NATO member Poland held its biggest military parade since the Cold War in an event that marked victory over Soviet forces in 1920 and showcased the country’s state-of-the-art weaponry as war rages in neighbouring Ukraine and defence takes centre-stage ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
The Armed Forces Day parade on Tuesday marked the 103rd anniversary of Poland’s victory over the Soviet Union’s Red Army in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, during which Polish troops defeated Bolshevik forces advancing on Europe.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has made boosting the Polish armed forces a priority for the country’s ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS). With the country’s election campaign in full swing, the immense display of military hardware on Tuesday provided a chance for the government to promote its security credentials.
“The defence of our eastern border, the border of the European Union and of NATO is today a key element of Poland’s state interest,” Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, the chief commander of the armed forces, said in his opening speech at the event.
Crowds, waving national white-and-red flags, gathered in scorching temperatures that reached 35C (95F) to see United States-made Abrams tanks, HIMARS mobile artillery systems and Patriot missile systems on parade through the streets of the capital.
Also on display were F-16 fighter planes, South Korean FA-50 fighters and K9 howitzers. A US Air Force F-35 roared overhead in a sign Poland was also buying these advanced fighter planes. Polish-made equipment including Krab tracked gun howitzers and Rosomak armoured transporters were also featured.
Members of the Polish military forces participate in the annual Armed Forces Day military parade to commemorate Poland’s victory over the Soviet Union’s Red Army in 1920, in Warsaw, August 15, 2023 [Kacper Pempel/Reuters]
Some 2,000 troops from Poland and other NATO countries took part in the parade as well as 200 military vehicles and other equipment and almost 100 aircraft.
“August 15 is not only an opportunity to pay homage to the heroes of the victorious Battle of Warsaw and to thank contemporary soldiers for defending our homeland,” Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told troops and onlookers who had gathered near the Vistula River.
“It is also a perfect day to show our strength, to show that we have built powerful armed forces that will effectively defend our borders without hesitation,” he said.
[Unofficial translation: Thank you for being with the soldiers of the Polish Army today!]
Poland’s army has more than 175,000 troops, an increase from approximately 100,000 eight years ago, Duda said.
He also said Poland’s defence budget this year will be a record 137 billion zlotys ($34bn) or some 4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), the highest proportion in all of NATO.
“The goal of this huge modernisation is to equip Poland’s armed forces and create such a defence system that no one ever dares attack us, that Polish soldiers will never need to fight,” Duda said, while voicing his respect for the military.
Responding to criticism that Poland, a nation of some 37 million, was taking out huge loans to make the purchases, Duda said: “We cannot afford to be idle. This is why we are strengthening our armed forces here and now.”
“The security of Poles is priceless,” he added.
Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Warsaw, said that more than 100 years since the war with Soviet forces, “a shadow of war” looms once again on Poland’s borders.
“And that is why the government continues to tell its people that it needs a strong, powerful army,” he said.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Poland’s conservative government has focused on strengthening the armed forces and spent more than $16bn on tanks, missile interceptor systems and fighter jets, many bought from the US and South Korea.
Poland has a border to the east with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad; with Lithuania, a fellow NATO member; and with Russia’s key ally Belarus as well as with Ukraine.
Military upgrades have bolstered Poland’s defence capabilities and some items replaced Soviet- and Russian-made equipment that Poland provided to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Poland is building one of Europe’s strongest armies to beef up deterrence against potential aggressors and has increased the number of troops to some 10,000 along its border with Belarus, where it has also built a wall to stop migrants arriving from that direction.
Here is the situation on Tuesday, August 15, 2023.
Fighting
Ukraine downed three waves of Russian missiles and drones targeting Odesa, the army said. Fifteen drones and eight Kalibr-type sea-based missiles were involved in the attack. Falling debris from the destroyed weapons damaged a student dormitory and a supermarket in Odesa’s city centre, leaving three workers wounded.
Russia said its air defence systems shot down unmanned aerial vehicles over its Belgorod region, the TASS news agency reports. It said there were no casualties or damage.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian weapons were proving their effectiveness in the war against Ukraine and that “much-hyped” Western arms had shown themselves to be “far from perfect”.
Ukraine reported fierce fighting along its entire front line and claimed “some success” in pushing back Moscow’s troops in the southeast of the country. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian troops had pushed forward around the village of Staromaiorske, about 97km (60 miles) southwest of Russian-held Donetsk, and were pressing on two fronts in the south.
A Russian spokesperson in Ukraine’s Kherson region accused Kyiv’s forces of attacking a monastery in the village of Korsunka as well as a school, TASS reported.
Russia is equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic Zircon missiles as part of the country’s efforts to boost its nuclear forces, the RIA state news agency reported, quoting Alexei Rakhmanov, chief executive officer of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). Yasen-class submarines, also known as Project 885M, are nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines built to replace Soviet-era nuclear attack submarines as part of a programme to modernise Russia’s fleet.
Economy
The Russian rouble slid past 100 against the dollar, its lowest level since March 23, 2022. The rouble has shed about 30 percent of its value against the dollar as imports rise and exports decrease since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. On Monday morning, data from the Moscow Exchange showed the rouble trading at 101.01 to the dollar, while against the euro, it fell to a near 17-month low of 110.73.
Military aid
The United States will send Ukraine new military assistance worth $200m. The package includes air defence munitions, artillery rounds, anti-armour capabilities and mine-clearing equipment, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the US for its decision to send Kyiv the assistance package.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked Germany’s finance minister and government for their support in financial aid and sanctions against Russia.
Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the provision of long-range missiles, such as the German Taurus missiles Kyiv has asked for, would reduce Russia’s combat capabilities by focusing on “the destruction of rear logistics – warehouses, transportation, fuel”.
Diplomacy
Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu will visit Russia and Belarus this week. “State Councillor and Defence Minister Li Shangfu will go to Russia to attend the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security, and visit Belarus,” a Chinese defence ministry spokesperson said.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said employees of Russian institutions in Moldova – the embassy, trade mission and Russian Centre of Science and Culture – as well as their family members have returned to Moscow. Last month, Moldova told Russia to reduce its embassy presence in Chisinau, citing concerns about alleged Russian attempts to destabilise the small state, which borders Romania and Ukraine.
Politics
US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy met with jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in her third such visit since his March detention in Russia on espionage charges, which he denies, according to the newspaper.
An ally of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is on trial in Siberia on charges of creating an “extremist organisation”, a court spokeswoman told France’s AFP news agency. Ksenia Fadeyeva, 31, is a former municipal deputy in the Siberian city of Tomsk and headed Navalny’s political office in the city.
Espionage
A major general in Ukraine’s security service has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for high treason, the German press agency, dpa, reported. The intelligence officer was accused of collecting information and passing it on to Russia, the public prosecutor’s office in Kyiv said.
Poland’s Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski announced that two Russian citizens found “distributing propaganda materials of the Wagner Group” have been detained in Warsaw and Krakow. “Both were charged with … espionage and arrested,” Kaminski said on social media.
Black Sea tension
Ukraine condemned what it called “provocative” Russian actions a day after a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo vessel in the Black Sea.
Romania aims to double the monthly transit capacity of Ukrainian grain via the Danube River, the country’s Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu said. Romania could increase Danube River transit capacity by hiring more staff to ease the passage of vessels and finalising connecting infrastructure projects, Grindeanu told reporters. Before Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal, the Danube ports accounted for about a quarter of Ukraine’s grain exports.
Regional security
The United Kingdom said its fighter jets intercepted two Russian maritime patrol bomber aircraft in international airspace north of Scotland, a NATO policing area. The UK said its Typhoon jets routinely scrambled during such incidents to secure and safeguard its skies.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it scrambled a MIG-29 jet after a Norwegian air force plane neared Russian airspace off its Arctic coast. Separately, the ministry said Russian strategic bombers carried out routine flights over international waters in the Arctic.
Russia will deliver S-400 anti-aircraft systems to India within an agreed timeframe, the Russian Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian defence export official as saying. India is the world’s biggest weapons importer and still primarily uses Russian technology for arms, but officials have expressed concern that Russia’s war in Ukraine could delay deliveries.
Late last week, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was handed a harsh judgment: After a court hit him with a new 19-year sentence in a penal colony, he was sent immediately to a punishment cell.
It was a stark contrast to the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Back in June, Prigozhin led the abortive mutiny that presented the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in over two decades of rule. While Prigozhin’s troops stopped short of Moscow, a furious Putin said in a televised speech that those on the “path of treason” would face punishment. Almost two months later, in the case of the Wagner chief, this simply hasn’t happened.
Clearly, the price for confronting Putin is not fixed. Perhaps more surprisingly, Prigozhin hasn’t even kept a low profile since the June uprising.
Just weeks after the insurrection, Prigozhin popped up on the sidelines of the recent Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, shaking hands with a dignitary from the Central African Republic (CAR).
To be sure, the mercenary boss was not striking a martial pose: While subscribers to his Telegram channel have become accustomed to seeing him in camouflage and tactical gear, Prigozhin was spotted in a polo shirt and mom jeans, cutting a seemingly more mild-mannered figure than in months past.
But pity the poor Russian diplomat who has to explain why Prigozhin – whose forces shot down Russian military aircraft and killed Russian military servicemembers on their march toward the capital – remains at large.
That’s exactly what happened when CNN’s Christiane Amanpour confronted Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom, about the bizarre spectacle of Prigozhin’s post-mutiny appearance.
Wagner’s insurrection, Kelin conceded, might constitute a form of “high treason.” But the ambassador went on to explain that Putin has decided to let bygones be bygones.
