Chantagem nuclear 2.0: não haverá guerra global: Putin blefa - ‘That Means World War III’ (Foreign Policy)

 Chantagem nuclear 2.0: não haverá guerra global: Putin blefa...

‘That Means World War III’
Foreign Policy, Nov 19, 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered Moscow’s nuclear threshold on Tuesday in response to U.S. President Joe Biden authorizing Ukraine to use long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (known as ATACMS) to strike limited targets inside Russia. Putin first proposed such changes to the doctrine in September, when he warned NATO that the use of Western-supplied long-range weapons against Russia would mean that Moscow is at war with the military alliance.

The new doctrine says any attack against Moscow by a nonnuclear actor with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as a “joint attack on the Russian Federation.” The policy also outlined that any aggression against the Kremlin by a member of a military bloc will be viewed as “an aggression by the entire bloc,” signaling a thinly veiled threat against NATO.

Moscow “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons to respond to a conventional weapons attack that threatens Russia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said on Tuesday. He affirmed that a Ukrainian attack using long-range U.S. missiles could trigger such a response, though the doctrine remains broad enough to allow Putin to avoid committing to nuclear engagement.

“Russia’s new nuclear doctrine means NATO missiles fired against our country could be deemed an attack by the bloc on Russia. Russia could retaliate with [weapons of mass destruction] against Kiev and key NATO facilities, wherever they’re located,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev posted on X. “That means World War III.”

Early Tuesday, Ukrainian troops fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at a military facility in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine. According to Ukrainian defense official Andrii Kovalenko, the strike hit warehouses holding “artillery ammunition, including North Korean ammunition for their systems; guided aerial bombs; antiaircraft missiles; and ammunition for multiple-launch rocket systems.” Russian authorities said Moscow’s air defenses intercepted five of the missiles and damaged one more, reporting no casualties. Russia largely uses S-400 and the newer S-500 missile systems to counter ballistic missiles.

This was the first time that U.S.-supplied ATAMCS were used to hit targets inside Russia; previously, they have only been used to strike locations in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, including Crimea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called their usage in the Bryansk region “a signal that they want escalation,” referring to the United States and its Western allies.

Washington first supplied Kyiv with a version of ATACMS in October 2023 that had the capability of hitting targets roughly 100 miles away; in April 2024, it began supplying longer-range versions with the ability to travel 190 miles with the restriction that they only be used to hit targets in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Biden was reportedly reluctant to expand their usage into Russia proper for fear of escalation. However, that changed when intelligence officials learned that North Korea had deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help retake the Kursk region. As the war hit its 1,000th day on Tuesday, analysts argue that Putin’s altered nuclear doctrine indicates his readiness to force the West to back down.

Under Lula, Brazil Aims High But Falls Short - Richard M. Sanders (The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune)

