Tag Archive for: Russia–Ukraine war

War risks from nuclear power plants? Just look at Zaporizhzhia

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Proposals for nuclear power in Australia will have to take national security risks into account.

As evidenced in an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released in September, Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine continues to create high risk of a nuclear disaster. In considering future conflicts, no one can safely assume that an enemy will avoid targeting nuclear power stations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons and new nuclear doctrine are alarming. But, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned at the United Nations on 25 September, the immediate nuclear risk is at Zaporizhzhia.

The Zaporizhzhia plant has been on or near the frontline since the Russian invasion in February 2022, exposed to nearby combat and, since Russian seizure in March 2022, dangerous mismanagement. There is significant risk of an accidental or intentional nuclear incident at the plant.

It is no longer tenable to argue that nuclear power plants are protected in conflicts by taboo. This must be considered as the Australian Liberal-National opposition proposes building seven major nuclear power plants and two small modular reactors in Australia.

The IAEA, the global nuclear watchdog, has been clear on the risks associated with the Zaporizhzhia plant. As established in the most recent and earlier reports, Russia’s actions during the conflict have either partially or fully compromised all seven of the IAEA’s ‘indispensable pillars’ of nuclear security. Notably, this framework was developed only in response to the invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s unprecedented wartime targeting and occupation of nuclear facilities.

Physical integrity (Pillar 1) and safety and security systems (Pillar 2) have been compromised by damage to the plant from direct attacks and nearby combat. The plant was first shelled in March 2022 when Russia seized control. More recently, on 27 June, an external radiation monitoring system 16km away was destroyed by shelling—which also compromised radiation monitoring and emergency preparedness (Pillar 6).

Drone strikes targeted the plant in April and July, and IAEA monitoring teams at the plant reported nearby explosions as recently as September. In August, fires at the plant coincided with the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, with large amounts of smoke billowing from a cooling tower.

In 2023, Russia conducted unauthorised structural changes and Russian forces even stored explosives in proximity to a nuclear reactor. Additionally, anti-personnel mines were also laid between the plant’s inner and outer fences in 2022, and more mines were laid in January 2024.

The capacity of operating staff, (Pillar 3) has been affected by the treatment of Ukrainian employees at the plant, including physical violence and torture, some fatal, by occupying Russian military and security forces. Workers have also been denied access to critical security systems and exposed to high stress. The chain of command has become unclear, resulting in conflicting messages to workers.

Shelling and other damage to the nearby city of Enerhodar has left workers and their families in poor living conditions, intermittently without power or fresh water supply. By early 2024, Ukrainian employees were reportedly no longer permitted at the facility. It is now operating with a personnel shortage: the plant has about 5000 workers, down from the pre-war peak of 11,000. In May, remaining staff were reporting severe psychological stress.

Russia has also weakened the facility’s necessary off-site power supply (Pillar 4). Since Russia tried to connect it to the Russian energy grid, the plant has lost three 750kV power lines and five of its 330kV backup power lines. It now operates with one of each and has suffered eight complete losses of off-site power. External power supply is essential to secure operation of the plant and continued operation of safety systems. In early 2024, the plant went 23 consecutive days without a backup connection.

As for Pillar 5 (an uninterrupted supply chain), the IAEA has reported the plant’s fragile logistics for spare or replacement parts and safety equipment. This is in part due to reliance on equipment from Western suppliers. Pillar 7, the requirement for reliable communications, has been compromised by the limitations on communication between the plant and the Ukrainian energy grid operator.

Additional threats have come from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023, an event that is widely attributed to Russia. This reduced water supply to the Zaporizhzhia plant for cooling reactors and spent fuel.

Russia has targeted other Ukrainian nuclear facilities, too. The Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkiv, which housed a small experimental reactor, was destroyed from the air in March 2022. Moscow has also continually spread disinformation and stoked nuclear fears, most recently regarding the security of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant after the Ukrainian advance into the region.

This is a lesson on the vulnerability of nuclear infrastructure during a conflict. Political leaders and policymakers must pay attention to it as they consider domestic energy policy.

After the gift of tanks, Australia needs a long-term approach to supporting Ukraine

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The 17 October announcement that Australia would give 49 surplus M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine is welcome, regardless of quibbles over the timeliness of the decision.  

Australia’s domestic debate over the process for donating materiel to Ukraine is important, but it mustn’t distract Canberra from the larger strategic task of helping Kyiv to end the war on its terms, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s newly unveiled victory plan has brought back into focus. That requires NATO allies and their Indo-Pacific partners visibly stepping up and pulling together ahead of the US election in November. 

Canberra can and should play an outsized role in that process because outcomes in Ukraine affect stability in our region. It needs a long-term approach for doing so. 

Australia can never hope to tilt the balance in Ukraine, but these US-made vehicles will make a military contribution on the ground. The donation accounts for the bulk of the 59 Abrams tanks that have been in Australian Army service since 2007. They are being replaced by 75 tanks of the much more advanced M1A2 SEPv3 version of the Abrams, the first batch of which has been received from the US. The fate of the Australian Army’s remaining 10 older Abrams tanks is less clear, but some may conceivably become available for donation to Ukraine once transition to the M1A2 version is complete. 

While the tanks are valued at around $245 million, the package does not appear to include funds for training, ammunition, repairs or alterations that improve survivability, such as fitting more armour to counter drones and other anti-tank weapons. But since Ukraine already operates Abrams tanks that the US has donated, it may be well placed to attend to those requirements.  

