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UN Chief: Urgent global problems can't be fixed until Ukraine war ends
One of the biggest questions ahead of this year's annual UN General Assembly (UNGA) week of high-level meetings is how much time will be spent talking about Ukraine. The war dominated last year’s UNGA, but much of the developing world, including many of the African nations that make up the Global South, want to shift the focus to getting international development back on track--to talking about debt relief and increasing access to financing. They want to see real progress on the much-vaunted “Sustainable Development Goals” that member nations have vowed to accomplish by 2030. What they don’t want to do is to spend the entire week talking about a distant European war.
In an exclusive interview with GZERO World, UN Secretary-General António Guterres assures Ian Bremmer that global development will be front and center at this year's summit. And yet, he also says that "the single most important thing is to have peace in Ukraine....The war in Ukraine is a complicating actor in everything else. And so, the first thing that we need is to stop that war."
It remains to be seen if the Ukraine war will suck all the oxygen out of the room, and if member nations can agree on which urgent global challenges to tackle first.
For the full interview, tune into GZERO World with Ian Bremmerat gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
- How a war-distracted world staves off irreversible damage ›
- Will Europe lead on climate action? António Guterres sees signs of hope ›
- António Guterres: Ukraine war united NATO, but further divided the world ›
- Podcast: How we avoid irreversible damage & "total disaster": The UN chief's warning for a world experiencing multiple crises ›
Ukrainian servicemen attend a training to use drones in Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine tries to wreck Russian morale
Ukrainian drones reportedly hit a Russian super bomber at the Soltsy-2 base outside St. Petersburg, which is a significant 400 miles (650 km) from the Ukrainian border. The Soviet-era bomber, used to carry long-range missiles, has been used throughout the war to flatten Ukrainian cities.
While this lone attack is unlikely to alter Russia’s air capabilities, it is a boon for Kyiv for a few reasons.
First, it reinforces Ukraine's ability to strike the Kremlin’s military targets well inside Russian territory. Importantly, it comes amid reports that US officials are increasingly pessimistic about the state of Ukraine’s counteroffensive – and occurs just weeks before President Joe Biden will need Congress to renew a funding package for Ukraine. Kyiv, for its part, needs to continue to prove that the vast investment is worth it.
What’s more, images of Russia being hit at home give more ammunition to the hardline military bloggers who continue to criticize the Russian military leadership for incompetence and for not hitting Ukraine hard enough. Undercutting Russian morale to destabilize Russia’s armed forces and political echelon has proven to be a key tactic for Ukraine in recent months. Still, Kyiv will need to sow deeper divisions and chaos to wreak havoc within Russian military units in a way that will truly impact the battlefield.
Russian President Vladimir Putin against the backdrop of NATO, Ukrainian and US flags.
No, the US didn’t “provoke” the war in Ukraine
Is the US to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
That’s what Jeffrey Sachs thinks. In a recent op-ed titled “The War in Ukraine Was Provoked,” the Columbia University professor – a man I’ve known and respected for a solid 25 years, who was once hailed as “the most important economist in the world” and who’s played a leading role in the fight against global poverty – argues that the United States is responsible for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine 15 months ago.
This claim is morally challenged and factually wrong, but it is not a fringe view. Many other prominent figures such as political scientist John Mearsheimer, billionaire Elon Musk, conservative media star Tucker Carlson, and even Pope Francis have made similar assertions, echoing the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is but a victim of Western imperialism.
This strain of Putin apologia has taken root in China, pockets of the US far left and far right, and much of the developing world, making it all the more important to debunk it once and for all.
You don’t own me
Sachs’s first big claim is that the US provoked Russia through its “intention to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia in order to surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO countries.” According to him, this betrayed a promise allegedly made in 1990 by US officials to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would never expand eastward. There are several issues to unpack here.
