Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine War, Moscow's new "red lines", degrading the Russian state, and Pelosi's overreach.
Ukraine war updates.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive & outlook.
The tempo of Ukraine’s battlefield gains has (as expected) slowed down.
This is not to say that the counteroffensive has culminated, but rather, as Ukraine reaches deeper into Russia offensive lines, extra care has to be taken to not waste air power, and run its limited offensive mobile armor into the range of Russian artillery.
(side note: they did however breach the crucial frontlines in Oskil River, and liberated new settlements southwest of Lyman - deeper in the Donetsk district.)
In the meantime, Ukraine’s continuous pinpoint HIMARS strikes prevent Russia from adequately and promptly resupplying forward troops in the Kherson and Kharkiv axes.
And there was further uncovered evidence of Russia’s potential war crimes and atrocities - in the form of mass graves (400 bodies) near Izium.
Medium-term political implications.
Last week, we unpacked the most urgent and pressing political results of Ukraine’s lightning offensive.
But there are also further second-order implications:
1) The Zelensky government has more active leverage applicable in almost every direction.
It can (as it is already doing) press the US and the EU for further arm supplies - adopting a more demanding tone (as it should).
The government in Kyiv will get to further reiterate and solidify its uncompromising conditions for peace - rejecting not only the most outrageous suggestions of territorial giveaways, but also the possibility of political concessions.
(side note: and in this, Russia’s earlier stance that these political concessions would not be on their own enough to stop the war helps Kyiv avoid the label of unreasonableness: why concede if there is going to be zero benefit from doing so? Add to this, there are now bombshell revelations that Putin could have nipped the war in the bud by accepting Zelensky’s major political concessions - but chose not to do so. He is after all a follower of Peter the Great. He is attempting to rebuild (and thus far, failing embarrassingly) the great Russian empire with the great military force (that relies on Iranian drones and North Korean artillery shells).
2) The Ukrainian public is now more motivated and demanding.
Fully 87% of the Ukrainian public is strongly against any territorial concessions.
This strengthens Zelensky’s hand: even if he wanted to, he can no longer offer any major sweeteners to Putin.
This also shuts up European politicians who will (after some slowdown in the Ukrainian advance, and onset of the gas-shortage winter) attempt to restart their old tropes about meeting Putin half-way.
For if the Ukrainian public is strongly against this measure, territorial concessions by definition become politically unworkable - and so, there will be little political capital left to even resuscitate these old worn-out arguments.
3) The cost of Russian occupation will keep on rising.
These costs were already high with Ukrainian special intel services (rightly) targeting and assassinating treasonous collaborators.
Going forward however, even the first step of recruiting these potential collaborators will prove to be extremely challenging.
Now that the ordinary Ukrainians can see that the tide is changing, and that the Ukrainian military has a viable path to retake most (if not all) of the occupied territories, the incentive is to resist collaboration and avoid incurring major costs of doing so.
Even those hitherto considering to jump ship will now have little incentives to risk their lives, liberty (being locked up for treason) and reputation, in case Ukrainian liberators retake the occupied towns rather quickly.
4) Unresolved dilemmas will pile up for the Kremlin.
In Thursday’s cables (when considering Putin’s future potential moves) we discussed (before turning to the Nuclear strike scenarios) how partial/full mobilization carries major political costs.
But sticking with the current status quo will also become increasingly untenable.
We are now talking about the Putinist regime’s internal security and foundations of power and legitimacy.
Approximately 15-20% of the Russian population (those following military bloggers, war telegram channels of the Siloviki analysts etc) are strongly in favor of this invasion.
They bought into the vision of the “Russian world” and see this conflict as an existential conflict with the West.
(side note: the Kremlin really shot itself in the foot and outdid itself with its own propaganda)
And now, they are demanding a proportionate full-on mobilization to prosecute the war with adequate intensity.
And this presents an opportunity for both political entrepreneurs and those opposing Putin (and some of them want democratization) in general.
Wild card political mavericks (with ambitions of their own) like Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov described the situation on the ground as “astounding”.
Right-wing pundits are now blaming (tactfully avoiding direct attacks on Putin) the most senior Kremlin advisers for misleading Putin about the true urgency of the situation on the ground.
Local council politicians in Moscow and St Petersburg even called for Putin’s resignation.
To be clear, these are not signs of an immediate collapse - far from it.
But they do reveal major cracks in the Putinist regime - every single collapse of an authoritarian regime is preceded by one major signal: lack of fear in confronting the leader of the regime.
And if thus far, only a small part of politically engaged (largely) liberal political opposition (led by Alexei Navalny) was willing to stand up to Putin, now, the coalition of those disappointed and angry with his rule is becoming ever broader.
This can lead to a vicious cycle: where certain regime enforcers start to hedge their bets and go softer against political targets - which in turn incentivizes further risk-taking from the angry and disappointed.
Putin will therefore have to do something to change the tide, or distract from the currently untenable status quo.
Russia declares new red lines - the West must ignore and cross them with confidence.
