Russia's economy can't afford to win or lose the war in Ukraine, one economist says - Jennifer Sor (Business Insider)

A dependência viciosa da economia russa da guerra na Ucrânia: ela não pode vencer, nem perder, no sentido em que ela não pode largar a guerra, pois toda a sua economia está agora dominada pela guerra. (PRA) 

Russia's economy can't afford to win or lose the war in Ukraine, one economist says

Jennifer Sor

Business Insider, Feb 23, 2024

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-ukraine-war-moscow-military-spending-inflation-worker-shortage-2024-2

• That's because Russia can't afford the cost of rebuilding and securing Ukraine.
• The cost of repairing its own nation is already "massive," Renaud Foucart says.

• 
  
• - Russia's economy can't afford to win or lose the war in Ukraine, one economist says.
• - That's because Russia can't afford the cost of rebuilding and securing Ukraine.
• - The cost of repairing its own nation is already "massive," Renaud Foucart says.

Russia's economy is completely dominated by its war in Ukraine, so much that Moscow cannot afford either to win or lose the war, according to one European economist.

Renaud Foucart, a senior economics lecturer at Lancaster University, pointed to the dire economic situation facing Russia as the war in Ukraine wraps up its second year. 

Russia's GDP grew 5.5% year-over-year over the third quarter of 2023, according to data from the Russian government. But most of that growth is being fueled by the nation's monster military spending, Foucart said, with plans for the Kremlin to spend a record 36.6 trillion rubles, or $386 billion on defense this year.

"Military pay, ammunition, tanks, planes, and compensation for dead and wounded soldiers, all contribute to the GDP figures. Put simply, the war against Ukraine is now the main driver of Russia's economic growth" Foucart said in an op-ed for The Conversation this week.

Other areas of Russia's economy are hurting as the war drags on. Moscow is slammed with a severe labor shortage, thanks to young professionals fleeing the country or being pulled into the conflict. The nation is now short around 5 million workers, according to one estimate, which is causing wages to soar.

Inflation is high at 7.4% — nearly double the 4% target of its central bank. Meanwhile, direct investment in the country has collapsed, falling around $8.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2023, per data from Russia's central bank.

That all puts the Kremlin in a tough position, no matter the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Even if Russia wins, the nation can't afford to rebuild and secure Ukraine, due to the financial costs as well as the impact of remaining isolated from the rest of the global market. 

Western nations have shunned trade with Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, which economists have said could severely crimp Russia's long-term economic growth.

As long as it remains isolated, Russia's "best hope" is to become "entirely dependent" on China, one of its few remaining strategic allies, Foucart said.

Meanwhile, the costs of rebuilding its own nation are already "massive," he added, pointing to problems like broken infrastructure and social unrest in Russia.

"A protracted stalemate might be the only solution for Russia to avoid total economic collapse," Foucart wrote. "The Russian regime has no incentive to end the war and deal with that kind of economic reality. So it cannot afford to win the war, nor can it afford to lose it. Its economy is now entirely geared towards continuing a long and ever deadlier conflict."

Other economists have warned of trouble coming for Russia amid the toll of its war in Ukraine. Russia's economy will see significantly more degradation ahead, one London-based think tank recently warned, despite talk of Russia's resilience in the face of Western sanctions.

GZero on Russia and its war of aggression against Ukraine

 Excelent GZero!

Tomorrow, Feb. 24, marks the second anniversary of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine — a perfect time to reflect on the most pivotal moments of the past 24 months. Check out our timeline here.

https://gzeromedia.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7404e6dcdc8018f49c82e941d&id=57e38ee215&e=96ffb72608

Russia’s last independent pollster tells me how Putin does it

   

By Alex Kliment, Senior Writer

How does Vladimir Putin manage to keep this up? For all the destruction he’s visited on Ukraine, his invasion has also inflicted so much damage on Russia.

There are the financial and economic costs. There’s the diplomatic isolation. There’s the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians who’d rather bet on a future abroad than support Putin’s war for the past at home. 

But above all, there are the dead. The Kremlin doesn’t announce casualty figures, but a running tally by the BBC and the independent Russian outlet Mediazona estimates that at least 45,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine. 

