Monthly Archives: June 2024

On April 17, a column of Russian tanks and trucks passed through a series of dusty Azerbaijani towns as they drove away from Nagorno-Karabakh, the highland territory at the heart of the South Caucasus that Azerbaijan and Armenia had fought over for more than three decades. Since 2020, Russian peacekeepers had maintained a presence there. Now, the Russian flag that flew over the regions military base was being hauled down.

Although it caught many by surprise, the Russian departure further consolidated a power shift that began in late September 2023, when Azerbaijan seized the territory and, almost overnight, forced the mass exodus of some 100,000 Karabakh Armenianswhile Russian forces stood by. Azerbaijan, an authoritarian country that shares a border with Russia on the Caspian Sea, has emerged as a power player, with significant oil and gas resources, a strong military, and lucrative ties to both Russia and the West.

Meanwhile, the regions other two countries, Armenia and Georgia, have been experiencing tectonic shifts of their own. In the months since Azerbaijans takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, a traditional ally of Russia, has swung ever more firmly toward the West. The ruling party in Georgia is breaking with three decades of close relations with Europe and the United States and seems intent on emulating its authoritarian neighbors. In May, the Georgian parliament passed a controversial law to crack down on foreign influence over nongovernmental organizationsa law that derives inspiration from Russian legislation and sends Moscow a signal that it has a dependable partner on its southern border.

Obscured in this reordering of the South Caucasus are the complex motives of Russia itself. The regionknown to Russians as the Transcaucasushas held fluctuating strategic significance over the centuries. The imperial touch was not as heavy there as in other parts of the Russian Empire or Soviet Union. Following the end of the Soviet Union, Moscow tried to keep its leverage through manipulation of the local ethnoterritorial conflicts there, maintaining as many troops on the ground as it could.

But the war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions regime has changed that calculus. By deciding to remove troops from Azerbaijan, the Kremlin is acknowledging that economic security in the South Caucasusfor now at leastis more important than the hard variety. Russia badly needs business partners and sanctions-busting trade routes in the south. And at a time when it is increasingly squeezed by the West, it also sees the region as offering a coveted new land axis to Iran.

At first blush, the unilateral Russian withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh this spring was puzzling. For much of the past three decades, Azerbaijanis and Armenians have fought over the territory, which is situated within Azerbaijan but has had a majority ethnic Armenian population. In 2020, Azerbaijan reversed territorial losses it had suffered in the 1990s and would have captured Nagorno-Karabakh, as well, were it not for Russias last-minute introduction of a peacekeeping force, mandated to protect the local Armenian population. Those peacekeepers stood by, however, as Azerbaijan marched into Karabakh last September. Still, they had a mandate to stay on until 2025. As well as projecting Russian power in the region, they could also have facilitated the return of some Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Of course, for Russia, the 2,000 men and 400 armored vehicles that were transferred out of the territory provide welcome reinforcements for its war in Ukraine. But that was not the whole story. By deciding to leave the region, Russia handed Azerbaijan a triumph, allowing its military to take unfettered control of the long-contested territory. For most Armenians, it was a fresh confirmation of Russias abandonment. Almost immediately, observers speculated that some kind of deal had been struck between Russia and Azerbaijan.

As the largest and wealthiest of the three South Caucasus countries, Azerbaijan has profited most from Russias shift. It is a player in East-West energy politics, providing oil and gas that is carried by two pipelines through Georgia and its close ally Turkey to European and international markets. Sharing a border with Iran, it also serves as a north-south gateway between Moscow and the Middle East. It helps that the Azerbaijani regimein contrast to Armenias democratic governmentis built in the same autocratic mold as Russias. Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijans longtime strongman president, has even deeper roots in the Soviet nomenklatura than does Russian President Vladimir Putin: his father was Heydar Aliyev, a veteran Soviet power broker who was also his predecessor as the leader of postindependence Azerbaijan, running the country from 1993 to 2003. The younger Aliyev and Putin also know how to do business together, in a relationship built more around personal connection and leadership style than on institutional ties.

Relations were not always so good. In tsarist and Soviet times, Moscow took a more overtly colonial approach toward the Muslim population of Azerbaijan, giving Russian endings to surnames and imposing the Cyrillic script on the Azeri language. Azerbaijanis still resent the bloody crackdown in 1990, when, during the last days of the Soviet Union Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent troops into Baku to suppress the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party, killing dozens of civilians. During much of the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Moscow gave more support to the Armenians.

After the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, however, Russia began a new strategic tilt toward Azerbaijan. The withdrawal of peacekeepers this spring looks like the key component of a full Baku-Moscow entente. Just five days after the Russian peacekeepers left, Aliyev traveled to Moscow, where he discussed enhanced north-south connections between the two countries. After the talks, Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev said that Azerbaijan was upgrading its railway infrastructure to more than double its cargo capacityand allow for much more trade with Russia.

For Moscow, this is all part of a race with the West to create new trade routes to compensate for the economic rupture caused by the war in Ukraine. Since the war started, Western governments and companies have been trying to upgrade the so-called Middle Corridor, the route that carries cargo from western China and Central Asia to Europe via the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasusthereby bypassing Russia. For its part, Russia has been trying to expand its own connections to the Middle East and India via both Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, thanks to its favorable geographical position and nonaligned status, has been able to play both sides. It is a central country in the Middle Corridor. It is increasing gas exports to the EU, after a deal with the European Commission in 2022. But it is also ideally positioned to trade with Russian energy exporters, too. In a report released in March, the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies suggested that Azerbaijan, working with its close ally Turkey, could help create a hub for Russian gas to reach foreign markets without sanction. And because of Azerbaijans growing status as the regional power broker, it also could enable Russia to realize its aims of building stronger connections to Iran.

A key part of Russias shifting ambitions in the South Caucasus is to rebuild overland transport routes to Iran. The most attractive route is the one that Azerbaijan calls the Zangezur Corridor, a projected road and rail link through southern Armenia that would connect Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani exclave that borders both Iran and Turkey. By reopening the 27-mile route, Moscow would have a direct rail connection to Tehran, which has become an important arms supplier to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

In fact, this north-south axis would effectively revive what was known as the Persian Corridor during World War IIa road-and-rail route running north from Iran through Azerbaijan to Russia that supplied no less than half the lend-lease aid that the United States provided the Soviet Union during the conflict. By a strange twist of fate, this same axis is now vital to Moscow in its current struggle against the United States and the West.

Back in November 2020, the Russians thought they had a deal to get this route open when Putin, Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a trilateral agreement that formally halted that years conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and introduced the Russian peacekeeping force. The pact included a provision calling for the unblocking of all economic and transport links in the region, and it specifically mentioned the route to Nakhichevan across Armenia. Moreover, it also stated that control over this route would be in the hands of Russias Federal Security Service, or the FSB.

Since then, the corridor has remained closed because Armenia and Azerbaijan could not agree on the terms of its operation. Yet Russias insistence that its security forces should be in control has remained constant. On his return from Moscow in April, Aliyev also alluded to this, telling an international audience that the 2020 agreement (whose other provisions are all now redundant) must be respected. Opening the corridor, then, may be the essence of the new deal between Azerbaijan and Russia: in return for Russia pulling its forces out of Karabakha step that handed the Azerbaijani leadership a major domestic victoryAzerbaijan may acquiesce to Russian security control over the planned route across southern Armenia.

If such a plan is carried out, it would amount to a coordinated Azerbaijani-Russian takeover of Armenias southern bordera nightmare for both Armenia and the West. The Armenians would lose control of a strategically vital border region. The United States and its Western allies would see Russia take a big step forward toward establishing a coveted overland road and rail link with Iran. Moreover, Armenia on its own lacks the capacity to prevent Russia and Azerbaijan from acting.

No former Russian ally has seen such a dramatic breakdown in its relations with Moscow as Armenia. The two countries have a long historical alliance built on their shared Christian religion. Russia was the traditional protector of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and Armenians who lived in the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union tended to enjoy more upward social mobility than other non-Slavs: some of them reached the highest echelons of the Soviet elite.

But all that has changed over the past few years. Russian relations with Armenia began to cool off in 2018, when Armenias Velvet Revolution brought Pashinyan, a populist democrat, to power. That transition was barely tolerated in Moscow, which feared another color revolution bringing an unfriendly government to power on its border. After the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020, Moscow continued to support the Armenians, but relations were increasingly strained. For Yerevan, Azerbaijans seizure of the territory last fall, with Russian acquiescence, became the last straw.

