Roya Rahmani and Melanne Verveer discuss Afghan women as the way forward and how the international community should engage now, nearly two years after the fall of Kabul. (Rahmani and Verveer’s biographies are below.)

• During the twenty-year US intervention in Afghanistan, metrics gauging women’s health and education and women’s presence in local and national politics all improved.
• Since August 2021, those gains are at risk of reversal. Women’s rights have deteriorated, and the international community’s efforts to engage with the Taliban and support Afghan women have been unsuccessful.
• Carrots such as international recognition and sticks such as public condemnations and threats of NGO withdrawal have proven ineffective, yet these strategies are endlessly recycled.
• The international community and multilateral organizations remain disengaged from strategic policymaking, passively supplying humanitarian aid without directing funding toward strategic future goals.
• The West lacks both knowledge of and leverage over Afghanistan’s leadership.

Establish a more robust forum for international consultation. Ad hoc consultations aren’t working: Regular meetings of experienced representatives need to be established. The core group should include the United States, the United Kingdom, several European Union countries, key Islamic countries such as Qatar and Indonesia, and NGO and multilateral representatives with on-the-ground knowledge.

Keep security strategy at the heart of engagement. Place the security implications of women’s oppression on every agenda of every meeting. As society disintegrates further, more room is created for terrorist groups to flourish, as shown by the growth of the Islamic State group’s offshoot ISIS-K.

Send female diplomats and delegations from Islamic countries. Bilateral engagement should feature overwhelmingly female delegations and prioritize consultative meetings with Afghan women to hear their perspectives on community needs. Furthermore, Islamic countries and organizations need to be key partners in the West’s efforts for humanitarian relief and overall engagement. Not only do they have the expertise and credibility needed to engage and advise on practical mechanisms for the implementation of programming, but direct engagement between more moderate Islamic countries and the Taliban could be influential. Qatar is a particularly important partner because of its role as an international interlocutor with access to the highest ranks of the Taliban.

Use aid as leverage by strategizing beyond immediate relief. Shifting Western aid from a focus on emergency humanitarian assistance to more sustainable, large-scale economic development initiatives reorients the sense of dependency from the people to the Taliban regime, which also creates a new potential point of leverage for the international community. Donors should craft aid distribution networks that are more local and grassroots, and use creative approaches to keep women at the center of all aid initiatives. This could mean developing aid programs specifically for widows, forming local partnerships that explicitly require the adoption of female-specific tasks.

Take advantage of the internet, and prioritize development projects that keep Afghans connected. Unlike during the 1990s Taliban regime, most Afghans have a mobile phone, internet access, and social media. These new tools must be used proactively by the international community to disseminate key information about the Taliban’s failures, coordinate mobilization, and provide educational resources. Development projects focused on connectivity and subsidizing local media will help keep information flowing into and out of Afghanistan.

A personal note

“While the regime stays in power, concrete steps have to be taken within the current context to counteract urgent security threats, provide critical aid, get children back in schools after a year-and-a-half gap, and address other imminent issues. Recycling policies from 1996 will not work. After twenty years of societal transformation, Afghanistan is a fundamentally different place.

Without innovation, no progress can be made.

Similarly, without engagement, no progress can be made.

Like other Afghan women, my entire life has been shaped by one conflict after another. Born on the eve of the Saur Revolution, I lived through the Soviet invasion, the Civil War, and the Taliban’s 1990s rule. Until the intervention, each chapter that unfolded was heartbreak anew. The revival of democracy and freedom brought hope. The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 was even more painful and shocking than anything before because it shattered an era that had been characterized by so much progress.

I have fought for women’s rights my whole life: the right to go to school and have an income, a voice, and autonomy. I am deeply disturbed and angered by what Afghan women are currently experiencing, and I share the instinctive desire to disengage from Afghanistan entirely given the Taliban’s inhumanity—or at the very least condition aid on women’s rights. However, this does nothing to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis. People simply suffer. Ultimately, we must be doing all that is possible to save lives. It is my hope that this report can help to make the road ahead clearer. The futures of so many Afghans—young girls banned from school, women imprisoned in their own homes, and an entire generation whose dreams have been crushed—depend on what we do now.”

—Roya Rahmani

Like what you read? Check out the full report here:

Ambassador Roya Rahmani has over twenty years’ experience working with governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. She currently serves as a distinguished fellow at Georgetown University’s Global Institute for Women Peace and Security, the chair of Delphos International LTD, a global financial advisory firm based in Washington, DC, and a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. Rahmani was the first woman to serve as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States of America and held the role from 2018 to 2021. She was also the first woman to serve as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Indonesia, serving from 2016 to 2018. She holds a bachelor’s degree in software engineering from McGill University and a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.

Ambassador Melanne Verveer is executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace & Security, and board director at the Atlantic Council. Verveer previously served as the first US Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, a position to which she was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009. She coordinated foreign policy issues and activities relating to the political, economic and social advancement of women, traveling to nearly sixty countries. She worked to ensure that women’s participation and rights are fully integrated into US foreign policy, and she played a leadership role in the administration’s development of the US National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. President Obama also appointed her to serve as the US Representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

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Afghan and Iranian women continue to be denied their basic human rights, and this shared struggle is built on an overlapping Iranian-Afghan history and civilizational space known as the Iranian plateau.

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To support Afghan women activists, prioritize local knowledge over numbers

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Though Afghan women have been included in certain peacebuilding efforts, these experiences were largely tokenist and minimally empowering.

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Let Afghan girls learn

By Nilofar Sakhi

The Taliban must be held accountable for the damage they have caused and continue to inflict upon the people–and most critically the women and girls–of Afghanistan.

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The post How to advance women’s rights in Afghanistan appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On April 20, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the third Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). DHS calls the QHSR its “capstone strategy document,” setting out the short- and medium-term direction for the US government’s third-largest cabinet department. By law, the QHSR is a “review,” not a “strategy,” and so it devotes much of its ninety-two pages to a summary of DHS’s current activities and recent accomplishments, more than a pure strategy would contain. With these caveats in mind, experts with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program read the 2023 QHSR and offered their assessment of its depth and importance for our latest scorecard.

Thomas Warrick

Senior fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security; director, Future of DHS Project

Given DHS’s size and the breadth of its missions—counterterrorism; law enforcement; cybersecurity; aviation, border, and maritime security; immigration; and infrastructure protection—the QHSR should be considered one of the most important strategic documents put out by a major US cabinet department. The QHSR, while subordinate to the Biden administration’s October 2022 National Security Strategy, should, in theory, be comparable to the Department of Defense (DOD) National Defense Strategy (NDS), which gets enormous attention in Washington and around the world.

The QHSR’s reality is rather different. No major news outlet covered the QHSR’s release on April 20. Only specialized news sites and a few others reported on it or on Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’s speech the next day announcing the QHSR’s release along with DHS’s ninety-day “sprint” focusing on US nonmilitary vulnerabilities to China and establishing a DHS task force on uses and threats from artificial intelligence.

One reason for this lack of coverage may be that the QHSR, being a “review,” is more of a summary of DHS’s current activities and recent accomplishments. Lists of accomplish­ments seldom make news in today’s contentious Washington political scene. While the QHSR should educate the public about what DHS does, the people who need educating the most about DHS are probably the least likely to read ninety-two pages of government prose, even with pictures. Nevertheless, the QHSR is an important strategic road map to where the Biden administration and Mayorkas want to go.

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

This QHSR is distinctive in three ways. First, it exists—the Trump administration did not release a QHSR during its four years between January 2017 to January 2021. While the Trump administration never produced a QHSR, it had a coherent—and divisive—approach to immigration and domestic terrorism, much of which was led from the White House, not DHS. Second, the Biden administration promised during the campaign and afterwards a break with many of the Trump administration’s homeland security policies, especially on immigration and domestic terrorism, and the QHSR makes this very clear. Third, this QHSR intentionally returns to the tone and structure of the two Obama administration QHSRs, released in 2010 and 2014, with three changes from the Obama QHSRs: 

1. showing how the threat landscape has changed since 2014,
2. highlighting the importance of partnerships to the Biden administration’s and Mayorkas’s model of the homeland security enterprise, and
3. recognizing a new mission area for DHS: combating crimes of exploitation and protecting victims.

DHS has long fought crimes of exploitation—this QHSR elevates the importance of this work and explicitly aligns DHS with the victims of such crimes. This will make it hard for future administrations to backslide from protecting exploited victims.

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

Just as the National Defense Strategy is primarily, though not exclusively, focused on military threats to the United States, the QHSR should bring equal focus and vigor on the nonmilitary threats to the United States. The third QHSR provides a good summary of today’s dynamic terrorism threats (both international and homegrown), the challenges and strains on what it calls our “broken” immigration system (Mayorkas goes so far as to call it “completely broken;” his critics would no doubt agree), cyber threats from criminals and hostile nation-states, crimes of exploitation, the threat from fentanyl and transnational organized crime, natural and man-made risks to critical infrastructure, and other challenges to homeland security. Of particular importance is elevating fentanyl, transnational organized crime, and crimes of exploitation to the strategic level—no longer are they issues of only crime. The third QHSR wants the United States to see these as strategic threats, requiring a more strategic response.

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

A sound strategy needs to define what “victory” looks like. In DOD’s mission space, victory is understandable: the goal is victory in war, coupled with deterrence and maintaining the peace at all other times. It’s a lot harder to define the end state in homeland security, and this QHSR, like many national security strategies of previous administrations of both parties, often uses phrases like “preventing and mitigating active threats” and “continue advancing national efforts” that give the direction but leave the ultimate goal fuzzy. There are few concrete end states against which this QHSR’s success or failure can be judged, but this is not unique to this QHSR or this administration.

For example, no responsible counterterrorism strategy would publicly set itself the goal of “no successful terrorist attacks.” The difficulty of detecting lone violent extremists and their ability to get semiautomatic assault rifles, coupled with political realities in the United States, mean that the QHSR needs—rightly—to point toward other approaches like community programs (see QHSR numbered page 8) needed to reduce active shooter events well below their levels in recent years, which would be a worthy goal. In cybersecurity, the QHSR describes the many innovative programs that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has undertaken in the past two years, but mentions only at the end of the cybersecurity section (QHSR numbered page 35) the truly transformational National Cybersecurity Strategy’s effort to shift fundamental risks from end users to the tech companies that are best situated to build security into their hardware and software. This will fundamentally change the future of cybersecurity and is a worthy goal.

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of activities? 

The third QHSR, like its predecessors, makes clear which DHS components are responsible for which missions and lines of effort. Unlike DOD’s military services, which encompass different domains but serve a (mostly) unified strategic mission, DHS’s eight components are organized functionally, and thus contribute differently to the QHSR’s six mission areas: 

• Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to aviation security (part of mission 1, counterterrorism and threat prevention).
• CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to land border security (mission 2, border security, but also part of mission 1) and immigration (mission 3).
• The US Coast Guard (USCG) and CBP to maritime security (part of missions 1 and 2).
• CISA, ICE, TSA (for pipelines), USCG (maritime cybersecurity) and the US Secret Service (USSS) to cybersecurity and fighting cybercrime (mission 4).
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency and CISA to infrastructure protection and resilience (mission 5); however both CBP and USCG have a part of mission 5.
• ICE, CBP, USSS, and USCIS to law enforcement (mission 6, combating crimes of exploitation and protecting victims, but also part of other missions).

While this QHSR, like its predecessors (and like similar strategic summaries of DHS’s missions during the Trump administration), contains extensive descriptions of DHS activities, this QHSR proves the aphorism that—unlike DOD, where missions end when a war is over and the military pivots (for example) from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific—at DHS, missions never go away. In this respect, the “new” mission 6 of combating crimes of exploitation and protecting victims is not at all new—it is the recognition of a mission DHS has had almost since its inception in 2003.

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

The QHSR is not a budget, but any DHS report on its missions raises the question whether DHS has the resources to succeed in those missions. Alignment between policy and resources is one of DHS’s greatest challenges. 

After the October 2022 National Defense Strategy, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in March 2023 that DOD’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget request was “the most strategy-driven request we’ve ever produced from the Department of Defense.” DOD is asking for $842 billion in FY 2024, $26 billion more than in FY 2023. A look at the China and Russia section of the NDS shows the link between DOD’s strategy and its budget request. 

DHS cannot say the same thing about the third QHSR and DHS’s FY 2024 budget, which calls for a 1.1 percent increase over FY 2023. DHS officials understand this. The QHSR calls for more efforts and resources on cybersecurity; border and immigration security; community-based programs to prevent future mass shootings as happened in recent years in Uvalde, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and elsewhere; and to head off threats to critical infrastructure from natural causes and nation-state adversaries.

The third QHSR does not have to quantify the resources required to achieve its goals, but it has rightly laid out this secretary’s road map for where DHS and the homeland security enterprise need to do more. One of the third QHSR’s most important benefits should be to focus a much-needed debate—inside the administration and with the Congress and the American people—over whether the United States is spending enough on homeland security.

Brigadier General Francis X. Taylor (ret.)

Nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Overall, DHS’s QHSR sets forth a comprehensive review of the challenges facing the homeland security enterprise. The program initiatives outlined in the report, if successful, will improve the security posture of the homeland. There are some concerns about whether there is sufficient political and popular support for the initiatives outlined in the report. In addition, DHS should consider an annual review of outcomes that have resulted from its initiatives to give US citizens a sense of how effective the department has been in improving security of the homeland. This report is a good start but needs annual reiteration that reflects sustained improvement in the United States’ overall security posture. 

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

The QHSR sets forth in clear detail the myriad of threats that face the homeland and the challenges for the homeland security enterprise to effectively address those threats. The world continues to evolve, as does the threat environment since the creation of DHS and this QHSR reflects the complexity of the threat environment and DHS’s initiatives to address that environment in new and innovative ways. 

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

The strategic context of the QHSR is sound and does not underplay the seriousness and challenges of the threat that faces the homeland security enterprise. The emphasis on partnerships to meet the challenges is an important underlying principle for DHS. Never has it been more important for DHS to strengthen and broaden its partnerships as the threat environment continues to change.

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

The QHSR clearly defines the programs undertaken to address each mission area to address the threats that face the US homeland, but the mere implementation of programs does not ensure effective outcomes. 

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of activities? 

There are clear lines of effort that are identified in the QHSR. The core mission areas are addressed effectively, but it is not clear that the programs initiated are yet effective in achieving the goals of DHS. Time will tell what outcomes are achieved and how effective DHS has been in mitigating the threats to the homeland.

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

The QHSR fundamentally outlines the challenges that DHS must address to keep the homeland safe. It is not clear that there are sufficient resources to execute this mission as outlined in the QHSR. Congressional support of these initiatives and funding will be critical to DHS’s success. 

Seth Stodder

Nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Like any strategy or planning document produced by a federal bureaucracy, the report on the 2023 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review inevitably provokes some trepidation from a potential reader, as such documents produced by Washington bureaucrats rarely last five seconds in an email inbox and never touch a printer.  

But in all seriousness, this year’s QHSR is somewhat of a page-turner. It is the first one since 2014—almost a decade. And what a decade it has been! ISIS and Al Qaeda, while still threats, have taken a back seat to AR15-wielding white nationalist extremists in the minds of counterterrorism professionals. The sense of operational control of the border that US officials felt they had in 2010 seems like a quaint bygone era, as compared to the massive challenges the United States faces today at the US-Mexico border. The cyber threats are much more varied, with the rise of catastrophic ransomware attacks and the drumbeat of cyber threats to our critical infrastructure and our electoral system. Meanwhile, emerging technology presents opportunities and threats like nothing before—from the rising concerns about social media invasions of privacy, disinformation campaigns, and deep fakes, to the threat of quantum computing and the potentially civilization-altering challenge presented by artificial intelligence. Nation-state threats to the homeland from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have become far more serious since 2010. On the other hand, the ultimate challenge to the US homeland may be environmental, as the force and impact of global climate change and the likelihood of more deadly pandemics have become ever more severe.

The 2023 QHSR—and the evolving mission of DHS—aptly reflect the tectonic shifts happening in the global security environment overall and its implications for US homeland security. To be sure, the original five homeland security missions from the first QHSR Report in 2010 are still there: (1) preventing terrorism and enhancing security; (2) securing and managing US borders; (3) enforcing and administering US immigration laws; (4) safeguarding and securing cyberspace; and (5) ensuring resilience to disasters. But so many of the characters in the play have changed, or assumed greater or lesser prominence.  

Suffice it to say, DHS has its hands full—with a sprawling and ever-more important set of missions, all of which requiring close partnerships with other federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal agencies, the domestic and global private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and the millions of Americans and other nationals who interact with DHS every single day. And this new QHSR ably reflects this massive and growing responsibility. 

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

The key theme is the steadily evolving and, in some cases, radically changing and ever more complex threat picture, and the need for DHS and its components to evolve its missions and focus accordingly. This is expressed forcefully in the document. Unsurprisingly, most of the missions are the same—with one addition—as those stated in the previous QHSRs. But that does not necessarily warrant any effect on its score here as the missions of DHS and homeland security are what they are. Rather, it is the threat and broader strategic environment that has, in some cases, radically changed. And the 2023 QHSR articulates this extremely well.

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions? 

The 2023 QHSR is extremely clear on the security environment facing the United States and, specifically, the US homeland. The QHSR also effectively nestles DHS and its six core missions neatly within the Biden administration’s broader strategic framework for the United States, as expressed in the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and other key documents. The analysis here is sound, and it does not rest on any specious or unfounded assumptions—either about the threat or the missions and capabilities of DHS.

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals? 

The 2023 QHSR clearly sets forth various goals, backed up with various vignettes and descriptions of ongoing or past programs, initiatives, and other actions reflecting efforts in furtherance of goals. That said, the goals are for the most part relatively vague (e.g., “DHS must be a leader in the responsible use and adaptation of emerging technologies” or “DHS remains committed to facilitating and expanding naturalization pathways for new Americans”), without specifying any particular measurable outputs against which one might assess success or failure. However, one could argue the point of how does one know when the border is actually “secure” or under “operational control,” or when the asylum system is processing claims “fairly” or “efficiently?” And, from a fiscal standpoint, is there a way of knowing when increasing budgets hit a point of diminishing returns—where an additional dollar invested in, say, detection equipment or in efforts against drug smuggling might be better invested elsewhere, such as public health or education? It is hard to clearly find measurable goalposts for these from the QHSR. 

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of activities? 

The QHSR—and previous DHS documents—have outlined the key missions and lines of effort, and the DHS operational components and management offices have (for the most part) worked out relatively delineated areas of focus meant to maximize unity of effort within DHS, while minimizing interagency conflict and rivalry. As is the nature of this kind of beast, the QHSR does have a bit of the whiff of a laundry list (or lists) of various component activities and success stories (albeit clean laundry, thankfully), but the lists are placed within an intelligently articulated framework of clear priorities. Again, as discussed above, it is difficult to discern measurable outputs or where the signposts are toward achieving mission goals and objectives—but the lines of effort are clearly stated.

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

This is somewhere between an unfair question and an incomplete one—in the sense that the QHSR is not meant to be a budgetary document, and indeed there is no sense here as to whether resources are remotely adequate to achieving the goals. Moreover, as noted above, some of the goals are so vague or total (e.g., “preventing labor exploitation”), that it is hard to assess—judging solely from the QHSR—exactly how these goals might be achieved, how success or progress toward the goals could be measured, or at what point diminishing returns might be reached for additional spending. So, it’s hard to grade this one—but it surely isn’t a perfect score.

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

This article is part of the Future of DHS Project by the Forward Defense program with financial support from Deloitte.

Further reading

Scorecard Jul 7, 2022

Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard: NATO’s Strategic Concept clear on threats, but will require sustained commitment from Alliance

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Several of the Scowcroft Center’s strategy experts analyzed the Alliance’s new Strategic Concept, assessing the strategy based on five criteria. The reviewers generally agreed that the document was clear-sighted about threats facing the Alliance. However, implementing the ambitious strategy will require sustained commitment and high investment from Alliance members. Here are the full assessments.

Europe & Eurasia International Organizations

Scorecard Oct 14, 2022

Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard: What grade does Biden’s National Security Strategy get?

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National Security Politics & Diplomacy

Issue Brief Jan 31, 2022

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Defense Policy Defense Technologies

The post Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard: Does the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review make the grade? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In this Pakistan Initiative conversation, Uzair Younus talks to Hassan Abbas, distinguished professor at National Defense University, about his recently published book The Return of the Taliban, the run-up to the fall of Kabul, and the group’s strategy in navigating their engagement on the world stage.

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

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The stark choice facing the United States in Afghanistan: Leave entirely or finish the job

By Davood Moradian

The release of the White House’s review of the chaotic 2021 troop withdrawal showed once again that the realities of Afghanistan and US partisan politics take precedence over President Biden’s desire to permanently disentangle Washington from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan International Organizations

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For Pakistan, dealing with its Taliban problem is a walk on eggshells

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Islamabad faces a lose-lose scenario against the Pakistani Taliban. But it is not too late for Pakistan to stop peeling the banana from the wrong end.

Afghanistan Pakistan

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Afghanistan and regional realignments since August 2021

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When looking towards future solutions, there is no easy fix for Afghanistan.

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The post A conversation with Hassan Abbas on his new book “The Return of the Taliban” appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Terrorism has reemerged in Pakistan; since August of 2021, attacks have spiked approximately 50 percent, with Voice of America reporting that “violence claimed by or blamed on the TTP [Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan] and other militant groups killed almost 1,000 Pakistanis, including nearly 300 security forces, in some 376 terrorist attacks in 2022.”

Pakistan has long struggled to contain non-state groups operating on its soil, and it is a country familiar with intersecting crises. Today, the Islamic Republic is facing deep economic and financial challenges combined with political turmoil as various power centers vie for control of its fragile democracy.

In this context, Pakistan cannot afford complacency regarding its growing terrorism threat. The TTP’s operational capacity has grown significantly following the takeover of the Afghan Taliban next door, and it along with peer militant groups present an existential threat to Pakistan’s security and the stability of its neighborhood.

To understand how Islamabad should respond to this heightened threat, South Asia Center Distinguished Fellow Shuja Nawaz led a series of conversations with experts about fighting terrorism and militancy in Pakistan.

The interviews have been categorized into three segments:

• State security, cross-border dynamics, and law enforcement, featuring Sen. Mushahid Hussain, Lt. Gen. Aamer Riaz, and IGP Naveed Khan.
• Society, human security, and government-people social contract, featuring Dr. Farhat Taj, MP Mohsin Dawar, and Dr. Madiha Afzal.
• A conversation with Inspector General Police Tariq Parvez, former inspector general of police and the first coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Authority of Pakistan (NACTA).

State security, cross-border dynamics, and law enforcement

Featuring

Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed is a current Pakistani Senator and Chairman of the Senate Defence Committee. A graduate of the Georgetown Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) program (Class of 1975), Senator Hussain Sayed has a distinguished career in the Pakistan public service as a four-time elected senator from the Islamabad Federal Capital. His public service career also includes positions as the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Central Asia (1992), Leader of Pakistan’s Delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva (1993), Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (handling relations with the U.S. & Central Asia) (1993), and Minister for Information, Culture & Tourism (1997-1999).

Lt. Gen. Aamer Riaz (Retd) was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in 1984. He commanded two corps, one on the western border and one on the eastern border and held various higher staff assignments, namely, Chief of Staff of a corps and Director, General Military Operations Directorate at GHQ. Lt. Gen. Riaz held instructional assignments at various military institutions and also remained president of National Defence University Islamabad. During his service, he remained engaged in military diplomacy to bring peace and stability in the region. Lt. Gen. Riaz has had speaking engagements at several civil and military institutions. Lt. Gen. Riaz is also a member of the board of governors of a newly established National University of Security Sciences, NUSS.

Inspector General Naveed Khan was born in Kohat, Pakistan in 1950. He graduated from Punjab University (Lahore) and joined the Police Service of Pakistan in 1972. Khan served as the Head of several district and divisional Police forces, provincial and federal intelligence agencies in KPK and as Commandant of Paramilitary force (Frontier Constabulary). He spent 5 years in the Middle East as a diplomat. His last posting before retirement in August 2010 was the Inspector General of Police, KPK province where he headed a 75,000 strong police force in the most difficult period during the height of Taliban militancy.

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Society, human security, and government-people social contract

Featuring

Dr. Farhat Taj has a Ph.D. degree in Sociology of Law. She is associate professor at the University of Tromso, Norway. She has also worked as Assistant Director, Colleges and as Planning Officer (education) in the government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. She successfully led three field research projects (2011, 2011 and 2012) for the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, IDMC Geneva, on conflict-driven displacement in the northwest of Pakistan. Dr. Taj also conducted independent research funded by the Norwegian Writers Association and Fritt Ord. The research is reported in her books, Taliban and Anti-Taliban (2011) and The Real Pashtun Question (forthcoming 2016). 

Mohsin Javed Dawar is a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from North Waziristan, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the National Assembly of Pakistan, and Central Chairman in the National Democratic Movement. He is the co-founder of the human rights movement Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). He has formerly served as president of the National Youth Organisation (NYO) and the Pashtun Students Federation (PSF), the allied wings of the Awami National Party (ANP). From 11 to 14 March 2022, he was part of the Pashtun National Jirga, which was held in Bannu to discuss the critical issues faced by Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Dr. Madiha Afzal is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Her research lies at the intersection of political economy, development, and security, with a focus on Pakistan. She previously worked as an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Afzal is the author of “Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State,” published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2018. She has also published several journal articles, book chapters, policy reports, and essays.

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A conversation with Inspector General Police Tariq Parvez on the rise of terrorism and militancy in Pakistan

Tariq Parvez joined the Police Service of Pakistan in the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police in 1973 and retired in the rank of Inspector General of Police in 2008, from the post of Director General of Federal Investigation Agency, Pakistan. Terrorism in the name of religion started in Pakistan, on a sustained basis in 1990 from Punjab. Parvez dealt with the phenomenon indirectly as DIG of Gujranwala, Bahawalpur, and Lahore from 1993 to 1997. In 1997, he was posted as Executive Head of Counter Terrorism Department Punjab, thus dealing directly with extremism and terrorism. He was awarded Sitara e Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan in 2004 for services in the field of CT. Parvez was posted as the Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency from 2005 to 2008 and dealt with terrorism at the national level. After retirement he was tasked to establish the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) and appointed its first National Coordinator. Presently he is a member of NACTA’s committee of experts as well as President, Advisory Board, National Initiative against Organized Crime.

Shuja Nawaz: In light of the recent attack on the Peshawar mosque, the bombing that killed large numbers of people, I wanted to ask you whether you see a similarity in the way the government is approaching this incident, as it handled the nine-year-old incident when the army public school in Peshawar was attacked and many lives were lost. Subsequently, attacks took place in Balochistan also where up to sixty people in one attack were killed. Do you see a similarity?

Tariq Parvez: Before I respond to your question specifically, I would like to give a brief overview of the context. 2009 was the worst year ever in Pakistan in terms of terrorist attacks in a year. Ever since then, there was a consistent and significant decline in the number of terrorist attacks over 2009-2020. In fact, the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan decreased by almost 95 percent during these years. Then in 2021, we witnessed a reversal in this trend. For the first time in ten years, the terrorist attacks in 2021 were more than the terrorist attacks in the preceding year, i.e., 2020. A cause for further concern was that during 2022 this trend continued and the realization that this was not a short-term development, but a more sustained trend. 

I wasn’t surprised by this reversal of trend. Why? For two reasons. Number one, that while we got the short-term objectives right in countering terrorism, we erred in terms of formulating long-term policies and responses to the terrorist threat. The result was, that while we succeeded in effectively dealing with the terrorist threat in the short term, from 2009 to 2020, this effectiveness could not be sustained. The reasons were two-fold. One, the counter-terrorism effort was, primarily, military led, with the civilian institutions playing a secondary role. This was an ad-hoc approach because, for the long-term solution to succeed, you should let the civilian institutions, whose role it is to counter terrorism, play their role. That was one weak area in our earlier response. The second weak area was that our entire focus was on kinetic actions. Of course, eliminating these militant networks is required, and kinetic actions are a very important part of counter-terrorism, but that doesn’t mean that the non-dynamic part, the ideological part, the part that deals with the factors that breed terrorism, should be ignored. We chose only the kinetic approach. So while the TTP, the main terrorist organization in Pakistan, went down and was cleared from the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) it wasn’t eliminated. Its ideology continued to resonate with segments of our society, because we had ignored addressing the non-kinetic dimension. And as soon as it got an opportunity to come up, it did.

