Quotes of the Day:

"Some senior U.S. officials believe that "special operations" and "low-intensity conflict" (LIC) are interchangeable terms, but they are not synonymous. LIC is a form of warfare that may slight special operations or make them the centerpiece. Special operations, which constitute capabilities, can complement every type of combat, regardless of intensity.

-John M. Collins, United States and Soviet Special Operations, p. 1 (1987)

"You must all be aware that modern war is not a mere matter of military operations. It involves the whole strength and all the resources of the nation. Not only soldiers, but also all citizens without exception, take part."

- Chiang Kai-shek

"When the Internet first came into public use, it was hailed as a liberation from conformity, a floating world ruled by passion, creativity, innovation and freedom of information. When it was hijacked first by advertising and then by commerce, it seemed like it had been fully co-opted and brought into line with human greed and ambition."

-Neil Strauss

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 9 (Putin's war)

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (09.11.22) CDS comments on key events

3. Exclusive: Inside the ongoing ‘evolution’ of Army special operations

4. Xi Jinping tells China’s army to focus on preparation for war

5. One facet of China’s unrestricted hybrid war on America — TikTok

6. “Wonder Weapons” Will Not Win Russia’s War

7. Biden Plans to Meet China’s Xi and Discuss How to Avoid Conflict

8. ‘Unconventional’ delivery of US airpower in Arctic tailored to serve notice to Russia

9. American veterans race to train Ukrainian soldiers as war with Russia sweeps more troops into battle

10. Inside Putin 'punishment camp' for mobilised Russian troops

11. Russia says it’s withdrawing troops from key Ukrainian city

12.  How to Stop China Killing Human Rights at the U.N.

13. Russia has forgotten history’s lessons about waging war in winter

14. The Weakness Behind China’s Strong Façade

15. The Case for Keeping U.S. Troops in Syria

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 9 (Putin's war)

Maps/Graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-9

Key Takeaways

• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) ordered Russian forces on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River to begin withdrawing to the east (left) bank on November 9.
• The battle of Kherson is not inherently over, but Russian forces have entered a new phase— prioritizing withdrawing their forces across the river in good order and delaying Ukrainian forces, rather than seeking to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive entirely.
• Many prominent voices in the Russian milblogger space sided with Surovikin and lauded the decision as a necessary one, indicating that Russian leadership has learned from the information effects of the disastrous Russian withdrawal from Kharkiv Oblast in mid-September.
• Russian National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev met with senior Iranian officials in Tehran on November 9, likely to discuss the sale of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia and other forms of cooperation
• Russian and Ukrainian sources reported continued fighting along the Svatove-Kremmina highway and Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces made territorial gains northeast of Kherson City and continued their successful interdiction campaign.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
• Russian federal subjects are struggling to pay mobilized personnel, and the Russian military is struggling to provision them.
• Relatives of mobilized personnel continue to protest lack of payment and poor conditions.
• Russian occupation deputy head of Kherson Oblast Kirill Stremousov was killed in a claimed car accident in rear Kherson Oblast the day Russian forces announced their withdrawal from the west bank of Kherson Oblast.
• Occupation authorities in rear areas are likely increasing law enforcement crackdowns and filtration measures amid fears of Ukrainian counteroffensives after the November 9 withdrawal announcement

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 9

Nov 9, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Kateryna Stepanenko, Madison Williams, Yekaterina Klepanchuk, Nicholas Carl, and Mason Clark

November 9, 9:15 pm ET

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) ordered Russian forces on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River to begin withdrawing to the east (left) bank on November 9. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered the withdrawal of Russian troops across the Dnipro River during a highly staged televised meeting with Commander of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine Army General Sergey Surovikin on November 9. During the televised meeting, Surovikin recommended the withdrawal and Shoigu accepted his decision, giving Surovikin the task of ensuring the “safe transfer of personnel, weapons, and equipment” to the east (left) bank.[1] Shoigu and Surovikin’s statements mark the beginning of a steady, fighting withdrawal by Russian troops across the Dnipro to prepared positions on the east (left) bank to preserve the combat power of Russian units, including elements of the 76th and 106th Airborne Assault Divisions and 22nd Army Corps.[2] Surovikin notably stated that half of the troops withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro will be redeployed to other areas of Ukraine. The entire Russian contingent will take some time to withdraw across the Dnipro River and it is still unclear if Russian forces will be able to conduct the withdrawal in relatively good order under Ukrainian pressure. The battle of Kherson is not over, but Russian forces have entered a new phase—prioritizing withdrawing their forces across the river in good order and delaying Ukrainian forces, rather than seeking to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive entirely.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson direction since August—a coordinated interdiction campaign to force Russian forces to withdraw across the Dnipro without necessitating major Ukrainian ground offensives—has likely succeeded. As ISW has observed over the previous months, Ukrainian forces engaged in a purposeful and well-executed campaign to target Russian concentration areas, military assets, and logistics nodes throughout Kherson Oblast to make continued Russian positions on the west bank untenable without having to conduct large-scale and costly ground maneuvers to liberate territory.[3] Ukrainian troops launched constant attacks on bridges across the Dnipro River and targeted supply centers and ammunition depots on the east bank of the Dnipro that degraded the ability of Russian forces to supply the grouping on the west bank; Ukrainian forces combined these strikes with prudent and successful ground attacks on key locations such as Davydiv Brid. This campaign has come to fruition. Surovikin directly acknowledged that Russian forces cannot supply their grouping in Kherson City and the surrounding areas due to Ukrainian strikes on critical Russian supply lines to the west bank.[4] Russian sources noted that the withdrawal is a natural consequence of targeted and systematic Ukrainian strikes that cost the Russian grouping on the west bank its major supply arteries, which gradually attritted their overall strength and capabilities.[5]

The Russian withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnipro is unlikely to be a trap meant to lure Ukrainian troops into costly combat near Kherson City, as some Ukrainian and Western sources have suggested.[6] ISW has previously observed many indicators that Russian forces, military and economic assets, and occupation elements have steadily withdrawn from the west bank across the Dnipro River, and Russian officials have been anticipating and preparing for withdrawal in a way that is incompatible with a campaign to deceive and trap Ukrainian troops.[7] Russian commanders will certainly attempt to slow Ukrainian advances to maintain an orderly withdrawal, and some forces may remain to delay Ukrainian troops in Kherson City itself—but this fighting will be a means to the end of withdrawing as many Russian units as possible in good order.

The Russian information space predictably reacted to the announcement of the withdrawal with varying degrees of ire and concern. Several Russian milbloggers emphasized that the withdrawal is the natural consequence of systematic failures within Russian military and command structures and framed the withdrawal as an inevitable result of political nuances beyond the realm of military control.[8] Russian sources also emphasized that this is a major defeat for Russian forces because they are losing territory that Russia annexed and claims as its own.[9]

However, many prominent voices in the milblogger space sided with Surovikin and lauded the decision as a necessary one, indicating that Russian leadership has learned from the information effects of the disastrous Russian withdrawal from Kharkiv Oblast in mid-September.[10] A prominent Russian milblogger that has previously stridently criticized the conduct of Russian operations stated that Surovikin “got the inheritance he got” managing operations in Kherson Oblast, and implied that Surovikin did the best he could under the circumstances, so he ultimately cannot be blamed.[11] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin voiced his support for the withdrawal and called it the “greatest achievement” made by Surovikin due to Surovikin’s stated desire to preserve the safety of Russian troops.[12] Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov agreed with Prigozhin’s assessment and claimed Surovikin saved thousands of lives and is seeking more advantageous positions.[13] These responses, particularly from Kadyrov and Prigozhin, are markedly different from scathing critiques previously leveled at Commander of the Grouping of Russian forces “Center” in Ukraine Colonel General Alexander Lapin following massive Russian losses in eastern Kharkiv and northern Donetsk oblasts.[14] Surovikin has steadily established an informational cover for his decision-making and the eventual Russian withdrawal from positions in Kherson Oblast since the announcement of his appointment as theatre commander of Russian Forces in Ukraine. Surovikin stated that Russian leadership will need to make “difficult decisions” regarding Kherson Oblast as early as October 19.[15] The Kremlin and senior Russian commanders appear to have learned informational and military lessons from previous failures and will likely apply these to the presentation and conduct of this withdrawal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the withdrawal as of this publication, suggesting that the Kremlin is framing the withdrawal as a purely military decision.

Russian National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev met with senior Iranian officials in Tehran on November 9, likely to discuss the sale of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia and other forms of cooperation. Patrushev met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Iranian Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Ali Shamkhani.[16] The SNSC is Iran’s highest defense and security policy body and reports directly to the supreme leader. Iranian readouts of Patrushev’s meetings largely focused on economic and political cooperation, while Russian readouts emphasized that the discussion focused on security affairs.[17] Patrushev and Shamkhani discussed “measures to counter interference by Western secret services in the two countries’ internal affairs,” according to Russia’s TASS. Iranian officials have repeatedly accused the United States and its allies of stoking the ongoing protests throughout Iran.[18] Patrushev’s visit to Tehran notably comes amid reports that Iran is seeking Russian help with protest suppression, although it is unclear whether Patrushev discussed such cooperation.[19] Patrushev likely sought to secure additional Iranian precision munitions to replenish Russia’s dwindling stocks.

Key Takeaways

• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) ordered Russian forces on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River to begin withdrawing to the east (left) bank on November 9.
• The battle of Kherson is not inherently over, but Russian forces have entered a new phase— prioritizing withdrawing their forces across the river in good order and delaying Ukrainian forces, rather than seeking to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive entirely.
• Many prominent voices in the Russian milblogger space sided with Surovikin and lauded the decision as a necessary one, indicating that Russian leadership has learned from the information effects of the disastrous Russian withdrawal from Kharkiv Oblast in mid-September.
• Russian National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev met with senior Iranian officials in Tehran on November 9, likely to discuss the sale of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia and other forms of cooperation
• Russian and Ukrainian sources reported continued fighting along the Svatove-Kremmina highway and Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces made territorial gains northeast of Kherson City and continued their successful interdiction campaign.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
• Russian federal subjects are struggling to pay mobilized personnel, and the Russian military is struggling to provision them.
• Relatives of mobilized personnel continue to protest lack of payment and poor conditions.
• Russian occupation deputy head of Kherson Oblast Kirill Stremousov was killed in a claimed car accident in rear Kherson Oblast the day Russian forces announced their withdrawal from the west bank of Kherson Oblast.
• Occupation authorities in rear areas are likely increasing law enforcement crackdowns and filtration measures amid fears of Ukrainian counteroffensives after the November 9 withdrawal announcement

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

• Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Southern and Eastern Ukraine
• Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)

Eastern Ukraine: (Eastern Kharkiv Oblast-Western Luhansk Oblast)

Russian and Ukrainian sources reported continued fighting along the Svatove-Kremmina highway and Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast on November 9. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian ground attack northwest of Svatove toward Kuzemivka, Luhansk Oblast.[20] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks along the Ploshchanka-Makiivka front line, south of Svatove and near the R66 highway.[21] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground assaults northwest of Svatove near Novoselivske and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[22]

Ukrainian forces likely targeted a rear area in occupied Luhansk Oblast on November 9, possibly exacerbating Russian fears over Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian rear areas. Geolocated footage shows smoke plumes and extensive damage to a boarding school in Kadiivka, Luhansk Oblast, with Russian military equipment nearby, indicating that Russian forces likely used the school as a base.[23] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces targeted Kadiivka with HIMARS.[24] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast head Serhiy Haidai stated that Russian forces have begun mining random areas in Luhansk Oblast and storing ammunition in trucks rather than warehouses out of fear.[25]

Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Commander of Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine Army General Sergey Surovikin announced on November 9 that Russian forces are withdrawing from the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River.[26] ISW's assessment of this withdrawal order can be found in the topline text, above.

Ukrainian military officials largely maintained operational silence on the situation in Kherson Oblast on November 9, despite confirmation by Russian military officials that Russian troops are withdrawing from the west bank of the Dnipro River. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command noted that Russian forces continued defensive actions and are trying to prepare positions for a retreat.[27] Advisor to the Ukrainian President’s Office Mykhailo Podolyak reported that Ukraine has not observed signs that Russian troops will retreat without a fight—tracking with ISW’s assessment that Russian forces will conduct a fighting withdrawal.[28] Ukrainian military sources called for operational silence due to expectations of imminent Ukrainian success on the frontline.[29]

Ukrainian forces made gains near the Mykolaiv-Kherson Oblast border northeast of Kherson City on November 9. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian troops launched an attack on Snihurivka, Mykolaiv Oblast on November 9, and Ukrainian Mykolaiv Oblast Head Vitaly Kim reported that Ukrainian troops continue to fight for full control of the settlement, but that the situation is under Ukrainian control.[30] Geolocated footage shows a Ukrainian soldier freely walking around in Kalynivske, Mykolaiv Oblast (53km northeast of Kherson City) after Ukrainian troops liberated the settlement.[31] Kherson Occupation Deputy Kirill Stremousov claimed on the evening of November 8 that Ukrainian forces broke through Russian defenses and gained a foothold on the northern outskirts of Snihurivka (45km northeast of Kherson City).[32] Stremousov notably died in a reported car crash on November 9.[33] Russian milbloggers commented that the Russian 205th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 49th Combined Arms Army and elements of the Airborne Forces (VDV) are responsible for the defense of Snihurivka.[34]

Geolocated images show that Russian troops destroyed bridges in the Snihurivka area, indicating Russian troops are conducting a controlled withdrawal from positions northeast of Kherson City as part of the wider retreat from the west bank of Kherson Oblast.[35] A prominent Russian milblogger reported that Russian troops are undermining bridges on key withdrawal routes and conducting controlled withdrawals from settlements northwest and northeast of Kherson City.[36] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) also continued to claim that Russian troops repelled Ukrainian attacks in northern Kherson Oblast northwest of Beryslav around Sadok, Kachkarivka, and Pyatikhatky.[37]

Ukrainian troops continued their successful interdiction campaign against Russian concentration areas in Kherson Oblast amidst reports of Russian retreat on November 9. Residents reported explosions and the activation of Russian air defenses in the Nova Kakhovka area around Nova Kakhovka, Kakhovka, and Liubymivka (70km east of Kherson City).[38] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command confirmed that Ukrainian strikes destroyed Russian ammunition depots in Snihurivka.[39]

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on November 9. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian attacks on Bakhmut and near Klishchiivka (7km southwest), Mayorsk (20km south), Soledar (12km northeast), Bakhmutske (11 km northeast), Yakovlivka (17km northeast), and Bilohorivka (23km northeast).[40] Geolocated footage showed that Russian forces and Wagner forces have advanced into the southern half of Bilohorivka, Donetsk Oblast.[41] A Russian source claimed that Wagner forces tried to break Ukrainian defenses on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut on November 9.[42] Geolocated footage also showed Ukrainian forces dropping munitions on Russian positions north of Ivanhrad.[43] Russian forces continued routine shelling along the line of contact in the Bakhmut area.[44]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on November 9. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults in the areas of Vesele (8km southwest of Avdiivka), Opytne (4km southwest of Avdiivka), and Pervomaiske (12km southwest of Avdiivka).[45] A Russian source confirmed that Russian forces continued to conduct ground operations towards Opytne, Kransohorivka (on the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City) and Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[46] Russian forces conducted routine shelling in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area.[47]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast on November 9. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults in the areas of Pavlivka (50km southwest of Donetsk City) and Novomykailivka (30km southwest of Donetsk City).[48] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian counterattacks near Novomykhailivka, Pavlivka, and Vremivka (33km northwest of Vuhledar).[49] A pro-Ukrainian source claimed that weather slowed Russian forces in the Novomykhailivka area on November 9.[50] A Russian source amplified reports of fighting in the Pavlivka and Vuhledar areas.[51] Ukrainian Advisor to the Mariupol Mayor Petro Andryushchenko reported on November 9 that Russian occupation authorities are also fortifying the rear of western Donetsk Oblast.[52] Andryushchenko reported that Russian occupation authorities are installing dragon’s teeth and planting mines along the Ahrobaza-Berdyanske-Shevchenko-Pryazovske line near Mariupol‘s suburbs.[53] Russian forces continued routine shelling along the line of contact in western Donetsk Oblast and eastern Zaporizhia Oblast.[54]

Supporting Effort—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Russian forces continued routine artillery and missile strikes in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, and Mykolaiv oblasts on November 9, with the objective to maintain their occupied positions.[55] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Head Valentyn Reznichenko and other Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces launched Iranian-made Shahed-136 UAVs at Dnipro City, hitting a building of an unspecified logistics enterprise.[56] Ukrainian officials added that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed five Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).[57] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov and other Russian sources published footage showcasing the aftermath of the Shahed-136 strikes on Dnipro City.[58] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast officials also reported that Russian forces shelled settlements within Nikopol Raion.[59] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down a Russian air-to-surface Kh-31 missile that targeted the Odesa Oblast coastline.[60]

Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian logistics and positions in Zaporizhia Oblast. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces struck Russian units in an unspecified occupied settlement in Zaporizhia Oblast, destroying 15 pieces of various Russian military equipment, and wounding and killing up to 150 Russian personnel on November 6.[61] Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported that Russian soldiers continue to show up in city hospitals “en masse” for treatment.[62]

Damage to the Kerch Strait Bridge continues to disrupt Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to southern Ukraine. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (MoD) assessed that the Kerch Strait Bridge is unlikely to be operational until at least September 2023, reducing Russia’s ability to move military equipment and personnel by rail and road. The UK MoD noted that, although Russian officials hope to reopen the bridge by March 2023, weather will play a significant role in completing the repairs on time.[63] Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko reported that Russian forces are moving columns of fuel takers to supply Russian positions on the left (east) bank of Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast through Mariupol due to the damages to the Kerch Strait Bridge.[64] Disrupted logistics via the Kerch Strait Bridge also likely contributed to Russia’s decision to withdraw forces from the west bank of Kherson Oblast.

Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)

Russian federal subjects are facing significant challenges delivering promised payments to mobilized personnel and their families, which will likely further degrade the Russian economy and ignite social tensions. Russian governors are attempting to appease the families of mobilized personnel in the short term by offering a fraction of the promised payments. Voronezh Oblast Governor Alexander Gusev, for example, noted that relatives of mobilized soldiers living below the poverty line will receive a one-time payment of 11,832 rubles (about $193).[65] Mobilized servicemen from Ulyanovsk Oblast released a video appeal to the governor stating that they only received 1,500 rubles (about $25) for a month and half of service.[66] Ulyanovsk mobilized personnel noted that other regions are paying promised compensations to both volunteers and the mobilized, and ISW previously assessed that Russia’s inability to equally pay ad hoc units may spark social tensions. Caucasusian Knot reported that relatives of mobilized men from a town in Kuban Oblast received firewood from the government instead of a promised 100,000 rubles (about $1,620).[67] There are also instances of federal subjects failing to grant promised loan interest breaks to the families of mobilized personnel.[68]

The Russian Armed Forces are struggling to equip their mobilized personnel. Head of the Human Rights Council under the Russian President Valery Fadeev stated that mobilized soldiers from rich and poor federal subjects must receive equal equipment and noted that the federal government must provide for poorer regions.[69] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces undergoing training in Baranovichi, Brest Oblast, in Belarus are receiving obsolete helmets from World War II and body armor from the 1960s and 1970s.[70] The Ukrainian General Staff added that a large part of provided small arms do not work due to poor storage conditions. Mobilized from Oryol Oblast recorded video appeals to Governor Andrey Klychov showing faulty equipment like faulty knives, cheap flashlights, poor-quality backpacks, and uncomfortable boots.[71] The mobilized instead asked Klychov to provide them with money so that they could properly equip themselves. Klychov responded that government officials did not witness these issues when visiting the mobilized personnel and noted that the oblast secured the “best equipment it could get.”[72] Mobilized servicemen from Novosibirsk and Perm oblasts expressed similar grievances.[73]

Russian and proxy officials continued to clarify mobilization frameworks. Russian parliamentarians submitted a bill to the State Duma that would exempt parents with four or more children under the age of 18 from mobilization.[74] A Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) military enlistment officer held a meeting with relatives of mobilized students and noted that while other regions in Russia finished partial mobilization that omitted students, the DNR is still conducting an ongoing general mobilization in occupied Donetsk Oblast.[75]

Relatives of mobilized personnel are continuing to share their outrage online and via protests. Social media footage showed relatives of mobilized servicemen protesting outside of a Valuyki administration building, stating that local officials are refusing to provide a “green corridor” and vehicles to their loved ones.[76] Russian opposition outlets reported that women in Kursk Oblast protested for two days to garner attention from Kursk Oblast Governor Roman Starovoyt and complained that Russian officials are deploying the mobilized personnel to dangerous areas such as Lysychansk.[77] Starovoyt promised to request additional support for Kursk Oblast mobilized servicemen from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD).[78]

Russian industry continues to face employee shortages as a result of mobilization. Russian opposition outlet Proekt Media reported that almost 90 enterprises in Krasnoyarsk Krai are looking to replace mobilized specialists.[79] Russian sources reported similar employment shortages in Sverdlovsk Oblast.[80]

Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied and annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian occupation deputy head of Kherson Oblast Kirill Stremousov was killed in a car accident on November 9.[81] Multiple Russian sources, including Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin, claimed that the car accident occurred in Henichesk, near the Kherson Oblast-Crimea border, but geolocated images of the supposed wreckage are 8km south of Nova Kakhovka.[82] Stremusov’s death coincidentally took place on the day the Russian MoD announced the beginning of a withdrawal from the west (right) bank of Kherson Oblast.

Occupation authorities in rear areas are likely increasing law enforcement crackdowns and filtration measures amid fears of Ukrainian counteroffensives after the November 9 Kherson Oblast withdrawal announcement. Russian sources claimed that occupation authorities detained a group of supposed Ukrainian militants in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast.[83] A Russian source claimed that Russian authorities prevented a Ukrainian “terrorist” attack against a gas distribution facility in Novoaidar, Luhansk Oblast.[84] Ukrainian Mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov reported that Ukrainian partisans attacked the Russian occupation headquarters in Voznesenska on the northeastern outskirts of Melitopol, and geolocated footage shows smoke rising from a building in area.[85] A Russian source claimed that Melitopol residents are forming a “volunteer law enforcement battalion,” a claim likely aimed at deterring future partisan activity in and around the city.[86] Ukraine’s Resistance Center stated that Russian forces increased the number and frequency of checkpoints for Ukrainian car owners in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast and are marking their license plates with the Ukrainian coat of arms. Such measures likely enable occupation authorities to more easily identify known non-collaborators and streamline their filtration processes.[87]

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

[1] https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/16283583; https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/16283573

[4] https://www.svoboda.org/a/general-surovikin-obyavil-o-sdache-hersona/321... dot fontanka.dot ru/2022/11/09/71803409/; https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/16283583

[6] https://www.corriere.it/esteri/22_ottobre_25/interview-of-zelenskyy-for-... dot ie/world-news/europe/russia-pulls-troops-out-of-key-city-of-kherson-in-humiliating-u-turn-for-putin-but-ukraine-warns-it-could-be-a-trap-42132102.html

[16] http://www.president dot ir/fa/140651; http://www.nournews dot ir/fa/news/113194

[17] https://tass dot ru/politika/16279847; https://www.interfax dot ru/world/871689.

[26] https://www.kommersant.ru/amp/5653512; https://www.svoboda.org/a/genera... dot fontanka.dot ru/2022/11/09/71803409/; https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/16283583

[28] https://twitter.com/podolyak_m/status/1590379058885693440; https://meduza(dot)io/news/2022/11/09/sovetnik-glavy-ofisa-zelenskogo-ukraina-ne-vidit-priznakov-togo-chto-rossiya-ostavlyaet-herson-bez-boya

[30] https://suspilne dot media/312702-skasuvanna-mit-na-generatori-vidklucenna-svitla-po-vsij-ukraini-vazki-boi-na-doneccini-259-den-vijni-onlajn/; https://t.me/epoddubny/13577; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/69756; https:/... https://t.me/rybar/40990

[73] https://t.me/ostorozhno_novosti/12477; https://59 dot ru/text/gorod/2022/11/08/71796107/?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=messenger&utm_campaign=59

[74] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/11/09/v-gosdumu-vnesli-esche-odin-zakonoproekt-osvobozhdayuschiy-ot-mobilizatsii-mnogodetnyh-roditeley

[79] https://prmira dot ru/news/pochti-90-predpriyatij-v-krasnoyarskom-krae-ishhut-sotrudnikov-dlya-zameshheniya-mobilizovannyh-speczialistov/

[80] https://t.me/itsmycity/23454 ; https://itsmycity-ru.cdn dot ampproject.org/c/s/itsmycity.ru/amp/2022-11-08/vekaterinburge-voznik-deficit-kadrov-vsferah-gde-preimushestvenno-zanyaty-muzhchiny

[87] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/11/09/okupanty-zbilshyly-kilkist-blok-postiv-dlya-perevirky-ukrayinskyh-avto/

understandingwar.org

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (09.11.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (09.11.22) CDS comments on key events

Humanitarian aspect:

Since the first use of Iranian Shahed-136 drones in the war against Ukraine, Russia has launched more than 400 kamikaze drones on the Ukrainian infrastructure, Yuriy Ignat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said. According to him, most drones were shot down, but it is impossible to destroy 100% of them.

According to Oblast military administrations, as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, nine civilians were killed and 24 were injured over the past day, Deputy Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Tymoshenko said.

The Russian occupiers continue to shell the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. They also targeted Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts in central Ukraine. The information was made public by Oblast Military State Administrations at 9 a.m. today.

-     In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, 18 houses (apartments) and infrastructure objects were reported destroyed as a result of Russian shelling.

-   On November 8, during the day, the Russian military fired 59 mines and shells at the border areas of Sumy Oblast. 8 mines were fired at Seredyna-Buda, Shostka district at night. No destruction or victims were reported.

-   Kamikaze drones attacked Dnipropetrovsk Oblast at night. The Ukrainian military shot down five Russian drones. Three hit a logistics enterprise in Dnipro. Four employees of the enterprise were injured. All are hospitalized. Three are in serious condition. A fire broke out.

-  The Russian forces shelled Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast with Grad MLRS at night. More than 20 residential buildings, a private enterprise, cars, a gas pipeline and a power line were damaged. According to preliminary information, people were not injured. In the afternoon, the Russian forces shelled Nikopol district, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast again. The Marhanets community was hit with "Grad" MLRS. One local resident was killed, the head of Dnipropetrovsk OMA Valentin Reznichenko reported.

-    Two people were hospitalized as a result of Russian shelling in the Dvorichna community in Kharkiv Oblast. The condition of the patients is average.

-        On the evening of November 8, the Russian forces launched a rocket attack on Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast. School and private houses were damaged. An 8-year-old child was injured. In the evening, there was a powerful combined shelling of Chasiv Yar (rockets, artillery and MLRS): a school, a kindergarten, and private houses were hit, at least one person was killed, and 2 were injured. A total of 3 people were killed, 11 wounded in one day in Donetsk Oblast.

-  In Kherson Oblast, the Russian military continued to shell towns and villages along the contact line. As a result of the shelling, 2 civilians received shrapnel wounds.

Mines remain one of the biggest problems in Kharkiv Oblast. During the day, 2 road service workers died, and 2 more were injured. Special equipment hit a mine during road works in the Chuhuyiv district. Pyrotechnic units of the State Emergency Service defused 635 explosive objects during the day. Demining continues.

In Sumy Oblast, one of the largest bridges in the region across the Desna River connecting Sumy and Chernihiv Oblasts, which was destroyed due to military aggression, was restored, the Head of Sumy Oblast Military Administration Dmytro Zhyvytskiy said. He emphasized the economic importance of the bridge.

Occupied territories:

According to Russian official sources, the deputy head of the Russia-installed Kherson Administration, Kiril Stremousov, died in a car crash today. Prior to the occupation, Stremousov had been known for his pro-Russian views and street activism.

The Russia-appointed Acting head of the Kherson region, Volodymyr Saldo, banned the retail sale of alcohol in the area.

In the Henichesk district of Kherson Oblast, the Russian military, together with its collaborators, used force to seize the wells of the gas field, Kherson Oblast Police reported.

Land plots in Crimea that belong to Ukrainian businessmen who support the current Kyiv authorities will be subject to nationalization, the de-facto head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, said. Land is a scarce and valuable commodity in Crimea.

Operational situation

(Please note that this section of the Brief is mainly on the previous day's (November 8) Developments)

It is the 259th day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to protect Donbas"). The enemy tries to maintain control over the temporarily captured territories, concentrates its efforts on disrupting the counteroffensive actions of the Ukrainian troops, and conducts the offensive in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Novopavlivka directions.

Over the past day, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled Russian attacks in the areas around Bilohorivka and Novoselivske in Luhansk Oblast and Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Vesele, Klishchiivka, Mayorsk, Novomykhailivka, Opytne, Pavlivka, Pervomaiske, Soledar and Yakovlivka in Donetsk Oblast.

The Russian military shells the Ukrainian troops along the contact line fortifies frontiers, and conducts aerial reconnaissance. In violation of the norms of international humanitarian law, the laws and customs of war, it continues to strike critical infrastructure. Over the past day, the Russian forces have launched 7 missile strikes and 32 air strikes and fired over 70 MLRS rounds. Areas around more than 35 towns and villages in Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv Oblasts were hit by the Russian fire.

The Republic of Belarus continues to support the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, providing it with infrastructure, territory, and airspace. The Russian-Belarusian grouping of troops on the territory of the Republic of Belarus continues to form. According to preliminary information, the servicemen of the 38th separate airborne assault brigade of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus purchased up to 100 sets of individual first-aid kits, unloading vests and other equipment for the needs of the personnel of the 15th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd motorized rifle division of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation as "fraternal" aid. Units of attack UAV operators are being formed in the border troops of the Republic of Belarus. Law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Belarus have intensified measures to search for, identify and detain citizens with a pro-Ukrainian position or those who criticize the authorities or the so-called special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

Over the past day, the aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces made 18 strikes against the enemy. 4 enemy platoon strongholds, 10 areas of weapons and military equipment concentration and 4 anti-aircraft missile systems positions were hit.

Over the past day, the Ukrainian air defense units shot down 5 "Lancet" and 4 "Orlan" UAVs. In addition, Ukrainian missile and artillery forces hit one Russian command post, 4 weapons and military equipment concentration areas.

The morale and psychological state of the personnel of the invasion forces remain low. Kharkiv direction

• Topoli - Siversk section: approximate length of combat line - 154 km, number of BTGs of the RF

Armed Forces - 23-28, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 5.5 km;

• Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments (TR), 245th motorized rifle regiment (MRR) of the 47th tank division (TD), 6th and 239th TRs, 228th MRR of the 90th TD, 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades (SMRBr) of the 6th Combined Arms (CA) Army, 27th SMRBr of the 1st Tank Army, 252nd and 752nd MRRs of the 3rd MRD, 1st, 13th, and 12th TRs, 423rd MRR of the 4th TD, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th SMRBrs of the 2nd CA Army, 35th, 55th and 74th SMRBrs of the 41st CA Army, 275th and 280th MRRs, 11th TR of the 18th MRD of the 11 Army Corps (AC), 7th MRR of the 11th AC, 80th SMRBr of the 14th AC, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, military units of the 1st AC of so-called DPR, 2nd and 4th SMRBrs of the 2nd AC, PMC

The Russian military fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the areas around Berestove, Krokhmalne and Cherneshchyna of Kharkiv Oblast; Makiivka, Nevske, Novoselivske, Ploshanka and Stelmakhivka of Luhansk Oblast and Terny and Yampolivka of Donetsk Oblast.

Donetsk direction

● Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 144 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments (TR), 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th TR of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 51st and 137th parachute airborne regiment of the 106 airborne division, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade of Baltic Fleet, 24th separate SOF brigade, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 100th separate motorized rifle brigades, 9th and 11th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The Russian military shelled the areas around Andriyivka, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Bilohorivka, Zalizne, Klishchiivka, Mayorsk, Opytne, Pivnichne, Soledar, Avdiyivka, Vodyane, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Nevelske, Netaylove, Novomykhailivka, Opytne and Pervomaiske with tanks and artillery.

Zaporizhzhia direction

● Maryinka – Vasylivka section: approximate length of the line of combat - 200 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 11.7 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 36th separate motorized rifle brigade (SMRBr) of the 29th Combined Arms (CA) Army, 38th and 64th SMRBrs, 69th separate cover brigade of the 35th CA Army, 5th separate tank brigade, 37th of the 36th CA Army, 135th, 429th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments (MRR) of the 19th motorized rifle division (MRD) of the 58th CA Army, 70th, 71st and 291st MRRs of the 42nd MRD of the 58th CA Army, 136th SMRB of the 58 CA Army, 46th and 49th machine gun artillery regiments of the 18th machine gun artillery division of the 68th Army Corps (AC), 39th SMRB of the 68th AC, 83th separate airborne assault brigade, 40th and 155th separate marines brigades, 22nd separate SOF brigade, 1st AC of the so-called DPR, and 2nd AC of the socalled LPR, PMCs.

