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Ukraine is in the news. President Zelenskyy is in the U.S. speaking at the United Nations, meeting with President Biden and others. Again, he must make a case that is all too clear to anyone paying attention to Putin’s war and intentions. Ukraine needs, and it is in our national security interests to provide, weapons without restrictions so Ukraine can defeat Russia.
There is no excuse for delay – none!
Ukraine burns, people die, children are abducted, and our vital national security interests are being threatened.
Today, I present two items.
The first from today’s New York Post is an op-ed co-authored by Ambassador John Herbst, chair of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network National Security Task Force.
The second is the presentation FOUN National Security Task Force member Ian Brzezinski delivered to the Budapest Energy and Security Talks – Equilibrium Institute. As usual Ian is through in laying out what is at stake, the global dimensions, and what needs to be done.
When is Washington going to listen? Act?
To end the war, US must let Ukraine bring the pain to the Russian homeland
By John Herbst and Adrian Karatnycky
Published Sep. 23, 2024, 6:28 p.m. ET
As Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks Tuesday at the UN General Assembly, his country’s civilians and soldiers continue to take a pounding from Moscow’s missiles, drones and glide bombs.
Three of the five Patriot air defense systems that Ukraine was promised at the NATO summit have yet to arrive — and Russia’s recent receipt of Iranian short-range ballistic missiles means the danger for Ukraine may soon grow.
When Ukraine’s strike into Kursk Oblast gave it control over 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory, Vladimir Putin responded by directing yet more pain against Zelensky’s civilian population.
Russian efforts have destroyed more than nine gigawatts of the Ukrainian power supply, causing massive energy shortages that could prove tragic this coming winter.
This week, Zelensky has promised to lay out a “peace plan” to end this brutal war in meetings with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and in a requested meeting with former President Donald Trump — the perfect time to enact a new strategy to bring the pain of the conflict to Russia itself.
With most of the war’s devastation limited to Ukrainian soil, the Russian public has been largely insulated from the repeated attacks on critical infrastructure that Ukrainians have faced.
That is, until recently, when Ukrainian drone attacks deep within Russian territory have destroyed over 10% of Russian oil-refining capability, numerous Russian warplanes and substantial Russian arms caches.
The Harris-Biden administration continues to prohibit the use of US ATACMs on targets in Russia, and has barred Ukraine from using the UK’s Storm Shadow missiles, which have US components.
Yet the best way to turn the tide and force a just end to the war is to give Ukraine’s leaders the capacity to attack remote Russian military targets and civilian power grids, especially Moscow’s power plant, which generates over one gigawatt of heat and electricity.
Such missiles could also reach some 30 other non-nuclear power plants that feed the capital and its surrounding region.
While Ukraine has not and will not attack Russia’s civilians, the power grid serving Moscow is a legitimate target under international law.
It supports the nerve center of the Russian military and national security command, and the region includes military production facilities for Russia’s S-300, S-350, S-400, and Buk missiles.
All are central to the prosecution of the war, making their energy sources a legitimate military target. And they can be reached from Ukraine’s Sumy region by the British Storm Shadows that are reportedly now in Ukraine’s possession.
Ukraine need not perform preemptive strikes. It would be enough to permit its military to act as part of a policy of retaliation for Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s own heating and electricity systems, which have been continuously targeted and significantly degraded over the last two years.
Such reciprocity would allow Ukraine to deter this key component of Putin’s war effort — and create significant damage to Russia’s war machine and economy.
A major disruption at the center of Russia’s economic and bureaucratic life would be far more impactful than the sanctions that so far have had little effect on Russia’s economy.
Were legitimate targets in Moscow at play, Putin would be far less able to support his continued campaign against Ukraine and the West. It’s the best way to strengthen Ukraine’s hand and to speed the war’s end.
With the US election soon to bring a new foreign-policy team to Washington, Zelensky is right to make the strong case for a new strategy of war that gives Ukraine the right to respond to Russia in kind.
Anything short of that makes it easier for Putin to continue a war of attrition that will result in hundreds of thousands more Ukrainian casualties and immense ultimate financial cost to the West.
John Herbst, former ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan, is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, where Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow.
Remarks of Ian Brzezinski at the Budapest Energy and Security Talks – Equilibrium Institute – 12 September 2024
Lessons Learned from Russia’s War Against Ukraine and What the Future Holds
Budapest Hungary – IJB via VTC
- Thank you Reyka for that generous introduction and thank you for including me on the BEST agenda.
- As Reyka noted, I am a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC. So, I am so proud to see the Council among this conference’s Partner Organizations.
- I wish I could be there in person. There are few things better than being in Budapest and along the Danube in the early Fall.
- Unfortunately, the focus of our discussion is a grave one.
