Quotes of the Day:

“Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a career man.” 

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

“Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate."  

- Chuang Tau

“Home by Christmas” statement by General MacArthur, November 28, 1950

The Associated Press had reported last Friday that General MacArthur discussed

the campaign with Major General John B. Coulter and remarked, with a smile:

“You tell the boys that when they get to the Yalu (River) they are going home. I

want to make good on my statement that they are going to eat Christmas dinner at

home.”

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 24

2. How Citizen Spies Foiled Putin’s Grand Plan for One Ukrainian City

3. American Bargain Hunters Flock to a New Online Platform Forged in China

4. China stages 'strike drills' around Taiwan, citing provocation

5. China Aims to Rebuild US Ties in Diplomatic Push for 2023

6. Twitter Files part 9: Vast web of coordination between tech giant and CIA, State Department, other agencies

7. Ten Myths About US Aid To Ukraine – Analysis

8. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a 'geopolitical earthquake' that defined 2022 and has transformed the world for years to come

9. German allegedly spying for Moscow used NSA material, magazine says

10. TikTok admits to spying on U.S. users as effort to ban the app heats up

11. ChatGPT’s rise heralds brave new world where AI could rule over replaceable humans

12. Inside the monumental, stop-start effort to arm Ukraine

13. Opinion: Russia's war in Ukraine will be long and protracted

14. Dave Barry’s 2022 Year in Review

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 24

​Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-24

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces will likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause.
• Russian siloviki may be setting information conditions to justify the nationalization of oligarchs' resources to sponsor Russia’s war effort.
• Ukrainian intelligence continues to suggest that the Russian military is not following proper command structures or procedures.
• Russian forces continued to conduct limited counterattacks to regain lost positions along the Kreminna-Svatove line.
• Russian forces continued to conduct offensive operations around Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
• Russian SPETSNAZ are likely reconnoitering the Dnipro River delta to study Ukrainian defenses in right bank Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces struck a residential area of Kherson City with a Grad multiple launch rocket system, killing at least 10 and injuring 55.
• The Russian Orthodox Church — a Kremlin-affiliated institution — asked the Kremlin for a mobilization exemption for its clergy, despite avidly supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
• Russian officials are planning to take children from Horlivka, Donetsk to Belarus, possibly as a scheme to deport Ukrainian children.
• ISW introduced a new section in the update to track daily observed indicators and counter-indicators consistent with the current assessed most dangerous course of action – a Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus.

​

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 24

Dec 24, 2022 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

understandingwar.org

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 24

Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, George Barros, Madison Williams, and Frederick W. Kagan

December 24, 7 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.

Note: ISW and CTP will not publish a campaign assessment (or maps) tomorrow, December 25, in observance of the Christmas holiday. Coverage will resume Monday, December 26.

Russian forces’ rate of advance in the Bakhmut area has likely slowed in recent days, although it is too early to assess whether the Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut has culminated. Russian milbloggers acknowledged that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have managed to slightly slow down the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and its surrounding settlements, with one claiming that Ukrainian forces pushed back elements of the Wagner Group to positions they held days ago.[1] Ukrainian social media sources previously claimed that Ukrainian forces completely pushed Russian forces out of the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut around December 21.[2] ISW has also assessed that Russian forces made slightly fewer overall advances in the Bakhmut area in November and December combined as compared to the month of October.[3]

Russian forces will likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on December 24 that Russian forces currently lack the necessary stockpile of artillery munitions to support large-scale offensive operations and that sustaining defensive operations along the lengthy frontline in Ukraine requires the Russian military to expend a significant number of shells and rockets daily.[4] The Ukrainian Joint Forces Task Force released an interview on December 24 with a Ukrainian servicemember in the Bakhmut area detailing that Russian forces have been conducting an extremely high pace of assaults on Ukrainian positions in the area with little corresponding progress.[5] The Wagner Group’s reported heavy losses in the Bakhmut area in recent weeks have also likely strained Russian forces’ current operational capabilities in the area.[6]

The Russian military’s personnel and munitions constraints will likely prevent it from maintaining the current high pace of offensive operations in the Bakhmut area in the near-term. Russian forces previously allocated significant resources in a meat-grinder effort to seize Severodonesk and Lysychansk in spring–summer 2022. Russian forces culminated after capturing Lysychansk in early July and failed to capture neighboring Siversk to the east or Slovyansk to the northeast. The Russian military’s fixation with conducting a highly attritional campaign to achieve the tactical objectives of capturing Severdonetsk and Lysychansk ultimately undermined the Russian military’s ability to achieve its larger operational objective to envelop Ukrainian forces in a cauldron along the E40 highway and eventually drive to Donetsk Oblast’s western administrative borders. Russia’s relentless and costly push on Bakhmut may also degrade Russia’s ability to pursue long-term objectives in the Donbas theater.

Russian siloviki may be setting information conditions to justify the nationalization of oligarchs' resources to sponsor Russia’s war effort. Wagner financier Yeveniy Prigozhin attended the funeral of a deceased Wagner Group mercenary in St. Petersburg on December 24, where he stated that Russia needs to confiscate luxury possessions and accommodations from elites who ignore or do not support the war effort out of fear of losing their privileged lifestyles.[7] Prigozhin added that these affluent individuals support a vision where ”Western curators” dominate Russia in return for the sponsorship of their lifestyles and compared today’s Russian oligarchy to Ukraine’s or to 1990s Russia. Prigozhin ignited a scandal regarding the burial of the Wagner serviceman in recent weeks to push his political objectives — such as the legalization of Wagner in Russia — and his statements advocating redistribution of wealth at the funeral gained significant traction on the Russian internet.[8] Wagner-affiliated milbloggers widely supported Prigozhin’s criticism of Russian officials and praised his support for the war effort.[9] Prigozhin may be using such populist proposals to elevate his authority in Russian society or influence a return of stricter nationalization measures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also indirectly attacked Russian oligarchs on December 22, however, stating that Russians who drain Russia’s money from abroad and do not have a connection with the country “represent a danger” to Russia.[10] Putin claimed that while the vast majority of Russian businessmen are patriots, there are some who do not share the sentiment. Putin concluded that "everyone strives not only to stay, to live and work in Russia but to work for the benefit of our country.” Putin previously nationalized big businesses in the early 2000s to consolidate his authoritarian kleptocracy and may be attempting leverage nationalization to coerce elites to support his war in Ukraine or seize their property to fund military expenses.[11]

Ukrainian intelligence continues to suggest that the Russian military is not following proper command structures or procedures. Chief of the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Kyrylo Budanov stated that Prigozhin formed an alliance with the Commander of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, Army General Sergey Surovikin.[12] Budanov noted that both Prigozhin and Surovikin are rivals of Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, and that Prigozhin used the alliance to his advantage to receive heavy weapons from Russian Armed Forces for Wagner forces. The allocation of military resources should in principle rest with the Minister of Defense rather than the theater commander, although Surovikin could have the authority to make transfers once equipment enters the theater. The Prigozhin–Surovikin alliance is plausible given that Prigozhin had previously praised Surovikin for his efforts to save the collapsing Soviet Union.[13]

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces will likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause.
• Russian siloviki may be setting information conditions to justify the nationalization of oligarchs' resources to sponsor Russia’s war effort.
• Ukrainian intelligence continues to suggest that the Russian military is not following proper command structures or procedures.
• Russian forces continued to conduct limited counterattacks to regain lost positions along the Kreminna-Svatove line.
• Russian forces continued to conduct offensive operations around Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
• Russian SPETSNAZ are likely reconnoitering the Dnipro River delta to study Ukrainian defenses in right bank Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces struck a residential area of Kherson City with a Grad multiple launch rocket system, killing at least 10 and injuring 55.
• The Russian Orthodox Church — a Kremlin-affiliated institution — asked the Kremlin for a mobilization exemption for its clergy, despite avidly supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
• Russian officials are planning to take children from Horlivka, Donetsk to Belarus, possibly as a scheme to deport Ukrainian children.
• ISW introduced a new section in the update to track daily observed indicators and counter-indicators consistent with the current assessed most dangerous course of action – a Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus.

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

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

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

Russian forces continued to conduct limited counterattacks to regain lost positions along the Kreminna-Svatove line on December 24. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian assault near Andriivka, Luhansk Oblast (15km west of Svatove).[14] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults in the direction of Stelmakhivka (16km northwest of Svatove) and in the direction of Nadiia (16km west of Svatove).[15] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have transitioned from offensive operations to positional battles near Dvorichna (55km northwest of Svatove).[16] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults in the direction of Makiivka (23km northwest of Kreminna) and in the area of Chervonopopivka (6km north of Kreminna) and that there are positional battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of Ploshchanka (17km northwest of Kreminna).[17] One Russian milblogger claimed on December 23 that Russian forces are now at a distance close enough to Makiivka to effectively use small-arms fire against Ukrainian forces.[18] Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces also conducted assaults in the direction of Yampolivka, Donetsk Oblast (17km west of Kreminna) and near Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna).[19] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted an assault in the vicinity of Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna).[20]

Ukrainian forces continued to strike Russian rear areas on December 24. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Polovynkyne, Luhansk Oblast (56km southeast of Svatove) with HIMARS rockets.[21] Social media sources posted footage indicating that Ukrainian forces reportedly struck an unspecified warehouse in Polovynkyne.[22]

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 offensive operations around Bakhmut on December 24. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bakhmut, within 19km northeast of Bakhmut near Rozdolivka and Bakhmutske; and within 31km south of Bakhmut near Pivichne and Niu York.[23] A Russian milblogger claimed that there is also fierce fighting northeast of Bakhmut near Pidhordone, where Russian forces reportedly captured stronghold positions on the southern outskirts of the settlement.[24] The Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also captured new positions in unspecified areas northeast of Bakhmut along the Rozdolivka-Yampolivka line.[25] A Russian milblogger claimed that there is fierce fighting between Ukrainian forces and elements of the Wagner Group in the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut, where battles have been ongoing for days.[26] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also conducted an assault south of Bakhmut in the vicinity of Andriivka and that there is fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces within 17km south of Bakhmut near Opytne, Klishchiivka, and Dyliivka.[27]

Russian forces continued to conduct offensive operations in the Avdiivka–Donetsk City area on December 24. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within 27km southwest of Avdiivka near Krasnohorivka, Vodyane, and Marinka.[28] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are advancing farther into Marinka, but that Ukrainian forces are still entrenched in some positions in the center of the settlement.[29] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces have been accumulating their forces on the western outskirts of Marinka due to a rapid deterioration of the tactical situation in the settlement and extensive losses.[30] The Russian milblogger also claimed that the 11th Regiment of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) People’s Militia conducted a reconnaissance-in-force operation in the direction of Pervomaiske (13km southwest of Avdiivka) and established a foothold in the outskirts of the settlement.[31] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued indirect fire along the long of contact in Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia oblasts.[32]

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

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks on the southern axis on December 24 but may be deploying equipment from Donetsk to the southern axis. Ukrainian advisor to the mayor of Mariupol Petro Andryushchenko reported on December 24 that Russian forces are transporting an unusually high number of armored personnel carriers and truck convoys through Mariupol towards Berdyansk in Zaporizhia Oblast to fortify the Melitopol front.[33]

Russian forces struck a residential area of Kherson City with a Grad multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) on December 24, killing at least 10 and injuring 55.[34] Most if not all the victims were civilians. Several Russian sources falsely claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted the strike as part of a false flag to blame Russian forces for reasons that remain unclear.[35] One Russian source falsely claimed that this attack was a repeated Ukrainian false flag attack modeled after the Russian Tochka U strike that killed 60 Ukrainian civilians at the train station in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, on April 8 — a Russian strike that the Russian government falsely accused Ukraine of conducting.[36] A few Russian milbloggers mocked the lie that Ukrainian forces conducted the MLRS attack against Kherson City.[37] Independent monitors have thoroughly documented Russia’s deliberate and regular strikes against civilian targets in Ukraine.

Russian SPETSNAZ are likely reconnoitering the Dnipro River delta to study Ukrainian defenses in right-bank Kherson Oblast. A Russian source reported on December 23 unspecified Russian SPETSNAZ elements landed on Velykyi Potomkin Island southwest of Kherson City at an unspecified recent time.[38] This report is consistent with Ukrainian officials’ statements. The head of the Ukrainian Joint Press Center of the Tavrisk Direction Defense Forces, Yevhen Yerin, stated on December 23 that Russian forces have not changed their tactics in southern Ukraine and are continuing to use sabotage and reconnaissance groups to reconnoiter the islands on the Dnipro River delta in Kherson Oblast to test the Ukrainian ability to repel Russian attacks.[39]

A Russian source claimed that Russian forces defeated Ukrainian attempts to land on the Kinburn Spit. The source reported that Ukrainian forces regularly shell the spit with long-range artillery and destroyed an unspecified port building on the spit.[40] The source reported that Russian forces defeated unspecified Ukrainian attempts to land on the spit, that Ukrainian forces are constantly trying to gain a foothold on the spit, and that that Russian forces fully control the spit despite several attempted Ukrainian attacks there.[41] Kherson Oblast Occupation Administration Head Vladimir Saldo similarly claimed on December 22 that Russian forces are repelling Ukrainian attempts to land on the spit.[42] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command spokesperson Natalia Humenyuk stated on November 22 that Ukrainian forces are conducting operations on the Kinburn Spit under operational silence.[43]

Ukrainian forces likely conducted a drone attack against targets in Crimea on December 24. Video posted in the early morning of December 24 reportedly shows an explosion from a Ukrainian drone attacking an oil refinery in Nyzhniohirskyi Raion in Crimea.[44] A prominent Kremlin-linked milblogger reported that Ukrainian forces launched seven Chinese-made Mugin-5 drones from the Odesa International Airport to hit targets in Crimea in the early morning of December 24.[45] This account claims that Russian air defenses shot down all seven drones: five drones over the Karkinit Bay and two over Crimea as the drones approached targets near the oil refinery in Nyzhniohirskyi Raion and the Tavricheska Thermal Power Plant near Simferopol. It is unclear if Russian forces shot down the drone near the oil refinery as the milblogger reported given the ambiguous video of an explosion.[46]

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

The Russian Orthodox Church — a Kremlin-controlled institution — asked the Kremlin for a mobilization exemption for its clergy, despite avidly supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill stated that he heard numerous concerns from clergy about the church being subject to mobilization during the diocesan meeting in Moscow on December 22.[47] Kirill noted that currently Russian law does not exempt clergy from military service, which contradicts the holy canons against the church participating in combat. Kirill added that the church received an exemption during the period of partial mobilization but called on the Kremlin to formally secure this provision in law for clergy. Kirill, however, publicly stated that he shares Putin’s opinions on very “important issues” and called on Russians to “spiritually mobilize” so that Russia and Ukraine can reunite into the one sphere of the Russian Orthodox Church.[48] Russian priests have also repeatedly blessed Russian military personnel and equipment before combat and while dressed in military uniforms prior to Putin’s mobilization order.[49] Kirill’s request further highlights that mobilization is not popular among even Kremlin-affiliated institutions despite ongoing support for the war effort.

The Kremlin authorized the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Ministry of Information to request up-to-date information about citizens via a centralized registry on December 23, likely to facilitate military registration and mobilization processes in Russia.[50] The Russian MoD may access passport data, permanent residence registration documentations, and information on the number of children to create conscription or mobilization lists. In November, Putin ordered the Kremlin to create a centralized database for military registration by April 2024 and called on the Russian MoD to start digitizing print documents currently stored in local military recruitment centers throughout Russia.[51] Ukrainian intelligence previously reported that the Kremlin seeks to create an electronic database by February 2023, possibly in preparation to support a second wave of mobilization.[52]

Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian casualties are continuing to overload the medical system in occupied Ukraine. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that many Russian personnel die waiting for medical assistance due to lack of specialists, necessary medical equipment, and medicine.[53] Malyar added that Russian forces are also installing metal bars on the windows of hospitals to prevent Russian servicemen with light wounds from deserting from the Russian Armed Forces.[54] The Russian MoD had previously claimed that 92% of deaths among Russian forces occur as a result of lack of first aid medical attention; however, ISW cannot independently verify this assessment.[55]

Russian milbloggers continued to disagree with select parts of the Russian MoD’s proposed plan on December 22 to form new military formations. A prominent milblogger and a member of Putin’s mobilization working group stated that the Russian MoD should not form five naval infantry divisions and two new airborne assault divisions as Shoigu suggested but should instead create line heavy infantry and motorized rifle divisions.[56] The milblogger argued that Russian naval infantry and airborne troops do not have the necessary artillery power to be effective in the war in Ukraine.

