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A Ukrainian serviceman gestures next to a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer before firing toward Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a position on a front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine November 15, 2023
Ukrainian troops fight for key bridgehead over the Dnipro
Ukrainian troops have crossed the vast Dnipro River and established a bridgehead on the eastern shore, a significant breakthrough after months of agonizingly slow progress in Kyiv’s counteroffensive. If they can hold – and it’s a big “if,” as a Russian regional official says “a fiery hell has been arranged” for Ukrainian troops – the largest geographic barrier on the road to Crimea will be at their backs.
The lay of the land: The Dnipro is the longest river in Europe, and flows in a gentle north-south curve along the entire length of Ukraine. It empties into the Black Sea just southwest of Kherson, which Ukrainian troops liberated a year ago, and controls access thence to the Crimean peninsula, a major symbolic and strategic objective for Kyiv.
Ukrainian troops appear to have secured control over a strip of riverfront between Kherson and the strategic village of Krynky about 24 miles east-northeast. Porting the heavy equipment they’ll need to keep up the attack across the Dnipro is challenging, with most of the bridges in the region long-since destroyed, but a temporary bridge near Krynky, where the Dnipro is narrowest, could change the equation.
Don’t expect a rapid breakthrough: Even if Ukrainian troops do manage to bring over the armor and weapons they need to advance, Russia has multiple lines of prepared defenses to fall back upon. There are no easy countermeasures to the minefields and long-range strikes that have stymied Ukrainian progress since the summer. That said, successfully pulling off one of the toughest maneuvers in modern warfare could represent a morale victory, challenging notions that the conflict has ossified into a “stalemate,” as Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhniy put it recently.A satellite image shows smoke billowing from a Russian Black Sea Navy HQ after a missile strike, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Sevastopol, Crimea, September 22, 2023.
Ukraine strikes Russian targets in Crimea
A rebellion among Republicans in the US House of Representatives is crystalizing a movement from some pro-Donald Trump conservatives to halt all US help for Kyiv. In a recent poll, just 41% of US respondents expressed support for military aid for Ukraine, down from 46% in May, with 35% opposed. And though leaders from 47 European countries issued a statement of support for Kyiv this week, Europe can’t make up for any financial and military shortfall if US support is suspended or significantly delayed. Ukraine’s failure so far to regain much territory from Russian forces has cast a pall over Western optimism.
And yet, Ukraine continues to use the weapons it already has to inflict serious damage on Russian forces in Crimea, the most hotly contested prize in the war. With both homemade drones and foreign-supplied cruise missiles, Ukraine has struck a number of important military targets in recent weeks. On Sept. 22, two Ukrainian missiles struck the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet during a meeting of senior officials. On Wednesday, Russia withdrew much of the Black Sea Fleet from its main base in Crimea to a port on the Russian mainland, perhaps over fears the vessels could not be protected.
It’s a reminder that even if US help is halted or delayed in the coming weeks – and that outcome isn’t yet clear – Ukraine still has the firepower to inflict heavy damage on Russian forces and morale as the war grinds on.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden greet President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the South Portico of the White House. Zelensky is meeting with Biden following his participation in the United Nations high-level meetings earlier this week.
Ukraine war sees escalation of weapons and words
After a week of high-stakes diplomacy, including stops in Washington, the UN General Assembly in New York, Ottawa, and Lublin, Poland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned home amid fresh conflict in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The situation on the Crimean peninsula intensified in recent days with Kyiv launching a series of missile attacks on the port city of Sevastopol. The first targeted Russia's Black Sea Fleet headquarters, where high-level officials of the Russian navy were meeting, and reportedly killed nine people. This comes after Ukraine recently struck a Russian submarine and landing strip in Sevastopol, a strategic hub for Russia’s navy and one of the largest cities on the Crimean peninsula. Ukraine has been upping its attacks on the peninsula over the past month, aiming to degrade Russia’s defense systems – including its much-lauded S-400 systems – and to undermine Russian morale.
Then on Sunday, Russian air strikes on the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson killed two people and injured several more. Ukraine’s air force claimed that Russia also carried out air attacks on the port city of Odessa and elsewhere in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, were reportedly carried out using Storm Shadow missiles, supplied to Ukraine by the UK and France, prompting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to accuse Western powers of "de facto fighting against us, using the hands and bodies of Ukrainians.” Russia is only going to be more enraged now that the US agreed to give Ukraine ATACMS, which would allow Kyiv to strike Russia well beyond the frontlines.