To put that in perspective, it’s triple the number of Soviets killed in the USSR’s decade-long invasion of Afghanistan, often described as the “Kremlin’s Vietnam.” 

In fact, it surpasses the number of Soviet and Russian troops killed in the entire period between 1945 and 2022, a period that also includes the Kremlin’s ham-fisted and initially disastrous bid to suppress Chechen separatists and jihadists in the 1990s. To put it in American terms, those 45,000 dead would amount to 100,000 flag-draped caskets in the United States. 

And yet, there’s hardly been a peep from Russian society. 

To find out why, I sent a note to Lev Gudkov in Moscow. Gudkov is the academic director of the Levada Center, Russia’s last remaining independent pollster. I last saw him in person in 2018, at his messy office on Nikolskaya Street — a ritzy pedestrian boulevard — that’s just a five-minute walk from the Kremlin, which has long considered Levada a “foreign agent.” 

At 77, Lev has the weary, knowing demeanor of a man who has spent his life asking questions in a society that is increasingly wary of answering them.

The Kremlin has pressured Levada over the years but always seemed to allow it to continue its work. Even autocrats, after all, need to know what their people are comfortable saying to strangers. 

“The people don’t know how many are dead and wounded,” he told me. More than 60% of Russians get their news primarily from state-controlled TV, which will shout at you about neo-Nazis in Kyiv, perverts who run Europe, or cats thrown from Russian trains — but will not tell you about the bodybags coming home from Ukraine. 

People who do speak out about casualties are arrested, harassed or, on occasion, driven to suicide, which is what happened this week to a hawkish military blogger who suggested Russia had lost 16,000 troops in its recent campaign for a single Ukrainian town.

Another problem, to adapt a Vietnam-era protest line, is that the Russians dying in Ukraine “ain’t no Gazprom executive’s son.” 

“The funerals are held by individual families,” says Gudkov, “and its overwhelmingly conscripts from marginalized social groups who don’t have the power to mobilize.” 

A look at the casualty map bears this out. Young men in remote and relatively poor Russian provinces like Tuva or Buryatia, for example, are up to 45 times as likely to die as their counterparts in Moscow or St. Petersburg. 

All of this makes perfect sense. Russians don’t know about the casualties, face huge consequences for trying to find out, and are victim to the propaganda mill that keeps support for Putin above 80% and approval of his war not far behind. 

But blaming this sort of collective delusion simply on a Very Bad Autocrat™ is too easy. The reality is that it can happen in democracies too, and it does. 

On the eve of the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for example, I looked at a poll that showed 72% of the population approving of their government’s decision to launch a disastrous, unprovoked war. 

But it wasn’t from Russia. It was from the US, and it was taken in 2003 to gauge popular support for the invasion of Iraq. 

Say what you will about the failure of mainstream media to question the WMD narrative — and there is lots to say — but the US was, and is, a pluralistic paradise compared to today’s Russia. 

But even so, it took four whole years of debacle in Iraq for a majority of Americans to finally decidethat the invasion was a “bad decision.”

The emergence of social media in the years since has hardly helped. Nearly 20% of Americans today say pop star Taylor Swift was engaged in a Deep State psyop to sway the next election, while a third of Americans still think the last one was “stolen.” And as many as half of Hillary Clinton’svoters once believed Trump’s victory was the result of Russian tampering with vote tallies. None of the above is true. 

The point is that you don’t actually have to live under the sway of a late-stage autocrat who controls the airwaves to believe bad, stupid, or crazy things. 

A badly contaminated news environment can in some ways be as bad as a tightly controlled one. 

 

 

Russia is winning? Winning what?

   

Western press coverage of Ukraine’s war has shifted. Today, there are few stories about determined, resourceful Ukrainian fighters pushing back Russian invaders and regaining lost ground. Most current coverage focuses on Ukraine’s exhaustion, its wavering Western backers, and Vladimir Putin's recent swagger.

Yes, as my friend Alex Kliment noted yesterday, Ukraine’s future is genuinely uncertain. Its material losses are far heavier than Russia’s, mainly because the war has been fought almost entirely on Ukrainian land. Damage to its trade and infrastructure shrank Ukraine’s economy by 29.1% in 2022 before the return home of some of the country’s millions of refugees brought a modest rebound last year. EU membership remains a distant dream.

