(Image by NEIVANMADE)
A couple of quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie is still doing very well after yesterday’s chemotherapy treatment. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.
Second, air raid alerts are going up over Ukraine. One just went up for Khmelnystkyi Oblast (8:17 PM EDT). Right now they’re up from Kharkiv in the east, all the way through the south of Ukraine with the exception of Donetsk Oblast, and up through the center to Khmelnyskyi.
Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, has alleged a new set of Russian war crimes.
New horrifying evidence of Russia’s criminal policy aimed at the extermination of Ukrainians: we have received information that Russian commanders have ordered not to take Ukrainian soldiers as prisoners but to kill them with inhumane cruelty—by decapitation. The fact of… pic.twitter.com/09HdWqHMK6
— Andriy Kostin (@AndriyKostinUa) June 18, 2024
New horrifying evidence of Russia’s criminal policy aimed at the extermination of Ukrainians: we have received information that Russian commanders have ordered not to take Ukrainian soldiers as prisoners but to kill them with inhumane cruelty—by decapitation. The fact of decapitation of a Ukrainian defender was recorded in the Donetsk region.
This terrible barbarism must have no place in the 21st century. And this is yet another proof that the war crimes committed by the aggressor are not isolated incidents but a planned strategy of the Russian regime. These criminal orders were given at the command level of the battalion and company of the occupation forces.
We will not let these crimes go unpunished. I call on the entire civilized world to isolate the terrorist state and bring it to justice.
These allegations at the same time that desperate Ukrainians are returning to their homes in Russian occupied areas because they’ve got nowhere else to go.
❗️130,000 Ukrainian displaced persons are forced to return to the occupied territories and the zone of active hostilities, said People’s Deputy Tkachenko.
All because of housing problems, lack of money and work.
And because after 28 months the West is delivering too slowly, too… pic.twitter.com/aRDn64oZBk
— Jürgen Nauditt 🇩🇪🇺🇦 (@jurgen_nauditt) June 17, 2024
❗️130,000 Ukrainian displaced persons are forced to return to the occupied territories and the zone of active hostilities, said People’s Deputy Tkachenko.
All because of housing problems, lack of money and work.
And because after 28 months the West is delivering too slowly, too little.
The painful truth. Some of my relatives have returned to the russian-occupied territory because their home is there and they have missed it so much. For more than two years, they have lost hope for liberation and have faced significant difficulties with housing and employment. https://t.co/UveTCQGIEY
— Iryna Voichuk (@IrynaVoichuk) June 18, 2024
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
We Witness the World’s Determination Opening New Prospects for Restoring Our Security — the Address by the President
18 June 2024 – 20:56
Dear Ukrainians!
Today, first and foremost, I want to give special recognition to our warriors. All those who succeeded in turning this page of the war — a page that Putin was eager to dedicate to his offensive and which became yet another mistake for Russia. Everyone who is defending the Kharkiv direction, who is restraining the Russian attacks in the Pokrovsk and other Donetsk directions, and along the entire frontline — from Krynky to Vovchansk, and also along the border, including in the Sumy region. It is Ukrainian courage and resilience that determine the situation — it is what we can do, not what Russia wants or has tried to do. This is another significant result of Ukraine, of our people in this war, and I thank everyone who is truly fulfilling combat orders and performing combat missions to the fullest. I thank all those who are personally bearing the brunt of repelling Russian attacks. I thank everyone who has helped and continues to help.
We witness the world’s determination opening new prospects for restoring our security. Among other things, this includes the security of Kharkiv. The destruction of Russian terrorists’ positions and launchers by our forces, our warriors, near the border really matters. It is working. Exactly as we expected. And based on the results of the battles right now — in June — on different parts of the front, I would like to thank all our soldiers, sergeants and officers of the 1st separate assault battalion, the 5th separate assault brigade, the 25th separate airborne brigade, the 35th, 36th and 38th separate marine brigades. You all did a great job, warriors! The 44th artillery brigade, the 48th mechanized brigade, the 57th separate motorized infantry brigade, the 71st jaeger brigade, the 82nd airborne assault brigade, the 108th territorial defense brigade, and the 110th separate mechanized brigade. Thank you! And to all those who stand with you. Who helps, who supports, who treats the wounded, who volunteers. Who recruits and trains soldiers. Thank you! Together, Ukrainians are changing history in their favor.
Today, we also continued to prepare our next external steps, in particular, the activities between the First and Second Peace Summits. I held a meeting with international experts to appoint those responsible for regions and parts of the world in order to involve even more participants in joint work on the points of the Peace Formula. We are gradually proceeding to the formation of groups that will work on specific steps to restore security. Just like the First Peace Summit held in Switzerland, the groups should be as inclusive as possible so that different countries and leaders can express themselves. And, of course, we continue to work on the support of the communiqué of the First Summit. I am grateful to His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew for joining the communiqué and for his unwavering support of our peacemaking efforts. There will be more similar news — more new signatories to the communiqué. Our team is working on it.
And one more thing.
The meeting with the Speaker of the Seimas of Lithuania, her visit to Ukraine today. We greatly appreciate Lithuania’s support, our relations, and in general, the ties of Ukraine and Ukrainians with Lithuanian society, and with the Baltic region as a whole. We can only have common security — of our states, of our peoples, of our independence. Thank you for understanding this. Gitanas, thank you! I thank the Lithuanian Parliament and the Government. All those whose hearts are with us, with our people.
We must expel the occupier.
Glory to Ukraine!
The Guardian reports on Ukraine’s ethnic Vietnamese community.
On Ukraine’s Vietnamese minority, many of whom have stayed during the war and some of whom are fighting.
The community has a decades-long history (Vietnam’s richest person made his first money in Kharkiv in the 1990s…)https://t.co/ziDFtsiw6L— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) June 18, 2024
When Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, Tung Nguyen drove his parents from their home, in the city of Chernihiv, to the border with Poland. Then, he returned to Kyiv and began to volunteer, bringing food and medicines to under-siege Chernihiv. Before long, he had decided to sign up and fight in the Ukrainian army.
Nguyen is part of Ukraine’s Vietnamese community, a sizeable but often hidden minority in the country. Some Vietnamese people left Ukraine after the Russian invasion, but others have stayed, particularly those from the younger generation, many of whom were born in Ukraine and are Ukrainian citizens.