The announcement will not silence calls for a clearer and more consistent approach towards Australia’s support for Ukraine. Andrew Hastie, the shadow defence minister, said the move was ‘better late than never’. But Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the timing reflected the delivery of the newer tanks and the need to obtain permission from Washington, which controls the transfer of military technology.  

Donating the tanks conforms to one of the recommendations of a Senate committee that looked at support for Ukraine. Focus will now shift to other equipment slated for retirement, such as the 22 Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters.  

As we’ve argued previously alongside ASPI colleagues, the government needs a prompt and thorough mechanism for screening assistance to Ukraine that covers Australian defence industry capacity and military inventories, generating a long-term pipeline of support. The Australian Defence Force should not surrender kit that it needs; rather, we should nurture our capacity to make and improve equipment for capabilities that we and our democratic partners need.  

Australia’s approach to supporting Ukraine needs to be understood by Kyiv, other partners and the Australian Parliament and public. If a robust process is already in place in Canberra, it’s not yet sufficiently transparent to garner widespread trust. That task will remain harder while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade continues to delay the reopening of the Australian embassy in Kyiv—a logjam that the government and Parliament should work together to solve by amending health and safety law.  

Crucially, capability bucket lists and domestic political scraps must not distract Canberra from the larger strategic goal. Helping Ukraine to end the war on its terms includes restoring deterrence and establishing collective security arrangements as the basis for a durable peace. Zelenskyy’s victory plan, also announced last week, lays out a pathway to achieve that, potentially as early as next year.  

The crux of the plan is that Russia must lose the war, as freezing the conflict would embolden further aggression by Valdimir Putin and what Zelenskyy brands the ‘coalition of criminals’ backing Moscow. One of those criminals, Kim Jong Un, should be considered a direct party to the conflict if it’s proven that North Korean troops are operating in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China and Iran continue to ramp up material support.  

Zelenskyy is clear that Ukraine’s victory depends on the will of its partners. Encouragingly, Australia’s military aid has no conditions attached beyond compliance with international humanitarian law, which means the tanks may be used to attack and hold Russian territory—one of Zelenskyy’s criteria for forcing the Kremlin’s hand. Our intelligence and security agencies must now redouble their vigilance against Russian retaliation, which might be directed against Australians. 

At the strategic level, Canberra’s urgent task is to work with Japan, New Zealand and South Korea to emphasise that a durable peace on Kyiv’s terms is also essential for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The inclusion of ministers from those countries in the opening session of NATO meetings on 17 October helps get that message across. 

Australia should go further by spelling out a long-term approach, including by joining the over 30 countries that have signing onto the G7 declaration of support for Ukraine. Canberra should also consider forging a bilateral security and defence agreement with Ukraine, following the example of the 26 countries that already have.

Slovakia’s anti-democratic government is doubling down

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Just as Slovakia entered a moratorium on public speeches and campaigning ahead of this month’s European Parliament elections, Prime Minister Robert Fico delivered his first public remarks since he was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in May.

On May 15, Fico was shot four times at close range in the former mining town of Handlova in central Slovakia after chairing an offsite cabinet meeting. He was transported to the hospital in critical condition, underwent several rounds of surgery and is now recuperating at his home in Bratislava.

In a recorded video address, Fico said he ‘forgives’ the man who tried to kill him. But he swiftly blamed the ‘politically unsuccessful and frustrated’ opposition for the circumstances that led to the shooting, calling the assailant the opposition’s ‘messenger of evil and political hatred’. Fico added that he had ‘no reason to believe this was an attack by a lone madman.’

The shooter, 71-year-old poet and former security guard Juraj Cintula, reportedly opposed Fico’s media policies and his government’s stance on Ukraine. But as an anti-minority, anti-immigrant activist with ties to an ultra-nationalist group that has acted as a pro-Russia propaganda tool, Cintula could hardly be described as a supporter of the progressive liberal opposition, let alone its messenger.

Nevertheless, the attempted assassination is indicative of Slovakia’s toxic political climate and deepening polarisation (among the highest in Europe), which reflects three main factors. First, an intense intergenerational conflict is playing out across Slovakia’s political spectrum as older, rural and often disillusioned voters find themselves at odds with the opposition’s younger, urban and more pro-Western voter base.

These groups increasingly struggle to find common ground, causing rifts within households and local communities. For example, while the current government’s supporters are preoccupied with pensions, social benefits, and ‘preserving peace’—having been convinced by Fico that aiding Ukraine would drag Slovakia into a military conflict with Russia—younger voters view the country’s NATO and European Union memberships as crucial security guarantees. Meanwhile, social conservatives, seeing ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ politics as a threat to traditional family and religious values, assume a defensive stance that stifles constructive political dialogue.

Second, Slovakian voters have been inundated with incendiary rhetoric, misinformation and hate speech, all amplified by social media. Fico himself has repeatedly, and falsely, accused former president Zuzana Caputova of being a ‘foreign agent’ serving ‘American interests’, possibly contributing to death threats against her and her loved ones. His cabinet members similarly mischaracterised pro-Western presidential candidate Ivan Korcok as a warmonger to stoke fears among supporters of the ruling party, Smer-Social Democracy.

Lastly, Fico’s return to power has exacerbated the problem. Fico, Slovakia’s longest-serving prime minister, staged an unlikely political comeback in 2023, five years after he was forced to step down to quell a political crisis sparked by the murder of a journalist investigating allegations of high-level corruption. Over the past few years, several members of Fico’s former cabinet have been suspected of, and in some cases charged with, serious criminal offenses.