Under Lula, Brazil Aims High But Falls Short by Richard M. Sanders The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, October 24, 2024 When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to Brazil’s presidency in 2023, it was clear that he wished to restore the high international profile which Brazil had enjoyed during his first two terms, 2003-2010. International expectations were high given that his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, had been largely uninterested in foreign policy. However, Lula has faced significant obstacles and it appears that while Brazil may be ready to enter the world stage, the world is less ready for Brazil than Lula may have hoped. Bring Back the Good Old Days During his first two terms, Brazil’s economy was humming as its agricultural and mineral products found ready markets, especially in China. Brazilian banks and construction firms started to look outward, especially within Latin America. Brazil’s state development bank provided financial muscle for exporters and investors. Politically it appeared that the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) was consolidating into a bloc that could negotiate with global counterparts such as the European Union. Under Lula, Brazil midwifed the creation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a regional political entity which Brazil looked to lead by sheer weight of population, geographic size and economy. On the broader international stage, Brazil opened embassies throughout Africa and the Caribbean, with the evident goal of gaining support for Brazil’s effort to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Many observers found his combination attractive: leftist politics and willingness to confront the developed West together with his impeccable democratic credentials. During his thirteen years out of office, Lula battled corruption charges which led to his imprisonment. (His conviction was ultimately reversed on procedural grounds.) And the good times over which he had presided vanished, as commodity prices tumbled and the country struggled with fiscal imbalances built up during the boom years of his administration. The failures of his successors, most recently the erratic right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, however, gave him another chance at power and with it, international prominence. A Failed Effort with Venezuela Within the Western Hemisphere, Lula’s most notable, although thus far unsuccessful, initiative has been his effort, together with Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and (initially at least) Mexico’s Andres Manuel López Obrador, to address the crisis in Venezuela. In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro remains in power despite convincing evidence that he in fact lost the presidential election held on July 28. Lula had maintained a warm relationship with his predecessor Hugo Chávez. Brazil shares a common border with Venezuela and has a strong interest in limiting further refugee flows. And the Biden administration was prepared to support his diplomacy, since it wanted to avoid or postpone tough decisions regarding the re-imposition of sanctions on Venezuela it had earlier lifted in an effort to encourage free elections. Also, Brazil had played a role earlier in urging Maduro to back off from his threats against neighboring Guyana over the two countries’ border dispute. Lula sent Celso Amorim, former Brazilian foreign and defense minister, now a presidential adviser, to Caracas to broker a deal. He raised suspicions among Venezuela’s opposition and its supporters when he floated the idea of holding a second election at a later date as somehow being the solution. In any event Maduro’s unyielding insistence on the validity of his election and his arrests of opposition figures condemned this initiative to irrelevance. In a particular slight, the regime harassed opposition figures for whom Brazil had agreed to assume responsibility. It appears that Lula thought his personal prestige and history with Venezuela would be enough to persuade Maduro to accept a democratic outcome and leave power. As a result, Lula’s pretensions of hemispheric leadership have taken a hit. The subject was embarrassingly missing from his speech at the UN General Assembly which painfully contrasted with that of Chile’s Gabriel Boric, another left-leaning Latin leader, who called out Maduro’s actions in no uncertain terms. If Lula was incautiously bold in Venezuela, he took the opposite tack regarding Haiti, where he declined to support the creation of a multinational force to restore order. Brazil had been active in earlier UN-authorized peacekeeping missions, even providing a Brazilian general as leader. But Brazil is hardly alone in not wanting to return, especially as the earlier mission was marked by ugly accusations of sexual abuse of Haitian women by peacekeepers. His reluctance to undertake an admittedly hard, unrewarding effort does make claims of regional leadership ring somewhat hollow. Trying to Reanimate a Regional Bloc Lula’s broader efforts to recover Brazil’s position in Latin America have also fallen a bit flat. Shortly after returning to office he sought to revive the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a grouping created at a time when left-of-center governments seemed on the rise. But there is little enthusiasm today, with the ideological complexion of the region more varied. Chile’s Boric provided the coup de grâce, suggesting that ideologically based groupings such as UNASUR were unnecessary. We have yet to see new dynamism in the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) under Lula’s leadership. The bloc’s 25 year-long effort to conclude a free trade agreement with the European Union is always on the verge of a breakthrough which never actually happens. The parties are reportedly close to agreement on a text which addresses the issue of environmental commitments, always a sensitive subject for Brazil, but France reportedly is trying to create a blocking minority within the EU. While success cannot be ruled out, the outlook remains uncertain. Centrifugal forces within MERCOSUR are hard for Brazil to manage. Uruguay has started discussing a bilateral free trade agreement with China, though Brazil has always insisted that such negotiations be organized as a bloc. Brazil’s relations with Argentina, the cornerstone of MERCOSUR, have become complicated with the election of Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei. Both Lula and Milei have traded barbs at each other, and relations reached a low point when Milei chose not to attend a recent semi-annual MERCOSUR summit, though he did make an unofficial visit to Brazil for a conference of regional conservative activists. Global Ambitions—Ukraine, BRICS and UN Security Council Lula’s ambitions go beyond Latin America. Perhaps drawing on his experience as a labor leader, he often views international issues as ripe for negotiation, with Brazil placed to act as a mediator. This is not new. In 2010 he had sought to engage in nuclear diplomacy between the United States and Iran, pushing a disarmament plan which the US found to be inadequate. Lula has sought a role in the Russo-Ukraine War, while following his predecessor’s position of condemning Russia’s invasion itself but not imposing any sanctions against Russia. He has repeatedly called for a negotiated solution, urging Ukraine to give up its claim to Crimea in the name of global “tranquility.” Brazil and China have made a joint proposal which includes an immediate ceasefire in place, though neither Ukraine nor Russia have accepted it, Regarding the Gaza war, Lula has been quick to denounce Israel’s response to the October 7 attack by Hamas, going so far as to term it “genocide” comparable to “when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” He also recalled his ambassador in Tel Aviv. However, Brazil’s response following Iran’s missile attack on Israel was limited to a terse statement issued by the Foreign Ministry expressing “concern.” An important part of Brazil’s quest for an international role is its participation in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China with South Africa joining later) a grouping which Russia initiated in a meeting in Yekaterinburg in 2009. While some effort has been made to institutionalize the BRICS as a forum for policy coordination and economic integration, beyond summit communiques which have a limited shelf life, the principal achievement has been the creation of the New Development Bank based in Shanghai, also known as the BRICS bank. Lula can claim one victory in the naming of Dilma Rousseff, his hapless successor as Brazil’s president, to be the Bank’s president. But in many ways Brazil is an outsider among the BRICS. Of the four founding members, it has the smallest gross domestic product. Geographically it is distant from Eurasia where Russia, China and India are located. Its military power is dwarfed by that of the other founding states. Other than its occasional and so far unsuccessful diplomatic forays, it is not consistently engaged outside of the Americas. BRICS appears to be widening rather than deepening, with Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iran and Ethiopia having already joined. Saudi Arabia is considering an invitation, while Turkey has applied to join. Brazil had sponsored Argentina’s entry, but after the election of Javier Milei, who sees Argentina’s future lying with the West, it has declined. BRICS may evolve into a new version of the moribund Non-Aligned Movement with its 120 members. Brazil may be able to point to progress in gaining more power for the Global South vis-a-vis the US and Western Europe, but it runs the risk of becoming just one member state among many. All in all, the BRICS have been a net plus for Brazil, but its role should not be exaggerated The other pillar of Lula’s effort to carve out a major international role is his promotion of Brazil’s effort to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nation Security Council. He can take some satisfaction from the results of the recent meeting of the General Assembly which approved the “Pact for the Future” which called for increased representation for African, Latin American and Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific states. Welcome as this may have been in Brasilia, this does not mean that it is likely to happen soon. Any Brazilian claim based on its alleged leading role in Latin America would be challenged by other states in the region. Also, Brazil’s limited engagement in UN peacekeeping operations (although it has participated in some) and the lack of success from its occasional efforts as a mediator may also weigh against its candidacy. For Now, Brazil’s Reach Exceeds Its Grasp It is not news that Lula thinks big. In 2008 he said: “Brazil has finally found its destiny and intends to transform itself into a great nation.” Internationally at least, its time has not yet come. Its military is relatively small given its size and lacks capacity to project itself beyond its borders. It is yet to find a major international crisis where it can successfully act as a mediator. (Venezuela would have been a natural opportunity but Brazil’s hopes have collapsed in the face of Maduro’s stonewalling.) Its efforts to put itself at the center of regional groupings or the over-hyped BRICS have had unimpressive results. At the same time Brazil is more than just another country—its size, resources, and population are impressive. It is a true giant in agriculture, and is approaching that status in oil production. It manufactures aircraft and has a launch center allowing it to partner with other countries with space programs. It has a dynamic culture with many achievements in music and film/television. There are areas, such as the intersection of energy, environment and economics, where Brazil already has a large enough presence that it can now speak internationally with authority. But Brazil’s efforts to use diplomacy to bootstrap itself into the top rank of global leadership seem likely to meet with frustration for the foreseeable future. Richard M. Sanders Richard M. Sanders is Senior Fellow, Western Hemisphere at the Center for the National Interest and a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A former member of the Senior Foreign Service of the State Department, he served as Director of the Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs, 2010-13.