The Russian military shelled positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the areas of Velyka Novosilka, Volodymyrivka, Vremivka, Vuhledar, Mykilske, Neskuchne, Pavlivka, Prechystivka, Shevchenko of Donetsk Oblast, Stepove and Charivne of Zaporizhia Oblast.

Tavriysk direction

• Vasylivka – Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line – 296 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 39, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 7,5 km;

• Deployed BTGs of: the 8th and 49th Combined Arms (CA) Armies; 11th, 103rd, 109th, and 127th rifle regiments of the mobilization reserve of the 1st Army Corps (AC) of the Southern Military District; 35th and 36th CA Armies of the Eastern Military District; 3rd AC of the Western Military District; 90th tank division of the Central Military District; the 22nd AC of the Coastal Forces; the 810th separate marines brigade of the Black Sea Fleet; the 7th and 76th Air assault divisions, the 98th airborne division, and the 11th separate airborne assault brigade of the Airborne Forces.

Areas of more than 30 towns and villages near the contact line were shelled. The Russian military carried out airstrikes in the areas of Nova Kamianka and Bilohirka.

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine and control the northwestern part of the Black Sea. The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea and to maintain control over the captured territories.

The Russian fleet keeps 7 ships at sea. They are located along the southwestern coast of Crimea. There is not a single Kalibr cruise missile carrier among them. Nevertheless, a rapid build-up of surface and underwater Kalibr missile carriers in the sea launch areas is possible (3-4 hours).

In the Sea of Azov waters, 6 patrol ships and boats are located on the approaches to the Mariupol and Berdyansk seaports to block the Azov coast.

Russian aviation continues to fly from the Crimean airfields of Belbek and Hvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 16 combat aircraft from Belbek and Saki airfields were involved. In addition, the adversary monitors the water area adjacent to the grain corridor, thus staying ready to renew the blockade of Ukrainian ports.

On the morning of November 9, the enemy attacked Odesa with a Kh-31 missile from a Su-30 aircraft. The Air Defense Forces of Ukraine shot down the missile.

The mobilized Russian troops, completing their training at Russian training grounds in Crimea and Sevastopol, will soon be sent to war. The dispatch to the front should take place by the end of Sunday. At the same time, as of November 8, a large group of mobilized people does not have body armor.

"The Grain Initiative": 3 vessels with 21.6 thousand tons of oil on board left the ports of "Odesa", "Chornomorsk" and "Pivdenny" for the countries of Asia and Europe.

9 ships move along the "Grain Corridor" to Ukrainian ports for loading. Yesterday, November 8, 7 bulk carriers with Ukrainian agricultural products called at the ports. Among them, the STARVOS bulker is loaded with 55,000 wheat for Yemen's citizens suffering from a food crisis.

Since the departure of the first ship with Ukrainian food, 10.1 million tons of agricultural products have been exported. A total of 435 ships with agricultural products left Ukrainian ports for Asian, European and African countries.

Ukraine hopes to extend the "grain agreement" for at least one year, as well as to expand the agreement to the ports of the southern Mykolaiv Oblast, which provided 35% of Ukrainian food exports before the Russian invasion. "We hope that no later than the next week, we will find understanding from our partners in Turkey and the UN, and the entire market will also have a clear signal regarding the further functioning and continuation of the initiative," said Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Yuriy Vaskov.

The "grain initiative" expires on November 19. It enabled a supply of more than 10 million tons of Ukrainian food, mainly grain, to foreign markets since its conclusion in July with the mediation of Turkey and the UN.

Ukraine also demanded streamlining the mandatory inspection of ships transporting food, as Kyiv believes that Russia is deliberately slowing down inspections to reduce the speed of exports, he noted.

A decision is expected next week, after the G20 summit.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 09.11

Personnel - almost 77,950 people (+780);

Tanks 2,801 (+15)

Armored combat vehicles – 5,666 (+12);

Artillery systems – 1,802 (+11);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 393 (+2); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 205 (+2); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 4,227 (+11); Aircraft - 278 (0);

Helicopters – 260 (0);

UAV operational and tactical level – 1,483 (+7); Intercepted cruise missiles - 399 (0);

Boats / ships - 16 (0).

Ukraine, general news

The State Budget of Ukraine approved by the Verkhovna Rada allocates UAH 444.13 billion to the social sphere for the next year. This is UAH 41.9 billion more than in 2022, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine reported. In particular, UAH 271.86 billion is earmarked for payments to the elderly, UAH 86.1 billion to people in difficult life circumstances, UAH 53.45 billion to low-income citizens, and UAH 26.85 billion to families and children. In addition, it is planned to allocate UAH

3.56 billion for payments to persons with disabilities.

Ukraine considers Russia's repeated attempts to invite it to the negotiations table to discuss the end of the war as a "smoke screen" to buy time and change the situation in its favor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said. He noted that so far the statements from Russia do not mention the withdrawal of troops from the territory of Ukraine, but only use general phrases that Moscow is "open to negotiations".

International diplomatic aspect

GOP didn't manage to make a "red wave", though it is on its way to taking control of the House and Senate. It's not what Donald Trump and his supporters hoped for on the eve of his possible announcement to run for the White House in 2024. His warning not to compete for the highest office to the newly reelected Governor of Florida shows that there might be promising alternatives, given the results of a kind of referendum on Trump.

MAGA Republicans might affect the scope of assistance the US provides to Ukraine, though less decisively, had they won a landslide victory. However, the main issue would likely be a more significant role of Congress in oversight of the Ukrainian aid in view of ideas voiced by Senator Rand Paul. There's always room for compromise in drafting and passing connected and not-so- connected bills. And in spite of some critical voices over the scope of aid, Republicans still show strong support for Ukraine, which is of moral importance, as well as in the national interest of the United States. The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, unanimously supported by both parties and both chambers, will remain a tool at the Biden Administration's disposal in case of changing winds on Capitol Hill. More competition for the nomination in two years between candidates with traditional conservative views, particularly on foreign and security policy, is in the interest of the American people and those who see America as the leader of the Free World.

Russian military leadership announced their troops withdrawing from Kherson and nearby areas. It's the only regional capital Russia managed to occupy since February 24 and pompously (illegally) annexed. One more sign of "a gesture of goodwill," a retreat in Russian newspeak, is a smart move because the Russian military was not able to sustain the defense on the western bank of the Dnieper River. However, Ukrainian experts believe that Russians set up a trap and that regaining control over the city isn't going to be easy. Russia needs an operational pause to strengthen defenses and make sustainable grabs that secure a land bridge from Crimea towards Russia's mainland. This territory bears strategic importance for future advances deep into Ukraine in the northern direction but, most notably, towards Odesa. It won't be a surprise if Russian propaganda and diplomacy would double down on a "talks theme" aimed at buying time for the military and shaking support for Ukraine from less ready for long-haul European leaders.

The EU Commission has proposed a support package for Ukraine of up to €18 billion. This will come in the form of loans disbursed as of 2023 through a Macro-Financial Assistance+ instrument. The MFA+ is aimed at helping Ukraine to maintain macro-financial stability, restore critical infrastructure, and carry out sectoral and institutional reforms, including anti-corruption and judicial reforms, etc.

The UK will shortly complete the delivery of approximately 1,000 additional surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine. It will also send further 12,000 extreme cold weather sleeping kits and 150 heated tents to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia reportedly informed Iran about its withdrawal from Iraqi-mediated talks. Russia tried to become a mediator, which would have given Moscow more leverage in the Middle East. In the meantime, Nikolai Patrushev, Russia's Secretary of the Security Council, headed to Teheran for talks. Behind the show of a strategic alignment, Patrushev is going to secure supplies of Iran- made weapons to substitute depleted resources in the war against Ukraine. It was reported that for the first tranche of drones, Moscow paid €140m in cash and some Western weapons captured at battlefields in Ukraine. The Kremlin likely promised more cash for Iranian drones and ballistic missiles and whatever Teheran can give to prolong the badly going war in Ukraine. The US should

revisit its self-restriction policy on long-range capabilities for Ukraine should Patrushev close the deal. Ukraine should have the means and ability to target platforms that are used to hit civilians, civilian and critical infrastructure. Though Kyiv has received several air defense systems, there are hardly enough to cope with the current level of attacks, not to mention their possible intensification.

Russia, relevant news

President Putin's decree defined opposition to the destructive ideology and the formation of the image of Russia as the custodian of traditional values as the goal of the government policy of the Russian Federation. Serving the Fatherland is attributed to the traditional values of the Russian Federation, along with the life, dignity, rights and freedoms of citizens.

The volume of gas supplies from Russia to Italy decreased to 7 billion cubic meters. m per year, Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said. At the end of 2021, about 30 billion cubic meters of Russian gas were supplied to the country.

The Japanese automaker Isuzu Motors is considering the possibility of a final cessation of the production of trucks in Russia, as it cannot solve problems with the supply of components - Kyodo agency / Yomiuri newspaper.

The basic military training course will appear in Russian Federation schools starting in the next academic year. The classes will be extracurricular, the Russian Minister of Education said.

The Southern District Military Court (Rostov-on-Don) has begun a show trial of Denis Muryga, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Aidar volunteer battalion. The Russian government accuses him of participating in an illegal armed formation.

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3. Exclusive: Inside the ongoing ‘evolution’ of Army special operations

Lots to parse in this article, including the new "influence triad." (but also a reorganized and resized experimental ODA).

Excerpts:

The influence triad is intended to complement the nuclear triad. Where the nuclear triad deters a foe’s strategic forces, like inter-continental ballistic missiles, the influence triad is intended to deter and help respond to irregular activity that stops short of armed conflict, and then dominate foes in those domains when a war begins.

And to implement it, Army Special Operations Command is weighing force structure changes at every echelon, new technology-oriented career fields and new ways to harness talent both already existing in the Army’s reserve components and in the civilian population.

“If there had been five domains at that time, I don’t think these gentlemen [who established Army special operations] would have said, ‘Well, we’re not going to care about these other two domains,’” quipped Lt. Gen. Jon Braga, who commands USASOC.

Exclusive: Inside the ongoing ‘evolution’ of Army special operations

news.yahoo.com · by Davis WinkieNovember 9, 2022, 12:03 PM·12 min read

WASHINGTON — The distinctive patch of the Army’s Special Forces units dates back to 1955, when Capt. John W. Fry of the 77th Special Forces Group reportedly submitted a design he felt reflected the new units’ all-domain mission.

According to Army heraldry officials, the three lightning flashes represent the elite troops’ ability to “strike rapidly by air, water or land.”

Nearly 70 years later, the service’s top special operations leader sees a resonance between that original all-domain concept and the “modern day” deterrence triad of space, cyber and special operations that senior leaders unveiled in recent months. The military’s top space official, Gen. James Dickinson, dubbed it the “influence triad” when he unveiled the concept in August.

The influence triad is intended to complement the nuclear triad. Where the nuclear triad deters a foe’s strategic forces, like inter-continental ballistic missiles, the influence triad is intended to deter and help respond to irregular activity that stops short of armed conflict, and then dominate foes in those domains when a war begins.

And to implement it, Army Special Operations Command is weighing force structure changes at every echelon, new technology-oriented career fields and new ways to harness talent both already existing in the Army’s reserve components and in the civilian population.

“If there had been five domains at that time, I don’t think these gentlemen [who established Army special operations] would have said, ‘Well, we’re not going to care about these other two domains,’” quipped Lt. Gen. Jon Braga, who commands USASOC.

Less door-kicking, more resistance: Inside Army SOF’s return to unconventional warfare

Braga sat for an exclusive interview with Army Times Oct. 11 during the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington, D.C., where he also participated in panels and press conferences.

Braga and his colleagues atop the Army’s space and cyber warfare communities see the triad concept as “simply taking what our capabilities are and applying them in a combined arms model...no different than bringing together maneuver, fires, aviation” and other capabilities to meet objectives, as Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler of Space and Missile Defense Command described it.

But because their capabilities are well-suited to operations meant to counter foes in situations short of armed combat, the influence triad is likely to play a major role in implementing the recently released National Defense Strategy.

The new strategic guidance stresses “integrated deterrence” through “campaigning,” which prioritizes building — and messaging — advantages for the next war in a manner that deters countries like China from even firing a shot.

For Army special operations, retooling for that mission after decades of emphasis on counterterrorism and direct action raids is simultaneously a return to its roots and a step into the unknown.

To Braga, it’s an “evolution” for SOF.

What can the new triad do for SOF?

Ukraine’s success thus far in fighting off Russia’s massive invasion, which began in February, has offered some vindication for recent special operations concepts and valuable lessons for SOF troops who will be training partner nation forces in the years ahead.

One example is the Resistance Operating Concept, which advocates building the capacity of friendly countries to respond to invasion by waging an effective resistance behind enemy lines should their conventional militaries prove unable to hold all of their territory. When the ROC playbook is implemented, the resistance aims to tie up enemy resources and help lay the groundwork for a later liberation counter-offensive.

Army Times featured the ROC on the cover of its September 2021 print edition, and later revealed how U.S. and NATO officials — including SOF elements — had helped Kyiv to implement key portions of the gameplay in the years preceding the invasion.

Air Force CV-22 Ospreys from the 352nd Special Operations Wing at RAF Mildenhall, England, conducted a fast rope insertion and extraction system training with Ukraine special operations forces and U.S. Army Special Forces near Berdychiv, Ukraine, Sept. 20, 2020. (U.S. Embassy in Kyiv)

But what surprised many observers was how technology- and space-oriented the Ukraine government’s resistance plans proved to be, as well as how commercially-available those capacities are.

Braga, SMDC’s Karbler and others are noticing.

Satellites from Hawkeye 360, a radio frequency analytics company, detected Russian electronic warfare efforts months before the fight. SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet allowed isolated Ukrainian troops in Mariupol and other areas to resist for longer. Commercially available imagery was available in near real-time.

Ukraine also launched a resistance coordinating website early in the war, with practical handbooks and tips on how to securely spot and report enemy troop locations for those who may not be able to participate in armed resistance.

Karbler highlighted the impact of coordination between U.S. military space assets, the private sector and Ukraine’s government as a lesson worth emulating.

Army special operations gets new training center in New Mexico

“Even if a nation-state doesn’t have the budget to be launching their own satellites...[they’re] becoming very accessible for all entities,” said Braga. “That can provide capability in an unconventional warfare standpoint where you might have a behind enemy lines situation where cyberspace might be able to deliver an effect or deliver information in [occupied] physical areas.”

Asked about how the multi-domain ROC lessons from Ukraine are being applied in other counties, Braga said, “We are in discussions with countries — both countries that are well-resourced and have a space program, and some that don’t — [that are] still looking at how to leverage both cyber and space on [their] special operations forces.”

But as Army SOF moves into closer concert with space and cyber capabilities, having the right people with the right training organized so they’re in the right place at the right time to do their job is even more important than hardware.

How might force structure change?

Army officials, including Braga, have previously acknowledged that a service-wide analysis is underway to determine how to integrate basic tech capacity (like the small unmanned drones ubiquitous in Ukraine) at the tactical level.

Part of that will necessitate changes to force structure from the unit-of-action level all the way to the top, Braga argued. These changes will ensure that SOF is prepared for “irregular warfare campaigning...[and] high-end conflict,” Braga said.

“For the last 20 years, there’s been very few instances where we have deployed as designed...we’ve always augmented,” added Braga. “So if we have deployed for 20 years — never as is — is our force design correct? I think [the question] answers itself.”

During public remarks at the conference, the USASOC commander revealed that officials are considering “at the brigade or battalion headquarters level...realigning ARSOF” to include representation from all three parts of Army special operations: special forces, civil affairs and psychological operations.

Soldiers with 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, and Navy EOD Mobile Unit 5 breach a building during an assault on an objective, May 2021. (Pfc. Thoman Johnson/Army)

Special Forces formations could see the biggest tactical-level changes. For years, SF companies have been organized with six 12-soldier teams known as ODAs, short for Operational Detachment-Alpha, and a headquarters element or Operational Detachment-Bravo.

Now, said Braga, “there’s one company in each Special Forces Group experimenting with a 16-man team and a convergence headquarters that [in] some cases is at the company level...[and] in some cases at the battalion level.”

Connecting Vets first reported units were experimenting with a 16-soldier ODA concept, but the extent of the pilot was not previously known.

Asked what the extra four team-level operators would bring to the table, the USASOC commander suggested he’d want more technology-oriented roles added to the fight and pointed to the command’s ongoing experiment with developing warrant officers focused on tactical-level “tech integration.” It’s not clear, though, whether these troops would represent all four additional soldiers in the experimental ODA.