First, it’s a myth that the last Soviet president was guaranteed a permanent buffer zone between Europe and Russia back in 1990. Declassified transcripts from the talks show that neither Gorbachev nor other Soviet officials ever raised the prospect of NATO accession for Warsaw Pact countries, and Gorbachev himself denied that the West had ever committed to anything about NATO expansion beyond Germany.
Second, as a voluntary association, NATO has no unilateral ability to “expand” – and it has always been reluctant to do so. But Central and Eastern European states have agency, and they demanded to join NATO to protect themselves from Russian aggression despite initial objections from NATO members. It was the Ukrainian people – not officials in Washington and Brussels – that voted in 2019 to enshrine NATO and European Union membership as national goals, largely as a response to Russia’s threats (on which Putin has acted). Far from being pushed or imposed by the US and its allies, NATO enlargement was actively sought by Eastern European countries, which had to actively convince members to accept them.
Third, NATO enlargement never posed a military threat to Russia. The 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, a mutually agreed roadmap for cooperation between NATO and Russia, reflected the alliance’s strictly defensive nature. From 1997 until Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, NATO deployed no nuclear weapons and almost no combat forces on the territory of its new members. Putin himself expressed no concerns about enlargement in 2002 when the process was underway.
Fourth, despite Ukrainian aspirations, NATO membership was never a realistic prospect for Ukraine. While it’s true that at the Bucharest NATO Summit in 2008, NATO promised Ukraine and Georgia accession at some indeterminate time in the future, it didn’t offer a roadmap for it. Indeed, when Ukraine applied for a NATO Membership Action Plan, NATO members rejected the application. The prospect of Ukrainian accession died a second death after the Russian invasion in 2014, as the alliance had little appetite to go to war with Russia. On the eve of the 2022 invasion, Ukraine was no closer to actually joining NATO than it was during the 2008 Bucharest summit 14 years prior.
Putin’s beef with Ukraine has never been about NATO “encirclement,” as evidenced by his muted reaction to the Baltics’ accession in 2004 and Finland’s last month. Rather, it’s always been about Ukrainian sovereignty. He invaded because he doesn’t think Ukraine is a legitimate country with a right to exist separate from Russia. We know this because Putin himself has repeatedly told us that the war’s aim is to reverse Ukrainian independence and recreate the Russian empire. That’s why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s pledge not to join NATO just before the invasion didn’t stop the tanks from rolling in – and why nothing he could have plausibly offered would have.
We didn’t start the fire
Sachs’s second claim is that the US further provoked Russia and actually started the war when it “[installed] a Russophobic regime in Ukraine by the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014.” This one is problematic as well.
For starters, the US did not orchestrate the Euromaidan protests. They started organically when, under pressure from Moscow, Yanukovych refused to sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement – which had passed the Ukrainian parliament with a large majority and enjoyed broad support among the population. They had nothing to do with the US or NATO accession, and participation was mostly limited to students. Only after Yanukovych ordered the police to brutally beat the peaceful protesters and passed “dictatorship laws” curtailing freedom of press and assembly did the demonstrations turn massive.
Likewise, the US didn’t force Yanukovych to direct his security forces to shoot protesters, killing over 100 and triggering the Revolution of Dignity. Nor did Washington push him to try to create a separatist republic in Kharkiv before fleeing to Russia with a reported $1 billion in cash stolen from the central bank’s reserves. It was the Moscow-supported Yanukovych who chose to pull away from the EU, kill protesters, and try to split his country. In the end, his “violent overthrow” was achieved through a peaceful vote to oust him by more than two-thirds of the Ukrainian parliament.
Where I do agree with Sachs is that the war started nine years ago – not when Yanukovych was overthrown by his own people, but when Russia sent “little green men” to take control of the Donbas and illegally annexed Crimea.
