Provider of in-depth & balanced analysis on hot issues around the world

Landlocked in the heart of Central Asia, Kazakhstan is involved in regional partnerships and, pragmatic, claims to be a facilitator with balanced relations, even if the pressure to take a stand between Russia, China and the European Union is strong. This cocktail is the challenge of so-called middle power (or bridge) countries, developing multi-factor diplomacy, here constrained by geography and made possible by the country’s resources. Moreover, the development and identity of the five Central Asian countries are built around the imperative of cooperation, given the geographical position and the small number of citizens (75 million for the five countries).  The 2023 edition of the Astana Forum, formerly economic and renamed Astana International Forum, was structured around four themes: foreign policy and international security, international development and sustainability, energy and climate change and economy and finance. This forum supports the development of international action: dialogue of international themes, with the desire to propose answers, desires to become a reference on the world scene without forgetting a public relations dimension. This has resulted in Kazakhstan’s diplomacy being described as ‘niche diplomacy’ (for uranium exchanges) or multi-vector diplomacy[1]. Since February 2022, the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s connectivity project, no longer pass through Russia. Kazakhstan is at the centre of the EU-funded Asia-Europe Transport Road (or Trans International Transport Road). This is one example where the economy, originally considered by Joseph Nye as a resource of hard power, becomes a factor of attractiveness and image for a country. In terms of analysis, considering a continuum – not a strict dichotomy – between hard power and soft power allows for more flexibility between projects and resources. This multilateral institutional program connects the rail freight container transport networks of China and the EU. The multimodal transport structure connects the Caspian and Black Sea ferry terminals with the rail systems of Asian and European countries. The route starts from Southeast Asia and China, crosses Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. The so-called middle corridor is present in the speeches and in the initiatives and funding of the European Union and China. This land logistics link between the China and EU trading zones goes beyond transport to digitation of data and complying with European Union and UN standards. Therefore, several models are facing together depending on the view of China or the Union. Beyond this situation, what are the challenges for this middle power and in the broader context of countries that voluntarily and reasoned choose an identical approach and positioning? A successful solution for a middle power means choosing specific negotiating topics in the international space, being agile and flexible, and knowing how to build coalitions to defend them. In the context of multilateralism, it is necessary to structure actions for a convergence between its interests and those of the partners rather than on an ideology. This is one of the conditions for becoming credible, for developing its discourse and, ultimately, to be perceived by the international community as a country with positive contributions. And beyond this community, by the public, which comes down to finding its place on the world map in the long term, when the country becomes known and better identified. Diplomacy becomes public, because it consists of informing, or even dialogue with public opinion. Thus, the Astana Forum presents a middle power capable of building a regional dialogue with experts, politicians, and international actors, which contributes to the construction of legitimacy and the ability to influence through contacts, cooperation and media coverage. Being a middle power also means being courted in alliance competitions whose number and formats become exponential, which generates as many acronyms as possible, here China + C5 and EU + C5. Two recent summits, beyond content and photos, tell the stakes. The China-five Central Asian summit took place in May 2023 in Xi’an, China with the signing of 54 multilateral agreements. The meeting of the European Union and the five Central Asian countries took place at the beginning of June in Cholpon Ata, Kyrgyzstan. These are the five countries being courted no doubt with strong pressure to choose one or the other alliance, hence the tensions and questions of cooperation already mentioned. Moreover, contradictions exist between the possibilities and wills of the middle powers and the driving force of international institutions, structures with more rigid rules, including, for example, the Security Council. A new paradigm is emerging: the role of coalitions. Finally, middle-power countries must balance their national interests, common international challenges such as climate change, and building alliances and coalitions. Claims of middle powers, alliances and coalitions and connectivity programs may be shaping the geopolitics of tomorrow.