Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 56

UnHerd: Would you move to Mother Russia? Putin is wooing the West’s workers

By Malcom Kyeune, UnHerd, 10/24/24

Last year, Tucker Carlson scandalised America by travelling to Russia and interviewing Vladimir Putin. As US viewers denounced the idea that one ought to speak to an enemy such as Putin, Tucker strolled around Moscow, filming himself taking the subway, buying a burger from the new Russian McDonalds, and going grocery shopping in a Moscow supermarket. Behaving, in fact, like he was in the West.

Back home, Tucker had some good things to say about Putin, as well as some bad things. But it was the streets and shops of Moscow that really “radicalised” him. The West likes to paint Russia as poor, miserable and oppressed, but Tucker described a perfectly ordinary modern society. The discrepancy between what Tucker had been taught to expect and what he actually saw in Russia didn’t just unnerve him — it made him angry.

Of course, one might point out that Moscow and St Petersburg are Potemkin villages of sorts, covering up the reality of deep poverty in much of the rest of the country. But none of this is ultimately a matter of facts. The conflict between the West and Russia today is now seen as ideological and existential, just as the conflict between communism and capitalism once was. To say something nice about the Russian enemy is to take his side; to say something nice about him that also happens to be true is seen as even more treasonous. Communist Russia was rife with stories about American workers being treated like dirt, toiling under truly awful living standards. After all, America was capitalist, and a capitalist society could never be a good place for a worker to live.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the epic tension that had built up over the decades between the US and Russia fell apart rapidly. Russians queued up to eat at McDonald’s or to buy blue jeans, and they also emigrated to America in droves. Some of them wanted a more stable place to raise their children than the dystopian nightmare that was Nineties Russia, others saw in America a more agreeable form of culture and ideology, and others still just wanted to make money. In 1980, the number of foreign-born Russian speakers in the US numbered less than 200,000. In 2011, that number had hit 900,000.

Since then, however, things have changed a great deal. The US is no longer the Mecca of foreign talent it once was, as it dives deeper into a geopolitical showdown with Russia, China, and the Brics more generally. The West is faltering both militarily and economically; the US empire is overstretched, practically insolvent, and facing growing exhaustion and disillusionment at home. To complicate this, the West’s own ideological tenets about freedom of speech and respect for human rights ring increasingly hollow. Even Westerners are losing faith in the American project.

While Tucker Carlson’s trip to Russia was a one-off, there has been a small but growing trickle of news stories in Western media featuring Americans deciding to brave the Iron Curtain in the other direction. The reasons they give are eerily similar to the ones heard from dissidents in the past: the political system in the West is broken and the politicians have lost the plot; the ruling ideology is out of touch with ordinary people; the standard of living is falling and the cost of living too high. Mostly, the reasons given today have to do with politics rather than economics: in this telling the West is just too “woke”, too materialist, and too sclerotic. Russia, for its part, seems eager to offer “political asylum” to any Westerner with a big enough bone to pick with their home country.

It’s easy to dismiss what’s going on here as an irrelevant fringe phenomenon, but that might turn out to be a very grave mistake in the decade ahead. The ideological angle to these stories — that Russia is engaged in some fanciful or vain project of sheltering the “unwoke” out of some kind of humanitarian concern — is nothing but a fable. It is a velvet glove, hiding a far more calculating economic fist.

The truth of the matter is that Russia — like many other Brics countries now preparing their collective challenge to the West — has been struggling with the question of immigration for quite a long time now. After slowly recovering from the runaway brain-drain that hit it in the Nineties, the Russian state has cautiously moved to reform and rationalise its immigration system, particularly with an eye towards streamlining new channels for highly-skilled migrants. In other words, just the kind of migrants who tend to be in short supply and high demand worldwide. The fact that the Russians are entering into this competition decades late is certainly not lost upon them. During the unipolar moment, the West monopolised the pool of skilled migrants available, while also retaining all the high-value labour created at home. In the dawning multipolar world, however, the West appears not just as a competitor to be bested, but also as a potential goldmine from which an increasing number of migrants can be sourced.

It is only when one understands that the West could potentially become a victim, rather than a beneficiary of future brain drain that recent policy changes within Russia can begin to make sense. To wit, Russia recently announced that anyone living in a Western country “opposed to Russia” shall have access to a special, expedited visa process, exempt from all ordinary immigration requirements. There are no quotas for this kind of immigration, no tests on language skills or knowledge of Russian law, and all the other aspects of this visa process are tailored to be as generous as possible. Applicants only have to demonstrate that they wish to move to Russia due to a disagreement with their home country’s policies that contradict “traditional” Western or Russian values. Even if you’re not interested in Russia, Russia is now interested in you.

“Even if you’re not interested in Russia, Russia is now interested in you.”

Law and consultancy firms that offer help to clients looking to move to Russia aren’t exactly new, and there are a decent number to choose from. This new push toward “Shared Values Visas” from the Russian state, however, is notable in that it coincides with far more sleek and ideologically savvy new ventures into the market. A good example of this trend is “ArkVostok”, the company behind the website movetorussia.com. With the founders having mostly Western educational backgrounds as well as experience working inside Western consultancy firms, the pitch offered here is clearly tailored to appeal precisely to the sort of feelings that Tucker Carlson has recently given voice to. Tired of culture war and DEI? Worried about national debt and unsustainable pension funds? Paranoid about bugs in your burger and GMO-food slowly poisoning your body? Whatever you’re in the market to buy, Russia is in the market to sell.

It is tempting to dismiss this out of hand. What kind of traitor would ever contemplate leaving our glorious Free World to shack up with the enemy, all for the worldly promise of a flat 13% tax rate? Unfortunately, the answer to that question, as history has borne out time and time again, is almost always “more people than you’d think”. While ideology and righteousness are always comforting things to have, consider this quote from Tucker Carlson himself on his experience inside that Moscow supermarket: “Everybody [in the film crew] is from the United States … and we didn’t pay any attention to cost, we just put in the cart what we would actually eat over a week. We all [guessed] around $400 bucks. It was $104 U.S. here. And that’s when you start to realise that ideology doesn’t matter as much as you thought.”

One can say that you can’t put a price on freedom, or morality; that the privilege of living in a free society cannot be measured in something so vulgar as dollars and cents. That’s a nice sentiment, but the reality of the human condition is that these things do have a price. Moreover, this price is often much lower than most of us would like to admit. Communists in the USSR, lest we forget, used to think that no human being would ever abandon socialism just for a pair of blue jeans. If we in the West want to ignore recent history and instead cling to the hope that nobody will ever switch sides just because someone floats an offer of better schools, safer streets, cheaper apartments, and lower taxes, we do so at our own peril.

Besides, to try to minimise the danger presented here by criticising Russia or attacking Putin is to catastrophically miss the point. Though the Shared Values Visa programme tries to present itself as a fairly niche culture war phenomenon, its true nature is not cultural or ideological. It is driven by a ruthless economic logic that is much bigger than Russia itself. Even if Russia’s various attempts at wooing Westerners end up being unsuccessful, it is merely the first vulture to start circling overhead. Many more scavengers are likely to appear before long, each one with a bewitching song of higher real wages, cheaper groceries, and lower taxes.