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

Russian officials are planning to take children from Horlivka, Donetsk to Belarus, potentially as a scheme to deport Ukrainian children. Zaporizhia Occupation Deputy Vladimir Rogov announced on December 24 that Belarusian citizens organized a trip for children from Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast to go to Belarus.[57] He stated that the children are already on their way.[58] ISW is unable to verify if these children are expected to return to occupied Donetsk Oblast after this event. The deportation of children may amount to a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and constitute a wider ethnic-cleansing effort, as ISW has previously reported.[59]

Russian occupation authorities are continuing to intensify law enforcement crackdowns in occupied territories. A Russian media source claimed that the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs detained eight people in Kherson Oblast on December 24 under suspicion of aiding Ukrainian forces.[60] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian occupation officials in Hornostaivka, Kherson Oblast have imposed a 24-hour curfew for residents from December 25 to January 3, likely in an effort to keep Ukrainian residents from leaving occupied territories during the holidays.[61]

Russian occupation officials continue efforts to nationalize Ukrainian property in occupied territories. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on December 24 that Russian occupation officials continue to threaten Ukrainians in occupied territories with nationalization of their property.[62] The report stated that occupation officials are forcing residents to re-register their property claims under Russian law and threatening to take the property should residents fail to do so.[63] The Ukrainian Resistance Center noted that Russian occupiers have already created a platform for selling nationalized property and the belongings of those who fled their homes in occupied territories.[64] The Luhansk Military Administration also reported that Russian occupation authorities in Luhansk Oblast publicized the names of homes and apartments they have designated for “flexible housing stock” — nationalization and occupation by Russian forces — and are requiring residents to appear within 10 calendar days of the publicization to consent to or refuse the designation of “flexible house” on their property.[65] The report stated that, should the resident not appear, the Russian occupation officials will automatically house people there for three years.[66]

Russian occupiers continue to make life difficult for Ukrainians in occupied territories. The Luhansk Military Administration reported that Ukrainians in Luhansk Oblast have increased their complaints about ever-rising prices for essential items.[67] The Luhansk Military Administration also reported that Russian occupation authorities have begun signaling that no one will rebuild destroyed housing in Luhansk Oblast, despite previous promises to the contrary.[68]

ISW will continue to report daily observed indicators consistent with the current assessed most dangerous course of action (MDCOA): a renewed invasion of northern Ukraine possibly aimed at Kyiv.

ISW’s December 15 MDCOA warning forecast about a potential Russian offensive against northern Ukraine in winter 2023 remains a worst-case scenario within the forecast cone. ISW currently assesses the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus as low, but possible, and the risk of Belarusian direct involvement as very low. This new section in the daily update is not in itself a forecast or assessment. It lays out the daily observed indicators we are using to refine our assessments and forecasts, which we expect to update regularly. Our assessment that the MDCOA remains unlikely has not changed. We will update this header if and when the assessment changes.

Observed indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:

• Geolocated footage posted on December 23 shows Russian forces shipping about 40 tanks (including T-62, T-80, and T-90M models) in Rostov Oblast, possibly towards Belarus.[69]

Observed ambiguous indicators for MDCOA in the past 24 hours:

• Ukrainian Joint Forces Commander Serhiy Nayev stated on December 24 that Russian forces in Belarus deployed one motorized rifle battalion and two tank battalions to unspecified areas along the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.[70]
• Independent imagery analysis of Russian forces in Belarus found that Russian forces maintain about 10,000 personnel in Belarus, about 5,000 of whom are stationed at the 230th Obuz-Lesnovsky Training Ground in Brest, Belarus as of December 23.[71]

Observed counter-indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:

• The Ukrainian General Staff reiterated that it has not observed Russian forces in Belarus forming a strike group as of December 24.[72]
• Chief of the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Kyrylo Budanov told the New York Times on December 23 that Russia is trying to divert Ukrainian forces from the southeast by setting up a feint in Belarus, noting that military activity in Belarus is an element of a disinformation campaign.[73] Budanov stated that the Russian force arrayment in Belarus does not indicate preparations for an offensive and that Russian forces in Belarus do not have enough armored equipment for a mechanized assault.

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.

[2] Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 21 | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)

[10] https://www.mk dot ru/politics/2022/12/23/putin-anonsiroval-voynu-s-oligarkhami-v-rossii.html; http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70170

[34] https://meduza dot io/feature/2022/12/24/pri-rossiyskom-obstrele-hersona-pogibli-kak-minimum-sem-chelovek-bolee-50-postradali; https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1606600024321921024; https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1606586630902616064; https://t.me/tymoshenko_kyrylo/3186; https://twitter.com/kargolow/status/1606590188821553152;

https://twitter.com/Steven681982/status/1606594527904645124;

https://twitter.com/tvtoront/status/1606590308938141698;

https://twitter.com/Steven681982/status/1606616027487428609;

[39] https://armyinform dot com dot ua/2022/12/23/rosiyany-prodovzhuyut-vykorystovuvaty-zaes-yak-obyekt-prykryttya-yevgen-yerin/

[43] https://gordonua dot com/ukr/news/war/nam-dopomagaje-more-zsu-zavdajut-udariv-po-punktah-protivnika-na-kinburnskij-kosi-vorog-ne-mozhe-tam-zakripitisja-ndash-ok-pivden-1637320.html

[47] https://glavcom dot ua/ru/news/mobilizatsija-popov-patriarkh-kirill-vymalivaet-u-putina-poblazhku-897366.html

[48] https://www dot interfax.ru/russia/865097; https://tass dot ru/obschestvo/16379261

[50] https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5746603

[51] https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5692024

[62] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/12/24/okupanty-pogrozhuyut-meshkanczyam-tot-naczionalizuvaty-yih-zemlyu-ta-neruhomist/

[63] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/12/24/okupanty-pogrozhuyut-meshkanczyam-tot-naczionalizuvaty-yih-zemlyu-ta-neruhomist/

[64] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/12/24/okupanty-pogrozhuyut-meshkanczyam-tot-naczionalizuvaty-yih-zemlyu-ta-neruhomist/

understandingwar.org

2. How Citizen Spies Foiled Putin’s Grand Plan for One Ukrainian City

This article illustrates the importance of the underground and auxiliary in unconventional warfare and resistance operations.

3-28. The underground is a cellular organization within the irregular movement that is responsible for

subversion, sabotage, intelligence collection, and other compartmentalized activities. Most underground

operations will take place in and around population centers. As such, the underground must have the ability to

conduct operations in areas that are usually inaccessible to the guerrillas, such as areas under government

military control. Underground members often fill leadership positions, overseeing specific functions that

auxiliary workers carry out. The underground and auxiliary—although technically separate units—are, in

reality, loosely interconnected elements that provide coordinated capabilities for the irregular movement. The

key distinction between them is that the underground is the element of the irregular organization that

operates in areas denied to the guerrilla force.

3-29. The auxiliary is the primary support element of the irregular organization. The structure and

operations of the auxiliary are clandestine in nature and its members do not openly indicate their sympathy

or involvement with the irregular movement. This support enables the guerrilla force, and often the

underground, to survive and function. This support can take the form of logistics, labor, or intelligence.

Members of the auxiliary are sometimes characterized as “part-time members” of the irregular

organization, continuing to participate in the life of their community. The populace appears concerned only

with their normal occupations while at the same time engaging in irregular operations to varying degrees.

FM 3-18, Special Forces Operations 2014.

How Citizen Spies Foiled Putin’s Grand Plan for One Ukrainian City

A partisan cell in Kherson spied on, undermined and even hunted down Russian soldiers. Now that Vladimir V. Putin’s forces are gone, people feel free to talk — and to brag a little.

nytimes.com · by Jeffrey Gettleman · December 25, 2022

By Jeffrey Gettleman

Jeffrey Gettleman is a Pulitzer-winning correspondent who has been covering the war in Ukraine since it began. He spent three weeks in Kherson recently, digging beneath the surface of the occupation.

• Dec. 25, 2022
• 8 MIN READ

Oksana and Dmytro Yevminov aboard their yacht in Kherson, southern Ukraine, last month. They hid guns and sacks of grenades for resistance fighters during the Russian occupation of the city.Credit...Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

On a foggy morning a few months ago, Valentyn Dmytrovych Yermolenko, an aging Ukrainian fisherman with a bad back and horrible knees, puttered down a narrow channel off the Dnipro River, his inflatable dinghy cutting through the mist.

His city, Kherson, had been taken over by the Russian Army, and on the floor of his boat, concealed under a fishing net in a black plastic tub, Mr. Yermolenko had hidden three disassembled automatic rifles.

As he took a bend in the river, he recalled, a Russian patrol boat materialized in front of him. A commander standing on the deck in crisp camouflage barked: “Grandpa! Where are you going?”

After Mr. Yermolenko muttered something about getting fish for his wife, the commander ordered a search of the boat. A young soldier stomped aboard and went straight to the black plastic tub.

Valentyn Dmytrovych Yermolenko, a 64-year-old fisherman, led a resistance cell in a riverside community in Kherson.Credit...Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Kherson, at the mouth of the Dnipro, near the Black Sea, was captured in the war’s first days. Russian officials soon declared it part of Russia forever.

Kherson’s occupation government, run by Russian military commanders and Ukrainian collaborators, wasted little time pulling down Ukrainian flags, taking over Ukrainian schools, trucking in crates of Russian rubles, even importing Russian families. Perhaps nowhere else in Ukraine did Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, devote so much money and violence, the carrot and the stick, to bend a city to his imperial will.

Guided by contacts in the Ukrainian security services, an assembly of ordinary citizens formed themselves into a grass-roots resistance movement. In dozens of interviews, residents and Ukrainian officials described how retirees like Mr. Yermolenko — along with students, mechanics, grandmothers, and even a wealthy couple who were fixing up their yacht and got trapped in the city for the better part of a year — became spirited partisans for the Kherson underground. It was almost like something out of a spy movie.

They took clandestine videos of Russian troops and sent them to Ukrainian forces along with map coordinates. They used code names and passwords to circulate guns and explosives right under the Russians’ noses. Some even formed small attack teams that picked off Russian soldiers at night, making the fear and paranoia that settled over the city two-sided.

When the Russian Army hastily pulled out in mid-November, perhaps the biggest embarrassment so far to Mr. Putin’s war effort, Kherson became a powerful symbol. To allies questioning Ukraine’s resolve, and to Ukrainians themselves who had suffered so much misery and death and needed a glimmer of hope, Kherson showed what was possible.

Now that the Russian forces are gone and people feel free to talk about what they did and even brag a little, one message keeps emerging.

“I never questioned what we were doing,” said Dmytro Yevminov, the yacht owner whom Mr. Yermolenko recruited into hiding guns and sacks of grenades in various boatyards. “I never knew I loved my country so much.”

‘Like Links in a Chain’

Mr. Yermolenko and his wife, Olena, might not seem like insurgent types.

Hovering over each other in their small kitchen, the rushing blue flame on the stove serving as the home’s only source of heat, they shoo each other away and shush each other, arguing over who is the bigger patriot.

“I’m the one who forced you to feel like this,” she said, laughing.

“Well,” Mr. Yermolenko sighed, “maybe this country didn’t give me everything I wanted. But it’s still my country.”

They met in Kherson in 1978. She was a clerk at a shipbuilding plant. He had been born in Belarus and had just exited the Soviet army.

He spied her sunbathing on a beach alongside the Dnipro River and soon they married, moving to a riverside Kherson neighborhood called the Island, where people make their living off the water one way or another: fishing, working at boatyards or at the shipbuilding plants, servicing marine engines. The Yermolenkos used to run a smoked-fish business but retired a few years ago. It was not long before their lives were upended.

On Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion, thousands of Russian troops poured into Kherson. Like in many other Ukrainian cities, local residents, some with military experience, banded together into a group known as a territorial defense force to try to repel Moscow’s army. Mr. Yermolenko and his teenage grandson, also named Valentyn, enlisted.

They had few weapons, mostly just some old hunting rifles. Worse, the Ukrainian military made a strategic decision to withdraw from Kherson, leaving the local fighters on their own.

They tried to ambush a Russian column a few days after the invasion but failed miserably, according to witnesses, leaving at least 18 militia members dead on the frozen ground. After that, the Kherson resistance changed tactics. It went underground.

Members of the local defense force and other civilians began to spy on Russian troops in the city. The Ukrainian security services encouraged this — within days of the war breaking out, they set up special channels on Telegram and other messaging services for people to funnel strategic tips.

The Yermolenkos volunteered to aggregate information from their neighborhood. Since they had been living on the Island for so long, they knew everyone, and Mr. Yermolenko maintained contacts within the Ukrainian military from his connections to the territorial defense force.

Every day, the Yermolenkos said they received dozens of videos, audio files and texts tracking the location of Russian troops moving through their city — how many there were, what kind of vehicles they were using and their direction of travel. All this was incredibly dangerous, but countless people were willing to do it.

“We had a grandma in a high-rise feeding us stuff,” Ms. Yermolenko, 65, said. “We had Dima and Oksana on the water in their sailboat watching the Russian river patrols. We had people everywhere.”

Their house, they said, became “a transmitter.”

The resistance movement would soon evolve. In the next few weeks, Ukrainian military commanders and intelligence agents based outside the city asked civilians whom they trusted, including the Yermolenkos, to do even more.

Life was getting grim. Kherson was running out of food. Stores were closed. People were out of work. Russian troops were searching for civilians who were spying on them; many residents shared disturbing stories of themselves or people they knew being dragged into torture chambers and subjected to electric shocks and sadistic beatings.

But the residents kept finding avenues of resistance. In mid-April, a rash of yellow ribbons mysteriously appeared all over Kherson, spray painted on buildings. It was a small act of defiance. But residents said that Russian soldiers were so enraged that they had stormed into hardware stores and demanded to see closed-circuit TV footage to find out who had been buying yellow paint.

As the weeks ticked away, Mr. Yermolenko became more careful in whom he confided, he said. Slowly, he struck up a friendship with Mr. Yevminov, a successful entrepreneur whose around-the-world sailboat trip went by the wayside. The two men huddled by the waterfront, pretending that they were staring at circles from fish jumps or talking about boats, and spied on Russian patrols prowling the river.

One day, Mr. Yermolenko, who tends not to express a lot of emotion, pulled Mr. Yevminov aside and said, “Will you feed my dogs if something happens to me?”

Mr. Yermolenko felt himself getting sucked into a more dangerous role. He said that he had started receiving coded messages from contacts within the resistance network about weapons. The messages were fragmentary — a code name, a location, a password. His job was to move assault rifles, bullets and grenades from one location to another.

Mr. Yermolenko, along with other members of Kherson’s partisan network and a Ukrainian military officer from the city, said in interviews that the weapons had passed from civilian to civilian. Eventually, they were handed over to undercover Ukrainian security agents who had filtered quietly back into Kherson or to members of the underground territorial defense force.

“The system was built like links in a chain,” said Oleksandr Samoylenko, head of Kherson’s regional council, who helped coordinate partisan activity from outside the city. “No person knew the next link, so if someone got caught, it wouldn’t compromise the whole operation.”

The Yermolenkos’ grandson, 18 at the time, was itching to get involved. He joined a cell with three other young men that stalked Russian soldiers at night. The Russian troops were sloppy, he said, often walking around the waterfront in the dark while checking their phones, oblivious to the glow they were casting.

He said that his team had killed at least 10 Russians; his claim could not be independently verified, but interviews with other members of the local defense force supported his account that he had killed enemy soldiers.