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, more than 13 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes in what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called ‘the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II’. Breaking with a policy of deterring and containing asylum seekers outside its borders, the EU and its member states rightly responded to the flow of people by creating legal pathways that granted Ukrainian nationals protection and legal status within the Union. To date, some 8.2 million Ukrainians have registered across Europe. While these laudable efforts have undoubtedly saved lives, over a year later it is clear that the measures are the exception and not the rule. The EU has used the war in Ukraine to expand its deadly border regime in Eastern Europe, in particular the role of Frontex, doubling its efforts to keep out those fleeing other wars and conflicts. Moreover, Ukraine, which has acted as the EU’s border guard for nearly two decades, has continued to play this role even as the war rages on. As we approach World Refugee Day, we expose the discrimination, racism, and hypocrisy driving Europe’s deadly border policies in response to the war. The EU’s differential treatment of refugees Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, millions of people fled the war by moving across Ukraine’s western borders with the EU. In response, the EU and its member states did something unprecedented – they created legal pathways that immediately permitted millions of refugees to live and work inside the Union. Meanwhile in the Mediterranean, where the EU and its member states have withdrawn Search and Rescue missions and criminalised civil society organisations (CSOs) that have stepped in to fill this void, at least 2367 people were left to drown throughout 2022, though the real figure is likely much higher. A situation has unfolded since 2022 whereby the EU is willing to receive millions of refugees from one war-torn country but is hellbent on keeping those from other war-torn countries out. In one particular example in March 2022, Greece accommodated 18,000 refugees from Ukraine, but simultaneously illegally deported to Türkiye at least 540 refugees from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, resulting in the death of a four-year-old child. Moreover, there were instances across Europe of refugees already living in state-provided accommodation being displaced to make space for Ukrainians. Perhaps Poland represents the starkest example of the hypocrisies that have emerged in the wake of the war. People fleeing Ukraine were received with warm meals, blankets, and provided with shelter, whereas further north along the Polish-Belarussian border people fleeing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, among other countries, were quite literally hunted like animals by border patrol dogs, or allowed to freeze to death in the vast forests of Poland’s north eastern territory. In national debates across many EU member states, politicians have used the presence of Ukrainian refugees to spin racist-driven arguments that Europe is full, in some cases advocating that non-Ukrainian arrivals, the vast majority of whom are not white, should be refused entry or deported. Britain’s much-criticised ‘Rwanda Plan’, which seeks to immediately deport to Rwanda those arriving ‘illegally’, is part of a much larger trend across Europe dating from long before the Ukraine war, of stepping up deportations and simultaneously eroding International Refugee Law. European states have used the war in Europe as a pretext to fortify their borders while driving a wedge between refugees who are considered deserving of protection – Ukrainian nationals – and others, often from other war-torn nations, who are not. Separately, many of Europe’s political leaders have made clear that those attempting to flee Russia’s forced conscription orders will not be granted refuge in the EU. In this vein, Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states have begun building new fences and further militarising existing infrastructure along the EU–Russian border, making it more difficult for Russians who are fleeing forced mobilisation or the wave of repression unleashed against those protesting the war to seek asylum in the EU. Differences even among those fleeing Ukraine Differential treatment with regard to international protection was not only observed between those fleeing the war in Ukraine and other wars. Hierarchies have also emerged between those fleeing Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities prohibited Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 years of age, as well as trans-women, from leaving, insisting instead that they join the war effort. Non-Ukrainian nationals or those whose status in the country prior to the outbreak of war was irregular faced significant obstacles in securing protection in the EU. In one of the most shameful examples of how a two-tiered approach was applied by the EU and Ukraine with regard to those fleeing the war, dozens of non-Ukrainian nationals were held in an EU-funded detention centre inside Ukraine, as the war raged around it. This is a clear violation of International Refugee Law and International Humanitarian Law, in particular Article 58C of Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions. The Volyn PTPI, located less than 40 kilometres from a military airfield that was bombed by a Russian airstrike in March 2022, refused to release between 35 and 45 detainees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Pakistan and Sudan. Five Ethiopians were released and relocated to Romania only after their government intervened. While most of the original detainees were eventually released following international pressure, the fact that not all had legal status in Ukraine led to some of them being detained once again in Poland. The incident speaks for itself—at a time when millions of Ukrainian refugees were entering the EU, 45 non-Ukrainians desperate to flee the same war