New warrant officer career field?

A new, proposed warrant officer career field would focus on roles like “drone operator, drone integrator, drone builder, robotics, manned-unmanned teaming, leveraging artificial intelligence, coding, tactical cyber” and more, Braga previously told Army Times. He doesn’t think these jobs should be heaped upon an ODA’s existing communications sergeants, who have quietly become overburdened with systems and capabilities.

“We can do more with a dedicated professional where that’s their job, not just an additional duty,” the general explained in the interview.

“I cannot envision a future form of warfare that does not employ more need for robotics, unmanned systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Braga said. “We have people who are passionate and capable in those skillsets — people who build their own drones, have self-taught Python [code]...these people exist in our formation right now, but we don’t have an institutional pipeline to provide them a successful career.”

Some opportunities exist to help troops who already have those skills to expand and use them, but they’re few and far between. A handful of Army special operators are currently assigned to the Army Software Factory in Austin, Texas, where they’re working on an upgraded suite of apps for the Android-powered devices that SOF units carry into battle.

A Green Beret with the 5th Special Forces Group manages a drone during a raid exercise at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, Indiana, March 15, 2021. (Staff Sgt. William Howard/Army)

Army Times spoke with them about their work and career path during a September visit to the facility. During the visit, Futures Command requested — and Army Times agreed — not to name individual coders from the unit in order to protect their privacy and encourage them to speak candidly.

One SF warrant officer there said ODAs have a similar innovative spirit to the Software Factory, but acknowledged that he volunteered for a tour in Austin because the SOF community lacked “a clear [career] path that I could go forward in.”

But he’s been hearing from senior leaders in recent months about the proposed career field, and he thinks there’s an opportunity for “value added” on the teams if the plan is effectively implemented.

It’s not clear whether the proposed career field would be within the Special Forces branch, which would require soldiers to make it through an assessment and selection process and the Special Forces Qualification Course. Braga indicated that officials are analyzing whether that’s the best path.

The SF warrant assigned to the Software Factory expressed worry that tech-focused troops at the ODA level may be set back culturally if they’re not required to go through the full training pipeline.

“If they haven’t gone through that [training process],” he explained, team members may be concerned about the tech troops not “being able to keep up, go for it in the middle of the mountains or...[keep] cool when it’s jumping [and] things aren’t going very well.”

Part-time PSYOP?

But when it comes to other special operations capabilities, there’s not always a need for that lengthy training. Nor is it always necessary for the soldiers to wear the uniform full-time — Braga suggested a reconsideration of how the Army’s reserve component troops support the special operations community.

Currently, the Army Reserve has a significant number of traditional drilling civil affairs and psychological operations units, but the soldiers in them are not required to attend selection courses. National Guard troops assigned to the 19th and 20th Special Forces Groups go through the full SF training pipeline.

“We are in discussions with [the Army Reserve and Army National Guard]...about force experimentation,” explained Braga. “We have to leverage the talent that’s in the Guard and Reserve as part of [a] total Army analysis [and] rebalance.”

While the discussions are preliminary, Braga said he can “envision” a revamped version of part-time special operations built around “a combined National Guard/Reserve element that maybe is based out of Northern California [or] Washington State.”

A soldier with 7th PSYOP Group plays a counter improvised explosive device message on a loud speaker during a mission near Malajat, Afghanistan. (Spc. Canaan Radcliffe/Army)

He acknowledged concerns that many traditional Guard and Reserve soldiers aligned with existing units struggle to maintain a true part-time relationship with the Army, saying “we need to be more creative” than shoehorning SOF training and missions into part-time units.

Otherwise, Braga added, SOF is missing out on “talent in [the] reserve and National Guard that doesn’t exist in the active duty force, because their civilian careers actually keep them up to the state of the art of their craft — could be writing, could be coding, could be hacking.”

“I envision [continental United States]-based operational support, maybe even state-based support, where they don’t need to come to Fort Bragg, or they might not even need to deploy overseas to do some of their jobs — specially when you’re talking psychological operations,” Braga explained.

Even for traditionally expeditionary capabilities like civil affairs, the general argued that technology allows for “AI-enabled and internet-based civil reconnaissance” now and might enable some troops “to stay in [their] home state and work from a terminal node.”

Braga argued it’s because many key skills valued in influence and information operations, like writing, broadcast, production, drawing and graphic design, can be done from nearly anywhere.

Finding the right recruits

Braga also believes that there’s more top-flight talent out there in America’s streets and schools who can help fill PSYOP roles and contribute to the tech integration efforts, but the service needs to reach them.

“I could walk in any high school in America and I could say, ‘I’ve got a role for you in Army Special operations,’” he remarked to reporters during the AUSA conference.

“[If] you’re STEM-focused and you like coding, I’d love you to come on and be the baddest drone builder [or robotics expert] in the world. Please come join us,” he said. “If you are more on the humanities side...[and] psychology-focused or work on designing sets as part of the theater club, we’ve got a spot for you in psychological operations.”

But in order to fully tap into these prevalent skills, Braga added, the command needs “different standards for different things out there” and the pathways to bring talent in and continue developing it.

A soldier from the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School makes his way through a swamp while completing a land navigation course during a selection course near Hoffman, North Carolina, May 7, 2019. (K. Kassens/Army)

The model already exists for attracting Special Forces candidates. The 18X program allows prospective soldiers to enlist with a guaranteed opportunity to attend Airborne School and Special Forces Assessment and Selection.

A direct entry program for PSYOP troops also launched in recent years, but Braga confided, “We’ve got to do a better job of translating those opportunities for not only high-schoolers, but...[also] people already in the workforce out there.”

He said prospective soldiers often have “no clue...[they] can have a career” revolving around the key skills PSYOP troops exercise.

Part of the disconnect, he fears, lies in the name.

“If I just said, ‘Hey, you want to come and be a psychological operations operator?’ some people are like, ‘What are you talking about?’” he explained. “But if I went in and said, ‘Hey, do you want to be a military social media influencer?’ I think I know what you told me just there.”

With the new influence triad offering opportunities to reconsider long-held assumptions, Braga thinks there’s something for every young American in his formations.

C4ISRNET reporter Colin Demarest and Federal Times reporter Molly Weisner contributed reporting.

news.yahoo.com · by Davis WinkieNovember 9, 2022, 12:03 PM·12 min read

4. Xi Jinping tells China’s army to focus on preparation for war

Note the photo of the party leadership, to include XI, in their "military uniforms" at the link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/09/xi-jinping-tells-chinas-army-to-focus-on-preparation-for-war

Xi Jinping tells China’s army to focus on preparation for war

President says China in an ‘unstable and uncertain’ security situation amid tensions over Taiwan

Xi Jinping on a visit to a military command centre on Wednesday. Photograph: Li Gang/AP

Verna Yu

Wed 9 Nov 2022 14.00 EST

Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army to “focus all its energy on fighting” in preparation for war, a Chinese Communist party mouthpiece has reported.

The Guardian · by Verna Yu · November 9, 2022

Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army to “focus all its energy on fighting” in preparation for war, a Chinese Communist party mouthpiece has reported.

Pictures of Xi, who recently secured a third term as party leader, in his army uniform during a visit to a command centre featured prominently on the front page of the People’s Daily on Wednesday.

Xi said the army must “comprehensively strengthen military training in preparation for war”, having warned at a recent party congress of “dangerous storms” on the horizon.

“Focus all [your] energy on fighting, work hard on fighting and improve [your] capability to win,” he was quoted as saying. The army must also “resolutely defend national sovereignty and national security” as China was in an “unstable and uncertain” security situation, he reportedly said.

While Xi also ordered the army to focus on war preparation in 2013, soon after he took power, and again in 2017, political analysts say he has markedly stepped up his rhetoric this time. In a similar visit to the command centre in 2016, he told officers to be “loyal” and “resourceful” in fighting and “courageous and capable of winning wars”.

“He is sending a message to the United States and Taiwan,” said Willy Lam, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation. Although China’s military strength was not yet at par with the US, Xi’s decision-making was not always based on rational calculation, he said.

Xi made a veiled attack on the US’s increasingly explicit support for Taipei at the 20th party congress, which concluded in Beijing last month, blaming “foreign interference” for exacerbating tensions. Xi sees seizing Taiwan as a key part of his legacy and said in his opening speech at the congress: “We will never promise to renounce the use of force.”

Could Xi follow Putin's example and try to annex Taiwan? – video explainer

Joe Biden has repeatedly pledged that the US would defend Taiwan if it was attacked. After the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan in August, the People’s Liberation Army reportedly moved several warships and planes near to the median line, an unofficial border between China and Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait.

Xi in recent months has used increasingly aggressive tones to urge his cadres to “dare to struggle” and boost their “fighting spirit” to defend national interests in a hostile political environment. In his opening speech at the party congress, he used the word douzheng (“struggle”) 17 times, which harked back to Mao Zedong’s emphasis on “class struggle” and combat against foreign, imperialist influence, and he used the word for “security” about 50 times.

This week a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson criticised the UK trade minister Greg Hands’ visit to Taiwan and told the British government to “cease sending wrong signals to separatist forces for Taiwan independence”.

The Guardian · by Verna Yu · November 9, 2022

5. One facet of China’s unrestricted hybrid war on America — TikTok

One facet of China’s unrestricted hybrid war on America — TikTok

worldtribune.com · by Editor One · November 8, 2022

Special to WorldTribune, November 8, 2022

Commentary by Laurence F Sanford

Just because Chinese bombs are not falling and soldiers are not marching (yet) on America does not mean there is no war against America.

China is waging unrestricted war on the United States. From the theft of military and industrial secrets to the poisoning of American culture and elections, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been waging hybrid warfare without firing a shot (yet).

Hybrid warfare is a theory of military strategy that employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyberwarfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare, and foreign electoral intervention. The goal of hybrid warfare is to create divisions in society and artificially create internal discontent. TikTok is an example.

TikTok is a worldwide social media platform app with 1 billion active users who enjoy its easy yet sophisticated video sharing. It has become a major player in targeted advertising by its ability to collect sensitive personal data from users without their knowledge.

TikTok has 100 million American users, up 800% since 2018. ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing, China, founded TikTok in 2016.

Sensitive personal data from users collected by TikTok is a national security threat to America due to the 2017 Chinese National Intelligence Law, which states, “any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work.” The collection of personal data on the enemy (United States citizens) is of strategic value.

TikTok stores vast quantities of personal data, including biometrics such as facial geometry and voice recognition. Biometrics are of high intelligence value to security services.

Data collection from children under the age of 13 by TikTok violates the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule of 1998, which requires obtaining verifiable parental consent. Multiple consumer groups have alerted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that TikTok continues to violate children’s privacy. However, there has been no discernible FTC action against TikTok children’s data collection.

TikTok claims the data is stored in the U.S. and Singapore, but its parent company, ByteDance, has all its computers in China. One can reasonably assume TikTok will deceive (as Communists always do) what its parent company ByteDance orders, including data transfer to ByteDance. One can reasonably assume ByteDance will follow the dictates of Chinese intelligence law. One can also reasonably assume that CCP security services are harvesting the data.

Data collection from children under the age of 13 by TikTok violates the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule of 1998, which requires obtaining verifiable parental consent. Multiple consumer groups have alerted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that TikTok continues to violate children’s privacy. However, there has been no discernible FTC action against TikTok children’s data collection.

TikTok censors users when posting content critical of CCP interests, thus demonstrating it follows state diktats. No posting of topics such as the Uighur genocide in Xinjiang, Tibetan independence, Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong, and Taiwan independence is allowed. If one does attempt to post, the post is deleted, and the account is suspended.

China’s “Great Firewall” controls the internet content in China. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other American social media companies are banned. In addition, the Great Firewall prevents users from accessing foreign news sources such as the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, and BBC.

TikTok censors users when posting content critical of CCP interests, thus demonstrating it follows state diktats. No posting of topics such as the Uighur genocide in Xinjiang, Tibetan independence, Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong, and Taiwan independence is allowed. If one does attempt to post, the post is deleted, and the account is suspended.

The U.S. military and some private companies have banned TikTok on business devices. Why the entire U.S. Government doesn’t ban TikTok from all devices is not known. Democrat Senator Mark Warner said President Trump was “right when it comes to the security risks around Chinese-owned TikTok.” President Trump wanted to shut down Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat for security reasons but was blocked by Federal court orders. Currently, the Biden administration is conducting its own review of threats from Chinese apps.

Why does the U.S. government allow TikTok to flourish in America, collecting intelligence data and corrupting our culture and youth? Why doesn’t the U.S. government demand reciprocity from China in internet access? Perhaps the answer is in Peter Schweizer’s “Red Handed,” where he writes, “Presidential families, Silicon Valley gurus, Wall Street high rollers, Ivy League institutions, professional athletes — all willing to sacrifice American strength and security on the altar of personal enrichment.”

We have met the enemy, and he/she is us.

Vote!

Laurence Sanford graduated from Boston College and then served in the U.S. Navy Pacific fleet from 1963 to 1966. He then served as an officer in the clandestine service of the Central Intelligence Agency for over 4 years, including a two-year assignment in Hong Kong. Mr. Sanford serves as a Senior Analyst with the American Security Council Foundation and is also President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers — Florida Satellite Chapter.

6. “Wonder Weapons” Will Not Win Russia’s War

One of my favorite John Boyd quotes: “Machines don't fight wars, people do, and they use their minds...People, ideas, hardware – in that order.” 

Excerpts:

Wonder weapons do not win wars. Killer drones may capture the popular imagination and evoke fears of some futuristic dystopia. But the battlefield reality is quite different. The Russians are learning in Ukraine what the Germans and many other states have had to learn before them: no amount of technological innovation can save a country from a failed strategy.

The only thing that will stop the Ukrainians from making further advances is the will of the U.S. and its NATO allies and other partnered nations to provide support. If that will is sustained, the Ukrainians seem likely to win.

“Wonder Weapons” Will Not Win Russia’s War

Russia’s turn to kamikaze drones is premised on a flawed strategy.

By RAPHAEL S. COHEN and GIAN GENTILE

defenseone.com · by Raphael S. Cohen

As the Second World War turned against the Axis powers, a desperate Germany increasingly pinned its hopes on a series of wunderwaffen—"wonder weapons”—to save it from eventual defeat. These included some of the first cruise and ballistic missiles, which were, for the most part, weapons of terror. Beginning in mid-June 1944, Germany unleashed a barrage of some 6,725 V-1 cruise missiles and 1,400 V-2 ballistic missiles, many of which targeted London, in an effort to break British morale. The campaign caused tens of thousands of British casualties, but ultimately proved ineffectual. Britain fought on.

Three-quarters of a century later, Russia faces a similar predicament. Its invasion of Ukraine has gone badly. With its army increasingly in shambles, Russia has turned to attacking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure with its own class of “wonder weapons”—in the form of Iranian-made kamikaze drones—in an effort to destroy Ukrainians’ will to fight. These tactics will inflict pain on the Ukrainian population, certainly, but if history is any guide, they will not forestall a Russian defeat.

For starters, Russia has already tried the wonder-weapon tactic, albeit on a more limited scale. In the opening months of conflict, Russia fired about a dozen of its new hypersonic missiles at various targets in Ukraine. If Russia hoped that such a move would shock Ukraine into submission, or deter Ukraine’s Western backers, it failed. Western observers simply took note of the tactic, and fought on.

And unlike the hypersonic missiles, kamikaze drones are not actually all that novel. In the opening weeks of the war, the United States gave hundreds of kamikaze drones to Ukraine to use against Russian forces. Others have employed them as well. Iran, for example, used kamikaze drones to strike Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil fields in 2019. Even the Islamic State deployed their own primitive version of these weapons. And the basic concept—that a military could crash explosive-laden aircraft into targets—has been around for decades, which minimizes the shock factor of such a tactic.

Moreover, Russia also lacks enough drones or any other wonder weapon to shift the balance of power in the war. Ukraine estimates that Russia wants to buy some 2,400 drones from Iran. Whether Tehran can fill the entire order, and whether all the drones will even work, remains an open question. Even if they do work, the numbers must be viewed in context: Russia fired some 3,000-odd cruise missiles against Ukraine during the first six months of the conflict without dealing a knockout blow. And today Ukraine is arguably a more formidable foe. The Ukrainian military is now by some metrics larger and better-equipped than it was at the outset of the conflict, thanks to Western military aid and captured Russian equipment.