“The president has qualified it when it has started, then it was all over,” Kelin said. “Now he’s traveling someplace, so we do recognize some hero deeds by Wagner groups,” alluding to Wagner’s apparent battlefield successes around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
Amanpour, however, pressed Kelin further.
“What I would like to understand, why is it that people like (jailed dissident Vladimir) Kara-Murza, the intellectual, others, Navalny are in jail for verbally protesting and disagreeing with the Russian government, but… Prigozhin, who tried to commit a coup against the Kremlin, maybe even against the President himself – an armed coup – is still wandering around free in Russia? He was photographed meeting with African leaders during this week’s summit in St. Petersburg, why is he not in jail for treason?”
Kelin evaded at first, saying he didn’t recall that Russian soldiers died during the Wagner mutiny. Pressed by Amanpour, Kelin conceded that he had no explanation. Longtime observers, too, are searching for explanations about Prigozhin’s future.
Experts believe that the Wagner boss still has value to Putin, even though the stature of both men has diminished.
“Prigozhin’s stock with the Kremlin has clearly taken a hit,” said Candace Rondeaux, director of Future Frontlines, an open source intelligence service at the think tank New America. “But since Putin lost even more stock after the mutiny it seems he believes some utility remains in keeping Prigozhin around.”
Prigozhin’s business acumen – and his skill at concealing commercial gains through an opaque network of front companies and offshore operations – are an asset for Putin’s Russia, which has been hit by sweeping Western economic sanctions, Rondeaux said.
“At this point, Prigozhin’s networks of shell companies are the best insurance Putin has to keep Russia’s war economy,” she said. “But it’s not likely to stay that way forever – eventually something has got to give. And there is a good chance once it does we’ll see more spectacular events closer to the border between Poland and Belarus.”
Rondeaux was referring to the recent relocation of some Wagner fighters to Belarus. The move – apparently part of a deal brokered to end the June mutiny – has already raised alarms in Poland, a NATO member next door to Belarus.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently said that 100 troops from Wagner were moving toward a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, with the possible intent of posing as migrants to cross the border.
It’s unclear exactly how many Wagner troops are in Belarus, and whether or not they have access to heavy weaponry. But Morawiecki seemed to be pointing to one potential scenario for Wagner mischief: Promoting some kind of destabilization along NATO’s eastern frontier.
And then there are Prigozhin’s plans for another region: Vulnerable and unstable countries in Africa, where Wagner has already conducted a series of operations.
Speaking after Wagner fighters relocated to Belarus, Prigozhin suggested he remained focused on this core African market.
“To ensure that there are no secrets and behind-the-scenes conversations, I am informing you that the Wagner Group continues its activities in Africa, as well as at the training centers in Belarus,” Prigozhin said in an audio message shared on Telegram accounts associated with the Wagner group.
Prigozhin’s forces are already implicated in activities in Sudan – where Wagner has supplied the militia battling Sudan’s army – and has operated extensively in the CAR and in Libya.
He may also sense opportunities in Niger, after a recent military coup threatened to spark a major regional crisis. In a recent Telegram message, Prigozhin hinted that Wagner might be ready to offer its services there.
“What happened in Niger has been brewing for years,” Prigozhin said. “The former colonizers are trying to keep the people of African countries in check. In order to keep them in check, the former colonizers are filling these countries with terrorists and various bandit formations. Thus creating a colossal security crisis.”
Then followed his hard sell. “The population suffers,” he said. “And this is the (the reason for the) love for PMC Wagner, this is the high efficiency of PMC Wagner. Because a thousand soldiers of PMC Wagner are able to establish order and destroy terrorists, preventing them from harming the peaceful population of states.”
That might be dismissed as pure bluster and salesmanship. But it’s worth noting that Prigozhin’s sale pitch was at odds with the view of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which called for the “prompt release” of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum by the military.
And that’s where things can still get interesting back in Russia. By defying Putin and evading punishment, Prigozhin seems to have built and sustained a competing center of gravity to the Kremlin.
In a recent analysis, Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Prigozhin had effectively chipped away at the “power vertical” – Putin’s longstanding system of top-down rule.
“Putin’s much-hyped ‘power vertical’ has disappeared,” she wrote. “Instead of a strong hand, there are dozens of mini-Prigozhins, and while they may be more predictable than the Wagner leader, they are no less dangerous. All of them know full well that a post-Putin Russia is already here – even as Putin remains in charge – and that it’s time to take up arms and prepare for a battle for power.”
Russian officials say multiple missiles were shot down over the crucial bridge connecting the annexed Crimea to the mainland on Saturday, the latest in a series of apparent Ukrainian attacks in the region.
The bridge is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pet projects and has frequently been targeted as a hated symbol of occupation.
Two Ukrainian missiles were shot down on Saturday afternoon, the Russia-appointed Head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov wrote in a post on Telegram, adding that the bridge was undamaged.
Photos and videos circulating on social media platforms showed white smoke billowing from the bridge. CNN has not independently verified the images.
An update from Aksyonov said later Saturday that another Ukrainian missile had been shot down in the area.
“Another enemy missile was shot down over the Kerch Strait. Thank you to our air defense troops for their high professionalism and vigilance!” Aksyonov wrote on Telegram.
Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Russian-appointed Head of Crimea, said special services put up a “smoke screen,” which are used to conceal any damage caused.
Russia’s defense ministry also said earlier Saturday that its forces had destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones launched at the peninsula overnight.
Following the attempted strikes, Russia’s foreign ministry condemned Ukraine for what it described as a “terrorist attack.”
“The Crimean bridge is an object of purely civilian infrastructure, attacks on which are unacceptable. It has been subjected to such attacks since the autumn of last year, which also led to the death of civilians,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
“Such barbaric actions cannot be justified and will not go unanswered,” Zakharova continued.
Meanwhile, traffic has resumed on the Crimean bridge, according to the Crimean bridge operative information Telegram account, after it was temporarily blocked.
The Crimean bridge is a vital artery for supplying Russia’s war on Ukraine, allowing people and goods to flow into the Ukrainian territories that Moscow has occupied in the south and east of the country.
Also known as the Kerch Bridge, it holds personal value for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the Kremlin narrative it marks the “reunification” of Crimea with the Russian mainland.
In October, the bridge was partially destroyed when a fuel tanker exploded and damaged a large section of the road. The Kremlin was quick to blame Kyiv for that explosion, and Putin alleged that it was an act of “sabotage” by Ukrainian security services.
The bridge was also hit by two strikes in July in an attack a Ukrainian security official told CNN Kyiv was responsible for.
Last week the head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Vasyl Maliuk said that any explosions that happen to Russian ships or the Crimean bridge are “an absolutely logical and effective step.”
Maliuk said that if the Russians wanted such explosions to stop “they have the only option to do so – to leave the territorial waters of Ukraine and our land.”
Russian defence ministry says 20 Ukrainian drones were shot down and electronically suppressed in early morning attack.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces destroyed a wave of 20 Ukrainian drones over the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
There were no casualties and no damage as a result of the attempted attack early on Saturday morning, the defence ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
Fourteen drones were destroyed by air defence systems and six were suppressed by electronic warfare, the ministry said.
It was not immediately clear what was the target of the reported attacks on the peninsula.
Sergei Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, said earlier that air defence systems were engaged in repelling air attacks in different parts of the peninsula.
Crimea transport authorities said on their Telegram channel that traffic on the Crimean Bridge, which links the Black Sea peninsula with the Russian region of Krasnodar, was suspended for about two hours from 01:30am local time (22:30 GMT on Friday).
On Friday, Russian officials said that Ukrainian drones were shot down while attempting to attack Moscow – the third straight day of attempts to hit targets in the Russian capital, while Russian missiles killed an 8-year-old boy in Western Ukraine on the same day.
The missile that killed the boy struck a house in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk region, about 100km (60 miles) from the Polish border, according to the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
The drone that was shot down near Moscow on Friday plunged onto the Karamyshevskaya Embankment, officials said, which is about 5km (3 miles) from a Moscow business district that was hit twice in previous drone incidents.
Reports of drones in the area disrupted flights at two Russian airports on Friday.
Flights later resumed at Vnukovo airport, one of Moscow’s busiest, and at Kaluga airport, southwest of the city. It was the third day in a row that Vnukovo airport halted flights due to drone attacks.
Two high-ranking Ukrainian officials have been named as suspects in an embezzlement scheme uncovered by Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities this week, involving the procurement of humanitarian aid.
Ukraine’s first deputy minister of agrarian policy and food and the former deputy minister of economy reportedly misappropriated UAH 62 million (about €1.5 million), the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) found.
This is just the latest wave of corruption that has swept Ukraine since the war with Russia started in 2022. In January, two major corruption scandals centered on government procurement of military catering services and electrical generators shook the country.
Rather than sweeping the suspect deals under the carpet, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy launched a major crackdown, in a bid to show allies in the U.S. and EU that Ukraine is making a clean break from the past. Earlier this month, he fired all regional military recruitment bosses amid reports of corruption, replacing them with soldiers who have been on the front lines or who have been hurt in combat.
The most recent scheme involved the purchase of food which was intended as humanitarian aid for regional military administrations and for the populations of Donetsk, Kherson, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Khmelnytsky, Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions and the city of Kyiv, SAPO said.
According to the agencies, in one episode the first deputy minister of agrarian policy purchased food at prices two to three times higher than market value through a controlled company, which in turn bought the products at market value from a Polish manufacturer.