remained locked up in an EU funded detention centre to keep them out. This detention centre remains operational today and the detainees are mainly political refugees from surrounding countries whom the Ukrainian government deems suspicious (pro-Russian) solely on base of their nationalities. According to the Global Detention Project ‘it is also alarming that Russians, Tatars, Dagestanis, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, and Uzbeks, many of whom have fled persecution by Russian security services and whose lives and safety would be in extreme danger if deported to their countries, are being arrested, detained, and threatened with deportation from Ukraine’. Since the mid-2000s, the EU has funded the construction of detention centres located deep inside Ukrainian territory where those heading towards the EU, or deported from it, have been held. Under the terms of a 2008 agreement, Ukraine was ‘expected to receive a considerable number of irregular migrants from third countries who managed to enter the EU’s territory from Ukraine, having used Ukraine as a transit country’. Three years before this agreement was signed, in 2005, Human Rights Watch had already highlighted the ‘continuing pressure on Ukraine from the EU to assist in migration management and border enforcement’. Moreover, human rights organisations and the international media denounced the use of torture, inhumane and degrading treatment inside these centres, including applying electric shocks and beating detainees. Despite credible allegations of torture, the EU continued to enact and implement bilateral agreements with Ukraine to contain those on the move outside its borders. Frontex Expands In early 2022 Frontex launched ‘Joint Operation Terra 2022’, deploying officers from its newly established standing corps to dozens of border crossings across 12 EU member states. Once the war intensified across Ukraine, the presence of these border officials and the use of aerial surveillance equipment at the EU borders with Ukraine and Russia was expanded, particularly in Estonia, Romania and Slovakia. Following much scrutiny and criticism of its role in illegal deportations in the Aegean Sea, among other human rights violations, the war offered Frontex the opportunity to clean up its image. Photos of Frontex border officials handing out teddy bears to Ukrainian children were shared on the agency’s social media accounts, together with commentary about the importance of keeping families united while fleeing war. The agency deployed a selective approach in dealing with those fleeing Ukraine. While Ukrainian nationals were permitted entry to the EU, those from other countries who found themselves in Ukraine when the war broke out faced significant hurdles to secure temporary protection and were offered ‘voluntary return’, though in many cases returning to their home countries was out of the question. In July 2022 the EU launched its Support Hub for Internal Security and Border Management in Moldova to coordinate its support to the country in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Frontex plays an important role in this context and also concluded its own agreement that saw the deployment of officers and donations of border-security equipment to Moldova to ‘support the reception of refugees from Ukraine’. The fine print of the agreement also included strengthening border security and fighting irregular migration. Very quickly this more securitised approach to dealing with those seeking refuge took precedence over providing humanitarian assistance. Over a year on, Frontex is no longer sharing images of its officials handing out cuddly toys to children, but it has reverted to its usual operations, boasting that ‘in 2022, joint Frontex and Moldovan border police teams achieved excellent results … record[ing] a 300 percent increase in the detection of irregular migration compared to 2021’. Though the war in Ukraine continues, the focus of the EU’s border policies has centred on securitisation tactics with the original objective behind the recently intensified border collaboration seemingly forgotten. Meanwhile, Frontex has used the war to further extend its operational area beyond the EU’s borders. At the end of January 2023, ‘Joint Operation Moldova 2023’ was launched to ‘support national authorities with border surveillance, border checks, but also with gathering information on people smuggling networks and identifying vulnerable groups’. Apart from the Moldovan operation, in January 2023 Frontex signed an agreement with Ukraine’s State Border Guard with a grant worth €12 million for the purchase of equipment such as patrol vehicles and uniforms. As well as strengthening the EU’s border with Ukraine and Moldova, this assistance ‘will also prepare the State Border Guard Service to potentially host Frontex joint operations in future’. Frontex Deputy Executive Director Uku Särekanno clarified at the signing of the grant agreement that in light of the ‘current critical situation at the border … supporting the business continuity of our Ukrainian colleagues is crucial, both for Ukraine and the EU’. The priorities are clear – enact agreements, even in the midst of a war, that guarantee business as usual along the EU’s external borders, no matter the human costs. In addition, in 2022 the EU has also expanded the mandate of the Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) launched in 2005 and the Advisory Mission (EUAM) dating from 2012. Both entities form part of the EU’s vast array of border externalisation architecture, underpinned by bilateral and multilateral