Nguyen was raised in Hanoi by his grandparents, but he came to join his parents in Chernihiv when he was 18. He studied in Kyiv, learned Russian, and began working as a fitness trainer and bodybuilder. In 2019, he won the all-Ukraine championship, and was given citizenship so he could compete for the country on the international arena.
“Ukraine gave me a lot – I studied here, worked here, I married a Ukrainian. I can’t even say it’s my second homeland at this point, it’s just my homeland,” he said, in a Skype interview from his location at an army base.
Last May, he was wounded during the Ukrainian retreat from Bakhmut, while retrieving wounded comrades from close to the frontline under cover of night. Incoming artillery left him with cuts and severe internal bleeding, and he ended up spending a month in hospital. He returned to the front and was wounded again in December, requiring another two months of recovery. Now, he is back fighting again.
The two years of full-scale war has seen Ukrainians from across the country come together in the face of the Russian threat, and the country’s Vietnamese community is no exception. At least one Ukrainian soldier of Vietnamese origin has already been killed in the war, and Nguyen said the community rallied in solidarity when he was wounded.
“Before the start of full-scale war, I didn’t know many Vietnamese people, but now they support me a lot. Lots of Vietnamese people wrote me messages of support, people brought food to the hospital,” Nguyen said.
Vietnamese people began coming to the Soviet Union in the 1950s to study, usually for technical professions. Pham Nhat Vuong, now the richest man in Vietnam, made his first money while living in Kharkiv in the early 1990s, setting up the Mivina brand of instant noodles, which became a hit with Ukrainians during the lean post-communist years. Numerous Vietnamese politicians are alumni of Ukrainian universities. Later, in the 1990s, many more came to work as small traders to both Russia and Ukraine, including Nguyen’s parents, who settled in Chernihiv in the early 1990s.
Prior to the full-scale Russian invasion, the Vietnamese community numbered about 100,000 people, according to Serhiy Chervanchuk, executive director of the Ukraine-Vietnam Association in Kyiv.
One of the largest Vietnamese communities in the country is in Kharkiv. Vietnamese traders dominate Barabashovo, the sprawling market on the eastern side of the city, which prior to the war was one of Europe’s largest markets, and there is even a Buddhist temple used by the community, though the monks left after the outbreak of war.
Many Vietnamese traders at Barabashovo, which has been hit by Russian strikes several times and is now working at a fraction of its former capacity, said they had left Ukraine at the start of the war but later returned.
“There aren’t many customers now, it’s a lot worse, but this is home and I don’t plan to leave again,” said one trader, drinking tea on a recent rainy morning, who gave his name as Dima. Most Vietnamese people at the market use Ukrainianised version of their names.
More at the link!
The Wall Street Journal has uncovered a new Russian illegals operation in Slovenia. From Archive.Today because WSJ is paywalled.
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia—The young Argentine couple in the pastel-colored house lived a seemingly ordinary suburban life, driving around this sleepy European capital in a white Kia Ceed sedan, always paying their taxes on time and never so much as getting a parking ticket.
Maria Rosa Mayer Muños ran an online art gallery, telling acquaintances she’d left Argentina after being robbed in Buenos Aires by an armed gang at a red light. Her husband, Ludwig Gisch, ran an IT startup.
Described by neighbors in their middle-class district of Črnuče as “normal” and “quiet,” the husband and wife appeared to be global citizens: switching from English and German with friends to accentless Spanish with their son and daughter, who attended the British International School.
Yet almost everything about the family from number 35 Primožičeva street was a carefully constructed lie, according to Slovenian and Western intelligence officials. Gisch’s real name is Artem Viktorovich Dultsev, born in the Russian autonomous republic of Bashkortostan and an elite officer in Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, according to the officials and court documents.
Mayer Muños is Anna Valerevna Dultseva, a more senior SVR officer than her partner, from Nizhny Novgorod. The couple’s computers contained hardware to communicate securely to handlers in Moscow that was so encrypted neither Slovenian nor U.S. technicians could crack it. In a secret compartment inside their refrigerator, they kept hundreds of thousands of euros in crisp bank notes.
Now, a classified trial is expected to deliver its first judgment in the coming weeks on the couple charged with conducting espionage as “illegals,” or deep-penetration agents—two crucial cogs in Vladimir Putin’s fast-expanding shadow war with the West.
Officials say that before they were arrested in December 2022, the pair used Slovenia, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union member state of just two million people, as a base to travel to nearby Italy, Croatia and across Europe to pay sources and communicate orders from Moscow. The bucolic Alpine country of lakes and mountains—and birthplace of Melania Trump—was a perfect choice to conduct operations, with visa-free access across much of Europe and a limited counterintelligence capacity. They had even trained their two young children, Slovenian officials say, telling them that one day their mom and dad may be captured.
Shortly after Mayer Muños and Gisch were arrested in a dawn raid by Slovenia’s security services, another pair of suspected Russian illegals—a woman and man carrying Greek and Brazilian passports—abruptly left their lives in Athens and Rio de Janeiro, abandoning businesses and romantic partners who had no idea of their real identity.
The pair carried passports identifying them as Maria Tsalla and Ludwig Campos Wittich. In fact, they were married Russian intelligence officers still building out their legend—a spy’s fake background story—separately in Greece and Brazil, a process Western intelligence agencies estimate costs millions of dollars per person. They were called back to Moscow by handlers fearing the collapse of a network after the Slovenia arrests, officials said.
Other suspected Russian illegals have been exposed across Europe since the Ukraine invasion, from the Netherlands and Norway to the Czech Republic and Bulgaria—the biggest unmasking of deep-penetration agents since the FBI’s 2010 “Operation Ghost Stories” that nabbed 10 Russian spies in America.
Now locked in a Slovenian prison, their children housed with a foster family, the faux-Argentine couple is also a possible component in any prisoner swaps agreed with Russia, including those that may involve jailed Americans Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, according to senior Slovenian and U.S. officials. The Kremlin has already expressed interest in getting them back in talks handled by Putin’s longtime close ally, Nikolai Patrushev, according to people familiar with the situation.