Consequently, the government dismantled the Special Prosecutor’s Office, which was responsible for investigating such crimes, and tried to overhaul the penal code immediately after assuming office, triggering widespread protests. The government has also sought to restructure public media to tighten control over news content, thereby undermining press freedom and the European Union’s rule-of-law standards.

The outcome of April’s presidential election could further undermine democratic checks and balances, as the government-aligned president, Peter Pellegrini, is unlikely to challenge the executive branch, as Caputova did. Notably, the president is responsible for appointing constitutional court judges and has the authority to pardon convicted criminals. With Pellegrini’s victory, the administration’s control of the legislative and executive branches may extend to the presidency.

Any hope that Fico’s shooting would serve as a wake-up call and unite Slovaks in support of their fledgling democracy has been dashed. Shortly after the assassination attempt, several senior government officials suggested that the media played a role in radicalising the prime minister’s shooter, telling journalists to look in the mirror. Fico’s address has made it abundantly clear that the government intends to use this tragedy to suppress the opposition and independent media, enabling it to pass controversial laws with little pushback.

Fico’s shooting could also fuel political violence across Europe and beyond, as populists around the world push for peace in Ukraine at the expense of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In the days following the assassination attempt, Michal Simecka, the leader of Slovakia’s main pro-democracy opposition party, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk both received death threats.

But while Fico appears emboldened, the government might be overestimating how long it can maintain its current policy course, given Slovakia’s heavy reliance on its trading partners, allies and international investors. The looming threat of losing crucial EU funds could constrain the government’s illiberal reforms, especially as Slovakia faces increased pressure from soaring energy prices and the EU’s reformed Stability and Growth Pact, with its rigid debt-reduction targets.

Moreover, Slovakia’s shift from legacy car manufacturing to electric vehicles will demand fresh inflows of foreign capital. But the ongoing political turbulence has diminished the economy’s international appeal and undermined its fiscal prospects, driving young Slovaks to seek opportunities abroad.

Even if Fico’s shooting bolsters his political support, the opposition and the media must continue to scrutinize and challenge the ruling coalition. Amid a recent spate of government bills aimed at eroding Slovakia’s remaining democratic safeguards, sustained international pressure is more important than ever.

Old and new lessons from the Ukraine War

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Two years ago, I outlined eight lessons from the Ukraine War. Though I warned that it was too early to be confident about any predictions, they have held up reasonably well.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he envisaged a quick seizure of the capital, Kyiv, and a change of government, much like what the Soviets did in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. But the war is still raging, and no one knows when or how it will end.

If one sees the conflict as Ukraine’s ‘war of independence’, rather than focusing too much on borders, the Ukrainians are already victorious. Putin had denied that Ukraine was a separate nation, but his behaviour has only strengthened Ukrainian national identity.

What else have we learned? First, old and new weapons complement each other. Despite the early success of anti-tank weapons in the defence of Kyiv, I warned, correctly, that proclamations about the end of the tank era might prove premature as the battle moved from the northern suburbs to Ukraine’s eastern plains. However, I did not anticipate the effectiveness of drones as anti-tank and anti-ship weapons, nor did I expect that Ukraine could drive the Russian navy from the western half of the Black Sea. (Artillery and mines also have played a major role as the conflict has settled into World War I-style trench warfare.)

Second, nuclear deterrence works, but it depends on relative stakes more than capabilities. The West has been deterred, but only up to a point. Putin’s nuclear threat has kept NATO governments from sending troops (though not equipment) to Ukraine. But the reason is not that Russia has superior nuclear capabilities; rather, it is that Putin has designated Ukraine a vital national interest for Russia, whereas Western governments have not. Meanwhile, Putin’s nuclear sabre rattling has not prevented the West from extending the range of the weapons it provides to Ukraine; and the West, so far, has deterred Putin from attacking any NATO countries.

Third, economic interdependence does not prevent war. Some German policymakers assumed that cutting trade ties with Russia would be so costly that neither party would allow for open hostilities. But while economic interdependence can raise the costs of war, it does not necessarily prevent it. More to the point, an uneven economic interdependence can be weaponised by the less dependent party.

Fourth, sanctions can raise costs, but they do not determine outcomes in the short term. Recall that CIA Director William Burns met with Putin in November 2021 and warned, to no avail, of impending sanctions should Russia invade. Putin probably doubted that the West could maintain global unity on sanctions, and he was right. Oil is a fungible commodity, and many countries, not least India, are more than happy to import discounted Russian oil transported by an irregular fleet of tankers.

Nonetheless, as I expected two years ago, China’s concerns about getting entangled in secondary sanctions do seem to have set some limits on its support for Russia. While China has provided important dual-use technology (suitable for either military or civilian purposes), it has abstained from sending weapons. Given this mixed picture, it will be some time before we can fully judge the long-term effect of sanctions on Russia.

Fifth, information warfare makes a difference. Modern wars are not only about whose army wins; they are also about whose story wins. The careful disclosure by the United States of intelligence revealing Russia’s invasion plans proved effective in debunking the narrative that Putin wanted Europeans to believe, and it contributed greatly to Western solidarity when the invasion occurred as predicted. Equally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has done an extraordinary job of promoting his country’s story in the West.

Sixth, both hard and soft power matter. While hard, coercive power trumps the soft power of attraction in the near term, soft power still counts for a lot. Putin failed the soft-power test early on. The sheer barbarism of Russian forces in Ukraine led Germany finally to cancel the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, an outcome that years of US pressure had failed to bring about. Zelensky, by contrast, has been relying on soft power from the start. Using his skills as an actor to present an attractive portrait of Ukraine, he not only won Western sympathy, but also secured deliveries of the military equipment that underwrites hard power.