“In the beginning,” he admitted, “we were terrified.” One friend, he said, swallowed a glass of vodka before every attack.

But soon enough, Valentyn said, they became steeled to shooting Russian soldiers at close range and plucking weapons off their still warm bodies.

‘I Wasn’t Going to Work With Them’

By summer, Mr. Yermolenko was watching his city get Russified. Propaganda billboards on Kherson’s busiest boulevards were decorated with bands of white, blue and red, in the spirit of the Russian flag, which many locals derisively called “the Aquafresh.”

Acts of defiance kept popping up. When the occupation government severed trade links with Ukraine and then instructed transportation companies in Kherson to haul stolen Ukrainian grain to Russia, some refused, which was no small risk.

“They assaulted our country,” said Roman Denysenko, the owner of a trucking company who was later kidnapped. “I wasn’t going to work with them. Period.”

Russian families began to move into apartments vacated by fleeing Ukrainians. Russian children, who residents said were the children of intelligence agents, became a common sight in Kherson’s parks and supermarkets. But Moscow’s hold on Kherson was getting shakier.

Mr. Samoylenko, the Kherson regional council head, said that civilians working with the army had sent in real-time surveillance information that enabled Ukrainian forces to bomb a meeting of high-level collaborators in mid-September and a hotel full of Russian intelligence officers a few weeks later. He cited two factors behind those successes: American precision artillery and partisan intelligence.

“It’s only because of the residents that the liberation happened so quickly,” he said.

Flush with new, more powerful weapons, the Ukrainian military ratcheted up the pressure. They blew up bridges across the Dnipro River. Ground forces advanced across the countryside and pressed in on three sides. By early November, the Russian forces had begun to flee.

“We didn’t know what was happening out there,” Mr. Yermolenko said.

But on Nov. 11, a repairman banged on his gate and joyously announced that Ukrainian forces had arrived. Mr. and Ms. Yermolenko drove to Kherson’s main square, joining the crowds of stunned, happy people celebrating the city’s liberation.

“You wouldn’t believe what I did for the first time in my life,” he said. “I kissed a policeman.”

Goodbye, and Thanks

The Yermolenkos felt that it was important to recognize everyone in the neighborhood who had participated in the resistance. So, on a recent morning, two dozen partisans, men and women from their early 20s to mid 70s, wrapped in heavy coats and woolen hats, stood in their yard. The wind lifted off the river and whipped their ruddy faces.

When the Russian patrol stopped him that day, the soldier cracked open the plastic tub, coming within three inches of finding the concealed guns. But he apparently didn’t want to get his hands dirty and never lifted the fishing net. Had the soldier found the guns underneath, Mr. Yermolenko says he would have been shot on the spot.

His eyes traced the faces of the people listening to him — his neighbors, other veteran fishermen, the yacht owners. He is often gruff, even grouchy, but on this morning, he was reflective. He thanked everyone by name and at the end added, “I also want to thank everyone on the Island who didn’t betray us.”

He hobbled inside. No refreshments were offered. Slowly, the people walked out of his gate, into the road and back to their ordinary lives.

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting.

nytimes.com · by Jeffrey Gettleman · December 25, 2022

3. American Bargain Hunters Flock to a New Online Platform Forged in China

Another opportunity to collect data on Americans?

I am reminded of this:

They [capitalists] will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.

- Vladimir Ilich (Ulyanov) Lenin, as reported by I. U. Annenkov in an article entitled, “Remembrances of Lenin,” Novyi Zhurnal / New Review, September 1961, p. 147.

American Bargain Hunters Flock to a New Online Platform Forged in China

Temu, a marketplace with deep discounts and copious coupons, has become the most downloaded mobile app in the U.S.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-bargain-hunters-flock-to-a-new-online-platform-forged-in-china-11671851837?mod=hp_lead_pos11

By Shen LuFollow

Dec. 24, 2022 8:00 am ET

As inflation and recession concerns squeeze American consumers, many are turning to a new mobile app with Chinese roots.

Online shopping site Temu has soared in popularity in the U.S. since its launch in September. The rapid growth of the site, which sells ultra-low-priced goods mostly made in China, has made Shanghai-based Pinduoduo Inc. PDD -1.71%decrease; red down pointing triangle the latest Chinese firm to find success in a country increasingly wary of Beijing as a technology rival.

In less than four months, Temu has racked up 10.8 million installations in the U.S., according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, making it the country’s most downloaded mobile app in any category between Nov. 1 and Dec. 14.

When Kathy Benetti first went on Temu on Thanksgiving, she wasn’t planning to splurge. But as she browsed the site—pronounced “TEE-moo”—she was struck by the low prices. Before she knew it she had filled her shopping cart with 14 items totaling $90.

Temu sells ultra-low-priced goods mostly made in China.

PHOTO: LAM YIK/BLOOMBERG NEWS

A meat tenderizer cost 69 cents. A sweater went for $10, and a jacket that could be a Christmas gift for her son was $15. Ms. Benetti, a 68-year-old office manager at a storage facility in Dartmouth, Mass., said she was impressed that so many items were cheaper than on Amazon.com.

Her order arrived within the promised 7-15 business days. “You’re not getting the top of the line, but that’s OK,” she said. Days later, she returned for Christmas shopping, this time spending $223 for 34 items.

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Shoppers like Ms. Benetti helped Temu’s November sales volume roughly quadruple from October, peaking over the Black Friday shopping period, when daily sales reached $7 million over a seven-day period, according to research firm YipitData.

Though still small, Temu’s fast rise recalls that of Shein, another China-founded retailer that quickly emerged to become a juggernaut. Temu also follows ByteDance Ltd.’s short-video app TikTok, whose viral success and Chinese roots have made it a top target in Washington.

The Temu app encourages consumers to refer Temu.

Temu’s rapid growth stands in contrast to the dimming outlook faced by other retailers amid economic uncertainty. It is competing head-on not only with Shein, but entrenched giants like Amazon.com Inc. AMZN 1.74%increase; green up pointing triangle

Geopolitical tensions and pandemic-era logistical disruptions have spurred U.S. companies to lessen their reliance on China. Many have moved some production elsewhere.

Still, Temu’s growing popularity suggests the business model of selling inexpensive, made-in-China products to American consumers has potential.

Temu was launched by Pinduoduo, a disrupter on China’s internet. In seven years, Pinduoduo, which has started calling itself PDD Holdings, captured more than 70% of domestic internet users, prompting it to seek new markets as China’s economic and regulatory outlook grow murkier.

When Temu opened for business in September, its website made no mention of Pinduoduo. The site now acknowledges its Shanghai parent, though Temu says it started in Boston, sources products globally and runs its U.S. business through a Delaware-based company. A Singapore entity works with customers outside the U.S.

Temu pledges on its website to protect intellectual property rights, offset carbon emissions and encrypt consumer data. Shein and TikTok have come under scrutiny for some of those issues.

The Shanghai headquarters of Pinduoduo, which has captured more than 70% of Chinese domestic internet users.

PHOTO: CHINA STRINGER NETWORK/REUTERS

Temu effectively reproduces Pinduoduo’s domestic Chinese business model, which focuses on consumers in less-affluent areas, encouraging them to band together and score deals.

Temu, like Pinduoduo, liberally doles out coupons and other incentives to consumers if they advertise Temu in their social networks.

Most Temu bestsellers cost less than $10 and are unbranded, though one hit product, a pair of Lenovo Group Ltd. LNVGY -0.31%decrease; red down pointing triangle wireless earbuds, lists for $8.47—40% less than on Amazon.com. After applying coupons, consumers can get a pair for $3. Lenovo Audio’s product page indicates it has sold more than 100,000 pairs on Temu.

Yongchun Xin, a 50-year-old engineer in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., said he was first drawn by the Lenovo headphones, which a friend shared in a September group chat. An hour later, he had three pairs of headphones, a dozen cat toys and a potato masher in his shopping cart.

Over the next two months, Mr. Xin made two more orders on Temu. He now compares prices on Temu and Amazon.com before making a purchase. “Amazon is faster, but I don’t care about getting stuff in two days,” he said.

During the Christmas season, Temu says most customers received purchases within 11 days. The site offers a $5 credit if it takes longer than expected. 

The Shein Tokyo showroom in Tokyo, which sells its own branded apparel on its platform.

PHOTO: NORIKO HAYASHI/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Rui Ma, founder of consulting firm Tech Buzz China, says Temu is applying Pinduoduo’s business model of dangling a few bestsellers as loss leaders.

A Temu spokesman said the company is able to offer low prices by accessing Pinduoduo’s supply chains, generating savings that are passed along to consumers.

Temu offers tools that enable sellers to better manage production and inventory, thereby lowering costs, the spokesman said.

Unlike Shein, which sells its own branded apparel on its platform, Temu is a pure third-party marketplace. Shein, too, is considering adding a marketplace allowing third-party merchants to sell directly to customers, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Pinduoduo doesn’t break out revenues for Temu. Liu Jun, Pinduoduo’s vice president of finance, said in a November analyst call that Temu’s impact on the parent company’s finances is small. Temu didn’t comment on whether it offers cash subsidies to sellers, nor how it will make money.

Ms. Benetti learned in early December that she could earn $10 for referring Temu to a friend. She plans to share a referral link with her sister and will consider ditching her Amazon Prime membership if she likes the items she ordered on Dec. 9.

“I think that’s the place I will be shopping from now on because it’s got everything,” she said.

Write to Shen Lu at shen.lu@wsj.com

4. China stages 'strike drills' around Taiwan, citing provocation

China stages 'strike drills' around Taiwan, citing provocation

December 25, 20227:06 AM ESTLast Updated 2 hours ago

Reuters · by Reuters

BEIJING/TAIPEI, Dec 25 (Reuters) - China's military said it had conducted "strike drills" in the sea and airspace around Taiwan on Sunday in response to what it said was provocation from the democratically-governed island and the United States.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, said the drills showed Beijing was destroying regional peace and trying to cow Taiwan's people.

China staged war games around Taiwan in August following a visit to Taipei by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and on Saturday it condemned the United States for a new defence authorisation law that boosts military assistance for Taiwan.

In a brief statement, the Eastern Theatre Command of China's People's Liberation Army said it had carried out "joint combat readiness patrols and joint firepower strike drills" around Taiwan, though it did not specify the exact location.

"This is a resolute response to the current escalation of collusion and provocation from the United States and Taiwan," it added, without giving details.

"Theatre forces will take all necessary measures to resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Taiwan's defence ministry said China's actions "once again highlight its mentality of resolving differences by force and destroying regional peace and stability".

Taiwan-U.S. cooperation contributes to the freedom, openness, peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific, and Taiwan will continue to boost its military in accordance with the enemy threat and its self-defence needs, the ministry said.

"The Chinese Communist's 'military intimidation' acts are obviously aimed at cowing our people and are not conducive to (China's) international image," it added.

Taiwan has complained of repeated Chinese military activity nearby over the last three years or so as Beijing seeks to pressure Taipei to accept Chinese sovereignty.

The United States is Taiwan's most important international backer and arms supplier, despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are a constant irritant in Beijing's relations with Washington.

Taiwan's military is dwarfed by that of its huge neighbour China. Its air force in particular has come under strain from having to repeatedly to see off Chinese incursions near the island.

The Chinese drills coincided with newly-elected city mayors and county chiefs in Taiwan taking up their positions following local elections on the island last month, in which the ruling Democratic Progressive Party was trounced.

China has never renounced using force to bring Taiwan under its control. Taiwan strongly disputes China's sovereignty claims, saying only the island's 23 million people can decide their future.

Reporting by Beijing and Taipei newsrooms; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Gareth Jones and Barbara Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

5. China Aims to Rebuild US Ties in Diplomatic Push for 2023

China Aims to Rebuild US Ties in Diplomatic Push for 2023

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-25/china-aims-to-rebuild-us-ties-in-diplomatic-push-for-2023?sref=hhjZtX76

ByBloomberg News

December 25, 2022 at 3:42 AM EST

China said it will strive to “recalibrate” its relationship with the US and increase communication with Europe as the country outlines its major diplomatic tasks for next year. 

“We will follow through on the common understandings reached between the Chinese and US Presidents” and work to bring bilateral relations back on the right course, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a speech at a symposium about foreign relations on Sunday. 

President Xi Jinping has sought to mend frayed ties with the US and its allies, holding his first in-person summit with President Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia, last month. Beijing’s more assertive foreign policy has contributed to a collapse in public support across the developed world during Xi’s decade in power. 

The US has been pressuring its security partners including South Korea, the Netherlands, Taiwan and Japan to comply with sweeping curbs on the sale of advanced semiconductors to China.

Earlier, Wang told Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call that the US should stop suppressing China’s development, and both nations should focus on implementing a consensus reached between the leaders in Bali. China will oppose any hegemony and bullying, Wang said in the Sunday speech, without naming any nations.

China’s top diplomat said his country will increase high-level exchanges and strategic communications with Europe, according to a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

READ MORE: Blinken Raises China’s Covid ‘Transparency’ With Wang Yi (1)

Xi Tells Russia’s Medvedev That China Wants Talks on Ukraine

Wang also said the country will deepen mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia, pledging to consolidate the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. Last week, Xi told his former Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Beijing that his nation would like to see talks on Ukraine. 

— With assistance by John Liu and Jessica Sui

6. Twitter Files part 9: Vast web of coordination between tech giant and CIA, State Department, other agencies

Twitter Files part 9: Vast web of coordination between tech giant and CIA, State Department, other agencies

Latest batch of documents claim that the FBI was simply the 'doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship' across multiple agencies

foxnews.com · by Scott Whitlock | Fox News

Video

'Twitter Files' reveals 'cozy' relationship between FBI and Twitter: Aishah Hasnie

'The Big Saturday Show' panelists weigh in on the media ignoring Elon Musk's 'Twitter Files' and being fixated on Musk suspending journalist for 'doxxing.'

Substack writer Matt Taibbi released the latest installment of the "Twitter Files" on Christmas Eve, detailing that coordination between the tech giant and government agencies went way beyond the FBI. In a massive series of tweets, Taibbi insisted that the FBI was simply the "doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA."

The journalist explained that Twitter had so many interactions with OGAs (or "other government agencies" as they are called in the tweets), the company couldn’t keep them all straight: He explained, "Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track. Is today the DOD, and tomorrow the FBI? Is it the weekly call, or the monthly meeting? It was dizzying."

TWITTER FILES PART 6 REVEALS FBI'S TIES TO TECH GIANT: 'AS IF IT WERE A SUBSIDIARY'

Many on the left are sounding the alarm about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. (FOX)

He explained how some of the coordination developed, specifically growing out of FBI connections: "On June 29th, 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan wrote to [a] pair of Twitter execs asking if he could invite an "OGA" to an upcoming conference:"

Taibbi noted that it was an "open secret at Twitter that one of its executives was ex-CIA, which is why Chan referred to that executive’s ‘former employer.’" He added that "one of the most common forums was a regular meeting of the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), attended by spates of executives, FBI personnel, and – nearly always – one or two attendees marked ‘OGA.’"

TWITTER FILES PART 7: FBI, DOJ 'DISCREDITED' INFORMATION ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN’S FOREIGN BUSINESS DEALINGS

Twitter owner Elon Musk conducted a Twitter poll on whether Congress should approve a $1.7 trillion government spending bill. (Getty Images)

What was discussed in these meetings? Usually "foreign matters."

But Taibbi added, "Despite its official remit being ‘Foreign Influence,’ the FITF and the SF FBI office became conduit for mountains of domestic moderation requests, from state governments, even local police:"

TWITTER FILES PART 8: PLATFORM ‘DIRECTLY ASSISTED’ U.S. MILITARY’S INFLUENCE OPERATIONS

Just as Twitter was having so many meetings with governmental agencies that it couldn’t keep them straight, the company was also inundated with FBI requests on "problem accounts."

Less than six weeks before the 2020 election, FBI agent Chan contacted Twitter exec Stacia Cardille about having identified more "Twitter handles which appear to provide misleading information" in them.