As the Kremlin failed to honor its security commitments to Armenia, Pashinyan began to move his country decisively toward the West. Last fall, he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and pushed Armenia to formally join the International Criminal Court, meaning that Putin, who has an ICC arrest warrant on his head, could theoretically be arrested if he sets foot in Armenia. And in February, Pashinyan also suspended Armenias participation in the Russian-led military alliance, the Collective Treaty Security Organization. Some European politicians have now mooted the idea of eventual EU membership for Armenia.

With Nagorno-Karabakh removed from the equation, Pashinyan is also pressing harder to reduce his countrys dependence on Russia. Armenia has asked Russia to remove the Russian border guards who have been stationed in Armenias Zvartnots airport since the 1990s by August 1. Other Russian border guards who are stationed on Armenias borders with Iran and Turkey will stay for now, but the deployment in 2023 of an EU civil monitoring mission in southern Armenia shows where the Armenian governments strategic preferences lie.

Ethnic Armenians fleeing to Armenia following Azerbaijan's seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, September 2023

Armenias pivot to the West, however, comes at an extremely unfavorable moment. Flush with victory and benefiting from strong ties with both Russia and Turkey, Azerbaijan shows no signs of letting up its pressure on Armenia. Meanwhile, the other big regional powers around ArmeniaIran, Russia, and Turkeyare aware that the West is overextended. Despite their many differences, they have a common agenda, shared with Azerbaijan, to cut down the Wests strategic profile in the region and elevate their own. In April, for example, top U.S. and European officials in Brussels announced an economic aid package for Armenia. In response, Iran, Russia, and Turkey each issued almost identical statements deploring the Wests dangerous pursuit of geopolitical confrontation, by which they meant Western intervention in Armenia.

The new confrontation over Armenia is not just a matter of posturing. Pashinyans government has evidently concluded that its future lies with the West. Although this shift makes sense in the longer term, it carries many shorter-term risks. Armenia is overwhelmingly dependent on Russian energy and Russian trade: Moscow supplies 85 percent of its gas, 90 percent of its wheat, and all the fuel for its lone nuclear power plant, which provides one-third of Armenias electricity. And Armenias own economy is still heavily oriented toward the Russian market. These ties give Moscow enormous economic leverage; it could seek to bend the country to its will by sharply raising energy prices or curtailing Armenian trade.

Meanwhile, Armenian officials and experts fear even more direct military threats to the countrys sovereignty. One is that Azerbaijan, in coordination with Russia, has the military capacity to seize control of the Zangezur Corridor by force, if it chooses to, in a few hours. Another is that rogue domestic forces in Armenia, with foreign backing, could try to overthrow the Pashinyan government by violence or organized street protests in an effort to destabilize the country and allow a more pro-Russian government to take power.

These threats come in parallel to diplomacy. Azerbaijan continues to pursue bilateral talks with Armenia to reach a peace agreement to normalize relations between the two countries. Whether the two historic adversaries can avoid sliding back into war depends largely on the extent to which Western powers, despite their commitments in Ukraine, are prepared to invest political and financial resources to underwrite such a settlement.

As if the threat of a dangerously weakened Armenia and a new Russian-Iranian land corridor were not enough, the West also faces a growing challenge from Armenias neighbor Georgia. As Armenia tries to move West, the government of Georgia, a country that has enjoyed huge support from Europe and the United States since the end of the Cold War, is seemingly doing the opposite.

Post-Soviet Russia has a long history of meddling in post-Soviet Georgia, and most Georgians retain a deep antipathy to Moscow. In 2008, Georgia cut off diplomatic relations after Russian forces crossed the border and recognized the two breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent. A 2023 poll found that only 11 percent of Georgian respondents wanted to abandon European integration in favor of closer relations with Russia.

Nonetheless, the ruling Georgian Dream partyfounded and funded by Georgias richest businessman, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and in power since 2012is burning bridges with its Western partners. The most conspicuous feature of this shift, although not the only one, is the controversial foreign influence law, which seeks to limit and potentially criminalize the activities of any nongovernmental organization that receives more than 20 percent of its funding from abroadmeaning nearly all of them. The move sparked mass protests, especially from young people, who call it the Russian law because it mimics Moscows own 2012 foreign agents law and seems similarly designed to stifle civil society and remove checks on the arbitrary exercise of power. The law is also a slap in the face for the European Union, coming just months after Brussels formally offered Georgia candidate status and a path toward accession to the union.

Georgian Dreams first priority seems to be domestic: to consolidate its own power and eliminate opposition. The party is tightly focused on trying to winby whatever means possiblean unprecedented fourth term in office in Georgias October parliamentary elections. Still, the sharp anti-Western turn sends friendly messages to Russia. Another refrain of the ruling party is that it will not allow Georgia to become a second front in the war in Ukraine.

Just as the Azerbaijani leadership does, the men who run Georgia understand Moscow. Ivanishvili, who as Georgian Dreams kingmaker is the countrys effective ruler, made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s and learned to win in the ruthless business environment of that era; a coterie of people around him have made plenty of money from Russia since the Ukraine war began. Moreover, Georgia has opened its doors to Russian business and banking assets, and direct flights between the two countries have resumed. The Georgian elite seems prepared to pay the cost: one insider, former Prosecutor General Otar Partskhaladze, is now under U.S sanctions.

If the Georgian opposition manages to overcome its historic divisions and win this fallno easy taskGeorgias pro-European trajectory will resume. But much could happen before then. Perpetual crisis in Tbilisi now seems assured for the remainder of this year, if not beyond. Neither side will back down easily. The government has lost all credit with its Western partners, yet to call on Russia for assistance would be extremely dangerous. The uncertainty adds another wild card to any larger calculations about the strategic direction of the South Caucasus.

Putin recognizes the value of the South Caucasus to Russia, but since 2022, he has had little time for it. Moscow has no discernable institutional policy toward the region as a wholeor for other regions beyond Ukraine. The war has accentuated the habit of highly personalized decision-making by a leader in the Kremlin who seems uninterested in consultation or detailed analysis.

This has left the regions three countries with strikingly different approaches. Azerbaijans Aliyev, with his two-decade relationship with the Russian president, seems most comfortable with Putins way of doing business. He can also derive confidence from the strong personal and institutional support he gets from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the case of Georgia, with which Russia has no diplomatic relations, there are no face-to-face meetings or structured talks. (If Georgias de facto leader, Ivanishvili, ever met Putin, it would have been in the 1990s long before either man was a big political player.) Once again, everything is highly informal and conducted by middlemen. Here, too, business stands at the heart of a mutually beneficial relationship. Paradoxically, the one country in the region that has long-standing formal and institutional links to RussiaArmeniais also keenest to break off the relationship.

All these variables make Russian behavior in the region, as elsewhere, highly unpredictable. Since Azerbaijans capture of Nagorno-Karabakh, speculation has mounted as to what could happen in Abkhazia, the breakaway territory bordering Russia in the northwest corner of Georgia that has been a zone of conflict since the 1990s. Could Russia move to annex it fully, thus securing a new naval base on the Black Sea? Oras some recent rumors have suggestedcould a deal similar to the one with Azerbaijan be in the offing, whereby Moscow allows Georgia to march into Abkhazia unopposed in return for Georgia renouncing its Euro-Atlantic ambitions? Either of these is theoretically possiblethough it is also quite likely that Putin prefers the status quo and will continue to focus on Ukraine.

At the same time, the most obvious benefit the South Caucasus countries have derived from the post-2022 situationa stronger economic relationship with Russiais unstable. Close trading ties to Russia give Moscow dangerous leverage, especially in the case of Armenia and Georgia, which have fewer resources and other places to turn for support. And if Western secondary sanctions on businesses that trade with Russia are tightened, that would put a squeeze on South Caucasian intermediaries.

Not everything is going Putins way. Russias military withdrawal from Azerbaijan is a sign of weakness. So, too, arguably, is Armenias pivot to the West and the Georgian publics mass resistance to what the opposition labels the Russian law. But if Russia looks weaker in the region, the West does not look stronger. There are significant pro-European social dynamics at work, but they face strong competition from political and economic forces that are pulling the South Caucasus in very different directions.