There were no ATACMS (though there were artillery shells and HIMARs rockets) in the latest $600m military aid announced by the White House on Thursday.
Could it be that the Biden admin is still worried about crossing Russia’s ‘‘red lines”?
On a practical level, even if the White House was this concerned about Ukraine striking targets deep within Russia (although perfectly legal under international law: as long as these are a) military targets, and b) targeted for the purposes of self-defense), simply having that frank discussion with Kyiv would prevent these very strikes.
It is almost inconceivable that Ukraine would choose to damage its relationship with its primary supplier of weapons in this war.
But just as Russia is crumbling, the White House is once again slamming the brakes - excessively (and unjustifiable) worrying about triggering Putin.
And in this past week (sensing this very psychological vulnerability), the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that America’s delivery of long-range missiles to Ukraine was considered a ‘‘red line’’ for Russia, one that the Biden admin “ shouldn’t cross”.
And that crossing this line would result in the US becoming a ‘‘direct party to the conflict”.
Of course - never mind that the US is already a direct party to the conflict in all but name - Russia’s warning must be dismissed rather unceremoniously.
It must be dismissed for this simple reason: and then what?
What is Putin going to do?
A leader too reluctant to order a general mobilization (worrying about political costs) is going to escalate and attack the most powerful military in the world?
This trope that Putin is a mad man - one that would do anything to save face -has been overplayed.
He is not a madman: he is a pragmatist/opportunist who likes to pounce on attractive targets.
He miscalculated with Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean that he wants to perish in a general nuclear war with America, and no longer have access to the joys of smoking hookah in a private strip club jacuzzi of his Black Sea palace.
(side note: not to mention that Russia would definitively ruin its relationship with China. Beijing is not interested in a wider Russia vs West war right at this moment. Moscow is already a liability with its invasion in Ukraine - something that Putin did acknowledge tacitly in his Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference speech: there are many layers to this particular event, and there will be more unpacking done in Thursday’s cables).
But what about a lesser escalation, you might ask?
What if the US is attacked and is forced to respond?
That is also unlikely to happen: but once again, what would Russia gain from a conventional war with the US?
A humiliating and prompt defeat?
Direct attack against the US creates only two possibilities:
1) A general non-nuclear war where Russia is thoroughly and promptly defeated - with its ‘‘great power’’ status definitively shred to pieces.
or;
2) A general nuclear war.
Neither outcome is attractive to Putin.
(side note: there is also a very low-probability chance that Washington chooses to ignore the slight. That will depend on Russia’s direct attack - how serious it is, and whether it crosses the acceptable boundaries of retaliation without leading to general war. But it is extremely unlikely that the US would not respond to a significant direct attack from Russia. The domestic political pressure would be immense - one that Biden wouldn’t be able to resist even if he wanted to).
And time and time again he demonstrated an uncanny ability to ‘‘forget’’ his own red lines.
There was a red line against Ukraine striking targets in Russia.
Then, another one against targets in Crimea.
This is not to say that if the possibility of losing Crimea becomes all too real (or alternatively, a total collapse of Russian troops in the East becomes a likely possibility), Putin would not resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons: he very well could.
But using nuclear weapons against Ukraine is not even remotely close/similar to using them against America or NATO.
Washington must therefore dismiss this ‘‘red line’’ and escalate both the volume, and intensity of its military support.
Nancy Pelosi must not deviate from the US national interests to bag short-term political gains.
Pelosi visited Armenia, praised the country, declared America’s support for Armenia, and compared this Russian vassal state to Taiwan and Ukraine.
Oh the irony…
For a quick background, there were few significant clashes and skirmishes on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
Last major war between the two was fought in 2020, lasted 44 days and resulted in Azerbaijan’s overwhelming military victory.
Armenia lost control of its illegally seized Azeri territory (almost all countries, including the US, and even Armenia’s ally Russia, formally recognize the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as the legitimate Azerbaijani territory. And there are two UN resolutions calling for Armenia’s full withdrawal from the occupied territories.) in Karabakh and nearby regions.
It had to withdraw most of its army and militia under the last signed ceasefire.
Russia’s last minute intervention in November 2020, and forceful imposition of a ceasefire, saved Armenia from a total collapse and allowed it to maintain some military presence (going against the terms of the ceasefire).
Recent clashes were a result of Armenia moving its military resources into Karabakh (Azeri territory).
This then prompted Azerbaijan’s preemptive attack against Armenia’s military targets on the Armenian territory.
Naturally, Armenia announced that it is being “invaded” and appealed for international help.
This is where Pelosi steps in - overreaching and tainting her reputation after such a remarkable and commendable record on Ukraine and Taiwan.
Ahead of midterms, the Speaker of the House (representing California), decided to favor the LA-based Armenian lobby in America.
But by doing so, Pelosi is going against the established US interests and declared policies in three major ways:
1) Deep strikes - consistency of policy is needed.