Seventh, cyber capability is not a silver bullet. Russia had used cyber weapons to meddle with Ukraine’s power grid since at least 2015, and many analysts predicted that a cyber blitz against Ukraine’s infrastructure and government would make any invasion a fait accompli. But while there have been many (reported) cyberattacks during the war, none has proved decisive. When the Ukrainians’ Viasat network was hacked, they started communicating through Starlink’s many small satellites. With training and battlefield experience, Ukrainian cyber defence and offense has only improved.

Another lesson, then, is that once a war has begun, kinetic weapons provide greater timeliness, precision and damage assessment for commanders than cyber weapons do. That said, electromagnetic warfare can still interfere with the linkages that are essential to the use of drones.

Finally, war is unpredictable. The most important lesson from the Ukraine war remains one of the oldest. Two years ago many expected a quick Russian victory, and just one year ago there were great expectations of a triumphant Ukrainian summer offensive. But as Shakespeare wrote more than four centuries ago, it is dangerous for a leader to ‘cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war.’

The promise of a short war is seductive. Putin certainly never expected to be bogged down indefinitely. He has managed to sell his war of attrition to the Russian people as a great patriotic struggle against the West. But the dogs he has unleashed could still turn around and bite him.

Defining success in Ukraine

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Three months ago, I wrote a column titled ‘Will Ukraine Survive?’ The answer (thankfully) for the next year is ‘yes,’ owing to Ukraine’s willingness to fight and sacrifice and the resumption of substantial US military aid.

At the same time, Russia has launched a new offensive in the northeast that threatens Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second-largest city), is girding for a protracted war, and has largely reconstituted its forces. This raises an important question: with the new tranche of aid in hand, what should Ukraine and its backers in the West seek to achieve? What should constitute success?

Some answer that success should be defined as Ukraine recovering all its lost territory, to re-establish its 1991 borders. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has expressed the view that 2025 could be the time for Ukraine to once again mount a counter-offensive against Russian troops.

This would be a serious mistake. Don’t get me wrong: re-establishing rightful, legal borders would be highly desirable, demonstrating that aggression is not acceptable. But foreign policy must be doable as well as desirable, and Ukraine simply is not in a position to liberate Crimea and its eastern regions through military force.

The maths is unavoidable. Russia has too many soldiers and a wartime economy capable of producing large amounts of arms and ammunition. Despite sanctions, Russia has been able to ramp up its military-industrial base and has access to weaponry and ammunition produced in Iran and North Korea and to Chinese manufactured goods and technologies that contribute to the Kremlin’s war effort.

Another factor militating against a Ukraine effort to recapture its lands by force is that offensive operations tend to require much more in the way of manpower, equipment, and ammunition than do defensive efforts. This is especially so when defences have had the chance to build fortifications, as Russia has in much of the Ukrainian territory it occupies.

The likely result of Ukraine returning to the offensive would be a massive loss of soldiers, something the already short-handed Ukrainian military can ill afford. The limited military equipment and ammunition Ukraine has access to would be quickly depleted, in the process making it more difficult to defend areas currently under Ukraine’s control. A failed Ukrainian offensive would also give new talking points to those in Western capitals sceptical of providing any assistance to Ukraine, viewing such aid as wasteful.

What strategy, then, should Ukraine and its supporters pursue? First, Ukraine should emphasise the defensive, an approach that would allow it to husband its limited resources and frustrate Russia.

Second, Ukraine should be given the means (long-range strike capabilities) and the freedom to attack Russian forces anywhere in Ukraine, as well as Russian warships in the Black Sea and economic targets within Russia itself. Russia must come to feel the cost of a war it initiated and prolongs.

Third, Ukraine’s backers must commit to providing long-term military aid. The goal of all of the above is to signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that time is not on Russia’s side and that he cannot hope to outlast Ukraine.

Ukraine and its supporters should do one more thing: propose an interim cease-fire agreement along existing lines.

Putin will likely reject such a proposal, but his doing so should make it less difficult to win debates in the United States over providing assistance to Ukraine, as it will expose Russia as the party responsible for the continuation of the war. It might even provide a context in which US military aid to Ukraine would continue should Donald Trump retake the presidency in November.

This combination of a shift to defence, deep strikes, continued Western military assistance, and a diplomatic effort that exposes Russia for the aggressor that it is might over time persuade Putin to accept an interim ceasefire. Under such an agreement, neither country would be asked to give up its long-term claims.

Ukraine could continue to seek the return of all its territory; Russia could continue to claim Ukraine has no right to exist as a sovereign state. Both sides could continue to rearm. Sanctions could remain in place. Ukraine could explore closer connections to both the European Union and NATO.

Ukraine would no doubt resist elements of this approach. But the US and Ukraine’s other supporters should insist on it. Ukraine cannot demand unconditional support any more than any other strategic partner. A renewed counter-offensive would fail while undermining Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. What Ukraine would gain from an interim ceasefire is an opportunity to begin rebuilding the country, as money and investment will not become available so long as the country remains an active war zone.

An interim ceasefire almost certainly would not lead to anything resembling peace, which will likely have to wait for the arrival of a Russian leadership that chooses to end the country’s pariah status. That might not happen for years or decades. In the meantime, though, Ukraine would be much better off than it would be if the war continued.

