Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine War Updates, Taurus missiles, and Kyiv's unconventional warfare campaigns.
*programming note: cables will be off this Thursday and next Monday.
Ukraine War Updates.
1) Pro-Ukraine saboteurs continue to escalate their incursions into Russia.
The Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a pro-Ukrainian group, continues limited military operations in Belgorod and Kursk oblasts of Russia, (while denying Russia’s claims of significant losses among their ranks).
Two other sabotage units - the Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), and the Siberian Battalion have also joined these attacks.
The RDK shared footage of Russian prisoners of war they recently captured, proposing an exchange of 25 Russian POWs with Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
With no battlefield breakthrough in eastern Ukraine in sight, such missions will continue to escalate in both magnitude and frequency.
Although the military costs to Russia are unlikely to be high, the political risks to Putin himself may prove far more consequential (more on that later below).
2) The G7 warns Iran against arming Russia with ballistic missiles.
In a joint statement, the alliance of US, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, the European Union, the UK and Canada, warned Iran against proceeding with provision of ballistic missiles or related technology to Russia - emphasizing preparedness to respond ‘‘swiftly and in a coordinated manner including new and significant measures against Iran’’.
A senior US official later gave an example of banning Iran Air flights to Europe as a possible measure the West could impose on Iran.
This is good but also quite late.. this declaration should have been in place at the very start of Iran’s campaign to arm Russia - sending over Shahed drones should have been the initial trigger.
Iran is now too deep in this campaign of arming Russia - they are even helping Moscow to build a drone factory in the Tatarstan region of Russia.
In addition, the fact that there is a perception shift around the war itself (with Russia perceived to hold a much stronger hand and momentum now more than ever before) means that Tehran could judge that absorbing further costs is worth backing the winning horse.
3) Macron doubles down and secures further support for his belligerent rhetoric.
Five years ago, the French President Emmanuel Macron labeled NATO as brain dead, then as recently as in late 2022 (mere months after Russia’s February invasion) he called on his peers to revisit Europe’s security architecture taking into account Russia’s security accounts - and even going as far as to providing ‘‘security guarantees’’ for Moscow.
These days, Macron is strongly in favor of Ukraine joining NATO, and not only has his rhetoric on Russia changed drastically, it is by far the most militaristic and belligerent attitude demonstrated by any other NATO member state.
We have discussed at great length the various implications of his remarks that refused to rule out the possibility of NATO ground troops in Ukraine.
Initially, there was a major pushback from core allies like Germany and the US.
But a few days later, leaders of other NATO states had started to change their rhetoric and started to provide implicit support for Ukraine.
First, there was Poland - who’s foreign minister declared that NATO troops are already in Ukraine (albeit in support roles) - offering soft legitimacy to Macron’s remarks.
And now, there is Finnish Foreign Minister joining the fray:
‘‘It's important that we not rule everything out for the long term, because we never know how serious the situation becomes”
This is of course almost mere rephrasing of Macron’s original comments, and coming from a country that shares a 833 mile border with Russia, it is especially powerful: if a new NATO member so exposed to Russia can be so assertive, then countries like Germany really have no business acting weak and hesitant.
But unfortunately, some tough warning from Russia will be enough to deter and scare away a number of NATO states.
And Russia is actively targeting this weakness.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has warned that the war in Ukraine could spin out of control due to the actions of countries in the west, accusing the west of walking “on the edge of the abyss” and pushing the world to the edge too with its actions over Ukraine.
Macron is however undeterred, on his way back from Weimar format meeting with his Polish and German counterparts, Macron refused to take another way out to qualify his initial stance, reiterating that although France was not going to take the initiative, sending troops to Ukraine could in fact be “necessary at some point to counter Russian forces”.
Translation: escalation will not come from us, but if Russia’s onslaught continues at this rate, we may have to resort to drastic measures to stop them.
That 1) Macron refused to qualify and weaken his initial stance of several weeks in, and that 2) Other countries are getting on board is great for credibility.
What would add further to his credibility is if France was to eliminate the major pro-Ukraine funding gap with Germany ($4.2bn so far vs $19.3bn from Germany).
On the other hand, and in spite of its significant generosity (relative to both France and UK) Germany continues to hesitate in providing robust platforms and weapons for Ukraine.
True, it has provided a lot already: from leopard tanks, gepard anti-aircraft platforms and IRIS-T air defense SAMs, and will do so more going forward: German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall plans to set up at least four factories in Ukraine, as it targets a record €10bn euros ($10.9bn) in sales this year.