Last month, the Georgian government awarded the tender to develop a new deep-water port on the Black Sea at Anaklia to a controversial Chinese company. That project used to be managed by a U.S.-led consortium. In other words, Europe and the United States are competing for influence not just with Russia but also with other powers, as well. Nothing can be taken for granted in a region that is as volatile as it has ever been.

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Putin's Hidden Game in the South Caucasus - Foreign Affairs Magazine

As the Russian militarys slow advances in Ukraine continue, calls for talks to end the war have become commonsome made by well-regarded foreign-policy specialists. Their ideas are neither prudent nor persuasive, but they should be examined in good faith rather than dismissed as appeasement.

Those urging negotiations rightly note that U.S. assistance to Ukraine on the level of the latest tranchesome $61 billion for military, economic, and humanitarian purposeswill not continue forever. Sending Ukraine another hefty sum next year will prove an even tougher sell, even if Joe Biden remains president; and if Donald Trump wins, he may end support altogether.

Still, the most recent U.S. aid package, along with the military assistance from various European countries, will enable Ukraine to fight into the next yearnearly half as long as the war has now lasted. Given this wars twists and turns, the possibility that Kyiv could use it to rebound, while not certain, cannot be ruled out.

We can predict neither what that length of time will be nor the difference the newest batch of Western weaponry will make. Yet its important to keep in mind that it has now begun arriving, with the artillery and long-range version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) already in use.

Some claim that the best Ukraine can hope for is a deal that includes its partition. Even assuming this prognosis proves true, the nature and extent of a partition matters: There are worse and better variants. Ukraines ability to negotiate a postwar settlement that it can live with depends on its military performance over the next 18 months or so. In other words, negotiating from a position of strength matters.

Those proposing talks between Kyiv and Moscow tend to believe that Ukraine cannot possibly achieve anything resembling victory (such as regaining large tracts of territory now under Russian occupation); that the calendar favors Russia; and that Ukraines continued armed resistance will only produce more death, destruction, and territorial losses, which it can avert by reaching a settlementsoon. The war has taken an enormous toll, as I have seen firsthand during four visits to Ukraine, so the desire to end it is understandable.

Despite their good intentions, the negotiate now camp skirts a critical question: Who will (or should) initiate the talks? One possible answer: the United States, Ukraines principal supplier of weaponryperhaps even over Kyivs head. But theres virtually no chance of that happening so long as Biden remains president: Nothing he or members of his foreign-policy and national security teams have said or done suggests they plan to strong-arm Kyiv into a settlement with Moscow. The $42 billion in military assistancepart of the latest installment of American aidis meant to keep Ukraine in the fight and will, into 2025, even if Trump wins in November.

Perhaps those advocating negotiations expect that Kyiv will conclude that continuing to fight will produce an even worse outcome and, moved by that logic, seek a compromise with Moscow. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hasnt indicated the slightest inclination to take this stepnot since the failure of the talks held in Belarus and Turkey soon after the invasion.

His goal remains retaking all lands lost to Russia since 2014Crimea included. This objective isnt written in stone and could change if the facts on the ground do, but so far it has not. One can dismiss it as outlandish, but what matters is that it persists.

Maybe those who recommend negotiations anticipate that Ukrainians war weariness will impel Zelensky to bargain with Russia. Thats possible, but for now Ukraines citizenry opposes a deal with Moscow at least as much as its leaders doits common to be told by ordinary Ukrainians that Russian President Vladimir Putin cant be trusted to honor the terms of a settlement. As proof, many point to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which included a pledge by Russia, one of the signatories, to respect Ukraines borders.

I have repeatedly asked various Ukrainiansbartenders and hotel clerks, former and current officials, soldiers on the front lineswhether the war had produced privations that were so painful that they had concluded, reluctantly, that it was time for a settlement with Russia.

Not one person said yes. Indeed, the greater the firepower Putin directs at Ukraine, the greater Ukrainians hatred of Russia becomes, and with it their resolve to keep resisting. Yes, there is draft evasion in Ukrainesome of it owes to the monthslong but now-resolved uncertainty about future U.S. military aid and the Ukrainian militarys subsequent shortage of critical equipmentbut society at large isnt ready to throw in the towel.

The proponents of a deal with Putin seem confident that they can divine the wars denouement: a Russian victorysay control of Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhiaand Ukraines subordination. Yet such surefire assertions lack an evidentiary foundation. No one can be sure how this war will end, and forecasters should be humbler given that just about every prediction thus far has proved to be incorrect.

Consider some examples.

U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, anticipated some three weeks before the invasion that Putins army would capture Kyiv within 72 hoursonly to claim a year later that Russia had lost strategically, operationally, and tactically. Both claims missed the mark.

Early in the war, it was common to hear that Ukraine lacked the muscle to reclaim the areas the Russians had overrun by mid-2022. By years end, however, Ukrainian forces had expelled them from the north and northeast and in the south from the right bank of the Dnipro in Kherson province, regaining in all more than half the territory it had lost since the war began.

The failure of Ukraines summer-fall 2023 counteroffensive seemed to vindicate the prophets of doom, but Russias net gains last fall amounted to 188 square miles, just over half the land area of New York City.

Last October, a small band of Ukrainian marines forded the Dnipro River and created a bridgehead at Krynky, on its Russian-controlled bank, in Kherson province. The New York Times reported that one of them called the operation a suicide mission. The Times painted a pessimistic picture. Yet the Ukrainians expanded that foothold. Repeated Russian attempts to storm it failed and led to significant casualties and equipment losses and criticism from pro-war military bloggers in Russia. Two Russian generals were replacedone soon after the Ukrainians ensconced themselves in Krynky, the other, amid mounting losses, in mid-April. The Ukrainians did evacuate Krynky that month but dug in elsewhere on the rivers Russian-held left bank.

But wait, some might say: Ukraine has been in deep trouble since Russia, having captured Avdiivka this February, has continued pushing westwardand now threatens areas north and northeast of Kharkiv city. But these successes owe to Ukraines monthslong, dire shortage of equipmentabove all artillery. Russia had a 5:1 advantage in artillery shells by March, and Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command, warned the following month that the margin of Russias superiority could double in a matter of weeks.

That has happened in some places, and Ukrainian soldiers have struggled to hold their ground, let alone counterattack, especially because the Russians vastly outnumber them.

Yet there has been nothing resembling a collapse of Ukraines front line or large-scale Russian breakthroughs. The speculation that Russia might retake Kharkiv citywhich lies just over 30 miles from the Russian borderdoesnt take into account that Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city, encompasses 135 square miles. In the adjacent provincesBelgorod, Bryansk, and KurskRussia has amassed some 30,000 troops; but it would need a substantially larger force to control Kharkiv, which has a population of 1.4 million. Plus, urban warfare, a particularly bloody business, gives defenders all manner of advantages over attacking infantry.

The calls for peace talks have another defect. They enumerate the problems faced by Ukraines armed forcesthere are plenty to point tobut omit any mention of Russias, which I have discussed elsewhere.

Geolocated data show that Russa has lost nearly 16,000 pieces of equipment, including more than 3,000 tanks as well as over 5,000 armored personnel carriers, armored fighting vehicles, and infantry fighting vehicles. Plus, a third of its Black Sea Fleets ships and submarines have been damaged or destroyed. Theres been much debate about casualty figures in this war. The U.K. Ministry of Defense reckons that Russias total is 465,000 dead and injured soldiers. Yet even if the true number is only one-third of that, Russias losses, against a far weaker adversary, have still been substantial.

Does it follow that Ukraine lacks serious problems and will surely win? No and no. It does mean, though, that confident, linear projections declaring that Russia has become a juggernaut and that Ukraine should therefore sue for peace soon are questionable.

A major flaw in the pro-negotiation camps reasoning is the proposed timing. Many proponents of peace talks want them to begin soon, some as early as this summerabout a month from now. But the United States and its European allies have just started delivering tens of billions of dollars worth of armaments to Ukraine and wont be finished by the beginning of fall. It would be foolish to rush into negotiations before seeing what difference the infusion of additional weaponry will make, whether Russias military can sustain its current tempo once Ukraine has more firepower, and how successful Ukraines draft proves to be.

If Ukraine, bolstered by additional troops and weaponry, claws back more territoryeven if the gains fall well short of Zelenskys ambitious aimsand Putin realizes that his army wont be able to make additional gains, Ukraine will have greater leverage than it does now to shape a political settlement.