Russia’s economy has notably strengthened. This country of 140 million people (Ukraine now has fewer than 40 million) has far more young men to push to the front, more industrial capacity, and far more natural resources to sell to finance the carnage. Its troops are deeply dug in to defend the 18% of Ukrainian territory they still hold.

Since invading Crimea 10 years ago on Feb. 27, 2014, and destabilizing the Donbas region a few weeks later, the Russian government has wisely kept foreign debt low, reducing the country’s vulnerability to Western sanctions. The war has boosted Russia’s economy by sending weapons production into overdrive, and despite Europe’s bold move to halt the import of Russian energy, Russia now sells more oil to energy-thirsty customers in China and India.

Finally, critics of aid for Ukraine in America and Europe are growing more politically aggressive. Fears that Donald Trump will again become president, abandon Kyiv, and perhaps yank the US from the transatlantic alliance encourage bravado from Putin and weigh heavily on European minds. 

So … is Russia winning? Let’s look at the bigger picture here.

https://gzeromedia.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7404e6dcdc8018f49c82e941d&id=3c98d38c9b&e=96ffb72608 

A Igreja Ortodoxa Russa declara que o pacifismo é uma heresia e apoia o morticínio entre cristãos - Center for Defense Studies

 International and relevant Russia’s news 

CDS, June 11, 2023

In a politically motivated case, the Russian Orthodox Church's Court declared pacifism a heresy, alien to the Church. The reason for such a verdict was an anti-war statement made by Priest Ioann Burdin, "we Christians do not dare to stand aside when a brother kills a brother; a Christian kills a Christian. We cannot bashfully close our eyes and call black on white, evil on good, say that Abel was probably wrong when he provoked his older brother." 

"His pacifism is imaginary, one-sidedly oriented, his anti-Russian political position is clearly visible behind him, perceived in our country as unacceptable, and, it is important to emphasize, radically at odds with the position of the Russian Orthodox Church," the verdict reads. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Orthodox Church held a liturgy for the first time in more than three centuries, praying for the repose of Hetman (military ruler) Ivan Mazepa in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Hetman Ivan Mazepa was a close ally of Moscow's Tsar Peter I but turned to Swedish King Charles XII when the Muscovite refused to honor an agreement and help to defend Ukraine. "Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold" inspired Lord Byron to write a poem in his name (Mazeppa). By order of Tsar Peter I, the Moscow Church imposed an anathema to the Hetman Ivan Mazepa. In September 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople stated that they never recognized the validity of the anathema of Ivan Mazepa because it was imposed purely for political reasons. 

Both cases prove that the Russian Orthodox Church has been a political tool of Russian rulers throughout the centuries.

"In Russia's wars, the very senselessness seems to be the sense," Peter Pomerantsev argued about the Russian death cult in the Guardian. "In a culture such as Russia's, where avoiding facing up to the dark past with all its complex webs of guilt and responsibility is commonplace, such oblivion can be especially seductive." 

"Putin's war has become the war of all Russians. His legacy will remain part of their legacy, and it will continue to weigh heavily on their domestic affairs and the country's relationship with the rest of the world," wrote Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment for Foreign Affairs. 

Source: Center For Defense Studies (Ukraine)

Daily Brief CDS <cds.dailybrief@gmail.com>

At U.S. behest, Ukraine held off anniversary attacks on Russia - Shane Harris and Isabelle Khurshudyan (The Washington Post)

THE DISCORD LEAKS

At U.S. behest, Ukraine held off anniversary attacks 

on Russia

Kyiv’s head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, planned bold strikes deep behind enemy lines that unnerved officials in Washington

By Shane Harris

 and 

Isabelle Khurshudyan

The Washington Post, April 24, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/24/discord-leaks-moscow-strikes-ukraine/

In February, with the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine days away, officials in Kyiv were busy making plans to attack Moscow.

Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the country’s military intelligence directorate, the HUR, instructed one of his officers “to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February … with everything the HUR had,” according to a classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency. Officials even mused about a sea-based strike using TNT in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, a largely symbolic operation that would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine’s ability to hit deep inside enemy territory.

