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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin drinks tea
Russian nukes move into NATO’s backyard
Russia made good on its promise to move some of its nuclear arsenal to Belarus, putting Russian-controlled nuclear weapons on NATO’s doorstep.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country is hosting the nuclear weapons in response to Poland’s aggression. Over the last two weeks, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – who’s positioning himself as the national security candidate ahead of national elections in October – has sent thousands of troops to the border amid rising troop numbers and tensions.
But Russia and Belarus aren’t going to trigger the wrath of NATO lightly, and the transition of weapons, “appears to be largely a signal of strength to the West, rather than a preparation for their use,” says Alex Brideau, Eurasia Group’s Europe Head.
NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denounced Moscow’s move, but Brideau thinks the response that matters most – to Putin at least – is President Joe Biden’s. “Washington has been cautious in its responses since the February 2022 invasion," Brideau says, noting that “we haven't seen much in terms of concrete US actions to the Russian government's threats about the deployment or use of nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, the US Embassy issued a security warning yesterday, urging Americans in Belarus to leave the country immediately. The move appears to be motivated by rising tensions in the region, not the nukes. We will be watching to see whether Russia’s latest move is severe enough to harden Biden’s rhetoric.
How do you think the US should respond? Let us know what you’d do in Biden’s shoes here.
Don't count Yevgeny Prigozhin out
In late June, the oligarch, longtime Putin ally, and Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin shocked the world (and Vladimir Putin) when he marched his troops through Russia in what appeared to be a coup against Moscow. Although he backed down, Marie Yovanovitch, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, thinks the story is far from over.
"There are probably a number of different phases of the Prigozhin rebellion," Yovanovitch tells Ian Bremmer in the latest episode of GZERO World, "and we're not at the end of it yet."
So why hasn't Putin more brutally punished Prigozhin and his followers for insubordination? And how should the West take advantage of this internal strife within Russia?
Watch this episode: Ukraine's counteroffensive on the brink
And watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld and on US public television. Check local listings.
Why Russia is fighting in Ukraine without any allies
When it comes to the war in Ukraine, Russia stands alone.
From the Russian perspective, the Ukraine invasion is a battle for the survival of the country against NATO and the collective West, who, the Russia says, wants to destroy Russia and eliminate its influence around the world. But given the fact that virtually no allies have joined Russia in a fight it views as perfectly legitimate, does the Kremlin need a sense of reality and be more modest about what it thinks it can accomplish in the region?
On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and Kremlin ally, Dmitri Trenin, lays out the Russian view of the war and why the Kremlin feels it is fighting a war of existential importance.
“Russian is being ganged up against because of its determination to protect and defend its own national interest,” Trenin argues, “That’s how it’s seen.”
According to Trenin, Russia had no expectation of its formal allies, like Kazakhstan, picking up arms and fighting in Ukraine. The same goes for China, who Trenin says is major supporter of the Russian economy, but needs to protect its own interests militarily. Despite being increasingly isolated on the national stage, Trenin says that the stakes are so high, Russia will likely keep fighting until the bitter end.
“Either it protects its national security interest in Ukraine and wide in Europe’s east,” Trenin says, “Or the future of Russia will be very bleak.”
Watch the full interview on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on public television nationwide. Check local listings.
Russian tactical nukes in Belarus avoids direct escalation
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Trump arraigned, again. What's next?
I guess what's next is more cases. I mean, at the end of the day, I still think that the January 6th case, as well as the efforts to overturn the election outcome in Georgia are substantively more serious, at least in terms of what they will mean for people that do or don't decide to vote for Trump in a general election, assuming he gets the nomination, than how he mishandled classified documents and then lied to people around it. Especially because he doesn't really have a motive, aside from the fact that he's a child and thinks that he should have access to these documents. But I mean, the key point here is that we've got a justice overseeing the case that was appointed by Trump and will certainly be very, very favorable towards every delay the Trump lawyers want. So this is going to make lots of headlines, but is not going to move until after the nomination, probably not until after election. So again, it's a crazy thing to say, but he's more likely to get the nomination on the back of all this news than not.
Why is Russia planting tactical nukes in Belarus?
Well, I mean, it is one thing that they can do that implies symbolic pressure on the Ukrainians and on NATO and doesn't take significant direct escalatory steps that would threaten Russia. In other words, Putin understands that by making that move, he's dangerous, but he's not forcing NATO to do anything in response. Also, keep in mind, NATO's been escalating quite significantly over the past months, irrespective of Russia right now. I think that the Belarus issue is kind of a canard, it's not one of the serious headlines here. More serious is the dam getting blown up. More serious are F-16s eventually coming to the Ukrainians. More serious is how this counteroffensive goes and how much land the Ukrainians can take back. We'll watch that closely.
Is Serbia taking over sports?
