Daily Archives: April 12, 2024

Why Congress Must Reform FISA Section 702and How It Can – brennancenter.org

Posted: April 12, 2024 at 5:52 am

This article first appeared at The Dispatch.

Editors note:This article is part of aDispatchdebate series. Kevin Carrollmade the casefor reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts Section 702.

This week, the House of Representatives is set to vote on whether to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which will expire on April 19 unless renewed by Congress. This controversial law is unique, but the ways intelligence agencies have abused it to violate Americans civil liberties are not. The solution to this problem is familiar, too: Congress must not renew Section 702 without protecting Americans Fourth Amendment rights by requiring the government to get a warrant before reviewing Americans private communications.

How section 702 is abused to spy on Americans.

Enacted shortly after 9/11, Section 702 allows intelligence agencies to collect the phone calls, emails, text messages, and other communications of almost any non-American located outside of the United States without a warrant. Agencies such as the CIA and NSA must ensure that a significant purpose of the collection is to acquire foreign intelligence, a term FISAdefinesexpansively to include any information that merely relates to the conduct of foreign affairs. Otherwise, they face no substantive restrictions. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)approves the general rulesgoverning surveillance, but it has no role in approving individual targets.

Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance to be targeted only at non-Americans abroad, but Americans communications are inevitably captured too. The reason is simple: We talk to family, friends, and colleagues who are located abroad, generally for entirely innocent reasons. Recognizing this reality, Congressdirectedintelligence agencies to minimize the retention and use of Americans information collected under Section 702. Yet, despite this clear mandate, officials from the FBI, CIA, NSA, and National Counterterrorism Center perform more than 200,000 warrantless backdoor searcheseveryyearto find and review Americans private phone calls, text messages, and emails.

Lax rulesadopted by agencies allow intelligence officials to perform backdoor searches whenever they have reason to believe the query will return foreign intelligence (or, for the FBI, evidence of a crime). Given FISAs capacious definition of foreign intelligence, this low bar should be easy to clear, but officials have repeatedly stumbled over it. Government reports indicate that in 2022, the FBI performed close to4,000backdoor searches that violated even its own permissive rules. In another recent one-year period, the FBIviolatedthe rules governing searches of FISA databases 278,000 times.

These violations include alarming abuses. Amongmanyother examples, the government has performed baseless searches for the communications ofmembers of Congress,journalists, and19,000 donors to a congressional campaign. The FBI has performed tens of thousands ofunlawful searchesrelated to civil unrest, including searches targeting141 peopleprotesting the murder of George Floyd and more than20,000 peopleaffiliated with a group suspected of involvement in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Most recentlyand despite procedural changes implemented by the FBI to stem abusesFBI agents performedimproper searchesfor the private communications of a U.S. senator, a state senator, and a state court judge who reported alleged civil rights violations by a police chief to the FBI.

Outraged by these abuses, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle havevowednot to reauthorize the law without significant reforms. The key reform under consideration is to require the government to obtain a warrant before examining Americans private communications captured through Section 702 surveillance. After all, under the Fourth Amendment, these communications can be obtained without a warrant only because the government is targeting foreigners abroad for surveillance. Backdoor searches, though, are intended specifically to findAmericanscommunications. Recentpollingfrom YouGov shows that more than 75 percent of Americans favor this measure.

The government argues that warrantless searches are necessary for national security. But according to anexhaustive reviewof Section 702 recently undertaken by the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the government has provided little justification on the relative value of the close to 5 million [backdoor] searches conducted by the FBI from 2019 to 2022. In the few instances in which backdoor searches proved useful, Board Chair Sharon Bradford Franklinobservedthat the government either would have been able to get a warrant or could have invoked one of the standard exceptions to the warrant requirement. A warrant requirement would thus protect Americans Fourth Amendment rights whileensuringthat intelligence agencies retain the tools they need to obtain critical foreign intelligence.

History repeats itself.

There is nothing novel or radical about this proposed reform. To the contrary, warrantless searches for Americans communications are flagrantly inconsistent with longstanding constitutional values. Moreover, the abuses that backdoor searches have enabled mirror those that have historically occurred when those values are not honored.

The Fourth Amendment recognizes the sanctity of Americans private communications. Beginning in the 1960s, the Supreme Court held that the government needed a warrant, not just to seize a persons papers, but to surveil phone calls incriminalanddomestic national securityinvestigations. But the court did not settle whether a warrant is needed to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance, meaning surveillance of Americans intended to uncover the activities of foreign powers or their agents.