If I could turn back time
Nothing the US, NATO, or Ukraine did or didn't do caused Russia to launch a war of aggression against its neighbor. Putin chose to do this, and the responsibility is his and his alone. Having said that, it’s clear in hindsight that the US and its allies did make a number of missteps that made Putin’s decision more likely.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the West left Russia behind. Instead of making its prosperity, partnership, and cooperation a top priority like they did with the defeated Germans and Japanese after World War II, Americans and Europeans largely ignored Russia. There was no Marshall Plan for Russian reconstruction, no real effort to help Russia transition to a democratic market economy, to integrate it into the US-led global order, or to give it a proper stake in the European security architecture. Passing on the chance to turn Russia into another post-war Germany or Japan was a huge missed opportunity.
The West then failed to anticipate that the EU’s and NATO's eastward expansion would enhance Russia's threat perception in their backyard, something Russian officials in the early 1990s made clear and key US officials seemed to understand at the time. Even though no promise not to expand was ever made and it was the former Warsaw Pact countries themselves that demanded to join these organizations to safeguard their sovereignty from Russian threats, the West should have foreseen that this would feed Russia’s already acute sense of insecurity and humiliation.
Finally, the West failed to respond forcefully to previous Russian aggressions. When Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, the West did nothing. When Russia then invaded eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014, the West did pitifully little. This inaction was also a breach of a promise the US and the UK made in 1994 to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity – a promise that got Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons and make itself vulnerable to aggression in the first place. By failing to act in 2008 and 2014 (and by setting an example of disregard for international law in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan), the West gave Russia good reasons to believe that it could get away with invading Ukraine a second time.
Maybe if the West hadn’t made these missteps, Russia wouldn’t be a rogue regime with imperial designs and a chip on its shoulder. Maybe it still would. Either way, nothing the West did or didn’t do forced Putin’s hand. The blame lies entirely with him.
U.S. President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during an unannounced visit, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Can the US keep Europe together?
Just days out from the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden is making a splash in Europe. After a surprise stop in Kyiv on Monday, Biden is now in Poland, where he is expected to give a formal address at the Royal Castle gardens in Warsaw on the global state of democracy. He's also set to meet a group of nine eastern European leaders.
Biden’s trip comes amid growing fears in the region of both an imminent military escalation in Ukraine and concern for how long European cohesion on supporting Kyiv will last. This view was reinforced when Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently said: “We must admit that it will be a big challenge to keep the EU member countries enthusiastic.”
Over the past year, there’s been much attention on how a united Europe has served as a crucial punitive force against Russia. But as the war lingers, anxiety is growing about whether deviating interests within Europe could, over time, splinter its war response.
First, what are the differing views within the European camp? Post-Soviet states, like the three Baltic nations, as well as fearful neighbors – like the Scandinavian and Balkan countries – have adopted a hawkish Russia stance. They know what it’s like to live under the fist of an oppressive Soviet state or to be bullied by an expansionist Russia. Crucially, Poland, which has emerged as an anchor for Eastern European unity, recalls all too well how the country was carved up in 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Fearful of Russia's imperialist aspirations, Warsaw has been channeling its fears by upping its defense budget.
But the view is very different from much of Central and Western Europe — particularly Germany, which, in the post-Cold War years intertwined its economy with Russia’s. The same is true for other EU countries, including Italy and Austria. This economic interdependence has at times slowed some states from adopting the same full-throttled anti-Russia stance as those who feel more directly threatened by Moscow.
“There are many cleavages between Eastern European countries, the Baltic states, and Western European countries,” says Engjellushe Morina, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Eastern Europeans and Baltics have different expectations of European unity because they live right next door to Russia.”
As the war in Ukraine metastasizes, there’s increasing fear among Eastern European states that the rest of Europe, reeling from inflation and other domestic crises (the French right now … ils sont malheureux!), will lose patience with the West’s maximum pressure campaign.
But this would appear to counter a dominant view that Eastern Europe’s clout has grown since the war broke out: “Our voice is now louder and more heard,” Romania’s foreign minister said recently. What’s more, some analysts have credited the bloc’s powerful advocacy with having pushed the Biden administration – followed by European heavyweights – to give Ukraine heavier military equipment.