Back in Washington, officials were secretly monitoring the Ukrainians’ plans. The White House had long worried that attacks inside Russia could provoke an aggressive response from the Kremlin.

On Feb. 22, two days before the anniversary, the CIA circulated a new classified report: The HUR “had agreed, at Washington’s request, to postpone strikes” on Moscow. The documents, part of a trove of classified information allegedly leaked on a gaming server by a 21-year-old member of the National Guard, don’t explain precisely who interceded and why the Ukrainians agreed to stand down.

But they offer a specific example of a broader tension that has characterized much of the war: Ukraine, eager to bring the fight to Russia’s home turf, is sometimes restrained by the United States, which has consistently tried to avoid escalating the conflict into a direct fight between U.S. and Russian forces. Some U.S. officials see attacks on Russia, particularly if they involve U.S.-supplied weapons, as highly risky operations that Russian President Vladimir Putin could find so threatening that he resorts to using tactical nuclear weapons.

And yet mysterious explosions and drone strikes continue to happen in Russia. Ukrainian officials are often coy about the incidents, hinting that they’re responsible without directly taking credit.

“The Earth is round — discovery made by Galileo,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter in December after an attack on the Engels-2 air force base, deep inside Russia. “If something is launched into other countries’ airspace, sooner or later unknown flying objects will return to departure point.”

Operations on foreign soil fall under the HUR’s purview. Budanov, an ambitious 37-year-old general and rising star in the Ukrainian military, doesn’t acknowledge that his agency is behind the attacks. But he has warned they will continue.

“This shattered their illusions of safety,” Budanov told The Washington Post in January. “There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia.”

Budanov did not comment for this article. U.S. officials did not comment on the leaked documents about anniversary strikes.

Privately, U.S. and European officials express their admiration for Budanov. But they also say his audacity sometimes makes them nervous.

On Feb. 13, the day that the NSA document said Budanov had instructed one of his officers to be ready for an operation presumably aimed at Novorossiysk, the United States repeated its public advisory for citizens in Russia to leave the country immediately. It’s not clear that the warning anticipated an aggressive Ukrainian strike, but it appears to reflect a level of concern in Washington about attacks around the anniversary.

Budanov is known for bold claims and pronouncements, which many Western officials regard skeptically. He has said that Putin is terminally ill, an assertion that U.S. intelligence officials have rejected, and that he uses multiple body doubles. Budanov exudes confidence that Ukraine will prevail over Russia — and soon. He has said that Crimea, the highly fortified peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014, must be returned to Kyiv this summer. The leaked documents show the U.S. intelligence community views that scenario as unlikely.

The documents also make clear that the U.S. intelligence community is monitoring Budanov’s communications, which seems not to be news to the general. In past interviews with The Post, Budanov, perhaps aware that he was being spied on, has played music or static noise in his office at HUR headquarters. 

Washington’s intercession ahead of the war’s anniversary appears to have been only partially successful. “There is no indication” that Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, “agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date,” the CIA report said. The SBU, which is responsible for state security and reports directly to the president, also conducts special operations.

Ukraine appears not to have held its fire for long. A week after the anniversary, Moscow publicly accused Kyiv of attempting drone strikes on infrastructure in Russia, including near the capital.

Ukraine continues to have ambitions to expand the battlefield beyond its home territory, the classified documents show. Budanov’s agency made plans to attack members of the notorious Russian military contractor Wagner Group in Mali, where personnel provide security assistance to the Malian government and training for its military, the documents state. Wagner has played a pivotal role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and provides essential front-line support to Russian military forces.

“It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans,” the NSA document says.

The HUR also developed plans to conduct covert attacks on Russian forces in Syria using secret Kurdish help. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky halted the offensive, but one of the intelligence documents details how Budanov’s agency could still launch deniable attacks that would avoid implicating the Ukrainian government itself.

Officials in Washington and Europe have admonished Ukraine for attacks outside its territory that they felt went too far. After a car bomb near Moscow in August killed Daria Dugina, in an attack that appeared intended for her father — a Russian nationalist whose writing had helped to shape a Kremlin narrative about Ukraine — Western officials said they made clear to Zelensky that they held operatives in his government responsible. The attack was seen as provocative and risked a severe Russian response, officials said.