Elon Musk's Starlink cutoff controversy
I think it's a fascinating question. And it gets to a point of what I call a technopolar world, not unipolar, not bipolar, not multipolar, technopolar. In other words, for all of our lives, we've talked about a world where nation states, where governments are the principal actors with sovereignty over outcomes that matter critically for national security. Now, here you have the Russians invading Ukraine. One of the biggest challenges to the geopolitical order since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. And yet, a core decision about whether or not Ukraine will be able to defend itself is being made not by the United States or NATO providing the military support, but by a technology company. Now, the Ukrainian government is being quite critical of some of the decisions that Elon Musk has made in restricting the use for Starlink, for the Ukrainians.
I don't think that's fair criticism by itself. I think we need to recognize that Starlink's availability to the Ukrainians was absolutely essential in helping the government and the military leaders actually communicate with their soldiers on the front lines. And if it wasn't for Starlink, and if it wasn't for the role of many other technology companies, largely in the United States, not at all clear to me that Zelensky would still be in power today. Certainly the Ukrainians would have lost a lot more territory and they'd be in much worse position than they are. So I think that the Ukrainians still owe Elon a significant debt. But I also raise a much bigger question, which is, should an individual CEO, should an individual centibillionaire be making these decisions about outcomes of life and death for 44 million Ukrainians?
And they're the answer is much more concerning. Because, of course, Elon and all of these technology companies, they're not treaty signatories with NATO. They don't have any obligation to do anything other than Netflix and chill. And yet they're absolutely indispensable for national security in these countries as increasingly national security becomes a matter of not just what happens with bombs and rockets, but also what happens in the digital world, what happens in cyberspace, what happens in communications, in the collection of intelligence. As Elon and others become principal actors in a military industrial technological complex, accountability for those decisions is very deeply concerning if it's only in the hands of those individuals. Now, I think it's a little easier with SpaceX, because SpaceX is, after all, a company that is overwhelmingly funded by the US government, by the Pentagon and by NASA. And so ultimately, either legally through regulation or informally through pressure on the basis of providing those contracts, there is certainly a level of influence that the US government would be able to have over a SpaceX to ensure that Starlink is made available fully to the Ukrainians as US. and NATO's allies see fit.
Just as the American government would take vigorous exception if SpaceX and Starlink were suddenly having their technologies made available to American adversaries. Having said that, keep in mind that there is no other viable technology that is presently available. So, if it's not Starlink, it's nothing for the Ukrainians. And what about a country like Taiwan? Very concerned increasingly that we see the status quo on Taiwan eroding from the United States, as Biden says that he would defend Taiwan and as the Americans put export controls on TSMC, the semiconductor company, and from the Chinese side, as the Chinese keep sending over drones and aircraft to invade Taiwanese airspace. Well, if there were cyber attacks from mainland China into Taiwan, would Starlink be made available in Taiwan the way it has been in Ukraine, even though imperfectly in Ukraine? And the answer to that, I suspect, would be absolutely not, because it would prevent Elon Musk from doing effective business in mainland China, including Tesla. Would the Chinese use that leverage against Elon in a way that the American government had not been against SpaceX?
Absolutely they would. And so what does that mean? Does it mean that that just means Taiwan doesn't get that ability to defend itself? Or does the US government have to somehow, through force majeure, nationalize the technology and take it away from SpaceX or force SpaceX to provide Starlink to Taiwan? Or does the US government have to build its own alternative, where it has direct ownership of such a company and technology. Look, the fact is this is a very, very messy piece of geopolitical power where increasingly technology companies are acting as sovereigns. And until and unless those questions are answered, we are increasingly living in a technopolar world.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
Saudi-led peace talks on Ukraine
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. A Quick Take to kick off your week hot summer week.
