Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine war updates, Zelenskyy readjust to the new reality as Putin presses on.
Ukraine War Updates.
1) Ukraine prepares for the new reality on the ground.
At the time when Russia displays appetite to absorb an inordinate amount of casualties for meagre returns (after 2 months of fighting, small town of Avdiivka is yet to be captured - in spite of the daily Russian casualties north of 1k), and with funding for new counteroffensives uncertain, Ukraine is rightly focusing on defensive posture in the near-term - preparing for a potentially prolonged period of preventing further Russian advances.
President Zelenskyy issued orders for the construction of an extensive network of battlefield fortifications to reinforce troop positions.
And on December 6th - (Ukraine’s Armed Forces Day) Zelenskyy was quite frank about the enormity of the task at hand.
Admitting that regaining occupied territories was tough, Zelenskyy emphasized that fighting on was the only viable option: “Is there really an alternative? No.”
Too bad that he also needs to deliver this message twice - once more for the Western audiences that are allegedly getting tired .. from doing almost nothing of consequence.
To date, the US provided/committed approximately $75bn worth of military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine - an amount that has now been overtaken (at 2x) by the allies in Europe.
It is certainly the case that American taxpayers don’t feel the pinch here - especially when considering the return on investment: damage sustained by the military of a significant expansionist/imperialist adversary, and a primary military partner of our #1 adversary, China.
In fact, the amount committed to Ukraine is so small that 3.5x as much ($247bn) is being lost (a figure that is approximately consistent every year) by the US Federal government due to some accounting/transaction errors - yet how many Americans are even aware of this larger sum?
2) With uncertainty surrounding US funding, Europe continues to step up.
Senior leaders in Washington were quite shocked by the funding debacle in the Senate last week.
$106bn funding bill - with most going to Ukraine ($61.4bn), Israel ($14.3bn) and Taiwan ($7.4bn - a figure that includes funds that will be dispersed to other countries as well - under an umbrella of ‘‘countering China”) was blocked by the GOP Senators (more on that later below).
"We can hold ourselves responsible for Ukraine's defeat if we don't manage to get this funding to Ukraine…Ukraine is just running out of money” said the Treasury Secretary Yellen.
President Biden was also frustrated with the Senate’s inability to rise to the occasion in the name of national interests: “The failure to support Ukraine is just absolutely crazy. It's against US interests..It's just wrong”.
One silver lining (if there is one) in all of this is that Europe continues to step up.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized the importance of preparedness to Ukraine when aid from other countries weakens: “If others begin to hesitate’’.
Of course by “others” he meant the US - embarrassing.
3) Russia reiterates that return of territory is out of the question.
Yet another week when Putin continues to rebut the weak isolationist arguments in favor of ‘‘negotiations’’ with Russia.
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the idea of negotiating on ‘‘Ukraine’s terms’’ as ‘‘absolutely unrealistic”.
This is because, as any rational country, Ukraine has demanded withdrawal of Russian occupying forces as part of negotiations on any other political matter (for example: the political autonomy discussions in relation to Luhansk and Donetsk regions).
And to emphasize the point that Putin was not planning to give up any occupied territories, Russian authorities announced the plans to hold the March 2024 Presidential elections also in the annexed territories.
If annexed territories are to be treated as part of Russia, the message is clear: these are our lands now, and we are not giving them up.
And why wouldn’t Putin continue with his maximalist war aims when all he can see from the west is hesitation in supporting and funding Ukraine, and delaying the delivery of crucial weapons when the funding is finally secured?
From his perspective, Putin has put his whole country on the war footing (with the defense budget for 2024 set to increase by 70%), diverted productive capacity of his economy towards manufacture of weapons and ammo, and has secured crucial supply chains for high-volumes of armaments from Iran and North Korea.
So why wouldn’t he press on?
We haven’t given him a convincing reason to abandon his maximalist war objectives.
But there is also another important point here to make: for those pressing for ‘‘negotiations’’, this is yet another wake up call to be honest - there cannot be any genuine negotiations right now - only appeasement and capitulation.
So if they want Ukraine to capitulate and give up 17% of its territories, and reward Russia for its war of invasion, then these individuals should say so openly.
Because at the moment, people like Tucker Carlson, Vivek Ramaswamy, and a few other cranks are deceiving the American public by implying that there is in fact a possibility of genuine negotiations, and that only the bloodthirsty conspiracy of the government in Kyiv and the ‘‘military-industrial complex’’ of the West is keeping this war alive.