agreements. Through these agreements the EU deploys a carrot and stick approach to cajole and coerce states to control the movement of people in territories far beyond Europe’s borders in a bid to stop them from ever reaching Fortress Europe. Over the past two decades the EU, through EUBAM, financed the training of the Ukrainian State Border Guard, conducted joint EU–Ukraine border patrols, and donated border security equipment to Ukraine, while the EUAM was mandated to support Ukraine in an advisory role to reform its civil security sector, including border security. Since 2007 Frontex has played a central role in implementing bilateral agreements between the EU and Ukraine. The expanded mandate of the EUBAM and the EUAM means that EUBAM officers are now permitted to participate directly in border control, in coordination with Frontex. An additional €15 million was granted to EUBAM to recruit more staff and provide equipment and training to Moldovan border guards. Similarly, EUAM has stepped up its activities, mainly by facilitating support to border authorities in Ukraine. Meanwhile, EU-funded projects implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) continue, such as the EU Support to Strengthening Integrated Border Management in Ukraine project (EU4IBM). In September 2022 the EU delivered more surveillance equipment to the Ukraine State Border Guard under an ICMPD project, while in early 2023, handheld X-RAY imagers and mini scanners for detection were made available. Moldova has also strengthened its border-security capacities through German funding for a new ICMPD project.  Separately, since the full-scale invasion, CEPOL, the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training, organised a study visit to Lithuania on ‘illegal immigration’ for law enforcement officials from Ukraine and Moldova and hosted a course on the same issue for its Moldovan partners. In February 2023, on the initiative of Estonia and the US, representatives of regional donor countries gathered at the Estonian Embassy in Warsaw to exchange ideas on how to best upgrade Ukraine’s border guard to meet EU requirements. Accession to the Schengen Area, albeit still a long way off, would lead to even more demands from the EU, with funding from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) to be made available for border security and control. The outsourcing of EU border control is not new, but rather is part of a well-oiled strategy of border externalisation and should be understood in that context. In its conclusions to a special meeting in February 2023 the European Council reaffirmed plans to drastically increase the pressure on third countries to cooperate in deportations and readmissions, with Frontex playing an important role. In what appears to be an attempt to justify the ongoing crackdown on migration, the Council conclusions referred to the ‘instrumentalisation’ of migration ‘as part of hybrid destabilising actions’. Even before the war the EU had accused Russia and Belarus of ‘weaponising’ people on the move by directing many of them at once to the Polish border with the aim of ‘destabilising’ the EU and its partner countries. This narrative of ‘weaponisation’ wrongly depicts people in need of protection as ‘enemy weapons’. It is an escalation of the ’migrants as threats’ narrative that has long underpinned EU border and migration policies and has effectively been used to disable the right to asylum in certain places – and also justify the call for ever more draconian border militarisation. Feeding the vicious cycle of displacement Just as the war is being used as a pretext to double down on border control, it has also been used to increase global arms spending, nowhere more so than in Europe, where more than €200 billion in extra military spending was announced within months of the full-scale invasion. EU member states have transferred large amounts of arms and ammunition to Ukraine, while ramping up their own military budgets and replenishing stock. The claim that this spending is necessary to deter Russia seems spurious given that the 30 NATO countries combined were already spending 17 times as much as Russia on their militaries prior to the war, a fact that did not stop it from invading. This militarisation will stoke tension and fear, generate instability and insecurity, provoke and prolong armed conflict, fuel current and future wars – and displace ever more people from their homes, many of whom will in turn seek international protection. There are also concerns that weapons transferred to Ukraine, which has long been known as a black market for arms, will be further sold and thus fuel fighting and displacement in other regions in the long term. The arms spending will clearly benefit the arms industry. Proposals to simplify intra-EU transfers of arms components and ease restrictions on exports of weapons systems to non-EU countries would pave the way to more exports of border security equipment, and arms in general, to countries at war and repressive regimes. While the war in Ukraine has not only led to massive loss of life, immense suffering and destruction across the country, its effects can also be felt all over the globe. It has severely affected food and fuel supplies, driving up prices and creating shortages. Massive inflation, fuelled by corporate profiteering – and the ‘greedflation’ of shareholders – has plunged ever more people into poverty. On top of this, the environmental destruction and the impact of the war on climate change stretches far beyond the borders of Ukraine. Research has shown that the military overall generates