Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine War, Georgians vs Putin, and the wild allegations around pipeline sabotage.
*note: we will discuss the Beijing brokered Saudi - Iran rapprochement (with corresponding strategic risks and opportunities) on Thursday’s cables. A lot of you have emailed with questions about this topic. We will address them comprehensively in the next post.
Ukraine war updates.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive & outlook.
Ukraine continues to resist Russian efforts to capture Bakhmut.
It is becoming clearer that instead of seeing a specific overwhelming strategic value to the city itself, Kyiv views Bakhmut as a place to pin Russian forces and cause additional attrition.
The more resources Russia ends up expending on Bakhmut, the more exhausted they will get in time to par the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive.
At least, that seems to be (not so unreasonably) the aim of the Ukrainian military leadership.
All the same, Russia is unfortunately making further advances on the Bakhmut front.
According to UK’s defense intel, Russian forces have indeed advanced in the eastern city of Bakhmut - within 800 meters of the AZOM metal processing plant.
Eventual ‘‘success’’ of Russian troops is likely - and this would undoubtedly amount to a pyrrhic victory: given the extreme waste of manpower, time, and resources.
Joint procurement to address Ukraine’s needs.
One of the most important dynamics in this war of attrition, is the relative staying power of combatants.
Ensuring Ukraine’s eventual victory depends on the successful rally of the Western military-industrial heft.
As of today, Ukraine consumes approximately 5,000 artillery shells (vs Russia’s 20,000).
Current joint US/EU capacity is inadequate to meet this demand.
America can make about 180,000 155mm shells a year, and Europe could muster only 300,000 last year - even if Ukraine halves its consumption, that amounts to barely six months of supplies.
(side note: this is yet another reason why Ukraine should be supplied with long-range missiles like the ATACMS: deep strikes, and destruction of ammo/logistics depots further from the battlefield, would reduce Russia’s ability to supply its own frontlines with adequate amount of shells - correspondingly reducing the burden on Ukraine to sustain a high level of artillery fire just to maintain some balance against Russia’s firepower)
It is therefore encouraging that in addition to the Pentagon, the EU is also stepping up to address the shortages and gaps in its own military-industrial capacity: EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell is pushing for the European Peace Facility to be used for investment in joint defense and production.
And there are even tentative signs that the European Investment Bank could be pulled in to help finance these common defense systems/production objectives.
The EU galvanizing all of its resources into this war is a highly encouraging sign of the West’s increasing staying power - a crucial message to both the Kremlin and to Beijing (which should be further dissuaded from entering a proxy war where West’s long-term commitment becomes ever more solid)
Russia’s Potemkin village measures.
In the meantime, for the first time in this war, Russian authorities began constructing defensive fortifications along the borders of Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod oblasts (districts).
That Ukraine would ever decide to cross the international borders and invade Kursk or Belgorod is almost inconceivable.
Leaving intentions aside, the Ukrainian army even having that capacity would imply a total rout of Russia’s military on the battlefield - where a face-saving political settlement (preventing further advancement of Ukrainian troops) would surely quickly follow such a scenario.
(side note: that or Russia decides to do something drastic..)
In other words, there is very little practical utility to waste crucial resources on these fortifications - but they do however serve political purposes.
Firstly, after the embarrassing border crossings into Russia last week (apparently from Russia’s own (albeit Ukraine-based) anti-regime volunteer corp) the Kremlin needs to appear as if it is doing everything possible to ensure the safety and protection of the locals who live by the Ukrainian border.
And secondly, and just like the air defense SAMs placed on the roofs of the government buildings of Moscow, these measures signal the “existential” nature of the fight - providing further excuses for the Kremlin’s more drastic mobilization (of both the people and private enterprise) become more palatable and acceptable.
Georgians push back against Putin’s control.
Hundreds of thousands of Georgians bravely resisted government crackdown to protest against the ‘‘foreign agents’’ bill that would have required any institution receiving more than 20% of its funding from outside of Georgia to register as a foreign agent.
At first look, this looks like a neutrally-described legislation, in fact one which to Western ears, sounds reasonable - after all, what is wrong with a state pushing back against outsider influence in its domestic affairs?
But Georgians read through the ploy for what it truly was - limiting the influence of the pro-Western civil society and NGOs that are currently pushing back against the pro-Kremlin forces pulling Georgia closer to Russia’s orbit.