This cost Ukraine’s railway company Ukrzaliznytsia about €719,000 between March and August 2022.
“He was aware of the actual market value of the products, as he regularly received relevant data from the state statistical service,” said NABU in a press release. “He also knew about the possibility of purchasing products from Ukrainian manufacturers but deliberately ignored this fact.”
In a separate scheme involving both officials, food was purchased once again at higher prices through an intermediary company which, in turn, bought food at market value from a Turkish manufacturer. The deputy minister of economy hid proof that there were better offers available and pushed officials to illegally approve applications and invoices from the controlled companies.
As a result of this scheme, Ukrzaliznytsia overpaid companies about €841,000.
“Having been received, the funds were transferred to a foreign company with signs of fictitiousness for further legalization,” NABU said. “Draft records outlining the distribution of the ill-gotten gains were discovered during a search at a scheme participant’s place.”
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Expectations for Ukraine’s counteroffensive were too high from the start.
And as it now closes in on its third month, with no sign of a truly significant dynamic-changing breakthrough, it feels as though we’re back in a slog, a war of attrition that risks stretching the patience of impatient allies — something the Kremlin is no doubt hoping for.
Or, as American military strategist Edward Luttwak noted this week, “The Ukraine war has entered its ‘grin & bear it’ period as it fights a Great Power that tried & failed to conquer it in a week last February, and which is now organized for protracted war.”
Ukrainian officials blame their counterparts in allied governments for much of the overoptimism surrounding the counteroffensive — as well as an overenthusiastic Western media that mistakes wishful thinking for clear-eyed analysis all too often, conjuring up the idea of demoralized, badly led Russian soldiers quickly turning tail. The optimists’ view was that the counteroffensive would simply repeat the success of last fall, when Ukraine pulled off a stunning and rapid success around Kharkiv, as Russian defenses collapsed.
But Kyiv also bears some responsibility for of the optimistic prognosis of a quick breakthrough.
For much of the spring ahead of the counteroffensive, Chief of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov, among others, all too confidently pronounced the prospect, talking about the coming “decisive battle.” And Budanov even shrugged off pleas from Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to soften predictions of success.
But in defense of such overblown forecasts, what were Ukrainians supposed to say?
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried his best to pull off a tricky balancing act, holding out the possibility of delivering a decisive blow in order to shore up Western confidence and keep equipment and weapons flowing, while also tempering expectations. However, he dialed up the latter prospect too late — as did Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who became worried in late spring that hopes were “definitely overheated.”
Their efforts weren’t helped by retired American generals letting their thoughts run away with them either, talking up how Ukraine would soon be able to target annexed Crimea. “The problem is that we believe our own military propaganda,” complained Andrey Illarionov, a former senior Kremlin policy adviser who broke with Putin in 2005. A fierce critic of Moscow, Illarionov now fears a long war unless the West gets considerably more muscular.
Another reason behind Ukraine’s mistaken optimism was also a failure to understand that the Russian army was quickly learning from its own mistakes and correcting course. Just weeks ahead of the counteroffensive’s launch, Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds — two of this war’s most thoughtful military analysts from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) — issued a warning about likely hiccups, detailing evidence of Russia’s learning curve, noting altered basic infantry tactics and improved artillery targeting, allowing guns to strike Ukrainian targets within minutes of detection.
They also highlighted other changes, including the “speed with which Russian infantry dig, and the scale at which they improve their fighting positions.” Russia’s armor tactics were altering as well, as they began using tanks to offer supporting firepower for infantry units from safe distances, rather than amassing them for bungled shock-and-awe attacks, and utilizing thermal camouflage to mask them.
Another common tactic, the authors wrote, “is for the Russians to withdraw from a position that is being assaulted and then saturate it with fire once Ukrainian troops attempt to occupy it.” This tactic, along with a phalanx of dense and imposing defensive lines that Russia emplaced in the south — the counteroffensive’s area of focus — is what’s now stalling Ukraine.
Another reason behind Ukraine’s mistaken optimism was also a failure to understand that the Russian army was quickly learning from its own mistakes and correcting course | Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
Ukrainian forces are now having to contend with layers upon layers of varied anti-personnel and anti-armor mines in Zaporizhzia and Donetsk, including PFM-1 high-explosives — which can be scattered in their thousands by mortars, helicopters and aeroplanes without exploding upon hitting the ground. These minefields can be up to 16 kilometers deep and easily replenished when Ukrainian sappers make inroads, and by some estimates, Ukrainian territory that’s twice the size of Portugal has been heavily mined, sometimes with up to half a dozen mines per square-meter.
Ukraine now has little time to engineer a break through Russian defensive lines — which in some places are 30 kilometers deep — and then fully capitalize on any major breach before the weather turns again in a couple months. But so far, after weeks of fighting, they have only made inroads of around a few kilometers in key places. The first phase of the counteroffensive saw substantial losses in terms of Western-supplied armor, and the second phase of using infantry to try and find ways through hasn’t met with significant success either.
All Ukraine has been able to do is inch forward.
Still, according to frontline soldiers, morale remains high, mainly among the recently fully deployed — and Western-trained — 10th corps. The initial plan had been to only deploy the 10th once the main defensive lines had been reached, but they had to be thrown in sooner — testament to the awful, time-consuming slog facing Ukraine’s soldiers.
Unsurprisingly, many of them bristle at Western griping about their slow progress, such as the criticism contained in last month’s leaked battlefield assessment by Germany’s Bundeswehr, which faulted the Ukrainian military for not fully implementing its NATO training.
The counter to much of the Bundeswehr’s criticism, of course, is that Ukraine had little option but to move away from standard Western instruction on combined warfare tactics, as crucial elements of the armory needed to pull it off hadn’t been supplied by the West — namely F-16 warplanes and long-range missiles.
The pilots currently being trained on F-16s won’t be ready until next spring, and by then the Americans may have overcome their reluctance to supply longer-range missiles | Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR
In short, the West hobbled the Ukrainians before the starting gun had been fired, teaching them how to fight NATO-style but withholding the weapons systems needed to perform. On top of that, the West was always eager for Zelenskyy to get going, and allies became frustrated when he delayed the counteroffensive from spring to summer, as he lobbied to get more Western supplies.
So, with no apparent signs of a breakthrough, it appears it’s now time to return to the drawing board for the next fighting season in spring, in case success doesn’t come soon. After all, the pilots currently being trained on F-16s won’t be ready until next spring, and by then the Americans may have overcome their reluctance to supply longer-range missiles.
But if political calculations were difficult this year, with a U.S. presidential election looming, it’s important to remember that they’ll be even more taxing next year, with an exceptionally torrid and combustible White House election season in full swing, possibly distracting the administration’s attention and making it harder to get Congress to agree on the security and economic assistance Ukraine will need.
As Luttwak noted, “Ukraine need not win a great victory to exit the war an independent nation, only persistence.” And the question has never been about Ukrainian tenacity — by next year, though, the risks will increase whether the West has the stamina and will to win.
The German government on Wednesday stepped back at the last minute from making a legal commitment to meeting NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense on an annual basis, according to Reuters and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
A government official told the news agency that a clause pledging to meet the target was deleted at short notice from Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s draft of a new budget financing law, just before the Cabinet passed it to the parliament.
Instead, the government pledges to meet the 2 percent target on average over a five-year period, as already set out in the recently published National Security Strategy.
Annalena Baerbock’s Foreign Office had opposed setting the 2 percent target in law, as desired by the Defense Ministry, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.
A spokesperson for the government declined to comment to Reuters on the details of the bill.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the Zeitenwende, a new dawn in Germany’s security policy.
“From now on, we will invest more than 2 percent of the GDP into our defense year after year,” Scholz said in February 2022. He renewed this promise after last month’s NATO summit in Vilnius.
For many years, Germany was criticized by NATO partners, especially the United States, for not sticking to NATO’s requirement on defense spending.
The British parliament has for the first time referred to Taiwan as an “independent country” in an official document, breaking a political taboo as Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visits China this week.
The new language, adopted in a report published Wednesday by the influential foreign affairs committee of the House of Commons, risks a stinging backlash from Beijing and comes as Cleverly becomes the first top British envoy to visit Beijing in five years amid a frosty relationship.
Beijing has long denied Taiwan’s statehood, insisting the self-governing democratic island is part of its territory. Only 13 countries around the world recognize Taipei instead of Beijing diplomatically.
“Taiwan is already an independent country, under the name Republic of China,” the committee report says. “Taiwan possesses all the qualifications for statehood, including a permanent population, a defined territory, government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states — it is only lacking greater international recognition.”
According to Committee Chairperson Alicia Kearns, from the ruling Conservative Party, it’s the first time a U.K. parliament report is making such a declaration. “We acknowledge China’s position, but we as [the foreign affairs committee] do not accept it,” Kearns told POLITICO. “It is imperative the foreign secretary steadfastly and vocally stand by Taiwan and make clear we will uphold Taiwan’s right to self-determination.”
“This commitment aligns not only with British values but also serves as a poignant message to autocratic regimes worldwide that sovereignty cannot be attained through violence or coercion,” Kearns added.
The committee report criticized the government for not being bold enough in supporting Taiwan, calling on officials to start preparing sanctions with allies in order to deter Beijing’s military action and economic blockade over the island that supplies 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors.
“The U.K. could pursue closer relations with Taiwan if it were not over-cautious about offending the [Chinese Communist Party],” the committee said. “The U.K. should loosen self-imposed restrictions on who can interact with Taiwanese officials. The U.S. and Japan have shown that communication is possible even at the highest level.”
