wins — and help her in the bargain. Critically, he could at last align the United States with NATO allies who favor granting Kyiv a formal invitation to join the alliance. ....In coordination with the alliance, she [Harris] would need to hammer out terms for defending the non-occupied territory of a new member state whose borders have been breached by Russia. No small task, but it would further incentivize European members to pump up defense spending and capabilities, the only credible deterrence to future Russian aggression.”

“A Western Victory Plan for Ukraine. Lofty rhetoric can’t hide the lack of serious thinking about what a credible victory would entail,” Robin Niblett, FP, 10.25.24. 

• “A Western definition of victory should be simple, and it should tally closely with Kyiv’s. Ukraine must remain a sustainably sovereign democracy with the right to the European future its citizens are fighting for—and which Putin is determined to deny them. A successful Ukraine must also have credible defenses against a long-term Russian threat. This outcome can be achieved without Ukraine recovering 100 percent of its sovereign territory militarily now.”
• “But the most important prerequisite for this sort of victory is stopping the Russian advance. To help Ukraine achieve this, its allies should follow one simple principle: The more Russian forces advance, the more meaningful their military support will be. On this basis, at a minimum, the United States should immediately give Ukraine the green light to use Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles against Russian forces involved in efforts to seize more Ukrainian territory, even if they are located deep inside Russia. This would include fuel and ammunition depots, as well as key transportation infrastructure and logistical hubs serving the frontline.”
• “As a demonstration of political will, a coalition of European governments—those possessing the requisite popular and political support—should also send small numbers of noncombat troops into Ukraine. These would be away from the front line, but close enough to deliver more efficient training to Ukrainian forces, better logistical support, and faster equipment repairs. And if Russia sustains its attacks on Ukrainian civilian and industrial infrastructure, its allies should use their own forces, whether based inside NATO territory or inside Ukraine, to help Ukraine destroy Russian drones and missiles flying over its sovereign territory.”
• “If its allies do not step forward now with a sense of the victory they want—and how they will achieve and uphold it—Ukraine’s agony will not only continue, but it might also get worse. And tragically, it could all be for naught.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Missile defense:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Nuclear arms:

“How the fog of war in Ukraine increases the risk of escalation,” Stephen J. Cimbala and Lawrence J. Korb, BAS, 10.25.24.

• “The controversy surrounding Ukrainian demands for permission to use NATO long-range missiles for attacks deeper into Russia poses a major risk of escalation. Likewise, changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine as the war continues—and its interpretation by Western allies—could make a nuclear first use more likely. Finally, non-nuclear forms of expansion of the war—whether they have already occurred or not—could pose significant challenges in moving toward de-escalation and an eventual peace agreement.”
• “For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin again warned in early September that allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles provided by NATO to attack targets deeper into Russia would redefine the political character of the war. “This will mean that NATO countries—the United States and European countries—are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
• “Putin’s concern, therefore, might be that the capabilities of the most advanced versions of Storm Shadow and similar missiles would enable more devastating attacks against Russian air bases and command facilities as well as critical infrastructure deeper into Russia’s mainland. According to Simon Saradzhyan, the founding director of the Russian Matters Project at Harvard University: “It is the damage that Storm Shadows and Scalps could cause to Russia’s military-political infrastructure, as well as to the Kremlin’s efforts to make sure the war stays in the background of most Russians’ lives so that they remain content with his rule, that may cross Putin’s red line, triggering his ‘appropriate’ response to NATO countries.”
• “The first mistaken assumption deals with the view of experts and officials in Western allies that there is no upper limit to NATO-supported Ukrainian attacks into Russian territory with conventional weapons without producing a nuclear response from Russia. In short, Russia has no red line. The second erroneous assumption, widely held among an “active political and expert lobby of fans of nuclear weapons” in Russia, Arbatov suggests, is that a very selective use of nuclear weapons by Russia will not be followed by a major war with NATO.”
• “The prevailing assumption in many discussions about the expansion of the war in Ukraine is that it would necessarily be a vertical escalation… But… either side might resort to horizontal escalation… when one or both parties to a war extend military actions or capacity for coercive bargaining and deterrence into another country or territory. Russia has already done this once by deploying some of its military forces into Belarus, including nuclear-capable tactical launch systems. From Russia’s standpoint, NATO’s extension of its membership, which now includes Sweden and Finland, might be considered a form of horizontal escalation, especially given Finland’s elongated border with Russia.”
• “The war could also expand through other forms, including disinformation. Technological competition also constitutes a form of possible war expansion in Ukraine. Finally, the expansion of the war could take a moral-ethical form over right and wrong, and the symbolism attached to states’ behavior as consistent or inconsistent with international law and human decency. Russia’s indiscriminate destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, and Putin’s claims that Ukraine is not a real country or a distinct civilization, have conceded the high ground of human rights to Ukraine and Zelensky.”

Conclusion of “Evaluating Current Arms-control Proposals: Perspectives from the US, Russia and China,” Amy F. Woolf,  Dr Nikolai Sokov and Dai Huaicheng, IISS, October 2024. 