Such arrangements—non-permanent, less than formal peace—have worked well in other contexts, including on the Korean peninsula and in Cyprus. They do not represent solutions, but they are preferable to the alternatives. And even if Russia rejects any ceasefire, as could well prove to be the case, Ukraine would be better off with a military and diplomatic strategy that protects the country’s core, preserves its independence, and maintains external support. Ukraine’s friends ought to keep this in mind before they define success in a manner that sets the country up to fail.

The anniversary of war in Ukraine—10 years, not two years

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In the coming weeks, a flood of analysis can be expected marking the end of the second year of war in Ukraine. In fact, the war began 10 years ago when Russia seized Crimea in February 2014.

This error in analysis demonstrates the cultural challenges Australia, and Western nations more broadly, face in the way they approach defence issues and national security writ large. Our error is that we culturally conflate conventional warfare with war. This is a counter-productive mindset when we are confronted by autocratic leaders who engage in ‘struggle’, perhaps over a decade or longer, using all elements of power.

As the 2024 national security strategy is being written, the lessons of 10 years of war involving political warfare, proxy warfare, grey zone coercion, cyber mobilisation, economic warfare, the development of resistance strategies, the employment of new unmanned systems and conventional warfighting, must be assimilated. In short, we must expand our thinking if we are to holistically understand contemporary war.

Eminent strategist Colin Gray has previously called attention to the erroneous Western conflation of conventional warfare with war. His warning has not been embraced. A manifestation of this Western conflation can be observed in Frank Hoffman’s need to introduce the term, ‘hybrid warfare’, to force a shift in mindset commensurate with the blending of terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and conventional warfare, as displayed by Hezbollah in 2006. This term, ‘hybrid’, became normalised by describing the sophisticated Russian tactics of ‘liminal warfare’ employed during the seizure of Crimea in 2014.

The first lesson we might discern from this past decade is that today’s evolved character of war has already adapted to Putin’s escalation in 2022. It punishes the overt employment of conventional warfighting methods thus rewarding political and irregular warfare methods that operate below the threshold of conventional responses through relevant populations, using a mixture of violence and non-violence.

A second lesson of the Russia-Ukraine war is that conventional warfare is risky; almost too risky to be a useful tool of statecraft. Putin sought a decisive end to tensions with Ukraine through a coup de main on 24 February 2022 and he got a decisive effect. As Kori Shake states: ‘Russia has been taken off the board as a major adversary of the United States’.  It is important to note that Putin hoped to avoid further conventional warfighting, as had plagued the Donbas for the past eight years, by seeking to end the confrontation with Ukraine. It must be recognised that, thus far, the tool of conventional warfighting has failed to deliver Putin any of his strategic objectives. Ironically, the Russian experience looks poised to repeat the Soviet experience of conventional escalation in Afghanistan in 1979. The lesson is that autocratic nations might be expected to continue to pursue grey zone activities and to avoid conventional warfare.

A third lesson is derived by asking why Putin has thus far been denied victory. Ukraine has developed an impressive maritime strike capability using unmanned surveillance and surface vessels that has been under-recognised in Australian strategic discourse. The sinking of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship, Moskva, in April 2022 and the destruction of a Kilo submarine in drydock in September 2023 were, as the UK First Sea Lord stated, signs that a ‘dreadnought’ moment in the evolution of naval warfare has arrived. Oddly, the asymmetry inherent in Ukraine’s approach has received little commentary in Australia. The use of low-cost missile and unmanned systems to hold at risk naval platforms in the Black Sea is a model for disrupting naval forces in an archipelagic region like South-East Asia (and is presently being demonstrated off Yemen’s coastline). Ukraine’s unmanned strike and surveillance systems are also continuing to impose significant cost against land platforms and formations at extended range. Such tactical innovations underpin countries being dissuaded from escalation to conventional warfighting.

Fourth, these Ukrainian innovations began alongside societal responses to Russia’s grey zone activities in the context of a ‘frozen conflict’ in the Donbass. These innovations and adaptions have proven themselves in the ‘hybrid’ nature of conflict from February 2022 to today. Ukraine decided to develop a capacity for resistance following Russia’s attempts to mobilise subversive elements of Ukraine’s population in April-May 2014 under a ‘Novorossiya’ narrative. The emergent behaviour shown by physical and virtual resistance efforts in 2022-2023 have proven effective as an asymmetric counter to land power and been adopted broadly across Eastern Europe. Russian political warfare evidently also continues in conflict, demonstrated by efforts to subvert Moldova continuing after February 2022.

The information dimension of the ongoing conflict is global in scale with election interference in this year’s US, UK, and Australian elections almost certainly expected.

The conventional warfighting bias inherent to Western national security system hinders adaptation to these lessons due to the blinkered view of the contemporary character of war.

The conflation of conventional warfare with war is dangerous as it oversimplifies our challenges and erodes our strategic acumen. Many commentators note that the CCP hasn’t fought a war since the 1979 border incursion against Vietnam, which it arguably lost. What these commentators mean is that the CCP hasn’t fought a conventional war since 1979. It might be argued that it hasn’t needed to. Following the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese border conflict, the Chinese frustrated Vietnamese influence over Kampuchea in the 1980s by supporting a proxy war waged by the Khmer Rouge from border camps in Thailand. Following the collapse of the Burmese Communist Party in 1989, Chinese support pivoted to the United Wa State Army (UWSA). With such support, the UWSA have built up control in the Shan state of Myanmar, roughly the size of Belgium. Over the past decade Chinese maritime militia activities in the South China Sea have arguably secured its island-building fait accompli. Over the past five years, Beijing’s dominance over Hong Kong (and the end of a one state, two systems narrative) was successfully asserted. To contextualise these events, remember that a century ago, the CCP was a clandestine network predominantly based in Shanghai. It is now the most powerful global competitor to the United States. A patient CCP that has consistently struggled, via a long-term strategy of growing power, is thus under-estimated by a bellicose conventional warfare narrative.