One important factor for the recent resurgence of terrorism by TTP in Pakistan was the change of its leadership. The TTP leader Mullah Fazlullah was killed in a reported drone attack in June 2018. He was succeeded by a leader from the Mehsud tribe again, Mufti Noor-Wali Mehsud. He focused on uniting the TTP factions. The TTP had become a fragmented organization with about twenty factions and they all were fighting each other. In fact, it was easier for the government to deal with factions, but now after two years of his efforts, he brought back all the factions and hence we are confronted with a united TTP once again. That is one factor, is important for the resurgence of terrorism, and more important than this unification is the takeover by the Taliban in Afghanistan which helped the TTP in two ways. One, it was a huge morale booster: the TTP morale had been low. They were down in the dumps. Suddenly they stood up and said, “well if the Taliban can defeat the American army and its allies, we can do it also.” Number two, their main safe haven was Afghanistan and so they got a very important sanctuary which was not there earlier. Now they can move freely, and they have active assistance also. That is the basic reason why we see the resurgence. 

Coming back to your question on the response of the Pakistani state, one of the weak areas of the response now is the Pakistan state itself is in a very weak position compared with 2009. Today we have political instability, we have an economic meltdown, and we have these security issues. 

Unless the government is completely focused on dealing with the terrorism and is not consumed by these issues of economic survival, or political partisanship, the terrorists may survive for long. They take economic and political chaos in Pakistan as an opportunity. We need to act comprehensively against them, focusing equally on kinetic and non-kinetic measures, to defeat them in the long term. We have to drain the swamp that breeds them.

SN: What non-kinetic actions need to be taken?

TP: Non-kinetic actions means two or three things. Number one, countering the narrative of the TTP. Unless the narrative of the TTP resonates with the roots of the TTP and within their strongholds, they’re not likely to get volunteers. We didn’t do anything to counter that ideology. That is one area of a non-kinetic aspect that we ignored. A second area is that we took a very important decision of merging Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with FATA districts. FATA was a stronghold of the terrorists. The feedback which I have gotten from the people there about the commitments made to the people of the FATA in terms of investments for their development were not fulfilled. So what has happened is that while we have formally and institutionally made former FATA part of the KP province, we did not follow up with the promises which we made, and the result of that is resentment amongst the local population which provides fertile ground for the TTP.  

Another factor that I think was a policy decision to open negotiations with the TPP. I think that was an ill-advised move, not well thought out. It was probably not inclusive. By inclusive, I mean having all points of views of the local inhabitants contributing to it. It was confined to a very small group of people who decided to go ahead with it. I remember police officers in Swat told me they were informing the government that there were reports by the local inhabitants of sighting Taliban, although in small groups, in their villages. It was pointed out that it may be a planned return of the Taliban to their villages in Swat. No one paid any heed to these police reports. And then the Taliban told the locals that “we are coming here as the result of an agreement. We have been allowed to leave Afghanistan and come back to our homes in the villages in Pakistan.” They expressed their surprise that the local police were not told about this agreement. The police weren’t aware of it, the local people weren’t aware of it. 

We were told by the decision makers that “they are Pakistanis, who had left their homes as a result of the military operations against the terrorists, and they have to come back to their country.” They are Pakistanis, certainly, but they are criminals, they are terrorists. I think we were in too much of a hurry or trying to be too generous in taking them back. But thank God, thank God the people of Swat protested in a very powerful way, against the return of these members of TTP back to their homes and villages. As a result of these massive public protests against the return of the TTP members, the government was forced to give up the repatriation and resettlement plan of these Afghanistan based TTP members.

SN: What are the ties between the TTP and Punjabi militant organizations?

TP: Before the TTP came into existence in 2007, we used to have two terrorist organizations based in Punjab, v.i.z. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which was focused exclusively on targeting Shias, and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was Punjab-based and with strong roots in South Punjab. In fact, that was the mother organization that fed other jihadist Islamist militant groups. After the emergence of the TTP, militancy in Pakistan became predominantly, if not primarily, a Pakhtun phenomenon. And the Punjabis slowly slid into the background. Maybe there are some factions which did fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban against the Coalition forces. But, I think the link now is much weaker than it was. In fact, this is a very important point that you raise. The TTP might be looking for ties in the Punjab, to expand its activities to the biggest province of Pakistan, instead of confining itself to Pakhtun communities.  

Another important point I would like to highlight is the anti-Shia sentiment in Pakistan. The militant organizations which held anti-Shia agendas have gone into the background. But those elements of militancy in Afghanistan who are anti-Shia are looking for alternative sources of support. In Afghanistan, the Islamic State-Khorasan has a strongly anti-Shia agenda and is looking for allies in Pakistan. In the years ahead, we might witness a resurgence of sectarian terrorism in Punjab, through a liaison between the Afghanistan-based IS-K and anti-Shia militants, spread over into many religiously motivated terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammad, even TTP, because all these militant organizations belong to the Sunni subsect of Deobandis, which has streaks of anti-Shiaism. 

SN: So, who needs to coordinate the fight against militancy and terrorism inside Pakistan? Will it be NACTA?

TP: Absolutely. In fact, that was the original rationale for NACTA. Based on my own experience, I found that one weak area of counter-terrorism was that the provinces were acting in silos. The federal government, its Intelligence Bureau (IB), and the provinces, were not in touch with each other. ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and IB were not partnering or sharing information. There was no formal structure for collaboration. Whatever happened was sort of informal, on a friendly basis or whatever. That is why I proposed that there should be an organization which gives unity to the anti-terrorism effort, and that has to be a civilian institution. I remember people used to ask me, you are setting up NACTA, what if the military doesn’t cooperate? My reply was that the basic problem is the lack of coordination between the civilian agencies. Even the provinces are not talking to each other. So in the first place let the civilian intelligence bureau, and other civilian agencies share that information, and then after the ISI would also join in. 

The main point that I want to make is that the need of NACTA is based on the fact that there is no oversight body to inform the government about the implementation of the various policy layers. I don’t know who is supposed to do it. 

A twenty-point National Action Plan to counter terrorism was formally launched after the Peshawar public school incident in December 2014. It was expressly stated in the National Action Plan that for every point (twenty in all, I was a member of that committee so I know), specific action plans will be drawn up with specific measurable objectives. And for that the PM (prime minister) of Pakistan at that time, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, set up thirteen committees. But no follow-up occurred, because NACTA could not play an effective role due to various reasons.

Second, while the set of players for kinetic action are the military and the criminal justice system, for non-kinetic measures, a different set of players is needed, maybe headed by media experts, IT (information technology) specialists, development experts, religious leaders, youth leaders, education experts, etc. Carrying out the non-kinetic aspect of counter-terrorism through military or police is not likely to be effective, because it is not their expertise or field. So if there is a civilian organization that would give greater importance to this effort, then let us move forward with that. 

A lot of initiatives to win the hearts and minds of youth are being taken in Balochistan, but when I meet the Baloch youth, they care about the disappearances. They forget the good part, but they remember that so-and-so’s brother was picked up, so-and-so has been killed. We have to take these views into account.

I think NACTA is the way forward, although at present I don’t think an all-powerful interior minister is going to let it go. But I remember the day you told me that the DG-ISI (director-general, Inter-Services Intelligence) had said to you that if NACTA reports to the prime minister, we will cooperate. I hope that comes to pass.

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Moderated by

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Shuja Nawaz

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With violence escalating once again, Netanyahu will be under pressure from members of his cabinet and his right-wing base to enact tougher measures against Palestinians. But if the prime minister is to achieve his long-sought goal of normalization with Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, he will have to find a way to end the bloodshed—and keep a lid on his far-right ministers who too often only inflame tensions.

In recent days, international condemnations poured in quickly against both the Jenin raid and the synagogue attack. Saudi Arabia called the raid a “serious violations of international law” and advocated for an “end to the occupation.” The statement was followed by criticism from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Oman. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Netanyahu on Monday, called the East Jerusalem attack “abhorrent,” while Saudi Arabia said it “condemns all targeting of civilians,” a rare show of support to Israel.

This renewed wave of violence is the culimination of tensions that have been mounting between Israelis and Palestinians ever since Netanyahu’s government took office in early January. On January 3, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir staged a provocative visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount—also known as the Al-Aqsa Mosque—the holiest site for Jews and third-holiest for Muslims, where a delicate status quo allows only Muslims to pray, with Israel overseeing the security of the site and Jordan managing its religious buildings. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two countries involved in normalization and peace talks with Israel, called the visit an “attack” on the holy site. (Netanyahu was forced to postpone a trip to Abu Dhabi that was slated to be his first official foreign visit since becoming prime minister again.) Oman, a country that many had believed was next in line to sign the Abraham Accords, outlawed any relations with Israel. While Oman’s decision was most likely an appeasement strategy toward Iran, Ben-Gvir’s actions gave the sultanate the perfect way out.

The security minister has become the face of the most far-right faction of Netanyahu’s new cabinet. Ben-Gvir has advocated for reinstating the death penalty for Palestinians sentenced of crimes against Jews, was convicted of terrorism incitement in 2007, and supports unilaterally ending the agreement about the Temple Mount that has been in place since Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. After visiting the Temple Mount, Ben-Gvir continued his stream of contentious behavior when he ordered the removal of Palestinian flags from public spaces.

It’s not just Ben-Gvir stirring the pot. Netanyahu’s new cabinet includes ministers who have called for the annexation of the entire West Bank, are activitely limiting Israel’s Supreme Court’s powers through a deeply controversial justice reform, are fervently against the LGBTQ+ community, wish to reduce women’s rights in the military, and seek to limit Jewish immigration to Israel only to those who fit the Orthodox criteria. More recently, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich boasted about his refusal to cooperate with the United Arab List party, while the new Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar seeks to either completely halt or significantly reduce state funding to artwork and movies that in his view offend Israel.

Netanyahu has far greater plans for Israel than solely steering the country to the far right on domestic issues. Internationally, Netanyahu’s most ambitious goal is to expand the Abraham Accords’ reach to include Saudi Arabia, a once far-fetched notion that has become more realistic given the two countries’ recent rapprochement. Normalization would be a major diplomatic win for Netanyahu, as it would help define his legacy, bring about enormous economic gains for the region, and pave the way for other Arab and Muslim-majority countries to normalize ties with the Jewish state. Netanyahu has made this point clear time and time again, most recently stating that normalization with Saudi Arabia would be a “quantum leap” for peace with Palestinians and pressuring the Biden administration to move past the murder of Saudi journalist (and US resident) Jamal Khashoggi and “reaffirm” its alliance with Saudi Arabia.

Whether Saudi Arabia also intends to negotiate a peace deal with Israel is the multi-billion-dollar question. The kingdom certainly views the deal as advantageous, first and foremost for security reasons.

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia view Iran as the most acute threat in the region, and a peace deal would strengthen the anti-Iran bloc that the Abraham Accords has already established through the Bahrain-UAE-Israel alliance. Additionally, a deal with Israel would strengthen Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman’s (MBS) attempts to show Western allies that he is a moderate leader and Saudi Arabia is a moderate country, a quest he has been pursuing since 2018 when he approved a series of reforms to reduce the country’s strict adherence to Islamic law, including wide-reaching reforms ameliorating women’s lives in the kingdom.

It would also undoubtedly help restore the longstanding US-Saudi alliance, which has seen major setbacks since the 2018 killing of Khashoggi (for which the Central Intelligence Agency found MBS responsible) and last year’s Saudi agreement with Russia to cut oil production—which led US President Joe Biden to vow unspecified “consequences” for the kingdom. MBS reportedly told a visiting delegation of Americans that he had three main demands of Washington in exchange for peace with Israel: assurance over the strength of the US-Saudi alliance, consistent weapons supplies, and a deal allowing a civilian nuclear program.

However, Saudi Arabia is also a historic champion of the Palestinian cause, and it has made it clear on several occasions that normalization with Israel must come hand-in hand with the creation of a Palestinian state. At the recent Davos conference, Prince Faisal bin Farhan claimed that peace with Israel will only come by “giving the Palestinians a state”—and it’s hard to imagine Israel’s current government ever agreeing to that. Saudi Arabia is also home to Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest sites, and is keen to maintain its legitimacy as their rightful religious custodian in the eyes of the Muslim world.

A careful reading of the tea leaves shows that Netanyahu may, in fact, be able to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia without a two-state solution. But actions by his far-right ministers and his own further crackdowns on Palestinians may push Arab countries further away from normalization. Support for the Palestinians is still a uniting (perhaps the only uniting) cause among the Arab world, as evidenced by the most recent Arab Barometer survey, which indicated that the vast majority of citizens in most Arab countries still oppose normalization with Israel. At the Qatar World Cup, soccer players and fans alike showed their support for the cause by brandishing Palestinian flags on multiple occasions.

Netanyahu is showing a willingness to save face with his Arab neighbors at the expense of political allies at home. He recently backed the Israel defense minister’s decision to evacuate an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank, creating fractures within his coalition, as Netanyahu defied Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism Party. Netanyahu also paid a surprise visit to King Abdullah in Jordan, home to some three million Palestinians.

The Abraham Accords are undoubtedly a significant milestone for peace and prosperity in the region. The Accords could generate up to one trillion dollars in new economic activity if everything goes as planned and new countries normalize ties with Israel. They would create new jobs, incentivize trade, and create new business opportunities for millions. Yet, if left unchecked, Netanyahu’s far-right ministers will make it harder to continue on this trajectory. Witness how after Netanyahu’s surprise Jordan visit, Ben-Gvir stated that he will continue to “go up to the Temple Mount” regardless of Jordan’s stances on the matter.

If Netanyahu wants to move forward with his most ambitious foreign-policy aim, he will need to find a way to tamp down the right-wing domestic political theater—including from his own ministers—and make things right with his putative Arab allies. And none of that is possible unless he is able to first stop this cycle of violence.

Alissa Pavia is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.

The post Escalating violence and right-wing provocations are threatening Netanyahu’s Abraham Accords agenda appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Speaking on January 18, Lavrov claimed a coalition of Western countries led by the United States was following in the footsteps of Napoleon and Hitler with the goal of destroying Russia. “They are waging war against our country with the same task: the final solution of the Russian question,” he said in direct reference to Hitler’s infamous “final solution” of the Jewish question.

Lavrov’s Holocaust comparison was met with widespread international criticism. In a strongly worded statement, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said his Russian counterpart’s comments were “entirely misplaced, disrespectful, and trample on the memory of the six million Jewish people, and other victims, who were systematically murdered in the Holocaust. The Russian regime’s manipulation of the truth to justify their illegal war of aggression against Ukraine has reached another unacceptable and despicable low point.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry branded Lavrov’s remarks “unacceptable,” while French diplomats said the Russian foreign minister’s attempt to compare international opposition to the invasion of Ukraine with the Holocaust was “outrageous and disgraceful.” Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called Lavrov’s comments “totally abhorrent” while noting, “Russia is not the victim. Russia is the aggressor.”

In the US, national security spokesperson John Kirby expressed indignation at Lavrov’s attempt to draw parallels between the Nazi genocide and the response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. “How dare he compare anything to the Holocaust, let alone a war that they started,” he told reporters at the White House. “It’s almost so absurd that it’s not worth responding to, other than the truly offensive manner in which he tried to cast us in terms of Hitler and the Holocaust.”

This was not Lavrov’s first flirtation with anti-Semitic historical distortions. During an appearance on Italian TV in spring 2022, Russia’s top diplomat sparked outrage by repeating the notorious anti-Semitic trope that Hitler was Jewish. When asked why Russia insists on calling Ukraine a “Nazi state” despite the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, Lavrov replied that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “also had Jewish blood.”

The fallout from Lavrov’s very public descent into the squalid world of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories was predictably severe. Following a chorus of international condemnation led by Israel, Vladimir Putin was eventually obliged to intervene. In early May, the Russian dictator called the Israeli Prime Minister to personally apologize on behalf of his foreign minister.

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The international backlash over Lavrov’s blunders illustrates the limitations of the propaganda narratives developed by Moscow to justify the invasion of Ukraine. While captive audiences inside Russia have been largely convinced by attempts to blame hostilities on “Ukrainian Nazis” and the “Russophobic West,” these unsubstantiated arguments have proven far less persuasive internationally and have served to further undermine the Kremlin’s dwindling credibility.

Russian attempts to portray Ukrainians as Nazis are nothing new and can be traced back to Soviet wartime propaganda. The tactic has been enthusiastically revived by the Kremlin in recent years to dehumanize Ukrainians and legitimize attempts to extinguish Ukrainian independence. This plays well in modern Russia, where the Putin regime has fostered a cult-like reverence for the Soviet role in World War II that includes the demonizing of all opponents as “fascists.” However, the lack of any actual evidence to support these poisonous allegations has left outside observers deeply skeptical.

As Lavrov himself discovered during last year’s disastrous Italian TV interview, most people living beyond the suffocating confines of the Kremlin propaganda bubble regard the election of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking Jewish President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as convincing proof that Ukraine is anything but a Nazi state. Likewise, the consistent failure of Ukraine’s far right parties to secure more than 2% of the vote in national ballots makes a mockery of Moscow’s entire “Nazi Ukraine” narrative. In the eleven months since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Russia has yet to identify any of the “Nazis” it claims to be fighting or define exactly what the stated war aim of “de-Nazification” means in practice.

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Lavrov’s lurid allegations of anti-Russian plots suffer from similar problems. While domestic audiences in Russia have been conditioned for decades to view their country as a blameless victim of irrational Western Russophobia, there is a growing consensus in the wider world that the international community has actually been much too slow to react to the mounting threats posed by Putin’s Russia.

Far from pursuing the destruction of Russia, the West responded to Moscow’s wars of aggression in Georgia and Ukraine with a series of misguided resets and endless policies of appeasement. Indeed, it was not until Putin launched the biggest European conflict since World War II last February that Western leaders finally and reluctantly acknowledged the necessity of countering the Kremlin. Even now, as Russia’s invasion approaches the one-year mark, the debate over Western support for Ukraine remains dominated by excessive caution and a debilitating desire to avoid escalation. These are self-evidently not the actions of an international coalition seeking “the final solution to the Russian question,” as Lavrov so absurdly claims.

It is still far too early for Ukraine to declare victory in the information war. Russian disinformation narratives continue to resonate on the vocal fringes of Western society while also appealing to widespread anti-Western sentiment in much of Asia, Africa, and South America. Nevertheless, the wholesale revulsion over Lavrov’s recent Holocaust remarks is a timely reminder of the increasingly unbridgeable gap separating Russia’s alternative reality from the real world.

Almost one year since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, only a handful of fellow pariah states are still prepared to stand with Russia on the global stage as international audiences reject Kremlin claims of phantom fascists and anti-Russian conspiracies. Instead, there is growing recognition that the war in Ukraine is an act of naked imperial aggression that threatens to destabilize the wider world.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has been built on an unprecedented web of deceit and distortion. As these lies lose their power and the reality of Putin’s genocidal agenda becomes impossible to ignore, a consensus is emerging that the war in Ukraine will only end when Russia is decisively defeated.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Dec 26, 2022

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Reports emerge of internal power struggles between Wagner and Russian defense ministry

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Animation depicts Wagner forces fighting French “zombies” in West Africa

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Reports emerge of internal power struggles between Wagner and Russian defense ministry

On January 13, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed its forces had taken control of Soledar and could encircle Bakhmut, threatening Ukrainian supply lines. In the statement, the MoD praised the efforts of aviation, artillery, and airborne troops, but did not mention the notable role Wagner played in securing Soledar.

Moscow’s announcement highlighted a long-simmering tension between Wagner and the official structure of the Russian MoD. On January 17, an old letter written by Valery Gerasimov, commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, re-circulated online. The letter, dated December 29, 2022, stated that Wagner is not included in the structure of the Russian armed forces. Gerasimov wrote the letter in response to an inquiry to the Russian MoD made by Evgeny Stupin, a lawyer for the Moscow City Duma. On January 15, President Vladimir Putin also attributed the Soledar success to the MoD.

On the day that Russia claimed Soledar, military bloggers affiliated with the Kremlin claimed there was an ongoing conflict between the MoD and Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. On January 15, Prigozhin awarded medals to Wagner soldiers for the capture of Soledar. On January 16, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dispelled reports of an ongoing conflict between Prigozhin and Russian army command, claiming the reports are “products of information manipulation.” Later in the day, when asked about Peskov’s comments, Prigozhin also dispelled the reports, saying, “I see no reason not to trust Peskov.”

On January 19, Prigozhin said that Wagner soldiers were concentrating on taking the suburban city of Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut. This information has yet to be confirmed by the Russian MoD.

Elsewhere, on January 14, Ukrainian officials reported that Russia conducted fifty missile and three air strikes against Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, and other settlements in West Ukraine. Ukrainian forces said that Russia used S-300 and S-400 systems against ground targets in Kyiv in the morning and later launched high-precision weapons, including twenty-eight cruise missile strikes using Kh-101, Kh-555, and Kh-59 guided air missiles and the sea-based 3M-14 Kalibr.

In Marinka, the Ukrainian army repelled renewed Russian attacks on January 17 and 18. Russian forces have been storming the settlement since last March, resulting in widespread destruction. The Russian forces also conducted raids in the area of Bilohorivka in Luhansk oblast and Krasna Hora, Bakhmut, Klischiyivka, Vodyane, Nevelske, and Pobieda in Donetsk oblast.

Chechen volunteer forces have become increasingly active in the fight around Bakhmut. There are at least two battalions of Chechens—the Sheikh Mansur Battalion and Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion—fighting for the Ukrainian army on the Bakhmut frontline. On a tactical level, the Chechen battalions are working together in some areas, like in Opytne, where they attacked Russian positions. The Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion also maintains a reconnaissance unit, “Adam,” currently located in Donetsk oblast.

On January 16, a Russian rocket struck a civilian building in Dnipro, killing at least forty-five people, including six children, marking the single deadliest civilian attack since the war began. Ukraine said it does not have air-defense systems that can intercept Russian KH-22 missiles; to ward off future missiles would require Western partners to donate advanced air defenses such as the US MIM-104 Patriot missile system.  

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

—Valentin Châtelet, research associate, Brussels, Belgium

Russian forces allegedly use incendiary munitions in Kherson, youth center burns

On January 18, Russian shelling intensified on the southern frontline in Ukraine, which stretches from Kamianske in the Zaporizhzhia region to Vuhledar in the south of Donetsk oblast. After a night of heavy shelling, videos and photos emerged online showing that the Russian army had used what appears to incendiary ammunition in city of Kherson and nearby Beryslav.

The morning after the strike, videos and photos shared online showed the resulting damage. A local Kherson newspaper reported that a religious youth center had burned down as a result of the shelling. The DFRLab geolocated the youth center and confirmed that it was along the pathway of the airstrike but cannot confirm whether incendiary munitions were involved.

—Valentin Châtelet, research associate, Brussels, Belgium

Missile fragments, rocket warhead fall on Moldovan territory

Fragments of a Russian missile targeting Ukraine fell on Moldova territory on January 14 in the town of Larga, Briceni district. According to Moldova’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, a warhead fueled with approximately eighty kilograms of explosive material was also discovered among the debris. The next day, authorities reported that specialist teams had carried out controlled detonations of the remaining explosives. The Ministry of Defense noted that the army’s aerial surveillance system did not record a violation of Moldovan airspace, however.

Authorities in Chisinau have strongly condemned the attacks on neighboring Ukraine. “This is the reality of war, imposed by the aggressor, right here in our region,” stressed Moldovan President Maia Sandu. “The missiles reach Moldova as well—the fragments discovered yesterday in the Briceni district testify to this. We strongly condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Attacks on urban infrastructure and the killing of civilians are war crimes; they have no justification.”

Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita also condemned Russia’s January 14 missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. “There is no political, historical, and even more so moral justification for killing civilians and attacking the infrastructure that ensures the survival of the population,” she said. “I express my deep indignation at the new massive attack on Ukraine. I express my support for the heroic Ukrainian people and our support for the victims of Russia’s barbaric attacks.”

This is the third time missile fragments have landed in Moldova, which is not a member of the European Union or NATO. On December 5, Moldovan border police discovered a missile in an orchard, also in the Briceni district. In October 2022, a Russian missile shot down by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft system fell in the village of Naslavcea, located along the border with Ukraine, shattering windows of several residences as a result of the explosion.

—Victoria Olari, research assistant, Chisinau, Moldova

Animation depicts Wagner forces fighting French “zombies” in West Africa

An animated video showing a Wagner operative helping West African countries defeat zombie French soldiers began circulating on social media and pro-Kremlin Telegram channels this week. While the origin of the video is currently unknown, it appears to have first shown up on Twitter on January 14th, then migrated to alternative video platforms before being shared across pro-Russian Telegram channels.

By depicting Wagner forces as heroes, the video promotes a pro-Russian, anti-French narrative that has spread in recent years across West African social media. The animation depicts Wagner soldiers assisting local militaries in Mali and Burkina Faso in removing French forces, represented in the animation as hordes of zombies and a giant cobra. In Mali, a Wagner operative parachutes into the zombie horde and provides ammunition to a Malian soldier who is subsequently able to defeat the undead, while in Burkina Faso, Wagner provides a rocket-propelled grenade to kill the French cobra.

Russia’s involvement in West Africa does not come in the form of simple weapons deliveries, however. Recent reports indicate that since Russia’s deployment in Mali more than one year ago, violence against civilians has significantly increased, and extremist forces have grown stronger.

The video ends with Wagner forces heading towards Côte d’Ivoire, where French zombies overwhelm an Ivorian soldier. The imagery implies that Wagner aims to send forces to the coastal country.

This is not the first time Wagner has created animated propaganda. In another animation, France was represented as a rat killed by Wagner. And in a comic strip spread in Central African Republic (CAR), Wagner operatives are again depicted fighting zombies, however in the case of CAR the zombies do not represent the French.

Support for France has declined significantly in Francophone Africa, while calls for Russian assistance to fight jihadists has increased.

—Tessa Knight, research associate, London, United Kingdom

Flurry of conflicting theories circulate among pro-Kremlin sources following deadly helicopter crash

On January 18, a helicopter crash in Brovary, near Kyiv, killed sixteen people, including three children, Ukraine’s interior minister, his deputy, and the ministry secretary. The helicopter crashed near a kindergarten. Ukrainian security services investigating the crash are considering three possible scenarios, including a violation of flight rules, a technical malfunction, or intentional sabotage. In the meantime, pro-Kremlin sources are already sharing conflicting narratives about the incident.

One of the first narratives to emerge suggested that Ukraine’s air-defense systems shot down the helicopter. The claim was amplified by pro-Kremlin TV host Olga Skabeyeva on her Telegram channel. Another pro-Kremlin Telegram channel added more details to the claim, saying that “unofficial Ukrainian sources” said the aircraft was shot down by the Stinger or Igla air-defense systems. The claim was also shared on Twitter by a pro-Kremlin account, spreading the narrative to English-speaking audiences. At the time of writing, the English tweet had more than one million views.

Other sources took the claim further. The pro-Kremlin Russian outlet Regnum hypothesized that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was behind the crash, publishing a story with the headline, “The crash of the helicopter of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Brovary – executed by Zelenskyy?”

Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin reporter Sasha Kots reported that European countries had suspended the helicopter model, either a Eurocopter EC225 Super Puma or a H225M, after a 2016 crash in Norway. While it is true that the European Aviation Safety Agency grounded both aircraft type after the Norway crash, it allowed flights to resume roughly six months later. Helicopters of this type are used by both military and civilian operators in France, Brazil, Vietnam, and many other countries. Kots also claimed that after the two models were grounded, France sold its supply to Ukraine, implying that France is also responsible for the tragedy.

In December 2021, Romania and Ukraine entered into an agreement to upgrade five of these helicopter models.

—Roman Osadchuk, research associate

Belarusian state TV accuses Ukrainian embassy of recruiting foreign fighters

On January 16, the state-controlled TV channel Belarus 1 reported that Belarusian security services had arrested Georgian citizen Giorgi Zirakishvili for allegedly trying to enter Ukraine via Belarus to fight against Russia. Belarus 1 reported that the Ukrainian Embassy in Georgia had advised Zirakishvili to travel from Georgia to Ukraine through Belarus. The broadcaster also claimed that Zirakishvili had planned to meet Igor Kizim, Ukraine’s ambassador to Belarus, upon arrival to receive instructions on how to reach Ukraine and join the Georgian Legion, a paramilitary unit mostly comprised of ethnically Georgian volunteers who fight for Ukraine. Belarus 1 also broadcast an alleged recording of a phone conversation in which Zirakishvili believes he is speaking to representatives from the Ukrainian embassy in Belarus. However, Belarus 1 reported that Zirakishvili was actually speaking to representatives from Belarusian security services, who discovered Zirakishvili’s alleged intentions and connected with him by impersonating Ukrainian embassy staff. The report also contains a video recording of Zirakishvili’s meeting with representatives from Belarusian security services, who he apparently believed were representatives of the Ukrainian embassy.

