Quotes of the Day:

“A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but the fatally shortsighted habit of our age is to think only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hands of a single madman.” 

- Carl Jung

“Teaching is more difficult than learning because what teaching calls for is this: to let learn. The real teacher, in fact, let's nothing else be learned than learning. His conduct, therefore, often produces the impression that we properly learn nothing from him, if by “learning” we now suddenly understand merely the procurement of useful information.” 

- Martin Heidegger

 "Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Virtue is doing it." 

- David Starr Jordan

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 11 (Putin's War)

2. Urkaine: CDS Daily brief (11.10.22) CDS comments on key events

3. Could Russia Really Go Nuclear? by Paul Bracken

4. Xi Jinping: when enough is too much

5. Failing to take Putin and Xi Jinping at their word

6. Would Putin Use Russia's Nuclear Weapons To Stop a Coup?

7. The NATO vs. Russia Proxy War in Ukraine Could Become a Real War

8. NATO, partners to discuss bolstering Ukraine air defence

9. Here Is the Counterdrone Kit the US Is Sending Ukraine

10. Russia Is Blasting Ukraine with Cruise Missiles and Kamikaze Drones

11. Nuclear deterrence drill, talks on restocking arsenals next up on NATO’s agenda

12. The Kherson Ruse: Ukraine and the Art of Military Deception

13. The End of the World is Nigh

14. FDD | No Limits: Xi's Support For Putin Is Unwavering

15. What diplomacy with Putin would look like now

16. Russia’s Sham Ukraine Vote Undermines Serbia's Kosovo Claims

17. Israel trades gas fields for a line of buoys

18. Taliban names former Guantanamo detainee deputy interior minister

19. Ukraine's experience spurs allies' interest in 'resistance,' info war training

20. Divisions, Corps to Replace Brigades As Army’s Wartime Formation Of Choice

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 11 (Putin's War) 

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-11

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces conducted massive missile strikes across Ukraine for the second day in a row.
• Army General Sergey Surovikin’s previous experience as commander of Russian Armed Forces in Syria is likely unrelated to the massive wave of missile strikes across Ukraine over the past few days, nor does it signal a change in the trajectory of Russian capabilities or strategy in Ukraine.
• The Russian Federation is likely extracting ammunition and other materiel from Belarusian storage bases, which is incompatible with the notion that Russian forces are setting conditions for a ground attack against Ukraine from Belarus.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to conduct counteroffensives east of the Oskil River and in the direction of Kreminna-Svatove.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian troops continued ground attacks in northern and western Kherson Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces are continuing an interdiction campaign to target Russian military, technical, and logistics assets and concentration areas in Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces continued to conduct ground assaults in Donetsk Oblast.
• Russian reporting of explosions in Dzhankoy, Crimea, indicated panic over losing further logistics capabilities in Crimea following the Kerch Strait Bridge explosion.
• Russian federal subjects are announcing new extensions and phases of mobilization in select regions, which may indicate that they have not met their mobilization quotas.
• Russian and occupation administration officials continue to conduct filtration activities in Russian-occupied territories.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 11

Oct 11, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Karolina Hird, George Barros, Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, and Frederick W. Kagan

October 11, 8:15 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.

Russian forces conducted massive missile strikes across Ukraine for the second day in a row on October 11. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces fired nearly 30 Kh-101 and Kh-55 cruise missiles from Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers and damaged critical infrastructure in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia oblasts.[1] Ukrainian air defense reportedly destroyed 21 cruise missiles and 11 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).[2] Social media footage shows the aftermath of strikes throughout Ukraine.[3] Russian forces additionally continued to launch attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure with Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.[4] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defense destroyed eight Shahed-136 drones in Mykolaiv Oblast on the night of October 10 and 11.[5]

Army General Sergey Surovikin’s previous experience as commander of Russian Armed Forces in Syria likely does not explain the massive wave of missile strikes across Ukraine over the past few days, nor does it signal a change in the trajectory of Russian capabilities or strategy in Ukraine. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) representative, Andriy Yusov, linked the recent strikes to Surovikin’s appointment as theatre commander and stated on October 11 that “throwing rockets at civilian infrastructure objects” is consistent with Surovikin’s tactics in Syria.[6] However, Surovikin has been serving in Ukraine (as the Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces and then reportedly of the southern grouping of Russian forces) since the beginning of the war, as have many senior Russian commanders similarly associated with Russian operations in Syria.[7] Army General Aleksandr Dvornikov, who was appointed in April to the role that Surovikin now holds, similarly commanded Russian forces in Syria between 2015-2016 and became known for deliberately and brutally targeting civilians.[8] Colonel General Aleksandr Chayko, the former commander of the Eastern Military District who took an active part in the first stages of the war in Ukraine, also served as Chief of Staff of Russian forces in Syria from 2015 and into 2016.[9] As ISW noted in April, all Russian military district, aerospace, and airborne commanders served at least one tour in Syria as either chief of staff or commander of Russian forces, and Russian forces deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure including hospitals and breadlines throughout the period of Russia’s active engagement in that war.[10] Disregard for international law and an enthusiasm for brutalizing civilian populations was standard operating procedure for Russian forces in Syria before, during, and after Surovikin’s tenure. It has become part of the Russian way of war.

Surovikin’s appointment will not lead to further “Syrianization” of Russian operations in Ukraine because the battlespace in Ukraine is fundamentally different from the battlespace in Syria, and direct comparisons to Surovikin’s Syrian “playbook” obfuscate the fact that Russia faces very different challenges in Ukraine. Russia cannot further “Syrianize” the war largely because of its failure to gain air superiority, which precludes its ability to launch the kind of massive carpet-bombing campaigns across Ukraine that it could, and did, conduct in Syria. ISW has previously assessed that Russian air operations would have been markedly different if conducted in contested airspace or a more challenging air-defense environment, as is the case in Ukraine.[11] It is therefore highly unlikely that Surovikin’s role as theatre commander will cause a fundamental change in Russian air and missile operations in Ukraine as long as Ukraine’s Western backers continue to supply Kyiv with the air defenses needed to prevent Russia from gaining air superiority.

Russian military officials may instead have coordinated Surovikin’s appointment and the October 10 cruise missile strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure to rehabilitate the perception of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD). Whoever was appointed as theatre commander would have overseen the October 10 cruise missile strikes, which Ukrainian intelligence reported had been planned as early as October 2 (and which Surovikin certainly did not plan, prepare for, and conduct on the day of his appointment).[12] Russian milbloggers have recently lauded both the massive wave of strikes on October 10 and Surovikin’s appointment and correlated the two as positive developments for Russian operations in Ukraine. This narrative may be aligned with ongoing Russian information operations to rehabilitate the reputation of Central Military District Command Colonel General Aleksandr Lapin following Russian failures around Lyman as part of a wider campaign to bolster public opinion of the Russian military establishment. The Russian MoD is evidently invested in repairing its public image, and the informational effects of the October 10 missile strikes and the appointment of Surovikin, a hero in the extremist nationalist Russian information space, are likely intended to cater to the most vocal voices in that space.

The Russian Federation is likely extracting ammunition and other materiel from Belarusian storage bases—activity that is incompatible with setting conditions for a large-scale Russian or Belarusian ground attack against Ukraine from Belarus. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on October 11 that a train with 492 tons of ammunition from the Belarusian 43rd Missile and Ammunition Storage Arsenal in Gomel arrived at the Kirovskaya Railway Station in Crimea on an unspecified recent past date.[13] The GUR reported that Belarusian officials plan to send an additional 13 trains with weapons, equipment, ammunition, and other unspecified materiel from five different Belarusian bases to the Kamenska (Kamensk-Shakhtinsky) and Marchevo (Taganrog) railway stations in Rostov Oblast on an unspecified future date. Open-source social media footage supports this report. Geolocated footage showed at least two Belarusian trains transporting Belarusian T-72 tanks and Ural military trucks in Minsk and Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile launchers in Orsha (Vitebsk Oblast) on October 11.[14] Belarusian equipment movements into Russia indicate that Russian and Belarusian forces likely are not establishing assembly areas in Belarus. Belarusian equipment and supply movements to Crimea and Rostov Oblast indicate that Russian forces are less confident about the security of Russian ground lines of communication running through northern and western Luhansk Oblast given the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive there. Ukraine’s General Staff reiterated that it monitors Belarus and has not observed indicators of the formation of offensive groups in Belarus on October 11.[15] Russian and or Belarusian forces remain unlikely to attack Ukraine from Belarus, as ISW has previously assessed.[16]

Belarus remains a co-belligerent in Russia’s war against Ukraine, nonetheless. Belarus materially supports Russian offensives in Ukraine and provides Russian forces with havens from which to attack Ukraine with precision munitions. Russian forces struck Kyiv with Shahed-136 drones launched from Belarusian territory on October 10.[17] The GUR additionally reported that Russia deployed 32 Shahed-136 drones to Belarus as of October 10 and that Russia will deploy eight more to Belarus by October 14.[18]

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces conducted massive missile strikes across Ukraine for the second day in a row.
• Army General Sergey Surovikin’s previous experience as commander of Russian Armed Forces in Syria is likely unrelated to the massive wave of missile strikes across Ukraine over the past few days, nor does it signal a change in the trajectory of Russian capabilities or strategy in Ukraine.
• The Russian Federation is likely extracting ammunition and other materiel from Belarusian storage bases, which is incompatible with the notion that Russian forces are setting conditions for a ground attack against Ukraine from Belarus.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to conduct counteroffensives east of the Oskil River and in the direction of Kreminna-Svatove.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian troops continued ground attacks in northern and western Kherson Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces are continuing an interdiction campaign to target Russian military, technical, and logistics assets and concentration areas in Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces continued to conduct ground assaults in Donetsk Oblast.
• Russian reporting of explosions in Dzhankoy, Crimea, indicated panic over losing further logistics capabilities in Crimea following the Kerch Strait Bridge explosion.
• Russian federal subjects are announcing new extensions and phases of mobilization in select regions, which may indicate that they have not met their mobilization quotas.
• Russian and occupation administration officials continue to conduct filtration activities in Russian-occupied territories.

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: (Oskil River-Kreminna Line)

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to conduct offensive operations east of the Oskil River in the direction of Kreminna and Svatove on October 11. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian forces near Krokhmalne in Kharkiv Oblast (20km northwest of Svatove) and Stel’makhivka in Luhansk Oblast (15km northwest of Svatove).[19] The Russian MoD also claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attempted to cross the Zherebets River southwest of Svatove in the direction of Raihorodka and Novovodiane, Luhansk Oblast, on October 11.[20] [21] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are regrouping and restoring combat capabilities near Kupyansk to prepare for assaults near the Pershotravneve-Kyslivka line.[22] The milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces are concentrating personnel and equipment in the Lyman-Svatove direction to launch an offensive on Svatove and Kreminna with a strike group of up to 40,000 personnel.[23] ISW makes no effort to forecast Ukrainian operations or to evaluate the likelihood of Russian forecasts about them.

Russian sources claimed that Russian forces conducted a local counterattack and recaptured territories west of Kreminna while continuing to establish defensive positions in the Kreminna-Svatove area on October 11. Russian milbloggers claimed on October 11 that Russian forces conducted counteroffensive operations east of Lyman and recaptured Terny, Torske, Novosadove, Makiivka, and Nevske, although ISW cannot independently verify any of these claims.[24] Russian sources posted videos on October 11 purporting to show Russian forces constructing trenches with BTM-3 entrenching machines along the Svatove-Kreminna line, with one source dubbing the effort a Russian-made “Maginot” line (referring to the massive belt of French fortifications built between the two world wars that the Germans simply drove around).[25] Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai also reported that Russian forces are continuing to mine territory in Luhansk Oblast to slow Ukrainian counteroffensive operations.[26] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted routine indirect fire along the Oskil River-Kreminna line on October 11.[27]

Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)

Russian sources continued to claim that Ukrainian troops conducted ground attacks in northern and western Kherson Oblast on October 11. The Russian MoD claimed that two Ukrainian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) conducted offensive operations in the direction of Borozenske and Piatykhatky—both along the current Davydiv Brid-Dudchany frontline in northern Kherson Oblast and about 35km from the critical Russian-controlled town of Beryslav.[28] A Russian milblogger similarly indicated that Ukrainian troops are preparing to advance south of the Davydiv Brid-Dudchany line and conducting artillery preparations for subsequent attacks on Russian positions in the direction of Beryslav.[29] Russian milbloggers additionally indicated that Ukrainian troops are attempting to reinforce positions in the Davydiv Brid area (western Kherson Oblast near the Mykolaiv Oblast border and along the Inhulets River) to prepare for advances to the southeast.[30] Several Russian sources reported that Ukrainian troops attempted to attack toward Bruskynske (6km south of Davyvid Brid), Ishchenka (8km southeast of Davydiv Brid), and Sadok (12km southeast of Davydiv Brid).[31] ISW offers no evaluation of these Russian claims regarding likely future Ukrainian operations or force groupings.

Ukrainian military officials largely maintained their operational silence regarding Ukrainian ground attacks in Kherson Oblast but reiterated that Ukrainian forces are continuing an interdiction campaign to target Russian military, technical, and logistics assets and concentration areas.[32] Geolocated social media footage posted October 11 shows the aftermath of October 10 Ukrainian strikes on a medical college dormitory in Beryslav that Russian forces were reportedly using as quarters.[33] Imagery posted on October 11 additionally shows damage to the Antonivsky Bridge in Kherson City following a Ukrainian HIMARS strike.[34] Geolocated footage shows a Ukrainian RAM II loitering munition striking a Russian Osa air defense system near Kyselivka, 17km northwest of Kherson City.[35]

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 to conduct ground assaults in Donetsk Oblast on October 11. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground assaults near Bakhmut itself, northeast of Bakhkmut near Soledar and Bakhmutske, and south of Bakhmut near Mykolaivka and Mayorsk.[36] A Russian source stated that Russian forces tried to advance in the areas of Ozeryanivka south of Bakhmut and Kamianka, southeast of Bakhmut on the N20 highway.[37] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian ground assault west of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske.[38] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces conducted ground assaults in the directions of Nevelske and Pervomaiske.[39] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces repelled three Ukrainian tactical company groups near Mykilske, Novomayorske, and Stepne in western Donetsk Oblast.[40]

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

Russian forces continued routine artillery, air, and missile strikes west of Hulyaipole, and in Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Odesa oblasts on October 10. Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces struck Zaporizhia City, Mykolaiv City, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro City, and unspecified locations in Odesa Oblast.[41] Ukrainian sources also stated that Russian forces fired on Kutsurub Hromada, Mykolaiv Oblast, from positions on the Kinburn Spit in Mykolaiv Oblast.[42]

Russian sources reported explosions in Dzhankoy, Crimea, on October 11. A Russian milblogger reported that the explosion occurred at a rail junction between the Kherson-Kerch and Kharkiv-Sevastopol rail lines but did not identify a cause.[43] The source noted that the only logistics route through Crimea that supplies Russian forces in southern Ukraine runs through Dzhankoy.[44] Russian news outlet Baza reported that a Russian tank accidentally fired while undergoing repairs, striking a house in Dzhankoy and wounding a child.[45] The reporting and claims over this incident indicate Russian panic over losing further logistics capabilities in Crimea following the Kerch Strait Bridge explosion.

Russian occupation authorities intensified efforts to strengthen their physical control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in occupied Enerhodar, likely to set conditions to take control over ZNPP operations and integrate the ZNPP into the Russian power grid. Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom reported that Russian occupation authorities kidnapped and tortured the ZNPP’s Deputy General Director Valeriy Martynyuk on October 10 and continue to hold Martynyuk in an unknown location.[46] Energoatom stated that Russian occupation authorities are torturing Martynyuk to obtain personal information about ZNPP personnel to force them into working for Russian nuclear agency Rosatom instead.[47] Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated that occupation authorities are forcing ZNPP personnel to sign contracts with Rosatom and use Russian passports for official work.[48] Energoatom stated that Russian authorities have begun transporting beds, mattresses, heaters, and other household items to the ZNPP.[49] Energoatom stated that Russian authorities are either trying to establish a winter base at the ZNPP or intend to take Ukrainian ZNPP personnel hostage as they did during the occupation of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in February and March 2022.[50] Zaporizhia Occupation Administration Council Member Vladimir Rogov stated that the ZNPP has been reconnected to external power lines but that it is too early to talk about restarting the reactors.[51]

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

The Russian military command continues to deploy newly mobilized servicemen without combat training to frontlines in eastern and southern Ukraine. Luhansk Oblast Administration Head Serhiy Haidai reported that “thousands” of mobilized men are arriving in Luhansk Oblast but noted that only the first groups of these servicemen have any type of military experience.[52] A Ukrainian Telegram channel uploaded a video of Russian mobilized men complaining about their deployment to Svatove from Moscow Oblast only 11 days after being drafted and despite their minimal or nonexistent military experience.[53] Russian forces are also training mobilized men in occupied Ukrainian regions. A member of the Zaporizhia Oblast occupation administration, Vladimir Rogov, stated that Russian mobilized personnel are undergoing training in the suburbs of Melitopol.[54] Footage also shows mobilized personnel reportedly training in occupied Luhansk Oblast.[55] Mariupol Mayor’s Advisor Petro Andryushenko noted that the arrival of Russian military equipment in the direction of Manhush west of Mariupol, stating that Russian forces may be establishing a training center for the mobilized in the settlement.[56] The Ukrainian General Staff emphasized that the deployment of mobilized Russians to Ukraine will not undermine Ukrainian forces’ counteroffensives.[57]

Russian federal subjects are announcing new phases of mobilization in select regions. Rostov Oblast Governor Vasiliy Golubev noted stated that the oblast “received a new mobilization task” and stated that local enlistment commissions began the implementation of an unspecified mobilization order.[58] Voronezh Oblast Governor Alexander Gusyev noted that mobilization activities will continue past October 10.[59] It is unclear if these oblasts are launching a second mobilization wave or are following an entirely new mobilization order. It is possible that these oblasts could have failed to meet an initial mobilization quota and must extend their mobilization periods, a practice previously seen during the recruitment of volunteer battalions throughout the summer. A Russian milblogger even noted that Rostov and Kursk oblasts, despite having reported the completion of their mobilization orders, might need to continue their mobilization campaigns past the initial deadline to achieve original mobilization quotas.[60]

Russian officials are continuing to use mobilization as a form of punishment against individuals who refuse the Kremlin’s mobilization orders. Governor of Magadan Oblast Sergey Nosov in a leaked conversation with subordinates demanded that they directly issue a mobilization order to the manager of the gold mining company for refusing to administer mobilization notices to his employees.[61] An unnamed business owner told RFE/RL that local officials are extorting businessmen for 10 percent of their employees in exchange for exempting firms’ top employees from mobilization.[62] The Kremlin has also mandated all Russian business owners to provide information regarding their employees to local military enlistment centers, and local officials may use these lists to coercively mobilize more men.[63] Local officials may use the guise of mobilization to demand bribes from business owners; Ukrainian and Russian sources have reported the emergence of such organized corruption schemes within the Russian defense sector.[64]

Russian enlistment officers continued to issue wrongful mobilization summonses and are increasingly attempting to coerce men to accept these notices. Russian authorities are issuing mobilization notices to deceased persons. St. Peterburg-based outlet Fontanka reported that employees of housing maintenance offices left mobilization notices on the doors of men who have been dead for years.[65] RFE/RL shared accounts of wrongfully mobilized men who had stated that enlistment officers, despite knowing of their wrongful mobilization, attempted to physically and mentally coerce men into accepting their summons.[66] Russian enlistment centers are likely continuing to mobilize exempt men to meet previously established mobilization quotas despite the Kremlin’s claims that it is addressing the issue of wrongful mobilization.

