Quotes of the day:
"I do not like to state an opinion on a matter unless I know the precise facts."
- Albert Einstein
"Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company."
- George Washington
"A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron."
- Horace Mann
1. Russia attacks Ukraine as defiant Putin warns US, NATO
2. UKRAINE CONFLICT UPDATE 6
3. PUTIN DECLARES WAR ON UKRAINE
4. Putin declares war on Ukraine
5. Statement by President Biden on Russia’s Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine
6. ‘We are facing war and horror’: Ukraine vows to fight on as Russia attacks.
7. Pentagon studying fallback supply lines to Ukraine in case of expanded Russian invasion
8. IntelBrief: Russian Disinformation Forms Key Part of the Kremlin’s Approach to Conflict with Ukraine
9. IntelBrief: The Role of the Wagner Group in Russia’s Full-Scale War with Ukraine
10. Russian troops pour into Ukraine on three fronts
11. Will the Ukrainians Fight?
12. A Chinese news outlet accidentally leaked its own censorship instructions on Russia-Ukraine coverage: report
13. Putin Is Repeating the USSR’s Mistakes: Saber Rattling Strengthens NATO
14. Ukraine’s Zelensky to Russians: ‘What are you fighting for and with whom?’
15. Putin’s winter war
16. Guerrillas, Revolutionaries, Insurgents, and Militias and Mafiosi: The GRIM Threats of Irregular Strategy
17. Cryptocurrency Is a Cash Cow for Far-Right Extremists
18. FDD | It’s Time to Talk About the Shortcomings of Cybersecurity in the Water Industry
19. Word by Word and Between the Lines: A Close Look at Putin’s Speech
So the question is what are the Russians going to do from here on?
You can use this to follow-on and track their campaign plan activities. It seems they are already in Phase 6 while phases 1 through 5 continue. We should note that this campaign has been taking place since at least 2014.
FIRST PHASE: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).
SECOND PHASE: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.
THIRD PHASE: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the objective of making them abandon their service duties.
FOURTH PHASE: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population, boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.
FIFTH PHASE: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units.
SIXTH PHASE: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic, and secret service intelligence, and industrial espionage.
SEVENTH PHASE: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous air force harassment, combined with the use of high precision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery, and weapons based on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).
EIGHT PHASE: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker's missile and artillery units; fire barrages to annihilate the defender's resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by ground troops.
Source: National Defence Academy of Latvia (2014):
1. Russia attacks Ukraine as defiant Putin warns US, NATO
Well I guess we can no longer say this is a US "wag the dog" ploy. Seems like the intelligence community called it right. Have we entered a new era of hard power domination? If so, are we ready for it?
Russia attacks Ukraine as defiant Putin warns US, NATO
AP · by VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, DASHA LITVINOVA, YURAS KARMANAU and JIM HEINTZ · February 24, 2022
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian troops launched their anticipated attack on Ukraine on Thursday, as President Vladimir Putin cast aside international condemnation and sanctions and warned other countries that any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen.”
Big explosions were heard before dawn in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa as world leaders decried the start of an invasion that could cause massive casualties, topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government and threaten the post-Cold War balance on the continent.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared martial law, saying Russia has targeted Ukraine’s military infrastructure. Ukrainians who had long braced for the prospect of an assault, while never knowing precisely when it would come, were urged to stay home and not to panic even as the country’s border guard agency reported an artillery barrage by Russian troops from neighboring Belarus.
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President Joe Biden pledged new sanctions to punish Russia for the aggression that the international community had expected for weeks but could not prevent through diplomacy.
Putin justified it all in a televised address, asserting that the attack was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine — a false claim the U.S. had predicted he would make as a pretext for an invasion. He accused the U.S. and its allies of ignoring Russia’s demands to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and for security guarantees. He also credulously claimed that Russia does not intend to occupy Ukraine but will move to “demilitarize” it and bring those who committed crimes to justice.
Biden in a written statement condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified attack,” and he promised that the U.S. and its allies would “hold Russia accountable.” The president said he planned to speak to Americans on Thursday after a meeting of the Group of Seven leaders. More sanctions against Russia were expected to be announced Thursday.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the assault as a “full-scale invasion” and said Ukraine will “defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”
In the capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko advised residents to stay home unless they are involved in critical work and urged them to prepare go-bags with necessities and documents if they need to evacuate. An Associated Press photographer in Mariupol reported hearing explosions and seeing dozens of people with suitcases heading for their cars to leave the city.
The Russian military said it struck Ukrainian air bases and other military assets and had not targeted populated areas. The Russian Defense Ministry statement said the military was using precision weapons and claimed that “there is no threat to civilian population.”
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Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Facebook that the Russian military had launched missile strikes on Ukrainian military command facilities, air bases and military depots in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro.
After the initial explosions in Kyiv, people could be heard shouting in the streets. Then a sense of normality returned, with cars circulating and people walking in the streets as a pre-dawn commute appeared to start in relative calm.
The consequences of the conflict and resulting sanctions on Russia could reverberate throughout the world, upending geopolitical dynamics in Europe as well as affecting energy supplies in Europe and jolting global financial markets.
Asian stock markets plunged and oil prices surged as the attack began. Earlier, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index fell 1.8% to an eight-month low after the Kremlin said rebels in eastern Ukraine asked for military assistance.
Anticipating international condemnation and countermeasures, Putin issued a stark warning to other countries not to meddle, saying, “whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to the consequences you have never seen in history.”
Putin urged Ukrainian servicemen to “immediately put down arms and go home.”
In a stark reminder of Russia’s nuclear power, Putin warned that “no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to the destruction and horrible consequences for any potential aggressor.” He emphasized that Russia is “one of the most potent nuclear powers and also has a certain edge in a range of state-of-the-art weapons.”
Though the U.S. on Tuesday announced the repositioning of forces around the Baltics, Biden has said he will not send in troops to fight Russia.
Putin announced the military operation after the Kremlin said rebels in eastern Ukraine asked Russia for military assistance to help fend off Ukrainian “aggression,” an announcement that the White House said was a “false flag” operation by Moscow to offer up a pretext for an invasion.
Putin’s announcement came just hours after the Ukrainian president rejected Moscow’s claims that his country poses a threat to Russia and made a passionate, last-minute plea for peace.
“The people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine want peace,” Zelenskyy said in an emotional overnight address, speaking in Russian in a direct appeal to Russian citizens. “But if we come under attack, if we face an attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives and lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. When you attack us, you will see our faces, not our backs.”
Zelenskyy said he asked to arrange a call with Putin late Wednesday, but the Kremlin did not respond.
In an apparent reference to Putin’s move to authorize the deployment of the Russian military to “maintain peace” in eastern Ukraine, Zelensky warned that “this step could mark the start of a big war on the European continent.”
“Any provocation, any spark could trigger a blaze that will destroy everything,” he said.
He challenged the Russian propaganda claims, saying that “you are told that this blaze will bring freedom to the people of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people are free.”
At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by Ukraine because of the imminent threat of a Russian invasion, members still unaware of Putin’s announcement appealed to him to stop an attack. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the meeting, just before the announcement, telling Putin: “Stop your troops from attacking Ukraine. Give peace a chance. Too many people have already died.”
NATO Secretary-General Jen Stoltenberg issued a statement condemning “Russia’s reckless and unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which puts at risk countless civilian lives. Once again, despite our repeated warnings and tireless efforts to engage in diplomacy, Russia has chosen the path of aggression against a sovereign and independent country.”
European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised to hold the Kremlin accountable.
“In these dark hours, our thoughts are with Ukraine and the innocent women, men and children as they face this unprovoked attack and fear for their lives,” they said on Twitter.
Even before Putin’s announcement, dozens of nations imposed sanctions on Russia, further squeezing Russian oligarchs and banks out of international markets.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has shrugged off the sanctions, saying that “Russia has proven that, with all the costs of the sanctions, it is able to minimize the damage.”
___
Karmanau and Heintz reported from Kyiv. Angela Charlton in Paris; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Lorne Cook in Brussels, Frank Bajak in Boston, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Eric Tucker, Ellen Knickmeyer, Zeke Miller, Chris Megerian and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed.
___
AP · by VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, DASHA LITVINOVA, YURAS KARMANAU and JIM HEINTZ · February 24, 2022
2. UKRAINE CONFLICT UPDATE 6
The last report from the Institute for the Study of War before Russia launched its attack.
UKRAINE CONFLICT UPDATE 6
Institute for the Study of War, Russia Team
9:00pm ET February 23, 2022
This report was produced before Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the “special military operation” against Ukraine. ISW will resume coverage of this conflict the morning of February 24, 2022.
9:00pm ET February 23, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely order Russian forces to deploy overtly into Russian proxy-controlled Ukrainian territory and to the line of contact with Ukrainian forces on February 24. Russia will likely invade unoccupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts shortly after that deployment. A Russian invasion of most of the rest of Ukraine could occur at the same time or shortly thereafter. The proxy leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) formally asked Putin to deploy Russian forces into DNR and LNR territory on February 23. The DNR and LNR leadership also requested Russian assistance to gain control over the rest of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, which they illegally claim as rightfully theirs. Putin secured unlimited parliamentary approval to deploy Russian forces abroad for any purpose he chooses on February 22. A Russian deployment to the DNR and LNR would set conditions for successive or simultaneous Russian military operations to conquer the entire Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and large areas of Ukrainian territory.
Meanwhile, Russian state TV set information conditions to justify a full-scale invasion and occupation of Ukraine to the Russian people. State media denied Ukrainian sovereignty and circulated repeated fabricated claims of Ukrainian aggression. Russia may conduct additional spectacular false flag attacks to legitimize their invasion to the Russian public. However, the repeated US and Ukrainian exposure of Russia’s planned false flag attacks in recent days may lead Putin to begin his invasion without the public justification he desired. The current Russian state TV information operations, along with Putin’s speeches, suggest that Putin may intend to annex all or most of Ukraine directly to Russia after conquering it rather than setting up some sort of puppet state in Kyiv. Evidence for Putin’s post-invasion intentions remains inconclusive at this time, however.
Key Takeaways February 23
- The Russian proxy Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics formally asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to deploy Russian Armed Forces to Donbas, setting conditions for an immediate deployment of Russian ground forces at scale into Donbas and toward the line of contact.
- Satellite imagery and Western intelligence indicate an imminent full-scale invasion with additional Russian deployments to Belgorod near Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, and in Gomel, Belarus.
- Russian state TV implied that Ukraine does not have rights to sovereignty over most of its territory, setting information conditions for the Russian population to support a Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
- The United States forward-deployed additional forces to Europe to support NATO allies and deter Russian aggression.
- US and allied leaders canceled planned meetings with Russian officials due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- The European Union (EU) and the United States are likely leveraging Russia’s unprecedented aggression against Ukraine as a catalyst to transition the EU away from its current dependence on Russian natural gas.
Key Events February 22, 4:00 pm ET – February 23, 4:00 pm ET
Military Events
Russia continued deploying ground forces and rotary-wing aircraft to likely assembly areas near the Ukrainian border in Gomel, Belarus, and Belgorod, Russia, on February 22. Satellite imagery observed a new Russian military field camp with over 100 vehicles in Gomel, Belarus, on February 22.[1] Belarusian social media users reported T-72 tank elements, likely of the Russian 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade, in Mazur, Gomel, Belarus, on February 22.[2] Russia deployed at least 30 Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters and Mi-8 helicopters to Gomel, Belarus, on February 22.[3] Russian social media users observed a likely reinforced Russian battalion tactical group in Novooskolsky Raion, Belgorod, Russia, on February 22.[4] Satellite imagery observed growing Russian armor buildups in Belgorod and Valuyki, Russia, on February 23.[5]
Russian Activity
Russia began withdrawing all diplomatic staff from across Ukraine on February 23, indicating that Russia is preparing to conduct large combat operations against Ukraine. Russian officials stated that Russia began evacuating personnel from all diplomatic missions in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, and Odesa, Ukraine, on February 23.[6] Russian officials confirmed that Russian diplomatic staff destroyed documents in Russian diplomatic missions in Ukraine on February 22. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry (MFA) recommended that Ukrainian citizens in Russia leave Russia immediately on February 23.[7] Russia will likely conduct offensive operations against Ukraine before February 25.
The Russian Foreign Ministry (MFA) threatened an unspecified “strong and not necessarily symmetrical” response to US sanctions on February 23.[8] The MFA added that sanctions are ineffective in preventing Russia from “firmly defending [Russian] interests.” MFA Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed the sanctions were “illegitimate” and targeted Russia’s development.[9]
The Kremlin continued falsely accusing Ukrainian forces of attacking Russian territory on February 23 to legitimize additional Russian military action against Ukraine. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed it prevented terrorist attacks on Crimean churches organized by the supporters of the “Right Sector” Ukrainian nationalist group on February 23.[10] The FSB claimed it detained six Russian nationals that Right Sector radicalized online to detonate improved explosive devices. The Kremlin previously falsely accused Ukrainian forces of attacking the southern Russian city of Rostov with artillery and ground forces on February 21.[11]
Kremlin-sponsored TV channels denied Ukraine’s right to sovereignty over most of its territory from February 22 to 23, setting information conditions for the Russian population to support a large war against Ukraine beyond Donbas. Russian news program Vesti claimed that Russia cannot forget that Russian political leaders created the territory of modern Ukraine by robbing Russia of its “historical territories.”[12] Vesti implied that only Kirovohrad and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts, and the northern parts of Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv oblasts, are legitimate Ukrainian territories, setting information conditions for the Russian population to support a Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine. Vesti praised Putin’s February 21 speech, claiming it restored thousands of years to Russian history and that the Ukrainian nation did not exist during the Kievan Rus kingdom from the 9th to the mid-13th century. Vesti falsely claimed that the Kremlin recognized Ukraine as a sovereign state and agreed to pay Ukraine’s perestroika debts in 1991 under an agreement that Ukraine would return Russian “territorial gifts” to Russia. Vesti accused Ukraine of “blowing its chance” to finally create a state by falling under the control of radical nationalists and the West. Russian talk show Vremya Pokazhet additionally stated that Putin’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) marked the return of “Russian sovereignty,” implying that Ukrainian territories are Russian territories[13][14]
The Kremlin intensified offensive cyber operations against Ukrainian government websites, Ukrainian frontline soldiers, and open-source intelligence (OSINT) Russia-watchers on February 23. Likely Russian actors conducted Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) cyberattacks against Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, Cabinet of Ministers, Parliament, Federal Security Service, and banks on February 23.[15] Likely Russian electronic warfare systems sent targeted propaganda text messages to personnel of Ukraine’s 53rd and 54th mechanized brigades near the frontline informing the servicemen that Russian units deployed to Donbas with Moscow’s approval to attack on February 22.[16] The messages called on Ukrainian servicemen to desert their posts to save their lives—a psychological warfare tactic that Russian forces previously used in 2015.[17] Likely Russian Twitter bots also mass-reported OSINT aggregators that study Russian military movements on Twitter, temporarily disabling at least five prominent OSINT accounts for 12 hours on February 22-23.[18] Increased Russian cyberattacks and electronic warfare activity are leading indicators of an imminent Russian attack against Ukraine.