And the Saudis are saying that they are going to host a broad peace conference on Ukraine this weekend. Lots to unpack here. First of all, the Ukrainians are going. It looks like the Americans are sending Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor. He's been back and forth to the kingdom a fair bit of late. And the Ukrainians are saying that these talks will be on the basis of the ten-point peace plan that they rolled out last year. Nothing particularly earth-shattering about that plan. Not a surprise they'd be okay with it. It is the Russians returning all the land.It is war reparations being paid by Russia. It is war crimes being fully investigated, prosecuted. None of which is acceptable to the Kremlin. But if the Saudis are hosting it, the Ukrainians are part of it, and everyone is invited - the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, the Europeans, but not the Russians. And what we seem to see is that the Russians haven't had communications directly with the Saudis on this, and instead you have the Kremlin spokesperson saying they're studying it. You know, they're of course, they want to be constructive. That's the official position. So we're going to see where this is going. It's pretty interesting.
I mean, on the first point, the United States is consistent with its public policy that there are no Ukraine negotiations without the Ukrainians in the lead, can't talk about any of this unless it is the Ukrainian plan.So that's basically the starting point for the weekend. Hard to imagine that that is all that is said coming out of the talks. In other words, very interesting to see, if not that the Ukrainians should be expected to negotiate against themselves, but rather in the context of their present counter-offensive. Do they say anything about Crimea and the fact that that can be staged, even though they're never going to say, “No, it's just your territory, Russia, you can take it.”Might there be willingness to say that the reparations that need to be paid can be paid by anybody doesn't have to come from Russia. So if the Europeans are providing the aid to reconstruct Ukraine, as long as the aid comes, I mean, I can see things that can come out of this weekend that would be constructive and that could be multilateral with full Ukrainian engagement. That in no way makes it feel that the Ukrainians are giving up the store or look weak or under massive international pressure. So that's the first important point here.
The second is that the Saudis, of course, have had a fantastic year, maybe the best trajectory in terms of governance on the international stage of any of the G-20, which is kind of shocking if you think about, you know, where they've been over the last few years. Massive popularity for Mohammed bin Salman among every young person, say, under 40 in the kingdom, most of the world happily engaging the Gulf Cooperation Council, much more consolidated with the Saudis than it had been over the past years. Yes, there have been some tensions with the UAE, but nothing like what we've seen with Qatar recently. I mean, Al Saud reaching out to Syria and getting them reengage the peace plan. China facilitated it with the Iranians and Saudi Arabia, strong relations between the Saudis and Netanyahu, maybe joining the Abraham Accords by the end of this year. And now the Saudis taking the lead on the most substantive to date, it looks like, high-level Ukrainian talks. So that's also worth watching.
But I think the biggest point here is that the West has had a big problem outside of NATO with the Global South because so far, the policy has basically been support the war to allow the Ukrainians to defend themselves, to get their territory back, but not having much credible to say on what eventual peace talks would look like. And if you're in the Global South, you know, you want to know who's trying to end this war, because this war is not in our interests and we know it, we of course, we believe in Ukrainian territorial integrity, but we'd really like to see food and fertilizer just like get back to the global marketplace and stop having, you know, all of this on our shoulders. And we have no interest in sanctions against Russia. Well, we're trying to do business with these people, as we always have. So the fact that we would now have the ability for the West working with at least some of the Global South in talking about negotiation puts a lot more pressure on Russia and improves the diplomatic position of NATO as a whole. And the timing is kind of critical here because, yes, the counteroffensive is now truly engaged in earnest probably for the next month or two.
But, you know, you want to be in a position to start negotiations when the West is strong and consolidated and when Ukraine is fully aligned with it, at least publicly. And that's probably going to be less true in, say, six-month time as the US political cycle plays out and there's more internal fighting over how much economic and humanitarian support Ukraine is going to get as the Europeans start seeing more opposition as that occurs. Right now it's mostly Hungary that can get railroaded by the other European Union states, but soon it may well end up being Czechia. I could see Italy potentially in that basket, you know, Slovakia, other countries, because the fiscal constraints are going to grow. And if the Americans aren't providing as much economic support, it's going to be harder for some of the Europeans, too. So you definitely want a position where you're talking about what negotiations could look like and either get the Russians involved, or isolate the Russians. But either way, a better position to be in, then you're only talking about war, and the war is getting less support even among your own population. So in that regard, what the Saudis are doing here seems very smart to me. I'm not at all surprised the Americans and Ukrainians are fully engaged. They've clearly been coordinating with them closely over the past weeks. And we will watch this weekend very carefully to see where it goes.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
Black Sea grain deal commercial vessels wait to pass the Bosphorus Strait near Istanbul, Turkey.
