Weekly Overview - Ukraine War, Zelensky - Xi Jinping phone call.
Ukraine war updates.
1) Russia conducted another wave of significant airstrikes - targeting Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure - killing a large number of civilians (at least 25).
2) Ukraine announced its readiness for a counter offensive.
As speculations abound about precise timing of Ukraine's upcoming counter offensive, officials in Kyiv have announced their readiness to launch.
“Preparations are coming to an end. Equipment has been promised, prepared and partially delivered. In a global sense, we’re ready” said Ukraine’s Minister of Defense.
And this pronouncement is in fact echoed by the statement made by NATO’s top military commander General Cavoli - he confirmed that “Over 98 percent of the combat vehicles [promised to Ukraine are already there.”
3) There was a major explosion at a Crimean fuel depot.
Russia blames Ukraine, and several military bloggers based in Crimea have alleged that a number of Ukrainian Mugin-5 UAVs have targeted an oil storage facility in Crimea.
That is, if Russia’s ministry of defense continues in its failure to supply Wagner with requested artillery shells.
This is yet another instance of Wagner leader Evgeny Prigozhin resorting to social media attacks, and threats to grab attention and solve his logistics/supply problems by creating deliberate drama.
This leads to two inferences: 1) Prigozhin does not have a close relationship/access to Putin - otherwise he would have picked up a phone and asked Putin directly, and 2) Prigozhin believes that he has little to lose by causing such drama - an establishment man would be careful of burning bridges with the security elite: clearly, Prigozhin doesn’t think that he has a lot of intra-regime status and goodwill to lose.
5) New tech from both sides.
Russia has announced that its new tank, the T-14 Armata will make a debut in attacking Ukrainian positions.
But this may not be as big of a threat that Moscow claims it to be.
The UK’s defense intel has previously questioned the viability of producing sufficient numbers of T-14s: “If Russia deploys T-14 it will likely be primarily for propaganda purposes. Production is probably only in the low tens, while commanders are unlikely to trust the vehicle in combat.”
In the meantime, Ukraine has announced the launch of a new program - the “BRAVE1”.
According to the official descriptions of the program, BRAVE1 is aiming to become a decentralized version of DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in Ukraine: “This will be the only platform where any Ukrainian who has an idea related to military technology can get validation of this idea, that is, confirmation of whether it has the right to life”.
One can certainly see how a decentralized and public-private-state fusion of military research could indeed lead to much faster innovation.
And many of the advances in Ukraine’s battlefield have in fact been made in precisely this fashion - a good example of this is how Ukraine made creative adjustments to commercial drones - making them fit for military purposes.
But there is a reason why even the most innovative defense agency in the world - America’s DARPA - has not opened itself to public contribution: the cyber and data poisoning risks are substantial.
It is not clear that additional innovation could outweigh these risks - one hopes that Ukrainians will be ready to handle these risks (and that NATO will be watching for exactly how Russians try to (and they will) penetrate into Ukrainian systems and poison the well).
6) Beijing’s diplomatic blow to Russia.
China announced that its cooperation with Europe and other nations is “endless”, just as its ties with Russia are ‘‘unlimited”.
If a phrase means everything, then it means absolutely nothing..
“Unlimited” partnership was supposed to mean something exclusive to Russia - and if similar sentiments are extended to even a political body that assesses China as a systemic rival and wants to ‘‘de-risk’’ its relations with Beijing, then as a corollary, promises of ‘‘unlimited’’ partnership were of equally low value to Moscow.
Since there is very little entry criteria to qualify for China’s ‘‘endless” or “unlimited” partnership, then the very promise/sentiment is not of much real value.
Perhaps for all this time, Putin thought that Russia was in a monogamous relationship with China - whereas the latter has been practicing a ruthless, transactional form (is there any other?) of polyamory all along.
Xi - Zelensky phone call.
After more than a year and two months since Russia decided to invade Ukraine, President Xi finally managed to find an opening in his busy schedule to have a phone call with the leader of a country experiencing the largest territorial conquest since WWII.
Now, contrast this with Xi meeting Putin twice (including a state visit last month) since the invasion of February 2022.
Just this mere fact is more than enough to show where Beijing truly stands in relation to this war.
But although many uninformed citizens of the “global south” may have been tricked into believing that China is genuinely seeking to broker a peace in Ukraine, readers of these cables already know what’s what.
This doesn’t however mean that there weren’t enough nuances and insights to capture from this phone call.
Although geopolitically, this was not a consequential event (not going to alter the current status quo in any meaningful way), the phone call did produce some revealing sentiments and attitudes from both sides.