- We convene as Russia’s brutal, unprovoked, and unjustified invasion of Ukraine has been underway for over two and a half years.
- The humanitarian consequences have been massive, unseen in Europe since WWII.
- Estimates by the US government say that Russian and Ukrainian combatants killed or wounded exceed over half a million
- Thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including children, have been killed
- Millions of Ukrainian citizens have been displaced, forced from their homes, if not their nation, by this Russian attack.
- Unspeakable atrocities have committed by Russian forces – including the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children, rapes, torture, summary executions, and what amounts to literally ethnic cleansing in Russian occupied regions of Ukraine.
- Russia’s strategy has emphasized not only a full scale attack against Ukraine’s military but also a unrelenting attack against Ukrainian civil society – including missile, air, drone and artillery strikes against apartment complexes, shopping malls, even schools and hospitals.
- That and more are the humanitarian consequences of Russian President Putin’s ambitions.
- Allow me to review with you what I see as the strategic stake in this conflict, how it is related to a growing risk of global conflagration, and what we need to do bring this war to a just, quick end that maximizes peace and stability in Europe.
PART I – WHAT IS AT STAKE
This is a war whose implications are not just regional. They are global in their impact, particularly if Russia is allowed to win.
- First, and most obviously, Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence is at stake. But Putin’s attack is more than seizure of territory.
- Putin aims to erase and rewrite the history and identity of the Ukrainian people.
- Why else is he sending thousands of seized Ukrainian children to so called Patriotic camps.
- What we are witnessing is an atrocity on a scale not seen in since the days of Hitler and Stalin…..We should not forget that.
- The Preservation of the rules-based international order is at stake: I know that is an arcane phrase, but the internationally accepted structures and laws that emerged after World War II to minimize the recurrence of war and enhance stability have been the basis of unprecedented peace, freedom and prosperity around the globe.
- If allowed to succeed, Putin will bring us back to a world defined by spheres of influence and a world where disputes are resolved through brute force.
- Third, this war is setting dangerous new precedents in the use of nuclear weapons: Nuclear coercion has been a key element of Putin’s strategy to invade Ukraine.
- It has been exercised with effect, limiting the support the transatlantic community has provided Ukraine.
- Think about it – the mantra of “No boots on the ground.” The hesitancy with which we have provided Ukraine tanks, LRS, and aircraft and the restrictions our governments have placed on their use against legitimate Russian military targets.
- What lessons are our other adversaries taking from this brandishing of nuclear weapons? They see that these weapons of mass destruction can be used to effectively deter others from meddling in their hegemonic ambitions. Think of China and Taiwan.
- There are other proliferation ramifications as well. Those who don’t have nuclear weapons but fear such coercion are more likely to seek nuclear weapons.
- When one rewards nuclear coercion, one increases the proclivity for the use of nuclear coercion. We are seeing that in Ukraine today.
- And, I would argue that increased exercise of nuclear coercion increases the likely hood of such weapons being exercised.
- This is a real concern I have when we speak of defending Ukraine as long as it takes rather defending it decisively.
- A fourth factor at stake is Russia’s evolution as a democracy and international actor:
- ZB emphasized that RUS cannot be a democracy if it continues to be an empire.
- If Putin’s aggression is not fully reversed, RUS prospects of evolving into a democracy and constructive international actor severely diminished.
- That is a recipe for continued long-term confrontation, if not conflict, with Russia
- Finally, NATO’s credibility is at stake: What NATO does and does not do in support of Ukraine will shape the confidence in it of its member states and the respect it garners among its adversaries.
- Think about the imbalance of power defining this conflict –
- NATO nations have a combined GDP of over 54 Trillion Dollars – more than 25+ times Russia’s GDP which most estimate to be less than $2 Trillion
- NATO spends nearly 1.5T on Defense -- well more than ten times Russia’s estimated defense budget.
- With all that is at stake and with that kind of advantage one has to ask how is that / why is it that the Alliance is not enabling Ukraine to crush this invasion?
- Reyka you asked what does this all mean for Central and Eastern Europe? It would be supremely naïve to assume that Russian victory in this war would end conflict at Ukraine’s borders, at Hungary borders.
- If Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not defeated, we will face an emboldened Moscow, one that is more determined to re-extend its hegemonic reach across Central and Eastern Europe.
- Moscow will purse that ambition leveraging its nuclear power, perhaps even more aggressively than we have seen to date and with the conclusion that the Alliance no longer has the unity and will that has been the foundation of its effectiveness over the last 75 years.
- History has shown time and time again that victory does not satiate a hegemon’s territorial appetite. It only amplifies its imperial ambitions and its confidence in achieving them.