London should also work with Tokyo and Taipei for trilateral cooperation on cyber and space defence capabilities, it said.
On Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), of which Britain is a new member, the committee urged the government to campaign for Taiwan’s admission.
Meanwhile, the report also criticized the British government for keeping its China strategy under wraps.
“Given the publication by Germany of a China strategy, it is evidently possible for the U.K. government to publish a public, unclassified, version which would give the public and private sectors the guidance they are seeking,” it said.
Whitehall, it said, should be tougher on China’s “transnational repression” on British soil, such as sanctioning U.K. lawmakers or harassing dissidents.
Cleverly “must be absolute that defense is not an escalation, and that the U. K. will stand resolute and take action against any efforts at transnational repression,” Kearns said.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has stopped short of defining China as a broad “threat,” instead pitching it as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge.”
Debris from a large-scale Russian missile attack on Kyiv has killed two people and injured several more, in the largest air strike on the Ukrainian capital since spring.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Russia launched 28 missiles and 16 drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Ukrainian air defense forces destroyed all missiles and 15 out of the 16 drones within the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr.
“Tonight, almost all enemy air targets destroyed,” Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. “Thanks to all the defenders who joined in repelling the air attack!”
Debris from the downed missiles and drones fell in the Darnytskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts of Kyiv, killing two people and injuring three more. The two victims were security guards, aged 26 and 36 years old. Several fires broke out in the two districts, damaging nonresidential buildings.
This was the largest strike on Kyiv in months, said Kyiv’s City Military Administration.
“Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring,” Sergey Popko, head of CMVA, said on Telegram. “The enemy carried out a massive, combined attack using drones and missiles.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of Zelenskyy’s office, called the attack on Kyiv an “unquestionably deliberate attack on the civilian population.”
Some fires were reported outside of the city as well, in the wider Kyiv region, where several residential buildings were damaged.
Also in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Russia said it shot down multiple attempted air strikes by Ukrainian forces over several regions.
In the Pskov region, located on Russia’s western flank near the borders of Latvia and Estonia, several military transport aircraft caught fire as a result of the attack, reported Russian state-run news agency TASS.
In central Russia, the Russian defense ministry said it shot down all attempted air strikes and no casualties were reported. Alexander Bogomaz, governor of the Bryansk region where seven drones were reportedly shot down, said Ukrainian forces tried to attack a TV tower in the region, without success.
Three airports in Moscow were temporarily closed Wednesday, but the restrictions were later lifted, TASS reported.
Moscow also said it thwarted an attack east of Snake Island in the Black Sea on Wednesday, destroying a Ukrainian high-speed military boat.
Ukraine’s drone attacks have increasingly targeted Russian territory in recent months, including its capital, Moscow. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the attacks or claim responsibility.
BRUSSELS — The Netherlands on Friday started enforcing new export controls restrictions on advanced microchips production machines to China, siding with Washington in the geopolitical tussle over who controls the critical technology.
The Dutch rules come in support of a U.S.-led strategy to choke off China from critical parts of the supply chain needed to manufacture high-end microchips used in consumer electronics, computing and other domains — including military applications. “It’s necessary to check in advance who’s the end user and what the end use is of the production equipment,” the Dutch advocate in the regulation.
But the measures also put a target on the back of Dutch semiconductor champion ASML — Europe’s highest-valued tech company with a market value of around €240 billion — and have caused critics in Europe to accuse the Dutch government of bowing to U.S. pressure too easily.
ASML already faced restrictions on the export of its most advanced machines, which use extreme ultraviolet light (EUV). The new rules require the company to apply for a permit for at least three types of its machines that use less advanced deep ultraviolet (DUV). The government expects about 20 annual applications in total for a permit because of the additional DUV restrictions.
Decoupling will be ‘extremely expensive’
The Dutch decision to align export controls policy with Washington and Tokyo has sidelined other European Union member countries and Europe’s own chips industry in past months.
The rules don’t seem to bite in the short term: ASML didn’t change its financial outlook for this year, nor its “longer-term scenarios.” Part of the explanation there is that ASML was still granted the necessary licenses it needed until the end of the year, an ASML spokesperson said Thursday, allowing the company to “fulfill contractual obligations.” The company added though that it was “unlikely” to receive export licences for Chinese customers from January onward.
But the company is fully aware that restrictions to the Chinese market out of security concerns could become a slippery slope, threatening its unique position in a global — and highly efficient — supply chain.
Decoupling between the West and China will be “extremely difficult and extremely expensive,” Christophe Fouquet, the company’s executive vice president, said in June. Earlier, ASML CEO Peter Wennink said that putting “locks” on the global chips ecosystem would have “far-reaching consequences.”
It could also incite China to accelerate its own production ecosystem for advanced chips — something that has not been sufficiently taken into consideration, according to critics of the export restrictions.
ASML CEO Peter Wennink said that putting “locks” on the global chips ecosystem would have “far-reaching consequences” | Bas Czerwinski/EFE via EPA
“We’re giving a clear signal to the world: The export of our products can stop if a country bothers the U.S., because the Netherlands immediately succumbs under the pressure,” Laurens Dassen, a Dutch lawmaker for the pan-European Volt party, said in a statement.
“You already see that China is starting to produce these chips itself instead of buying them from us,” Dassen said.
Seeking security
The Dutch decision has prompted the rest of the European Union to speed up their work to coordinate export controls and manage risks emanating from trading with China.
Before the summer, the European Commission presented its economic security package — including a promise to review the bloc’s export control regime. The Commission has said that it wants to come up with a “list of technologies which are critical to economic security” as part of the package.
Behind the scenes, diplomats and officials are squabbling over how to balance Europe’s need for trade defenses for security purposes with its strategy to promote free trade and keep its industries competitive with other regions.
It’s something that Dutch politicians welcome, if only to avoid being the only ones in Europe pioneering ways to regulate sensitive tech.
“In the previous decades, technology has become determinate for geopolitical relations. If that’s the case, you will need a policy in the area of technology,” Bart Groothuis, a liberal lawmaker who co-negotiated the bloc’s Chips Act, said. The Chips Act already has some provisions that allow for more European cooperation on export controls.
The Netherlands and Europe shouldn’t follow the U.S. “blindly” in that area, Volt’s Dassen added: “It’s about time that Europe determines its own fate. We have to make our own strategic choices and not be dependent” — on China, nor on the U.S.
KYIV — Ukraine’s long-range Beaver drones seem to be making successful kamikaze strikes in the heart of Moscow, but Serhiy Prytula is coy about how much he knows.
“We are not sure whether we are involved in this,” he says with a charming but inscrutable smile, when asked about these mysterious new weapons.
Prytula rose to fame — just like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — as an actor, TV star and comedian, but is now best known for his contribution to the war, running a foundation that acquires components, helps support domestic arms production and supplies front-line forces. Tracking down parts for drones has proved to be one of his fortes.
Whether or not Prytula played any role in finding parts for the Beaver, it has now joined the ranks of other homegrown creations such as the Shark, Leleka and Valkyrie.
From the outside, his foundation looks like any other nondescript five-story apartment block in the quiet side streets of Kyiv. Inside, it is a chaotic human hive of volunteers, preparing packages and dispatching deliveries to soldiers on the front. On August 9, the team packed 75 drones for military units. That’s barely a drop in the ocean, given the needs of Ukraine’s forces across a 1,000-kilometer front, but every extra eye in the sky can help save dozens of lives.
The crowd of young, energetic volunteers at Prytula’s headquarters epitomizes an important dimension of the war: Ukrainians are increasingly taking matters into their own hands when it comes to weapons supply. With the defense ministry and the traditional state arms sector widely criticized for inefficiency and tarnished by corruption scandals over past years, the country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines and to ramp up domestic production in the most hazardous of conditions. With arms-makers being prime targets for Russian cruise missiles, factories are spreading their manufacturing over numerous secret locations.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home both by scouring the global arms bazaar for hi-tech gizmos and by making more of their own heavy armor and shells is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader. Other Republican candidates have only heightened Ukrainians’ fears that the next U.S. president could sell out their young democracy to the Kremlin.
In addition to the aerial drones, there have been other homegrown success stories — Ukrainian-made armored vehicles are on the front lines beside U.S. Bradleys and locally made maritime drones have hit Russian ships in the Black Sea.
Not that anyone reckons going it alone is an option. Ukraine cannot even begin to match the vast military expenditure of Russia — Kyiv is expected to spend €24 billion on defense over 2023, while Russia is probably splurging well over €80 billion — so foreign assistance will always prove vital to keeping Ukraine in the fight.
But that’s no reason to sit idly by. Almost an entire country has mobilized for national defense, and there are many ways in which entrepreneurial private suppliers are now proving nimbler than state behemoths and bureaucrats in getting soldiers what they need.
When it came to the key question — on every Ukrainian’s mind — of continued Western support, Prytula stressed the efforts that Ukrainians were making to defend themselves made it less likely that outside aid would diminish. “I am convinced that they will keep supplying us with weapons because the world sees the war efforts of Ukrainian society.”
Beaver blitz
The back story of the Beaver is a closely guarded secret.
Last year, Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Ihor Lachenkov announced he was aiming to collect 20 million hryvnia (about €500,000) to produce and buy five Beaver drones for military intelligence, and later posted pictures of himself hugging one. Since then drones that looked like Beavers have hammered Russian oil depots and other military targets deep inside Russian territory and even hit Moscow’s business district. Officially, Ukraine is saying nothing about where this kit is coming from, and men such as Lachenkov and Prytula provide a useful smokescreen.
