(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Quick housekeeping notes: First, Rosie is still doing well after yesterday’s chemotherapy. She’s eating normally and wants attention. I’d like to say she’s active, but right now she’s asleep at the foot of the bed. Specifically, at the bottom left while Ruby is snoozing at the bottom right. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations!

Second, I’m absolutely fried, so I’m going to keep tonight’s update on the shorter side.

As I start tonight, at 7:30 PM EDT, just over half of Ukraine is under air raid alert. It’s now 8:10 PM EDT and the air raid alerts have spread to 2/3rds of Ukraine. And at 8:29 PM EDT as I finish the post, the alerts are up for all of Ukraine.

This means that the Russian Tu-95s are up and all of Ukraine is under threat!

Here’s the butcher’s bill from Russia’s glide bomb attack on Kharkiv yesterday:

UPD. The 75-year-old man died in the hospital from his injuries. https://t.co/A5a0b6FLb3

— Iryna Voichuk (@IrynaVoichuk) June 11, 2024

And the pace of Russian operations over the past 24 hours:

According to @ZelenskyyUa, Russia dropped 135 glide bombs on Ukraine over the past 24 hours.

This, while Western governments are still prohibiting Ukraine from using supplied weapons against Russian air bases and are still not supplying sufficient air defense systems to Kyiv.

— Julian Röpcke🇺🇦 (@JulianRoepcke) June 11, 2024

President Zelenskyy was in Berlin today where he addressed the Bundestag.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy receives a standing ovation as he arrives to address the German parliament.

pic.twitter.com/HssGINpVPX

— UNITED24 Media (@United24media) June 11, 2024

Video below, English transcript after the jump.

It Is Our Leadership and the Will of Ukrainians that Must Work for Peace, Europe and Life – the President at his Speech in the Bundestag

11 June 2024 – 17:15

Dear German people!

Everyone who feels that war is wrong. Everyone who, like Ukrainians, is convinced that war is a crime against life, and who wholeheartedly wishes Ukraine to achieve peace as soon as possible, who supports us – our people, Ukrainian families, the Ukrainian State, our defense. First of all, I want to thank you all today – thank you for the humanity that prevails in your hearts. That is why Germany did not stand aside from the pain and suffering of Ukrainians. Ordinary people, different German cities, states and communities – you have helped and are helping.

Thank you, Germany!

My speech today is addressed to all of you. To those who exercise power and to those who give power. To all those who hold humanity in their hearts and who therefore remain faithful to the dream of a peaceful Europe. A Europe that is bigger than all of us. A Europe that remembers the experience of hundreds of generations that have lived on our continent, most of whom, unfortunately, were not destined to live in peace. And that is why the dream of a Europe that must be a continent of culture, must be a continent of people, must be a continent without war, has gained so much strength.

I personally have confidence in this kind of Europe.

A Europe that will surely be a happy home for our children and their children.

A Europe that will not allow hatred to take root.

The one that will do everything in its power to correct this mistake of European history – this war that is going on in our continent and is threatening to escalate into a much wider confrontation.

We will not leave it as our legacy.

We will end this war.

We will end it in the best interests of Ukraine and all of Europe. All of us. And all those who will come after us. We will end it on our own terms. The terms that are clear to any person, any ordinary person on this Earth.

Mr. Federal President!

Mr. Federal Chancellor!

Madam President of the Bundestag and Madam President of the Bundesrat!

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Dear MPs!

Dear attendees!

Dear Germany!

A divided Europe has never been peaceful.

And a divided Germany has never been happy.

You know all this not from me, you know it from your own experience.

Therefore, you can understand us – Ukrainians.

You can understand why we are fighting so hard against Russia’s attempts to divide us, divide Ukraine, why we are doing everything – absolutely everything – to prevent a wall between the parts of our country.

No country should be doomed to have barbed wire tearing through its body for decades.

Humiliated European nations have never truly known peace.

Some had to fight against humiliation even after they had defeated the occupier.

That is why now – after this war – we strive not to leave any humiliation on the land that has been scarred by the attacks. No humiliation in the soul of the people.

Ukrainians deserve peace, simply peace after this war.

Dear Germany!

A divided Europe has never been peaceful.

And a divided Germany has never been happy.

You know all this not from me, you know it from your own experience.

Therefore, you can understand us – Ukrainians.

You can understand why we are fighting so hard against Russia’s attempts to divide us, divide Ukraine, why we are doing everything – absolutely everything – to prevent a wall between the parts of our country.

No country should be doomed to have barbed wire tearing through its body for decades.

Humiliated European nations have never truly known peace.

Some had to fight against humiliation even after they had defeated the occupier.

That is why now – after this war – we strive not to leave any humiliation on the land that has been scarred by the attacks. No humiliation in the soul of the people.

Ukrainians deserve peace, simply peace after this war.

And everyone who defended their home; everyone who lost loved ones; everyone whose brothers and sisters in arms remained forever on the battlefields – all of them deserve a worthy end to the war, one that leaves no doubt about who won.

And the one who brought the war should, on the contrary, forget about peace. Forever. The one guilty of the war must be held accountable. They must justly answer for every crime of this war.

It is only fair accountability that gives a historic chance to heal from aggression.

Russia must go through this – complete and principled accountability for the war unleashed.

Russia must also clean up the ruins it has left behind. It must pay for all the damage caused by this aggression – both to our country and to our people.

If there are ruins somewhere, the war will return there someday. This must not happen. Never again.

We must rebuild a normal life. All of us together. Everyone who values life.

And every Russian asset that can be used for this must be used. Without any compromises with the aggressor.

The time for compromises is over.

It was over exactly when Putin started burning cities and awarding his murderers. When he chose killings over agreements.

The Russian army leaves behind dozens of new cemeteries, and this means that none of us has the right to leave behind a deficit of protection from the Russian army. The word of someone in Moscow cannot be such protection. Europe has to be a continent of sufficient strength to be a space of sufficiently robust peace.

Otherwise, it won’t work.

And even if someone tried otherwise, Putin himself would erase any hope of making a deal with him.

He seeks to conquer – not just Russia’s neighbors.

Russian killers were in Aleppo and are in Africa.

They learned war by destroying Grozny and breaking Georgia. They left Moldova divided.

They brought Belarus to its knees.

Are we going to allow Russia to continue this march through Europe? This march of disregard for life and nations.

Absolutely not.

And this is our common interest.

A shared interest that Putin personally loses.

That he loses this war. That Putin loses his attempt to drag Europe to a level where there is no way out of the war already.

Ladies and gentlemen!

You probably remember that just a year or two before the fall of the Berlin Wall, no one could have predicted how quickly it would happen.

Some thought that the wall would be there forever.

But it was gone.

And it depended on the leadership of politicians and the will of the people. Only on this.

Similarly, some people now think that Putin is there forever, and that there is no end to the war.

But this is not true, all this is an illusion.

An illusion that can be dispelled by leadership. It can be dispelled by decisions. It can be dispelled by success.

And we are doing it! Together with you, Germany! Ukrainians will always be grateful to you for this.

Ukraine has been holding out against full-scale aggression for more than eight hundred days. 839.