I don't know. I mean, I thought Norway was for the beginning of the week, last week, especially when Ruud looked like he was going to take that first set at the French Open, but no, no. Now, with Jokić and Djokovic, it's true. It's got two big Serbs, and they're both very big Serbs. There's no question. I wouldn't say the Serbs are taking over sports, I'd say, "Congrats for a couple of big wins." I watched the French Open. It was cool to watch. And congratulations for someone who's been, politically, a little crazy, but plays tennis like nobody's business. I'm willing to differentiate those two things.
More unmanned attacks on the Kremlin?
In the latest episode of his public-access AMA show Putin' it Out There, Russia's president gets swarmed. #PUPPETREGIME
Watch more PUPPET REGIME!
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picture of Planet Earth.
Ukraine’s war and the non-Western world
A new poll provides more evidence that Western and non-Western countries just don’t agree on how best to respond to the war in Ukraine.
Most Americans and Europeans say their governments should help Ukraine repel Russian invaders. Many say Russia’s threat extends beyond Ukraine. People and leaders in non-Western countries mainly want the war to end as quickly as possible, even if Ukraine must surrender some of its land to Russia to bring peace.
That’s not necessarily the message you might take from a recent vote on this subject in the UN General Assembly. On Feb. 24, the invasion’s one-year anniversary, 141 countries voted to condemn the invasion and to demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally” withdraw from Ukraine. Thirty-two countries abstained. Just six – Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Nicaragua, and Mali – voted with Russia against the motion.
But it’s one thing to denounce the invasion. It’s another to arm Ukraine and sanction Russia.
Among the 32 countries that abstained – a group led by China, India, South Africa, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and others – and even in states like Brazil and Turkey that voted with the majority, there is deep resistance to the Western approach to the war. The reasons vary by region and country, but their argument with the West can be grouped into three broad categories.
First, the US and Europe, they say, are prolonging this costly war at a time when world leaders must turn their attention and focus their nation’s resources on other urgent global threats.
As India’s President Narendra Modi said this week in his role as chair of this year’s G20 summit: “After years of progress, we are at risk today of moving back on the sustainable development goals. Many developing countries are struggling with unsustainable debts while trying to ensure food and energy security. They are also most affected by global warming caused by richer countries. This is why India's G20 presidency has tried to give a voice to the Global South.”
It’s noteworthy that Modi delivered these comments in English.
In other words, the longer the war in Ukraine continues, the longer world leaders will be distracted from other challenges and the fewer resources they’ll have left to meet them.
Second, what gives Europeans and Americans the right, some ask, to decide which wars are legitimate and who is guilty of imperialist behavior? The US says Russia launched an invasion under false pretenses, but memories of Americans hunting Iraq for weapons of mass destruction bolster charges of hypocrisy. Many Latin Americans remember that Cold War-era Western crusades against Russian Communism included support for brutal dictatorship in their countries. Many in Africa and the Middle East who live in states whose borders were drawn by Europeans reject European appeals to defend Ukraine against imperialism.
Third, many developing countries value the chance to buy Russian energy and food exports at bargain prices. Western refusal to buy Russian products has given many poorer states the chance to fuel their recovery in this way, and their governments are well aware that any bid to remove these products completely from markets would cut deeply into global supplies, driving world food and fuel prices to dangerous new highs. Many of these countries need post-COVID economic lifelines and continuing to do business with Russia, especially on newly favorable terms, can help.
Americans and Europeans can make counterarguments in all these areas, but leaders and poll respondents in non-Western countries continue to warn that Western governments can’t expect others to share the sacrifices they claim are needed to resolve Western problems.
Should Western governments worry? The US and Europe will continue to supply Ukraine and sanction Russia with or without help from others. But if Western leaders want to effectively isolate Russia, both economically and diplomatically, reluctance and resistance from non-Western countries will limit how much they can hope to accomplish and how quickly.
China-US tensions over COVID origins & Russia's war
But a couple of points here. First, this lab-leak concept was one that would get you banned on social media if you came out with it a year ago. And it just goes to show how you can have a dominant narrative that gets picked up politically and suddenly no one's allowed to ask questions anymore. That doesn't make it a conspiracy theory, it means that people are still trying to understand where it is, what's going on. There was so much that was uncertain about this disease in the early days. One of the things that annoyed me about Fauci, who I've interviewed a couple of times myself, gotten to know him a bit, is the fact that he came out feeling like he was so certain in some of his early communications, on things that he obviously wasn't certain about, and ended up undermining and de-legitimizing science and the medical community in the US in a way that we really cannot afford to do so.