The country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines | Sergey Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Prytula in late July also showed off grinning pictures of himself walking past three Beaver drones on a landing strip, quipping ironically: “We have no idea what can fly to Moscow.”
Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Prytula’s foundation has raised $135 million, which has been used to buy more than 7,000 drones, 1,200 vehicles, over 17,000 communication devices and much more.
When asked about his role in getting the Beaver drones, Prytula diplomatically said a volunteer’s job is to buy what the military needs and hand it over. “But it is not always necessary to talk about it. We honestly always say that we have nothing to do with it. When we see oil bases are exploding somewhere in Russia, or that there are some attacks on military facilities, we are glad that our army has learned to take out the enemy outside the country,” Prytula said.
Indeed, Prytula’s volunteers play a key middleman role in acquiring components more quickly than the state bureaucracy can.
China is a key part of the puzzle as the Ukrainian defense ministry cannot buy Chinese-made civilian drones directly. Shenzhen-based drone maker DJI no longer openly sells to Russia or to Ukraine, so the key trick is to acquire their wares quickly from third countries, or pick up parts and components internationally that can be assembled by Ukrainian technicians. There is a boom in small Ukrainian arms producers, with more than 100 companies active in the field.
“For the Russians, it was always easier to get [the Chinese products] in the never-ending race. So, when I hear Ukrainians managed to snatch up 10,000 components for … drones from Russians, I am happy,” Prytula said, sitting in his office, beside a giant wooden map of Ukraine.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“The defense ministry also can’t buy [drones] that are not in serial production yet. But we can, and the producers can reinvest the money to increase the number, if soldiers’ feedback from the front was good,” Prytula continued. “So, by donating money people are not only helping the army, but also stimulating domestic military production.”
The game-changing role of drone producers has also made them a target. Over the weekend, Russia attacked a theater in the center of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, where drone producers and volunteers had organized a closed meeting with the help of the local military administration. Most of them managed to escape to shelter but people walking around the theater on the central square did not, with seven killed and 129 injured.
Bringing it all back home
While almost everyone now wants to get involved in the defense business, that wasn’t always the case. Just as Russia was building up its military from 1991 to 2014, Ukraine neglected its own arms factories. In the wild years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, illegal networks smuggled out arms. While the country remained a heavyweight military producer, it focused on export earnings rather than tailoring weapons for Ukraine’s own forsaken troops.
“No one predicted any military conflicts either with Russia or other countries,” Maksym Polyvianyi, acting director of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, told POLITICO. “In a way, Russia’s 2014 invasion boosted our defense industry. Dozens of defense companies appeared and started the modernization of Ukrainian armory and the army.”
Still, the old scourge of corruption held the country back, even after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east.
Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 forced another change, however, accelerating diversification from the state industrial complex. “As of 2022, Ukrainian armed forces buy up to 70 percent of defense products from private military companies,” Polyvianyi said.
Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
With the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s defense producers became primary targets for Russian missiles. Many were bombed. But others managed to relocate to western Ukraine and spread out production.
“You have to be creative to survive nowadays. Two months after the start of the invasion, we resumed our work,” Vladislav Belbas, director general of Ukrainian Armor, told POLITICO. Since 2018, Ukrainian Armor produced the Varta and Novator armored vehicles, as well as 60mm, 82mm, and 120 mm-caliber mortars for the army. “We recently restarted production even though we’ve lost an important components contractor. It is now located on the territory controlled by Russia.”
Secrecy is also crucial. “We do everything to protect our staff, hide information about our production whereabouts. We move and test equipment at night, when it is more difficult to track us. We try not to concentrate equipment in one place,” Belbas said.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support. “In seven months of 2023, we made 10 times more artillery and mortar ammo than in the entire 2022. But we are still very far from what we need,” he told POLITICO. “Today we have a war of such a scale that the entire capacity of the free world is not enough to support our consumption. We definitely cannot do this without help.”
Ministry malaise
The defense ministry — the main supplier of weapons, food, uniforms and other necessities — is struggling to shake off a reputation for graft and inefficiency.
In a high-profile profiteering scandal earlier this year, it transpired the ministry had paid absurdly inflated prices for soldiers’ rations to a contractor. The ministry denies violations, but keeps hiding behind military secrecy.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Other more recent scandals and procurement hiccups have focused on the ministry’s failure to secure delivery of everything it paid for. In private, Ukrainian officials admit the defense ministry is not up to scratch in supplying the army, and some Ukrainian lawmakers openly criticize the minister, Oleksii Reznikov, over his record on procurement.
The Ukrainian government has found alternative ways to cover some of the needs of the Ukrainian army, with the digital transformation ministry engaging in drone supplies, using state donations platform UNITED 24, and liberalizing customs and production rules for drones in Ukraine.
“President Zelenskyy took domestic defense production under personal control,” Kamyshin said.
Prytula, the founder of the foundation, said it was hard to judge the defense ministry during war. “They are quite successful when it comes to accumulating help in the international arena, but have some troubles at home. I think the defense ministry is doing what it can in terms of its responsibility. But with such a war it is never enough,” he said.
But Polyvianyi noted that’s where volunteers were coming into their own as parallel supply lines, filling the gaps left by the ministry. “The task of the state today is to provide heavy equipment. Without help, the state cannot provide all the needs of each army unit. Charitable foundations work in close connection with the ministry of defense and other structures.”
That’s a partnership in which Prytula is one of the most important players. But he is among the first to admit that all of Ukraine’s Herculean efforts at home will amount to nothing without the support of the international coalition.
“So it is hard to imagine we can win if we’re left on our own. As in the war of two formerly Soviet armies, the one with more people and weapons will win. Only better technology can help change the situation,” Prytula said. “It will be very difficult for us to fight alone with such a huge monster. But the civilized world has two options: to help us restore our 1991 borders, or to throw away all claims of shared values and just watch us bleed.”
KYIV — Russia’s missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv at the weekend not only killed seven people and injured 120, it also scored a second hit for the Kremlin by stoking internal anger against drone-makers, who are accused of turning the city into a target with a security blunder.
On a bright holiday morning, as Ukrainians were returning from church on Saturday after celebrating the Apple Feast of the Savior — a harvest festival of the Orthodox church — a Russian Iskander-type ballistic missile exploded over the theater in the center of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, only some 70 kilometers from the border with Russia.
The prosecutor’s office has started an investigation into a war crime that led to a mass murder.
Online commentators, however, are already pronouncing guilty verdicts on an unexpected group of former national heroes, blaming not only Russia, but also Ukrainian drone producers and military volunteers who organized and advertised an event on the same day at the theater that was ultimately targeted, with the help of local military administration.
“Is Russia to blame for the fact that it struck the theater in Chernihiv and killed civilians there? Of course. But didn’t the organizers have to turn on their brains and think that such an event is highly likely to become a target for Russian missiles? Especially if they constantly say that drones are a weapon of victory? This is about responsibility,” Sergiy Fursa, deputy director of Dragon Capital, an investment company, said in a Facebook post.
Ukrainian military volunteer Roman Sinicyn chimed in, adding that by organizing their event in the city center so close to Russia, Ukrainian military producers, soldiers, and volunteers, as well as the local military administration, demonstrated supreme recklessness. “However, we should not shift all the blame on a specific and effective volunteer organization. The event was approved by officials, not volunteers. And quite specific representatives of ministries, special services, and the military were aware of the event,” Sinicyn said.
Maria Berlinska and Lyuba Shypovych from the Dignitas Fund, a Ukrainian military volunteer organization that has pushed for systemic changes in Ukraine’s drone production and supply industry as well as the training of drone operators, are now taking most of the online hate from Ukrainians.
Dignitas Fund was among the organizers of the “Angry Birds” event, together with Chernihiv’s regional military administration and Ukraine’s defense innovation cluster Brave 1.
The event organizers publicly announced the time and date of the meeting and said what city it was happening in, but revealed the exact location only to participants some four hours before the start.
Someone then leaked that information to the Russians or Russia intercepted the communication. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Russian forces were targeting a military meeting and even published an invitation with detailed maximum-security measures for the attendees who were not supposed to wear their military uniforms.
Both Shypovych and Berlinska are declining to give any comments to the media as they are now taking part in the investigation of the event, Shypovych told POLITICO.
Residents of Chernihiv clean up after the missile attack | Paula Bronstein /Getty Images
According to social media posts by both volunteers, the participants in the event survived the attack, as most of them were able to escape to a shelter. The security services are now investigating the information leak that triggered the Russian missile launch, Shypovych wrote.
After the wave of online hate, many members of Ukraine’s military, NGOs, and cultural sphere wrote posts in support of Berlinska, who has been a vocal critic of Ukraine’s defense ministry, and who has raised awareness of the Ukrainian authorities’ initial neglect of the crucial role that military drones should play in Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion.
“Believe me, I would want to die instead of those people,” Berlinska said in a statement.
Moscow launched a barrage of drone attacks early Sunday at a port in Ukraine’s Odesa region used by Kyiv to export grain, a day ahead of talks between Russia and Turkey where reviving a U.N.-backed grain deal will be high on the agenda.
Kyiv’s air defenses shot down 22 out of the 25 Iranian-made drones destined for the Danube River port infrastructure, Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram on Sunday. At least two people were reported injured.
The Danube River has become Ukraine’s main route for shipping grain after a deal brokered by Turkey and the U.N. allowing Kyiv to use the Black Sea for exports collapsed in July. Moscow has stepped up its attacks of Danube port infrastructure in recent weeks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Russia on Monday, where Turkey is expected to push for the restoration of the Black Sea grain deal.