On February 24, at the beginning of this invasion, no one would have believed it was possible, but now it is a fact.

We have proven that Russia can fail and be defeated. We have shown that together with our partners, we have everything necessary to protect life.

We have demonstrated that through our cooperation, we can expand the space of security. And the space of security does not grow on its own – it only expands through joint decisions and collective courage.

All these are facts. All these are manifestations of leadership – of Ukraine, Germany, and all our allies and partners.

In particular, your leadership – those present in this hall of the Bundestag. I thank you – each and every one of you personally.

And I am especially grateful to you for your leadership in providing Ukraine with Patriots – you have saved thousands of lives. Thank you!

Do we have any other goal than peace?

No.

Do we have any other continental dream than a peaceful Europe?

No.

Do we have any other duty than to protect our nations, our Europe and the rules-based international order?

No.

Russia has other goals and dreams. It stands alone against all of us. And that is why we all have to force it to change.

And it is possible.

Because there are no walls that do not fall.

Ladies and gentlemen!

In a few days, we will meet with Mr. Chancellor of Germany and other leaders of Europe and the world in Switzerland for the inaugural Peace Summit. Russia tried to disrupt this Summit. But it will take place.

This is a joint success of Ukraine and dozens of countries.

Usually, after a war, circumstances were determined either by the winners or by a few strong ones who could intervene and impose something on everyone else. Even against their will.

Now we offer a fundamentally different format.

One in which no one can manipulate and derail agreements, as Russia has done repeatedly, and where all voices are heard – the voices of the world.

States from all parts of the world will be represented at the Peace Summit, and each of them will be able to show their character and leadership in the collective effort.

Everyone has a common goal: to begin, step by step, to fully restore security and move towards real peace. To begin, step by step, to restore the effectiveness of the UN Charter and the basic norms of international law that guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, as well as the rights of people and nations.

We want to give diplomacy a chance – and we have gathered about a hundred states for this purpose.

Ukraine has never relied on the power of arms alone. Yes, we understand what kind of murderers we have to fight against today, and we will not forget that only weapons effectively stop them and protect our lives.

But we also remember that peace grows not out of shots, but out of guarantees – reliable guarantees that there will be no more shots, and that evil will no longer come to the land of the people it wanted to destroy.

What can give such guarantees to Ukraine now?

The unity of the world, and that is why the Peace Summit is important.

The unity of friends, and that is why our cooperation should be as effective as possible.

The unity of Europe, and that is why Ukraine needs to become a full-fledged part of the European political and security space. Just as it is the reason why you and your neighbors have lived for decades without the threat of someone taking away your country.

Dear friends!

It is up to us, together with all our partners and everyone who values life and helps protect it now, to determine what the legacy of this time will be for Europe in the times to come.

Will there be security? Will there be respect?

Will there be peace?

I am confident that we will choose the right answer. We will choose to end this war. On our terms. And we will completely eliminate the security deficit in Europe that gave Putin the illusion that his aggressive actions would succeed.

It is our leadership and the will of the Ukrainians that must succeed – for the sake of peace, for the sake of Europe, for the sake of life.

And so it will be.

There will be Europe – a continent without war.

Thank you for the invitation, thank you very much for your attention! Thank you for your attitude towards our people, whom you have sheltered since the beginning of the war. We will never forget it.

Thank you very much, Germany!

Glory to Ukraine!

He also had time to do a little sight seeing:

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and I visited the 21 Surface-to-Air Missile Group in Sanitz.

Ukrainian defenders are being trained to operate Patriot air defense systems here.

We saw the Patriot battery that will be transferred to Ukraine and met with Ukrainian warriors… pic.twitter.com/lMVdAW0v2i

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 11, 2024

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and I visited the 21 Surface-to-Air Missile Group in Sanitz.

Ukrainian defenders are being trained to operate Patriot air defense systems here.

We saw the Patriot battery that will be transferred to Ukraine and met with Ukrainian warriors who are training to operate it. I spoke with the defenders and honored them with state awards.

We are doing our utmost to keep Russian terror out of Ukrainian skies.

Speaking of keeping Russian terror out of Ukrainian skies, RUSI has a new assessment of Ukraine’s successful attrition of Russia’s air force:

The Defense Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (GUR) has released satellite imagery that appears to support its claim to have damaged at least one Russian Sukhoi Su-57 ‘Felon’ fighter aircraft on the ground at the 929th VP Chkalova State Flight Test Centre in Akhtubinsk. Akhtubinsk airfield is located around 370 miles from Ukrainian-held territory, placing it beyond the reach of most of the long-range strike weapons supplied so far by Western countries, but the attack was reportedly carried out by three one-way attack (OWA) drones. Ukraine has developed a wide variety of such drones, which range from small and very slow propellor-powered craft with a very small warhead to adapted jet-powered target and reconnaissance drones that are much larger and faster and carry heavier warheads. It has been using these often fairly cheap and easy-to-produce weapons to carry out a determined harassment campaign deep inside Russia against factories, port facilities, oil refineries and airbases. If, as Russian Telegram channels seem to confirm, a Su-57 has indeed been significantly damaged, this would represent one of the higher-profile successes of such weapons, alongside the destruction of a Russian Tu-22M3 bomber and damage caused to a Tu-95MS bomber.

Impact on Su-57 Operations

It is unclear how much damage the Su-57 in question has sustained. The satellite photo appears to suggest that two relatively small explosions occurred within around 3–5 metres of the aircraft, which was parked on an outdoor concrete hardstand. Some sort of transparent dust shelter or netting may be covering the aircraft, as there appears to be some sort of lightweight arching structure suspended over it in both photos. This might in fact be anti-drone netting intended to stop a lightweight propellor-powered OWA weapon from hitting the aircraft. If so, it failed, as both warheads appear to have exploded on the ground on either end of the left-hand side of the ‘shelter’ structure, where shrapnel would have been able to damage both the front nose section and the tail section of the aircraft. Shrapnel damage to the rear section might be relatively easy to repair with an engine change and replacement horizontal and vertical stabilisers, but shrapnel damage of any significance to the nose section would be much more serious. It would likely cause damage to the radar array(s), Infra-Red Scan and Track sensor, and cockpit, as well as instruments and electronic systems critical to the functioning of the whole aircraft. However, the Su-57 looks to have avoided a serious fire from the strikes, which would likely have resulted in irreparable damage, so depending on the severity of the shrapnel damage it may well be repaired and returned to service.

Repairs will, however, be expensive and will take additional time compared to similar repairs to less advanced aircraft. The Su-57 has yet to enter full-rate production, since the decision to do so is awaiting the development of the ‘definitive’ Su-57M version, meaning that spare parts are likely to be in limited supply. As such, the Su-57 is still a very rare commodity in the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), with only around 15–20 likely to be in frontline service. Former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu stated in December 2020 that the VKS expected to receive 22 Su-57s by the end of 2024. However, at the start of the invasion of Ukraine, only four series production aircraft had been delivered, as the first crashed and was completely destroyed during its acceptance trials. Around 12 are claimed to have been delivered in 2023, but no deliveries in 2024 had been announced by April 2024 despite multiple announcements of other types, so the total number in service is unclear. It is likely that Su-57 development and production is also being slowed down by Sukhoi needing to focus on maximising output of mature fighters like the Su-30SM2 and Su-35S to replace significant combat losses incurred in the war against Ukraine. International sanctions have also made it far more difficult for Russia to source the Western avionics and micro-electronics that have been essential components of its advanced fighter and attack aircraft cockpits for more than a decade. Thus, even the temporary loss of one Su-57 airframe in this Ukrainian strike likely represents at least a 5% cut in the frontline fleet of Russia’s most advanced fighter aircraft. It is also a significant symbolic blow to an already long-troubled aircraft programme that is a centrepiece of Russian military pride.