There are at least two big economic reasons that force this development. First, skilled immigration is simply a good deal. If you can poach a highly educated person of prime working age without paying for his education, you have secured a very expensive and limited resource without having to pay any of the costs involved in training, childcare, and healthcare. This is the main reason that brain drain as a phenomenon has been consistently popular inside the West, even as it has long been hated everywhere else: one side pays all the costs, the other side reaps all the benefits.

The economic logic behind the Shared Values Visa is more ominous, however. It’s often said that Russia has terrible demographics, and in many ways, this is true. Russia’s total fertility rate is around 1.4 children per woman, which is far lower than the replacement rate. Unfortunately, this is actually a completely normal fertility rate in 2024. Very few countries in the EU have fertility rates that are much better than this, and a good number of them are significantly worse. This is not an unknown problem in the West, and the hoped-for solution has long been immigration, preferably of the more highly-skilled kind. Without sufficient immigration, European social welfare systems risk collapsing under the weight of too many old people dependent on taxes levied onto too few young workers.

All this means that Europe is highly vulnerable to the poaching of workers. And indeed, because of how our welfare systems are set up, any outmigration cannot help but trigger a very destructive chain reaction: as people migrate due to high taxes, there’s less workers, meaning taxes will get higher, meaning the push factors to emigrate become even stronger. In this environment of stagnation, an extremely vicious game of musical chairs is likely to dominate, as all countries face the pressure to steal workers from somewhere else, in order to ease the tax burden on the workers that already have citizenship. With an extremely low public debt of around $300 billion and an income tax rate that tops out at 15%, Russia is far better prepared for this kind of competition than most people seem willing to admit. For comparison, America pays three times that amount in annual interest on its whopping $35 trillion debt.

This threat is real, and it is much closer than many think. In fact, the UK in particular is already in a slow-rolling brain-drain crisis. Education is getting increasingly expensive, the population is ageing, and real wages are no longer keeping up with inflation. For now, the main actors trying to poach talent are other countries inside the Western bloc, with America as the principal looter-in-chief. That order of affairs might not last for much longer, however, and America might find itself vulnerable to the same kind of asset-stripping before long. It’s hard to see how brain drain can possibly work out as a net benefit to the West in the years and decades ahead: the great majority of Western countries are now stuck in the same sort of malaise as the UK, with economies entering what now looks like a phase of almost permanent stagnation due to the energy crisis. There is no light at the end of the tunnel: opinion polls instead show an increasingly catastrophic loss of faith among the public in their parties and political institutions.

Brain drain often has ruinous effects on the countries that fall victim to it, even in cases where there’s not a looming demographic crisis threatening to upturn all welfare systems. Russia might be using honeyed words as it tempts people with family values and GMO-free burgers, but those Westerners who now glibly mock the velvet glove might end up bitterly regretting not taking the iron gauntlet hidden underneath more seriously. All of this is strictly business: it is the groundwork being laid in order to loot the West of talent the moment a crisis or moment of weakness strikes, leaving hollowed-out economies and dying communities in its wake. After all, the Russians probably figure, it’s only fair: we did the exact same thing to them.

Mikhail Khodarenok: Trump’s reported Ukraine peace plan is doomed to fail

By Mikhail Khodarenok, RT, 11/11/24

US President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers are apparently considering a new plan to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal last week.

The proposals allegedly include a freeze on military operations along the front line, the creation of a demilitarized zone, and a guarantee that Kiev won’t join NATO for at least 20 years. At the same time, the West would continue to supply Ukraine with weapons.

According to the newspaper, Trump’s promise to end the war by January’s Inauguration Day now puts him in the position of having to choose between competing proposals from advisers united by a common idea – a complete departure from current President Joe Biden’s plans to transfer arms and military equipment to Kiev for “as long as it takes.”

Throughout his election campaign, Trump sharply criticized Biden’s handling of Ukraine, warning that it brought closer the possibility of World War III, and that Kiev had cheated the US out of billions of dollars in free weapons.

Earlier this year, advisers Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz (who worked in Trump’s administration during his first term) presented a plan to reduce the supply of arms and military equipment to Ukraine until Kiev agreed to peace talks with Russia.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s sources, the new proposal to resolve the armed conflict includes several key points. In the most general terms, these boil down to the following:

They assume that hostilities will stop at the current milestones achieved by both sides of the conflict. This means freezing the front line and creating a demilitarized zone along it.

Russia will retain control over part of Ukraine’s claimed territory. For its part, Kiev must promise not to try to join NATO for the next two decades. In return, the US will continue to supply Ukraine with arms and military equipment. At the same time, according to the newspaper’s sources, Trump has not yet approved the final plan for resolving the conflict and intends to continue discussing it with his closest advisers.

What would the demilitarized zone look like?

The new settlement plan, details of which have been obtained by the WSJ, raises many questions. For a start, it is not even clear what the DMZ (demilitarized zone) would look like (at least its geometric dimensions should be specified) or whether it will extend, for example, to all the new regions of Russia (including the Crimean Peninsula).

According to the classic definition of a DMZ, military facilities on this territory must be removed, while the deployment of units and formations of armed forces, the fortification of the terrain, and the conduct of combat and operational training activities on it are prohibited. Most likely, Moscow and Kiev will stumble at the first point of the Trump plan and categorically reject the elimination of their military infrastructure.

Maintaining the security regime in the DMZ in this particular case will require, among other things, the presence of a contingent of peacekeepers (if only to separate the parties’ forces). Washington has already made it clear that the White House does not intend to send US military units to Ukraine for this purpose. Western European countries may then be involved instead. It is not yet possible to give clear answers to the many questions about the composition and size of any peacekeeping contingent, who would be in command and what the legal status of these forces might be.

Therefore, it is not difficult to use the term “demilitarized zone” but it seems to be problematic for the American side to describe how this will be implemented in practice and in detail.

What about legal status and NATO?

The next point in Trump’s plan is that “Russia will retain control over part of Ukrainian territory (sic).” It remains to be clarified which land, exactly, how its legal status could be described, and what is Kiev’s position on this issue (in other words, does Ukraine agree with this assumption in Trump’s plan?). Nothing is clear.

Next. According to the proposals, Ukraine will not try to join NATO for the next 20 years. At the very least, this thesis sounds pretty funny.

In other words, all responsibility in this matter is being shifted not onto Brussels and Washington, but onto Kiev. For example – we ask you not to apply to NATO. In short, “we’ll ask them not to lie, but they will lie.”

Again, why only 20 years? What is the justification for this particular timeframe? Where does it come from? Is it based on the title of Alexandre Dumas’ famous novel 1845 “Twenty Years After?”

And finally, in return, the US will continue to supply Ukraine with arms and military equipment. This is the most important point. Because if Washington stops supplying military equipment to Ukraine, the war will end tomorrow, without any demilitarized zones.

Is it possible to reach an agreement with Kiev?