A decade later, Congress answered that question. Congressional investigations by the Church and Pike Committees revealed in 1976 that the FBI, CIA, and NSA had illegally spied on civil rights and anti-war advocates for decades based on tenuous claims of Soviet influence. Most notoriously, the FBI spied on and attempted to blackmail theRev. Martin Luther King Jr.But King was just one of thousands of people targeted by federal agents, who employed a wide variety ofillegal tactics, including: attacks on speaking, teaching, writing and meetings; interference with personal and economic rights; abuse of government processes; factionalization; [and] propaganda. In response to these egregious abuses, Congress implemented a series of reforms, one of which was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

FISA authorized and strictly regulated foreign intelligence surveillance inside the United States. It was carefully structured to ensure that intelligence agencies had the tools they needed to counter foreign threats without violating Americans Fourth Amendment rights. Under the law, if the government wanted to engage in domestic collection of Americans communicationsincluding their communications with foreign targetsit would have to get a court order, similar to a criminal warrant, from the newly created Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

This system worked for a time. But after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bushs administration wanted to collect communications of suspected foreign terrorists, including their communications with Americans, and it did not want to wait for FISC approval before doing so. So, it didnt. In violation of FISA, the NSA began a massive, warrantless electronic surveillance program that collected large numbers of Americans international communications. It was not until this program wasrevealedby theNew York Timesthat the Bush administration went to Congress seeking legislative approval for the spying.

Ultimately, Congress acceded. The result was the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, of which Section 702 was a key component. As noted, Section 702 allows the government to collect foreign targets communications without a warrant, even if they may be communicating with Americans. But Congress never intended or envisioned that this would lead to literally millions of warrantless backdoor searches for Americans communications collected for foreign intelligence purposes. This undermines both the Fourth Amendment and the principle underlying FISA itself. And it is no surprise that we are again seeing the types of abuses that predatedand promptedFISAs enactment.

The need for safeguardsmoving forward.

With Section 702 set to expire on April 19, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has scheduled a vote this week in the House on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act. Despite its name, thebillis not a serious reform proposal. Amongmany other defects, the bill does not contain a warrant requirement for backdoor searches. And the modifications it does make, such as codifying the FBIs recent internal rule changes, would do nothing to prevent the intelligence agencies pervasive abuses of Americans Fourth Amendment rights under Section 702. So it is critical that members amend this bill to include the necessary safeguards for Americans rights.

A warrant requirement for backdoor searches is not the onlysurveillance reformthat would improve the bill. Congress should close other legal loopholes that intelligence agencies exploit to gain warrantless access to Americans Fourth Amendment-protected information, such as bypurchasing itfrom commercial data brokers. But a warrant requirement is a necessary part of ending the flagrant abuses of Americans Fourth Amendment rights that are regularly perpetrated in the name of foreign intelligence.

When Congress learned in the 1970s that intelligence agencies had repeatedly abused their authority by spying on Americans without a warrant, it enacted FISA to close the gaps in the law those agencies had exploited. Today, Congress knows that intelligence agencies have repeatedly abused their authority by spying on Americans without a warrant, exploiting legal loopholes that allow them to do so. The solution now is the same as it was then: If intelligence agencies want access to Americans private communications, they must first get a warrant.

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CIA wants more power to spy on Americans – Washington Times

Posted: at 5:52 am

OPINION:

Americans need to be aware of the unbridled propensity of federal intelligence agencies to spy on all of us without search warrants as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

These agencies believe that the Fourth Amendment which protects the individual right to privacy regulates only law enforcement and does not apply to domestic spying.

There is no basis in the constitutional text, history or judicial interpretations for such a limiting and toothless view of this constitutional guarantee. The courts have held that the Fourth Amendment restrains government all government. Last week, the CIA asked Congress to expand its current spying in the United States.

Here is the backstory.

When the CIA was created in 1947, members of Congress who feared the establishment here of the type of domestic surveillance apparatus that the Allies had just defeated in Germany insisted that the new CIA have no role in American law enforcement and no legal ability to spy win the U.S. The legislation creating the CIA contains those unambiguous limitations.

Nevertheless, we know that CIA agents are present in all 50 of our state legislatures. They didnt arrive there until after Dec. 4, 1981. Thats the date that President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333, which purports to give the CIA authority to spy in the United States supposedly looking for narcotics from foreign countries but keeps from law enforcement whatever it finds.

Stated differently, while Reagan purported to authorize the CIA to defy the limitations imposed upon it by the Constitution and by federal law, he insisted on a wall of separation between domestic spying and law enforcement.

So, if the CIA using unconstitutional spying discovered that a janitor in the Russian Embassy in Washington was really a KGB colonel who abused his wife in their suburban Maryland home, under E.O. 12333, it could continue to spy upon him in defiance of the Fourth Amendment and the CIA charter, but it could not reveal to Maryland prosecutors who can use only evidence that was lawfully obtained any evidence of his domestic violence.

All this changed 20 years later when President George W. Bush demolished Reagans wall between law enforcement and domestic spying and directed the CIA and other domestic spying agencies to share the fruits of their spying with the FBI.