Theres another problem with the calls for negotiations: They assume that Putin wants them. But does he? Russias defense budget increased by almost 70 percent this year. As a proportion of Russian GDP it will reach 6 percent, compared to 3.9 percent last year. Nearly a third of the federal budget will support defense spending, compared to 16 percent in 2023. These arent the actions of a leader eager to negotiate.

And nothing Putin has said suggests otherwise. Last December, at his customary year-end marathon news conference during which he fielded questions from the media and the Russian public, he stated that the mission of the special military operationMoscow has since begun to call it a warremained unchanged: Ukraines de-Nazification, demilitarization, and neutrality, meaning ending its quest to enter NATO.

In September 2022, following a bogus referendum, Putin announced that four Ukrainian provincesDonetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhiawere irrevocably part of the Russian Federation. That remains unfinished business; only Luhansk is more or less fully under Russian control.

Bearing in mind the hazards of prediction, and assuming that Zelenskys goals could prove unattainable, one can envision this war ending in at least one of three ways.

1. The Russian military takes even more land, the West succumbs to Ukraine fatigue, and Putin imposes a punitive peace on Kyiv: Parts of Ukraine become Russian territory, and the remainder, while retaining independence, reenters Moscows orbit.

2. Despite intense efforts, Russia controls less Ukrainian territory than it does now, Putin recognizes that his army cannot do any better and may lose more land, a political settlement follows, and Ukraine eventually joins the EU and NATO, with the proviso that Kyiv will not permit NATO bases or the permanent presence of foreign troops on its soil.

3. The war becomes a stalemate, which both adversaries conclude cannot be broken, but Putin has enough leverage to ensure Ukraines neutrality. Kyiv uses its own bargaining power to insist on armed neutrality, which would give it the freedom to train its armed forces in Western countries, equip its army with Western weaponry, and thus remain outside Russias sphere of influence.

While other scenarios are certainly possible, these, save the first, share a commonality: They require that Ukraine boost its bargaining power by ending Russias momentum, mounting its own counteroffensive, and retaking more territory.

This will require time, which Ukraine now has: Western arms have just started reaching the front, and their volume will increase in the coming months. Russia and Ukraine may eventually hold talks on a political settlement. But now is not the time to initiate them.

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Russia-Ukraine War: Negotiating With Putin Now Is a Mistake - Foreign Policy

BUDAPESTHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn has come to be known as President Vladimir Putins Trojan horse inside the European Union. He is the continents biggest hater of the U.S. Democratic Party, referring to liberals as his enemies, and he was the only European leader who congratulated Putin on his record fifth inauguration this month. The signs are growing that Orbn is following Putins path deeper and deeper into an autocracy that could shake up Europe.

In Budapest, there is an unmistakable authoritarian atmosphere. As someone who lived in Russia through most of Putins reign, the memories evoked include that of Nashi, the Kremlins far-right youth propaganda movement. Billboards across the city show the faces of Orbns opponents covered by huge dollar signs and accompanied by slogans that read: They sold themselves by the thousands. We saw many similar signs in Moscow starting around 2011 when Putin began a crackdown on the opposition that would entrench him in power and ultimately lead to the disastrous invasion of Ukraine.

Its not just Putin inspiring Orbn. He welcomed President Xi Jinping to Budapest this month and declared China to be one of the pillars of the new world order. If China is dreaming of a 21st century dominated by autocrats not democrats, then Orbn wants to get on board. Xis appearance in Hungary underlined the growing strategic partnership between the nations who announced a host of new economic, diplomatic, and business agreements. Putin was in Beijing this month to make a host of similar pronouncements himself.

Moscow is watching the destabilizing divisions within Europesome of which are stoked by Orbn in his role as a naysayer with a veto within the European Unionwith great interest. The newly appointed Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov highlighted recently that Russia does have allies in the West: There are elites and important social layers in the West, who are promoting traditional values; and Russia, perhaps, is their life raft, which will help them protect at least something.

Orbn, head of the right-wing Fidesz party, is clinging to that life raft and Russia makes him work for its support; whether its blocking European aid for Ukraine, vetoing an EU plan to use frozen Russian assets, or speaking out against the European consensus on helping Ukraine win the war.

Even the other conservative parties see Orbn as selling out his country. The president of the Jobbik party, Marton Gyongyosi, told The Daily Beast: Orbn is selling his role as the Trojan horse in the EU to both Putin and Xi.

Orbn is benefitting from a growing number of deals with Russia and China. Gazprom recently stepped in to sponsor the countrys biggest soccer team, Russian loans have backed big state projects andin returnit has been reported that Hungary is now a safe haven in Europe for FSB spies.

Gyongyosi says Hungarians are already paying the price for Orbns great game: Nobody trusts us any longer, he explained. NATO is not sharing information with Orbn. Austria and Slovakia control their border with us. Hungarys universities lose grants, funds for scientific research, and a chance to take part in exchange programs available for other member states of the European Union.

As Orbn grows ever more isolated from Europe and the U.S. so he clings tighter to his authoritarian friends.

His cult of personality and iron grip on Hungary is coming to resemble that of an authoritarian leader. The most recent survey conducted by the Hungarian government claimed that more than 98 percent of Hungarians support Orbns vetoes against EU aid for Ukraine and believe that ceasefire and peace is needed for Ukraine, instead of weapons and bank transfers.

He has also created a bill protecting national sovereigntywhich looks as if it was dreamt up by Russias own banning-machinethat helps security services to go after anyone criticizing the government.

Orbn has now been in power for 14 years and easily won a landslide re-election in April 2022, just weeks after Putin sent troops to Ukraine.

Peter Kreko, one of the leading experts on Hungarian state disinformation, said Orbns domestic propaganda landscape was becoming eerily similar to Putins.

Orbn likes to enjoy all the benefits of EU membership, while politically capitalizing on the anti-EU rhetoric: George Soros and Brussels have become some kind of axiomatic enemies in governmental communication, the ultimate cause of all evil. Putins and Orbns anti-EU rhetoric is very similar, he told The Daily Beast. They both say that the EU is increasingly a puppet of the United Statesthe colonialization narrative grows widespread; they both say that this is a hotbed of the LGBTQ rainbow propaganda, and that the EU went too far from its original moral values; they espouse a trinity of values; nation, God, and family.

If you walk around Budapests Liberty Squarethe home of the U.S. Embassythere is a strange collection of monuments: to Ronald Reagan, to the Soviet liberation of Hungary in the World War II, and to Harry Hill Bandholts, a U.S. Army general who became famous in Hungary in 1919 when he refused to allow the Romanian military to steal Transylvanian treasures from the national museum. You will not find any monuments to the victims of homophobia. There is no memorial to the victims of autocrats, even though thousands of civilians were murdered under the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party in 1944-1945, and thousands more were later killed during 45 years of the Soviet occupation.

Propaganda billboards talk about Hungarys successful development under Orbns government; restaurants, cafes and galleries around the square are full of respectable-looking businesses. There is no reminder about the war raging in a neighboring countryHungary and Ukraine share a short, 84-mile border.

History goes in circles in Hungary. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Orbns party Fidesz espoused strong anti-Russian views. Orbn practically reversed the thinking of his own voters, turned them increasingly pro-Russian, Kreko told The Daily Beast. If you ask Fidesz voters these days who they blame for the war, they first blame the U.S., second Ukraine, and Russia would be only third.

And yet it was within living memory that 1,000 Soviet tanks rolled along the streets of Budapest killing hundreds of civilians during a 12-day-long uprising against Stalinist rule. Soviet troops didnt leave Hungary until 1991.

One of the deadly tanks used in 1956 is now exhibited at the House of Terror Museum in the center of Budapest. Nobody explains to Hungarians at the House of Terror that Putin is bringing Stalinism backone day you are proud of the revolution of 1956 and then 70 years later you are with Russia, managed by the KGB, said Istvan Hegedus, once a leading member of the Fidesz party, who knew Orbn well.

Hegedus, who is now chairman of the Hungarian Europe Society think tank, left the party when he saw Orbn turning towards the right. Orbns behavior is irrational. He spreads anti-Soros propaganda, showing off his brutal methodshis doctrine is based on frustrating, he hates his own allies in the EU and blackmails them, he told The Daily Beast.

He explained that the war in Ukraine is helping Orbn persuade Hungarians to follow his plunge towards autocracy as he emulates Putin. The war is the problem. Promises of peace on the conditions dictated by Putin sound promising to many in Hungary. People say, We dont want to die. Hungarians have forgotten what happened under Stalinism.