Neither the Kremlin nor the SVR responded to requests for comment.The case—being investigated by Slovenian and Western officials at the highest levels of secrecy, with the court proceedings and all materials highly classified—reveals a rare insight into one of the most secretive and prized parts of Russia’s spy machine.
Unlike most spies, illegals don’t pose as diplomats but usually as people unconnected to Russia. They spend years burrowing themselves deep into their target region, creating a spider web of information sources, identifying candidates for recruitment—“talent spotting”—and taking on assignments as a cutout for spies under diplomatic cover, who tend to be under close surveillance by their host countries.
NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that plans were being drawn up to tighten restrictions on the movement of Russian intelligence personnel in Europe.
“Illegals are again growing in significance for Moscow, especially as the line between espionage and war is becoming almost nonexistent,” said Andrei Soldatov, a Russian security expert who has spent years studying Moscow’s spy networks.
Slovenian officials said that they suspect that an unusual influx of Russian students enrolling in the country’s universities in the past two years, many of whom are in their 40s and 50s, could be cover for more Russian agents. In March, the government deported at least eight Russian students for disseminating pro-Kremlin propaganda and impersonating Slovenians online, according to Slovenian security officials.
The same month a Russian military attaché Sergei Lemeshev was declared persona non grata after he was discovered running a disinformation operation that involved paying “hundreds of sources” to publish pro-Moscow talking points.
To untangle the truth about the quiet couple who immersed themselves in new roles as an ordinary expat family while leading double lives as Russian spies, the Journal talked to their friends and neighbors; Slovenian, Western and Latin American officials; and reviewed hundreds of sealed documents, including birth and marriage certificates, flight records, Interpol notices and Argentine court records. Along the way reporters found a complex web of lies, from fraudulent documents to the theft of an identity of an infant who died in a small Greek village more than 30 years ago.
“We know they were important, serious agents,” said Vojko Volk, Slovenia’s state secretary for international affairs and national and international security. “It’s like ‘The Americans,’ except in Slovenia.”
Shortly after the arrest, Russia established contact, acknowledging the couple worked for the SVR and saying it wanted them back. Slovenia was eager to quickly trade and to avoid antagonizing the Kremlin, but a deal couldn’t be reached. Slovenian officials had “prayed to get rid of them,” one senior official said.
Mayer Muños and Gisch refused to talk, but Slovenia and its allies were learning more about their activities and other potentially connected agents. When Maria Tsalla fled Greece shortly after the arrests, Greek authorities discovered she had registered her birth on the island of Evia, claiming the identity of an infant who was listed as dying in 1991. Authorities could see the handwritten registry had been altered—a clue to her deception—and that Tsalla had been trying to replace it with a new registration in the Athens suburb of Marousi, one of the first municipalities to digitize records.
Tsalla left behind a boyfriend in Athens who allegedly had no idea she wasn’t from Greece. Greek authorities discovered she was in fact married to another Russian illegal, Campos Wittich, who had lived for some two years in Rio de Janeiro with his Brazilian girlfriend—a veterinarian who worked for the country’s ministry of agriculture. She helped coordinate the social media search for him when he disappeared—only to learn that he was working undercover for Russian intelligence.
Gisch and Mayer Muños have now served more than 18 months in a Slovenian prison. Slovenia’s espionage laws allow for a maximum eight-year sentence, and officials say the couple could be freed after four for good behavior.
“They were long-term illegals,” said Janez Stusek, SOVA chief until the middle of 2022, several months before the couple’s arrest. “They had a long-term mission trying to infiltrate Slovenia as an entering point into Europe.”
On 35 Primožičeva street, a new couple has moved in. Two bikes are parked on the porch and two children’s badminton rackets are hung on the veranda. Efforts to reach them were unsuccessful, and the owners of the house declined to comment. The new couple, officials and neighbors said, are also Russian.
There is more at the link.
This is all part of Russia’s political warfare and subversion campaigns. Two years ago Bellingcat exposed a similar Russian illegal who had ingratiated herself with senior US and NATO officers in Italy.
NATO, Holland, and Hungary:
“Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has promised to give Hungary’s Viktor Orbán an opt-out of Nato activities supporting Ukraine if he is made secretary-general of the military alliance, in a pledge aimed at securing Budapest’s support” https://t.co/2zoQDgKY06
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) June 18, 2024
The Financial Times has the details:
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has backed Mark Rutte as the next secretary-general of Nato after the Dutch leader promised to allow Budapest to opt out of the military alliance’s activities supporting Ukraine.
The deal with Orbán, which was first reported by the Financial Times, comes after months in which the Hungarian PM refused to endorse Rutte, irritating the US and other leading Nato allies such as the UK, France and Germany, who have openly backed the Dutchman for months.
Romania, whose own president Klaus Iohannis launched a rival bid to Rutte, is now the last country to hold out, though it is widely expected to fall in line imminently. The US has made clear it expects to reach unanimous support for the Dutch prime minister by the time of the Nato’s leaders’ summit in Washington next month.
Rutte and Orbán, who have clashed several times in the past and have a strained personal relationship, met on the sidelines of an EU leaders’ dinner in Brussels on Monday night, where the FT reported that the Dutchman had made a deal with the Hungarian leader to secure his support.
Orbán confirmed that deal on Tuesday, saying in a statement that Rutte had pledged that under his tenure “no Hungarian personnel will take part in the activities of Nato in Ukraine and no Hungarian funds will be used to support them”.
“In light of his pledge, Hungary is ready to support PM Rutte’s bid for Nato secretary-general,” Orban added. Slovakia, which had also been holding back its endorsement of Rutte, also said on Tuesday it would support him.
Orbán, the alliance’s most pro-Russian member, has long argued against western support for Ukraine as Kyiv seeks to defend itself against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
A spokesperson for Rutte said he and Orbán had a “good conversation” and that Rutte had promised to maintain a commitment made by outgoing secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg last week.
Stoltenberg told Orbán that Hungary could opt out of Nato activities to support Ukraine, such as a plan for the alliance to take more control of military supplies to Kyiv and the training of Ukrainian troops, as well as long-term financial support.
“I think that’s a good solution that will enable us to move forward on more support for Ukraine within the Nato framework without Hungary blocking,” Stoltenberg said at the time.