An erroneous understanding of the Russo-Ukraine war betrays a simplistic appreciation of war, clouded by a bias toward conventional warfare. There are, however, important lessons to be drawn from war in Eastern Europe that inform the breadth of future security threats that we are likely to face.

Putin’s dead end

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In his annual press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he will be ready for a peace settlement with Ukraine only after he has achieved his goals, which haven’t changed since he launched his full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. He wants Ukraine to be demilitarised, meaning subjected to Russian military and security control of its territory; and he wants ‘denazification’, meaning Ukraine would be put under Russian political control. In other words, Russia would absorb Ukraine so that the latter ceases to exist as an independent nation-state.

Time and again, Putin has declared that there’s no historical justification for Ukraine, since it comprises territories that were long held by the Russian Empire. But something similar can be said of countries across Europe today. Many previously fell under the yoke of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Wilhelmine or Russian empires. And globally, the vast majority of the 193 countries that make up the United Nations became independent only in the aftermath of World War II. In the historical period that preoccupies Putin, many of today’s countries didn’t exist even in people’s imaginations.

The problem, for Putin, is that the age of empires is long gone. He stubbornly refuses to accept that we now live in the age of nation-states, with an international order organised around the UN charter’s principle of territorial integrity, which prohibits any redrawing of national borders by force. Instead, he fantasises about recreating the Russian Empire by swallowing up Ukraine and Belarus (followed, perhaps, by many other neighbouring countries).

When Putin launched his war of conquest, he obviously expected Ukraine to fold quickly. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was to be dispensed with, and a Russian puppet government was to be installed within the space of a few weeks.

But that plan failed spectacularly. Ukraine’s population—especially its armed forces—refused to bow down to the wannabe tzar. Instead, Ukrainians united in fierce resistance, preserving control of their capital and then gradually taking back around half of the territory that Russia’s forces had initially occupied. Relying on missiles and drones, Ukraine has effectively put Russia’s Black Sea Fleet out of action, and its air defences have succeeded in creating a virtual no-fly zone over the country.

While Western financial support and military supplies have undoubtedly been critical to Ukraine’s defence, what matters most are the Ukrainian people’s high morale and determination to defend their country. With Russia holding a presidential election in March, Putin needs to make a credible argument that victory in his war isn’t a pipedream. He has put Russia’s economy on a war footing, mobilised 400,000 troops, cranked up the Kremlin’s propaganda machine and taken repression of dissent to new post-Soviet heights.

But none of that will win him the war. His heavily battered army seems incapable of making any meaningful advances against Ukrainian defensive lines. His only hope is that the Ukrainian people’s determination to resist will waver, and that ‘war fatigue’ will continue to build in Europe and the United States. Once the Western financial and military support has dried up, Ukrainian morale will evaporate, and his forces will be able to advance, imprisoning, deporting or simply executing anyone who still resists.

Yet if Putin thinks this scenario would bring peace, he’s gravely mistaken. His advancing armies already committed mass atrocities in the initial invasion, and they would do so again. But these horrors would galvanise political will in the rest of Europe, as would the flood of millions more Ukrainian refugees westwards. Though European governments’ responses are difficult to predict, they most certainly wouldn’t be aimed at securing peace with Russia. Far more likely is an even wider and more prolonged conflict, where the outcome would ultimately be decided by Europe’s economic and industrial strength, irrespective of changing US attitudes.

In short, there’s simply no way for Putin to win the war that he started. Peace will come only when he is defeated—only when the Ukrainians (with Western help) have succeeded in defending themselves, and when Russians see that Putin’s insane war has jeopardised their own futures.

It is impossible to predict when that will happen. For now, Putin seems satisfied that he hasn’t been militarily defeated yet. He is trying to exude confidence in his war effort, even though it is nowhere close to achieving any of his stated goals. But this performance can last only so long. Sooner or later, the grim reality of what he has done to Russia will become impossible to hide.

One day, when Russia finally abandons Putin’s neo-imperial illusion, it will start to focus on its own future as an independent nation-state among independent nation-states, including Ukraine and Belarus. Only then will it be possible to talk about peace.

Ukraine’s diplomatic offensive gathers pace

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Temperatures soared in Kyiv last weekend. Stuffy apartments were swapped for leafy dachas and crowds flocked to the Dnipro River’s sand beaches. Yet despite the heat, Ukrainians are keeping a careful eye on the calendar—as the end of summer approaches so does an important milestone for the ‘summer counteroffensive’. But while the front lines haven’t moved much in recent months, Ukraine’s diplomatic offensive is gathering pace as it tries to get ahead of pressure to compromise.

In early August, representatives from 42 countries and the United Nations gathered in Saudi Arabia at the urging of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was the second round of talks meant to rally support for the country’s peace formula, before a global summit planned for autumn. Among its 10 points, it calls for the restoration of Ukraine’s borders recognised in 1991.

To Ukrainians, this is not just a policy. It is a necessity because, they argue, trading victory for peace would be symptomatic of misreading Russia. After enduring centuries of Russian imperialism, Ukrainians have learned that concessions will only be used as staging grounds for future coercion. That’s why ‘Zelensky’s peace plan’, as it’s often called, is also the people’s peace plan. Even under routine air raids and with the promise of another gruelling winter ahead, Ukrainians overwhelmingly oppose giving up territory.