The most important thing about Trump’s plan is that the authors don’t seem to have coordinated in any way with either Moscow or Kiev. And the Ukrainians will be the main problem, because the chief obstacle to the implementation of any peace initiatives is the absolutely insane and inadequate military-political leadership in Kiev (this can be judged with absolute certainty on the basis of all of their recent actions and steps, including the demands for Tomahawk missiles).

Just one example. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, after the US elections, outlined five ‘red lines’: no compromise on Ukraine’s independence, no return to “Russia’s zone of influence”; Kiev will never give up territories that have come under Russian control; Ukraine will not agree to ‘limit the capacity of its armed forces’ because they are ‘the most reliable and effective guarantor of the survival of the Ukrainian state’; until the ‘full liberation’ of its territory, Ukraine cannot ‘compromise or agree to lift sanctions.’

In fact, Poroshenko’s statements quite accurately reflect the mood of the Ukrainian political class and fully characterize Kiev’s policy as a set of statements that are absolutely not based on the real capabilities of the state, its forces and means.

That is why the first point of any peace plan by Trump should sound something like this: “First of all, we must bring to power in Kiev a leadership capable of fulfilling contracts. Most importantly, reasonable and appropriate people. Only then will negotiations and discussion of any positions be possible.”

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team:

https://www.gazeta.ru/army/2024/11/07/20041489.shtml

Glenn Diesen: Russia Changes Nuclear Doctrine & Prepares for War

By Glenn Diesen, Substack, 10/24/24

Rumble link here.

I had a conversation with Professor Sergey Karaganov and Alexander Mercouris about Russia changing its nuclear doctrine. Karaganov was an advisor to Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin. He has been the main proponent of lowering Russia’s nuclear threshold. Putin had previously told Karaganov that Russia was not prepared to change the nuclear doctrine, however Putin has reversed his position and is now changing the nuclear doctrine according to Karaganov’s recommendations.

Nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent and can therefore be a source of stability and peace by making war between the great powers unacceptable. The irony of the nuclear deterrent is that the immensely destructive power of nuclear weapons, possibly ending human civilisation, can reduce the credibility that an opponent would use them. The nuclear peace therefore requires communicating a credible readiness to destroy the world.

NATO’s escalations in the Ukraine War have convinced the Kremlin that its nuclear deterrent has been severely weakened and must be restored. For example, Biden initially warned against sending F-16s as it would likely trigger World War 3, but then decided later to approve supplying F-16s to Ukraine while NATO countries dismissed Russia’s nuclear deterrence as unacceptable “nuclear blackmail”. On the third year of the war, Ukraine invaded Kursk with NATO weapons and likely US intelligence – which was met with Western support and exuberance.

The dilemma for how Russia can respond has been: 1) retaliate against NATO and risk uncontrolled escalation possibly resulting in nuclear war, or 2) do not to retaliate but then embolden NATO to escalate further and thus risk nuclear war. The plan by the US and UK to supply Ukraine with long-range precision missiles became the final straw for Moscow. This would be considered a direct attack on Russia since these missiles would need to be operated by American or British soldiers and guided by their satellites.

The changes primarily entail 1) allowing the use of nuclear weapons if attacked by a non-nuclear state supported by a nuclear state (to address war through proxy), 2) placing Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella to address the possibility of a NATO nuclear attack on Belarus as a step up the escalation ladder. Obama’s national-security team secretly staged a war game in 2016 in which it was recommended to respond to a Russian use of nuclear weapon with a NATO nuclear attack on Belarus – “a nation that had played no role whatsoever in the invasion of the NATO ally but had the misfortune of being a Russian ally”.

Changing the nuclear doctrine does not suggest Russia is planning a nuclear strike as there are still further steps on the escalation ladder:

-Confront and destroy NATO reconnaissance drones over the Black Sea that provide targets to Ukraine

-Use conventional weapons to attack NATO’s military targets that are used to put a blockade on Kaliningrad (if the decision is made)

-Destroy NATO satellites used to guide missiles that attack Russian territory

-Destroy NATO’s critical infrastructure such as underwater cables or through cyber attacks

-Destroy Ukrainian warplanes stationed in Poland and Romania

-Destroy military logistics centres on NATO territory for weapons being sent to Ukraine

-Attacks on US military bases abroad, either through proxies or direct attacks

However, once any of these retaliatory actions are taken against NATO, both sides could lose control of the situation and rapidly head up the escalation ladder.

Anatol Lieven: Putin won’t get any guarantees from a Trump White House

By Anatol Lieven, UnHerd, 11/10/24

The Russian establishment profoundly distrusts Donald Trump. Though usually forgotten in the West, it was his administration — not Barack Obama’s or Joe Biden’s – which began the supply of weapons to Ukraine in 2017. Trump also allowed US intelligence to build up the presence in Ukraine that played an important role in preventing Russian victory in the first months of 2022. In fact, apart from some complimentary remarks about Vladimir Putin, the US President-elect has done little to improve relations with Russia.

Following Trump’s election win this week, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that it had “no illusions” about him, adding that America’s “ruling political elite adheres to anti-Russia principles and the policy of ‘containing Moscow’” no matter which party is in charge. While Putin himself is more sympathetic, on Thursday hailing Trump’s “desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis”, these comments can be attributed to a recognition that the Russian President needs to maintain good relations with his American counterpart.

When it comes to negotiations with the Trump administration to end the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin still has one big fear. This, according to members of the Russian establishment with whom I spoke this summer, is a repeat of Trump’s notorious initiative to negotiate a deal with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. In that instance, Trump launched into an exercise in personal diplomacy without preparation or any understanding of the other side — or seemingly of his own aims. When the talks failed, Trump responded with furious bluster and left US relations with Pyongyang in even worse shape than before.

Moscow worries that Trump may make Putin a peace offer which he genuinely thinks is a generous and viable one, but which fails to meet minimal Russian conditions, and that if Putin rejects it Trump will turn violently against Russia. There is also fear in the Kremlin that opponents of a deal in the State Department may deliberately set Trump up to fail in this way, and that the President-elect’s immediate team will not see it coming. That’s before factoring in a Ukrainian establishment which is likely to bitterly resist a compromise peace.

Trump’s own advisors are reported to be deeply divided on the subject of Ukraine. And, according to one former aide, “anyone — no matter how senior in Trump’s circle — who claims to have a different view or more detailed window into his plans on Ukraine simply doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.” More than that, in the words of the same aide, they don’t “understand that he makes his own calls on national-security issues, many times in the moment, particularly on an issue as central as this”.

To have a chance of success, formal negotiations will therefore have to be preceded by preparatory talks, preferably in secret. Each side can then explore which of the other’s conditions are basic and non-negotiable, and which are open to compromise. We do not yet know Trump’s choices for secretary of state and national security advisor, or what their attitudes to Russia and Ukraine will be. Yet sheer military reality has seemingly persuaded most of his team that Ukrainian recovery of all its lost territory is now impossible.