In the meeting between Rutte and Orbán, which took place as the EU’s 27 leaders discussed who would fill the bloc’s top jobs for the next five years, the Dutch prime minister did not apologise for past remarks about Orbán at Brussels summits, said one of the people briefed on the discussions.
More at the link!
Saltivka, Kharkiv Oblast:
If you’re wondering how Saltivka is doing these days—people hope for the day when their phones stop beeping with air raid alerts every hour, kids won’t have to hide in corridors, and families torn apart by Russia’s war can reunite. Truly yours, from Kharkiv 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/sckte1ad75
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) June 18, 2024
Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast:
Ukrainian Marine Kriegforscher has a new assessment of the situation in Vovchansk. First tweet from the thread and the rest from the Thread Reader App:
The only thing I can say about the battle for Vovchansk — that’s only the beginning.
I think we have here a new «record» — 13 guided bombs (KAB) for one hour.
It’s hard for them right now to stop our advance and they are deploying new forces. About that and more below🧵 pic.twitter.com/F7Oum2OcjL
— Kriegsforscher (@OSINTua) June 18, 2024
Frankly speaking, the only reason I a writing this it’s Russian guided bombs.
Pain in the ass.Yesterday from 21:00 to 22:00 they dropped 13 bombs. And from 22 to 23 6 more bombs.
If U are asking yourself whether it’s a lot or not — it’s huge.
This thread will be short and kinda more technical then the previous ones.
1) Russians are using only infantry without armed vehicles. Only a couple of tanks and AFV were destroyed here.
My company destroyed 2/5 BMP. Yes, I am showing off.
Another one damaged and abandoned BMP-2. Folks from my company used 4 FPVs against it.
Their choice to use infantry without armour is strange but was «predicted» by me. And because of that they have big losses in infantry.
Has armed vehicles (not BMPs) which are perfect for fighting in the city (at least for evacuation). But they don’t do this.
2) RUAF uses UAV as much as they can. Every hour (even at night) they use 8-12 Orlans, SuperCam and Zak’s UAVs.
3) They started using more helicopters.
Since the beginning of the operation they almost haven’t done it but right the number is increasing.
4) They are preparing new forces for future advance. For example, 22 regiment of 72 division (newly created) is going to receive BMP-3, BMP-1AM and BMP-2 (in general ~ 60 AFV) and waiting to be deployed at the battlefield.5) As I said a lot of times ago they are still trying to dig and build a new defence line at newly occupied territory.
Fortunately, they fail to do it.
6) As I said, for 5 weeks they have lost 5 BMPs and instead of mechanised columns charges I see how they use infantry.
A couple of days ago they used 17 paratroopers from the 83 brigade. With the help of 82 mortar 4 were KIA and 10 WIA.
7) I also was surprised to found out that they almost do not fire from the closed firing positions with their tanks because…their tankers don’t know how to do that.
It’s a very big contrast with Donetsk oblast.
8) They are trying to use more fresh forces from different parts of the front:
– assault battalion from the 155 mar.brigade (South of D oblast);
– marine battalion from the 810 mar.brigade (Z oblast);
– BTGr (the 1st one since 2022) of 9 mech.brigade (South of D oblast)
What is also interesting. Firstly they deployed one assault battalion from the 83 brigade. It suffered losses and they deployed the rest of the brigade.
This BTGr from the 9 brigade consists of 3 mech.companies, 3 assault companies and 2 assault companies (prisoners).
And it’s only about Vovchansk area where 116 brigade of their National guard and newly created 128 mech.brigade are deployed. Near Lyptsi the situation even more interesting.
As I said, we destroyed two BMPs. With the help of mining. And I will show U how we did it👇
To be more effective we need your help, folks!
As usual our unit (I assure U that not only ours) needs some stuff:
– Bluetti AC200MAX 2048Wh;
– 4 antennas;
– 10 GPS trackersIn general: 2500$
Our PP: [email protected]
Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhia Oblast:
Strikes on Russian targets in Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhia region.
(47.4417339, 35.2855888) pic.twitter.com/AhnzhUp5Rl— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 18, 2024
Pyongyang and Moscow:
Putin is expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang today. https://t.co/r8sEFPeKzy
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) June 18, 2024
Putin arrives in Pyongyang. I believe he quite likes it here. He would also fancy Russia being a country like North Korea, and has a few things to learn from his counterpart. pic.twitter.com/l2qXPDrub0
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) June 18, 2024
The Russian president arrived in Pyongyang for his first visit in 24 years and is expected to sign a new strategic partnership with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his stay. https://t.co/fLXf1dwjNc pic.twitter.com/Foi7trFPkv
— Financial Times (@FT) June 18, 2024
From The Financial Times:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to co-operate with North Korea to strengthen both regimes’ resistance to western sanctions.
Putin, who arrived in Pyongyang in the early hours of Wednesday for what is his first visit in 24 years, is expected to sign a new strategic partnership with Kim Jong Un during his stay.
In an article published in North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun ahead of his arrival, Putin said Moscow would seek to work closely with Pyongyang to resist western pressure over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme.
“We will develop alternative mechanisms of trade and mutual settlements that are not controlled by the west and jointly resist illegitimate unilateral restrictions,” Putin wrote, adding that the countries would “build an architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia”.
He also thanked North Korea for its support for Moscow in the war in Ukraine and pledged to back Pyongyang in the face of “US pressure, blackmail and military threats”.
North Korea on Tuesday reaffirmed its support for Russia’s invasion, which Kim has called a “sacred war”.
Putin’s visit, which the Kremlin said would include a concert in his honour, comes as concerns grow in the west about deepening trade and military co-operation between Moscow and Pyongyang.
The Financial Times reported in March that Russia was supplying oil and petroleum products to North Korea in an apparent exchange for ballistic missiles and artillery shells to be used on the battlefield in Ukraine.
US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Monday said North Korea had supplied Russia with “dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions”. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied arms transfers.
Russia also blocked the renewal of a UN panel that monitors compliance with Security Council sanctions against North Korea, resulting in that body’s dissolution.
Kim met Putin for the first time in four years in September in Russia’s Far East, where he toured the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Moscow’s most advanced space rocket launch site. Kim also extended an invitation to Russia’s leader to make a reciprocal trip.