How the Russian Establishment Really Sees the War Ending - Anatol Lieven (Foreign Policy)

Mini-introdução PRA: 

Conversações de Anatol Lieven com interlocutores russos na Rússia, resumidas por ele neste artigo para a Foreign Policy. Vale ler por inteiro, mas destaco desde já um trecho que nos concerne, ainda que o Brasil ou a sua política externa não tenham sido citados.

"On one important point, opinion was unanimous: that there is no chance whatsoever of any international formal and legal recognition of the Russian annexations of Ukrainian territory, and that Russia would not press for this. It was recognized that this would be rejected not just by Ukraine and the West, but by China, India, and South Africa, none of which recognized Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014."

O fato é que, em 2014, o Brasil NÃO se pronunciou sobre a invasão e a anexação ilegais da península da Crimeia pela Rússia. Naquele ano, Dilma Rousseff estava acolhendo uma reunião do BRICS em Fortaleza e preferiu deixar o assunto de lado. Mais tarde, numa reunião do G20 na Austrália, perguntada sobre a Crimeia disse que não iria se manifestar sobre o assunto, pois se tratava de "uma questão interna da Ucrânia" (sic três vezes). Como se a invasão de um país soberano por outro não estivesse prevista na Carta da ONU como uma violação do Direito Internacional.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 29/08/2024

Analysis

How the Russian Establishment Really Sees the War Ending

An inside look at what Russia expects—and doesn’t—in a cease-fire with Ukraine.

By Anatol Lieven, the director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. 

Foreign Policy, August 27, 2024, 3:14 PM 

 

Discussions have been happening for some time among Western policymakers, experts, and the wider public about how the war in Ukraine ought to end. I can confirm that the same type of conversations are happening in Russia.