U.S. officials are also concerned that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine inside Russia as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant,” according to other classified documents contained in the trove.

So far, officials have said there is no indication that China has granted Russia’s request for lethal military aid. However, a Ukrainian attack on Moscow using weapons provided by the United States or NATO would probably indicate to Beijing that “Washington was directly responsible for escalating the conflict” and provide possible justification for China to arm Russia, the analysis concludes.

The United States prohibits Ukraine from using American weaponry to strike Russia. One Ukrainian official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, pointed to an attack in December on a Russian strategic bomber base using Ukrainian-made drones as evidence that Kyiv was adhering to the rules Washington has imposed.

Ukrainian officials have long privately said that the United States has de facto control over some military operations. For example, Kyiv typically won’t fire its advanced U.S.-provided rocket systems without coordinates confirmed or provided by U.S. military personnel from a base in Europe, to ensure the strikes’ accuracy and conserve artillery.

A senior Ukrainian official said that Kyiv’s willingness not to fire on certain targets and to coordinate with the Americans should encourage the United States to provide more modern and longer-range weapons, such as the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, a munition that can travel up to 185 miles. Biden administration officials have declined to provide the weapon, which is in limited supply and might be seen by Russia as an escalation by the United States, officials have said.

The strikes in Russia have been a morale booster for Ukrainian citizens, who have taken to calling the billowing smoke from the mysterious explosions “bavovna,” or “cotton.” Stores sell T-shirts with cotton flowers blooming on the Kremlin’s walls, and cotton bouquets are popular gifts.

The attacks may be getting to Putin, too. Citing security concerns, he recently opted to cancel some regional Victory Day parades celebrating the upcoming anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. May 9 is considered one of Russia’s most important holidays and an opportunity for the Kremlin to flex its military muscle with a display of tanks and other weaponry in central Moscow.

Khurshudyan reported from Kyiv.

Fresh news from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine (February 14, 2023) - Centre for Defence Strategies (CDS-Ukraine)

Fresh news from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine (February 14, 2023)

CDS Daily brief (13.02.2023) CDS comments on key events

Snapshot of the day: General, humanitarian:

·                8 Ukrainian regions came under Russian fire on February 12. At least 4 civilians died, and 3 were injured;

·                Two districts of Kharkiv experience water shortages in the aftermath of the February 10 attacks;

·                The is no electric power shortage in the power system; however, scheduled blackouts are possible due to the damaged distribution system, in particular in Kyiv and Odesa;

·                Ukraine's allies support the creation of the special tribunal for the Russian crime of aggression, and details of the mechanism for its creation are discussed;

·                60-80% of the occupied Sievierodonetsk have no utility services. Medicines and food are available, although expensive. The mortality rate is high.

·                13 NGOs joined the working group on the creation of an anticorruption advisory body under the Ministry of Defense. Deputy Minister replacements are expected at the Ministry;

·                Ukraine will need 50 000 people to staff military and military-civilian administrations in Crimea after its liberation.

(...)

1.                                International:

·                                                    The governments of the US and France are calling on their citizens to leave Russia and Belarus. Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister will travel to Moscow. The Hungarian Foreign Minister will visit Minsk for a "peacemaking" mission. Neither Ukraine nor the EU nor anyone else has asked him to make the trip.

·                                                    The Chairman of the Munich Security Conference didn't provide Sergey Lavrov with a "propaganda platform" opportunity. Instead, Christoph Heusgen called the allies not to "put red lines' on fighter jets for Ukraine."

·                                                    Ukraine's Defence Minister outlined the agenda of the 9th Ramstein meeting, while NATO Secretary-General called on the allies to strengthen support for Ukraine, including by boosting the defense industry's production.

Russia allegedly planned a coup d’état in Moldova to deny the country ability to integrate into the EU and increase threats to Ukraine's South.

(...)

Tribunal for Russian Aggression

The head of the Office of the President, Andriy Yermak, held a working group meeting on creating a special international tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. Yermak noted that most of Ukraine's allies support its initiative: "Today, almost all of them say that they are ready to participate in the creation of the tribunal. We no longer discuss the possibility of the idea itself, but the specific mechanisms to create it."