Thus, thanks to Reagan, Mr. Bush, and their successors looking the other way, CIA agents have been engaging in fishing expeditions on a grand scale in the U.S. for the past 20 years. Congress knows about this because all intelligence agencies are required by statute to report the extent of their spying secretly to the House and Senate intelligence committees.

This, of course, does not absolve the CIA of its presidentially authorized computer hacking crimes; rather, it gives Congress a false sense of security that it has a handle on whats going on.

Whats going on is not government lawyers appearing before judges asking for surveillance warrants based upon probable cause of crime, as the Constitution requires. Whats going on is CIA agents going to Big Tech and paying for access to communications used by ordinary Americans. Some Big Tech companies told the CIA to take a hike. Others took the CIAs cash and opened the spigots of their fiber-optic data to the voracious federal appetite.

If government lawyers went to a judge and demonstrated probable cause of crime for example, that a janitor in the Russian Embassy was passing defense secrets to Moscow surely the judge would have signed a surveillance warrant. But to the government, following the Constitution is too limiting.

Thus, by acquiring bulk data fiber-optic data on hundreds of millions of Americans acquired without search warrants the government avoids the time and trouble of demonstrating probable cause to a judge. But that time and trouble were intentionally baked into the Fourth Amendment so as to keep the government off our backs.

Not to be outdone by its principal rival, the FBI soon began doing the same thing: gathering bulk data without search warrants.

When Congress learned of this, it enacted legislation that banned the warrantless acquisition of bulk data. Apparently, Congress is naive enough to believe that the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, their cousin with 60,000 domestic spies, will actually comply with federal law.

Last week, that naivete was manifested front and center when the CIA sent a letter to both congressional intelligence committees addressing its spying on foreign persons and the Americans with whom they communicate, and asking to expand that reach in the U.S.

The timing of the CIAs letter coincides with a decision Congress must make in the next 10 days whether to reenact Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allow it to expire on April 19 or expand it as the CIA has requested. Section 702 permits warrantless spying on foreigners and the Americans whom intelligence agencies suspect communicate with them. Section 702 is an unconstitutional free pass for domestic spying.

So, notwithstanding the persistent efforts of members of Congress from both parties to limit and in some cases to prohibit the warrantless acquisition of bulk data by the CIA from Americans, the practice continues, the CIA defends it and presidents look the other way.

Congress created the CIA monster, which today is so big and so powerful and so indifferent to the Constitution and the federal laws its agents have sworn to uphold that it can boast about its lawlessness, have no fear of defying Congress and always escape the consequences of all this largely unscathed. Even President Harry Truman, who signed the 1947 legislation into law, later acknowledged as much and condemned what the CIA had become.

I suspect the CIA and its cousins will get away with this because they spy on Congress and possess damning personal data on members who regularly vote to increase their secret budgets.

When will we have a government whose officials are courageous enough to uphold the Constitution?

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

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Serfdom Reform vs. Liberty The Future of Freedom Foundation – The Future of Freedom Foundation

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One of the fascinating phenomena in the libertarian movement for the last several decades has been the division of libertarians into those who have decided to settle for advocating welfare-warfare-state reform and those of us who have decided to continue trying to achieve liberty.

The reformers have thrown in the towel with respect to achieving liberty. They have concluded that liberty is simply too difficult, even impossible, to achieve. The federal and state welfare state and the warfare state have become too massive, too well-established, too ingrained in peoples minds, and too powerful. There is no reasonable possibility, the libertarian reformers have concluded, of achieving freedom and so there is no point in wasting our time, energy, and resources trying to achieve freedom. Better to do what is practical work within the system to make our serfdom better and more palatable.

After all, its important to keep something in mind: Freedom necessarily entails a dismantling of infringements on freedom, not the reform of infringements on freedom. If all we do is reform infringements on freedom, the most we accomplish is an improved serfdom, but we dont achieve freedom.

Think about 19th-century American slaves. A group of reform-oriented libertarians in 1855 Alabama exclaim, Slavery is too deeply ingrained in Alabama life. Its protected by the state constitution as well as by the U.S. Constitution. Popular sentiment, especially here in Alabama, is in favor of continuing slavery. We have to be practical. We are not going to get rid of slavery any time soon. We need to devote our efforts to reforming slavery, making it better and more palatable. We need to promote legislation that will bring about fewer lashings, shorter work hours, better food and healthcare, and even a modicum of education for the slaves.

The liberty-minded libertarians say otherwise. They say, Slavery is wrong. We need to end it, not reform it. It doesnt matter how deeply established it is or how popular it is. We need to continue standing squarely against it. Constitutions, both state and federal, can be amended. We need to continue making the case for immediately ending slavery. We cannot settle for reform.