As one advisor on the 2024 campaign, Bryan Lanza, told the BBC this week: “if President Zelensky comes to the table and says, ‘well, we can only have peace if we have Crimea’, he shows to us that he’s not serious […] Crimea is gone.” Lanza added that the US plan is “not a vision for winning, but it’s a vision for peace”.

However, the Moscow establishment — and, according to opinion polls, most of the Russian public — cannot countenance withdrawal not just from Crimea but from any of the territory that Russia holds in the five Ukrainian provinces it claims to have annexed. Putin has demanded that Ukraine withdraw from the territory it still holds in these provinces, but this is just as impossible as Kyiv’s demand that Russia withdraw from all the territory it occupies in Ukraine.

These must therefore be understood not as absolute conditions but as initial bargaining positions. It seems probable that a ceasefire along the actually existing battle-line — but without formal recognition of Russia’s annexations — will be a central part of any Trump proposal.

Putin’s insistence that Ukraine sign a treaty of neutrality, and that Nato membership be categorically excluded, is supposedly non-negotiable but could yet be subject to compromise. Russia might accept a lengthy moratorium on Ukraine’s application for Nato membership — for example, 20 years, as reportedly proposed by some members of Trump’s team — but this is a question that can only be clarified in talks.

The question remains as to what will happen in the 73 days until Trump actually takes office. President Joe Biden is already rushing through a major tranche of aid, a smart move geared towards strengthening the US at the negotiating table. The Pentagon is also for the first time officially allowing US military contractors to repair and maintain American weaponry inside Ukraine. Some fear — hopefully without reason — that the Biden administration will go much further and initiate a drastic escalation in an effort to preemptively wreck any talks.

A new crisis may also be initiated from the Russian side. If the Russians know the only territory they will get in Ukraine is that which they actually occupy, then they obviously have a huge incentive to take as much ground as possible before Trump enters office. At the very least, they will want to push Ukrainian troops out of the remaining territory they hold in the Russian province of Kursk. The next few weeks may therefore bring a major Russian offensive, whose outcome could have a significant effect on ensuing peace talks.

Stephen Bryen: Europe can’t be defended against Russian attack: report

By Stephen Bryen, Asia Times, 10/24/24

Germany is paying too much for its military equipment, a recent think tank study shows. Image: Germany Ministry of Defense

The German Kiel Institute has published a disturbing but accurate report on German and European defense. The report suggests that the overall picture for Germany, Europe and the United States is grim.

The bottom line is that despite all the NATO war talk, the alliance (including the United States) is not ready for any conflict with Russia. It also suggests that the pricing of defense equipment is making defense companies rich but not helping the overall cause of security.

The Kiel Institute, founded in 1914, is regarded as Germany’s leading influential think tank. In September, the Institute produced a study called “Fit for war in decades: Europe’s and Germany’s slow rearmament vis-a-vis Russia.” [https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/IfW-Publications/fis-import/1f9c7f5f-15d2-45c4-8b85-9bb550cd449d-Kiel_Report_no1.pdf}

The study is very important: It points out how unprepared Germany and other European countries are should Russia attack them. It also tells a sad tale about how overpriced and insufficient European, specifically German, defense manufacturing has become. 

A great example is Germany’s Caracal air assault vehicle. A Caracal is a kind of wild cat found in Africa, Pakistan, the Middle East and parts of India. The German vehicle, an unarmored gussied-up jeep based on a Mercedes G class chassis, was put together by Rheinmetall, Mercedes-Benz AG and ACS Armored Car Systems GmbH.

The Caracal has no armor on its open sides. Over 3,000 of these vehicles have been provided to Ukraine at a cost of 1.9 billion euros, which works out to 620,000 euros per unit.

You could bolt an antitank gun or machine gun on a four-wheel drive commercial jeep for less than $35,000 per copy. And since Ukraine has no airlift capability, an air assault vehicle dropped onto the battlefield is a non-starter. (The euro now trades at $1.08 to the US dollar.)

An equally appalling example is 30mm ammunition for the German Puma infantry fighting vehicle. The Puma costs a staggering $5.3 million each, while its 30mm ammunition costs around 1,000 euros per shot!

Puma can fire up to 600 rounds per minute. That compares to a US 30mm High Explosive Dual Purpose round (more specialized than a run-of-the-mill bullet) at $100. So German 30mm ammunition is ten times more expensive than the US’s.

The German army is also buying tactical military headsets for soldiers. Commercially available tactical headsets retail for $299. If features such as noise cancellation are added, the price may go up to $400 but not more. Yet German headsets cost a whopping 2,700 euros each.

The bottom line is that people and companies are making a lot of money supplying European armies or sending stuff to Ukraine. Some might say it is outright corruption since governments are complicit in these deals. Mind that the Kiel Institute only goes as far as to say these purchases are uber-expensive, no more.

The Kiel report has a lot to say about defense industrial output in Russia (which is a lot), by the fact that the Russians are not going to run out of weapons anytime soon and that North Korea now augments supplies in the form of artillery rounds and missiles.

North Korea, it seems, has been grinding out weapons well in excess of anything it can use, and until now, it did not export them. The Russian deal with North Korea sustains the Kim Jong Un dictatorship, of course, by providing cash or the equivalent and underwriting jobs.

All of this helps show, in part, that Germany’s investments in defense are corrupted (I think that is the right word) by excessively expensive hardware.

Even if Germany actually meets the NATO target of 2.1% of GDP for defense spending, what the German army ends up getting is extremely overpriced, not to mention that a lot of it is ending up in Ukraine and only slowly, if at all, replaced on the home front.

Even with adequate spending, what money is spent on boggles the mind. Very little, for example, is going into air defense, something that is vital for Germany’s future defense needs.

Overall, NATO-supplied air defenses have done a mediocre to abysmal job in Ukraine, a harbinger of a deadly future in Europe unless the problem is corrected. An intriguing footnote (page 25) in the report, set in ultra-small type, discusses Ukraine’s ability to shoot down Russian missiles and drones:

Sample interception rates for commonly used Russian missiles in 2024: 50% for the older Kalibr subsonic cruise missiles, 22% for modern subsonic cruise missiles (e.g. Kh-69), 4% for modern ballistic missiles (e.g. Iskander-M), 0.6% for S-300/400 supersonic long-range SAM, and 0.55% for the Kh-22 supersonic anti-ship missile.

Data on interception rates of hypersonic missiles is scarce: Ukraine claims a 25% interception rate for hypersonic Kinzhal and Zircon missiles, but Ukrainian sources also indicate such interceptions require salvo firing all 32 launchers in a US-style Patriot battery to have any chance to shoot down a single hypersonic missile. By comparison, German Patriot batteries have 16 launchers, and Germany has 72 launchers in total.

Take note that interceptor missiles for Patriot are in ultra-short supply. These missiles take a long time to manufacture and gearing up to make them has proven challenging. A shortage of critical components is also bolloxing production lines.

While US defense contractor Lockheed Martin is the main producer, Boeing provides key parts for the seeker the missile uses to strike its target (when it works). Boeing won’t solve that problem, at the earliest, until 2027. Meanwhile, Boeing faces a massive industrial strike and an internal crisis still far from a solution.