some 5% of global carbon emissions. These effects combined will increase forced displacement, especially in the Global South. In turn, this can be expected to lead to calls for more border fortification, in an endless cycle triggered by the EU’s tunnel vision of a securitised and militarised response to migration. The military and security industry, already feasting on the current spending bonanza, will be the main profiteer of these destructive policies of Fortress Europe. Conclusion Somewhat obscured by the EU's comparatively generous reception of (white) refugees from Ukraine, it has quietly used the war and its consequences to rapidly boost and militarise border security, with a lead role for Frontex that has seen its operational mandate expanded far beyond the EU. Refugees fleeing other countries and conflicts as well as people on the move still detained or living in Ukraine have borne the brunt of this. The EU’s response to the war in Ukraine has shown that when there is political will, it can immediately and effectively create legal pathways permitting refugees to live safely within the EU. The fact that it failed do so for refugees fleeing other war-torn regions has exposed the discrimination, racism, and hypocrisy that drive the EU’s deadly border regime. This regime will be further intensified with the agreement reached on June 8 between EU member states on the Pact on Migration and Asylum, which reduces protection standards, erodes the rights of people on the move, and opens the door for more detention, illegal deportations, and border externalisation. If the EU is truly invested in tackling the root causes of migration and not just containing it beyond its borders, perhaps cutting ties with authoritarian regimes and curtailing arms exports to countries at war would be a good place to start. The EU and its member states are legally bound under international law to treat all those who seek asylum equally, regardless of the colour of their skin or their country of origin. Rather than spending pools of public money on fuelling wars and fortifying borders, the EU and its member states should instead support communities and local networks in their efforts to receive those fleeing war and violence.

In a June 23 video released on one of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Telegram channels the morning he launched his mutiny, the Wagner founder undermined core false narratives Russian President Vladimir Putin used to justify launching his war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. While the impact of Prigozhin’s remarks remains to be seen, they serve as evidence of how Putin attempted to deceive domestic audiences and the international community, both of which may come with long-term consequences for the Russian president.  The Kremlin and its proxies spent the years and months leading up to the invasion attempting to paint Ukraine as the aggressor. As the DFRLab outlined in Narrative Warfare: How the Kremlin and Russian news outlets justified a war of aggression against Ukraine, Putin and his pro-Kremlin media proxies employed false and misleading narratives to justify military action against Ukraine, mask the Kremlin’s operational planning, and deny any responsibility for the coming war. “Collectively, these narratives served as Vladimir Putin’s casus belli to engage in a war of aggression against Ukraine,” the report noted. Over the course of the thirty-minute video, Prigozhin criticized Russian military leadership under Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Gennady Gerasimov, castigating the reasons given to justify the war and dismissing them as false. In challenging core pre-war Kremlin narratives, Prigozhin simultaneously undermined multiple arguments cited directly by Putin during his public address on February 24, 2022, when he announced the start of the invasion. Prigozhin’s remarks represent the most consequential debunking of the Kremlin’s case for war by a high-profile Russian power player and Putin confidant. Since the start of the war, the Kremlin has cracked down on dissent by criminalizing criticism of the military, restricting access to social media platforms, and forcing independent media to either cease operations or flee the country. In doing so, Kremlin pro-war narratives dominate Russia’s entire domestic information ecosystem. And just as Prigozhin’s mutiny exposed the regime’s weaknesses for the entire Russian public to see, his pre-mutiny takedown of the Kremlin’s justifications for war exposed how Putin and his proxies wove together a web of falsehoods to initiate the invasion. Background As part of our previous research for the Narrative Warfare report, the DFRLab analyzed hundreds of debunked claims made during the 2014-2021 interwar period, as well as more than 10,000 instances of pro-Kremlin and anti-Ukrainian narratives appearing in Russian media during the ten weeks preceding the invasion. We then documented how these narratives formed the backbone of Putin’s false justifications for war during his public remarks on February 24, 2022, when he announced the launch of Russia’s so-called “special military operation” against Ukraine. At the heart of the speech, Putin relied on false and misleading narrative tropes prominently featured in the weeks and months prior to the invasion, some of them dating to his 2014 of Ukraine. While maintaining the position that Russia seeks peace, for example, Putin also emphasized that Russia had a moral obligation to do something about security in the region. Putin also embraced multiple false narratives and tropes about Ukraine being