Belarus 1 did not provide any concrete evidence that Zirakishvili had communicated with anyone from the Ukrainian embassy in Belarus. Despite this, the report claims that Kizim is actively recruiting foreign fighters to send to Ukraine. The ambassador responded to the allegations, saying the Belarus 1 story was “nonsense” and “lies, manipulation, and hypocrisy.” He added that the Ukrainian embassy was in contact with the Belarusian foreign affairs ministry regarding the matter.

—Givi Gigitashvili, research associate, Warsaw, Poland

Russian media amplify and exploit Wagner story about French Foreign Legion deserter killed in Ukraine

A January 17 Telegram post published on Yevgeny Prigozhin’s press channel claimed that Wagner forces tracked down and killed a Ukrainian member of the French Foreign Legion in Donetsk. The channel also shared identity cards belonging to a YevheniiKoulyk, including a Ukrainian driver’s license, a French military card, and a French train card.

The post was reshared by the Telegram channel WarDonbass and the pro-Russian news outlet DonbassInsider. The Russian press agency TASS also reported on the claim. Several Russian-owned media outlets and Telegram channels shared the post, garnering at least 647,000 views at the time of writing.

The story was then picked up by the Russian news outlet Argumenty I fakty (Arguments and facts), which claimed Koulyk was a NATO agent. One VK post suggested Koulyk was a foreign mercenary and accused Ukraine of not disclosing the number of foreign soldiers killed in the war. The author compared Koulyk’s death to that of Hryhorii Tsekhmystrenko, a Ukrainian-born Canadian volunteer reported killed in Ukraine this week.

According to French journalist and military expert Philippe Chapeleau, the French Foreign Legion allowed its Ukrainian-born fighters a period of leave so they could safely resettle their families in neighboring countries. Those who did not return would be considered deserters. According to that same source, Koulyk had been missing since August 2022 and was therefore considered a deserter.

Koulyk’s death was previously reported as early as January 12. As of January 19, there were a total of 189 posts across news outlets and social media discussing Koulyk.

—Valentin Châtelet, research associate, Brussels, Belgium

Serbian president accuses Wagner of recruiting Serbian citizens

In a TV interview on January 16, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic criticized Wagner Group for its attempts to recruit Serbian citizens to participate in the Ukraine war. Vucic slammed Wagner, saying, “Why do you do that to Serbia? Why do you, from Wagner, call anyone from Serbia when you know that it is against our regulations?” He also noted that Serbian legislation prohibits its citizens from participating in foreign armed conflicts and denied recent allegations that Wagner has a presence in Serbia. On January 17, Yevgeny Prigozhin stated that there are no Serbian citizens active in Wagner and that Wagner has never been active in Serbia. The DFRLab previously reported on claims made by Wagner that it was establishing a presence in Serbia.

Vucic also condemned a Wagner advertisement published by the newly established Serbian arm of RT. On January 5, RT Balkan reportedly published an article with the headline, “Wagner published an ad for volunteers, the conditions are more than tempting.” The article, which is no longer available on RT Balkan’s website, allegedly said that Wagner was looking for volunteers ages twenty-two to fifty who are not citizens of Ukraine or any EU or NATO member states. Volunteers were required to be physically healthy, interested in learning, patriots, and strong in spirit; in turn, “everything else will be taught by Wagner members.”

A Google search for the original headline, “Vagnerovci objavili oglas za dobrovoljce, uslovi više nego primamljivi,” retrieved an article with the same title, but the original URL now leads to a different article about Russian prisoners who joined Wagner, fought in Ukraine, and peacefully returned to Russia, where all charges against them were dropped.

—Givi Gigitashvili, research associate, Warsaw, Poland

Ukraine’s allies continue to send military aid, including heavy equipment

Ukraine will receive an unspecified number of Archer systems from Sweden, with Swedish media reporting that Kyiv will receive twelve units. Stockholm will also send fifty CV90 vehicles. Latvia will deliver another military aid package to Ukraine that includes Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, helicopters, small arms, and drones.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on January 10 that the country would donate more NASAMS air-defense systems to Ukraine. These systems will enable Ukrainian forces to enhance ground protection around troop deployments and civilian infrastructure. Canada will also transfer another two hundred armored LAV ACSV Super Bison vehicles to Ukraine.

According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is tapping into a stockpile of US ammunition in Israel to help meet Ukraine’s need for artillery shells. The arms and ammunition stockpile is typically reserved for the Pentagon to use in the Middle East. Meanwhile, on January 19, the Pentagon announced a $2.5 billion security package for Ukraine, including for the first time ninety Stryker armored personnel carriers. These mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles could help infantry advance further into the frontlines. Additionally, the US will provide energy equipment to help Ukraine deal with energy shortages. The $125 million support pack would include turbines, backup power banks, and high-voltage transformers.

On January 14, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced that the United Kingdom will send Ukraine fourteen Challenger 2 battle tanks and artillery systems. As of 2021, the British army possessed 227 battle tanks. Sending additional tanks is likely to increase pressure on Germany to send its own Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, though Germany’s defense minister said Friday that Berlin has not yet decided on the Leopard 2.

Russian citizens living in Bulgaria donated three pickup trucks to the Ukrainian army. They will be used by the Freedom of Russia Legion, a battalion made up of Russian citizens who defected to fight for Ukraine’s Foreign Legion.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

—Valentin Châtelet, research associate, Brussels, Belgium

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Like many dictators throughout history, Putin believed he could strengthen his position at home by waging a small, victorious war. However, he is now learning a painful lesson: if you stake your position as dictator on a quick victory but fail to deliver, you may suffer the fate of Khrushchev after the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Argentinian junta after their disastrous invasion of the Falklands. Losing a conflict that you are expected to win is so thoroughly demoralizing that it puts your entire reign at risk.

Many people now question why Putin embarked on such a reckless invasion at all. In fact, the Russian dictator has always been a betting man. His entire career has been marked by gambles that have paid off handsomely. However, with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his luck may finally have run out.

US President Joe Biden describes Putin as a rational actor who has miscalculated. This is probably true, but it is also important to recognize Putin’s miscalculation as a symptom of a flawed worldview that is disconnected from reality. In short, Putin fell into the same trap that eventually catches out many long-serving dictators; he drank his own Kool-Aid.

In a military context, believing in one’s own inflated prowess is catastrophically dangerous. Thanks to decades of propaganda, Russians take it for granted that their country is a military superpower. This myth has been shattered in Ukraine. Despite having less than one-third of Russia’s population, a far smaller economy, and being an emerging democracy rather than a militarized dictatorship, Ukraine has more than held its own for almost a year against the invading Russian army.

While the West has provided Ukraine with significant military aid, the extent of Western involvement in the war should not be overstated. So far, only about one percent of the relevant available Western weaponry has actually been sent to Ukraine. Key partners such as the US, UK, France, and Germany have resisted Ukrainian pleas for tanks, jets, and long-range missiles. Instead, they have provided anti-tank weapons, limited quantities of artillery, and shorter range missile systems. Nevertheless, this has proved sufficient to stop Russia’s offensive and liberate about half of the territory occupied by Putin’s troops during the initial stages of the invasion.

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Faced with mounting setbacks in Ukraine, Putin has become increasingly delusional. Rather than acknowledge Russia’s embarrassing defeats and catastrophic losses, he insists everything is going according to plan. This is creating opportunities for Russia’s far right forces, which do not suffer from the same limitations. While Kremlin officials absurdly attempt to portray retreats as “goodwill gestures,” the far right wins over the Russian public by speaking frankly about the country’s military disasters in Ukraine.

Until the invasion began in February 2022, the only political opposition in Russia was represented by jailed anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, who had attempted to play broadly by Western democratic rules. When the war started, the remnants of Russian civil society were ruthlessly stamped out. Prominent opposition figures were jailed or forced into exile, while new laws criminalized all forms of public dissent. These trends have intensified over the intervening nine months, extinguishing any lingering hopes of a serious democratic opposition to the Putin regime.

Instead, the most serious challenge to Putinism may come from a newly emerging political movement that is even further to the right on the political spectrum than Putin himself. At present, this is a disorganized but vocal movement that has found its voice in the many unofficial Russian “war correspondents” and social media accounts reporting on the invasion while bypassing the Russia’s Kremlin-controlled mainstream information space. Most write from a Russian nationalist perspective while employing ethnic slurs for Ukrainians. They are unambiguously pro-war and often apparently pro-Putin. However, their content is frequently at odds with Russia’s official propaganda and highly critical of the military officials leading the invasion.

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While there is currently no single nationalist leader, the most prominent figure among Russian ultra-nationalists is Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group paramilitary force. Prigozhin once sought to distance himself from Wagner but has recently made his connection very public. He has released footage of his recruitment speeches and has opened a swanky head office in Saint Petersburg. This reflects the rising profile of Wagner itself. Formerly seen as a shadowy mercenary group used by the Kremlin in hybrid war hot spots such as Ukraine, Syria, and Africa to create a veneer of plausible deniability, Wagner has been one of the few Russian military units to perform credibly during the initial stages of the Ukraine invasion and has visibly grown in stature.

With his own public profile on the rise, Prigozhin has begun testing the boundaries by publicly deriding senior figures within the Russian military hierarchy. Meanwhile, his Wagner troops operate in Ukraine as an army-within-an-army, pursuing their own clearly defined battlefield objectives and openly positioning themselves as a military elite in contrast to the under-performing regular Russian army.

Wagner fighters have become the poster boys of the ultra-nationalists, who are themselves less prone to official delusions and more interested in the realities of hard power. Freedom from the constraints of the Kremlin propaganda machine is a major asset in their struggle for credibility among Russian audiences. This makes the far right a potentially formidable opponent in a future internal power struggle against the Putin regime.

It is hard to predict what the world could expect from a post-Putin Russia ruled by far right forces, but there is clearly little room for optimism. An ultra-nationalist successor regime would likely be even more inclined to wage war against Russia’s neighbors while ruthlessly targeting civilians. This extremism would be driven in part by the growing conviction within nationalist circles that Putin is failing in Ukraine precisely because he has not been ruthless enough in his leadership of the war.

Putin’s domestic position is not yet sufficiently weak to talk of an imminent fall from power, but it is already apparent that he is far weaker today than he was just one year ago. At the same time, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has catapulted a wide range of formerly fringe nationalist figures into the Russian mainstream and transformed Yevgeny Prigozhin into a political heavyweight. This swing to the right has not yet been fully appreciated by many Western observers, but it offers alarming indications of where Russia may be heading politically and must be watched carefully in the months ahead.

Stanislav Shalunov is founder and CEO of NewNode and creator of FireChat.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Nov 10, 2022

Battle of Kherson: Russian retreat confirms Putin is losing the war

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The war is still far from over, but Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Kherson may eventually come to be seen as one of the key turning points in the defeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk.

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UkraineAlert Dec 13, 2022

Vladimir Putin: 2022 Loser of the Year

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Russian leader Vladimir Putin is the biggest loser of 2022. His disastrous decision to invade Ukraine has left Russia internationally isolated and shattered the country’s reputation as a military superpower.

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

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Since the early 1990s, modern Russia has consistently called on the West to acknowledge the former USSR (excluding the three Baltic states) as its exclusive sphere of influence. This reflects strong imperial instincts inside the Kremlin and throughout Russian society. It also highlights the ongoing confusion among the Russian public and the country’s elites over exactly what constitutes “Russia.”

This is hardly surprising given that Russian and Soviet identities had been virtually indistinguishable within the USSR. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Russian Federation simply took control of Soviet institutions in Moscow and began the process of post-Soviet state-building. Russia’s reluctance to completely disassociate itself from the USSR was already obvious in December 1991 when Moscow pushed for the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Throughout the 1990s, civic attachment to the Russian Federation remained weak. Meanwhile, more overtly imperial forms of identity proved to be far more popular, leading to calls for a return to the Soviet and Czarist eras or for a resurgent Russia to lead a new Eurasian empire. This trend was evident even before the Soviet Empire fell, with celebrated dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn calling in 1990 for a new Russian Union of the three Eastern Slavic nations (Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus). This concept would be revived and broadened almost two decades later to serve as the basis for Putin’s “Russian World” ideology.

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The continued popularity of supra-national imperial identities in post-Soviet Russia was clear during the 1993 constitutional crisis, which saw an alliance of communists and extreme nationalists attempt to overthrow President Yeltsin. Three years later during the Russian presidential election, Yeltsin embraced the imperial agenda of a union state with Belarus to help counter strong revanchist support for Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.

By the time KGB veteran Vladimir Putin became president at the turn of the millennium, Russia was already visibly shifting away from its brief flirtation with European integration. Putin openly embraced Russia’s imperial identity and laid claim to Eurasia as the Kremlin’s exclusive sphere of influence. He was reportedly obsessed from the very start of his presidency with the idea of bringing Ukraine firmly back into the Russian orbit.

Putin’s position was perhaps predictable. The Soviet KGB where he spent the formative years of his professional career was a strikingly chauvinistic institution that openly embraced a sense of Russia’s imperial mission. This mentality was passed on to the KGB’s post-Soviet successor agencies, which assumed a dominant role in Russia following Putin’s rise to power.

Among policymakers in Putin’s Russia, other former Soviet nations such as Ukraine were never credited with real agency or genuine sovereignty. Instead, they were routinely regarded as part of modern Russia’s informal empire. Such ideas enjoyed widespread support among the Russian public and were heavily promoted in the carefully curated Russian mainstream media.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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In 2012, Putin returned to the presidency with the goal of entering history as the gatherer of Russian lands. In practice, this meant completing the reintegration of Belarus and Ukraine. Putin had always viewed these two East Slavic states are core members of his envisioned Eurasian Economic Union. With Crimea annexed in 2014 and Belarus transformed into a Russian puppet state in 2020, the last and decisive step in this historic process was to be the complete subjugation of Ukraine in 2022.

Unfortunately for Putin, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan. Far from completing his historic reunification mission, the rapidly unraveling attack on Ukraine has shattered Russia’s reputation as a Great Power and as a military force to be reckoned with. As a consequence, many now view Russia as a declining power.

Moscow’s ability to project influence throughout its former empire has suffered accordingly. This presents Russia’s neighbors and the Western world with a golden opportunity to encourage the evolution of a post-imperial Russian identity that could serve as the basis for Russia’s reintegration into the wider international community.

In order to achieve this goal, the democratic world must rethink its own policies toward Russia and stop informally acknowledging Moscow’s claims to a sphere of influence. This outdated and unhelpful approach merely serves to legitimize Russia’s imperial ambitions. Instead, the West should treat Russia as an ordinary nation state and hold Moscow to the same standards applied to others.

Western leaders should also encourage the non-Russian states of the former USSR to stop buttressing Russia’s supra-national identity and end their participation in post-Soviet structures whose main purpose is to prolong Russia’s regional dominance. Members of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and Eurasian Economic Union should be encouraged to withdraw. Armenia should be encouraged to return to the EU Association Agreement it abandoned under Russian pressure in 2013.

Another key step toward a post-imperial Russia is elimination of the grey zone between NATO and the EU on one side, and a Russia-dominated Eurasia on the other. While the current war in Ukraine cannot continue forever, a fresh Russian invasion is virtually inevitable unless Ukraine in offered a clear road map toward NATO membership. Ukraine’s current position in the geopolitical grey zone helps keep Russia’s imperial aspirations alive and makes a lasting peace in Europe unattainable.

Ukraine’s integration into NATO and the EU would rule out any further Russian invasions and dramatically reduce the scope for new imperial adventures. This would lead to a decline in support within Russia for aggressive imperial ideologies and discredit the entire notion of Putin’s “Russian World.” Instead, we would likely witness the growth of Russian civic identity.

Three decades after the fall of the USSR, Russia is currently in real danger of losing its Great Power status. The disastrous invasion of Ukraine has exposed internal weaknesses and sparked an unprecedented collapse in Russian influence throughout the former Soviet Empire. It is clearly in the interests of the democratic world to encourage this process of imperial retreat. The transformation of Russian national identity into a post-imperial and civic form would pave the way for a new era of European peace and productivity. The ultimate beneficiaries of this would be the Russian people themselves.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. His forthcoming book is “Genocide and Fascism, Russia’s War Against Ukrainians.”

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 28, 2022

Putin believed his own propaganda and fatally underestimated Ukraine

By Taras Kuzio

Vladimir Putin likes to pose as an expert on all things Ukrainian but in reality his understanding of Ukraine is hopelessly distorted by propaganda that has led him to fatally underestimate Ukrainian resilience.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Nov 10, 2022

Battle of Kherson: Russian retreat confirms Putin is losing the war

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk

The war is still far from over, but Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Kherson may eventually come to be seen as one of the key turning points in the defeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk.

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UkraineAlert Nov 17, 2022

Kherson euphoria highlights the folly of a premature peace with Putin

By Peter Dickinson

Footage of the euphoric scenes in liberated Kherson should be compulsory viewing for anyone who still believes in the possibility of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, argues Peter Dickinson.

Civil Society Conflict

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

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Russia must stop being an empire if it wishes to prosper as a nation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This grim process has already been repeated in hundreds of liberated villages, towns, and cities throughout northern and eastern Ukraine. On each occasion, retreating Russian troops have left behind a vast crime scene of mass graves, torture chambers, sexual violence, and deeply traumatized communities. Specific accounts of civilian suffering are strikingly similar from region to region, indicating that these crimes are the result of deliberate Kremlin policy rather than the rogue actions of individual Russian army units.

Wherever Russia establishes control, anyone regarded as posing a potential threat to the occupation authorities is at risk of abduction. This includes elected local officials, military veterans, civil society activists, journalists, and anyone suspected of overtly pro-Ukrainian sympathies. Many victims are subjected to torture and execution. Others simply disappear. Those who avoid abduction face the threat of forced deportation to the Russian Federation. Millions of Ukrainian civilians, including thousands of children, are believed to have been deported in this manner over the past nine months.

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The atrocities committed by Russian troops in occupied regions of Ukraine are only one part of a wider genocidal agenda that defines the invasion unleashed by Vladimir Putin on February 24. In areas of Ukraine occupied by the Kremlin, all symbols of Ukrainian statehood have been methodically removed and a new Russian imperial identity imposed on the civilian population. Teachers have been brought in from Russia to indoctrinate Ukrainian schoolchildren, while access to the Ukrainian media has been blocked and the Ukrainian language suppressed.

Putin’s intention to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and eradicate Ukrainian national identity was evident long before Russian tanks crossed the border in early 2022. His menacing statements have since been matched by the criminal actions of his army. Apologists had earlier been able to dismiss the Russian dictator’s genocidal rhetoric as mere political hyperbole, but that is no longer possible.

For years prior to the current invasion, Putin publicly denied Ukraine’s right to exist and insisted Ukrainians were actually Russians (“one people”) who had been artificially and unjustly separated from the motherland. In summer 2021, he took the highly unusual and revealing step of publishing a 5000-word treatise arguing the illegitimacy of Ukrainian statehood.

On the eve of the invasion, Putin lambasted today’s independent Ukrainian state as an intolerable “anti-Russia” and declared that Ukraine was an “inalienable part of Russia’s own history, culture, and spiritual space.” More recently, he has directly compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great and boasted that he is “returning historically Russian lands.” In late September, he illegally annexed four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces while proclaiming that they had joined the Russian Federation “forever.”

Other senior Kremlin officials and regime propagandists have been even more explicit in terms of the genocidal language they have employed to champion the invasion. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently described Ukrainians as “cockroaches” while dismissing the Ukrainian nation as “mythical.” Meanwhile, on Russia’s carefully curated state TV political talk shows, calls for genocide against Ukrainians have become completely normalized. Pundits dehumanize and demonize Ukrainians while routinely questioning the existence of a separate Ukrainian nation and casually discussing the necessity of destroying the Ukrainian state.

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The staggering quantity of genocidal statements coming out of Russia since the invasion of Ukraine began nine months ago makes it relatively easy to demonstrate the intent that is so crucial when identifying acts of genocide. The United Nations defines genocide as meaning any one of five acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The mass killings, systematic human rights abuses, forced deportations, and deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure carried out by the Russian military mean that Moscow is arguably guilty of committing all five genocidal acts in Ukraine.

Despite widespread awareness of the war crimes taking place in Ukraine, many in the international community remain reluctant to speak explicitly about the genocidal objectives of Russia’s invasion. Instead, debate continues over the dangers of humiliating Putin and the need for a negotiated settlement. Numerous senior officials and prominent commentators insist on addressing the invasion as if it were a particularly unruly border dispute rather than an exercise in national extermination. In reality, any talk of compromising with the Kremlin is both absurd and obscene. Advocates of appeasement must recognize that there can be no middle ground between Russian genocide and Ukrainian national survival.

In the aftermath of World War II, post-war audiences looked back on the horrors of the Nazi regime and asked how crimes of such magnitude were allowed to happen. Many of those who lived through the war protested that they had been completely unaware of the atrocities taking place around them. Similar excuses will not work in the current situation. On the contrary, the overwhelming evidence of Russian war crimes and the openly genocidal intent on display in Moscow mean that when future generations look back at Putin’s Ukrainian Genocide, nobody can claim they did not know.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Oct 17, 2022

Putin’s blackout blitz: Russia aims to freeze Ukrainians into surrender

By Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti

Russia is seeking to plunge Ukraine into darkness ahead of the winter heating season by destroying the country’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s partners must step in to make sure Ukrainians are not frozen into surrender.

Conflict Energy Markets & Governance

UkraineAlert Nov 10, 2022

Battle of Kherson: Russian retreat confirms Putin is losing the war

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk

The war is still far from over, but Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Kherson may eventually come to be seen as one of the key turning points in the defeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert Nov 17, 2022

Kherson euphoria highlights the folly of a premature peace with Putin

By Peter Dickinson

Footage of the euphoric scenes in liberated Kherson should be compulsory viewing for anyone who still believes in the possibility of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, argues Peter Dickinson.

Civil Society Conflict

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

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian Genocide: Nobody can claim they did not know appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Just recently, Medvedev compared Ukrainians to “cockroaches.” In early November, he opined that Moscow was fighting “crazy Nazi drug addicts” in Ukraine, whose Western supporters had “saliva running down their chins from degeneracy.” Russia’s task, he declared, was to defeat “the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he uses: Satan, Lucifer, or Iblis.” The identity of this supreme ruler of Hell is unclear, but presumably Medvedev had either octogenarian US President Joe Biden or mild-mannered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in mind.

In contrast, Putin consciously avoids sounding overtly unhinged despite the often far-fetched nature of his public pronouncements. Examples of Putin’s baseless statements include his claim in February 2022 that Ukraine posed a mortal threat to Russia, and his lengthy article in mid-2021 insisting that Ukraine had no historic right to exist as an independent state. However, unlike Medvedev, Putin is careful to make sure his arguments are at least vaguely plausible. The Russian ruler also attempts to use recognizably statesmanlike language in order to portray the invasion of Ukraine as a difficult but justified foreign policy decision.

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Putin’s speaking style is also worthy of note. In contrast to twentieth century dictators like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler who were notorious for raving and gesticulating wildly, Putin’s often outrageous assertions are delivered in a soft-spoken and understated tone that creates the impression of a level-headed and entirely rational politician.

The annual Valdai Discussion Club held in Moscow this October was a case in point. Putin’s keynote address was a diatribe against the West, which he accused of attempting to eliminate the rich diversity of cultures around the world. Putin claimed he stood for traditional values, the dignity and sovereignty of all peoples, and the free exchange of science and cultural achievements. He assured listeners that he was against isolationism and any kind of racial, ethnic, or religious intolerance.

This was Putin the impeccable humanist on display. It would be difficult to imagine a figure further removed from Medvedev’s bloodcurdling proclamations. Judging by Putin’s demeanor at the Valdai event, few would believe this was the same man who had ordered the destruction of Grozny, Aleppo, and Mariupol, or who just months earlier had unleashed the largest European conflict since World War II.

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While Medvedev uses the language of the gutter, Putin adopts the academic tone of the historian and disguises his imperial aggression by arguing at length that Russians and Ukrainians are actually “one nation.” He expresses exasperation at the alleged oppression of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population, and positions his invasion as an unfortunate necessity. Whereas Medvedev is the voice of righteous fury, Putin is the voice of reason.

Unfortunately for the Kremlin, Putin and Medvedev’s good cop, bad cop routine is now failing in the West. The international media spotlight of the past nine months has done much to expose Russian lies and reveal the naked imperial ambition behind Moscow’s talk of phantom fascists and oppressed minorities. Few remain receptive to Putin’s convoluted explanations for the invasion of Ukraine other than ideological allies and those still willing to buy into the Kremlin’s conspiratorial narratives.

The contrasting rhetoric being offered up by Putin and Medvedev has proven more successful among domestic audiences and has helped convince millions of Russians that the Kremlin authorities know what they are doing in Ukraine. Raised in an authoritarian political culture, many Russians find Medvedev’s extremism emotionally appealing and are persuaded by Putin’s more measured approach.

The impact of this strategy is plain to see. While the Russian death toll for the invasion of Ukraine approaches 100,000 and the Russian economy continues its downward slide, there is no sign of any significant domestic opposition to the war. As more Russian sons and husbands return from Ukraine in coffins, the durability of the Kremlin duo will be further tested, but at present their double act appears highly effective.

Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University, Newark. Dennis Soltys is a retired Canadian professor of comparative politics, living in Almaty.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Nov 22, 2022

Ukraine must be allowed to strike back against targets inside Russia

By Ira Straus

In order to defeat Putin and end the war, Ukraine must be allowed to strike back inside Russia. At present, this is not possible due to restrictions imposed by Ukraine’s overly cautious international allies, writes Ira Straus.

Arms Control Conflict

UkraineAlert Nov 17, 2022

Kherson euphoria highlights the folly of a premature peace with Putin

By Peter Dickinson

Footage of the euphoric scenes in liberated Kherson should be compulsory viewing for anyone who still believes in the possibility of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, argues Peter Dickinson.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Nov 10, 2022

Battle of Kherson: Russian retreat confirms Putin is losing the war

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk

The war is still far from over, but Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Kherson may eventually come to be seen as one of the key turning points in the defeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

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

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Former moderate Dmitry Medvedev becomes Putin’s pro-war cheerleader appeared first on Atlantic Council.

None of these arguments stands up to serious scrutiny. Instead, the various different narratives coming out of the Kremlin reflect Moscow’s increasingly desperate efforts to justify what is in reality an old-fashioned colonial war of imperial conquest.

Putin has long sought to use NATO expansion as an excuse for his own aggressive foreign policies. This plays well with the Russian public and also resonates among segments of the international community who believe the United States has become too dominant since the end of the Cold War. However, Putin’s attempts to position the invasion of Ukraine as a reasonable response to NATO encroachment have been comprehensively debunked by his own actions.

According to Reuters, Ukraine informed Russia during the first days of the invasion that it was ready to meet Moscow’s demands and rule out the possibility of future NATO membership, only for this offer to be rejected by Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went public in the following weeks with similar proposals to abandon Ukraine’s NATO ambitions, but Russia chose to continue its invasion.

The entire notion that Russia views NATO as a credible security threat was further undermined in summer 2022 when Moscow passively accepted neighboring Finland’s historic decision to join the military alliance. Putin has repeatedly cited Ukraine’s deepening NATO ties as justification for his invasion, but the prospect of imminent Finnish membership provoked no meaningful security response whatsoever from the Kremlin.

If Putin genuinely believed a NATO invasion of Russia was even a remote possibility, he would surely have reinforced the Finnish border. On the contrary, in the months following Helsinki’s decision to join the alliance, Russia dramatically reduced its military presence close to Finland and the nearby NATO member Baltic states in order to bolster the invasion of Ukraine. Whatever Putin may say in public, he clearly understands that NATO poses no threat to Russia.

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Russian myth-making about “Ukrainian Nazis” is even older than complaints over NATO expansion and dates all the way back to Soviet World War II propaganda. For decades, Moscow has exaggerated wartime cooperation between Ukrainian nationalist groups and the Third Reich while conveniently ignoring the far more consequential Nazi-Soviet Pact. By conflating Ukraine’s centuries-old liberation movement with Nazism, generations of Kremlin leaders have sought to render Ukrainian national identity toxic in the eyes of domestic and international audiences alike.

Putin’s enthusiasm for the “Nazi Ukraine” trope is very much in line with his broader efforts to place the Soviet World War II experience at the heart of modern Russian identity. Over the past two decades, Putin has turned traditional Russian reverence for the generation who defeated Hitler into a quasi-religious victory cult complete with its own feast days, holy relics, and doctrinal dogmas. This has enabled him to whitewash the crimes of the Soviet era while attacking contemporary adversaries as the spiritual successors to the Nazis. In Putin’s Russia, accusations of Nazism are a routine feature of the public discourse and have been leveled against a dizzying array of individuals, organizations, and entire countries, but Ukraine remains by far the most popular target.