I recently had the opportunity to speak, on the basis of confidentiality, to a wide range of members of the Russian establishment, including former diplomats, members of think tanks, academics, and businesspeople, as well as a few members of the wider public. Their ideas about the war, and the shape of its eventual ending, deserve to be better understood in the West and in Ukraine itself.

Only a small minority believed that Russia should fight for complete victory in Ukraine, including the annexation of large new areas of Ukrainian territory or the creation of a client regime in Kyiv. A large majority wanted an early cease-fire roughly along the existing battle lines. There is high confidence that the Ukrainian military will never be able to break through and reconquer significant amounts of Ukraine’s lost territories.

Most of my conversations took place before the Ukrainian invasion of the Russian province of Kursk. As far as I can make out, however, this Ukrainian success has not changed basic Russian calculations and views—not least because, at the same time, the Russian army has continued to make significant progress farther east, in the Donbas, where the Russians are closing in on the key town of Pokrovsk. “The attack on Kursk may help Ukraine eventually to get rather better terms, but nothing like a real victory,” in the words of one Russian security expert. “They will sooner or later have to withdraw from Kursk, but we will never withdraw from Crimea and the Donbas.”

The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk has undoubtedly been a serious embarrassment to the Putin administration. It comes on top of a long row of other embarrassing failures, beginning with the appallingly bad planning of the initial invasion. And among the informed Russian elites, I get very little sense of genuine respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin as a military leader—though by contrast, there is much more widespread approval of the government’s economic record in resisting Western sanctions and rebuilding Russian industry for war.

Yet a key reason for my contacts’ desires for compromise was that they believed that Russia should not, and probably could not, attempt to capture major Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv by force of arms. They pointed to the length of time, the high casualties, and the huge destruction that have been involved in taking even small cities like Bakhmut in the face of strong Ukrainian resistance. Any areas of the countryside in Kharkiv province that can be taken should therefore be regarded not as prizes but as bargaining counters in future negotiations.

Underlying this attitude is the belief that to create a Russian army large enough to attempt such a complete victory would require a massive new round of conscription and mobilization—perhaps leading to the kind of popular resistance now seen in Ukraine. The government has been careful to avoid conscripting people from Moscow and St. Petersburg, and to pay large salaries to soldiers conscripted from poorer areas. Neither of these limits could be maintained in the context of full mobilization.

Partly for the same reason, the idea of going beyond Ukraine to launch a future attack on NATO was dismissed by everyone with derision. As I was told, “Look, the whole point of all these warnings to NATO has been to stop NATO from joining the fight against us in Ukraine, because of the horrible dangers involved. Why in the name of God would we ourselves attack NATO and bring these dangers on ourselves? What could we hope to gain? That’s absurd!”

On the other hand, every single person with whom I spoke stated that there could be no withdrawal from territory held by Russia in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed. A majority suggested that any territory in other provinces like Kharkiv could be returned to Ukraine in return for them being demilitarized. This would help guarantee a cease-fire and would also allow Putin to claim that he had ensured the safety of adjacent Russian provinces, which in recent months have been subject to Ukrainian bombardment. Some more optimistic Russians thought that it might be possible to exchange territory in Kharkiv for territory in the four provinces, none of which is currently fully occupied by Russia.

I found this balance of opinion among the people with whom I spoke to be fairly plausible as a wider picture, because on the whole it corresponds closely to the views of the wider Russian public, as expressed in opinion polls conducted by organizations that in the past have been found reliable. Thus in a poll last year by the Levada Center, sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, respondents were exactly equal (62 percent) in their desire for immediate peace talks and in their refusal to return the annexed territories to Ukraine.

Among my contacts, there were no differences on the subject of Ukrainian neutrality, which everyone declared essential. However, it would seem that serious thought is being given by sections of the Russian establishment to the vexed question of how a peace settlement could be secured without formal Western military guarantees and supplies to Ukraine. Hence the widely discussed ideas of a peace treaty ratified by the U.N. Security Council and the BRICS, and of broad demilitarized zones secured by a U.N. force.

As a leading Russian foreign-policy analyst told me, “In the West, you seem to think that only military guarantees are any good. But political factors are also critical. We have invested enormous diplomatic effort in building up our relations with the global south, which certainly would not want a new war. Do you think that if we could get a peace deal that met our basic requirements, we would throw all that away by starting one?”

Most said that if in negotiations the West agreed with key Russian demands, Russia would scale down others. Thus on the Russian demand for the “denazification” of Ukraine, a few said that Russia should still aim for a “friendly” government in Kyiv. This seems to be code for regime change, since it is very hard to imagine any freely elected Ukrainian government being friendly to Russia for a very long time to come.