Serfdom is not exactly like slavery, but it comes pretty close. In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote his popular book The Road to Serfdom. People can debate on when the end of that road was achieved for Americans but there is no doubt that by the time the late 1960s arrived, Americans had become full-fledged serfs on the U.S. welfare-warfare-state plantation. Ever since, Americans have lived their lives to support the welfare-warfare state. Thats our role in life to work and toil to maintain the structure of serfdom under which everyone is born and raised and under which they ultimately die.

Libertarians who have thrown in the towel on achieving freedom say to those of us who are still fighting for freedom, Whats the big deal? You all can continue fighting for freedom while the rest of us have settled for reform of our serfdom. What difference does it make?

It makes a huge amount of difference!

Lets hypothesize. Lets say that we need 125,000 libertarians who want freedom to bring about a paradigm shift to freedom. Lets assume that we currently have 100,000 libertarians. Theoretically, we need to find only 25,000 more to achieve the genuinely free society.

But lets assume that out of those 100,000 libertarians, 90,000 have thrown in the towel and have decided to settle for reform. Obviously, that makes it much more difficult for those of us 10,000 who are still fighting for freedom. We now have to find an additional 90,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to reach the 125,000 critical mass that will bring us freedom.

Now, lets turn things around. Lets say that out of those 100,000 libertarians, only 10,000 have thrown in the towel in favor of serfdom reform and 90,000 are still committed to achieving freedom. That means that those 90,000 only have to find an additional 10,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to achieve freedom. Moreover, with 90,000 libertarians making the case for freedom, rather that reform, it becomes a much easier task to find those additional 35,000 libertarians who want freedom.

One thing is for certain: The more libertarians who throw in the towel and settle for serfdom reform, the more diminished becomes the libertarian light of freedom. If 100 percent of libertarians decide to settle for serfdom reform, the possibility of achieving freedom is virtually nonexistent. In that case, the libertarian light of liberty is extinguished.

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Ukraine war: How to check Russia’s momentum – The Interpreter

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To the dismay of many in Ukraine and beyond, Russia has proven more resilient and adaptive than its performance in the early days of the war indicated. I recently returned from my latest visit to Ukraine, where I spoke with government and military officials as well as think tanks and journalists. The most important insight from my visit was confirmation that Russia now has the strategic momentum in the war.

There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a defend Ukraine policy to one of defeat Russia in Ukraine.

Russia has recovered psychologically from the shock of its early failures. The Russian president and his government now possess a renewed sense of optimism about the trajectory of Russian operations. The Russian military in the past two years has undertaken a transformation in its warfighting capability, something that it should have completed, but did not, in the preceding decade of reform.Russias defence industry has significantly increased the output of military materiel while also exploiting Cold War stockpiles and regenerating moth-balled factories.

Russia began the war with maximal objectives but without the military capacity to achieve them. Now, it appears capable of generating the human, materiel and informational resources to subjugate Ukraine in a way it was not capable of when it began its large-scale invasion in February 2022.

Both sides have demonstrated an ability to learn and adapt. Ukraine has arguably shown a superior capacity to undertake tactical or bottom-up adaptation. This has seen it generate an advantage in areas such as drones. Russia has proven superior in strategic adaptation, particularly in areas such as the mobilisation of people and expansion of its industrial output.

Russia is now a more dangerous adversary than it was two years ago. This calls for change in how the war is fought.

The first area where Ukraine and its supporters must change is war strategy. Until now, the West has adopted a strategic posture focused on defending Ukraine. This ensured the survival of Ukraine until now, but the revived and more dangerous threat of Russia means defending Ukraine is now a strategy for defeat.

The Russian president and his government now possess a renewed sense of optimism.

There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a defend Ukraine policy to one of defeat Russia in Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine needs to develop and share with its supporters its theory of victory. One official in Kyiv told me there is no clear vision of how Ukraine will win. A new Ukrainian theory of victory must be a foundational element of any revised Western strategy.

The resources necessary for such a strategy will mean higher defence budgets, increased orders from defence industry, and significantly increased aid to Ukraine. However, given the threats made by Russian officials against Finland, Sweden, the Baltics and other European nations, the cost of not resourcing a defeat Russia in Ukraine strategy may be an order of magnitude greater in the long run, should Russia defeat Ukraine.

Another area where rapid change is necessary is strategic communications. While confronting Russian misinformation activities is the responsibility of all democracies, Ukraines strategic messaging must evolve. Ukrainian influence campaigns in the first 18 months of the war were exemplars of the art of strategic communications. But, the convergence of a failed counter-offensive, a recent civil-military crisis, the shift in attention to Gaza, and the political debate over mobilisation has resulted in significantly less focus on Ukraine by global media and Western publics.

Ukraine needs to discover a new voice that explains the importance of its defence, why Western support is vital, and that Russian narratives about inevitable victory are wrong.

The situation is grim. The challenge of a vastly improved Russia has been magnified by shortfalls in foreign military aid, especially from the United States but also countries such as Australia. There are, however, aspects of the war that offer a foundation for an evolved Ukrainian strategy and influence campaign.