The effectiveness of these tactics has always depended heavily on outside ignorance of Ukraine and Russia-centric reporting by Moscow-based international correspondents. Unfortunately for Putin, his invasion has shone an unprecedented media spotlight on Ukraine that has done much to debunk the whole “Nazi Ukraine” narrative.

This was long overdue. Throughout the past 31 years of Ukrainian independence, the far-right has never come close to achieving power in Ukraine and remains significantly less influential than in many other European countries. While far-right candidate Marine Le Pen received 41.45% in France’s 2022 presidential election, the Ukrainian far-right typically struggles to secure low single digit support at the ballot box. During Ukraine’s last presidential election in 2019, the leading nationalist candidate garnered 1.6% of the vote. Months later in the country’s most recent parliamentary election, many of Ukraine’s far-right parties joined forces in a bid to improve their fortunes. This united nationalist platform failed miserably, winning a mere 2.15% of votes.

Nothing highlights the absurdity of Russia’s “Nazi Ukraine” allegations better than the rise of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian President is both Jewish and a native Russian speaker. According to the Kremlin, this should make him deeply unappealing to Ukrainian voters. On the contrary, Zelenskyy was elected president by a record margin and subsequently secured a unique parliamentary majority for his newly formed political party. This success was all the more remarkable as it was achieved during wartime elections held amid an atmosphere of heightened patriotic fervor.

Since the start of the invasion, Russia’s failing efforts to portray Ukraine as a Nazi state have forced Moscow into ever more implausible mental gymnastics. Unable to produce any actual Ukrainian Nazis, regime officials and propaganda proxies have attempted to argue that the very idea of an independent Ukraine is in itself a Nazi concept, while also acknowledging that Putin’s stated war aim of “de-Nazification” in practice means the “de-Ukrainization” of Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s confusion was perhaps most immediately evident in the bizarre and disgraceful anti-Semitic comments made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a May appearance on Italian TV program Zona Bianca. When asked to address the obvious contradictions between Russia’s “Nazi Ukraine” claims and the fact that Ukraine has a Jewish president, Lavrov responded by declaring that Adolf Hitler also had “Jewish blood.” His statement sparked a wave of global condemnation, with Putin eventually forced to intervene and offer a personal apology to Israeli leaders.

This embarrassing incident illustrated the remarkable recent degradation of Russian diplomacy, which has now reached the point where it is often indistinguishable from internet conspiracy theories. Forced by Putin’s invasion to defend the indefensible, Russia’s top diplomats have retreated into an alternative reality world of blanket denials and dark fantasies. While Lavrov rants about “Jewish Hitler,” Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya stuns his colleagues with fantastic tales of genetically engineered Ukrainian mosquitoes. No wonder exasperated British Ambassador Barbara Woodward recently felt moved to ask, “How much more of this nonsense do we have to endure?”

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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The awkward absence of Ukrainian Nazis and Russia’s non-response to Finland’s NATO membership bid have left Putin in desperate need of new narratives to explain his ongoing invasion. Disinformation researchers have recently noted a spike in Russian references to Ukraine as a “terrorist state” amid apparent efforts to position the war as a counter-terrorism operation. This has included a high-level campaign led by Putin himself and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who have both groundlessly accused Ukraine of plotting an act of nuclear terrorism involving a dirty bomb.

While the idea of Ukraine nuking itself may seem far-fetched even by Russian standards, this is by no means the Kremlin’s most audacious excuse. Since late September, senior regime officials have gone even further and have been actively seeking to rebrand the invasion of Ukraine as a holy war against Satanism. Putin set the tone by calling his opponents “Satanic” during a landmark address marking the official annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

Others have enthusiastically followed Putin’s lead. In October, the deputy secretary of Russia’s influential National Security Council, Alexei Pavlov, declared that it was becoming “more and more urgent to carry out the de-Satanization of Ukraine.” This call was echoed by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who stated in a November 4 post marking Russia’s National Unity Day that the goal of the Ukraine invasion was “to stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he uses: Satan, Lucifer, or Iblis.” Key propagandists including Vladimir Solovyov have also endorsed the idea that Russia is at war with Satanism.

Behind Moscow’s increasingly outlandish attempts to justify the invasion stands a deeply unpalatable truth. Far from being a reaction to Western encroachment or Ukrainian extremism, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is the product of an unapologetically imperialistic mindset that he shares with millions of Russians who refuse to accept the verdict of 1991.

Putin’s entire reign has been shaped by his burning resentment at the perceived injustice of the Soviet collapse, which he regards as the “disintegration of historic Russia.” This has fueled his obsession with Ukraine, which for centuries occupied a key position at the very center of Russian imperial identity. Putin sees the existence of an independent Ukraine as a symbol of the unjust post-Soviet settlement and regards the country’s embrace of European democracy as an existential threat to Russia. He has repeatedly denied Ukraine’s right to statehood while arguing that modern Ukraine has been artificially separated from Russia. On the eve of the invasion, he called Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

The Russian dictator’s most revealing remarks came in summer 2022, when he directly compared his invasion of Ukraine to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great. Putin sought to qualify this claim by insisting he was merely “returning historically Russian lands,” but the actions of his invading army bear all the hallmarks of a brutal colonial conquest. Russian troops have reduced entire cities to rubble and killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. In areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control, the Russian military has engaged in mass executions and forced deportations. Meanwhile, all symbols of Ukrainian national identity have been ruthlessly erased.

This is the grim reality that all advocates of appeasement and proponents of a negotiated peace must address. Nobody wants to end the current war more than the Ukrainians themselves, but they also recognize that there is no room for compromise between genocide and survival. Russia has gone to great lengths to disguise the true nature of its imperial war in Ukraine, but Ukrainians are not fooled. They understand perfectly well that unless Russia is decisively defeated, Ukraine will cease to exist.

Instead of listening to Moscow’s fake grievances and fairytales about devil-worshiping phantom fascists, the international community must make clear to the Kremlin that Russian imperialism has no place in the modern world. The increasingly absurd nature of Putin’s excuses is an indication of his mounting desperation, but he has yet to abandon the colonial conquest of Ukraine. Unless he is forced to do so, Russia’s unreconstructed imperial ambitions will remain a threat to world peace.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Oct 17, 2022

Putin’s blackout blitz: Russia aims to freeze Ukrainians into surrender

By Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti

Russia is seeking to plunge Ukraine into darkness ahead of the winter heating season by destroying the country’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s partners must step in to make sure Ukrainians are not frozen into surrender.

Conflict Energy Markets & Governance

UkraineAlert Oct 18, 2022

Bowing to Putin’s nuclear blackmail will make nuclear war more likely

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk

Giving in to Putin’s nuclear blackmail would not end the war in Ukraine. What it would do is set a disastrous precedent that makes a future nuclear war far more likely while encouraging uncontrolled nuclear proliferation.

Arms Control Conflict

UkraineAlert Oct 25, 2022

Poll: 86% of Ukrainians want to fight on despite Russian terror bombing

By Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s campaign to destroy Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure marks a dramatic escalation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the increasingly desperate Russian ruler seeks to avert military defeat.

Conflict Human Rights

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

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post NATO, Nazis, Satanists: Putin is running out of excuses for his imperial war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Executive summary

Cyberspace as a domain of conflict often creates an asymmetric advantage for comparably less capable or under-resourced actors to compete against relatively stronger counterparts.¹ As such, a panoply of non-state actors is increasingly acquiring capabilities and integrating offensive cyber operations into their toolkits to further their strategic aims. From financially driven criminal ransomware groups to politically inspired patriot hacking collectives, non-state actors have a wide range of motivations for turning to offensive cyber capabilities. A number of these non-state actors have histories rooted almost entirely in armed kinetic violence, from professional military contractors to drug cartels, and the United States and its allies are still grappling with how to deal with them in the cyber context.² Militant and terrorist organizations have their own specific motivations for acquiring offensive cyber capabilities, and their operations therefore warrant close examination by the United States and its allies to develop effective countermeasures.

While most academic scholarship and government strategies on counterterrorism are beginning to recognize and address the integral role of some forms of online activity, such as digital media and propaganda on behalf of terrorist organizations, insufficient attention has been given to the offensive cyber capabilities of these actors. Moreover, US strategy,³ public intelligence assessments, and academic literature on global cyber threats to the United States overwhelmingly focuses on the “big four” nation-state adversaries—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Before more recent efforts to address the surge in financially driven criminal ransomware operations, the United States and its allies deployed policy countermeasures overwhelmingly designed for use against state actors.

To the extent that US counterterrorism strategy addresses the offensive cyber threat from terrorist organizations, it is focused on defending critical infrastructure against the physical consequences of a cyberattack. Hamas, despite being a well-studied militant and terrorist organization, is expanding its offensive cyber and information capabilities, a fact that is largely overlooked by counterterrorism and cyber analysts alike. Overshadowed by the specter of a catastrophic cyberattack from other entities, the real and ongoing cyber threats posed by Hamas prioritize espionage and information operations.

This report seeks to highlight Hamas as an emerging and capable cyber actor, first by explaining Hamas’s overall strategy, a critical facet for understanding the group’s use of cyber operations. Next, an analysis will show how Hamas’s cyber activities do not indicate a sudden shift in strategy but, rather, a realignment that augments operations. In other words, offensive cyber operations are a new way for Hamas to do old things better. Finally, the policy community is urged to think differently about how it approaches similar non-state groups that may leverage the cyber domain in the future. This report can be used as a case study for understanding the development and implementation of cyber tools by non-state entities.

As the title of this report suggests, Hamas is like a green hat hacker—a term that is not specific to the group but recognized in the information security community as someone who is relatively new to the hacking world, lacking sophistication but fully committed to making an impact and keen to learn along the way.⁴ Hamas has demonstrated steady improvement in its cyber capabilities and operations over time, especially in its espionage operations against internal and external targets. At the same time, the organization’s improvisation, deployment of relatively unsophisticated tools, and efforts to influence audiences are all hallmarks of terrorist strategies. This behavior is in some ways similar to the Russian concept of “information confrontation,” featuring a blend of technical, information, and psychological operations aimed at wielding influence over the information environment.⁵

Understanding these dynamics, as well as how cyber operations fit into the overall strategy, is key to the US development of effective countermeasures against terrorist organizations’ offensive cyber operations.

“Pwn” goal

In the summer of 2018, as teams competed in the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) World Cup in Russia, Israeli soldiers followed the excitement on their smartphones from an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) base thousands of miles away. Like others in Israel, the soldiers were using a new Android application called Golden Cup, available for free from the Google Play store. The program was promoted in the lead up to the tournament as “the fastest app for live scores and fixtures for the World Cup.”⁶ The easy-to-use application delivered as advertised—and more.

Once installed, the application communicated with its command-and-control server to surreptitiously download malicious payloads onto user devices. The payloads infected the target devices with spyware, a variety of malware that discreetly monitors the target’s device and steals its information, usually for harmful use against the target individual.⁷ In this particular case, the spyware was intentionally deployed after the application was downloaded from the Google Play store in order to bypass Google’s security screening process.⁸ This allowed the spyware operator to remotely execute code on user smartphones to track locations, access cameras and microphones, download images, monitor calls, and exfiltrate files.

Golden Cup users, which included Israeli civilians and soldiers alike, did not realize that their devices were infected with spyware. As soldiers went about their daily routines on bases, the spyware operators reaped reams of data from the compromised smartphones. In just a few weeks of discreet collection, before discovery by IDF security, the adversary successfully collected non-public information about various IDF bases, offices, and military hardware, such as tanks and armored vehicles.⁹

The same adversary targeted Israeli soldiers with several other malicious Android applications throughout the summer of 2018. A fitness application that tracks user running routes collected the phone numbers of soldiers jogging in a particularly sensitive geographic location. After collecting these numbers, the adversary targeted the soldiers with requests to download a second application that then installed spyware. Additional targeting of Israeli soldiers that same summer included social engineering campaigns encouraging targets to download various spyware-laced dating applications with names like Wink Chat and Glance Love, prompting the IDF to launch the aptly named Operation Broken Heart in response.¹⁰

Surprisingly, this cyber espionage campaign was not the work of a nation-state actor. Although the clever tradecraft exhibited in each operation featured many of the hallmarks of a foreign intelligence service, neither Israel’s geopolitical nemesis Iran nor China,¹¹ an increasingly active Middle East regional player, was involved.¹² Instead, the campaign was the work of Hamas.

1. Introduction

The asymmetric advantage afforded by cyberspace is leading a panoply of non-state actors to acquire and use offensive cyber capabilities to compete against relatively stronger counterparts. The cyber threat from criminal ransomware organizations has been well documented, yet a range of other non-state actors traditionally involved in armed kinetic violence, from professional military contractors to drug cartels, is also trying their hand at offensive cyber operations, and the United States and its allies are still grappling with how to respond. Each actor has a discreet motivation for dabbling in cyber activities, and lumping them all into one bucket of non-state actors can complicate efforts to study and address their actions. The operations of militant and terrorist organizations in particular warrant close examination by the United States and its allies in order to develop effective countermeasures.

A robust online presence is essential for modern terrorist organizations. They rely on the internet to recruit members, fund operations, indoctrinate target audiences, and garner attention on a global scale—all key functions for maintaining organizational relevance and for surviving.¹³ The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment from the US Intelligence Community suggests that terrorist groups will continue to leverage digital media and internet platforms to inspire attacks that threaten the United States and US interests abroad.¹⁴ Recent academic scholarship on counterterrorism concurs, acknowledging the centrality of the internet to various organizations, ranging from domestic right-wing extremists to international jihadists, and their efforts to radicalize, organize, and communicate.

The US government has taken major steps in recent years to counter terrorist organizations in and through cyberspace. The declassification of documents on Joint Task Force Ares and Operation Glowing Symphony, which began in 2016, sheds light on complex US Cyber Command efforts to combat the Islamic State in cyberspace, specifically targeting the group’s social media and propaganda efforts and leveraging cyber operations to support broader kinetic operations on the battlefield.¹⁵ The latest US National Strategy for Counterterrorism, published in 2018, stresses the need to impede terrorist organizations from leveraging the internet to inspire and enable attacks.¹⁶

Indeed, continued efforts to counter the evolving social media and propaganda tools of terrorist organizations will be critical, but this will not comprehensively address the digital threat posed by these groups. Counterterrorism scholarship and government strategies have paid scant attention to the offensive cyber capabilities and operations of terrorist organizations, tools that are related but distinct from other forms of online influence. Activities of this variety do not necessarily cause catastrophic physical harm, but their capacity to influence public perception and, potentially, the course of political events should be cause for concern.

Several well-discussed, politically significant non-state actors with histories rooted almost entirely in kinetic violence are developing, or otherwise acquiring, offensive cyber capabilities to further their interests. More scrutiny of these actors, their motivations, and how they strategically deploy offensive cyber capabilities in conjunction with evolving propaganda and kinetic efforts is warranted to better orient toward the threat.

Hamas, a Palestinian political party and militant terrorist organization that serves as the de facto governing body of the Gaza Strip, is one such actor. The group’s burgeoning cyber capabilities, alongside its propaganda tactics, pose a threat to Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and US interests in the region—especially in tandem with the group’s capacities to fund, organize, inspire, and execute kinetic attacks. This combination of capabilities has historically been the dominion of more powerful state actors. However, the integration of offensive cyber capabilities into the arsenals of traditionally kinetic non-state actors, including militant organizations, is on the rise due to partnerships with state guarantors and the general proliferation of these competencies worldwide.

This report seeks to highlight the offensive cyber and information capabilities and behavior of Hamas. First, a broad overview of Hamas’s overall strategy is provided, an understanding of which is key for evaluating its cyber activities. Second, this report analyzes the types of offensive cyber operations in which Hamas engages, showing that the adoption of cyber capabilities does not indicate a sudden shift in strategy but, rather, a realignment of strategy and an augmentation of operations. In other words, offensive cyber operations are a new way to do old things better. Third, this report aims to push the policy community to think differently about its approach to similar non-state groups that may leverage the cyber domain in the future.

2. Overview of Hamas’s strategy

Principles and philosophy

Founded in the late 1980s, Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah, translated as the Islamic Resistance Movement and better known as Hamas, is a Palestinian religious political party and militant organization. After Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Hamas used its 2006 Palestinian legislative election victory to take over militarily from rival political party Fatah in 2007. The group has served as the de facto ruler of Gaza ever since, effectively dividing the Palestinian Territories into two entities, with the West Bank governed by the Hamas-rejected and Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority.¹⁷

Hamas’s overarching objectives are largely premised on its founding principles—terminating what it views as the illegitimate State of Israel and establishing Islamic, Palestinian rule.¹⁸ The group’s grand strategy comprises two general areas of focus: resisting Israel and gaining political clout with the Palestinian people. These objectives are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, as Hamas’s public resistance to Israel feeds Palestinian perceptions of the group as the leader of the Palestinian cause.¹⁹

Despite Hamas’s maximalist public position on Israel, the organization’s leaders are rational actors who logically understand the longevity and power of the State of Israel. Where the group can make meaningful inroads is in Palestinian politics, trying to win public support from the more secular, ruling Fatah party and positioning itself to lead a future Palestinian state. Looming uncertainty about the future of an already weak Palestinian Authority, led by the aging President Mahmoud Abbas, coupled with popular demand for elections, presents a potential opportunity for Hamas to fill a leadership vacuum.²⁰

To further these objectives, Hamas attracts attention by frequently generating and capitalizing on instability. The group inflames already tumultuous situations to foster an environment of extremism, working against those who are willing to cooperate in the earnest pursuit of a peaceful solution to the Israel–Palestine conflict. Hamas uses terror tactics to influence public perception and to steer political outcomes, but still must exercise strategic restraint to avoid retaliation that could be militarily and politically damaging. Given these self-imposed restraints, Hamas seeks alternative methods of influence that are less likely to result in blowback.

Terrorism strategy

Hamas’s terror tactics have included suicide bombings,²¹ indiscriminate rocket fire,²² sniper attacks,²³ incendiary balloon launches,²⁴ knifings,²⁵ and civilian kidnappings,²⁶ all in support of its larger information strategy to project a strong image and to steer political outcomes. Through these activities, Hamas aims to undermine Israel and the Palestinian Authority²⁷ and challenge the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO)²⁸ standing as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people.”

Terrorism forms the foundation of Hamas’s approach, and the organization’s leadership openly promotes such activities.²⁹ While the group’s terror tactics have evolved over time, they have consistently been employed against civilian targets to provoke fear, generate publicity, and achieve political objectives. Israeli communities targeted by terrorism, as well as Palestinians in Gaza living under Hamas rule, suffer from considerable physical and psychological stress,³⁰ driving Israeli policymakers to carry out military operations, often continuing a vicious cycle that feeds into Hamas’s information campaign.

These terrorist tactics follow a coercive logic that aligns with Hamas’s greater messaging objectives. Robert Pape’s “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism” specifically names Hamas as an organization with a track record of perpetrating strategically timed suicide terrorist attacks for coercive political effect.³¹ In 1995, for example, Hamas conducted a flurry of suicide attacks, killing dozens of civilians in an attempt to pressure the Israeli government to withdraw from certain locations in the West Bank. Once negotiations were underway between Israel and the PLO, Hamas temporarily suspended the attacks, only to resume them against Israeli targets when diplomatic progress appeared to stall. Israel would eventually partially withdraw from several West Bank cities later that year.³²

Similarly, just several months before Israel’s 1996 general election, incumbent Labor Party Prime Minister Shimon Peres led the polls by roughly 20 percent in his reelection bid against Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party. However, a spate of Hamas suicide bombings cut Peres’s lead and Netanyahu emerged victorious.³³ The attacks were designed to weaken the reelection bid of Peres, widely viewed as the candidate most likely to advance the peace process, and strengthen the candidacy of Netanyahu. Deliberate terror campaigns such as these demonstrate the power Hamas wields over Israeli politics.³⁴

The Israeli security establishment has learned lessons from the phenomenon of suicide terrorism, implementing countermeasures to foil attacks. Since the mid-2000s, Hamas has shifted its focus to firing rockets of various ranges and precision from the Gaza Strip at civilian population centers in Israel.³⁵ The rocket attacks became frequent after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, ebbing and flowing in alignment with significant political events.³⁶ For instance, the organization targeted towns in southern Israel with sustained rocket fire in the lead up to the country’s general election in 2009 to discourage Israelis from voting for pro-peace candidates.³⁷

Strategic restraint

Each of these terror tactics has the powerful potential to generate publicity with Israelis, Palestinians, and audiences elsewhere. However, unrestrained terrorism comes at a cost, something Hamas understands. Hamas must weigh its desire to carry out attacks with the concomitant risks, including an unfavorable international perception, military retaliation, infrastructure damage, and internal economic and political pressures.

Hamas addresses this in a number of ways. First, it limits its operations, almost exclusively, to Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Hamas has learned from the failures of other Palestinian terrorist organizations, whose operations beyond Israel’s borders were often counterproductive, attracting legitimate international criticism of these groups.³⁸ Such operations also run the risk of alienating critical Hamas benefactors like Qatar and Turkey.³⁹ These states, which maintain important relationships with the United States—not to mention burgeoning ties with Israel—could pressure Hamas to course correct, if not outright withdraw their support for the organization.⁴⁰ The continued flow of billions of dollars in funding from benefactors like Qatar is critical, not just to Hamas’s capacity to conduct terror attacks and wage war,⁴¹ but also to its efforts to reconstruct infrastructure and provide social services in the Gaza Strip, both key factors for building its political legitimacy among Palestinians.⁴²

Second, with each terrorist attack, Hamas must weigh the potential for a forceful Israeli military response. The cycle of terrorism and retaliation periodically escalates into full-scale wars that feature Israeli air strikes and ground invasions of Gaza. These periodic operations are known in the Israeli security establishment as “mowing the grass,” a component of Israel’s strategy to keep Hamas’s arsenal of rockets, small arms, and infrastructure, including its elaborate underground tunnel network, from growing out of control like weeds in an unkempt lawn.⁴³ Hamas’s restraint has been apparent since May 2021, when Israel conducted Operation Guardian of the Walls, a roughly two-week campaign of mostly airstrikes and artillery fire aimed at slashing the group’s rocket arsenal and production capabilities, crippling its tunnels, and eliminating many of its top commanders. Hamas is thought to be recovering and restocking since the ceasefire, carefully avoiding engaging in provocations that could ignite another confrontation before the group is ready.

Third, and critically, since mid-2021, the last year-plus of the Israel–Hamas conflict has been one of the quietest in decades due to the Israeli Bennett–Lapid government’s implementation of a sizable civil and economic program for Gaza.⁴⁴ The program expands the number of permits for Palestinians from Gaza to work in Israel, where the daily wages of one worker are enough to support an additional ten Palestinians.⁴⁵ Israel’s Defense Ministry signed off on a plan to gradually increase work permit quotas for Palestinians from Gaza to an unprecedented 20,000, with reports suggesting plans to eventually increase that number to 30,000.⁴⁶ For an impoverished territory with an unemployment rate of around 50 percent, permits to work in Israel improve the lives of Palestinians and stabilize the economy. The program also introduced economic incentives for Hamas to keep the peace—conducting attacks could result in snap restrictions on permits and border crossing closures, leading to a public backlash, as well as internal political blowback within the group. The power of this economic tool was evident throughout Israel’s Operation Breaking Dawn in August 2022, during which Israel conducted a three-day operation to eliminate key military assets and personnel of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another Gaza-based terrorist organization. Israel was careful to communicate its intention to target PIJ, not Hamas. Ordinarily a ready-and-willing belligerent in such flare-ups, Hamas did nothing to restrain the PIJ but remained conspicuously on the sidelines, refraining from fighting out of its interest in resuming border crossings as quickly as possible.⁴⁷

Searching for alternatives

Given these limitations, blowbacks, and self-imposed restraints, Hamas is finding alternative methods of influence. Under the leadership of its Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, Hamas is endeavoring to inspire Arab Israelis and West Bank Palestinians to continue the struggle by taking up arms and sparking an intifada while the group nurses itself back to strength.⁴⁸ To further this effort, Hamas is turning to more insidious means of operating in the information space to garner support and ignite conflagrations without further jeopardizing its public reputation, weapons stockpiles, infrastructure, or the economic well-being of the Palestinians living under its control. Like many state actors working to advance strategic ambitions, Hamas has turned to offensive cyber operations as a means of competing below the threshold of armed conflict.

Deploying offensive cyber capabilities involves exceptionally low risks and costs for operators. For groups like Hamas that are worried about potential retaliation, these operations present an effective alternative to kinetic operations that would otherwise provoke an immediate response. Most national cyber operation countermeasures are geared toward state adversaries and, in general, finding an appropriate response to non-state actors in this area has been challenging. Many state attempts to retaliate and deter have been toothless, resulting in little alteration of the adversary’s calculations.⁴⁹

3. Hamas’s cyber strategy

The nature of the cyber domain allows weak actors, like Hamas, to engage and inflict far more damage on powerful actors, like Israel, than would otherwise be possible in conventional conflict.⁵⁰ This asymmetry means that cyberspace offers intrinsically covert opportunities to store, transfer, and deploy consequential capabilities with far less need for organizational resources and financial or human capacity than in industrial warfare. Well-suited to support information campaigns, cyber capabilities are useful for influencing an audience without drawing the attention and repercussions of more conspicuous operations, like terrorism. In these ways, cyber operations fit into Hamas’s overall strategy and emphasis on building public perception and influence. Making sense of this strategy allows a greater understanding of past Hamas cyber operations, and how the group will likely operate in the cyber domain going forward.

Hamas’s cyber capabilities, while relatively nascent and lacking the sophisticated tools of other hacking groups, should not be underestimated. It comes as a surprise to many security experts that Hamas—chronically plagued by electricity shortages in the Gaza Strip, with an average of just ten to twelve hours of electricity per day—even possesses cyber capabilities.⁵¹ Israel’s control over the telecommunications frequencies and infrastructure of the Gaza Strip raises further doubts about how Hamas could operate a cyber program.⁵² However, in 2019, Israel deemed the offensive cyber threat to be critical enough that after thwarting an operation, the IDF carried out a strike to destroy Hamas’s cyber headquarters,⁵³ one of the first acknowledged kinetic operations by a military in response to a cyber operation. However, despite an IDF spokesperson’s claim that “Hamas no longer has cyber capabilities after our strike,” public reporting has highlighted various Hamas cyber operations in the ensuing months and years.⁵⁴

This dismissive attitude toward Hamas’s cyber threat also overlooks the group’s operations from outside the confines of the Gaza Strip. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AKP Party share ideological sympathies with Hamas and have extended citizenship to Hamas leadership.⁵⁵ The group’s leaders have allegedly used Turkey as a base for planning attacks and even as a safe haven for an overseas cyber facility.⁵⁶ Hamas maintains even more robust relationships with other state supporters, namely Iran and Qatar, which provide financing, safe havens, and weapons technology.⁵⁷ With the assistance of state benefactors, Hamas will continue to develop offensive cyber and information capabilities that, if overlooked, could result in geopolitical consequences.

For at least a decade, Hamas has engaged in cyber operations against Israeli and Palestinian targets. These operations can be divided in two broad operational categories that align with Hamas’s overall strategy: espionage and information. The first category, cyber espionage operations, accounts for the majority of Hamas’s publicly reported cyber activity and underpins the group’s information operations.

Espionage operations

Like any state or non-state actor, Hamas relies on quality intelligence to provide its leadership and commanders with decision-making advantages in the political and military arenas. The theft of valuable secrets from Israel, rival Palestinian factions, and individuals within its own ranks provides Hamas with strategic and operational leverage, and is thus prioritized in its cyber operations.

The Internal Security Force (ISF) is Hamas’s primary intelligence organization, comprised of members of the al-Majd security force from within the larger Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a military wing of Hamas. The ISF’s responsibilities range from espionage to quashing political opposition and dissent from within the party and its security apparatus.⁵⁸ The range of the ISF’s missions manifests through Hamas’s cyber operations.

