Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine war updates, South Korea threatens to arm Ukraine.
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*we will discuss Israeli airstrikes and their implications in the upcoming cables.
Ukraine war updates.
1) Ukraine’s military intel accuses Russia of supplying North Korea with nukes.
General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, accused Moscow of transferring to DPRK "some technologies for low-yield tactical nuclear weapons and submarine missile-launch systems" to North Korea.
Allegedly, this was done in exchange for manpower and materiel support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
There has been little corroborating evidence from the U.S. or allies in Europe.
It is important to remember that as the head of military intel agency, Budanov can (and frequently does) engage in informational warfare and does have an incentive to hype up Russia-North Korea partnership - emphasizing the need to defeat Putin.
But it is clear that Russia - NK alliance is only going in one direction: ever-closer alignment and military partnership.
So, it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect something like this to happen at some point - that is, if nothing changed in terms of the U.S. response.
2) US help for Ukraine’s long-range drones - a new milestone.
Washington has greenlit a new $800 million military aid package to Ukraine, earmarked for producing long-range drones domestically.
President Zelenskyy sees this as a crucial pivot-his long-held vision of building weapons in Ukraine rather than relying solely on U.S.-manufactured arms is now finally taking shape.
A Pentagon source confirmed this shift marks a broader U.S. strategy to empower Ukraine's self-reliance in war efforts.
At the time when aid packages have tapered out (and no new major funding bill seems to be on the horizon), this is definitely a great development.
(side note: it’s only the latest move in Western backing for Ukraine’s defense industry: Denmark, Canada, and the Netherlands have also pledged support via Kyiv's $10 billion Manufacturing Freedom initiative.)
Two things to note here:
1) Ukraine has already proven the efficacy of its domestic drone program: many of these drones have conducted long-range strikes instead of ATACMS/Storm Shadows that continue to come with restrictions on ‘‘deep strike’’ targeting within Russia.
And some of these strikes have been truly astonishing: the one in western Russia resulted in a chain of secondary explosions and led to the whole thing being captured and categorized as an earthquake
2) Not only do a lot of these drones have a longer range than storm shadows or ATACMS, they will also come with no restrictions on targeting.
Overall, this decision from Washington marks a significant milestone in shifting towards supporting Ukraine as a self-reliant military power base.
Not only is this a practically valuable decision, it is highly prudent from the perspective of strategic signaling as well: it shows long-term commitment and signals that the U.S. statesmen will most definitely not agree with any ‘‘demilitarization’’ demands from Moscow as part of the potential negotiations to end the war.
This is important, because at the very outset of this war, Putin declared the twin goals of ‘‘demilitarization and denazification’’ as war aims.
That was of course before the fiasco around Kyiv - once the Russian army failed to capture the city and withdrew back to Belarus, Putin’s rhetoric switched to ‘‘protecting Russian speakers from the genocide in eastern Ukraine’’.
To be clear, that bogus claim was always part of the war aims package - but given that Putin failed at removing Zelensky’s government in an attempted coup, and failed to capture Kyiv, the emphasis in the stated war aims changed significantly.
And in fact, we don’t really hear Putin talk about ‘‘demilitarization’’ nearly as much.
Well, it is good to keep it that way.
So that if there were to be negotiations on ending the war sometime soon, Putin wouldn’t dare bring up such preposterous conditions that the West should stop arming Ukraine/helping it build its domestic military-industrial base.
To be clear, it is too soon for Ukraine to negotiate in any case: the country is on the losing trajectory, and this trajectory must change before there are attempts for negotiations: otherwise, Kyiv will enter these with little leverage.
It would end up being conditions of surrender more than genuine negotiations.
But even if there were negotiations sometime next year (by which point, hopefully Ukraine was to recover considerable leverage, after reversing at least some of the trends on the battlefield), it is important to disabuse Putin of the notion that he can return to his preposterous demands made at the outset of his invasion of Ukraine.
And to this end, U.S. investment into long-term domestic capacity of Ukraine serves as an important signal that potential demands around demilitarization would be a complete non-starter for Ukraine and its Western allies.
3) U.S. Secretary of Defense comes up with rhetoric that reeks of weakness and impotence.