“Russian terrorists continue to attack port infrastructure in the hope of provoking a food crisis and famine in the world,” said Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, on Telegram following the Russian attack.
Ukrainian officials also said Russian shelling had injured four people in the country’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region Sunday morning, while one person had died after attacks on Saturday in the country’s northeastern Sumy region. POLITICO couldn’t independently verify the reports.
That also comes after a top Ukrainian general leading the country’s counteroffensive said on Saturday that Kyiv’s troops had breached Russia’s first defensive line near Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine after weeks of mine clearance.
In a sign that Russia is also increasingly looking at all possible options to shore up its forces, Moscow has been appealing for fresh recruits through advertizing in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday. Online adverts offering up to €4,756 in initial salaries have been spotted Armenia and Kazakshtan, as well as schemes offering fast-track Russian citizenship for those who sign up.
Around 280,000 people have signed up for military service in Russia so far this year, the country’s former President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday. Last year, Russia announced a plan of increasing its troops by 30 percent to 1.5 million.
Exactly two months after his failed coup, Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin died on Wednesday after his private jet crashed in flames on an internal flight within Russia, the country’s aviation authority said.
Speculation is rife that Russian President Vladimir Putin — who is notoriously unforgiving of traitors and accused Prigozhin of “treason” in June — ordered the downing of the aircraft. It comes only a day after Russian media announced the firing of Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, who has not been seen in public since the aborted Wagner coup.
A former loyalist who was dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his role as a catering executive supplying the Kremlin, Prigozhin became embittered toward the Russian government’s handling of the war. In late June, his uprising commanded 24-hour global coverage after he seized the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and ordered a column of troops toward Moscow.
Since the coup, Putin and Prigozhin appeared to have reached an uneasy truce until the crash. On Wednesday evening, Russia’s aviation regulator named the warlord as one of 10 people killed on a business jet en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg that came down in the Tver region. Dmitry Utkin, a central Wagner figure and its alleged founder, was also among the passengers.
Putin himself appeared cheery on Wednesday evening after Russian media suggested Prigozhin was dead, opening remarks at an event commemorating the Battle of Kursk in World War II with a broad smile. “Devotion to the homeland and loyalty to the military oath is what unites all participants of the special military operation,” he said in his speech, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Wagner Orchestra, a Telegram channel, posted a photo of what appeared to be the burning wreckage of a plane, saying the Embraer jet had been shot down by Russian air defenses. Russia’s investigative committee says a probe into the crash in under way.
The well-connected Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU commented: “Wagner has been decapitated.”
Former tycoon turned political dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky wrote he had no sympathy for Prigozhin, but denounced what he described as “yet another extrajudicial killing.”
Hit job
Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov tried to flip the blame onto Ukraine.
“Prigozhin is dead. No one believes that this is an accident,” he said on his Telegram channel. In a separate post, hinting at how Kremlin spin doctors might frame the plane crash in the hours and days to come, Markov said the “murder of Prigozhin and Utkin … is probably a terrorist attack by Ukraine ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day.”
“All enemies of Russia are already rejoicing. The murder of Prigozhin is Ukraine’s main achievement this year,” Markov wrote.
Journalist Christo Grozev from the online investigative project Bellingcat dismissed speculation Ukraine could be behind the crash.
“If Ukraine had had the capacity to do something like this, it would have done it at a time when Prigozhin was one of its main enemies, when he stood at the head of one of the most efficient branches of Russia’s military,” Grozev told the Popular Politics YouTube channel run by allies of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Instead, he said, he thought it more likely Prigozhin might have staged his own death.
“It fits his style,” Grozev said, pointing out Prigozhin had several doubles.
Still, he added the most credible scenario is that it concerns a “hit job personally ordered by Putin for humiliating him.”
Russia’s ‘open-windows’ policy
U.S. officials have been expecting Prigozhin’s demise given Putin’s history of dispensing with opponents. It has even been the source of some gallows humor. In July, at the Aspen Security Forum, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “If I were Mr. Prigozhin, I would remain very concerned. NATO has an open-door policy; Russia has an open-windows policy.”
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said: “We have seen the reports. If confirmed, no one should be surprised. The disastrous war in Ukraine led to a private army marching on Moscow, and now — it would seem — to this.”
Senate Intel Chair Mark Warner said: “No one should mourn Prigozhin’s death, but this report, if confirmed, is another reminder of the brutality of the Putin regime, and why we must continue our support for Ukraine in its fight for freedom.”
Later, U.S. President Joe Biden commented on the news, telling reporters: “I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised … There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”
“If the news are confirmed, I would say it was always difficult to grasp Prigozhin could have believed he could survive after the June coup,” said a senior diplomat from Central Europe, who was grantedanonymity to speak candidly. “Now, we do not know details, but this looks like most likely an obvious message from the regime, that anybody who challenges it, has to be eliminated.”
“What will be the consequences to the Wagner Group is to be seen, but most likely, under this brand or another, it will remain an instrument of the Kremlin.”
A second senior diplomat from Central Europe said: “I guess Prighozin was somewhat ‘in the air’ since the botched coup attempt, his chances for survival were minuscule. After the literal plane crash Putin is stronger in Moscow, Prighozin ‘deader’ north of Moscow.”
A diplomat from Western Europe, also grantedanonymity to speak candidly, said: “I guess most of us shared the view that up to this point he was a dead man walking. Unlikely we’ll get the true cause of this crash. But we may add this to the list of unexplained deaths among those who somehow undermine Putin’s authority.”
Anniversary of uprising
The plane crash came two months to the day after Prigozhin, 62, launched his uprising. He led his mercenaries in an overnight raid, capturing the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don before breakfast time without a shot being fired.
Another detachment of Wagner men rolled northwards, coming to within 200km of Moscow by late afternoon — before Prigozhin abruptly ordered his men back to base.
The rebel warlord invoked the wrath of Putin, who on the morning of the uprising took to the national airwaves to denounce it as a stab in the back. And, although a compromise deal was brokered by Aleksander Lukashenko of Belarus to allow Prigozhin’s men to relocate to that country, the Wagner chief already appeared a marked man.
He disappeared for a time before appearing in a grainy night-time video addressing his men at a new base in Belarus, popped up on the sidelines of an Africa summit hosted by Putin in Saint Petersburg, and, only this week, appeared in a video apparently shot in Africa saying his mercenaries were enjoying the 50-degree heat.
Prigozhin started out as a small-time crook in St. Petersburg where he spent several years in prison for robbery, theft and fraud. On emerging from jail, he opened a hot dog stand with his mother and, as he built up a restaurant business, fell in with Putin, who at the time was deputy mayor of Russia’s northern capital.
Prigozhin’s Concord catering business went on to win a string of government contracts — including to supply rations to the military. Gaining standing in Putin’s clannish network of influence and patronage, Prigozhin established the Wagner mercenary group at the time of Russia’s partial occupation of Ukraine in 2014. He only publicly admitted to leading Wagner last September, however, months after Putin’s full-scale invasion.
Soon after, he established himself as one of the most high-profile leaders of Russia’s war on Ukraine — touring prisons to recruit convicts and throwing his men into a successful but bloody attack on Bakhmut that delivered the only major battlefield victory of Russia’s winter offensive in Eastern Ukraine.
“A caterer should know that revenge is a dish best served cold,” said a U.S. official familiar with Russia policy.
Infuriated by a lack of logistical backup, Prigozhin soon fell out with Russia’s high command and defense ministry. He took to posting profanity-laden video rants on Telegram, the social media network widely followed in Russia.
In one, he stood before rows of dead Wagner men at night time, yelling “where’s the fucking ammunition?” at Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff. Prigozhin’s rants left him looking dangerously isolated, as Putin stuck with his loyal, if incompetent, military leadership.
Maggie Miller contributed reporting.
[ad_2]
Gabriel Gavin, Douglas Busvine , Nahal Toosi and Eva Hartog
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced late Sunday that he will replace the country’s defense minister, even as Kyiv’s counteroffensive appears to be gaining ground with its troops pushing into Russian-held territory.
The departure of Oleksiy Reznikov as defense chief marks the highest-level turnover in Zelenskyy’s inner circle since the start of the war in February 2022. It comes as the Ukrainian government is stepping up efforts to deal aggressively with corruption allegations involving military officials.
In a video message Sunday night, the Ukrainian leader announced that Reznikov would be replaced as defense minister by Rustem Umerov, the head of the country’s State Property Fund.
“Reznikov has gone through more than 550 days of full-scale war,” Zelenskyy said. “I believe the ministry now needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society as a whole.”
There have been rumblings for weeks that Rezniko’s days were numbered. His reputation took several hits earlier this year over a handful of wartime scandals in the Defense Ministry in which officials were accused of profiteering. While Reznikov was never implicated, the revelations were a black eye not only for his ministry, but for him personally.
Zelenskyy called on the country’s parliament to approve the decision as soon as possible.
Reznikov has been one of the most prominent faces of Ukraine’s military leadership since Russia’s invasion, and has traveled throughout Europe to attend NATO meetings and to make his pitch to partners for more weapons, and to deliver aid pledges more quickly.
Having a seat at the table for NATO discussions over the past 18 months has brought him in close touch with defense chiefs across the NATO alliance, particularly with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The two regularly speak by phone and huddle in person at monthly Ukraine Defense Contact Group meetings where a coalition of 50 countries decide what new weaponry to send to Kyiv.