(side note: it would also provide an official cover for the rhetoric of blaming the pro-Western political opposition ‘‘agents of the West”)
But the pro-Putin leadership didn’t get its way: the sheer mass and outrage of protestors forced the government to backtrack and the Georgian parliament to drop the ‘‘foreign agents bill”.
If there is a foreign agent in Georgia, that would be Bidzina Ivanishvili - former Prime Minister and a billionaire living in a cartoonishly grandiose castle overseeing the capital Tbilisi.
A long-time friend of Putin, he (through his de facto overwhelming grip over the government) jailed (to undoubtedly Putin’s delight) the former President Mikhael Saakashvili - who was known for his successful institutional and economic reforms (whom Putin once promised to hang by his balls during the 2008 Russia-Georgia war).
This is a win for Georgia: Georgians (just like the rest of the people of Caucasus) want to see their country in the Western club of prosperous liberal-democracies.
The people of Georgia furthermore reject the official stance of the Georgian government on the Ukraine war - which refuses to align with and impose Western sanctions on Russia.
Georgians empathize with Ukraine, and many are fighting as volunteers in Ukraine - in fact, there is an all-volunteer unit called “the Georgian legion”.
Naturally, the Georgian government’s backtracking was not to the liking of the Kremlin.
What followed was quite revealing.
The Editor-In-Chief of Russia Today, the completely unhinged and insane Margarita Simonyan, said that the Georgian capital Tbilisi (apparently, also full of nazis) should be nuked if the conflict of 2008 was to repeat once again.
(side note: “Russia Today” was on air in many western countries for many many years (under the cover and protection of ‘‘free speech”’ laws). Let that sink in..)
But over the top comments from RT were always to be expected - what was surprising however, was the formal twitter account of Russia’s embassy in Crimea posting a warning to all Georgians - reminding them of Ukraine’s fait in 2014.
Russia’s chief diplomat, Foreign Minister Lavrov later added to the threat.
Labelling the protests in Tbilisi as a ‘‘coup attempt”, Lavrov had this ominous warning to share:
“It seems to me that all the countries located around the Russian Federation should draw their own conclusions about how dangerous it is to take a path towards engagement with the United States' zone of responsibility, its zone of interests.”
Translation: remember what happened the last time a nation stood up against us, and chose its place in the Western club of democracies.
As surprising as it was for a formal diplomatic wing of Russian government to resort to such rhetoric, it was more so revealing of the true shared sentiments of Russia’s political elite: by threatening the people of Georgia (as opposed to its government) Russian leaders implicitly admit that the choice to align with the West belongs to the people - to the ordinary Georgians gathering in the streets to protest Russian influence.
And by using the 2014 as an analogy they also admit (albeit indirectly) that the Ukrainian uprising was also popular and carried out by ordinary citizens - not by the shadowy operation of the CIA and Department of State organizing ‘‘color revolutions’’ - a claim that Kremlin had maintained for many years (and also, one shared by the Western appeasers of Putin: those who have - against all evidence - argued that it was the West’s deliberate and provocative expansion to Russia’s periphery that triggered and forced the hand of the Russian leadership. Apparently, just like Putin, they too found it hard to believe that ordinary citizens could desire a better future of civil liberties, strong institutions, and prosperity).
Leaders in Washington and Brussels must not ignore this dangerous rhetoric from the Kremlin - Putin must be warned that any provocation towards Georgia will result in a further decisive action against Russia, and that Georgians willing to resist Russia’s potential involvement (however unlikely it is as of today - in spite of all the menacing rhetoric to the contrary) would receive full military backing of the West.
Nord Stream 1 Sabotage Debacle - pointing fingers at Ukraine.
New bombshell reports from German media put Ukraine’s reputation (supposedly) at risk in the eyes of the West.
According to report from the German Die Zeit, there are “traces [that] lead in the direction of Ukraine,” in relation to the mysterious explosion of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, and that “Investigators found traces of explosives on the table in the cabin” rented by a commando of five men and one woman that consisted of a “captain, two divers, two diving assistants and a doctor.”
Separately, and according to the New York Times, US officials left “open the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services”.
Media pundits and establishment pundits were quick to pass judgements.
Here is for example, Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations claiming that Berlin “will not want this to have an influence or be portrayed as having an influence on their Ukraine support”.
As a result of these allegations, two questions naturally arise:
1) Has Ukraine’s proximity been proven to a sufficient standard of proof that would lead to significant reputational damage?