In addition, we got to observe some correct as well as inadequate ways of responding to this phone call: some western diplomats were able to frame this non-event in an advantageous way - others missed the point and got inelegantly defensive.
China’s readout.
In contrast to the sloppy and clueless diplomacy demonstrated by the Chinese Ambassador to France (where in response to the question about Ukraine’s sovereignty/whether Crimea belongs to Ukraine, the Chinese ambassador responded by saying that territorial sovereignty of other post-soviet states was also not all too clear (as in, Ukraine is not an exception). This made things worse - with major backlash from China’s neighboring central Asian states in particular. Beijing had to apologize and backtrack) the readout from the Xi-Zelensky call was very precise, and carefully calibrated: every word was chosen to induce a specific impression.
Here are some key highlights from China’s readout:
a) Not even a mention of the phrase “Ukraine War” .
Instead, the incredibly neutral “Ukraine crisis” was used.
This is clearly inadequate - and deliberately so.
Beijing benefits from this more limited phrase: not only do they align with Putin’s preference to avoid the label of war (the Kremlin uses ‘‘special military operation instead”), but reframing to a lesser crisis helps China in two additional ways:
1) Failure to achieve peace via Chinese efforts is less damaging - after all, it is a crisis not a war..
Consider how Xi frames China’s involvement here: - he promises to send a special representative on Eurasian affairs to Ukraine and to other relevant countries “to have in-depth communication with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. [emphasis added]”
2) If it is not a war, then Beijing’s lack of major military support to Russia can be rationalized away: look pal, as you yourself say, this is not a war, just a special military operation. There you go, we agree with your position!
In other words, if it is not a war, then China is not a bad partner/ally to Russia for its failure to provide significant military aid.
(side note: it also excuses Xi Jinping dragging his feet in relation to speaking with Zelensky - not a war requiring Beijing’s immediate involvement/attention).
But most importantly, the word “crisis” is more neutral than “war” - the latter has a clear perpetrator: something not necessarily true of the former.
To emphasize the point of how extremely neutral the word crisis is, consider the following thought experiment: imagine someone waking up from a prolonged coma.
Upon first hearing the word ‘‘Ukraine crisis”, his first may not necessarily be that there is a war in the country: he might instead wonder if there has been a natural disaster? Was there a major flood? Famine?
In other words, this is not a tiny detail: if China succeeds in pushing the phrasing into public discourse, the worldwide urgency of the war will gradually reduce - this is especially so in the countries of the “global south”.
Citizens of these swing states will gradually start looking at this war from a far more neutral angle: that there is a crisis in Ukraine, and that by supplying weapons to Kyiv, Washington is doing much to keep this crisis alive (China’s other talking point).
b) The most significant statement of the readout: “mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political foundation of China-Ukraine relations.”
Although China failed to mention the war, Beijing still affirmed territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.
This is significant, because it goes directly against the worldview of Putin: who consistently denies a statehood for Ukraine.
One could push back against the significance of this principle uttered by Xi Jinping: of course he was going to say that! We didn’t really expect him to openly deny the basic sovereignty of a country did we?
True, but not so fast: Xi could have just as easily avoided any mention of the terms “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity”, as he did with ‘‘war’’.
Moreover, Xi did not simply refer to these general principles in passing - he said that they formed the “political foundation of China-Ukraine relations”.
This is significant.
It shows that Xi is a) still concerned about China’s global perception when it comes to Beijing’s involvement (as a peace-broker/mediator) in Ukraine war, and so wants to maintain at least a veneer of credibility, and that b) this is quite possibly a signal to Putin to temper his expectations of China’s involvement on behalf of Russia (perhaps also a hint that Putin needs to do something more to please Xi).
Regardless of the precise motivations however, this is an opportunity for both Ukraine and its Western allies to keep Beijing accountable to these statements: if territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine are truly the foundation of your relations with Kyiv, then act like it.
c) Signal on China’s future involvement in the war.
The readout contains the following key phrase: “No matter how the international situation evolves, China will work with Ukraine to advance mutually beneficial cooperation.”
But this of course presupposes that there is Ukraine left viable enough as a state to work with on mutually beneficial projects.
For China, that primarily means Ukraine’s heavy industry, and agricultural products.
This then necessarily implies that Beijing is not interested in any threat to the capacity of Ukraine to deliver on these mutually beneficial transactions.
Consequently, this in turn leads to an inference that China’s support for Russia’s maximalist war aims (that would threaten Ukraine’s ability to deliver on these mutually beneficial trades) is rather unlikely.
