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(Church Times) Ukrainian mood dour but determined, says Archbishop Justin Welby

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

The Archbishop of Canterbury, concluding his five-day visit to Ukraine on Friday, said: “We must long for peace — but not peace that increases the likelihood of more war.”

The UK, he said, “needs to show that we are committed as a nation to justice, to peace, to reconciliation on the basis of security, and respect for international law”, but he was “not capable of trotting out an answer that would probably be wrong” about exactly how this could be achieved.

Asked whether he thought the trip had been worth the time, expense, and risk, he said that he saw it as a “biblical and theological imperative to stand — as much as one is able — with those who are oppressed” and to say: “You’re not forgotten: we love you.”

Read it all.

Posted in --Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England, England / UK, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(Washington Post) Microsoft, OpenAI say U.S. rivals use artificial intelligence in hacking

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Russia, China and other U.S. adversaries are using the newest wave of artificial intelligence tools to improve their hacking abilities and find new targets for online espionage, according to a report Wednesday from Microsoft and its close business partner OpenAI.

While computer users of all stripes have been experimenting with large language models to help with programming tasks, translate phishing emails and assemble attack plans, the new report is the first to associate top-tier government hacking teams with specific uses of LLM. It’s also the first report on countermeasures and comes amid a continuing debate about the risks of the rapidly developing technology and efforts by many countries to put some limits on its use.

The document attributes various uses of AI to two Chinese government-affiliated hacking groups and to one group from each of Russia, Iran and North Korea, comprising the four countries of foremost concern to Western cyber defenders.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., China, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Ethics / Moral Theology, Foreign Relations, Globalization, Russia, Science & Technology

(Bloomberg) Germany’s Days as an Industrial Superpower Are Coming to an End

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

In a cavernous production hall in Düsseldorf last fall, the somber tones of a horn player accompanied the final act of a century-old factory.

Amid the flickering of flares and torches, many of the 1,600 people losing their jobs stood stone-faced as the glowing metal of the plant’s last product — a steel pipe — was smoothed to a perfect cylinder on a rolling mill. The ceremony ended a 124-year run that began in the heyday of German industrialization and weathered two world wars, but couldn’t survive the aftermath of the energy crisis.

There have been numerous iterations of such finales over the past year, underscoring the painful reality facing Germany: its days as an industrial superpower may be coming to an end. Manufacturing output in Europe’s biggest economy has been trending downward since 2017, and the decline is accelerating as competitiveness erodes.

“There’s not a lot of hope, if I’m honest,” said Stefan Klebert, chief executive officer of GEA Group AG — a supplier of manufacturing machinery that traces its roots to the late 1800s. “I am really uncertain that we can halt this trend. Many things would have to change very quickly.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Economics, Politics, Economy, Energy, Natural Resources, Foreign Relations, Germany, History, Politics in General, Russia

(FT) Russia moves to ban presidential candidate from running against Vladimir Putin

Posted on February 6, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Russia’s electoral authority has moved to ban the only anti-war candidate, who has garnered more support than anticipated, from running against Vladimir Putin in presidential elections in March.

The Central Election Commission found a 15 per cent error rate in the signatures collected by the campaign of Boris Nadezhdin, he wrote on Telegram on Monday. This exceeds the five per cent threshold that is allowed under electoral rules for a candidate to be registered.

While a final decision about his candidacy is due on Wednesday, the error rate and a smear campaign in state-controlled media highlighted the Kremlin’s concern about the unexpected show of support for the 60-year-old pacifist.

Read it all.

Posted in Politics in General, Russia

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Andrei Rublev

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Holy God, we bless thee for the gift of thy monk and icon writer Andrei Rublev, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, provided a window into heaven for generations to come, revealing the majesty and mystery of the holy and blessed Trinity; who livest and reignest through ages of ages. Amen.

Posted in Church History, Russia, Spirituality/Prayer

More Poetry for Epiphany–Joseph Brodsky: Star of the Nativity

Posted on January 11, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than
to cold, to horizontality more than to a mountain,
a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;
it blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart….

Read it all.

Posted in Epiphany, Poetry & Literature, Russia

(Economist) A majority of Congressmen want more military aid for Ukraine

Posted on December 22, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Ukraine this year officially moved its Christmas state holiday from January 7th, in line with the Russian Orthodox Church, to December 25th, when most of the Western world observes it. But there won’t be much to celebrate. A long-awaited and much-needed assistance package from the us Congress will not arrive in time for the new Christmas, and lawmakers appear unlikely to approve legislation in time for the old one either.