A divided East. But while Eastern European leaders may have played a more prominent role in leading the charge in recent months – compared, for instance, to 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea – varying priorities impede the bloc from presenting a united front.
Consider that Poland, for its part, abhors the Kremlin and has taken in more Ukrainian refugees than any other country, while Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban, long cozy with Moscow, said this week that he would not break ties with Russia. Serbia is closely aligned with the Kremlin and has not joined NATO, choosing to maintain a neutral defense posture, while Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia are NATO members. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has warned that Bosnia and Herzegovina and Moldova are vulnerable to Russian interference.
Another limiting factor is that the Eastern Europeans don’t have the goods. Estonian PM Kaja Kallas acknowledged this recently when she said, “it’s very easy for me to say … ‘Of course, give fighter jets [to Ukraine] but — I don’t have them.” Likewise, while Poland has called for NATO members to send Kyiv fighter jets, it said that its stockpiles are limited and it needs Washington to lead the way. And even when they do have the goods, Europe's eastern flank often can’t send them to third parties without getting the go-ahead from the heavyweights that produced them. This dynamic was highlighted in recent months when Ukraine pushed for the US, the UK, and Germany to send advanced battle tanks, paving the way for other European allies to do the same.
America's job. As the war passes the one-year mark, the endurance of a united Europe on Ukraine will continue to depend on how well the US can keep the group in check. Why? Because no Europeans seem up to the task.
“There are no European leaders to maintain this unity,” Morina says, adding, “we don‘t see any powerful European countries like France or Germany taking the lead.”
Local woman cries as she prepares to enter an evacuation train from Kherson, Ukraine.
What We’re Watching: Kherson evacuation, China’s flex in Taiwan, botched bomb plot in Brasilia
A bloody few days in Ukraine and Russia
Three Russian service members were killed by what Moscow claimed was falling debris inside Russia on Monday after a Ukrainian drone was shot down over the Engels military base about 400 miles from the Ukrainian border. It’s the second time in a month that Ukraine has targeted that base, which Kyiv says the Kremlin is using as a launching pad for missile attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. The incident is problematic for President Vladimir Putin, who has long tried to reassure Russians that the war won’t be coming home or impacting their everyday lives – a narrative that’s harder to sell when deadly drones are flying inside Russian airspace. The timing was also embarrassing for Putin, who was hosting leaders from former Soviet republics when the attack occurred. While Kyiv has mostly been on a high since President Volodymyr Zelensky’s successful trip to Washington, DC, last week, it was also a bloody weekend for Ukraine: Russia pummeled the southern city of Kherson on Christmas Eve, leading to at least 10 deaths and scores of injuries. Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities are urging residents to evacuate the city in preparation for what's still to come.
China’s muscle flex in the Taiwan Strait
China sent 71 warplanes and seven ships towards Taiwan in a 24-hour period, marking the largest show of force by Beijing in the Taiwan Strait in months. Taipei claimed that 47 Chinese aircraft crossed the median line, an unofficial buffer between the two states. Analysts say that Beijing’s muscle flex was largely a response to a spending bill passed by the US Congress in recent days, which boosted security assistance for Taiwan, including fast-tracking Taipei’s access to weapons procurement. Beijing was predictably peeved by the development, accusing Washington and Taipei of provocations. In response, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen announced that mandatory national military service would be increased from four months to one year. Indeed, this was the biggest show of force in the Taiwan Strait by Beijing since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the disputed island in the summer, prompting an aggressive naval and aerial response from China. Still, the last thing President Xi Jinping wants right now is an escalation with the US, given that he’s grappling with a medical emergency and an overwhelmed healthcare system as his government abandons its zero-COVID policy.