Noting how unusual it all seemed, Taibbi remarked of what the latest batch of Twitter files uncovered: "It seemed to strike no one as strange that a ‘Foreign Influence’ task force was forwarding thousands of mostly domestic reports, along with the DHS, about the fringiest material."

Taibbi revealed an October 1, 2020, e-mail, just over a month before the presidential election, an unnamed Twitter exec described being left "waiting for more evidence" when it came to Russian influence claims from the State Department. This person admitted, "Our window on that is closing, given that government partners are becoming more aggressive on attribution.

Taibbi offered his own paraphrase of what this could mean: "Translation: ‘more aggressive’ ‘government partners’ had closed Twitter’s ‘window’ of independence."

The journalist concluded the latest edition of the Twitter Files by noting, "The CIA has yet to comment on the nature of its relationship to tech companies like Twitter. Twitter had no input into anything I did or wrote. The searches were carried out by third parties, so what I saw could be limited."

Part eight of the Twitter Files showed how the platform "directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations. Part seven showcased the FBI’s attempts to discredit information about Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings.

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Scott Whitlock is an editor for Fox News Digital.

foxnews.com · by Scott Whitlock | Fox News

7. Ten Myths About US Aid To Ukraine – Analysis

Ten Myths About US Aid To Ukraine – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · by Hudson Institute · December 24, 2022

By Luke Coffey*

Ukraine is in a national struggle that will determine its geopolitical future: the country will either be a firm member of the Euro-Atlantic community or become a Russian colony. The outcome of this struggle will have long-term implications for America’s global interests, the future of the transatlantic community, and the notion of national sovereignty in the twenty-first century.

Russia is a top geopolitical adversary for the United States. For Americans who believe in strong and secure national borders, the primacy of national sovereignty, and the right to self- defense, support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression is natural. Considering America’s other geopolitical concerns, such as a rising China and a healthy economic relationship with Europe that benefits the American worker, US support forUkraine is an imperative.

Ukrainians are not asking for, nor do they want, US troops to help them fight Russia. All they ask for is the equipment, weapons, munitions, and financial resources required to give them a fighting chance. Providing Ukraine what it needs to fight Russia effectively will not be cheap.

So far this year, the US Congress has voted on three different supplementals for Ukraine: $13.6 billion in March, $40.1 billion in May, and $12.4 billion in September. The cost that American taxpayers incur to help Ukraine is money well spent and will pale in comparison to the cost of deterring a victorious Russia or an emboldened China on the global stage.

As the war continues, Congress will likely pass additional spending. It is in America’s interest that Ukraine wins the war, and that Russia is decisively defeated. Even though polling overwhelmingly shows broad and bipartisan support for Ukraine,1 some in Congress are against further US aid for Ukraine.

Here are the top ten myths and misconceptions about US aid for Ukraine and why they are wrong:

Myth 1: There is not enough oversight of US aid to Ukraine.

Reality: There has likely never been more accountability or transparency measures in place for US foreign assistance than what is available for Ukraine aid.

Take the biggest (and most controversial) supplemental from last May, which allocated $40.1 billion. This bill was 699 lines long. Of these, 110 lines dealt with accountability, transparency, and reporting requirements. Therefore, 16 percent of the bill’s text was dedicated to oversight. May’s bill also included 16 separate reporting requirements to the US Congress for the Department of Defense, Department of State, US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of the Treasury. To date, the three Ukraine supplementals have allocated an additional $14 million for the Inspectors General of the Department of Defense, Department of State, and USAID to increase oversight. There is plenty of accountability and oversight. Those who argue that there is not enough have failed to outline in detail what additional oversight is needed.

Myth 2: We have written more than $66 billion worth of “blank checks” for Ukraine.

Reality: This claim is misleading. The sum of the three Ukraine supplementals totals $66.1 billion, but not all this money goes to Ukraine.

Billions of dollars have gone toward other items like replenishing US military stocks, deterrence measures in Eastern Europe outside Ukraine, and energy-related issues. For example, so far $14 billion has gone to replenish US stocks of equipment, $9.7 billion to US European Command to increase the military presence in Eastern Europe, and $2 billion to address the increase of energy costs related to the war in Ukraine. The billions of dollars allocated for military assistance to Ukraine never leave the United States.

Despite the perception that opponents of American aid to Ukraine create, funds for military support are not wired to Ukrainian government bank accounts. Instead, the US president uses the appropriated funds for a “drawdown” of military equipment to be sent to Ukraine. For the US to give funds to the Ukrainian government, like the $13.2 billion for the Economic Support Fund, the secretary of state and administrator of USAID have to jointly submit a report to the relevant congressional committees on the proposed uses of these funds. There are no “blank checks.”

Myth 3: Congress hasn’t had “enough time to debate” US aid to Ukraine or “read the bill.”

Reality: In 2022, Ukraine has been the single most discussed, reported, and debated foreign policy issue in the United States.

Lawmakers, policymakers, and commentators routinely discuss the war in Ukraine and the US role in supporting Kyiv. Far from there not being enough time to debate Ukraine, the war is continuously debated throughout the public square and the halls of Congress. Also, lawmakers have had plenty of time to read the supplementals—which have been relatively short in length—before each vote. The Ukraine supplemental from May has been the longest one in length to date, and it received the most criticism on the grounds that there was not enough time to consider it. The text of this bill was 29 pages long and approximately 4,900 words in length. The average adult can reportedly read around 250 words per minute, meaning someone would need approximately 20 minutes to read the text of May’s bill.

Myth 4: This money to Ukraine would be better spent on “the wall” or “baby formula.”

Reality: This is like saying that a man must choose between being a committed husband, a loving dad, or a hard worker.

Sometimes in life, one must do more than one important task at a time. The same applies to when governing a superpower. Furthermore, the issues of US support to Ukraine, the horrific and chaotic situation at the southern border, and the shortage of baby formula are not connected issues. When lawmakers voted on the supplemental in May, they did not have to choose between either alleviating the baby formula shortage or supporting Ukraine.

Myth 5: Europe needs to “spend more” before America does.

Reality: Yes, Europe needs to spend more, but it is misleading to suggest that it is not doing much.

The US leads in total financial commitments to Ukraine. However, according to the respected Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine aid tracker, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Slovakia, and Czechia have given more to Ukraine than the US as a percentage of GDP.2 (The United States and United Kingdom are tied for eighth place.) Also, because a lot of aid is unannounced, it is impossible to know how much European countries have given to Ukraine. Of course, Europe can do more, but complaining that it is not spending enough is no excuse for the US to stop supporting Ukraine.

Myth 6: The US should only give “military aid.”

Reality: Some propose this argument to find a middle ground or compromise with those who do not want to provide any aid to Ukraine.

However, this proposal is a half-measure that would only get partial results. The Ukrainian military is not the only actor at war with Russia. As shown by Russia’s indiscriminate use of Iranian drones to target civilians, the whole of Ukrainian society is at war. The war has eliminated an estimated 45 percent of Ukraine’s GDP.3 Even so, the Ukrainian government and essential public services need to function properly for the nation to remain on a total war footing. For years, critics of America’s approach to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan complained that Washington focused too much on the warfighting and not enough on nonmilitary aspects of the conflicts. Now that the US is doing the opposite in Ukraine, many of the same people now criticize this comprehensive approach to US aid. This support needs to be broad in scope. Those who call for the US to give only military support fail to see the bigger picture in Ukraine.

Myth 7: US weapons are ending up on the black market or are not getting to the front lines.

Reality: There is no evidence that weapons are going missing.

A CBS report from August (which opponents to US aid for Ukraine often use to make their case) suggesting that a significant percentage of weapons never make it to the front lines was immediately debunked4 and then retracted.5 On the contrary, the recent progress Ukraine has made in its counterattacks near Kharkiv and Kherson proves that US weapons are reaching their intended destination—and proves that US aid is effective. There is no evidence that weapons recently supplied to Ukraine have ended up on the black market. For that matter, there is no evidence that weapons provided to Ukraine since 2014 have appeared on the black market in any meaningful sense.

Myth 8: Ukraine is too corrupt to receive aid responsibly.

Reality: To date there have been “no high-profile cases of corruption involving donated military equipment, budget funding, or humanitarian aid.”6

It is no secret that corruption is a problem in Ukraine. This is the case with most of the states that gained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since 2014, Ukraine has taken positive steps at fighting corruption.7 However, US policymakers and commentators need to be realistic about how much and how quickly Ukraine can reform during a war of national survival. In the meantime, the US should continue with the comprehensive and strict oversight measures in place for US aid, and when possible continue helping Ukraine with its anti-corruption reforms.

Myth 9: Russia is a distraction. US focus must be on China.

Reality: Russia is China’s junior partner. A weakened or defeated Russia means a weaker China. Beijing is also watching how Western powers support Ukraine, so a strong and victorious Ukraine makes Taiwan stronger too.

Some have suggested that the US should sacrifice its security interest in Ukraine to focus on the threat from China. Many of Russia’s and China’s strategic goals in Europe overlap. Both want a weakened and divided Europe that both can exploit. Both want to eclipse the US partnership with Europe so that the free world is divided and more vulnerable. Russia shifted many of its forces involved with the invasion of Ukraine from its Eastern Military District, so the number of troops near Russia’s border with China is at a historically unprecedented low level. This point demonstrates how much Russia trusts China. The choice between security in Europe or security in the Indo-Pacific is a false dichotomy. In terms of US national interests, these two regions are intimately linked.

Myth 10: Aid to Ukraine puts “America last.”

Realty: America’s foreign policy challenges are too complex to be boiled down to bumper sticker slogans like “America first” or “America last.” Anyone who uses these terms to describe the US role in the world knows little about foreign affairs and is best ignored.

*About the author: Luke Coffey if a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute

Source: This article was published by the Hudson Institute

Endnotes

1. Patricia Zengerle, “Three in Four Americans Say US Should Support Ukraine despite Russian Threats, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Shows,” Reuters, October 5, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/ world/europe/three-four-americans-say-us-should-support- ukraine-despite-russian-threats-2022-10-05/.
2. “Government Support to Ukraine: By Donor Country
3. GDP, incl. and excl. EU Share,” Kiel Institute for the World Economy, October 3, 2022, https://app.23degrees.io/view/ F1tc2gv8QzFCs1ij-bar-stacked-horizontal-figure_3_4_csv_v2-1.
4. Karin Strohecker and Jorgelina Do Rosario, “Ukraine Finance Minister Forecasts 45% GDP Drop, Committed to Servicing Debt,” Reuters, May 11, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/ business/ukraine-finance-minister-forecasts-45-gdp-drop- committed-servicing-debt-2022-05-11/.
5. Blue and Yellow for Ukraine (@BlueYellowUKR), “The @CBSNews report was filmed 8 weeks into the war. Things have changed. ANY info to be misused by certain entities in an antiUkraine context while a genocidal war is being perpetrated on #Ukraine by Russia in a terrorist state fashion, is evil & puts blood on their hands,” Twitter, August 6, 2022, 2:41p.m., https://twitter.com/ BlueYellowUKR/status/1555987500459593730?s=20&t=t0RsGjq MOZAQ3cta1oYm0w.
6. CBS News (@CBSNews), “We removed a tweet promoting our recent doc, “Arming Ukraine,” which quoted the founder of the nonprofit Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman’s assessment in late April that only around 30% of aid was reaching the front lines in Ukraine,” Twitter, August 7, 2022, 8:58p.m., https://twitter. com/CBSNews/status/1556444605012385793?s=20&t=W 8czoegyiBO-4iexSu6q6g; and Sinéad Baker, “CBS partially retracts documentary that outraged Ukraine by claiming that US weapon shipments were going missing,” Business Insider, August 8, 2022, https://www.businessinsider.com/cbs- partially-retracts-ukraine-docuemtnary-alleging-missing-us- weapons-2022-8.
7. Conor M. Savoy, “To Keep Western Assistance Flowing, Ukraine Must Engage Corruption Concerns Head-On,” Center for Strategic and international Studies, June 30, 2022, https://www. csis.org/analysis/keep-western-assistance-flowing-ukraine-must- engage-corruption-concerns-head.
8. Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Julia Bilyk, and Ilona Sologoub, “Corruption in Ukraine: how important is the problem?”, Vox Ukraine, June 21, 2022, https://voxukraine.org/en/corruption-in-ukraine-how- important-is-the-problem/.

eurasiareview.com · by Hudson Institute · December 24, 2022

8. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a 'geopolitical earthquake' that defined 2022 and has transformed the world for years to come

Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a 'geopolitical earthquake' that defined 2022 and has transformed the world for years to come

Business Insider · by John Haltiwanger

A Ukrainian soldier fires towards Russian positions outside Bakhmut, Ukraine, on November 8, 2022.

Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images

• The war in Ukraine was the story that defined 2022. It will continue to shape the world in 2023.
• Russia's invasion "represented a geopolitical earthquake," a former US ambassador to NATO said.
• "It appears that the war will continue for some time, well into 2023," a former US ambassador to Ukraine said.

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When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in late February, it sent shockwaves across the world. The White House in early 2022 warned that an invasion could be imminent, but there was still an overwhelming sense of disbelief when the Russian attack started. A nuclear power was vying to conquer its next-door neighbor. An unthinkable, nightmare scenario was now a reality — the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II had begun.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine was the story that defined 2022, with cataclysmic consequences that have seeped into the daily lives of people across the globe — but none more so than the Ukrainian people.

The war, which is still raging on, will continue to shape the world in the year to come and likely long after.

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine represented a geopolitical earthquake, scrambling the entire chessboard of global politics," Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to NATO, told Insider.

Ukrainian troops fire an M777 howitzer in the Kharkiv Region on July 28, 2022.

Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images

In the months leading up to Russia's invasion, as it gathered a massive force on Ukraine's borders, there were serious doubts about the ability of the US to continue to shape global events and bring allies together. The US was left humiliated on the global stage in 2021 amid its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which saw thousands of Afghan allies left behind as the Taliban regained control after twenty years of war.

The disastrous pullout came less than a year after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in a fatal insurrection, undermining faith in the strength and health of America's democracy. Trump's tenure was typified by a seemingly never-ending cycle of self-induced crises. Meanwhile, far-right, hyper-nationalistic leaders with worldviews similar to Putin's were gaining a foothold in countries across the West. Throughout it all, Trump routinely attacked NATO while praising authoritarians like the Russian leader. By the end of 2021, the US looked like an unreliable partner and the transatlantic alliance seemed fractured.

For Putin, who has been obsessed with Ukraine for years, early 2022 probably seemed like an ideal moment to strike. Russia's military was considered to be among the most powerful in the world, surpassed only by the US. Kyiv was expected to fall within days if Russia invaded. And the West appeared too mired in its own problems to do anything about it. Not to mention, much of Europe was heavily reliant on Russia for energy — Moscow had leverage.

But Putin miscalculated. Ukraine put up a far stiffer resistance than anyone expected, ensuring that Russia failed in its early objectives — including preventing Russian forces from seizing Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a former comedian and political neophyte, rallied the country and emerged as a wartime leader who's been applauded across the globe. Zelenskyy's refusal to flee Kyiv, despite the immense dangers, fueled Ukraine's resolve.

The war in Ukraine rapidly drove the West together, with leaders like President Joe Biden portraying it as a fight between democracy and autocracy. Through careful diplomacy and coordination, the Biden administration helped build a coalition to provide Kyiv with vital support and isolate Russia both economically and politically. NATO banded together. Countries with longstanding policies of neutrality sent weapons to Ukraine. Finland and Sweden, which have historically been military non-aligned, moved to join NATO. The EU took steps toward ending its reliance on Russian energy.

Putin launched the invasion with the intention of weakening NATO, an alliance that Ukraine has long sought to join. Though Ukraine is not a member and appears unlikely to be admitted at any point in the near future, particularly as the war continues, Putin's goal of eroding NATO unity backfired. Instead of debilitating the alliance, NATO is now on the verge of expanding — including by adding a country (Finland) that shares an 810-mile border with Russia.

