Before we dive into the Ukraine update, just a quick update from Tehran:
Dramatic scenes at the airport: "Elnaz, Ghahreman! Elnaz, Ghahreman!" Ghahreman means hero pic.twitter.com/fpxYYs8kGl
— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) October 19, 2022
I still can’t quite articulate it – it is percolating away in the back of my head – but something feels very different this time.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump (emphasis mine):
Dear Ukrainians!
Today was quite a fruitful day.
I met with the European Commissioner for Crisis Management. I thanked Mr. Lenarčič for all the assistance that was provided during the full-scale war. We discussed what other humanitarian needs of our people could be met with the help of our European friends. Of course, we touched on the situation with energy.
I spoke today with the President of Turkey. I thanked him for supporting our territorial integrity. We discussed the key security issues currently Ukraine and our entire region are facing. The key topics are efforts to further release our people from Russian captivity, defense cooperation, export of Ukrainian food.
I held negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece – he arrived on a visit to Kyiv for the third time since February 24. I thanked Greece for its support in the defense sector. We agreed to strengthen our cooperation in bilateral relations and at the level of the European Union, as well as at the level of NATO.
Tomorrow I will participate in the European Summit – I will contact my partners. The key topic, of course, is challenges to our energy, both Ukrainian and European. We will respond to the terrorist threat together.
Today, Andriy Yermak met with representatives of the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain at the Office and discussed the strengthening of our anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense.
We are working to guarantee the complete safety of the Ukrainian sky. We already have significant results: 233 Shahed UAVs and dozens of missiles were shot down during the month. Ten Iranian drones were destroyed today and this is only in the Kyiv direction. Another 11 Shahed UAVs were shot down thanks to the soldiers of the Pivden air command. Thanks guys for the great job!
There are results in other areas as well. But, unfortunately, there are also impacts. We have new damage to critical infrastructure. Today, three energy facilities were destroyed by the enemy.
Of course, we will do everything possible to restore the normal energy capabilities of our country. But it takes time. And this requires our joint efforts. Tomorrow they are needed even more than before.
There will be clarifications from the heads of regional administrations and government officials, but in general, it is necessary to be especially conscious of electricity consumption from 7 am tomorrow.
Please do not turn on unnecessary electrical appliances. Please limit your electricity consumption and use those appliances that consume a lot of energy. Tomorrow, it is very important that the consumption is as conscious as possible, and thus the schedules of stabilization blackouts will be shorter.
I held a general meeting on energy issues today – the Office, government, energy companies.
We are preparing for all possible scenarios in view of the winter season. We assume that Russian terror will be directed at energy facilities until, with the help of partners, we ensure the ability to shoot down 100% of enemy missiles and drones.
Separately, today I want to address our people in the temporarily occupied areas of southern and eastern Ukraine. In the near future, the occupiers will try to recruit men into their army. Everywhere is the same as in Donetsk and Luhansk. Please avoid it as much as you can. Try to leave the occupied territory.
If you cannot do this and find yourself in Russian military structures, at the first opportunity try to lay down your arms and come to Ukrainian positions. And most importantly, protect your life. And be sure to help our other people who are close to you. Our common task is to persevere. Stand against these weirdoes…
Russia avoided even the word “war” for six months, punished its own people with criminal cases for it, and now it declares martial law in the occupied territory.
The occupiers themselves brought the war to our land under their constant false pretense of alleged negotiations, and now they are signing some decrees cementing the war.
Well, what can I say? It’s just hysterics of the “Chekist comrades.” Hysterics, which will be greater the closer Russia’s defeat is.
In the evening, I signed another decree on awarding our soldiers. Seventy one servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were awarded state awards today.
I thank everyone who fights and works for Ukraine! I thank everyone who helps our defense!
And I would like to thank separately for the fact that it was the Ukrainian people who this year became the laureate of the special honor of the European Parliament – the Sakharov Prize. This award is given annually to those who have made the greatest contribution to the defense of democracy, human rights and European values. It is really important that all Ukrainian men and women – millions of our people who so bravely defend freedom were recognized in Europe this year.
Glory to our beautiful people!
Glory to Ukraine!
Putin decided to declare martial law in the Russian occupied territories of Ukraine, which is why President Zelenskyy is concerned that the Russian press gangs may quickly be put to work. And why he issued the guidance he did to any Ukrainians in those occupied territories impressed into Russian military service.
Putin says he's introducing martial law in the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions he annexed last month. This is portrayed as a technicality – he said it de facto already exists – but is a clear response to recent military setbacks as Ukraine's counteroffensive advances. pic.twitter.com/zTOanR1N1C
— max seddon (@maxseddon) October 19, 2022
Putin's not calling it martial law, but he's also introducing sweeping limitations in six Russian regions on the Ukrainian border and Crimea.