And this poison of dishonest misrepresentation seeps into the public discourse and adds to the totally unjustified ‘‘Ukraine fatigue’’.
Putin embarks upon a political victory tour as Washington remains dysfunctional.
A lot of analysts act in a fake disbelief at the utterly pragmatic UAE leadership welcoming Putin - who, after months of isolation, finally receives a boost to his international prestige with a grandiose state visit.
Putin’s glowing presence in Abu Dhabi is indeed an unwelcome signal to all other countries of the global south - it is a signal of once again shifting tide in this war.
We had late spring and summer where Putin could not travel to South Africa due to an ICC warrant, and where a lot of African statesmen opted to skip this year’s Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg.
(side note: some African states are even angrier - Kenya accused Russia of backstabbing due to Moscow’s ruthless decision to end the Black sea grain deal with Ukraine, reimpose a blockade, and thus deprive the continent of a major source of calories)
But things change.. now we have a long-term US partner (ally is too generous) in the Middle East that opens its arms to Putin.
Note that this is the very same UAE that for months was denying its role in helping Russian oligarch money escape western sanctions and find relative safety in Dubai’s forgiving and (deliberately) lax financial services industry.
Political winds, and changing narrative in the Ukraine war (with the US/EU staying power ever so uncertain) change the mood - so much so that UAE’s leadership is no longer embarrassed with such a warm embrace of Putin.
Of course, in this particular case, and beyond Ukraine, there are also two additional reasons for the UAE’s willingness to openly embrace Russia:
1) Now that the Israeli - Saudi rapprochement is off the table in the near term (thanks to the Hamas terrorist attack and Israel’s indiscriminate retaliatory bombardment - which made any possibility of a broad rapprochement with Israel impossible to sell domestically), and the grander Washington plans for the region (like the Iran-focused Middle East air defense network) has been parked indefinitely, the likelihood of the UAE/Saudi confrontation with Iran has definitely gone down.
This is not 2022 anymore - Iranian drones don’t fly into skyscrapers in the UAE, and Houthis don’t attack Saudis from their base in Yemen.
And when Iran is no longer a pressing/imminent danger, the cost of displeasing Washington goes down.
2) Arab states - and the smaller UAE in particular - are genuinely worried about Russia - Iran military partnership deepening much further.
When Russia sells the 4.5th generation Su-35s (and probably S-400s as well) to Iran, that is a security threat to the gulf monarchy - hence the need to hug Russia closer (hoping to exercise some degree of leverage and softer influence over precise parameters of further Russia - Iran military partnership).
So the UAE had additional subjective factors that had always pushed it towards Russia - the recent change in the global mood around Ukraine was simply an additional push towards further hedging.
But Washington/Brussels must be careful not to see this as a one-off - there is no reason for the rest of the global south not to follow suit.
After all, why wouldn’t they hedge their bets when they see what is going on in Washington?
When they see the extent of the dysfunction in the US Congress - how the president who promised support for Ukraine for ‘‘as long as it takes’’ is failing to push through a funding bill for Ukraine?
That a superpower’s legislature should be able to set aside petty party politics in the matters of historic geopolitical events was an expectation many outside viewers took for granted.
But unfortunately, this very reasonable (yet largely naive one too - for anyone privy to above average knowledge of American politics) expectation is not panning out.
Instead, we have had one party trying to delay and park the issue of domestic national security (border wall) for a very long time, and when they finally (though belatedly) acquiesce, the other side decides to use the temporary (yet overwhelming) leverage to push through a radical policy change.
Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson confirmed publicly for the first time in a letter to the White House on Tuesday that Republicans would not pass Ukraine aid unless Congress was to enact a "transformative change to our nation's border security laws."
But this is not the time for a ‘‘transformative change’’..
(side note: and for all their unjustified delays, to their credit, Democrats did offer a lot of substance: with a significant funding package ($14bn) that includes specific allocation for additional border patrol agents, immigration judges, and other border security measures. In addition, offers to tighten up asylum policies and alter the ‘‘credible fear’’ standard was also on the offer. But Republicans have rejected those reasonable compromises and decided that now was the right time to embark upon a major change in domestic policy - their policies would essentially end the asylum altogether and would grant new executive powers to shut down the border. Naturally, such wide-ranging changes of constitutional impact (deserving, and indeed requiring a proper oversight by legislators) should not be shoved through inbetween for essential funding to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel.)
And as a result, a procedural hurdle to address Biden's $106 billion aid request for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan (which needed 60/100 votes in the Senate), was successfully blocked by a minority (49) Republican Senators.
