Weekly Overview

War in Ukraine : The West steps up its game, battlefield outlook and Russian maneuvers.

• Donbas battlefield updates & outlook.

• Fierce battles over Donbas, and control for the remaining pocket of Mariupol continue.

• Ukrainian counter attacks were ongoing across all axes, and included a push south of Mykolaiv, and a strike targeting a command post in Kherson - producing some impressive results, and leading to the deaths of two more Russian generals.

• Over the weekend, Russian troops also made some gains in Severodonetsk -taking over a few more towns in the Luhansk region of Donbas.

• But the plan to advance southeast towards the Luhansk region from Izyum, has seen less limited success - with several minor attacks repelled by the Ukrainian army.

• It is unclear how at this pace, Russia will succeed at enveloping the JFO forces in Donbas - and with increase in the military aid to Ukraine, this will become a harder feat to pull off with every additional day.

• In the meantime, the true horror and intentionality of the Bucha terror is becoming clearer.

• And in addition, satellite image around Mariupol point to mass graves prepared for up to 9,000 bodies - indicating that Bucha may not have been a one-off incident of a rogue unit - but a systemic policy of terror.

• Whether or not these graves were indeed filled up with bodies of dead civilians is yet to be confirmed - although, the Mariupol’s local council is adamant that the graves were being filled up throughout April.

• The US/NATO military aid reaches a new scale.

• The Western allies have finally started to deliver military aid at an appropriate scale.

• In comparison to the previously measly 18 Howitzers, the Biden admin announced further 72 155mm Howitzers (to be towed with 72 Tactical Vehicles), and 144,000 artillery rounds.

• Furthermore, Ukraine is to receive 121 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems (which were re-designed specifically to add to their utility in the battlefields in Donbas).

• Additional field equipment and spare parts will also be provided (and thanks to these, Ukraine was already able to add 20 more aircrafts into its operational fleet).

• Other allies have also stepped up their game.

• France is shipping ‘‘several’’ of its highly reputable CAESAR self-propelled Howitzers.

• (side note: and Sweden should follow suit, and ship their world class Archer systems - the fastest Howitzer in the world)

• The scale is yet to match that of the US artillery provisions (and now that the Rubicon has been crossed, persuading the French to increase the scale will face lesser difficulty), and once certainly hopes that Macron’s decision was not motivated by a shorter-term incentive (the meagre size of the shipment raises such a possibility) to create a further policy contrast vis-à-vis his Presidential contender Marine Le Pen (whose defeat at the polls, is welcome news to the entire NATO), and that this was in fact a durable shift in policy.

• As always, the UK was once again at the forefront of the new military aid provided to Ukraine.

• To some extent, this was also likely driven by a desire to change the domestic narrative (partygate) in the UK.

• But the British PM Boris Johnson still demonstrated some admirable effectiveness in the past couple of days.

• The UK is to facilitate further deployment of Poland’s T-72 tanks to Ukraine (according to the IISS, Poland has 329 of these, and it is unclear how many will be delivered. But most probably in dozens) - backfilling them with the British Challenger 2s.

• This is a win-win for all parties: Ukraine gets more tanks that it can use without additional training, Poland gets more modern tanks, and NATO’s eastern front is thus reinforced with better hardware.

• Furthermore, continuous British aid and shipment of ATGMs and drones was confirmed in the conversation between Zelensky and Johnson.

• (side note: and Zelensky is most certainly going to press both Blinken and Austin for an increase in the scale of aid - both the Secretary of State and the Minister of Defense were in Kyiv this weekend: in itself a noteworthy gesture).

• But Johnson’s blow to Putin went beyond that of tactical moves in Ukraine.

• His India trip concluded with an announcement of a joint production of fighter jets, engines and undersea battle tech.

• This (in addition to the recently announced US/India military AI cooperation) will help to reduce India’s dependence on Russian military hardware - a significant strategic blow to Putin.

• And in the meantime, the Indian finance minister openly (yet implicitly) admitted what India needed in return to loosening its ties with Russia: depend less on them for military help.

• This is precisely what has been advocated in these cables for the past couple of weeks - and both the US and the UK are implementing correct policies to seize on this strategic opportunity.

• And there is certainly no good reason why the US (with the help of its allies, like for example Turkey - who would most likely be willing to replace certain Russian hardware at a lower price than those offered by the American defense companies) shouldn’t replace Russia as the primary military tech supplier for India - a nightmare scenario for Beijing.

• Germany embarrasses the West - again.

• At the time when Germany is about to host a 20-nation security conference on Ukraine’s long-term defense needs, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz engaged in further defeatist rhetoric and policy of appeasement.

• When asked about Germany’s reluctance to catch up with its NATO allies and ship heavy artillery to Ukraine, the German Chancellor revealed his priorities: avoiding a NATO vs Russia confrontation.

• It may be some news to the German Chancellor, but NATO is already in conflict with Russia - and avoidance of direct confrontation at all costs must not be the policy goal here.

• First of all - lack of confrontation with Russia should never be the primary goal.

• This is simply pathetic: there is not a hint of strategy or statesmanship here - this is something that a pink-haired hippie anti-war protester would say - not the leader of Europe’s largest state, that possessess its richest economy, and that hosts the largest US military base on the continent.