the aggressor, including accusations that the country is run by Nazis, that Ukraine intends to commit genocide against Russian speakers, and that it plans to use weapons of mass destruction against Russia and the breakaway regions. Lastly, he used these opportunities to blame the West for whatever would happen next, arguing that Ukraine is a puppet of the West, which wants to create tensions in the region. Putin’s February 2022 speech was specifically crafted to make his false case for war. In just over thirty minutes on June 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin – one of Putin’s closest, longtime confidants in security and propaganda efforts – successfully undermined Putin’s core arguments for his war against Ukraine. Questioning Ukraine’s “aggression” In his February 2022 speech, Putin highlighted the need to save Russians in Ukraine before Ukraine could commit “genocide” against them. “It became impossible to tolerate it,” Putin stated at the time. “We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us.” He then added, “If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They [NATO] are getting ready and waiting for the right moment. Moreover, they went as far as aspire to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not let this happen.” Prigozhin’s June 23 remarks undercut Putin’s claims that there had been any imminent threat to Russians, let alone genocide. “All these long eight years, from 2014 to 2022, sometimes the number of various skirmishes increased,” Prigozhin said. “Roughly speaking, the exchange of ammunition, the exchange of shots, sometimes decreased. On February 24, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Now the Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public, is trying to deceive the president, and tell the story that there was insane aggression on the part of Ukraine, and they were going to attack us together with the entire NATO bloc. Therefore, the so-called special operation, on February 24, was launched for completely different reasons.” [emphasis added by the DFRLab] Notably, Prigozhin described the war as a profit-making enterprise that would enrich Kremlin elites rather than residents of the Donbas, the region of eastern Ukraine comprising Donetsk and Luhansk. “Today, a decision is already being made when it will be launched,” he said, describing the events of February 2022. “And how the hell will it be launched? Who will it get to own it, who will profit on it? It’s a 100% chance that it won’t be the people of Donbas – 100%. There will be new owners immediately who will then cut these grandmothers.” Prigozhin alleges Kremlin regime change plan As part of Putin’s February 2022 explanation for conducting a “special military operation,” he insisted that its goals were limited in scope. “It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory,” he insisted. “We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.” Prigozhin contradicted this as well, insisting the Kremlin planned to decapitate Ukraine’s democratically-elected leadership and replace it with a Russian figurehead – specifically, former Ukrainian MP Viktor Medvedchuk, a well-known Kremlin supporter who would later be arrested by Ukraine and exchanged for prisoners-of-war held by Russia. “So the second most important task of the operation was the appointment of Medvedchuk,” Prigozhin argued. “The same Medvedchuk who had already made his way to Kyiv in advance, sat and waited for the troops to arrive. Zelenskyy would run away, everyone would lay down their arms, and he would become the president of this Ukraine.” Denazification as a red herring Throughout Putin’s February 24 address, he referred to Ukrainians as “Nazis,” and invoked Russian patriotism by discussing the former Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany. “The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost,” Putin recounted. “The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people.” He added, “The outcomes of World War II and the sacrifices our people had to make to defeat Nazism are sacred.” Soviet forces successfully captured Berlin in the spring of 1945 as its US and British allies closed in from the west. Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, was among the first Soviet states invaded by Nazi Germany, and Ukrainians played a key role in the Soviet counteroffensive to defeat Germany. Millions of Ukrainians died in the war, including nearly one million Ukrainian Jews; President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, was among those who lost family during the Holocaust. When discussing the present situation in Ukraine, though, Putin insisted that “leading NATO countries are supporting far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine.” “They will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea just as they have done in the Donbas, to kill innocent people just as members of the punitive units of Ukrainian nationalists and Hitler’s accomplices did during the Great Patriotic War,” he continued. “They have also openly laid claim to several other Russian regions. “The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.” Again invoking Russian patriotism, Putin added, “Comrade officers: Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.” Prigozhin, in contrast, insisted that the purpose of the invasion was to assimilate Russian-speaking Ukrainians into the Russian Federation rather than to defeat Nazis. “The war was not needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, and not in order to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” Denying the