As the old saying goes: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

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How Viktor Orbn Emerged From the Shadows as the 'New Putin' - The Daily Beast

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Global anger deepened all the more this week in the wake of yet another deadly Israeli strike on Gaza. The bombardment triggered a blaze that swept through parts of a makeshift tent camp in the environs of Rafah, the territorys southernmost city, killing at least 45 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more. Images of charred bodies and screaming children proliferated in the aftermath, adding to the already considerable pressure on President Biden to change course in its staunch support for Israels campaign.

After the strike, White House officials struggled to explain how the ongoing Israeli offensive in Rafah did not cross Bidens blurry red line. We still dont believe that a major ground operation in Rafah is warranted, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters. We still dont want to see the Israelis, as we say, smash into Rafah with large units over large pieces of territory.

Whatever the criteria surrounding large units and large pieces of territory, the stark reality is that Israel has already driven out hundreds of thousands of people who had been sheltering in Rafah after fleeing other parts of the Gaza Strip. Its capture and closure of the main border crossing into Egypt cratered a struggling humanitarian operation. Aid agencies describe the war-ravaged Gaza Strip as a place where Palestinians have nowhere safe to go. And Israeli officials are adamant that they wont let up anytime soon in their quest to vanquish militant group Hamas.

Summarized stories to quickly stay informed

Tzachi Hanegbi, national security adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told local radio this week that his government expected to wage its operations in Gaza for at least another seven months. He said the extended mission would be to fortify our achievement and what we define as the destruction of the governmental and military capabilities of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in the territory.

Satellite images taken 22 days apart show the razing of large areas in east Rafah in May. (Video: Planet Labs)

In seven months time, a rather different political dispensation may exist in Washington. Netanyahu reportedly met this month with three foreign policy envoys working with former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump who could yet win the election despite being convicted Thursday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York state hush money case. Though its unclear how he would have handled the crisis differently from Biden, the former president has invoked Bidens friction with Netanyahu as evidence of U.S. failure and expressed little public sympathy for Palestinian suffering. Trump has told donors that if he returns to the White House, he would severely crackdown on pro-Palestinian groups in U.S. universities and even deport foreign students participating in these protests.

Netanyahu, who benefited immensely from Trumps first term, is arguably hoping for a similar dividend in the event of a second. In the interim, he has openly rejected the Biden administrations hopes for the Palestinian Authority to take the lead in the postwar administration of Gaza, and he and his allies have shown no interest in even engaging in the White House on reviving pathways for a Palestinian state. And contrary to the Biden administrations wishes, Netanyahu may soon act on a Republican invitation to address a joint session of Congress.

Standing up to Biden whose favorability among Israelis has dropped in recent months may help shore up the support Netanyahu needs from the Israeli right and curry favor among their counterparts in the United States. It also accelerates a deeper shift in the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Over the past 16 years, Netanyahu has departed sharply from his predecessors studious bipartisanship to embrace Republicans and disdain Democrats, an attitude increasingly mirrored in each partys approach to Israel, my colleagues wrote this week in a piece examining the prime ministers role in widening a growing divide even as Biden remains a staunch supporter of Israel and is reviled by many on the U.S. left for being complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.

I think the job for Ukraine this year is to hold tight, to consolidate their lines. To use the new ATACMS long-range missiles to strike at Russian targets within occupied Ukraine In terms of a real Ukrainian breakout to push the Russians back, as they tried to do unsuccessfully last year, I think thats going to wait for next year. - David Ignatius (Video: Washington Post Live)

Its not just Netanyahu who is waiting for Trump. The evidence is more clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding out for a Trump victory, which would probably help the Kremlin consolidate its illegal conquests of Ukrainian territory. My colleagues reported last month that Trump and his inner circle have outlined the terms of a potential settlement between Moscow and Kyiv that they would attempt to usher in if in power. Trumps proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity because those conversations were confidential, they reported.

Such a move would fracture the transatlantic coalition built up in support of Ukraines resistance to Russian invasion. It would cement the Republican turn away from Europes security at a time when Western resolve around Ukraine is flagging. And it would be yet another sign of Trumps conspicuous affection the strongman in the Kremlin.

In his eight years as the GOPs standard-bearer, Trump has led a stark shift in the partys prevailing orientation to become more skeptical of foreign intervention such as military aid to Ukraine, my colleagues wrote. Trump has consistently complimented Putin, expressed admiration for his dictatorial rule and gone out of his way to avoid criticizing him, most recently for the death in jail of political opponent Alexei Navalny.

My colleagues reported this week about growing tensions between Kyiv and officials in the Biden administration, with Ukraine pushing its Western allies to loosen rules over the usage of some of their weaponry on targets on Russian soil. Pessimism has set in over what Ukrainian forces can achieve militarily this summer, as Russia launches new offensives.

I think the best we can hope for until the election is a stalemate, John Bolton, Trumps former national security and now vocal critic, recently said. Putin is waiting for Trump.

Trumps team is thinking about this very much in silos, that this is just a Ukraine-Russia thing, Hill said. They think of it as a territorial dispute, rather than one about the whole future of European security and the world order by extension.

Former president Trumps inexplicable and admiring relationship with Putin, along with his unprecedented hostility to NATO, cannot give Europe or Ukraine any confidence in his dealings with Russia, said Tom Donilon, President Barack Obamas national security adviser. Trumps comments encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants with our European allies are among the most unsettling and dangerous statements made by a major party candidate for president. His position represents a clear and present danger to U.S. and European security.

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Israel's Netanyahu, Russia's Putin are waiting for Trump election win - The Washington Post - The Washington Post

On May 16 and 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a state visit to China, where he met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

On the opening day of the 2022 Winter Olympics, just 20 days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the two leaders had met in Beijing and declared a no limits partnership. On March 22, 2023, at the end of a state visit to Russia, as Xi left the Kremlin he told Putin, There are changesthe likes of which we havent seen for 100 yearsand we are the ones driving these changes together. The remarks were filmed and broadcast around the world.

China has not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Chinas rhetorical and economic support for Russia has been rock solid. Bilateral trade rose 26.3 percent between 2022 and 2023, hitting a record $240.1 billion, with China buying enormous qualities of Russian fossil fuels, and selling products and commodities that Russia needs.

Putin came to Beijing this month with an entourage of senior officials, including the new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and the man he replaced, Sergei Shoigu, as well as a host of other officials who have a long history of working with Chinese counterparts.

In 2023, Beijing issued a 12-point Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis that state media called a peace proposal. Before this months trip, Chinas official Xinhua News Agency quoted Putin as saying, We are open to a dialogue on Ukraine, but such negotiations must take into account the interests of all countries involved in the conflict, including ours.

The Kremlin released a statement about the visit saying that the leaders of Russia and China will have an extensive discussion of the entire scope of issues pertaining to the Russia-China overarching partnership and strategic cooperation, and that they will outline priorities for further practical cooperation between the two states and have an in-depth exchange of opinions on the most pressing international and regional issues.

Xi has stood closely by Putins side since their announcement of the no limits partnership, and this does not look likely to change. But what has been the outcome of Putins trip? Did the two leaders make a serious attempt to negotiate on Ukraine, or were the optics of bilateral friendship the main aim? How should we expect the two countries trade relationship to change after this visit? What else came out of this trip?

The Editors

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The Future According to Xi and Putin - ChinaFile

PRAGUE When an associate of one of Russian President Vladimir Putins closest allies launched a pro-Kremlin media outlet here in May 2023, Czech counterintelligence officers began keeping careful watch.

For nearly a year, European intelligence officials said, the Czech authorities secretly recorded hours of meetings between several far-right politicians from across Europe and the associate, Artem Marchevsky, who was running the propaganda website, Voice of Europe, including at its offices on a quiet side street in the center of Prague. E.U. and Czech authorities, which have shut down the site, have labeled Voice of Europe a Russian propaganda operation.

The Czech probe rapidly expanded into Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and France, European security and intelligence officials said, as investigators concluded that Voice of Europe represented far more than its official veneer as a pro-Russian website interviewing favored European politicians about ending aid to Ukraine.