• “As the authors in this research report make clear, the United States, Russia and China are talking past one another, if they are talking at all. Each country’s apparent position on pursuing new arms-control agreements is untenable or unacceptable in the eyes of one or both of the other two. Progress, for now, is moribund.”
• “As the clock runs down on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), any kind of binding follow-on between Moscow and Washington is almost certainly beyond reach. The lack of any restrictions on the size of Russia’s and the United States’ strategic forces will raise questions about what other possibilities are available in the absence of a treaty.”
  • “A less ambitious but more feasible approach may be for Russia and the US to explore bilateral or unilateral pledges: to remain within New START’s central limitations on launchers and war-heads or to resume sharing data on their nuclear forces.”
  • “Moscow and Washington could also potentially shift their dialogue to discussions around risk-reduction and confidence-building measures.”
• “While in principle the prospect of replacing or continuing some elements of New START has support in Beijing and possibly partial support in Moscow, implementing even these fairly straightforward ideas will face significant challenges given Russia and the United States’ adversarial relation-ship and their diminished political will.”
• “Similarly, Russian overtures for a moratorium on the deployment of Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF)-class weapons in Europe, albeit mostly insincere, have been dismissed by the US.”
  • “Washington and Berlin have agreed to the episodic deployment of US conventionally armed INF-class weapons in Germany from 2026. Russia will almost certainly respond in kind with the development of new ground-launched systems while China will almost certainly continue to criticize US ground-launched-missile deployments.”
• “China continues to advocate for Russia and the US to find a route beyond New START, while lamenting the collapse of the INF and absenting itself from any arms-control negotiations. Its idea of negotiating a treaty or issuing a political statement on the mutual no-first-use of nuclear weapons by the P5 nuclear-weapons states has been endorsed by neither Russia nor the US, albeit for different reasons.”
  • “For Washington, China’s proposal lacks credibility because of the absence of verification mechanisms and because it does nothing to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the P5 countries’ national-security strategies or increase transparency of their force postures.”
  • “Moscow will probably attempt to explain privately to Beijing why it cannot support such an agreement at this time, and to do so in a way that avoids giving offence, bearing in mind its increasing reliance on China in its confrontation with the West. Instead, Moscow will probably seek to shift the blame onto the US while keeping open the prospect that it could join such an agreement at a later time.”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• "Putin, Kim and Xi Aren’t Just Bluffing With Their Nukes," Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg, 10.28.24.

Counterterrorism:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Cyber security/AI: 

“Battles of Precise Mass: Technology Is Remaking War—and America Must Adapt,” Michael C. Horowitz, FA, 10.22.24.

Energy exports from CIS:

"Europe Can't Kick Its Addiction to Russian Natural Gas," Javier Blas, Bloomberg, 10.23.24.

• “It must rank among the most preposterous examples of realpolitik. Nearly three years since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Europe is still buying billions of euros of Russian natural gas. Absurdly, the Russian gas flows into the continent via a Ukrainian pipeline. Perhaps even more ludicrously, Kyiv charges its archenemy Moscow transit fees for using the conduit; in the middle of the war, the Kremlin duly pays the €800-million-a-year invoice.”
• “The Kafkaesque flow, defying perceived political realities, is a sign of how Europe can’t live without Russian gas. Don’t say it too loudly, though, because nobody wants to hear it.”
• “True, Europe is far less dependent on Russia than it once was. Before the war, the latter contributed 45% of European gas imports; last year, its market share plunged to 15%.Worryingly, not only has the reduction ended, but dependence is now increasing slightly. Year-to-date, Russia has about 20% of all European gas imports.”
• “Europe’s options are limited. There is, to be sure, an argument in favor of continuing Russian gas purchases. The continent’s dependency is far less than it was before the war, and thus Moscow can’t wield its energy weapon with the same effectiveness as it once did. The money involved is less than before, too, reducing the help the Kremlin gets. The cost of cutting usage to zero right now is too high: Prices would surge. Economically and politically, that sounds about right. Morally, it is, of course, repugnant.”
• “What else is possible? Lowering European demand is difficult. Industrial consumption is rock-bottom, and it’s coming at a heavy cost of hurting manufacturing activity in the region — perhaps forever. European politicians could incentivize regional supply, but here the opposite is happening. While Europe still buys Russian output, most regional politicians are busy attacking the North Sea gas industry. In any case, domestic supply won’t help this winter, as it takes time. The same goes for more renewables. So if Europe wants to keep prices in check, it must pay the moral price. It does stink — but so does war. At the very least, politicians should acknowledge it.”

Climate change:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“What's a little covert war among friends?” David Ignatius, WP, 10.25.24. 

• “This is no Russia hoax. As Election Day nears, former president Donald Trump bizarrely continues to flatter a Kremlin leader who intelligence officials report is waging an escalating covert campaign against the United States and its European allies.”
• “The Russians aren't just pushing disinformation this time. They're allegedly running a network of saboteurs that seeks to punish supporters of Ukraine by sending exploding packages through DHL couriers, going after targets in half a dozen European countries and even threatening to assassinate the head of a German arms company.”
• “Yet Trump continues to laud his friendly relationship with Vladimir Putin and blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.”
• “Meanwhile, NATO is facing a punishing string of covert acts of war that lie just below the threshold requiring a military response.”
• “Ken McCallum, director of Britain's MI5 domestic security service, gave a threat briefing this month warning of clandestine operations by Putin and the GRU, Russia's military intelligence arm. The GRU is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets.”
• “CNN reported in July that Russia even plotted to assassinate the chief executive of Rheinmetall, a German company producing 155mm artillery shells and other military gear for Ukraine.”
• “NATO officials, including Jens Stoltenberg, warn that these actions are part of a pattern, part of an ongoing Russian campaign aiming to intimidate allies from supporting Ukraine.”

“‘His Loyalty Is Not Necessarily to the United States’: Fiona Hill Explains Trump, Musk and Why They Both Talk to Putin,” Fiona Hill’s interview to Maura Reynolds’  Politico, 10.28.24.

• “President Trump always wants to stress that he has a great relationship with Putin. He’s also been very quick to say that talking to Putin would be a wise thing from his perspective, because he believes that being able to talk to the most powerful people on the planet is an asset, not a liability. Well, that would hold true if it weren’t for the fact that the United States is in an adversarial relationship with Russia. And, very sadly, we know through historical precedent and recent practice that just having a good relationship with the top leader of a country doesn’t always result in the good outcomes you’d want to see. Putin has made it clear that he personally considers that Russia is actually at war with the United States.”
• “Putin has made his interest in the United States crystal clear. He talks about it all the time. What he wants is the weakening of the United States. He wants the United States out of international affairs. And one could assume that if he is having conversations with President Trump, what Putin is trying to do is push his preferences, his interest in exerting Russian power and engaging in his own power plays.”
• “[Elon] Musk is something that we’ve never really seen before. ...He’s on track to become the world’s first trillionaire. His personal wealth is about the same as a medium-sized country. His bonuses are on the scale of the defense budgets of a whole host of countries. So not only is Musk trying to bankroll Trump’s reelection, but he’s talking to Putin. He’s talking to people in China and elsewhere. Musk has global business interests. He’s part of a rich and powerful class of people who see themselves as global peers..... Musk is hoping to actually own the state.”
• “Getting back to where we started, about Trump talking to Putin, or Musk talking to Putin — these are guys who see themselves in the same class of the rich and powerful, who transact with each other, and the result is a breaking down of the international system. Everybody’s vying for their position, and it’s all about making transactions.”