Tactical evolution

Naturally, Israel is a primary target of Hamas’s cyber espionage. These operations have become commonplace over the last several years, gradually evolving from broad, blunt tactics into more tailored, sophisticated approaches. The group’s initial tactics focused on a “spray and pray” approach, distributing impersonal emails with malicious attachments to a large number of targets, hoping that a subset would bite. For example, an operation that began in mid-2013 and was discovered in February 2015 entailed Hamas operators luring targets with the promise of pornographic videos that were really malware apps. The operators relied on their victims—which included targets across the government, military, academic, transportation, and infrastructure sectors—withholding information about the incidents from their workplace information technology departments, out of shame for clicking on pornography at work, thereby maximizing access and time on the target.⁵⁹

Later, Hamas operations implemented various tactical updates to increase their chances of success. In September 2015, the group began including links rather than attachments, non-pornographic lures such as automobile accident videos, and additional encryption of the exfiltrated data.⁶⁰ Another campaign, publicized in February 2017, involved a more personalized approach using social engineering techniques to target IDF personnel with malware from fake Facebook accounts.⁶¹ In subsequent years, the group began rolling out a variety of smartphone applications and marketing websites to surreptitiously install mobile remote access trojans on target devices. In 2018, the group implanted spyware on smartphones by masquerading as Red Alert, a rocket siren application for Israelis.⁶² Similarly in 2020, Hamas targeted Israelis through dating apps with names like Catch&See and GrixyApp.⁶³ As previously mentioned, Hamas also cloaked its spyware in a seemingly benign World Cup application that allowed the group to collect information on a variety of IDF military installations and hardware, including armored vehicles. These are all areas Hamas commanders have demonstrated interest in learning more about in order to gain a potential advantage in a future kinetic conflict.⁶⁴

According to the Israeli threat intelligence firm Cybereason, more recent discoveries indicate a “new level of sophistication” in Hamas’s operations.⁶⁵ In April 2022, a cyber espionage campaign targeting individuals from the Israeli military, law enforcement, and emergency services used previously undocumented malware featuring enhanced stealth mechanisms. This indicates that Hamas is taking more steps to protect operational security than ever.⁶⁶ The infection vector for this particular campaign was through social engineering on platforms like Facebook, a hallmark of many Hamas espionage operations, to dupe targets into downloading trojanized applications. Once the malware is downloaded, Hamas operators can access a wide range of information from the device’s documents, camera, and microphone, acquiring immense data on the target’s whereabouts, interactions, and more. Information collected off of military, law enforcement, and emergency services personnel can be useful on its own or for its potential extortion value.

As part of its power struggle with the Palestinian Authority and rival Fatah party, Hamas targets Palestinian political and security officials with similar operations. In another creative cyber espionage operation targeting the Palestinian Authority, Hamas operators used hidden malware to exfiltrate information from the widely used cloud platform Dropbox.⁶⁷ The same operation targeted political and government officials in Egypt,⁶⁸ an actor Hamas is keen to surveil given its shared border with the Gaza Strip and role brokering ceasefires and other negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Other common targets of Hamas’s cyber espionage campaigns are members of its own organization. One of the ISF’s roles is counterintelligence, a supremely important field to an organization that is rife with internecine political rivalries,⁶⁹ as well as paranoia about the watchful eyes of Israeli and other intelligence services. According to Western intelligence sources, one of the main missions of Hamas’s cyber facility in Turkey is deploying counterintelligence against Hamas dissenters and spies.⁷⁰ Hamas is sensitive to the possibility of Palestinians within its ranks and others acting as “collaborators” with Israel, and the group occasionally summarily executes individuals on the suspicion of serving as Israeli intelligence informants.⁷¹

Information operations

While the bulk of Hamas’s cyber operations place a premium on information gathering, a subset involves using this information to further its efforts to influence the public. This broadly defined category of information operations comprises everything from hack-and-leaks to defacements to social media campaigns that advance beneficial narratives.

Hack-and-leak operations, when hackers acquire secret or otherwise sensitive information and subsequently make it public, are clear attempts to shift public opinion and “simulate scandal.”⁷² The strategic dissemination of stolen documents, images, and videos—potentially manipulated—at critical junctures can be a windfall for a group like Hamas. In December 2014, Hamas claimed credit for hacking the IDF’s classified network and posting multiple videos taken earlier in the year of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip.⁷³ The clips, which were superimposed with Arabic captions by Hamas,⁷⁴ depicted sensitive details about the IDF’s operation, including two separate instances of Israeli forces engaging terrorists infiltrating Israel—one group infiltrating by sea en route to Kibbutz Zikim and one group via a tunnel under the border into Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha—to engage in kidnappings. One of the raids resulted in a fight that lasted for roughly six hours and the death of two Israelis.⁷⁵ By leaking the footage, including images of the dead Israelis, Hamas sought to project itself as a strong leader to Palestinians and to instill fear among Israelis, boasting about its ability to infiltrate Israel, kill Israelis, and return to Gaza. These operations are intended to demonstrate Hamas’s strength on two levels: first, their ability to hack and steal valuable material from Israel and second, their boldness in carrying out attacks to further the Palestinian national cause.

Defacement is another tool in Hamas’s cyber arsenal. This sort of operation, a form of online vandalism that usually involves breaching a website to post propaganda, is not so much devastating as it is a nuisance.⁷⁶ The operations are intended to embarrass the targets, albeit temporarily, and generate a psychological effect on an audience. In 2012, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, Hamas claimed responsibility for attacks on Israeli websites, including the IDF’s Homefront Command, asserting that the cyber operations were “an integral part of the war against Israel.”⁷⁷ Since then, Hamas has demonstrated its ability to reach potentially wider audiences through defacement operations. Notably, in July 2014 during Operation Protective Edge, Hamas gained access to the satellite broadcast of Israel’s Channel 10 television station for a few minutes, broadcasting images purportedly depicting Palestinians injured by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas hackers also displayed a threat in Hebrew text: “If your government does not agree to our terms, then prepare yourself for an extended stay in shelters.”⁷⁸

Hamas has conducted defacement operations itself and has relied on an army of “patriotic hackers.” Patriotic hacking, cyberattacks against a perceived adversary performed by individuals on behalf of a nation, is not unique to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. States have turned to sympathetic citizens around the world for support, often directing individual hackers to deface adversaries’ websites, as Ukraine did after Russia’s 2022 invasion.⁷⁹ Similarly, Hamas seeks to inspire hackers from around the Middle East to “resist” Israel, resulting in the defacement of websites belonging to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and Israel’s national airline El Al by Arab hackers.⁸⁰

In tandem with its embrace of patriotic hackers, Hamas seeks to multiply its propaganda efforts by enlisting the help of Palestinians on the street for less technical operations. To some extent, Hamas uses social media in similar ways to other terrorist organizations to inspire violence, urging Palestinians to attack Jews in Israel and the West Bank, for instance.⁸¹ However, the group goes a step further, encouraging Palestinians in Gaza to contribute to its efforts by providing guidelines for social media posting. The instructions, provided by Hamas’s Interior Ministry, detail how Palestinians should post about the conflict and discuss it with outsiders, including preferred terminology and practices such as, “Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine, before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank. Don’t forget to always add ‘innocent civilian’ or ‘innocent citizen’ in your description of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.” Other instructions include, “Avoid publishing pictures of rockets fired into Israel from [Gaza] city centers. This [would] provide a pretext for attacking residential areas in the Gaza Strip.”⁸² Information campaigns like these extend beyond follower indoctrination and leave a tangible mark on international public discourse, as well as structure the course of conflict with Israel.

Hamas’s ability to leverage the cyber domain to shape the information landscape can have serious implications on geopolitics. Given the age and unpopularity of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—polling shows that 80 percent of Palestinians want him to resign—as well as the fragile state of the Palestinian Authority,⁸³ the Palestinian public’s desire for elections, and general uncertainty about the future, Hamas’s information operations can have a particularly potent effect on a discourse that is already contentious. The same can be said, to some extent, for the information environment in Israel, where political instability has resulted in five elections in just three and a half years.⁸⁴ When executed strategically, information operations can play an influencing, if not deciding, role in electoral outcomes, as demonstrated by Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.⁸⁵ A well-timed hack-and-leak operation, like Russia’s breach of the Democratic National Committee’s networks and dissemination of its emails, could majorly influence the momentum of political events in both Israel and Palestine.⁸⁶ Continued failure to reach a two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict will jeopardize Israel’s diplomatic relationships,⁸⁷ as well as stability in the wider Middle East.⁸⁸

4. Where do Hamas’s cyber operations go from here?

As outlined in its founding charter, as long as Hamas exists, it will place a premium on influencing audiences—friendly, adversarial, and undecided—and mobilizing them to bend political outcomes toward its ultimate objectives.⁸⁹ Terrorism has been a central element of the group’s influence agenda, but cyber and information operations offer alternative and complementary options for engagement. It stands to reason that as Hamas’s cyber capabilities steadily evolve and improve, those of similar organizations will do the same.

Further Israeli efforts to curb terrorism through a cocktail of economic programs and advancements in defensive technologies, such as its integrated air defense system, raise questions about how Hamas and similar groups’ incentive structures may change their calculi in light of evolving state countermeasures. There is no Iron Dome in cyberspace. Militant and terrorist organizations are not changing their strategies of integrating cyber and information operations into their repertoires. Instead, they are finding new means of achieving old goals. Important questions for future research include:

• If states like Iran transfer increasingly advanced kinetic weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and the Houthis, to what extent does this assistance extend to offensive cyber capabilities? What will this support look like in the future, and will these groups depend on state support to sustain their cyber operations?

• What lessons is Hamas drawing from the past year of relative calm with Israel that may influence the cadence and variety of its cyber operations? How might these lessons influence similar organizations around the world?

• What sorts of operations, such as financially motivated ransomware and cybercrime, has Hamas not engaged in? Will Hamas and comparable organizations learn from and adopt operations that are similar to other variously motivated non-state actors?

• What restrictions and incentives can the United States and its allies implement to curb the transfer of cyber capabilities to terrorist organizations?

Cyber capabilities are advancing rapidly worldwide and more advanced technologies are increasingly accessible, enabling relatively weak actors to compete with strong actors like never before. Few controls exist to effectively counter this proliferation of offensive cyber capabilities, and the technical and financial barriers for organizations like Hamas to compete in this domain remain low.⁹⁰ Either by obtaining and deploying highly impactful tools, or by developing relationships with hacking groups in third-party countries to carry out operations, the threat from Hamas’s cyber and information capabilities will grow.

Just like the group’s rocket terror program, which began with crude, short-range, and inaccurate Qassam rockets that the group cobbled together from scratch, Hamas’s cyber program began with rather unsophisticated tools. Over the years, as the group obtained increasingly sophisticated, accurate, and long-range rockets from external benefactors like Iran, so too have Hamas’s cyber capabilities advanced in scale and sophistication.

Conclusion

Remarking on Hamas’s creative cyber campaigns, a lieutenant colonel in the IDF’s Cyber Directorate noted, “I’m not going to say they are not powerful or weak. They are interesting.”⁹¹ Observers should not view Hamas’s foray into cyber operations as an indication of a sudden organizational strategic shift. For its entire existence, the group has used terrorism as a means of garnering public attention and affecting the information environment, seizing strategic opportunities to influence the course of political events. As outside pressures change the group’s incentives to engage in provocative kinetic operations, cyber capabilities present alternative options for Hamas to advance its strategy. Hamas’s cyber capabilities will continue to advance, and the group will likely continue to leverage these tools in ways that will wield maximum influence over the information environment. Understanding how Hamas’s strategy and incentive structure guides its decision to leverage offensive cyber operations can provide insights, on a wider scale, about how non-state actors develop and implement cyber tools, and how the United States and its allies may be better able to counter these trends.

About the author

Fellow

Simon Handler

Nonresident Fellow

Cyber Statecraft Initiative Digital Forensic Research Lab

Cybersecurity Middle East

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank several individuals, without whose support this report would not look the same. First and foremost, thank you to Trey Herr and Emma Schroeder, director and associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, respectively, for helping from the start of this effort by participating in collaborative brainstorming sessions and providing extensive editorial feedback throughout. The author also owes a debt of gratitude to several individuals for generously offering their time to review various iterations of this document. Thanks to Ambassador Daniel Shapiro, Shanie Reichman, Yulia Shalomov, Stewart Scott, Madison Cullinan, and additional individuals who shall remain anonymous for valuable insights and feedback throughout the development of this report. Additionally, thank you to Valerie Bilgri for editing and Donald Partyka and Anais Gonzalez for designing the final document.

The Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, under the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), works at the nexus of geopolitics and cybersecurity to craft strategies to help shape the conduct of statecraft and to better inform and secure users of technology.

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Examples of such cases include criminal organizations in Latin America that maintain support by providing social services, building roads, maintaining water distribution systems, and handling trash disposal, the Mafia in Southern Italy which gained support by providing security and dispute resolution mechanisms, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, al-Shabaab in Somalia, and the Islamic State in Syria. In each of these cases, the organization provided many social services to the local population to maintain and gain support.

In our recently published paper in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, we provide causal evidence that violent organizations gain support by providing goods and services in competition with the state. And, that this strategy is only effective when and where there is a weak state. If violent organizations compete with an effective state, they lose support.

Why would terrorist organizations’ provision of public goods have an effect on citizens’ preferences? When citizens have incomplete information about the relative capacity of the state and the violent organization in providing social services, they update their beliefs about this relative capacity by observing the quality of the services delivered by these two organizations. Citizens’ perception of the ability of the state increases if there is a swift provision of public goods. The perception of the ability of the state decreases if there is inadequate provision of public goods, leaving an opportunity for a terrorist organization to show its ability.

We used data from Pakistan to show this evidence and, specifically, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Pakistani state’s effectiveness in the provision of public goods. To ensure that there are no confounding variables that may conflate our estimates, we studied the competition between the state and terrorist organizations in the provision of public goods after two different natural disasters. Both the TTP and the state compete in the provision of natural disaster relief. Furthermore, both the state and the TTP provide food, water, and medicine as immediate relief after natural disasters. In the long run, they are both involved in reconstruction efforts and provide a legal system to resolve disputes—often land-related—that arise after natural disasters. These two organizations compete in the provision of many other services such as education, medical care, and a legal system.

Due to changes in Pakistan’s international relationships, we can study two comparable situations in which the TTP provided services but were met with different state capacities by studying two natural disasters of similar magnitudes. We studied the 2010 floods that instead occurred after the relationship between the United States and Pakistan had deteriorated. With unusually low levels of aid, the government was unable to respond to this natural disaster adequately. We then examined an earthquake in 2005 that struck Pakistan in a period when it was a vital ally to the United States. This led to the arrival of substantial international aid and a swift response from the government.

Similarly, we used two difference-in-differences strategies to measure the effect of 2010 floods for support for the TTP and the effect of the 2005 earthquake on support for the Taliban. We measured support for the TTP using the fact that there is a close relationship between the extreme Islamist political alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and the TTP. That is, we compared changes in the political results of the MMA between areas affected by each natural disaster to areas unaffected by each natural disaster. We found that the MMA vote share increased by 5.1 percent more in areas affected by the flood relative to the unaffected areas. This effect represents a sizable change, given that their average vote share before the flood was 9.8 percent. These effects are stronger in districts where more people were affected by the flood, where the state particularly underdelivered, and where the TTP provided relief. These results represent a change in the beliefs of citizens exposed to the flood about the relative capacity of the state compared to the TTP.

On the other hand, we showed that the 2005 earthquake, a natural disaster of comparable size that received a swift response from the government, led to a 19.4 percent decrease in the MMA vote share relative to areas unaffected by the earthquake. This demonstrates how positive information about state capacity can reduce support for non-state organizations.

These results cannot be explained by alternative explanations such as political competition, voters punishing incumbents for poor management of a natural disaster resulting in political gains for other parties, changes in voter turnout, changes in the number of political parties, or the presence of selective migration out of the affected areas.

Instead, they highlight an important determinant of extremist ideology and support for such groups. 

Individuals respond to the way non-state actors and the state provide for them. We demonstrated that the efficiency of the state in a post-natural disaster period can move citizens to and away from a terrorist organization. Future public policy and research should consider the complementarity between government relief efforts and the rise of extremist groups in areas with weak institutions and extremism. With our results, we can provide a back-of-the-envelope calculation on the cost and benefit analysis of international aid as a tool in supporting anti-terrorism efforts. In the 2005 earthquake, around 53 percent of aid was delivered after three months. In contrast, in the 2010 flood, only 27 percent was delivered in the same amount of time. This 26 percent difference in aid delivered amounts to around one billion dollars. 

According to our estimates, this shortfall in aid motivated around two million voters to vote for the MMA.

Click here to view the full report, The Charitable Terrorist: State Capacity and the Support for the Pakistani Taliban. 

Dr. Federico Masera is a senior lecturer in Economics at the University of New South Wales and at the Resilient Democracy Lab.

Dr. Hasin Yousaf is an applied microeconometrician with interests in political economy and public economics, with additional interest in development economics and urban economics.

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

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Islamabad’s long-standing objective—to have a dependent government in Kabul—has finally burned to the ground with the presently ruling Taliban who, instead of providing any strategic advantage or contributing to Pakistan’s security, has become a worrisome thorn in Islamabad’s side. Not only does this have grave implications for Pakistan’s security (such as through Kabul’s support for the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP), but it also necessitates a revised policy strategy to effectively deal with the situation in neighboring Afghanistan.

But first, how did we get here?

The Afghan Taliban have coddled the TTP since the Republic’s collapse

Since coming to power on August 15, 2022, the Afghan Taliban have taken four questionable steps in support of the TTP that are conspicuously against Pakistan’s interests and security. 

1. Operational support: The most significant of these steps is supporting the TTP and providing them a free field in Afghanistan. Soon after assuming power, the Afghan Taliban regime set free over two-thousand TTP members incarcerated in Afghan jails by previous Afghan presidents Ashraf Ghani and Hamid Karzai. After six years of relative stability in Pakistan when terrorist attacks actually decreased each year, attacks increased in 2021 by 56 percent. 294 attacks overall saw 395 people killed, and these attacks “coincided with the Afghan Taliban’s military offensive [which] started in May 2021 and reached the highest point in August 2021 when the Taliban took over Kabul” according to Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. 
2. Pushing for Pakistani accomodation: The Afghan Taliban’s strategy of supporting and facilitating Pakistani talks with the TTP—as opposed to fighting the group militarily—has multiple geostrategic angles. The ramifications of this are that Pakistan must now contend with the facilitator of its talks with the TTP using relations with one of its prime security threats to force negotiations on the latter’s terms. Not only does this benefit the TTP as the Afghan Taliban’s brethren-in-arms (since the two have a long history of ties), but it also allows the Afghan Taliban to build a favorable image for themselves as peacemakers, putting Pakistan on the defensive so as not to meddle into Afghan affairs. Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, it might help to scratch off the label of the Afghan Taliban being Pakistani stooges. 
3. Ongoing refusal to recognize the Durand Line: The third significant anti-Pakistan measure of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is not to recognize as settled the 2,640 kilometer—otherwise internationally recognized—border between the two countries known as the Durand Line. In an interview in February 2022, Taliban Acting Information Minister Zabihullah Mujahid said, “the issue of the Durand Line is still an unresolved one, while the construction of fencing itself creates rifts within a nation spread across both sides of the border. It amounts to dividing a nation” (referring to the Pashtun ethnic-linguistic group). 
4. Openness to engaging India: The statement by Mullah Yaqoob, Taliban Defense Minister, desiring that Islamabad’s arch-rival India train Afghan troops, is of grave concern to Pakistan. Such an overture holds significant weight and represents a stark change in tone seeing as Yaqoob is the eldest son of the movement’s founder, Mullah Omar. It is thus a major blow to Pakistan’s decades-long policy in Afghanistan to have a dependent regime next door, precluding Islamabad’s long-term goal of using Afghanistan for its regional—and particularly its anti-India—agenda. If Delhi agrees to train Taliban troops, this would mark the beginning of the end of Taliban dependence on Pakistan, and a major foothold for Indian influence on Pakistan’s western border.

Major implications for Pakistan’s security and territorial integrity

These factors have profound implications for the security of Pakistan. Historically, the underlying concern of Islamabad regarding Afghanistan has been the latter’s irredentist claims on Pakistani territory (regarding the disputed Durand Line), which the Taliban are now spearheading. Championing this revanchist stand would pose a grave security challenge to Pakistan’s territorial integrity, particularly when the Afghan Taliban are already glove-in-hand with the TTP. 

The alignment of interests between these parties goes deeper: seeing as the Afghan Taliban and TTP are both Pashtun, it is thus concerning that—at the same time the Afghan Taliban continues to challenge Pakistani territorial integrity by rejecting the Durand Line—the TTP is concurrently pressing for a reversal to the merger of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Together, these efforts could mainstream the idea of a Pashtun-inhabited tribal borderland with a potential associated separatist movement. It also connects back to the Afghan Taliban’s double game in facilitating Islamabad-TTP talks while simultaneously enabling the TTP, with both angles designed to maintain leverage over Pakistan. 

Furthermore, the interest expressed to India by the Afghan Taliban to train its troops represents a major blow to Pakistan’s decades-long goal in Afghanistan to have a dependent regime next door. In case India takes up this offer, the latter could gradually become dependent upon the former and growing relations between the two militaries would undercut the very influence Pakistani strategists have worked years to develop over the Taliban. Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy thus has not provided it with a puppet regime next door as originally intended—what former US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson famously called Rawalpindi’s policy of “Strategic Depth.” 

That said, it is precisely because of this context that the Afghan Taliban—in conjunction with the TTP—are now similarly in search of influence, or “Reverse Strategic Depth,” in Pakistan.

How should Islamabad respond?

While the threat posed by the Afghan Taliban is severe, Pakistan must respond carefully, bearing in mind the evolving geopolitical landscape of the region. 

1. Fence the border. Pakistani state security and social cohesion have had already been lacerated by the proliferation of militancy, terrorism, weapons, and Pashtun separatism from the Afghan war-conflict theatre in the last forty years. Pakistan must therefore further strengthen border fencing and surveillance mechanisms so that the cross-border movement of terrorists—particularly the TTP—as well as the proliferation of leftover weapons in Afghanistan into Pakistani territory be stopped.
   
2. Negotiate with the TTP without the Afghan Taliban. Doing so would prevent Afghan Taliban leverage over Pakistan, which can currently enable the TTP and its operations in Pakistan depending on if Islamabad accedes to Kabul’s demands. As such, instead of appeasing them, Islamabad must straightforwardly present the TTP with an ultimatum: lay down their arms or otherwise face military action. In the meanwhile, Pakistan must use its influence to pressure the Afghan Taliban against having ties with the TTP, conveying to Kabul that the TTP poses a threat to its security and integrity. Once deprived of Afghan Taliban support, the TTP would have no other option but to negotiate with Pakistani authorities on the latter’s terms. 
   
3. Address the grievances of Pakistani Pashtuns. Pakistan’s war on terror has been entirely fought on Pashtun-inhabited regions, including KP, the former FATA region, and upper Balochistan, resulting in large-scale death, destruction, and displacement of millions of people. Incidents like the school attack in Peshawar which claimed the lives of at least 140 students is a case in point. It contributed to large-scale disaffection and anger among Pashtuns who consider themselves to have been victims of the war. Pakistan must put an end to discrimination and deprivation among its Pashtun population, dedicating funds for development, reviving livelihoods, and providing education.
   
   To do this, the government should begin by revoking the merger of the former FATA region with KP, making FATA a new province. Separation and localization of FATA and KP’s governance would be instrumental in establishing industries, extending loans to enable young people to set-up small businesses including privately run schools and workshops, and generally enable a better social-political-economic milieu.
   
   The difference, however, between this and the TTP’s push to reverse the merger is that the former would be an official, government-led policy serving the national interest, as opposed to an anti-state movement seeking to again have an unregulated territory from which to base terrorist operations in Pakistan (as it did prior to the merger). Revocation of the merger and making the region a province would enable inhabitants of the tribal borderlands to have their own elected legislative assembly that could formulate laws in accordance with local customs and traditions.
   
4. Open a dialogue with arch-rival India. That India and Pakistan have a long history of outsourcing their rivalry to regional conflicts is well documented. A mutual pledge between Islamabad and Delhi not to use the political vacuum and conflict in Afghanistan against each other could thus go a long way in addressing broader tensions in South Asia that foster proxy behavior. It is in the long-term interest of both countries to address issues directly as opposed to in roundabout ways. Here, India and Pakistan might find some common ground, despite the former being ruled by the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party and the latter being in the midst of its most serious political upheaval in decades. The security threat to the region emanating from Afghanistan could in time prove existential, and demonstrates the significance of Delhi-Islamabad cooperation insulated from domestic turbulence in both countries.
   
5. Push for regional economic integration. Islamabad must support a true free trade policy with Afghanistan and India so that economic interdependence among regional countries can be realized. This would be in line with Pakistan’s avowed paradigm shift in foreign policy focus from geostrategic to geoeconomic. Regional interdependence also would neutralize nonstate terrorist groups like the TTP and compel the Taliban to reform and focus on economic rehabilitation of their country instead of engaging in destructive and destabilizing activity for the broader region. In recent years, Pakistan’s mutual trade with Afghanistan due to Islamabad’s myopic policies has come down from three billion dollars to just $500 million.
   
   Both countries’ traders yearn to restore trade ties. Afghanistan, which does not have much export potential, has been dependent upon staple imports from Pakistan and other products due to their cheap prices and good quality. India—despite its political rivalry with Pakistan—has always been desirous of having open trade with Islamabad, demonstrated by its giving Most Favored Nation status to Pakistan in 1996 even though Islamabad never extended to India the same. Seeing as Pakistan is strategically situated between Afghanistan and India, it can use this goodwill and opportunities extended by its neighbors to serve as a bridge between the two countries and beyond with Central Asia.

Conclusion

Pakistan’s long-standing policy regarding Afghanistan has failed to achieve its core objective of having a pro-Islamabad regime in Kabul to counterbalance the threat from India. This policy failure has enabled and emboldened the Afghan Taliban to use Pakistan for the group’s own agenda: strengthen its stranglehold over Afghanistan via support from the TTP to the exclusion of all other Afghan political forces. This situation is against the interests of the people of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Pakistan must therefore revisit its Afghanistan policy and concentrate on strengthening security through measures like border fencing, talking to the TTP on its terms, addressing the genuine grievances of its Pashtun population, restoring purposeful dialogue with India, and pushing for intra-regional and cross-regional economic integration in which it could have an anchoring role.  

(The writer is a Pakistan-based academic, security, political and policy analyst. He holds a PhD degree in International Relations and master’s degrees in Political Science, IR and Media Studies. He is alumnus of U.S. State Department prestigious IVLP) razamzai@gmail.com

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

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While the official Russian version of events is self-evidently absurd, an understanding of the true meaning behind Moscow’s preferred terminology is essential for international audiences looking to make sense of the often bizarre statements coming out of the Kremlin. From “goodwill gestures” to “de-Nazification” and “reclaiming Russian lands,” here are some of the key phrases from the lexicon of Putin’s Ukraine War decoded into plain English.

Special Military Operation: When is a war not a war? When it is a Special Military Operation. This would appear to have been Putin’s logic when he announced his “Special Military Operation” against Ukraine in the early hours of February 24. Despite waging the largest and most widely reported European war since the days of Hitler and Stalin, the Russian dictator remains so paranoid over the negative connotations of the “w” word that he has banned its use entirely in the Russian media.

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De-Nazification: Putin has stated that the main goal of his “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine is the “de-Nazification” of the country. This attempt to justify the invasion by portraying it as a crusade against far-right extremism mirrors historic Kremlin efforts to discredit the Ukrainian independence movement by equating it with fascism. Putin’s “de-Nazification” claims are emotionally appealing to Russian audiences haunted by the horrors of WWII but they are also deeply misleading. Today’s Ukraine is actually an emerging democracy with a Jewish president and a far-right fringe that struggled to secure 2% of the vote in the country’s last national election.

In reality, the often savage actions of Russian troops in Ukraine have confirmed that the Kremlin views anything identifiably Ukrainian as “Nazi” and makes no distinction between the two. Putin’s proclaimed “de-Nazification” actually means “de-Ukrainianization,” as this prominent wartime article from Russian state news agency RIA Novosti makes abundantly clear. As far as most Ukrainians are concerned, the only Nazis in the country are the Russian soldiers waging a genocidal war on behalf of an unhinged dictator.  

Military Objects: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by a massive aerial campaign of bombings and missile strikes across the country. Meanwhile, Putin’s slowly advancing troops are heavily reliant on indiscriminate and overwhelming artillery attacks that have left thousands dead and reduced dozens of Ukrainian towns and cities to rubble.

While the whole world can see that much of Ukraine now lies in ruins, the Kremlin remains extremely sensitive to accusations of war crimes and continues to insist that Russian forces only ever target military objects. Based on the experience of the past four months, Russia’s understanding of “military objects” apparently includes Mariupol Drama Theater, Kramatorsk Railway Station and Kremenchuk Shopping Mall along with hundreds of schools, hospitals and residential buildings throughout Ukraine. With international war crimes investigations already underway, Russia’s claims regarding “military objects” will likely be tested in court.