Ukraines maturing strategic strike complex - the combination of intelligence, military planning, and aerial and maritime drones to strike Russian targets at long range - is making significant progress in the Black Sea as well as against Russian airfields and oil refineries. This capacity, which is improving in its reach and effectiveness, will be a key part of future Ukrainian operations. The development of this strike complex has been an extraordinary achievement in the past two years.

Ukraines defence industry has also seen rapid development in the past two years. After being allowed to wither as the Soviet Union dissolved, there is a new focus on indigenous military research and production. Between 2022 and 2023, the value of military materiel produced in Ukraine tripled. This then doubled in the past year. Artillery production tripled in the past year, and Ukraine now produces hundreds of thousands of small drones as well as thousands of large drones with increasing range and larger warheads.

In a recent interview with Ukrainian media, President Zelenskyy said his nation would find it very difficult to get through 2024 without more help from foreign supporters. This is a challenging diagnosis for those who have supported Ukraine with military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic aid. With their expanding defence industry, strategic strike capability and changes to personnel mobilisation and allocation, Ukraine has a firm foundation to reconstitute for future offensives. But realising this potential will need a change in strategy and a greater degree of support and risk-taking from Western nations.

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Ukraine war: battlefield tipping in Russia’s favour as Kyiv begs allies for more arms – The Conversation

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Not long ago, the situation in Ukraine could have been characterised as a stalemate. Today, the situation for the defenders is worse, with Ukrainian positions heavily contested along long sections of the frontline. Russian troops are steadily advancing, and concern is building that they might be able to break through.

While not yet gamechanging, these advances indicate that Russia can move forward and still intends to win the ground war. Backed by aircraft and guided bombs, Russian troops can put pressure on Ukrainian forces, who are overstretched by exhaustion and equipment shortages.

Admittedly, what Russia has been able to accomplish so far doesnt feel much like winning. They have recaptured some important territory, though the price paid has been ruinous.

The capture of Avdiivka alone cost Russia thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles. Still, stopping these advances from turning into breakthroughs is costly for Ukraine as well, and despite these losses, Russia is still massing forces for further offensives.

The nature of the frontline is challenging. The presence of drones is increasing the lethality of artillery and making movement difficult.

Both sides are dug in, with extensive networks of trenches and minefields around key locations. Ukraine has done well to hold on but is now approaching a critical moment. Their forces are stretched thin across an extended front line, their western-supplied weapon systems need maintenance, and a shortage of munitions particularly artillery shells- makes it difficult to react to Russian movements.

Ukrainian difficulties on the front reflect wider challenges. The nation is struggling with conscription, with insufficient skilled troops available to shore up the frontline. As the war drags on, morale is under increasing strain, with two years of conflict taking a toll.

Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill into law on April 2 which lowers the conscription age from 27 to 25. And the Ukraine parliament has just passed a bill to overhaul the countrys system of mobilisation, but details of what the new law will do remain unclear.

But the key will be providing Ukraines armed forces with the weapons it needs to continue the fight. Kyiv needs solutions to Russian air power, ideally in the form of sophisticated air defence systems, as well as more artillery and missiles.

Some of these assets are becoming increasingly hard to acquire, however. Donor nations are contending with their own depleted ammunition stockpiles, and production is still well short of what is needed on the frontlines.

Both Europe and the US are stepping up their arms production, but this will take time. Recent windfalls, such as the shipment of seized Iranian arms sent to Ukraine by the US are helpful, but a consistent supply is harder to secure.

In addition to production problems, the political will to back Ukraine is fading. Support for the war has moved from a broad international consensus into a contentious political issue in both Europe and America.

While Ukraine still has vocal supporters around the world, aid packages are becoming more difficult to secure. This was demonstrated in Europe in February. And while the Biden administration is still working hard to get weapons to Ukraine, it has to contend with other international conflicts and mounting domestic pressure.

A recent rebellion by house Republicans shows how controversial the issue of Ukraine funding is becoming. The looming US election will undoubtedly introduce further challenges, particularly given the prospect of a second Trump presidency.

The Washington Post recently reported on what it called Donald Trumps secret, long-shot plan to end the war in Ukraine". This, the newspaper report said, would involve pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia. At present though there has been no indication from Kyiv that Zelensky would entertain either of those two options.

For their part, the Russians are adapting to the nature of the war. The Putin regime remains in control and has the backing of 77% of the Russian public, according to a poll taken on February 6.

Moscow can out-conscript Kyiv and accept severe casualties with greater ease. Its economy is shifting to reflect its commitment to a long war, and it has developed workarounds to evade western sanctions.

A steady, supply of equipment is ensured through its domestic arms industry and international partners. Russia has capabilities that Ukraine do not, and it is figuring out how to use them. As a result, it has been able to take the initiative.