existence of Ukrainians Not all of Prigozhin’s remarks ran counter to Putin. While attempting to make the point that a negotiated settlement with Ukraine remained a possibility prior to the invasion, Prigozhin reinforced Putin’s long-standing position that Ukrainians do not exist as their own ethnic entity and are actually Russians, both culturally and genetically. “All [the Kremlin] had to do was get down from Olympus: go and negotiate, because the whole of Eastern Ukraine is inhabited by people who are genetically Russian,” he said. “And what is happening today, we’re seeing these genetic Russians being killed.” Putin reinforced this idea in his February 2022 speech when he argued that Ukrainian aggression was tantamount to genocide against Russians living in the Donbas. As previously noted, Putin said, “It became impossible to tolerate it,” he said. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us.” Later in the speech when he declared the launch of his “special military operation,” he added, “The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime.” In this sense, Putin and Prighozin share the false assertion that Ukraine was perpetrating genocide against Russians, while simultaneously denying Ukrainian identity. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes genocide as “a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part,” which is very much reflected in Putin and Prigozhin’s beliefs that Ukrainians are genetically Russian and should be assimilated by force. Criticizing Russia’s military capabilities Putin’s February 24 speech also claimed that Russia’s armed forces could defeat any aggressor. “As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states,” Putin said. “Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.” Prigozhin undermined these claims when he said the Russian army wasn’t combat-ready and the soldiers weren’t given proper weapons, preventing them to fight more aggressively. “The army did nothing since 2012,” he insisted. “Each conscript was given three rounds of ammunition. Like during the best Soviet times. Although this was not the case in Soviet times either. They weren’t in combat training. They are not trained on various types of weapons, especially modern ones. And so, in Russia the army was in such a flawed state that it could not conduct any large-scale military operations.” Short-term mutiny, long-term consequences Prigozhin’s June 23 video kicked off what would prove to be a two-day mutiny against the Russian government. A deal negotiated by Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka helped de-escalate the crisis, but the mutiny exposed the weaknesses in not only the organization of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine but also the Russian state itself. We expect to see increased fractionalization among Russian leaders as they position themselves with the public through propaganda and other means while buttressing themselves within the Kremlin hierarchy. When Yevgeny Prigozhin put his Wagner mutiny into motion, he repeatedly stated that the object of his revolt was to hold Russia’s military establishment accountable for its failures in Ukraine. But by blaming the Russian Ministry of Defense for everything that has gone wrong for Russia in Ukraine, including its premise for prosecuting the war, he simultaneously exposed enormous cracks in Putin’s public arguments for going to war in the first place. Given his prominence, his closeness with Putin, and his role in the military operation, Prighozin’s words debunking the Kremlin case for war will be important to long-term efforts to hold Putin and the regime accountable for its war of aggression and other crimes conducted against Ukraine. As we noted in Narrative Warfare, documenting the Kremlin’s use of false narratives prior to the war could serve as evidence for proving the crime of aggression: First, Kremlin disinformation published in the leadup to the invasion may be evidence of planning or preparing for an act of aggression. This includes many of the false and misleading narratives documented in this report: claims of Ukraine’s alleged planned chemical-weapons attacks, the shelling of the kindergarten, sabotage of chlorine tanks, development of nuclear weapons, and genocidal acts against Russians in the Donbas. These and other narratives by Kremlin and Donbas officials in the days and weeks leading up to the invasion were used to create a pretext for the invasion, thus making them part of the planning that went into the invasion. Second, disinformation narratives that started prior to the invasion and continued afterward may be evidence that Russian or Donbas officials knew the invasion was inconsistent with the UN Charter and constituted a “manifest violation” of it. For example, if officials believed the invasion was legally justified, there would be no need to create a pretext for it. The fact that they created a pretext for the invasion could help prosecutors prove that they were aware a pretext was needed. No doubt, Russian and Donbas officials would argue that they did not create a pretext and the information they published was accurate, or that they believed it to be accurate. This argument would, therefore, require establishing that officials knew their public claims to be false but published them anyway.For weeks, months, and even years prior to the invasion, Putin, the Kremlin, and their proxies telegraphed an array of narratives to justify it, deny responsibility for it, and mask their hostile intentions. If subsequent investigations establish that these officials knew these narratives to be inaccurate, the deployment of disinformation narratives could serve as evidence of knowledge that the invasion was a manifest violation of the UN Charter. Whether intentional or not, the most lasting impact of Prigozhin’s insurrection was the admonition of the Kremlin’s false premise for war. His remarks on June 23 may very well become a piece of the puzzle for investigators that seek to hold Putin accountable. 