And this is in line with the previous analysis proposed by these cables: Beijing is not interested in Russia winning the war with overwhelming success (absorbing Ukraine in the process) - it is instead interested in preventing Russia’s total collapse as a result of a successful NATO-Ukraine cooperation.
d) Xi’s dig at NATO.
Naturally, China wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to attack NATO: “China would not sit idly by, nor would it add oil to the fire, still less exploit the situation for self gains. [emphasis added]”
The addition of “oil to the fire” line is China’s reframing of NATO’s support to Ukraine to survive Russia’s invasion.
Unfortunately, this has been a successful line - with many buyers of this rhetoric amongst the countries of the “global south”.
Even the leader of Brazil (America’s “major non-NATO ally”) had parroted this suggestion that the US was complicit in fueling the war.
But this is also a trap for Xi - any clear evidence of China’s lethal military aid to Russia will now demolish this high-minded facade.
(side note: it is of course another matter whether the evidence of China’s involvement and contradiction would be enough to challenge its perception amongst the countries/general public of the global south. After all, if reason and evidence trumped (definitively) all other interests and beliefs, there would not be so much misguided ambiguity towards Russia’s role as an instigator in this invasion in at least a third of the global population).
Ukraine’s commentary.
It was a “long and meaningful phone call,” tweeted President Zelensky “I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations.”
This was a balanced and appropriate evaluation from Zelensky.
And the fact that Ukraine will finally get to have an ambassador in China, is also notable: this would make future evasion from China harder to pull off without damaging their credibility and attempts to appear as neutral in this war.
What is conspicuously absent from this tweet however, is Zelensky’s belief in China’s capacity to affect a resolution in this war: he praised bilateral relations, and skipped on offering any thoughts on China’s ability to play a role as an effective mediator.
This is correct, and the biggest risk from the Zelensky-Xi call was the former’s decision to shower China with premature praise for its willingness to act as a mediator: a risk that thankfully did not materialize.
Western response: the right and wrong way to react.
There were many western statesmen that had immediately written off any value of the Zelensky - Xi call.
Here is the comment of Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee: "I don't think it makes it a dimes worth a difference around here” (meaning on the Capitol Hill).
Then there was the former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (as establishment as it gets), Daniel Fried: “A Chinese role in ceasefires? Screw that. That’s Putin’s position and you don’t need China for that –– tell them to take a hike,”.
Naturally, we share these sentiments, but uttering them in public may be best suited to analysts and pundits, and not to statesmen.
A better, and more measured response came from the White House:
“We welcome the news that there was a phone call between President Xi and President Zelensky. We think that’s a good thing…whether that’s gonna lead to some sort of meaningful peace movement or plan or proposal, I just don’t think we know that right now."
This was a great frame pushed forward by the White House: a dose of openness to alternative methods (for credibility), coupled with measured skepticism, and laying minimum viable conditions for “success” of any plan advanced by Beijing, does well to put limits on China’s diplomatic gains - without creating an impression that America is being sore due to a loss of a spotlight.
Another demonstration of great framing came from Germany - Berlin emphasized the ‘‘special responsibility” that China has in this war.
(side note: and yet another contrast to France)
Germany’s decision to frame this as a duty vs a diplomatic gain that Beijing can secure (similar to the “win’’ in brokering Saudi - Iranian rapprochement), was the correct way of approaching this: reminding the world that China should bear responsibility for the conduct of its ‘‘no limits’’ partner, Russia.
All in all, the Zelensky - Xi Jinping phone call was a good thing.
This new development helps the West in at least three ways:
1) It reiterates the fact that Ukraine is flexible and open to many different avenues of achieving peace in this war - that contrary to the Moscow/Beijing propaganda (aimed at the ‘‘global south”), Kyiv is not a Western puppet used by NATO as a tool to crush and humiliate Russia.
(side note: it is also a helpful reminder to the Western public coming close to Ukraine fatigue - Kyiv is not interested in a prolonged war, and is even interested in speaking with Russia’s ally)
2) It traps China into further diplomatic involvement - making it harder for Beijing to pull off brazen military assistance to Russia.
3) It creates friction between Moscow and Beijing.
Indeed, this was pretty clear from Moscow’s response.
Although the Kremlin naturally “welcomed” the news, they still nonetheless insisted that the objectives of ‘‘the special military operation” would still need to be achieved.
In other words: do whatever you like, but we are going through with this invasion.
And such an attitude is not appropriate for a vassal - which is exactly how Xi views Russia.
Overall, the phone call, China’s public affirmation of Ukraine’s “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity”, and Ukraine establishing an embassy in China could not possibly be good for Russia - China relations.
And if only approaching from such a narrow heuristic, this very much means that the phone call was a good development for the US, Ukraine and the West as a whole.