PART II – THE GLOBAL DIMENSION
- But the ramifications of this war go well beyond Europe.
- Russia’s intent to resuborne Ukraine, I would argue began the day the Soviet Union collapsed.
- Its overt military invasion began in 2014, and that was a war driven by Putin’s regional ambitions and largely shaped by regional realities and geo-politics.
- Today, this invasion is different in a significant way: It is no longer a regional European conflict.
- It has become part of an intentional collaborative effort to undermine the international rules-based order and the power of the democratic community of nations.
- It has become the operational focal point of a global contest between democracy and autocracy.
- Driving that effort it what some have labelled an “axis of upheaval” consisting of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
- Russia’s invasion is actively fueled by China, Iran, and North Korea who together provide Moscow economic, industrial and military sustenance.
- Just this week we learned Iran has sent Russia over 200 short range ballistic missiles
- The growing and tragic violence in the Middle East is driven by Iran which receives the support of Russia, China and North Korea
- In the Indo-Pacific, China’s aggression against its smaller neighbors in intensifying.
- China of course benefits from Iranian and Russian oil and a security partnership with Russia.
- Let’s not forget that last October a Chinese ship steaming from a Russian port on the Baltic Sea dropped its immense anchor and dragged it on the sea bead for six kilometers to tear up Finnish and Estonian telecom cables and an energy pipeline.
- And this week Russia and China are undertaking joint naval exercises in the Indo-Pacific.
- These three connected crises – high intensity war in the heart of Europe, violence across the Middle East, and escalating Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific – are pushing the world closer and closer to a global conflagration whose violence could match and exceed that of the previous world wars.
- If we are to prevent such an escalation, the most urgent priority is to defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- That would give pause to hegemons in the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, and elsewhere.
- They would no longer conclude that those who believe in world of law and democracy have lost the capacity and will to defend their interests and principles.
PART III – WHAT TO DO
With its economic, military, diplomatic, and ideological advantages, the Transatlantic Community and its partners have the capacity to enable Ukraine to defeat this Russian invasion quickly, decisively and its terms.
The elements of such a strategy are straight forward. They just need to exercised with determination.
- First, Allied leaders must unambiguously endorse and embrace Ukraine’s war objectives—that is, total territorial reconstitution back to the nation’s 1991 borders.
- Anything short of that is a disillusioning signal to Ukraine and encourages Putin to sustain his invasion.
- The second element is, of course to provide Ukraine the weapons it so urgently needs—when it needs them, at the rate and volume it needs them, and without restrictions on their use against legitimate military targets in Russia.
- You know the list: fighter aircraft, long-range fires, mine-clearing equipment, additional tanks, and air and missile defense systems.
- Third, truly comprehensive and effective sanctions must be imposed on Russia. The West has yet to do that.
- The fact that the IMF projects that Russia’s GDP will grow 3.2% this year underscores the inadequacy of the West’s sanctions regime. (It grew by that amount last year.)
- Severe sanctions alone may not stop Putin’s invasion, but their imposition—and their enforcement—will weaken Russia’s war machine, undermine public support for Putin’s war, and serve as a positive reflection of the Alliance’s resolve.
- Fourth, NATO allies must energetically engage the Russian people about the brutal realities of this war.
- Today, the transatlantic community does not have what one can call an intensive, offensive information campaign directed toward the Russian government and the Russian public.
- As Russia and its allies intensify their disinformation campaigns against the West, it is time to go beyond largely defensive measure in this realm.
- It is high time to weaponize the power of truth against Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.
- Fifth, the Alliance must grant Ukraine a clear path to NATO membership.
- NATO membership in Ukraine is not only necessary to secure a postwar peace. It is an essential element of an effective win strategy in this war.
- Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the security guarantee that comes with it is the only way to convince Putin that Ukraine is irreversibly locked into the transatlantic community and no longer vulnerable to his subordination.
CLOSING
- Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an inflection point for the NATO Alliance and the Transatlantic Community.
- What we do and do not do to support Ukraine will reverberate across all the transatlantic communiy’s endeavors, be it defending the democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, guarding the High Northor even reinforcing transatlantic interests in the Indo-Pacific.
- The success or failure of Ukraine will impact perceptions of the NATO Alliance in eyes of our friends and adversaries in and well beyond Europe.
- Success or failure in this conflict will reverberate globally. It will determine whether our world returns to a path of peace, stability, freedom and prosperity or allow its self to fall into a future far more volatile, anarchic if not violent.
- That is what is at stake in Ukraine and that is why we must take decisive action in support of Ukraine.
ROBERT MCCONNELL
Co-Founder, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
Director of External Affairs, Friends of Ukraine Network
The introduction is Mr. McConnell’s and does not necessarily represent the views of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation or those of the Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).