Some Russians continued to express resistance to mobilization throughout Russia. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that over a hundred mobilized men at an unspecified Eastern Military District training ground refuse to comply with command orders and are not leaving their barracks in protest of poor living and sanitary conditions.[67] A Russian man attempted to commit arson against a military recruitment center in Ryazan Oblast, and unknown perpetrators threw Molotov cocktails at a city hall in Chelyabinsk Oblast.[68]

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 and occupation administration officials continue to conduct filtration activities in Russian-occupied territories on October 11. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian forces are detaining the family members and friends of Ukrainian military and law enforcement personnel in Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast.[69] Mariupol City Advisor Petro Andryushenko claimed on October 11 that the Russian Federal Security Service and the Russian investigative committee have established a filtration center at the Central District Police Department in Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast.[70] Andryushenko also claimed that Russian authorities established a torture chamber at the filtration facility where FSB personnel coerce confessions from detainees.[71] Kharkiv Oblast Head Oleh Synehubov reported on October 11 that 37 children illegally taken from Kharkiv Oblast by Russian and occupation administration officials rejoined their parents in Zakarpattia Oblast.[72] Russian and occupation administration officials continue to remove Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories. The Head of the Kherson occupation administration Vladimir Saldo is currently implementing a program to take up to 40,000 children and adults from Kherson Oblast to Russian-occupied Crimea and the Russian Federation.[73] Russian and occupation administration officials will likely intensify filtration activities as Ukrainian counteroffensives progress.

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.

[13] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/okupanty-prodovzhuiut-perekydaty-na-terytoriiu-bilorusi-dronykamikadze-shahed136.html

[18] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/okupanty-prodovzhuiut-perekydaty-na-terytoriiu-bilorusi-dronykamikadze-shahed136.html

[48] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/na-zaes-vidkliucheno-vsi-shist-blokiv-okupanty-prymushuiut-spivrobitnykiv-pidpysuvaty-kontrakty-z-rosatomom.html; https://t.me/spravdi/18874

[59] https://vrn dot mk.ru/politics/2022/10/11/gubernator-voronezhskoy-oblasti-soobshhil-o-prodolzhenii-mobilizacii-posle-10-oktyabrya.html

[61] https://www dot currenttime.tv/a/gubernator-magadanskoy-oblasti-treboval-mobilizovat-direktora-tot-otkazalsya-otpravlyat-rabotnikov-na-front/32073861.html

[62] https://www dot sibreal.org/a/kak-rossiyskih-predprinimateley-vynuzhdayut-sdavat-sotrudnikov-na-mobilizatsiyu-/32072252.html

[63] https://www dot gd.ru/news/16404-s-1-oktyabrya-rabotodateli-doljny-sdavat-otchet-po-mobilizatsii

[64] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0GEyFUHP1a2T7Crc1hmz... dot ru/video/77145f16c0922abfa2caddae758cbc25/

[65] https://www dot fontanka dot ru/2022/10/11/71727098/

[68] https://rtvi dot com/news/meriyu-uralskogo-goroda-zabrosali-koktejlyami-molotova/; https://www.rzn dot info/news/2022/10/11/v-ryazani-muzhchina-pytalsya-podzhech-moskovskij-rajonnyj-sud-258931.html

understandingwar.org

2. Urkaine: CDS Daily brief (11.10.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (11.10.22) CDS comments on key events

In the aftermath of yesterday's massive Russian missile attack on Ukraine and its capital (84 cruise missiles and 24 attack UAVs), Ukraine's State Emergency Service reported 19 dead and 105 wounded civilians.

About 100 miners trapped underground in Kryvyi Rih due to a missile attack were rescued.

Today the Russian Federation again launched two massive missile strikes on cities and critical infrastructure facilities in different regions of Ukraine. The enemy used high-precision weapons

- Kh-101/Kh-555 air-based cruise missiles from Tu-95ms strategic aviation aircraft, Kalibr-type sea-based cruise missiles, and Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze UAVs. In total, the enemy launched 28 cruise missiles: 16 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles and 12 Kalibr cruise missiles. The Air Force of Ukraine destroyed 20 of them and 13 Shahed-136 UAVs.

The Main Military Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense stated that Russian occupiers continue to transfer Shahed-136 kamikaze drones to the territory of Belarus. On October 10, 32 such attack UAVs were brought to Belarus, and eight more are planned to be delivered by October 14.

In the morning, the enemy shelled Zaporizhzhia with 12 rockets at civilian objects. Two of them hit the car dealership, 1 person died. Other missiles hit the educational institution. A school, outpatient healthcare facility and residential buildings were damaged.

In the morning, the Russians attacked the Ladyzhynska TPP in Vinnytsia with two kamikaze drones. They later shot it with a missile for the second time when Ukrainian rescuers were working on the spot. According to preliminary information, six people were injured, DTEK energy company reported.

Russian forces attacked two energy facilities in Lviv Oblast. Yesterday, enemy missiles hit four electrical substations. After today's repeated strikes, there is nothing left of the two substations, Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv Oblast Military Administration, stated. "They played an important role not only in providing electricity to the Lviv Oblast but also for export abroad," said Kozytskyi. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy confirmed that one person was injured, and 30% of Lviv temporarily remains without electricity due to a missile strike. In addition, there are water supply interruptions in two city districts.

In the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, the Russians targeted the energy infrastructure in the Pavlograd and Kamiansky districts. There is serious destruction. Many towns and villages were left without electricity, the head of Dnipropetrovsk Military Administration, Valentyn Reznichenko, said.

Today, as it was yesterday, Ukraine’s authorities urge not to turn on energy-intensive appliances during peak hours: electric stoves, electric kettles, heaters and air conditioners, etc. "Yesterday,

Ukrainians across the country, responding to the call, voluntarily reduced their electricity consumption by an average of 10%", Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated.

In Kyiv, the electricity supply situation is stabilized so that emergency power cuts won't be applied. Oleksiy Kuleba, the head of the Kyiv Military Administration, said that thanks to the consumers' economical use of electricity on October 10, during peak hours, it was possible to reduce its consumption by 30%. Emergency and rescue services of Kyiv work around the clock in an enhanced mode.

Ukraine returned another 37 children who were forcibly taken from Kharkiv Oblast to the Russian town of Kabardinka (near Gelendzhik) at the end of August, even though all of them have parents, reported the Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories on its website. "The return process was difficult but ended successfully. To pick up their children, the parents travelled a long way through several European countries," the message reads.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukraine President's Office, announced that 32 Ukrainian soldiers and the body of a killed Israeli citizen were returned from Russian captivity. "Among those released are officers, sergeants and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. All of them were in places where fierce fighting was going on. Many of these people were considered missing." It was also possible to return the body of Israeli Dmytro Fialka. He lived in Ukraine for the last two years and worked as a children's soccer coach at the Dynamo club (Lviv). Dmytro went to the front as a volunteer.

The Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories confirms that today, Ukraine returned the bodies of 62 fallen heroes. "The negotiations were difficult, but thanks to the painstaking work of the entire team of the Commissioner for Missing Persons Oleh Kotenko, it was possible to return our soldiers, in particular, soldiers from the long-suffering Olenivka."

Seventy-eight bodies, including children, were exhumed in Sviatohirsk and Lyman (Donetsk Oblast), liberated from the Russian invaders, the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office informs. As noted, during October 4-10, the investigation-prosecutor group inspected Sviatohirsk and Lyman and found the burial places of local residents. In Sviatohirsk, law enforcement officers exhumed the bodies of 34 people, some with signs of violent death. The burnt bodies of two citizens were also found in the car; their identities are currently being established. About 110 trenches were discovered on the territory of the liberated Lyman at the "Nova Maslyakivka" cemetery, among which there are children's graves. The youngest is only a year old. She is buried next to the whole family. In total, 44 bodies have already been exhumed during the examination.

Ukraine's security services (SBU) discovered another place of illegal detention of people in liberated Sviatohirsk. The torture chamber was set up in recreation facility not far from the Sviatohirsk Lavra monastery. The Russian military forcibly detained local residents who supported Ukraine's territorial integrity. During the inspection, operatives and investigators of

the SBU found objects that directly indicate signs of torture. Currently, a complex of investigative and operational measures is being conducted.

Occupied Territories

Ukrainian Military Intelligence reports that all six units of ZNPP are disabled. The Russian occupiers continue to keep them in a "cold mode". They plan to apply voltage to the ZNPP open switchgear. Also, the invaders continue to put pressure on the [Ukrainian] staff of the ZNPP. The occupiers apply the so-called "filtration measures" to some personnel and their families. Employees are required to obtain official Russian passports and sign contracts with Rosatom.

Earlier, Energoatom reported that Russian occupation authorities kidnapped and are probably torturing the deputy general HR director of the ZNPP. Yesterday, October 10, they kidnapped Valery Martyniuk and held him in an unknown place, most likely trying to get the much-needed information about the personal profiles of Zaporizhzhia NPP employees to force them to work for Rosatom.

In the temporarily occupied Melitopol, the Russian occupiers kidnapped more than 700 residents, the [legally-elected Ukrainian] mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, reported on his Telegram. "Residents of the occupied territories of the Zaporizhzhia region do not cooperate with the occupiers. Therefore, the latter are only left with impotent rage to kidnap and torture people to achieve at least some kind of "reciprocity." He noted that the occupiers do not pay attention to the residents' age, gender, or profession.

In Mariupol, Russian invaders detain men and take them to an unknown destination. Petro Andryushchenko, the adviser to the [legally-elected Ukrainian] mayor of Mariupol, reported on his Telegram. "The Russians have set up mobile posts along Metallurgy Avenue at every intersection. Military police and the commandant's offices. They are checking the documents and phones of the drivers almost continuously. Men are being systematically taken away, put in the commandant's cars and taken away in an unknown direction."

Operational situation

(please note that this part of the report is on the previous day's (Oct 10) developments)

It is the 230th day of the strategic air and ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to defend Donbas").

Without success [on a battlefield], the enemy launches missile strikes and actively uses attack UAVs to damage critical infrastructure and densely populated cities of Ukraine. The enemy fails to stop the successful counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the Kharkiv and Kherson directions, so it is trying to intimidate and sow panic among the population of Ukraine. Mobilization and transfer of Russian Forces reserves also failed to provide the enemy with an opportunity to overcome the active resistance of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

During the previous day, the occupiers launched more than 61 missile and 32 air strikes and carried out about 92 shellings from rocket launchers. 73 air targets were destroyed by Ukrainian air defense units in various directions, including 46 cruise missiles and 27 UAVs.

As a result of a massive missile attack, the infrastructure of more than 30 Ukrainian towns and villages was damaged in the past day. In particular, Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Pryluky, Nizhyn, Konotop, Kharkiv, Kremenchuk, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa. Ukrainian civilians were killed and wounded. The threat of the enemy launching missile strikes on critical infrastructure and peaceful neighborhoods throughout Ukraine persists.

The Russian military does not stop attempts to maintain control over the temporarily captured territories and shells the positions of Ukrainian troops. The enemy is trying to disrupt the counteroffensive actions of the units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces and try to conduct offensive actions in some directions.

The Russian aggressor regularly fires at towns and villages near the state border. Thus, it shelled from mortars, barrel and jet artillery Yanzhulivka, Tymonovychy, Mykhalchyna Sloboda in Chernihiv Oblast, Bilopyllya and Myropyllya in Sumy Oblast, Ivashka, Strilecha, Hurivka, Kamianka, Borshcheva, Sotnytskyi Kozachok, Huryiv Kozachok, Kozacha Lopan, Vilkhuvatka and Chugunivka in Kharkiv Oblast.

Aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces carried out 6 strikes during the past 24 hours, hitting 4 places of enemy concentration of weapons and military equipment and 2 anti-aircraft missile systems. In addition, Ukrainian Air defense units destroyed an enemy Su-25 aircraft.

Ukrainian missile troops and artillery hit the command post, four areas of concentration of enemy manpower, weapons and military equipment, one S-300 anti-aircraft missile system and one warehouse with ammunition.

At around 7 am on October 11, a takeoff of the aggressor's strategic aircraft - Tu-95 and Tu-160 missile carriers - was detected from the Caspian Sea region. Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles were launched over the territory of Ukraine. Around 9 am, four missiles were destroyed by the forces and means of the "South" Air Command.

The leadership of the Republic of Belarus continues to support the Russian Federation in the war against Ukraine, allowing the Russian Federation to use its airspace and airfield network to carry out airstrikes on the territory of Ukraine. In the indicated areas, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces monitor and control the situation; there are no signs of the formation of offensive groups on the territory of the Republic of Belarus or the movement of troops.

Sewing factories in the Republic of Belarus began to receive large orders for producing winter military uniforms, fabrics and sleeping bags. The Soligorsk factory "Kalinka" received a large order for sewing winter military uniforms. According to the preliminary information, the uniforms are

not intended for the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus. The Mogilev enterprise "Mogotex" started the commission of a large fabric order production for the uniforms of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Sewing factories in Brest received an order to sew 30,000 sets of winter military uniforms.

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

• Zolochiv-Balakleya section: approximate length of combat line - 147 km, number of BTGs of the

RF Armed Forces - 10-12, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 13.3 km;

• Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments, 245th motorized rifle regiment of the 47th tank division, 6th and 239th tank regiments, 228th motorized rifle regiment of the 90th tank division, 1st motorized rifle regiment, 1st tank regiment of the 2nd motorized rifle division, 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 6th Combined Arms Army, 27th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Tank Army, 275th and 280th motorized rifle regiments, 11th tank regiment of the 18th motorized rifle division of the 11 Army Corps, 7th motorized rifle regiment of the 11th Army Corps, 80th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 14th Army Corps, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 1st Army Corps of so-called DPR, PMCs.

The enemy continued to carry out a systematic high-intensity fire attack on the areas of concentration of the Ukrainian Defense Forces on the demarcation line in the areas of Dvorichna and Stelmakhivka.

Ukrainian Forces continue demining to clear the territories of liberated territories and provide other post-occupation measures.

The enemy continues accumulating equipment and personnel in Starobilsk and equipping positions. They block the Internet in the city. Only "Lugakom" mobile communication periodically functions. The Russian occupiers are searching for Ukrainian patriots, detaining family members and friends of servicemen and law enforcement officers of Ukraine. In addition, according to available information, the [Russian] invaders are looking for their deserters in the Luhansk region under the guise of searching for Ukrainian saboteurs.

Kramatorsk direction

● Balakleya - Siversk section: approximate length of the combat line - 184 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17-20, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;

●  252nd and 752nd motorized rifle regiments of the 3rd motorized rifle division, 1st, 13th, and 12th tank regiments, 423rd motorized rifle regiment of the 4th tank division, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Combined Arms Army, 35th, 55th and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, 2nd and 4th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Army Corps, 7th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Army Corps, PMCs.

From tanks, mortars, barrel and rocket artillery, the enemy conducted shelling along the entire line of contact, particularly in the areas of Bilohorivka, Grekivka, Novoyehorivka, Raihorodok, Pershotravneve, Novolyubivka, Makiivka, Nove, Zarichne, Terny, Serebryanka and Hryhorivka.

Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces carry out de-occupation measures north of the Kramatorsk. Ukrainian troops consolidate along the frontiers of Vilshana - Pershotravneve - Orlyanka - Yagidne

-   Kyslivka - Tabaivka - Krokhmalne - Kolomyichykha - Kopanky\Pershotravneve - Cherneshchyna

-   Petrivske - Makiivka - Nevske - Novosadove - Terny - Yampolivka - Torske - Chervona Dibrova - Bilogorivka. Under favorable conditions, they advance to better positions and cut the communications of the Russian grouping.

The Russian troops are carrying out counterattacks in the Novosadove and Torske areas.

Donetsk direction

● Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 235 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 17 km;

●  Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments, 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th tank regiment of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade, 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 enemy inflicted fire damage in the areas of Siversk, Soledar, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Mayorsk, Kurdyumivka, New York, Krasna Gora, Chasiv Yar, Yakovlivka, Zelenopillia, Odradivka, Avdiivka, Pervomaiske, Vodyane, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Novomykhailivka.

Over the past 24 hours, Ukraine's Defense Forces units have repelled enemy attacks in the areas of Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Mayorsk, Soledar and Pervomaiske.

The enemy continued attempts to break through to the south of Bakhmut, improved its tactical position and gained control over Vesela Dolyna and Zaitseve. The Russian units tried to improve their tactical position in the areas of Soledar, Bakhmut, and Mayorsk; the fighting continues. The artillery of the RF Armed Forces carried out massive shelling in all areas.