But there are big questions about air defenses. The US has sold the Patriot and other systems to Ukraine. The Russians spend a lot of effort destroying them, but even when they function, their intercept rate is below par. Europe has supplied IRIS-T, NSAMS and other systems that, so far as can be determined, are roughly equivalent to the Patriot.

On the whole, Israeli systems are better, but they are not deployed in Ukraine. What is regarded as the top US system for air defense, AEGIS (in the form of AEGIS Ashore), is not in Ukraine. The systems are deployed in Poland and Romania.

Europe has very little in the way of home-deployed air defense (Britain essentially has none). The US is not much better off. Some systems, especially the Ground-Based Mid-Course Interceptor based in Alaska, are a mixed bag.

The Pentagon is now looking for new interceptor missiles that work better than what it has. Despite several tests that were optimized to try and assure success, the 40 or so missiles in inventory only work about half the time.

The future is also concerning as hypersonic weapons arrive on the battlefield, seen in Ukraine in the form of Russia’s Kinzhal and Zircon. Systems like the Patriot or Iris-T or any of the other NATO air defense systems hardly stand a chance against hypersonic attack missiles.

The picture also isn’t pretty when it comes to drones, which are being fired off by the thousands by the Ukrainians and Russians. They are hard to kill and systems like the Russian Lancet drone can destroy modern battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.

No one so far, including Israel, has come up with an efficient way to destroy swarms of drones or even some lesser attacks that get through.

Above all, the Kiel report puts a new and important perspective on Europe’s security situation and, by extension, the US, which is pledged by treaty to help defend Europe.

Instead of constantly expanding NATO and creating angst in Europe and Russia, it is time to step back and see if a credible defense of Europe is possible. Right now, judging by the Kiel report, the answer is no.

Ray McGovern: Thawing Russia-US Relations?

By Ray McGovern, Consortium News, 11/11/24

A former and future U.S. president talked with Vladimir Putin on Thursday! At least that is what The Washington Post reported today. 

In a highly detailed account, the Post wrote: 

“During the call, which Trump took from his resort in Florida, he advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe, said a person familiar with the call, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The two men discussed the goal of peace on the European continent and Trump expressed an interest in follow-up conversations to discuss ‘the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon,’ one of the people said.”

Except on Monday, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, denied it ever happened.

As a follow-up, the Post was forced to report:

“Peskov called the story ‘completely untrue’ … ‘This is the most obvious example of the quality of the information that is now published, sometimes even in fairly respected publications. This is completely untrue. This is pure fiction, this is simply false information,’ he told the Russian news agency Interfax.”

Someone is lying here. The Post said it had five unnamed sources confirming the call and providing extensive detail of what was supposedly discussed.  Trump has said nothing so far about whether such a call took place. But on Monday he posted a short Fox video on his Truth Social account showing the world leaders he has spoken to so far and Putin is not among them. Volodymyr Zelenksy of Ukraine is.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTr...

A Long- Time Coming

It has been two and a half years since a conversation between U.S. and Russian presidents.

That last conversation was held on Feb. 12, 2022. It ended badly – the readout showing there was no room for compromise, no room for a “deal” to stave off war in Ukraine.

The U.S. would not reverse its stance on inviting Ukraine into NATO; and went back on an earlier undertaking not to put offensive missiles in Ukraine. The Russians saw their core national security interests at stake, just as the U.S. had core interests in preventing Cuba from installing offensive missiles in 1962.

According to the Russian readout, Putin made clear that Joe Biden “did not really address non-expansion of NATO, or non-deployment of strike weapons systems on Ukrainian territory.” Twelve days later, the Russians launched what they call their Special Military Operation.

The Biden administration knew this would happen. None other than NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg let that cat out of the bag (no doubt inadvertently) in a speech to the EU Parliament on Sept. 7, 2023:

“Putin’s precondition for not invading Ukraine was: No Ukraine in NATO. We rejected that. So he went to war to prevent more NATO.”

Context: Reading the Readout

The Kremlin placed the readout of the Feb. 12, 2022 summit-call squarely in the context of a key Putin-Biden telephone conversation nine weeks earlier on Dec. 7, 2021. That virtual summit had been arranged abruptly, at Putin’s urgent request.

And so it came to pass that Biden was at home on holiday in Delaware – without his minders. As things turned out, he apparently reasoned that agreeing not to put offensive missiles in Ukraine made sense, given the threat Putin saw in that (and the fact that the US already had such emplacements in Romania and Poland).

The Russian readout from that Dec. 30, 2021 telephone call stated: “Joseph Biden emphasized that Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike missiles in Ukraine.” [Emphasis added.]

Biden administration officials, with the full cooperation of Establishment media, were able to obfuscate and suppress this key undertaking made by Biden when he was ‘home alone’, so to speak.

There was virtually no public reporting or comment. The only exception was former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, an ardent Ukraine fan, who quickly and quietly dismissed the readout as nothing new.

Dec. 7, 2021: U.S. President Joe Biden, on screen during video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Signs of Thaw 

A lot of water has flowed down the Dnieper River since February 2022. Much of it will be frozen thick on Jan. 20 when Donald Trump takes office. There are, however, already some tentative signs of a coming thaw in relations between the U.S. and Russia.

On Thursday, Putin publicly congratulated Trump on his victory, praising his “manly” response to the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. On Sunday, Kremlin spokesman Peskov told an interviewer there were “positive” signs for improved relations under a Trump presidency.

“Trump talked during his campaign about how he sees everything through deals, that he can make a deal that will lead everyone to peace. At least he talks about peace, not about confrontation and the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” Peskov said.

Tempering expectations, Putin responded cautiously to a question at the Valdai conference in Sochi on Nov. 7. Asked what he expects from a second Trump administration, Putin replied, “I don’t know what will happen now. I have no idea.”

On Ukraine, nothing good will happen until Biden/Blinken/Sullivan can admit that what they have been saying for a year and a half is not true. Putin has not “already lost.” It is just the opposite. And his terms are correspondingly tough. On that basis, and only on that basis, will he be prepared “to deal.”

US ‘Exceptionalism’

Biden was fond of quoting former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s oft-stated belief that the U.S. was not only “exceptional” but also “indispensable.” It seems Biden and his acolytes, particularly Secretary of State Antony Blinken, may actually believe that.

What most observers have long since forgotten is that Putin called out Barack Obama on that very issue – precisely at a time when there was hope for increasing mutual trust. Putin placed a revealing op-ed about all this in The New York Times on Sept. 12, 2013.

In short, Putin persuaded Syria to let its chemical weapons be destroyed under U.N. inspection, and thus pulled Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire when Obama agreed.

Obama later admitted that all of his advisers insisted he had to wage war on Syria because of a chemical attack near Damascus during the civil war there. It was a false-flag attack, and he sensed that. Obama was reluctant to start yet another overt war – this one on Syria. He told a lot of this story to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic.