Throughout the autumn pro-Ukraine lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who form a strong majority in the House and Senate, predicted that eventually Congress would authorise more military aid. Important issues with broad, bipartisan support eventually get a vote, the thinking went. Many expected passage at the end of the year, when big spending packages are often cobbled together quickly, allowing their contents to evade scrutiny and legislators to get home for Christmas.

But Mike Johnson, the House speaker, ran for his job with a plan, “to ensure the Senate cannot jam the House with a Christmas omnibus”. So far that has meant punting the main legislative debates until early 2024. Mr Johnson has a point that passing weighty bills with no time for serious debate is suboptimal. But House Republicans, mired in perpetual infighting and unable to govern effectively with a thin majority, squandered their workdays.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Foreign Relations, House of Representatives, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Senate, Ukraine

(Bloomberg) What If Putin Wins? US Allies Fear Defeat as Ukraine Aid Stalls

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

The impasse over aid from the US and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion: that Vladimir Putin may win.

With more than $110 billion in assistance mired in political disputes in Washington and Brussels, how long Kyiv will be able to hold back Russian forces and defend Ukraine’s cities, power plants and ports against missile attacks is increasingly in question.

Beyond the potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine, some European allies have begun to quietly consider the impact of a failure for North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. They’re reassessing the risks an emboldened Russia would pose to alliance members in the east, according to people familiar with the internal conversations who asked for anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., England / UK, Europe, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

(WSJ) Russia Has Lost Almost 90% of Its Prewar Army, U.S. Intelligence Says

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

The war in Ukraine has devastated Russia’s preinvasion military machine, with nearly 90% of its prewar army lost to death or injury, and thousands of battle tanks destroyed, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence assessment shared with Congress.

The intelligence assessment, according to a congressional source, says that 315,000 Russian personnel have been killed or injured since the February 2022 invasion, or about 87% of Moscow’s prewar force of 360,000.

Russia also has lost nearly two-thirds of its tank force, or 2,200 out of its 3,500 preinvasion stock, the congressional source said.

While it is widely known that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military has sustained vast losses in Ukraine, the assessment provides new details about the extent of those setbacks.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

(FT) The west wavers on Ukraine

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was blunt when he addressed G7 leaders this week.

“Russia hopes only for one thing: that next year the free world’s consolidation will collapse. Russia believes that America and Europe will show weakness, and will not maintain support for Ukraine,” he said in a video call on Wednesday evening with his most important political allies.

“The free world vitally needs to . . . maintain support for those whose freedom is being attacked,” he said. “Ukraine has strength. And I ask you to be as strong as you can be.”

Zelenskyy’s plea is not mere rhetoric. Hours after he spoke, the US Senate rejected the White House’s latest bid to pass legislation authorising $60bn in financial support for Ukraine. Across the Atlantic, a European Commission proposal that would provide €50bn to prop up Kyiv’s budget for the next four years hangs in the balance ahead of a summit of EU leaders next week, following months of bickering between member states over how to fund it. 

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

([London] Times) Surrounded and low on ammo, the elite troops out to spoil Putin’s New Year

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Starved of ammunition, the gunners of Ukraine’s 47th Brigade were not able to hit the Russian convoy before it was upon their infantry on Avdiivka’s northern flank.

Five armoured vehicles rolled into the village of Stepove, guns firing, allowing about 40 Russian soldiers to run for cover in the houses around Ukrainian positions. A Bradley fighting vehicle was deployed towards the Russians. American armour was to be put to the test against Russian.

This fierce battle was part of a desperate action to save Avdiivka, in the east of the country, from imminent collapse and prevent a victory for President Putin in time for the launch of his election campaign and New Year festivities.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

(CEIP) Alternate Reality: How Russian Society Learned to Stop Worrying About the War

Posted on November 29, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

In the nearly two years since Russia launched its “special military operation” against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian society has gotten used to living against the backdrop of a brutal armed conflict. A significant part of the population has reconciled itself to the idea that they will be living under the current state of affairs for quite some time, and that they must therefore adjust to reality, which ordinary Russians are in any case unable—and often unwilling—to change.