The Russian troops unsuccessfully stormed the positions of Ukraine's Defense Forces in the area of Nevelske from the side of Staromykhailivka.

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

The enemy did not carry out offensive actions. Vuhledar, Nevelske, Zaliznychne, Biloghirya, Vremivka, Zelene Pole, Novosilka, Shcherbaky, Novopil, Novomykolaivka, Hulyaipilske, Dorozhnyanka, Temyrivka, and Chervone came under enemy fire from tanks, mortars, barrel and jet artillery.

The enemy continued shelling populated areas near the contact line and carried out systematic rocket attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia and other populated areas of the Zaporizhia Oblast from firing positions in the Berdyansk district. It strengthens the echelon defense and deploys temporary and field ammunition depots and control points, fearing damage by high-precision weapons.

In the populated areas of the Vasyliv district along the contact line, the enemy demined roads and certain locations to prevent the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Enemy engineering preparation for long-term defense in the Pology area was observed. The creation of additional mine-explosive barriers were observed in the Kakhovsk Reservoir and the villages of Robotyne and Verbove.

The enemy continues to concentrate forces in the districts of Zorya and Novhorod. In the districts of Inzhenerne and Novokarlivka, the Russian troops are strengthening the units located there, continuing the engineering equipment of the positions. In the area of Temyrivka - Novopil - Novodarivka, the activity of Russian sabotage reconnaissance groups has been detected, and counter-intelligence measures are being carried out. The enemy is concentrating heavy armored vehicles in the Staromlynivka area; there is a threat of its offensive actions in the direction of Velyka Novosilka.

Tavriysk direction

-    Vasylivka – Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line – 296 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 42, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 7 km;

-   Deployed BTGs: 114th, 143rd, and 394th motorized rifle regiments, 218th tank regiment of the 127th motorized rifle division, 57th and 60th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 37th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Combined Arms Army, 429th motorized rifle regiment of the 19th motorized rifle division, 33rd and 255th motorized rifle

regiments of the 20th motorized rifle division, 34th and 205th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 49th Combined Arms Army, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division, 10th, 16th, 346th separate SOF brigades, 239th air assault regiment of the 76th Air assault division, 217th and 331st parachute airborne regiments of the 98th airborne division, 108 air assault regiment, 171st separate airborne assault battalion of the 7th Air assault division, 11th and 83rd separate airborne assault brigade, 4th military base of the 58 Combined Arms Army, 7 military base 49 Combined Arms Army, 224th, 237th and 126th separate coastal defence brigades, 127th separate ranger brigade, 1st and 3rd Army Corps, PMCs.

The enemy increased shelling from tanks and artillery of various types. Vyshchetarasivka, Novokyivka, Pravdyne, Myrne, Ternovi Pody, Lyubomyrivka, Shyroke, Kyselivka, Chervona Dolyna, Blahodativka, Davidiv Brid and Nova Kamianka were affected.

The Russian troops are building and improving defense lines in the Beryslav and Nova Kahovka districts. Fighting continues to the north and northwest of Kherson. At the same time, units of the Russian Armed Forces continue attempts to advance and regain control over previously lost positions.

The enemy continues to suffer losses. Thus, on October 9, in the area of Bilozerka, Ukrainian soldiers destroyed about 15 units of enemy military equipment. On October 10, a hangar with enemy military equipment was hit in the area of Beryslav.

The Russian occupation authorities recommended that Kherson university teachers who collaborated with them move to Crimea territory. Also, according to available information, in case of "complication" of the situation in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea, the occupation authorities have plans to evacuate the families of representatives of the [Russian] security forces leadership.

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.

In the open sea, the Russian naval grouping consists of 14 units located along the southwestern coast of Crimea. Among them are 4 carriers of cruise missiles: a frigate of project 11356R, a small missile ship of project 21631 and two submarines of project 636.3 with a total number of missiles

- 24.

According to the available information, on the morning of October 11, ships of the Russian Federation launched missile strikes with Kalibr missiles against Ukraine. The Russian Federation considers the probability of a missile strike in response high. Therefore part of the Russian warships left the Sevastopol naval base and transferred to the Novorossiysk naval base.

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

The Russian attack aircraft from the military airfields "Novofedorivka", "Dzhankoy", "Belbek", and "Gvardiyskyi" continues to carry out attacks on the administrative border of Mykolaiv and Kherson Oblasts. A military transport aircraft IL-76MD (registration number RA-78847) took off from the "Central" military airfield (Rostov-on-Don, Russia) in the direction of Iran to transport another batch of attack UAVs.

The radio-electronic activity of EW and radar equipment is active throughout Crimea, and Rostov Oblast and the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation. All means of air defense work in active mode.

The intensity of the movement of military equipment by road and rail transport from Crimea in the direction of the Kherson Oblast remains active. From the Crimean side, railway freight trains arrive on the territory of the Kherson Oblast, unloading military equipment and ammunition at the "Kalanchak", "Brylivka", and "Novooleksiiivka" stations.

The enemy continues shelling Ukrainian ports and coastal areas. On the morning of October 11, the enemy bombed Odesa and Mykolaiv with "Shahed-136" kamikaze drones. Most of the drones were shot down by air defense.

The internal political situation in Crimea remains difficult in connection with the explosion and fire on the Crimean Bridge on October 8. Bridge restoration is being carried out under the personal leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Marat Khusnulin. Damage detection is being carried out. One bridge abutment, three spans of the road surface, and a railway track on a section of about 300 meters require replacement and repair. The specified equipment has already been ordered from manufacturers in the Russian Federation. Without repair work, only limited road and rail traffic is possible.

Ferries "Lavrentiy", "Kerchenskyi-2", and "Yeysk" operate on the crossing to mainland Russia (previously used for cargo deliveries to Mariupol). On the side of the Russian mainland, a kilometer-long traffic jam has formed at the crossing; from Crimea, the traffic jam reaches up to 4 km.

Panic is intensifying in Crimea, people buy essential goods in supermarkets, and there are long ATMs and gas station queues. The occupation administration is trying to calm public opinion with reports that all warehouses on the peninsula are overflowing with goods. However, the level of public trust in the "authorities" after the destruction of the Crimean bridge is already low. On the peninsula, offers to sell real estate have increased by 20-30%.

"Grain Initiative": Ukraine remains the guarantor of food security for the world. On October 11, 7 ships left the ports of "Odesa", "Pivdenny" and "Chornomorsk". On board, they have 177.5 thousand tons of agricultural products for the countries of Africa, Asia and Europe.

Since the departure of the first ship with Ukrainian food, 7 million tons of agricultural products have been exported.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 11.10

Personnel - almost 63,110 people (+240);

Tanks - 2,504 (+9);

Armored combat vehicles – 5,162 (+13);

Artillery systems – 1,496 (+10);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 353 (0); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 181 (0); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 3,916 (+8); Aircraft - 268 (+1);

Helicopters – 235 (0);

UAV operational and tactical level – 1,114 (+17); Intercepted cruise missiles - 295 (+46);

Boats / ships - 15 (0).

Ukraine, general news

Volodymyr Zelensky, at the G7 summit, suggested deploying a mission of peacekeepers on the border with Belarus to rule out possible provocations. He noted that Ukraine does not plan military actions against Belarus, but is only interested in its territorial sovereignty. Zelensky also said that Ukrainian intelligence is aware that Russia has purchased 2,400 drones from Iran.

The International Monetary Fund expects that by the end of 2022, the real GDP of Ukraine to decrease to "minus" 35% against the background of losses of human resources, damage to infrastructure and the national economy as a whole in the conditions of the war unleashed by Russia, according to the latest forecast of the World Economic Outlook (WEO). The IMF also forecasts that the consumer price index in Ukraine will rise from 9.4 to 20.6 at the end of 2022.

International diplomatic aspect

The G7 condemned "indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations [which] constitute a war crime" and rejected the new and previous illegal attempted annexations. While deploring Russian "irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, which is putting global peace and security at risk," the G7 warned the Kremlin that "any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences." The Group reiterated its "as long as it takes" support aimed at a viable post-war peace settlement and "sustained security and other commitments to help Ukraine defend itself, secure its free and democratic future, and deter future Russian aggression."

For the first time, the Western partners of Ukraine outlined the framework of a just peace, which should include the following elements: "respecting the UN Charter's protection of territorial integrity and sovereignty; safeguarding Ukraine's ability to defend itself in the future; ensuring Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction, including exploring avenues to do so with funds from

Russia; pursuing accountability for Russian crimes committed during the war." The missing part that could have made the formula perfect is a mention of membership prospects in NATO and that Russia will never possess veto power over NATO decision-making, particularly about accepting sovereign nations into the Alliance.

The Bucharest nine group, supported by Presidents of Northern Macedonia and Montenegro, condemned "the mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities recently carried out by Russia, which constitutes war crimes." The Bucharest nine called "the threat by Russia to use nuclear weapons" unacceptable and reaffirmed "their commitment to ensuring their collective security."

The first Iris-T SLM air defence system has now been handed over to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Spiegel reports. The German government fulfills its promise to supply Ukraine with air defence. The Bundeswehr itself doesn't have this new modification, and Egypt, which had put an order before, ceded a system to Ukraine.

The EU raised €11 billion to support Ukraine under the EU's macro-financial assistance (MFA) programme and Europe's recovery under the flagship NextGenerationEU programme. €2 billion will be released swiftly. So far, the Euro Commission has raised €3 billion under its MFA programme for Ukraine in the second half of the year, on top of €1.2 billion earlier in 2022.

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3.  Could Russia Really Go Nuclear? by Paul Bracken

Could Russia Really Go Nuclear?

• Paul Bracken
• Professor Emeritus of Management

October 11, 2022

Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, and U.S. officials are taking the threat seriously—while noting that they see no signs that such weapons are being mobilized. We asked Paul Bracken, an expert in nuclear strategy, how this “unthinkable” scenario would play out.

insights.som.yale.edu · by October 11, 2022

Is there a real possibility that Russia could use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war?

As long as these weapons exist there’s a chance they will be used. But Vladimir Putin’s escalation strategy has been a total disaster. It looks a lot like the failed U.S. strategy in Vietnam. That was to gradually increase the pain on Hanoi by U.S. bombing and other attacks as a way to keep tight control of everything. Problem was, it gave Hanoi time to absorb and react to the attacks, so it had no real impact on North Vietnam other than to kindle condemnation of the United States for war crimes.

Astoundingly, Putin is repeating this slow motion, incremental escalation against Ukraine. It can’t possibly work. Kyiv will never give in. The attacks only elicit more condemnation of Putin, both inside and outside Russia, and more aid to Ukraine from NATO. Even China and India don’t want to be associated with Putin’s war.

What’s the right approach for the U.S. to dissuade Russia from considering the use of nuclear weapons?

“Behind the scenes the Joint Chiefs of Staff are thinking and planning about responses to Putin if he should use nuclear weapons.”

The declared U.S. approach is to act as if nuclear use is “unthinkable,” and not get drawn into intricate discussions that would only spook the European allies. But let me assure you, behind the scenes the Joint Chiefs of Staff are thinking and planning about responses to Putin if he should use nuclear weapons. In other words, there’s a big difference between declaratory and real U.S. strategy.

Actually, management students should think about this distinction. What’s the official declared corporate strategy, and what’s a company’s real strategy? These can sometimes be very different from each other.

What are the consequences for the world if tactical nuclear weapons are used on the battlefield?

Russia would be condemned by nearly everyone, and extreme U.S. economic and military actions would be taken. For example, the world would refuse to honor any Russian passport, and Russian overseas bank accounts would be frozen. There would be attacks on the Russian Navy, and major cyber strikes on their power grid and pipelines. The CIA would try to foment revolt in ethnic sub-regions of Russia, and to unwind Moscow’s alliance with Central Asia countries.

It would get really dangerous, far more than anything we’ve seen before. Putin, if he wasn’t assassinated, could raise the stakes with a limited nuclear missile strike on Europe. Here, we’re really on the doorstep of the unthinkable.

insights.som.yale.edu · by October 11, 2022

4. Xi Jinping: when enough is too much

Excerpts:

That does leave us with Xi Jinping, now 69 and still short of his dream of reuniting all the territory claimed by China into the motherland. It’s a dangerous age for an unfulfilled autocrat. Vladimir Putin turned 69 last October, not quite five months before he invaded Ukraine. With unchallenged authority, Xi can channel diminishing revenues into the military. So, with a bit of vigilance to keep China restrained externally (and he himself must now be wondering how good is his Russian-model weaponry), should Xi’s critics be content to let him run Chinese growth into long-term stagnation?

It’s a dismal picture. Anyone familiar with China should be disappointed, and hope that someone, somehow, somewhere in the Chinese system can break out to put China back on a more open and collaborative path.

Xi has taken a lot of the fun out of China. Not just for the 96 million CPC members (over two-thirds of them male) who thought they were signing up for a career of baijiu (white spirit)-lubricated banquets, xiaojie (young women) and guanxi (connections) leading to lucrative deals – but instead got endless sessions studying Xi Jinping Thought. They deserve it.

But for the vast numbers of Chinese people who were enjoying their new prosperity, their freedoms to travel and experience other ways of life, a new flourishing of Chinese culture: they deserve more than the banalities Xi is offering.

Xi Jinping: when enough is too much | Lowy Institute

Worried about the rise of China? Maybe you should be

rooting for another five-year term from the supreme leader.

lowyinstitute.org · by Hamish McDonald

He’s got his 2,300 hand-picked delegates lined up for the Communist Party of China (CPC) congress starting 16 October, and he’s junked the previous limit of two five-year terms as president. So, China’s supreme leader of the last ten years, Xi Jinping, looks assured of at least another five years in power. Onwards towards contesting world domination is the fear among strategic pundits elsewhere.

But if you’re worried about the rise of China, maybe you should be rooting for Xi to have another five-year term, or even two or three more. Consider what he’s achieved in his ten years at the top.

He’s brought the once rampaging Chinese economy to a near stand-still. When President Xi got the top jobs at the 2012 party congress, China’s economy was growing at 7.8 per cent a year. In the first half of this year, growth was 2.2 per cent annually, trailing behind most other Asian countries and even the United States. China’s financial system is burdened with debt and over-capacity in housing construction, exports and infrastructure as a result of Xi’s priority on immediate growth, achieved by pumping up these sectors. For more than a decade, economists inside and outside of China have been advising a switch to domestic consumption and services. But that would have meant the CPC loosening control on individuals and private enterprise – a no-no for the “chairman of everything” who favours state-owned enterprise.

He’s been wringing the critical and creative life out of China. One by one, he’s smothered centres of independent thinking.

Recently, he’s made things worse by insisting on a zero-Covid strategy, shutting down Shanghai, Chengdu and other economic powerhouses.

As well, he’s been wringing the critical and creative life out of China. One by one, he’s smothered centres of independent thinking. Defence lawyers. Civil society organisations. Questioning academics. Independent film-makers. And he’s repressed private business – the most vibrant part of China’s economy – such as Jack Ma’s e-commerce groups Ant and Alibaba, which pioneered China’s rapid move into a service economy.

On the foreign policy front, Xi dropped Deng Xiaoping’s low-profile maxim, instead authorising “wolf warrior” diplomacy, ramping up industrial and cyber espionage, and intensifying CPC “United Front Work” influence-building operations aboard. It’s resulted in a global backlash that cut Chinese industry off from many high-tech collaborations.

Hong Kong? Xi proposed integrating it into a wider “Greater Bay Area” with nearby industries and business in the Pearl River Delta. Great idea, if it meant Hong Kong’s financial, legal, academic and media standards would filter into these other regions. Instead, he used the reasonable Hong Kong mass protests against proposed extraditions to Chinese mainland courts as an excuse for sweeping political intervention – in effect taking this previous beacon of good governance downwards towards the arbitrary laws used on the mainland.

Xi Jinping has brought the once rampaging Chinese economy to a near stand-still. In the first half of this year, Chinese growth was trailing most other Asian countries and even the United States (David Dennis/Flickr)

Meanwhile, Xi diverted a trillion dollars of China’s savings into his Belt and Road Initiative, financing prestige facilities and hastily-conceived infrastructure schemes, often in countries with poor fiscal standards such as Sri Lanka. Much of this money has had to be either written off or converted into equity in insolvent assets. The BRI’s heavily subsidised rail link across the Eurasian landmass into Europe has been choked by war in Ukraine and European sanctions on Russia. Xi now needs a longer rail route, skirting south of Russia.

Xi has even tried to exert his powers in the bedrooms of China, relaxing the one-child policy started by Deng in 1978. But he has failed to reignite passion, or at least procreation. China’s women are showing less and less interest in getting married and having babies. Next year, the country’s population will start to decline and will be overtaken by India’s. The proportion of aged people needing more social support will rise inexorably, crimping the state budget for other things. According to the Australian population and migration expert Abul Rizvi, using the latest United Nations data, by the end of the century, China will shrink from the present 1.4 billion people to about 777 million. That’s not an entirely bad thing: even if the economy grows only a little in the years ahead, per capita income will double. China can grow old and get rich, after all. But Beijing likes to boast about speaking for the world’s biggest nation.

Anyone familiar with China should be disappointed, and hope that someone, somehow, somewhere in the Chinese system can break out to put China back on a more open and collaborative path.

That does leave us with Xi Jinping, now 69 and still short of his dream of reuniting all the territory claimed by China into the motherland. It’s a dangerous age for an unfulfilled autocrat. Vladimir Putin turned 69 last October, not quite five months before he invaded Ukraine. With unchallenged authority, Xi can channel diminishing revenues into the military. So, with a bit of vigilance to keep China restrained externally (and he himself must now be wondering how good is his Russian-model weaponry), should Xi’s critics be content to let him run Chinese growth into long-term stagnation?

It’s a dismal picture. Anyone familiar with China should be disappointed, and hope that someone, somehow, somewhere in the Chinese system can break out to put China back on a more open and collaborative path.

Xi has taken a lot of the fun out of China. Not just for the 96 million CPC members (over two-thirds of them male) who thought they were signing up for a career of baijiu (white spirit)-lubricated banquets, xiaojie (young women) and guanxi (connections) leading to lucrative deals – but instead got endless sessions studying Xi Jinping Thought. They deserve it.