Brasilia bomb plot
Just days out from the inauguration of Brazil’s incoming President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, police in Brasilia found an explosive device attached to a truck tanker outside the capital’s international airport. One person has been arrested in connection with the botched bomb plot (the device reportedly failed to detonate as planned.) A large stash of weapons, ammo, and other explosive devices were also found at the rented apartment of the suspect – a staunch supporter of outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. In recent weeks, the alleged bomb plotter had traveled from out of town to participate in protests outside the military headquarters in Brasilia in hopes of wreaking havoc and prompting the military to declare a state of emergency that would upend Lula’s swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 1. What’s more, police say this was part of a series of planned attacks around the capital and that other suspects will soon be arrested. While Lula says he is committed to bringing the deeply polarized country together and declared in his victory speech on Oct. 30 that “there are not two Brazils," Bolsonaro supporters are determined to stop left- wing Lula from taking office, going so far as to attempt storming police headquarters in Brasilia in recent weeks. Bolsonaro, for his part, still refuses to concede the election, so we'll be watching to see how high the temperatures rise.Ethiopian government representative Redwan Hussien and Tigray delegate Getachew Reda attend signing of the AU-led negotiations to resolve the conflict in northern Ethiopia.
What We’re Watching: Ethiopian peace deal, Russia’s grain U-turn, Kim Jong Un’s wrath, China’s production woes
Peace at last in Ethiopia?
The government of Ethiopia and rebels from the Tigray region agreed on Wednesday to “permanently” end their civil war. The conflict, which began in late 2020 as Tigrayan forces sought more autonomy from the central government, spiraled into a brutal war that displaced millions, drew in forces from neighboring Eritrea, brought parts of the country to the brink of famine, and led to possible war crimes on both sides. The precise terms of the peace agreement, reached during African Union-brokered peace talks in South Africa, aren’t yet clear, but former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who oversaw the negotiations, said the sides had pledged to put down their weapons, restore “law and order” and open full access to humanitarian aid. One big wildcard? Eritrea, which was not involved in the talks but has its own security interests and territorial claims along its border with Tigray.
Rare good news from Ukraine
Russia has (again) reversed itself on a deal allowing Ukrainian food exports to cross the Black Sea toward international markets, this time by reaffirming its support for safe passage. This is great news for developing countries, particularly in Africa, that badly need affordable food supplies at a time of economic hardship. Under the rules of the July deal brokered by the UN and Turkey, Ukrainian grain and sunflower oil may leave Ukrainian ports and proceed through an agreed-upon maritime corridor. The ships are then inspected in Turkey to ensure they’re not carrying weapons. After a drone attack on Russian ships in the Black Sea, Russia retaliated on Saturday by announcing it would no longer support the deal. But, apparently to the Kremlin’s surprise, the ships continued their journey, essentially daring Russia to sink ships carrying food. Its bluff called, Moscow announced on Wednesday that it would continue to support the deal after all. The original agreement expires on November 19, and many have wondered whether Russia would renew it. This latest reversal suggests Moscow now understands it has little to gain by opposing it.
North Korean missile first
Supreme leader Kim Jong Un hates being ignored. To demand attention, North Korea let off its largest-ever, one-day barrage of missiles on Wednesday, firing 23 ballistics into the sea. One landed a mere 40 miles from the South Korean shore, the closest coastal near-miss since the peninsula was divided in 1945. The move came just as the US and South Korea began large-scale joint military drills, which drive Pyongyang up the wall and prompted it to threaten “powerful follow-up measures.” In response, South Korea flipped on air raid sirens, canceled commercial flights to Japan, and fired a volley of its own missiles northward into the sea. North Korea has conducted a record number of ballistic missiles this year in defiance of international sanctions. Talks between the US and North Korea on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons, meanwhile, remain in a deep freeze, and Wednesday’s barrage follows reports that Kim may be preparing his first nuclear weapon test since 2017.