All the naïve predictions that popular discontent triggered by sanctions and the wartime restrictions imposed on daily life would bring down Vladimir Putin’s regime have come to nothing. In many ways, quite the opposite has happened. Most Russians might not identify with the regime, but they have consolidated around the Kremlin, which they believe to be fighting tooth and nail against a West that is seeking to destroy Russia. Despite the fact that such a depiction is at odds with reality, a great many Russians have accepted it as the most logical explanation for this protracted nightmare.

Naturally, some Russians are unhappy with the situation. Millions of people are opposed to authoritarianism and bloodshed, and some of them openly express their views and resist. There are also those known as “turbo-patriots,” who earnestly and aggressively support Putin. But the vast majority is apathetic, and simply passively and automatically “mostly supports” what the regime is doing while waiting for “all this” to end. This part of the population has chosen to become apathetic: their condition can be referred to as “learned indifference.” Putin is a legitimate leader in such people’s eyes, so his “special military operation” must be too. The next ritual imitation of a presidential election in March 2024 will surely confirm that there is no alternative to Putin. The apathetic majority can do little but wait for this difficult time to pass.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

(WSJ) Russia Targets Ukrainian Cities With Waves of Explosive Drones

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Russia sent waves of explosive drones to strike cities across Ukraine in the largest attack since last winter that likely marks the start of a fresh campaign aimed at demoralizing and dislocating Ukrainians.

Ukraine’s military said it intercepted all but one of 75 Shahed drones overnight, most of which were targeted at Kyiv. Authorities in the capital said five people were slightly injured, including an 11-year-old child, and several buildings damaged.

Russia has spent much of the year rebuilding its stocks of explosive drones and missiles with the aim, Ukrainian officials say, of trying to knock out power and heat in cities over winter. By forcing Ukraine to use air-defense systems to defend cities, Russia is also seeking to divert them from the front line and use up precious missiles, allowing Russian warplanes more freedom to launch attacks on Ukraine’s military.

Russia targeted Ukraine’s power grid with drones and missiles last winter, damaging around 40% of the system and knocking out power in several cities for hours at a time. But a combination of quick repairs and air-defense systems hurriedly delivered by allies prevented lengthy outages of power and heat that could have led people to flee.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Science & Technology, Ukraine

(Economist) Ukraine’s commander-in-chief on the breakthrough he needs to beat Russia

Posted on November 2, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Five months into its counter-offensive, Ukraine has managed to advance by just 17 kilometers. Russia fought for ten months around Bakhmut in the east “to take a town six by six kilometers”. Sharing his first comprehensive assessment of the campaign with The Economist in an interview this week, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, says the battlefield reminds him of the great conflict of a century ago. “Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he says. The general concludes that it would take a massive technological leap to break the deadlock. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

The course of the counter-offensive has undermined Western hopes that Ukraine could use it to demonstrate that the war is unwinnable—and thus change Vladimir Putin’s calculations, forcing the Russian president to negotiate. It has also undercut General Zaluzhny’s assumption that he could stop Russia by bleeding its troops. “That was my mistake. Russia has lost at least 150,000 dead. In any other country such casualties would have stopped the war.” But not in Russia, where life is cheap and where Mr Putin’s reference points are in the first and second world wars in which Russia lost tens of millions.

Read it all (my emphasis).

Posted in Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(FA) A World at War–What Is Behind the Global Explosion of Violent Conflict?

Posted on October 31, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Violent conflict is increasing in multiple parts of the world. In addition to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and the Israeli offensive on Gaza, raising the specter of a wider war in the Middle East, there has been a surge in violence across Syria, including a wave of armed drone attacks that threatened U.S. troops stationed there. In the Caucasus in late September, Azerbaijan seized the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh—forcing an estimated 150,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their historical home in the territory and setting the stage for renewed fighting with Armenia. Meanwhile, in Africa, the civil war in Sudan rages on, conflict has returned to Ethiopia, and a military takeover of Niger in July was the sixth coup across the Sahel and West Africa since 2020.

In fact, according to an analysis of data gathered by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, conducted by the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the number, intensity, and length of conflicts worldwide is at its highest level since before the end of the Cold War. The study found that there were 55 active conflicts in 2022, with the average one lasting about eight to 11 years, a substantial increase from the 33 active conflicts lasting an average of seven years a decade earlier.