The factories will produce shells, military vehicles, gunpowder and anti-aircraft weapons.
But when it comes to perhaps the most consequential weapon of all - the Taurus missiles, Germany still refuses to step up.
Most recently, Germany’s parliament has rejected a call by the opposition for the government to send Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, a day after chancellor Olaf Scholz defended his refusal to supply the weapons.
This is unfortunate, since unlike its French and British peer cruise missiles (storm shadow and SCALP-EG), the turbofan-powered Taurus has a longer range (of up to 310 miles) and its delayed-fuse technology (Multi-Application Fuze Initiation System (MAFIS) enables it to penetrate several layers before detonating the main charge.
This means that significant military targets like deep bunkers and even key bridges (like the Kerch strait bridge connecting Ukraine and Russia) could become viable targets for destruction.
And one cannot overstate the strategic, military, and political impact of severing the bridge link between Russia and Ukraine.
Given the stakes at hand, there is no room for further German hesitancy on this matter - Berlin must come to terms that Ukraine needs to win and not merely survive - since there is no such thing: there is no status quo or stalemate..
Unless Ukraine is winning, through sheer momentum, and manpower/material advantage, Russia’s onslaught will continue no matter how long it may take.
Ukraine cannot afford to fight a war of attrition - it must either win outright or recapture enough lands to impose a favorable peace deal on Putin.
German leadership must finally come to terms with this basic fact.
Necessity of intensifying unconventional strikes for Ukraine
Conditions on the ground dictate that Ukraine must pursue unconventional military campaigns for the foreseeable future.
Even if the Congressional aid becomes unstuck and Ukraine gets its $60bn from the US, the actual delivery of the requisite hardware will take time and the West is yet to scale its artillery shell and missile production to match Russia.
A conventional counteroffensive is simply not on the cards and if Ukraine was to survive this year’s onslaught, it would probably be 2025 before leaders in Kyiv could realistically consider any major counteroffensive.
As such, strategically, Ukraine will have to continue and in fact, intensify its covert operations and deep strikes within Russia.
And the reason for this intensification is threefold: 1) Signaling to the west, 2) Signaling to the Kremlin, and 3) Domestic politics.
Domestically, Zelenskyy will be increasingly on thin ice - he was forced to delay this year’s Presidential election (for legitimate reasons), fired his extremely popular Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny (again, probably for a good reason), and future territorial gains are unlikely to materialize anytime soon - in fact, the opposite is more likely: that Russia will capture few more towns in 2024 after Avdiivka is at this point a given.
Moreover, Zelenskyy will need to demonstrate continuous viability of success - Ukraine success is unfortunately very real, and depending on this year’s elections in the US, things may get tougher still for Kyiv.
Then there is domestic morale - Ukraine is yet to declare a larger mobilization to recruit 500k men (figure demanded by its military) and lower the entry age to at least 25 (it is currently 27).
Social media is also rife with videos of Ukrainian men detained when attempting to escape draft - a lot of it is Russian propaganda, but it is also unfortunately true that an increasing proportion of Ukrainian men are disillusioned and are reluctant to continue risking their lives at the trenches of Eastern Ukraine - seeing extreme shortage and the futility of struggle.
Citizens of Ukraine need to witness symbolically significant wins - restoring pride and will to fight on will be a crucial political challenge for Zelenskyy.
Finally, Putin too will need some serious dissuasion from pushing onwards - he is increasingly bullish and sees confirmation of his original beliefs and assumptions that he will outlast the west - in both material and resolve.
So by destroying Russia’s critical capabilities like the A-50 early warning and control planes (of which, it is estimated that Russia has only around 4 of these left to spare), Russian ships and submarines in the black sea, and revenue-generating oil refineries in western Russia (Ukraine’s State Security Office/SBU struck the Novokuibyshevsky, Kuibyshevsky, and Syzran Rosneft oil refineries in Samara Oblast -and these three refineries are estimated to process approximately 25 million tons of oil per year, or 10 percent of Russia’s annual oil refinement output), Ukraine keeps raising the bill for Putin’s adventurism, and weakens Putin’s economic and political ability to pursue his maximalist war aims.
The longer such deep strikes continue, the higher will be the political cost for Putin personally.