Putin and Kim are expected to sign a strategic partnership agreement that Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said was “driven by the profound evolution of the geopolitical situation in the world and the region”.
Ushakov told reporters on Monday that the agreement would reflect “what has happened between our countries in recent years in international politics, economics and ties across the board, including security issues”, according to Interfax.
The Russian delegation includes new defence minister Andrei Belousov, as well as Denis Manturov, top deputy prime minister overseeing the defence sector, and Alexander Novak, Moscow’s most senior energy official.
The warming ties have also raised fears in the west of Russia supplying technical assistance or military technology transfers to North Korea. Two months after Kim’s visit to Russia, North Korea claimed its first successful launch of a military spy satellite. Yuri Borisov, the head of Russia’s space agency, is also accompanying Putin to Pyongyang.
The visit comes amid recent tensions on the Korean peninsula, after both countries scrapped a 2018 military accord aimed at reducing hostilities along their shared border.
More at the link!
The summit meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presents the greatest threat to U.S. national security since the Korean War. This relationship, deep in history and reinvigorated by the war in Ukraine, undermines the security of Europe, Asia, and the U.S. homeland. Amid front-burner issues like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the administration relegates this problem to the back burner at its own peril.
What started out as a small arms sale by North Korea to the Wagner Group in November 2022 has recently been acknowledged by Secretary of State Antony Blinken as a “matter of deep concern” over the North’s provision of 5 million rounds of ammunition and scores of ballistic missiles. As the summit suggested, Kim is likely to fuel Russian war stocks indefinitely. Of pressing concern, however, is what Putin is giving in return. It is highly unlikely that Kim would have feted Putin so lavishly only for the promise of food and fuel. That may have been the gift when Kim visited Russia in September 2023, direly needed at the time as his country was just emerging from a three-plus year Covid lockdown. But Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines laid down a significant marker in March 2024 when she said Moscow may be dropping long-held nonproliferation norms in its dealings with North Korea.
Kim wants advanced telemetry, nuclear submarine technology, military satellite wares, and advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology. Putin needs Kim’s weapons to make up for a monthly munitions shortfall of 50,000 rounds (even if Russia is producing ammunition at full capacity) in his pursuit of victory in Ukraine. A gaggle of Russian scientists were in North Korea prior to this month’s military satellite launch. Kim has also been expressing satisfaction with his nuclear submarine plans, which is a very bad sign. This aspect of the relationship not only destabilizes security on the peninsula and in Asia; it also heightens the direct threat posed by North Korea to the homeland. ICBMs with advanced countermeasure technology, overhead reconnaissance capabilities, and nuclear submarines would allow Kim to target the entirety of the United States with a nuclear force that Washington would have difficulty taking out in a preemptive first strike.
In fairness, the Biden administration has called out the problem. It has declassified satellite imagery and other intelligence, providing glimpses of these ties. Biden has advanced an unprecedented battery of new defense exercises with Japan and South Korea that enhances deterrence and makes the three allies stronger. Nonetheless, Kim is on pace to conduct more military provocations this election year than ever before (surpassing 2022’s record of 48 provocations).
It is on the diplomatic front where fault can be found. Biden is on autopilot when it comes to North Korea, recycling talking points on denuclearization circa the Obama administration. Most experts think North Korea has at least 50 nuclear bombs now. Pyongyang has spurned over 20 private attempts by the administration to restart talks. It has even thrown letters back in the face of engagement-oriented U.S. diplomats.
The administration should shelve denuclearization and prioritize policies to disrupt the arms trade between Russia and North Korea.
This is not an easy task. First, the routes used to transport North Korean arms to Russia run deep in the latter’s territory, making military interceptions of munitions cargo, whether by boat or rail, dangerously escalatory; Biden does not need a third war on his watch. Second, Russia’s veto in March 2024 to reauthorize a UN watchdog body on North Korean proliferation is aimed at dismantling the entire UN sanctions regime toward Pyongyang.
Nonetheless, the toolkit is not completely bare. The United States should mobilize Europeans at G7 and NATO conferences this summer to apply economic and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang. While the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, most European governments do, and North Korea has traditionally seen Europe as its gateway to the West. As a first step, actions like those taken at the G7 summit last week against Russian and North Korean financial assets should be expanded in the name of disrupting the weapons trade.
Putin and Kim may feel that they have a match made in heaven. The former is getting what he needs for the war while complicating Biden’s security policies in Asia. The latter, with Russian sustenance, is able to wait out Biden while advancing and modernizing their nuclear force. Biden should take the offensive. While these recommended half measures will not solve the problem, they are better than the administration recycling standard talking points.
More at the link!
Azov, Rostov Oblast, Russia:
/2. Satellite imagery of the result of the drive strike on Russian oil depot in Azov, Rostov region. https://t.co/k2kyh7jska pic.twitter.com/IvHLkan0Px
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 18, 2024
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
First, some adjacent material from the Ukrainian MOD:
Love will win
📷: 117th Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/WVgPBEPHiH
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 18, 2024
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Мене обрала якась гігантська палочка…🫨 #песпатрон
Here’s the machine translation of the caption:
I was chosen by some giant stick… 🫨 #песпатрон
Open thread!
japa21
Once again, thanks for the reports not only on Ukraine but also the two foci of much of your life.
I am hardly any kind of a security expert or an expert on Russia or North Korea. To me it seems that Putin going there is a sign of desperation on his part. He, almost automatically, looks like someone going begging for assistance.
This doesn’t discount the risk to the West involved by any arrangement made by the two leaders. I just don’t know what, if anything we can do in regards to this. Also, I wonder how China views this.
Harrison Wesley
Thanks, Adam, for this detailed reporting. I find the news from Slovenia pretty disheartening, since that’s where I had planned to go if things go to hell here in Florida. Oh well…
OzarkHillbilly
I posted this up in the morning thread Adam, thought you might appreciate it:
‘This country gave me a lot’: the Vietnamese people staying in Ukraine
More at the link.
eta: not sure why I am around at this hour.
and of course, this went in the previous thread because it is way past my coherent hour.
ftr: I always read… The next morning. Rarely comment, but always appreciate your efforts.
Adam L Silverman
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. I appreciate it.
dr. luba
The Patron video is a Harry Potter reference.