These include "mobilizing" the local economy for the war effort and strict limits on travel.https://t.co/CaBgM8mbEn
— max seddon (@maxseddon) October 19, 2022
The "other measures" could include, but not be limited to, sweeping censorship and wartime economic restrictions on things like "the free flow of goods, services, and funds," according to existing law.https://t.co/ak09nB0TfL
— max seddon (@maxseddon) October 19, 2022
Ukrainian SOF and the Ukrainian partisan underground are going to be busy…
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situation in Kherson:
NOTE: RU has accelerated evacuation of dependents and collaborators from Kherson, in apparent anticipation of a UKR offensive directed against the city. Reportage is limited to information disclosed this morning by the UKR General Staff. Updates will follow.
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 19, 2022
The Russians tried to bombard Kyiv again today:
Yeah!
5 out of 5 Russian missiles bound to hit Kyiv again have been intercepted today. https://t.co/AHFwQyBaOs— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 19, 2022
“All clear” in Kyiv.
Terrific work by @KpsZSU today.— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 19, 2022
And again this evening in Kyiv:
We in Kyiv just had a 5-minutes-long air raid alert time 😀
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 19, 2022
Today, the enemy attacked Ukraine with strategic aviation. Six X-101/X-555 cruise missiles were launched from Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers. Ukraine was also attacked by "Shahed-136" kamikaze drones.
The Air Force of Ukraine destroyed:
4 X-101 cruise missiles;
10 "Shahed-136" drones.— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) October 19, 2022
Anti-aircraft defense of the Air Force of Ukraine sends greetings to the occupiers 😁
🇺🇦 Glory to Ukraine!
☠️ Death to enemies! pic.twitter.com/m8bPYphrNE— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) October 19, 2022
Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!
Mary C. D. Hamilton (1915)
I want to finish with a few excerpts from a column – what I would call a key leader analysis – about Putin at Just Security. But before that I want to explain something. Two nights ago in the comments there were some pretty strong reactions to the excerpts of Politico’s interview with Fiona Hill. Based on them, and the responses to them, I think I need to clarify a couple of things. Dr. Hill has now done at least two stints as a political appointee in the US government. The most recent was as the Senior Director for Russia and Eastern Europe on the National Security Staff (NSS) of the National Security Council (NSC).
The first thing I want to correct is the assertion that she went to work for Ambassador Bolton. As everyone here knows, I’m not a fan of Bolton’s, but Dr. Hill did not go to work for Bolton. She was already in her appointment when Bolton replaced LTG (ret) McMaster. I have some small modicum of understanding of how LTG (ret) McMaster tried to square the National Security Staff and the National Security Council away when he took over for LTG (ret) Flynn. Specifically, in regard to appointment’s like Dr. Hill’s, he was looking for the best qualified, high performing, experienced subject matter experts he could get – a lot of subject matter experts were unwilling to work in the Trump administration – and place them in positions where they could do quality work on behalf of the American people regardless of their personal political and ideological preferences. Dr. Hill, regardless of who was president and regardless of which party held the presidency, is one of those people in regard to Putin and Russia. This does not mean that she is infallible or should not be criticized, but she was in that position because through hard work in education, as a scholar, and as an analyst she’d earned the right to be there.
One final note or caveat. There are basically two types of people with PhDs or one or more masters in various fields and significant expertise working in various places in the US government. There are those of us on various career tracks and there are those that go back and forth at very senior levels between government service and academia or the think tank world. There isn’t one path that is better than another, they’re just different. There is one major difference: those of us making a career – or in my case a second career – spend far more time overall working for and in the government than those that go back and forth. And that, as well as which part of the government we work for, does have an effect on how we understand our areas of expertise and, quite frankly, what the respective parts of the government we work for and in should be doing and how they should be doing it.
You don’t have to agree with any of our analyses of any particular issue – we’re not infallible – but a little less dismissiveness just because you don’t agree might be appropriate.
Moving on, and trust me the above will make sense in the context of moving on, here’s some excerpts from Douglas London’s column on Putin from Just Security. London had a 34 year career in the CIA’s clandestine service and is now a professor of intelligence studies at Georgetown.
Assessing whether Putin will resort to nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons – a question that took on new resonance as his regime has faltered even before the Kerch bridge attack — is no easy task. Policymakers would do well to remember three fundamentals that guide Putin’s decision-making: 1) he is the product of the 1970’s and 1980’s KGB and stood witness in then-East Germany in 1991, when the world as he knew it ceased to exist; 2) ego, survival, greed, and ambition direct his moral compass; and 3) he has come to believe his own propaganda.
