(I don’t remember where I found this, but it seemed appropriate tonight)
I know everyone wants to start with the air strike on the petroleum facility in Belgorod, which wasn’t reported on until after last night’s update posted. Here’s the official line from the Ukrainians. I haven’t seen them say anything to contradict it:
New. Ukraine “does not confirm or deny” airstrike on Belgorod oil depot: “Ukraine has been defending itself to resist aggression. Does not mean that Ukraine has responsibility for what happens in Russia,” says Colonel Oleksandr Motuzyanyk in briefing
— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) April 1, 2022
The reality is that it was most likely a strike by the Ukrainian Air Force. That is the simplest explanation. Could it be a Russian false flag? Sure. Why? I have no idea at this point.
What I think is going on is the strike made both military sense in terms of taking out some important physical infrastructure that the Russian military was relying on, but that it also makes sense in terms of the Information Warfare and Psychological Operations campaign that Ukraine is waging against Russia. Russia has been claiming they’ve destroyed the Ukrainian Air Force. That they’ve destroyed all 36 of Ukraine’s TB-2 Bayraktar drones. Ukraine only has twelve bayraktars and we have confirmation that the Russians have only killed three of them at most based on the reporting I’ve seen. By undertaking the strike the Ukrainians accomplished three things. The first is the tactical objective: they destroyed the fuel depot or a good chunk of it. The second is they just rubbed the Russians’ noses in the fact that Russia does not have air superiority. The third is that Ukraine has just demonstrated that the Ukrainian Air Force, both fixed wing and rotary wing, is still up, running, and effective.
I want to take a moment before we get to the jump and get to something that is both getting coverage, but that I also think is not being paid enough attention to: Russia’s destruction of Ukrainian granaries, theft of grain transport ships from Ukrainian ports, blockade of other countries’ grain transports trying to get to Ukrainian ports to pick up their cargo, and one of the intended effects of this anti-grain strategy. Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, stated:
Russia is blocking grain exports from Ukrainian ports with a naval blockade, said Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. He added that Russia is deliberately destroying Ukrainian granaries.
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is making it progressively more difficult for the country to export grain, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi said in a televised briefing Saturday, warning the situation is having a “dramatic” impact on global markets.
Ukraine’s grain shipments have dropped from 4 million to 5 million tons per month to a few hundred thousand, Solskyi said.
He said, “Every day the situation will become more and more difficult“ for the country’s grain exports if the war continues.
Ukraine was the world’s sixth-largest exporter of wheat in 2021 with a 10% share of the market, shipping 20 million tons of wheat and meslin (a mixture of wheat and rye), according to the United Nations, and the country is also one of the world’s top exporters of barley and sunflower seeds.
The U.N. predicted that somewhere between 20% to 30% of Ukraine’s crops would be left unharvested in the 2022-23 season due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
The drop in Ukraine’s grain exports could increase international food and feed prices by 8% to 22% above current levels, the U.N. said, which were already sharply elevated.
The result of Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine and the way it has targeted Ukraine’s agricultural sector is going to cause a massive shortage in grain. The Middle East, which has been suffering an extended drought for over a decade in the parts of Iraq and Syria that are both the region’s breadbasket and considered to be the birthplace of agriculture, as well as parts of Africa like the Maghreb and the Sahel are likely to be the most heavily effected regions. You know, places with a lot of political stability!
The agricultural crisis that Russia is causing, and they are going out of their way to exacerbate it beyond just what would have occurred from the reinvasion of Ukraine, is not just going to hit the Middle East and parts of Africa. It will drive up grain prices, as well as other food prices, all over the world. And the people and places that can least afford those increases are going to be in the global south. Domestic and regional political tensions are going to get more inflamed, people are going to starve, there is going to be a lot of damage.
My professional assessment is that this is an actual part of Putin’s strategy. Specifically, to cause a crippling rise in the price of grain and food prices leading to wider spread instability and famine. By doing so Putin increases the pressure on the US and our allies to pressure Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war before the Ukrainians have achieved a successful battlefield termination. Especially one that sets the conditions to negotiate a post war security agreement that secures the peace for Ukraine and prevent Russia from trying something like this again.
I know a lot of people are now convinced that Putin was not only never really much of a strategist, but that now he’s either irrational or ill or deluded and therefore there’s no coherent strategy here. As someone who has been watching Putin very effectively leverage every element of Russia’s national power except for military power over the past decade in his largely non-kinetic war against the US, the EU, and NATO, my honest take is that despite the hot mess we’ve seen of Russia’s military over the past month, the other elements of Russia’s national power are still much more effectively wielded. Creating a global food crisis, which is clearly what is going to happen, is an effective way for Putin to create leverage to try to force the US, the EU, NATO, and our non-EU and non-NATO allies to bring a premature end to Putin’s disastrous reinvasion of Ukraine in a way that let’s Putin save face, maintain possession of stolen Ukrainian territory, and then nurse his wounds while rebuilding to just start all over again.
It won’t be long before the Internet Research Agency and the other social media networks that Russia employs and manipulates are blasting out pictures of starving black and brown children and demanding to know why President Biden won’t do something to alleviate their suffering. That’s the next card in Putin’s Psychological Operations and Information Warfare deck to be played.
More after the jump.