Notwithstanding the increase in conflicts, it has been more than a decade since an internationally mediated comprehensive peace deal has been brokered to end a war. UN-led or UN-assisted political processes in Libya, Sudan, and Yemen have stalled or collapsed. Seemingly frozen conflicts—in countries including Ethiopia, Israel, and Myanmar—are thawing at an alarming pace. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, high-intensity conflict has even returned to Europe, which had previously enjoyed several decades of relative peace and stability. Alongside the proliferation of war has come record levels of human upheaval. In 2022, a quarter of the world’s population—two billion people—lived in conflict-affected areas. The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide reached a record 108 million by the start of 2023.

Read it all.

Posted in Africa, Foreign Relations, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Terrorism, Ukraine

(NYT) Kill and Be Killed: Ukraine’s Bloody Battlefield Equation

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Europe’s deadliest war in generations remains exceedingly violent, precariously balanced and increasingly complicated by factors far from the battlefield.

Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are squared off across trench lines that have barely shifted for nearly a year. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Ukrainians are bracing for another winter of terror and suffering as Moscow stockpiles missiles that could be used to target their nation’s infrastructure in an attempt to demoralize civilians and make cities uninhabitable.

Ukrainian forces are still fighting to break through heavily fortified Russian lines in the south, but the pace of their advance has been slow, averaging only 90 yards per day during the peak of the summer offensive, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

That is the same pace as the Allied forces during the bloody five-month Battle of the Somme in 1916, the analysis said.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

([London] Times) Niall Ferguson–Will there be a World War Three? Israel-Hamas war risks escalation

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

To discern the second and third- order effects of this crisis, half a century later, is not easy. One way to grasp their potential magnitude is to ask whether the former US defence secretary, Robert Gates, writing in Foreign Affairs before the onslaught on Israel, is right that: “The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time — Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own.”

The problem, Gates argued, is that at the very moment events demand a strong and coherent response from America, “the country cannot provide one”.

I have argued for five years that the United States and its allies already find themselves in a new cold war, this time with the People’s Republic of China. I have argued for a year and a half that the war in Ukraine is roughly equivalent to the Korean War during the first Cold War, revealing an ideological as well as geopolitical division between the countries of the “Rimland” (the Anglosphere, western Europe and Japan) and those of the Eurasian “Heartland” (China, Russia and Iran plus North Korea).

And I have warned since January that a war in the Middle East might be the next crisis in a cascade of conflict that has the potential to escalate to a Third World War, especially if China seizes the moment — perhaps as early as next year — to impose a blockade on Taiwan. Now that the Middle Eastern war has indeed broken out, what course will history take?

Read it all (subscription).

Posted in China, Foreign Relations, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Terrorism, Ukraine

(WSJ) Russia Withdraws Black Sea Fleet Vessels From Crimea Base After Ukrainian Attacks

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Russia has withdrawn the bulk of its Black Sea Fleet from its main base in occupied Crimea, a potent acknowledgment of how Ukrainian missile and drone strikes are challenging Moscow’s hold on the peninsula.

Russia has moved powerful vessels including three attack submarines and two frigates from Sevastopol to other ports in Russia and Crimea that offer better protection, according to Western officials and satellite images verified by naval experts. The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The move represents a remarkable setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose military seizure of Crimea in 2014 marked the opening shots in his attempt to take control of Ukraine. His full-scale invasion of last year has now boomeranged, forcing the removal of ships from a port that was first claimed by Russia in 1783 under Catherine the Great.

The withdrawal from Sevastopol follows a series of strikes by Ukraine in recent weeks that have severely damaged Russian vessels and the fleet’s headquarters.

Read it all.

Posted in Defense, National Security, Military, Russia, Ukraine

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Sergius

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us, we pray thee, from an inordinate love of this world, that inspired by the devotion of thy servant Sergius of Moscow, we may serve thee with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Posted in Church History, Russia, Spirituality/Prayer

(Economist) America says it will send long-range missiles to Ukraine

Posted on September 23, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Month by month Ukraine’s wishlist of weapons has shrunk. At the start of the war came Javelins and Stingers to take out tanks and planes. Then came artillery. himars rocket-launchers followed in the summer. This January it was tanks. And in August the White House even agreed that European allies could send f-16 jets.

Only one major weapon was left: the Army Tactical Missile System, known by its acronym atacms (pronounced attack ’ems). On September 21st that hurdle fell when Joe Biden, America’s president, told Volodymyr Zelensky, his Ukrainian counterpart, during a meeting in the White House, that “a small number” of atacms were on their way, according to reports in the American press the following day. The move, first reported by nbc News, has not been formally announced.