The organization was being used to funnel hundreds of thousands of euros up to 1 million a month to dozens of far-right politicians in more than five countries to plant Kremlin propaganda in Western media that would sow division in Europe and bolster the position of pro-Russian candidates in this weeks European Parliament elections, according to interviews with a dozen European intelligence officials from five countries. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing and sensitive investigation.

Officials described the Russian operation as among the most ambitious undertaken by the Kremlin in Europe in its efforts to undermine support for Ukraine and create divisions in the transatlantic alliance. Previous Kremlin-backed covert actions include the attempted union of the far right and far left in Germany, stoking domestic divisions in France and sabotage in Poland, The Washington Post has reported.

Internal Kremlin documents obtained by one of the European intelligence services and reviewed by The Post show for the first time that Voice of Europe was part of an influence campaign established by the Kremlin in close coordination with Viktor Medvedchuk, the Putin ally who until Russias invasion of Ukraine led a pro-Moscow opposition party in Kyiv. It was later managed by a key Medvedchuk lieutenant who, other documents show, worked closely with a unit of Russias Federal Security Service, or FSB, responsible for Ukraine and some former Soviet states, otherwise known as the FSBs Fifth Service.

After the expulsion from Europe of dozens of Russian intelligence officers following the invasion of Ukraine, fronts such as the Voice of Europe became instruments for the Kremlin to regain lost ground, one of the senior European intelligence officials said. The Russian intelligence services had to change their work. The result is, for example, influence networks such as Voice of Europe, the official said.

The websites status as a news organization was designed to provide cover, another of the intelligence officials said, making it easier to approach politicians under the guise of interviewing them about Ukraine, anti-globalism and other issues.

Michal Koudelka, head of the Czech domestic security service, said that the Voice of Europe operation was also an attempt to get more pro-Russian members into the European Parliament and that after the vote that starts this Thursday, there was a plan for the people in the European Parliament to conduct classic espionage on behalf of Russia.

It was an operation that aimed to shape Europe, Koudelka said in an interview.

Far-right parties could end up with 25 percent of the seats in the 720-member European Parliament, according to some opinion polls. And for Russia, increasing influence among those parties could provide a mechanism for threatening aid to Ukraine, as well as fertile ground for espionage, according to Vera Jourova, the European Commissions vice president.

Pro-Russian politicians could really make the financing [of Ukraine] difficult, Jourova told The Post.

The Czech investigation has led to raids on the home and offices of an aide to a far-right Dutch member of the European Parliament and of Petr Bystron, a leading member of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, and the partys No. 2 candidate for the European Parliament. Bystron, the AfDs spokesman for foreign affairs, has been among the most vocal in Germany against sending Western weapons to Ukraine and for lifting sanctions on Russia.

German authorities said in May they have placed Bystron under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering as part of the probe, and police raided his office in the German parliament as well as properties in Germany and Spain. In one recording, three of the senior European intelligence officials told The Post, Bystron can be heard complaining to a Voice of Europe official about the difficulty of transporting tens of thousands in cash to his vacation home in Mallorca.

We knew he was pro-Russian, said one of the senior intelligence officials, noting Bystrons long-standing ties with Russia and pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. The official believes authorities have now gathered evidence supporting the accusation that Bystron received money from Russia and placed propaganda in far-right publications in return.

The Czech-born Bystron wasnt only a passive person who received money, the official said.

He organized things, according to the official, saying that Bystron, who speaks Russian, brought other political figures into Voice of Europes orbit and was the main leading person.

Bystron knew about the plans for the espionage operations in the European Parliament, this person said, adding that there was recorded evidence of this.

Bystron remains a candidate for the European Parliament and has denounced the investigation as a plot by European security services to damage AfDs standing ahead of the elections. Before every election it is the same: defamation with the help of the secret services, he told Deutschland Kurier, an AfD-linked website.

In a brief text exchange with The Post, Bystron said, We already had a house search during an election campaign in 2017, which was subsequently declared to be illegal by the courts. Nobody was interested after the election. He declined to be interviewed further and did not respond to detailed written questions.

AfD is still expected to come second or third in the June 6 poll, behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union, despite the controversy, which has touched other AfD leaders. Prosecutors in Germany have said in a statement that they initiated a preliminary investigation into Maximilian Krah on allegations of accepting payments from Russia and China for his work as an AfD member of the European Parliament. Police searched his office as part of an investigation into allegations that one of his aides was working as a spy for China. On Wednesday, police raided the residence and offices of the Dutch parliamentary assistant who had previously worked for Krah.

Krah said in a statement to The Post that the allegations were part of a disinformation campaign against my party orchestrated by intelligence agencies and called the accusations not only wrong but slandering.

Security services in Europe are still investigating the role of dozens of other far-right politicians in the Voice of Europe network, including from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well up to six more AfD figures, including politicians and parliamentary assistants, people familiar with the investigation said. Belgian authorities have also played a leading investigative role, with key Voice of Europe meetings with politicians taking place in other locations in Europe, including Brussels, senior officials said.

European security officials and Kremlin documents link the creation of Voice of Europe in early 2023 to Russias presidential administration and Medvedchuk, who is so close to Putin that the Russian president is godfather to his daughter. Medvedchuk was turned over to Russia in September 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kyiv. He was seen in Moscow as a possible leader of Ukraine if the Russian invasion succeeded and the Kremlin was able to install its allies in power in Kyiv, intelligence officials said.

The Kremlin documents show Voice of Europe was initially connected to a Russian propaganda operation launched in January 2023 by the Kremlins first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko. It was designed to boost support for Medvedchuk in Ukraine and position him among European opinion makers as a viable replacement for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, promoting peace talks as an alternative to possible nuclear war, the documents state. The campaign, dubbed The Other Ukraine, would present Medvedchuk as the head of a government in exile, the documents show.

The aim was to create an organization that could be brought in after Russia demonstrated the illegitimacy of the Zelensky regime and negotiate an end to the war from a position of strength, said one intelligence official familiar with the plans.

Medvedchuk declined to comment.

Kremlin political strategists, including Ilya Gambashidze and Nikolai Tupikin, whom the United States has sanctioned for their roles in disinformation campaigns, were brought in to assist with the launch of the project, which envisioned promoting interviews with Medvedchuk and his Other Ukraine organization through a web of social media and YouTube accounts, and appearances in Western media, the Kremlin documents show.

Voice of Europe was described as a news resource, with Marchevsky, a longtime Medvedchuk associate, at its helm, one of the documents shows. In July, its overall management was taken over by Renat Kuzmin, another key Medvedchuk associate, who, documents show, worked closely with the FSBs Fifth Service.

Neither the Kremlin nor Kuzmin responded to detailed requests for comment.

The Prague news outlet, intelligence officials said, gave Marchevsky a way to engage a network of extremist European politicians, some of whom, including Bystron, had been cultivated by Russias political allies in Ukraine since the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. Those relations were often first managed by Oleg Voloshyn, a political operative in charge of foreign relations for Medvedchuks For Life political party before Russias invasion.

In an interview, Voloshyn said he introduced Medvedchuk and Bystron in Berlin in 2020. Voloshyn said he brought Bystron and Krah to Kyiv to celebrate his 40th birthday in April 2021, introducing them to Marchevsky, who at the time headed one of Medvedchuks three television stations in Ukraine.

After Medvedchuk was placed under house arrest by Zelenskys government and accused of treason, Bystron and Krah traveled again to Kyiv to visit Medvedchuk in his home, a trip that raised concerns among European security officials.

Voloshyns ability to travel in Europe was hampered in January 2022, shortly before Russias invasion, when the U.S. Treasury Department placed him on its sanctions list, calling him an FSB pawn in efforts by the Russian security agency to destabilize and take over Ukraine. Voloshyn said the sanctions and allegations that he was connected to Russian intelligence were based on inaccurate information.

When Bystron made a secret trip to Belarus in November 2022 acknowledging the visit only after it was exposed by Lithuanian and German media he met with Voloshyn, who had relocated there following Russias invasion, Voloshyn told The Post.

Voloshyn said he connected Bystron with Medvedchuk by phone during the visit but insisted that the German and the Ukrainian spoke for no more than a few minutes. In a 2023 interview with The Post, Bystron said he met only with Belarusian officials during the trip. Soon after the visit, Bystron presented a peace plan favorable to the Kremlin to the German parliament.

With Voloshyn unable to travel to the European Union, Marchevsky became the face of Voice of Europe in Prague.