Syria’s chemical weapons were destroyed and war was avoided. And not only that. The possibilities had increased perceptively for growing trust, only to be dashed when Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and friends mounted a coup d’etat in Kyiv just six months later.

Here’s the last paragraph of the NYT op-ed by Putin on Sept 12, 2013. As we shall see, there are clear echoes of this in Putin’s talk on Friday at Valdai, 11 years later:

“My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’ It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

The Valdai Message 

Putin addressing the Valdai Club on Friday. (President of Russia)

Is there a chance for resuscitation of this “growing trust” from 11 years ago? In his Valdai presentation Friday, Putin made abundantly clear what the new international situation — the new balance of power – will now require, especially as a very large part of the world is already in BRICS and arrayed against a lily white, Western minority.

Putin’s words on Friday are as interesting now as his New York Times op-ed was 11 years ago:

“The Western-centric world has embraced certain clichés and stereotypes concerning the global hierarchy. There is supposedly a developed world, progressive society and some universal civilization that everyone should strive to join – while at the other end, there are backward, uncivilized nations, barbarians. Their job is to listen unquestioningly to what they are told from the outside, and to act on the instructions issued by those who are allegedly superior to them in this civilizational hierarchy.

It is clear that this concept works for a crude colonial approach, for the exploitation of the global majority. The problem is that this essentially racist ideology has taken root in the minds of many, creating a serious mental obstacle to general harmonious growth. [Emphasis added.]

The modern world tolerates neither arrogance nor wanton disregard for others being different. To build normal relationships, above all, one needs to listen to the other party and try to understand their logic and cultural background, rather than expecting them to think and act the way you think they should based on your beliefs about them. Otherwise, communication turns into an exchange of clichés and flinging labels, and politics devolves into a conversation of the deaf.”

It is possible to hope that, on Ukraine at least, U.S.-Russian talks can quickly move beyond cliches and labels, to stop the killing. Mutual trust is also possible, but it will take some time to rebuild it.

Perhaps it helps to recall that it almost happened just 13 years ago.

Poll: Majority of Russians Would Oppose Returning Land Even if Putin Decides To Return it as Part of Peace Deal

By Simon Saradzhyan, Russia Matters, 10/17/24

A majority of Russians would support ending hostilities and launching peace negotiations, according to the results of a September 2024 poll by Russia’s Levada Center1 on Russians’ views on the war against Ukraine. However, when asked if Russia should make concessions in such negotiations, a vast majority answered in the negative. Moreover, when asked to evaluate the conditions of a hypothetical peace deal, vast majorities of respondents rejected returning territories to Kyiv, as well as Ukraine’s membership in NATO. In addition, when Levada divided its respondents into two groups, a majority in one of the groups said they would not support an end to the military conflict if it meant returning annexed territories, even if Vladimir Putin himself made such a decision. This obviously doesn’t bode well for those in the West seeking support for brokering a peace deal that would defer territorial issues in exchange for Kyiv’s membership in the Alliance.

Russians Not Ready for Meaningful Compromise

Like all but one of Levada’s previous polls on Ukraine since October 2022, the September 2024 poll shows that the percentage of respondents favoring an end to Russia’s so-called special military operation and launching peace negotiations (54%) is greater than that of those who support continuing the operation (38%). However, when asked whether Russia should make concessions to Ukraine to end the military operation and sign a peace agreement, the share of those who answered “definitely or probably yes” was 20% in September 2024. In contrast, 70% were opposed, after fluctuating in the range of 70%–73% last year.

Levada has also asked its respondents to weigh in on specific conditions that a peace accord would contain. It has found that 94% of respondents considered an exchange of POWs to be acceptable or preferable as of September 2024, and 78% of respondents considered immediate ceasefire to be acceptable or preferable. However, only 21% of these respondents found returning the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions to Ukraine to be acceptable or preferable, while 69% found such a return unacceptable. Additionally, 75% found returning the Luhansk and Donetsk regions to Ukraine unacceptable. Finally, the share of those who found Ukraine’s membership in NATO as acceptable or preferable was 15% in September 2024, while 73% found it unacceptable under any circumstances.

Russians Won’t Agree To Return Land Even if Putin Decides to Do So

As part of the September 2024 survey, the Levada Center once again repeated the following experiment. With the help of a random number generator, the respondents participating in the survey were divided into two equal groups, each of which was asked a question in one of two formulations. In Group 1, the respondents were asked if they would support or not support the president’s decision to immediately end the military conflict, without any conditions to support or not to support the president’s decision to immediately end the military conflict (without any conditions). In Group 2, the respondents were asked whether they would support Putin’s decision to end the conflict, but on the condition of returning territories to Ukraine. Some 73% in Group 1 in September 2024 said they would support Putin’s decision to end the conflict with Ukraine (in April 2024 it was 71%), while 19% said they would oppose it (20% in April 2024). In Group 2, 30% said in September they would support Putin’s decision to end the military conflict with Ukraine and return the annexed territories, while 60% said they would oppose such a combination.

Majority of Russians Believe Their Army is Succeeding in Ukraine

Perhaps, one reason why majorities of Russians reject concessions to Ukraine is that many of them believe the Russian armed forces are succeeding in Ukraine (60% in September 2024). In comparison, the share of those who believe that the campaign has been going somewhat unsuccessfully or extremely unsuccessfully totaled 23% in September 2024. This belief in the success of the Russian army may also explain why a significant majority of Russians continue to personally support its actions in Ukraine (76% in September 2024). As for what shaped that belief itself, one should keep in mind that, according to Levada, majority of Russians (60%) continue to learn ‘news’ from Russian TV channels, which are mostly owned by the authorities or their loyalists. These channels toe the Kremlin’s line in portraying Russia’s war against Ukraine as a success. For instance, they trumpet Russian advances while declining to mention how far away the troops are from fulfilling Putin’s orders on capturing the Donbas. That the Kremlin refuses to admit number of casualties on the Russian side (which Western and independent Russian sources estimate at 200,000–600,000) to the Russian public also influence the latter’s assessment of whether their army is successful in Ukraine.

Yet, Russians See More Harm Than Good in War

At the same time, even in spite of suppression of facts on the ground in Ukraine, Levada’s recent polls still show that the share of those who believe Russia’s war in Ukraine has generated more harm than good does not only exceed the share of those who believe the reverse, but their number has also increased. The share of those who believe the conflict has caused net damage went from 41% in May 2023 to 47% in Sept. 2024 (damage-seers). In the same period, the share of those who believe the conflict has generated a net benefit decreased from 38% to 28% (benefit-seers).