Airfield Strikes as Part of the War
Despite its impact on the VKS’s most prestigious fighter fleet, the direct effects of this strike on the progress of the war in Ukraine will be almost non-existent. Due to its small fleet size, the political humiliation if one were to be shot down, and slow aircraft systems development, the Su-57 has played an extremely minor role in the conflict to date. However, the strike is illustrative of the fact that Ukraine now has a relatively mature low-cost long-range harassment capability that it can use against VKS bases a long way inside Russia.

This is important for the course of the entire war, because over the past six months the fighter and strike fighter aircraft of the VKS have been having an increasingly pronounced impact on the frontline after almost two years of relative ineffectiveness. The main tool that has enabled this is the mass production of wing-kits featuring GPS/GLONASS guidance that can turn Russia’s stockpile of thousands of FAB-series 250 kg, 500 kg and 1,500 kg unguided demolition bombs into standoff precision weapons against fixed targets like buildings and battlefield fortifications. These weapons are having a serious impact on Ukrainian soldiers’ morale, making it harder to hold key defensive positions and causing huge destruction in urban areas.

The glide bombs are generally released by Russian jets flying at high altitudes and speeds between 60 km and 70 km behind the frontlines. This means that the launch aircraft are very difficult to shoot down, even with long-range Patriot PAC-2 surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs). Ukraine has done so several times, but this requires risking the scarce and vital Patriot systems very close to the frontlines, and some launch vehicles have been found by Russian observation UAVs and destroyed during such missions. With so many competing demands for missile defence for power infrastructure, cities and bases throughout Ukraine, long-range SAMs are too valuable to routinely risk trying to take long shots at glide bomb-launching fighters. It is also not viable to directly intercept the bombs in flight, because doing so would very rapidly deplete all of Ukraine’s SAM ammunition.

Even when the long-awaited pan-European F-16s and later planned Swedish Gripen C and French Mirage 2000-5F fighters are delivered to Ukraine, the glide bomb sorties will be very challenging to intercept regularly. When close to the frontlines, Ukrainian pilots will have to fly them at very low altitudes to avoid being detected and shot down by layered Russian short-range SA-15 ‘Tor M1/2’, medium-range SA-11/17/27 ‘Buk’ and long-range SA-21 ‘Growler’ and SA-23 ‘Gladiator\Giant’ SAM systems. As a result, the AIM-120C AMRAAM air-to-air missiles carried by the F-16 and Gripen C, and the shorter-range MICA IR/RF missiles carried by Mirage 2000-5F, will struggle to reach Russian fighters at high altitudes and high speeds 60–70 km behind the lines. This is because at such low altitudes, the missiles start out in dense air with a lot of aerodynamic drag and must climb against gravity to reach the altitudes where their targets are. As a result, by the time their rocket motors burn out after the first few seconds of flight, they have not gained nearly as much speed or altitude as if they were launched from a fighter flying in the thin air at high altitudes and at supersonic speeds, and so only have a comparatively short effective range. Only the European Meteor missile is likely to have the practical range required, and of the three fighter options now publicly discussed for Ukraine, only the Gripen C can carry and launch it.

Therefore, for now, attacks on Russian airbases are Ukraine’s best way to limit the damage that the VKS can do to its forces on the frontlines. Most Russian forward-deployment airfields lack hardened aircraft shelters to protect parked aircraft from even relatively light incoming weapons. This is why Ukraine’s innovative OWA drones have been able to have several notable successes in damaging and even destroying Russian fighters, bombers and AWACS aircraft despite their often fragile appearance, light warheads and slow speeds. Ukraine also conducted successful strikes with a new tranche of US-supplied MGM-140 ATACMS ballistic missiles on air defence systems and parked aircraft at Russian airbases in occupied Crimea in April. Taken together, Kyiv appears to be pursuing a clear strategy to force the VKS to either vacate its bases within several hundred miles of Ukraine’s borders or dedicate an inordinate quantity of air defence systems to defending them. The former would reduce the functional strike weight of glide bombs and other weapons that the VKS can deliver by forcing Russian jets to transit significantly further, burning through more fuel and aircrew and airframe fatigue and reducing overall sortie rates. The latter would denude other parts of the frontline and the Russian interior of adequate SAM cover, allowing greater operational freedom for Ukraine’s OWA drones, rocket artillery, observation UAVs and possibly F-16 and other fighters when they arrive.

Estonian Army Reserve Solcier Artur Rehi provides and interesting run down on the Su-57 via the Thread Reader App:

What the Su-57 fighter can do and its destruction can tell us about the general state of the Russian army. Like the T-14 tank, the Armata is simply a PR project of the Russian army, the purpose of which is not to build a fifth-generation aircraft, which it never was, but
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to get the state budget and steal the money. In fact, the Su-57 is not a new platform, but a regular Su-35 with a modified appearance and some new systems. Sharp angles were added to give the impression of using stealth technology. The shapes of the wings and tail unit were
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changed. The Su-57 is equipped with AL-41F1 engines. This is a modernization of the AL-41F engine, developed in the 1970s. According to official data, 60 billion rubles were spent on development. These figures were cited by Putin, so in reality the cost may be much higher.
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The result is a very expensive aircraft, but not much different from the cheaper Su-35, so its purchase does not make sense for the Russian army. From the beginning of development in 2001 to the first flight in 2010, 15 aircraft have been assembled to this day, including
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prototypes. Now there are 14 left. The newest Russian aircraft was destroyed by a cheap drone. Another example of Russian sloppiness and reliance on chance. In Russia, money was allocated for the construction of hangars for aircraft, but, surprise, it was stolen. There was
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only enough for an anti-drone net. Again, this is an indicator of how the army is organized. An order and money come from above to build protection for aircraft. The money goes into the pockets of officials, the order goes further – protection for aircraft is needed.
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The rest of the funds go into the pockets of the airfield management, the order is passed on – Ivan and a team of airfield workers must build protection for the aircraft from what is on site. A dome is built from a fence mesh, paperwork is drawn up – the protection is built.
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Documents and reports go to the top that the aircraft is protected. On paper, everything looks good. The boss can rest easy. And what about the Ukrainian drones? No, they won’t come. But they did come. Who’s to blame? Ivan and his comrades. And Shoigu, of course. They say,
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this is his legacy. Russians hope that something will change under Andrei Belousov, but the Russian system cannot change, which is, of course, good for Ukraine. Russia needs smart generals, but a smart general will not carry out Putin’s criminal orders and serve under a
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dictatorship. It’s a vicious circle. No matter what changes there are in the government, when the system is built on lies, theft and deception, only liars, thieves and cheaters can work in it.
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Ukraine is systematically destroying Russian air defense systems, creating more and more holes for possible attacks, and we will see even more in the future.
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The 110th Mechanized Brigade released a video of the destruction of a russian Su-25 jet on June 10.