Meanwhile, the war left Russia with few friends on the global stage and catalyzed an awkward dynamic with Beijing, which has often sided with Moscow on geopolitical issues. The UN voted to condemn the invasion, and Russia was booted from the UN Human Rights Council. Putin skipped the G20 in Bali last month, and has madefew international trips since the war began — only visiting the short list of countries still friendly to Russia such as Belarus and Iran.

"Until February 24, Russia and China declared a partnership 'without limits' based on the idea that the West was divided, decadent, and in decline and that the East was rising in power and stature," Daalder said, adding, "The invasion changed all that. Far from seizing control of Ukraine in a matter of weeks, Russia's ambitions were thwarted by the combination of Ukrainian determination and Western support. Its military was exposed as weak and failing; its economy is gradually being cut off from the global system."

Putin in recent days offered a rare admission that the war in Ukraine is not going well, pointing to an "extremely difficult" situation in the occupied Ukrainian territories. In September, the Russian leader illegally annexed four Ukrainian territories despite the fact Russian forces did not fully control these regions. The Russian military has lost ground in these territories ever since, and retreated from Kherson — the first major city Russia captured after invading — last month. Russia's economy also fell into a recession in November.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the SCTO Summit in Yerevan, Armenia, on November 23, 2022.

Contributor/Getty Images

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the UK's armed forces, in mid-December said that Russia is "losing in Ukraine" and "will continue to fail." Russia is estimated to have suffered roughly 100,000 casualties in the war so far, a staggering figure in less than a year of fighting. Meanwhile, Western officials say the Russian military is rapidly running out of munitions, which will severely hinder its ability to continue offensive ground operations.

Between the grim situation on the ground in the war for Russian forces and Moscow's economic woes, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently said that 2022 has been a "dismal year of failure" for Putin — leaving Russia the poorest and most isolated it's been in decades.

"In contrast, America is truly back. The Biden administration proved adroit and highly effective in leading a Western coalition to oppose Russia and stand by Ukraine," Daalder said. "The West itself has been transformed, now having realized that the world is far from a peaceful place and hard, military and economic power, is as important as soft, civil power."

The war in Ukraine is far from over. And talks to end the fighting appear to be virtually impossible as things stand. As the conflict continues in 2023, its rippling effects — high energy prices and inflation — are poised to fester.

"The Kremlin, which launched the unprovoked assault on Ukraine in February, shows no sign of being prepared to negotiate seriously, even though however the war turns out, Russia will emerge diminished in military, economic, and geopolitical terms," Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, told Insider.

"Ukraine is the victim, and, if anything, its resolve to resist has hardened since February. Moreover, the Ukrainian military has had the momentum on the battlefield the past three months. So, it appears that the war will continue for some time, well into 2023 and perhaps longer."

Though the war has not gone well for Russia, the ongoing invasion of Ukraine will continue to pose numerous, difficult questions for the West and beyond in 2023.

There is increasing opposition among Republicans to the levels of aid provided to Ukraine by the US, which could prove to be a headache for the White House after the GOP takes control of the House in January. As the war drags on and the global economic fallout becomes more pronounced, there could be also be rising calls in Congress for talks to end the fighting — even if it involves Kyiv making concessions. Debates over these issues could add to an already historically divisive atmosphere in Washington.

On top of this, Putin's repeated nuclear threats have raised serious alarm. Some experts have warned that the nuclear dangers posed by the Ukraine war after are "far worse" than the Cuban missile crisis, which occurred 60 years ago this past October.

"The kinds of consequences that the war has generated for the broader global community are likely to continue to be felt in 2023," Pifer said.

Indeed, the global dimensions of the Ukraine war could make it an era-defining fight. "No other story so encapsulates the lasting transformation of the world than this one. It's effect will be with us for many years," Daalder said.

Business Insider · by John Haltiwanger

9. German allegedly spying for Moscow used NSA material, magazine says

German allegedly spying for Moscow used NSA material, magazine says

Stars and Stripes · by Michael Nienaber · December 24, 2022

Europe

ByMichael Nienaber

Bloomberg •

(Facebook)

Germany's BND foreign intelligence service is concerned that a senior analyst and alleged Russian spy detained this week may have passed information shared by the U.S.- National Security Agency and Britain's GCHQ to the Kremlin, Focus magazine reported, citing unidentified security sources in Berlin.

Authorities took the BND employee, a German citizen identified as Carsten L., into custody after he allegedly "passed on classified information that was gathered on the job to a Russian intelligence service," the federal prosecutor said in a statement Thursday.

Bruno Kahl, the BND president, said "extensive internal investigations" were underway and accused Russia of being "unscrupulous."

As a specialist in intelligence evaluation, the suspected spy analyzed information obtained in wiretapping operations around the world, Focus said. A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg about the report.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Friday that because the case involves Germany's foreign intelligence service, it's "particularly troubling." Speaking to RTL/ntv television, he highlighted the important role of the security services, including defending against industrial espionage.

"Everyone knows that trade relations are good and necessary, but we must not be naive and stupid," said Habeck, who is also the vice chancellor in the ruling coalition. "We have to protect our interests and, as you saw yesterday, our services do that very well."

German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said if the allegations turn out to be accurate, "an important blow against Russian espionage has been struck."

"This shows how vigilant we must be," Buschmann said in a tweet.

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Stars and Stripes · by Michael Nienaber · December 24, 2022

10. TikTok admits to spying on U.S. users as effort to ban the app heats up

So my daughter was explaining to me how many people monetize TikTok.

The influencers have links to Amazon Storefront.  Influencers post links to all the things they are "influencing" from all their clothes and outfits, tomake-up to tech to all kinds of things. Viewers can go to their Amazon storefront and order the things they want. The influencer gets a commission for what is sold. 

What will Amazon do when TikTok is banned.? Surely Amazon is profiting from TikTok and all the influencers too. Are they going to protest the ban?

IWile CHina is surely benefiting from data gathering and "spying" as well as influence operations through TikTok, did it anticipate building such a huge following in America and around the world? And did they anticipate the eventual ban? And most importantly will the ban cause a significant reaction from the huge public Tikok following? Will they protest the government overreach? Will there be any kind of unrest?

As a side note Elon Musk has decided to ban links to other social media on Twitter. One of the important apps for influencers is Linktree. "Linktree is a freemium social media reference landing page" where influencers can post links to all their social media pages and Amazon Storefront and other sites. This is likely to cause influencers to leave Twitter.  Is Musk deliberately trying to ruin Twitter? 

TikTok admits to spying on U.S. users as effort to ban the app heats up

Mashable · December 23, 2022

TikTok is entering a world of pain right now, having just released a damning report about its own employees obtaining the data of U.S. users. Since this report comes at a time when a key cohort of Americans wants to ban the app altogether, you should expect TikTok to become a major political talking point as the 2024 election cycle ramps up.

On Thursday, ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, released the results of an internal investigation. Yes, ByteDance confirmed, four of its employees in China scooped up the data of two TikTok accounts belonging to U.S. journalists. And TikTok really, really wasn’t supposed to do that.

The report is emboldening high-profile enemies of TikTok like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, whose bill to ban TikTok on U.S. government devices passed in the Senate a little over a week ago. That bill still needs to pass in the House of Representatives to become law, but statewide bans of TikTok on government devices are already the law in Texas, North Dakota, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Utah, West Virginia, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Nebraska, and Montana.

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

Crucially, the report doesn’t contain similarly damning details about what was done with the data. It likely wasn’t printed out, clipped into a dossier, and handed to Xi Jinping himself, if that’s what you’re imagining. It seems instead, a handful of ByteDance employees who were on the lookout for internal leakers managed to find the user data and IP addresses of U.S. reporters in an ultimately thwarted — but demonically clever — effort to see if ByteDance employees suspected of leaking were ever physically near the journalists. That didn't end up happening, and everyone involved in this effort was fired, supposedly.

But Hawley and his ilk have made it clear that they imagine TikTok is being used as something much scarier: a spying apparatus for the Chinese Communist Party, as spelled out in (to cite one random example) a tweet from Hawley’s fellow Republican Senator Ted Cruz, in which he notes that TikTok tends to "dodge" questions about the communists and says "it's clear they're spying on users."

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

It may be a stretch at this point to say there’s any evidence TikTok is part of China’s master plan to, I guess, turn Americans communist. But is simply obtaining the data a legitimate scandal in its own right? Absolutely.

That’s because in 2019 — when TikTok was an emerging internet phenomenon, and news coverage about it consistently contained passages that raised concerns about its associations with the Chinese government — its U.S. team rolled out some sweeping claims about data security. The most important of those claims is that U.S. user data is kept in the United States and doesn’t go to ByteDance headquarters in China. The U.S. team may have thought that when they produced that statement, but with Thursday’s revelation, the company now admits it wasn’t true.

And prior reports have intimated that ByteDance cooperates with Chinese propaganda efforts. At least one of these reports — and for the record, ByteDance denies it — is by Emily Baker-White, one of the two journalists ByteDance now admits to having spied on.

Another luminary of the anti-TikTok crowd in the Senate is Marco Rubio, who has introduced a bill just before this latest report came out that would ban TikTok nationwide (something former president Donald Trump tried to do unilaterally in 2020, but was stopped by the courts). In his press release about the bill, Rubio is pretty over the top. "We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company."

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

Rubio glancingly alludes in his tweet about TikTok to similar practices by U.S.-based platforms. Indeed, U.S.-based social media platforms do cooperate with U.S. intelligence and help spread positive U.S. messages abroad. Moreover, U.S. intelligence gatherers — in particular, FBI agents — have openly attempted to "instantly search and monitor" social media posts, and used elaborate data-mining schemes to gather intelligence about users. And at least one study of user behavior on Facebook in particular shows that knowledge of this spying affects users' ability to feel like they can speak freely, a phenomenon called the "spiral of silence." If this sounds familiar, that might be because of its similarity to the well-documented self-censorship practiced by members of the Chinese media.

"Banning" TikTok, by the way, is very unlikely to result in TikTok simply disappearing. Instead, it would most likely result in ByteDance recouping its loss by selling it to an American ally like Microsoft, as almost happened in 2020.

In other words, yes, TikTok is doing sketchy things with some U.S. user data, and it may have the power to do a lot more. But banning TikTok — or selling it to the likes of Microsoft, a company with a history of cooperating with spies — would not stop any social media user from being spied on, or influenced, by intelligence agencies.

Mashable · December 23, 2022

11. ChatGPT’s rise heralds brave new world where AI could rule over replaceable humans

April Zhang

ChatGPT’s rise heralds brave new world where AI could rule over replaceable humans

• Artificial intelligence has demonstrated its potential to replace a host of professions beyond manufacturing, such as knowledge workers and artists
• Knowledge is power – only now, it is AI that is the most knowledgeable and its ability to learn is seemingly without limits

April Zhang

+ myNEWS

Published: 1:00am, 25 Dec, 2022

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3204211/chatgpts-rise-heralds-brave-new-world-where-ai-could-rule-over-replaceable-humans?utm_source=rss_feed

In 1932, Aldous Huxley published his masterpiece Brave New World, describing a world where technology is highly advanced and environmentally engineered people get their happiness from consumption, sports, sex, and a pleasure drug called soma. He wanted to warn us of the advancement of machines.

This month, a mixture of the Fifa World Cup, the Harry & Meghan Netflix documentary series and the AI-powered ChatGPT reminded me of his scientific dystopian world. I wonder what Huxley would say if he were still alive today.

He would probably consider the World Cup and the Harry & Meghan series perfect examples to prove his farsightedness. Up to 1.5 billion people may have watched the World Cup final, according to estimates of global viewership. Some 28 million households watched the first volume of Harry & Meghan series within four days of its release.

Although Huxley saw the danger of scientific advancement, he didn’t foresee a world where technology can do jobs that used to be performed by humans. In Brave New World, people are bred and engineered to work and there is no place for the jobless. In this aspect, he would have to catch up with what technology can do and reimagine his world accordingly.

Over the years, industrial robots have gradually replaced assembly-line workers. A decade ago, computer software gradually replaced book-keepers and website designers. Now, artificial intelligence has demonstrated its potential to replace a host of other professions, such as knowledge workers and artists.

Early this month, we were blown away by ChatGPT, a human-like chatbot powered by AI. It is able to give detailed explanations across many domains of knowledge. It can generate essays, poems, love letters and plays. It can also help people with their existential questions.

Robot artist Ai-da addresses UK Parliament in historic first

Although it does still make mistakes, ChatGPT has shown a broad expertise that few humans could ever achieve. Not only that, few could compete with its availability and affordability. Within a week of its release, ChatGPT offered its services to more than a million users free of charge.

ChatGPT is exciting. At the same time, it could also be seen as scary as it foreshadows a dark outlook for humans. This is probably why stories about it often embed an optimistic notion that humans cannot be replaced because ChatGPT doesn’t really know anything. It’s only an AI that is trained to recognise patterns.

It is true that not all humans can be replaced by AI, but many can. That is why some people are speculating that the jobs of writers, professors and journalists are at risk.

What would Huxley say when a large number of humans are no longer needed for work? In Brave New World, he envisioned a social hierarchy that is intelligence-based. Smarter, more knowledgeable people are placed at higher levels. He believed knowledge was power.

In the age of AI, human skills are needed more than ever

9 Nov 2022

This belief still holds true today, only it is AI that is the most knowledgeable and its ability to learn seemingly has no limits. Hence, Huxley would have to make either AI or companies that control AI the ruler of the world.

The thorny issue is what he could do with people who are no longer fit for work. He would have to ensure their happiness so they won’t be a threat to society. Given that the world population has exceeded 8 billion, he would have a lot of think about.

‘No cause for fear’: UN warns against ‘alarmism’ as global population nears 8 billion

A straightforward way out would be soma, which allows people to drift pleasantly through life. It is effective for dealing with depression, anger, negative thoughts, a lack of higher meaning or joblessness. An infinite supply of soma is a must.

Huxley might point out that his work is not science fiction after all since we have already displayed traits of his reimagined world. Tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Meta already control the world to some degree. ChatGPT’s developer OpenAI will definitely join them.

Also, drug use is already prevalent in advanced societies. One recent example is that Hong Kong police seized HK$97 million (US$12.5 million) worth of cocaine and a jobless 38-year-old man was arrested. Clearly, Huxley would be right.

April Zhang is the founder of MSL Master and the author of the Mandarin Express textbook series and the Chinese Reading and Writing textbook series

CONVERSATIONS (4)

April Zhang

+ myNEWS

April Zhang is the founder of MSL Master and the author of the Mandarin Express textbook series and the Chinese Reading and Writing textbook series. Over 20 years as a Chinese teacher, she has reinvented a different and a more effective way of teaching and learning Mandarin as a second language, and presented many papers at language conferences to share her experience. In 2021, she organised the first Chinese Writing Contest, inviting Chinese language learners worldwide to show their creativity and write something using 320 Chinese characters. April has a BS in mechanical engineering and an MA in cultural and literary studies.

12. Inside the monumental, stop-start effort to arm Ukraine

Inside the monumental, stop-start effort to arm Ukraine

The U.S. supply of weapons has never been enough for Kyiv. But for Washington and the Pentagon, there are broader concerns.

By Karen DeYoung, Dan Lamothe and Isabelle Khurshudyan 

December 23, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Karen DeYoung · December 23, 2022

The U.S. supply of weapons has never been enough for Kyiv. But for Washington and the Pentagon, there are broader concerns.

December 23, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — Virtually every day, a line of 18-wheel trucks loaded with weapons or ammunition pulls up to a sprawling warehouse here nestled near an asphalt runway stretching nearly two miles. Drawn from U.S. military depots around the country, the lethal cargo is unloaded onto pallets that will be packed aboard cargo planes bound for Europe, the next stop on its journey to the front lines in Ukraine.

The constant tempo has evolved from choppy beginnings into precision choreography in the 10 months since Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Similar scenes are being repeated at bases and seaports up and down the East Coast as U.S. commitments surpass $20 billion in military support for a war in which the United States, at least officially, is not a participant.

“It’s all a steady flow on purpose,” Air Force Master Sgt. Christopher Mitcham said this fall as he supervised the activity in Dover. “You just understand that you’re at the mercy of what the mission needs.”