And despite all the hype, these kamikaze drones are not invincible, either. Used en masse, drones—like rockets or missiles—can overwhelm air defenses. But like most flying objects, they can also still be intercepted by anti-aircraft or -missile weapons. Indeed, the Ukrainian military claims to have downed some 70 percent or more of the 300-plus Iranian-made drones that Russia has employed to date.

Above all, Russia’s turn to kamikaze drones is premised on a flawed strategy, one that seeks to punish the population into submission—much like the Germans’ use of the V-1 and V-2. The Russian attacks on Ukrainian electrical infrastructure will undoubtedly impose yet more misery on the civilian population, which must now cope with blackouts and heating shortages as winter temperatures drop. Historically, though, bombing civilians rarely works. Indeed, it often has the opposite effect: angering the populace and hardening positions against concessions. That was certainly the case in England in 1944. And that seems to be happening in Ukraine today. Recent polls suggest that Ukrainians overwhelmingly support fighting on and oppose negotiations, despite the costs.

Wonder weapons do not win wars. Killer drones may capture the popular imagination and evoke fears of some futuristic dystopia. But the battlefield reality is quite different. The Russians are learning in Ukraine what the Germans and many other states have had to learn before them: no amount of technological innovation can save a country from a failed strategy.

The only thing that will stop the Ukrainians from making further advances is the will of the U.S. and its NATO allies and other partnered nations to provide support. If that will is sustained, the Ukrainians seem likely to win.

Raphael S. Cohen is the director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program at the nonpartisan, nonprofit RAND Corporation’s Project Air Force. Gian Gentile is the deputy director of RAND’s Army Research Division.

defenseone.com · by Raphael S. Cohen

7. Biden Plans to Meet China’s Xi and Discuss How to Avoid Conflict

Better to jaw-jaw than war-war.

Biden Plans to Meet China’s Xi and Discuss How to Avoid Conflict

Planned meeting comes amid strains over Taiwan and U.S. controls on technology exports

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-plans-to-meet-chinas-xi-and-discuss-how-to-avoid-conflict-11668055288?mod=Searchresults_pos4&page=1&mc_cid=2b054f5e54

By Andrew Restuccia

 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Charles Hutzler

 in Washington

Nov. 9, 2022 11:41 pm ET

President Biden said he plans to discuss how the U.S. and China can avoid conflict when he meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his coming Asia trip, but won’t make concessions on critical issues.

“What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what each of our red lines are, understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, what I know to be the critical interests of the United States, and to determine whether or not they conflict with one another,” Mr. Biden told reporters in Washington. “And if they do, how to resolve it and how to work it out.”

He added, “I’m not willing to make any fundamental concessions.”

The meeting, expected to take place on the sidelines of next week’s Group of 20 summit of major economies in Bali, Indonesia, would be the first between the two leaders in-person since Mr. Biden took office. Communications between the two governments are at a low ebb, with already tense relations further strained over U.S. curbs on technology exports and a recent trip to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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Asked if he plans to tell Mr. Xi that he is committed to defending Taiwan from Chinese aggression, the U.S. president said, “I’m going to have that conversation with him.”

Neither the Biden administration nor Beijing has officially confirmed a meeting between the two leaders. People familiar with the matter said U.S. and Chinese officials are planning for such a meeting, which could be formally announced in the coming days. A spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council declined to comment.

The meeting would take place weeks after the Chinese leader broke with recent precedent and claimed a third term in power. Mr. Biden’s Democratic Party performed better than projected in U.S. midterm elections this week.

Chinese President Xi Jinping broke with recent precedent last month and claimed a third term in power.

PHOTO: ANDY WONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mr. Biden leaves will Washington on Thursday for Egypt, where he will deliver remarks at a global climate summit. Following that brief appearance, he will continue on to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for a summit of South Asian leaders before traveling to Bali for the G-20.

Analysts closely tracking the meeting said they don’t expect it to end with major announcements. Instead, they said, it is intended to ease tensions in what has become an increasingly fraught relationship.

Relations between the U.S. and China have been on a downward trajectory in recent years as the two compete for global influence, military power and technological dominance. Taiwan, a long-running trouble spot, has become more pressing since Mrs. Pelosi’s visit in August.

Beijing saw that trip, the first to Taiwan by a House speaker in 25 years, as a sign of growing U.S. support for the island, which China claims as its territory. It launched large-scale military exercises in response and said it suspended cooperation on climate change with the U.S. and cut off some communication between the two countries’ militaries.

Renewed tensions over Taiwan have further eroded dwindling trust between the governments, according to officials on both sides. These officials portray direct talks between Messrs. Biden and Xi as the most effective channel the two governments have to communicate.

Administration officials have said the meeting in Bali, if it occurs, wouldn’t constitute a full-blown summit, in which one side hosts the other. The two governments haven’t held such a summit since the first year of the Trump administration.

Write to Charles Hutzler at charles.hutzler@wsj.com

8. ‘Unconventional’ delivery of US airpower in Arctic tailored to serve notice to Russia

‘Unconventional’ delivery of US airpower in Arctic tailored to serve notice to Russia

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · November 9, 2022

A palletized munitions system falls from the cargo hold of a 352d Special Operations Wing MC-130J Commando II during a live-fire demonstration in Norway, Nov. 9, 2022. (Brigette Waltermire/U.S. Air Force)

STUTTGART, Germany — U.S. special operations forces flying over the Arctic on Wednesday rolled a long-range missile out the back of a C-130 aircraft, dropping it by parachute before it blasted toward its target in the distance.

The operation marked the first-ever demonstration in Europe of Rapid Dragon, an experimental program that uses standard air drop procedures to launch air-to-surface cruise missiles.

“It puts this thing within range of Russia. We are intentionally trying to be provocative without being escalatory,” Special Operations Command Europe’s Lt. Col. Lawrence Melnicoff told Stars and Stripes ahead of Wednesday’s launch. “We’re trying to deter Russian aggression, expansionist behavior, by showing enhanced capabilities of the allies.”

The missile launch, carried out inside the Arctic Circle at Norway’s Andoya Space Range, also showcases how allies can muscle up by mixing and matching weapons systems in new ways, Melnicoff said.

It was the culmination of the Stuttgart-based SOCEUR’s demonstration of American and allied units’ ability to rapidly mobilize and deliver long-range precision fire over great distances.

Airmen load a Rapid Dragon deployment system onto an MC-130J aircraft ahead of an airdrop in November 2021 at Eglin Air force Base, Fla. Special operations forces deployed the system in a demonstration over the Arctic on Nov. 9, 2022. (Air Force Research Laboratory)

The Norway exercise coincided with drills in Poland and Romania. They’re all part of U.S. European Command’s Atreus program, which aims to expand military options for allies.

Similar missions have been held in the Baltics and Romania involving aircraft loaded with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which are flown to landing zones and offloaded for quick-strike targeting.

Such operations are connected to planning for the worst-case scenario in the event Russia were to take aim at allied military hubs in Europe, said Melnicoff, who oversees Atreus for SOCEUR.

“It complicates Russian decision-making because we know that they’re targeting very, very large specific aggregations of allied power, ... Ramstein Air Base, RAF Lakenheath, things like that,” Melnicoff said. “We’re survivable. If worse comes to worst and somebody takes out these power hubs, we can forward-project precision artillery fire across the alliance with our partners.”

#BREAKING video from 352nd Special Operations Wing successful test fire of a palletized Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). Successful extraction of deployment box, release of JASSM with wing extension, and motor engagement during exercise #ATREUS22 #SOFinEurope pic.twitter.com/3hLcXDJ3bl

— US Spec Ops Europe (@US_SOCEUR) November 9, 2022

The Rapid Dragon concept has the attention of several allies, including Poland. While other allies don’t have long-range bomber strike capabilities like the U.S., they can mimic some of those effects by loading long-range missiles onto cargo aircraft.

The Red Dragon system uses a steel cage and can be loaded with Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles, which have a range of up to 1,200 miles depending on the variant.

“The way it works is it drops out of cargo aircraft like a heavy equipment air drop, so it’s completely a roll-on, roll-off package,” Melnicoff said.

After rolling out, the cage stabilizes under parachutes. Then a sling gate opens and the missiles drop out.

The system also has the potential to be paired with other types of materiel, including hypersonic weapons and swarm drones, Melnicoff said.

The concept was developed by the Air Force, which has been experimenting with the idea for the past couple of years.

Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, head of U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command, said experimenting with new ways to strike targets is key to preparing for an unpredictable future.

“AFSOC’s greatest value to the joint force, as well as allies and partners, is when we find unconventional ways to deliver airpower,” Slife said Wednesday in a statement. “The future is going to be different than what we have experienced for the last 20 years.”

A cruise missile is shown immediately after being dropped from an MC-130J cargo plane at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., in November 2021. Special operations forces performed a similar demonstration drop over the Arctic on Nov. 9, 2022. (Air Force Research Laboratory)

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · November 9, 2022

9. American veterans race to train Ukrainian soldiers as war with Russia sweeps more troops into battle

American veterans race to train Ukrainian soldiers as war with Russia sweeps more troops into battle

Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · November 9, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine — On the last day of February, four days after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, former U.S. Army Ranger Patrick Creed walked up to the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and knocked on the door.

He said he felt nervous and stupid and didn’t quite know what to say, but when a woman behind bulletproof glass asked what he wanted, Creed responded, “I’m here to volunteer for the army.”

A Ukrainian colonel at the time warned the five other Americans filling out paperwork at the embassy with Creed enlisting them in a new international legion for foreign fighters that they were signing up for something they had never experienced in the U.S. military, the former major remembered.

“You’re not going to fight in an American war,” the colonel told them. “The Russians have control of the air, we don’t. The Russians have 10 times as much artillery.”

“You will get hit with Russian rocket artillery,” the colonel emphasized.

Patrick Creed, a retired U.S. Army major, guides members of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces as they clear a stairwell at a training site outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 2, 2022. Creed is a member of the Mozart Group, private security company of mostly military veterans who traveled to Ukraine to train that country’s troops. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

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Creed, 54, was unfazed.

“I didn’t join the Army for the dental benefits,” he said. “I like the zing.”

For two months in the spring, Creed found that rush on battlefields around the Black Sea, where he mainly fought in a "static trench warfare kind of situation."

Today, Creed said he finds it in the remains of a half-constructed, Soviet-era sanatorium in a village outside Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv, where he trains Ukrainian soldiers for urban combat.

Nine members of the Territorial Defense Forces, Ukraine’s equivalent of a local militia, milled around the abandoned property on a recent November afternoon. They ran up and down cement stairs with no railings, broken glass crunching under their feet, as they practiced clearing rooms, securing areas and throwing grenades.

On breaks, trainees share the outdoors with a flock of geese and a tabby nicknamed Combat Cat. Sometimes the neighbor’s goats get to their lunch before they do.

A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces on Nov. 2, 2022, holds Combat Cat, a feline companion that lives next to a military training site outside Kyiv, Ukraine. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

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Creed and Fred, a former Marine Corps sergeant who declined to provide his last name, have been teaching this group — almost all of them related through blood or marriage — for a couple weeks.

Their efforts are part of a broader crash-course training program created by the Mozart Group, a U.S. veteran-led private security company founded in March by retired Marine Col. Andrew Milburn. Named as a dig at the Russian mercenary organization the Wagner Group, the Mozart Group also performs evacuations at the front lines and has grown its staff to nearly 30 personnel of highly experienced trainers made up of mostly former American service members.

“We give them what we can as fast as we can, but they really need six months,” Fred, 44, said of the training. “There’s only so much you can do, and that’s the real struggle.”

The last four units that he taught went to the front lines just three days later. The Territorial Defense Forces are meant to guard checkpoints and provide other local security, but a June law made it possible for them to be sent into battle, said Erik, director of training for the Mozart Group and a 54-year-old retired Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel.

“These [Ukrainian trainees] are the guys who were pharmacists yesterday,” he said, also declining to provide his last name for security reasons. “This is the most underfunded, under-resourced and undertrained organization.”

This particular group of trainees might have had a more close-up view of the war than many in Ukraine. They reside about 5 miles from Irpin and Bucha, towns that have become synonymous with Russian atrocities committed in the early days of the invasion.

Andrey Kashlakov, a member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces, rushes through a mock building as part of room clearance training provided by U.S. military veterans at a site outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 2, 2022. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

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Andrey Kashlakov, 25, said he evacuated more than 1,000 people, including about 20 Ukraine National Guard soldiers and hundreds who were injured, from neighboring towns as Russian forces advanced on Kyiv in March. Blood pooled in the bus that he once used to transport construction supplies, he said.

Later, Kashlakov drove out to villages up to 90 miles away and delivered bread and other food to grateful grandmothers. He said he was running on adrenaline and never scared, finding some security from the gun he carried and a stint five years ago in the Ukrainian army.

He had kept all his military-issued clothes and equipment knowing that a larger war was coming. Today, he patrols his home village Horenka for marauders but waits for something worse.

“Maybe the Belarusians will attack so it’s best to be prepared,” Kashlakov said, pointing to a renewed military buildup in Ukraine’s northern neighbor. He happily volunteered to throw a blue training grenade when Fred offered the opportunity.

The Ukrainian trainees reveled in the loud bang of the dummy weapons.

“They went boom!” they said, laughing.

Patrick Creed, a retired U.S. Army major, evaluates members of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces as they rush through the hallway of an abandoned building and clear potentially dangerous rooms as part of training outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 2, 2022. Creed traveled to Ukraine in March of 2022 to use his experience as an Army Ranger to instruct troops fighting Russia forces. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

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Creed said instructors try to keep the mood light and do their best to instill confidence. Some of the soldiers trained by the Mozart Group have been killed fighting the Russians, and the burden is heavy, he said.

“We want to leave them feeling not like Superman but maybe like Batman or Robin,” said Erik, who teaches military decision-making procedures.

At a National Guard military base 15 miles away, two American veterans instructed soldiers on how to move as a team and react to gunfire as they inched toward a low-slung building painted in camouflage. The sound of soldiers shooting rocket-propelled grenades echoed in the background.

Every morning at the training site begins with basic weapons handling and medical drills so the act of reloading a gun or using a tourniquet becomes muscle memory, said Chris, a 27-year-old former Army specialist from Ohio who served as a medic and arrived in Ukraine a month ago.

“I feel like it’s making a difference,” he said, declining to provide his last name. “Every day these guys show up they’re motivated to learn, and every day you see some semblance of improvement from previous days.”

Ukraine’s National Guard is operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, not the Ministry of Defense, and as a result receives a fraction of the Western support that flows to the regular army, Erik said.

The Mozart Group has trained every branch of Ukraine’s armed forces, but its strongest relationship is with the guard members, especially the National Guard’s 1st Presidential Brigade, he said. A Russian missile hit the unit’s headquarters within the first 24 hours of the February invasion, killing a staff duty officer, Erik said.

A crew continued working on repairs to the building’s damaged cafeteria in early November.

Soldiers here are taught by U.S. veterans and Ukrainian instructors who interpret and adjust American tactics to fit a Ukrainian fighting force that is still shedding its Soviet past.

A 27-year-old Ukrainian soldier and instructor who goes by the call sign “Legion” said his country is waging war on the battlefield and within its own ranks, constantly hunting for saboteurs and informants for Russia. The communication methods championed by the American veterans are not very employable when there are enemies within the ranks, he said.

“You cut off one head and two more grow in its place,” Legion said.

Other incongruities also crop up, including some techniques that seem geared for younger and more experienced soldiers, and most guard members and Territorial Defense soldiers are neither, he said. Americans are also offering input on a type of war that they have not fought in many years, he said.

“Fighting against terrorists is easier than fighting against those lobbing artillery,” Legion said. “Americans have never encountered an enemy willing to level towns and forests. This opponent is different … he will use civilians and civilian infrastructure to fight.”

The nature of this conflict, one that is reminiscent of World War II, has been one of the main draws for American veterans working in Ukraine.

“I think for a lot of us, it’s kind of like the good war we’ve been waiting for,” said Roman, a 46-year-old former Army infantry captain who declined to provide his last name. “Afghanistan and Iraq were a lot more ambiguous — whether we should’ve been there, or as long as we were, and we were always living among people we were not sure wanted us there. This is very morally unambiguous. I wouldn’t say it’s good versus evil, but it’s normal people with all their problems and complexities against evil.”

Roman deployed twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division before moving 10 years ago from his native New York to Ukraine, the birthplace of his parents. He was in the process of returning to the U.S. when war broke out and briefly thought of staying to fight.

A desire to stay out of danger for the sake of his wife and two young children ultimately kept Roman out of the fight. After settling them in the U.S., Roman joined the Mozart Group last month and is now teaching planning, patrolling and command and control.