A large majority, however, said that if Russian conditions in other areas were met, Russia should content itself with the passage of a law banning neo-Nazi parties and symbols, modeled on a clause of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955. My Russian interlocutors referred here to the treaty’s provisions for restrictions on certain categories of Austrian arms and for minority rights—in the case of Ukraine, the linguistic and cultural rights of the Russian-speaking population.

On one important point, opinion was unanimous: that there is no chance whatsoever of any international formal and legal recognition of the Russian annexations of Ukrainian territory, and that Russia would not press for this. It was recognized that this would be rejected not just by Ukraine and the West, but by China, India, and South Africa, none of which recognized Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The hope is therefore that as part of a peace settlement, the issue of these territories’ status will be deferred for endless future negotiation (as the Ukrainian government proposed with regard to Crimea in March 2022), until eventually everyone forgets about it. The example of the (unrecognized but practically uncontested) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was mentioned. This means that Ukraine would not be asked publicly to “give up” these territories; only to recognize the impossibility of reconquering them by force.

In the end, of course, Russia’s negotiating position will be decided by Putin—with whom I did not speak. His public position was set out in his “peace proposal” on the eve of the West’s “peace summit” in Switzerland in June. In this, he offered an immediate cease-fire if Ukraine withdrew its forces from the remainder of the Ukrainian provinces claimed by Russia and promised not to seek admission to NATO.

On the face of it, this is ridiculous. Ukraine is never going to voluntarily abandon the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. However, Putin did not say that Russia will then occupy these territories. This leaves open the possibility that Putin would accept a deal in which these areas would be demilitarized but under Ukrainian administration and that—like the Russian-occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces—their status would be subject to future negotiation.

Nobody I spoke to in Moscow claimed to know for sure what Putin is thinking. However, the consensus was that while he made terrible mistakes at the start of the war, he is a pragmatist capable of taking military advice and recognizing military reality. Thus when in November 2022 Russian generals advised him that to attempt to hold Kherson city risked military disaster, he ordered withdrawal —even though Kherson was in territory that Russia claimed to have annexed and was also Russia’s only bridgehead west of the Dnipro River. Its loss has vastly reduced Russian hopes of being able to capture Odessa and the rest of Ukraine’s coast.

But while Putin might accept what he would regard as a compromise now, everyone with whom I spoke in Moscow said that Russian demands will be determined by what happens on the battlefield. If the Ukrainians can hold roughly their existing line, then it will be along this line that an eventual cease-fire will run. But if the Ukrainians collapse, then in the words of one Russian ex-soldier, “Peter and Catherine are still waiting”; and Peter the Great and Catherine the Great between them conquered the whole of what is now eastern and southern Ukraine for Russia.

 

Anatol Lieven is the director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute.

 

How the West Misunderstood Moscow in Ukraine - By Julia Kazdobina, Jakob Hedenskog, and Andreas Umland (Foreign Policy)

How the West Misunderstood Moscow in Ukraine

Ten years ago, Russia’s first invasion failed to wake up a bamboozled West. The reasons are still relevant today.

FOREIGN ZPOLICY, JULY 17, 2024

By Julia Kazdobina,  Jakob Hedenskog, and  Andreas Umland

Ten years ago today, news of the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 in eastern Ukraine shocked the world. All 298 passengers on board the Boeing 777, including 80 children, perished. This tragic event was just one of the many shocks coming out of Ukraine that year, as the largest European war after 1945 unfolded in southern and eastern Ukraine.

The war began in February 2014 with the occupation of Crimea by regular Russian troops, followed by Moscow’s illegal annexation of the peninsula in March. Russian irregular troops then entered Donbas in April 2014—ostensibly to “protect” Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Later on, more Russian armed groups, including Wagner mercenaries and small regular army units, poured into Ukraine. They brought with them heavy equipment, including anti-aircraft missile launchers used to shoot down MH-17, a commercial flight on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, as well as Ukrainian fighter planes and transport aircraft bringing troops and supplies. After Ukrainian defenders began to push back the Russians—at that time still mostly irregulars—large numbers of regular Russian troops started invading eastern Ukraine in mid-August.

Over the course of six months in 2014, there was a manifest, expanding Russian military aggression in the heart of Europe. Yet the West reacted barely at all—with meek diplomatic statements and a few minor sanctions. Besides their limited scope, the sanctions were initially focused narrowly on the annexation of Crimea. The first larger sectoral sanctions followed the shooting of MH-17, which killed dozens of EU citizens. Never were the sanctions a coherent response to the most significant attack on a European country since 1945. During the years that followed, even as fighting continued, little additional action was taken. The West continued business as usual with Russia or even upgraded relations, like Germany’s push to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

How could it be that it took the West until Feb. 24, 2022—when Moscow expanded the war it launched in 2014 to a full-scale invasion—to wake up to the reality that Russia is a revisionist state seeking to impose, by any means necessary, its own version of European security order?