Russia kills Ukraine grain deal
On Monday, Russia confirmed that the Ukrainian grain deal was "suspended" after the last extension expired. The Kremlin did not give a reason, but the announcement occurred just hours after Moscow claimed that Ukraine had attacked the Kerch bridge connecting the Crimea peninsula to the Russian mainland. Kyiv has denied responsibility.
Although the Russian government denied a connection, this is almost an exact repeat of what happened last October, when Russia temporarily pulled out of the UN- and Turkey-brokered agreement to export Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea following a drone attack on the same bridge. The crossing has been of great symbolic value for the Russians since they annexed Crimea in 2014 and is a crucial artery to support its war effort in southern Ukraine.
Prior to the latest Kerch bridge attack, to extend the grain deal Russia had demanded more exports of ammonia (a key ingredient in fertilizer) and that the EU reconnect the Russian Agriculture Bank to SWIFT, the global electronic payments network. Neither happened before the deadline expired Monday.
The suspension is a very big deal for global food security. For one thing, it’ll disproportionately hurt Global South countries that are highly reliant on imports from the two sunflower superpowers and vulnerable to high food prices. Many of those nations are also Russia’s closest friends across the developing world, which gives Vladimir Putin a strong reason to agree to another extension in the coming days — as he ultimately did the last time the deal fell apart.Ukrainian servicemen fire a multiple launch rocket system toward Russian troops near a front line in Zaporizhzhia region.
Is Ukraine picking up the pace?
As we wrote three weeks ago, the single most important (realistic) objective of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian invaders is to persuade backers in Europe and the United States that Ukraine can make good use of more weapons, training, and money to finally win the war. The immediate hope shared in Kyiv, Washington, and European capitals is that in the coming months, Ukrainian forces can drive a wedge to the country’s southern coast, separating Russian forces in Crimea from those in the eastern Donbas region.
So far, progress has been slow. Even President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that battlefield progress has been “slower than desired,” though he adds sensibly that lasting victory, not quick victory, is the attainable goal.
In recent days, however, there are signs of more significant Ukrainian gains. Pro-Russian online activity reports that Ukrainian forces have crossed the Dnipro River in the Kherson region north of Crimea and established an important bridgehead that can bring more gains. On Tuesday, a UK defense ministry spokesperson called it “highly likely” that Ukraine has recaptured land in the eastern Donbas region that Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists have held since 2014. Zelensky has hinted at recent military progress too.
Is the counteroffensive truly gaining steam? It will probably be weeks before anyone can have confidence that gains can be sustained and will continue.
Ukraine dam sabotage: not enough evidence to speculate
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Is the destruction of the dam in Ukraine Nord Stream 2 all over again?
We don't know, and I would wait until we have some evidence before we announce who's behind this. It's not going to make much of a difference for the Ukrainian counteroffensive, this is not where the land bridge is most easily broken. So that's probably not an impact. It's also going to affect both a lot of Ukrainians and a lot of Russians on the ground. Maybe the biggest catastrophe is for Russians if they lose all of the access to fresh water for Crimea. So maybe you'd say the Ukrainians had more reason to do it, but if the Russians felt like they were like in desperate shape, it's possible they'd sabotage. I don't have a strong view here and I think we should wait till we have some evidence, kind of like we needed to on Nord Stream.
Does the near-collision between US and China warships signal a new era of competition for dominance in the Asia Pacific?
Well, sure, in the sense that both warships and jet fighters were having more near accidents, both the Americans and Chinese trying to convince the other side to back down, and that's not about to happen, and that's absent any high level military to military diplomacy, we've got economic coordination happening. A lot more policy meetings there. That's not going to help you if suddenly a couple of ships bang into each other and people die.
What are the wider implications for the LIV-PGA merger?
Well, I think that this is basically complete rehabilitation for Saudi Arabia. They're now in the post Khashoggi era. Just a year ago, less than a year ago, the commissioner of the PGA said that, "Can you imagine golfers having to apologize for what league they're a member of?" Well, obviously he's not feeling that way anymore. This is the Chinese doing a deal between the Saudis and the Iranians, the American president traveling over there. I would say that from a perspective of the global economy, the Saudis have, at this point, completely rehabilitated their brand. How people feel about that is going to be different depending on who you talk to. But certainly this is a very, very big move for the KSA and a lot of money speaks very loudly.