Atacms has acquired totemic status during the war. It is a ballistic missile that can be fired from the himars launchers Ukraine is already operating. Thus far those have mostly fired gps-guided rockets known as gmlrs, which can travel 70km or so. The initial appeal of atacms was that it could go a lot further—the official range is 300km—allowing Ukraine to reach even those facilities which Russia had moved farther behind the front lines.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

(WSJ) In Ukraine, Tens of thousands estimated to have lost limbs since the start of the war, a toll not seen in recent armed conflicts in the West

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

[Ruslana] Danilkina is one of between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians who have lost one or more limbs since the start of the war, according to previously undisclosed estimates by prosthetics firms, doctors and charities.

The actual figure could be higher because it takes time to register patients after they undergo the procedure. Some are only amputated weeks or months after being wounded. And with Kyiv’s counteroffensive under way, the war may be entering a more brutal phase.

By comparison, some 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons had to have amputations during the course of World War I, when the procedure was often the only one available to prevent death. Fewer than 2,000 U.S. veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions had amputations.

Read it all.

Posted in Health & Medicine, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(NYT) War Brought Putin Closer to Africa. Now It’s Pushing Them Apart.

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Shunned in the West, his authority tested by a failed mutiny at home, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia needs to project normalcy and shore up support from his allies. So on Thursday, he will host African leaders at a flashy summit in St. Petersburg, part of his continuing outreach to a continent that has become critical to Moscow’s foreign policy.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, some African countries have backed Mr. Putin at the United Nations, welcomed his envoys and his warships, and offered control of lucrative assets, like a gold mine in the Central African Republic that U.S. officials estimate contains $1 billion in reserves.

But if Mr. Putin sought to move closer to African leaders as he prosecuted his war, the 17-month-old conflict is now straining those ties. This summit is expected to draw only half the number of African heads of state or government as the last gathering in 2019, a situation that the Kremlin on Wednesday blamed on “brazen interference” from the United States and its allies.

The summit comes against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the Black Sea over Mr. Putin’s recent decision to terminate a deal allowing Ukraine to ship grain to global markets. Russia’s withdrawal has caused food prices to spike, adding to the misery of the world’s poorest countries, including some of those attending the Russia-Africa summit.

Read it all.

Posted in Africa, Ethics / Moral Theology, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Maria Skobtsova

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

O Creator and Giver of Life, who didst crown thy martyr Maria Skobtsova with glory and didst give her as an example of service to the suffering and poor even unto death: Teach us to love Christ in our neighbors, and thereby battle injustice and evil with the light of the Resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God in glory everlasting. Amen.

Posted in Church History, Death / Burial / Funerals, France, Germany, Russia, Spirituality/Prayer

(ABC Nightline) Evan Gershkovich’s parents hold out hope for safe return

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Posted in America/U.S.A., Children, Ethics / Moral Theology, Foreign Relations, Marriage & Family, Media, Politics in General, Prison/Prison Ministry, Russia

(NYT front page) Russia is Building A Vast Industry Of Spying Tools

Posted on July 3, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

As the war in Ukraine unfolded last year, Russia’s best digital spies turned to new tools to fight an enemy on another front: those inside its own borders who opposed the war.

To aid an internal crackdown, Russian authorities had amassed an arsenal of technologies to track the online lives of citizens. After it invaded Ukraine, its demand grew for more surveillance tools. That helped stoke a cottage industry of tech contractors, which built products that have become a powerful — and novel — means of digital surveillance.

The technologies have given the police and Russia’s Federal Security Service, better known as the F.S.B., access to a buffet of snooping capabilities focused on the day-to-day use of phones and websites. The tools offer ways to track certain kinds of activity on encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Signal, monitor the locations of phones, identify anonymous social media users and break into people’s accounts, according to documents from Russian surveillance providers obtained by The New York Times, as well as security experts, digital activists and a person involved with the country’s digital surveillance operations.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Russia, Science & Technology

(FA) Prigozhin’s Rebellion, Putin’s Fate, and Russia’s Future– Conversation With Stephen Kotkin

Posted on June 26, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

What options do Washington and its NATO allies have? Just wait and see?