Between 2014 and 2022, Western politicians, commentators, and journalists, with few exceptions, continued to believe that Russia’s aims were limited—and that the war simmering in eastern Ukraine was a Ukrainian civil conflict taking place in isolation from Russia’s much larger revisionist aims. Not only did Western efforts to resolve the conflict fail. Since the West continued with business as usual, it also inspired Moscow to press on and paved the way for the 2022 invasion.

Why did the West fail to properly diagnose Russia’s war in Ukraine for eight long years? What lessons from this failure are important today?

One reason was the lack of Western expertise on Ukraine and Russia’s tactics there. Moscow’s interference in Ukrainian affairs since the country’s independence in 1991 had largely escaped Western journalists, political analysts, and international relations scholars. When some Western journalists arrived to cover the events, the situation on the ground was chaotic and its interpretation a challenge for newly minted Ukraine experts. Russian narratives of intra-Ukrainian conflict and regional escalation were simple, understandable, and made sense to many observers—not the least those who had previously worked in Moscow. Many media also relied on their Moscow correspondents, with their skewed, Russia-centric lens, to report on events in Ukraine.

There was also a glaring lack of awareness of Russian hybrid methods. Ten years ago, few Western observers understood the Russian way of war, for which Ukraine was a testing ground. Attempts by Ukrainians, other East Europeans, and Western area experts to explain Russia’s strategy were usually met with skepticism. To outside observers, these descriptions of the Kremlin’s methods, where the intelligence services play a central role, often sounded like speculative assessments or outright conspiracy theories.

The parachute reporters arriving in eastern Ukraine in 2014 witnessed pro-Russian protests and listened to pro-Russian Ukrainian citizens. Some foreign observers could not even tell the difference between Ukrainian residents of Donbas and people from neighboring Russian oblasts who crossed as adventurers or were bussed into Ukraine to participate in the supposedly indigenous separatist movement.

Pro-Ukrainian journalists and other anti-separatist local voices in Donbas, in contrast, faced threats, physical violence, and worse. These Ukrainians feared the consequences of expressing themselves publicly and often remained invisible to visiting reporters. A number of eastern Ukrainians resisting the Russian takeover were threatened, attacked, abducted, severely injured, or secretly killed by Russian irregulars or their local collaborators. Most of these collaborators were encouraged, financed, delegated, or otherwise coordinated by Moscow. This suppression of local opposition laid the groundwork for Russia’s eventual annexation of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Western media only started to have a substantial presence in Ukraine in December 2021, on the eve of the full-scale invasion. Before that, much of the reporting was done by correspondents based in Moscow, who usually spoke only Russian and were heavily exposed to Russian narratives.

The Washington Post did not open a Kyiv bureau until May 2022—and sent its former Moscow correspondent to report on Ukraine. Similarly, the New York Times only opened an office in Ukraine in July 2022, headed by the paper’s veteran Moscow correspondent, Andrew Kramer, whose coverage of the war since 2014 had outraged Ukrainians. The newspaper’s reference to Russia’s hybrid attack as a “civil war” (later corrected) and Kramer referring to Russian-occupied territories as “separatist zones” echoed Kremlin language, reminding some Ukrainians of the Times’ sordid history of misreporting genocides and Soviet atrocities. Another widespread adoption of Kremlin talking points on Ukraine was the Western media’s myopic fixation on right-wing extremism that was supposedly out of control in Ukraine—a claim that has been solidly debunked but that would be used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify his full-scale attack in 2022.

Many journalists eventually learned to be more critical of Russian narratives. But there remains what behavioral psychologists call an anchoring bias: When people learn about something for the first time, they remember their initial interpretations. These take concerted effort to unlearn and can still be exploited by Russian propaganda.

There were multiple signs of direct Russian involvement in the events in the Donbas in 2014. Most Ukrainians understood intuitively, from the early days of the alleged rebellion, that the unrest and unfolding war were initiated, directed, and funded by Russia. In contrast, it took Western observers time to establish, specify, and verify the facts—and to distinguish them from the many lies.

A circumspect approach to information and conflicting claims from war zones is, in principle, good practice to avoid misinformation. In 2014, however, this overabundance of caution often turned into laziness—a cover not to do the hard work of digging deeper to establish the facts on the ground. With many Western governments and media commentators invested in the idea of a “thaw” with Moscow at the time, there was also an incentive not to look too closely at Russia’s involvement.