Start your morning with great news🔥

On June 10, Ukrainian warriors shot down a russian Su-25 jet in the Pokrovsk direction. pic.twitter.com/6bjfMm60oa

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 11, 2024

Bravo, warriors! pic.twitter.com/EQtFacRs9h

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 11, 2024

Australian Major General (ret) Mick Ryan, has a new assessment out regarding a key lesson to be learned from Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s genocidal re-invasion. Here are some excerpts:

In the lead up to the First World War, most European armies had focussed on offensive doctrines. Described as the Cult of the Offensive, this was a situation where military theorists and senior military leaders believed that an attacking force would be successful regardless of the defensive regime established by a defending force. In its ultimate manifestation, this thinking led to strategies that neglected defensive approaches and resulted in an imbalance in thinking and capability that was biased heavily towards ‘the attack’.

As we know, this didn’t work out so well in the early years of the First World War. The profound changes in technology brought about by the Second Industrial Revolution, which included the mass manufacturing of weapons and munitions and the changes in lethality brought about by improved machine guns and artillery, saw mass casualties during attacks by both sides. Eventually, the defensive become the dominant military strategy. This situation persisted until at least 1917, when the Germans, French, British, Canadians and Australians began to experiment with new forms of offensive operations which included infiltration and embraced much tighter coordination between the combined arms on the battlefield.

The current situation in Ukraine mirrors this in some respects. After two years of war, and some early successes in offensive operations, adaptations on both sides have led to an increasingly difficult environment for the conduct of offensive operations. As the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year, and the lack of significant progress in Russia’s 2024 offensives against a much weaker Ukrainian force demonstrate, the defence is now the stronger form of war – at least in Ukraine.

This is a phenomenon which has been explored by several military theorists in recent years. Brilliant articles by the late Dave Johnson, T.X. Hammes, Frank Hoffman, and Alex Verhinin since the beginning of Russia’s large scale invasion have all examined the shift to defensive dominance in military operations. I recommend reading them all.

The problem is that wars are not won by staying on the defensive. Even coming to the aid of an ally or security partner such as Taiwan may require some form of strategic or operational offensive. It is a critical skill set in the armour of any modern military, notwithstanding the current dominance of the defence.

What is the current problem?

In a recent article for Modern War Institute, I explored some of the operational problems that contemporary military organisations are facing. While a changed strategic environment, with aggressive authoritarian regimes, is part of the political challenge, the military environment is being increasingly impacted by several new technologies.

While there are a range of different technologies that are contributing, three key systems of technologies and processes are the dominant factors. These three, which I have previously described as the transformative trinity, are:

• The autonomy – counter autonomy system, which includes autonomous and semi-autonomous systems in the air, ground and maritime environments and the developing counter autonomy systems.
• The meshing of civil and military sensors and analysis capacity that is transforming the level of situational awareness available to all levels of military command and streamlining kill webs (or perhaps better described as kill-meshes.
• The democratizing of battlefield digital command and control (C2) systems, which is seeing digital C2 becoming available to nearly all combatants and support personnel.

This has resulted in a number of tactical and operational challenges, which in turn have complicated military and national strategy for Ukraine and Russia. But these challenges are also troubling existing force structure paradigms in countries from Europe to the Indo-Pacific. It is important that we understand these new operational challenges because if they are diagnosed correctly, this understanding can lead to the development of new doctrines that offer a better balance of offence-defence capacity in military institutions.

As Williamson Murray and Allan Millett note in their book Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, “a number of factors contributed to successful innovation. The one that occurred in virtually every case was the presence of specific military problems the solution of which offered significant advantages to furthering the achievement of national strategy.”

While there are many challenges in modern war, including the need to develop better defences against drones, the following operational challenges are the most prominent ones which need to be resolved.

First, the massing versus dispersion predicament. A new-era meshed civil-military sensor framework, developed over the course of the Ukraine war, has produced an environment where all the signatures of military equipment, personnel, and collective forces can be detected more accurately and rapidly. When linked to an array of precision munitions, this closes the detection to destruction gap in military operations to just minutes.

The Chinese are certain to have streamlined their operational and tactical kill chains based on observing Russia and Ukraine. Massing military forces for ground combat operations, large-scale aerial attacks, or naval operations, therefore, therefore has become a high tactical and operational risk. Even if an array of hard and soft kill measures can protect massed forces, they are almost assured of detection, which makes achieving surprise difficult.

Modern military forces must be equally capable of operating in dispersed and massed forms, but they must be able to minimise their detection when they do mass in a way that provides an improved chance of surprise and landing a decisive blow against an adversary.

Second, the ‘closing with the enemy’ challenge. Modern combat forces require new-era techniques that are quicker, lower signature, and more survivable at crossing operational and tactical spaces between them and their objectives.  The failings of current Western military doctrine were exemplified by Ukraine’s struggle in 2023 to penetrate Russian minefields and defensive belts in southern Ukraine (although there were other command and leadership as well as training factors).

Meshed sensor nets, EW and multi-layered drone frameworks make this a very difficult problem. In the Indo-Pacific, Chinese satellite and underwater surveillance will only magnify this problem.But this is not just a tactical challenge of being able to close the final few hundred metres with an enemy. It presents as an operational challenge in places like the western Pacific where allied forces might have to fight their way forward from Hawaii and Australia just to aid their allies in the Western Pacific.

A key operational problem for modern military forces is the developing, testing, implementation and ongoing adaptation of new warfighting concepts to survivably cross tactical and operational distances before engaging in combat, penetrate and fight the way through tactical and operational defensive schemes, and ensure they have sufficient combat power to exploit such breaches.

Third, getting the close- and long-range combat balance right. This is a challenge across the land, air and maritime domains. Ukraine’s investment in a wide array of aerial and maritime long-range strike systems is maturing and showing results against Russian airfields, air defence systems, strike aircraft, defense factories, and oil and gas export infrastructure. This an important capability in the arsenal of any military organisation because it allows for the attrition of an enemy force well before it can engage in close combat. It also permits the degradation of the overall cohesion of an enemy force by destroying headquarters, fires, air defence, reserves and logistics.

But important as long-range strike is, it is not a silver bullet in modern war. The planning, conduct, assessment, and adaptation of long-range strike across the domains must be balanced with investment in close combat capabilities. This forces adversaries to also make difficult choices about the array of military capabilities to develop and deploy, generating uncertainty.

A key operational problem for contemporary military institutions is achieving an appropriate balance in the deep battle and the close fight (with the appropriate support mechanisms for both).  Not only must the balance of investment be at least mostly right, but there should also be an effective operational synchronicity between these two military endeavours and an ability to adapt the balance once a war begins.

This diagnosis has aimed to provide a start point for experimentation and development of new doctrine that can address the problems presented by new technologies such as drones and meshed civil-military sensor networks. But, why is re-establishing the ability for offensive operations so important?

