08. 09. 2022

• Joke of the Week
  

• Policy & Research

1. Iranian ambiguity

2. The old components in high-tech weapons of the Russian military

   
   

• U.S. Developments

1. John Sullivan, the US ambassador to Russia, departs the post

2. Flawed assumptions hamper Western response to Russia’s Ukraine war

• Kremlin's Narratives in Western Societies

1. “Russian offensive” instead of Ukrainian one

2. US global leadership is under the threat, Soloviev claims

• Russian Propaganda in Ukraine

1. “The Ukrainian command supplies soldiers with psychotropic drugs” Russia says

2. Kremlin propaganda claims that “Ukraine never had statehood”

On Wednesday, August 31, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian stated that he had delivered to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, a "peace initiative" allegedly proposed by a European leader whose name he did not mention. At the same time, the previous week a Russian cargo plane left Tehran with UAVs, Iranian-made combat drones for use in the war in Ukraine, providing the Kremlin at this prolonged time of difficulty with supplies. The Iranian government has also not confirmed the launch of a satellite allegedly used by the Kremlin for intelligence gathering in Ukraine, but there are consistent reports of drone malfunctions that are disappointing Russian officials.

This ambivalence on the part of the Iranian government is the latest attempt to align with the Russian vision of a multipolar order in which the United States is not as powerful, while not turning its back on the West, hoping for sanctions relief under a new Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In addition, Tehran aims to fill part of the vacuum left by Russia in the European energy market and is considering a long-term approach to gas exports by coordinating with Moscow so as not to irritate its elites, while reintroducing Iranian oil into the international market to reduce energy prices.

The independent group Conflict Armament Research, at the invitation of the Ukrainian government, analyzed Russian missiles and weapons used in the conflict in July and found that the supposedly high-tech weapons of Russia's flagship arsenal used low-tech components that are sometimes decades old. These findings further undermine the Kremlin's narrative about the capability and skill of its armed forces, which are supposed to be comparable to Western ones.

However, the report also shows that many of these weapons have components of Western innovation, such as computer chips, which arrived in Russia after 2014 despite sanctions because of the Crimean invasion. They would also use the same non-Russian component in multiple weapons used to strike Ukraine, which is also why the Russian military does not bother with equipment captured in the field to be examined and possibly reverse-engineered: it is either obsolete or Western-made. This would also explain why Russian cruise missiles often miss their targets, unsophisticated GPS technologies operate with too wide margins of error; if Moscow cannot keep up with innovation it steals it and makes the best possible attempt with it.

On Sunday, September 4, after being the US ambassador to Russia nearly for three years, John Sullivan ended his tenure. As the State Department stated, Sullivan’s departure represents part of an ordinary diplomatic rotation of the ambassadors. But it is worth mentioning that John Sullivan was forced to retire suddenly as his wife was ill with cancer. John Sullivan was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, and he held several high-ranking positions in the departments of Justice, Defense, and Commerce under Trump’s administration.

After the change of administration, he remained in his post at President Biden’s request as the relationship between the US and Russia was very tense. Moreover, as the members of the Biden administration noted, they appreciated John Sullivan due to his wisdom and guidance on Russia. During his tenure, the ambassador became the witness to historic challenges, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February as well as budget cuts, vacancies in key positions, ill-fated “redesign” and leadership change. Elizabeth Rood, who was the deputy chief of the embassy, took over the post until John Sullivan’s successor is appointed.

The United States and its allies provided Ukraine with the weapons that are crucial for defending itself from Russia’s aggression, but it is noteworthy that this assistance is not enough to enable Ukraine to recover its lost territories and defeat Russia. Ukraine needs more advanced weaponry to achieve that goal. There is a serious objection to such assistance from the West’s side and the arguments are hinged on two flawed assumptions.