“This training opportunity was about the right size for me,” he said, looking around at the dozens of guard members performing exercises in front of him. “Even though you don’t get the immediate satisfaction that you might from doing an operation on the front, you are influencing a lot of people.”

Creed also wrestled with the pull of the battlefield. He left Ukraine in late May and spent the summer at his home just outside Philadelphia fighting the urge to go back. A fellow American volunteer he knew — Marine Corps veteran Willy Joseph Cancel — was killed in southern Ukraine, and another — retired Marine and Iraq War veteran Grady Kurpasi — went missing. His survivor’s guilt was strong.

“You want to go back and keep fighting,” Creed said. “After three weeks in Ukraine, I have and will probably always have such a deep and visceral hate for the Russians.”

In a compromise with his family, Creed agreed to return to Ukraine as a trainer in September.

It doesn’t have the thrill of combat, but he finds fulfillment in it for other reasons: the fun of swapping dark military jokes with Fred and other vets as they ride in a van, and the novelty of teaching in a strange, graffitied building with unfinished windows and Ukrainian school books strewn on the floor.

“I like working with soldiers who are enthusiastic like this, even though I don’t speak the language,” Creed said.

Alla Golumbiivska, a member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces, prepares for training on how to clear potentially dangerous rooms as part of instruction provided by U.S. military veterans at a location outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 2, 2022. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

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Alla Golumbiivska lines up for room clearing training in an abandoned building on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 2, 2022. Two U.S. military veterans in the Mozart Group gave lessons on moving through potentially dangerous stairwells and rooms. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

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Alla Golumbiivska, 28, followed Creed as he showed Territorial Defense members how to carefully move up a stairwell and cover each other as they cleared floors of the building.

“Nyet,” Creed told her in Russian when she forgot to conceal herself at the cutout of a window.

Golumbiivska worked as a dog groomer before dressing in fatigues and carrying an Airsoft rifle. She fled to Poland with her 8-year-old daughter in early March, leaving behind her husband, the commander of a local defense unit, to patrol their village.

Ten homes were destroyed on their street, Golumbiivska said, but the town of Horenka was spared the worst of Russia’s spring offensive in the north as invading forces sought to capture Kyiv.

She returned to Ukraine after six months, fearless and with a hunger to learn how to protect her loved ones.

“I don’t want war, I don’t want to fight but I want to defend my home, my land, my child and my husband,” she said. “I want to be ready.”

Training with the Mozart Group has become a family affair, and Golumbiivska was joined on recent sessions by extended relatives, including Kashlakov’s father and mother.

“Whenever there are tough moments in life, we come together,” Golumbiivska said.

Kashlakov said it can be difficult, and weird, to learn alongside his elderly parents “but they have the will, and that’s important.”

Fred, one of the U.S. trainers, peered out at the odd group as another day of training got underway recently and asked what they wanted to learn.

“Do you have specific things that you want to be trained on today, related to any topics?” he asked. “Shooting and fighting around vehicles? Procedures for using grenades? How to secure a building? Anything at all?”

“All of them,” the trainees replied. “All the topics you mentioned are interesting for us.”

A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces on Nov. 2, 2022, clears a hallway as part of training at an abandoned building outside Kyiv, Ukraine. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

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Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · November 9, 2022

10. Inside Putin 'punishment camp' for mobilised Russian troops

The old saying:  

 “It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.”

-- Joseph Stalin

Inside Putin 'punishment camp' for mobilised Russian troops

Inside Putin 'punishment camp' for mobilised Russian troops who are dumped in a cellar, 'starved and threatened with firing squad' for refusing to fight

• Enlistees were dumped in a cellar in Donetsk region where they are starved 
• Most of the refuseniks have written statements saying they refuse to fight
• Wives and mothers have said they are labelled 'traitors' for their decision
• The camp has a packed dormitory and a dungeon-like cellar inside it  

By WILL STEWART FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 10:36 EST, 8 November 2022 | UPDATED: 10:41 EST, 8 November 2022

Daily Mail · by Will Stewart for MailOnline · November 8, 2022

A picture shows Russian troops held in a Putin 'punishment camp' for brave mobilised heroes who refuse to fight in his illegal war.

The enlistees were dumped in a cellar in Donetsk region where they are 'starved' and 'threatened with mass execution by firing squad'.

Independent Russian media outlet The Insider highlighted the plight of 21 refuseniks illegally held in the Donetsk People's Republic, which Putin has annexed.

Most have written statements stating they refuse to fight because Putin's war is against their conscience.

Their wives and mothers say they are labelled 'traitors' and face intolerable pressure to force them to rescind their statements.

The enlistees were dumped in a cellar in Donetsk region where they are 'starved' and 'threatened with mass execution by firing squad', pictured

Pictured: The camp has a packed dormitory alongside a dungeon-like cellar

The barbaric camp - including a packed dormitory but also a dungeon-like cellar in Zavitne Bazhannia - is feared to be one of many run by Putin's military or forces allied to them, amid suspicions many more men than realised have refused to take up arms against Ukraine.

A collective letter from the wives and mothers of some of the men held in this hell-hole said: 'While in Ukraine, our relatives were forced to storm enemy positions.

'In this connection, they wrote [statements] refusing to participate in combat actions, citing convictions of conscience [saying] they could not, and would not, kill people.

'Subsequently, officers of different ranks repeatedly came to see the soldiers who had signed the reports, and interviewed them.

'However, after seeing they couldn't convince them, the commanding officers started threatening them with execution.'

The barbaric camp - including a packed dormitory but also a dungeon-like cellar in Zavitne Bazhannia - is feared to be one of many run by Putin's military or forces allied to them, amid suspicions many more men than realised have refused to take up arms against Ukraine

On 4 November one of the men managed to contact his relative to say 'they had not been fed for three days.

'The illegal detention of the servicemen in the basement continues to this date.

'They are not given personal hygiene items, nor have they been told the reasons for their forcible detention.

'They are called traitors and threatened with execution.

'On our part, we have appealed to the authorities, submitted statements [about] crimes, but there has been no appropriate reaction from the law enforcement agencies.'

A collective letter from the wives and mothers of some of the men held in this hell-hole said: 'While in Ukraine, our relatives were forced to storm enemy positions. 'In this connection, they wrote [statements] refusing to participate in combat actions, citing convictions of conscience [saying] they could not, and would not, kill people'. Pictured: The dormitory of the camp

Elena Kashina told The Insider how her husband, 33, and other draftees were given cursory training with clapped-out weapons before being sent to the front.

The worried wife revealed: 'He called me and said they were forced to attack enemy positions.

'He told me: 'I realised for myself I would never be able to kill a man…

'I would close my eyes and ears, and I'll be simply shot dead'.'

He wrote a formal legal statement on 12 October declaring he was a conscientious objector.

He told her: 'Before I wrote it, a political officer of the 5th company in the DPR [pro-Putin Donetsk People's Republic] told me: 'If you guys write anything, we'll execute you by shooting by firing squad, throw you into a common grave and tell your relatives you went missing'.

He told her that 14 men were threatened in this way.

'He called me and said: 'Lena [Elena], they might shoot me today. Our men will execute me'.

Elena Kashina, pictured, told The Insider how her husband, 33, and other draftees were given cursory training with clapped-out weapons before being sent to the front

The wife said: 'Morally they are completely broken people.

'They are broken psychiatrically and psychologically.

'They were driven away and thrown into a basement not too far from the front line.'

There are now a total of 21 men, she said.

Many of the men should not have been sent to the war, even under the Russian criteria for selecting draftees.

Her husband had done only basic military conscription before - as a mechanic.

Others detained in the hell-hole 'punishment camp' worked for a defence plant and should have been exempt.

The commander overall responsible for the campaign is General Sergei 'Armageddon' Surovikin, appointed by Putin. Pictured: The general and his wife Anna

The training they received shows the chaos in Putin's mobilisation.

'When they were at the range, they were given the opportunity to practice shooting for one day using an assault rifle,' she said.

'The rifle had a sight bent sideways, so he was unable to hit the target either from 400 meters or even from 100 meters.

'The next day they were digging trenches, and that was all their combat training.

'After that, they were sent to Ukraine.

'My husband worked at a mining and smelting complex, which is considered a defence enterprise, so [under the Russian rules], they shouldn't have called him up for military service.

'But he was not so lucky.'

The Insider said: 'The last time her husband got in touch was on 31 October, when he said that the objectors, including him, were being taken somewhere.'

The commander overall responsible for the campaign is General Sergei 'Armageddon' Surovikin, appointed by Putin.

Daily Mail · by Will Stewart for MailOnline · November 8, 2022

11. Russia says it’s withdrawing troops from key Ukrainian city

Russia says it’s withdrawing troops from key Ukrainian city

militarytimes.com · by Sam Mednick, The Associated Press · November 9, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s military announced Wednesday that it’s withdrawing from the only Ukrainian regional capital it’s captured, in what would be one of the most significant and humiliating setbacks for Moscow’s forces in the 8-month-old war.

Ukrainian authorities, however, cautioned against considering the retreat from Kherson, a gateway to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, and nearby areas a done deal. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that the Russians were feigning a pullout from Kherson to lure the Ukrainian army into an entrenched battle in the strategic industrial port city.

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By Neil Hauer

The withdrawal from Kherson — in a region of the same name that Moscow illegally annexed earlier this year — would pile on another setback after Russia’s early failed attempt to capture the capital, Kyiv, and the chaotic and hasty retreat from the administrative region around Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which itself never fell to the Russians. Russian forces captured Kherson, with a prewar population of 280,000, early in the invasion, which began Feb. 24.

Kyiv’s forces have zeroed in on the city and cut off supply lines in recent weeks as part of a larger counteroffensive in eastern and southern Ukraine that has pushed Russian troops out of wide swaths of territory.

Recapturing Kherson could allow Ukraine to win back lost territory in the Zaporizhzhia region and other southern areas, leading to an eventual push back into Crimea, which Russia illegally seized in 2014. A Russian retreat is almost certain to raise domestic pressure on the Kremlin to escalate the conflict.

Speaking in a stern tone and with a steely face on Russian TV, Moscow’s top military commander in Ukraine pointed to a map as he reported to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday that it was impossible to supply the city of Kherson and that its defense would be “futile.”

A destroyed Russian tank is seen near the recently recaptured village of Yampil, Ukraine, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. (Andriy Andriyenko/AP)

Gen. Sergei Surovikin said that 115,000 people had been relocated because their “lives are constantly in danger,” and proposed a military retreat to the opposite bank of the Dnieper River from where Kherson lies.

Shoigu agreed with Surovikin’s assessment and ordered him to “start with the withdrawal of troops and take all measures to ensure the safe transfer of personnel, weapons and equipment across the Dnieper River.”

But Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter: “Actions speak louder than words. We see no signs that Russia is leaving Kherson without a fight.”

Yaroslav Yanushevych, Kherson’s Ukrainian-appointed governor, called on residents “not to give in to euphoria” just yet. Another Ukrainian-appointed Kherson regional official, Serhii Khlan, told reporters that Russian forces had blown up five bridges to slow the advance of Kyiv’s forces.

As the reports of a Russian withdrawal emerged, Zelenskyy met with his senior military staff in Kyiv to discuss the situation, including attempts to recapture territory, his website reported without giving details.

In addition to the largely successful counteroffensive, Ukrainian resistance fighters behind the front line have worked inside Kherson, with acts of sabotage and assassinations of Moscow-appointed officials.

Against that backdrop, reports surfaced Wednesday that the No. 2 official of the Moscow-installed Kherson regional government was killed in a car crash. There was no indication of foul play.

Kirill Stremousov — a prominent regional official who posted public updates about the war almost daily— died in the crash, according to Russian state news agencies and his boss, Vladimir Saldo.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported months ago that Saldo himself had been poisoned and hospitalized.

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The Russian military appeared to have been preparing for an orderly pullout from Kherson for months, contrasting with the haphazard retreat from the Kharkiv region when the invading force left behind a large amount of weapons and ammunition. In October, Surovikin appeared to set the stage for a possible withdrawal from Kherson, acknowledging the situation was “quite difficult” for Moscow. Evacuations of civilians followed, as did symbolic moves.

The remains of Grigory Potemkin, the Russian general who founded Kherson in the 18th century, were reportedly moved from the city’s St. Catherine’s Church.

In recent months, Ukraine used U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers to hit a key bridge on the Dnieper in Kherson and a large dam upstream that is also used as a crossing point. The strikes forced Russia to rely on pontoons and ferries that Ukraine also targeted.

That disrupted supply links to Kherson and made Russian forces on the Dnieper’s west bank vulnerable to encirclement. The shortages were exacerbated after an Oct. 8 truck bomb blew up part of the strategic Kerch Bridge linking Russia’s mainland to Crimea, which has served as a major supply hub for Russian forces in the south.

Russia wanted to hold onto Kherson and other positions west of the Dnieper so it could press an offensive to other areas and sever Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. That would damage Ukraine’s economy and enable Moscow to build a land corridor to the separatist Transnistria region of Moldova, home to a major Russian military base.

The loss of Kherson could see painful consequences for Russian President Vladimir Putin: more criticism of Russia’s military command from the country’s hawks, a further decline in troop morale and stronger opposition to his troop mobilization. Abroad, China and India could see the loss as a sign of the Kremlin’s weakness when it needs their support in the face of crippling Western sanctions.

Other Kremlin setbacks have included a chaotic and mistake-ridden troop mobilization, a weapons shortage, inadequate clothing and other supplies for troops, poor troop training and morale, a growing international sanctions campaign against Russia, and increased Western advanced weapons supplies to Putin’s enemy.

The Russian retreat announcement came as villages and towns in Ukraine saw more heavy fighting and shelling Wednesday.

At least nine civilians were killed and 24 wounded in 24 hours, the Ukrainian president’s office said. It accused Russia of using explosive drones, rockets, heavy artillery and aircraft to attack eight regions in the southeast.

Ukrainian and Russian forces also clashed overnight over Snihurivka, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kherson.

The president’s office said widespread Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system continued. Two cities not far from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant were shelled overnight, it said. More than 20 residential buildings, an industrial plant, a gas pipeline and a power line were reportedly damaged in Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Farther west, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the Ukrainian governor reported “massive” overnight strikes with exploding Iranian-made drones that wounded four energy company workers in the city of Dnipro.

12. How to Stop China Killing Human Rights at the U.N.

Excerpts:

Meaningful progress on these issues is thus more likely to come from the ILO than other parts of the U.N. system in the near term, but this does not mean concerned states should give up on venues such as the Human Rights Council. While the October resolution failed, the number of countries that supported it is sufficient to request a special session through a letter to the council president. Countries worried that a precedent of having no product at the end of the special session will undermine the Human Rights Council are underestimating the value of continually forcing China to defend its behavior and expend political capital and diplomatic resources to that end.

Resolutions on Beijing’s abuses in the old U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the council’s predecessor, were also regularly rejected, but for many years losing these votes did not stop concerned member states from continuing to try. Rather, these member states stopped introducing resolutions, instead preferring to engage China through bilateral and “minilateral” human rights dialogues behind closed doors. Nearly 20 years of dialogues and other less confrontational attempts to engage China on human rights have manifestly failed. Meanwhile, human rights advocates increasingly have lost faith in the international human rights system when it comes to holding China accountable—not because resolutions failed, but because countries and the system stopped trying.

Concerned countries must learn the right lessons from these past experiences and embrace the paradoxical idea of winning by losing—using every opportunity they have to highlight the grave dangers posed by China’s authoritarian approach to human rights and the U.N. system. They will need to be strategically focused and tactically flexible, using venues across the U.N. in concert with and alongside the Human Rights Council, to present a consistent message that compels China to expend resources to respond. The opportunities are there, but the biggest question remains whether those member states and others in the human rights community have the political will to ensure China fails in its efforts to avoid accountability and hollow out the international human rights framework. Both the Uyghur people and the human rights project depend on it.

How to Stop China Killing Human Rights at the U.N.

Foreign Policy · by Kelley E. Currie · November 9, 2022

Argument

An expert's point of view on a current event.

The Uyghur people and the human rights system depend on principled states taking action.

By Kelley E. Currie, an international human rights lawyer and former U.S. State Department official.

People in light blue shirts that say "FREE UYGHUR" and flags stand in front of a building.

Uyghurs demonstrate against China outside of United Nations offices during the Universal Periodic Review of China by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Nov. 6, 2018. FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

On Oct. 6, the United Nations Human Rights Council rejected a resolution to hold a debate on China’s violations of human rights in Xinjiang. The vote was spurred by a meticulous report published five weeks earlier by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which detailed Chinese state-directed persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities that “may constitute … crimes against humanity.”