Why is offensive doctrine important?

This might seem like a silly question to some, but it is important to understand the purpose of offensive operations if effective, 21st century offensive methods are to be developed and implemented. To many, the reasons below will appear self-apparent. But, in some elements of democratic societies and politics, the need for military offensive capabilities must be re-explained to every generation.

The first reason why an effective offensive capability is needed is because it is a foundational capacity for demonstrating will. Carl von Clausewitz has much to say on this topic in On War, but I don’t intend quoting the great man here – his work is available widely for readers to review and ponder. The investment in offensive capabilities, on land, in the air and at sea, represents a significant investment for nations. In making such an investment, they are demonstrating the national and political will to secure their sovereignty as well as potentially contribute to helping their allies to defend themselves.

Second, offensive capacity is an essential part of any national deterrent capability. In essence, if an adversary understands that a potential target for aggression can strike back and hurt it, this – at a minimum – complicates their planning. Hopefully, it will actually deter aggression in many cases. And if a war does break out, deterrence by denial remains an integral part of military strategy to deny an adversary the achievement of strategic and operational objectives.

Third, if a nation does find itself at war, it is almost impossible at the tactical or operational levels to seize or maintain the initiative without offensive capability. Whether one starts the war or not is irrelevant. But if a nation is at war, allowing the enemy the initiative to strike where and when they want is a recipe for defeat. Offensive capacity, to attack and counterattack, as well conduct deep strikes, EW and cyber operations, is an essential part of any military strategy, even one focussed on the strategic defensive.

Finally, offensive capacity is essential to the moral aspects of war. Remaining only on the defensive in war erodes morale of soldiers and citizens. Both need to see progress against an adversary. Attacking the enemy through various forms of offensive operations underpins military and national morale, which in turn is critical in sustaining political support in a democracy at war.

Principles for a new offensive doctrine

While there is much intellectual work to be done in solving these challenges, several principles for potential solutions might be identified. The items below are not an exhaustive list but could be common elements in new offensive doctrines at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.

Command and Control. Principles of command, such as span of control, unity of command, mission focus, mission command, alignment of political goals with military missions, and cross-domain integration will be part of any new offensive doctrine. All of these functions of command are likely to be aided by algorithmic decision aides. How this is executed must be explored and tested for different 21st century warfighting scenarios.

Surprise. This is one of the most basic aspects of an offensive doctrine. Surprise is one sure way to be able to generate shock in an enemy system, degrade their response times and corrode their ability to fight as a cohesive organisation. Achieving surprise, something that has is difficult in the current environment of situational awareness, must be a core element of any new offensive doctrine. It is worth noting that being able to see more on the battlefield does not always mean we are wiser about what is actually happening or about how an enemy is thinking.

Deception. Closely linked to surprise is the central concept of deception. This both a science and an art. It is focussed on leading an enemy commander or commanders to believe something they are already inclined to believe in order to deceive them about our tactical, operational or strategic intentions. Generating advantage in the signature battle will be a critical element of this. While a central element in Chinese military theory, it is something that Western military institutions have not practiced to a high degree in their early 21st century operations. But, as the allies demonstrated in the lead up to D-Day, it is something we have done before, and are very capable of doing again.

Human – machine balancing. New offensive doctrine will need to achieve a balance of new and old technologies. Theorists such as T.X. Hammes have written at length about the imperative to move to force structures that balance the smaller numbers of expensive, exquisite capabilities with large numbers of cheaper, attritable systems. This is the case in the land, air and maritime domains. It will demand different kinds of organisations and different kinds of tactics and training for our people. It is probably one of the key non-discretionary elements of a future offensive doctrine. No 21st century offensive doctrine which is focussed purely on legacy equipment is likely to succeed.

Kinetic – non-kinetic balancing. While human and autonomous systems must achieve a different balance, so too must kinetic and non-kinetic capacity. Fires, equipment and close combat still matter, but so too do newer methods of degrading the cognitive ability of enemy commanders at all levels, as well as corroding the morale and cohesion of enemy forces. EW, cyber and cognitive warfare must be balanced with fires of all types.

Integration. There is unlikely to be a solution that can be provided by a single service. Any future concept of the offensive will undoubtedly require the integration of effects from across all domains. But, as Ukraine has also shown, no nation today can fight alone. As such, experimentation with allies and security partners will also be needed.

Sustainability. While this is partially about logistics, which must be capable of moving faster in the tactical environment, and lower signatures in the tactical and operational environments, sustainability is also about the strategic and national capacity to provide the resources for offensive operations. Offensive capacity is far more resource intensive, and if nations are to sustain a credible offensive capacity over time, it must be sustainable from within national and/or alliance industrial and personnel resources.

People quality. Finally, regardless of how much technology might be absorbed into military organisations, how much intellectual development takes place, or how many new organisations are established, quality people will be the foundation of any new offensive doctrine in the 21st century. Training and education regimes will need to evolve, as will military leadership development models. Better training regimes for human-machine teams as well as enhancing team and individual resilience will be vital. But ultimately, it will be the enhanced planning models, and the ability of leaders at all levels to provide compelling purpose for offensive operations, that will be critical.

More at the link.

The cost:

🕯️Під час виконання бойового завдання на Донеччині загинув воїн, художник, стиліст, представник українського квір-андеграунду Артур Сніткус
⬇️https://t.co/FIjDf5KyPz pic.twitter.com/bIak6s4S9s

— Новинарня (@Novynarnia) June 11, 2024

🕯️ Artur Snitkus, a soldier, artist, stylist, representative of the Ukrainian queer underground, died while performing a combat mission in Donetsk region

Shura Ryazantseva (call sign Yalta), former Zelensky’s personal stylist, was killed in action. She was dreaming about coming back to her native Crimea & starting a family.
Her grandparents met while fighting Nazis during WWII. 80 years after D-Day, Shura lost her life to Russia. pic.twitter.com/PpC8Ii4jMA

— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) June 11, 2024

Estonia:

Thank you, Estonia
🇺🇦🤝🇪🇪

Air defense systems are crucial to protecting the lives of the Ukrainian people from russian terror.
We are stronger together! https://t.co/VfmZyy68Gi

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 11, 2024

Hungary:

💥Eastern Nato allies discuss barring Hungary from their Bucharest 9 security club, officials tell @FT, after running out of patience with Orban’s support for Russia https://t.co/tgB7gQQg7E @ft

— Henry Foy (@HenryJFoy) June 11, 2024

The Financial Times has the details:

Diplomats from the Bucharest Nine (B9) group of eastern European Nato and EU allies have discussed the possibility of excluding Hungary from future meetings of the geographical defence club, according to people familiar with the talks.

Context: Founded in 2015, the group includes Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia; all former members of the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact and now Nato and EU states. Their leaders, foreign ministers and defence ministers regularly gather to co-ordinate their approach to security policies, particularly related to defending their eastern borders.

At recent meetings Hungary has vetoed joint conclusions by the group related to increased aid to Ukraine, and endorsements of any moves by Nato to beef up military support to the country or to expedite its bid to become a member of the alliance.