The Kremlin continued to justify its recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) as liberating the DNR and LNR from Ukrainian oppression to legitimize further military action in Ukraine. The State Duma Committee’s First Deputy Chairman Viktor Vodolatsky claimed that Ukrainian aggression makes it “impossible” for LNR and DNR residents evacuated to Russia to return to Ukraine.[19] Senior United Russia official Andrey Turchak announced that the Duma will form a friendship group with the DNR and LNR parliaments on February 23, further formalizing institutional ties.[20] Turchak said on February 23 that Russia will only send troops into the DNR and LNR if the republics’ leadership requests such action; the proxies requested Russian troops later on February 23.[21] The Russian Foreign Ministry (MFA) denied that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the LNR and DNR violates the Minsk II Accords on February 23.[22] The MFA stated that Kyiv has violated the Minsk II Accords since 2014 by committing ”hallmarks of genocide” against citizens of Donbas and called on the United Nations to demand that the government of Ukraine implement the agreements.[23] Russian Representative to the UN Vasily Nebeznya stated that Russia will not be lenient with violators of the ceasefire in Donbas on February 23. [24] Nebeznya said the West is inciting Ukrainian aggression and urged the UN General Assembly to calm Kyiv’s offensive military action.
Proxy Activity
Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic (DNR and LNR) heads Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to deploy Russian Armed Forces to Donbas on February 23, setting conditions for an immediate deployment of Russian ground forces at scale into Donbas.[25] Pushilin and Pasechnik called on Putin to repel Ukrainian aggression in Donbas and officially invoked provisions in the treaties of "friendship, cooperation and mutual Assistance" that Russia ratified on February 22. Pushilin falsely claimed that Kyiv continues to wage genocide against DNR residents while Pasechnik falsely claimed that Western states support Ukraine forcibly capturing the LNR’s territory. Putin will likely overtly deploy Russian forces to Donbas at scale on February 24 to set conditions for future military operations to conquer the entire Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and possibly support the invasion of the rest of Ukraine.
The Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) claimed that they cannot currently expand their borders without Russia’s help to overcome Ukrainian forces on February 22-23, setting conditions for Russia to undertake offensive operations to capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. DNR Head Denis Pushilin claimed that the DNR cannot consider expanding its territorial control through the entire Donetsk oblast because Ukrainian forces could launch an offensive “at any moment.”[26] Pushilin reiterated claims that Ukrainian forces deployed multiple launch rocket systems to the front line.[27] The LNR claimed that Ukrainian forces intensified artillery attacks against civilians in Donbas and killed an LNR militant.[28] The Kremlin continued coordinating support for the proxies' claims. The Russian Investigative Committee claimed on February 23 that it identified at least 85 Ukrainian servicemembers and officials who committed “crimes” or “gave criminal orders” in combat in Donbas.[29] The DNR and LNR escalated kinetic activity against Ukraine while making these claims and killed at least one Ukrainian soldier from February 22 to 23.[30]
Belarusian Activity
N/A
Ukrainian Activity
The Ukrainian government announced conscription of reservists, declared a state of emergency, and approved martial law protocols on February 22-23 in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin acquiring the legal authority to deploy troops abroad.[31] Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny ordered the conscription of reservists for up to one year on February 23.[32] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized on February 22 that Ukraine has not announced a general mobilization. Ukraine’s parliament and the National Security and Defense Council both unanimously declared a state of emergency in all Ukrainian regions except Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts because similar regimes already exist there.[33] Ukraine’s parliament also adopted protocols for government operation during a state of emergency and/or martial law, voted to increase defense spending by over 900 million dollars, and supported introducing sanctions against Russian MPs who voted for the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.[34] Ukrainian National Police Deputy Chairman Oleksandr Fatsevich stated that law enforcement will continue to guard over 100 energy facilities and other unspecified critical infrastructure.[35] The Ukrainian Border Service announced restrictions on civilian traffic and sea movements and other activities in regions bordering Russia, Belarus, Crimea, and non-government-controlled Donbas.[36]
US Activity
The United States announced on February 22 it will forward-deploy 5,000 additional US forces to Europe and that it has repositioned US forces in Europe eastward to deter Russian aggression and support US allies.[37]US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced troop movements in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Germany on February 22. The 18th Airborne Corps moved a headquarters capable of commanding a Joint Task Force to Germany. The Defense Department noted that these forces are trained and equipped to deter aggression and defend US allies. Austin announced on February 22 that the United States deployed 4,700 personnel of the 82nd Airborne Division and unspecified support elements from the United States to Germany. Austin also announced that the 82nd Airborne Division deployed an Infantry Combat Brigade and unspecified support elements to Poland.
US intelligence reportedly assessed on February 23 that Russia deployed initial forces into Donbas and will conduct a full-scale invasion of Ukraine within the next 48 hours (by February 25). Anonymous US officials told Newsweek that the Biden Administration informed Ukraine that Russia will likely conduct a “full-scale” invasion of Ukraine within the next 48 hours and that a possible Russian surveillance aircraft violated Ukrainian airspace on February 23.[38]Newsweek added that Russia will likely employ airstrikes, cruise missiles, and a ground invasion.[39]Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Russian forces along Ukraine’s border are “at a state of readiness where they could attack at any time” during a February 23 press briefing.[40] Kirby said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not indicated that he is willing to de-escalate.[41] Kirby and Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš claimed Russia moved additional forces and tanks into Ukrainian territory controlled by the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in Donbas on February 23.[42]A senior US official told CNN on February 23 that Russia deployed one to two battalion tactical groups, each made up of around 800 Russian troops, to Donbas.[43] US officials told CNN and Newsweek on February 23 that Russian forces may attack the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which Ukraine does not plan to evacuate.[44]
US and allied leaders followed through on their promises to cancel meetings with top Russian officials as Russia began its invasion of proxy-occupied eastern Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned February 24 meeting in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on February 22, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and wholesale rejection of diplomacy.[45] Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio also announced Italy will not hold meetings with Russian officials until Russia eases tensions on February 23.[46] US President Joe Biden will likely not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as Biden had agreed to ”in principle” on February 21 barring additional Russian aggression.[47]
NATO and EU Activity
Western states announced sanctions against Russia on February 22 and 23, following similar actions by the United States, United Kingdom, the European Union (EU) on February 22.[48] The Australian government sanctioned eight members of the Russian Security Council and several Russian banks and restricted trade with the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) on February 23. The Canadian government sanctioned two Russian banks, banned Canadians from purchasing Russian sovereign debt, and sanctioned the DNR and LNR and Russian MPs who voted to recognize them on February 22. The Japanese government froze assets of Russian MPs involved in the recognition of the DNR and LNR and prohibited the sale of Russian bonds in Japan on February 23. The EU announced sanctions against Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other senior Russian officials, as well as Russia’s Internet Research Agency, on February 23. The EU said this would be the first of many installments of sanctions should Russia continue to take aggressive action against Ukraine.[49]
The European Union (EU) and the United States are likely leveraging Russia’s unprecedented aggression against Ukraine as a catalyst to transition the EU away from its current dependence on Russian natural gas. Russia has previously used its control over natural gas imports into eastern Europe to pressure EU member states and Ukraine. The Washington Post reported on February 23 that the European Commission will announce plans to transition the EU away from dependence on Russian natural gas and bolster the EU’s resiliency against price spikes and supply disruptions on March 2.[50] The plan would require the EU to fill natural gas reserves annually before winter. The plan would also call for a 40 percent reduction in the EU’s fossil fuel consumption by 2030. Germany will likely back the proposal given it agreed to pause its Nord Stream 2 pipeline project on February 22, moving away from its previously close relationship with Russian energy companies.[51] US President Joe Biden announced new sanctions on the company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned Gazprom, on February 23.[52] German Economic Minister Robert Habeck stated that Germany could get natural gas imports without Russia if necessary on February 23.[53] The United Kingdom also announced on February 17 that it would provide £100 million over the next three years to supplement Ukraine’s energy sector and reduce Ukraine’s dependency on Russian gas.[54]
Other International Organization Activity
N/A
Individual Western Allies’ Activity
The United Kingdom increased its economic and military support packages to Ukraine to deter and mitigate Russian aggression on February 23.[55] UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss announced a new economic package to support Ukraine’s economic stability on February 23.[56] The UK guaranteed Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) loans to Ukraine to mitigate the effects of Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine on February 23.[57] Truss also stated that ”nothing is off the table” in a UK response to Russia’s aggression on February 23.[58] UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the UK provision of additional military aid to Ukraine including unspecified defensive weapons and non-lethal aid on February 23.[59] UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries asked UK media regulators to review Russia's state-owned news channel RT’s broadcasting license and officially accused the channel of being a Kremlin disinformation tool on February 23.[60]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains determined to balance between Russia and Ukraine despite NATO sanctions and pressure over Black Sea access.[61] Erdogan reiterated that Turkey does not accept Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR), called for a return to the Minsk II Accords, and stated that Turkey follows a ”constructive approach” within NATO in a February 23 phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Erdogan called for swift and decisive NATO action, criticized Western leaders’ previous ineffective diplomatic efforts to meet with the Kremlin, and stated that Turkey cannot abandon its ties with Russia or Ukraine due to Turkey’s strong economic, military, and political ties with both states in a February 23 interview.[62] The Turkish government has so far refrained from imposing sanctions on Russia.[63]
Separately, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar told Reuters on February 23 that Ukraine may ask Turkey to prevent the passage of Russian vessels into the Black Sea if Russia launches a full-scale invasion.[64] Turkey controls and regulates passage through its two straits between the Mediterranean and Black Seas under the 1936 Montreux Convention. The Convention guarantees passage to warships and civilian vessels within certain regulations “during peacetime.”[65] However, Turkey can choose to close the straits to all foreign warships in “war time or when it is threatened by aggression.” Ankara will likely allow the passage of Russian vessels throughout Russia’s ongoing conflict with Ukraine, barring direct Russian aggression against Turkey or NATO, to avoid a direct and costly confrontation with Russia.
Other International Activity
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying criticized Western sanctions on Russia, stated that China will not impose sanctions, and rejected any comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan on February 23.[66] Chunying criticized Western sanctions as “illegal” and called for international dialogue and negotiations instead. Chunying added that China sees sanctions-oriented policies as ineffective and that previous US sanctions caused “serious economic difficulties and impacted people's livelihood” and the United States should not undermine the rights and interests of China and other parties. Chunying rejected any comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan, claiming Taiwan has always been an “inalienable part” of China. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had implied that a Russian takeover of Ukraine would allow China to conclude that “might makes right” and endanger Taiwan during a February 19 speech. [67]
[23] The MFA echoed February 22 statements from Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich, who said that Ukraine has failed to comply with the Minsk II Accords for several years. Lukashevich also said that Russia has made consistent efforts to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means and that the recognition was a ”forced decision.” https://www.mid dot ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1800106/
[28] https://tass dot ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/13818843; https://lug-info dot com/ru/news/zhiloj-dom-v-pan-kovke-poluchil-povrezhdeniya-pri-obstrele-so-storony-vsu-sckk?preview=890511956cf7-55ea-a9f4-a629-ba84a863; https://tass dot ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/13823339
[46] https://www.ansa dot it/english/news/politics/2022/02/23/no-bilateral-russia-talks-unless-tension-eases-di-maio_f8ef5d05-4f32-441d-b1d4-a7912bbc39c3.html
3. PUTIN DECLARES WAR ON UKRAINE
From The Kyiv Independent. How long will it be able to continue publishing?
PUTIN DECLARES WAR ON UKRAINE
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia will conduct “a special military operation” to “demilitarize” Ukraine, effectively declaring a major war on the country.
In a televized announcement that aired just before 5 a.m. Kyiv time, Putin said that NATO was threatening the existence of Russia and that to protect it, he is sending Russian military into Ukraine.
Immediately after, at around 05:00 a.m. Kyiv time, people in many Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv and Odesa, began reporting hearing loud explosions.
Russian forces began shelling Ukraine, namely Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Luhansk, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, and Kyiv oblasts. At the airfields of Melitopol and Ozerne village of Zhytomyr oblast one plane was blown up. Information about the shelling is coming constantly.
“There have just been missile strikes on the centers of the military administration, airfields, military depots, near Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. There is shelling of our borders” Anton Geraschenko, an adviser for the Interior Minister of Ukraine wrote on Facebook.
Ukraine introduced martial law, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an impromptu video address he released on Facebook. Zelensky also said he held a phone call with US President Joe Biden. “The United States already began consolidating international support,” Ukraine’s President added.
As of 06:00 a.m., the SES received information about the detonation of the locator at the airport in Odessa, on the territory of the military unit in Ananyiv town.
A fire took place in Revne village of Kyiv oblast – territory of a military unit and two billboards in the central part of the city were blown up in Kyiv.
As of 06:10 a.m., information was received about the explosion in Kharkiv near the station, while surveillance cameras recorded the crossing of Russian troops on the border of Sumy and Kyiv oblasts (exclusion zone). The command and control point of the Nizhyn airfield was blown up.
State Border Guard of Ukraine said Ukraine’s border with Belarus and Russia was attacked “Russian troops supported by Belarus.”
Russian and Belarusian forces attack border units, border patrols and checkpoints with artillery, heavy equipment and small arms. This is happening within Luhansk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Zhytomyr oblasts, and also in Russia-occupied Crimea.
Ukraine’s forces shot down 5 enemy planes and one helicopter in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “The combined forces give a worthy rebuff to the armed forces of the Russian Federation. Military units in their positions. The enemy suffers losses,” the Facebook statement said.
At the same time, Kyiv City Administration said there was an air threat in Kyiv and urged Kyivans to immediately find shelter when they hear sirens. Users on social media have posted videos of air raid sirens already sounding in Kyiv.
Kyiv City Council also said schools and kindergartens are now closed, while all medical infrastructure begins operating on high alert.
Parts of Kyiv are now collapsing under traffic, as many flee Kyiv after Russia’s airstrikes.
In Luhansk oblast, two villages – Horodyshche and Milove – were taken over by Russian forces.
The Kremlin’s declaration of war comes days after Russia recognized its enclaves in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast and Donetsk Oblast as independent states on Feb. 21. Russia has been occupying territories in eastern Ukraine and the peninsula of Crimea since 2014.
Following the “recognition,” the Kremlin-installed leaders of the occupied areas of eastern Ukraine requested that Russia provides military protection from the supposed attack of the Ukrainian army, of which there has been no evidence.
Responding to their address, Putin announced the beginning of the “special military operation.”
Biden said he will be meeting with leaders of the G7 on Feb. 24, adding that the US and its allies will be imposing “severe sanctions” on Russia. He also said Russia’s attack on Ukraine was “unprovoked and unjustified”.