…….my goddaughter in Lviv recently became engaged to a young man in the military. He seemed a nice person, and her 5 year old daughter was calling him “Tato” (father) already. They were to be wed during his leave in July. As her mother, my cousin, wrote today:
His name is Andriy. He is a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, an artilleryman, kind, loyal, real. He was supposed to have a leave in July. And she, my daughter, was to become his official wife. They had great plans for the future. And on June 6, he did not come out of the battle. Andriy went missing.
I don’t know how I will pull my daughter out of the dark abyss she is in now. I hope we will have the strength to cross this darkness.
All my wishes to the non-fratricidal murderers are a little bigger and stronger than hell, as well as to the local cowards and all those who keep them “under their skirts”.
……..Fuck russia, fuck putin, and fuck all those who support this genocidal war. May they burn in hell forever. (The last bit is from me, but I’m sure she agrees.)
Another Scott
Thanks for the updates, Adam, and everyone.
ICYMI, Inspirational Skeletor today.
:-)
Slava Ukraini!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@dr. luba: I’m very sorry to read this. It’s terrible. Putin is a monster for starting and continuing this war.
:-(
Peace and comfort to you, your family, and everyone who knew and loved him.
Best wishes,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
@japa21: The PRC is reportedly wary of the Russia-NK alignment (of convenience), it rightly fears that Putin will enable KJU to be more reckless (& reduce the PRC’s leverage over NK). Any tensions or instability KJU may be able to cause on the Korean Peninsula or around the world is to Putin’s benefit, but not necessarily the PRC’s.
However, the Kim Dynasty has always been fiercely paranoid & independent, it has never been nor will ever be anyone’s puppet. KJU is in this to advance NK’s interests, not out of any commitment to Putin’s goals. Indeed, all 3 Kims would have strongly preferred normalizing relations w/ the US, too, so as to reduce its dependence on the PRC. However, GWB unilaterally scuttled the only deal (struck by Clinton) that might have eventually gotten there (much like how Trump unilaterally scuttled the JPCOA w/ Iran), & no US Administration since (other than the brief farcical show during the Trump Administration) has been willing to contemplate the concessions necessary (recognition of NK as a nuclear state, treaty of non-aggression w/ NK, foreswearing attempts to undermine the rule of the Kim Dynasty, etc.) to normalize relations.
So, as the NK issue remains in limbo & essentially neglected by the Biden Administration, NK has made rapid advances in ballistic & cruise missiles, & conventional arms. This has prompted greater sense of insecurity in SK, prompting SK to develop & deploy its own ballistic & cruise missile arsenal, w/ the new reactionary conservative government adopting a much more aggressive posture (including the option of preemptive & preventive strikes) toward NK (in response to the more aggressive posture by NK, as the SK right wing tends to do), & openly discuss acquiring nukes. It’s a powder keg that is not getting any attention. Some of the cynical primacists in DC actually welcome this development, as they believe the dynamic would push SK to align more closely w/ the US to help contain the PRC, hence the renewed rhetoric of an “Axis of Evil” (only now applied to the PRC-Russia-Iran-NK). It is a false hope because not even the reactionary right wing government in Seoul is willing to go that far, as joining the US to wage trade & tech war against the PRC is economic suicide.
However, the PRC’s does not have the ability dictate behaviors of Putin or KJU, & w/ the Sino-US Great Power Competitive the central theme of geopolitics, it does not have the inclination, either. The PRC will likely exert its influence to help prevent any crisis from getting out of hand on the Korean Peninsula, but that’s about it.
dr. luba
@Another Scott: Thanks. I hadn’t met him yet, but based on her FB posts, messages and photos he seemed really nice. Poor kid is devastated…..
She has a stepfather and brother at the front, too. Safe so far; the former survived Debaltsevo in 2015, with injuries. Was demobbed until 2022.
japa21
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks for that assessment. It seems like every time a Democratic administration moves 2 steps forward, a GOP administration pushes it 3 steps back.
WaterGirl
@dr. luba: I’m so sorry, dr. luba. Tears for your goddaughter, multiplied by thousands for everyone who is going through this hell. 💕
dr. luba
@WaterGirl: Thanks!
My mother is particularly sad…she lived through WWII in western Ukraine, and occupation by the Germans, Poles and Soviets/russians. The past is never truly past.
Jay
As always, thank you Adam.
Jay
@dr. luba
I am so sorry for your families loss.
героям слава
Every time I get a text or call from Slava’s son or wife, my gut clenches and my heart falls.
YY_Sima Qian
Putin is set to make an official visit to Vietnam after NK. Vietnam has adopted a similar position on the Ukraine War as the PRC. In fact, some the Twitter posts that purportedly show Chinese PLA officers getting up to leave the room during MSC ’22 as Zelenskyy prepared to make a speech were actually Vietnamese officers doing so.
Rumors are flying that Vietnam is set to make a formal application to join the BRICS grouping. Malaysia has already done so. Indonesia was invited last year, but demurred out of concern that BRICS might undermine “ASEAN centrality”, the consensus among ASEAN countries for managing regional affairs. Now that Vietnam & Malaysia have made moves to join the BRICS, Indonesia might follow, as well.
Also, for those who do not pay close attention to SE Asian affairs, the Communist Party of Vietnam has undergone a shocking & thorough purge of its leadership in the form of an anti-corruption campaign, of a kind that mades Xi Jinping’s power consolidation moves look like a dinner party. The CPV has also learned from Xi to ramp up ideological exhortations, emphasize the revolutionary spirit & promoting a return to the equalitarian/quasi-monastic ethos to its members, to make the Party more relevant & respected to the masses again. I think the socio-political dynamic is reminiscent the PRC in the early 10s. The few left standing all have military or domestic security backgrounds. Like it has done since the early 90s, the CPV is following the CPC’s footsteps, about a decade behind.