(side note: President Zelenskyy was supposed to address the Senate last week. His briefing was cancelled last minute when it was clear that it was going to fall on deaf ears. And to be clear, there is no shortage of information in the US Senate. Each Senator has access to the most up to date and accurate picture on the ground in Ukraine. In many ways it is better for Zelesnkyy to stop addressing US politicians for the time being. It is one thing to meet leaders like Blinken, Biden and Austin, but he should not suffer the indignity of explaining basic essential truths to the few radically obstructive neophytes in the US Congress - those few bad apples have already made up their minds, and there is little point in wasting time, energy, and exclusivity/prestige on them.)
This is yet another instance of strategic self-harm: signaling to adversaries in Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing that unless America itself is attacked directly, it really is possible to get away with a lot of things in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
So this is something to remember next time pundits and DC think tank strategists voice alarm about our ‘‘traditional partners and allies” hedging aggressively, and offering a warm embrace to the likes of Putin.
Like other observers, they too can see that when a time arrives for America’s political leaders to leave aside pettiness, they struggle.
And when the institution responsible for funding fails to do its job, well then, how reliable are America’s promises to back the ally for ‘‘as long as it takes”?
As such, the UAE case should not be evaluated in isolation - rather, it is a harbinger of things to come..
Putin sees his preexisting beliefs confirmed over and over again.
A core assumption in Putin’s theory of the war is this: no matter how long you think you can last, I will outlast you all.
And the past several months, weeks and days (culminating in the funding debacle) have done nothing but to confirm this belief.
This is why several weeks ago, we criticized the “stalemate” narrative in Ukraine - there simply isn’t one: Ukraine is on a life support, and its defenses will collapse as soon as the Western aid is removed.
Putin is a known liar and manipulator, but on at least one occasion he uttered the essential truth: highlighting how little time Ukraine had without Western support.
In his annual Valdai club speech several weeks ago, Putin commented that Ukraine had a ‘‘week to live’’ without Western help.
These are truly chilling remarks revealing Putin’s ultimate intent.
Notice what he did not say.
He did not say that the conflict would de-escalate and that Russia would have a reason to negotiate in earnest on how to resolve this conflict.
Nope - of course not, and thank god that he did not: we would have his fanboys in Congress and on Twitter calling for an immediate end for supplies of arms to Ukraine.
Elon Musk would be back at it again with his elementary understanding of the war in Ukraine - not shying away from uttering further nonsense.
It is great that he did not pretend (and not through lack of political skill - he simply cannot reverse his rhetoric and course on Ukraine after 19 months of war. He needs more to show for all that effort), but that’s not all, Putin did not even show enough care to appear measured in his response.
He could, for example, say that “Ukraine would be unable to conduct any offensive military operations against settlements in Donbas” or even “Ukraine would be in no position to fight”.
No, instead of all that, he said something even more sinister: that Ukraine “will have a week left to live”.
Are there any more remaining questions around Putin’s intentions in Ukraine?
Are there any more neophytes and wannabe geostrategists arguing in favor of ‘‘prudent’’ and ‘‘responsible’’ policies that ultimately call for the termination of Western military aid?
Do these people realize now how Ukraine’s survival hangs in the balance?
Is it clear now that Ukraine is fighting for survival?
Is it not obvious that if the conflict was somehow frozen as of right now (with Russia gaining additional territories/17% of Ukraine), that Putin would simply wait, recoup, and re-launch his invasion at a more opportune time?
(side note: sure, Ukraine would be getting help/arms in the meantime as well, but not at the pace of Russia regrouping for another invasion. Here is a simple heuristic to prove this reality: if the West is struggling to provide enough advanced weapons/armaments right now - at the most active phase of war - it is inconceivable that the preparatory aid will match that of Russia’s planning for another invasion)
So this is what Putin thinks - he is betting on cracks in Western support for Ukraine.
And to be clear, he is not wrong in his conclusion - perhaps there is a bit of hyperbole, and Ukraine would survive for several months (not weeks), but the overall trajectory is correct: without Western support, Ukraine as a state, will not survive Russia’s invasion - this much is clear.
And if Putin’s remarks were not enough for those Senators opting to play petty politics at such a critical time, here is one more chilling quote (at least a few Congressional staffers are long-time readers - and hopefully will pass on the message..)
Here are the most recent remarks from the first lady of Ukraine:
“We really need the help. In simple words, we cannot get tired of this situation, because if we do, we die. And if the world gets tired, they will simply let us die. [emphasis added]”