Both the mission and its needs have undergone a radical transformation since Russia’s full-scale invasion in late February, when the Biden administration provided minimal support for vastly outnumbered Ukrainian defenders. Since then, Washington has dug ever-deeper into its own arsenal and treasury to supply Kyiv with massive quantities of arms.

This week, the administration marked the historic visit to Washington by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by announcing the transfer of a Patriot missile battery, the most sophisticated air defense system in the U.S. arsenal.

But the initial war supply operation clearly wasn’t built for the long haul. As the grueling conflict continues with no end in sight, it has exposed flaws in U.S. strategic planning for its own future battles, and revealed significant gaps in the American and NATO defense industrial base. Stocks of many key weapons and munitions are near exhaustion, and wait times for new production of missiles stretch for months and, in some cases, years.

In interviews over the last several months, more than two dozen senior U.S., European and Ukrainian government and military officials and experts, some speaking on the condition of anonymity about the strategically and diplomatically sensitive effort, revealed new details about how a U.S.-led consortium of democracies has gone about keeping Ukraine afloat in the war.

For much of the past year, the United States and its allies have been playing catch-up in supplying Ukraine. Many of the systems now deployed there were initially withheld as too complicated for its forces to use and maintain, too liable to provoke Russian escalation or a wider war with NATO, or too likely to be captured by Moscow’s advancing army. Others requested by Kyiv — including warplanes, battle tanks, and long-range precision missiles — continue to be denied as the Pentagon makes its own assessment of Ukrainian strategy and abilities.

There have been logistical problems, as supplies had to be located and donors cajoled and coordinated. Ukrainians, starting out with an arsenal stocked with aging, Soviet-era equipment, needed to be trained on modern Western armaments. Complicated transport routes to the war zone had to be arranged, along with provision of spare parts and repairs of the heavily used weapons.

But each phase of the conflict — Russia’s initial, failed attempt to conquer Kyiv, the artillery battles in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s retaking of Kharkiv in the north and Kherson in the south — has brought more sophisticated armaments into the fight. What began as an ad hoc supply of small arms and short-range defenses today has become a torrent of precision systems with martial names and acronyms — Switchblades and HAWKS, HIMARS, NASAMS and now PATRIOTS.

Moscow’s current attempts to extinguish the lights and turn off the heat across the country have led to new appeals for additional air defenses, something Ukraine has been asking for since Day One. Promised rush deliveries have begun to arrive, but not in the quantities Ukraine needs. “Is it enough?” Zelensky asked rhetorically amid his many expressions of gratitude during a Wednesday night address to Congress. “Honestly, not really.”

But Ukraine’s supporters are also seeking some basic changes in the way the war is being fought.

“We have to remember that this fight, this war, it is dynamic,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a recent interview in his Pentagon office. “When the situation on the battlefield changes, we have to be agile enough to change as well.”

As combat has reached a stalemate with the arrival of winter, and while the still-outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainians prepare new offensives to regain more Russian-occupied territory, the plan is to train them to fight more like Americans.

Over the next several months, tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops — a massive increase from the relatively small groups that have been pulled off the battlefield to master new weapons this year — are being brought to Europe to learn and put to use new tactics against the deeply dug-in Russians in the eastern Donbas region and the southern Black Sea coast.

“I think if we can train larger formations — companies, battalions — on how to employ fires, create conditions for maneuver, and then be able to maneuver like you’ve seen [the U.S. military] maneuver on the battlefield, then I think we’re in a different place. Then you don’t need a million rounds” of artillery, a senior U.S. defense official said.

“We’ve got to get them to that point.”

The battle before the battle

In late September, just days before Russia unilaterally declared its annexation of four Ukrainian regions in the eastern Donbas and the coastal south, Zelensky delivered a feisty address to students at Harvard University.

Moscow was still taking territory, and Ukrainian lives were being lost, while the West focused more on reacting to Russian actions than warding off new offensives, he said, looming down at his audience from a massive video screen.

“When you’re preventing, you’re taking the lead in the situation,” Zelensky told the students. “Preventive action would mean that the world is not ready to swallow whatever the Russians want to feed it.”

It was part grievance over the perceived stinginess of allies and partners by a president fighting for his country’s survival, part theater by an actor-turned-politician who knows how to emote. The Biden administration was sympathetic but unmoved.

During a Wednesday news conference with Zelensky, President Biden said that provision of some of the weapons Ukraine wants could shatter unity among alliance partners who were “not looking to go to war with Russia.”

As the West has become increasingly invested in a Ukrainian victory, benefactor and recipient have often been frustrated with each other. It began before the invasion, with what U.S. officials saw as the Zelensky government’s refusal to take the threat seriously.

Preparations, and the early shipment of some defensive weapons, were made more difficult by the reluctance of Ukrainian military commanders to share their own plans with the Pentagon. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke regularly with his Ukrainian counterpart, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, but did not get very far in the days and weeks leading up to the invasion.

“We were, like, ‘What’s your plan? Share your plan. Let us help,’” a second defense official recalled. “And the Ukrainians were ‘We’ll get it to you. Don’t worry. We’ll talk to you about it.’”

“In the end, they did not provide us with all that much information,” the official added. “They were balancing their own internal politics. Or they had operational security reasons. Or whatever it was. But we did not have full visibility into there.”

The Ukrainians, aware that the Americans had little faith in their ability to beat back the Russians, had frustrations of their own. To Zelensky’s government, U.S. hesitancy made little sense if they were so certain the Russians were coming. Just days after Zelensky appointed him defense minister in November 2021, Aleksii Reznikov, a lawyer who had once served in the Soviet air force, met with Austin at the Pentagon to ask for Stingers, the portable, shoulder-launched air defense system that can shoot down helicopters and low-flying planes. “The answer was ‘No, that’s impossible,’” Reznikov said in a recent interview.

It was not until a few weeks before Russian troops crossed into Ukraine on Feb. 24 and moved to form a pincer around Kyiv that the impossible suddenly became possible. Stingers and U.S. Javelin antitank weapons, and their European equivalents, began to pour into the country, along with more ammunition for Ukraine’s Soviet-era tanks and artillery.

Throughout March, Zelensky continued to call for Western aircraft and a no-fly zone over Ukrainian airspace, something the Americans and NATO found unthinkable for an alliance determined to keep the war at arm’s length. Late that month, Reznikov flew to meet Austin in Warsaw with a new request.

“We had done our homework,” Reznikov said. After studying publicly available information on the U.S. arsenal, the Ukrainians concluded that the Pentagon had a surplus of A-10s, the aging, subsonic attack aircraft known as Thunderbolts. “They can deliver heavier bombs, and we could use them against [Russian] tank columns,” he said.

He asked for 100. Austin, he said, again replied it was “impossible” and “made no sense.” The planes, Reznikov said he was told, were old-fashioned and slow, a “squeaky target” for Russia’s formidable air defenses. “This was understandable to me. It was reasonable. I said okay,” Reznikov recalled, throwing up his hands in mock surrender.

But the rejections, and explanations, continued.

Poland offered to send some of its Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, but only if they were transferred to Ukraine via the U.S. air base in Germany. The Americans said they had no objections to the planes, but that transferring them from a U.S. installation sent the wrong message to Moscow.

Allies later collected spare parts to help get Ukraine’s remaining MiGs into flying condition. The Americans also authorized the transfer to Ukraine of a fleet of Russian-made, Mi-17 helicopters it had originally purchased for Afghan forces but never sent.

In April, Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, visited General Atomics, the manufacturer of Gray Eagles, a next generation of lethal Predator drones. The company said it had aircraft available, but would need U.S. government approval to transfer them.

The administration denied the request, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the issue. Senior military officials expressed concern that if the drones were shot down or seized by Russian forces, the technology could be exploited by Moscow, which has turned to Iran to reinforce its own depleted unmanned aerial vehicle arsenal.

Despite the lack of sophisticated weaponry, and to the surprise of much of the world, Ukrainian forces outfought the sluggish Russians in the Kyiv region. By the end of March, Moscow’s troops had withdrawn, and a new phase of the war that the United States, its allies, and Russian President Vladimir Putin had thought would be over in a few weeks was about to begin.

Moving at the speed of war

After Russian forces failed to take Kyiv, they regrouped to eastern Ukraine behind a wall of heavy artillery. They began to move west at a rapid pace, gobbling up territory far beyond the portion of the Donbas region Moscow had seized in 2014 and later illegally annexed. The Ukrainians were at a supply disadvantage, and senior U.S. military officials concluded they would lose without comparable or better equipment.

But decisions lagged on what to supply and who would supply it. The United States was providing the bulk of the weapons. Other countries in NATO and farther afield were also participating, but the process was haphazard and the hodgepodge of weapons was just barely holding Moscow’s forces at bay. By mid-April, Austin saw the need to impose some order, and convened a meeting of international donors.

“We were pushing stuff into Ukraine at a very rapid pace early on, and encouraging other people to do the same,” Austin later said in an interview in his Pentagon office. “But there really wasn’t a unified, concerted effort to coordinate — not only the provision of materials, but also transport, deconfliction of routes” for the truck and train-loaded flow of weapons from European air and sea ports to the Polish border, where Ukrainian troops picked them up.

With less than a week’s notice, top defense officials from more than 40 governments gathered on April 20 at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, to establish a system to find the right weapons, make decisions and coordinate deliveries. “We’ve got to move at the speed of war,” Austin told the closed-door session. Suddenly, U.S. reluctance to provide American-made, high-powered artillery evaporated and Biden approved the first shipment of powerful howitzers, the M777 155 mm systems, to Ukraine.

It was, Reznikov said, “the first step across the Rubicon.”

But agreement didn’t necessarily mean timely arrival. The first U.S. howitzers did not ship to Ukraine until June. And in Ukraine’s view, there has never been enough artillery to match Russia’s overwhelming advantage.

Shells for Ukraine’s old Soviet systems are no longer produced in mass quantities, and acquiring them abroad is unpredictable. Arms brokers representing Ukraine and Russia compete to outbid each other for the little remaining stock.

A reporter traveling near the front lines outside of Kherson this fall found one Ukrainian soldier nervously awaiting delivery of more ammunition for a Soviet-era artillery piece that was older than he was. The 40 or so shells rolling around in the back of a truck were all he had left, said the 25-year-old platoon commander in Ukraine’s 59th Motorized Brigade who asked to be identified by his call sign, Vognyk. Some soldiers in his unit had driven north to pick up some more they were told had been left behind by retreating Russian soldiers near Kharkiv.

“There is always a shortage,” Vognyk said. “We just have to wait for a good target before we use anything.” He was still awaiting his turn for training on the M777.

Another step across the Rubicon

The next step toward providing more sophisticated weaponry came in early summer, as Ukraine sought artillery that would fire with more precision, and deeper behind Russian front lines. But when Reznikov asked for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, the multiple-launch HIMARS, the Americans drew another line.

HIMARS were in relatively short supply in U.S. stockpiles and had been transferred only to a handful of countries, including Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, Romania and Poland in Europe and, in 2020, to Taiwan. There were implications for U.S. force readiness and legal concerns about the transfer of sensitive technology. How would the Ukrainians be trained to use them, and how would they be maintained in the field?

“It’s not just about what you have” on the battlefield, Austin said in the interview. “It’s about how you use what you have … and whether or not you train on how to use it.” The constant need for maintenance, spare parts and fuel gets “kind of lost on a lot of people. … If you can’t sustain a system in a fight, you might as well not even bother to deploy it.”

It was not until June, just as the first M777s were arriving, that Biden announced approval of four HIMARS systems, and an unspecified amount of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket systems munitions, or GMLRS, the medium-range missiles to be fired from them. Agreement came only after the top levels of the Ukrainian government assured the White House they would not be used to fire into Russian territory. Biden drew another line at ATACMS, missiles with a range of up to 200 miles.

Another step across the Rubicon had been taken, Reznikov said. So then, “I asked for tanks.” Once again, the United States said no, insisting that the M1 Abrams tank was too sophisticated for Ukrainian troops and required too much logistical support to operate. Germany has also refused to supply its Leopard and Marder tanks, in large part, German officials have said, because they don’t want to be the first to contribute a major new weapon system that the United States has not yet agreed to.

Reznikov remains optimistic. Tanks, he said, are “low-hanging fruit,” and German minds would change if the United States “like a big brother,” would supply the M1 Abrams. “One. Just a symbolic step, and after that I’m sure we will have Leopards from Germany, we will have British and French tanks.”

“I’ve got a lot examples with Stingers, artillery, HIMARS and more” about how the U.S. approval process works, he said. “It’s just a political decision. I absolutely understand that all the pro-Ukraine politicians in different countries have to have an internal agenda. It’s normal,” he said.

Told of Reznikov’s comments, the first senior defense official said even one M1 was out of the question. Used by U.S. forces in Iraq, the massive battle tanks were “hard for us to sustain and maintain. It would be impossible for them.” Besides, “I think that the Ukrainians now have more tanks on the battlefield than the Russians do. … The Russians have graciously donated a lot” the official said sarcastically, noting the equipment that Moscow’s forces abandoned in hasty retreats from Kyiv and Kharkiv.

The industrial challenge of a conventional war

With the volume of aid have come questions about how long such effort and expense can be sustained in a time of global economic pain. Biden has committed more than $20 billion worth of weapons into Ukraine, $14 billion of it in drawdowns from Pentagon weapons stocks, and $6 billion in new weapons production contracts.

“There’s the surge” of weapons most of this year, “and then there’s what’s sustainable,” Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s policy chief, told a defense forum in September. “We don’t want to be in a position where we surged and then kind of fall off to nothing. … There is no expectation that it’s going to be what we’ve seen in the last six months … but it’s not going to be zero.”

A new Republican House majority is already making noise that the United States will not continue to write a “blank check” to Ukraine. While politicians argue about the expense, the Pentagon is increasingly concerned about supply — both for Ukrainian forces and for American readiness to fight other potential battles.

Years after U.S. defense officials shifted their focus from more conventional warfare to counterterrorism and space-aged weaponry, Ukraine has shown that trench battles in Europe aren’t confined to the history books. A nonnuclear war with China, or even directly with Russia, is likely to require a steady, long-term stream of the kind of equipment that is now in short supply.

“A conventional war … is an industrial war,” said Seth Jones, a former adviser to U.S. Special Forces who now heads the International Security Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). There are “serious challenges” to current supplies in the U.S. arsenal, he said. “We are really low … and we’re not even fighting.”

An upcoming CSIS report on American readiness, Jones said, concludes that “the U.S. defense industrial base is in pretty poor shape right now. If you identify China as the ‘pacing’ threat, and an ‘acute’ threat from Russia, we don’t make it past four or five days in a war game before we run out of precision missiles.”

The United States has provided Ukraine with air defense systems, from Stingers taken out of U.S. storage, to NASAMS, the medium range National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System jointly produced by Raytheon and Norway’s Konsberg company, and has promised far more. But “unfortunately,” according to Mark F. Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at CSIS, “turning good intentions into battlefield realities will be difficult.”

Stinger production lines had long since been closed down. The first two of eight promised NASAMS have recently arrived in Ukraine, but the other six have yet to be manufactured and delivery could take up to two years.

“This is a very real challenge,” said Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Eivind Vad Petersson, in an interview. “I’ve been surprised by my own impatience with the defense industry because it’s such a different animal to all other kinds of fields. … Just imagine any other business sector, looking at this kind of scenario where stocks are empty and need to be refilled, and there’s a clear political will and need to do this to support Ukraine.”

“Industry would rush to ramp up production because there’s obviously going to be demand,” he said. “But the defense industry doesn’t work that way.”

Though the Ukraine war has been a boon to defense spending, production is suffering the same problems as other industries — inflation, supply chain shortages, a dearth of skilled and willing workers, and general post-pandemic lags. But the unique peculiarities of its contracting systems, requiring long lead times and prepayment; the tendency of defense budgeters during peacetime to save money by cutting back on more prosaic items such as precision munitions in favor of ships, planes and other big-ticket items that please lawmakers; and the immediate and unanticipated demands of the Ukraine war have all played a part.