Geopolitically, Vietnam continues to carefully balance its relations w/ all the great & middle powers (the PRC, the US, Russia, Japan, India, the EU, etc.). However, there is a very noticeable shift in the past several years, where Hanoi has worked hard to ensure its relations w/ Beijing remained positive, & all points of friction (especially territorial disputes in the South China Sea) contained. Vietnam (& other ASEAN countries) have notably abstained from showing any support to the Philippines in its recent confrontations w/ the PRC at atolls/rocks/low tide features in the Spratley Islands. This is in marked contrast to the early to mid-’10s period, when Vietnam & the Philippines coordinated w/ & supported each other in their respective confrontation w/ the PRC, encouraged & facilitated by the US, despite having territorial disputes of their own over the Spratleys.
This short Twitter thread by C Nguyen summarizes the economic-trade dynamics that binds Vietnam to the PRC pretty well:
WaterGirl
@dr. luba: Occupation by Germans, Poles and Soviets / Russians. War is a particular kind of hell for women, I’m sure this is bringing it all back. Again, I’m so sorry.
YY_Sima Qian
@dr. luba: So sorry abut your loss!
YY_Sima Qian
OT: Dem leaders in Congress jointed their Repub counterparts to invite Bibi to address a joint session of Congress, just to watch him knife Biden in the back (& deciding whether to stand & applaud for the cameras), in the middle of a critical election, despite Biden having done everything he could (far beyond what he should have) to cover Israel & Bibi (click through the link for the video):
A lot of Dem policymakers really are masochists when it comes to Israel (& the KSA & India).
YY_Sima Qian
& the accounts of Ukrainians returning to their homes under Russian occupation, out of desperation, ugh…
Harrison Wesley
@YY_Sima Qian: Maybe if Bibi is worried about being sent to prison in Israel, he should come here and run for office. Hey, he went to high school in Philly – he’s not unacquainted with America.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: You’ll need to use the translate function, but Tal Schneider has the details of how this went down. Remember, Dermer, who is currently Bibi’s Minister of Strategy, is actually a non-Hebrew speaker and former Republican campaign operative from south Florida.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. luba: I’m so sorry to read this. We’re keeping good thoughts for you and your family.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the link! Sometimes I just don’t understand the thought processes of the Biden Administration & the Dem Congressional leadership when it comes to Bibi.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: From the Victor Cha analysis I included in tonight’s update:
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: For Biden, this is 1973 and the Yom Kippur War. For Schumer, he’s the most senior Jewish American elected official. Jeffries has a sizable Jewish constituency. The Israelis – journalists, commenters, SMEs, professionals who also comment – all keep asking over and over some version of “Hasn’t Biden seen how Bibi operates?” They are all of them stunned by Biden letting Bibi walk all over him. Blinken already cooked the NSM-20 report. I think his blind spot is the result of his step-father’s experiences during the Holocaust. McGurk is just a GOP legal operative who seems to have failed upward from the Bush 43 administration through the Obama and Trump administrations to become Biden’s senior advisor on the Middle East. He and Sullivan seem to be fully/pot committed to this deal with the Saudis where we’d basically be paying the Saudis to let us defend them. This is not going to end well for Biden.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Timing of the attempts to reengage matters, which Victor Cha does not mention. I would be surprised if KJU spurned such overtures early in Biden’s term. However, I would not be surprised if these overtures came only after evidence emerged of NK selling large stockpiles of munitions to Russia for its war effort in Ukraine. KJU would correctly read it as a tactical move & not a serious effort toward normalizing relations, particularly if KJU correctly believes that the Biden Administration will not budge on NK’s core demands: recognition of NK as a nuclear state, treaty of non-aggression w/ the US, commitment by the US not to undermine the Kim Dynasty’s rule, etc.
As for his suggestion of pressuring Beijing to pressure Pyongyang, using the reasoning that a more threatening NK will result in more US military presence in NE Asia, I am afraid that kind of appeal will fall on deaf years. If the US & the West really want to isolate Russia & reduce the support that the PRC, NK & Iran provides to the former, they need to improve the overall valence of relations w/ the PRC, NK & Iran, give them (especially NK/Iran) something to lose w/ the West so that they are incentivized to sacrifice aspects of their relations w/ Russia. Otherwise, if all three (especially NK/Iran) continue to be under relentless US pressure & containment, what incentive would they have to accede to US appeals wrt to Russia/Ukraine? If all four (especially Russia/NK/Iran) face US-led containment effort at the same time, the natural response is to draw closer to each other.
The US/West needs sticks & carrots, but unfortunately the Biden Administration is not in a position to offer any carrots to the PRC/NK/Iran, & I don’t think it is even in the imagination of the policymakers in the Administration to think along those lines. Even if the Biden team wanted to offer carrots (in addition to the threat of sticks) to the PRC/NK/Irans, they would be deterred by the threat of bipartisan rebuke from Congress, & fear of R demagoguery during what will be a hard fought election. Even if the Biden Administrations offered carrots in private negotiations, such offers would lack credibility in Beijing/Pyongyang/Tehran because they can clearly see the zeitgeist dominating DC.
As for the PRC specifically, what incentive does Beijing have to help the US/West manage the challenges posed by Russia, NK & Iran, if the US will simply proceed to double down, rather than dial down, its Great Power Competition w/ the PRC? That is the dominant view in the PRC from the leadership to the masses, & I think they are correct in the reading, as pretty much conceded by every US based China analyst I follow. After all, the Sino-US Great Power Competition has become the central organizing principle of US foreign & domestic policy, the only subject where there is broad bipartisan consensus in Congress (albeit a much more shallow one than often appreciated), & there is little prospect of that changing any time soon. Particularly when Trump has a real chance of winning in Nov., promises to ramp up the Cold War 2.0 w/ the PRC if he wins, & his last NSA is publicly advocating moving all of the USMC to the Asia Pacific region to face off against the PRC.
Plus, I tend to read any output from Victor Cha very critically. He was a noted Hawk in the GWB Administration, very likely one of the architects for scuttling the deal w/ NK that Clinton had clinched, & thus shares direct responsibility for the current state of affairs. He is better than the likes of Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Elliott Abrams, & Libby, though. (In that he still inhabits this reality, rather than preferring to create his own.)
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: But it’s not like the Jewish community in America is solidly behind Israel’s War in Gaza, certainly not behind Bibi, so why do Schumer & Jeffries feel so compelled? Rick Jewish donors that make support of Israel (“right or wrong!”) their single issue (cough Haim Saban cough)?