Author:
4. Putin declares war on Ukraine
Excerpts:
Hours before Putin’s war declaration, President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an impassioned address aimed at the Russian people, in which he invoked Ukrainian resistance to the Nazis during World War II. “You are told we are Nazis,” he said. “Can a people support Nazis after giving eight million lives for the victory over Nazism? Tell my grandpa, who went through the war in the infantry of the Soviet Army and died a colonel in independent Ukraine.”
Putin has taken a grudge that dates to the Soviet collapse – a humiliation over the loss of Russian influence and anger over the eastward expansion of NATO – and built it into something profoundly dangerous.
Putin declares war on Ukraine
After a long military buildup, the Russian leader ignores warnings from the West and launches a “special military operation.”
Tom Nagorski
Global Editor
The formal announcement came at dawn Thursday in Moscow – just as the United Nations Security Council was in an emergency session in New York. President Vladimir Putin said he was launching a “special military operation” in Ukraine, aimed at the “demilitarization and denazification” of the country. It was, he said, a response to an urgent call for help from the Russian-backed separatist enclaves he had recognized only three days before.
Putin demanded that Ukrainian soldiers abandon their weapons and said Russia’s plans “do not include occupying Ukrainian territory.” But it was clear in the early hours that the assault would reach well beyond those separatist regions; Kyiv, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities were bombed.
Putin warned other countries not to “interfere” with the Russian invasion.
“Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, to create threats for our country and our people, must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history,” Putin said.
The Russian leader had laid the military groundwork for war months before, and made his rhetorical case earlier this week, in a blistering address from the Kremlin Monday night. It was a catalog of grievances built up over decades. Almost none of them were grounded in fact.
Ukraine was a creation of the Bolshevik revolution, Putin said. It was largely Russian, and had been so for centuries. Its government was illegitimate. The United States and the West had pushed an anti-Russian agenda in Ukraine, from the moment the Soviet Union ceased to exist, on Christmas Day 1991.
The Russian leader went so far as to warn that weapons of mass destruction might be stationed in Ukraine. And that Ukraine’s leaders were responsible for a genocide against Russians in eastern Ukraine – a charge he repeated this morning.
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The conditions he put forth Monday – that the authorities in Kiev “must stop their hostilities” – were impossible to meet, as it was Russia that was instigating the hostilities. As for the claim that Russia’s military operation was required for the “denazification” of Ukraine, that country’s president had his own answer.
Hours before Putin’s war declaration, President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an impassioned address aimed at the Russian people, in which he invoked Ukrainian resistance to the Nazis during World War II. “You are told we are Nazis,” he said. “Can a people support Nazis after giving eight million lives for the victory over Nazism? Tell my grandpa, who went through the war in the infantry of the Soviet Army and died a colonel in independent Ukraine.”
Putin has taken a grudge that dates to the Soviet collapse – a humiliation over the loss of Russian influence and anger over the eastward expansion of NATO – and built it into something profoundly dangerous.
5. Statement by President Biden on Russia’s Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine
Statement by President Biden on Russia’s Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine
FEBRUARY 23, 2022
•
The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces. President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.
I will be monitoring the situation from the White House this evening and will continue to get regular updates from my national security team. Tomorrow, I will meet with my G7 counterparts in the morning and then speak to the American people to announce the further consequences the United States and our Allies and partners will impose on Russia for this needless act of aggression against Ukraine and global peace and security. We will also coordinate with our NATO Allies to ensure a strong, united response that deters any aggression against the Alliance. Tonight, Jill and I are praying for the brave and proud people of Ukraine.
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6. ‘We are facing war and horror’: Ukraine vows to fight on as Russia attacks.
If we are not going to decisively intervene with conventional forces (I would think NATO/US air power could inflict tremendous damage on RUssian military forces) we have to ask how much support are we willing to provide to the resistance? Do we have the support mechanisms in place and can we get weapons, ammunition, and equipment to the resistance?
The decision to not provide air defense systems to Ukraine is one that is going to haunt us.
Another question is if we are going to go on the offensive in the cyber domain? Will we unleash the dogs of cyber war?
‘We are facing war and horror’: Ukraine vows to fight on as Russia attacks.
Months of uncertainty over whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would send his forces into Ukraine were laid to rest Thursday as the Russian military launched a wide-ranging attack, casting aside international condemnation and sanctions while warning other countries that attempts to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen.”
A fog of war remained over the country as the American East Coast awoke Thursday morning, and conflicting reports sprouted on social media regarding fighting at various locations. Ukraine’s leadership said at least 40 people have been killed so far in what it called a “full-scale war” targeting the country from the east, north and south.
But as morning broke in Ukraine, big explosions were heard in the capital Kyiv, as well as Kharkiv and Odesa as world leaders decried the start of an invasion that could lead to massive deaths, a toppling of Ukraine’s democratically elected government and a threat to Europe’s post-Cold War balance.
A Ukrainian presidential adviser said that Russian forces have launched an attack on Ukraine from the north, east and south. The adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said “the Ukrainian military is fighting hard.”
Podolyak said Thursday that “our army is fighting back inflicting significant losses to the enemy.” He said that there have been civilian casualties, but didn’t give details.
He said that “Ukraine now needs a greater and very specific support from the world — military-technical, financial as well as tough sanctions against Russia,” he said.
Ukraine’s leadership said at least 40 people have been killed so far in what it called a “full-scale war” targeting the country from the east, north and south.
Ukrainian border guards released footage of what they said were Russian military vehicles moving in, and big explosions were heard in the capital Kyiv, Kharkiv in the east and Odesa in the west. As the Russian military claimed to have wiped out Ukraine’s entire air defenses in a matter of hours, Ukrainians fled some cities and European authorities declared Ukrainian air space an active conflict zone.
A Ukrainian soldier talks with her comrades sitting in a shelter at the line of separation between Ukraine-held territory and rebel-held territory near Svitlodarsk, eastern Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)
‘All-out defense mode’
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defense minster, Oleksiy Reznikov, called on citizens looking to fight the Russians to enroll with the country’s territorial defense units, The New York Times reported.
“The enemy is attacking, but our army is indestructible,” he said. “Ukraine is moving into all-out defense mode.”
Ukrainians have started fleeing some cities and the Russian military claimed it had taken out all of the country’s air defenses and air bases within hours of the invasion’s commencement.
Security camera footage showed a line of Russian military vehicles crossing into Ukraine from Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared martial law and said Russia was targeting the country’s military infrastructure.
Zelenskyy cut diplomatic ties with Moscow and declared martial law, saying Russia has targeted Ukraine’s military infrastructure. Ukrainians who had long braced for the prospect of an assault were urged to stay home and not to panic even as Ukrainian authorities reported artillery barrages and airstrikes on targets around the country.
An adviser to Ukraine’s president, Oleksii Arestovich, said about 40 people have been killed so far in the Russian attack and several dozen wounded. He didn’t specify whether the casualties included civilians.
“The Ukrainian military is waging hard battles, repelling attacks in Donbas and other regions in the east, north and south,” Zelenskyy said at a briefing. He said the Ukrainian authorities will hand weapons to all those willing to defend the country.
Citizens were urged to stay home and not panic, even as the country’s border guard agency reported an artillery barrage by Russian troops from neighboring Belarus.
The world reacts
President Joe Biden has pledged tough sanctions to punish Russia, even as Putin asserted in a televised address before the invasion that the attack was meant to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine — a false claim the U.S. had predicted he would make to justify the military actions.
Japan, Italy, Spain, Australia and France all condemned the attack Thursday, and Latvia called for an invocation of NATO’s Article 4, which allows for any member to call a group consultation when they think “the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.”
If Russia takes the entirety of Ukraine, it would immediately abut several NATO member states.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has convened a meeting of NATO ambassadors to assess the invasion of Ukraine.
The meeting Thursday morning will “address the situation in Ukraine and the consequences of Russia’s unprovoked attack.”
Earlier, Stoltenberg had already condemned Russia’s invasion. “Despite our repeated warnings and tireless efforts to engage in diplomacy, Russia has chosen the path of aggression,” Stoltenberg said.
He also warned Moscow that the alliance will “do all it takes to protect and defend” NATO members.
He called the invasion a “grave breach of international law, and a serious threat to Euro-Atlantic security. I call on Russia to cease its military action immediately.”
People wave a huge Ukrainian national flag during an action in support of country in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022. (Andriy Andriyenko/AP)
The European Union is planning the “strongest, the harshest package” of sanctions it has ever considered at an emergency summit Thursday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “the target is the stability in Europe and the whole of the international peace order, and we will hold President (Vladimir) Putin accountable for that.”
“We will present a package of massive and targeted sanctions to European leaders for approval,” she said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called it the “strongest, the harshest package” ever considered.
“A major nuclear power has attacked a neighbor country and is threatening reprisals of any other states that may come to the rescue,” Borrell said. “This is not only the greatest violation of international law, it’s a violation of the basic principles of human co-existence. It’s costing many lives with unknown consequences ahead of us. The European Union will respond in the strongest possible terms.”
Putin defiant
Putin accuses the United States and its allies of ignoring Russia’s demands to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and other security guarantees.
He also claimed that Russia does not intend to occupy Ukraine but will move to “demilitarize” it and bring those who committed crimes to justice.
But as the attack commenced, some analysts questioned Putin’s claim that the Russian military would hold back.
Appearing on CNN, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark urged Ukrainian’s outmatched forces to consolidate in cities before the Russians arrived.
“They’re certainly going to need support, and the West needs to give them that support,” said Clark, who served as NATO Supreme Allied Commander from 1997 to 2000.
In a written statement Wednesday night in the United States, Biden condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified attack” and promised that the United States and its allies would “hold Russia accountable.”
Biden is slated to speak to Americans Thursday following a meeting of the Group of Seven leaders and more sanctions against Russia are expected to be announced Thursday as well.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the assault as a “full-scale invasion” and said Ukraine will “defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”
In the capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko advised residents to stay home unless they are involved in critical work and urged them to prepare go-bags with necessities and documents if they need to evacuate.
People walk past the consequences of Russian shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. Russian troops have launched their anticipated attack on Ukraine. Big explosions were heard before dawn in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa as world leaders decried the start of an Russian invasion that could cause massive casualties and topple Ukraine's democratically elected government. (AP Photo/Mikhail Palinchak)
‘What could be worse?’
An Associated Press photographer in Mariupol reported hearing explosions and seeing dozens of people with suitcases heading for their cars to leave the city.
“We are facing a war and horror. What could be worse?” 64-year-old Liudmila Gireyeva said in Kyiv. She planned to head to the western city of Lviv and then to try to move to Poland to join her daughter.
Putin “will be damned by history, and Ukrainians are damning him,” she said.
Russian claims about knocking out Ukrainian air defenses and Ukrainian claims to have shot down several Russian aircraft could not immediately be verified.
The Ukrainian air defense system and air force date back to the Soviet era and are dwarfed by Russia’s massive air power and its inventory of precision weapons.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it was not targeting cities, but using precision weapons and claimed that “there is no threat to civilian population.”
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Facebook that the Russian military had launched missile strikes on Ukrainian military command facilities, air bases and military depots in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro.
After the initial explosions in Kyiv, people could be heard shouting in the streets. Then a sense of normality returned, with cars circulating and people walking in the streets as a pre-dawn commute appeared to start in relative calm.
Later in the day, photos emerged of lines forming outside Kyiv grocery stores.
Markets shudder
The consequences of the conflict and resulting sanctions on Russia could reverberate throughout the world, upending geopolitical dynamics in Europe as well as affecting energy supplies in Europe and jolting global financial markets.
Asian stock markets plunged and oil prices surged as the attack began. Earlier, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index fell 1.8% to an eight-month low after the Kremlin said rebels in eastern Ukraine asked for military assistance.
Anticipating international condemnation and countermeasures, Putin issued a stark warning to other countries not to meddle.
“Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to the consequences you have never seen in history,” he said.
Putin urged Ukrainian servicemen to “immediately put down arms and go home.”
Russian armored vehicles are loaded onto railway platforms at a railway station not far from Russia-Ukraine border, in the Rostov-on-Don region, Russia, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022. (AP Photo)
Nuclear threats
In a stark reminder of Russia’s nuclear power, Putin warned that “no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to the destruction and horrible consequences for any potential aggressor.” He emphasized that Russia is “one of the most potent nuclear powers and also has a certain edge in a range of state-of-the-art weapons.”
Though the U.S. on Tuesday announced the repositioning of forces around the Baltics, Biden has said he will not send in troops to fight Russia.
Putin announced the military operation after the Kremlin said rebels in eastern Ukraine asked Russia for military assistance to help fend off Ukrainian “aggression,” an announcement that the White House said was a “false flag” operation by Moscow to offer up a pretext for an invasion.
Putin’s announcement came just hours after the Ukrainian president rejected Moscow’s claims that his country poses a threat to Russia and made a passionate, last-minute plea for peace.
“The people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine want peace,” Zelenskyy said in an emotional overnight address, speaking in Russian in a direct appeal to Russian citizens. “But if we come under attack, if we face an attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives and lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. When you attack us, you will see our faces, not our backs.”
Zelenskyy said he asked to arrange a call with Putin late Wednesday, but the Kremlin did not respond.
In an apparent reference to Putin’s move to authorize the deployment of the Russian military to “maintain peace” in eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy warned that “this step could mark the start of a big war on the European continent.”
“Any provocation, any spark could trigger a blaze that will destroy everything,” he said.
He challenged the Russian propaganda claims, saying that “you are told that this blaze will bring freedom to the people of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people are free.”
At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by Ukraine because of the imminent threat of a Russian invasion, members still unaware of Putin’s announcement appealed to him to stop an attack.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the meeting, just before the announcement, telling Putin: “Stop your troops from attacking Ukraine. Give peace a chance. Too many people have already died.”
Even before Putin’s announcement, dozens of nations imposed sanctions on Russia, further squeezing Russian oligarchs and banks out of international markets.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has shrugged off the sanctions, saying that “Russia has proven that, with all the costs of the sanctions, it is able to minimize the damage.”
The threat of war has already shredded Ukraine’s economy and raised the specter of massive casualties, energy shortages across Europe and global economic chaos.
Karmanau and Heintz reported from Kyiv. Angela Charlton in Paris; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Lorne Cook in Brussels, Frank Bajak in Boston, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Eric Tucker, Ellen Knickmeyer, Zeke Miller, Chris Megerian and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed.
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.
7. Pentagon studying fallback supply lines to Ukraine in case of expanded Russian invasion
The question is what prior preparations have we made? I know we are not just "studying" the problem. We certainly have prepared the environment for this eventuality so that we can continue to supply and support Ukraine.