But for the vast numbers of Chinese people who were enjoying their new prosperity, their freedoms to travel and experience other ways of life, a new flourishing of Chinese culture: they deserve more than the banalities Xi is offering.

lowyinstitute.org · by Hamish McDonald

5. Failing to take Putin and Xi Jinping at their word

Excerpts:

What lies behind Hitchens’ quip is the anxiety of relativism, the view that in the end, we’re all just the same, and that the West can’t proclaim any absolute or objective superiority over other value systems. That’s often taken to be the lesson of Nietzsche’s proclamation that God is dead – that since the idea of one, objective account of reality, of morality, even of geopolitics, is no longer tenable, then all accounts are equally valid.

But that need not be the case. Even Nietzsche himself didn’t think so. Acknowledging that no one holds “The Truth” doesn’t immediately lead us to a nihilistic “anything goes”. Perspectives can still be evaluated, from their own interval point of view (are they achieving what they set out to achieve, are they internally coherent) but also from within other perspectives that can accommodate them. What’s not possible is to evaluate a perspective from the outside, from our own internal set of rigid criteria of what’s right and wrong, good and evil, rational and mad.

That’s why if we want to understand what Putin and Xi are up to, we have to first occupy their perspectives, try and see the world how they see it. Paying attention to what they say is a good place to start.

Failing to take Putin and Xi Jinping at their word | Peter Hitchens, Paul Mason, Bhavna Davé

HowTheLightGetsIn debates "The Fantasies of the West"

iai.tv · by Alexis Papazoglou · October 10, 2022

Alexis Papazoglou | Editor for IAI News, the online magazine of the Institute of Art and Ideas, and host of the podcast The Philosopher & The News

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine many in the West described Putin as crazy. Yet for 30 years, Putin repeatedly claimed in his speeches that Russia and Ukraine were ‘one people’. When it comes to China and Taiwan it can seem that Westerners are making a similar mistake of not listening to what Xi Jinping is actually saying. So why are we so reluctant to take foreign adversaries at their word? What is it that prevents us from entertaining their perceptive on the world, however “crazy” it might seem to us? Are we worried that acknowledging a different way of thinking will put into question our own? At HowTheLightGetsIn festival London 2022, Peter Hitchens, Paul Mason, and Bhavna Davé debated why the West refuses to really understand its adversaries.

It’s fair to say that in the West we have become rather cynical about our politicians. We are used to them saying one thing, and then doing another. Bold statements about policy and vision before elections might rally the crowds, but few are surprised when those are not followed through. The question is, are we making a mistake when we apply the same thinking to leaders very different from those of Western liberal democracies?

The truth is, few people pay proper attention to what foreign leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping say anyway. When was the last time you listened to a speech by either? But even when the media pays attention to something alarming a foreign authoritarian leader has said, we tend to do one of two things: either dismiss their statements as bluster and rhetoric or explain them away as the words of madmen who have lost all contact with reality. Neither attitude is helpful when trying to predict what will happen next on the world stage.

SUGGESTED READING How we got Putin so wrong By Stathis N.Kalyvas

In a recent debate entitled “The Fantasies of the West” that took place at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London’s Hampstead Heath, two of the UK’s most outspoken columnists, Peter Hitchens on the right (the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens), Paul Mason on the left, author of How to Stop Fascism, together with international politics academic Bhavna Davé, debated whether we should be making more of an effort to really understand the perspective of our adversaries. The worry often seems to be that if we do so, we are in danger of recognising the relativity of our own perspective: they see the world one way, we see the world a different way - who’s to say who’s right? But the alternative seems even more dangerous: living in a collective delusion where all our adversaries are evil, irrational, mad, and therefore totally unpredictable.

___

Xi Jinping is still wedded to a Marxist ideology, and even though Mason is a self-described Marxist he recognises a dark, dangerous element in Xi’s thinking.

___

Paul Mason kicked off the debate by immediately subscribing to the policy of listening carefully to what leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping are actually saying. This is a lesson Mason had learned from his own study of fascism, the overwhelming consensus of scholars in this area is clear: take fascists at their word and don’t dismiss them, they mean what they say. If we do so, Mason argued, we will come to understand that Russia and China pose two very different kinds of danger towards the West. On the one hand, Putin has no designs on Western liberal democracy per se – he does not wish to defeat the ideology, he simply wants to expand the borders of his own totalitarian, reactionary system. The challenge of China, on the other hand, is very different. Xi Jinping is still wedded to a Marxist ideology, and even though Mason is a self-described Marxist he recognises a dark, dangerous element in Xi’s thinking. “Xi wants to Sinicize Marxism. He wants us to think we are automata, machines. In this, he shares a lot with anti-humanistic thought in the West.” This, Mason argued, is fundamentally different from any version of Western politics which is committed to the liberal ideal of allowing people the space to debate and circulate ideas, even seemingly radical and anti-systemic ones.

___

“Is Putin crazy? Yes. Until recently he was a cynical, but rational actor. He’s now become irrational and self-destructive.”

___

Peter Hitchens started his intervention by tackling the question of Putin’s rationality head-on: “Is Putin crazy? Yes. Until recently he was a cynical, but rational actor. He’s now become irrational and self-destructive.” And while casting our adversary as mad might deprive us of the ability to predict their behaviour, and perhaps even try and influence it, Hitchens argued that’s exactly the situation we have in our hands: “We are now dealing with someone with great power, but whose actions can’t be predicted by any calculus.” However, Hitchens doesn’t think that was always the case. He reminded the audience that in the past he argued that the Western attitude towards Russia, especially by the US and other NATO countries, was extremely provocative and wouldn’t end well. Hitchens wasn’t alone in this view. The historian and diplomat Geroge F. Kennan who had a deep understanding of the Soviet Union and Cold War dynamics, expressed similar concerns about NATO’s expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Henry Kissinger and Noam Chomsky, two people who, as Hitchens rightly observed disagree on almost everything to do with foreign policy, also agreed on this: NATO’s expansion in Russia’s neighbourhood would spell conflict.

Hitchens was careful to distinguish his analysis of the mistakes the West made from a justification or exculpation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, he became very aggravated at those who have accused him over the past months of being a Putin apologist. Hitchens was adamant that debating foreign policy should be free of such ad-hominem attacks as they short-circuit any fruitful discussion.

But while there is a distinction to be made between explaining Putin’s behaviour and justifying it, the line can become blurred by the narrative that explains the invasion of Ukraine as a predictable reaction to Western strategy. Earlier this year, Stathis Kalyvas, the Gladstone professor of government at Oxford made a convincing case for why the main reason we in the West got Putin wrong was that we were too focussed on the NATO expansion narrative that we missed the fact that Putin was telling us exactly why he was going to invade Ukraine. It had little to do with NATO and everything to do with the desire to reconstruct a “Great Russia”, and the belief that Ukraine is a made-up country, with no national identity of its own, and its very existence a mere accident of history that needed to be corrected.

___

Russia is still reeling from the trauma of the 2nd World War, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union. Especially the latter came with a sense of humiliation that Putin is all too aware of.

___

Bhavna Davé, a senior lecturer in international politics at SOAS underlined the thought that no matter how many mistakes the West has made in its dealings with Russia, there is no excuse for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But when it came to the main question of the debate, whether we should be making more of an effort to understand the perspective of Russia, she was emphatic: nothing can replace filed work, and on-the-ground-lived experience. She emphasised three key things we need to think about in order to make sense of contemporary Russia: 1) Putin and his regime have perfected propaganda. We need to understand how Russian propaganda works if we are to understand both the regime, but also why people go along with it. 2) Russia might not be a democracy, but there is still a social contract in place: relative prosperity and stability in exchange for people keeping out of politics. As long as Putin keeps his side of the bargain, he’ll continue to have the support of the majority. 3) The country is still reeling from the trauma of the 2nd World War, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union. Especially the latter came with a sense of humiliation that Putin is all too aware of.

Western leaders and intellectuals failed to appreciate this last point especially. Instead of thinking about how Russia might be allowed, perhaps even helped, to develop a post-Cold War identity of its own, what the West did was celebrate its ideological victory, pronouncing the end of history as liberal democracy and capitalism were suddenly understood to be the only game in town. This of course led to a series of hybris-filled interventions around the world, with attempts to export parliamentary liberal democracy to countries that shared neither the historical nor the cultural conditions that gave rise to this system in Western countries. We fell victim to the Kantian thought that our values, political and otherwise, were somehow transcendentally justifiable, rather than rooted in a place and time - in history.

SUGGESTED VIEWING Ukraine: The Deceit of the West With Linda Yueh, Joseph Nye, Tariq Ali, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Domitilla Sagramoso

It’s this sin of Kantian absolutism, the idea that all humans share one common cognitive and moral scheme, no matter when or where they are situated in history, that Nietzsche revolted against. For Nietzsche there is no one shared perspective on the world – there are as many perspectives as there are people, and the more of them we are able to occupy, the better. Despite all of the panellists agreeing that we should be paying more attention to what our adversaries say and that we should try and understand where they’re coming from, there was distinctive reluctance to concede that acknowledging other perspectives means there is no one, objective perspective – one definitive account of, say, global politics.

___

Acknowledging that no one holds “The Truth” doesn’t immediately lead us to a nihilistic “anything goes”.

___

Paul Mason, acknowledging that HowTheLightGetsIn is a ‘Nietzschean’ festival, one that tries to grapple with the post-post-modern world we find ourselves in, doubled down on classic Enlightenment ideals of rationality and objectivity. Instead, he argued, we should hold leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping accountable to their own commitments. For example, they are both signatories of the UN Convention of Human Rights, yet violate them consistently.

Bhavna Davé was perhaps more open to the idea that recognising that others think differently than us should also make us question our own certainties. Take democracy, for example. Sure, we might look down on China’s avoidance of even discussing the concept openly, but we should also reflect on the fact that “democracy” for most in the West has come to mean “allowing the general population to have a say in how things are run”. But historically, democracy has meant so much more than just election participation. Should we not take stock and think of our own shortcomings when it comes to democratic governance?

Hitchens was a lot more worried about equivocating our weaknesses with those of our enemies. When Paul Mason suggested the U.K. might do well to apologise for the heinous crime of the slave trade during the Empire days, as well as the degradation of China during the opium wars, Hitchens rebutted “Let’s not apologise to people whose hands are steeped in blood.”

What lies behind Hitchens’ quip is the anxiety of relativism, the view that in the end, we’re all just the same, and that the West can’t proclaim any absolute or objective superiority over other value systems. That’s often taken to be the lesson of Nietzsche’s proclamation that God is dead – that since the idea of one, objective account of reality, of morality, even of geopolitics, is no longer tenable, then all accounts are equally valid.

SUGGESTED READING The Banality of Putin and Xi By YaronBrook

But that need not be the case. Even Nietzsche himself didn’t think so. Acknowledging that no one holds “The Truth” doesn’t immediately lead us to a nihilistic “anything goes”. Perspectives can still be evaluated, from their own interval point of view (are they achieving what they set out to achieve, are they internally coherent) but also from within other perspectives that can accommodate them. What’s not possible is to evaluate a perspective from the outside, from our own internal set of rigid criteria of what’s right and wrong, good and evil, rational and mad.

That’s why if we want to understand what Putin and Xi are up to, we have to first occupy their perspectives, try and see the world how they see it. Paying attention to what they say is a good place to start.

iai.tv · by Alexis Papazoglou · October 10, 2022

6. Would Putin Use Russia's Nuclear Weapons To Stop a Coup?

Conclusion:

There is very little for outsiders like the U.S. and NATO to do in this circumstance, except to constantly and explicitly reiterate the readiness of the alliance to retaliate in kind if the nuclear suppression threatens to spread across Russia’s borders. Unlike NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya, Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang have the means to retaliate, and because a regime willing to initiate domestic nuclear war does so because it has no remaining exile sanctuaries, and is therefore likely to strike out in vengeance. However, a preemptive nuclear disarming or damage-limitation attack may become viable, since any regime that desperate is also likely to have significant fissures in its command of nuclear forces – and who know what Putin would do once the bombs start falling.

Would Putin Use Russia's Nuclear Weapons To Stop a Coup?

19fortyfive.com · by Julian Spencer-Churchill · October 11, 2022

George F. Kennan, who articulated the Containment strategy that was ultimately pursued by the U.S. to peacefully end the Cold War, was never clear in the last step of how precisely a more liberal regime would emerge. The Cold War ended unexpectedly with a swift coup followed by an administrative break-up of the Soviet Union. One of the core and implicit objectives of the West’s strategy in Ukraine is that battlefield defeat and humiliation of Russia will lead to the pacific toppling of Vladimir Putin and his entrenched Siloviki power base, despite their possession of an extensive apparatus of coercion, including nuclear weapons.

The mobilization and deployment of 300,000 to one million Russian citizens to war in Ukraine, is thought to accelerate this outcome. The question arises what happens when a nuclear weapon-armed regime confronts a spreading revolt within its military in the opening moves of a civil war? Most observers, to avoid the difficult truth that the collapse of the Soviet Union was an impossibly lucky outcome, sidestep examining the other ways it could have played out. This is an especially pertinent issue since it raises questions about how the inevitable regime transitions will occur in nuclear-armed North Korea and China.

The Kremlin guard were instrumental power brokers in the immediate death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, and KGB involvement was decisive in Leonid Brezhnev’s displacement of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964, and the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. However, given Putin’s co-dependence with the FSB (Federal Security Service) Siloviki, a coup is less likely to come from within his inner circle, and more likely to originate from a brigade or divisional commander of the army. The military’s refusal to support a KGB operation against Boris Yeltsin with a commando team in 1991, and its actions against the 1993 October Coup by Alexander Rutskoy, indicate it is a decisive power broker when its interests don’t align with the intelligence services. Putin must be aware that military garrisons were key in suppressing the abortive 1905-07 Russian insurrection, and that it was a revolt in the Russian army that felled Tsar Nicholas II in 1917. Putin’s deployment of masses of poorly equipped and led soldiery to Ukraine risks a backlash if his policies do not live up to their nationalist expectations.

Waltz and Nuclear Weapons Meets Ukraine

In his seminal 1981 More May be Better monograph, political scientist Kenneth Waltz argued that the global spread of nuclear weapons will enhance peace through the obvious deterrent effect of nuclear weapons. This is his first error, as Russia’s leaders are clearly seeking to use its nuclear arsenal to shield Russia’s conventional attack on Ukraine against outside intervention. This strategic belief in nuclear weapons as an offensive shield against Taiwan’s democratic allies is also driving China’s rapid nuclear build-up, including an eighth Jin-class ballistic missile submarine, and 300 missile silos.

Waltz also argued that the development of nuclear weapons requires a level of institutional maturity that then simultaneously makes these regimes aware of the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons, thereby instilling restraint. It is Waltz’s second error to assume a covariance between the complex constitutional history that drives sophisticated political-economies like the U.S., with the relatively simple organizations required to assemble nuclear weapons. Apartheid South Africa’s entire nuclear weapons assembly program at Advena, producing six and a half nuclear warheads, relied on a dual-use 900 square meter workshop. North Korea has achieved miniaturized boosted fission warheads on exo-atmospheric ballistic missiles, yet has the administrative sophistication of a commercial prison. The Soviet Union’s failed Buran manned shuttle program, failed moon landing prospects, and supersonic civilian airliner, coincide neatly with the regime’s fatal inability to ascertain its perceived illegitimacy among its citizens. We now know it is possible for states that are remnants of multi-ethnic empires, to also have sophisticated access to nuclear technology without stable governmental institutions, like Yugoslavia, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, China, Indonesia, and Turkey.

Waltz has argued that nuclear weapons strongly favor the status quo, based on Bernard Brodie’s argument that there is no reliable defense against secure second-strike nuclear weapons. Waltz’s third error is not considering the impact of nuclear in the context of civil war, where there are strong incentives for offensive action. In civil wars, control of territory equates to resources for recruitment and taxation, and the existence of besieged enclaves incentivizes attack. Furthermore, the deployment of nuclear weapons is intended to maximize their second-strike ability against rival countries, but in a fluid civil war, nuclear weapons at fixed bases suffer from a use-it-or-lose-it dilemma, leading to the pressure for their early use. There is also less likely to be moral restraint in civil wars, as compared with inter-state conflict and the laws of war, because civil wars typically coincide with institutional and moral collapse. As explained by political theorist Edmund Burke, the violence of revolutions often creates a self-consuming destruction of institutions that perpetuates the violence even against non-combatants. This is the reason that more lives are lost in intra-state conflicts that in wars between countries. The 1966-1976 Chinese Cultural Revolution was more of an intra-elite choreographed youth uprising than caused by an actual institutional collapse, so Beijing kept close control of its nuclear arsenal.

Putin, a Coup and History

During a rebellion in October of 1795, Bonaparte fired artillery, the most powerful weapon of its day, on the people of Paris. We can speculate about the counterfactual history of whether nuclear weapons would have been used in the 1939-1940 Spanish Civil War, or the wars in Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. Would the Punjab core in a faltering Pakistani state ever resort to the use of nuclear weapons to quell secession in its outlying provinces of Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkwa, or the Sindh? In 1971 in East Pakistan, the Pakistan Army and local militias put to flight between 6 and 8 million refugees. Would they have used nuclear weapons today to avert the break-up of Pakistan? Given that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and that it is a holdover imperial state with Persians constituting less than half of the population, would Tehran resort to nuclear weapons to avert fragmentation?

That Apartheid South Africa dismantled its nuclear warheads just prior to the beginning of universal suffrage indicates the importance of the influence of outside powers. Syria’s chemical weapons use in 2013-2017 was enabled by Russian patronage. However, we can ask the same questions again about General Yuan Shikai’s revolt during the 1911 Chinese Revolution, the 1917-1922 Russian Civil War, and the 1945-1949 Chinese Civil War, in which foreign intervention was limited by the dramatic scale of the conflict. A nuclear civil war may cause fright among near neighbors, even if they are themselves armed with nuclear weapons, since deterrence is complicated by an unclear enemy and targets. Alternately, a nuclear civil war may provoke pre-emption by nuclear-equipped neighbors.