Saying you don't know something is okay. I mean, back last May, I published the fact that I had no idea if it came from a lab or if it came from a wet market. What was clear to me is that it was getting politicized. What was clear from the scientific community is that the disease had not been bioengineered, that it was an accident that it came out. What was also clear is the Chinese lied to their own citizens and internationally, about the virus's origins, when they knew that there was human-human transmission. They lied to the WHO, the World Health Organization, and as a consequence, it was much worse for everyone. And they're still not allowing the WHO or others to investigate appropriately the origins. The fact that the country that the virus came from is not willing to be transparent with the global scientific community. I mean, thankfully there were a bunch of doctors and scientists in China that had humanity and said, "We got to get this out no matter what." Or it would've been even worse.
But it's an enormous problem when politics intervenes in what needs to be just a follow-the-science situation. And that's true on climate, it's true on the pandemic, it's true in so many areas of the world. And in that regard, we haven't changed much at all from today through the beginnings of the pandemic. This, of course, is going to make the Americans feel tougher about relations with China. That is also true on the back of China embracing, welcoming Belarus President/Dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, completely illegitimate leader of that country, using all sorts of repression and force against his own domestic opposition. No free press of course. Again, not surprising for the Chinese at all, but one of Russia's key allies, this on the back of Wang Yi visiting Moscow, and what I expect, relatively soon, will be an announcement that Xi Jinping is going to Moscow. There is a greater comfort of these two countries working more closely together.
Does that mean that the Chinese will provide weapons directly for Russia? I don't think so. I think that's indeed why the Americans put the Chinese on notice. They had intelligence that the Chinese were considering sending drones over. The UK, the NATO Secretary General, also making those statements very strongly. The Europeans and the Americans would have a very different reaction if the Chinese decided to go ahead and put those weapons forward. Now diplomatically, what the Chinese have been saying to the Europeans behind closed doors is, "Look, you guys are providing all these weapons. You're escalating. We are showing restraint." Having said that, if you want to call BS on what the Chinese are saying, you say, "Look, a majority of the world's countries recognize, and have recognized for three straight General Assembly resolutions, that this is an illegal invasion that needs to be condemned and ended immediately. The Chinese have decided that they're going to be neutral and abstain. But most of the world's countries, even the Global South, do not agree with China on this.
That's important, because if the Chinese were to provide weapons to the country that actually invaded, illegally, against the will of the General Assembly, the Chinese are putting themselves in the position of supporting a rogue state. And that is not a position China wants to be in. Not a country that needs economic support and integration from all of the world, not just countries they dominate economically. So I believe that the Chinese may have been fooling around with the idea of providing some weapons to Russia, may have been floating that because they wanted more influence with their own 12-point peace deal. But I would be very surprised if they proceed in providing that support. That's a good thing, in the context of US-China news that right now have very few positive headlines that we're talking about.
So that's it for me. Hope everyone's well, I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Photo composite of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping
What We’re Watching: China’s budding diplomacy, Biden’s border control, Russia’s big plans
What’s next for Russia & China?
Russia and China broadcast their friendship to the world on Wednesday as the West freaked out about the possibility of Beijing turning to arm Moscow’s troops in Ukraine. After meeting Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin said that strong Russia-China ties are “important for stabilizing the international situation.” (A tad rich coming from the guy who upended geopolitics by invading Ukraine a year ago.) Putin also confirmed that Xi Jinping would visit Moscow for a summit in the coming months. Wang, for his part, clarified that while their famous partnership “without limits” is not directed against any other nation, it certainly should not be subject to external pressure. He said both countries support “multipolarity and democratization of international relations” – in other words, not a US-led liberal international order. Still, no matter what Western governments say, the Chinese are not so willing to break ties with the US and its allies, mainly because Beijing's trade relations are too important. Meanwhile, we wonder whether the current status of the Russia-China relationship — friends with benefits but complicated — will blossom into a marriage (of convenience) or end in a bad breakup. What we know for sure is that China is getting more involved in the Ukraine conflict generally. Learn more here.
Biden’s tough new move on immigration
The Biden administration this week unveiled a new hardline immigration plan that will likely come into effect after the current pandemic-era immigration policy, known as Title 42, lapses on May 11. It would then stay in place for two years. Under the measure, first revealed last month, asylum-seekers who cross the US southern border illegally or who fail to apply for asylum in the first country they cross through will be banned from applying for asylum in America. This comes after Biden’s team last month introduced a new policy, whereby migrants from Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, in addition to Venezuela, would be eligible for “parole” – meaning temporary two-year work visas – only if they apply for asylum from outside the US and if they have a US sponsor. The new plan mirrors a similar policy introduced by former President Donald Trump that was ultimately blocked by the courts. Rights groups, citing a potential threat to humanitarian protections, say they will seek legal action again. Biden has been struggling to contain an uptick in migrants arriving at the southern border in recent months – and the subsequent political backlash. But this plan will infuriate the left flank of the Democratic Party whose support Biden needs as the 2024 presidential race gets underway.