By summer, Russia will be able to bring its force to bear. It has already begun shaping the battlefield, attacking Ukrainian positions with guided bombs in preparation for further major attacks. They have massed significant ground forces, certainly enough to present a problem for defending Ukrainian troops.

But Russia will be unable to sustain the offensive for long particularly if they keep suffering casualties at their current rate. The situation on the ground doesnt lend itself to advancing, and Russia is experiencing many of the problems that the Ukrainians encountered last year.

On top of this, they are still making costly mistakes. A recent major attack north-west of the recently captured city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region was repelled by Ukraine reportedly with huge losses of men and armoured vehicles.

But this is no reason to be complacent. Looking at other campaigns particularly their wars in Chechnya, it is possible to suggest that while Russia is willing to fight long and costly wars of attrition, the decisive factor may be external support. This is what distinguishes Ukraine from the wars Russia has fought within its own territory. Both Europe and America need to understand that failure to adequately support Ukraine could have disastrous consequences.

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Ukrainian parliament adopts law to expand military draft – The Washington Post

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KYIV Ukraines parliament approved legislation Thursday that officials say will simplify conscription, aiding an expected mobilization that could press hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men into the fight against Russias invasion.

As Western aid has slowed, including a $60 billion U.S. package stalled in Congress for six months, Ukraines armed forces have been struggling with a severe shortage of soldiers, ammunition and weapons allowing Russia to advance on the battlefield.

Ukraines unicameral parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted overwhelmingly for the mobilization measure, with 283 votes in favor, one opposed and 49 abstentions, according to a Telegram post by Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a lawmaker from the opposition Holos party, that included a photo of the voting results.

The measure, which has not been published in full, clarifies who is exempt from the military draft while generally simplifying the process. It still needs President Volodymyr Zelenskys signature.

However, it does not address two of the most contentious issues: how many soldiers ultimately will be drafted, and whether those who have served since the start of Russias invasion, more than two years ago, should be discharged.

Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the countrys former commander in chief, had said Ukraine needed to call up as many as 500,000 fresh troops to counter Russias superior number of forces.

This, combined with Moscows overwhelming firepower, has resulted in Russian troops advancing along the front line, including seizing the long-embattled eastern city of Avdiivka.

However, Zelensky has resisted calls for half a million to be conscripted, which risked setting off public backlash. Discussion over who and how many people to mobilize has proved divisive in a society that otherwise has united against a common Russian foe.

Disagreement over the issue between the president and his top general contributed to Zelenskys dismissing Zaluzhny in February. Zaluzhnys replacement, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said in a recent interview that the number of soldiers Ukraine will mobilize was significantly reduced from 500,000 after conducting a personnel audit.

Neither Syrsky nor Zelensky have specified a new figure, and its unlikely they will. Mobilization is unpopular. While most Ukrainians are highly supportive of the military and recognize that more men are needed at the front, few who havent volunteered to fight after more than two years of war want to do so now. Announcing that hundreds of thousands of men could be drafted risks stoking panic.

Zelensky has said he recognizes that the countrys armed forces need reinforcements which he said would help bolster Ukrainian positions as well as counter a Russian disinformation campaign claiming that Ukrainians do not want to fight.

This claim has found a foothold among some Republican members of the U.S. Congress, who have blocked the aid package proposed by President Biden.

Zelensky said in an interview on Ukrainian television Saturday night that the Russians raised this issue in the West in such a way that today [Western officials] ask us, If you dont want mobilization, the parliament doesnt want to vote, then why do you need help?

On Sunday, Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said it was absolutely true that some Republican members of Congress were repeating Russian propaganda, though he did not specify whom he had in mind.

Last week, Zelensky signed a law lowering the draft age to 25 from 27, in another bid to replenish Kyivs badly depleted troops.

On Thursday, parliament also voted to remove a provision from the new mobilization measure that would limit soldiers tours of duty to three years. Existing Ukrainian law says those fighting must serve until the war is over.

Zelensky had publicly said demobilization something families of soldiers have been pushing for is a priority for him. But with Kyivs military ranks already depleted, its unclear how Ukraine could afford to demobilize so many troops.

The general staff of Ukraines armed forces had requested that the language about demobilization be removed and resubmitted within eight months as a separate measure on troop rotation, Defense Ministry spokesman Dmytro Lazutin told Ukrainian television Wednesday.

We cannot make hasty decisions now, Lazutin said. It is certain that there are many, many populist opinions. At the same time, we must understand that the escalation of Russian aggression continues, the offensive is literally on the entire front line, and it is impossible to weaken the defense forces at the moment.

Isabelle Khurshudyan and Serhii Korolchuk contributed to this report.