Marchevsky did not respond to a detailed request for comment. In earlier comments to the Financial Times, he denied working as a proxy for Medvedchuk and said he was not involved in Voice of Europes management, claiming his company was only a third-party contractor. He declined to reveal his whereabouts after fleeing the Czech Republic.

A series of scandals dogging the AfD including a statement by Krah that not all members of the Nazi SS in World War II were guilty of crimes has dented but not destroyed the partys standing ahead of the European Parliament elections. Krah has withdrawn from the race, and AfD is still expected to get at least 15 percent of the vote, which could allow it a second-place finish in Germany.

Krahs statement about the SS did prompt the far-right National Rally party in France, led by Marine Le Pen, to say it would not sit with the AfD in the European Parliament. But the AfDs membership in such official groupings may not mean much when it comes to voting on issues related to Russia or Ukraine, one of the European intelligence officials said, with parties able to vote in ad hoc blocs.

The Czech intelligence services, for one, are still vigilant. We stopped [the Voice of Europe operation], and I am very proud of my service, Koudelka said. But there are concerns that other networks may be working in other European countries. This fight is never-ending.

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Russia co-opts far-right politicians in Europe with cash, officials say - The Washington Post

Benjamin Harris is vice president and director of the economic studies program at the Brookings Institution. David Wessel is director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings.

Ukraines allies, including the United States, met Russias invasion two years ago with an unprecedented outpouring of sanctions. They put a price cap on Russian oil exports, froze $300 billion worth of Russian foreign exchange reserves, and severed many of the links between Russias financial institutions and the rest of the world.

In congressional testimony on the first anniversary of the invasion, Daleep Singh, a former White House deputy national security adviser, said the restrictions were designed to maximize the costs imposed on Russian President Vladimir Putin, degrade his ability to project power on the world stage and show other autocracies (China, perhaps) that redrawing borders by force would be punished.

The sanctions remain a work in progress. They clearly have reduced Russias oil and gas revenue, weakened its ability to produce nondefense goods, made importing high-tech components harder and shaken the countrys banking system. But the Russian economy has yet to implode (as the chart from our Ukraine Index illustrates).

And although the sanctions have multiplied over the course of the war, they have yet to weaken Putins determination to keep fighting. It is increasingly obvious that the United States and its allies need a better strategy to restrain Russias imperialist behavior.

We asked several experts how the United States might tighten the sanctions noose around Putins neck. The advice they offered boils down to these five strategies. (The Brookings Institution has published fuller versions of the proposals.)

Limit Russias earnings from natural gas. As the West has blocked some trade with Russia and Europe has sharply reduced its imports of Russian natural gas, Russia has turned to China. Now, says German sanctions scholar Janis Kluge, it is important to prevent Russia from exploiting the natural gas in West Siberia, including by sanctioning companies that help Gazprom build the proposed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline to China via Mongolia. Also, now that world food markets have adjusted to the Ukraine wars disruptions, the United States and the E.U. should stop importing Russian fertilizer (for which gas is a key input).

Allow Russians to send money out of the country. The White House has said that one goal of sanctions is to weaken the rubles foreign exchange value, making Russian imports more costly, pushing up inflation and leading the Russian central bank to raise interest rates. To this same end, the United States, the E.U. and Switzerland should also remove the obstacles they have placed against Russians moving money out of their country in an apparent effort to put pressure on Russian oligarchs. Sergey Aleksashenko, a former deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, estimates that if 100,000 Russian households and small businesses each transferred $10,000 out of the country every month, the annual costs to the economy would be roughly equivalent to a $7 per barrel drop in the price of crude.

Monitor the shadow oil fleet. To avoid the worlds oil-price cap which blocks ships carrying Russian crude from buying essential insurance if the price of the oil exceeds $60 a barrel Russia has assembled a fleet of aging tankers insured by shadowy companies that might not make sure the ships are sound and are unlikely to have the resources to cover the cost of spills. (This risk was underscored a year ago, when an 18-year-old tanker flying the Cook Islands flag lost power in the narrow Danish straits in the Baltic Sea and nearly crashed.) To prevent Russia from using this workaround, Craig Kennedy, a Russia expert at Harvard Universitys Davis Center, proposes that coastal states ask tankers passing by their shores to voluntarily verify the quality of their spill insurance and that the United States penalize any ship that refuses.

Confiscate assets. Last month, Congress passed the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act (REPO), which authorizes President Biden to confiscate Russian sovereign assets held in the United States and use the money to help rebuild Ukraine and stave off the Russian invasion. Economists Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Andrew Kosenko of Marist College argue that Biden should use this power to shrink the Russian central banks balance sheet, potentially devalue the ruble and prompt bank runs within Russia, and weaken the banks ability to extend credit which might ultimately undermine Putins military production capacity.

End all business with Russia. An alternative to expanding the complex set of sanctions and exceptions would be for the United States and Europe to stop doing business with Russia altogether with limited exceptions for humanitarian considerations. In short, treat Russia as the United States treats North Korea. The Russian economy needs to be squeezed from all ends to limit the resources available to wage the war in Ukraine, economists Torbjrn Becker of the Stockholm School of Economics and Yuriy Gorodnichenko of the University of California at Berkeley have written. Even dictators must respect budget constraints, and we should ensure that these constraints are as tight as possible.

Ideally, Russia will soon be forced to retreat from Ukraine and these actions will prove unnecessary. Sadly, its far more likely that sanctions on Russian will need to be intensified.

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Opinion | How to tighten sanctions enough to restrain Putin in Ukraine - The Washington Post - The Washington Post

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA When he heard that Leonid Volkov, his compatriot in the long-suffering movement to bring liberal democracy back to Russia, had been viciously attacked with a mallet outside his home in Vilnius, Vladimir Milovs response was typically Russian.

Oh, I wouldnt say that this was totally unexpected, Milov told Foreign Policy over a beer in an empty and dimly lit hotel restaurant in the Lithuanian capital.

When youre in the business of challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Milov is, you come to accept a certain number of occupational hazards. Particularly now, as Moscow faces unprecedented risks from all sidesand particularly from within. Still, the attack on Volkov was particularly brutal.

We sat down during Russias three-day presidential election in March, just days after Volkov was attacked. Milov knew, as the vote approached, that Putin would try to kneecap their shared organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, of which Volkov is the backbonehe just didnt know it would be quite so literal. Volkovs assailant targeted the dissidents limbs, injuring his legs and breaking his arm.

Putin, Milov said, is really looking for some secret button which he can press to shut the movement down. He thought it will be, first, killing off Nemtsov, then killing off Navalny, he continued, referencing his former colleagues Boris Nemtsov, gunned down in 2015 in Moscow; and Alexei Navalny, who died in a Siberian gulag in February.

But Putin is discovering that its not switching off, Milov said.

While the non-Russian world may have a pessimistic view of these anti-Putin dissidents, Milov said that they are not as weak as Moscow would have us believe. Look no further, he argued, than Putins own thuggish behavior.

On the eve of the final day of the presidential election, Milov was thinking about the twilight of the Soviet Union.

I first voted in elections in the Soviet Union, Milov said. Im old enough to remember: Soviet GDP [growth] was positive until the very last year of 91, but food had disappeared from stores. He sees parallels between then and now. Rosy top-line numbers and a command economy can only mask deeper economic rot.

This year, at least according to Moscow, the Russian economy is expected to grow by 3.6 percent, leading many to proclaim that international efforts to marginalize and destabilize Putin have failed. But, Milov said, the fact that the economy is GDP-positive doesnt tell you anything about the real crisis.

Milov has spent time on both sides of the Russian state. In the late 1990s, he joined the Russian Energy Ministry, eventually rising to the level of deputy minister in the early 2000s. He resigned in 2002, in the early years of Putins reign, joining a Moscow think tank before fully signing up for the burgeoning dissident movementfirst under Nemtsov, then Navalny.

Milov described Putins war economy as one that helps a small number of people but fails everyone else. Even if Russias state statistics agency, Rosstat, reports that the economy is hot in nearly every sector, Milov has written that this is the countrys Potemkin GDP.

The military-industrial sector has grown massively since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and now, Milov estimated, about 10 million Russians work directly or indirectly in the defense sector. Those defense workers are benefiting from the wartime economy, he said, but the rest of Russias roughly 75 million workers are facing tough times. Inflation continues to rage near 8 percent, and interest rates sit at a painful 16 percent.