Pentagon studying fallback supply lines to Ukraine in case of expanded Russian invasion
U.S. officials have sought to deter Russia through diplomacy, economic sanctions and warnings that Ukrainian forces are better trained and better armed than in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and fueled a bloody separatist movement in the eastern part of that nation. Since 2014, the U.S. has committed more than $2.7 billion in security assistance to build the capacity of Ukraine’s forces, including more than $650 million in 2021 alone.
Without explaining how, State Department spokesman Ned Price said last week U.S. aid to Ukraine “would be accelerated in the event of additional Russian aggression,” and that even if the Ukrainian government were to fall, “defensive security assistance will continue.”
The military aid has most recently been transported by aircraft into Ukraine, but that approach may not work if Russia gains control of Ukrainian airspace or if flying conditions simply become too dangerous. On Wednesday, a senior defense official said the logistics are not a settled matter.
“There are different ways you can help provide support, and we’re exploring those ways in case air transport’s not possible,” the official said, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity. “Whatever support they continue to get, we want to make sure that it’s appropriate to the need and that it can be done safely and effectively.
“We’re examining how support can be provided in a post-invasion scenario, and no final decisions about the mechanisms have been made yet,” the official added.
Austin and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba discussed continued U.S. aid during a Tuesday meeting at the Pentagon.
“The secretary made it clear that we would continue to look for ways to provide lethal and non-lethal assistance to Ukrainian armed forces going forward,” the official said. “This was not designed to enact some sort of formal agreement, but the secretary did commit as the president has committed, that we’ll continue to look for ways to to provide lethal and non-lethal assistance to Ukraine.”
On Feb. 10, Ukrainian ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova and Maj. Gen. Borys Kremenetskyi, the country’s defense attaché, toured Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as workers loaded pallets of Javelin missiles onto at least one Ukraine-bound commercial plane. A similar shipment was packed onto another commercial aircraft at Travis Air Force Base, California, on Jan. 22.
“We express our gratitude to the United States for the unwavering support of Ukraine and strengthening the defense capacity of the Ukrainian army,” the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington said in a Feb. 10 Facebook post.
Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s defense minister, cheered each shipment of foreign aid on Twitter.
“Birds are flying!” he said Feb. 11. “The total weight of US military aid at the moment exceed[s] 1,300 tons!”
The prospect of an air connection into the country becoming unavailable puts the spotlight on the Poland-Ukraine border. American diplomats have used Poland as a retreat for embassy staff that left Kyiv and, later, Lviv in western Ukraine.
The U.S. Army, in particular, has a history of routing forces and equipment through Poland, as officials have used adjacent western Ukraine as a safe locale for U.S. military observers tracking fighting in the Donbas region since 2014.
Polish officials have only recently started talking publicly about their military support for Ukraine, and the prospect of their country becoming a key transit hub for Western weapons raises the stakes of a very “technical” and “delicate” matter, as one official put it.
Evelyn Farkas, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should ask the United Nations to endorse a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine to try and take Russian air power off the board. Failing that, western aid to Ukraine will likely have to find a land route.
“Coming over land through Poland, rather than through the air or by maritime means, would be my guess,” Farkas said. “Our military can do it in a way that minimizes the risk, but clearly, if Russia controls the airspace over Ukraine, that’s a problem.”
The large city of Lviv, far from the Russian border, is a possible hub for arms transfers by land or by air, according to retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the commander of U.S. Army Europe from 2014 to 2017. In the near term, it’s unlikely Russia would control Ukraine’s airspace or destroy Lviv’s airport ― a significant escalation ― but even then, there are other avenues to supply Ukraine.
“You could use contract trucks, driving from Poland into Lviv if you didn’t want to have U.S. military on the ground who could drive it to Lviv or distribute it further,” Hodges said. “You could fly into Lviv with non-military aircraft.”
Using the Black Sea as a supply route could depend on buy-in from Ankara, which controls the adjacent Turkish Straits, and Russia’s been using portions of it for live-fire exercises. But the Black Sea provides access to the Danube River, which has three Ukrainian ports.
“There is some capability there,” he said of the Danube River, “but the Russians would try to disrupt that as well.”
Joe Gould is senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry.
Sebastian Sprenger is Europe editor for Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multinational investments in defense and global security. He previously served as managing editor for Defense News.
Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.
8. IntelBrief: Russian Disinformation Forms Key Part of the Kremlin’s Approach to Conflict with Ukraine
MDM is a new acronym for me.
Excerpt:
...Russia continued to value mis-, dis-, and malinformation (MDM) as a key part of its approach of influencing and manipulating public opinion...
IntelBrief: Russian Disinformation Forms Key Part of the Kremlin’s Approach to Conflict with Ukraine - The Soufan Center
February 23, 2022
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IntelBrief: Russian Disinformation Forms Key Part of the Kremlin’s Approach to Conflict with Ukraine
Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Bottom Line Up Front
- In the lead up to the current crisis with Ukraine, Russia continued to value mis-, dis-, and malinformation (MDM) as a key part of its approach of influencing and manipulating public opinion, both domestically and abroad.
- Russian-linked social media accounts have flooded the internet with the Kremlin’s talking points related to NATO membership, false flag events, “genocide” in the Donbas region, and similar themes and messages.
- Disinformation narratives are also parroted by Russian bots and sock puppet accounts, increasing the reach and virality of those themes most likely to resonate with an array of target audiences.
- The West should be prepared for a new wave of mis-, dis-, and malinformation in the coming weeks and months, especially as NATO countries prepare to enact sanctions on Russia.
In the lead up to the current crisis with Ukraine, Russia continued to value mis-, dis-, and malinformation (MDM) as a key part of its approach to influencing and manipulating public opinion, both domestically and abroad. Every aspect of Russia’s approach to warfare includes a disinformation component, particularly during “Phase 0,” sometimes referred to as so-called “shaping operations.” Cyberattacks, propaganda, and information warfare are used to sow discord and confusion among Russia’s adversaries while Moscow works to prepare for military operations and other kinetic actions. Russia has also executed numerous “false flag” operations over the past few weeks, although several commentators have noted the amateurish quality of these feints. Nonetheless, such efforts also confuse the intended audience—not influencing tech-savvy Western open-source intelligence sleuths, but rather provoking fear and concern among Russian citizens that their compatriots are under siege from Ukraine’s armed forces.
Like other sophisticated actors, Russia targets multiple audiences simultaneously. In a video released by the Kremlin of the meeting between its national security leadership, Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen intimidating Sergei Naryshkin, the chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence service. The decision to release this video of one of the most sensitive meetings possible demonstrates a clear desire to influence the Russian population. The NATO alliance has been more unified than Putin expected, and there is widespread speculation that, by amassing such a large scale of forces on Ukraine’s borders, the Russian leader may have miscalculated. To reinforce an image of strength and fortitude, the Kremlin has released such highly scripted videos. In addition, social media accounts have flooded the internet with Russian talking points related to NATO membership, false flag events, attempts by the U.S. media to allegedly manipulate public opinion and sully Russia’s image, and alleged “genocide” in the Donbas region. This last narrative in particular is being used to provide justification for Russia’s incursion into Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as Putin’s recognition of these territories as independent entities.
Putin casts himself as a defender of Russian orthodoxy and appeals to traditional Russian cultural, religious, and ethnic narratives. In turn, many of these narratives are picked up by high-profile media and political figures in the West. In a best-case scenario for Russia, highly influential figures in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere either wittingly or unwittingly seize up Russian disinformation and promote narratives to their followers. This approach to gray zone operations costs Moscow little, while often providing significant benefits and advancing the Kremlin’s agenda, serving as a complement to a robust hybrid warfare strategy. These narratives are also parroted by Russian bots and sock puppet accounts, increasing the reach and virality of those themes most likely to resonate with an array of target audiences. Interestingly, many of the religious and cultural narratives mentioned in Putin’s speech this week are also put forth by groups like the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). This could bring far-right extremists closer to elements within the Russian government.
Just last week, the Associated Press revealed that U.S. intelligence officials accused a conservative financial news website, Zero Hedge, of promoting Russian propaganda and disinformation. Several other media outlets, created by Russia and with strong connections to Russian intelligence, were also named and shamed. The West, and European countries in particular, should be prepared for a new wave of mis-, dis-, and malinformation in the coming weeks and months, especially as NATO countries move to enact crippling sanctions on Russia. Several Russian banks have been targeted with sanctions by the U.S. and U.K., and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the suspension of the certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Government ministers, policymakers, and military officials are far more cognizant of Russian MDM capabilities today than they were in 2014, when Russia invaded and occupied Crimea. Still, it remains a major challenge for countries to inoculate their citizens against a relentless torrent of falsehoods, propaganda, and deliberately misleading or manipulated information.
9. IntelBrief: The Role of the Wagner Group in Russia’s Full-Scale War with Ukraine
Part of the Russian "special military operation?"
IntelBrief: The Role of the Wagner Group in Russia’s Full-Scale War with Ukraine - The Soufan Center
February 24, 2022
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IntelBrief: The Role of the Wagner Group in Russia’s Full-Scale War with Ukraine
AP Photo
Bottom Line Up Front
- Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Russian military forces attacking multiple targets overnight and Putin declaring the beginning of a “special military operation.”
- U.S. President Joseph Biden called the attack “unprovoked and unjustified” and promised that Moscow would be held accountable, not just by the United States, but by the rest of the world.
- As with Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, irregular forces are already playing a role, and European security officials have already confirmed that Russian mercenaries are operating on the ground in eastern Ukraine.
- Members of PMC Wagner could take on more dangerous roles, some of which may take them deeper into Ukrainian territory, as part of an effort to minimize the regular Russian military death toll in order to limit blowback.
- The invasion was announced during an extraordinary Security Council emergency session, where the Ukrainian ambassador called for the expulsion of Russia from the United Nations
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Russian military forces attacking multiple targets overnight. Putin declared the beginning of a “special military operation” which is the culmination of the past several weeks of Russia mounting nearly 190,000 forces on Ukraine’s borders. U.S. intelligence has been warning of this impending invasion, detailing the Kremlin’s intentions step-by-step, as the world has watched events unfold in near slow-motion. In a clear warning to the United States and NATO countries, Putin threatened “consequences they have never seen” for any country that seeks to intervene in the ongoing conflict. But this premeditated war of choice will inevitably be met with pushback from Western countries, as calls grow to arm Ukraine with more sophisticated weaponry, beyond javelins and other surface-to-air missiles. U.S. President Joseph Biden called the attack “unprovoked and unjustified” and promised that Moscow would be held accountable, not just by the United States, but by the rest of the world. And while that remains to be seen, Russian military forces pressed ahead with an aggressive offensive that included artillery strikes and rocket attacks launched against Ukrainian military installations. Some reporting suggested that Russian troops had landed in Odessa and Mariupol. Other Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, and the capital city of Kyiv also reported explosions and artillery bombardments.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine exploded overnight, with Moscow’s attack on Ukraine a blatant violation of international law. The attack in effect scrapped the Minsk peace deal, with the Kremlin inserting troops into Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The fog of war remains thick, and the prospect of increased violence is now a veritable certainty. As with Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, irregular forces are already playing a role, as reported by the New York Times, which noted that European security officials have already confirmed that Russian mercenaries are operating on the ground in eastern Ukraine.
In 2014 the so-called ‘Wagner Group’ worked side-by-side with Russian military forces, terrorists like the Russian Imperial Movement, and a hodge-podge of separatists as part of the Russian effort to annex Crimea. In the ensuing years, Wagner-linked mercenaries would engage in conflicts beyond Europe, to include Africa, the Levant, South America, and North Africa. It is because of these destabilizing activities, especially in Ukraine, as a Russian proxy force that the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated “PMC Wagner” pursuant to E.O. 13660 for, “sending soldiers to fight alongside separatists in Eastern Ukraine…and for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions or policies threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.” Eight years later, PMC Wagner may play a very similar role in Donetsk and Luhansk in the coming weeks.
Putin has bet big that the international community will allow for a Russian repeat of what happened in Crimea. Given the stakes, it is likely that the Russian leader will again lean on close friend, colleague, and oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin to use his considerable influence to help with Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine. Prigozhin, the founder of PMC Wagner, has been sanctioned multiple times by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for a wide range of activities to include efforts to upend U.S. elections, conducting disinformation operations, creating chaos in Ukraine, and for expanding PMC Wagner-linked enterprises and their destabilizing activities in Africa. Prigozhin has little to lose, and U.S. sanctions have had no success in modifying his behavior, nor have they deterred his ambitions to expand Russia’s sphere of influence. As such, PMC Wagner will deploy its networks in full force during the ongoing siege of Ukraine.
In the lead up to Putin’s speech that established the pretext for Russia’s invasion there were reports that Russian military family members were wary of Russian intervention in Ukraine. Members of PMC Wagner could, for instance, take on more dangerous roles, some of which may take them deeper into Ukrainian territory, as part of an effort to minimize the regular Russian military death toll. PMC Wagner personnel may also serve as a convenient tool for the much-discussed Russian false flag operations that further fuel Russian efforts to rally Russia’s citizens around the flag. In this regard, the combination of Prigozhin’s acumen in launching disinformation operations and his control over PMC Wagner creates a unique asymmetric Molotov cocktail that can be lobbed into Donbas.
Alternatively, given the number of regular Russian military forces involved in the current invasion Ukraine’s border, the need for PMC Wagner to play a direct role in the current conflict may be unnecessary. Redeploying some PMC Wagner assets from Africa to Ukraine (for instance) would require logistical and financial costs that may be too high to absorb given the economic pain the international community is trying to inflict against the Russian Federation due to its recent incursion. Moreover, keeping a robust beachhead in Africa, where PMC Wagner can assist Russia in exploiting Africa’s natural resources will likely remain a high priority. As Russia suffers a financial pinch, PMC Wagner’s access to natural resources and commercial assets in Africa will become increasingly important sources of revenue for the Kremlin as its access to the international formal financial system closes due to its aggression in Ukraine.
It was during an extraordinary emergency session of the UN Security Council meeting requested by Ukraine, and on the heels of a direct appeal from the Secretary-General to President Putin to stop his troops from attacking Ukraine, that the announcement of the Russian invasion came through and made moot many of the statements that had urged continued dialogue and diplomacy. Ukraine’s ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, declared most of his statement “mostly useless” following the announcement of military operations at 10pm and called for Russia’s expulsion from the United Nations, declaring that Russia could no longer meet its obligations under Article 4 of the Charter. The delegation circulated a legal memo regarding the membership of the Russian Federation in the UN, challenging their admission in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Earlier in the day, a debate in the General Assembly highlighted the chasm between states condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine as a colonialist enterprise and a violation of the norms of sovereignty and non-interference, and others whose traditionally vocal defense of those values was deafeningly muted. Several Council members, including the United Kingdom, stressed this is an unprovoked attack, and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stressed that "President Putin had delivered a message of war in total disdain for the responsibility of this [Security] Council," and declared the intention to take further action on Thursday, when a resolution is likely. However, with many states recalling the inability of the Council to stop major wars over the past two decades, there will be a lot of critical questions regarding what role the United Nations can play if its permanent members are implicated in unprovoked aggression. Several fiery and impassioned appeals were heard this week – notably Kenya’s statement in the Council earlier this week calling on Russia to learn to live with postcolonial borders and move forward, as African states have done, and Secretary-General Guterres’ earlier offer of his good offices to help mitigate the conflict – the Ukrainian ambassador’s statement is likely to reverberate loudly over the coming days: “There is no purgatory for war criminals; you go straight to hell.”