Defense Sec Lloyd Austin:
"If Ukraine falls under Putin’s boot, all of Europe will collapse from Putin's push".
Firstly, we have previously discussed how there is no need to make such wild claims to boost support for Ukraine: there are already enough strategically sound reasons that justify a vigorous support for Ukraine on the basis of pure realpolitik national self-interest/national security (let alone higher values of ethics/morality.)
Claiming a domino theory - that Russia would somehow dare to invade all of Europe is just not credible.
Secondly, and more importantly, Austin’s own rhetoric undermines the whole point of NATO: So we are to believe that Russia would march on and Europe will collapse?
What happened to NATO?
Wasn’t the US commitment to NATO ironclad?
What happened to the commitment to defend ‘‘every inch’’ of NATO territory?
Is Austin even aware of the drastic implications of his own claim here?
If Europe was somehow to collapse under the Russian military might, then either 1) the U.S. didn’t get involved in defense of its NATO allies in Europe, or 2) the U.S. did intervene, but was somehow overpowered by the mighty Russian army on the battlefield?
Either way it is really bad..
In addition, leaving aside NATO/Europe, why is there such defeatism on Ukraine?
What do you mean ‘‘If’’ Ukraine ‘‘falls under Putin’s boot” - where is the U.S. in all this?
How can Washington even accept such a possibility?
It was Austin’s commander-in-chief President Biden that visited Kyiv on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion and promised that ‘‘Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never.”
What happened to that promise?
Is Austin giving up on that promise on behalf of his President?
Is Biden even aware of this statement? Someone should tell him if he isn’t..
For the Defense Secretary to contradict his own commander-in-chief and imply that the U.S. may act as a mere bystander in the war in Ukraine, and that Russia could indeed take over the country is a fireable offense.
What message does this send to any other ally anywhere else in the world?
To South Korea? To Taiwan? To the Philippines?
How should they view U.S. commitments if the President of the U.S. promises that Russia would never be victorious in Ukraine and then a year later, his own Secretary of State implies that not only is that possible, things could be even worse than that - and that even European allies could collapse under Russian onslaught as well?
Terrible rhetoric that reeks of weakness - it is really unbecoming for a superpower to have such leaders at the helm.
In response to the NK- Russia alliance, South Korea needs to send serious weapons to Ukraine.
As discussed in last week’s cables, the North Korea - Russia alliance is now escalating into a full-on battlefield cooperation.
Previously, North Korea has been supplying ballistic missiles and artillery shells to Russia, but this is a new escalation, and up to 10k+ troops are estimated to be deployed to Russia.
Divergent risks & incentives result in contrasting levels of pro-Russia involvement between NK and Iran.
No other Russian ally is offering such a direct help - Iran is also supplying short-range ballistic missiles and Shahed drones (even agreeing to a joint-production in Tatarstan, Russia and technology transfers to scale their numbers in 2025) but thus far, even the Ayatollah regime hasn’t sent ground troops.
Now, circumstances with Iran are of course different: in contrast to North Korea (which has signed a public mutual defense treaty with Russia back in June, and has zero qualms of publicly backing Putin in Ukraine) the regime in Iran rebuts the claims of outright military help offered to Russia as ‘‘fake news’’ and maintains (implausible) deniability.
Why? For at least Four reasons:
1) Attempting a reset with the West.
Iranian President Pezeshkian is playing the ‘‘I am a moderate’’ game and under this very mantle, he is trying to open up diplomatic channels with the West: attempting to discuss the possibility of arriving at a new nuclear deal and/or intermediate understanding that would ideally reduce sanctions on Iran.
Given this, Iran’s outright admission of helping Russia with lethal aid is a no go.
Of course, everyone is very well aware of this help in the west, but even a thin facade allows Western leaders to negotiate other West vs Iran issues by parking this one in the background - or at least that is the hope.
Iran gets to deny its involvement in public and can still use this very involvement as a bargaining chip in private: reduce our sanctions and maybe we lower the intensity of our support.
2) Avoiding making a stronger case for Israel.
By now, it is not a secret that Israel: 1) Wants an aerial bombardment war against Iran (targeting (ideally) their nuclear facilities and/or other military-industrial production sites, ammo depots etc- like they did this past weekend), and 2) Seeks the backing of US and other Western allies in this campaign.