“Russia Could Stoke Unrest After Election, Officials Say,” Steven Lee Myers and Julian E. Barnes, NYT, 10.22.24.

• “Foreign powers including Russia and Iran could move quickly right after the vote to undermine the democratic process, intelligence agencies warn. Russia is considering actions to stoke protests and even violence over the U.S. election results, intelligence officials said on Tuesday, as foreign powers appear to be moving aggressively to undermine the democratic process during what is already expected to be a contentious vote count.”
• “Russia, along with Iran and China, has already sought to influence the election through myriad efforts to spread disinformation. The officials said new intelligence showed that Moscow had created and spread a staged video falsely accusing Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, of sexual misconduct. The video, which was quickly debunked, is the latest in a series of false narratives that Russian operatives have fabricated this year.”
• “With the election two weeks away, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, along with the F.B.I. and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, raised new warnings about the post-election period, arguing that Russia and Iran were considering stoking and amplifying domestic unrest. The intelligence agencies said in a report that they expected ''foreign actors to continue to conduct influence operations through inauguration, denigrating U.S. democracy, including by calling into question the results of the election.''
• “Intelligence officials raised concerns about the post-election period in a classified document prepared earlier this month. The director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, declassified it last week and released a partially redacted version on Tuesday. Since the assessment was completed, new intelligence has highlighted Russia's intentions to encourage protests and violence, especially if former President Donald J. Trump loses to Vice President Kamala Harris, the officials said.”
• “American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia has sought to bolster the re-election effort of Mr. Trump and would act more aggressively after Nov. 5 if Ms. Harris wins. The intelligence report noted that Russian influence campaigns had pivoted their efforts to disparage President Biden to Ms. Harris after he announced he would not run, pushing ''conspiracy theories about her elevation to the top of the ticket.'' The agencies say that Iran has favored Ms. Harris, while China has not taken a specific stance on the presidential race, focusing its efforts on state and local races of candidates considered more favorable to China's positions.”

“The Populist Phantom: Threats to Democracy Start at the Top,” Larry M. Bartels, FA, 10.22.24.

For more commentary on this subject, see: 

• “Look Abroad, Presidential Candidates,” Dan Quayle, WSJ, 10.21.24.
• “Trump and Putin need each other,” Colbert I. King, WP, 10.25.24.
• "Can We Spot Foreign Meddling in Our Elections?” Hannah Jocelyn, New Yorker, 10.23.24. 

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Russian economy overheating, but still powering the war against Ukraine,” Robyn Dixon, WP, 10.27.24. 

• “In Siberia, there are not enough men to drive the buses. On Russian farms, milkmaids are commanding wages similar to those of IT workers, while hotels struggle to hire waiters, cleaners and cooks. Instead of cratering as had been widely predicted with the Western sanctions regime after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian economy is running hot and in danger of overheating.”
• “Massive military spending including high payments to soldiers has fueled economic growth, as well as high wages and inflation, as companies are forced to match military salaries to attract workers. Russia can afford to fund its war on Ukraine for several more years, according to economists, because of massive oil revenue and Western sanctions failures, particularly the oil price cap put in place by the Group of Seven nations, which has failed to squeeze Russia's oil income.”
• “The economy is overheating partly because of President Vladimir Putin's need to replace the 20,000 soldiers killed or wounded monthly, according to losses reported by the Institute for the Study of War in June. Russian regional governors are paying unheard of sign-up bonuses to attract soldiers, with Belgorod recently breaking the record with a $31,200 bonus.”
• “The result is nearly full employment in Russia and skyrocketing wages. The economy's labor force and production capacity were "almost exhausted," warned Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina, who has done more than almost anyone else in the Russian government to sustain the war through her stewardship of the economy, in July. "This is actually a scenario of stagflation that could only be stopped by way of a deep recession."
• “She announced a sustained period of high interest rates to try to slow the economy and reduce inflation — but so far, it has not worked. In a sign of the continued seriousness of the problem, the bank on Friday raised its key interest rate from 19 percent to 21 percent, the highest level in more than two decades, exceeding the 20 percent most analysts had expected. Inflation was "significantly higher" than forecast in July, the bank said in a statement. The bank has forecast growth of 3.5 percent to 4 percent in 2024, then a drastic shrinking to between 0.5 percent and 1.5 percent in the next year.”
• “The tone in recruitment ads for welders, farmworkers, drivers, couriers and packers on online site Avito borders on hysterical. "Urgently required!" ran an ad for a Snickers chocolate bar packer in recent days. "Easy! No experience required! Free three meals a day and accommodation!" it said, offering more than $4,100 a month — in 2023 the average national wage was just $763. Meanwhile a warehouse packer in Astrakhan could earn more than $3,600. Russia's real wages grew 12.9 percent year-on-year during the first six months of 2024, according to Rosstat, although independent analysts have questioned its figures. Incomes for the poorest workers grew fastest, spiking by 67 percent, reported the independent Russian outlet the Bell in March.”
• “Despite the intense pressures in the economy, U.S.-based Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, co-founder and senior fellow at the Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe said that Russia could afford to wage the war in coming years. "It can sustain this war for a time in which Ukraine and probably the West cannot afford to wage it. That's the problem," Inozemtsev said. "Putin seems very confident that he can go further for maybe one, two or three years. For now, the situation looks quite stable." "The military industrial complex cannot produce any modern, up-to-date weaponry," he said. "They are producing Soviet tanks and artillery. They are producing a lot of shells and missiles, short-range missiles, which are quite primitive. But nevertheless, they can do this in huge numbers."
• “But Alexandra Prokopenko, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russia could not ramp up military production further because of labor shortages and Western sanctions. "While continued trade with countries such as China aids the Russian economy, sanctions have significantly restricted the Kremlin's ability to modernize its military, squeezing access to essential components and creating bottlenecks in supply chains and financial transactions," she said, adding that the long-term prospects were gloomy.”