10. Russian troops pour into Ukraine on three fronts
So the question is what are the Russians going to do from here on.
You can use this to follow-on and track their campaign plan activities. It seems they are already in Phase 6 while pasese 1 through 5 continue.
FIRST PHASE: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).
SECOND PHASE: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.
THIRD PHASE: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the objective of making them abandon their service duties.
FOURTH PHASE: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population, boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.
FIFTH PHASE: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units.
SIXTH PHASE: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic, and secret service intelligence, and industrial espionage.
SEVENTH PHASE: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous air force harassment, combined with the use of high precision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery, and weapons based on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).
EIGHT PHASE: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker's missile and artillery units; fire barrages to annihilate the defender's resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by ground troops.
Source: National Defence Academy of Latvia (2014):
Russian troops pour into Ukraine on three fronts
Tanks enter country from north, south and east as explosions are heard in the capital
Vladimir Putin said he has ordered the start of a “special military operation” in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and demanded Kyiv’s army lay down its weapons.
In an address broadcast on Russian state television shortly before 6am local time, Russia’s president claimed he was not planning to occupy the country.
“All responsibility for the possible bloodshed will be fully and completely on the conscience of the ruling regime,” he said.
Putin warned other countries against “the temptation of meddling in the ongoing events” and said Russia’s response will “lead you to consequences that you have never encountered in your history”.
US president Joe Biden said the “prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight” as he accused Putin of launching a “premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering”.
“Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable,” Biden said in a statement several minutes after Putin spoke on Russian television.
Biden said he would meet G7 counterparts on Thursday morning and would then reveal further measures to punish Russia for the invasion.
11. Will the Ukrainians Fight?
Consider this now that the invasion appears to have begun.
Excerpts:
So, will the Ukrainians fight? This is an open question. Interviews with Ukrainians don’t really provide an answer. Troops on the front lines worn down by years of dreary, dangerous trench duty have expressed mixed sentiments. But boredom and malaise—signs in-the-moment sentiment, not necessarily low will to fight—might transform into iron will at the sight of the first Russian armored vehicle moving towards their lines. Some civilians in Kharkiv, a city close to the Russian border, have stated that they are ready to fight. Others have expressed more interest in partygoing and Instagram. Even these Ukrainians might surprise us: self-proclaimed tough guys might run, and the club kids might turn out to be Ukrainian Che Guevaras.
Forecasting will to fight takes time and effort. It is too late for thoughtful forecasting. Only an all-out invasion will reveal Ukrainian will to fight. How can Western countries help the Ukrainians slow and then reverse the Russian invasion? Providing anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles will help slow the Russian advance and give the Ukrainians a boost in confidence. But these weapons will only make a difference if Ukrainian troops choose to stay in the fight to use them. Sanctions against Russia probably will not matter to Ukrainians fighting off Russian armored assaults. Helping now requires forecasting and then boosting Ukrainian will to fight during the occupation.
Will the Ukrainians Fight?
Russia’s inartfully veiled invasion of Ukraine is underway. Within days or hours—perhaps by the time this article is published—well over 100,000 Russian troops may be smashing their way through Ukraine’s heartland. Much hangs in the balance. One of Europe’s newest democracies may be destroyed. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians may be killed, and perhaps hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes. If their military operation is successful, Russian leaders may decide they want to take more of Europe by force; President Putin has already laid that groundwork. Only one thing stands in the way of this outcome: Ukrainian will to fight.
There is almost no chance the Ukrainian armed forces can stave off a dedicated Russian attack. But if the Ukrainians have the will to do so, they can slow Russia’s advance by fighting from their trenches, mounting quick hit-and-run raids, blowing up roadways, ambushing vehicle columns, and even by taking lone potshots at Russian troops. They can force Russian tanks to move off roads and into muddy ground where they might become stuck. They can force Russian infantry to continually dismount and remount their vehicles, giving precious time to other Ukrainian units withdrawing or regrouping. Every Russian soldier killed or wounded will make it harder for Putin to sustain enthusiasm for the war back home.
Ukrainian soldiers and civilians-turned-insurgents can continue to grind away at the Russians once the invasion is complete. Indomitable in the attack, Russian troops become sitting ducks in occupation. As Americans discovered in Afghanistan and Iraq, it only takes a few hard-willed people—even civilians—to turn occupation into a quagmire. Russians are not immune to snipers and improvised explosive devices. Their will to fight can be weakened and even broken. If the Ukrainians fight hard enough during and after the invasion, they can force the Russians to retreat like the Afghans forced the Soviets to retreat in 1989.
So, will the Ukrainians fight? This is an open question. Interviews with Ukrainians don’t really provide an answer. Troops on the front lines worn down by years of dreary, dangerous trench duty have expressed mixed sentiments. But boredom and malaise—signs in-the-moment sentiment, not necessarily low will to fight—might transform into iron will at the sight of the first Russian armored vehicle moving towards their lines. Some civilians in Kharkiv, a city close to the Russian border, have stated that they are ready to fight. Others have expressed more interest in partygoing and Instagram. Even these Ukrainians might surprise us: self-proclaimed tough guys might run, and the club kids might turn out to be Ukrainian Che Guevaras.
Forecasting will to fight takes time and effort. It is too late for thoughtful forecasting. Only an all-out invasion will reveal Ukrainian will to fight. How can Western countries help the Ukrainians slow and then reverse the Russian invasion? Providing anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles will help slow the Russian advance and give the Ukrainians a boost in confidence. But these weapons will only make a difference if Ukrainian troops choose to stay in the fight to use them. Sanctions against Russia probably will not matter to Ukrainians fighting off Russian armored assaults. Helping now requires forecasting and then boosting Ukrainian will to fight during the occupation.
Here's one approach to forecasting will to fight that can be used to help prepare for the occupation. Other methods exist and should be applied to help triangulate the best ways to help the Ukrainians help themselves. Ukraine will lose this war, but with sufficient, enduring will to fight, it can win the peace by sending the Russians back across their border poorer for the adventure.
Dr. Ben Connable is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Director of Research at DT Institute, and adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University.
12. A Chinese news outlet accidentally leaked its own censorship instructions on Russia-Ukraine coverage: report
A Chinese news outlet accidentally leaked its own censorship instructions on Russia-Ukraine coverage: report
Photo illustration.Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
An accidental post on Tuesday revealed a Chinese media outlet's "instructions" on Russia-Ukraine coverage.
Horizon News, a subset of Beijing News, shared the instructions on its Weibo account.
The post noted that no anti-Russia content would be published, per The Washington Post.
An accidental social media post revealed how one Chinese outlet is toeing the line while the world grapples with the mounting Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Horizon News, a subset of Beijing News, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party, posted "instructions" on how to cover the escalating tensions to its Weibo page on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
China has strengthened its alliance with Russia in recent years and the two countries have also become increasingly active economic partners. Trade between China and Russia has grown from $10.7 billion in 2004 to $140 billion by 2021, according to the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.
Coupled with China's strict limits on press freedoms, news outlets in the nation are constrained in what they can say without government intervention.
In the Weibo post, Horizon News stated that any content painting Russia unfavorably would not be published. The same applied to any pro-Western framing, according to The Post.
Later on Tuesday, the Weibo post was deleted, The Post noted.
"Simply put, China has to back Russia up with emotional and moral support while refraining from treading on the toes of the United States and European Union," Ming Jinwei, a senior editor at the Xinhua News Agency, wrote in a WeChat blog cited by The Post. Xinhua is the official press agency of the Chinese government.
"In the future, China will also need Russia's understanding and support when wrestling with America to solve the Taiwan issue once and for all," the editor later added.
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On the US side, President Joe Biden announced a slew of new sanctions to punish Russia for what the White House is describing as the "beginning of an invasion."
"It can no longer raise money from the West and can not trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either," Biden said of Russia.
13. Putin Is Repeating the USSR’s Mistakes: Saber Rattling Strengthens NATO
Written prior to the invasion.
Excerpts:
Whether or not Putin carries out his invasion threat, however, Russia’s behavior toward Ukraine will likely accelerate the outcome he wants least: a bigger and stronger NATO. After the chaos of the Donald Trump presidency, the alliance has already tightened ranks in a bid to deter Putin from invading. And countries along or near the Russian periphery that value their independence but do not yet belong to NATO may now seriously consider joining or intensify their efforts to do so. Potential new members could expand beyond former Soviet republics to include countries that remained neutral during the Cold War, either voluntarily (such as Sweden) or as a result of Soviet coercion (such as Austria and Finland). Already, some Finns are publicly musing about un-“Finlandizing” and abandoning their traditional distance from NATO.
Putin is not oblivious to these Cold War antecedents, instances in which Moscow’s aggression ended up backfiring, yet he apparently doesn’t care. Shortly after coming to power, he published First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President, in which he acknowledged that the Soviet Union’s violent suppressions of uprisings in East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were “major mistakes.” He added: “The Russophobia that we see in Eastern Europe today is the fruit of those mistakes.” The word “mistakes” suggests that he considers these actions miscalculations rather than morally wrong or unjustified. In any case, in weighing his options, Putin must know that invading Ukraine would dramatically revive and reinforce Russophobia in surrounding countries, with consequences he may not like. His nostalgic desire to effectively re-create the Soviet Union (without its global ideological rationale, since he stands only for autocracy and Russian power), if necessary by force, appears to be leading Russia toward war.
Putin Is Repeating the USSR’s Mistakes
Saber Rattling Strengthens NATO
February 24, 2022
Foreign Affairs · by Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam · February 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin is a product of the Cold War. Russia’s president made his career in the old Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, and he viewed the superpower rivalry and nuclear stalemate fondly, at least in some respects: after taking office in 2000, he famously called the collapse of the Soviet Union a “genuine tragedy” and “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century. Yet in the context of the current crisis over Ukraine, it is far from clear that Putin has seriously studied the history of the Cold War or comprehended its lessons.
At key Cold War junctures, Kremlin leaders miscalculated by launching, approving, or threatening aggressive actions that ultimately proved counterproductive to Soviet interests. From sending tanks into Hungary in 1956 to pressuring the communist government in Poland to snuff out the Solidarity trade union movement in the early 1980s, the Soviets’ efforts to bring countries to heel reminded Western leaders why they had banded together against Moscow in the first place.
Today, as nearly 200,000 Russian troops stand on the Ukrainian border, it appears Putin may be repeating the errors of his Soviet predecessors. The threat of invasion is buttressing Ukrainian opposition to Russian influence and breathing new life into and unifying the Western alliance.
Adventures in Adventurism
From the beginning of the Cold War, Soviet leaders erred on the side of applying maximum pressure in their effort to solidify their influence in Eastern Europe. After World War II, the Soviet Union’s pressure and threats against Iran, Turkey, and—to a lesser extent—Greece inspired the rise of the U.S. “containment” doctrine to resist Soviet expansion beyond those countries where it had already imposed communist rule. In 1948, Stalin tried to force the United States and the United Kingdom, his former allies in defeating Nazi Germany, out of Berlin by cutting land access between the city’s western zones—an island in Soviet-occupied eastern Germany—and the U.S. and British occupation zones about 100 miles to the west. The move backfired: a massive Anglo-American airlift foiled the blockade and spurred Western leaders to forge a military alliance to combat the Soviet threat, resulting in the creation of NATO in April 1949. Moreover, images of West Berliners stubbornly plodding through the frigid winter despite Moscow’s threats helped transform the imagery of the contending sides in American popular culture: just a few years after the end of a war in which Americans deeply admired the heroic Soviet resistance to the Nazis’ onslaught, now “good Germans” were standing up to the Soviet Union’s “godless commies” and their tyrannical dictator (“the Reds”).
A year after the futile blockade, Stalin made another mistake: approving the appeal of Kim Il Sung to let North Korea invade South Korea in June 1950 and put the entire Korean Peninsula under communism. Kim assured Stalin that Koreans below the 38th parallel eagerly awaited his arrival and would arise to hasten his triumph; Stalin, for his part—perhaps misled by the Truman administration’s indications that the United States was reluctant to intervene militarily to defend South Korea—mistakenly assumed that Washington would refrain from coming to Seoul’s aid. The fact that the Soviets had detonated their first atomic bomb the previous summer buttressed that faulty supposition. Of course, Pyongyang failed to swallow the South and the fighting ended three years later with the peninsula still divided. Far worse, from the Soviet standpoint, was how the North Korean invasion prodded the West, even the French, to allow West Germany to arm itself.
In 1955, West Germany joined NATO (aided by its promise to forswear nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future), but a year later, in the fall of 1956, the alliance seemed on the verge of collapse. At the end of October, the United Kingdom and France, NATO’s two European pillars, attacked Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal, which Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized a few months earlier. They acted in conspiracy with Israel (whose surge into the Sinai Peninsula allowed London and Paris to claim they were protecting the canal) and behind the back of the United States, which had favored negotiating with Nasser. The Europeans’ effort to reassert colonial dominance in Egypt infuriated U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, and he forced the British, French, and Israelis to withdraw. The Western alliance would have been in shambles, except a few days later, in early November, the Soviets invaded Hungary. This move was prompted by a cascade of events in the Warsaw Pact satellite state: after Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech criticizing aspects of Stalin’s rule, Hungarians chose a reformist (but still communist) regime. Moscow, in turn, brutally suppressed the Hungarian uprising.
Moscow's suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 strengthened NATO.
Moscow’s assault reminded the alliance why it existed. Despite numerous, recurrent strains within NATO over the ensuing decades, the alliance persisted for the rest of the Cold War. Periodic demonstrations of the Soviet peril—the Kremlin’s renewed designs on West Berlin (the second Berlin crisis, lasting from 1958 to 1961), the invasions of Czechoslovakia (in 1968) and Afghanistan (in 1979), and threats to invade Poland (in 1980–81)—strengthened the alliance’s cohesion.
Sometimes, the Soviets did not pay an immediate price for these aggressive moves. To be sure, the Soviet Union’s tendency to flex its military muscle chipped away at its international public approval, but U.S. sanctions were in most instances halfhearted. In each case, however, the Soviets made enemies and helped solidify opposition to their influence. Barging into Czechoslovakia, for instance, sped the rise of “Eurocommunism”—that is, more nationalistic communist parties in Western Europe, for instance in Italy, that were less subservient to the Soviet Communist Party—which reduced Moscow’s influence and control. And in Afghanistan, Moscow, which hoped and planned to enter and exit within a few months, successfully implanted a preferred communist leader (and killed the one he replaced) but found itself mired in a long, grinding struggle against a Washington-backed insurgency that eventually forced it to retreat a decade later. The war in Afghanistan palpably weakened the Soviet Union as it headed for oblivion.