As a Russian-speaking CIA operations officer who spent much of my career pursuing and countering Russian intelligence officers of Putin’s era, and those who would follow, I don’t expect his next steps will be guided by Clausewitz’s strategic military teachings, Sun Tzu’s enlightened pragmatism, or Machiavelli’s guidance for princes. Putin will pay little heed to the limited, practical, battlefield utility of nuclear or chemical weapons, or overly concern himself that prevailing winds might bring the fallout’s enduring harm to his own people. Putin’s logic is simple: It’s all about him, his court’s blind, obsequious obedience, and reasserting control. There are no rules, only consequences, that shape his calculus. In Putin’s mind, the rules of the post-World War II order were designed by an elitist West to restrain and humiliate his country (never mind that his country helped shape and long participated in that order and those rules), negating any obligation he has to respect them, or the words and treaties of his predecessors.
Putin will not look to his own military for counsel. There is no love lost between the Russian leader and his armed forces. A Cold War-era KGB officer, he was indoctrinated with profound mistrust in them. His micromanagement of Russia’s military campaign, disinterest in its catastrophic losses, and reliance instead on the Federal Security Service, or FSB, for his war in Chechnya and initial strategy in Ukraine, reflect this attitude.
The fact that Putin’s recent choice of General Sergei Surovikin as the first overall commander of the military campaign in Ukraine hails from Russia’s Air Force speaks more to this dynamic than the candidate’s brutal Syrian war record. We in the West might think it odd to appoint an Air Force officer for a campaign in which Russia’s manned aviation has been largely ineffective and its rocket forces and kamikaze drones — courtesy of Iran — are punishing civilian targets while producing limited military gains. But unlike Russian Army ground force commander Aleksandr Vladimirovich Dvornikov, another Russian general with a bloody reputation from Syria who was appointed in April to lead Russia’s fight in Ukraine only to be fired in June, the Air Force is a far less worrisome threat to Putin’s power. After all, tanks, soldiers, and guns are needed to storm the Kremlin, not planes, and the ground forces work for the Army, with problematic loyalty to an Air Force commander.
Indeed, if Putin is like others of his generation and profession — and his behavior suggests that he is — he will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons if he believes doing so is the only means to preserve his power as dissent increases within his own ranks and military options dwindle. For Putin, that translates into curbing Western support for Ukraine and demonstrating strength, control, and invincibility at home.
Even as the Soviet Union disappeared and the Russian Federation grew from its ashes, with dramatic societal and economic changes that altered its citizens’ lives for the better in the initial recovery from the devastating 1998 financial collapse, Russian intelligence officers emerging from the KGB’s demise behaved as if time had stopped in 1991. Their outlook and modus operandi were much the same as it had been during the Cold War. Russian agent recruitment operations still relied on, and indeed preferred, coercion and money to exploit the weaknesses and foibles of prey they believed easily intimidated, morally corrupted by progressive values, and inferior to themselves. Exploitable vulnerabilities and fear, Russian intelligence officers believed, offered better control over reporting sources than ideology.
To understand Putin, then, requires comprehending the mindset of a predatory intelligence officer. Putin is like a shark who must keep moving to survive. Only in his case, the reason Putin is an object constantly in motion is to outrun his failures, change the narrative in his favor, and keep adversaries at bay. He deals with misfortune by doubling down and redirecting energy into even more sensational initiatives. It is not in his nature to pause, reflect, and thoughtfully adjust to changing circumstances, or be influenced by experts he should respect. Rather, Putin prides himself on the ability to shift on the fly and go it alone, without ever showing weakness, let alone fear. Putin will therefore be inclined to charge ahead with whatever might overshadow his misfortunes and make others forget the burning houses left in his wake. But the more he blusters and threatens, the more we know Putin is struggling, weak, and threatened. A dangerous time, yes, but one that also offers opportunities for the West.
Putin’s threats should be taken seriously. But given how his military has performed in Ukraine, he is not likely to seriously seek a conventional war with NATO that he realizes would end poorly for him. That’s the very reason Russia officially adopted its nuclear first-use policy after the Cold War: in case Russia feels it is losing drastically in a conventional war. Dangerously, though, Putin counts on the West’s lack of stomach to bear such costs themselves and assumes the West would not retaliate in kind, therefore allowing him then to deescalate. Reckless as that might sound to the United States and its allies, it actually reflects Putin’s intelligence officer’s mindset, and that’s where the West must focus – he’s unlikely to act without leaving an escape route; appearances and the image he portrays is a critical component of his actions that allows for false posturing to conceal weakness.
Particularly worrisome is Russian messaging to normalize and justify Putin’s prospective use of a nuclear weapon. He’s certainly considering it; it would, after all, be reasonable to entertain and assess the utility of all the tools at his disposal. And I would not count on what ought to be a more logical aversion – that using nuclear weapons could cause pervasive harm not only to Russia’s people but also to its economy, damage that could include losing China’s support and that of India. The logic that holds that Putin would not risk losing his own extravagant wealth or undermining the country’s economic fortunes that underpin his internal support is our logic, not his. My experience with Russian intelligence officers is that they prize power and position over wealth. The former guarantees the latter.
Much, much more at the link!
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