A shortage of artillery ammunition of all sorts remains a weakness. Although production increases are planned, the U.S. defense industry can presently build about 14,000 155 mm howitzer rounds per month, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in an interview. According to U.S. defense officials, Ukrainian forces have fired that amount in two days during periods of heavy fighting.

One partial solution, discussed by Austin at the November international contact group meeting and at high level NATO gatherings, is encouraging the Europeans to more fully open their own stockpiles and build up their own industrial capacity to take more of the burden. Spain has provided four HAWK medium-range air defense systems for Ukraine, and the United States, which retired its own use of the system in 2002, is sending munitions for them.

Germany has promised to supply Ukraine with four IRIS-T systems, a relatively new ground-based version that uses its infrared air-to-air IRIS missile. But only one has been sent so far; the others are still on production lines.

While the Western weapons pipeline to Ukraine remains open, the back and forth over the next best system — and the urgencies of the fluid fronts of the war — remain in constant negotiation.

“Clearly Mr. Zelensky has made plain and apparent … his desire for additional military capabilities, and who can blame him given the aggression inside his country,” John Kirby, communications coordinator for the National Security Council, said this week. “Any president, any commander in chief in similar circumstances, would want as much as he can get as fast as he can get.”

“We also have no interest in escalating this war in a manner than makes it the United States versus Russia,” Kirby said. “But nobody gets a veto over what the United States provides Ukraine.”

Khurshudyan reported from Kyiv.

The Washington Post · by Karen DeYoung · December 23, 2022

13. Opinion: Russia's war in Ukraine will be long and protracted

Opinion: Russia's war in Ukraine will be long and protracted – DW – 12/24/2022

From Thermopylae to Waterloo, from Troy to Dien Bien Phu, sowing confusion has always been a calculated tool of warfare. The Russian war against Ukraine is no exception, writes Cristina Vanberghen.

DW

What will become of their future?Image: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently stated that Russia has no plans to use nuclear weapons. Initially, Russia’s "will we or won't we" rhetoric about using the nuclear arsenal was used as an argument to keep NATO from interfering in the war.

President Vladimir Putin may not escalate, but to find a way out he would support a war of attrition rather than accept failure. Assuming that nuclear war is not envisaged — and I think that is unlikely given Russia's ability to use other, unconventional weapons of war — we have the clear prospect of a long and protracted war.

Experts assume three to four years. That assumption is a far cry from Putin's overbearing call for a blitzkrieg, which wanted to see a Russian victory parade four days after mobilization. Well, as you know, it didn't quite work out that way.

'The General In His Labyrinth'

At the political level, Putin is trying to influence the UN agenda. But that hasn't worked and he's increasingly turning into an isolated pariah in the Kremlin. We are reminded of the title of a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez — "The General In His Labyrinth."

Putin holed up in the bowels of the Kremlin, sending his unconvincing foreign minister to deputize for him, delivering speeches to nonexistent audiences in the middle of nowhere. Even the Russian Foreign Ministry's repeated attempts to ingratiate itself with former colonial states in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia have not ended in success. The majority of African states, which mistakenly view the war as a European theater and in some cases depend on Russian arms or Russian diplomacy for their regional disputes, have seen through Russia's fake news narratives and its attempts to weaponize food and fertilizer and are demanding Russian de-escalation as a question of regional food security.

Dr. Cristina VanberghenImage: privat

The threat of nuclear weapons reflects the Kremlin's entry into a realm of political delusion that borders on the pathological, a kind of delirium, and is nothing more than the presentation of a narrative contradicted by the reality on the ground. The mobilization of troops in recent weeks are another sign that Russia is losing.

Control of society is faltering

For 22 years, Putin has had an implicit pact with the Russian people: Don't make political waves and you'll live comfortably. This pact is coming apart at the seams. His mobilization order is the straw that broke the camel's back, which is why more and more Russians are either bravely taking to the streets and speaking truth to power, or running to the borders to flee the country. Under these circumstances, a Russian victory is practically impossible.

Putin's mobilization policy is evidently not a solution to his military problems but instead symbolizes a new, though faltering, level of control over society in an atmosphere in which the war against Ukraine is leading to a sapping of central power in Russia. The growing discord across the country is finally weakening Putin's position.

Russia's redefinition of the world order

The fundamental question for Europe in the current war is how to restore respect for international law in all its multiple dimensions, earth, sea, space. The focus is on the stabilization and reconstruction of Ukraine as a cornerstone to the strengthening of prosperity and peace around the world. And maybe that's why French President Emmanuel Macron felt that "one of the key issues we need to address — as President Putin has always said — is the fear that NATO will be right at their [Russia's] doors, and the use of weapons that could threaten Russia."

This is obviously not a justification for Putin's war, but instead a way to oppose Putin's invasion while examining whether Russia's security concerns have any basis in reality. In our view, while this is a reasonable premise, it does not answer the real question: Why did the war start and where is it going?

Russia didn't invade Ukraine out of fear of NATO expansion — the Minsk Accords gave Russia the guarantees it needed. It was fueled by the need to undertake a foreign enterprise to hide or excuse domestic instability and decline — what the great Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy called "waiting for the barbarians."

Russia wants to redefine the global order. And that is why this war persists and why it will be difficult to end. It is impossible to allow Russia to exercise regional hegemony, while maintaining Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Dr. Cristina Vanberghen teaches at the Universite Libre De Bruxelles and acts as a senior expert at the European Commission.

DW

14. Dave Barry’s 2022 Year in Review

Dave Barry’s 2022 Year in Review

The Washington Post · by Dave Barry · December 25, 2022

Magazine

By

December 25, 2022 at 12:01 a.m. EST

The best thing we can say about 2022 is: It could have been worse.

For example, we could have had nuclear Armageddon. This briefly appeared to be a possibility, at least according to the president, who broke the news in October at (Why not?) a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of a wealthy donor in New York City. That must have been an exciting event! One moment everybody’s standing around chewing hors d’oeuvres, and the next moment WHOA WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?

The next day, after the news media ran a bunch of scary headlines, the White House Office of Explaining What the President Actually Meant explained that the president wasn’t suggesting that we were facing Armageddon per se, but was merely, as is his wont, emitting words, one of which happened to be “Armageddon,” and everybody should just calm down.

So we dodged a bullet there.

And there were other positive developments in 2022:

— Millions of Americans on social media realized — it took them a while, but they finally got there — that nobody wants to know how they did on “Wordle.”

— For the 13th consecutive year, the New York Yankees failed to even get into the World Series.

— Best of all, the looming apocalyptic threat of catastrophic global climate change was finally eliminated thanks to the breakthrough discovery that the solution — it has been staring us in the face all this time — was to throw food at art.

So 2022 had some positives. Which is not to say that it was good. In fact it was the opposite of good, specifically, bad. The economy continued to stagger around like the last stoner out of Burning Man. We lost Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Loretta Lynn, Gilbert Gottfried, Christine McVie and Meat Loaf. Democracy died at least three times.

Maybe Armageddon wouldn’t have been so bad.

Anyway, it’s over. But before we move on to 2023, it’s time to don surgical gloves, reach deep down inside the big bag of stupid that was 2022, and see what we pull out, starting with ...

January

… which begins with the world entering the third or possibly eighth year — nobody remembers anymore — of the pandemic. The American public is seriously divided: Everybody who is wearing a mask hates everybody who is not wearing a mask, and vice versa. Both sides are 100 percent supported by The Science.

Vaccines also continue to be a subject of heated disagreement, to the point where — you may vaguely recall this — Neil Young demands that his music be removed from Spotify. This is a sentence we never envisioned writing in connection with vaccines, but here we are.

America faces three major crises: spiking covid-19 cases, soaring inflation and an alarming surge in the number of people who think it’s okay to hold loud FaceTime conversations in public. The national mood is gloomy, and it’s taking a heavy political toll on President Biden, as voters increasingly question whether he is up to the job of leading the nation, or for that matter finishing his sentences.

According to the polls, the two biggest concerns of the public, by far, are the pandemic and the economy. Consequently Congress is focused, laserlike, on: the Senate filibuster rule. This is a legislative tactic that is evil when the other side uses it but good when your side uses it. At the moment the Democrats want to change the rule, so of course the Republicans, led by Sen. Mitch “I am smiling, damn it” McConnell, are opposed to changing it, which means Washington is consumed by a bitter, vicious, nasty, name-calling battle pitting the Democrats against Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are also Democrats.

In the end, as is so often the case with these burning issues that consume the nation’s capital, nothing happens, which is the whole point of the constitutional system of checks and balances put into place by the Founding Fathers, all of whom — and this is a testament to their wisdom and foresight — are dead.

Meanwhile the national debt, for the first time ever, creeps over $30 trillion, which is more than the entire U.S. economy is worth. Fortunately this is nothing to worry about. Forget we even brought it up.

In other financial news, more and more people are buying “cryptocurrencies,” which appeal to investors because the cryptocurrency market is not controlled by the government. Instead it is controlled by 13-year-old Justin Weeblemonger of Teaneck, N.J., who runs the whole shebang out of his PlayStation 5. (Justin also controls airline fares.)

In sports, Georgia defeats Alabama in the AT&T Ram Trucks Allstate Capital One Disney Bob’s Burgers Dr Pepper Gatorade Siri Taco Bell Bowl to become champions of professional college football.

Speaking of trucks, in …

February

… there is trouble in, of all places, Canada. The news up there is that the capital city, Ottawa (from the Algonquin word “adawe,” meaning “Washington”) is besieged by a massive protest convoy of trucks, clogging the streets, honking horns, blocking traffic and making it impossible for anybody to get anywhere. Granted, this is the situation pretty much every day in, for example, New York City, but apparently in Canada it is a big deal. As tensions mount, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a controversial move, invokes emergency powers enabling the government to freeze the protesters’ access to beaver pelts.

Ha-ha! We are poking some good-natured fun at Canada, which is actually a modern nation and an important trading partner that we depend on to supply us with many vital things. Celine Dion is only one example. In all seriousness, the Canadian trucker strike is a significant event that raises some important issues, which everyone immediately stops caring about because of the situation in Ukraine.

Ukraine is a nation that, through poor planning, is located right next to Russia. This is unfortunate because Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man who relaxes by putting kittens into a food processor, has long wanted to establish closer ties with Ukraine, in the same sense that a grizzly bear wants to establish closer ties with a salmon.

On Feb. 24 the Russian army invades Ukraine. Everyone assumes the Russians will easily prevail, but the Ukrainians put up a surprisingly strong resistance (we are using the term “resistance” in the sense of “physically fighting back,” as opposed to “tweeting defiant hashtags”). Most of the world rallies around the underdog Ukrainians and their charismatic president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor who is basically the opposite of Vladimir Putin. (Although to be fair, if Putin did comedy, he would kill.)

On the medical front, many states and municipalities drop their mask mandates as elected officials become aware of new scientific data showing that there is a strong statistical correlation between enforcing mask mandates and not getting reelected.

In sports, the Winter Olympics, held in the quaint and picturesque ski resort of Beijing, attract a U.S. viewing audience estimated to be Al Roker’s immediate family. In a massively huge pro football development, Tom Brady announces his retirement, which means we can finally move on after many decades of hearing about the historic greatness of Tom Brady.

Speaking of stars, in …

March

… Will Smith slaps Chris Rock during the Oscars and is arrested for assault.

No, that’s what would happen to a noncelebrity such as yourself. Will Smith, on the other hand, sits back down and shortly thereafter receives an Oscar and a standing ovation. This incident results in a massive outpouring of media think pieces from media thinkers pondering the significance of The Slap. This story dominates the news for days, receiving far more coverage than the war in Ukraine, which is still going on but which unfortunately, from a public relations standpoint, does not involve any American celebrities.

In economic news, inflation continues to worsen despite intensive efforts by the Biden administration to explain that it is caused by Vladimir Putin, corporate greed, covid, supply-chain issues, global climate change, the filibuster rule, the murder hornets and various other factors totally unrelated to any policies of the Biden administration. For its part, the Republican National Committee issues a formal statement declaring that “rampant inflation places a terrible financial burden on American working families, and we totally hope it stays bad until the midterm elections no wait we didn’t mean to say that last part out loud.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson. She is clearly qualified, so this is an excellent opportunity for Republican senators — who believe the Democrats behaved like scum in hearings for equally qualified Republican nominees — to show that they have more decency and class. But of course this is impossible under our current political system, under which the primary function of government is to gain revenge. So the Republicans get even by behaving scummily toward Jackson, thus reinforcing the growing public perception that both sides are scum.

In other legislative action, the Senate passes a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent, meaning Americans would no longer have to adjust to a time change twice a year for no apparent reason. The bill is referred to the House Languishing Committee, thereby guarding against the danger that Congress might actually accomplish something useful.

In entertainment news, the venerable Rolling Stones announce that they will hit the road this summer for their Drool on the Microphone Tour. This will be the Stones’ seventh tour since 2003, when their physical bodies finally disintegrated into small piles of dust and they were replaced by holograms. The good news is, ticket prices for the new tour will start as low as $150. The bad news is the $150 seats are so far from the stage that the sound will not reach them until after the concert is over.

Speaking of aging superstars: Tom Brady, nearly six full weeks after stunning the sports world by announcing his historic retirement, once again stuns the sports world by announcing that he is coming out of retirement, thus triggering a long-overdue wave of stories about the historic greatness of Tom Brady.

In other sports news, the Major League Baseball lockout ends as owners and players approve a collective bargaining agreement, with some rule changes intended to make their product more attractive to modern fans, including starting games in the seventh inning, referring to runs as “touchdowns” and at some random point in every game releasing a large venomous snake in the infield. Also, noncompetitive franchises such as the Minnesota Twins will be permitted to end their seasons in mid-August because, in the words of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, “What’s the point?”

Speaking of fundamental American institutions in peril, in …

April

… Elon Musk says he wants to buy Twitter for $44 billion, which works out to one dollar for every apocalyptic tweet emitted about the sale by alarmed verified Twitter users who are deeply concerned about the precedent of allowing billionaires to buy major media platforms, which have traditionally been small mom-and-pop operations like The Washington Post and Facebook. Another verified concern is that Musk favors “free speech,” which we are putting in quotation marks because although it sounds good — Free speech! — if everyone is allowed to have it willy-nilly, the public could be exposed to misinformation that has not been verified by the verifiers, as opposed to the current situation, in which everything on Twitter is 100 percent accurate.

Meanwhile, for a few exciting hours, a trending topic on political Twitter, which we swear we are not making up, is “testicle tanning.” Don’t even ask.

In pandemic news, a federal judge rules that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cannot require people to wear masks on airplanes and other public transportation. This leads to a calm and rational debate on the benefits of masks, with both sides citing scientific data to support their positions, and nobody accusing anybody of having bad motives. Then Dorothy wakes up and she’s back in Kansas.

On the economic front, inflation continues to strain the economy despite intensified efforts by the Biden administration to have the president read teleprompter statements about it between trips to Delaware.

In other leadership news, Florida’s combative Gov. Ron DeSantis, always looking for new things to combat, takes on an insidious threat to the state’s families and the American way of life: Disney. The issue is that Walt Disney Co. expressed an opinion deemed unacceptable by the governor, leaving him with no choice but to sign a law that would:

1. Strip Disney of its special legal status (currently it is classified as a “Kingdom”).

2. Require Donald Duck to put on a pair of pants.

3. Require Disney to, quote, “undo whatever it did to the governor’s official vehicle” (currently it is a pumpkin).

Speaking of insidious threats, in …

May

… Americans learn that there is a new medical danger for them to be nervous about: “monkeypox.” The CDC, in an official statement, notes that there are “very few confirmed cases” and urges the public to “remain calm,” adding that “we all have to die sometime.”

Meanwhile parents scramble desperately to find baby formula amid a shortage that has left U.S. store shelves bare, although there are plentiful supplies abroad. In an emergency effort reminiscent of the legendary Berlin Airlift, the U.S. government provides temporary relief by using an Air Force transport plane to fly 35 tons of American babies to Germany. The operation is deemed a success, although, as an official noted, “afterward we had to burn the plane.”