The resolution—which failed by 19 votes to 17, with 11 abstentions—represented the first formal attempt to hold China accountable for its massive and ongoing human rights abuses at the Human Rights Council since the body’s inception in 2006. According to the OHCHR report, these violations include mass arbitrary detention, widespread torture, sexual violence, coercive birth suppression, family separation, forced labor, and repression of religious and cultural practices in Xinjiang.

The council’s failure to carry out its most basic function as the U.N.’s premier venue for the promotion and protection of human rights stands as an indictment of the council itself—and the human rights system it purports to anchor. It also demonstrates the deep success of China’s decadeslong project to rewire the normative framework of international human rights and replace it with the idea that human rights are negotiable and subject to the prerogatives of states. The Xinjiang resolution’s rejection should be a wake-up call to concerned states on the need to redouble efforts at the U.N. to preserve the foundational principle that every individual around the world is entitled to fundamental rights.

China’s campaign to subvert the existing human rights paradigm has made headway due to the acquiescence of many countries that style themselves as defenders of the U.N.’s human rights system. Consider the Human Rights Council vote in March 2018 to adopt China’s proposed resolution on “Promoting Mutually Beneficial Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights.” The resolution effectively sublimates individual rights to both collective rights (such as the “right” to development) and a state’s sovereignty. Only the United States voted against it. Despite lobbying by the United States and human rights organizations, 13 countries including Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom abstained. Some commentators even argued the resolution provided an entry point for human rights engagement with China.

By enshrining fawning references to “Xi Jinping Thought” into the U.N.’s human rights lexicon, the 2018 resolution represented a major step forward in China’s efforts to reshape the U.N. human rights system. China’s ability to handpick the report-writing team meant the final report required by the resolution framed “mutually beneficial cooperation”—an undefined term in the human rights lexicon—just as Xi does: privileging sovereignty, endorsing noninterference in internal affairs, and delegitimizing approaches to human rights protection that involve criticism of a regime’s abuses.

The United States and its allies need to be more creative in leveraging aspects of the U.N. system where they have structural advantages.

It took longer than it should have for the international human rights community to respond to China’s corrosive campaign. When China ran an updated version of the resolution in 2020, even without the United States in the council, it faced much stiffer resistance, passing with support from only 23 countries, while 16 countries voted against it. Both member states and civil society representatives aggressively called out the resolution for promoting a view of the council as a mere “service provider” for governments and said it damaged efforts toward accountability by ignoring the fact that governments often commit human rights violations. By the 2022 Human Rights Council session, resistance to the resolution had grown to the point that China chose not to run the resolution again and risk losing a vote. This was part of a broader pushback in New York and Geneva as evidence of Beijing’s abuses in Xinjiang has grown.

The increasing resistance to the “mutually beneficial cooperation” resolution demonstrates how the losing vote on the Xinjiang resolution need not be fatal. But combating China’s pernicious influence at the U.N. and its violations in Xinjiang requires a long-term strategy and sustained commitment by principled countries. They will have to use political capital at the U.N. in ways that may be uncomfortable. This includes being willing to break consensus on benign-sounding resolutions that include Xi’s human rights ideology, aggressively negotiating to remove this problematic language from texts in the first place and holding other states accountable for China-related votes. In particular, the developed countries that have led this effort will need to build a cadre of allies from the global south that are willing to join them in voting against resolutions that advance China’s agenda and for resolutions that call China out for its abuses.

The United States and its allies also need to be more creative in leveraging aspects of the U.N. system where they have structural advantages. One such venue is the International Labour Organization (ILO), which seeks to protect human and labor rights. The ILO is one of the U.N.’s most effective human rights mechanisms because in this body, civil society—in the form of labor-union and employer groups—has the same seat at the table as member states. This unique tripartite structure creates extensive opportunity for oversight on the ground. Because labor and employer representatives can file complaints directly, ILO mechanisms do not require political will from member states to initiate action, potentially mitigating China’s tactic of bribing and bullying other countries. The lack of independent trade unions or employer sectors in authoritarian states such as China also puts those states at a disadvantage.

In 2020 and 2021, the International Trade Union Confederation—the leading workers’ group at the ILO—formally submitted complaints detailing China’s state-directed discriminatory forced labor of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities. The complaints triggered a process that could ultimately lead to an investigation by an ILO Commission of Inquiry, which has the power to recommend sanctions if a government is found in violation of its treaty obligations and refuses to take remediating steps. (As an ILO founding member, China is subject to this enforcement mechanism for any of the ILO treaty instruments it has ratified.) While the ILO has received hundreds of complaints since its founding in 1919, it has only authorized 35 commissions and recommended sanctions just once, in the case of Myanmar.

In June, the ILO formally approved a “technical advisory mission” to follow up on the International Trade Union Confederation’s allegations against China. This step fell short of the high-level mission some countries wanted, but China will have to accept a visit from the technical team before the International Labour Conference convenes next June. Failure to cooperate will only increase pressure within the ILO to launch a commission. Given the gravity and persistence of forced labor in Xinjiang, any credible technical mission is likely to recommend further investigation. Either way, the ILO process will continue to grind away.

Read More

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at the start of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, on May 15, 2017.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at the start of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, on May 15, 2017.

How Putin and Xi Are Trying to Break Global Human Rights

In their own way, Russia and China are threatening the world’s system for defending human rights.

China seems to have been late to realize the dangers posed by the ILO system. While it has been attempting to increase its influence in the ILO using the same tactics it has with other U.N. agencies, both the ILO secretariat—dominated by labor law experts and alumni of independent trade unions—and the supervisory process have proved resilient. Like the OHCHR’s Xinjiang report, the ILO’s committees have also relied heavily on survivor testimony and the Chinese government’s own documents, as well as reporting from civil society and U.N. human rights special procedures. The OHCHR report on Xinjiang will feature heavily in upcoming ILO action on China, and the interplay between the ILO and OHCHR is likely to continue.

Meaningful progress on these issues is thus more likely to come from the ILO than other parts of the U.N. system in the near term, but this does not mean concerned states should give up on venues such as the Human Rights Council. While the October resolution failed, the number of countries that supported it is sufficient to request a special session through a letter to the council president. Countries worried that a precedent of having no product at the end of the special session will undermine the Human Rights Council are underestimating the value of continually forcing China to defend its behavior and expend political capital and diplomatic resources to that end.

Resolutions on Beijing’s abuses in the old U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the council’s predecessor, were also regularly rejected, but for many years losing these votes did not stop concerned member states from continuing to try. Rather, these member states stopped introducing resolutions, instead preferring to engage China through bilateral and “minilateral” human rights dialogues behind closed doors. Nearly 20 years of dialogues and other less confrontational attempts to engage China on human rights have manifestly failed. Meanwhile, human rights advocates increasingly have lost faith in the international human rights system when it comes to holding China accountable—not because resolutions failed, but because countries and the system stopped trying.

Concerned countries must learn the right lessons from these past experiences and embrace the paradoxical idea of winning by losing—using every opportunity they have to highlight the grave dangers posed by China’s authoritarian approach to human rights and the U.N. system. They will need to be strategically focused and tactically flexible, using venues across the U.N. in concert with and alongside the Human Rights Council, to present a consistent message that compels China to expend resources to respond. The opportunities are there, but the biggest question remains whether those member states and others in the human rights community have the political will to ensure China fails in its efforts to avoid accountability and hollow out the international human rights framework. Both the Uyghur people and the human rights project depend on it.

Kelley E. Currie is an international human rights lawyer and former U.S. State Department official. Twitter: @KelleyCurrie

Foreign Policy · by Kelley E. Currie · November 9, 2022

13. Russia has forgotten history’s lessons about waging war in winter

Excerpts:

If this latest strategy fails to achieve results, Putin will escalate. The attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September, although not definitively linked to Russia, appear to have been intended as a warning about the vulnerability of Europe’s energy infrastructure. On 1 November, Norway raised its military alert level after sightings of unidentified drones near its offshore oil and gas fields. The country is now the EU’s most important supplier of natural gas since Russian imports were cut back. Putin is also likely to ramp up his nuclear threats again if he feels that he is losing ground.

The answer to this extortion must be resolve and a redoubling of support for Ukraine. Putin wants to draw this war out – to limp on towards the spring, when more of his newly mobilised men will be ready to fight and, he hopes, Western solidarity will be fading. The coming winter will be tough, but the momentum is with the Ukrainian forces. This time, General Winter is on their side. The West must help Ukraine to press that advantage.

Russia has forgotten history’s lessons about waging war in winter

NewStatesman · by Katie Stallard · November 9, 2022

“An Episode from the Russian Campaign” of 1812, by Nicolas Toussaint Charlet (1836). Image via Getty

This piece has been updated in light of reports on 9 November that Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has ordered Russian troops to withdraw from Kherson, representing a significant setback for the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

Just over 100 kilometres west of Moscow, a windswept field marks the site of two crucial battles, fought more than a century apart, as successive invading armies tried and failed to conquer Russia. During the first, in September 1812, Napoleon’s Grande Armée defeated the Russian defenders in a bloody struggle at Borodino, immortalised in Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel War and Peace, and went on to occupy the present-day capital. But it was a pyrrhic victory. Russia refused to surrender, the bulk of its forces withdrew further east, and Napoleon was forced to begin his own retreat a month later. His poorly supplied troops were devastated by the Russian winter and relentless Cossack raids, resulting in losses on such a scale that he was subsequently forced into exile.

When Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht reached Borodino 129 years later, in October 1941, it fought the Red Army among the monuments to that earlier conflict. (Touring the battlefield in 2014, I saw the shell damage to one of the Napoleonic war memorials inflicted by the later fighting.) The German forces succeeded in breaking through the Soviet lines, but their offensive stalled as the roads turned to mud and they failed to reach Moscow before winter set in. These battles came to occupy a central role in Russian military lore as evidence of the country’s supposed indomitability, thanks to its sheer size – which requires an invading army to maintain supply lines over enormous distances – and its harsh winters, sometimes characterised as “General Winter”, who is fighting on Russia’s side.

Yet as winter approaches in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and his generals appear to have forgotten these lessons. This time, Russia is the invading army that must supply its forces across a front line that now spans 1,000 kilometres, in hostile territory and brutal conditions. As anyone who has experienced a Ukrainian winter could tell you, the bitter cold, with temperatures dropping as far as -20°C, can sap the most determined of spirits. It will make the fighting more difficult for both sides during the months ahead. The tempo of the conflict will slow. Movement and the ability to conceal military equipment will be harder as the leaves fall from the trees and the ground is covered by snow. Both sides will need to keep their exhausted troops and their weaponry functioning. But this will be easier for the Ukrainians, fighting with the support of their countrymen, than for the Russians, left to shiver like the remnants of Napoleon’s Grande Armée and vulnerable to sabotage.

This war is being fought on multiple fronts, however, and while the winter will make life miserable in the Russian trenches, Putin is likely counting on the cold to help him in other ways. Following the appointment in October of General Sergei Surovikin to lead the offensive, Russian forces have targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, bombarding power and water plants with missiles and drones from Iran. Forty per cent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has already been “seriously damaged”, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, leading to rolling blackouts and rationing. The World Health Organisation has warned of a humanitarian disaster this winter, as the lack of access to heat and electricity due to damaged infrastructure could become a “matter of life or death”.

Unable to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, Russia’s strategy is to terrorise the civilian population. This will not succeed in breaking the country’s will to fight. In fact, as the University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape explained in a recent essay, the lesson from past bombardments is that they do not lead to a clamour for surrender; in the case of the Blitz during the Second World War, for example, they only contributed to the British determination to counter-attack.

But then this campaign is not only aimed at Ukraine. Putin is also signalling to the country’s Western supporters that if he cannot defeat Ukraine, he will destroy it. He is questioning how much longer and at what cost the US and its European allies will be prepared to maintain their current levels of economic and military aid. As inflation soars and energy prices bite in European capitals, Putin hopes Western unity will fracture, and Kyiv will be pressured to beg for a ceasefire on his terms. There are reports that the US president Joe Biden lost his temper with Zelensky during a phone call in June, when the Ukrainian leader asked for more help.

If this latest strategy fails to achieve results, Putin will escalate. The attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September, although not definitively linked to Russia, appear to have been intended as a warning about the vulnerability of Europe’s energy infrastructure. On 1 November, Norway raised its military alert level after sightings of unidentified drones near its offshore oil and gas fields. The country is now the EU’s most important supplier of natural gas since Russian imports were cut back. Putin is also likely to ramp up his nuclear threats again if he feels that he is losing ground.

The answer to this extortion must be resolve and a redoubling of support for Ukraine. Putin wants to draw this war out – to limp on towards the spring, when more of his newly mobilised men will be ready to fight and, he hopes, Western solidarity will be fading. The coming winter will be tough, but the momentum is with the Ukrainian forces. This time, General Winter is on their side. The West must help Ukraine to press that advantage.

[See also: The unravelling of Vladimir Putin]

Topics in this article: Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, War

This article appears in the 09 Nov 2022 issue of the New Statesman, On the brink

NewStatesman · by Katie Stallard · November 9, 2022

14. The Weakness Behind China’s Strong Façade

Who is responsible for competing below the threshold of war which is the province of political warfare (and irregular warfare is the military contribution to political warfare). Who is designing and executing the political warfare campaign(s) to compete with China below the threshold of war?

Excerpts:

Xi’s assessment that China faces mounting external threats is driving Beijing’s desire to build a more capable military. The new Central Military Commission consists of individuals who have the experience—and the confidence of Xi—to push his plans forward. But the long list of tasks and challenges facing the PLA as it inches its way toward meeting its modernization goals in 2027, 2035, and 2049 should reassure outsiders that Xi is not eager to start a significant conflict with any of China’s neighbors in the next year or two.

But below the threshold of war, the PLA is likely to be more assertive in advancing Chinese interests and engage in more acts of coercion along its periphery. The new normal of more frequent military incursions around Taiwan will likely continue and China will more boldly encroach into contested regions, such as the South and East China Seas. At the same time, the PLA will be increasingly called upon to “defend” Beijing against external hostility and could use perceived “missteps” by the United States and U.S. allies and partners—for instance, the visit of high-level U.S. political delegations to Taiwan—as a pretext to escalate tensions, intimidate foreign audiences, and provide its military with more real-world experience.

As it does so, China may become overconfident; it may see the well-coordinated execution, for example, of the August military exercise against Taiwan as evidence that Beijing can well manage future crises. That would be a misjudgment of colossal proportions and could very well precipitate the conflict that the PLA remains underprepared for. For now, Xi seems to understand that China is not yet ready to be the military power he wants it to be. But that caution and restraint may not last indefinitely, particularly if the loyalists Xi has surrounded himself with—including on the military side—are more keen to please their leader than to honestly report China’s shortcomings.

The Weakness Behind China’s Strong Façade

Xi’s Reach Exceeds His Military’s Grasp

By Bonny Lin and Joel Wuthnow

November 10, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Bonny Lin and Joel Wuthnow · November 10, 2022

In late October, Chinese leader Xi Jinping kicked off the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress—a twice-a-decade, agenda-setting conclave of the party’s key leaders—with a report that touted China’s achievements and laid out a vision for the years ahead. In a move that was widely expected, Xi extended his own rule. But he surprised even the closest China watchers by unveiling a roster of leaders in which his confidantes now occupy all the top positions within the party and state apparatus. Using direct and forceful language, Xi consolidated his hold on power and projected a strong and ambitious China to the world.

But the façade of a confident and robust Xi masked deep anxiety. Xi sees China hemmed in on all sides and facing intensifying security threats. This anxiety is driven by Beijing’s perception of a hostile Washington, its problematic relations with its neighbors, and the fact that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still has a long way to go to become a force capable of fighting and winning local wars—never mind larger conflicts. Such a bleak outlook motivated Xi’s selection of new military leaders, underscored the urgency with which he has pressed the PLA to modernize, and resulted in a daunting list of tasks that the PLA must meet in the years ahead. Indeed, Xi’s insistence on Chinese military strength at the party congress was in truth an admission of weakness: China cannot yet defeat its rivals, and Beijing knows it.

CHINA UNDER THREAT

The report that Xi presented at the party congress depicted a China under threat. Gone is the assessment from the last party congress, in 2017, that the country enjoys a favorable external environment for development. Instead, it says, “risks and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising.” Beijing now needs to prepare for worst-case scenarios and guard against a range of potential dangers, including unforeseen but drastic “black swan” events (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) and more plausible “gray rhino” events for which China is insufficiently prepared (such as Taiwan formally declaring its independence). At the same time, Beijing needs to counter “external attempts to blackmail, contain, blockade, and exert maximum pressure on China.”