“Central Bank hikes rates to 21%,” Alexandra Prokopenko and Alexander Kolyandr, Bell, 10.25.24. 

• “[Russia’s] Central Bank hiked interest rates by two percentage points to 21%. That’s the highest level in modern Russian history. And that’s not the end: the Central Bank indicated the rate could go even higher.”
• “'Inflation is significantly higher than the Bank of Russia’s June forecast. Inflationary expectations continue to increase. The growth of domestic demand significantly outpaces the scope to expand the supply of goods and services. Additional budget expenditures and the associated deficit in the 2024 Federal Budget also have a pro-inflationary effect,' the Central Bank in a statement.”
• “This level of interest rate is unprecedented. Even in the days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, rates went no higher than 20%. Most economists expected a rate rise at this Friday’s meeting, but most thought it would go no higher than 20%.”
• “The main reason for the decision was recent clarity about state spending plans for 2024 and 2025 (the 2024 deficit is expected to be 3.3 trillion rubles or 1.7% of GDP, compared with a planned 0.9%). And inflation shows no sign of slowing.”
• “In its press release the Central Bank stated that it: “allows for the possibility of raising the base rate at the next meeting.” Based on the Central Bank’s forecast for the average rate at the end of the year (21-21.3%), it is prepared to contemplate a rate rise to 23% at December’s meeting (the final one of the year).”
• “The Central Bank now believes that inflation in 2024 will be 8-8.5% (compared with its previous forecast of 6.5-7%). This wasn’t a surprise for economists, following 11.1% seasonally adjusted price growth in the third quarter. Inflationary expectations, which the bank monitors closely, went up from 12.5% to 13.4% across the entire range of respondents in the most recent October survey.”
• “Despite sky high rates, the regulator also has higher expectations for lending growth: from 10-15% to 17-20% in the corporate sector, and from 10-15% to 12-15% for consumer borrowing.”
• “Of course, the danger of keeping interest rates high for a long period of time is that debt-laden enterprises sensitive to interest rates will be unable to refinance their loans and will go bankrupt.”
• “At the same time, the government is increasing spending, including via subsidies on business loans, which is fueling inflation. The result is a strange phenomenon: the Central Bank, responsible for inflation, needs to raise interest rates to slow price increases. But government spending is making inflation worse.”

“In a Posthumous Memoir, Alexei Navalny Chronicles his Martyrdom,” The Economist, 10.22.24.

• “In August 2020 [Alexei] Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, was poisoned with a nerve agent in Siberia by assassins from the FSB, Russia’s security service. Flown to a hospital in Berlin, he stayed in a coma for 18 days. Less than six months later, in January 2021, he returned to Russia to face Mr. Putin, the tyrant who wanted him dead. His encounter with oblivion in 2020 had only strengthened his determination to face squarely up to death inside Russia.”
• “Ever since he was arrested at passport control, the question his fellow prisoners and much of the world asked openly (and guards discreetly) was: why did he return to Russia, given that he would almost certainly be arrested or killed? Navalny writes that… he went back to his country and his people because he had a clear sense of mission—to liberate Russia from a despot’s grip. “If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.”
• “A quarter of the way into the manuscript, Navalny flew back to Moscow. The remaining three-quarters of the text was written in prison. Guards tried to intercept the notes he passed from his cell and arrested three of his lawyers; they limited his access to pen and paper to 90 minutes a day. Somehow his words broke through prison walls.”
• “Navalny hated Mr Putin not because this man tried to kill him, but because he suppressed individual dignity and built a state based on greed and lies, glorying in cynicism and violence. Mr Putin’s war against Ukraine was also a war against Navalny’s dream of Russia as a normal European country whose citizens could be free to make their own decisions. In a dictatorship, Navalny’s only weapon was his life.”
• “Navalny collapsed suddenly, showing signs of poisoning, and died on February 16th 2024. He prepared for death by working on what he called his “prison Zen.” He had two techniques. One was to imagine the worst thing that could happen and accept it, skipping the stages of denial, anger and bargaining.”
• “The second technique involved faith. If you are “a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins” and you trust “in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff,” then “what is there left for you to worry about?” 

“Alexei Navalny’s ‘Patriot’ is a plea to keep resisting Putin,” Will England, WP, 10.21.24.

• “Well-meaning people would ask Alexei Navalny, the scourge of Russian President Vladimir Putin, why he ever decided to return home from Germany in 2021, after Putin’s agents tried to kill him with a nerve agent called Novichok, and nearly succeeded. His answer, as recounted in his posthumously published memoir, “Patriot,” is that there was no way he could not return. He loved Russia, loved Russians (most of them), felt that he had an obligation to continue the fight against Putin and knew that if he stayed in exile, he would be acknowledging Putin’s power over him.”
• “'So what’s my first duty?” he wrote. “That’s right, not to be intimidated and not to shut up.” A better question, really, is how Navalny managed to stay so incredibly optimistic through all his travails.”
• “He admired the old Soviet-era dissidents, he wrote, but his aim was not to be an outcast, not to be on the fringes of society; it was to bring his fellow Russians together and stoke their desire for a more honest society and system to the point where they could no longer be denied. He called Russians “a good people with a bad state,” and he told them they should change their famous habit of being proud of themselves for enduring hardships when, in fact, with a decent government those hardships never would have happened. Addressing a court of appeals, he didn’t stress freedom, saying, “We need to fight not so much because Russia is not free as because overall it is unhappy in every respect.”
• “But throughout, his argument is that the corruption and dishonesty of the Putin reign are not that complicated, and the grifters in and around the Kremlin are not that smart. It doesn’t take a deep dive to know what’s what. By the time Russia launched its full-bore invasion in 2022, Navalny, whose family’s roots are in a Ukrainian village near Chernobyl, was in prison.”
• “He reproduced in the memoir a statement he made in one of the countless court cases brought against him, all on trumped-up charges. “I am against this war” in Ukraine, he said. “I consider it immoral, fratricidal and criminal. It has been started by the Kremlin gang to make it easier for them to steal. They are killing so they can thieve.”
• “He laid out what he called the prisoner’s “golden rule,” about his jailers, but maybe also about the gang in the Kremlin: “Don’t trust them, don’t fear them, don’t ask them for anything.” The barrage of criminal charges against him, intended to put him away forever, he wrote, was proof of his personal victory over Putinism. “They now say openly, ‘We are afraid of you. We are afraid of what you will say. We are afraid of the truth.’”