• Instead, the goal of NATO is: to 1) contain (and ideally, to defeat) Russia by maximizing the support for Ukraine, and to 2) increase security and integrity of the alliance.

• Achieving these goals necessarily implies willingness to escalate - and at the very least, not display the opposite: a total lack of will to escalate - such defeatism and self-deterrence will only increase the appetite of an opportunistic adversary.

• Secondly, even if avoiding a direct conflict with Russia was the goal, then such an escalation is best prevented through deterrence and not appeasement.

• And per Thomas Schelling’s formula, deterrence = capacity x will to act on that capacity.

• By announcing to the whole world what is it exactly that Germany is not willing to do, Chancellor Scholz is not only failing to demonstrate will, but he also ends up ceding the escalation dominance to Russia.

• (side note: and to a certain extent, the US is also guilty of this. Look at the contrast between the US decision to postpone (when trying to avoid an escalation) the rather routine test launch of its “Minuteman” ballistic missiles, with Putin’s decision to hold new tests for his “Sarmat” ballistic missiles. But, this of course pales in comparison with the conduct of the German Chancellor).

• Thirdly, if in the mind of the Chancellor Scholz, Germany is being prudent, then what is the corresponding implication here?

• Have the other NATO countries conducting the opposite policy, countries like the US, UK, Czech Republic, Poland, Baltic states and Turkey, been acting with extreme recklessness?

• Finally, the German Chancellor’s policy is simply wrong - it has been proven by empirical evidence: would Ukraine be in a better place if it was not supplied with all of these advanced weaponry that helped it to push Russia back into Donbas?

• Would Germany and NATO be better off if Putin was successful in seizing Kyiv and the Western Ukraine?

• If the recently successful and proud Russian army was at the Polish/Ukrainian border?

• In other words, more than anything, the very basic facts reveal the lack of wisdom and statesmanship in the arguments advanced by the German Chancellor.

• He must however be reminded that his thoughts reflect on NATO as a whole, and encourage the Kremlin to pursue further divide & conquer strategies within the alliance.

• Russian maneuvers.

• a) The Azovsteel gambit.

• Putin’s decision to call off his troops from storming the besieged Azovsteel plant caught a lot of attention.

• On the most rudimentary level, Russia was of course avoiding a bloodbath from pure self-interest: it cannot afford to waste any more troops on extravagant missions.

• Yes, it needs the soldiers involved in the Mariupol siege to be freed up and refocus and rejoin the pincer movements against the JFO forces north of Mariupol.

• But neither can he waste them - or at the very least, cause extreme attrition.

• But there were other advantages to this decision.

• Putin would avoid painting himself as unnecessarily sadistic.

• In addition, and perversely, the Ukrainians would be stuck with trying to devote resources towards the rescue of those trapped in Mariupol.

• That means less manpower and operational resources devoted towards other JFO operations in Donbas.

• It also puts an informal limit on Ukraine’s potential sabotage operations that would be particularly frustrating to the Kremlin - since Kyiv would have an incentive to negotiate the survival of those trapped in Azovsteel plant, and would thus self-police and avoid committing particularly impactful injuries on the battlefield.

• And all of this leads back to Russia’s leverage over Ukraine: in return for mercy granted to those trapped at the Azovsteel plant, the Kremlin can now (as they are likely already doing) demand something of high value from Kyiv.

• For all these reasons, this particular decision was perhaps the most rational battlefield decision taken to date by the Kremlin - which is great news, for it means that Russian is not under the command of a totally irrational madman (although still a bloodthirsty egomaniac war criminal).

• b) Transnistria comments.

• In contrast to the Azovsteel gambit, a Russian general’s comment that Russia must take control of the entire coast of Ukraine and join Transnistria with Russia, was a far less rational move.

• Of course, the existence of such a desire is not in question - these cables have frequently warned of precisely this danger - that Ukraine could be at risk of losing its entire Black Sea coast.

• But announcing these plans in public is quite strange.

• For one thing, such pronouncements allow Zelensky to counter with a very effective frame that Russia is a threat to the entire Europe - that the Kremlin’s appetite will not end with successful campaigns in Ukraine, and that the West must therefore do everything to help Kyiv defeat Russia in Ukraine.

• In addition, why trap yourself with plans that you are in no position to implement?

• Russian military firepower is barely enough to prosecute the war in Donbas (and even that will get harder to pull off, now that the US/NATO is finally stepping up the scale of the military aid shipped to Ukraine), let alone invade the entire coast of Ukraine.

• Of course, there is some logic to the comments - the value of these pronouncements lies in precisely what it insinuates: given that the Russian army is not currently in a position to prosecute this plan, it is implied that Russia may be willing to amp it up and recruit/devote more resources into the fight (possibly, even mobilize).

• And this implicit threat need not be convincing either - Ukraine will still have to devote/maintain resources for a potential fight over the Western coast simply because of the potential magnitude of the risk - not doing so would be reckless.

• The intent is that precisely this risk would disincentivize Kyiv from committing more resources into the Donbas theater.

• But given the overwhelming political and strategic costs - especially when the costs are clear, immediate and definitive, and benefits are only potential - it is not clear how on the balance, this comment was not another mistake from the Russian military command.

The US was too slow in responding to the Solomon Islands security threat - China gains an important foothold - necessary steps to take next.