The case that most closely approximates Putin’s situation is the 20th of July 1944 Wehrmacht coup attempt against Adolf Hitler, which ultimately failed, and was coordinated with an assassination attempt. If Hitler survived the coup, but support for the Wehrmacht gained ground, would he have resorted to using nuclear weapons against the mutineers? Would North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un use nuclear weapons if there was a spontaneous revolt among the 3rd Corps at Nampo? Presumably Kim Jong Un would always have the option of fleeing to China.

Russian President Putin. Image Credit: Russian Government.

Would an upper echelon of China’s Communist party, resort to the use of nuclear weapons if China were to succumb to a mass uprising including rebel military regions? What if regionally widespread Chinese disaffection was not sufficient to undermine the cohesion of the Communist Party in Beijing, but could lead to a revolt in Hunan Province in the Southern Theatre Command, and it had clear signs of spreading like Yuan Shikai’s revolt in 1911? Hunan was the center of the 1851-1864 Taiping Rebellion, which spread to the outskirts of Shanghai and cost twenty million lives. What if that Command, based in Guangdong, is ready to seize Yulin naval base on Hainan Island, where China stores its ballistic missile submarines? Some authors, like Joseph Miranda, have speculated about a Chinese nuclear civil war along these lines.

Would Putin Do It?

The early manifestation of a military revolt against Putin, is most likely to erupt from the brigade and divisional officers of mauled formations in Ukraine, which are being rotated out of the frontline to bases near the cities of Krasnodar, Rostov-on-the-Don, Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk. The uprising may be motivated by a commander seeking a more liberal regime, or one who offers little more than a settlement on the status quo in Ukraine. A coup may also produce something worse: a hyper-nationalist seeking to displace Putin for a military President, or worse, glory, leaving a wake of successive military coups like the ones that plagued South Vietnam. The last opportunity for Putin to use nuclear weapons is when entire divisions and Russian armies (corps-equivalents of 30,000 soldiers) become mutinous, before the revolt spreads to garrisons around Moscow, and the main headquarters. The 12th Main Directorate stores nuclear weapons at 12 facilities and another 35 bases, although it only possesses some 2,000 non-strategic weapons deployable on tactical and theatre missile systems like the Iskander and aircraft, not including another 200 strategic nuclear bomber warheads deployed at airbases. Ultimately the key question is whether the pilots or army operators in Russia’s six Iskander missile brigades of the Central and Southern Military Districts will side with Putin, rather than a mutinous army unit pursuing one of the motives mentioned above.

There is very little for outsiders like the U.S. and NATO to do in this circumstance, except to constantly and explicitly reiterate the readiness of the alliance to retaliate in kind if the nuclear suppression threatens to spread across Russia’s borders. Unlike NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya, Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang have the means to retaliate, and because a regime willing to initiate domestic nuclear war does so because it has no remaining exile sanctuaries, and is therefore likely to strike out in vengeance. However, a preemptive nuclear disarming or damage-limitation attack may become viable, since any regime that desperate is also likely to have significant fissures in its command of nuclear forces – and who know what Putin would do once the bombs start falling.

Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University, and the author of Militarization and War (2007) and of Strategic Nuclear Sharing (2014). He has published extensively on Pakistan security issues and arms control and completed research contracts at the Office of Treaty Verification at the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, and the then Ballistic Missile Defense Office (BMDO). He has also conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Egypt, and is a consultant. He is a former Operations Officer, 3 Field Engineer Regiment, from the latter end of the Cold War to shortly after 9/11.

19fortyfive.com · by Julian Spencer-Churchill · October 11, 2022

7.  The NATO vs. Russia Proxy War in Ukraine Could Become a Real War

This is Putin''s War, not "Washington's proxy war."

Conclusion:

Washington’s current proxy war already is alarmingly dangerous, but a direct war in Ukraine could be catastrophic for the American people. The recommendations of pundits advocating the latter course must be summarily rejected.

The NATO vs. Russia Proxy War in Ukraine Could Become a Real War

19fortyfive.com · by Ted Galen Carpenter · October 11, 2022

Blueprint for Disaster; Confusing a Proxy War and a Direct War with Russia in Ukraine: The United States has been waging a proxy war against Russia since Vladimir Putin’s government launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine in late February. Washington has spent billions of dollars to flood Ukraine with increasingly potent weaponry. At the same time, the Biden administration has emphasized repeatedly that the United States will not become a direct participant in the fighting.

Nevertheless, the line between proxy war and direct war in Ukraine is becoming dangerously thin.

In addition to the deluge of weaponry that the United States and some of its NATO partners are pouring into Ukraine, Washington is providing Kyiv with extensive military intelligence on the deployment of Russian forces. Such intelligence appears to have helped Ukrainian forces score some impressive victories, including the downing of a Russian troop transport plane, the assassination of several Russian generals, and the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Kremlin’s Black Sea fleet. There are even credible reports that U.S. special operations forces are now operating inside Ukraine. Russian complaints about U.S./NATO actions are getting louder and angrier. Washington is running a growing risk that its current proxy war, dangerous as that gambit is, may culminate in something far worse: a direct war between Russia and NATO.

The model for the Biden administration’s current approach appears to be the strategy that Washington pursued against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Both the Carter and Reagan administration provided financial and military aid to Afghan mujahidin fighters who were resisting the Soviet occupation of their country. Washington’s goal was to bleed Soviet forces without becoming a belligerent in the war, relying instead on its Afghan proxies to inflict serious damage.

Most members of the U.S. political and foreign policy establishment still consider Washington’s proxy war in Afghanistan to have been a smashing success, since it caused significant damage and frustration to America’s superpower rival without direct U.S. involvement in the fighting. The disruptions that the war caused even appeared to have played a role in the subsequent political implosion of the Soviet Union itself. True, assisting the mujahidin empowered Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and throughout the Muslim world, but that danger was not easily discernible at the time. In the short term, Washington’s strategy achieved its objective without leading to a direct military clash between the United States and the Soviet Union.

What U.S. officials and members of the foreign policy blob do not seem to grasp is that Ukraine is far more important to Moscow than Afghanistan ever was. That difference explains why there are more and more dark hints emanating from the Kremlin about the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons if Russia faces an overall military defeat in Ukraine. As I’ve written elsewhere, Ukraine is a vital security interest to Russia, and the Putin government will do whatever is necessary militarily, including using tactical nukes in Ukraine, to prevent such a humiliation.

Nevertheless, hawkish and even some centrist foreign policy pundits have proposed a variety of reckless U.S. responses if Russia crosses the nuclear threshold in Ukraine. Most of those proposals obliterate the distinction between a proxy war and a direct war between the United States and Russia. Joe Cirincione, a longtime expert on nuclear warfare and supposed moderate, mused that the United States “could destroy the Russian forces in Ukraine in a matter of days” with purely conventional weapons.

Destroying Russia’s Black Sea fleet using conventional air and missile strikes if Putin violates the nuclear taboo, has long been a favorite “solution” of Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In early May, he stated confidently that “even without resorting to nuclear weapons of their own, NATO could launch airstrikes that would rapidly sink the entire Russian Black Sea fleet and destroy much of the Russian army in and around Ukraine. That would shake Putin’s criminal regime to its foundations.” Boot remained equally confident in late September. “President Biden needs to deter Putin by signaling that the response to any nuclear attack would be devastating. It would not even require a nuclear response; NATO air forces could probably destroy the Russian army in Ukraine with conventional munitions.”

Both Cirincione and Boot implicitly assume that Moscow would view a direct U.S. attack on the Russian military as no more provocative than providing weapons and training to Ukrainian forces who are fighting Russians. It is an illogical and extremely dangerous assumption. The former carries excessive risks to defend a country that is not even remotely a vital U.S. interest, but the latter would be a blatant act of war against the Russian Federation. Russia is not likely to cower and slink away from such an existential threat.

Even if Moscow uses tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the ongoing war—awful as it is—would remain a bilateral Russia-Ukraine conflict. A U.S. attack on Russian targets changes that equation totally. Such a dramatic escalation means war between two major powers armed to the teeth with both tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. What starts out as even a limited war between 2 nuclear powers entails an awful risk of escalation to the thermonuclear level, bringing Armageddon into play. It is shocking that supposedly knowledgeable foreign policy experts can’t grasp such a crucial distinction.

War in Ukraine. Image Credit: British Ministry of Defense.

Washington’s current proxy war already is alarmingly dangerous, but a direct war in Ukraine could be catastrophic for the American people. The recommendations of pundits advocating the latter course must be summarily rejected.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at 19FortyFive, is the author of 13 books and more than 1,100 articles on international affairs. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (forthcoming, November 2022).

19fortyfive.com · by Ted Galen Carpenter · October 11, 2022

8. NATO, partners to discuss bolstering Ukraine air defence

NATO, partners to discuss bolstering Ukraine air defence

Reuters · by Max Hunder

• Summary
• Biden says Putin "rational actor who has miscalculated"
• Blasts heard in Russian-occupied towns - media
• Air raid sirens blare over Kyiv for third day
• Zelenskiy anticipates military aid after requests

KYIV/BRUSSELS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - More than 50 countries will gather on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss bolstering Ukraine's air defences, after Moscow launched its most intense missile strikes since the start of the war.

Russian attacks using more than 100 missiles have killed at least 26 people across Ukraine since Monday, when President Vladimir Putin ordered what he called retaliatory strikes against Ukraine for an explosion on a bridge.

Air raid sirens sounded across swaths of Ukraine for a third day on Wednesday and there were reports of some shelling, but no immediate sign of a repeat of the intensive countrywide strikes of the previous two days.

The missiles have mostly targeted civilian electricity and heat infrastructure, while some hit busy roads, parks and tourist sites, including in the centre of downtown Kyiv.

The Ukraine Defence Contact Group, set up by the United States for countries to coordinate military aid for Kyiv, was due to meet on Wednesday ahead of a two-day meeting by NATO defence ministers in Brussels.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia's missile attacks were a sign of weakness by a country facing the prospect of losing the war.

"The reality is that they're not able to make progress on the battlefield. Russia is actually losing on the battlefield," Stoltenberg said.

"Ukraine has the momentum and continues to make significant gains, while Russia is increasingly resorting to horrific and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure."

Since Monday's attacks, Germany has sent the first of four planned IRIS-T SLM air defence systems, while Washington said it would speed up the delivery of a promised NASAMS air defence system.

ENERGY CRISIS

EU energy ministers were also meeting in Prague to work out ways to cope with an energy crisis caused by the war.

On Wednesday, Polish pipeline operator PERN said it had detected a leak in one pipe in the Druzhba system that carries oil from Russia to Europe, though it said the cause was probably an accident. Global attention has been focused on the security of Russian energy pipelines to Europe since the main undersea gas pipelines were damaged by suspected sabotage last month.

As his forces have lost ground on the battlefield since September, Putin has escalated the conflict, ordering the call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists, proclaiming the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory and repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia.

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Firefighters work at the site of a car retailer office building, destroyed during a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine October 11, 2022. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he doubted Putin would use a nuclear weapon.

Putin is a "rational actor who has miscalculated significantly", Biden said in a CNN interview, saying he believed the Russian president wrongly expected his invading troops to be welcomed.

Asked how realistic he believed it would be for Putin to use a tactical nuclear weapon, Biden responded: "Well, I don’t think he will."

NATO's Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday the military alliance had not noticed any change in Russia's nuclear posture.

BLASTS IN SOUTH

In the latest reports from the battlefield, Ukraine's military said its forces drove Russian troops out of several settlements on the west bank of the Dnipro River, near the Russian-occupied town of Beryslav in the Kherson region.

The Ukrainians broke through Russia's front line in the area at the start of October and have been advancing to try to cut off thousands of Russian troops from supply and escape routes across the river.

Russian news media reported explosions in Kherson and Melitopol in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine.

Also in the south, Russian missiles destroyed buildings in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight though there were no reports of casualties, regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh said.

Video footage released by Ukrainian emergency services showed a family being rescued from the rubble of a flattened building following what it said was a missile strike in Zaporizhzhi. Reuters could not independently verify the location of the video or date it was filmed.

Ukraine's sixth largest city, Zaporizhzhia is still controlled by Ukraine although Moscow claims to have annexed the entire surrounding province. The city has come under nightly Russian attacks since the annexation proclamation, including at least three apartment blocks destroyed while residents slept. Starukh said at least 70 people have been killed this month.

Air raid sirens sounded over Kyiv for a third consecutive day, even as residents cleaned up after the earlier strikes.

"It is not that they are fighting the military, they are just driven by the desire to destroy, destroy, to destroy us," said Yulia Datsenko, a 38-year-old paramedic, as she surveyed the damage to her apartment.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Stephen Coates and Peter Graff; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Alex Richardson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Max Hunder

9. Here Is the Counterdrone Kit the US Is Sending Ukraine

Here Is the Counterdrone Kit the US Is Sending Ukraine

Made by L3Harris Technologies, the system can be quickly installed on different types of vehicles.

defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber

A counterdrone weapon that the Pentagon recently said it would send to Ukraine is a compact combination of three systems already used by the U.S. Army: a jammer, an infrared camera, and a rocket launcher, executives said.

L3Harris Technologies showed off the system, called VAMPIRE, at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington.

“We did this to address some open operational needs, that some of our sensitive customers kind of had out there in terms of a real solution to take care of real threats, in a kinetic way that guarantees if you can see it that you at least [can] take care of the problem,” said Luke Savoie, president of L3Harris’ Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance business.

Russia has used loitering munitions—also known as kamikaze drones—to strike inside Ukraine. In late August, U.S. officials announced they would send the system to Ukraine.

L3Harris engineers combined the jammer, camera, and launcher into a kit that has been tested upon a variety of vehicles, Savoie said. At AUSA, a demonstration unit was mounted on a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck.

Installation on a vehicle typically takes about a couple of hours and it can be easily removed when it's not needed, according to L3Harris. A soldier in the passenger seat can control the entire system with a joystick and screen.

The company plans to add a radar to the system, said Bob Shelala, an L3Harris representative.

“The beauty in this system is, it is very low-dollar comparatively [and] easy to put in any vehicle,” Shelala said.

L3Harris began developing the system about two years ago. The original vision was to use it to take out enemy air defenses. The company modified the rocket’s proximity fuze to be able to strike drones, Savoie said.

“We’re spiraling into more capability as we refine the cameras and refine the weapon systems,” Shelala said.

defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber

10. Russia Is Blasting Ukraine with Cruise Missiles and Kamikaze Drones

Russia Is Blasting Ukraine with Cruise Missiles and Kamikaze Drones

19fortyfive.com · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · October 12, 2022

Is Russia Getting Desperate in Ukraine? Iranian drones and cruise missiles are some of the weapon systems the Russian military used in its salvo of terror in the past few days against Ukrainian cities. The war continues for the 231st day, and the Russian military is desperately pushing for some good news.

Iranian Drones and Russian Strike Capabilities

Yesterday, the Russian military unleashed another salvo of missile strikes across Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the Russian forces launched approximately 30 Kh-101 and Kh-55 cruise missiles from Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers against Ukrainian critical infrastructure across Ukraine. The Ukrainians claimed to have destroyed 21 cruise missiles.

But in addition to the cruise missiles, the Russian military launched several unmanned aerial vehicles, including types acquired recently from Iran. One of the most widely used was the Shahed-136, a one-way attack kamikaze drone.

According to the Ukrainian military, the Russian forces launched close to 90 Shahed-136 loitering munitions, with Ukrainian air defenses shooting down around 50 of the drones. The Shahed-136 is relatively slow (as most unmanned aerial systems are), thus making it a fairly easy target for conventional air defense weapon systems and even small arms fire. (Generally, there are two ways to deal with a drone: shoot it down or use electronic warfare means to either crash it or force it to land.)

But it seems that the Russian forces tried to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defenses by using dozens of drones at the same time, thus allowing some to slip through the Ukrainian defenses.

The Shahed-136 might have a very long operational range (allegedly more than 1,500 miles), but it can only carry a very small explosive payload, making the drone largely ineffective for operational or strategic strikes.

“With Russian tactical combat jets still achieving limited effect over Ukrainian territory, the lack of a reliable, sustainable, and accurate operational-level strike capability is likely one of Russia’s most significant capability gaps in Ukraine,” the British Military Intelligence assessed in its daily estimate of the war in Ukraine.

Russian Casualties in Ukraine

The Russian forces continue to suffer a steady stream of casualties in Ukraine while the first units with mobilized reservists are showing up to the front.

A T-84 tank from Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Overall, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claimed that as of Wednesday, Ukrainian forces have killed approximately 63,380 Russian troops (and wounded approximately thrice that number), destroyed 268 fighter, attack, and transport jets, 235 attack and transport helicopters, 2,505 tanks, 1,507 artillery pieces, 5,181 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 355 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), 15 boats and cutters, 3,927 vehicles and fuel tanks, 182 anti-aircraft batteries, 1,129 tactical unmanned aerial systems, 136 special equipment platforms, such as bridging vehicles, and four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems, and 315 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses.

Expert Biography: A 19FortyFive Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

19fortyfive.com · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · October 12, 2022

11. Nuclear deterrence drill, talks on restocking arsenals next up on NATO’s agenda

Nuclear deterrence drill, talks on restocking arsenals next up on NATO’s agenda

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · October 11, 2022

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, right, meets with Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine's minister of defense, June 14, 2022 in Brussels. Stoltenberg said allies will continue to carry out a long-planned nuclear deterrence exercise in Europe in October, despite nuclear threats from the Kremlin. (NATO)

The U.S.-led NATO alliance will agree this week to a plan for ramping up munitions and weapons production to replenish stockpiles after months of arms shipments to Ukraine, NATO’s top official said Tuesday.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking on the eve of a two-day defense ministers conference in Brussels, also said that next week, allies will carry out a long-planned nuclear deterrence exercise in Europe.

The exercise, which is held annually, comes as allies are on edge over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling in recent weeks.

“Now is the right time to be firm and to be clear that NATO is there to protect and defend all our allies,” Stoltenberg said when asked about the timing of the exercise, Steadfast Noon, and whether it should be delayed, given current nuclear tensions.