The war in Ukraine continues but receives less and less coverage in the United States as Americans turn their attention to the historic Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial. At issue is Heard’s 2018 Washington Post op-ed alleging that Depp, once the embodiment of cool in the role of dashing pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, has developed a case of face bloat and currently looks, quote, “like the owner of a struggling water-bed store.”

The nation is shocked when an 18-year-old with a disturbing social media history uses a semiautomatic rifle he obtained legally to commit a horrific mass murder. Ten days later, the nation is again shocked when another 18-year-old with a disturbing social media history uses a semiautomatic rifle he obtained legally to commit a horrific mass murder. Clearly nothing could have been done to prevent these tragedies, so the nation has no choice but to wait until it is time to be shocked again.

On the inflation front, food and gasoline prices soar to record highs, but Americans are able to take comfort in the repeated reminders by President Biden that all of this is Vladimir Putin’s fault.

Speaking of fault, in …

June

… Johnny Depp wins his historic defamation lawsuit, with the jury ordering Amber Heard to repay the 783 billion person-hours the American public wasted watching the trial. The verdict unleashes a wave of thoughtful media think pieces the likes of which the nation has not seen since Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.

In economic news, Americans grow increasingly alarmed as the price of a gallon of gasoline and the value of the average 401(k) plan rapidly converge from opposite directions. For its part, the White House is growing increasingly irritated by the way people keep whining about soaring inflation and the collapsing stock market and the possibility of a recession while ignoring all the positive economic accomplishments that the Biden administration has achieved despite the efforts of Vladimir Putin, who — WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP FORGETTING THIS — is the cause of everything bad.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in what legal experts view as evidence of a shift to the right, rules that all previous court decisions were wrong.

The House Select Committee to Investigate the Living Hell Out of January 6th hears testimony, much of it from former members of the Trump administration, that leaves objective observers with only two possible interpretations of Donald Trump’s actions on that day:

One: Trump is a pathological narcissist who, in his delusional effort to cling to power, ignored the sane adults on his staff and listened instead to Rudy Giuliani — which is like getting legal counsel from a Magic 8 Ball — and in the end showed an utter disregard for the sanctity of his office, the rule of law, the welfare of the nation and the physical safety of thousands of people.

Two: There is no Two.

As the busy summer travel season gets underway, commercial aviation is severely disrupted across the nation because — this is a recurring problem — large numbers of people who have purchased tickets from the airlines are showing up at airports expecting the airlines to actually transport them to their intended destinations. “They keep giving us their money,” states a baffled airline-industry executive, “and we frankly have no idea why.”

Speaking of traveling, in …

July

… President Biden, on an official visit to the Middle East, is widely criticized for fist-bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, an alleged human-rights violator who is believed to have ordered the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Responding to the criticism, the White House press office explains that the president “thought it was a different Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”

In other foreign news, Boris Johnson announces that he is resigning as prime minister of Britain so he can spend more time on his hair.

On July 4, America’s Independence Day celebration is marred by a horrendous mass killing allegedly committed by a young man who had an extremely disturbing social media history but was still able to legally obtain a semiautomatic rifle. As you can imagine, everyone is shocked.

In financial news, Elon Musk announces that he no longer wants to purchase Twitter and will instead use the $44 billion to buy two Springsteen tickets.

The House Jan. 6 committee, concluding Phase 1 of its investigation, votes unanimously to reinstall Donald Trump in the presidency so he can be impeached a third time. The committee also announces plans for “January 6: The Musical.”

The nation enjoys a welcome break from all the negative news when NASA releases images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope — the most powerful space telescope ever built — showing, in spectacular, never-before-seen detail, a dead squirrel on the roof of a Walmart in Plano, Tex. A NASA spokesperson promises that the images will be even more impressive “once we figure out how to point it toward space.”

In Moscow, a 7-year-old boy has his finger broken by a robot he is competing against in a chess tournament. We are not making this up. “The robot broke the child’s finger,” states Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, adding, “This is, of course, bad.” The robot is immediately hired as director of customer relations by the U.S. airline industry.

As the month comes to a close, the economy dominates the news with the Commerce Department reporting that the U.S. gross domestic product shrank for the second consecutive quarter. Traditionally this has meant that we are in a recession, but President Biden reassures the nation that it actually is not a recession, for reasons clearly stated on the teleprompter. This triggers a heated debate in Washington between Democrats and Republicans about whether we are or are not in a recession. As always, the real winners are the American people.

Speaking of heated, in …

August

… a political firestorm is ignited when FBI agents search Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s personal residence and party rental venue, and seize classified documents as well as what a Justice Department source describes as “several thousand misappropriated packets of White House ketchup.” Trump declares that this is part of the Fake News Deep State Witch Hunt; his opponents declare that Trump is finally — This time IT’S REALLY HAPPENING, PEOPLE — going to be arrested for something. And thus the Donald Trump Show, now in its 373rd week, continues its seemingly interminable run on the center stage of American politics, like “The Phantom of the Opera,” except it never even gets to intermission.

In other political news, Congress passes the Inflation Reduction Act, which will reduce inflation because it says so right in the title. The act will also lower prescription-drug prices, fix climate change, reform the tax system and provide every qualified American with a puppy. This is viewed as a much-needed win for the Biden administration and a boost for the Democrats heading into the midterm elections, where they could also benefit from the fact that in a number of key races the Republicans have decided, for tactical reasons, to nominate lunatics.

President Biden also announces a massive program to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt. Also everybody who failed college chemistry will get bumped up to a B-plus. As is so often the case with massive government programs, this is popular with the people who will benefit from it and unpopular with the people who will pay for it.

In international news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lands in Taiwan, strips off her pink pantsuit to reveal a camo pantsuit underneath, swims across the Taiwan Strait and single-handedly destroys a Chinese naval base. At least that’s you would think happened, based on the Chinese reaction to the Pelosi visit, which is to almost start World War III. God only knows what would have happened if we had sent, say, Cher.

A Texas jury awards nearly $50 million in damages to two Sandy Hook parents in their lawsuit against Alex Jones, who is usually described in the news media as “a conspiracy theorist” because it would be unprofessional to describe him as “a gigantic talking bowel movement.”

California environmental regulators, always in the forefront of efforts to save the planet, decree that by the year 2035 it will be illegal for any vehicle on the state’s highways to have wheels.

Speaking of states taking action, in …

September

… Ron DeSantis, who we remind you is governor of Florida, uses Florida state funds to charter two planes in Texas, which is not part of Florida, and has them transport a group of migrants from Venezuela, which is also not part of Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard, yet another place that is not part of Florida. This would be a hilarious gubernatorial prank if not for the fact that these are actual human beings, as opposed to Muppets to be deployed in a cynical game of Migrant Whack-a-Mole.

Martha’s Vineyard responds to DeSantis’s stunt by welcoming the migrants with open arms and offering them a permanent home for nearly two full days before having National Guard troops ship them off to the mainland. For its part, the White House blasts DeSantis for undermining the administration’s program for dealing with the humanitarian crisis at the border, which is to pretend that there is no humanitarian crisis at the border.

As Russian forces suffer mounting losses in Ukraine, an increasingly desperate Vladimir Putin, in what observers say is a clear violation of international law, annexes Connecticut.

In a legal development that causes widespread swooning on MSNBC, New York Attorney General Letitia James files a lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements and failure to pay $327 million worth of parking tickets. Just for fun, Trump declares that he’s guilty, while the Democrats call the lawsuit a politically motivated witch hunt. Everyone enjoys a hearty laugh before order is restored.

On a sadder note, the world mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the beloved monarch who reigned over the United Kingdom during its transition from the center of a vast global empire to a popular tourist destination roughly the size of a pickleball court. She is succeeded by her 143-year-old son, King Charles the Uncomfortable, who will be officially crowned next year in a traditional British ceremony-gasm featuring numerous horses.

In response to yet another viral TikTok “challenge” video, the Food and Drug Administration issues an urgent bulletin stating that people who eat chicken that has been marinated in NyQuil “probably deserve to die.”

NASA, culminating a $300 million planetary defense project, successfully crashes a spacecraft into an asteroid 7 million miles away, only to discover that the impact has nudged the asteroid, which previously posed no threat, into a collision course with Earth. Red-faced NASA officials immediately make a “semi-urgent” request for another $300 million.

Speaking of money, in …

October

… the national debt creeps up by yet another trillion and now exceeds $31 trillion, but again this is nothing to worry about because it has absolutely no economic consequences. We don’t know why we even bother keeping track.

Speaking of money: Elon Musk announces that he has decided to buy Twitter after all, because the only Springsteen tickets he could get for $44 billion were “way the hell up in the balcony.”

But the big story in October is politics, as voters prepare to cast their ballots in what everybody on cable TV agrees will be the most historically historic midterm elections since the dawn of time. At issue is nothing less than the fate of the nation, with the voters choosing between two opposing philosophies of government, as clearly laid out to the American public in several billion dollars’ worth of informative TV commercials: On one side is the party of far-right, election-denying, coup-supporting, anti-democracy, environment-destroying, racist sexist homophobic transphobic gun-worshipping proslavery “Handmaid’s Tale” Ku Klux Klan fascists who are literal Nazis; on the other side is the party of extreme radical leftist, anti-family, anti-border, pro-rioter, criminal-coddling, tax-raising, economy-wrecking, godless un-American Communist baby-killing groomer pedophile sex perverts. The choice is yours, voters!

Meanwhile the House Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Donald Trump in a historic legal action that jubilant Democrats say will finally etc. while a defiant Trump says etc. The committee also votes to permanently designate Jan. 6 as a National Day of Thinking About January 6.

In sports, the World Series gets underway in a competition between — this bears repeating — two teams other than the New York Yankees.

Abroad, Liz Truss resigns as prime minister of the United Kingdom after a turbulent term lasting a little under 14 minutes. She is replaced by Rishi Sunak, whose name can be rearranged to spell “Is A Hunk, Sir.” In China, President Xi Jinping wins an unprecedented third term when delegates to the Communist Party congress unanimously elect, after careful consideration, not to die.

Speaking of matters of life-or-death importance, in …

November

...as the historic midterm elections approach, with the fate of democracy hanging in the balance, verified blue check mark media personalities on Twitter focus with a ferocious intensity on the single most critical issue facing the nation, if not the world: the status of verified blue check mark media personalities on Twitter.

The problem is that Elon Musk intends to charge people $8 a month for a blue check mark, which would mean any nonelite rando could get one, which would be a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Twitter Verification Clause. Some verified users go so far as to declare, on Twitter, that they are seriously considering leaving Twitter, although it is not immediately clear what they would do with the extra 14 hours per day.

The verified drama on Twitter is interrupted, briefly, by the midterm elections. For weeks the political experts, relying on Scientific Polling Data, have been predicting a Red Wave, with the Republicans taking control of the House and Senate as well as large swaths of Canada. The outlook is so dire that the New York Times tweets out a list of five “evidence-based strategies” for coping with election anxiety, including — we swear we are not making this up — “Plunge your face into a bowl with ice water for 15 to 30 seconds.”

But then the voters — who do not have access to Scientific Polling Data — go to the polls. It takes a while to get the final results, in part because Arizona has chosen to tabulate the vote on a malfunctioning Etch-a-Sketch. But in the end the Red Wave turns out to be more of a pinkish squirt, with most of the candidates belonging to the Republican Party’s Loon Wing losing.

It’s a good outcome for the Democrats, not counting the 14 New York Times readers who, tragically, drown in their ice-water bowls. It is an especially bad outcome for Donald Trump, who, after most of the candidates he backed lose to Democrats, lashes out at the obvious cause of the Republicans’ poor performance: Ron DeSantis. A few days later, Trump, having established what kind of a winner he is, announces that he is — Why not? — running for president again.

With the midterms out of the way, the focus of professional journalism returns to Twitter, and which professional journalists are leaving Twitter, and where they are going, and whether Twitter will survive. If you think we are exaggerating the amount of attention this topic receives from the journalism profession, then clearly you are not a professional journalist.

In finance, the big story is the catastrophic collapse of cryptocurrency giant FTX, which implodes as stunned investors discover that maybe it’s not such a great idea to trust your money to a company with a meaningless name and an incomprehensible business model headed by the fourth runner-up in a John Belushi look-alike contest.

Meanwhile the World Cup gets underway in Qatar, a small desert nation with no soccer tradition that was chosen to host the world’s biggest tournament by officials of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, as part of an effort to extend the reach of their sport into regions of the world capable of paying very large bribes.

Speaking of scandals: Entertainment-industry giant Ticketmaster comes under intense criticism when millions of disappointed Taylor Swift fans discover that all of the tickets to Swift's upcoming concert tour have been purchased by Bruce Springsteen.

As the month draws to a close and the nation prepares to celebrate Thanksgiving, President Biden, in a beloved lighthearted White House tradition, pardons lucky turkeys named “Chocolate,” “Chip” and — this was a surprise last-minute addition — “Hunter.”

Speaking of surprises, in...

December

...the World Cup, in a major upset, is won by the plucky underdog national team of Qatar, which did not, technically, win any games, but nevertheless is awarded the championship trophy thanks to what FIFA officials describe as “a huge amount of sportsmanship.”

In a historic milestone for the U.S. space program, the Artemis 1 spacecraft, after a 25½-day voyage that took it past the Moon to a point 260,000 miles out in space, returns to Earth to pick up the crew. “From now on,” states a red-faced NASA spokesperson, “we’re going to make sure they’re on board before we launch.”

On the political front, there’s a refreshing new “vibe” in Washington as the two major parties, finally past the toxic nastiness of the midterm elections, look forward to the new year — an opportunity to end the cynical partisan gamesmanship and instead seek common ground in a sincere effort to solve the problems that the American people actually care about, such as the epidemic of illegal drugs that we apparently ingested before writing this sentence.

Because in reality there is no new vibe in Washington. Washington is “Groundhog Day” with Congress as Bill Murray. The only change is that the Republicans have narrowly regained control of the House of Representatives, which means they can spend the next two years seeking revenge on the Democrats. For example, they could form a House Select Committee to investigate the House Select Committee that investigated January 6. Of course, the Democrats still control the Senate, which means they could retaliate by forming a Senate Select Committee to investigate the House Select Committee investigating the House Select Committee that investigated January 6. Thus the legislative branch of the federal government could spend the next two years probing itself, like some kind of deranged proctologist.

And if that isn’t enough political excitement, we can also look forward to two soul-sucking years of buildup to the 2024 presidential election, which could very well wind up being a contest between — speaking of “Groundhog Day” — Joe Biden and Donald Trump. That’s right: The voting public could face a choice between two men who are both, according to the polls, unpopular with more than half of the voting public, and who will both be older, in 2024, than the Adirondack mountains. But that’s the kind of quirky political scenario we sometimes wind up with in this country, thanks to the unique system of government created by our Founding Fathers, who are rotating in their graves like hot dogs on an airport food-vendor grill.

So at the moment the situation appears grim. And yet there are plenty of reasons to feel hopeful about the future. To name just a few: (NOTE TO EDITOR — Please insert some reasons to feel hopeful about the future, if you can think of any).

Thus it is with a feeling of guarded optimism that we, as a nation, reach the end of this disturbing year and, thankfully, enter the holiday season. The festivities are somewhat subdued this year, as inflation forces consumers to cut back; according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Conifer Statistics, the Median Household Christmas Tree Height (MHCTH), which last year was “LeBron James,” currently stands at “Danny DeVito.”

But it’s still the holidays, a time when we gather with loved ones from near and far, assuming the ones from far were able to sell enough blood plasma to afford the airfare. So let’s forget about the year we just went through. Let’s give our loved ones a big old holiday hug, and enjoy this moment.

And on New Year’s Eve, as we prepare, nervously, to face 2023, let’s be sure to have a big calming bowl of ice water handy when the clock reaches midnight, and we say:

Happy New (GLUB).

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist and author.

The Washington Post · by Dave Barry · December 25, 2022

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com