When asked an open question to specify what exactly they meant when they said that the special military operation has caused more harm than good, some 52% of damage-seers pointed to the death toll, victims and suffering caused by the operation. Military losses, specifically the deaths of soldiers, were highlighted by 21% of damage-seers. Economic concerns were also notable, with 18% citing the worsening economic situation and increased expenses as a significant harm. Some 13% of damage-seers viewed the operation as leading to widespread destruction, devastation and violence typically associated with war. Deterioration of international relations and isolation is a concern for 7% of the damage-seers. In contrast, when asked an open question to specify what exactly they meant when they said that the special military operation has generated more benefits than harm, 26% of the benefit-seers pointed to the “return of territories, new territories and larger population.” Closely following this were 24% of the benefit-seers who believe that the operation has succeeded in the “protection of the people of Donbass, Russians and Russian-speaking individuals.” Additionally, 16% of the benefit-seers feel that the operation has strengthened Russia’s global position. Some 11% of these respondents said that the operation “stopped NATO expansion, removed Western threats.” Some 10% of the benefit-seers highlighted that the operation “has strengthened the economy and production.”

It should also be noted that the share of Russians who follow the situation in Ukraine has not changed significantly this fall. The share of those who are following it very closely or fairly closely went from 53% in August 2024 to 54% in September 2024.

Conclusion

The latest polling by the Levada Center reveals a complex and somewhat contradictory stance among the Russian public regarding the war in Ukraine. While a majority favor ending hostilities and pursuing peace negotiations, this sentiment is undercut by a strong unwillingness to make concessions on key issues, such as returning annexed territories, or accepting Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Such a stand leaves little room for meaningful compromise in the near future, especially given that recent polls show that majority of Ukrainians are also unwilling to compromise on key issues (polls held this summer show that 55% of Ukrainians are opposed to making any territorial concessions while 59% reject the demand that Ukraine’s neutrality is codified). The Levada polling also highlights a lingering belief in the success of Russian military efforts, which also likely fuels resistance to compromise even though an increasing share of Russians believe the war has caused more harm than good. As noted above, a number of factors may be influencing this belief; including reliance of the public on pro-Kremlin TV channels for news and suppression of information on casualties. One also should not forget that Russia’s slide towards a hard authoritarianism has led to criminalization of freedom of speech on issues related to the war, among other things. This cannot help influencing what a Russian living in Russia says when a stranger introduces himself as a pollster and says she and her colleagues want to ask him or her such questions about the war, which has become one of the central organizing principles of Putin’s rule.

The author would like to thank RM editor Ivan Arreguín-Toft for reminding him of some of the significant constraints faced by pollsters and respondents in Russia. The author also thanks RM student associate Chris Conway and managing editor Angelina Flood for contributing to retrieving and structuring polling data for this blog post.

Footnotes:

The Levada Center remains the most respected of Russia’s independent pollsters in spite of increasing constraints on such activities in authoritarian Russia.

About 51,000 Ukrainians Have Deserted Armed Forces This Year

By Kyle Anzalone, Libertarian Institute, 10/21/24

The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has opened 51,000 cases of desertion through the first nine months of 2024. The number of soldiers abandoning their posts is likely to double last year’s total. 

The Times of London reported data from the Ukrainian government showing that “51,000 criminal cases were initiated for desertion and abandonment of a military unit between January and September of this year.” El Pais previously noted that 45,000 Ukrainians were being prosecuted for desertion from the start of the year through August. Al-Jazeera says the number is at least 30,000 desertions. 

At the start of the year, Kiev was estimated to have between 500,000 and 800,000 active-duty soldiers and an additional 300,000 reservists. The Ukrainians have also sustained casualties fighting to defend from Russian advances and amid Kiev’s Kursk invasion. 

Kiev has struggled to fill its ranks with fresh soldiers, leading Ukraine to drop its conscription age from 27 to 25. As Kiev is still facing manpower shortages, American politicians are pushing Ukraine to drop draft age to 18. Ukraine has also resorted to allowing prisoners to leave jail if they join the military 

One Ukrainian who deserted told the Times that prison was a better option than the military because “at least in prison, you know when you will be able to leave.” 

The number of Ukrainians that Kiev is prosecuting for desertion has significantly increased throughout the war. In 2022, the number was 9,000, and it had more than doubled to 24,000 last year.

Russia Matters: Trump’s Ukraine Peace Deal Options All End Biden’s ‘As Long As It Takes’ Support to Kyiv, Nix Its Agency on Launch of Talks

Russia Matters, 11/8/24

Donald Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine by his inauguration now puts the president elect in a position of having to choose between competing proposals from advisers united by a common thread—a sharp break from President Joe Biden’s approach of letting Kyiv dictate when peace talks should begin while arming Kyiv “as long as it takes,” according to WSJ. Instead, these proposals uniformly recommend freezing the war in place and forcing Ukraine to suspend its quest to join NATO for at least 20 years, this newspaper reported. One of these proposals is attributed to Mike Pompeo and is likely to push for a settlement that doesn’t appear to give a major win to Moscow, according to WSJ. In contrast, Richard Grenell’s proposal gives priority to Trump’s desire to end the war as swiftly as possible, even if it means forcing Kyiv into significant concessions. Throughout his campaign for the White House, Trump had bashed Biden’s handling of Ukraine, complaining that Kyiv “fleeced the U.S. by obtaining weapons worth billions of dollars free of charge,” and describing Zelenskyy as the “greatest salesman,” according to WSJ. Trump has also touted that he had a plan to resolve the conflict quickly, but noted “I can’t give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I’m not going to be able to use them.”The only way to achieve a swift end to Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion would be to force his country into a defeat, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had a phone conversation with Trump after the latter’s victory. The phone call included two surprises: Elon Musk was also on the line, and Zelenskyy was somewhat reassured by what he heard from Trump, two sources with knowledge of the call told Axios.After a significant wait, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump on his victory in the U.S. presidential election, stating he’s ready to hold discussions with the president elect on stabilizing U.S.-Russian relations, including the issues of Ukraine and strategic stability. “It seems to me, it deserves attention what was said about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis,” Putin said in his first comments on Trump’s re-election, which he made in the course of the third hour of his remarks at the Valdai conference on Nov. 7. In earlier comments, Trump said he is planning to speak to Putin.  Russian stock investors expressed cautious optimism over Trump’s victory. The Moscow Exchange Index rose by 3.6% Nov. 6 on news of Trump’s victory, with Russian energy giants Gazprom and Novatek among the best performers, both rising nearly 5% shortly after opening, according to Istories and FT. Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa Securities jumped 18.3%, its biggest daily rise in over two years, according to FT.[1] “All the talk this morning is about how to trade Russia and whether sanctions will be thrown off,” one portfolio manager told FT the morning after the Nov. 5 elections.At a summit this week, European Union leaders debated whether they can keep the Ukrainian war effort going if Trump decides to shut off support from the U.S., according to Bloomberg. While some EU leaders argued that the European Commission should be coming up with proposals on how the bloc will respond if U.S. aid is shut off, others were skeptical, according to this news agency. “Some EU leaders say that in such a case, the EU should take on full financial responsibility for Ukraine. I see this as impossible, and Slovakia will not agree to it,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said. In spite of this disagreement, Zelenskyy, who attended the two-day summit in Budapest, urged European leaders to supply Kyiv with more weapons rather than pushing for negotiations with Moscow, according to Meduza. “I have previously stated that we have reached red lines. The West’s calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, a nation with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, reveal the reckless adventurism of certain Western politicians,” Putin told the annual conference of Russia’s Valdai Club. “Such blind faith in their own impunity and exceptionalism could lead to a global catastrophe,” he warned. When asked by a Pakistani general to share his vision for maintaining strategic stability after New START expires, Putin claimed that Russia “never refused to continue the dialogue in the field of strategic stability,” but the U.S. cannot hope for a dialogue in that field with Russia while seeking to inflict a strategic defeat upon it.” He then added, “Let’s see how the new future [U.S.] administration will formulate its proposals, if there are any at all.”This week  multiple reports emerged  that North Korean troops had engaged their Ukrainian counterparts, fighting on the Kremlin’s side in Russia’s Kursk region, likely starting on Nov. 4. Russian and North Korean leaders continued to refuse to explicitly acknowledge the presence of a DPRK contingent in western Russia, in spite of these reports, accompanied by photos of purportedly wounded North Korean soldiers (who are reportedly paid $2,000 per month for participating in combat in Russia). However, the very fact that Vladimir Putin found time for a reportedly unscheduled meeting with North Korea’s visiting foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, while Russia’s Senate unanimously voted to ratify a mutual defense treaty with the DPRK, reaffirms how important the Hermit Kingdom’s support has become for the Kremlin in its aggression against Ukraine.In the past month (Sept. 30–Oct. 31, 2024), Russian forces have gained 206 square miles of Ukrainian territory, and in the first week of November, an additional 75 square miles, while Ukrainian forces have re-gained zero square miles, according to RM staff’s Nov. 8 estimate based on data provided for that period by the Institute for the Study of War.