Pallets of munitions are loaded into a Boeing 747 at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., on April 26, 2022. The U.S.-led NATO alliance will agree this week to a plan for ramping up munitions and weapons production to replenish stockpiles after months of arms shipments to Ukraine, NATO’s top official said Tuesday. (Jonathon Carnell/U.S. Air Force)

Stoltenberg said canceling the drill would send the wrong signal to Putin at a time when “firm, predictable behavior” is what is called for to prevent further escalation.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will lead the U.S. delegation to the talks, which are at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

On the sidelines, Austin also will hold a separate meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a collection of allies and partners supplying Ukraine with weapons.

Stoltenberg said allies remain committed to getting Ukrainian forces the weapons they need to keep up the momentum against Russia, so speeding up production is imperative.

“The longer this war drags on, the more important it is that we also then are able to replenish these stocks,” Stoltenberg said.

Part of that means setting “more ambitious targets” for production so the defense industry can invest in new production capabilities for the long term, Stoltenberg said.

Russia’s barrage of missile strikes Monday across Ukraine targeting civilian infrastructure in cities is a sign of Putin’s increasing desperation after repeated military setbacks, he said.

“Russia is actually losing on the battlefield,” Stoltenberg said. “They are giving up territory because they don’t have the capabilities to stop the Ukrainian forces (from) making advances.”

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · October 11, 2022

12. The Kherson Ruse: Ukraine and the Art of Military Deception

Conclusion:

A successful deception operation doesn’t itself win wars, but the Kharkiv offensive serves as a salutary reminder that, alongside Western arms and sturdy Ukrainian morale, classic deception based on solid intelligence is proving a significant asset to Ukraine. Nor is this the only example of effective Ukrainian deception in the war. Since the invasion began, Ukrainian forces have employed dummies and inflatables to attract and deplete Russian weapon stocks. Some of the most valuable weapons systems provided by the United States, notably the HIMARS, which are wreaking havoc on Russian supply lines and arms dumps, have their own bodyguard of lies in the form of wooden decoys temping the Russians to waste their limited remaining supply of precision-guided munitions to take them out. But the Kharkiv/Kherson deception is especially instructive. Deploying an audacious deception, and keeping it a secret, is a testament to developing Ukrainian martial capability. Being on the receiving end will sting Russian intelligence officers, not to mention further demoralizing the rank and file. Falling victim to deception induces doubt and paranoia (which Russian forces already do not lack). Ukraine and its allies will hope to both capitalize on this breakthrough and take valuable lessons for future operations. They have clearly applied ancient wisdom: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” Sun Tzu would esteem the Kharkiv offensive’s planners as talented practitioners of the art of war.

The Kherson Ruse: Ukraine and the Art of Military Deception - Modern War Institute

mwi.usma.edu · by Huw Dylan · October 12, 2022

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In ancient China, the general Sun Tzu counseled that “all warfare is based on deception.” Could that still be the case millennia later—after an industrial and then a digital revolution have left contemporary battlefields awash with intelligence sensors and digital technology that can offer commanders unprecedented levels of situational awareness? Advancement in thermal imaging can highlight targets concealed to the naked eye, while near constant real-time observation from constellations of satellites and seemingly ubiquitous unmanned vehicles can inhibit maneuver, deliver precision strikes, and provide timely indications and warning. Voluminous twitter threads and uploads of data, metadata, and even curated datasets provide a surprisingly granular understanding of the battlespace, and internet platforms like Google Maps can indicate traffic congestion along main motorways caused by an invasion. This may lead some to consider the fog of war practically dispelled, and, as a consequence, military deception a tool of a bygone, less transparent, and less sensor-laden era. But analyzing recent Ukrainian victories would correct this erroneous point of view. In early September the Ukrainian military accomplished the most major feat of arms in the Russo-Ukrainian war (thus far) with deception at its foundation. Some principles are timeless.

In early September, Ukrainian armed forces launched a surprise counteroffensive in Kharkiv that broke through Russian lines. Local breakthroughs morphed from salient to encirclements. Many Russian troops reportedly fled—on foot, by bicycle, and with some wearing civilian clothes pilfered from raided wardrobes. Abandoned military equipment emblazoned with “Z” quickly came to litter the streets and countryside. On September 10, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared that nearly two thousand square kilometers of territory had been retaken. This included the key logistical hub of Izium, dealing the already harassed Russian logistical chain another major blow. As long as the war continues, it is premature to declare any battlefield achievement to be decisive, but for now, Vladimir Putin’s army has been routed in substantial sections of northeast Ukraine.

Catching out a Russian army in the particular way Ukrainian forces did is a bitter taste of Russia’s own medicine—maskirovka, which literally means “disguise,” is codified in Russian (and Ukrainian) military doctrine, and Russian forces have a long history of effective deception operations dating from at least Soviet times. So, how did Ukrainian forces achieve this? They took heed of Sun Tzu’s timeless advice: first, “if his forces are united, separate them”; second, “when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” They had to appear weak where they were strong. Ukraine’s northern breakthrough came after much noisy talk about a much-anticipated counteroffensive in Kherson in the south, talk that seemed to signal Ukraine’s real target. Some Western media entities bought into the ruse. It was confidently repeated many times that the most likely objective would be Kherson. So convincing was this deception that Russian forces were redeployed from the Kharkiv region to defend against it.

For deception to be effective, schemes need to be plausible to the opposition’s way of thinking, which requires understanding an adversary’s mindset. The Russians have been concerned about their ever-more tenuous hold on Kherson. Following months of grinding attrition, punctuated by the odd spectacular attack like the raids on Russian facilities in Crimea, it made sense for the Ukrainians to make much ado about retaking Kherson as their first large-scale conventional counterattack. That oblast is farther from Russian supply lines and has already been the locus of guerrilla warfare and resistance to the Russian occupation. Kyiv has an economic imperative to liberate Ukraine’s agricultural areas and to regain Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. The Russians, reading the situation and anticipating the assault, had every reason to transport forces south, away from Kharkiv, to reinforce Kherson—a target that made sense to them. That Ukrainian forces spearheaded their counteroffensive with a small number of tanks was to suggest that the action in Kharkiv was a feint. They then ruthlessly exploited gaps in Russia’s lines, exacerbated of course by the panic that spread across positions occupied by unmotivated Russian troops. This was a textbook example of the value of deception: a ruse denied the opponent the luxury of concentrating manpower and forced hard decisions on already underperforming Russian commanders about where to place their mass.

Like earlier players in the deception game—those who masterminded the great deceptions of World War II and paved the way for the successful D-Day landings in Normandy, or those who cannily pinned Saddam Hussein’s forces in southern Kuwait before deploying the 1st Armored Division on the now famous “left hook” in 1991—Ukraine’s forces will have depended on a combination of careful planning, good intelligence, operational security, brilliant execution, and a good dollop of fortune. The Kharkiv/Kherson operation serves as a reminder that low-tech ruses have a place on the twenty-first-century battlefield. Fake units planning operational maneuvers joined with wooden decoys, inflatable tanks, and fake antiaircraft systems have littered battlefields and drawn enemy fire for over a century. Ukrainian forces’ deployment of such systems would have struck a familiar chord with the key deception planners of World War II—like British Army officer and deception pioneer Dudley Clarke, who as commander of A-Force plied his deceptions to support British forces against the German Wehrmacht in North Africa and Europe. Similar to Operation Bodyguard’s positioning General George S. Patton on Pas de Calais to draw Wehrmacht forces away from the true location of the Allied invasion of mainland Europe, Ukraine positioned its forces toward the south, along the most likely path to Kherson. The Ukrainians furthered the deception when they took a page out of Gulf War US General Norman Schwarzkopf’s playbook by broadcasting their plans to any media entity that would listen.

If deception is a key ingredient in martial success, then intelligence is a prerequisite for deception. Intelligence provides insight into the mind of the enemy and helps craft the right deception aimed at the right target to support the broader military effort. Just as Royal Navy intelligence officer Ewen Montagu and his colleagues in wartime London exploited Hitler’s fear of an Allied attack on Greece in 1943 with Operation Mincemeat, Kyiv needed to give Moscow something to focus on, to worry about—something that made sense to Russian commanders, who themselves are susceptible to deception operations owing to the Russian military’s rigidly hierarchical top-down force structure. In this case, the Kherson front was dangled as the intended target and Russian commanders took the bait—and questioning one’s commander isn’t conducive to a long career in the Russian military. With intelligence help from the United States and others, Ukrainian forces could identify the locations and movement of Russian units, identify where Russian forces were being reinforced and where they were thinning, with intelligence again providing feedback to assess the effects of the deception. That the deception was well integrated into a broader battle plan allowed motivated and newly well-equipped Ukrainian forces to exploit vulnerabilities with maximal impact when the conditions were right.

A successful deception operation doesn’t itself win wars, but the Kharkiv offensive serves as a salutary reminder that, alongside Western arms and sturdy Ukrainian morale, classic deception based on solid intelligence is proving a significant asset to Ukraine. Nor is this the only example of effective Ukrainian deception in the war. Since the invasion began, Ukrainian forces have employed dummies and inflatables to attract and deplete Russian weapon stocks. Some of the most valuable weapons systems provided by the United States, notably the HIMARS, which are wreaking havoc on Russian supply lines and arms dumps, have their own bodyguard of lies in the form of wooden decoys temping the Russians to waste their limited remaining supply of precision-guided munitions to take them out. But the Kharkiv/Kherson deception is especially instructive. Deploying an audacious deception, and keeping it a secret, is a testament to developing Ukrainian martial capability. Being on the receiving end will sting Russian intelligence officers, not to mention further demoralizing the rank and file. Falling victim to deception induces doubt and paranoia (which Russian forces already do not lack). Ukraine and its allies will hope to both capitalize on this breakthrough and take valuable lessons for future operations. They have clearly applied ancient wisdom: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” Sun Tzu would esteem the Kharkiv offensive’s planners as talented practitioners of the art of war.

Huw Dylan is a reader in intelligence and international security in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and associated researcher at the Centre for Intelligence Studies, Norwegian Intelligence School.

David V. Gioe is a British Academy global professor in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and history fellow for the US Army Cyber Institute at West Point, where he is also associate professor of History. He is a former CIA officer and Navy veteran.

Major Joe Littell is a US Army psychological operations officer and research scientist at the Army Cyber Institute at the United States Military Academy.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or that of any organization the authors are affiliated with.

Image credit: www.mil.gov.uk, via Wikimedia Commons

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mwi.usma.edu · by Huw Dylan · October 12, 2022

13. The End of the World is Nigh

Whoa. What sobering analysis.

Conclusion:

This is only a scenario. None of it is inevitable, of course. But this is the path that we are currently on and the likelihood of it coming to pass grows by the day as one side or the other becomes more desperate. The consequences of this path are deeply ruinous. It should be named.

The End of the World is Nigh - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Jeremy Shapiro · October 12, 2022

In war, nothing is inevitable and not much is predictable. But the war in Ukraine has a direction that observers can see and that we should name. What began as a criminal Russian aggression against Ukraine has become a proxy war between Washington and Moscow. The two sides are locked in an escalatory cycle that, along current trends, will eventually bring them into direct conflict and then go nuclear, killing millions of people and destroying much of the world. This is obviously a bold prediction and certainly an unwise one to make — in part because if I’m right, I’m unlikely to be around take credit for it.

President Joe Biden has named this danger, to great criticism, apparently because he believes that acknowledging the danger increases the chances of avoiding such a terrible outcome. Indeed, much can change the current trajectory, but doing so will require purposeful action by both sides specifically intended to avoid direct confrontation. At the moment, neither side seems willing or politically able to take such steps. On the contrary, in Russia nuclear threats are a prominent part of the Russian war strategy. In the United States, commentators condemn those who even name this danger, fearing that doing so will weaken Western resolve. Any mention of such considerations on Twitter, where it is always 1938, inevitably provokes accusations of appeasement and references to Neville Chamberlain.

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Despite the opprobrium, not naming the danger is unlikely to reduce it. Think tank analysts prefer instead to talk in terms of “scenarios,” wherein we can bury the most likely outcome amongst a few other less likely possibilities. Such exercises are useful for planning purposes, and they appropriately reflect our general inability to predict events on the ground. But scenarios also serve to hide the relative likelihood of the various outcomes. Here I present just the central scenario of nuclear escalation. I take as a starting point that, although we may experience long periods of relative stalemate and we may never arrive at such a horrific outcome, uncontrolled escalation is the path that we are currently on.

Testing the Red Lines

No rational or even sane leader plans to start a nuclear war. And for all of the Russian regime’s risk taking, it does not show signs of suicidal tendencies. The essence of the problem is more insidious than mere insanity: Once an escalatory cycle begins, a series of individually rational steps can add up to a world-ending absurdity. In Ukraine, both sides have publicly pledged that they cannot lose this war. They hold that doing so would threaten their very way of life and the values that they hold most dear. In the Russian case particularly, a loss in Ukraine would seem to threaten regime survival and even the territorial integrity of the country.

As the war has moved against the Russians, they have drawn numerous red lines to warn the West against escalation. The Russians called the provision of long-range rocket systems near the Russian border “intolerable,” warned against the admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO, and threatened that any attack on Crimea would “ignite judgment day.” In each case, the crossing of these Russian red lines by Ukraine, the United States, or Europe generated some sort of response but fell well short of Russian threats.

As Russian red lines have proven very pink, they are increasingly questioned in the West. Numerous Western commentators now assert that Russia is a paper tiger and dismiss Russian nuclear threats as “bluster.” The most recent Russian red line warns against the provision of long-range missile systems to Ukraine. The Russian government says that if the United States crosses this line, it would become “a direct party to the conflict.” Given all of the red lines already crossed, however, it is doubtful that U.S. decision-makers see such threats as very meaningful.

The problem that the Russians have had in their signaling is that their decision to escalate likely revolves around the progress that the Ukrainians make on the ground, not on any discrete action (such as the provision of new weapons systems) that the West might take. The likelihood of escalation, in other words, has stemmed from developments on the battlefield, not from the crossing of some arbitrary red line. Experts on the Russian military have long suspected that Russian nuclear signaling is an elaborate bluff meant to install fear and caution in a weak-willed Western enemy. But events in Ukraine and the possibility of a catastrophic military loss may have changed that calculation. Nobody really knows. It is likely that the Russians don’t know either.

What is clear is that both sides have consistently escalated in Ukraine when they fear that they might lose. The United States and its European partners have continually upped their military assistance to Ukraine, in both quality and quantity, regardless of red lines. Under the pressure of war, they decided to deliver weapons and intelligence that just a few months ago they believed carried too great an escalation risk to provide. They have similarly incrementally increased economic sanctions to the degree that they now appear intended to permanently weaken Russia and destroy the Russian regime, as Biden has said is necessary to end the war.

The Russians have consistently responded to battlefield setbacks with their own escalations including energy cut-offs to Europe, increased bombing of civilian targets, and recently through the formal annexation of four Ukrainian provinces and the partial mobilization of Russian manpower reserves. This last step carries obvious risks for the Russian regime, as the multiple protests against it across Russia testify, but the leadership preferred those domestic risks to losing the war.

In taking these escalatory steps, both sides have also increased the domestic and geopolitical costs of compromise, thus increasing the incentive for further escalations. Thus, for example, the Russian annexations are intended to signal to foreign and domestic audiences that the occupied parts of Ukrainian territory will now be defended as if they were Russia itself. But it is not just a signal, it also genuinely reduces Russia’s ability to back down and abandon these provinces. This is essence of an escalatory cycle — it contains a logic of its own wherein previous escalations make future ones more likely.

Of course, wars have often escalated but no war since 1945 has ended in nuclear use. Nuclear powers have at times considered their use for warfighting, notably in Korea in 1953 and in Israel in 1973, but have always stepped back from the brink. In the current situation, both sides have many more steps to take before direct confrontation: The United States has many more weapons systems to provide and many more ways to isolate the Russian economy. Russia has many more men to conscript, more brutal tactics to apply, and of course more horrible weapons to deploy short of nuclear weapons. It is likely that if the war simply bogs down into a war of attrition, that will not be enough to get to nuclear use.

Instead, escalation to nuclear weapons will require one side to feel that it is losing and that a military defeat will have catastrophic consequences for their regime and the personal safety of its leadership, and to convince itself, under the pressure of looming military defeat, that nuclear use is the way out. We have no precedent for those conditions being met in a nuclear-armed state.

The Danger of Geniuses

It is not hard to imagine how they might be starting from where we are today. If the war continues to move against the Russians, and particularly if the Ukrainians begin to invade Crimea, they will reach ever greater levels of fear that the future of the Russian regime is at stake. Some genius within the Russian leadership will then put forward the idea that they can reverse the momentum and demonstrate their greater willingness to accept Armageddon by a nuclear demonstration. As Michael Kofman and Anya Lukianov Fink have noted, Russian military analysts have long believed in “a demonstrative use of force, and could subsequently include nuclear use for demonstrate purposes.” The West, this Russian optimist will argue, doesn’t really care about Ukraine and will recoil at the real prospect of nuclear war. Lacking better options, or really any other options at all beyond surrender, Russian President Vladmir Putin (or his successor) will seize on this deus ex machina. Such thin hopes of turning defeat into victory are the most effective enemies of peace.

Russian forces will launch a small number of tactical nuclear attacks against Ukrainian troop concentrations or NATO supply lines within Ukraine. If they can’t find any of those, they will use them against Ukrainian civilian targets. The target is not essential because the point of this attack will be to destroy Western will to continue supporting Ukraine, not to directly reverse the military situation. They would additionally put their strategic nuclear forces on alert and begin “unusual movements” of nuclear assets in an effort to warn the United States against responding to the attack.

The United States government has certainly considered this contingency, which is why both National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were recently dispatched to warn the Russians they would suffer “horrific” and “catastrophic” consequences if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In the event, however, the U.S. government will struggle to find a response that reflects the gravity of the Russian use of nuclear weapons but does not represent further escalation toward direct confrontation and all-out nuclear war.