Although the report does not name it explicitly, the United States is the elephant in the room and one of the main drivers of China’s security concerns. The Chinese government sees numerous threats emanating from the United States, including the possibility of interference in what China understands as its domestic affairs (particularly relating to Taiwan); U.S. support for countries in China’s backyard; the growing U.S. military presence in the broader Indo-Pacific region; active U.S. coalition building—as in its security partnership with Australia, India, and Japan, known as the Quad, and its partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS—to contain China’s rise; and U.S. efforts to delay, if not undermine, Chinese advances in science and technology, such as through sanctions on the telecommunications company Huawei.

Beijing also recognizes that it has tensions with some of its neighbors while other neighboring countries are dealing with significant external or internal challenges that could spill over and threaten China’s security. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, North Korea, and Russia are all largely on good terms with China but have internal security challenges and troubled relations with the United States or with key U.S. allies or partners. China remains locked in unresolved territorial disputes with India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam and continues to claim sovereignty over a democratic Taiwan that does not want anything to do with the mainland. Despite its seemingly implacable hold over Chinese society, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also remains obsessed with possible challenges to its political control, fearing that unforeseen domestic turmoil looms around the corner.

TIME FOR AN UPGRADE

In a time of uncertainty and insecurity, Xi needs the PLA to better prepared and stronger. In the recent party congress work report, he tasked the PLA to achieve the same three-stage military modernization plan (with a raft of targets set for 2027, 2035, and 2049) that has been in place since 2020, the nearest milestone of which is the Chinese military’s centennial anniversary, in 2027. Chinese sources are vague on what precisely the PLA needs to do by then beyond the broad guidance that it should pursue breakthrough technologies, update its doctrine, and use its resources more efficiently. Some U.S. officials believe that Xi also expects the PLA to be ready for a large-scale operation against Taiwan in five years. That might be true, but the report to the party congress offers no evidence that Xi hopes to be able to strike Taiwan any sooner. If anything, the report focused on the longer term, with goals for the PLA to become “fully modern”—or capable of fully waging joint operations with the most advanced technology across all domains of conflict—by 2035, and “world-class,” that is, on par with the United States, by the centennial of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, in 2049.

These goals reflect Xi’s conviction that his vision of “national rejuvenation” by the middle of this century cannot be achieved without a first-rate military. For him, the PLA bears the responsibility to “shape [China’s] security posture, deter and manage crises and conflicts, and win local wars.” The 20th Party Congress report included several key areas of emphasis for the military in line with these goals. Xi called for enhancing the PLA’s ability to deploy “on a regular basis and in diversified ways” and to be “both steadfast and flexible.” This language suggests that Beijing will be more willing to use its armed forces for political purposes. China’s unprecedented military exercise near Taiwan in August (after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island) is an example of China’s inclination to flex its military muscles as proof of its resolve—and its displeasure. China may take similar actions in the various flashpoints along its disputed borders with its neighbors, seeking to advance its agenda without triggering a full-blown conflict.

China cannot yet defeat its rivals, and Beijing knows it.

Staging more PLA operations also helps address China’s lack of combat experience. Beijing has not, after all, fought a war since 1979 and has no experience with modern joint operations of the sort the U.S. military pursued during the Gulf War. Real-world tensions, like those that flared with Taiwan in August, provide the PLA opportunities to hone its skills, helping the Chinese army get to know the terrain of a possible future war. China has also run its soldiers through more rigorous and even “combat realistic” training so as to counter what it describes as a “peace disease” and prevent the army from atrophying in the long years it has not been called on to wage war.

The report to the party congress also calls for “strategic deterrence” of China’s rivals. Rather than fighting the United States head on, Xi would prefer to deter or limit U.S. intervention by convincing U.S. officials that the military costs of any intervention against China would be unacceptable. Beijing is closely watching how Russia, through nuclear saber rattling, has managed to hold off any conventional U.S. and NATO military involvement in Ukraine. For the first time, Xi referenced in the report the desire to build a stronger “strategic deterrent force system,” composed of nuclear weapons and nonnuclear systems such as cyberweapons and missiles that can strike targets in space. Some of this agenda has already been completed with the recent expansion of China’s nuclear forces, and the PLA will now work assiduously to build China’s overall deterrence capability.

Xi clearly expects the PLA to be able to fight and win wars if called upon. He promised to “intensify troop training and enhance combat preparedness across the board.” Beijing is also now placing more emphasis on developing cutting-edge technologies, including advanced unmanned drone systems, big data analysis to improve the speed and accuracy of decision-making on the battlefield, and hypersonic missiles that may be able to evade enemy defenses. These systems, the report confirms, should help rapidly increase the PLA’s combat effectiveness.

CHANGES AT THE TOP

But these are daunting tasks for the PLA. The depth of urgency conveyed in Xi’s report is a measure of how far the PLA is from achieving the goals it set for 2027. To ensure that the PLA redoubles its efforts, Xi has appointed a new military leadership.

Much like promotions that occurred during the party congress on the civilian side, positions in the Central Military Commission—the seven-person body, headed by Xi himself, that directs the PLA—were doled out to Xi’s loyalists. But Xi also clearly prized experience in dealing with major threats and crises, partially explaining why Zhang Youxia, one of the few remaining PLA generals who was involved in the 1979 Sino-Vietnam war, retained his position on the commission and was even promoted despite being well over the retirement age.

A surprise personnel choice was the elevation of He Weidong to the role of vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. He previously led the Eastern Theater Command opposite Taiwan and served as the ground force commander in the Western Theater Command, which is responsible for the disputed Sino-Indian border. Xi gave him a rare double promotion to become the second vice chairman. Given his expertise in facing Taiwan and his recent experience leading a modern joint command, he will likely be charged with making sure that the PLA meets its 2027 milestones. Two of the other members of the seven-person commission are also notably former PLA equipment czars who have worked for years to make the Chinese military into a “world-class” force.

These military appointments do not augur imminent war. It would be a gross misreading and simplification of Beijing’s external security challenges to view China’s new military leadership as a war council that will advise Xi on invading or blockading Taiwan sometime in the next five years. Xi has neither set a hard timeline for unification with Taiwan nor initiated plans to use significant military force against the island. Xi knows that simply preparing for a war over Taiwan is insufficient. Indeed, the two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission have leadership and operational experience in all five Chinese military theater commands, spending years dealing with India, North Korea, and Vietnam, in addition to Japan and Taiwan.

PLA strategists have long been concerned about the potential for “chain reaction warfare,” or the possibility that conflict in one theater could trigger fighting with other countries that seek to press their territorial claims while Beijing is preoccupied elsewhere. Planning for a war over Taiwan likely requires the PLA to prepare for other contingencies, including possible Indian opportunism to reclaim territory along the contested border, and to clamp down on any domestic turmoil if the public grows disenchanted. But the Chinese military is just not ready for that yet. Beijing does not trust its ability to successfully use large-scale force against Taiwan and likely has even less confidence that it can simultaneously manage both a war with Taiwan and any subsequent chain reaction conflicts.

HURDLES AHEAD

The PLA must also contend with other broad challenges. Personnel-wise, the new Central Military Commission will need to get up to speed. With Zhang Youxia in his 70s, He Weidong having no prior experience on the Central Military Commission, and incoming Joint Staff Department Chief Liu Zhenli having held no previous joint position, the top brass will face a steep learning curve if the PLA wants to engage in any large joint military operation on China’s periphery. Li Shangfu, the likely new minister of national defense, still remains under U.S. sanctions for his role in the purchase of Russian jets and missiles when he headed the PLA Equipment Development Department. It remains to be seen how China will navigate military-to-military ties with the United States.

Beyond the top-level leadership, the PLA is struggling to improve the quality of its personnel. Xi trimmed the military by 300,000 people five years ago and emphasized the importance of career tracks focused on operational command and science and technology. Despite these cuts, however, the share of the defense budget allocated to military personnel remains about the same, underscoring the simple reality facing all countries: high-quality personnel are expensive. The PLA might have to make further cuts to attract the talent it needs, rather than staffing a large military to help offset China’s unemployment woes.

In coming years, the PLA will also have to operate in a more resource-constrained environment. Its budget has grown annually at high single-digit percentages for the last decade and it officially declared that its defense spending is now close to $230 billion per year, second only to the United States’ nearly $750 billion budget. With economic headwinds gathering and China’s GDP growth uncertain, the CCP will have to make a conscious choice to sustain large increases in its military budget. Xi did prioritize security over economic development at the party congress, and he seems likely to ensure that the government will continue to provide the funding required to modernize the PLA. But there will be immense pressure on the PLA to demonstrate progress and prove that it deserves the government’s largesse.

Longer term, it remains to be seen how the PLA can maintain access to advanced technology for next-generation military platforms that are critical for any attempt to seek parity with the United States. The party congress advocated more robust cooperation between the civilian science and technology sector and the PLA. Such cooperation is already under stress from global supply chain difficulties as well as COVID-19 lockdowns. It could be further short-circuited by the Biden administration’s decision to limit the export of advanced technology to China. The administration’s recent curbs on the sale of microchips by U.S. companies and third parties to China is likely just the beginning of U.S. measures that take aim at the technological aspects of China’s military competitiveness. Much of Beijing’s success will depend on its ability to increase self-sufficiency in key technologies that Washington seeks to deny it.

AN HONEST RECKONING?

Xi’s assessment that China faces mounting external threats is driving Beijing’s desire to build a more capable military. The new Central Military Commission consists of individuals who have the experience—and the confidence of Xi—to push his plans forward. But the long list of tasks and challenges facing the PLA as it inches its way toward meeting its modernization goals in 2027, 2035, and 2049 should reassure outsiders that Xi is not eager to start a significant conflict with any of China’s neighbors in the next year or two.

But below the threshold of war, the PLA is likely to be more assertive in advancing Chinese interests and engage in more acts of coercion along its periphery. The new normal of more frequent military incursions around Taiwan will likely continue and China will more boldly encroach into contested regions, such as the South and East China Seas. At the same time, the PLA will be increasingly called upon to “defend” Beijing against external hostility and could use perceived “missteps” by the United States and U.S. allies and partners—for instance, the visit of high-level U.S. political delegations to Taiwan—as a pretext to escalate tensions, intimidate foreign audiences, and provide its military with more real-world experience.

As it does so, China may become overconfident; it may see the well-coordinated execution, for example, of the August military exercise against Taiwan as evidence that Beijing can well manage future crises. That would be a misjudgment of colossal proportions and could very well precipitate the conflict that the PLA remains underprepared for. For now, Xi seems to understand that China is not yet ready to be the military power he wants it to be. But that caution and restraint may not last indefinitely, particularly if the loyalists Xi has surrounded himself with—including on the military side—are more keen to please their leader than to honestly report China’s shortcomings.

• BONNY LIN is Director of the China Power Project and Senior Fellow for Asian Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
• JOEL WUTHNOW is Senior Research Fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University. The views expressed are his own.

Foreign Affairs · by Bonny Lin and Joel Wuthnow · November 10, 2022

15. The Case for Keeping U.S. Troops in Syria

Excerpts:

The decision to stay in 2018 was risky; U.S. soldiers were in danger, Turkey was adamantly opposed to U.S. cooperation with the SDF, and new Assad offensives loomed. But despite the Turkish incursion into SDF areas in 2019—which prompted Trump’s brief call to withdraw—and an Assad-Russian offensive in 2020 against Turkish and opposition forces in northwestern Syria, the containment objective has held.

The relative success of this strategy has only become more evident in the past four years, as the cease-fires have held and several attempts by Arab states to reduce Assad’s isolation have garnered no real response from Damascus. More importantly, in an era of increasing geostrategic competition, including with Russia and Iran, the United States must avoid giving away unnecessary strategic victories. The Syrian freeze might not be pretty, but it is likely what limited victory will look like going forward in Syria and perhaps elsewhere.

The Case for Keeping U.S. Troops in Syria

America’s Presence Helps Check Regional Powers

By James Jeffrey

November 10, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by James Jeffrey · November 10, 2022

In his October 10 article, “An Exit Strategy for Syria,” Christopher Alkhoury argues that the United States has achieved its main objective in Syria—eliminating an Islamic State (also known as ISIS) safe haven—and should therefore focus on negotiating a swift withdrawal from the country that both preserves U.S. access to Syrian airspace and protects the Syrian partners who fought alongside U.S. troops. At first blush, this argument seems sensible—after all, who wants another endless war? But Alkhoury quickly rebuts his own argument by citing the destabilizing effects of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, an event that sent shock waves through the international system even though the U.S.-led campaign was failing and Washington had few strategic interests there. In Syria, by contrast, the U.S. approach is succeeding, if modestly, and U.S. strategic interests abound. An Afghanistan-style withdrawal from Syria would generate an even more destabilizing shock, one that would make the chaos that accompanied U.S. President Donald Trump’s brief call to pull U.S. troops out of Syria in 2019 look mild by comparison.

But the problems with Alkhoury’s proposal run far deeper than the Afghan analogy. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not won the war in Syria, as Alkhoury asserted. Nor did the Trump administration freeze Syrian humanitarian funding, as Alkhoury’s piece claimed when it was originally published (it halted and then partially reinstituted a smaller stabilization program). More important than these errors of judgement and fact is the reality that withdrawing from Syria would endanger regional interests of the United States and of the international community. That is why the Trump administration rejected an approach similar to Alkhoury’s in 2018, a decision that subsequent events have vindicated.

The core result of Alkhoury’s proposal, although he wisely tries to play it down, would be to give the Russians greater diplomatic and military bandwidth to increase their pressure on Turkey and Israel to withdraw from Syria as well. That would eventually leave all of Syria under the control of Assad, who instigated the war, and hand Russia and Iran a strategic victory. The United States would be transforming a relatively effective in-country operation that has just 900 soldiers—none of whom have been killed in almost four years—into an offshore effort against ISIS, presumably in coordination with the tyrant responsible for 650,000 deaths and the displacement of half his country’s population.

Assad’s efforts against ISIS are feckless. Moreover, military leaders at U.S. Central Command have publicly stressed the need for a U.S. footprint in Syria, not out-of-country bases, to suppress ISIS. Yes, Alkhoury is correct that Iranian-backed militias attack U.S. positions in Syria—just as they do in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. But retreat encourages, rather than deters, Tehran.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not won the war in Syria.

In 2018, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected a similar proposal to partially withdraw U.S. forces from Syria and focus only on fighting ISIS. He concluded that such an approach would not help resolve the underlying civil war on the basis of the political compromise his predecessor, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, had hammered out in UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which called for a cease-fire and a Syrian-led political transition, including negotiations with the opposition for a new constitution. Nor would a U.S. withdrawal address the plight of 12 million displaced Syrians and refugees who in the absence of a political settlement would reasonably fear retribution from Assad. Furthermore, a U.S. withdrawal would not address Iran’s increasing influence within Syrian institutions and its stationing of missile systems in Syria that threaten Israel. The fight against ISIS, Turkey’s various security concerns, and the fate of U.S. Kurdish partners, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), would also remain pressing challenges for the United States and its partners.

Consequently, the Trump administration built on Kerry’s efforts by coordinating U.S., Turkish, and Israeli military operations to freeze the conflict and deny Assad victory. (Half of Syria’s population and 30 percent of its territory, including much of its arable land and most of its hydrocarbon resources, are still beyond his control.) The United States also attempted to negotiate a comprehensive solution with Russia in 2019 on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. And although Moscow showed little interest in the negotiations, the freeze still worked. With the exception of minor gains in early 2020, Assad’s forces have won no additional territory, and the fighting has been minimal. After an initial hesitation, the Biden administration adopted a similar approach to the conflict in Syria.

The decision to stay in 2018 was risky; U.S. soldiers were in danger, Turkey was adamantly opposed to U.S. cooperation with the SDF, and new Assad offensives loomed. But despite the Turkish incursion into SDF areas in 2019—which prompted Trump’s brief call to withdraw—and an Assad-Russian offensive in 2020 against Turkish and opposition forces in northwestern Syria, the containment objective has held.

The relative success of this strategy has only become more evident in the past four years, as the cease-fires have held and several attempts by Arab states to reduce Assad’s isolation have garnered no real response from Damascus. More importantly, in an era of increasing geostrategic competition, including with Russia and Iran, the United States must avoid giving away unnecessary strategic victories. The Syrian freeze might not be pretty, but it is likely what limited victory will look like going forward in Syria and perhaps elsewhere.

• JAMES JEFFREY is Slater Fellow and Chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. He served as a Foreign Service Officer in seven U.S. administrations, most recently as Special Representative for Syria Engagement and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

Foreign Affairs · by James Jeffrey · November 10, 2022

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com