Update: On Thursday, North Korea launched a suspected ICBM, which flew 472 miles before landing in the sea. The test likely failed but prompted a rare emergency alert in northern Japan.
Chinese manufacturing in chaos
China’s manufacturing sector is in a tailspin this week after several large production lines were shut down due to the country’s restrictive zero-COVID policy. On Wednesday, mass lockdowns in the industrial city of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, caused several electronic factories to shutter, including Foxconn, one of the manufacturing hubs for iPhones that employs around 200,000 workers. Shortly after, Nio, an electric vehicle manufacturer, announced it was stopping operations at two factories in eastern Anhui province due to supply-chain kinks that have left it short of crucial parts. Some of Nio’s vehicles are bound for European markets that are already facing sky-high prices for cars and other commodities. While many predicted that President Xi Jinping would relax the country’s zero-COVID policy after October’s Chinese Communist Party’s National Congress, so far he’s doubled down on it. Crucially, the timing of this, just weeks before the holiday season, could not be worse for Big Tech or consumers.Is US support for Ukraine waning?
Republicans and Democrats disagree on pretty much everything these days, yet they’ve shown remarkable unity to date on one issue: Ukraine.
But as midterm elections loom, the winds are changing in Washington, D.C., where an increasing number of legislators on both sides of the aisle – particularly Republicans – have warned that the days of unchecked handouts to Ukraine could soon be over.
That’s bad news for Ukraine, of course, but it’s also bad news for President Joe Biden, who has staked his dwindling reputation on being able to unite a Western alliance – including a politically divided US – against an aggressive Russia.
An awkward Democratic flip-flop. A group of 30 progressive Democrats on Monday sent a letter to the White House calling for dialogue with the Kremlin and for future aid to be contingent on a negotiated settlement in Ukraine. After a savage backlash from the Democratic Party, the group withdrew the statement, but the excuse they gave for the about-face was … unconvincing: They said it was an old letter drafted over the summer that was mistakenly released by staffers.
Amid mounting criticism, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, claimed that despite espousing a very similar view to some of her colleagues across the aisle, her crew’s take is different: “The proximity of these statements created the unfortunate appearance that Democrats … are somehow aligned with Republicans who seek to pull the plug on American support for President Zelensky and the Ukrainian forces,” she said.
The GOP game plan. Though this awkward flip-flop is the last thing Biden needs ahead of Nov. 8, schisms within the Democratic Party on Ukraine policy will be less consequential in a post-midterm world, in which Republicans are slated to take control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate. Indeed, all funding decisions are regulated by the House’s powerful Appropriations Committee (with support from Senate colleagues) – so whoever controls the lower chamber holds the power of the purse.
And there are signs that things will indeed be different under a GOP-led Congress. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy – who is all but assured to take over as House speaker in January and is likely trying to gain the support of his caucus – recently said that the days of giving a “blank check” to Ukraine are over.
Though McCarthy has himself been supportive of high levels of military and economic support for Ukraine in recent months, this approach is consistent with those espoused by the ragtag of election-denying and isolationist Republicans running for House seats next month. Tellingly, when asked about the prospects of sending more packages of similar value (Congress has so far greenlit a whopping $65 billion for Ukraine), McCarthy said “they [his GOP colleagues] just won’t do it.”
Will Biden front load? To date, the lion’s share of US support for Ukraine has been distributed through Congressional appropriations, just as the founding fathers intended. But if the GOP wins the House and/or Senate – and slashes the Ukraine budget – Biden still has options.
First, there are indications that the White House will try and secure a massive aid package – worth up to $50 billion – for Ukraine before the new Republican cohort takes office in January. This would be almost equal to the entire amount Washington has sent Kyiv over the past eight months. Importantly, there are reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican stalwart and pro-Ukraine crusader, has Biden’s back on this.