Blowback
That final scenario should particularly concern Putin. Although neither the United States nor NATO has any appetite to intervene militarily to save Ukraine from a Soviet invasion, they would not be averse to aiding a likely Ukrainian partisan guerrilla war against a hostile occupying army—which history suggests could be prolonged and substantial, as Adolf Hitler’s forces discovered during World War II. The Ukrainians appear far more ready and willing to fight than, for example, the Czechoslovaks were in 1968.
Of course, Putin evidently feels entitled to seize (or, in his Soviet-rooted view, reconquer) Ukraine because, unlike Hungary and Poland, it is a former republic of the Soviet Union and historically, ethnically, and linguistically closely tied to Russia. Yet the rest of the world (and even Russia itself, in a 1994 agreement) has recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty as an independent nation following the Soviet collapse. Many Ukrainians recall angrily how Moscow egregiously mistreated their country when it was incorporated into the Soviet Union; the great manmade famine that killed millions of Ukrainians during Stalin’s rule in the 1930s looms large in the country’s public consciousness. Such historical memories could underpin violent resistance to Russian occupation.
Whether or not Putin carries out his invasion threat, however, Russia’s behavior toward Ukraine will likely accelerate the outcome he wants least: a bigger and stronger NATO. After the chaos of the Donald Trump presidency, the alliance has already tightened ranks in a bid to deter Putin from invading. And countries along or near the Russian periphery that value their independence but do not yet belong to NATO may now seriously consider joining or intensify their efforts to do so. Potential new members could expand beyond former Soviet republics to include countries that remained neutral during the Cold War, either voluntarily (such as Sweden) or as a result of Soviet coercion (such as Austria and Finland). Already, some Finns are publicly musing about un-“Finlandizing” and abandoning their traditional distance from NATO.
Putin is not oblivious to these Cold War antecedents, instances in which Moscow’s aggression ended up backfiring, yet he apparently doesn’t care. Shortly after coming to power, he published First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President, in which he acknowledged that the Soviet Union’s violent suppressions of uprisings in East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were “major mistakes.” He added: “The Russophobia that we see in Eastern Europe today is the fruit of those mistakes.” The word “mistakes” suggests that he considers these actions miscalculations rather than morally wrong or unjustified. In any case, in weighing his options, Putin must know that invading Ukraine would dramatically revive and reinforce Russophobia in surrounding countries, with consequences he may not like. His nostalgic desire to effectively re-create the Soviet Union (without its global ideological rationale, since he stands only for autocracy and Russian power), if necessary by force, appears to be leading Russia toward war.
Foreign Affairs · by Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam · February 24, 2022
14. Ukraine’s Zelensky to Russians: ‘What are you fighting for and with whom?’
Ukraine’s Zelensky to Russians: ‘What are you fighting for and with whom?’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with the Russian people late Wednesday to stop their leadership from sending troops across the border and into his country, recording an emotional video appeal that underscored the close ties between the two nations and warned of the despair that would come from a needless war.
Zelensky, speaking in Russian, said Moscow had approved the movement of nearly 200,000 troops into Ukrainian territory, along with thousands of armored vehicles lined up at the border. He said an incursion risked becoming “the start of a big war on the European continent.”
“You are being told this is a plan to free the people of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “But the Ukrainian people are free.”
His words appealing for peace stood in sharp contrast to a speech delivered Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who delved into Russian history to undermine the notion of Ukraine as an independent nation. He also launched a barrage of accusations against the government in Kyiv that were widely seen as a prelude to an invasion.
By turns wrenching and defiant, Zelensky sought to break through the wall of state-controlled Russian newscasts that have depicted Ukraine as a nation run by Nazis threatening Moscow, though he conceded that his words probably wouldn’t be shown on Russian television.
“The Ukraine on your news and Ukraine in real life are two completely different countries — and the main difference is ours is real,” Zelensky said. “You are told that we are Nazis. How could a people that lost more than 8 million people in the fight against Nazism support Nazism?
“How could I be a Nazi?” Zelensky, who is Jewish, asked, noting that his grandfather spent the entire war as a Soviet soldier but died in an independent Ukraine.
Zelensky said Russians are being told that he is preparing an offensive to retake separatist territory in the Donbas region and “bomb it without questions.” But, he asked, who he would be attacking?
“Luhansk? The house where my best friend’s mother lives? The place where the father of my best friend is buried?” Zelensky said.
“This is our land. This is our history. What are you fighting for and with whom?” he said. “Many of you have been to Ukraine. Many of you have relatives in Ukraine. Some have studied in Ukrainian universities. Some have made friends with Ukrainians. You know our character. You know our people. You know our principles.”
“The people of Ukraine want peace,” he said. “The government of Ukraine wants peace.”
For weeks, Zelensky has complained that the U.S. government has been overly alarmist in warning about the possibility of a large-scale Russian war against Ukraine, damaging the country’s economy in the process.
But on Wednesday, his tone had transformed into that of a leader worried for a people who stand alone against the might of the Russian military despite planeloads of Western weapons and aid.
He warned Russians that if their military invades Ukraine, his nation would defend itself.
“We know for sure we do not need a war — not a cold one, not a hot one, not a hybrid one,” he said. “But if these forces attack us, if you attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. Not attack — defend. And in attacking, you are going to see our faces. Not our backs, our faces.”
Zelensky spent much of the address warning about the costs of war, which Ukrainian territory has seen more than most.
“War is a grave tragedy, and that tragedy has a great cost in all senses of the word,” Zelensky said. “People lose money, reputations, quality of life, freedom … but most of all people lose their loved ones … They lose themselves.”
The Ukrainian leader, who played the president on television before securing the job in real life, described armed conflict as consisting of “pain, dirt, blood, death.” He warned Russians that thousands or tens of thousands of people could die, which wouldn’t leave anyone with the sort of security guarantees the Kremlin has been seeking.
“War takes away guarantees for everyone,” he said. “No one will have any kind of guarantees of security. And who will suffer from that the most? People. Who doesn’t want that the most? People. Who could not allow that? People. Are those people among you? For sure.”
Zelensky expressed hope that the leadership of Russia would listen to the Russian people, even if it wouldn’t listen to him. He said he placed a phone call to Putin on Wednesday but received only silence.
“I know that my address to you won’t be shown on Russian television, but the citizens of Russia should see it,” Zelensky said. “They should know the truth. And the truth is that this needs to stop before it’s too late. And if the leadership of Russia doesn’t want to sit down at the table with us for the sake of peace, maybe they will sit down at the table with you. Do Russians want war? I would like to answer that question, but the answer depends only on you.”
15. Putin’s winter war
The US strategic problem: "shoulda, coulda, woulda." We should have done something when we could have done something and we would have contained or prevented this. Now we would do something but is it too late?
Excerpts:
After 2008, and certainly after 2014, Western leaders should have imposed painful penalties on Mr. Putin, and cast him as a pariah. Every effort should have been made to turn Ukraine into a “porcupine” — difficult for predators to swallow. In recent days, the U.S., and some allies (not Germany) have been working overtime to equip Ukrainians to better defend themselves.
If, over the days ahead, Ukrainians display courage, defiance and determination, can they stop Mr. Putin from stripping them of their right to independence, sovereignty and self-determination?
I’m reminded that, in the winter of 1939-40, Russia fought a grueling war against Finland. A Finnish soldier is reported to have quipped: “They are so many, and our country is so small, where will we find room to bury them all?”
Putin’s winter war
A strategy to contain him should have been implemented years ago
OPINION:
In my column on Feb. 1, I offered a prediction that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “not start a war during the Olympics, which take place in the People’s Republic of China, Feb. 4-20. He has too much respect for — and fear of — its President Xi Jinping.” So, Mr. Putin was right on schedule when, on Monday, he ordered Russian forces into eastern Ukraine.
What I didn’t know then and what we don’t know as I write this is how far he will go. Is his intention to slice off Donbas, a region where a low-intensity conflict — with Mr. Putin backing pro-Russian separatists — has been ongoing since 2014? Or will he order his troops to march on and conquer the entire country?
I’ll say more about that in a moment, but first I’m going to argue that this crisis could have been averted if American and European leaders, years ago, had designed and implemented a strategy to contain Mr. Putin — as they should have.
As noted in the earlier column, Mr. Putin regards himself as a latter-day czar whose mission is to restore and expand the shriveled empire that was bequeathed to him.
He has more money than he can ever spend (his Italianate palace on the Black Sea is valued at over a billion dollars), a much younger girlfriend (a former gymnast and model, if the tabloids are to be believed) and powers unconstrained by any laws. De facto, he has a license to kill, one he doesn’t hesitate to exercise.
What he lacks and wants is a legacy — confidence that he will be remembered as Vladimir the Great or maybe Vladimir the Terrible but, in either case, a man of action, a shaper of history, a lion. He’s pushing 70. He has no time to waste.
He committed his first serious act of international aggression in 2008. Georgia — an independent nation that had been a Soviet possession and, before that, a protectorate of the Russia empire — was looking to Europe rather than to Moscow. Displeased, Mr. Putin went to war.
He chipped off two provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They are now, for all intents and purposes, Russian territories.
He then waited to see what the U.S., the European Union and “the international community” would do. They did nothing much.
The following year, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a red button reading “reset” in English and (misspelled) in Russian.
Although I suspect that gave Mr. Putin a chuckle, then-Vice President Joe Biden later bragged that “once we pressed that reset button … we achieved a great deal in cooperation with Russian to advance our mutual interests.”
In a 2012 debate, Mitt Romney told then-President Barack Obama that Russia was America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe.” Mr. Obama shot back: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
In 2014, with the blessings of the International Olympic Committee, Mr. Putin was given the privilege of hosting the Winter Olympics in Sochi, just north of the Abkhazian border.
The Games were held in February. The following month, Mr. Putin orchestrated pro-Russian demonstrations in Crimea, Ukrainian territory on the Black Sea. He then sent in troops. On March 21, he formally annexed Crimea.
In April, pro-Russian militias began to storm buildings in Donbas. Over the years since, an estimated 14,000 Ukrainians have been killed in the simmering conflict.
Again, no serious consequences ensued. Within days of the Crimean takeover, the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, declared that the 2018 “World Cup has been given and voted to Russia and we are going forward with our work.” Nord Stream 2, a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, moved ahead, too.
In December 2017, as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, I visited Ukraine and reported on Russia’s repressive policies, not least toward Crimean Tartars, a Turkic Muslim people indigenous to the peninsula.
The “international community,” very much including the U.N. and its so-called Human Rights Council, turned a blind eye.
In 2019, I returned to Ukraine as an election observer for the International Republican Institute. I noted in a Washington Times column that there had been Russian meddling in the election but that “the impact was minimal” with the pro-Russian party receiving less than 14% of the votes. I suspect Mr. Putin was both disappointed and angry.
I disagree with those who contend that Mr. Putin is motivated primarily by fear of NATO, a strictly defensive alliance that Ukrainians want to join because they feel threatened by Mr. Putin.
Ukraine is not a NATO member, and American and other allied troops will not deploy there. But the U.S. and the EU do have a vital interest in preventing fledgling democracies from falling under despotic jackboots. It puzzles me that so many people, both on the right and the left, fail to grasp that.
After 2008, and certainly after 2014, Western leaders should have imposed painful penalties on Mr. Putin, and cast him as a pariah. Every effort should have been made to turn Ukraine into a “porcupine” — difficult for predators to swallow. In recent days, the U.S., and some allies (not Germany) have been working overtime to equip Ukrainians to better defend themselves.
If, over the days ahead, Ukrainians display courage, defiance and determination, can they stop Mr. Putin from stripping them of their right to independence, sovereignty and self-determination?
I’m reminded that, in the winter of 1939-40, Russia fought a grueling war against Finland. A Finnish soldier is reported to have quipped: “They are so many, and our country is so small, where will we find room to bury them all?”
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a columnist for the Washington Times.
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16. Guerrillas, Revolutionaries, Insurgents, and Militias and Mafiosi: The GRIM Threats of Irregular Strategy
Another new acronym for me. GRIM. And it certainly describes a grim set of threats.
Excerpts:
A war on terrorism is thus a poor strategic lens for understanding the irregular conflicts in which the United States and its allies have been involved for the past two decades. The use of the term terrorism also carries moral overtones that can cloud appropriate Western responses. Instead, terrorism is best viewed as a tactic of provocative violence against civilians; it may be employed by any actor to support or repress change by drawing attention to a cause. Understanding when and why an irregular or nonstate actor might choose to employ this and other tactics is crucial, emphasizing the importance of academic work focused on irregular warfare such as that undertaken by the Joint Special Operations University, US Army Special Operations Command’s Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies series, and the Modern War Institute. Still, researchers and policymakers should further examine strategic classifications of irregular or nonstate adversaries to more accurately frame assessments of past operations and improve the outcomes of future conflicts.
To address this gap, a new strategy-based model is needed, using the terms guerrillas, revolutionaries, insurgents, and militias and mafiosi—GRIM threats. This taxonomy anticipates dynamic adaptation on the part of irregular adversaries. It seeks to articulate the evolving characteristics and goals of nonstate actors at different stages of development, capability, and threat, while identifying the logic of violence behind the tactical use of terrorism. Armed with this framework, policymakers and practitioners can better tailor their responses to evolving irregular threats.
Guerrillas, Revolutionaries, Insurgents, and Militias and Mafiosi: The GRIM Threats of Irregular Strategy - Modern War Institute
A war on terrorism is thus a poor strategic lens for understanding the irregular conflicts in which the United States and its allies have been involved for the past two decades. The use of the term terrorism also carries moral overtones that can cloud appropriate Western responses. Instead, terrorism is best viewed as a tactic of provocative violence against civilians; it may be employed by any actor to support or repress change by drawing attention to a cause. Understanding when and why an irregular or nonstate actor might choose to employ this and other tactics is crucial, emphasizing the importance of academic work focused on irregular warfare such as that undertaken by the Joint Special Operations University, US Army Special Operations Command’s Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies series, and the Modern War Institute. Still, researchers and policymakers should further examine strategic classifications of irregular or nonstate adversaries to more accurately frame assessments of past operations and improve the outcomes of future conflicts.
To address this gap, a new strategy-based model is needed, using the terms guerrillas, revolutionaries, insurgents, and militias and mafiosi—GRIM threats. This taxonomy anticipates dynamic adaptation on the part of irregular adversaries. It seeks to articulate the evolving characteristics and goals of nonstate actors at different stages of development, capability, and threat, while identifying the logic of violence behind the tactical use of terrorism. Armed with this framework, policymakers and practitioners can better tailor their responses to evolving irregular threats.