Amid a labor shortage, worsened by the war economy as well as sanctions that hobble imports and advanced manufacturing, Russia has become increasingly reliant on Chinabut that shift comes at a price.

China now occupies about a 95 percent share in Russian car imports. The price of imported cars since December 2021, prewar, has doubled, Milov said.

The staggering price inflation for consumer vehicles proved so obvious that it prompted a response from Putin in his annual end-of-year press conference in December 2023. He claimed that the prices had risen just 40 percent and blamed Western sanctions.

Milov argued that Russia, like many autocratic states, can generally be divided into thirds: A third oppose Putin, a third support Putin no matter what, and in between are the apolitical folks who just want to be left alone, Milov said. The trick for Russias beleaguered opposition is reaching that final slice.

The December press conference, normally a tightly-scripted affair, featured plenty of questions about the cost-of-living crisis and pointed queries about when the war in Ukraine will endclearly prompted by the people from that middle third. Milov said the uncharacteristically dour tone of the broadcast betrayed the real question that Russians have for their president, one that Milovs movement has been trying to put on the table for years:

Why does your reality not correspond to our daily life?

The greatest evidence available that the Russian opposition movement poses a real threat to Putin, Milov believes, is just how much money and effort the Kremlin spends to try to crush the liberal movement.

They spend billions and billions of rubles, Milov said. Even with a weak ruble, billions translates to tens of millions of U.S. dollars. And there are many thousands of people involved in fighting us, he added. The rule is very simple: They would not invest so many resources, they would spend it somewhere else, if we were marginalized and didnt mean anything.

The Lithuanian security service confirmed, in a 2022 threat assessment, that Russian operatives were targeting dissidents in Vilnius. An increase in intimidation as the elections neared mirrored an intense repression campaign inside Russia itself.

In December, a military court initially fined dissident sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky $6,500 for justifying terrorismbut two months later, the same court accepted an appeal from prosecutors, upgrading his sentence to five years in prison. Renowned human rights activist Oleg Orlov was handed a similar legal about-face, and now faces more than two years in prison. They join others who have been convicted and sentenced on trumped up or fabricated charges: Ilya Yashin, Yevgeny Roizman, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, among others.

They want to send a powerful message that Resistance is useless; there is no hope; were gonna kill you all, Milov said.

Milov himself was arrested amid widespread protests in the summer of 2019, after which he was detained for 30 days. This was really lightweight, compared to what Navalny has been through, Milov said. He faced more jail time after the Anti-Corruption Foundation was declared by Moscow to be an extremist organization, so he fled for Lithuania alongside Volkov. After leaving, Milov was tried and convicted, in absentia, to eight years in prison for criticizing Putins war against Ukraine.

Everything about Russias prison system is designed for psychological torture, Milov saidtheres the perpetual lengthening of your sentence, the rats and cockroaches that infest the cells, and sleep deprivation.

Milov said that it is important to understand the not-so-subtle signals being sent from the Kremlin with all of these pressure tactics. He scoffed, for example, at a report that Moscow was considering releasing Navalny in a prisoner swap shortly before his death.

I know Putin, right? Milov said . He would never let Alexei go. Its definitely not a coincidence that he was murdered on the day of the Munich Security Conference.

This brutality and showmanship are exactly the point.

He constantly tries to deliver this message: I can do whatever I want, and you fucking Western chicken will have to suck on it, right? Milov said, then laughed at his own crude phrasing. Sorry!

Milov believes that the decision to have Volkov beaten with a hammerdispatching with any kind of plausible deniability that may come from, for example, poisonwas meant to reinforce that message.

This is also a show of horror, he said.

Just before noon on March 17, I followed a procession of Russian citizens in Lithuania as they walked through Boris Nemtsov Square in the leafy Zverynas neighborhood, past a makeshift memorial to Navalny, and up Ukrainian Heroes Street to queue up at the gates of the Russian Embassy to cast their ballots.

Even though participation in the elections was widely agreed by international observers to be rigged, Moscow obsessively tried to gin up the results anyway. The Kremlin went all-out in forcing ordinary Russians to the pollsgoing so far as threatening their employment if they abstained and tracking their cellphones to make sure they visited a polling location.

Milov called these tactics most usual. They show, he added, that a strong mandate is a do-or-die question for Putins regime. In order to get the results that regime wants, it will need to carry out a tightening of the screwseven tighter than they have already been.

This wouldnt be necessary if Putin felt secure in his managed democracy. Milov said that Putins message of absolute power is less convincing when it requires such extraordinary efforts to attain.

Certainly, few ordinary Russians believe in the validity of these elections. Yet even the dissidents called on people to turn out to the polls. Navalny believed that the more people who marked an X next to the other names on the ballots, even if those candidates were Putins controlled opposition, the more anxiety would rise in the Kremlin. Voting for anybody but Putin became one of his last requests before his death. Navalnys team even created an app to help randomly select one of the non-Putin candidates, a recognition of just how interchangeable they are. The team asked people to come out and vote at exactly the same time, 12 p.m., on the final day of the polls.

Putin was reelected, at least according to the official tally, with more than 88 per cent of the vote. It is likely that Navalnys appeal for malicious compliance did prompt some particularly heavy-handed fraud: Disqualified candidate Boris Nadezhdins campaign has uncovered tallies from multiple voting locations showing that Putins results were probably substantially lower. Still, the noon against Putin plan proved to be a bit of a dud.

As a proof of concept, though, these protests may yet prove to be a turning point.

In recent years, Milov and the other dissidents have heavily relied on the few channels that can still reach ordinary RussiansTelegram and YouTube in particular. (Volkov, stubborn, was posting videos taunting Putin in the hours after he was beaten outside his home.) But the dissidents know that real change in Russia will have to come from the streets.

We will try to beef up this new format, so that people can, in fact, show up and show the big numbers without major risk of everybody being jailed, Milov said. He likens the effort to popular demonstrations that began in 1987, during glasnostthe Soviet Unions period of comparatively increased openness and transparency. Outside Moscows Olympic Stadium, small groups of Soviet citizens gathered around major events to express their displeasure at the regime.

Milov and his fellow liberals see a day, perhaps soon, when Putins faux democracy collapses in on itself. Its his job to help bring that day closer and to plan for what happens next.

I have a pretty good understanding of what he would want me to do if he was still alive, Milov said of Navalny. So this will go onit means that the movement will not disappear.

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Putin's Insecurity Drives Attacks on Dissidents - Foreign Policy

A former Russian president on Friday warned that Moscow is not bluffing about its willingness to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and said Kyivs international backers are making a fatal mistake if they think otherwise.

Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Vladimir Putin and the deputy chairman of Russias Security Council, made the menacing remarks in reaction to reports that Western countriesincluding the U.S.have given Ukraine permission to use their supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia. The current military conflict with the West is developing according to the worst possible scenario, Medvedev wrote on Telegram.

Russia regards all long-range weapons used by Ukraine as already being directly controlled by servicemen from NATO countries, Medvedev wrote. He claimed that such activity does not constitute military assistance to Ukraine, but rather active participation in a war against us.

Medvedev claimed such actions could well become a casus belli, meaning an action which provokes war.

He went on to claim that NATO countries who control Ukraines long-range weapons or send a contingent of troops to support Kyiv would be committing a serious escalation of the conflict.

Ukraine and its NATO allies will receive a response of such destructive force that the Alliance itself simply will not be able to resist being drawn into the conflict, he said.

Medvedev also said retired NATO farts who claim that Russia would never use a tactical nuclear weaponbombs designed for use on the battlefield which have typically lower yields than strategic nukeshad previously miscalculated by asserting that Russia would not enter into an open military conflict with Ukraine.

A similar error of judgment could also be happening about Russias readiness to use a tactical nuke, Medvedev said. This, he claims, would be a fatal mistake.

After all, as the President of Russia rightly noted, European countries have a very high population density, Medvedev said, referring to Putins threats earlier this week amid reports that European nations would allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory with weapons theyd supplied.

Medvedev said there is also a potential for Russia to strike hostile countries with strategic weapons. This is, alas, neither intimidation nor bluffing, he said.

There is a constant escalation when it comes to the firepower of NATO weapons being used, Medvedev added. Therefore, nobody today can rule out the conflicts transition to its final stage.

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Top Putin Ally Warns the West: Russia's Nuke Threats Are Not a Bluff - The Daily Beast