The inability, for many years, to define 2014 as a first Russian invasion also underlines the inability of Western observers, including the media, to cope with the sophisticated tactics of hybrid, grey-zone war. As long as the Russian irregulars and mercenaries did not wear official Russian army insignia—and as long as the Kremlin issued a stream of denials that the Russians in eastern Ukraine were anything more than “tourists”—media editors and fact checkers could take refuge behind a false equivalence of opposing claims and perpetuate the notion that the war was an intra-Ukrainian conflict. The media’s difficulties in properly framing a war if it’s waged beneath the threshold of an openly declared one continues to be an issue today.

Western willful ignorance was particularly evident concerning the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic. From their creation in 2014 to their end in September 2022, these were Russian proxy regimes. Yet many in the West—including governments, diplomats, academics, and journalists—treated them as statelets set up by supposed eastern Ukrainian “insurgents.” Only in January 2023 did the European Court on Human Rights put an official end to this pretense, establishing that Russia had effective control over these fake republics since the day they were created.

Regardless of motivation, the West’s slow public reaction to the unfolding events in 2014 left space for Moscow to fill with disinformation, half-truths, and propaganda narratives. Many of them, even after having long been debunked, still circulate today.

The West’s widespread cognition problem between 2014 and 2022 was also a result of a fundamental gap between Western strategic culture and Moscow’s sophisticated hybrid and grey-zone tactics. Initially, foreign observers were often reluctant to acknowledge that the war in the Donbas was part of the same operation as Russia’s more straightforward occupation of Crimea. There remained a naïve belief that the Donbas war was a separate case—an unfortunate conflict between equally legitimate interests to be resolved through joint negotiation, deliberation, and mediation.

Pursuing tactics known as “reflexive control” or “escalation control” that were first developed by the Soviet Union, the Kremlin used aggression via proxies to impose its will on Ukraine and its Western partners. From 2014 to 2022, aggressive behavior alternated with feigned concessions and apparent de-escalation to deceive Western politicians and negotiators into thinking that a peaceful resolution remained possible even as Moscow tightened its grip and prepared for an eventual full-scale conquest.

Throughout the talks that eventually produced the Minsk accords, Moscow used purposeful escalation by its proxy and regular forces to exert maximum pressure on Western and Ukrainian negotiators—but stayed short of an open and massive Russian military attack that could trigger a Western response. Moscow’s zigzag between escalation, apparently conciliatory moves, and stalling tactics managed to deceive many Western observers, who continued to believe that the West was in control of escalation, mistaking Russia staying below the threshold of full-scale war for a sign of moderation. This mistake proved deadly for Ukrainians, allowing the conflict to fester and grew.

On Feb. 24, 2022, the West finally woke up to reality, imposed substantial sanctions on Russia, rushed defensive weapons to Ukraine, and later followed up by delivering heavy weapons. Had there not been so many Western misconceptions about Russia’s first invasion in 2014, those weapons might already have been delivered then. And today’s much larger, much more brutal war might have been avoided.

Julia Kazdobina is a senior fellow in the security studies program at Ukrainian Prism.

Jakob Hedenskog is an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs’ Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.

Andreas Umland is an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs’ Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies. Twitter: @UmlandAndreas

Putin está de parabéns: conseguiu dar um grande aniversário para os 75 anos da OTAN - Foreign Policy

Preparativos da Foreign Policy para um grande encontro de aniversário. Macron, três anos atrás, disse que a OTAN já estava morta, de morte cerebral. Putin conseguiu revivê-la. Deveriam fazer um bolinho nesse encontro de Washington e mandar para o Putin, com os cumprimentos de Zelensky.

FP at NATO’s 75th Summit Foreign Policy Featuring some of FP's own, including Pentagon & National Security Reporter Jack Detsch and Diplomacy and National Security Reporter Robbie Gramer, and speakers from defense, government, intelligence, and the private sector, Foreign Policy will host programming to examine the alliance 75 years on and delve into the future of security across the Atlantic.  NATO in a New Era: Reassessing Transatlantic Security July 8, 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. EDT | Washington, D.C. & Virtual  The NATO Summit comes at a potential inflection point for the alliance. On July 8th, Foreign Policy, Stand Together, and the European Council on Foreign Relations will host a series of conversations reassessing transatlantic security. Register now.  FP Security Forum July 8, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EDT | Washington, D.C. & Virtual Warfare has evolved since NATO’s founding 75 years ago, and the next 75 years promise even more changes in battlefield tactics and technologies. Join Foreign Policy’s Security Forum to examine how the U.S and its NATO allies can adapt in the face of uncertainty. Register now.