Hungary’s blocking tactics in the EU regarding aid to Ukraine and Kyiv’s accession talks have also seen many allies run out of patience.

B9 leaders meet in Riga today, and officials say that Hungary is again refusing to endorse a draft statement that the others have agreed.

The discussions on excluding Budapest are “very serious”, said one of the people, adding “we are likely meeting in this format for the last time.”

A second person said that recent meetings had featured “tough” discussions and that it would be difficult to organise future gatherings unless they became more collaborative.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last month said he was seeking to “redefine” the terms of his country’s Nato membership because of his opposition to the alliance’s support to Ukraine in the war.

“Hungary is invited to B9 Summit in Riga on the 11th of June,” said the office of Lithuania’s president. “It is important to keep Hungary in for the unity of Nato and the EU.”

The Azov Brigade has passed it’s Leahy vetting assessment!

U.S. Embassy officials have confirmed that “the 12th Operational Purpose Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine” (the official name the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine) has passed the vetting required by U.S. law and is eligible to receive… pic.twitter.com/8grhFzbRvT

— Azov Brigade (@azov_media) June 11, 2024

U.S. Embassy officials have confirmed that “the 12th Operational Purpose Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine” (the official name the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine) has passed the vetting required by U.S. law and is eligible to receive security assistance from the United States.

We are grateful to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the Command of the National Guard of Ukraine, the Embassy of Ukraine in the United States of America, and everyone who contributed to successfully passing vetting.

Eligibility for US assistance will not only increase Azov’s combat effectiveness, but, most importantly, will help save the lives and health of the brigade’s personnel.

This is a new page in the history of our unit. Azov is becoming more professional and more effective in defending Ukraine against the invaders.

Glory to Ukraine!

Which, apparently, has set off a new round of Azov Brigade hysteria.

Okay, I’ll say it — the obsession over the Azov Batallion/Regiment/Brigade in Western media has been largely beyond common sense for years.

Especially now amid the full-scale phase of Russia’s decade-long war on Ukraine.

And I’m saying it not because I’m a Ukrainian but…

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) June 11, 2024

Okay, I’ll say it — the obsession over the Azov Batallion/Regiment/Brigade in Western media has been largely beyond common sense for years.

Especially now amid the full-scale phase of Russia’s decade-long war on Ukraine.

And I’m saying it not because I’m a Ukrainian but because I’m here for truth, sanity, and for words having their meaning.

Of course, Ukraine’s National Guards 12th Special Purpose Brigade Azov has a complicated and controversial past.

Back in the spring of 2014, in the heat of the Russian-led armed insurrection in Ukraine’s Donbas, the regular military, as well as many national institutions, were barely functional and disoriented.

Many groups of civilians across Ukraine, armed with 40-year-old AKs and dressed in fatigues purchased at hunting stores, were forming numerous irregular units to combat the Russian intrusion.

Really a lot of people were doing this. Yesterday’s taxi drivers, entrepreneurs, bank clerks, retired military officers.

They would go down in history as “volunteer battalions.”

Far-right groups (of various kinds), nationalists, football Ultras, and even neo-Nazis were among them, too.

Yeah, that was the time of hardship and a war against an extremely reptile and powerful enemy that was arming pro-Russian collaborators and sending its “unidentified’ regular military units to fight a nation that was barely recovering from a revolution and the Anschluss of Crimea.

Thus begins the story of the Azov Battalion, which started in May 2014 as a pack of soccer fans, radical nationalists, neo-Nazis, also many motivated moderate fighters.

Because life is complicated, especially at war. The world consists of not only university campus liberals. That’s life.

In war and in pretty much any large military in the West (good luck trying to deny it), there have been people who very wrongfully think it’s cool to have Nazi or quasi-Nazi tattoos and insignia as they are part of a subculture of war, violence, and militaristic symbolism.

I touched on this problem in a column from a while ago when I was still part of the Kyiv Independent: https://kyivindependent.com/illia-ponomarenko-why-some-ukrainian-soldiers-use-nazi-related-insignia/

It’s also true that the Azov used to be a sort of a magnet for also foreign far-right and neo-Nazi characters, which is also what happens at war — yeah, on both sides.

Although, hand on heart, their influence, role, and activities beyond usual regular military service in Ukraine were exaggerated in the media.

If we’re being honest, we can’t deny that since the troublesome period of 2014-15, Ukraine has managed to incorporate the Azov (as well as pretty much all of the old volunteering battalions) into its military system throughout all those years of trying to revive its armed forces and survive in a war with Russia.

And honest researchers admit this, of course.

Particularly, the Azov was largely depoliticized, and it largely shed its far-right origins.

What used to be a pack of irregulars flirting with Nazi and quasi-Nazi symbolics gradually turned into a highly-professional and disciplined combat unit that has good reputation in terms of its recruit training and standards of service.

“Leave or keep your views to yourself and serve,” something like that. It concentrated on war and military service.

I personally know quite a few highly professional military specialists from “traditional” Ukrainian armed forces brigades (for instance, many artillerists) who preferred to join the Azov to continue serving with other sound professionals.

This reputation is still strong with other Azov-related military units like the 3rd Assault Brigade (I’m sure you know it) or the Kraken unit.

Young generation of commanders gradually took over and made the Azov what it is today. You now know them as key figures of the tragic Battle of Mariupol and the siege of the Azovstal plant. Some 900 Azov members are still in Russian captivity today.

And in September 2022, the Kremlin had no problems exchanging key Azov officers for Vladimir Putin’s collaborator in Ukraine, Viktor Medvedchuk, even though Russians were gladly preparing steel cages for sham trials and public executions.

And it’s not only that Russia made the Azov the central boogeyman of its “Ukrainians are Nazis” narrative.

It’s also because some writers spent years sniffing out and producing ridiculously overblown stories like “UKRAINIAN NAZIS ARE USING RUSSIAN WAR THREAT TO TAKE POWER” (did that age well in 2024, huh?) and “OH MY GOD THERE’S A MARGINAL NEO-NAZI METAL BAND IN KYIV, UKRAINE HAS A NAZI PROBLEM”.

Selling news as entertainment for a career.

Hand on heart, in all honesty, as someone who naturally despises any sort of extremist view on the right and on the left, this hysteria had fragile grounds and was exaggerated.

For instance, it used to be a default option to link Ukrainian right-wing units with anti-semitism, but at the same time, since the very 2014, there have been zero incidents between a considerably large Jewish community in Mariupol and the Azov.

And it had its influence on Ukraine’s defense effort, particularly with the U.S. ban on providing any military aid and training to the Azov.

It’s good to see that, now that the ban has been lifted, common sense and a sound approach eventually prevail over propagandistic sprees.

In this terrible and extremely complex war, things change.

I don’t remember any media hysteria of such a scale over Russia’s Rusich unit, which openly commits executions, torture, and other war crimes against Ukrainians and propagates racial hatred and Russian white supremacy. The Wagner group, hello? The Hispaniola unit, which is openly neo-Nazi, no?

Real Nazism happens when a dictatorial power spends years inciting hatred, revanchism, territorial grabs, and aggression and then unleash the largest war of aggression since Adolf Hitler.