2) Even if this is true, so what? Or rather, is this blatant enough for the NATO-Ukraine relations to be soured to a significant extent?
Present allegations and suspicions are largely unsubstantiated.
There are number of good reasons to remain skeptical of these allegations:
1) First off, there is no direct or indirect evidence that President Zelensky (or for that matter, anyone else in the Ukrainian chain of command) was aware, let alone gave order for this sabotage mission.
(side note: even Russia itself dismissed the suggestion of Ukrainian culpability. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov expressed his “doubts” that Kyiv was indeed behind this. Which, at first first appearance strikes as rather quite odd that Russians would dispute Ukraine’s role here - until one remembers that it is far more beneficial for the Kremlin to prop up the unsubstantiated claims of the American journalist Seymour Hersh - that it was the US/Norwegian unit behind sabotage).
2) The NYT reports says that officials believe Russia had no motive to carry out these attacks.
That apparently, Russia had no incentives but Ukraine did - come again?
Moscow had a number of powerful incentives to bomb the pipeline.
Although, at the time of the attack its gas supplier leverage over Europe was already virtually essentially non-existent (given that Russia had by that point already stopped supplying gas via the pipeline), destroying the pipeline served at least three purposes:
a) It provided an excuse (via claims of force-majeure) to avoid paying penalties for a failure to honor the long-term gas delivery contracts that it had previously signed with Germany;
b) It signaled the staying power and intent to fight this war in spite of high costs (giving up on gas revenues), and;
c) it was an indirect threat against other EU countries that their own pipelines (like the new Baltic pipeline from Norway to Poland) and undersea cables could be next in line of potential targets.
In other words, claiming that Russia had no incentives is ludicrous and undermines the entire credibility of this report.
If these officials truly believe that Russia had no motivation to bomb the pipelines, then their analytical judgment is (to put it mildly) highly suspect.
3) The NYT report claims that there are “two pipelines”: Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 - whereas these are in fact four pipelines.
And of these four, one was left undamaged and could still transport gas.
These are details that a thorough report should get right - getting specifics wrong doesn’t really inspire much confidence about the credibility and accuracy of the rest of the report.
4) The very same report admits that officials cannot exclude the possibility of a false flag operation - that Russian saboteurs could deliberately leave clues pointing in the direction of Ukraine.
And why wouldn’t they?
And the German Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius certainly agrees with this possibility: “This would also not be the first time in the history of such events.”
5) Finally, how likely is it that Ukrainian leadership would risk such drastic measures that directly impact its number two military backer in the entire NATO alliance?
For what?
Russia had (by that point) already stopped its gas supplies, and Europe was successfully weaning itself off from this dependence.
Not only was Russian gas unlikely to re-enter the EU anytime soon, back in autumn of last year, everyone was waiting for further energy sanctions coming into force: price caps and EU bans on Russian oil imports.
To suggest that President Zelensky would risk souring relations with its major NATO backer for a mission with questionable upside, is to make too many assumptions that don’t add up.
So what?
Even in the unlikely event that Ukraine did it, that Zelensky was indeed behind this attack, so what?
What does this change fundamentally?
Why all this panic about fracture in the Western alliance?
To be sure, this would be a brazen act: and exceptionally disrespectful of German (and the EU) interests.
But even if this is interpreted as such, even if the West finds issue with the actions of the government of Ukraine, fundamental facts do not change - the state of Ukraine, and Ukrainians as a nation are under an existential threat: they are facing a psychopath with imperialistic ambitions that is willing to throw all his resources to invade this country.
Fundamental equation remains unaltered: there should not be any change in attitude towards the support of Ukraine as a country - even if it transpires that its leadership crossed some lines in its relationship with Western allies.
And besides, let us remain empathetic towards this very leadership - even if it is proven at the end that Kyiv was indeed behind this sabotage.
Because, so what?
For a country trying to survive an onslaught of a superpower, is it really that surprising that its leadership tried to stack all strategic circumstances in its favor?
By causing (collateral-free) damage to a pipeline that wasn’t in use in any case?
Is it more immoral or ruthless than Winston Churchill deciding to bomb and destroy French warships (and kill its 1,297 sailors) just to make sure that Germans didn’t capture it (and gaining major strategic advantage) ?
There is very little evidence of Ukrainian complicity in this sabotage - but in any case - so what?