The next meeting of the group will likely come in mid-September, and depending on how quickly the Ukrainian parliament moves, it could be the first time Umerov takes part in the high-level meeting with defense ministers.
Reznikov was scheduled to fly to the U.S. early this month for a meeting with Austin at the Pentagon, followed by sit-downs with the heads of the biggest American defense contractors to discuss new equipment purchases and deliveries, according to a person familiar with the planning.
Zelenskyy’s decision comes as Ukraine’s counteroffensive finally appears to making headway after weeks of slow progress.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday that Washington has seen signs that the counteroffensive is picking up pace. According to Kirby, officials have “noted over the last 72 hours or so some notable progress by Ukrainian armed forces,” particularly along the southern front in the region around Zaporizhzhia.
A top Ukrainian general said on Saturday that Kyiv’s forces had breached Russia’s first defensive line near Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian troops were consolidating their hold on territory reclaimed in recent fighting and faster gains were expected as they pressed the weaker second line of defense, Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy told the Guardian in an interview.
These are the main developments as the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its 534th day.
Here is the situation on Friday, August 11, 2023.
Fighting
Ukrainian authorities ordered the evacuation of nearly 12,000 civilians from 37 towns and villages near the northeastern front line in the Kupiansk region as Russia ramps up efforts to recapture territory in the area that it had seized and lost earlier in the conflict.
The Russian army reported improved positioning of hits troops around Kupiansk, where Kyiv has reported increasing Russian attacks. Ukrainian military officials said they are facing intense combat on front lines near Kupiansk.
Ukraine’s foreign minister played down the possibility that his country’s slow-moving counteroffensive against Russian forces could dampen Western military support and force Kyiv into negotiations with Russia.
At least one person was killed and nine wounded in a Russian missile attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian shelling killed one person and injured at least two in Russia’s border region of Bryansk. A civilian was also killed in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka in southern Ukraine, Russian-appointed authorities said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant lost connection to its last remaining main external power supply overnight and was switched to a reserve line, state power firm Energoatom said.
A Russian air attack destroyed a fuel depot in the western Rivne region of Ukraine.
Russia said it downed 13 Ukrainian drones seeking to attack the largest city in Russian-annexed Crimea, and the Russian capital Moscow.
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to continue military support to Kyiv but noted that his government will act “responsibly” to avoid a confrontation between NATO and Russia.
Peace
Last weekend’s Saudi-hosted talks to bring an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine was a “breakthrough” moment for Kyiv on the world stage, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Officials from more than 40 countries – including China, India, Brazil, the United States, and European countries, but not Russia – took part in the talks, which were seen as an attempt by Kyiv to build a broader coalition of powers to support its vision of peace.
Politics
Russia’s prosecutor declared the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) an “undesirable” organisation, criminalising its work to document and investigate armed conflicts involving Russian forces.
Trade
Ukraine’s navy said a new temporary Black Sea “humanitarian corridor” had started working and that the first ships were expected to use it within days. Oleh Chalyk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Navy, said the corridor would be for commercial ships blocked at Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and for grain and agricultural products.
Russia said it planned to deliver a small amount of grain to African countries in the “near future” without charge. “We are talking about six countries and supply volumes from 25,000 to 50,000 tonnes, this is being worked out now,” Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev told journalists. Patrushev said Russia exported 60 million tonnes of grain last year and expected to export about 55 million tonnes this year.
Regional security:
Poland plans to move up to 10,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus to support the country’s border guard, amid the arrival of thousands of battle-hardened Russia’s Wagner mercenary forces in the neighbouring country in recent weeks.
KYIV — Russia is intensifying its attacks in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region as it aims to retake territory which it lost during Ukraine’s stunning counteroffensive last fall.
With Ukraine now pushing on the southern front, where Kyiv has liberated settlements and destroyed Russian logistics, the Kremlin’s invading forces are heavily targeting Kupiansk, an important logistics hub in the Kharkiv region.
The renewed Russian offensive comes as fighting in Ukraine’s east is heavily bogged down in a war of attrition, with both sides struggling to make big gains. Ukraine’s counteroffensives faces heavily fortified Russian positions, as Moscow’s forces learn lessons from a total wipeout last September when Ukraine stormed the Kharkiv region. And amid the grinding stalemate in the south and east, the Kremlin’s troops are pivoting to a major assault in the northeast.
“Russians are aiming to retake the Kharkiv region to take revenge for their loss there last year,” Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s Armed Forces Command East told POLITICO. “But we’re ready, we know their plans, we have built a strong defense line. Plus, there Russians will face an army under the command of one of the most experienced Ukrainian generals — Sirskiy.”
Ukraine Land Forces Commander General Oleksandr Sirskiy was behind last year’s rapid Ukrainian success in the Kharkiv region, where it pushed Russian occupiers out in a lightning counterattack. The Russian front collapsed within days, and towns including Kupiansk came back under Ukrainian control.
But in the last 24 hours Russia has conducted 16 airstrikes and shelled Ukrainian positions 559 times on the northeastern front, Cherevatyi said. The Russians attacked four settlements in the Kharkiv region, two villages in the nearby Luhansk region and three in the Donetsk region. “The enemy also tried to storm the positions of the defense forces. Three attacks took place in the Kupiansk direction,” he added.
Intensified Russian shelling forced Kharkiv regional authorities to consider evacuating more than 11,000 people from 53 settlements on the front line, said Oleh Synegubov, Kharkiv regional governor. In the last day, Russia has massively bombarded populated areas of Bohodukhiv, Kharkiv, Chuhuiv, Izyum, and Kupiansk districts using guided air bombs and other weapons.
So far, Synegubov added, the Russian attacks have not yielded any success in the Kharkiv region.
Even as war rages in Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of Russians are eyeing popular holiday destinations for a summer break — or even a safe haven to wait out the conflict.
While a weaker ruble and growing economic woes means many ordinary families will be spending the warmer months on their dachas or taking a break inside Russia, those with enough cash to travel are wasting little time jetting off to sunny spots across Europe and Asia.
That means countries still willing to take their money are tapping into a lucrative market. But that can come at a cost, and the politics of taking tens of thousands of tourists from a pariah state is already creating trouble in paradise for some popular destinations.
Here are six of the top places Russians are spending their vacations.
Turkey
As lazy travel writers so often put it, Turkey is a nation that straddles East and West. That old cliché has taken on new meaning since the start of the war in Ukraine, with the NATO member state offering support to Kyiv while at the same time refusing to impose sanctions on Moscow.
Ankara, as a result, has seen much-needed foreign cash flood into the country as Russians look to move their assets abroad. It’s also one of the only European destinations not to have banned flights from Russia: While the EU’s skies are closed, Turkish operators are offering flights from Moscow to sunny destinations like Antalya and Bodrum for as little as €130.
In the first half of the year, Turkey’s tourism revenues grew by more than a quarter, hitting $21.7 billion, statistics released this week show, with as many as 7 million Russians expected to visit the country this year.
Some have even decided to stay — as many as 145,000 Russians currently have residency permits. But while they’ve escaped political instability and the risk of conscription, they are sharing their new home country with tens of thousands of Ukrainians who’ve fled Russia’s war.
That’s created tensions in resort towns like Antalya, which is popular with both Russians and Ukrainians. And given Turkey’s growing anti-migrant sentiment in the wake of May’s presidential elections, both groups could be at risk of being sent home.
Georgia
The South Caucasus country holds an almost mythical status in the minds of Russians — and its reputation for having some of the best nature, food and hospitality in the former Soviet Union has made it a go-to destination for middle-class holidaymakers, who flock to its Black Sea beaches and snow-capped mountains or kick back in trendy Tbilisi.
In 2022 alone, more than 1.1 million Russians visited Georgia, up from just 200,000 the year before. That number is on the rise after Moscow in May relaxed rules banning direct flights.
Under the ruling Georgian Dream party, Tbilisi has sought closer relations with the Kremlin since the start of the war and aimed to profit off Russian wanderlust. But many locals are less sure.
In 2022 alone, more than 1.1 million Russians visited Georgia, up from just 200,000 the year before | Jan Kruger/Getty Images
In a poll conducted in March, only 4 percent of the 1,500 people surveyed said Russians are welcome in Georgia, while a quarter said Russians were tolerated because of the cash they spend when they visit. More than one in three insisted Russian visitors should be banned until Moscow relinquishes control of the occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia — accounting for around a fifth of Georgia’s territory.
Tensions are on the rise, with local Georgian and Ukrainian activists staging protests against Russian cruise ships docking in the port city of Batumi over the weekend. Clips shared by local media show Russian holidaymakers defending Russia’s 2008 war against Georgia and taunting the demonstrators from their balconies.
Thailand
It’s not only about the gleaming luxury resorts and party beaches. For Russians, the appeal of traveling to Thailand has a lot to do with the month of visa-free travel they’re granted.
The number of Russians visiting Thailand has shot up by more than 1,000 percent over the past year, according to a Bloomberg report. Official statistics show 791,574 Russians traveling to the country in the first half of this year alone.
The party city of Phuket has seen a particular influx, with close to half of all villassold theresince January being bought up by Russians — either as holiday homes or as party pads where they can wait out the war.
That rise in tourism comes as Moscow has also sought to forge closer ties with the kingdom. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — one of the most committed supporters of the war in Ukraine — flew into Bangkok in July to hail “the importance of boosting cooperation in trade and investment.”
United Arab Emirates
Dubai isn’t to everyone’s taste. But the billionaires’ playground and its pristine beaches have become a sought-after destination for many wealthy Russians looking for a friendly welcome — and a place to spend huge sums in opulent malls.