Ill-Suited Terminology
The broadly applied Western lexicon vilifies irregular actors, marginalizes their objectives, and dilutes examination of why each actor rebels. This nomenclature challenge is particularly marked in Australian policy. In stark contrast to the United States’ Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy, Australia’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update does not meaningfully engage with irregular or unconventional threats. This absence of terminology has produced a policy void. The war on terrorism for Australia thereby became an astrategic environment in which Australian military contributions to US-led operations took place without “serious public or parliamentary debate” regarding the nature of the threat or the necessary response. This Australian policy gap stands in marked contrast to earlier doctrinal understanding of historical use of terrorism, such as Communist revolutionary warfare during the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War.
Like Australia, the United States suffers from a nomenclature problem that limits understanding of irregular threats. And this problem extends beyond Western governments and militaries. Academic discourse frequently conflates irregular warfare terminology such as rebel, guerrilla, bandit, insurgent, militia, and terrorist in seemingly synonymous or inconsistent ways. The absence of clarity suggests an absence of analysis—a reflection of the fact that policymakers view irregular actors as low-priority irritants.
Building a Strategy-Based Taxonomy
This article expands on previous efforts to solve this problem by proposing a strategy-based taxonomy of nonstate actors using the terms guerrillas, revolutionaries, insurgents, and militias and mafiosi—GRIM threats. These distinctions are arrayed based upon two axes—scale of desired change and timeframe—that pertain to the strategy a group pursues. These distinctions create fuzzy edges between categories and a central, overlapping conceptual space in which terrorist tactics might be employed. Distinguished in this manner, irregular strategy can be contextualized along an existing strategic spectrum—namely, Hans Delbrück’s distinction between strategies of annihilation (Niederwerfungsstrategie) and exhaustion or attrition (Ermattungsstrategie). Thus, with this geometric array, militias and revolutionaries are focused on the “now”—adhering to annihilation—while insurgents and guerrillas “have the time”—adhering to exhaustion. This two-axis model is shown graphically below.
Militias and Mafiosi
The category of militias and mafiosi captures the transition from a movement—a group of people espousing a political idea—into an organization that seeks to employ violence to realize its idea. Initially, this organization may assume the form of an incipient clandestine network. As Scott Gates notes, by definition, such groups operate illegally and exhibit “many of the internal organizational characteristics of organized criminal groups, such as the Mafia.” The resources required by this incipient organization (such as weapons, intelligence, and military hardware like night-vision equipment) and the sourcing of funding (such as robbery, extortion, or the bypassing of international financial transfers) might likewise be illegal, branding a nascent group as bandits or brigands.
Irregular organizations begin as clandestine networks that must organize popular support in order to survive. Many do not succeed. Identity-based distinctions—a particular village, a particular clan, a particular religious sect—might define the organization at this point. Such incipient networks emerge as armed groups challenging the writ of the state, at which point they are generally defensive in orientation (due to weakness and an objective of protecting themselves), are fragmented or vanguard organizations, and do not pursue decisive change. Indeed, a mafiosi element emerges in which nascent organizations that seek resources and illicit activities thrive in the un- or undergoverned spaces that facilitate their growth.
Guerrillas
A guerrilla fights a protracted war of attrition or exhaustion. From the Iberian Peninsula in the 1800s to Burmese tribesmen in World War II, guerrilla strategy has been characterized by offensive hit-and-run engagements, generally against lines of communication or isolated outposts, with the aim of exhausting an adversary. History has demonstrated the validity of this logic as a French participant to the Iberian campaign, J. F. A. Lemière de Corvey, observed as far back as 1823:
One hundred and fifty to two hundred guerrilla bodies throughout Spain each took a vow to kill thirty or forty Frenchmen a month, making six to eight thousand men a month [tallying some seventy thousand a year] for all the guerrilla bands.
The attrition of Napoleon’s Grande Armée in Russia in 1812 punished his bold advance and prompted a withdrawal of French troops from Iberia to reconstitute lost forces. Between 1942 and 1944, a million Axis troops were fixed in place in Yugoslavia and progressively weakened by attrition through countless partisan ambushes and raids. A guerrilla group’s strategy retains its small-war and parochial characteristics, generally seeking change only within a particular district, valley, or mountain range.
Offensive action requires support—ideological, materiel, and intelligence. But as Bernard Fall notes, the armed component that conducts “guerrilla warfare is nothing but a tactical appendage of a far vaster political contest and . . . no matter how expertly it is fought by competent and dedicated professionals, it cannot possibly make up for the absence of a political rationale.” Guerrilla strategy is thus an extension of preestablished defensive militia networks, themselves a manifestation of a broader political movement. These layers of ideological support create local sanctuaries, metaphorical estuaries for the rebellious fish in a sea of popular support that provide the group’s logistics requirements. Internationalized patron support markedly enables the capability of rebel groups and is thus often present within this strategy.
Insurgents
Insurgency is “a protracted political-military activity directed toward completely or partially controlling the resources of a country through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations.” It differs from a localized guerrilla organization by having national, or even international, objectives. The primary goal is state exhaustion—of an enemy near or far—often requiring internationalized support and popular legitimacy through effective shadow governance. Competition for control over the population is all-encompassing, as insurgent organizations typically use welfare as warfare and forms of rebelocracy to govern areas they control. Insurgent strategy is thus characterized by development as an integrated organization and may field people’s armies of conventional military capability working in concert with guerrilla elements and localized militias.
Revolutionaries
Revolutionaries pursue the forcible overthrow of a government through mass mobilization of a significant component of the population. This differentiates a revolution from a coup d’état and lends legitimacy in the eyes of the local population. Revolutionary strategy relies upon the seeds of clandestine organization that guide the masses. It is marked by rapid change that results from a schism within the power structures of the state. As Hannah Arendt notes: “Generally speaking, we may say that no revolution is even possible where the authority of the body politic is truly intact, and this means, under modern conditions, where the armed forces can be trusted to obey the civil authorities.” Thus, “revolutionists in modern society do not so much ‘seize’ power as destroy and re-create it.”
Tracing Nonstate Actor Evolution
Irregular challengers often begin as small, clandestine networks (militias or mafiosi)—often based upon preconflict friendship or familial groups—that take time to develop grassroots support, organize, and mobilize against authority. Their structures and strategies evolve based upon their objectives and their strength. Too fast an evolution and groups will likely lack cohesion, providing opportunities for the security forces to infiltrate, target, or foment factional splits and infighting. Too slow an evolution and a decline in popular support will likely manifest through conflict fatigue, disillusionment with irregular leaders, or the emergence of more radicalized competing factions. Irregular actors are not static entities; they adopt particular formulations depending upon the level of popular discontent, the strength of their organizations, and the state of competition for control over their target populations.
There are two paths of evolution within the taxonomy. First is a counterclockwise progression from clandestine militia networks to guerrillas, insurgents, and then revolutionaries—a pathway that describes Cold War–era Communist revolutionary warfare doctrine. That an insurgency might attempt one or more Tet-like revolutionary escalations demonstrates the challenge in successfully adopting a classic revolutionary strategy and perhaps encourages rebels to adopt a Maoist progression into a people’s army to exhaust its challenger, rather than seek its collapse. The second pathway describes a direct revolutionary challenge: development from a clandestine network to a group aiming to directly spark a revolution. This represents the Leninist model that culminates in a coup d’état, David Galula’s shortcut pattern, and the Che Guevara–prescribed focoist progression. The dual pathways are shown graphically below.
An improved taxonomy regarding irregular warfare can assist policymakers and practitioners in responding to contemporary and emerging forms of irregular conflict. By understanding the maturity and trajectory of a nonstate actor based on its stage of development and current strategy, policymakers can tailor interventions to disrupt the group’s structure and activities. Armed with this taxonomy, analysts should recognize that aggressive counterterrorism actions against local self-defense militias will yield the accidental guerrilla—trapping us in a vicious cycle of so-called wars on terrorism. Western governments must improve their lexicon about nonstate adversaries in order to learn from—and avoid repeating—the last twenty years of conflict.
Major Andrew Maher is an Australian chief of army scholar, a visiting fellow and lecturer with the University of New South Wales Canberra on irregular warfare, and a doctoral candidate examining the strategy of proxy warfare.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, the United States Department of the Army, the United States Department of Defense, the Australian Army, or the Australian Department of Defence.
17. Cryptocurrency Is a Cash Cow for Far-Right Extremists
Cryptocurrency Is a Cash Cow for Far-Right Extremists
As the Freedom Convoy protests enter their fourth week, the Canadian government is targeting protestors’ ability to fundraise, including via cryptocurrency. It’s time for Washington to do the same for domestic extremists.
Canada’s Freedom Convoy protesters are increasingly turning to cryptocurrency donations for support after crowdfunding site GoFundMe seized millions of dollars that the convoy had raised on the platform. This shift to cryptocurrency mirrors a pattern seen elsewhere, in which controversial figures pivot to cryptocurrency after being denied the ability to raise funds on mainstream financial platforms. In Canada’s southern neighbor, a very different population has also undertaken a similar pivot to cryptocurrency and raked in millions of dollars in cryptocurrency over the past few years: America’s far-right domestic extremists. This trend is likely to grow absent action from policymakers.
Far-right domestic extremists—including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and their fellow travelers—are not newcomers to cryptocurrency usage. Analysts have noted that domestic extremists have received cryptocurrency donations since 2016, and many of these figures were early adopters of cryptocurrency. However, the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville was a watershed moment for America’s domestic extremist milieu and its relationship to cryptocurrency. As banks and other traditional financial providers began to cut off extremist groups and individuals, many flocked to cryptocurrency, enticed by its relative anonymity.
Domestic extremists exploit cryptocurrency in three major ways. First, they solicit cryptocurrency donations in return for content they produce, such as radio shows, blogs and websites, podcasts, and video streams. Second, they sell extremism-oriented merchandise that can be bought with cryptocurrency. And third, extremists accept cryptocurrency donations for general support.
Tim Gionet, better known as “Baked Alaska,” stunned the world with his livestream of the Capitol assault on video platform DLive. Gionet made over $2,000 from his stream, which showed him breaking into Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office. DLive allows cryptocurrency-based donations via “lemons,” the site’s currency. Viewers buy lemons—DLive offers Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ethereum, among others, as alternative payment options—and can send the lemons to streamers as tips.
Nick Fuentes, who hosts America First, a podcast that spreads the modern white nationalist movement’s ideology, also had a handsome payday from DLive. Fuentes—who is a leader of the white nationalist and anti-Semitic group Gropyer Army—raised nearly $94,000 on DLive between April 2020 and January 2021; DLive kicked him off the platform after the Capitol assault.
The Right Stuff, a neo-Nazi media network that hosts the shows Fash the Nation and The Daily Shoah, which promote white supremacy and Holocaust denialism, allows its audience to donate in six different cryptocurrencies on its website. And The Daily Stormer, one of the most notorious neo-Nazi message boards and propaganda sites, received a donation of 14.88 bitcoins, worth more than $60,000 at the time, in the wake of the Charlottesville rally. (The amount of the donation is itself a reference to core white supremacist ideas: The “14” is a reference to the late white supremacist David Lane’s 14 words, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The “88” stands for Heil Hitler.) The Daily Stormer now only accepts Monero, a cryptocurrency that claims to be untraceable—thus making it what is termed a “privacy coin.”
In addition to his podcast, Nick Fuentes operates an “America First” store that sells merchandise, including a seasonal collection aptly named “White Boy Summer.” The merchandise can be purchased with Litecoin. For an even blunter extremist shopping experience, customers can turn to Will2Rise (W2R), the merchandising and media arm of the Rise Above Movement, a white supremacist group that boasts the skinhead movement’s emphasis on street fighting. W2R prides itself on offering an “ethical supply chain,” noting that: “All products are made in Eastern Europe, so not a single hand touches the production that is not of like mind.” W2R accepts five different cryptocurrencies as payment, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Domestic extremists are also finding their pleas for help—be it general support or fundraising for legal defense—answered by cryptocurrency. Jason Kessler, the organizer of the “Unite the Right” rally, solicits cryptocurrency donations for his Charlottesville legal defense fund. One campaign for Kessler’s legal defense on GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site, offers Bitcoin and Monero, a privacy coin, as ways to support the fund.
The National Socialist Movement (NSM) bills itself as “America’s Premier White Civil Rights Organization” and, unsurprisingly, advocates for national socialism in the United States. An individual affiliated with the group attempted to attack black passengers on an Amtrak train in 2017. NSM accepts Bitcoin donations on its website. Similarly, Atomwaffen Division, an accelerationist white supremacist group that aims to foment a race war that will cause the collapse of the U.S. political system, accepted Monero donations on a website affiliated with the group. (In March 2020, Atomwaffen ostensibly disbanded, though analysts believe it rebranded itself as the National Socialist Order.)
Indeed, Monero donations signal an increasing—and increasingly worrying—trend of domestic extremists trying to obfuscate their identities. As law enforcement investigations of domestic extremism grow, extremists have attempted to obstruct the tracing of cryptocurrency payments. In addition to the adoption of Monero and other privacy coins, extremists have used tactics to mask ownership of funds, such as “mixing” or “coinjoining,” protocols where users, for a small fee, can hide the ownership of their funds.
As domestic extremists get savvy, it’s time for us to get smart. To curb extremists’ activities, and mitigate the threats they pose, their funding streams should be blocked. Luckily, the U.S. government and the private sector can institute many policies which do that within three broad lines of effort: increasing designations, instituting regulations and standards, and forging public-private partnerships.
First, the U.S. government should designate violent white supremacist groups as terrorist organizations. Designations are one of the most powerful tools that the U.S. government can deploy to disrupt extremists’ fundraising capabilities, but the United States has only designated one white supremacist group to date. While U.S. law prohibits designations of domestic groups, the government can and should increase designations of violent white supremacist groups that have a foreign nexus. The power of designations would also encourage cryptocurrency companies to disengage from designated entities.
Second, policymakers should consider a host of regulations to bring cryptocurrencies, including privacy coins and central bank digital currencies (CBDC), under the regulatory perimeter. Regulations would provide the cryptocurrency industry with a clear, uniform set of rules for how to treat illicit activity. Regulations for privacy coins could take the form of strengthening reporting standards for cryptocurrency exchanges that transact with privacy coins. Establishing standards now for CBDCs, such as the digital dollar—even if adoption of these currencies remains years away—would help mitigate extremists’ abuse of government-backed digital currencies. Supporting global standards on virtual assets would also help prevent extremists’ ability to exploit cryptocurrency by closing the gaps between regulatory regimes in different countries, and would provide the cryptocurrency industry with uniform standards for assessing illicit or suspicious transactions.
Lastly, blockchain analysis firms and non-partisan watchdog groups should form public-private partnerships. Such collaboration would leverage both actors’ tools to produce actionable intelligence. Ultimately, such partnerships would increase awareness of how extremists use cryptocurrencies and would allow relevant companies in the cryptocurrency space to better understand this usage.