If Washington, NATO, Ukraine, are seen as backing Prigozhin, in cahoots with Prigozhin, it could have the effect of undermining whatever chances he might have to catalyze an end to the aggression. So the response has been properly to just let it unfold, with a bit of tongue in cheek commentary out of Kyiv, but otherwise bite-the-tongue restraint in D.C. and Brussels.

Behind the scenes, of course, it’s 24/7 very close monitoring of everything and anything, and intense consultation. Twelve hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, of nail biting. But after all the Sturm und Drang, we could be right back where we started: Putin in power in Moscow and Ukraine facing a counteroffensive that will be very difficult to pull off.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

(Telegraph) Wagner boss refuses to allow his mercenaries to join Putin’s forces

Posted on June 12, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Russia’s most powerful mercenary said on Sunday that his fighters would not sign contracts with the country’s defence minister, publicly refusing an attempt by the Kremlin to bring his fighting force under its sway.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, has repeatedly attacked Vladimir Putin’s top military brass for what he casts as treachery for failing to fight the war in Ukraine properly.

Neither Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, nor Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, have commented in public on the insults from Prigozhin, whose forces in May took the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after a battle in which tens of thousands perished.

The defence ministry on Saturday said Shoigu had ordered all “volunteer detachments” to sign contracts with his ministry by the end of the month, a step it said would increase the effectiveness of the Russian army.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Posted in Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(WSJ) From Drone Strikes to Ground Incursions, War Comes to Russia

Posted on June 7, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

Drone strikes inside Russia are now a near-daily occurrence. Those in Moscow have had limited military impact. But, along with hits on refineries and airfields, ground incursions in the southern Belgorod region and assassinations of several prominent Russian war supporters, the attacks have caused a psychological shift.

Fifteen months after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, expecting a quick victory, the war has come to the heart of Russia. The country’s elites, who believed themselves safe as the invasion campaign rumbled far away, are rattled.

As Moscow struggles with how to respond, each new attack is a blow to the official narrative of Russian supremacy and a challenge to Putin’s image of invincibility.

“The society is starting to worry: Will the war expand inside Russia?” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “There is a slow internal erosion under way, in attitudes towards the war and towards the elites.”

Read it all.

Posted in Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(Economist) Ukraine’s counter-offensive appears to have begun

Posted on June 6, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

For months a guessing game has played out in military circles worldwide: where and when would Ukraine conduct its counter-offensive? Most expected it to come through Zaporizhia province, in the south of the country, perhaps directed at the city of Melitopol, with the aim of cutting the “land bridge” seized by Russian troops at the start of the war that connects occupied Crimea with Russia itself. Western officials had expected the offensive to begin two weeks ago, and some were getting impatient.

On June 4th—two days before the anniversary of D-Day, the start of the liberation of Europe from the Nazis—Ukrainian forces launched what Russia’s defence ministry called a “large-scale” assault on five axes in the south-east of Donetsk province, in eastern Ukraine. Some of them may indeed threaten the land bridge; others were further to the north. Western officials tell The Economist that this does in fact mark the start of the offensive, with attacks also under way on other parts of the front. Yet the cream of Ukraine’s forces has not yet appeared on the battlefield.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Russia, Ukraine

(FT) F-16s might not win Ukraine’s war, but they promise a more equal fight

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

The F-16, with its longer-range radars, sensors and missiles, would restore the Ukrainian air force’s edge both qualitatively and quantitatively — and push the VKS back into Russia. That will, in turn, protect both Ukraine’s ground forces and its critical infrastructure. But boosting its effectiveness in the absence of wider air power packaging will require imagination.

Integrated air defence systems work far better than those operating in isolation. The Ukrainian air force must link together its western surface-to-air missiles and their advanced radars to provide its pilots with an enhanced picture of the aerial battle. Ground-based electronic warfare systems can do much to degrade Russian radars, and thereby its surface-to-air missile belt. Using rapidly-prototyped drones in reconnaissance and suppressing enemy air defence missions would make Russia’s fighter aircraft more vulnerable. This package of largely ground-based supporting systems — much cheaper than airborne ones — would allow Ukraine to retain the initiative in the air battle.

Finally, there is a moral dimension to consider. Nato would fight Russia by winning the air battle first, and then using air superiority to drive a more efficient land battle. Given the weakness of the VKS, this is no pipe dream. But the west’s constrained donations to date have forced Ukraine to pursue grinding land tactics. We have restricted Kyiv to fighting in a way that we would not, and to take casualties that we would not.

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Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine
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