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Putin’s Peace Plan: Ukraine’s total submission - Foreign Policy

 A Fifth of Ukraine’s Land

Foreign Policy, 15/06/2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Friday to order an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine and begin peace negotiations if Kyiv and its Western allies agree to a series of conditions. These include Ukraine withdrawing all of its troops from the four Russian-occupied territories of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia; the West lifting all sanctions imposed on Moscow; and Kyiv dropping its NATO membership bid.

Moscow does not control all of the territory in these four regions, meaning that a Ukrainian surrender on these conditions would give Russia more land than it currently occupies. Combined with the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in February 2014, this would be a loss of more than one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

“Our principled position is that Ukraine’s status must be a neutral, nonaligned, free of nuclear weapons,” Putin said. Friday’s proposal is the most concrete set of conditions to stop the conflict that Putin has offered since the war began in February 2022. He has previously suggested that negotiations take into account “the realities of today,” which some experts have interpreted as meaning current battle lines.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry immediately denounced Putin’s proposal, saying the Russian president’s goal is “to mislead the international community, undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a just peace, and split the unity of the world over the goals and principles of the United Nations Charter.” Kyiv reiterated its position that Russia must withdraw all of its forces from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.

The proposal came just one day before Switzerland is set to host a two-day peace conference on the Russia-Ukraine war. Representatives from at least 90 countries and organizations will attend, with key guests including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris; the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom; Turkey’s and Hungary’s foreign ministers; and a delegation from India.

Notably absent will be a delegation from China, which declined the invitation, and Putin, who was not invited and said the event is “just another ploy to divert everyone’s attention, reverse the cause and effect of the Ukrainian crisis, [and] set the discussion on the wrong track.” The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said the timing of Putin’s cease-fire proposal is a sign that the Kremlin is trying to undermine the conference’s efforts, accusing Putin of being “afraid of a real peace.”

In November 2022, Zelensky outlined a 10-point peace proposal, which included the restoration of Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” under the U.N. Charter as well as the return of Crimea. Last February, Beijing released a 12-point peace planthat, despite Putin’s backing, has achieved little momentum.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s allies have doubled down on their commitment to Kyiv. On Friday, NATO defense ministers finalized an agreement that gives the alliance greater control over military assistance and training for Ukraine. NATO countries supply more than 99 percent of all of Kyiv’s military support, “so it makes sense that NATO takes on a greater role in these efforts,” alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said. On Thursday, the G-7 agreed to issue $50 billion in loans to Kyiv using interest from frozen Russian assets.

O Ocidente ainda está do lado da Ucrânia, mas não contem com o Brasil - Foreign Policy

 ‘We’re Still In’

Foreign Policy

U.S. President Joe Biden (center) talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) as French President Emmanuel Macron (right) looks on at the start of commemoration events for D-Day in Normandy, France, on June 6.Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. President Joe Biden apologized to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris on Friday for the monthslong congressional delay in approving the latest U.S. aid package. The meeting, on the sidelines of D-Day commemoration events, was their first face-to-face encounter since Zelensky visited Washington last December to request greater military support.

U.S. Republicans—some who directly opposed sending additional aid to Ukraine and others who wanted the funding package, which also earmarked billions of dollars in aid for Israel, to include additional money for security at the U.S. southern border—had stalled the nearly $61 billion aid deal for months before passing the package in April. “I apologize for those weeks of not knowing what’s going to happen in terms of funding,” Biden told Zelensky, adding that “we’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly.”

Biden also announced a new $225 million tranche to help Kyiv reconstruct its electric grid, which has been decimated by Russian attacks in recent months. The package also includes air defense interceptors, artillery ammunition, and other critical capabilities to strengthen Ukraine’s war effort. Zelensky, in turn, likened U.S. support to Washington’s efforts in Europe during World War II. On Thursday, amid events marking the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Biden gave an interview to ABC World News in which he called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a dictator” and drew parallels between Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the actions of Nazi Germany.

“The struggle between a dictatorship and freedom is unending,” Biden said. “To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable. Were we to do that, it means we would be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”

Zelensky and Biden will meet again next week at the G-7 summit in Italy, where they will discuss using frozen Russian assets to provide Kyiv with $50 billion in aid. The United States is by far Ukraine’s biggest military supplier. Last week, Biden granted Kyiv permission to use U.S.-supplied weapons to target military sites inside Russian territory near Ukraine’s Kharkiv region so long as the operations are in self-defense. The decision, which Germany quickly copied, comes as Moscow has renewed attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in recent weeks. Kharkiv is located around 25 miles from the Russian border.

In response, Putin warned Washington and its allies on Wednesday that he could deploy weapons to countries within striking distance of the West and that the United States should not assume that Russia will always rule out using nuclear weapons. While at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, though, Putin said there was no need for nuclear warfareright now.