Also, when Arab/Muslim Americans vent their frustration w/ the Biden Administration by threatening to stay home or vote R in Nov., Ds up & down rightly point out its self-harm/self-defeating nature, or less rightly mocking them for having nowhere else to go. How come nobody calls out the Jewish donors who threaten to withhold their purse strings or worse bold to the reactionaries, if the Ds fail to match in lock step w/ Bibi, or mock them for having nowhere else to go? & if some people will really bolt over the single issue of not supporting Israel’s criminal war conduct in Gaza, are these really the people Ds want or need in their coalition?
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: I do not have answers, or, at least, good answers, to these questions.
AlaskaReader
Thanks Adam
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yeah, this is the kind of thing that makes it difficult not to sympathize with activists fed up with the Democratic Party. “How dare you publicly criticize Biden for his complicity in war crimes. Don’t you know there’s an election to win? Now please excuse us while we find the Democrats’ worst enemy in the Middle East, a man who’s publicly trying to use this war to tank the 2024 election for Biden, so we can offer him our tallest soapbox, our loudest microphone, and our warmest endorsement!” Oh yeah. This certainly sounds like the criticism of these activists is being made in good faith and with no ulterior motives at all by people who really care if they win in November.
And it’s difficult to even blame congressional Democrats for doing this, given that the prime moving force behind the “let’s enthusiastically hand Bibi the tools with which he’s trying to tank us in November” strategy has, in fact, been Joe Biden himself. They may be stabbing him in the back, but he handed them the knife.
This is not a serious party. It just isn’t, and no heap of “but look, over there, student protesters being shrill and Objectively Pro Fascist!” will make it any less true.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: Since the US electoral systems ensures that politics will be dominated by 2 political parties, we can only endeavor to elect better Ds.
YY_Sima Qian
There has been suggestions that the experience of drone warfare in Ukraine offers lessons for a Taiwan Strait contingency, & a way for Taiwan to further strengthen its “porcupine” defense strategy & attrit the PLA’s invasion assets. Here is an Economist article on a forthcoming paper by the CNAS think tank that discusses how the different parties might employ drones.
As I mentioned in the past, the distances involved in the Western Pacific, even w/in the 1st Island Chain, renders the small quad-/hexa-/octacoptor & FPV drones prevalent in Ukraine unviable. Taiwan can still use FPV drones to pick off PLA landing crafts & amphibious assault vehicles, but only as they approach the beach. The bigger & longer range UAVs are easy pickings for PLA’s fleet & land based AD. The PRC has a huge fleet of coast guard & maritime militia vessels, not to mention naval patrol boats & landing crafts held in reserve that can be reactivated, to serve in pickets against surface sea drones. Taiwan (& the PRC & every other navy) is developing Unmanned Undersea Vessels that can launch torpedoes, which can prove much more troublesome against the PLAN (their PLAN counterparts against the ROCN, USN & JMSDF), but they are far more expensive & more challenging to develop, thus probably will not be in enough numbers to make a significant dent against an invading armada. Could prove very valuable to break a blockade, though.
Otherwise, the PLA will have an advantage over the US & Japan in drone warfare due to the shorter distances to the was zone.
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
Oh yeah. That’s pretty much the hand we’ve got.
Sally
I can’t fathom the behaviour or the rhetoric here at all. The potential catastrophe on the Korean Peninsula seems to me to be a result of our, the West’s, reluctance to assist UA in fighting the Russians, from 2014 onwards. If, by July 2022 we had realised UA was not Czechoslovakia in 1939, and swamped UA with aid, with no conditions, Ru might well be defeated by now. North Korea would not be trading weapons for goodness knows what, and a reckless and unpredictable madman would not be becoming greater danger to all of us.
I see it as a bit like climate change. People argue the cost of mitigating warming is too high, but the cost of not doing so is already hugely expensive, and will increase by orders of magnitude. The cost of inaction, though sometimes difficult to quantify, is invariably higher that the cost of action. Time and time again we refuse to see it, hoping whatever new problem will go away, by magic. I am a nobody, and have no special knowledge. Every day, the lack of AD, and permission to destroy Ru military across the border leads to more destruction in UA that will have to be repaired, at great expense. As well as the immiseration of the people, and the reduction in manufacturing and trade that is important to the world in general. I can’t see why these points are not motivation to swamp UA with aid.
I don’t want a criminal Ru controlling so much of the world’s grain, uranium, titanium, coal, oil, gas, iron ore, lithium – many more important primary resources, plus manufacturing operations. Perhaps I am catastrophising, and am wrong. But the knock on effects of letting this war go on for two and a half years already seem pretty bad to me
Sorry for the length and the rant.
YY_Sima Qian
@Sally: What you say is true, though I don’t buy any domino theory that the outcome in Ukraine will meaningfully affect Beijing’s calculations wrt an invasion of Taiwan or Pyongyang’s calculations wrt to an attack of SK. However, that is also water under the bridge, we are where we are. W/ the PRC’s/India’s purchase of Russian oil & gas, w/ the PRC’s support of Russia’s dual use industrial capacity (plus what Russia is getting from the West through middlemen), w/ munitions directly from Iran & NK, Russia may be able to sustain at least a stalemate even if the West ramps up its material aid to Ukraine a lot more, & Ukraine mobilize more troops.
To reduce Russia’s warming capabilities & potential, the West has to make it worthwhile for Iran & NK to stop selling weapons & munitions to Russia, make it worthwhile for the PRC to reduce some of the dual use goods that have more obvious potential uses in weapons & munitions manufacture. The PRC government will not be able to completely shut off the flow even if it wanted to, just as the EU countries have not been able to shut off the flow of dual use goods to Russia through Central Asia.
Sally
@YY_Sima Qian: I didn’t mention Taiwan because I don’t think it is a domino, although I do think UA is one of many factors the PRC will consider, but by no means the most important one. I am not so worried that Taiwan will erupt, at least for now, as I am banking on the PRC not wanting to destabilise the region, let alone the world. We have largely given away our levers, as you said. We can’t threaten Iran with the JCPOA, we can’t negotiate with NK on any agreements. Imagine how better off UA would be if there were no Shaheds. I believe we should be trying to shut down some of that secondary trade through Central Asia. We could let this be like 1939, or we could learn and prevent a creeping conflagration. This war should have been over.