(side note: an important strategic challenge for Ukraine will be to target the Tatarstan drone factory - where Russia (with the help of Iran) is set to mass-produce around 6k drones by 2025. Ukraine's longest-range drone, UJ-26, has a range of 620 miles but this facility will be 900 miles away from the border. As such, either Ukraine will need to secure or produce longer-range (probably turbofan backed) drones carrying a larger payload or even more daring special forces raids are likely to take place. The latter is more likely in the short-term)
And given that Russia is likely to suffer major personnel losses going forward, and that anti-war sentiments are gaining momentum, justifying continuous costs will become ever harder to pull off: this is especially so if 1) Further gains remain insignificant and carry Avdiivka-like casualties, and 2) Russia’s currently very hot (and dependent on heavy government spending on military-industrial production) economy gets even hotter, and (since most of available labor is diverted towards military production, and so the labor deficiency and thus costs will continue to spike) the consequent inflation ends up cutting into the living standards of ordinary citizens.
(side note: previously, Russians would adopt individualistic solutions to societal problems of the war in Ukraine - they would pay bribes to escape the draft via medical exemptions or would simply leave Russia altogether. Nowadays, those solutions no longer work and a larger cross-section of Russian society is increasingly personally aware of the impending costs of the war. The fact that an anti-Kremlin presidential candidate secured so many votes, and that Russian soldiers’ wives are increasingly assertive in openly opposing the Kremlin are not so insignificant signals of a fast- approaching political headache for the Kremlin).
Risks of overreaching: Importance of avoiding self-sabotage.
Not all sabotage and covert ops is going to be productive however.
It is important for Kyiv to remember that certain missions will backfire on a strategic level - even if they attain their short-term tactical objectives.
Case in point: Ukrainian military intel/HUR’s cyber attacks/intervention in this past weekend’s Presidential elections in Russia.
Is this disruptive?
Does this highlight Ukraine’s capacity and Russia’s helplessness in defending against sophisticated cyber operations?
Yes to both.
But what about larger strategic goals?
What is truly achieved here beyond infliction of annoyance and embarrassment?
Not much, and on the contrary, it is an opportunity for another propaganda win for Putin.
It is in fact a way out for the Kremlin.
Putin’s ‘‘re-election’’ was always going to be rigged in any case - it is not like but for Ukraine’s intervention, Russians were going to hold genuine competitive elections and that Kyiv prevented this outcome.
On the contrary - Putin is running unopposed, everyone knows that he will be reappointed again, so there is a risk for the Kremlin - Putin’s victory being considered as a foregone conclusion, and consequently, a lot of people (even his genuine supporters) deciding to simply not to show up on the election day.
Let’s not forget that Putin needs millions of Russians to actually partake in this theater - usually it is done via quaint methods like bussing in government (at all levels) employees to ‘‘vote’’.
But sometimes, blatant fabrication (including ballot stuffing) may be necessary to secure the necessary outcome.
In the age of social media and everyone with a smartphone camera being a de facto reporter, getting away with this is increasingly harder.
But it does become easier when there is an external enemy to blame ‘‘electoral irregularities’’ on.
And it is much easier when your adversary admits to this sabotage.
Could there have been a better get out of jail card than “Ukrainian intel agencies caused this mess - look, they even openly admitted this” ?
In addition, the Kremlin will also get to remind everyone that they hold ‘‘elections’’ when Ukraine refuses to do the same.
Naturally, this is nonsense - with almost a fifth of Ukrainian lands under occupation and millions of Ukrainian citizens captured by the Russian state (and forced to vote in Russian elections - one argument that Ukraine will surely use to justify this electoral interference is that the ‘‘elections’’ are rotten and illegitimate from the very outset), Ukraine cannot possibly hold genuine elections - not to mention the current existential condition on the battlefield.
Ukraine is struggling to raise funds to pay for basic government services - and with millions of its citizens captured and the Russian army advancing steadily in the east, it is proper, legitimate, and in fact very prudent for Ukraine to postpone their own presidential elections.
Sometimes what is democratic on a deeper level is not necessarily democratic procedurally.
Nevertheless, these are arguments that Ukraine would make - and they will be drowned by Russian propaganda.
And even though Ukraine is in the right, it is not necessarily relevant in practice: Russian propaganda was successful in spinning much harder narratives.
So then, it is important for leaders in Kyiv to remember that not all targets that could be hit should be hit.
Kyiv must remember not to shoot itself in the foot by going after missions that will cost them more strategically - no matter how successful these could be in the short term.