It happens when a delusional dictator hungry for unlimited power proclaims a neighboring nation “not a real country” and sentences it to complete annihilation because of “history” in his head.

And it happens when his troops, encouraged by the feeling of their imperial supremacy, cut off the heads and limbs of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

It happens when entire cities are razed to the ground and when missiles and bombs hit maternity wards and shopping malls full of people in broad daylight.

And it happens when certain people, amid this insanity that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives for nothing, shout: “BUT WHAT ABOUT AZOV!!!”

Luhansk Oblast:

Destroyed Russian Pantsir-S1 air defense system. As said destroyed by HIMARS strike yesterday:

«The complex belongs to the unit of the 1st Special Purpose Air and Missile Defense Army.

Crew:
• Bariev Denys Andreevich, senior lieutenant, commander, heavily injured;
• Hertsiy… pic.twitter.com/kMXfp0TaNB

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 11, 2024

Destroyed Russian Pantsir-S1 air defense system. As said destroyed by HIMARS strike yesterday:

«The complex belongs to the unit of the 1st Special Purpose Air and Missile Defense Army.

Crew:
• Bariev Denys Andreevich, senior lieutenant, commander, heavily injured;
• Hertsiy Andrey Anatolyevich, senior sergeant, operator, killed;
• Husarov Igor Valerievich, senior sergeant, mechanic-driver, killed.

10.06.2024.

Luhansk region.»
https://t.me/dosye_shpiona/545

Donetsk Oblast:

Strike on Russian BUK air defence system. 30km from the frontline.
(47.7613316, 37.7845339) @GeoConfirmed pic.twitter.com/6nyPyKmgav

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 11, 2024

The Russian occupied Sea of Azov:

/5. According to the Ukrainian Navy: As of 06:30 on 06/11/2024 Russian fleet is still concentrated in the Sea of Azov:

“▪️ In the Black Sea, 1 enemy ship, which is a carrier of Kalibr cruise missiles;

▪️ in the Sea of ​​Azov there are 8 enemy ships, 3 of which are carriers of… pic.twitter.com/CCw4tWj5MK

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 11, 2024

/5. According to the Ukrainian Navy: As of 06:30 on 06/11/2024 Russian fleet is still concentrated in the Sea of Azov:

“▪️ In the Black Sea, 1 enemy ship, which is a carrier of Kalibr cruise missiles;

▪️ in the Sea of ​​Azov there are 8 enemy ships, 3 of which are carriers of Kalibr cruise missiles”

“If Ukrainians give up, or if we give up on Ukraine, then… we’re in 1939. We’re in 1938 now. In effect, what Ukrainians are letting us do is extend 1938.”https://t.co/SDA8uYZ05y

— Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) June 11, 2024

From The Guardian: (emphasis mine)

When big history is self-evidently being written, and leaders face momentous choices, the urge to find inspiration in instructive historical parallels is overwhelming and natural. “The only clue to what man can do is what man has done,” the Oxford historian RG Collingwood once wrote.

One of the contemporary politicians most influenced by the past is the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, and not just because of her country’s occupation by Russia or her personal family history of exile.

She lugs books on Nato-Russian relations, such as Not One Inch, with her on beach holidays. And in her hi-tech office at the top of the old town in Tallinn, she argued this was a 1938 moment – a moment when a wider war was imminent but the west had not yet joined the dots.

She said the same mistake was made in 1938 when tensions in Abyssinia, Japan and Germany were treated as isolated events. The proximate causes of the current conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, the South China Sea and even Armenia might be different, but the bigger picture showed an interconnected battlefield in which post-cold war certainties had given way to “great-power competition” in which authoritarian leaders were testing the boundaries of their empires. The lesson – and necessity – was to resist and rearm. “The lesson from 1938 and 1939 is that if aggression pays off somewhere, it serves as an invitation to use it elsewhere,” Kallas said.

Her favourite historian, Prof Tim Snyder, adds a twist by reimagining 1938 as a year in which Czechoslovakia, like Ukraine in 2022, had chosen to fight: “So you had in Czechoslovakia, like Ukraine, an imperfect democracy. It’s the farthest democracy in eastern Europe. It has various problems, but when threatened by a larger neighbour, it chooses to resist. In that world, where Czechoslovakia resists, there’s no second world war.”

Snyder said such an outcome had been possible. “They could have held the Germans back. It was largely a bluff on the German side. If the Czechs resisted, and the French and the British and maybe the Americans eventually started to help, there would have been a conflict, but there wouldn’t have been a second world war.

“Instead, when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it was invading Poland with the Czech armaments industry, which was the best in the world. It was invading with Slovak soldiers. It was invading from a geographical position that it only gained because it had destroyed Czechoslovakia.”

Snyder drove home his lesson from history: “If Ukrainians give up, or if we give up on Ukraine, then it’s different. It’s Russia making war in the future. It’s Russia making war with Ukrainian technology, Ukrainian soldiers from a different geographical position. At that point, we’re in 1939. We’re in 1938 now. In effect, what Ukrainians are letting us do is extend 1938.”

A return to Churchill’s ‘locust years’?

As Christopher Hitchens once wrote, much American foolishness abroad, from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq, has been launched on the back of Munich syndrome, the belief that those who appease bullies, as the then British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, sought to do with Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938, are either dupes or cowards. Such leaders are eventually forced to put their soldiers into battle, often unprepared and ill-equipped – men against machines, as vividly described in Guilty Men, written by Michael Foot, Frank Owen and Peter Howard after the Dunkirk fiasco. In France, the insult Munichois – synonymous with cowardice – sums it up.

But Snyder made his remarks in Tallinn last month at the Lennart Meri conference, which was largely dedicated to Ukraine and held under the slogan “Let us not despair, but act”. It was held against the backdrop of Russia and China hailing a new authoritarian world order in a joint 6,000-word statement that intended to create an axis to undo the settlement of the past two world wars.

Many at the conference wrestled with how much had gone wrong in Ukraine, and why, and whether the west would shed its self-imposed constraints on helping Kyiv. In a sense, everyone wanted an answer to the question posed by the Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski: “Ukraine has bought us time. Will we put it to good use?”

In 1934-35, what Winston Churchill termed the “locust years”, and again after the Munich agreement, Britain did not put the time to good use, instead allowing Germany to race ahead in rearmament.

Johann Wadephul, the deputy chair of the German Christian Democratic Union’s defence policy committee, fears the answer to Sikorski’s question is in the negative. “If the war goes on like it is, it’s clear Ukraine will lose. It cannot withstand Russian power with its well-organised support from Iran, China and North Korea and countries like India looking only at its self-interest.”

Europe had simply not reorganised itself for war, he said. Listing the consequences for the continent in terms of lost human rights, access to resources and confidence in the west, he said simply: “If Ukraine loses it will be a catastrophe.”

Samir Saran, the head of the Indian think tank the Observer Research Foundation, who described himself as an atheist in a room full of believers, nevertheless agreed that something bigger than Europe was at stake as he almost mocked the inability of the west’s $40tn economy to organise a battlefield defeat of Russia’s $2tn economy.