The American equivalent of the Russian genius will argue that a direct, proportionate response aimed at the attack itself will send a signal to the Russian leadership that the United States is seeking to punish the crime of nuclear use, not escalate the war or overthrow the Russian regime. They will see the Russian strategic nuclear alert as a bluff, arguing that to follow through with a strategic nuclear attack would be suicide. Lacking better options, the U.S. leadership will seize on the idea of such a finely calibrated response and launch a conventional NATO attack on Russian troop formations in Ukraine or the military base in Russia where the Russian nuclear strike originated from. As a precaution, they will also put U.S. nuclear forces on alert, put more U.S. nuclear submarines to sea and recommend to the British and French that that they also put their forces on alert — if these two independent powers had not done so already.

Unfortunately, such a subtle message is likely to be lost on a paranoid Kremlin. They will see a direct NATO attack on Russia or Russian forces as confirmation of their view that the West intends to destroy the Russian regime and kill all its leaders. For Russian leaders this is an ever-present reality: Putin reportedly obsessively watches the video of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s death after he was overthrown by NATO forces. Facing the prospect of death if they do not act to save their regime, Russian leaders will risk launching further conventional and tactical nuclear strikes on NATO troop formations and Ukrainian supply operations in bordering NATO states such as Poland and Estonia to signal that Russia is willing and able to defend itself despite the risk of strategic nuclear escalation.

The attacked NATO states will invoke Article V and NATO will begin a conventional operation to eliminate Russia’s offensive capability to make such attacks. Fearing that those attacks will destroy the Russian strategic nuclear capability and thus leave them defenseless against NATO conventional forces, the Russians will launch a first-strike strategic nuclear attack on the slim hope that it will weaken the Western resolve or capability to respond and save their regime. I will then have something in the order of a few minutes to send out an email to my colleagues saying, “I told you so.”

This is only a scenario. None of it is inevitable, of course. But this is the path that we are currently on and the likelihood of it coming to pass grows by the day as one side or the other becomes more desperate. The consequences of this path are deeply ruinous. It should be named.

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Jeremy Shapiro is the director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served in the U.S. State Department from 2009 to 2013.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Jeremy Shapiro · October 12, 2022

14. FDD | No Limits: Xi's Support For Putin Is Unwavering

FDD | No Limits: Xi's Support For Putin Is Unwavering

Matthew Johnson

Hoover Institution

John Pomfret

Former Washington Post Beijing Bureau Chief

Matt Pottinger

China Program Chairman

fdd.org · by Matt Pottinger China Program Chairman · October 11, 2022

Introduction

After nearly three years of self-imposed isolation, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping traveled abroad last month to Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan to attend the Beijing-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. On the meeting’s sidelines, Xi also held a much-publicized one-on-one exchange with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first time the two autocrats have met in person since the Russian leader launched a full-blown invasion of Ukraine in February. Media coverage of the bilateral exchange concluded that the Sino-Russian “no limits” partnership was cooling. In fact, a closer examination of statements and actions by Beijing and Moscow before, during, and after the exchange suggests the opposite.

It is perhaps no coincidence that just after the meeting, Putin returned to Russia and, in a September 21 speech, ordered a partial mobilization and again threatened retaliatory use of nuclear weapons in the event “of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people.” Putin added: “This is not a bluff.” In a follow-on ceremony and speech on September 30, Putin declared the Russian annexation of about 15 percent of Ukraine’s territory and brandished his nukes yet again, saying the United States had “created a precedent” by dropping atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. If Xi has reservations about the war in Ukraine, an educated guess would be that he wants Putin to get the job done faster.

The enduring nature of Xi and Putin’s animosity toward the West poses significant challenges for Washington and its allies as Moscow continues its war in Ukraine. Thus far, Beijing has held back from supporting Moscow in a manner that could trigger major U.S. sanctions. Yet Xi may decide to cross that threshold if push comes to shove.

Samarkand Summit “Concerns”

Until last month, Xi had not traveled abroad since a trip to Myanmar in January 2020, made before COVID-19 had erupted into a global pandemic. For Xi, simply showing up in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for the SCO summit was a statement of how much he has invested in his partnership with Putin. Xi’s travel also coincided with a sensitive moment on China’s political calendar, occurring mere weeks before CCP leaders are scheduled to hold the Party’s 20th Congress, during which Xi is expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term as general secretary.

To judge by the headlines, Xi’s purpose in traveling to Uzbekistan was to signal his growing ambivalence about Putin’s war in Ukraine. That interpretation rested on a single comment by Putin, delivered to Xi in front of the press: “We [Russia] appreciate our Chinese friends’ balanced position in connection with the Ukraine crisis. We understand your questions and concerns in this regard.”

Three key words — “questions and concerns” — supposedly betray a widening gap between the two authoritarian giants. The New York Times declared the meeting “subdued” and “lukewarm.” The following day, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticized Putin’s war in a televised meeting, journalists conflated Modi’s blunt remarks with Putin’s ambiguous comment. According to the Financial Times, the “West sees Xi and Modi critique of Putin as shift in view of Ukraine war.”

For reporters, policymakers, and market players yearning for good news after many months of geopolitical unrest, news of a potential Sino-Russian split appeared welcome. The National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby, cited Modi’s comments and the purported critique by Xi as signs that Putin was “only further isolating himself.”

The evidence does not support this view. Xi, in contrast with Modi, made no public criticism. Nor did Putin elaborate on his brief reference to China’s “questions and concerns.”

Putin’s full quote is even more ambiguous. Immediately after promising to address Xi’s “questions and concerns,” Putin added: “though we have spoken about this before.” Many press reports elided that qualification, which complicates the narrative about the supposedly new Xi-Putin disaffection. More importantly, in his actual public remarks in Samarkand, Xi re-upped his commitment to “work with Russia to extend strong mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests, and deepen practical cooperation in trade, agriculture, connectivity and other areas.” Clearly, Putin’s “core interests” include Ukraine. And, while press reports emphasized that Xi did not mention the word “Ukraine,” reading it as another sign of distance from Putin, references to Ukraine have been omitted from every readout of meetings between the two leaders, including their joint statement on February 4, just before Putin’s invasion and the start of Beijing’s strong support.

To put it another way, the media put words in Xi’s mouth. Xi did not state an anti-war position. He did not publicly press for Russia to withdraw, cease hostilities, or make concessions in Ukraine — and there is no evidence to suggest he did so in private, either. More likely, although one can only speculate, is that Xi complained privately that Putin is not winning the war.

Xi’s Emissary Travels to Moscow

In their haste to report Sino-Russian tensions, journalists also ignored signs of steadfast Chinese support for Russia that emerged just before the summit in Uzbekistan. On September 9, close Xi confidant and CCP Politburo Standing Committee member Li Zhanshu visited Russia for meetings with Putin and representatives from the State Duma, the lower house in Russia’s rubber-stamp legislature. Li’s meeting received scant mention in the Western press until a Russian video of Li’s remarks began circulating on social media.

Speaking to Duma representatives, Li declared that “on issues representing the vital interests of Russia, we also always provide our support and our understanding.” Li continued: “For example, as to the current Ukraine problem, the United States and NATO forced themselves up to Russia’s doorstep in a move that compromised Russia’s national security and the livelihood of the Russian people. In that situation, Russia took the only action that could be taken. China expresses its understanding and from multiple aspects China coordinated strategic responses. I think it can be said that Russia was cornered. In that sense, Russia, to protect its core national interests, launched a counterattack.”

In other words, just days before Xi and Putin’s meeting, Beijing sent an emissary to Moscow to deliver the strongest official statement of Chinese support for Putin’s war that exists in the public record. Li even endorsed Putin’s claim that the invasion of Ukraine was a “counterattack” on NATO forces. He used the Chinese term “策应,” which means to “coordinate strategic responses” with an ally during wartime. The term has been a fixture in Chinese military texts since the Song dynasty, appearing in the martial classics Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Chinese media apparently did not broadcast Li’s comments, indicating they were meant to be heard in Moscow alone. That his words contradict Beijing’s official public position — that China supports mediation in Ukraine — provides a glimpse into how China and Russia communicate directly with each other in settings not meant for the consumption of global audiences.

After Li’s trip to Moscow and the Putin-Xi meeting in Samarkand, Putin sent his own confidante, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, to China. Beijing’s state media said subjects of the meeting included “the increasingly intensified regional conflicts in the continents of Europe and Asia” — code for Ukraine and Taiwan. The two sides agreed to closer contacts between their militaries, to more joint exercises, and to “always firmly support each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests.” Just one week later, Russian state media outlet TASS announced that China and Russia had signed contracts for mutual hosting of ground stations for their Beidou and GLONASS global navigation satellite systems, which would improve targeting and guidance of both countries’ weapons systems.

Sanctions Watch: The Hardware Behind the Handshakes

Diplomatic coordination and rhetorical support are not all that Xi has given Putin since the start of the Ukraine war. Bilateral trade is intensifying as well.

Overall, bilateral trade between China and Russia jumped 30 percent in the first seven months of 2022 compared with the same period last year, according to Beijing’s own General Administration of Customs. Chinese sales of semiconductors to Russia fell 73 percent in March but rebounded in April, again per official figures. In July, they grew an additional 61 percent over June. In March, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo threatened to “shut down” any firm exporting to Russia because “almost every chip in the world and in China is made using U.S. equipment and software.” Overall, March-June 2022 semiconductor exports from China to Russia grew by 209 percent year over year.

China has also become the biggest market for Russian energy, more than doubling its imports of steel-making coal from Russia in March, and in June overtaking Germany to become the largest buyer of Russian oil. Russian imports of Chinese aluminum oxide (used in weapons development but also in tin cans) have jumped by a factor of more than 600, hitting 153,000 metric tons in May 2022 compared with 227 metric tons in May 2021, although Russia’s aluminum stores are still far below pre-war levels. In June, the U.S. Commerce Department blacklisted five Chinese entities “for their continued support of Russia’s military efforts.” And earlier this month, U.S. officials declassified evidence of Moscow buying weapons from North Korea.

Russian dependency on China works to Xi’s advantage, giving Beijing significant bargaining power for China’s energy and food needs and obliging Moscow to provide military cooperation where it can still offer it. By the same token, a grievously weakened — or even deposed — Vladimir Putin could become a serious liability for China. Nevertheless, Xi and his minions have, thus far, been careful not to cross a threshold that could spark massive U.S. sanctions on, for example, Chinese banks.

The Sino-Russian Partnership Is Strong, and So Is Xi

Xi will stand by his partner in Russia, and Putin will reciprocate, because both are seeking a force multiplier in their long-term strategies to erode Western power. For Xi, Putin is the central partner in the creation of his authoritarian bloc. For Putin, Xi is the indispensable backstop keeping Russia’s economy afloat while the country weathers sanctions.

In his main speech to the SCO, Xi urged the assembled heads of state to “support each other’s efforts to safeguard security and development interests” and “prevent external forces from instigating ‘Color Revolutions’” — the latter a reference to anti-authoritarian uprisings and the West’s supposed strategy to subvert and liberalize by means of “smokeless war.” This echoes language Xi has directed at internal audiences since last year, when he gave an epochal speech to the Party’s Sixth Plenum meeting in Beijing. A joint battle against Western-instigated color revolutions is the ideological common denominator that has bound Xi to Putin and undergirded the “no limits” pact unveiled at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February.

In his SCO remarks, Xi went on to propose a series of initiatives to protect against the specter of Color Revolution: new currency payment and settlement systems (to circumvent sanctions), more cooperation on supply chains and big data (to improve surveillance capacity and shift production away from Western-built systems), and a new security architecture covering terrorism, space, cyber, and biological threats (as counters to NATO and “Quad” initiatives).

All things considered, Xi’s solidarity with Putin goes far beyond a marriage of convenience between authoritarian powers looking to secure spheres of influence from U.S. intervention. Putin’s grievances, and the background of Soviet collapse and post-Soviet dysfunction that brought Putin to power, form the bedrock of Xi’s own worldview, which he has consistently inculcated in Party cadres and the Chinese public since he rose to power a decade ago.

Xi’s SCO speech received far less coverage than Putin’s comment about Chinese “questions and concerns,” but its significance was greater. The shared Xi-Putin worldview was on full display. To Xi, Putin’s Ukraine setbacks are just that — setbacks. They do not obviate Xi and Putin’s shared mission of cleaving the international order into authoritarian and democratic blocs. If anything, those setbacks underscore the threat from the West and the importance to both Xi and Putin of Russia’s ultimate victory in Ukraine. Indeed, that victory is necessary for China: Without it, Xi may be unable to count on reciprocal support from his “best and most intimate friend” as he looks out across the Taiwan Strait.

fdd.org · by Matt Pottinger China Program Chairman · October 11, 2022

15. What diplomacy with Putin would look like now

What diplomacy with Putin would look like now

washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

OPINION:

H.L. Mencken is said to have observed that for every problem there is a solution that is “neat, plausible, and wrong.” People I like, admire, and usually agree with are now proposing such a solution to the brutal, imperialist war Vladimir Putin is waging against Ukraine.

For example, Gary Bauer, the distinguished president of American Values, last week urged President Biden to “use any and all leverage to get [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] and Mr. Putin to the negotiating table as soon as possible.” And Newsweek’s Josh Hammer, an up-and-coming young commentator, last week wrote that “world leaders should be rushing to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.”

But world leaders have been attempting that — not least French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both of whom have long enjoyed amicable relations with Mr. Putin. To understand why that hasn’t produced a breakthrough, imagine them palavering with Mr. Putin at the Kremlin about now:

Mr. Macron: Vladimir Vladimirovitch, mon vieux! Thank you for receiving us! And happy birthday!

Mr. Scholz: Vova, mein Freund! The big Seven-Oh! How time flies!!

Mr. Putin: Manny, Scholzy, I appreciate the good wishes. My birthday was nice. Alina and I spent a couple of days at my palace on the Black Sea. But I didn’t have time for a real vacation. I’m so busy now with my Special Military Operation against the Ukrainian Nazis. But you both know about Nazis, don’t you? Hah! Enough chit-chat. What’s on your mind?

Mr. Macron: We just want to be helpful.

Mr. Scholz: To clear up misunderstandings! To put the ship back on an even keel!

Mr. Putin: I always welcome frank discussions. Can I offer you some vodka and caviar? I have plenty.

Mr. Scholz: No, thanks, I’m good.

Mr. Macron: Me too. Well, maybe a little wine?

Mr. Putin: I have a nice white from the Russian regions of Georgia. Not as good as your Sancerre, but I think you’ll find it amusing. I also have brandy from Armenia. Not as good as your cognac, but Armenia is now — how shall I put it? — back in the fold. [Snaps his fingers. White-gloved servants enter with bottles and glasses.]

Mr. Macron: So, to the point: We want peace. You do, too. Am I right?

Mr. Putin: Hey, what’s with Biden? He walks funny, you know? And does he really think boys can be girls and girls can be boys? Man, I’d like to go a couple of rounds on the judo mat with the Big Guy.

Mr. Scholz: You needn’t worry about Biden.

Mr. Macron: Yes, we speak for NATO and for the European Union. So, with your help, we can settle our disagreements to everyone’s satisfaction.

Mr. Putin: What do you propose?

Mr. Macron: We want to give you an offramp.

Mr. Putin: An offramp? Manny, I don’t need an offramp. Do you need an offramp? Because if you do, I’ll give you one.

Mr. Macron: Well, I mean, we all want a diplomatic solution, right?

Mr. Putin: So, here it is: You stop sending weapons and ammunition to that Jewish comedian in Kiev — not Kyiv, by the way. Speak Russian! And no more NATO expansion. Finland and Sweden stay out. Lithuania — out, too. Also: You guys repair the Nord Stream pipelines so I can start sending you gas again. You’ve got a cold winter ahead, Scholzy! Or are you depending on “global warming” to heat Berlin? Hah! OK, how’s that for an offramp?

Mr. Macron: Well, mon cher Vovochka, those are kind of maximalist demands. We were thinking maybe a return to the status quo ante Feb. 24. You keep Crimea. Maybe some of Donbas? Russian troops leave other parts of Ukraine?

Mr. Putin: Nice try, young man. Come visit me again when you have something realistic to put on the table. Listen, I’ve got to get back to work. I have some tactical nukes I need to inspect. Tell Biden I said that. And ask him if he’ll have more flexibility after the election. Hah! Manny, one teeny favor? Alina would love this season’s Louis Vuitton satchels — all sizes — and a case of Dom Perignon? I’d appreciate it. Au revoir! Tschuss! Do svidaniya! [Snaps his fingers. Soldiers enter and roughly escort Messrs. Macron and Scholz out.]

I’m going to end on a serious note as befits a serious crisis. Vladimir Putin is a tyrant and a war criminal. He’s using cruise missiles to strike civilians and civilian infrastructure to create fear. We must hope he’s not a madman, preparing to use weapons of mass destruction to exterminate those who refuse to submit to him, willing to escalate beyond that, and indifferent to the prospect of his own children and grandchildren perishing in a nuclear exchange — one he initiates.

But if he is mad, all the more reason not to give in to his nuclear blackmail. Because if that gambit succeeds, he will use it over and over — as will the rulers of China, North Korea, and Iran if they become nuclear-armed. We know where that road leads.

So long as Ukrainians are willing to fight for freedom against an enemy of freedom, Americans and other free peoples should support them.

We don’t know how the battle being waged against Ukraine ends. We don’t know how the broader war being waged against America and the free world ends. We either resolve to tolerate this uncertainty, or we choose defeat — and not only in Ukraine.

But the day Mr. Putin knows he can win neither on the battlefield nor through blackmail is the day he may seek a diplomatic solution or, better yet, a more comfortable retirement than awaits most tyrants. On that day, his meeting with NATO leaders will be quite different from what I’ve sketched out above.

• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.

Copyright © 2022 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

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washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

16. Russia’s Sham Ukraine Vote Undermines Serbia's Kosovo Claims

Russia’s Sham Ukraine Vote Undermines Serbia's Kosovo Claims - Kyiv Post - Ukraine's Global Voice

By Dr. Ivana Stradner. Published Oct. 9 at 3:00 pm

kyivpost.com

Vladimir Putin proclaimed Russia’s annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia Regions of Ukraine on Friday, Sep. 30, stating that they “are becoming [Russia’s] compatriots forever.” Russian authorities had earlier held sham referendums on joining the Russian Federation, where the results manufactured by the Kremlin showed them overwhelmingly voting to join Russia.