If it perfectly ok for Ukraine to strike military targets in Russia (for the purposes of self-defense) then that should be the established acceptable practice of self-defense for all countries.
As discussed before, international law permits such a use of force.
And America must remain consistent here.
2) Armenia is not even remotely similar to Ukraine.
First off, this whole conflict persists because Armenia to this day refuses to withdraw all of its military assets and militias from Karabakh.
If Yerevan was to do this, there would not be any need for the ‘‘Russian peacekeepers” in Karabakh, and both Armenia and Azerbaijan could fully align with the West, breaking free from the shackles of Moscow.
Secondly, unlike Ukraine, Armenia is a Russian ally, and is a member of the Russia-led CSTO military alliance.
In fact, and just days before Pelosi’s visit, it was Russia & the CSTO, and not America that Armenia appealed to for help.
Armenian PM Pashinyan openly called for Moscow’s military assistance against Azerbaijan.
How can Pelosi keep a straight face when comparing this country to Ukraine and Taiwan?
3) Pelosi ignored broader US interests in the region.
Beyond supplying Europe with the alternative source of gas, Azerbaijan is consistently following a pro-US and pro-Israeli foreign policy.
As confirmed by Israel itself, it played a crucial role in rapprochement and full diplomatic normalization between Turkey and Israel - the two most important US allies in the region.
And let’s not forget the intel assistance role it plays in helping Israel against Iran: for which it was threatened by Tehran with Iranian military exercises on its border.
Pelosi is right about one thing however: that Azerbaijan is led by a corrupt autocrat.
Without question, the Azerbaijani President Aliyev is made from the same moral cloth as the Saudi MBS (frequent target of these cables), and would certainly commit more domestic repression/atrocities if he thought he could get away with them just as easily as the Saudi crown prince.
And if Pelosi wants to help Azeris in democratization, she should target Aliyev’s ill-gotten wealth (most of it parked in the Western states, including here in the US).
But when it comes to inter-state relations, international law, and America’s own national interests, she should not favor her domestic political interests over those of the US.
Amping up the pressure on the Russian state and encouraging further collapse.
As the Russian military faces more defeat, (with the accompanying crumbling morale), and as Putin is contemplating his (all around bad) options, the US must pursue the policy to expedite the process of Russia’s state degradation.
Targeting manpower & human capital.
Early in the war, there was a mass flight of highly educated Russian citizens.
Russia’s capable and reputable tech employees were leading in this exodus.
Back then, Putin decided to ignore the long-term economic ramifications of this development and retorted with ‘‘good riddance’’.
He was probably assuming a rather quick victory and a deal with the West that would lift the toughest sanctions (and incentivize the return of the majority of emigrants).
Now that this did not happen, it is time to double down.
The US and EU must offer amnesties, easy emigration, and help with the relocation costs for all those working in the following crucial sectors:
1) Anyone working in the military - all Russian soldiers and commanders must be offered full amnesty to lay down their weapons and abandon Putin’s war.
2) Anyone working in the defense-industrial complex: from engineers and production managers, to ordinary skilled laborers.
Everyone who is involved in producing a Russian weapon must be offered an attractive package to abandon those factories and leave Russia.
3) Anyone working in Russia’s oil & gas, logistics, shipping, aviation and financial sectors - if they want to leave Russia and find a job and a fresh start in the US/EU, they should be offered this chance.
The main idea here is to drain Russia’s crucial sectors for economic growth of the crucial ingredient: highly-skilled human capital.
Targeting supplies and spare parts needed for Russia’s energy sector.
This policy was (to a limited extent), already implemented after the original invasion of Crimea in 2014, and with the recent exodus of Western firms, capital and know-how, Russia’s energy sector does not have a rosy future.
But steps need to be taken to expedite this decline.
Russia must be warned that if it maintains its policy of total gas cut-offs for Europe, then the US and EU would have little incentive not to impose full blocking sanctions on the company.
The West could impose primary and secondary blocking sanctions on all global suppliers of gas pipeline and LNG maintenance tools - banning them from offering their services to Gazprom.
Everything needed for maintenance, from pipe beveling to pipe cutting tools, must be denied to the Russian giant.
In addition, the West could impose secondary sanctions on all providers of credit and financing services to Gazprom.
Importantly, full blocking sanctions will not be imposed on Gazprom - the company would still be able to function and supply its gas (at the Western price cap levels).
This would ensure that the global prices don’t jump sky-high.
The very same approach must also be taken in relation to Russia’s oil companies.
As a result, and instead of a massive price spike, a more gradual medium term decline will be achieved: the affected energy companies will feel the squeeze of the ever rising maintenance & repair costs - leading to a further dent in their revenue (and providing less funds for Putin’s war machine).
Ukraine must be supplied with all the necessary funding and weaponry to maintain its forward momentum.
But more pressure must also be levied on the cornerstone money-making institutions of the Russian state.
Urgent steps must be taken to further weaken and degrade Russia’s primary levers of power.
Great stuff as usual. However, Pelosi was erroneously referred to as "Senator from California."