He argued: “There is one actor that has reorganised its strategic engagement to fight a war and the other has not. One side is not participating in the battle. You have hosted conferences supporting Ukraine and then do nothing more. But when it comes to action, Russia 2.0 is grinding forward.

“It tells countries like us that if something like this were to happen in the Indo-Pacific, you have no chance against China. If you cannot defeat a $2tn nation, don’t think you are deterring China. China is taking hope from your abysmal and dismal performance against a much smaller adversary.”

Political will v ‘political won’t’

Yet it is paradoxical. Nato is bigger and stronger than ever. The transatlantic alliance is functioning far better than the US, France and Britain did in the 1930s – and, after five months of hesitation, some of the extra $60bn in US arms may reach the frontline within weeks.

But from Kyiv’s perspective, everything remains too slow and circumscribed, except for the apportionment of blame across Europe. Germany’s Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the Free Democratic party’s top candidate for the European elections, takes one side, urging France to hasten weapons deliveries to Ukraine. She said: “We have the problem that, while Poland is doing a lot as a neighbouring country, while Germany is doing a lot, France is doing relatively little.”

Others say the culprit remains Berlin, and that, despite recognising what a threat Vladimir Putin represents, it cannot accept the consequences in terms of the nuclear risks of going all in for a Russian defeat. Benjamin Tallis, a senior research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said: “For all of this talk of political will, what we actually face is political won’t. We won’t define victory as a goal.”

Without naming Germany, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, reinvented over the past year as a scourge of Russian imperialism, said: “Europe clearly faces a moment when it will be necessary not to be cowards.”

Ben Wallace, the former UK defence secretary, had less compunction about naming names. “[Olaf] Scholz’s behaviour has shown that, as far as the security of Europe goes, he is the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time,” he said of the German chancellor.

Eliot Cohen, a neocon never-Trumper, finds a wider institutional and moral malaise that needs addressing through a theory of victory and a specific practical plan to secure that victory, something akin to Churchill’s call for a ministry of supply that turned the UK into a giant armaments factory.

Cohen said: “It’s not about what people say, it’s about numbers. Are you willing to lift the restrictions on arms factories to run them 24 hours a day? Are you willing to give them Atacms [missiles] and hit targets in Russia, and get Germany to give them Taurus missiles?

“My chief concern is that war is so remote from our societies that we have trouble grappling with what success requires.”

Would Putin turn off his war machine?

Sabine Fischer, a political scientist at the German Council on Foreign Relations, says behind these disputes is the pivot around which every judgment turns: whether Europe believes a Ukrainian defeat can be contained. In other words, what are the consequences for Europe, if any, if Ukraine collapses or a Russian-dictated peace leads to its retention of land gained by military conquest?

Would a victorious Putin husband his resources, turn off the war machine and say the recapture of Kievan Rus had been a self-standing Moscow objective and Russia’s imperial ambitions were now sated? After all, not every state that makes demands has unlimited ambitions.

The Hungarian president, Viktor Orbán, for instance, said: “I do not consider it logical that Russia, which cannot even defeat Ukraine, would all of a sudden come and swallow the western world whole. The chances of this are extremely slim.” An attack on an existing Nato state would be “crazy” since the Nato alliance would have to respond.

But Russia’s foreign policy concept issued in 2023 focuses on a global confrontation with the US and building the alliances to defeat the west. Given Putin’s unrivalled record of broken promises, a Russian peace guarantee might end up as reassuring as Chamberlain’s advice to the British people to have a quiet night’s sleep after he returned from Munich. The US president, Joe Biden, interviewed in Time magazine this week, appeared to regard the consequences as vast. “If we ever let Ukraine go down, mark my words: you’ll see Poland go, and you’ll see all those nations along the actual border of Russia, from the Balkans and Belarus, all those, they’re going to make their own accommodations.”

Others say the Polish response will be less conciliatory. One former Nato commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said eastern states would not wait to find out Putin’s next move. “If Ukraine fails, I am certain that our Polish allies are not going to sit behind the Vistula [River] and wait for them to keep coming. I think the Romanian allies are not going to sit behind the Prut River and wait for Russia to go into Moldova. So the best way to prevent Nato from being involved directly in a conflict is to help Ukraine defeat Russia in Ukraine.”

Fischer believes the consequences of a Russian-dictated peace will not be containable. “Ukraine will experience a new wave of refugees fleeing to the west. The terror regime of the Russian occupation will expand and hundreds of thousands will suffer as a result. The economic, political and security situation will change drastically throughout Ukraine. Partisan warfare could erupt, fuelled by the militarisation of Ukrainian society,” she said.

“The threat situation for the states bordering Ukraine would worsen massively. This is true for Moldova, which would again be in the spotlight, as it was in 2022, especially if Moscow were to take over the Ukrainian Black Sea coast. The cohesive power of the western alliance would be shaken to its core. Russia would continue to weaken Europe from within by building alliances with rightwing, chauvinist populist parties.”

Ukrainians, from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy down, have for more than a year tried to frame the consequences of defeat in lurid terms, in an attempt to shake European torpor and galvanise the west.

Olena Halushenka, the co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory, urged Europe to think about the bombardment of Kharkiv. “Imagine a city the size of Munich is likely to be without electricity this winter. The cost in terms of millions of migrants will overwhelm Europe.”

Wadephul fears even such framing has not worked. “If you ask the average German on the street: ‘Do you really recognise what is at stake? That we have to spend money not for health but for defence?’ the answers show there is still a lot of persuasion to do. Europeans think they can have this war without thinking they are themselves at war.”

He thinks the guilty men are the leaders who pander to voters who dismiss the Russian threat. That takes the debate back to Germany’s, and specifically the Social Democratic party’s, ambivalence about a Russian defeat. It is not a coincidence that the election slogan of Scholz’s SPD was “a secure peace”.

Scholz himself, for instance, refuses to set Russia’s defeat as an objective, and, after Ukraine’s failed offensive, peace advocates within his party have had a resurgence. The party believes its vote is being squeezed by two parties, one left and the other right, both saying the war is unwinnable. In a sign of the times, Michael Roth, the SPD chair of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee and a supporter of arming Ukraine, is quitting politics, saying he found it was like stepping into a refrigerator to hold the views he did inside his own party.

Much more at the link.

World war is, and has been, upon us. You may not be interested in it, but it is interested in you.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos this evening. Here is some adjacent material.

#Vovchansk . #Spaniel Nikol and 4 her newborn puppies survived in the city thanks to our military

We evacuated her to our clinic in Kharkiv, the dog mom is dehydrated and is recovering on IV therapy now.

PayPal: [email protected]#war #ukraine #animalrescue #evacuation pic.twitter.com/cNcHqv8p86

— Animal Rescue Kharkiv 🇺🇦 (@AnimalRescueKh) June 9, 2024

#Liptsi , the village where russians try to invade for second time. #Evacuation of animals is ongoing.

During this trip we managed to evacuate 9 dogs, 5 cats, 3 chickens, 5 ducks and 1 goat.

PayPal: [email protected]#animalrescue #war #ukraine pic.twitter.com/uk8VhtQQJa

— Animal Rescue Kharkiv 🇺🇦 (@AnimalRescueKh) June 9, 2024

Open thread!