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Goodwill Gesture: Russia expected a quick and victorious war in Ukraine, but things have not gone according to the Kremlin plan. Rather than capturing Kyiv within a few days as anticipated, Russian forces have encountered robust resistance and suffered a series of painful battlefield losses. In a desperate attempt to disguise these defeats and protect Russian dignity, the Kremlin has taken to officially describing its retreats as “goodwill gestures.”

The first “goodwill gesture” came in late March when Russia retreated entirely from northern Ukraine after suffering defeat in the Battle for Kyiv. Following Russia’s most recent retreat from strategically vital Black Sea outpost Snake Island on June 30, the Kremlin similarly declared that it was withdrawing as a “goodwill gesture” to Ukraine. Ukrainians will be hoping for many more such “goodwill gestures” in the weeks ahead as they seek to dislodge Russian forces from the south and east of their country.

Reclaiming Russian Lands: In the months leading up to the Russian invasion, Putin pretended to be primarily concerned with NATO expansion into the former USSR. He has since abandoned this pretense and declared himself the heir to Peter the Great. Speaking in early June, Putin compared the current war to the eighteenth century conquests of the celebrated czar and stated that like Peter, he was now also engaged in the historic endeavor of “reclaiming Russian lands.”  

Putin has never made any secret of the fact that he views the territory of modern Ukraine as historically Russian land. For years, he has denied Ukraine’s right to exist while claiming that all Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”). The real question is which other sovereign nations might also fit Putin’s definition. He recently set off alarm bells by commenting that the entire former Soviet Union was historically Russian territory.

Nor is it clear if Putin’s appetite for reclaiming Russian lands is limited to the 14 non-Russian post-Soviet states. Imperial Russia once also ruled Finland and Poland, while the Soviet Empire after WWII stretched deep into Central Europe and included East Germany. One thing is clear: unless he is stopped in Ukraine, Putin’s imperial ambitions are certain to expand.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

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Any lingering sense of shock is misplaced and reflects a failure to fully grasp the genocidal objectives driving the Russian invasion. In the four months since the conflict began, it has become abundantly clear that Moscow aims to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and eradicate all traces of Ukrainian identity while incorporating much of the country into Russia itself.

As the conflict has evolved and escalated, Russia’s chilling goals have been confirmed by numerous senior Kremlin officials. “The Ukraine that you and I had known, within the borders that used to be, no longer exists, and will never exist again,” commented Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on June 17.    

Putin himself has justified land seizures in Ukraine by comparing the current war to the early eighteenth century imperial conquests of Peter the Great, who transformed Muscovy into the Russian Empire. Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill has positioned the invasion as a holy mission to reunite Russian lands.

The destruction of eastern Ukraine by the Russian military draws upon the fascist ideological premise of rejuvenation through a cleansing of the past. According to the ideologues of the new Russian Empire, this will lead to the rebirth of formerly Ukrainian regions that Putin has repeatedly described as “ancient Russian lands” and now calls “liberated territories.”

In Putin’s warped worldview, it is precisely the most predominantly Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine that require what Yale professor Timothy Snyder has described as “cleansing violence” in order to free these regions from their contamination by “nationalist” ideas of Ukrainian statehood. Such thinking directly echoes the worst excesses of the totalitarian twentieth century and makes a mockery of Russia’s claims to be carrying out a “de-Nazification” operation in Ukraine.

Unsurprisingly, 89% of Ukrainians believe Russia’s military actions constitute genocide and nearly half of Ukrainians describe Putin’s regime as fascist or Nazi. America historian Snyder is one of a growing number of international experts to agree and has noted that a time traveler from the 1930s would have no difficulty identifying the Putin regime as fascist. “The symbol Z, the rallies, the propaganda, the war as a cleansing act of violence and the death pits around Ukrainian towns make it all very plain,” he wrote in May.

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In parallel with the physical destruction of eastern Ukraine, Putin’s genocidal plan also involves the systematic depopulation and ethnic cleansing of occupied regions. As a country dominated by the former Soviet security services, modern Russia has vast experience in the practicalities of ethnic cleansing and population expulsions. Indeed, the Soviet era witnessed many of the largest forced deportations in world history from Crimea, western Ukraine and the three Baltic republics. These crimes against humanity are now being repeated throughout occupied eastern and southern Ukraine.

Since the start of the invasion on February 24, more than one million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to the Russian-occupied Donbas region of eastern Ukraine or the Russian Federation itself. They have then been herded into so-called “filtration camps” and subjected to a wide range of human rights abuses including degrading strip searches and regular beatings. Those thought to harbor pro-Ukrainian views are subjected to particularly savage treatment and can expect to be singled out for further detention.

Ukrainians who come through the filtration process are typically sent to destinations throughout Russia, often finding themselves stranded thousands of kilometers from home and forced to live in dire conditions. Perhaps the most alarming aspect of this large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign is the fate of over 200,000 Ukrainian children who have been sent to Russia. Their removal from Ukraine is a textbook example of genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention.  

Throughout the occupied regions of eastern and southern Ukraine, Russian forces are ruthlessly eradicating all signs of Ukrainian statehood. This “de-Ukrainianization” of Ukraine is the grim reality behind Putin’s lofty claims to be “de-Nazifying” the country. Ukrainian schoolteachers are being forced to adopt the Russian curriculum, with any use of the Ukrainian language subject to severe punishment. Ukrainian history books have been burned, monuments removed, and symbols of Ukrainian identity outlawed.

Needless to say, the Ukrainian media is now banned throughout the occupied regions. The importance of propaganda to Moscow has been underlined by the deployment of special trucks with giant TV screens amid the ruins of occupied Mariupol. Those residents who survived the brutal siege of the city are now bombarded with Kremlin messaging from these Orwellian propaganda vehicles as they queue for food and water.

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Perhaps the most brutal aspect of this “de-Nazification” is the physical removal of anyone deemed pro-Ukrainian. Prior to the invasion, US intelligence warned that the Kremlin had created “Kill Lists” of Ukrainian journalists, elected officials, intellectuals, and civil society activists who were to be killed. These fears have proven well-founded, with thousands of Ukrainians subjected to abduction and illegal detention since February 2022.

Something as innocuous as a social media post disparaging the Russian military or supporting Ukrainian troops can be enough to ensure a person’s disappearance. The fate of most victims remains unknown, but evidence from liberated areas such as Bucha to the north of Kyiv and accounts from those who have returned from captivity indicate that torture and executions are common. The United Nations Office of Human Rights has stated that Russian troops have executed civilians in over 30 Ukrainian settlements and has identified executions in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions.

How has Putin persuaded so many Russians to participate in this genocide? The transformation of the Russian military into willing executioners of Ukrainians follows the same template used by both the Nazis and the Stalin regime. Prior to the mass killings of Poles, Ukrainians and other “enemies” of Soviet power in the 1930s, victims were first dehumanized by the state propaganda machine. The Kremlin media has repeated this process since the mid-2000s. In the words of the EU Center to Combat Disinformation, the Russian media has long called “for the eradication of Ukrainians in a manner that can only be described as genocidal.”

The Kremlin-controlled Russian media has frequently questioned Ukraine’s right to exist while demonizing Ukrainians as Nazis, fascists, and disloyal stooges of the hostile West. Ukrainian statehood is often portrayed as an entirely artificial construct propped up by foreign masters for the sole purpose of weakening Russia. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture are mocked and humiliated in terms reminiscent of late nineteenth century colonialism. This poisonous propaganda cocktail set the stage for the genocide that is now unfolding in plain view.

What would a future “de-Ukrainianized” Ukraine look like? If Putin’s genocide is allowed to continue, regions under Russian control will become heavily depopulated. Only those regarded as sufficiently Russified and loyal to Moscow will be allowed to remain, with others subjected to execution, imprisonment, deportation or exile. Russian citizens will be brought in from across the Russian Federation to repopulate occupied areas and transform the demographic balance in Moscow’s favor.

This process will mirror similar Soviet policies which saw millions of ethnic Russians and other nationalities from across the USSR brought to Ukraine to dilute the country’s sense of national identity. Dramatic population shifts of this nature have already taken place in Crimea since the Ukrainian peninsula was occupied by Russia in 2014. The Kremlin is reportedly now beginning to move Russian citizens into occupied areas of mainland Ukraine such as Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. 

Western policymakers should be in no doubt that the many different Russian war crimes currently taking place in Ukraine are all part of a coherent plan to commit genocide. Putin has made his genocidal intentions toward the country clear on numerous occasions. He is now slowly but surely realizing his criminal vision of a Ukraine without Ukrainians. If he is not stopped, future generations will struggle to comprehend why the democratic world stood by and let it happen.  

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and author of the recently published “Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War.”

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The UK move follows on from widespread criticism of the religious leader’s stance in support of the war in Ukraine, with Pope Francis earlier urging his Russian colleague to stay out of politics in order to avoid becoming “Putin’s altar boy.” Opposition has also been registered across the Orthodox world and from within the ranks of the Russian Orthodox Church itself, with individual priests and entire congregations seeking to distance themselves from the Patriarch as the horrors of the conflict in Ukraine have become increasingly apparent.

Patriarch Kirill has come under fire for repeatedly portraying the invasion of Ukraine as a holy war while endorsing Putin’s denials of Ukrainian independence and repeating Kremlin propaganda about imaginary fascists. During one fairly typical sermon in mid-March at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill attempted to justify the war, saying it was essential to “defend God’s truth” that Russians and Ukrainians were “one people” joined by a “common national identity.”  

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Patriarch Kirill’s support for the war underlines the role of the Russian Orthodox Church as one of the central pillars of Putin’s new Russian imperialism. For much of Putin’s 22-year reign, the Russian Orthodox Church has served as a key soft power tool and source of ideological inspiration for his imperial agenda.

Since being appointed in 2009, Patriarch Kirill has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Kremlin’s revisionist foreign policy. He has preached a doctrine of imperial expansion in the former Soviet space while championing domestic authoritarianism and describing Putin’s increasingly dictatorial rule as “a miracle of God.”

This support has proven particularly important following Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 and his turn towards open imperialism. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities with Ukraine in 2014, the Russian Orthodox Church featured prominently in Moscow’s efforts to persuade Ukrainians to reject Euro-Atlantic integration and embrace notions of spiritual unity with Russia.

Patriarch Kirill is deeply implicated in Russian military aggression against Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church provided ideological sustenance for Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and backed subsequent efforts to destabilize and partition mainland Ukraine. As Kremlin forces instigated uprisings throughout eastern and southern Ukraine in spring 2014, numerous accounts emerged of local members of the Kremlin-linked Moscow Patriarchate offering both spiritual and practical support.

Patriarch Kirill fanned the flames of the escalating conflict by echoing the Kremlin and condemning the alleged persecution of Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Meanwhile, Orthodox priests from Ukraine’s Moscow Patriarchate sparked fury and disbelief by refusing to carry out funerals for Ukrainian soldiers killed defending the country against Russian invasion.

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Patriarch Kirill’s cheerleading for the Kremlin’s ongoing eight-year military campaign against Ukraine reflects Putin’s own view of the Russian Orthodox Church as the spiritual glue that binds the “Russian World” together.

The “Russian World” is vague but powerful concept championed by Putin of a wider civilizational community transcending modern national borders and state sovereignty. It is rooted in notions of a common religion, language and cultural heritage, with the Russian Orthodox Church providing the institutional foundations for this informal empire. For more than a decade, advocates of the “Russian World” have recognized the reconquest of Ukraine as their primary objective.

The Russian Orthodox Church has consistently supported the Kremlin’s historical claims to dominance over Ukraine while working against Ukrainian efforts to assert an independent identity. This has included the rehabilitation of empire-builders from previous generations and the glorification of tyrannical Russian leaders such as Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin within a cult of imperialism, chauvinism, and xenophobia.

Unsurprisingly, this had fueled anger and opposition throughout Ukrainian society, where the vast majority of the population identifies as Orthodox. Millions of Ukrainians remain at least nominally aligned to the Kremlin-backed Moscow Patriarchate. However, Patriarch Kirill’s stance has forced many to question their loyalties.

Disquiet over the Russian Orthodox Church’s open support for Putin’s imperial ambitions played an important part in the 2019 ruling by the Patriarch of Constantinople to grant Ukraine autocephaly or Orthodox independence. This historic decision was bitterly opposed in Moscow and sparked a rift that has shaken the entire Orthodox world while exposing the Russian Orthodox Church’s close ties to the Kremlin.

Britain’s highly unusual recent decision to sanction Patriarch Kirill highlights the extent of international alarm over the Russian Orthodox Church’s decision to support the largest European invasion since WWII. There is a growing consensus among Western governments, religious leaders of different denominations and even members of his own Church that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow now has blood on his hands. As condemnation mounts, this week’s UK sanctions measures are unlikely to be the last.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and author of the recently published book “Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War.”

Further reading

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By Paul Niland

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Putin admits Ukraine invasion is an imperial war to “return” Russian land

By Peter Dickinson

By abandoning all pretense and comparing himself to Peter the Great, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has confirmed that he is waging an old-fashioned imperial war of conquest with the goal of annexing Ukrainian land.

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The post Unholy War: UK sanctions Putin’s Patriarch for backing Ukraine invasion appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The reality, it now transpires, is considerably less elaborate and infinitely more chilling. Putin has launched the largest European conflict since WWII for the simple reason that he wants to conquer Ukraine. Inspired by the czars of old, Putin aims to crush his neighbor and incorporate it into a new Russian Empire.

Putin elaborated on his imperial vision during a June 9 event in Moscow to mark the 350th birthday of Russian Czar Peter the Great. He spoke admiringly of Czar Peter’s achievements during the Great Northern War and drew direct parallels to his own contemporary expansionist policies. The lands taken from Sweden during the Great Northern War were historically Russian and Peter was merely returning them to their rightful owners, Putin stated. “Apparently, it is now also our responsibility to return (Russian) land,” he said in a clear reference to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Putin’s latest comments underline his imperial objectives in Ukraine and expand on years of similar statements lamenting the fall of the Russian Empire. For more than a decade, he has questioned the historical legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood and publicly insisted that Ukrainians are really Russians (“one people”). Putin has also repeatedly accused Ukraine of occupying ancestral Russian lands and has blamed the early Bolsheviks for bungling the border between the Russian and Ukrainian Soviet republics.

His unapologetically imperialistic attitude toward Russian-Ukrainian relations was laid bare in July 2021 in the form of a 7,000-word essay authored by Putin himself which set out to explain the alleged “historical unity” binding the two nations together. “I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. For we are one people,” Putin the amateur historian concluded. This bizarre treatise was widely interpreted as a declaration of war against the entire notion of an independent Ukraine and has since been made required reading for all Russian military personnel.

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The Russian dictator’s obsession with Ukraine reflects his burning resentment over the collapse of the USSR and his lingering bitterness at post-Soviet Russia’s dramatic loss of international status.

This nostalgia is not rooted in a fondness for the ideology of Marxist-Leninism. Instead, Putin regards the disintegration of the Soviet Empire as the demise of “historical Russia” and has spoken of how the 1991 break-up left “tens of millions of our compatriots” living beyond the borders of the Russian Federation. As the former Soviet republic with the deepest ties to Russia and the largest ethnic Russian population, independent Ukraine has come to embody this sense of historical injustice.

Putin’s efforts to “return” Ukrainian land to Russia did not begin with the invasion of February 24. The current campaign of imperial conquest actually started eight years earlier with the Russian takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which Putin seized in a lightning military operation that took advantage of political paralysis in Kyiv in the immediate aftermath of the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution.

Following his success in Crimea, Putin then attempted to partition mainland Ukraine by instigating pro-Kremlin uprisings throughout the south and east of the country. This initiative fell flat after Kremlin agents ran into stronger than expected local opposition from Russian-speaking Ukrainian patriots, leaving Putin’s proxies in possession of a relatively small foothold in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Control over Crimea and the Donbas allowed Putin to keep Ukraine destabilized, but his true objective has always been the reestablishment of complete Russian control over the whole country. After eight years of geopolitical pressure and hybrid warfare failed to achieve the desired outcome, and sensing that Ukraine was now in danger of moving irreparably out of the Russian orbit, Putin made the fateful decision in early 2022 to launch a full-scale invasion.

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By abandoning all pretense and comparing himself to Peter the Great, Putin has now confirmed that he is waging an old-fashioned imperial war of conquest with the goal of annexing Ukrainian territory. Recent statements from Kremlin officials have also made these imperial intentions explicit. During a visit to southern Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Kherson region in early May, Russian Senator Andrei Turchak declared that the current Russian presence in the region would be permanent. “Russia is here forever,” he stated. “There should be no doubt about this. There will be no return to the past.”

This openly imperialistic agenda represents an unprecedented challenge to international law and poses a grave threat to the entire post-WWII global security system. It also exposes the absurdity of appeals to appease Moscow or accept some kind of negotiated settlement that would avoid “humiliating” Russia. There can be no compromise with the Kremlin as long as Putin continues to deny Ukraine’s right to exist and declares his intention to annex entire regions of the country.

If Putin is not decisively defeated in Ukraine, he will surely go further in his mission to “return” lost Russian lands. The list of former Russian imperial possessions that could potentially become targets is extensive and includes Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the nations of Central Asia. Nor can future Russian attacks on the former Warsaw Pact countries of Central Europe be entirely ruled out. If this sounds far-fetched, it is important to remember that almost nobody in Ukraine believed a Russian invasion was even remotely possible until it actually happened.

Today’s brutal colonial war in Ukraine is a reminder that unlike the other great European empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Russia never underwent a period of de-imperialization. Despite collapsing spectacularly in both 1917 and 1991, Russia’s imperial identity is still very much intact and has become a central pillar of the Putin regime. Until Russia enters the modern era and becomes a post-imperial power, peace in Europe will remain elusive. The best way to speed up this process is to ensure Ukraine wins the war.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

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By Taras Kuzio

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Civil Society Conflict

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Centuries of Russian oppression have forged Ukraine’s remarkable resilience

By Pete Shmigel

Centuries of traumatic experience with the horrors of Russian imperialism have shaped today’s Ukraine in ways that may actually contribute to Putin’s defeat and help Ukrainians to build a better future for their country.

Civil Society Conflict

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

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The post Putin admits Ukraine invasion is an imperial war to “return” Russian land appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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Some government officials in Kyiv have announced Ukraine’s aspiration to liberate all territories occupied by Russia, including Crimea. The Ukrainian army’s proven ability to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield and the accelerating delivery of heavy weapons from the West make this goal of complete liberation at least theoretically possible.

However, some Western leaders fear the consequences of a comprehensive Ukrainian victory and favor the idea of a compromise peace. Most notably, French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly warned against “humiliating” Vladimir Putin. Advocates of appeasement ignore the fact that any settlement which leaves Russia in possession of Ukrainian lands occupied since 2014 would weaken the international security order and effectively reward Russia for aggression, thereby setting the stage for further wars.

Talk of a Ukrainian victory is certainly optimistic but by no means implausible. Moscow has already suffered catastrophic losses during the first 100 days of the war, with British military intelligence in mid-May estimating that Russia had lost around one-third of its invasion force amid “consistently high levels of attrition.”

Ukraine’s battlefield success has so far been achieved largely with outdated Soviet arms and light defensive Western weapons. With more sophisticated heavy weapons now beginning to reach Ukraine in significant quantities, further Ukrainian victories seem possible.

There are a number of good reasons to pursue the complete liberation of Ukraine. On purely humanitarian grounds, the millions of Ukrainians living in occupied areas of the country deserve to be freed from Russian rule. Forcing Russian troops to retreat entirely from Ukraine would also be the best way to prevent another round of aggression in the years ahead.

Crucially, Ukraine’s liberation would be a victory for international law that would mark an end to relative impunity Putin has enjoyed since he first attacked Ukraine in 2014. This last point is fundamental if a lasting peace is to be established. But in order for international law to prevail, Russia must first be cured of its imperialistic instincts.

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Discussion of a post-imperial Russia inevitably brings to mind the European experience with other fallen empires. The broadly accepted lesson of the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles is that a defeated foe should not be humiliated as this will cause revanchism, as occurred with the rise of the Nazis in post-war Germany. This appears to be a strong motivating factor behind President Macron’s calls for a compromise settlement in Ukraine, but such thinking is dangerously misguided.

As not a single Allied shell had fallen on German territory in WWI, this left room for the infamous “stab in the back” theory of a conspiracy behind the German defeat. Accordingly, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were able to persuade their public to make a second try and correct an alleged historical injustice by launching another war. 

There are obvious parallels here with the revisionist view regarding the collapse of the USSR. During his two decades in power, Putin has been remarkably successful in rehabilitating the Soviet past while blaming the collapse of the empire on Pentagon intrigue and the cloying egoism of Mikhail Gorbachev. As a result, many Russians are now convinced that the USSR was also a victim of a grave historical injustice and enthusiastically embrace efforts to reclaim territories lost in 1991.

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Post-Soviet Russia never underwent a period of de-imperialization that might have enabled the country to move beyond the imperial mindset that Soviet Russia had itself inherited from the Czarist era.

This contrasts with the post-WWII experience of Germany and Japan. Both countries experienced catastrophic defeat followed by periods of foreign occupation. It was this trauma that caused them to deeply reexamine their cultural values and turn away from centuries of militarism. The occupation powers in both Germany and Japan also oversaw a “re-education” of the two societies. This role as external change agents was necessary because neither society was likely to engage in re-education on their own.

There is no prospect that a Western coalition will occupy today’s Russia, of course. At the same time, a nation accustomed to a long imperial history and soaked in the revisionism of the Putin era is unlikely to find within itself the cultural and intellectual resources to rethink its most cherished national mythologies. It would take something as profoundly shocking as defeat in Ukraine to force Russians into a national reckoning on such a scale.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was a deeply traumatic event for all Russians, but it is now apparent that this trauma was not sufficient to cause a rejection of Russia’s imperial identity. Instead, Putin has skillfully revived imperial sentiments to generate popular support for his expansionist foreign policy.

The West has also played a significant role in this process, with Western leaders and commentators all-too-often embracing Russia’s post-Soviet victimization narrative while disregarding or downplaying the victimization of Russia’s neighbors. This has helped contribute to the mood of unrepentant imperialism in modern Russia that set the stage for the invasion of Ukraine.

In order to bring the prevailing cycle of Russian imperial aggression to an end, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine must result in unambiguous defeat. A Ukrainian victory would send shock waves through Russian society and force Russians to engage in a long overdue exploration of the country’s imperial identity. If defeat is painful enough, it could spark fundamental changes within Russia and lead to the kind of breakthrough that the false dawn of 1991 failed to achieve. Anything less will merely serve as a temporary pause before the next Russian invasion.  

Dennis Soltys is a retired Canadian professor currently living in Kazakhstan.

Further reading

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By Volodymyr Vakhitov, Natalia Zaika

Many Western leaders accuse Vladimir Putin of single-handedly sparking the current war in Ukraine but in reality the roots of the conflict are far deeper and reflect longstanding Russian imperial attitudes toward Ukraine.

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

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

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The post Only total defeat in Ukraine can cure Russia of its imperialism appeared first on Atlantic Council.

But now France and its partners are pulling the cord on Barkhane and the Takuba Task Force, claiming that “the political, operational and legal conditions are no longer met,” referring to the deteriorating relationship with the government in Bamako. The Malian junta itself is now pushing for a quicker end to French involvement, terminating the bilateral Defense Cooperation Treaty and the framework for hosting the two operations. France claims it’s leaving in accordance with the previously established plan and will evacuate its last military base in the eastern city of Gao sometime in August. 

Whatever the case, Russia—by deploying the notorious Wagner Group mercenary force and leading a vast disinformation campaign—is gaining a strategic foothold against European interests at a critical time for Moscow. While all eyes are on the European theater, the competition with Russia is also playing out in the Sahel region—and now Europeans, in close coordination with local governments, need to find the right formula to adapt their presence and avoid leaving a vacuum that could be exploited even more.

Influence undone

The European withdrawal, announced in mid-February, wasn’t unexpected: After a May 2021 military revolt (Mali’s second coup in just ten months), Bamako’s relations with its neighbors, Paris, and other international partners gradually soured. Tensions peaked in early February of this year when the European Union (EU)—following sanctions imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)—leveled similar punishment against five prominent individuals it said were hampering the political transition in Mali. 

That’s when Moscow, which had not been very visible in Bamako in recent years, stepped in to exploit this gulf between Mali and its European and regional partners. Facing increasing pressure from the international community, coup leader Colonel Assimi Goïta turned to Wagner to effectively help preserve his grasp on power. These contractors, widely seen as a shadowy force serving the Kremlin’s interests abroad, have been present in Mali since the end of last year, although in smaller numbers and deploying so far only in areas where European forces are absent or no longer engaged. 

Even Russia may have been caught by surprise at how easily the deeply rooted French and European influence in the country crumbled: Simply by seizing local frustrations, building on European missteps, and introducing disinformation into the mix, it was able to harm European interests—and for cheap, without any major military, economic, or political engagement. 

Now, Russia’s low-cost engagement with the junta opens it up to potential concessions for the extraction of Malian mineral wealth and the supply of military gear such as helicopters, both of which would weaken Western influence. Despite—or actually because of—the Russian military’s difficulties in Ukraine, we should expect a strengthening of Russia’s partnership with Mali. A quick succession of visits by the Malian defense and foreign ministers to Moscow in March and May, respectively, underline this. The visits also demonstrate that Moscow is not as isolated as the West would like it to be, and that it’s capable of harming Western interests at a limited cost.

Shattered ambitions, deteriorating security

The European military deployments were multifaceted and included direct support to Barkhane: the 1,100-troop European Training Mission (EUTM) in Mali and the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation MINUSMA, which included 1,600 troops from twenty-three EU countries. Takuba, with its 800 troops (40 percent of them French), became an unprecedented coalition of European special forces whose mission was to advise, assist, and accompany Malian armed forces in counterterrorism missions.

But the end of Barkhane and Takuba, together with the uncertain futures of EUTM-Mali and European engagement within MINUSMA, underscore that Europe is losing ground in a region of key strategic importance. Bamako’s abstention from the UN’s vote condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers further proof—and is a direct result of Mali’s shifting political and security loyalties.

This end of an era in the Sahel could also close the door on the emerging model of joint European intervention, or the “European art of the coalition.” Europeans have deployed together in the past, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, though seldom in such a demanding environment as the Sahel and typically with the Americans leading. Barkhane and Takuba may have offered some lessons, but they probably didn’t last long enough. 

For Mali itself, further destabilization awaits. While the military junta and its Russian protectors will do their best to push out a positive narrative, the reality is already far more bleak. True, the Malian Armed Forces are better trained and equipped compared to a few years ago; but Wagner mercenaries do little to avoid civilian casualties, and ethnic minorities are already suffering from indiscriminate targeting. According to the latest MINUSMA report, the number of human-rights violations and abuses by the Malian defense and security forces grew from thirty-one in the last quarter of 2021 to 320 in the first quarter of 2022. Human Rights Watch claims that the late March killing of three hundred civilian men in the central Mali town of Moura by the country’s armed forces (and associated foreign soldiers “identified by several sources as Russians,” the group said) was the “worst single atrocity reported in Mali’s decade-long armed conflict.” 

Wagner’s interest is not the stability of any particular country, but that of the country’s regime—which is why the security situation has deteriorated in most African countries that have let the group in. That’s why political trouble could also become a factor: Hiring Wagner, a drain on taxpayer funds, at a time when the Malian regime is under severe sanctions, may feed discontent from the Malian population. This is especially the case when those mercenaries are committing atrocities alongside the military.

Yet while the negative implications of Wagner’s costly involvement are clear, actually demonstrating this isn’t easy, given the power of the Russian-engineered disinformation campaign. 

In February, our colleagues from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab revealed how a network of Facebook pages promoted pro-Russian and anti-French and -UN narratives, drumming up support for the postponement of elections after the May 2021 coup and for the mercenary group itself. Some of those campaigns were directly linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin who is considered to control Wagner. The Russians are also franchising the content to local creators, further complicating efforts to tackle it, while Facebook is only one of the many tools used by Russians for disinformation campaigns spotted throughout the region. 

More recently, France denounced what it claimed was a false-flag operation by Wagner, whose troops allegedly buried bodies near a base in Gossi—recently handed to the Malian military by the French—in an attempt to discredit the European forces by implicating them in atrocities. 

Fighting this kind of disinformation will likely become increasingly difficult without a military presence, and amid the junta’s attacks against press freedoms (which have included the suspension of France 24 and Radio France Internationale, and increasingly difficult accreditation procedures for foreign journalists). In its most recent index, Reporters Without Borders ranks Mali 111th out of 180 countries; last year, it was 99th.