The number of Russians jetting to the Gulf nation shot up by 63 percent last year, making them the second largest tourism market. The UAE has also seen a surge in Russian expats, who report feeling more at ease in the desert city than in Western countries because there are no public displays of support for war-ravaged Ukraine.
The influx comes as ties between Russia and the UAE are also booming, with Russian firms relocating to the Gulf nation and the Kremlin selling vast volumes of discounted oil to the country.
But analysts warn that pressure from the U.S., U.K. and EU is making it increasingly difficult to the UAE to profit from sanctions evasion, meaning Russian tourists may find their welcome doesn’t last forever.
Cyprus
The island of Cyprus has long been known as Moscow on the Med — a homage to the country’s largest tourist market.
Those beach holidays are now largely out of reach for ordinary Russians, after Cyprus followed other EU member states in banning commercial flights from Russia and last year imposed an €80 fee for visas. The decision, officials say, has cost the country €600 million worth of income.
The island of Cyprus has long been known as Moscow on the Med | Roy Issa/AFP via Getty Images
But, for those who can stump up the costs, flights from Russia with a brief stop in Istanbul or Yerevan cost around €250. Cyprus has also been one of the most prolific issuers of so-called “golden passports,” which offer EU citizenship in exchange for as little as €2.5 million in investment.
While no statistics exist on how many Russians have taken advantage of the scheme, the country has been under pressure to cancel travel documents for sanctioned oligarchs. As many as 222 passports have already been withdrawn, including those belonging to several Russian billionaires.
Ukraine
For Russians with regular jobs and limited cash to spend abroad, country houses and holiday parks are still the most popular option.
Until recently, many of them would be headed to Ukraine’s occupied Crimean peninsula. An iconic spot for vacations and sanatorium breaks since the days of the Soviet Union, many Russians have bought second homes or paid for package holidays to the region’s Black Sea coast since it was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Now, a spate of explosions at military facilities and Kyiv’s insistence that Crimea will come back under its control when it wins the war has worried many Russians.
With air traffic close to the border diverted, one of the only remaining routes into the peninsula is across the car and railway bridge opened by President Vladimir Putin in 2018. That bridge has repeatedly been struck by Ukrainian forces looking to disrupt Russian military convoys.
As a result, officials say, hotels are on average more than half empty — despite heavy promotions and discounts. Local proprietors say the situation is even more dire than the government is prepared to admit.
Ukrainian drone strikes taking place inside Russia once seemed an unthinkable prospect. But such attacks have become an increasingly common feature of Moscow’s war – with an emboldened Kyiv warning that more will come.
A string of drone strikes have peppered Russian cities including Moscow throughout the summer. Friday saw one of the most dramatic yet – sea drones targeted a major Russian port hundreds of miles from Ukrainian-held territory, leaving a warship listing.
They have distracted from a Ukrainian counteroffensive that is yet to produce tangible results on the battlefield, and brought the war home to Russia.
But they are not without risk for Kyiv, which is attempting to seize the front foot in the war while maintaining relations with Western nations wary of any hint of escalation.
Here’s what you need to know.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned last week that war is “gradually returning” to Russia, after the latest in a series of drone attacks to take place inside the country that Moscow has pinned on Kyiv.
Last weekend’s incidents saw buildings in Moscow targeted by drones. On Tuesday, a drone struck the same skyscraper in Moscow that was hit on Sunday.
It followed two similar attempted attacks that were reported by Russian officials earlier in July, and numerous such incidents in June. In May, an apparent drone attack above the Kremlin led to dramatic images of blasts in the skies above the seat of Russian power.
Ukraine has typically not taken direct responsibility for the attacks, though its responses have become more bullish in recent weeks. “The distance and deniability between Kyiv and these attacks is significantly less,” Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for Military Aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told CNN. “There now seems to be almost a tacit recognition that it was (them).”
Ukrainian Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, whose Digital Transformation Ministry oversees the country’s “Army of Drones” procurement plan, had said there would be more drone strikes to come as Kyiv ramps up its parallel summer counteroffensive aimed at pushing Russian troops out of Ukrainian territory.
It is difficult to establish exactly which weapons systems are being used in the attacks, and precisely which buildings are being targeted, with both the Russian and Ukrainian sides refusing to be drawn on the details of the incidents.
But there are clearly vast differences between these attacks, which are limited in scope, have caused few casualties and have not been aimed towards residential buildings, with those that Moscow has launched indiscriminately at Ukrainian population centers.
“Whether or not they’re actually arriving on their intended targets, the targets do seem to be buildings that are linked with the prosecution of the war in Ukraine,” Keir Giles, a Russia expert at Chatham House and the author of books on Russia’s invasion and foreign policy, told CNN. “In that respect, it’s a very different approach to what we’ve seen in Russia, with indiscriminate terror attacks.”
Giles notes there is “an open question of exactly how Ukraine is doing the attacks.” But the strikes have “shown up the incapacity of Russia’s defenses,” he added.
The one-way unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that have seemingly been launched “carry a pretty small warhead and they’ve been used in small numbers, so in terms of direct military affect, it’s limited to put it mildly,” said Barrie.
“The kinds of systems that Ukraine is using are simple, comparatively speaking, but for their purpose they’re effective,” Barrie added.
Crucially, there is no suggestion that the weapons have been donated by the West. “These are systems (Ukraine) can manufacture themselves,” Barrie said,allowing Kyiv to send military messages to the Russian people alongside its defensive war at home, which NATO nations have been supporting with military aid.
“It’s fundamentally about showing that Moscow is not out of reach,” Barrie said.
Kyiv will happily accept the limited military impact of the drone attacks, because the strikes play a far more important role in the war.
“Ukraine has identified that Russian popular opinion and attitudes to the war is one of the key areas that they need to target in order to bring the war to an end,” Giles said. “As long as Russia can pretend that the war is something that happens elsewhere, nothing is going to dent that popular support.”
Ukrainian officials have openly discussed the propaganda element of the strikes. Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force, said the latest drone attacks on Moscow were aimed at impacting Russians who, since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, felt the war was distant.
“There’s always something flying in Russia, as well as in Moscow. Now the war is affecting those who were not concerned,” he said. “No matter how the Russian authorities would like to turn a blind eye on this by saying they have intercepted everything … something does hit.”
Early signals suggest that the recent attacks have caused unrest among an already jittery class of military pundits in Russia.
Noting criticisms from at least one prominent military blogger that Russia had not secured buildings against such attacks, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in a recent update that “Russian authorities will likely struggle to balance the need to quell domestic concern over continuing drone attacks deep within the Russian rear with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued refusal to fully mobilize Russian society for the war and its corresponding consequences.”
Assessing public opinion in Russia is notoriously difficult. But anecdotal accounts at least speak to the impact of drone strikes on those in the vicinity of the attacks.
“My friends and I rented an apartment to come here and unwind, and at some point, we heard an explosion – it was like a wave, everyone jumped,” one witness told Reuters after last weekend’s strike in Moscow. “There was a lot of smoke, and you couldn’t see anything. From above, you could see fire.”
“It does seem to be achieving the kind of startle value that you might expect, where Russians are realizing that they are not personally protected from what is being done in Ukraine,” Giles said of the early indications of the strikes’ consequences.
Whether the trend will cause a wider rupturing of Russian support for the war is far from clear.
On the one hand, Putin’s longstanding pretext for the war has relied on baseless claims that Ukraine was a threat to Russian security, and that the so-called special military operation in the country was needed to defend Russia’s interest. Playing up recent attacks could be used to support that argument as the war drags on.
But after almost eighteen months of disorganization and discord, the reality that Russia’s military plans are flailing has been increasingly hard to deny. And Putin’s authority has previously appeared most vulnerable at moments when the impact of the war hits home in Russia – such as during last year’s chaotic military mobilization, and during June’s Wagner rebellion.
In that context, it is easy to see why regular reminders of the conflict inside Russia serve Ukraine’s strategic interests.
For all of its intended propaganda impact, sending drones into Russia is not a risk-free move for Kyiv.
The most immediate consideration is a reprisal; the Kremlin has tended to link attacks on Ukrainian cities to previous strikes on Russia, in a “tit-for-tat” approach intended to cause panic in Ukraine.
But Ukrainians are by now well acquainted to the threat of Russian air bombardments, and there has been no evidence that such assaults have dented determination in the defensive effort there.
A more prominent concern is how the West reacts to such strikes. A year ago, the prospect of Ukraine sending drones into Russia was unthinkable, given the tacit contract between NATO nations and Kyiv that the West would readily support a defensive war, but would be more wary of any actions that draw NATO into direct conflict with Russia.
There is nothing to suggest Ukraine has used NATO-provided weaponry in Russia – doing so is likely a bridge they would not consider crossing at this time – but it has clearly become more emboldened to take the war to Russia. And in return, Western leaders appear generally relaxed about the approach.
“The long-standing prohibition on striking into Russia that has been put in place by the suppliers … was misplaced and misconceived,” Giles said. “For all of this period, it has played Russia’s game by Russia’s rules.”
There does remain a degree of variance in how Western leaders view attacks on Russian territory, with the United States being particularly concerned. “As a general matter we do not support attacks inside of Russia,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters late last month, according to Reuters.
But Kyiv’s confidence and an increasing willingness to chip away at Russian support for the war will likely mean that such strikes remain a feature of the conflict.
“It’s impossible to tell how this will develop but we should certainly expect at least this level of a steady drumbeat of demonstrations of Russian vulnerability to continue,” Giles said.