For more analysis on this subject, see:

• “Patriot—Alexei Navalny’s Fight for a ‘Beautiful Russia,’ in his Own Words,” Max Seddon, FT, 10.22.24.
• “Russians Looking Away from the West, but not Ready to Face the East,” Sergei Shelin, Russia.Post, 10.28.24. 

Defense and aerospace:

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

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“XVI BRICS Summit Kazan Declaration. Strengthening Multilateralism For Just Global Development And Security,” Kremlin.ru, 10.23.24. 

• “We... call for the full implementation of the UNSC Resolution 1540 which offers states an important impetus for adopting effective and robust measures at the national level to prevent weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and related materials from getting into the hands of non-state actors, including terrorists, as well as frameworks for cooperation at the international level for this aim.”
• “We stress the importance of full implementation of the JCPOA endorsed by the UNSCR 2231 (2015) and underscore the importance of a constructive approach based on the good faith by all relevant actors to resume full implementation of the JCPOA commitments by all sides.”
• “We recall national positions concerning the situation in and around Ukraine as expressed in the appropriate fora, including the UNSC and the UNGA. We emphasize that all states should act consistently with the Purposes and Principles of the U.N. Charter in their entirety and interrelation. We note with appreciation relevant proposals of mediation and good offices, aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.”
• “We note the paramount importance of the efforts aiming at accelerating the implementation of the resolutions on the Establishment of a Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East, including the Conference convened pursuant to U.N. General Assembly Decision 73/546.”
• “We highlight that fair, inclusive and equitable governance of data is critical to enable developing countries to harness the benefits of the digital economy and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.”
• “We recognize the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) being an important mechanism to forestall short-term balance of payments pressures and further strengthen financial stability. We express our strong support for the CRA mechanism improvement via envisaging alternative eligible currencies and welcome finalization of the amendments to the CRA documents.”

“News conference following 16th BRICS Summit. The President of Russia is giving a news conference following the 16th BRICS Summit,” Kremlin.ru, 10.24.24. Clues from Russian Views.

• “All the parties are in favor of resolving the [Russian-Ukrainian] conflict at the earliest opportunity, preferably through peaceful means. You may be aware that the People's Republic of China and Brazil put forward an initiative at the General Assembly in New York. Numerous BRICS nations endorse these initiatives, and we, in turn, extend our gratitude to our partners for their attention to this conflict and their pursuit of methods to resolve it.”
• “[When asked: Mr. President, satellite images are said to show North Korean troops are here, in Russia.] Images are a serious matter. If images exist, they indicate something.....With regard to our relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, you may be aware that the Treaty on Strategic Partnership was ratified, I believe, just today. It has Article 4, and we have never doubted the fact that the DPRK leadership takes our agreements seriously. However, it is up to us to decide what we will do and how we are going to do it, and we will act in accordance with this article. First, we need to hold talks regarding the implementation of Article 4. However, we will be in contact with our North Korean friends to see how this process unfolds.”
• “In any case, the Russian army is acting confidently on all fronts, which is a well-known and undisputed fact. It is advancing on all sections of the frontline. Active operations are underway in the Kursk direction as well. A portion of the Ukrainian forces that invaded the Kursk Region, about 2,000 troops, has been blocked and encircled. Attempts are being made to break this group free from the outside and from within, but they have remained unsuccessful so far. The Russian army has begun an operation to eliminate this group.”
• “With regard to contacts with Mr. Trump, this issue has been making headlines for years now. At one point, Mr. Trump and Russia were accused of being connected. However, after an investigation conducted in the United States, everyone, including US Congress, concluded that it was utter nonsense and that nothing of the kind ever happened. There were no contacts back then, and there are none now. Russia-US relations after the elections depend primarily on the United States. If the United States is open to building normal relations with Russia, we will do the same. If not, so be it. This is up to the future Administration.”

“BRICS Overtook G-7 in Key Components of National Power—So What?” Simon Saradzhyan, RM, 10.23.24.

• “I began the renewed comparison of BRICS and the G-7 with conducting three waves of measurements focused on their economic and demographic performance:”
  • “In 2001, when Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neil proposed grouping what he saw as the world’s key emerging economies;”
  • “In 2024, the current year; and”
  • “In 2029, which is the furthest year for which the April 2024 edition of IMF’s World Economic Outlook offers forecasts for most of the world’s countries.”¹
• “My measurements of economic performance indicate that the BRICS’s share in world GDP has already overtaken that of the G-7 (see Figure 1 and Table 1), if calculated in terms of purchasing power parity (which is how the IMF measures these shares at country-level). The BRICS have also significantly outperformed the G-7 in terms of population, largely thanks to including the two most populous countries in the world: China and India.”
• “It should also be noted that, while the BRICS+ countries’ combined economic and demographic resources are greater than those of the G-7, Russia’s recent individual performance in these spheres is not exactly inspiring. For instance, the IMF sees Russia’s share in world GDP declining from 3.14% in 2001 to 2.95% in 2024 and then to 2.71% in 2029. As for Russia’s share in the world’s population, the U.N. sees it declining from 2.34% in 2001, to 1.77% in 2024, to 1.67% in 2029.”
• “My latest calculations based on Chin-Lung’s approach reveal BRICS+’s combined power is greater than that of the G-7, though only by 8.8% (see Table 3). The narrowness of this gap can perhaps be explained by the fact that the G-7 is spending twice as much on defense as BRICS+.”
• “My latest application of this method [the Revised Geometric Index of Traditional National Capabili­ties (RGITNC)] for the purposes of comparing BRICS+ and the G-7 reveals that the former’s combined national power (0.380862) exceeded that of the latter (0.222925) by about 52% in 2022 (see Table 4).”
• “As the results of applying both single-variable and multi-variable approaches … demonstrate, BRICS+ has overtaken the G-7 in terms of combined national power. But what does that mean and entail? Some (particularly in Russia’s or China’s ruling elites) may interpret it as further evidence of a declining West. That might or might not be the case, but it is important to keep in mind that BRICS+—some of whose members insist their participation in this group is not against any third parties—lags behind the G-7 in terms of cohesion, particularly in adopting and implementing common policies, such as the implementation of collective sanctions against other countries. Whether BRICS+ can transform its collective potential into the capacity to play a key role in shaping the direction of the world order’s evolution remains to be seen.”
• “Moreover, even if BRICS+ were to succeed in evolving from a loosely-knit club into a cohesive collective player on the international scene—that is willing and capable of shaping key global trends—it remains doubtful that Russia can co-lead these processes, unless it can back its ambitions with a greater share in the aforementioned fundamental components of this group’s combined national power (see Table 1).”