For their part, Ukraine’s Western partners have pledged their wholesale support. In Saudi Arabia, Germany’s representative reportedly commented that Ukraine cannot allow ‘even the thought of a frozen conflict’ or that Russian troops would not be withdrawn. Heavyweights from the global south were also present. Some participants that have so far been unwilling to condemn Russia’s illegal invasion signalled in-principle backing for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

This is something of a renewed diplomatic offensive. Until recently Ukraine seemed to view peace talks as a distraction from the war effort. As well as Russia’s bad-faith tactics, its monopoly on the peace process was part of the problem. It had convinced the international community that it couldn’t talk about Ukraine’s security without also talking to Russia. Although they were like the earlier discussions in Copenhagen, the Saudi Arabian talks differed because Russia wasn’t invited. This gave Ukraine space to push its own terms for ending the war while increasing Russia’s isolation.

But despite apparently positive results, Kyiv isn’t expecting consensus on all of its peace formula. Some officials from Ukraine’s military donors are convinced that the war will end with talks, not tanks. For non-believers, Ukraine’s counteroffensive is only to improve its negotiating position. Others, disappointed with results from the big push, would prefer Ukraine to open discussions while it still has the initiative. To both parties, the full restoration of Ukraine’s borders will likely be a sticking point.

However, for Ukrainians, a premature peace will remain an unacceptable peace. Even if Ukraine’s government did eventually go to the negotiating table, it likely couldn’t end the war without popular support. As well as being a democracy, Ukraine is relying on an armed force made up of experienced, well-equipped and highly motivated volunteers, with a de facto veto power over any peace deal.

More importantly, though, Ukraine doesn’t need to negotiate. With the right tools, it can win. The question is whether its partners are doing enough to help. Since last February, massive military aid has flowed from west to east. Yet denials and delays meant Ukraine launched its counteroffensive without modern air cover and long-range strike capabilities. True, more help is on the way, but Ukrainians see no sense in negotiating in the meantime.

Another talking point is the promise of NATO membership given to Ukraine in Vilnius last month.

As well as benefiting NATO, this is crucial to Ukraine’s lasting security because of the protection provided by Article 5, which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. Yet Ukrainians fear it could be used to question the logic of reunification or to pressure Ukraine into a land-for-membership deal.

But this too is a straw man. First, it’s not clear that Article 5 will be extended to Ukraine automatically. And even if it were, NATO is not a cure for all ills. A premature peace would still mortgage Ukraine’s sovereignty and leave millions of its citizens under brutal occupation. It would also reward Russian aggression. Like Russia’s invasion of Georgia 15 years ago and the annexation of Crimea that followed, such ambivalence would surely encourage other land grabs, if not only in Ukraine.

So where does Ukraine go from here? Until Russia withdraws from its territory, a negotiated peace is rightly not part of the plan. Nor is it inevitable. At a special meeting of the heads of Ukraine’s diplomatic missions earlier this month, Zelensky set his ambassadors a task to ‘ensure that the world always stands with Ukraine’. Their work won’t end with summer, just as the ‘summer counteroffensive’ will go on after the leaves turn and the harvest begins. Ukrainians will fight on because this war can’t be ended. This war must be won.

Why Ukraine needs cluster munitions

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US President Joe Biden’s decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions has drawn criticism from a strange collection of folk—some members of Congress, groups such as Human Rights Watch, a number of countries including fellow NATO ally Spain, and of course Russia.

There is no doubt that the legacy effect of cluster munitions in conflict, particularly for the civilian populations who face years of threat from the bomblets that fail to explode, is real. One needs only to look at the use by Israel of such munitions in South Lebanon during its month-long conflict with Hezbollah in 2006 to see just how long-lasting the impact can be. Indeed, their use in Lebanon was one of the reasons why a Cluster Munitions Convention was enacted in late 2008 prohibiting the use, transfer, production or stockpiling of such munitions. It has been signed by more than 100 countries (but not by the US, Russia or Ukraine).

Legally, then, there’s nothing to stop Washington from providing such munitions to Ukraine or to stop Ukraine from using them. And it seems perverse that Ukraine should be criticised for wanting to use such munitions against Russian invasion forces when those very invasion forces have been using them for more than a year against Ukraine. Until now, Kyiv’s partners have been reluctant to provide such munitions given their sensitivity. But Biden explained that stocks of conventional 155-millimetre artillery ammunition can’t keep up with Ukrainian demand, a fact acknowledged by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in June.

The Ukraine counteroffensive against well-prepared Russian defences has been slow. That was to be expected—without air cover Ukrainian ground forces can only rely on ground-based fires to support their assault. And if there’s insufficient 155-millimetre high-explosive ammunition to provide covering fire for the assault force, then cluster munitions are necessary to reduce Ukrainian casualties. Faced with this reality, it’s little wonder that Ukrainian ground forces are firmly of the belief that the tactical advantage that such munitions convey is worth the long-term cost of cleaning up the unexploded ordnance after. In a battle for a nation’s survival, you do what you must to win.

The use of cluster munitions with their relatively high failure rate will undoubtedly leave Ukraine with a generational threat to the civilian population of unexploded ordnance. However, that threat will be there regardless of whether the weapons are fired or not. A year and a half of at times intense conventional warfare has meant that all types of unexploded ordnance litter the battlefield. And months of Russian preparation of defensive positions with extensive use of anti-personnel and anti-armour mines means that that pernicious subsurface threat will likely have a greater effect on the population than failed cluster bomblets for years to come. You can be sure that the Russians, even if they did record their minefields, won’t be in any hurry to hand that information over to the Ukrainians after hostilities cease.

