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Firefighters at the site of a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.
What We’re Watching: G7 stands up to Putin, Israel and Lebanon reach maritime deal, South Korea touts missile shield
The war grinds on
Following another day of sound and fury as Russia fired more missiles into Ukrainian cities on Tuesday, G7 leaders announced “undeterred and steadfast” military and financial support for Ukraine’s defense and warned Vladimir Putin’s government that any Russian use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be met with “severe consequences.” Ukrainian air defenses shot down some of Russia’s missiles on Tuesday, but Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told G7 leaders that more and better systems were an urgent priority. On Wednesday, Putin is expected to meet with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a security conference in Kazakhstan, and the Kremlin spokesman told reporters the two leaders might discuss the possibility of peace talks. So, in a week of dramatic images from Ukraine, what has really changed? Ukraine has proven it still has partisans inside Crimea that can inflict real damage on important Russian infrastructure. Putin has demonstrated that he’s willing to satisfy the demands of Russian nationalists to punish Ukrainian civilians, though he says the next steps will continue to be incremental. Russia’s dwindling stockpile of precision-guided missiles, which Western export controls will make hard to replace, dwindled further. And despite pleas for peace from foreign governments, neither Russia nor Ukraine has signaled any credible basis for compromise.
Lebanon-Israel deal is finally underwater
The two countries have reached a deal that ends decades of disagreement over where exactly their maritime border lies. The underlying issue, as it were, is the presence of vast untapped natural gas fields in the area. Those could be an economic and geopolitical boon for both sides, but particularly for Lebanon, which has endured years of financial crises and power shortages. Ambiguity over the border between the two countries, whose history of conflict dates back to the late 1970s, had hobbled major energy investments in the area until now. As recently as July, Israel shot down several Hezbollah drones that were flying over the area. Under the US-brokered agreement, Israel will maintain full control over one of the large gas fields in the area, while another will be split, but with Lebanon in charge of granting exploitation rights.
What We're Ignoring: South Korea's missile defense bravado
South Korea's military says it can detect the various types of missiles that North Korea has been on a rampage to test since the beginning of the year. But experts warn that even the US-developed THAAD missile defense system (which China doesn’t like one bit) might not be enough to stop some of Kim Jong Un's newest toys, including a new short-range nuclear-capable ballistic rocket and especially what Pyongyang claims is a hypersonic missile. What's more, if Kim were to attack, he'd do so by firing so many projectiles at the South that it wouldn't matter if a lot get intercepted because just a few of them could turn Seoul and other cities into a sea of flames. The North Koreans also have nuclear weapons, which would be almost impossible to shoot down if launched from such a short distance. We get that the South Koreans want to assure the people that they are prepared for an attack from their hostile neighbor, but claiming you've got the goods to repel a barrage of North Korean missiles will likely only make Kim want to beef up his arsenal even more.This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in St. Petersburg.
Russian revenge vs. Ukrainian resolve
Vladimir Putin responded on Monday to Kyiv's (alleged) involvement in blowing up part of the only bridge connecting Crimea to Russia by unleashing fire and fury against Ukrainian cities.
Although some feared that attacking Crimea would push Putin to go nuclear, his retaliation was swift but conventional — and somewhat measured in terms of the actual damage done by an aggressor capable of wanton bloodshed. Also, Russia’s president blamed the blast on Ukrainian "terrorism," not the West, which means he doesn’t want to pick a direct fight with NATO.
How did we get here? Will it be a turning point in the war? And what might Putin do next?
The symbolic and strategic importance of the Kerch Strait Bridge cannot be overstated — on both sides. For Russia, it was an engineering feat that solidified its control over the peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014 and is crucial for keeping military supply lines open between Crimea and the Russian mainland. For Ukraine, it was a painful reminder of that occupation and, above all, a legitimate military target.
Indeed, even only partial damage to the rail lines on the bridge might hurt Russia's ability to move troops and equipment back and forth. The only alternative is the hard-to-traverse "land bridge" through four Ukrainian regions recently annexed by the Kremlin, which could well become the next objective for Kyiv.
Still, the airstrikes are likely a one-off tactical response to a strategic setback. Putin’s domestic audience demanded a strong retaliation to the bridge blast, says Alex Brideau, Eurasia Group's lead Russia analyst. But beyond that, he adds, the Russians need to be practical: they're running low on precision weapons and can't sustain a prolonged airstrike campaign.
Putin is signaling two things with his response. First, “that he has the situation under control, which is important for him at a time when more people in Russia are questioning that," says Brideau. Second, he’s warning the Ukrainians that he's willing to escalate further. But what that means is unclear.
"He's being ambiguous about it. He's not giving the Ukrainians something specific to to think that they shouldn't try a particular thing because Putin would respond with something even more aggressive the next time around."
Putin, Brideau adds, has spent the last few weeks scrambling to demonstrate that whatever happens in Ukraine, he knows what to do next.
"The problem is that it's not clear just how much everybody still trusts him. They're not going to overthrow him or anything. But he has more convincing that he has to do now compared to before."
For Kyiv, the attack on the bridge was certainly worth the risk. "The Ukrainian perspective about the war has really hardened, especially after Putin's recent decision to annex four Ukrainian regions," Brideau says. "They don't have a lot to lose in being very forward that their attitude is to retake territory."
That explains why Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has gone from asking for direct talks with Putin to last week signing a decree ruling out direct negotiations with him. In other words, Zelensky knows that talking to Putin is a fool's errand: the Russian leader will not accept peace without taking territory or a stable security relationship with a sovereign Ukraine.
Russia's retaliation will give Ukrainians anything but pause in their resolve to win the war, says Brideau. Don't be surprised if there’s another attack on the bridge.
Putin is mistaken if he thinks he can scare Ukraine into capitulation, says Brideau. The airstrikes are "more likely to harden the public resolve that the war needs to be won on Ukrainian terms because people are going to blame Putin long before they're going to blame Zelensky for their problems."
They might also strengthen the Western resolve to support Ukraine and stand up to Russia. Images of Russian missile attacks on civilians in Ukrainian cities will hardly encourage the Europeans to push Ukraine to sue for peace.
For Brideau, further raids will only “solidify some of the trends that have been evident throughout the war: increasing Ukrainian unity domestically and this unity that we've seen between Europe and the US and other Western countries on what to do about it."
Finally, are we now closer to what US President Joe Biden would call Armageddon or to Putin asking for an off-ramp? There's nothing to indicate that the Russian leader is now more likely to use a tactical nuclear weapon than before. If anything, Putin's language referring to the bridge blast as terrorism likely means he leans more toward conventional responses than nukes.
"The chance of Russia using a nuclear weapon remains very low,” Brideau says. “The risk is not zero, but it is very low."
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