Meanwhile, if Russia gets bogged down in Ukraine, a weakened Kremlin might look for an opportunity to destabilize European nations as revenge for their support for Ukraine. In the past, Moscow instrumentalized the war in Syria by sending refugees streaming into Europe; it might seek to do the same by building upon the instability in Mali. This would amount to a blow against Europe without engaging militarily. 

Given the murky outlook, it can’t be completely ruled out that Bamako will turn to Europe again someday, especially if there is a change in leadership. But it took a lot for France to get its European allies into Mali, and here, history is unlikely to repeat itself.

The challenges ahead

While Barkhane might be over, European involvement isn’t quite yet.

For one, the ongoing withdrawal isn’t expected to be completed until the end of summer. During the coming weeks and months, European troops may be targeted by terrorist attacks. Dozens of heavy armored vehicles leaving Gao—likely the last base to be closed—might need to navigate improvised explosive devices. Meanwhile, Wagner mercenaries could deploy closer to European troops, adding extra risk to the process. 

In the February joint statement announcing the withdrawal, the European signatories vowed “to remain committed in the region.” Since Takuba repeatedly proved its ability to deliver alongside local armed forces, setting an important precedent for future cooperation, this may be appealing for other security-compromised countries such as Niger and Burkina Faso. Yet the redeployment of European special forces in neighboring countries may drag on for political reasons. 

For a Takuba-like task force to be set up somewhere else, it would require three elements: the host government’s invitation and a status-of-forces agreement (in April, Niger’s Parliament approved the deployment of more Europeans); convincing potentially reluctant local populations and getting civil society on board; and legislative measures back home allowing for Takuba members to legally operate outside of Mali. The latter might seem especially unattractive to European lawmakers when a war is raging in their own backyard.

Meanwhile, Europe’s continuous involvement through EUTM-Mali and the UN’s MINUSMA mission is also uncertain. The former had trained more than fifteen thousand Malian troops and also offers support to the G5 Sahel joint force—which Bamako recently left—while the latter’s mandate focuses on supporting the political process and helping stabilize Mali. But for both missions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to operate under the current circumstances, which besides the disinformation campaign and the presence of Wagner include new restrictions by the junta on the areas of operation and a potential lack of security guarantees after the Barkhane withdrawal.

MINUSMA was reportedly targeted by a Malian army rocket strike in April and saw its access to local airspace blocked. Bamako also imposed limitations on the mission’s movements on the ground, and peacemakers have been prevented from investigating the site of the Moura massacre. In this context, it is unclear how long Europeans will maintain their commitments to MINUSMA: While German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock recently confirmed her country would stay on, Sweden—which has a particularly strong tradition of participating in peacekeeping missions—announced that it will pull its approximately two hundred soldiers out of the mission by June 2023.

As for EUTM-Mali, the situation is even less clear. After several months of uncertainty, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced in April that the bloc will halt all military training missions, since the Malian authorities failed to provide sufficient guarantees that the EU-trained Malian soldiers would not be involved in operations with Wagner. There is reason for concern, given the recent past: A leaked European External Action Service report found that EU-trained troops in the Central African Republic had been cooperating with Russian mercenaries before the EU suspended its training mission in response several months ago.

Even if European military trainers remain in the country and the Czechs (who will assume leadership of the mission in July) appear ready for the challenge, the future of EUTM-Mali is anything but straightforward. Although the mission is not canceled, the EU is decreasing its presence so much that the mission is now a mere shell of what it used to be. Ultimately, the Europeans might prefer to withdraw their forces from EUTM-Mali or MINUSMA, or both, if they’re not confident that security is guaranteed.

What Europe should do now

Much remains to be discussed among the Europeans themselves, regional partners, and the Malian junta. Meanwhile, there are several points to bear in mind.

First, it will be critical for France to maintain, and further enhance, close coordination with its European partners (including the United Kingdom) over any major upcoming moves. Paris pushed for their growing involvement—and now it must take into account their concerns and priorities. Future decisions shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of France’s partners.

Second, having stated their “willingness to actively consider their support to neighboring countries in the Gulf of Guinea and West Africa,” the Europeans are considering extending EUTM missions to these areas. While the future of EUTM-Mali might be compromised, the EU could offer new training missions to countries that show interest. In May, Borrell said the bloc will reallocate its military resources to neighboring countries.

Third, while Takuba is unlikely to be fully replicated, the framework has been clearly gaining momentum, with more countries considering joining (and actually doing so). It marked a strategic shift especially for the Central and Eastern Europeans, who engaged more actively in the southern flank. Preserving this dynamic, which reinforces interoperability among the Europeans, will not be an easy task but is worth a try. It would demonstrate Europe’s ongoing commitment in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel, which—as Senegalese President Macky Sall recently put it—“cannot be the business of African countries alone.” 

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, France and its European partners must closely study what went wrong, including in its communication with the local population. Russian-fueled disinformation nurtured Malian resentment toward the French armed forces, and experts believe Paris failed to engage public opinion effectively. French officials would do well to more closely analyze the weaknesses that Russia successfully exploited.

It is in Europe’s interest to continue supporting other countries in the Sahel. Indeed, the new EU Strategic Compass considers the future of the region to be of utmost importance, given Africa’s economic and demographic growth. But there are many problems to address. And while Ukraine has rightfully become the utmost security priority for the EU, it would be a mistake to forget about its major challenge in the Sahel. 

Marie Jourdain is a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and previously worked for the French Ministry of Defense’s Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy.

Petr Tůma is a visiting fellow at the Europe Center and a Czech career diplomat with expertise on Europe, the Middle East, and transatlantic relations.

The post As Europe withdraws from Mali, Russia gets the upper hand appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In reality, Putin’s war is the most unapologetically imperialistic undertaking of the twenty-first century. The Russian dictator seeks to annex entire regions of Ukraine while eradicating all traces of Ukrainian identity and statehood. In order to disguise this genocidal agenda, he employs a range of propaganda myths that have deep roots in the Russian imperial consciousness and reflect modern Russia’s refusal to recognize the reality of an independent Ukraine.

Putin’s favorite myth is the notion that Ukrainians are actually Russians and form part of an indivisible whole (“one people”). In July 2021, he published an entire essay in support of this argument entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” This remarkable document brought together many of Putin’s most shameless distortions including the claim that Ukrainians traditionally saw themselves as Russians and the assertion that modern Ukraine was established on historically Russian lands. “I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia,” he wrote. “For we are one people.”

In normal circumstances, it would be tempting to dismiss Putin’s pseudo-scientific imperial narrative as the harmless rant of a delusional dictator. However, his historically illiterate essay was no laughing matter. It was subsequently made required reading for all Russian military personnel and is now widely regarded as an unofficial declaration of war against the continued existence of an independent Ukraine.

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Putin is not the first Russian ruler to insist Ukrainians are in fact Russians. Similar arguments were common during Czarist rule when much of today’s Ukraine was incorporated into the Russian Empire. This continued in modified form throughout the Soviet era with Ukraine and Russia typically portrayed as “brotherly nations.”

Over the past two decades, Putin has taken this propaganda trope to new extremes. He has weaponized the “one people” narrative to demonize any Ukrainians who insist on a separate identity, while at the same time portraying today’s Ukraine as an “anti-Russia” that can no longer be tolerated.

Unsurprisingly, the “one people” concept was always far more popular among Russians than Ukrainians. In the aftermath of Putin’s essay, polls found that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians rejected his claims of historical unity between the two nations. Following the full-scale invasion of their country, the percentage of Ukrainians who now view Russians as a “brotherly nation” has become vanishingly small. With tens of thousands of Ukrainians killed and entire cities reduced to rubble, the myth of “one people” is officially dead.

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Putin’s promotion of fraternal narratives has always been a way of expressing his territorial claims to Ukraine. Legitimizing these claims means whitewashing centuries of imperial oppression. While the close geographical proximity of the two countries means that they inevitably share many features of a common past, the story of Russia’s relations with Ukraine has always been defined by Russia’s aggressive expansion and Ukraine’s struggle for independence.

For hundreds of years, Russian rulers suppressed Ukrainian statehood aspirations while ruthlessly russifying the country. The reigns of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were marked by particularly gruesome atrocities, but there was no single period when Ukrainians were not subjugated in their own land. Indeed, as long ago as 1731, French writer Voltaire was moved to observe, “Ukraine has always aspired to be free.”

Efforts to eradicate Ukrainian identity accelerated during the Soviet era. The early Bolsheviks brutally crushed the fledgling Ukrainian state established in 1918 amid unprecedented bloodshed in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Stalin’s reign then saw the mass murder of Ukraine’s intellectual leadership. The darkest period of all came in the early 1930s when the Soviet authorities engineered a genocidal famine to wipe out the agrarian communities that had for centuries served as the traditional repositories of Ukrainian national culture. An estimated four million Ukrainians starved to death. 

Putin makes no effort to address or excuse these staggering crimes. On the contrary, he simply ignores them while portraying periods of enforced cohabitation as evidence of eternal brotherhood.

Sadly, international audiences still sometimes struggle to grasp the scale of Putin’s cynicism and continue to repeat the Kremlin’s “one people” propaganda. In April 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that he still considers Russians and Ukrainians “brotherly peoples.” Others have echoed Russia’s fraudulent historical claims to advocate for appeasement or undermine international support for Ukraine.

This needs to change. There should be no more talk of a compromise peace or attempts to placate Putin while Moscow is engaged in the genocide of the Ukrainian nation. Instead, the international community must be unambiguous in its rejection of Russian falsehoods and historical distortions.    

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine relies heavily on a series of myths that reflect modern Russia’s failure to break with its imperialistic past. While the rest of Europe underwent decades of turbulent decolonization following WWII, Russia still clings to an anachronistic imperial identity that prevents its own development while exposing its neighbors to the horrors of colonial conquest. The current war in Ukraine is a throwback to an altogether darker era and a painful reminder that if Europe wants lasting peace, it must work toward a post-imperial Russia.

Nestor Barchuk is international relations manager at the DEJURE Foundation.

Further reading

UkraineAlert May 24, 2022

Putin’s Mariupol Massacre is one of the 21st century’s worst war crimes

By Paul Niland

The Russian destruction of Mariupol ranks among the gravest crimes against humanity of the twenty-first century and sends a clear message to the international community that can be no compromise peace with Putin.

Conflict Democratic Transitions

UkraineAlert May 22, 2022

Centuries of Russian oppression have forged Ukraine’s remarkable resilience

By Pete Shmigel

Centuries of traumatic experience with the horrors of Russian imperialism have shaped today’s Ukraine in ways that may actually contribute to Putin’s defeat and help Ukrainians to build a better future for their country.

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UkraineAlert May 17, 2022

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By Taras Kuzio

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Conflict Crisis Management

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

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Imperial myths and genocidal realities: 100 days of Putin’s Ukraine War appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On May 25, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Marc Polymeropoulos published an article in the Washington Examiner describing his motivations for weighing in on the gun control debate.

“The truth is that gun violence is plaguing our country.”

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This holiday dates back to the end of WWII but it has undergone a dramatic upgrade during the reign of Vladimir Putin. Since coming to power at the turn of the millennium, Putin has transformed veneration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany into something approaching a religious cult and has placed it at the heart of modern Russian national identity.

Under Putin, Victory Day has become the holiest day on the Russian calendar and a ubiquitous feature of patriotic propaganda. Meanwhile, anyone who dares question the Kremlin’s highly sanitized version of the “Great Patriotic War,” as WWII is still known in Russia, is treated with a severity once reserved for medieval heretics.

Putin’s victory cult serves a number of useful functions for the Kremlin. It has proved remarkably effective in reviving Russian patriotism following the humiliation of the Soviet collapse and the missed opportunities of the 1990s. It has also provided the perfect antidote to grim revelations of Stalinist terror while helping to whitewash the extensive crimes against humanity committed by the USSR during and after WWII.

The contemporary political implications of this victory cult go far beyond the need to reconcile modern Russians with their country’s troubling twentieth century history. By rehabilitating the Soviet past, Putin has succeeded in legitimizing the authoritarian present.

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Throughout Putin’s reign, Russia has enthusiastically deployed the language and symbolism of WWII as rhetorical weapons against the country’s perceived enemies, who are routinely denounced as “fascists” and “Nazis.” The list of domestic and international targets is necessarily long and includes more or less anyone who disagrees with the Kremlin. However, pride of place is reserved for Ukraine, which has long been portrayed by Russian officials and propagandists as the heir to Nazi Germany.

In recent years, this mythmaking has become a matter of life and death for millions of Ukrainians. Ever since the 2014 seizure of Crimea, the propaganda narrative of “Nazi Ukraine” has been used extensively to justify further Russian aggression against the country. Unsurprisingly, Putin claimed in his February 24 declaration of war that the primary goal of the current invasion was the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine.

For adherents of Putin’s victory cult, Ukraine’s Nazi status has become an article of faith that requires no evidence or further explanation. This belief in the “Nazi Ukraine” narrative has remained unchanged despite inconvenient facts such as the complete absence of far-right parties in the Ukrainian government or the 2019 election of Jewish Russian-speaker Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Ukrainian president.

Over the past ten weeks of full-scale warfare, the terms “Ukraine” and “Nazi” have become virtual synonyms within the Kremlin media bubble. Indeed, a high-profile article published by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti in April stated explicitly that “de-Nazification” actually meant “de-Ukrainization” and anticipated the destruction of the Ukrainian nation.

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Russsia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine is so inundated with false historical narratives rooted in Putin’s victory cult that much of the war-related commentary now coming out of the Kremlin is completely detached from reality and impossible to decipher without reference to the Kremlin’s twisted WWII mythology. This was most recently demonstrated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s anti-Semitic outburst on Italian TV, which saw him claim that Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity meant nothing as “Hitler also had Jewish blood.”

Putin and his colleagues desperately need a history lesson in the realities of WWII and the Soviet role in the conflict. While the Western allies were armies of liberation during WWII who brought democracy and long-term stability to much of Europe, the Red Army led an occupation that left tens of millions trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Modern Russia still refuses to recognize this uncomfortable truth, preferring instead to accuse the nations of Central Europe of ingratitude.

Every nation needs to question its past. Unfortunately, the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is actively engaged in denial. This includes attempts to justify many of the most shameful episodes of the Soviet era. The Kremlin is particularly sensitive to discussion of the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact which divided Eastern Europe and directly sparked WWII. Putin has gone to remarkable lengths to defend the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and has criminalized any attempts to suggest Soviet responsibility for the outbreak of war.  

Modern Russia’s victory cult also seeks to nationalize the allied defeat of Hitler. It makes almost no mention of the US Lend-Lease Act that provided the USSR with close to USD 160 billion (in current dollar terms) in weapons and other vital supplies. Likewise, Putin’s transformation of Victory Day into a celebration of Russian nationalism means that the countless soldiers from other Soviet republics are largely airbrushed out of the Kremlin’s WWII narrative. Needless to say, rose-tinted Russian coverage of the war largely ignores the staggeringly callous use of Soviet troops as cannon fodder or the hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers executed by their own comrades.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin reacts with fury and indignation whenever attention is drawn to the widespread accounts of mass rape and other atrocities as the Red Army advanced into Central Europe. Russia’s failure to officially acknowledge these crimes is not merely an historical injustice. On the contrary, Moscow’s glorification of the perpetrators has helped create a sense of impunity that paved the way for the strikingly similar atrocities witnessed in recent months throughout the occupied regions of Ukraine.

Stalin’s vindication after WWII is one of the factors that makes Putin so reckless now. If Stalin could stand tall among the winners despite his heinous crimes and complete disregard for human life, why shouldn’t Putin accomplish something similar? The West’s readiness in 1945 to allow the partition of post-war Europe was a betrayal of Western values that sanctioned the triumph of one authoritarian system over another. Putin expects today’s Western leaders to display similar moral flexibility on the subject of Ukraine.

For the past two decades, Putin has distorted and weaponized the Soviet WWII experience in order to revitalize Russian nationalism and justify an expansionist foreign policy. The sheer scale of Soviet losses in the fight against Hitler has made many outside observers reluctant to criticize this trend, but it is now clear that Putin’s victory cult is a recipe for international aggression. It has created a menacing climate of militarism within Russia that has already spilled over into Ukraine with catastrophic consequences. Unless this cult is confronted and condemned, other countries will suffer a similar fate.

Andrej Lushnycky is president of the Ukrainian Society of Switzerland.

Further reading

UkraineAlert May 1, 2022

Finally! German MPs back heavy weapons for Ukraine in historic vote

By Vitaly Sych

The German Bundestag on April 28 finally agreed to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine in an historic vote that marked a departure from months of caution in Berlin and efforts to avoid confrontation with the Kremlin.

Conflict Corruption

UkraineAlert Apr 11, 2022

At what point do Russian war crimes in Ukraine qualify as genocide?

By Bohdan Vitvitsky

Evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine has shocked the world but there is not yet any international consensus over whether the mass killings of Ukrainians carried out by Vladimir Putin’s troops qualify as genocide.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert May 2, 2022

Lavrov’s anti-Semitic outburst exposes absurdity of Russia’s “Nazi Ukraine” claims

By Peter Dickinson

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has sparked a diplomatic scandal with an anti-Semitic outburst that underlines the absurdity of Russia’s relentless “Nazi Ukraine” propaganda claims.

Conflict Democratic Transitions

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

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Vladimir Putin’s WWII victory cult is a recipe for international aggression appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On May 4, Robert Manning published his bi-weekly column in The Hill, which asked whether a Middle East with a diminished US presence may function better than it has with heavy US interference.

“There tends to be a false choice framed as the U.S. leaving the Middle East or staying. Neither is right. In fact, the U.S. retains sizeable capabilities in the Middle East, and will continue, if by default, to backstop threats to stability.

“But going forward, the U.S. is unlikely to either crusade for change or get sucked into the Middle East’s pathologies. The remarkable trends in the region suggest all sides are downsizing their expectations accordingly.”

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The post Manning in The Hill: What if the post-American Middle East actually works? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Lavrov’s diatribe came during a May 1 interview with Italian TV show Zona Bianca as he attempted to defend Russia’s insistent portrayal of Ukraine as a “Nazi” state despite the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is himself Jewish.

“So what if Zelenskyy is Jewish? The fact does negate the Nazi elements in Ukraine,” Russia’s top diplomat stated. In an apparent bid to bolster his argument, Lavrov claimed that “Hitler also had Jewish blood” before declaring “the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”

Lavrov’s shocking comments provoked a wave of international anger, with Israel leading the chorus of condemnation. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Lavrov’s “unforgivable and outrageous” statements represented “the lowest form of racism against Jews.” Fellow Israeli government minister Yair Golan stated that Lavrov’s claims “reflect what the Russian government really is: a violent government that doesn’t hesitate to wipe out its rivals at home, invade a foreign country, and falsely accuse it of renewing Nazism.”

Ukrainian officials were also quick to denounce Lavrov. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba noted that his Russian counterpart’s “heinous remarks” were offensive to President Zelenskyy, Ukraine, Israel, and the Jewish people, while demonstrating that “today’s Russia is full of hatred towards other nations.”

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The Russian Foreign Minister’s very public descent into the squalid depths of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories highlights the mounting difficulties facing the Putin regime as it attempts to justify the war in Ukraine.

Officially, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that the aim of his “special military operation” in Ukraine is to “de-Nazify” the country. However, neither Putin nor any of his colleagues have been able explain exactly why they regard Ukraine as “Nazified.” Instead, they have relied largely on outside ignorance of contemporary Ukraine along with Soviet-era propaganda tropes equating any expressions of Ukrainian national identity with fascism.   

In reality, independent Ukraine has established itself over the past three decades as an imperfect but vibrant democracy with a pluralistic political culture that is light years away from modern Russia’s own authoritarian model. Since 1991, the post-Soviet generation of Ukrainians have grown used to a highly competitive and often unruly democratic climate which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the fascist tyranny of Kremlin fairytales.

Russian propagandists and their Western allies routinely exaggerate the degree of far-right influence in today’s Ukraine, but in fact nationalist parties have made little impression on the country’s mainstream politics and remain far more marginalized than elsewhere in Europe. It is instructive to note that while the openly far-right Marine Le Pen received more than 41% of the vote in France’s recent presidential ballot, a coalition of Ukraine’s leading far-right parties managed to secure just 2.15% in the country’s 2019 parliamentary election.

As Lavrov’s unhinged recent outburst indicates, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s landslide victory in Ukraine’s spring 2019 presidential election was particularly painful for the Kremlin. As a Russian-speaking Jewish Ukrainian, Zelenskyy’s unprecedented popularity among Ukrainian voters rendered Russia’s whole “Nazi Ukraine” narrative ridiculous and forced Kremlin propagandists into all manner of bizarre mental gymnastics in order to maintain the fantasy of a fascist threat.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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It is now clear to all but the most credulous and partisan of observers that Russian tales of Ukrainian fascism are mere window dressing for Moscow’s war of imperial aggression. This was explicitly acknowledged in a recent article published by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti which provided a step-by-step guide to the destruction of the Ukrainian state while explaining that “de-Nazification” actually means “de-Ukrainization.” Such twisted logic is entirely in line with Putin’s many public statements denying Ukraine’s right to exist and branding the country an “anti-Russia” that lacks historical legitimacy and can no longer be tolerated.

The extent of Putin’s imperial ambitions is becoming increasingly apparent in the regions of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation. In addition to the mass murder of civilians in hotspots like Mariupol, thousands of Ukrainian community leaders have been abducted in Stalinist-style round-ups and over one million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia.

Meanwhile, occupation authorities are systematically removing all symbols of Ukrainian statehood, introducing the Russian currency and Russian school curriculum, forcing the Ukrainian media off the air, and even returning toppled Lenin monuments to town squares. Far from seeking to extinguish political extremism in Ukraine, Russia is intent on eradicating Ukraine itself.

The sheer scale of Russian war crimes in Ukraine has already prompted political leaders including US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump to accuse Putin of genocide. As the true eliminationist nature of Russia’s war becomes impossible to ignore, others are also shedding their earlier inhibitions and finally agreeing to provide Ukrainians with the heavy weapons the country so desperately needs in order to defend itself.

This is welcome but long overdue. Thousands of lives could have been saved if the international community had recognized Putin’s genocidal intentions in the lead-up to the war and armed Ukraine accordingly. With senior Kremlin figures like Lavrov now openly embracing Nazi-style anti-Semitism, there is no longer any excuse for underestimating the totalitarian menace behind Russia’s cynical “anti-fascist” posturing.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert May 1, 2022

Finally! German MPs back heavy weapons for Ukraine in historic vote

By Vitaly Sych

The German Bundestag on April 28 finally agreed to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine in an historic vote that marked a departure from months of caution in Berlin and efforts to avoid confrontation with the Kremlin.

Conflict Corruption

UkraineAlert Apr 11, 2022

At what point do Russian war crimes in Ukraine qualify as genocide?

By Bohdan Vitvitsky

Evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine has shocked the world but there is not yet any international consensus over whether the mass killings of Ukrainians carried out by Vladimir Putin’s troops qualify as genocide.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert Apr 23, 2022

New stamp captures Ukraine’s resolve to defy Putin and defeat Russia

By Peter Dickinson

A new Ukrainian postage stamp commemorating an iconic act of resistance to Vladimir Putin’s invasion has become a symbol of surging patriotic pride and growing confidence in Ukraine’s eventual victory over Russia.

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

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The post Lavrov’s anti-Semitic outburst exposes absurdity of Russia’s “Nazi Ukraine” claims appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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An understanding of Russia’s imperial instincts is essential for anyone looking to make sense of the seemingly senseless war crimes currently taking place in Ukraine. After all, it was not Putin who committed rape, torture, and mass murder in towns and villages across Ukraine. Putin did not fly the jets or fire the artillery that reduced entire Ukrainian cities to rubble. Likewise, he did not personally produce the endless stream of Russian propaganda films, TV shows, fake news bulletins, and social media posts dehumanizing Ukrainians and demonizing the West. These crimes were only possible thanks to the millions of Russians who willingly participated in the process or offered their enthusiastic support over a period of many years. 

While politicians and commentators in the West continue to promote the comforting notion that Russians are themselves victims of Putin’s regime, virtually all the available evidence points to strong Russian public support for the war in Ukraine. A recent survey conducted by Russia’s only internationally respected independent pollster, the Levada Center, found that 81% of Russians back the invasion of Ukraine with just 14% opposed. Another recent Levada Center poll identified a 12% surge in Vladimir Putin’s approval rating since the beginning of the war. These results have been mirrored in numerous other polls and surveys.

Meanwhile, the anti-war movement inside Russia remains underwhelming. There have been some public protests in major Russian cities, but these rallies have failed to attract significant numbers and been easily contained by the authorities. Rather than engaging in anti-war activism, most of the Russians who claim to oppose the regime have stayed silent or chosen exile and voluntarily left the country.

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Positive Russian attitudes toward the war are rooted in longstanding perceptions of Ukraine as part of Russia’s imperial heartlands. Despite the passage of three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russians have never fully come to terms with the idea of an independent Ukraine and continue to regard the country as an indivisible element of historic Russia that has been artificially separated from the motherland.

Putin did not invent such sentiments but he has proven highly skilled at exploiting them. In his many speeches and essays on the Ukraine issue, he has consistently appealed to Russia’s imperial aspirations while playing on widespread resentment at the country’s post-Soviet humiliations and loss of superpower status. When Putin laments the fall of the USSR as the “demise of historical Russia,” ordinary Russians understand that it is primarily Ukraine he has in mind.

The Russian leader’s refusal to recognize Ukrainian statehood is not only a rejection of the post-1991 settlement. It is entirely in line with traditional Russian thinking and echoes key tenets of Czarist imperial doctrine dating back centuries. Putin routinely denies Ukraine’s right to exist and has frequently accused modern Ukraine of occupying historically Russian lands while dismissing Ukraine’s entire centuries-long statehood struggle as a Western ploy to destabilize Russia. On the eve of the invasion, he called Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.”

Putin is particularly fond of declaring that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people.” This insistence that Ukrainians and Russians are part of the same whole has long been a central theme of Russian imperial propaganda toward Ukraine and provides the ideological basis for the current war. By positioning Ukraine as rightfully Russian, it reframes the unprovoked invasion of a peaceful neighbor as a justified response to a grave historical injustice.

In recent months, the Russian ruler has gone even further. He has branded modern Ukraine an “anti-Russia” that can no longer be tolerated while claiming the country has been taken over by the West. This resonates deeply with the Russian public, which has traditionally associated any manifestations of Ukrainian statehood with treachery and extremism.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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We are currently witnessing the criminal consequences of these imperial delusions. Russian soldiers who have been encouraged to dismiss Ukrainians as traitors and view Ukraine itself as an anti-Russian invention are now engaging in war crimes that are entirely in keeping with the genocidal tone adopted by Putin and other Kremlin officials. As Voltaire once warned, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

On the domestic front, the Kremlin-controlled mainstream media openly discusses the need to destroy Ukraine. For example, an article published by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on April 3 made clear that Putin’s talk of “de-nazification” is actually code for the “de-Ukrainianization” of Ukraine. This chilling text laid out a detailed plan for the elimination of the Ukrainian nation and was branded a “genocide handbook” by Yale historian Timothy Snyder.       

If Russian imperialism is not confronted and defeated in Ukraine, other countries will soon face similar threats. While Ukraine appears to be a particular obsession for both Putin and the wider Russian public, the list of other potential victims is long. The Baltic states and Moldova are among the most likely to become targets of Russian imperial aggression, while the nations of Central Asia are clearly at risk. It is also worth noting that Poland and Finland were once part of the Russian Empire that Putin longs to resurrect. 

For almost three decades, Western leaders have approached successive acts of Russian imperial aggression as isolated incidents and have sought to downplay their significance while focusing on the economic advantages of continuing to do business with Moscow. This has only served to encourage the Kremlin. The Chechen wars of the early post-Soviet years were followed by the 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2014 seizure of Crimea. The current war is the latest milestone in this grim sequence but it will not be the last. Resurgent Russian imperialism now clearly poses the biggest single challenge to global security. Countering this threat must be the international community’s top priority.  

Volodymyr Vakhitov is an assistant professor at the Kyiv School of Economics and head of BeSmart, the Center for Behavioral Studies and Communications. Natalia Zaika is a researcher at BeSmart, the Center for Behavioral Studies and Communications.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 23, 2022

New stamp captures Ukraine’s resolve to defy Putin and defeat Russia

By Peter Dickinson

A new Ukrainian postage stamp commemorating an iconic act of resistance to Vladimir Putin’s invasion has become a symbol of surging patriotic pride and growing confidence in Ukraine’s eventual victory over Russia.