“The Summit in Russia Should Be a Wake-Up Call for the West,” Farah Stockman, NYT, 10.24.24.

• “As far as international meetings go, the [BRICS]summit, held in Kazan, Russia, was a success, and not just because of four new members, consequential meetings on the sidelines and a joint communiqué that pledged to cooperate more closely on several fronts, including artificial intelligence. Representatives of three dozen countries attended.”
• “What struck me most was the way it allowed President Xi Jinping of China, the real power behind BRICS, to cast himself as the true protector of a just world order. In his speech, Xi called for the “swift de-escalation” of the war in Ukraine as well as “an end to the killing” in Gaza and a “comprehensive, just and lasting resolution of the Palestinian question.” He also called for reforming the international financial architecture to give non-Western economies like — yes, you guessed it — China more power.”
• “Xi might be cynical or opportunistic, but he’s not wrong when he says that the world needs de-escalation in Ukraine, a cease-fire in Gaza and global governance reforms. The International Monetary Fund and other Western-led institutions have been frozen in time, reflecting the power dynamics that existed when those institutions were built, not the world of today.”
• “That’s why the discussion at the other big diplomatic event this week — the I.M.F. and World Bank meetings in Washington — is about changing the quota system that makes the United States the largest shareholder and biggest voice in those institutions. The United States must find a way to make room for emerging economies without capitulating to China. Without that, the appeal of BRICS will only grow.”

“We will not see a revolution of the world majority on the basis of BRICS yet,” interview with Ivan Timofeev, RIAC/Monokl, 10.28.24.^ Clues from Russian Views. (RIAC is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

• “I would not talk about the role of BRICS in the redistribution^[4] of the world... rather BRICS is developing evolutionarily, very carefully and non-conflictually. The organization avoids opposing itself to the West, but at the same time, ... it creates an alternative environment.”
• “Justice is understood first of all as the possibility of an alternative. ....BRICS is moving step by step towards creating .... alternatives, without strictly opposing them to the West.”
• “Neither the Indian nor the Chinese leadership have refused to cooperate with the West. They reason like this: let the West exist and live, and we can cooperate with it where it is beneficial and necessary. But we want to diversify relations and put all our eggs in different baskets. This is a very reasonable strategy. On the other hand, neither India, nor China, nor Brazil, nor South Africa want forced rivalry with the United States and its allies.”
• “Western institutions, it is worth noting first of all, are precisely institutions. They have specific mechanisms. For example, the European Union is a very rigid system with legal obligations, with the delegation of part of its sovereignty to a supranational structure. NATO is a military alliance, which implies strict military obligations. There are less rigid structures, for example, the G7. And this association is closer to BRICS.”
• “The key difference [of BRICS] is that Western institutions have dominants in the form of the United States, while BRICS does not have such a dominant. This determines the specificity of BRICS, its more flexible, more democratic nature. These are different structures, different political schemes. We are used to the fact that there should be one commander, a hegemon, around whom everyone should line up. In the West, this is more or less the case. But in BRICS there are simply large countries that are interested in having reliable cooperation with each other, while smaller ones have their own voice and a platform where they can express their opinion.”

“Russian Pacific Fleet Redux: Japan’s North as a New Center of Gravity,” Yu Koizumi, WoR, 10.22.24.

• “The fact that Japan is a neighbor of Russia is often overlooked, especially in the West. … Now, as the geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West reemerges, Japan is once again on the front line.”
• “As during the Cold War, the focus is on the sea. Most of the ground forces in the Russian Far East are believed to have been redeployed to the battlefields of Ukraine, and many garrisons have been emptied. In contrast, the Russian Pacific Fleet’s submarine force is being steadily built up, with particular emphasis on the modernization of nuclear ballistic missile submarines.”
• “I believe that Western allies would benefit from better understanding Japan’s perspective on the military realities in the Russian Far East. The issue is not simply the growing number of submarines. Satellite imagery shows that Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet has become noticeably more active in recent years.”
• “Russian submarines are becoming more active in the northern waters of Japan, and there is a threat to critical underwater infrastructure in peacetime. In addition, China and Russia are stepping up their military cooperation in Japan’s northern waters. The resources of the Japanese-U.S. alliance are limited, and it may not be possible to respond to all threats from China, North Korea, and Russia.”
• “Deterring several military powers in Eurasia at the same time is a very difficult task. There are limits to what the Japanese-U.S. alliance alone can do. In this sense, trilateral security cooperation between Japan, the United States, and South Korea and the framework between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are the right approaches.”
• “The challenge for the future will be to expand, strengthen, and interlink the security cooperation networks already in place. … The naval game played out between Russia and the West gets harder every year. But there is no limit to the number of players in this game. This can work to the Western allies’ advantage.”

“Türkiye and Russia: An Unequal Partnership,” Sinan Ülgen, CEIP, 10.24.24. 