As the Freedom Convoy protests enter their fourth week, the Canadian government is targeting protestors’ ability to fundraise, including via cryptocurrency. It’s time for Washington to do the same for domestic extremists. Absent action, cryptocurrency will remain their cash cow.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the CEO of Valens Global and leads a project on domestic extremism for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Varsha Koduvayur is an analyst at Valens Global, where she focuses on U.S. domestic extremism and geopolitics. Follow Daveed on Twitter @DaveedGR and Varsha @varshakoduvayur.
18. FDD | It’s Time to Talk About the Shortcomings of Cybersecurity in the Water Industry
FDD | It’s Time to Talk About the Shortcomings of Cybersecurity in the Water Industry
Samantha Ravich
CCTI Chairman
Trevor Logan
Research Analyst
fdd.org · by Samantha Ravich CCTI Chairman · February 23, 2022
In the United States, there are 16 “critical infrastructure” sectors so vital for the fundamental health, safety, and prosperity of the country that their incapacitation or destruction would have catastrophic or even existential effects on the nation. The water sector may be the most crucial.
Over the last two decades, water utilities have incorporated automation technologies to provide reliable water to the public. However, this digitization has also exposed them to malicious cyber actors looking to deny or disrupt services.
The threat is not theoretical. From Atlanta to Seattle, America’s water systems are under sustained attack. In August 2021, malicious cyber actors deployed ransomware against a California-based wastewater facility. Earlier that year, hackers breached two Maine-based facilities. Probably the most well known attack occurred one year ago when a hacker accessed and briefly manipulated the chemicals used to treat drinking water for the city of Oldsmar, Florida.
At the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, we recently published a report warning of the significant cybersecurity deficiencies in drinking water and wastewater systems. We urged the U.S. government to devote more resources and collaborate more closely with industry to move the entire sector in the right direction.
Our fundamental belief is that governments must help empower the businesses, localities, and entities at the heart of the sector as opposed to creating more top-down government bureaucracy. With the large numbers of water utilities in the United States, this is the only path that can yield a timely and efficient outcome.
National governments around the world should establish grant programs for initiatives that bolster cybersecurity resilience. Cybersecurity grants are particularly beneficial for smaller and rural water organizations that may otherwise not have the budget or capacity to invest in cybersecurity. This may seem like an obvious fix to a long-standing problem. However, of the U.S. federal government’s grants and low-interest loans to water utilities, Washington has spent less than one percent on cybersecurity projects.
Governments must also resource and organize their own agencies to be able to provide expertise and technical assistance to secure the water sector from physical and cyber threats. In the United States, this is the job of the Environmental Protection Agency, but for decades the agency has fallen short.
Better public-private collaboration between the water industry, threat information sharing institutions, and the intelligence community are necessary. Pairing operational knowledge of specific water facilities by private actors with government expertise on evolving trends in cyberattacks and defense can facilitate timely and concrete action to protect vital water and wastewater systems.
Countries should consider establishing a joint industry-government oversight program to increase the cybersecurity of the water sector. The hallmark of this partnership is for industry experts to identify the technical standards for the water organizations, while the respective governments can provide support and, if necessary, enforcement of regulations to ensure that a baseline of cybersecurity readiness and investment is met.
Since antiquity, poisoning of an enemy’s water source was a tried-and-true strategy to sow terror and decimate a population. The modern equivalent is now playing out in the targeting of the cyber backbone of the water sector. This essential lifeline sector itself will need to recognize its vulnerabilities and take long overdue measures to bolster its cyber defenses. The time for governments to make significant investments into cybersecurity for the water sector has arrived. While there will be other vital sources clamoring for scarce funding, expertise, and other resources, countries should keep in mind a sobering fact: A person can survive without water for only 3 days.
Dr. Samantha F. Ravich serves as chair of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Trevor Logan is a research analyst. For more analysis from the authors and CCTI, please subscribe HERE. Follow Trevor on Twitter @TrevorLoganFDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Samantha Ravich CCTI Chairman · February 23, 2022
19. Word by Word and Between the Lines: A Close Look at Putin’s Speech
Word by Word and Between the Lines: A Close Look at Putin’s Speech
The Interpreter
In an impassioned address about Ukraine, Russia’s leader laid bare grievances old and new. We took at look at what it might mean.
President Vladimir V. Putin meeting with members of Russia’s Security Council in Moscow on Monday.
By
Feb. 23, 2022, 6:24 a.m. ET
In a long and heated address on Monday, Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president, spun a narrative whose implications sprawl well beyond his stated purpose of recognizing the independence of two Ukrainian territories held by Moscow-backed separatists.
Mr. Putin’s speech was awash with hard-line Russian nationalism, angry paranoia toward the West, baseless claims of Ukrainian aggression, a sense of lost imperial pride on the verge of reclamation and, most of all, invocations of history, much of it distorted or fabricated.
While his comments might have sounded rambling to Western ears, Mr. Putin may in fact have been articulating what amounted to a calculated series of justifications for a further invasion of Ukraine aimed at the Russian public, whose support he will need to maintain it. What follows is a concise annotation of several key passages that convey Mr. Putin’s overt and implied case for war.
Challenging Borders
Since time immemorial, the people living in the southwest of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians.
So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia — by separating, severing what is historically Russian land.
Mr. Putin is repeating his longstanding argument that Ukraine’s borders are an artificial creation of Soviet planners who unjustly cordoned rightful Russian land within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In reality, internal Soviet borders reflected centuries-old cultural and political divides, as well as what Moscow’s own census takers found to be an ethnic Ukrainian majority throughout that territory, including in what is now eastern Ukraine.
Mr. Putin’s comments, which build on his justification for annexing Crimea in 2014, imply a mandate to assert Russian sovereignty over part or all of eastern Ukraine, as well, even if for now he is only recognizing the independence of the Moscow-backed separatists who control parts of it.
His repeated references to Ukraine as artificial, and his past claims that “Ukraine is not even a state,” as he said in 2008, suggest he may also be leaving himself the option of declaring all of Ukraine to be a historical invention, serving to justify a wider invasion.
Protesters toppled a statue of Lenin in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in December 2013.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
A Heavy Threat
And today the “grateful progeny” has overturned monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. They call it de-communization. You want de-communization? Very well, this suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show what real de-communizations would mean for Ukraine.
Mr. Putin is pointedly suggesting that Ukrainians should have thanked Vladimir Lenin, the founding Soviet leader whom Mr. Putin blames for Ukraine’s borders, rather than overturning Soviet-era statues during 2014 protests against Kyiv’s pro-Moscow government.
His reference to “real de-communization” implies that Mr. Putin is preparing to erase what he considers Lenin’s actual legacy by forcibly redrawing Ukraine’s borders to his liking.
Reinstating Soviet Claims
The virus of nationalist ambitions is still with us, and the mine laid at the initial stage to destroy state immunity to the disease of nationalism was ticking. As I have already said, the mine was the right of secession from the Soviet Union.
Mr. Putin simultaneously presents himself as championing Russian nationalism, through blood-and-soil territorial claims, and as fighting the “disease of nationalism,” in this case Ukraine’s long struggle for national autonomy.
This contradiction is rooted in his obsession with the breakup of the Soviet Union, to which he dedicates a long section of his speech.
It is now that radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the C.P.S.U. leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies. The collapse of the historical Russia known as the U.S.S.R. is on their conscience.
Mr. Putin argues that Ukraine and other former Soviet republics were manipulated into declaring independence from Moscow by self-interested opportunists.
In reality, an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians — including in the eastern Ukrainian regions that Mr. Putin suggests were ripped from Russia against their residents’ will — voted to establish an independent state.
A ceremony on Feb. 16 for Ukraine’s National Day of Unity, which was proclaimed after intelligence suggested it was a potential date for a Russian invasion.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
These comments portray the Ukrainian state as an illegitimate creation: an act of theft from Russia and Ukrainians who should still be under Moscow’s rule.
And, in an escalation drawing concern across Europe, Mr. Putin suggests that this applies to all former Soviet republics. Three of those countries are now NATO members, meaning that the alliance has committed to their defense: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
An Attack on Legitimacy
The Ukrainian authorities — I would like to emphasize this — began by building their statehood on the negation of everything that united us, trying to distort the mentality and historical memory of millions of people, of entire generations living in Ukraine. It is not surprising that Ukrainian society was faced with the rise of far-right nationalism, which rapidly developed into aggressive Russophobia and neo-Nazism.
This is the beginning of Mr. Putin’s explicit case for war to seize parts of eastern Ukraine and his implied case for possible war against all of Ukraine.
The modern Ukrainian state itself, he argues, is a kind of attack on Russia because it divides Ukrainian and Russian peoples who should be united and because it cultivates anti-Russian extremism to justify this division.
In reality, Ukraine’s ethnic and linguistic groups have coexisted far more peacefully than Mr. Putin claims. While the country’s Russian-speaking populations have sometimes favored political ties with Moscow over those with the West, the country’s politics have reflected this, and those groups have grown sharply distrustful of Russia since 2014.
Essentially, the so-called pro-Western civilizational choice made by the oligarchic Ukrainian authorities was not and is not aimed at creating better conditions in the interests of people’s well-being but at keeping the billions of dollars that the oligarchs have stolen from the Ukrainians and are holding in their accounts in Western banks, while reverently accommodating the geopolitical rivals of Russia.
Here Mr. Putin extends his historical revisionism into an indictment of modern Ukraine. Its government, he argues, is not a real government but a clan of thieves — and therefore due none of the rights of a sovereign state — as well as an intrinsic threat to Russian security.
By couching his case in the supposed illegitimacy of the Ukrainian state itself, Mr. Putin is suggesting that no policy change or diplomatic concession could alleviate this threat. It is, in a sense, a declaration that there is no point in negotiation, that Moscow has no choice but to coerce Kyiv’s leaders by force, or else remove them outright.
A government building in Kyiv on Monday.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times
A False ‘Anti-Russian’ Campaign
The policy to root out the Russian language and culture and promote assimilation carries on. The Verkhovna Rada has generated a steady flow of discriminatory bills, and the law on the so-called Indigenous people has already come into force. People who identify as Russians and want to preserve their identity, language and culture are getting the signal that they are not wanted in Ukraine.
Since 2004, Ukraine has moved, often slowly, to elevate the status of the Ukrainian language.
Russian officials and state media have sought to portray this as part of a galling campaign to marginalize or even outright exterminate Ukraine’s Russian-speaking populations.
They prefer not to acknowledge this, there is no genocide perpetrated against 14 million people.
Such claims, which are largely fictitious, serve to justify Russian military interventions as protecting populations that Moscow had both a right and a duty to defend. They also implicitly assert a Russian right to dominate what Mr. Putin has called the “Russian world” — territory containing large numbers of Russian speakers or ethnic Russians, which roughly maps onto the old Soviet borders.
In 2014, similar accusations, supported by grisly, false stories of anti-Russian atrocities in Ukraine, provoked widespread anti-Ukraine sentiment in Russia.
But Russian attitudes toward Ukraine have since cooled to 45 percent favorable and 43 percent negative, a recent poll found. Other polls suggest most do not want overt war, which may be why Mr. Putin is seeking to renew public outrage.
A Defensive War
The Kyiv authorities cannot challenge the clearly stated choice of the people, which is why they have opted for aggressive action, for activating extremist cells, including radical Islamist organizations, for sending subversives to stage terrorist attacks at critical infrastructure facilities, and for kidnapping Russian citizens. We have factual proof that such aggressive actions are being taken with support from Western security services.
In fact, this is nothing other than preparation for hostilities against our country, Russia.
These outlandish accusations of Ukrainian and Western plots to attack Russia are most likely intended for the Russian public, portraying further invasion of Ukraine as necessary to defend Russian families — rather than a pursuit of lofty regional ambitions that might be a harder sell.
Understand How the Ukraine Crisis Developed
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Failed diplomatic efforts. The United States, NATO and Russia have been engaged in a whirlwind of diplomacy to prevent an escalation of the conflict. In December, Russia put forth a set of demands, including a guarantee that Ukraine would never join NATO. The West dismissed those demands and threatened economic consequences.
But these claims might not be entirely strategic. After many years in office, Mr. Putin has tightened his inner circle to a small cadre of yes-men and security service hard-liners, who are thought to tell him only what he wants to hear.
A Ukrainian soldier at a frontline position in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
It is possible that Mr. Putin sincerely believes some portion of the foreign threats he claims, perhaps especially those regarding NATO.
The Ukrainian army is waiting to get into NATO. … The West has explored the territory of Ukraine as a future theater, future battlefield, that is aimed against Russia.
Mr. Putin has long striven to prevent more of Russia’s neighbors from joining NATO. Throughout negotiations during the current crisis, he has insisted that NATO revoke Washington’s 2008 declaration that it would consider membership for Ukraine or Georgia.
It is difficult to say for certain whether his claims of a NATO plot to attack Russia represent his sincere belief or an exaggeration for political effect.
Inevitable Sanctions
Once again, they threatened us with sanctions. They will still impose those, the stronger and more powerful our country becomes. They will always find an excuse to introduce more sanctions regardless of the situation in Ukraine. The only goal they have is to contain the development of Russia.
Mr. Putin is telling Russians that there is no point in constraining Russian foreign policy to avoid sanctions that will come no matter what — and that, should Russians suffer under further economic isolation, Mr. Putin and his policies will be blameless.
President Biden announcing sanctions against Russia on Tuesday.Credit...Al Drago for The New York Times
This may be one of the few lines in the speech aimed at Western capitals as well as at his audience at home. European leaders know that severe economic sanctions will harm their economies as well as Russia’s. Mr. Putin may be hoping to persuade them that such a sacrifice will be futile.
A Purposeful Fog of War
Now, almost every day, they are shelling settlements. They have amassed large troops. They are using vehicles and other heavy machinery. They are torturing people, children, women, elderly people. It does not stop. We have seen no end to it.
Mr. Putin’s speech culminates by describing an entirely false Ukrainian military assault on the country’s separatist-held east. In reality, in advance of his speech, Russia-backed forces shelled territory along the line of control between Ukrainian and separatist forces.
This is likely aimed at muddying the Russian public’s understanding. If both sides accuse one another of unwarranted aggression, then who can say which is true?
But his depiction may be intended to justify even greater action than the order he issued after his speech for a Russian “peacekeeping operation” in separatist-held territories.
Western governments have repeatedly claimed that their intelligence shows that Mr. Putin is planning to stage a supposed attack on Russia-backed forces to justify a fuller invasion, perhaps even a siege of Kyiv. Many of Russia’s forces are massed on Ukraine’s northern and southern borders, far from the separatist-held east.
The picture that Mr. Putin paints at the end of his speech, of a vast Ukrainian campaign of terror abetted by hostile Western governments bent on attacking Russia, seems to leave that option open.
A kindergarten hit by separatist shelling in Stanytsa Luhanska, Ukraine.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