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UkraineAlert Apr 22, 2022

Putin’s Unholy War

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Vladimir Putin’s unholy war in Ukraine has sought to exploit centuries of shared Orthodox faith but the ongoing invasion has only served to expose the growing gulf separating modern Ukraine from Russia.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Apr 11, 2022

At what point do Russian war crimes in Ukraine qualify as genocide?

By Bohdan Vitvitsky

Evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine has shocked the world but there is not yet any international consensus over whether the mass killings of Ukrainians carried out by Vladimir Putin’s troops qualify as genocide.

Conflict European Union

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

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Beyond Putin: Russian imperialism is the No. 1 threat to global security appeared first on Atlantic Council.

What’s at stake in France’s Presidential Election?

As French President Emmanuel Macron maintains a lead ahead of his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen, Senior Fellow Ben Judah interviews Ambassador Gérard Araud, former French Ambassador to the US and Senior Fellow, for #BritainDebrief to discuss how this election will impact France. What is France’s role in NATO? What will happen to the European Union and France-Russia relations if Le Pen wins the election?

You can watch #BritainDebrief on YouTube and as a podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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Religion has long been at the heart of the troubled relationship between the two countries, with the Russian Orthodox Church historically serving to strengthen Russia’s imperial authority over Ukraine. In recent years, religious ties played a central role in Putin’s efforts to prevent Ukraine from exiting the Russian sphere of influence. However, the Kremlin strongman is now discovering that a shared Orthodox faith does not mean Ukrainians necessarily embrace his vision of their country as part of a revived Russian Empire.

Both Russia and Ukraine trace their national stories back to the tenth century and the early medieval Kyiv Rus state. The adoption of Christianity by Kyiv Prince Volodymyr the Great in 988 is regarded in Kyiv and Moscow alike as the starting point of their Orthodox identities. However, there is no agreement over the modern geopolitical implications of this ancient link.

Today, the two countries remain overwhelmingly Orthodox. According to Pew Research Center data, 78% of Ukrainian adults and 71% of Russian adults identify as Orthodox believers. Nevertheless, the religious landscape is not quite as uniform as it might initially appear.

Ukraine’s Orthodox congregation is divided into a number of different dominations, with the two largest being the recently established Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, which is closely tied to the Russian Orthodox Church and has traditionally been seen as subservient to the Kremlin.

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Putin has long sought to use the Russian Orthodox Church and its Ukrainian offshoot as soft power tools. These efforts received a major setback in early 2019 when the spiritual leader of the Orthodox World, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, granted the Orthodox Church of Ukraine independence (known as “autocephaly”). This was regarded as a momentous blow to Putin’s revanchist ambitions. In response, the Russian Orthodox Church officially cut ties with the Ecumenical Patriarch.

Despite Russian frustration over the establishment of an independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Putin still seems to have genuinely believed many Ukrainian Orthodox believers would welcome his invasion. During a speech on the eve of the war, Putin spoke of the need to protect Russia’s “inalienable spiritual space” in Ukraine. This view has also been supported by the Russian Orthodox Church, which has repeatedly asserted that Ukraine is part of its spiritual territory.

Since Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine on February 24, Putin has actively sought to portray the invasion as a righteous crusade that enjoys divine blessing. The Russian leader even quoted the Bible during a massive pro-war rally held in Moscow in mid-March. “And this is where the words from the Scriptures come to my mind: There is no greater love than if someone gives his soul for his friends,” Putin declared to large crowds in the Russian capital.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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So far, the war has not gone according to plan. While Russian troops have encountered stiffer than expected opposition on the battlefield and been forced to retreat from northern Ukraine, Putin’s holy war for the souls of Ukraine’s Orthodox faithful has run into similar trouble.

Many Ukrainians have been outraged by Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill’s open and frequently outspoken support for the war, which has included echoing Putin’s claims regarding Ukraine’s place within the so-called “Russian world.” Ukrainians have also been shocked and distressed to see the religious leader apparently bless the killing of Ukrainian soldiers.     

This dismay has expressed itself in spiritual resistance that has rallied Ukraine’s fragmented Orthodox denominations. Metropolitan Onuphry, who heads the Moscow Patriarchate, has issued an unprecedented statement urging Putin to end the war. Meanwhile, more than 300 priests from his church are petitioning for Patriarch Kirill’s removal, something inconceivable just weeks ago. “It is impossible for us to remain in any form of canonical submission to the Patriarch of Moscow,” they now claim.  

A number of individual Ukrainian congregations have expressed their opposition to the Russian Orthodox Church’s pro-war stance by switching their allegiance from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The war has also impacted Orthodox communities beyond Ukraine. Russian Orthodox priests and deacons from around the world have publicly called on Patriarch Kirill to take a stronger peace stance. Some believers are leaving the Russian Orthodox Church altogether in protest, with numerous individual parishes defecting.    

Other Christian leaders have also expressed their alarm over the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Putin’s war of aggression. The World Council of Churches is reportedly considering expelling the Russian Orthodox Church from its fellowship. Pope Francis has been particularly vocal in his appeals for peace and has recently cancelled plans for a June meeting with Patriarch Kirill in Jerusalem.  

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has called on Kirill to help “end the violence in Ukraine.” His predecessor, Rowan Williams, who holds a deep appreciation for Eastern Christianity, has been significantly less diplomatic. Williams has pointedly criticized the Russian Orthodox Church and spoken of the “shocking, not to say blasphemous, absurdity of Orthodox Christians engaging in indiscriminate killing of the innocent.”   

Faith matters during times of war, especially in neighboring predominantly Orthodox countries like Russia and Ukraine with a deeply intertwined religious inheritance. As the current conflict evolves, it is increasingly clear that the messages reaching Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox congregations are strikingly different. This spiritual dimension will have a crucial impact on the ultimate outcome of the war and looks set to further deepen the divide that separates modern Russia and Ukraine.

Knox Thames served in a special envoy role for religious minorities at the US Department of State during the Obama and Trump administrations. He is currently writing a book on ending twenty-first century persecution. Follow him on Twitter @KnoxThames.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 14, 2022

The world must not allow Putin to bankrupt Ukraine into surrender

By Peter Dickinson

Russian war crimes in Ukraine have shocked the world but the systematic damage being done to the Ukrainian economy is also an important element of Putin’s invasion that requires urgent international attention.

Conflict Economy & Business

UkraineAlert Apr 9, 2022

Lend-Lease for Ukraine: US revives WWII anti-Hitler policy to defeat Putin

By Chris Alexander

The United States is reviving the WWII Lend-Lease program which helped defeat Hitler in order to dramatically increase arms deliveries to Ukraine and set the stage for Vladimir Putin’s eventual military defeat.

Arms Control Conflict

UkraineAlert Apr 17, 2022

How Putin’s Russia embraced fascism while preaching anti-fascism

By Taras Kuzio

Vladimir Putin poses as an “anti-fascist” leader engaged in the noble task of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine, but in reality it is Putin’s increasingly fascist Russia that is in urgent need of “de-Nazification,” writes Taras Kuzio.

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

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The post Putin’s Unholy War appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Videos and pictures are currently appearing across the country of young Russians showing their support for the invasion of Ukraine. Many of the children and teens featured in this pro-war content display the “Z” symbol that has become emblematic of the war following its adoption as a marker by Russia’s invasion force.

This emphasis on youth is no accident. It reflects concerns within the Kremlin that internet-savvy younger Russians are more resistant to state propaganda and have the knowledge to access censored information online. The emerging generation is also more likely to hold favorable views of Europe and the United States than older Russians who continue to get most of their information from Putin’s propaganda networks.

This caution is easy to understand, especially given the prominence of students and teens during a wave of protests that took place during the first weeks of the invasion. However, these protests have since died down amid indications that government intimidation tactics are proving effective. The Kremlin has encouraged Russians to rally round the flag by portraying the war as an existential struggle between Russia and the West. Meanwhile, anti-war messaging has been denounced as unpatriotic and anti-Russian.

The Kremlin’s polarizing “them and us” framing of the war has been amplified by Putin himself, who has called for a “self-cleansing of society” from “scum and traitors.” This is fuelling aggression against anyone on the wrong side of his dichotomy. In one recent incident, a young investigative journalist’s door in Moscow was targeted with graffiti declaring her a traitor. A young activist who went viral for reading the Russian constitution to riot police during protests in 2019 also recently found graffiti on her door reading “Don’t sell out your homeland, bitch.” In both cases, the menacing messages were accompanied by a “Z.”

Faced with the growing risk of political violence and grim economic prospects, tens of thousands of mostly young Russians are now fleeing the country to places like Turkey, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus. Since the war began on February 24, some estimates put the overall figure for this exodus at around 200,000 people. This includes many of the more progressive elements of Russian society such as independent journalists and tech sector professionals.

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With opposition to the war among young Russians largely sidelined or silenced, the Kremlin is escalating its long campaign to give Russian kids a “patriotic education” designed to secure their loyalty and shape their future ideological outlook.

Almost ten years ago, Putin called on Russian historians to develop a new history curriculum free from “internal contradictions and ambiguities.” The resulting revisionist version of history included efforts to rehabilitate the personal reputation of Josef Stalin and promote positive aspects of the Soviet era while emphasizing the USSR’s role in the victory over Nazi Germany.

Efforts continue to bring classroom teaching into line with Kremlin thinking. Recent additions to the curriculum have included materials justifying aggression against Ukraine. In Murmansk, schools have been requested to include new materials describing Ukraine’s “genocide against Russians” and the country’s supposed “anti-Russian path.” Teaching materials argue that Ukraine is a Nazi-friendly country controlled by the West.

At the end of March 2022, Russian kindergartens and schools began sharing posts showing their students working in support of the country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Children were made to write letters to the front with drawings of military symbols such as ribbons, carnations, the Russian flag, and the now omnipresent “Z.” At one school in Kaliningrad, children learned a new patriotic song redrawing Russia’s borders and featuring the lyrics: “from Donetsk to the Kremlin, from Lugansk to the Kremlin, from Alaska to the Kremlin, this is my motherland.”

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Politicized classrooms can have a profound long-term impact on children. Due to their typically narrow social circle, reliance on elders and authority figures, and limited awareness of history and current affairs, children are particularly vulnerable to the kind of indoctrination currently taking place in schools across Russia.

Similar processes are also underway outside of the Russian education system. For example, the Murmansk Youth Committee has been making headlines recently by mobilizing young people for rallies and propaganda videos. These mobilizations have included the involvement of the Murmansk-based North Fleet, which is a source of considerable local prestige and pride.

Many recent pro-war events featuring the participation of young Russians have also relied heavily on Russia’s Youth Army, an organization established in 2015 by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to train future military personnel. In recent weeks, Ukrainian intelligence sources have accused Russia of preparing to conscript underage children from the movement to help replenish mounting losses in the ongoing war.

Critics fear public displays of pro-war militarism may help to radicalize a new generation of Russians and lead to the kind of zealotry witnessed during the darkest days of the Soviet era, which saw campaigns encouraging children to denounce their own parents. There are already signs that such trends are reappearing in Russian society. When one Russian schoolteacher recently mentioned to students that she believed the invasion of Ukraine was a “mistake,” a student secretly recorded the exchange and turned her in to the authorities. The teacher received a RUB 30,000 fine and lost her job.

The next big date to watch is May 9 as the Kremlin gears up for its annual WWII Victory Day celebrations. Given Russia’s efforts to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a continuation of the heroic struggle against fascism, this national holiday is likely to be the largest pro-war event since the outbreak of hostilities in late February. The authorities will look to engage as many young Russians as possible and will be aiming to use the strong emotional pull of victory over Hitler to help legitimize the current war effort in Ukraine.  

While it is difficult to gauge exactly how effective Kremlin efforts have been in fostering pro-war sentiment among young Russians, the available data suggests considerable success. A March 31 survey by Russia’s leading independent pollster, the Levada Center, found that 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds backed the war, just 10% below the national average for all age groups. Meanwhile, a more recent Levada Center survey found that 54% in the 18-24 segment harbored negative attitudes toward Ukraine compared to an average among all respondents of 57%.

There is a real danger that the wave of fanaticism unleashed by the invasion of Ukraine will create a new generation of radicalized young Russians who enthusiastically embrace the toxic brand of militarism and extreme nationalism promoted by the Kremlin. This could prolong the current confrontation between Russia and the West for many decades to come, leading to the continuation of Putinism long after Putin himself has exited the world stage.

Doug Klain is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center in Washington, DC. Find him on Twitter @DougKlain.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 14, 2022

The world must not allow Putin to bankrupt Ukraine into surrender

By Peter Dickinson

Russian war crimes in Ukraine have shocked the world but the systematic damage being done to the Ukrainian economy is also an important element of Putin’s invasion that requires urgent international attention.

Conflict Economy & Business

UkraineAlert Apr 9, 2022

Lend-Lease for Ukraine: US revives WWII anti-Hitler policy to defeat Putin

By Chris Alexander

The United States is reviving the WWII Lend-Lease program which helped defeat Hitler in order to dramatically increase arms deliveries to Ukraine and set the stage for Vladimir Putin’s eventual military defeat.

Arms Control Conflict

UkraineAlert Mar 6, 2022

Why Vladimir Putin is losing the information war to Ukraine

By Anders Åslund

Vladimir Putin has long enjoyed a reputation as a master of disinformation, but the Russian ruler is now clearly losing the global information war that is being waged alongside his invasion of Ukraine.

Civil Society Conflict

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

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The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Putin’s Generation Z: Kremlin pro-war propaganda targets young Russians appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On April 12, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Matthew Kroenig was quoted in an article in the Hill titled “Syria cast shadow on Biden to respond to possible Ukraine chemical attack.” Kroenig uses Syria as a case study to demonstrate how effective chemical weapons are.

I’m afraid one of the lessons from Syria, that Putin and Assad took away, is that using chemical weapons works.

Matthew Kroenig

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The post Kroenig in the Hill on chemical weapons in Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On April 12, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Matthew Kroenig was featured on a segment of BBC News, where he speculates types of chemical weapons that Putin may have used in Ukraine and why.

While chemical weapons are not very effective on the battlefield against other armies, they have proven to be effective for terrorizing civilian populations.

Matthew Kroenig

Fellow

Alex Plitsas

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs

Afghanistan Crisis Management

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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The post Kroenig on BBC News on chemical weapons in Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The post Slavin quoted in the Daily Mail on concerns about Iran nuclear deal in Congress appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Key points

• In a world of intensifying great-power competition, limited resources require painful choices, but the Biden administration’s new Indo-Pacific strategy avoids confronting any tradeoffs or dilemmas.
• Both America’s pursuit of liberal democratic values in the Indo-Pacific and its absence from regional trade agreements are counterproductive for organizing cooperation against China.
• Moving forward, the Biden administration will need to scrutinize key assumptions and confront hard decisions regarding how to keep ends and means in balance.

What’s the issue?

“To govern is to choose, however difficult the choices,” Pierre Mendès-France, a leading critic of the French war in Indochina, told the French National Assembly in June 1953. At the time, France was gripped by political indecision and inertia; Paris seemed incapable of deciding whether to fight to preserve its colonial empire or to withdraw from Indochina and prioritize European security concerns. A year later, Mendès-France, who became premier, signed a peace agreement with the Vietminh, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States marking the end of the French colonial presence in Southeast Asia. 

The Biden administration confronts similar security dilemmas today: there are more threats to US strategic interests than national assets to deal with them all. In a world of intensifying great-power competition, limited resources require painful choices. The task of the strategist is to bring power and commitments into balance, or, in the words of historian Hal Brands, “states must determine which interests are truly vital and which threats and opportunities are most urgent, and then deploy their resources accordingly.” The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy largely avoids the hard decisions about whether to pursue national interests or values, whether to prioritize economic statecraft or domestic political concerns, and how to reconcile political objectives with constraints on national resources and coalition-building.

The strategy paper was unveiled as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the Pacific, meeting with officials from Japan, Australia, the Pacific Island nations, and other countries. During the past year, the Biden administration has made clear its intention to prioritize the Indo-Pacific region, characterizing China as the “only competitor” with the “power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.” With this sober appraisal came a recognition that meeting the demands of strategic competition with China—the most powerful challenger the United States has ever faced—will require a massive concentration of American resources in the Indo-Pacific region. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan and efforts to build a “stable and predictable” relationship with Russia both aimed to free up US resources for the Indo-Pacific. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended this strategic calculus. The administration’s decision to release the Indo-Pacific strategy amid the gravest post-Cold War crisis in Europe is curious. If the timing is intended to demonstrate that the United States can, as Defense Department spokesperson John Kirby recently said, “walk and chew gum at the same time” with respect to Russia and China, unfortunately, it has only reinforced that the United States is dangerously overstretched.

The Indo-Pacific strategy’s defining characteristic is inertia — it is based on the same faulty assumptions, inherent tensions, and end-means mismatches that have characterized US strategy for decades.

The same can be said of the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy itself, a document that does not articulate clear policy decisions. It advances ambitious objectives—”to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific that is more connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient.” Key elements of the strategy range from modernizing alliances and working with regional organizations to strengthening democratic institutions and building a new economic framework. It has breathtakingly expansive ambitions, vowing to “focus on every corner of the region, from Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, to South Asia and Oceania, including the Pacific Islands.” If everything is a priority, then nothing is. 

That said, the strategy makes two positive course corrections: First, rather than the Trump administration’s purely confrontational approach, it proposes to “manage competition” with China “responsibly” and to “work with” Beijing “in areas like climate change and nonproliferation.” The Biden administration makes competition once more a means to an end rather than the end itself. This is wise; if left unchecked, competition for competition’s sake increases the risk of an escalation into conflict. Second, the strategy offers a more realistic and nuanced approach to security cooperation in the region, both differentiating between “treaty allies” and “partners” and acknowledging minilaterals in the regional security architecture rather than oversimplifying complex realities. For example, the strategy promises to “work in flexible [regional] groupings,” including with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and through the Quad and Australia, United Kingdom, and United States (AUKUS) partnerships, to address “the defining issues of our time.”

Although it is a positive step, the Indo-Pacific strategy is not bold enough in terms of strategic prioritization. Its defining characteristic is inertia—it is based on the same faulty assumptions, inherent tensions, and end-means mismatches that have characterized US strategy for decades. What worked in the past—spending more and trying harder—is no longer sustainable. Rather than relying on a strategy that results in a large gap between ambitious goals and realistic ones, the Biden administration should embrace a clear-headed and courageous strategy that recognizes and adapts to the changing structure of global power.

Why does it matter?

The administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy is impressively ambitious, but that is also the problem. It insists that Washington can do it all, that it can pursue expansive objectives without confronting any tradeoffs or dilemmas. This is unrealistic. The administration would be well advised to address three unresolved and ultimately unsustainable contradictions in US strategy toward the Indo-Pacific, particularly as it crafts a separate China-specific strategy.

1. The pursuit of American interests does not neatly align with the promotion of American values in the region.

The Indo-Pacific strategy advances a “principled” approach to the region, promising to strengthen the “rules and norms that have benefited the Indo-Pacific and the world” and “keep it grounded in shared values.” To that end, it aims to support “good governance and accountability”—one of its core lines of effort—with investments in “democratic institutions, a free press, and a vibrant civil society.” After its much-criticized Summit for Democracy—two-thirds of ASEAN countries failed to make the invite list—the administration seemingly tried to calibrate its strategic messaging to the region on democracy promotion. Notably, the strategy document uses the word “democracy” (or a derivative of it) a mere handful of times. Nevertheless, with references to “like-minded partners” and “shared values,” as well as calls to “root out corruption” and “bolster freedom of information and expression,” the strategy still touts the goal of democracy promotion. Critically, this wordsmithing is unlikely to convince countries in the region that the promotion of democracy is no longer a centerpiece of America’s foreign policy approach.

However noble it is to champion liberal values, democracy promotion is a poor foundation for successful engagement of the region. The Indo-Pacific’s political landscape is diverse, ranging from liberal democracies to authoritarian and hybrid regimes. Some key countries in the region—including India, which has undergone a turn toward autocracy in recent years—are unlikely to embrace a democratic values–based foreign policy. Southeast Asia’s deafening silence on Beijing’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang attests to a lack of regional support for human rights and democracy promotion. Many regional leaders are wary of US-China competition becoming an ideological contest between rival blocs. As Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien-Loong, noted about the region’s relations with China, “We must all learn to live with China . . . You don’t have to become like them, neither can you hope to make them become like you.”

In short, the administration’s pursuit of liberal democratic values in the Indo-Pacific may prove counterproductive for organizing cooperation against China. Indeed, doing so risks weakening the strategic relationship between the United States and some of the most important regional allies and partners—such as the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—that are not liberal democracies. As during the Cold War, the United States confronts a tension between values and interests. The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy contains more questions than answers about how to best keep these two missions—democracy promotion and strategic competition with China—in balance.

2. The United States cannot build a successful new regional economic framework without new trade agreements.

Pursuing regional prosperity as a central objective, the administration’s strategy proposes to establish a new “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework” that “will promote and facilitate high-standards trade, govern the digital economy, improve supply-chain resiliency and security, catalyze investment in transparent, high-standards infrastructure, and build digital connectivity.” In a region where many countries value economic cooperation more than traditional security cooperation and count China as their largest trading partner, the United States should make economic policy the linchpin of the American Indo-Pacific strategy. As former Secretary of State John Kerry often said, “Foreign policy is economic policy, and economic policy is foreign policy” in the Indo-Pacific. 

This point has not been lost on the Biden administration. White House Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell openly acknowledged that the United States is competing with not one or even two hands tied behind its back, but “maybe one foot tied back there as well.” He called on the United States to “step up its game” on economic engagement with countries in the Indo-Pacific, making this approach a defining element of US strategy in the region.

Despite Campbell’s sober assessment, the Indo-Pacific strategy’s economic offerings fall short of the challenge. The description of the US government’s Indo-Pacific economic framework lacks specifics, suggesting that the administration, as Daniel Drezner said, “still has some homework to do on the economic dimension.” The proposal is notable for what it is not—a free-trade deal. The administration has indicated that its envisioned “Indo-Pacific economic framework” will be nonbinding and exclude trade (beyond the digital domain) and investment liberalization. Although the United States has either withdrawn or abstained from the region’s major trade agreements—the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)—China is already a member of the former and has applied to join the latter. Washington needs to get back in the trade game if it wants give countries in the region incentives to counter Chinese influence.

The Biden administration knows it needs a regional trade agenda, but it is paralyzed by its promise of a foreign policy for the middle class. With many working-class Americans feeling left behind in a globalized economy, and midterm elections looming, President Joe Biden may well feel that his hands are politically tied in negotiating new trade deals. Put differently, American free-trade skepticism is at odds with American national security interests. If China is indeed the threat to US national security interests that some claim, the American public will need to make sacrifices to counter it. But forgoing expanded free trade with Asia is not one of them. In 2016, the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the forerunner to CPTPP, would increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion, or 0.5 percent of US gross domestic product (GDP). Politicians may rail against free trade for costing American jobs, but economists have shown that technology—not free trade—is mainly to blame. Moreover, most Americans view free trade as an opportunity for economic growth, suggesting that fears of a domestic political backlash may be overblown. Most important, the Biden administration cannot compete with China and expect to succeed without a robust free trade policy.

3. The Indo-Pacific strategy’s ultimate success hinges on collective balancing against China, but its approach to coalition-building is unconvincing.

The Indo-Pacific strategy is clear-eyed about the China challenge, acknowledging that the strategy’s goals “cannot be accomplished alone: changing strategic circumstances and historic challenges require unprecedented cooperation with those who share in this vision.” Given these strategic realities, the document advances a collective balancing strategy in which like-minded countries pull together to defend their common interests and deter military aggression. To this end, the Indo-Pacific strategy promises collective action, with plans to “work with allies and partners to deepen our interoperability,” “modernize treaty alliances,” “steadily advance our Major Defense Partnership with India,” “build capacity of partners,” and “foster security ties between our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.” Lest there be any doubt, the strategy makes clear that the focus of these efforts is China, asserting Beijing’s “coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific” and it offers “integrated deterrence” as the “cornerstone” of its regional security approach.

Nevertheless, the interests and capabilities of allies and partners inside and outside the region raise serious questions about whether such a strategy is workable. Regional leaders express growing concern about Chinese intentions, but defense spending by these US allies and partners remains anemic. Even Japan and Australia, two of China’ most vocal regional critics, respectively spend a paltry 1.3 percent and 2.09 percent of their GDP on defense annually. Compare that to over 3 percent of GDP the Biden administration intends to spend on defense this year. US allies and partners have limited military capabilities to bolster deterrence, casting serious doubt regarding the willingness of US allies and partners to put their resources behind US-led defense initiatives.

Outside the region, the strategy document envisions a greater regional role for the European Union (EU) and NATO countries. Unfortunately for the Biden administration, what was once a questionable proposition—European countries making a meaningful contribution to Indo-Pacific security—has been reduced to little more than wishful thinking after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The success of the Indo-Pacific strategy thus hinges on potentially faulty assumptions about what US allies and partners inside and outside the region are willing and able to do. The Biden administration’s difficult task is to resolve this imbalance of ends and means in US strategy.

What is the solution?

The Biden administration inherited a set of foreign and defense policies badly in need of repair. As it continues to build its Indo-Pacific agenda, the administration will need to scrutinize key assumptions and confront hard decisions regarding how to keep ends and means in balance. Policymakers should:  

1. Avoid a values-based framework. Building a coalition to counter China will be difficult if US policymakers emphasize democracy and liberal values over common interests in Washington’s relationships with countries in the region. In place of ideologically laden framings, like a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and “like-minded states,” the Biden administration should adopt an organizing principle with greater resonance for regional countries. In doing so, it need not look further than the president’s own words. In earlier conversations with regional leaders, Biden employed the phrase “secure and prosperous.” This more pragmatic language aligns better with the interests and perspectives of most Indo-Pacific countries than rhetoric focused on democracy promotion.

2. Prioritize trade policy.  US strategic and economic interests would be best served by a return to a revised TPP or applying to join its successor agreement, the CPTPP. China’s application to join the regional trade bloc should be a wake-up call for Washington. Regardless of its ultimate outcome, Beijing’s accession bid has succeeded in bringing renewed attention to Washington’s absence from regional trade agreements. With countries looking for an “equally substantive alternative” to CPTPP, the administration’s new economic framework is likely to come up short. The White House should reconsider its plans for a new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, postponing its unveiling until it has worked out a more credible trade policy. Otherwise, it risks reinforcing regional impressions that the United States is not a reliable and committed economic player in the region.

3. Close the gap between ends and means. As others have noted, the United States faces a crisis of strategic insolvency—too few resources and too many security commitments. To bring commitments in line with US capabilities, Washington has two options: either adopt less ambitious ends or expand the means available to support them. Accomplishing this task will require a combination of prioritizing ends and increasing available resources. A more realistic statement of US strategic objectives may require a rethink of the Indo-Pacific formulation, narrowing America’s regional focus to East Asia and the Pacific—that is, prioritizing the areas of competition that matter most for US national security interests. Finding additional means will require US allies and partners to make greater contributions to regional security, starting with increased defense spending. Washington will also have to engage in frank conversations with regional allies and partners about what they are prepared to contribute to regional security.  

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These calls for compromise with the Kremlin are symptomatic of a far broader perception problem. Many Europeans are still reluctant to acknowledge Russia’s descent into full-blown fascism under Vladimir Putin, despite similarities with Nazi Germany that are now too obvious to ignore. Indeed, German society in particular is uniquely well-equipped to recognize the ominous trajectory of Putin’s Russia, but seems trapped in denial.

The great irony of the current war is Russia’s attempt to frame the conflict as a campaign to “denazify” Ukraine. This portrayal is very much in line with the Kremlin’s long tradition of labelling any manifestations of Ukrainian national identity as “fascism.” It is also an attempt to tarnish Ukraine’s reputation on the global stage by associating the country with history’s most notorious criminals.

Unfortunately for Russia, international audiences are no longer completely ignorant about Ukraine and increasingly understand that Moscow’s “Nazi” slurs are baseless. As international coverage of the current war has frequently highlighted, it is both absurd and grotesque to label a democratic country with a popularly elected Jewish president as “Nazi.”

Likewise, the pitiful electoral performance of Ukraine’s far-right parties has often been cited as evidence of the emptiness of Russia’s claims. Whereas far-right political parties have enjoyed considerable success across the European Union over the past decade, Ukraine’s marginalized nationalist fringe consistently struggles to secure more than 2% of the vote. In practical terms, Moscow’s definition of a Nazi is politically meaningless and includes any Ukrainian who rejects the idea that their country belongs to Russia.

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