Konstantin Remchukov: 10 facts the West must understand before talking to Putin

By Konstantin Remchukov, RT, 10/17/24

By Konstantin Remchukov, editor-in-chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta. A former MP, he is regarded as a leading thinker in Russia.

1. Putin makes all fundamental decisions personally, on the basis of his own ability, expertise, and sense of historical responsibility. A vivid example of this was the president’s speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14, in which he outlined the key provisions of Russia’s foreign policy priorities and his vision for the formation of a new international order. Most participants in the meeting expected the head of state to speak for no more than half an hour. In practice, Putin spoke for almost 80 minutes on theses he had written out himself, which he later explained to journalists.

2. The task of ensuring the security of the country and protecting Russians and Russian speakers in Ukraine, which Putin has been facing since 2014, has become the main existential factor of his rule. He will not hand over power to anyone before the final, internationally guaranteed settlement of this issue.

He cannot give up control until there is a final, globally recognized solution. Anything short of this would mean handing his successor a messy bunch of unresolved problems. Today, no one in Putin’s entourage is better at solving problems than the president. He knows this and is firmly convinced of it.

3. Putin will not resign. At the beginning of September, a schoolgirl in Tuva asked the president: “How would you spend your days if you were an ordinary man, i.e. not the president?” Putin replied succinctly and clearly: “It’s hard for me to imagine that now.” This is his most important message of recent times – both for Russians and outsiders. Putin is saying that in your own future planning, proceed from the basis that I will be in the Kremlin. In this way, the president has delivered a reality check to the many Western politicians and indeed Russian opposition activists who have been dreaming and deluding themselves, claiming that “if there is Putin, there is a problem; if there is no Putin, there is no problem.” The fact is, the president is here to stay.

4. It is now clear that after more than two years of a nuclear threat hanging over us all, the world is ready for real negotiations on this issue. However, there are doubts about whether talks will be successful. The most serious Western politician – and someone who actually understands the consequences of nuclear war – is US President Joe Biden. Sadly, he will be gone in a few months.  Neither Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump has the foreign policy credentials to even grasp the importance of this issue and the dangers involved.

5. The past years and months of the Ukraine conflict, the brutal sanctions, and the radical transformation of the driving forces of the Russian economy have clearly demonstrated that it is time for our own domestic public and political consciousness to decisively abandon the notion, once sown by the Polish/American thinker Zbigniew Brzezinski, that Russia’s greatness rests on its unity with Ukraine. If the country is torn out of Moscow’s sphere of influence, Russia’s status as a great power will come to an end, he warned.

But that was then, and this is now. Today it is obvious that Russia’s place in the world is guaranteed regardless of the degree of proximity to any country or group of countries. Liberation from speculative constructs in the minds of influential ideologues is a powerful factor in normalizing the development process and assessing fundamental risks and opportunities. Russia can be a great and important power regardless of the degree of integration with other states. The greatness of a country is measured by the level of well-being and opportunities of its citizens, by achievements in health care, education, science, and technology.

6. Talking about the Russian economy, we should keep in mind one simple detail: the federal budget submitted to the State Duma (parliament) is based on an oil price of $60 per barrel. According to forecasts, the average annual oil price in 2025 will be $69 per barrel. This is a very high level of conservatism, realism, and sober calculation on the part of the Mikhail Mishustin government. The Russian economy is expected to remain manageable and the pace of development will be sufficient to meet the challenges we face. The obvious structural and technological difficulties will not be decisive in 2025. At this level of industrial development, a balanced budget and currency stability are crucial.

7. Today’s fighting makes it clear that the main goal of Russian troops on the ground is to reach the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. When listing his objectives, Putin increasingly uses the following words: the liberation of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, and Novorossiya. It can be assumed that Novorossiya is only part of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. The main issue here is the land connection with Crimea. If my observations are correct, it is possible to draw a more concrete picture that will allow us to say that the military operation has been completed and its goals have been achieved.

8. It should be stressed that in recent months there has been a clear change in the Russian leadership’s assessment of the nature of Ukrainian statehood. This is the main difference from February 2022. Today, Moscow recognizes that a significant number of Ukrainians voted for the current government, consider themselves Ukrainians, and do not want to see a future with Russia. In this way, the Kremlin recognizes the state of Ukraine. When the West promotes the narrative that Moscow wants to destroy Ukraine as a state, this is an obvious contradiction, given today’s realities. Moreover, it is this narrative that allows Western politicians to claim that by destroying Ukraine, Russia will move further into Europe – into Poland and the Baltic states.

9. Speaking of possible negotiations, the West fails to mention the question of the legitimacy of Vladimir Zelensky’s signature in Putin’s eyes. They say it is obvious because Zelensky is flying around the world with his ‘peace plan’. I would warn Western partners against simplistic interpretations of Putin’s remarks and his concern that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court might later rule that Zelensky had not properly renewed his credentials and that his signature was therefore invalid. ‘Cheated, deceived, hoodwinked, and then deceived again’ is something that won’t be allowed to happen again. The level of mutual trust is not even at zero. Total mistrust now makes it necessary to have full negotiating powers in terms of the legal certainty available.

10. It seems that the issue of a new international order that provides equal security for states is equally relevant today for the critical majority of countries in the world – in the West as well as in the East. The main question is whether it will be possible to create a new international legal framework for peaceful coexistence. Let us remember that the worlds of Versailles and Yalta-Potsdam were born on the ruins of the catastrophes of the First and Second World Wars. The situation is different now. But hopefully humanity has learned something.