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Russian Orthodox Church declares Holy War against Ukraine and West – Atlantic Council

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The Russian Orthodox Church has approved a remarkable new document that spells out the Kremlins intention to destroy Ukraine while also making the ideological argument for a broader confrontation with the Western world. The decree was issued during a March 27-28 congress of the World Russian Peoples Council, which is headed by Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill. It calls the invasion of Ukraine a Holy War with the explicit aim of extinguishing Ukrainian independence and imposing direct Russian rule.

Churches often issue decrees stating official positions on key issues, but rarely do these proclamations involve calls to violence or territorial ambitions. Russia is mentioned 53 times in the 3000-word document, underlining the very clear focus on the Russian states earthly interests. From the spiritual and moral point of view, the Special Military Operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people are defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia, the document states, using the Kremlins preferred euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The decree goes on to stress Ukraines status as part of the wider Russian World, while underlining the need to extinguish Ukrainian statehood once and for all. Following the conclusion of the current war, it states, the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter Russias exclusive zone of influence. The possibility of a political regime hostile to Russia and its people existing on this territory must be completely excluded.

The sentiments expressed in this recently approved document expand on previous statements made by Patriarch Kirill since the onset of Russias full-scale invasion more than two years ago. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has frequently asserted that Ukrainians and Russians are one nation, and is widely viewed as a key ideological supporter of the war. Kirills comments have led to widespread criticism, including a warning from Pope Francis to avoid becoming Putins altar boy.

The new decree positions Russias invasion of Ukraine as part of a larger spiritual struggle against the West, which it accuses of having fallen into Satanism. This is strikingly similar to the ideological arguments favored by Islamist radicals, who have long sought to portray the United States and other Western nations as Satanic as part of efforts to justify their extremist agenda. In addition to the Russian Orthodox Church, numerous senior Kremlin officials have sought to frame the war in Ukraine as an existential fight with Western Satanism. In a further chilling echo of the Islamist doctrine, Patriarch Kirill has also claimed Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine would have their sins washed away.

The Russian Orthodox Churchs endorsement of language more typically associated with religious extremism should come as no surprise. After all, the entire Russian invasion of Ukraine has been framed as a crusade from the very beginning. Following the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Putin compared the occupied Ukrainian peninsula to Temple Mount and spoke of its spiritual importance to the Russian nation. He routinely insists Ukrainians are actually Russians (one people), and has labeled Ukraine an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.

The recent confirmation of a holy war against Ukraine and the West comes at a pivotal point in Russias full-scale invasion. Since February 2022, Putins invading army has been unable to overcome Ukrainian resistance or break the countrys will to defend itself. With little current prospect of a decisive military breakthrough, the Kremlin is now turning increasingly to terror tactics, including a sharp escalation in the bombing of Ukrainian cities and the methodical destruction of Ukraines civilian power grid.

By defining the invasion in explicitly spiritual terms, the Russian Orthodox Church hopes to whitewash the war crimes being committed in Ukraine and encourage more ordinary Russians to volunteer. Moscows recent declaration of a holy war also sends an unmistakable message to anyone in the West who still believes in the possibility of striking some kind of compromise with the Kremlin. While Putin initially sought to justify the invasion as a pragmatic response to the growth of NATO, it is now apparent that he views the war as a sacred mission and will not stop until Ukraine has been wiped off the map of Europe.

Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Image: Military personnel at Alexander Nevsky Square carry an icon during the festive celebrations after the religious procession along Nevsky Prospekt. On September 12, a religious procession was held dedicated to the Day of Transferring the Relics of the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky to St. Petersburg. A festive service was held under the leadership of Metropolitan Barsanuphius. Thousands of people carried the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God along Nevsky Prospekt, which was closed to traffic. Also for the holiday, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' arrived in St. Petersburg to lead the celebrations in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. (Photo by Artem Priakhin / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

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Russian Air Force Has Lost 10 Percent of Fleet in Ukraine – Air & Space Forces Magazine

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The Russian air force has lost just one-tenth of its fleet while many of its military capabilities remain largely unaffected after more than two years of war in Ukraine, the top U.S. commander in Europe told Congress on April 10.

We do not see significant losses in the air domain, especially their long-range and strategic aviation fleets, Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command and NATOs Supreme Allied Commander, said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

Russias strategic forces, long-range aviation, cyber capabilities, space capabilities, and capabilities in the electromagnetic spectrum have lost no capacity at all. The air force has lost some aircraft, but only about 10 percent of their fleet, Cavoli added in his written testimony to the committee.

There is no question that Russias invasion of Ukraine has come at an enormous cost in blood and treasure. Russia has lost more than 2,000 tanks and suffered 315,000 casualties in the conflict, Cavoli testified. The full-scale invasion has cost Russia $211 billion to equip, deploy, maintain, and sustain its forces in Ukraine, added Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

But Russias efforts to rebuild its military and the Kremlins decision to acquire drones from Iran and ballistic missiles from North Korea have boosted Moscows fortunes on the battlefield.