The first assumption deals with the fear that providing Ukraine with sophisticated weapons might provoke Vladimir Putin and escalate the nuclear war, while the second assumption is that the West needs to retain workable relations with Russia. As experts state, the US military aid for Ukraine irritates Putin, but it is less thinkable that Putin will launch a nuclear war as it might result in the collapse of Putin's regime and the end of Russia itself.

As for the second assumption, the Western leaders always emphasized the need for a talk with Russia, but this attempt only encouraged Russia’s aggression and intransigence. In reality, Putin does not want any relaxation of tensions and constructive relationship with the West as his autocratic rule rests on confrontation with USA and NATO.

Lenta.ru reports Fox News military expert, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, who said that there was no major Ukrainian offensive and there could not be, but the Russian one, on the contrary, should be about to begin. “Over the past six months, Russian troops have taken control of a fairly large area. They move slowly, but methodically and relentlessly, and once they take control of a territory, they never leave it.

In recent days, Russia has continued offensive operations.” Daniel stressed that Ukrainian authorities had been talking for months about an offensive in the Kherson region, but this did not happen. Instead, he claimed that there were reports of a Russian armed convoy with the most modern weapons leaving for the Donetsk region and we would see another, larger-scale offensive there from the Russian side.

Gazeta.ru informs that, previously, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, in an article for 19Fortyfive, said that Ukraine has no chance of defeating Russia on the battlefield.

SolovievLife reports The National Interest, which claimed that unilateral sanctions destroy US global leadership. The author informs that Washington is trying to impose, its policy based on the international order rules principle, which means Washington is setting the rules of the game in an extremely selective and one-sided way. Sanctions are at the heart of this new, still evolving order, and Washington is increasingly resorting to them. The author believes that sanctions have become a tool of choice for Washington and suggests that US policymakers are convinced that the best way to strengthen US global leadership is to continue to pursue policies that many countries consider unilateral coercion.

Finally, the author supposes that the US is brutally imposing its power because it doubts that it can set an example of a healthy democracy. Based on his opinion the US will not be able to claim world leadership in the 21st century by narrowing its circle of allies instead of expanding it and sanctions found themselves as a crippling world trade issue, which does not care who is friend or enemy.

Kremlin propaganda is trying to support fiction about the forced use of drugs in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In this context, social networks disseminated information that “psychotropic drugs are supplied to the Ukrainian military.” Allegedly, the Russian military found a report addressed to the commander of the 72nd separate mechanized brigade, Colonel Vdovichenko, that the alleged “new batch of drugs” that arrived at the end of June was “causing concern.” The report is most likely a fake.

As noted by VoxCheck fact-checkers, the report does not contain specific information: the names of the drugs, their purpose, the number of supplied units, the dates of receipt, etc. The military’s “complaints” are also vaguely worded. Only one case of violence among the military is mentioned, allegedly due to “refusal to issue the drug.” The document also contains several Russian translation errors, which may indicate its forgery. Russian media systematically generate fakes about the so-called “combat drugs” for the Armed Forces of Ukraine soldiers.

Russian propaganda continues to promote the narrative that Ukraine never had statehood and that most of its territories were historically Russian. In this context, the Russian media wrote that allegedly Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, part of the “Northern Black Sea Region,” were never Ukrainian territories, so Russia is only “bringing Novorossiya home.”

In particular, a member of the so-called central council of administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Vladimir Rogov, stated that “current Ukraine has no moral, historical and legal rights to the Zaporizhzhia region. All cities of the Northern Black Sea region are Russian cities, founded by Russian tsars and state officials, and Ukraine is not in charge of the fate of these lands”.

However, these territories were never “originally Russian land” with a “native Russian population.” Since the early Middle Ages, the southeastern regions of Ukraine have experienced several stages of colonization. However, even in the 19th century, demographic studies proved that 70% of Ukrainians lived in this territory. It is also important to note that during the Ukrainian independence referendum in 1991, 90.13% of residents of Kherson, 90.66% of Zaporizhzhia, 85.38% of Odesa, and 89.45% of Mykolaiv regions supported the Act of Proclamation of Independence of Ukraine.