• “The dynamics of the Türkiye-Russia relationship have certainly changed since Russia’s war against Ukraine began and have even increased Russia’s dependence on Türkiye, giving Ankara a position and degree of influence that was previously unattainable. But this shift has not significantly altered the countries’ underlying asymmetry or resulted in a new equal partnership; it rather marks a subtle recalibration of interdependencies. Inequalities in the levels of economic, strategic, and geopolitical leverage that Türkiye and Russia have remained. The recent nuanced changes observed, while increasing Türkiye’s strategic options and autonomy, have not fundamentally transformed the broader dynamics of their relationship.”
• “As a result, the complexity of Turkish-Russian economic relations—shaped by historical legacies, strategic concerns, and changing global dynamics—will continue to play an important role in the region’s geopolitical landscape.”
• “The subtle recalibration of interdependencies in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war offers new insights into the potential aspects of the two countries’ relationship. The fundamental question for Turkish policymakers is whether Ankara can sustain this difficult balancing act with Russia. The answer will depend a great deal on the terms of a Russia-Ukraine settlement. Already, under Putin, Russia has become a real and imminent threat for many NATO nations. The nature of the long-term response to this threat by the transatlantic partnership will essentially determine the scope of Ankara’s autonomy and its ability to consolidate its relations with Russia. Should a relatively more unified Western effort to contain and isolate Russia over the long term materialize after the U.S. presidential elections in November 2024—with more sanctions and more investments in defense and deterrence—Ankara will find itself under increased pressure to unravel its deepening ties with Moscow. Such a scenario will present a strategic dilemma for Turkish policymakers given the asymmetry in the Türkiye-Russia relationship and the many negative consequences that a real break with Moscow could entail.”

“Why Russia Supports the Houthis,” Nikolas K. Gvosdev, NI, 10.28.24. 

• “Support for the Houthis would fit within what I believe is an ongoing shift in Russian foreign policy towards what I term a “G-Zero/Silk Road” paradigm. Enhancing the greater Silk Road region is now an absolute priority because, as I noted in a recent essay for Baku Dialogues, “of direct Western sanctions on the one hand, and the very conditional nature of the Chinese lifeline on the other, it is absolutely essential for Russia to have one of the main critical economic regions of the world remain open and accessible.”
• “Moreover, Russia no longer believes in pursuing global governance with the Western powers, so aiding further disruptions of a U.S.-led global economic system fits within its vision of preventing any one country (read the United States) or bloc of states (the U.S. with its partners) from setting and executing its international agenda. If Russia is now on a path to no longer be a principal agenda-setting country, then Moscow needs a more disruptive strategy where globalization has fractured and where U.S. effort and attention are pulled in multiple, different directions.”
• “The Cold War saw an evolution of a set of informal rules as to how conflicts would be fought, with an eye to finding ways to prevent escalation to nuclear war. Over the past several years, the West has successfully navigated the escalatory ladder to both prevent Ukraine’s fall and to increase Ukraine's capacity not only to defend itself but also to carry the conflict to Moscow (and quite literally, in some cases). Are we now seeing a Russian response?”

“Russian Roulette on the Red Sea,” Ari Heistein and Daniel Rakov, War on the Rocks, 10.24.24.

• “The Kremlin’s preoccupation with prevailing in Ukraine is pushing it to contemplate geostrategic risks and adopt a more proactive approach in regions like the Red Sea. The Kremlin’s warming ties with Yemen’s Houthi rebels could enable the latter to expand and intensify their destabilizing activities, especially if advanced military hardware changes hands.”
• “In addition to furthering Moscow and Sanaa’s shared interest in undermining the United States, the bilateral relationship could also serve as a Russian bargaining chip vis-à-vis the Saudis. Not only does Riyadh exercise enormous influence over energy prices, but there also are growing concerns in Moscow that the kingdom could become less cooperative as it pursues a treaty alliance with the United States. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself in need of greater leverage over Riyadh, and may conclude the Houthis can help.”

“The Kremlin’s Dilemma: Effectiveness versus Loyalty in the Case of Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC,” Margarita Zavadskaya and Jussi Lassila, PONARS, 10.21.24.

• “In our assessment, Wagner’s role as the Kremlin’s key tool for covert operations cannot be replicated following the elimination of Prigozhin, because the flip side of Wagner’s effectiveness—disloyalty—proved to be the gravest offense in Putin’s system. We argue that post-Prigozhin PMCs are unlikely to be as potent as the Wagner Group; on the other hand, these new PMCs will hardly become breeding grounds for disloyalty and patriotic unrest.”
• “Prigozhin’s mutiny was not merely a glitch in the system; it rather manifested structural risks in the Russian regime. His PMC, combined with his personal assets, autonomy, and lack of direct oversight by the Ministry of Defense (MoD), made him a successful “violent entrepreneur.” The political risks of such success have been made clear, and Putin will no longer abide them.”

For more analysis on this subject, see: 

• "Reshaping global governance: the Global South, BRICS and the West," Irene Mia, IISS, 10.23.24.
• “BRICS is for the fairies until China and India get serious, 'Mr BRICS' says,” Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, 10.23.24.
• “BRICS Can Transform from an International Club into a Global Lab,” Andrey Kortunov, Global Times/RIAC, 10.22.24. (RIAC is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)
• “Let's have bureaucracy! What BRICS lacks for further development,” Fyodor Lukyanov, Profile/Russia in Global Affairs, 10.28.24. In Russian. (Russia in Global Affairs is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)
• "Why the BRICS De-Dollarization Dream Remains a Fantasy," Chris Anstey, Bloomberg, 10.26.24.

Ukraine:

For more analysis on this subject, see:

•  "Ukraine’s Post-Colonial Future," Michael Ignatieff, PS, 10.22.24.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Georgia’s election. Another domino falls to Vladimir Putin after Georgia’s tense election. The ruling party’s win is celebrated in Moscow, but unrest is possible,” The Economist, 10.27.24. 