Thus far, there is very little (at least on the surface/public) appetite for this campaign from the Biden admin - or from France/UK.
Western statesmen want to park this issue and focus on China/Russia.
But if Iran was to partake in battlefield cooperation with Russia, if it was to send actual ground troops, then Netanyahu would have a much easier task on his hands: convincing the West that Iran is a key player in propping up the Russia - China axis will become much easier.
And as a result, at the very minimum, it will be easier for Washington to tolerate Israeli strikes on Iran.
Or at the worst case scenario, the West will see this a 1) good deterrence against other states willing to back Russia in the open, and 2) An actual method of defanging Iran and precluding its effective aid to Russia - since, if Iran’s military-industrial facilities are hit, they will struggle to produce for Iran’s own needs - let alone supply to Russia.
3) Practical constraints.
Iran needs it troops for a potential showdown with Israel - although it is almost inconceivable that Israel/US would launch a ground invasion against Iran (any military involvement is likely to be limited to an air/missile campaign only), Tehran could still not afford to lose manpower in such a crucial point in time.
Indeed, it is very likely that a not so insignificant number of troops would be sent to Lebanon (to open a second front against Israel) in case of a full-on war with Israel.
Iran currently needs its men more than NK.
4) Wrath of Ukraine.
We have discussed before how Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) special ops has launched campaigns all across Africa to hunt down Wagner mercenaries (as both revenge, and more practically, to weaken their financial resources/gold pipeline and their manpower available for Ukraine).
Indeed, Ukrainian forces launched a number of special ops campaigns in Sudan - helping the formal Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to hunt down the rebel RSF and their Wagner backers.
There were some high profile wins elsewhere too - where Ukraine aided ambush (against Wagner operatives) in Mali resulted in a considerable massacre of the Russian Wagner mercenaries.
And HUR operatives were spotted even in the Middle East - there were a number of Ukrainian special ops seen in the Golan Heights region (possibly to harass Russian intel officers who were observing Hezbollah vs Israel clashes and the corresponding air attack/defense insights).
All of this is to say that Ukraine has established a powerful deterrence: hurt us and we will hurt you back.
And given their capabilities, and the immense pressure faced by the Iranian forces already, it is decidedly not in Tehran’s interest to trigger a military response from Ukraine.
In contrast, North Korea simply doesn’t care about the risks that face Iran - they are a nuclear state and have basic deterrence needs in check.
And given their distance from the battlefield, and the nature of their regime, it is simply unlikely that Ukraine would have resources or bandwidth to conduct long-range operations that could inflict sufficient injury to end up acting as a deterrent.
(side note: the only exception to this is if Ukrainian special ops started to target vessels carrying oil/fuel into North Korea. That could be a powerful enough effect, but it is unclear if Ukraine could pull it off consistently, and which other states (like China- a lot of these shadow fleets are operated by Chinese individuals, and with the blessing of Beijing) could end up annoying - resulting in a worse-off outcome for Kyiv. In addition, and even under this scenario, North Korea is simply likely to double down and send even more troops.)
South Korea’s response is lacking.
Seoul has previously supplied 155mm artillery shells to Ukraine - but did so indirectly, by supplying its allies like the US (which thereafter transferred them to Ukraine.)
This is because South Korea maintains a policy of not acting as a direct arms supplier to parties currently engaged in conflict - how quaint for the current age.
They are now threatening Russia and North Korea with just that - direct aid to Ukraine.
But this policy of threats is inadequate - since it presumes the possibility of Russia changing its mind.
And the idea that Russia would back down under South Korean threats and forego help of North Korean soldiers is a bit of a stretch.
Russia has an incentive to escalate significantly by the end of this year - Ukraine is on its back foot and no significant financial aid from the US is on schedule before 2025.
Add to this, even if South Korea was to send over significant hardware, there would still likely be procurement/supply process delay.
In other words, for Putin, betting on marginal utility of extra 12k NK troops (and that’s just the start) is probably higher than the downside risk of South Korean aid to Ukraine.
And in the meantime, Ukraine is on a bad trajectory - so South Korea should help Ukraine directly, and should skip the ‘‘threatening it for leverage’’ phase and deliver the goods now.