Russia launches very large-scale attacks every few days keeping with their production rate, Cavoli said of Russias aerial barrages. They produce, they save up, they launch a big attack.

In the short term, Russia has sought to gain the edge in Ukraine in what has become a battle of attrition, though the Russians ability to integrate air, land, and sea capabilities also has its limitations.As U.S. military aid for Kyiv has remained stalled in the U.S. Congress, Russia is using one-way attack drones and long-range missiles to try to overwhelm Ukraines air defenses.The Russians are currently firing five times as many artillery shells as Ukraine, and Moscows advantage will grow without fresh military supplies from the U.S.

That will immediately go to 10-1 in a matter of weeks, Cavoli said. We are not talking hypothetically.

In the long term, Russia is striving to develop its global capabilities. Russia has poured resources into its nuclear forces. It is also looking to expand its conventional ground forces in the years ahead.To do so, Russia has raised the upper age for conscription from 27 to 30, which has enlarged the pool of potential conscripts by 2 million. It is also planning to restructure ground forces so that it can deploy new formations in Ukraine and opposite Finland, Cavoli told lawmakers.

Russia is reconstituting that force far faster than our initial estimates suggested, Cavoli said. The army is actually now largerby 15 percentthan it was when it invaded Ukraine.

While Russias navy has suffered significant losses in the Black Sea, the rest of its naval forces are intact and its worldwide naval activity is at a peak, the NATO commander added.

Ukraine has achieved some success against Russias air force, known as the VKS, including taking down at least two of Russias A-50 Mainstay command and control aircraft.

But Russian aircraft have generally adapted by staying out of the engagement zone for Ukraines air defenses, many of which have been Western-provided. U.S.-made F-16s, which will provide greater capability for the Ukrainian air force, are months away. Relying on standoff weapons, Russian bombers have stayed clear of Ukrainian air defenses. When Russian warplanes have ventured into Ukraines airspace, they adjusted their tacticsand so has Ukraine.

What we saw at the beginning of the war were if they got within range of those surface-to-air missiles, they got shot down on both sides, a senior U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine in February. That changed soon after the invasion.

Instead of coming from high altitude where the surface-to-air missile can see you and then shoot long-range shots, theyll come in at low altitude, where now they cant see it because of the curvature of the earth, then come out of low altitude, jump up, drop their bombs, and go out right away, the defense official added. They werent doing that at the beginning, but thats obviously a lesson that they learned.

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Russia and the Far-Right: Insights From Ten European Countries – International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague

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Russias influence over far-right/ racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist (REMVE) milieus in Europe is multi-faceted and complex. It involves direct activities, such as financing or political support, as well as indirect activities, such as disinformation campaigns. In some cases, Russia was associated, albeit remotely, to some far-right violent incidents in Europe, including the alleged coup attempt by the sovereign movement Reichsburger, in Germany. Recognising the increasingly confrontational policy of Russia vis--vis Europe, and the growing threat from far-right extremism in Europe, this book thoroughly and systematically reviews Russias relationship with diverse far-right actors in ten European countries over the past decade. The countries covered in this book include Austria, The Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Sweden. The chapters are authored by some of the worlds most authoritative experts on extremism and Russian influence.

Overall, this edited volume is the first such comprehensive attempt at mapping the scope and depth of Russian influence over far-right extremism in Europe, resulting in the identification of key patterns of influence and offering some possible recommendations to counter it. This book is a both a leading scholarly work, as well as a wake-up call and guide for action for European policy-makers.

The full table of contents is available here.

You can also fill out the survey by clicking on this link

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Russia’s migrants and ethnic minorities shiver at new Putin terror crackdown – POLITICO Europe

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Maladaeva said people have been receiving threats online, urging them to go back to [their] place. Some Russians of Asian origin, along with indigenous Russians, are now considering migrating to Central Asia, according to messages that Indigenous of Russia Foundation has received from its subscribers.

Putin as always has distanced himself from this discussion to maintain the image of a moderate president who represents all 195 of Russias ethnic groups.

Russia has always been a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional country; it was created that way. The diversity and strength of our common homeland Russia have been and still are in the mutual enrichment of cultures, traditions, and religions, he said in 2015 at the opening ceremony of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque.

Shortly after invading Ukraine in February 2022 Putin added: I am a Russian person. But when I see examples of such heroism [by non-ethnic Russians in Ukraine], I want to say: I am a Lakian, I am a Dagestani, I am a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar, a Jew, a Mordvin, an Ossetian. All [of the] more than 300 national and ethnic groups of Russia simply cannot be enumerated.

But in reality, the persecution of migrants the majority of whom come to Russia from Central Asian countries is a top-down operation.

Russias Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov reported to Putin on March 26, without evidence, that the number of crimes committed by migrants in Russia had jumped 75 percent in 2023.

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Russia's migrants and ethnic minorities shiver at new Putin terror crackdown - POLITICO Europe

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