• ”The election in in Georgia on October 26th was a crucial moment for a country once hailed by the West for its democratic reforms. Its pro-European opposition saw it as perhaps the last chance to repair the damage done by the current anti-Western government and put the country back on track towards membership of the EU. If the official results are to be believed, that chance seems to have slipped away: they showed a decisive victory for the ruling, Russia-appeasing, Georgian Dream party, with 54% of the vote. Election authorities said an alliance of four opposition parties took just 38%. If the result stands Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin is closer than ever to its goal of creating another client state. The Georgian poll has taken place alongside another important test of Russian influence, a two-stage presidential election in Moldova that ends in the coming week.”
• ”In Georgia election-monitoring groups say they have identified wide-scale violations of electoral law and the opposition has refused to accept the results. The election was “stolen”, said Tina Bokuchava, head of the United National Movement (UNM) party, at a post-midnight briefing after the election. “We will not give up our European future.”
• ”In the countryside there were reports of blatant cheating, but they were hard to quantify. Many far-flung regions showed improbably high margins (up to 90%) for Georgian Dream. Christo Grozev of Bellingcat, an investigative group, reported shortly before the vote that Russian intelligence agents had proposed hacking it. But Georgia conducts a backup hand count of ballots; the results are expected on October 28th. They are not expected to differ significantly from the electronically tabulated ones released already.”
• ”What happens next in Georgia? The scale of Georgian Dream’s victory (and perhaps fraud) has taken the wind out of the opposition’s sails. The streets of central Tbilisi were eerily empty after the first results were announced. The situation echoed that after the last parliamentary elections in 2020, when opposition claims of widespread cheating were not backed up by Western governments. Protests soon petered out. This time around it remains possible that after a delay there is an upsurge of protests. The armed forces, which might have to choose sides in a worst-case scenario, lean towards America. Yet the biggest concern is that Georgia now quietly slips away from the West. Giorgi Kapatadze, a student and one of the observers, said his country was headed in the direction of “Venezuela or Belarus.”

“Moldova’s Ambiguous Election Results Are Unsurprising. A narrower-than-expected victory for pro-EU incumbent Maia Sandu chimes with Moldova’s electoral history and complex regional loyalties,” Vladimir Solovyov, CEIP, 10.25.24. 

• ”Polling suggested that neither Moldova’s presidential election nor its referendum on joining the European Union would throw up anything unexpected. Pro-Europe President Maia Sandu was supposed to win in the first round, and the pro-EU side—triumph in the referendum. The results on October 20, however, were very different.”
• ”After polls closed, however, dismay took hold in the pro-EU camp. While Sandu got more votes than predicted (42.25 percent)  her main opponent, Alexandr Stoianoglo ended up with more than double what polling had suggested (25.98 percent). Sandu’s failure to clear the 50 percent mark means she will now face Stoianoglo in a runoff on November 3.The outcome of the referendum was a wafer-thin majority in favor of EU integration (until the votes came in from the Moldovan diaspora, the “no” campaign was actually leading). The final tally was 50.39 percent (750,238 votes) in favor and 49.61 percent (738,636 votes) against. In other words, the opinion polls were way off. It was a dramatic illustration of the divisions in Moldovan society—which will now be very difficult to ignore.”
• ”Nevertheless, while the results may seem shocking, they’re actually typical for Moldova—a country where voting has traditionally been riven by contradictions, and politics can be paradoxical.”
• ”In Moldova, pro-Russian parties can put forward pro-EU candidates; pro-EU politicians can win the support of pro-Russian voters; and residents of Transnistria can declare their country to be Moldova. All this goes to show that Moldova is far from one-dimensional, black-and-white, or straightforward. Accordingly, the recent election results shouldn’t come as a shock. Moldova’s diversity needs to be acknowledged, both by local politicians and the country’s international partners.”

“Central Asians edge into a brave new world on Russia’s doorstep,” Tony Barber, FT, 10.27.24. 

• ”No central Asian country is breaking, or even wants to break, decisively with Russia. Some are indirectly sustaining Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine by enabling Moscow to circumvent western sanctions and import goods useful for Russia’s militarized economy. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan host Russian military bases. It was only a month before Putin attacked Ukraine in 2022 that a Russian-led force entered Kazakhstan at the government’s request to help quell riots that killed more than 200 people.”
• ”Central Asia’s rulers are undoubtedly disturbed by Putin’s attempted annexation of large areas of Ukraine. But they do not permit their state-run television channels to air reports on sensitive matters such as Russian atrocities or, in August, the Ukrainian counter-invasion of Russian territory. In Turkmenistan, the most tightly controlled central Asian country, the state media has hardly mentioned Russia’s war at all since the 2022 invasion.”
• ”Beneath the surface, however, all central Asian states are exploring the opportunities that have arisen since the invasion to distance themselves from Russia. Partly because of the region’s raw materials and energy riches, the US and the EU are keen to encourage this trend — though they face competition from China, Turkey and Russia itself. Central Asia was something of a backwater during the cold war. It is anything but that now.”

For more commentary on this subject, see:

• “Georgia’s disputed election. Mischa Frankl-Duval talks to Ben Hall and Nicholas Megaw,” FT, 10.28.24.
• “Survey Data from Republic of Georgia Highlights Risks of Polarization Ahead of 2024 Election,” Cole Harey, PONARS, 10.21.24.
• “Georgia’s former president: My country’s democracy is on the line this weekend,” Mikhail Saakashvili, Washington Post, 10.24.24.
• “COP29 and Armenia-Azerbaijan Relations” Vasif Huseynov, NI, 10.25.24. 

Footnotes

1. Ukrainian and American officials said last week that several thousand North Korean troops had already arrived in the Kursk area, according to NYT.
2. A confidential Ukrainian estimate from earlier this year put the number of dead Ukrainian troops at 80,000 and the wounded at 400,000, NYT reported in September 2024.
3. The European Commission urged “the Central Election Commission of Georgia and other relevant authorities to fulfil their duty to swiftly, transparently and independently investigate and adjudicate electoral irregularities and allegations thereof.”
4. The interviewee used Russian word “передел,” which can be translated as repartition, redistribution, reduction, dividing up.

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 11:00 am Eastern time on the day this digest was distributed. Unless otherwise indicated, all summaries above are direct quotations. 

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

^Machine-translated.

Slider photo: A TV screen shows file images of North Korean soldiers during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)