Notably, in justifying the annexation, the Russian government referred to Kosovo as a model for annexation and called out the West for their perceived double standards. While Serbia is generally seen as an ally of Moscow, it has so far refused to recognize the referendums as legitimate.

At the same time, Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik, an influential secessionist, has backed Putin’s referendums. Now, with the Russian government stepping on a sore spot of Serbia’s by holding up Kosovo as an example of proper secession, given that Belgrade considers Kosovo “the heart of Serbia”, the West should take this opportunity to use information operations in the Balkans to show that Russia is not a credible ally.

Bosnian Serb separatist Milorad Dodik has more immediate strategic interests in supporting the Kremlin. It was after he met with Putin last week that he backed Moscow’s referendums. Given Dodik’s own secessionist plans, the next logical step is to organize a referendum on independence for Republika Srpska, which is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after the general elections that were held on Oct. 2.

Serbian Foreign Minister Nikola Selakovic has already announced that Serbia will not recognize the results of the Russian-held referendums in occupied territories of Ukraine, citing the Charter of the United Nations. President Vucic himself has been clear on this point, telling the U.N. General Assembly that Serbia “supports the territorial integrity of all U.N. member states, including also the territorial integrity of Ukraine”.

Some may think this refusal is Serbia’s final divorce from Russia, but it is not. Rather, it is an example of the pragmatism of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who uses Kosovo as a tool to preserve his rule, manipulate Serbian nationalists and frame himself as a source of stability by having leverage over Western powers which don’t want violence in Kosovo to escalate further. Belgrade regards Kosovo “the heart of Serbia” because it is a home to monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and disputes over religious sites remain a constant since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

To wit, the Russian Orthodox Church expressed concerns for the “destiny of Christian shrines in Kosovo” after the Kosovo-Serbia incident. While Belgrade sees Kosovo as an issue of sovereignty and nationalism, the Kremlin sees it as a point of leverage. Moscow has benefited from ethnic tensions in Kosovo for years by making it clear that no official recognition is possible without Russia’s approval in the U.N.

Vladimir Putin also often cites Kosovo as a precedent to justify the independence of Crimea. Likewise, Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the U.N., referred to Kosovo last week when justifying his ongoing annexation of occupied territories in Ukraine. Claiming that Kosovo set the precedent that people have a “right to self-determination,” Nebenzya said that the residents of occupied Ukrainian territories are merely exercising that same right.

Of course, Russia is wrong on this point, since the International Court of Justice referred to it as a “sui generis” case, meaning that it cannot serve as a precedent. Still, he has returned to the example of Kosovo time and time again. Putin’s annexation announcement provides the perfect opportunity for the West to expose Russia’s unreliability. The West should employ offensive information operations using social media and local media platforms to reach out to far-right Serbian nationalists in the Balkans who consider Kosovo as the heart of their Motherland.

Instead of trying to convince them that Serbia should recognize the independence of Kosovo, they should exploit Serbian nationalism to highlight Moscow’s double-dealing and reveal the damage that Russia’s referendums have caused to Serbia’s national interests. The West should tell them the truth – that Russia is using Kosovo for its own strategic purposes.

The fact that Milorad Dodik is a supporter of Putin’s referenda is also an opportunity for the West to send out the message that Dodik has thrown his Serbian friends under the bus by putting Putin’s interests first before the interests of his Serbian brothers while supporting Kosovo. Dodik has also been threatening to secede from Bosnia for a long time, even recently meeting with Putin to discuss that point.

The West should use information operations to tell Bosnian Serbs that Putin does not have the capability to help them now – especially not with Russia’s military in shambles, and the CSTO, a Russia-dominated bloc of six post-soviet states, close to disintegration after Russia failed to help Armenia when a series of clashes erupted in September between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops on their common border. Azerbaijan does not belong to the CSTO.

Moscow has been using information operations by inflaming ethnic tensions and sowing chaos through its proxy groups in the Balkans in order to delegitimize NATO and the European Union. Russia’s sham referendums in Ukraine are the perfect opportunity for the West to flip the script on the Kremlin and show that the “Slavic Brotherhood” is nothing more than a myth.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.

kyivpost.com

17. Israel trades gas fields for a line of buoys

Israel trades gas fields for a line of buoys

english.alarabiya.net · by Tony Badran · October 10, 2022

The citizens of the state of Israel were informed this past weekend that the caretaker government of Prime Minister Yair Lapid was about to trade several hundred square kilometers of Israel’s potentially resource-rich exclusive economic zone for what it said would be a form of “international recognition” of a line of apparently under-recognized buoys. In other words, after dickering endlessly back and forth with American negotiators for a decade about whether Israel is rightly entitled to 45 percent or 55 percent or even 100 percent of the disputed maritime area, the percentage that Israel finally agreed to is 0 percent.

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But within a few days, Lapid’s big buoy birthday party was put on ice. Predictably, the Lebanese informed the American mediator they would not recognize the buoy line as Israel’s border. With Israel's election three weeks away, the Biden administration quickly affirmed that it still believes “a lasting compromise is possible,” and comments from the Lebanese suggested confidence Washington will deliver for them.

The main explanation for the hurry to conclude one of the region’s less urgent-seeming negotiations by any means necessary can be found in Washington D.C., which has appointed itself as champion of the Hezbollah-run pseudo-state formerly known as Lebanon. The Biden administration had described concluding the gas deal as a “key priority,” and President Biden had personally impressed on Lapid at the end of August the need to conclude the deal within weeks. The fact that the Iranian people are being mowed down in the streets for expressing their hatred of the regime apparently makes the American goal of flooding an Iranian proxy with cash even more urgent.

As reports about the deal came out in the Lebanese media, it didn’t take long for former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take aim at his rival: “Yair Lapid shamefully surrendered to [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah’s threats.” Netanyahu’s former energy minister, Yuval Steinitz, who briefly partook in negotiations on the maritime border when the Trump administration made its own ill-advised attempt to revive this track in 2020, described the deal as “by definition a surrender to blackmail.” Steinitz added that the ratio of the deal ended up being 100-0 in Lebanon’s favor.

The Israeli press meanwhile was torn between wonderment at the awfulness of the deal and the horror of agreeing with Bibi, who, after all, is Israel’s true national enemy. Yet despite their thriving in-group hatreds, some Israeli national security reporters could not help but ask incredulously: Could it really be that the government was simply giving in to Hezbollah’s threats to target Israel’s energy infrastructure if the terror group didn’t get what it wanted?

Reporters in the new Team Obama American-Israeli media messaging complex run from Washington, D.C. immediately launched a campaign to counter the idea that Israel had in any way been pressured by America—or that Lapid had scored anything other than a historic negotiating victory. An unnamed official who briefed the press on background denied that Israel had completely caved to Lebanon’s demands, “pointing to the fact that Beirut had demanded that Line 29 further south be the border. This would have given Lebanon parts of the Karish gas field.” Of course, this is false. The Lebanese border line, Line 23, is the only one Lebanon has deposited with the United Nations.

“We want to weaken Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon. That is why we are trying to advance the negotiations on the maritime border,” said Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata last month, explaining why Hezbollah would now be granted its own gas rig in the Mediterranean in de facto partnership with the French oil giant Total.

Others hyped as a major win the inclusion of a small buffer zone near the shore at Naqoura that extends some 5 kilometers out to sea before it ties back to Line 23, which Israel has agreed to concede to Lebanon. The area is marked by a line of buoys that Israel had placed in the water after its withdrawal from Lebanon. Barak Ravid, the leading Israeli mouthpiece of the Obama-Biden policy team since his days shilling for the original failed U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, relayed that government officials said that anchoring the “line of buoys” was “very important” because “in the last 20 years the Israeli military operated along this line unilaterally and the Lebanese side had international legitimacy to challenge it.” The deal, however, “will allow Israel to treat it as its northern territorial border.”

Needless to say, the Lebanese side disagreed entirely with the Israeli reading, and amended the U.S. proposal to reflect its position. Lapid, who played up the buoys as his major achievement, then rejected the amendment even as his government publicized its desire to conclude the deal. By Sunday, the U.S. mediator was ready with an updated proposal.

What emerges quite clearly from this weird little incident is that stabilizing and investing in Iranian regional “equities” is at the core of the Obama-Biden doctrine of Realignment. It’s how you achieve “regional integration”—by showcasing your ability to press your allies to sacrifice their own security in order to prop up Iranian assets, even as the Iranian people are being mowed down in the streets.

Read more:

Lebanon expecting final draft from US mediator over maritime demarcation within hours

It’s the US that misreads its energy interests

english.alarabiya.net · by Tony Badran · October 10, 2022

18. Taliban names former Guantanamo detainee deputy interior minister

Taliban names former Guantanamo detainee deputy interior minister | FDD's Long War Journal

longwarjournal.org · by Bill Roggio · October 11, 2022

The Taliban has named Mohammad Nabi Omari, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who is also a senior leader in the Haqqani Network and maintains close ties to Al Qaeda, to serve as its “first deputy” to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Minister of the Interior. Omari was one of the notorious “Gitmo Five” detainees who were freed in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier who deserted his post and was captured by the Taliban. His appointment highlights Sirajuddin’s consolidation of power in Afghanistan’s interior ministry.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid announced Omari’s appointment on Oct. 6, 2022 along with the shuffling of other appointments, including provincial governors and other key Taliban leadership positions. Omari previously served as the Taliban’s governor of Khost, one of several important provinces in eastern Afghanistan that is dominated by the Haqqani Network [see LWJ report, Taliban’s government includes designated terrorists, ex-Guantanamo detainees].

Omari is one of several key Haqqani Network leaders to be appointed to top level posts in the Taliban’s new government. In addition to Sirajuddin, who is the minister of interior, Khalil al Rahman Haqqani is the minister of refugees, Mullah Taj Mir Jawad is the first deputy of intelligence, and Haji Mali Khan is the governor of Logar.

Omari was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002, detained at their prison in Bagram, then transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, where he was held up until 2014. After he was freed, Omari was transferred to Qatar, where he continued to work with the Taliban and even served on the Taliban’s negotiating team with the U.S.

Omari has a long history of supporting the Taliban and its dangerous subgroup, the Haqqani Network, which is listed by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization for its close ties to Al Qaeda and other terror group.

Prior to his time in U.S. custody, according to Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), Omari “was a senior Taliban official who served in multiple leadership roles.” Omari was allegedly a “member of a joint al Qaeda/Taliban” cell in Khost “and was involved in attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces.” [For a profile on Omari, see LWJ report, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl exchanged for top 5 Taliban commanders at Gitmo.]

He was also a “close associate” of Jalaluddin Haqqani, Sirajuddin’s father who passed away in 2018, and worked with the Haqqani Network. Sirajuddin, who is listed by the U.S. as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for his ties to Al Qaeda and other terror groups, serves as the one of Taliban’s two deputy leaders and is the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s interior minister. Sirajuddin is arguably the most powerful and influential Taliban leader and has also been described by the United Nations Sanction and Monitoring Team as “an Al Qaeda Leader.”

Omari’s son, Abdul Haq, was killed during fighting in Khost province in July. Like his father, Abdul Haq fought for the Haqqani Network. The Taliban celebrated Abdul Haq’s “martyrdom” in a statement on Voice of Jihad, noting that the group’s leaders, including its emir, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, were willing to lose their sons in their campaign to conquer Afghanistan. Akhundzada’s son killed himself in a 2017 suicide attack that targeted Afghan security forces in Helmand province.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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longwarjournal.org · by Bill Roggio · October 11, 2022

19. Ukraine's experience spurs allies' interest in 'resistance,' info war training

A form of political warfare. Just saying.

George F. Kennan defined political warfare as “the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace.” While stopping short of the direct kinetic confrontation between two countries’ armed forces, “political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command… to achieve its national objectives.”  A country embracing Political Warfare conducts “both overt and covert” operations in the absence of declared war or overt force-on-force hostilities. Efforts “range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures…, and ‘white’ propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of ‘friendly’ foreign elements, ‘black’ psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.”  See George Kennan, "Policy Planning Memorandum." May 4, 1948.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/65ciafounding3.htm

Ukraine's experience spurs allies' interest in 'resistance,' info war training - Breaking Defense

"There hasn't been a special operations international military that I have dealt with since the Ukraine crisis that has not talked to us about expanding information operations and psychological operations forces," said Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, head of US Army Special Operations Command.

breakingdefense.com · by Theresa Hitchens · October 11, 2022

Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, commander of US Army Cyber Command (left); Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of US Army Space and Missile Defense Command (center); and Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander US Army Special Operations Command (right) speak at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 11, 2022. (Theresa Hitchens / Breaking Defense)

AUSA 2022 — In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US Special Operations Forces have seen increased interest from allies and partner nations in Europe and the Pacific in learning techniques for “resistance” and information war in the event of a foreign occupation of their land, said Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga. the Army’s SOF commander.

“I think one of the greatest lessons from the Ukraine wars is the power of information ops, influencing relevant populations in the world,” he told reporters on the margins of the annual Association of the United States Army show in Washington, D.C. “There hasn’t been a special operations international military that I have dealt with since the Ukraine crisis that has not talked to us about expanding information operations and psychological operations forces.”

Braga explained that there has been an uptick in requests for training and assistance in crafting what special operators call a “resistance operations concept” — i.e., a plan for how to fight from the inside after an invasion — in particular from allies and partners in the European and Indo-Pacific theaters. This can include material assistance, but also training on skills like using the internet and the media to gather international support. On the latter, he noted, Ukraine has been nothing short of masterful.

“You can have a resistance operating concept, but if you don’t have the identity and will to resist as a country and a sovereign nation then you’re probably set up for failure. The Ukrainians obviously have that,” he added.

Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command who also spoke at the press conference, said that one piece of a successful resistance movement is simply being able to keep communications networks open so “the message can get out there.”

Ukraine has highlighted that need too, he said, citing the critical assistance provided by SpaceX’s Starlink communications network.

FULL COVERAGE: AUSA 2022

Braga concurred, noting that “even if a nation state doesn’t have the budget to be launching satellites,” the “democratization” of access to space via commercial firms “can actually provide capability from an unconventional warfare standpoint — where you might have a behind-enemy-lines situation where cyberspace might be able to actually deliver an effect or deliver information in denied physical areas.”

Army Special Operations Command has been in discussions with “countries that are well-resourced and have a space program, and some that don’t but they’re still looking how to leverage both cyber and space,” he added.

Braga said, for example, the US has been assisting Ukraine forces with efforts to counter Russia. “We’ve had a supporting role in working with some industry partners to provide some indications and warnings to protect key assets of Ukrainian military,” he said.

“Counter-UAS is a never ending battle right now,” Braga added. “We’re trying to contribute towards both left-of-launch and after launch. So, we’ve contributed partly into providing indications and warnings for some of the forces on the ground, and teaching our Ukrainian counterparts on some of the systems they’ve been provided.”

breakingdefense.com · by Theresa Hitchens · October 11, 2022

20. Divisions, Corps to Replace Brigades As Army’s Wartime Formation Of Choice

Back to the future?

Divisions, Corps to Replace Brigades As Army’s Wartime Formation Of Choice

Brigades that operated largely independently in Iraq and Afghanistan will fight as part of larger units in future conflicts, officials said.

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

The Army’s brigade combat teams may have been the signature units of recent wars, but service leaders believe future conflicts will be dominated by divisions and even corps, officials said Monday.

“The large-scale combat [operations] against a peer threat, the amount of complexity, speed, violence, chaos, leads us to the conclusion that our great brigade combat team commanders are going to be wholly consumed winning the fight they're in,” said Gen. James Rainey, the new chief of Army Futures Command, at the Association of the United States Army’s conference in Washington, D.C.

Operations during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were largely planned by brigade combat teams—some 4,000 troops led by a colonel—and executed by their battalions and companies. Rainey said these BCTs were built in a way that had them hold and operate in an area for a year but were not a “maneuver formation.”

The war in Ukraine has shown what the Army could face in a large-scale conflict, said James Greer, an associate professor at the U.S. Army School for Advanced Military Studies, who spoke on a future-of-warfare panel with Rainey. Ukraine has committed the equivalent of two full corps of troops and is fighting across a vast area, about 150 times larger than the Army’s National Training Center in California, Greer said. A single U.S. Army corps can be comprised of two to five divisions with up to 45,000 soldiers, commanded by a lieutenant general.

“So: very large formations, very large spaces, and of course, everyone's familiar with the lethality, the destruction, the consumption of materiel, ammunition, etc., on a scale that we haven't really thought through in a long time,” Greer said.

Focusing the Army on these larger formations will mean they will be able to work closer with the other services as well as allies and partners, Secretary Christine Wormuth in her Monday keynote.

“Our study and analysis of recent conflicts, exercises, simulation, and training, tells us that brigade commanders must focus fully on winning the close fight. To allow frontline leaders to concentrate on the close fight, division and corps commanders will have the responsibility and capability to visualize the larger picture,” Wormuth said. “To ensure they can do this, our theater armies, corps, and divisions will gain the personnel, organizations, and equipment they need to disrupt and defeat peer adversaries on the future battlefield.”

That means bringing artillery, engineers, and intelligence together at the division level, she said.

Rainey said division commanders will be able to provide these capabilities to the brigades when they need it.

The secretary said this focus on larger formations would be part of the Army’s upcoming doctrine on multi-domain operations, Wormuth said.

“To realize this vision and build the Army of 2030, we are transforming our force structure and evolving how we fight. We must do this to prepare for the challenge of large-scale combat operations, strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, and to be ready if deterrence fails,” she said.

Rainey pushed back on any would-be critics who say the Army is “going backwards” by going to a division. “And that is absolutely not the case. First of all, everything we're doing is threat-informed.”

The brigades will also have to get smaller in order to survive and move, he said—but did not say how much smaller or what kind of weapons and gear would have to be shed.

The larger formations will also help keep brigades in the fight longer—for weeks and months—and give them “endurance,” which they are seeing as a requirement from what they are learning about the war in Ukraine, Greer said.

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

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