(...)

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to stay ready to carry out two operational tasks against Ukraine:

·                to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine by launching missile strikes from surface ships, submarines, coastal missile systems, and aircraft at targets in the coastal zone and deep into the territory of Ukraine and readiness for the naval amphibious landing to assist ground forces in the coastal direction

·                to control the northwestern part of the Black Sea by blocking Ukrainian ports and preventing the restoration of sea communications by carrying out attacks on ports and ships and concealed mine-laying.

The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea and extend and maintain control over the captured territory and Ukraine's coastal regions.

(...)

1.                                Russian operational losses from 24.02.22 to 13.02.23

Personnel - almost 138,340 people (+560) Tanks - 3,283 (+3)
Armored combat vehicles – 6,492 (+4); Artillery systems – 2,290 (+3);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 465 (0); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 234 (0); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 5,150 (+2); Aircraft - 296 (0);

Helicopters – 286 (0);
UAV operational and tactical level – 2,007 (0);
Intercepted cruise missiles - 857 (0);
Boats/ships – 18 (0).

1.                                                  Ukraine, general news
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, believes that the victory of Ukraine should mean not only the liberation of its territories but also the strengthening of the Ukrainian army so that Russia will never attack Ukraine again. Zaluzhny said this in his conversation with the Supreme Commander of the NATO Joint Forces in Europe and the Commander of the US Armed Forces in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli.

Security Service of Ukraine conducted counter-sabotage exercises near the border with Belarus, SBU reported. The exercise plot involved "saboteurs" disguised as civilians who secretly infiltrated the region's territory.

(...)

International diplomatic aspect

While the French Foreign Ministry advised their citizens to "leave Belarus without delay," the US State Department called on its citizens to "depart Russia immediately" "due to the unpredictable consequences of the unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces, the potential for harassment and the singling out of US citizens for detention by Russian government security officials, the arbitrary enforcement of local law, limited flights into and out of Russia, the Embassy's limited ability to assist US citizens in Russia, and the possibility of terrorism.»

Meanwhile, the Chinese Foreign Minister will visit Moscow, and the Hungarian Foreign Minister will fly to Minsk. He is the first high official to visit Belarus since the all-out invasion. "Human lives must be saved, and that can only be done with peace. Hungary expects all members of the international community to act in order to ensure immediate peace and to avoid steps that risk prolonging or escalating the war. I will also represent this peace position at today's negotiations in Minsk," Péter Szijjártó wrote on his Facebook. Ukraine hasn't asked the Hungarian government for any mediating role. Moreover, the government and Ukrainian people were outraged by the comments made by the pro-Russian Prime Minister for the American Conservative. Neither the EU as the institution nor Germany and France, as leading nations in it, didn't ask for or agree on Hungary's "peacemaking" role. The Hungarian government has been playing a negative role by blocking tougher sanctions, refusing to provide military assistance to Ukraine or even using Hungarian territory for its delivery. Hungary has been blocking NATO projects with Ukraine and, along with Turkey, is blocking the membership of Sweden and Finland in the Alliance.

(...)

Russia, relevant news

Russian media reported that Vladimir Makarov, a major general and former deputy head of the department for the fight against "extremism" of the Russian MIA, committed suicide near Moscow. Makarov was fired from his post at the Ministry of Internal Affairs' counter-extremism department (also known as Center "E") in January of this year. "Meduza" reports that Center "E" is a repressive body whose employees persecute participants of protest actions and, in particular, monitor publications on social networks criticizing the authorities.

================ 

Centre for Defence Strategies (CDS) is a Ukrainian security think tank. We operate since 2020 We publish this brief daily. If you would like to subscribe, please send us an email at cds.dailybrief@gmail.com

The CDC Daily Brief is produced with the support of the Kyiv School of Economics https://kse.ua Please note, that we subscribe only verified persons and can decline or cancel the subscription

at our own discretion

We are an independent, non-government, non-partisan, and non-profit organisation. More at

www.defence.org.ua
Our Twitter (in English) - https://twitter.com/defence_centre