Biden has gained written assurances from Ukraine that the munitions won’t be used in civilian or built-up areas or against Russian territory. And Kyiv would be alert to the negative consequences to it from both Washington and the broader international community if it were to transgress this guarantee. It is all well and good for the Spanish defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, to tell the press, ‘No to cluster bombs and yes to the legitimate defence of Ukraine, which we understand should not be carried out with cluster bombs’, but she might have a difficult time convincing a Ukrainian company commander about to assault a Russian defensive position established in Bakhmut exactly why she thinks he shouldn’t use them in his own country to cover that assault.

A very Russian revolution

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As the world was distracted by an episode of Russian drama complete with the betrayal of a once-loyal servant, armed mutiny and panic at the court of a tsar, Ukraine was being shelled. On the night of 23 June, at least 20 missiles were fired on the Kyiv region alone, and at least five people were killed in the capital. But we’re used to that sort of news coming out of Ukraine. It’s no longer dramatic. Nor does the Ukrainian counteroffensive, conducted without much fanfare, fulfil our craving for drama. Instead, Yevgeny Prigozhin obliged.

On 23 June, the night when fragments of a Russian missile hit a residential building in Kyiv killing people in their homes, the leader of the notorious Wagner Group announced that he and his mercenaries were staging a ‘march for justice’. This type of declaration coming from a war criminal makes a mockery of the word. The justice he meant, of course, was not for Ukrainians whom his private army has been slaughtering over the past 16 months, nor was it for the victims of the massacres conducted by his mercenaries on the African continent or in the Middle East. The ‘justice’ he sought was for himself.

Earlier in the month, Prigozhin’s boss in the Kremlin upset him by endorsing an order for those fighting for ‘volunteer detachments’, including Wagner, to sign a contract with Russia’s Defence Ministry. That would have limited Prigozhin’s powers and he was having none of it. To show off his might, he marched his troops on Rostov-on-Don, occupying the city that is home to the headquarters of Russia’s southern military district and serves as a crucial command centre in the war against Ukraine. The mercenaries then progressed towards Moscow, threatening to reach the capital by the end of the day.

As the army comprising war criminals and convicts was making its rapid progress through Russian territory, expert after expert appeared in the media analysing the situation. Among them were commentators who in 2014 accepted Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a done deal, and analysts who in February 2022 wondered if Kyiv would fall in 72 hours or in a week. Now they were dishing out evaluations of the potential for Moscow to fall within 24 hours.

The enthusiasm with which the media got drawn to the Wagner Group’s mutiny matched the speed of its advance on Moscow. Maps of rebellious troops mushroomed on news feeds, eager commentators watching their every step. They are in Rostov, in Voronezh, in the Moscow region!

I don’t recall such rapt news coverage of the destroyed Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine a few weeks ago. Many observers engaged in the whodunit discussions, but few focused on how to mitigate the environmental damage resulting from this latest crime perpetrated by Russia, and how to prevent the next one. The areas affected by this ecocide were a territory unfamiliar to most observers around the world. They couldn’t compete with Moscow for our attention. The people of the Kherson region whose homes were drowned in the flooding were not as newsworthy as the infighting in the court of the tsar.

As the expert community was predicting Russia’s future in light of the mutiny, the president of the Russian Federation preferred to focus on the past. It is a trick that’s tried and tested: when in doubt about his future, he threatens the world with history. In his televised address to the nation, Vladimir Putin, a man who fancies himself as a bit of a tsar, condemned the disloyalty of the rebels and drew parallels with the period that haunts him in his worst nightmares: the revolution of 1917, or, to be more precise, the coup that brought the downfall of the last Russian tsar.

In 1917, the Russian monarchy might have ceased to exist, but the empire had not. The Bolsheviks kept it going. Nor did the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 mean that Russia entirely lost its empire. In its neo-imperial guise, Russia went on to fight neocolonial wars. A revolution is unlikely to bring this variant of the empire down. A decisive defeat on the battlefields of Ukraine has a better chance.

Unlike Putin, the West is enchanted by the Russian Revolution. Back in 2017, living in London, I was bombarded by the celebrations of its centenary: from exhibitions revelling in the revolutionary art to underground trains plastered in Russian colours. Perhaps the West’s obsession with the potential of Russian revolution comes from the desire to see the people of Russia revolt, if not against their country waging a war in Ukraine, then at least against being forced into poverty by their own leaders. But the Russia we like to imagine is not the Russia that exists in reality.

During their brief occupation of Russian cities, the Wagner soldiers were met by residents who cheered them, brought them food and looked upset to see them leave. It appeared that the Russians were not as detached from political reality and fooled by the Kremlin propaganda as some would have us believe. At least some of them looked ready to ditch their weakening dictator and replace him with a new strong hand. One thing is clear: none were taking to the streets to demand an end to the war in Ukraine. Those who welcomed the mercenaries were showing support for the men who have demonstrated themselves as most effective at killing Ukrainians.

This chapter of a very Russian revolution might be over, but Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is not. Before we settle in to watch the next episode, whenever it is released, we might want to put our popcorn away and stop treating Russia’s war as something that happens on our TV screens. Let’s not forget that an army known for its ability to blow up strategic targets whatever the cost to the population and environment continues to occupy the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Although damage to the largest nuclear power station in Europe would have grave consequences, it hasn’t been the focus of the media. Yet, if we allow it, it won’t just happen on our TV screens; it will plunge the whole world into the very centre of the Russian drama.