Moreover, Biden could also use a stopgap known as the Lend-Lease Act of 2022, a bill passed earlier this year that allows the White House to lease military hardware to Ukraine and Eastern Europe through the end of the 2023 fiscal year. This would allow Kyiv to continue accessing the equipment it needs to wage a powerful defense, while also sending a message to President Vladimir Putin that the US isn’t backing down in its support for Ukraine. (Irony alert: Lend-lease isn’t new. During World War II, the US armed the Soviet Union under this program, with the Soviets – and then the Russian Federation – continuing to pay back the loan well after the Cold War.)
For now, Americans across the aisle continue to support the government's efforts to arm Ukraine. But as gas and food prices remain sky-high throughout the winter, that could change. Everyone’s pain threshold has limits.
Don't miss: Eurasia Group's lead US politics analyst Jon Lieber weighs in on whether America's support for Ukraine is softening.
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Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet ministers pose for a photo in Tokyo, Japan.
What We're Watching: Japanese PM's cabinet reshuffle, Zelensky's bold speech, India's green bill
Moonies out of the Japanese government
Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday removed all cabinet ministers linked to the controversial Unification Church from South Korea, whose members are known as Moonies (after founder Sun Myung Moon). The ruling Liberal Democratic Party came under intense scrutiny over its ties to the church following the shocking assassination last month of former PM Shinzo Abe, whose assassin blamed the church for his family’s financial ruin. Abe was not a member but praised the conservative values of the Moonies, who campaigned on behalf of his brother — the biggest name to get a pink slip from Kishida. The PM — with no ties to the church — has had a wild ride in the polls lately. His approval rating initially skyrocketed out of sympathy for the slain leader, sweeping the LDP to a big victory in the upper house elections just days later. But now his popularity has tanked to the lowest level since he took office due to a backlash against the church, long suspected of pulling the LDP's strings. The cabinet reshuffle may help boost Kishida’s numbers a bit, but he’s not out of the woods: COVID infections keep rising, and a slim majority of Japanese citizens oppose the government-funded state funeral for Abe planned for Sept. 27.
Zelensky’s bold statement
Two new plot twists raise fresh questions about the direction of Russia’s war in Ukraine. A series of explosions at a Russian airbase in Crimea on Tuesday marked a significant escalation in the aggressiveness of Ukrainian counterattacks. A senior Ukrainian official has credited Ukrainian forces for the blasts, and video evidence and Russian officials in Crimea have directly contradicted earlier Russian claims that no one was killed and that little damage was done. Later in the day, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, without mentioning the attack, asserted during a speech that “This Russian war … began with Crimea and must end with Crimea — with its liberation.” One of the great questions in this war — for Ukraine, for Russia, and for everyone the war impacts – is how each side defines victory. Russia has occupied Crimea since 2014, though few countries recognize its sovereignty there. The combination of the attack and Zelensky’s plain language suggests some confidence in Kyiv that Ukraine has the military tools it needs to reverse Russia’s gains, not just those of 2022 but also those of 2014. We’ll be watching for Russia’s response in the coming days and to see whether Zelensky’s confidence is misplaced.
India’s energy bill passes first hurdle
India’s lower house of parliament passed an energy bill on Wednesday setting out new minimum requirements of renewable energy use for businesses and residences, as well as penalties for corporations that fail to meet their targets. The bill also proposes the country’s first-ever carbon trading system. Climate activists hailed this as a positive step for India, which has been criticized for setting lofty climate goals (it aims to be carbon neutral by … 2070) and could soon become the world’s top carbon emitter after China and the US made more ambitious pledges to reach carbon neutrality. Delhi, for its part, says that countries across North America and Europe that benefited from rapid industrialization should not place unfair expectations on emerging markets to ditch fossil fuels so soon. But environmentalists say that’s largely irrelevant now given that India – which has suffered several extreme weather events in recent years – is at risk of many climate-induced disasters over the next two decades if it doesn't get its act together. Later this year, the bill heads to the upper house of parliament, where it's expected to pass.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.