One of the many knock-on impacts of Russia’s war against Ukraine has been a surge in demand for military equipment and ammunition in Europe. Poland is one of several Central European countries whose arms industries have seen a marked increase in orders: from their national governments, from European allies buying materiel to give to Ukraine and to replenish their own stockpiles, and from Ukraine itself. Since February 2022, Poland has been among the top suppliers of major arms to Ukraine, not least because it held stocks of Soviet-era equipment that Ukraine’s armed forces still relied on in the first months after the invasion. Demand seems likely to remain high as, on top of the orders already placed, many European states have pledged to increase military spending in response to a heightened perceived threat from Russia. This blog looks at how Poland, which has the biggest domestic arms industry in Central Europe, is using this opportunity to pursue a long-held ambition to modernize its armed forces and grow its arms industry, targeting new markets, diversifying product portfolios and finally moving beyond its post-Soviet legacy. The long road to military modernization in Poland During the cold war, many Central and East European states developed large domestic arms industries to produce Soviet-designed military equipment for the forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The cold war’s end sounded the death knell for many of the region’s arms producers. Between the mid 1980s and 2000, for example, employment in Poland’s arms industry fell by 76 per cent. Nevertheless, successive Polish governments decided it would be strategic to maintain a domestic arms industry. A series of attempts to revitalize the industry during the 1990s and 2000s met with limited success. Poland’s accession to NATO in 1999 was one opportunity, given the Alliance’s military spending requirements and common equipment standards. The government tried to ensure that Polish companies were given a role in producing and servicing new NATO-standard equipment that was procured for the Polish Armed Forces. Despite this, the Polish arms industry remained a marginal player on the global stage, often still producing equipment based on Soviet-era designs. ‘Polonization’—the participation of Polish partners in the manufacture and delivery of imported weapon systems—has been a key element in Polish military modernization drives and an important criterion in evaluating bids from foreign suppliers. Not only does it provide income for Polish companies, but it also gives them access to new technologies and skills. The latest Polish military modernization programme was launched in 2020 as part of an updated National Security Strategy, largely in response to a perceived growing threat from Russia. Much like its predecessors, it aims to ‘Create conditions for the Polish defence industry . . . to meet long-term needs of the Polish Armed Forces’, while ‘strengthening operational capabilities of the Polish Armed Forces to deter and defend against security threats, with particular emphasis on enhancing the level of mobility and technical modernisation’. In 2020 it was estimated that around 60 per cent of Poland’s budget for military procurement and modernization was allocated to the domestic industry. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 provided new impetus and a month later the government passed the Homeland Defence Act to reorganize its national defence policy and increase military expenditure to 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023. In January 2023 Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that the course of the war in Ukraine meant Poland needed to ‘arm ourselves even faster’ and pushed the military spending target up to 4 per cent of GDP. Once again, the domestic arms industry was to play an important role in—and be a key beneficiary of—the military modernization plans. Key ‘Polonized’ procurement deals since the start of the war During 2022 the estimated share of Polish military spending dedicated to procurement jumped from 20.4 to 35.9 per cent, largely due to a flurry of new bilateral arms procurement deals. The state-owned arms industry group Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ), which has been the biggest actor in the Polish arms industry since a consolidation programme in 2014, has been the main beneficiary of the Polonization requirements built into these deals. In March 2022 Poland selected the United Kingdom’s Babcock as a partner to support a consortium led by PGZ in delivering new frigates to the Polish Navy. The ships will be built in Poland and Babcock will provide design specifications and transfer technologies and skills to the consortium members. Six months later, Poland signed a deal with Korea Aerospace Industries for FA-50 light attack aircraft, which will replace Poland’s Soviet-designed MiG-29s and Su-22s. The deal is worth $3 billion and includes setting up a service facility for the new aircraft, which is to be operated by PGZ. In November another contract was signed, worth $5.7 billion, for the supply of South Korean K2 main battle tanks and K9 self-propelled howitzers for the Polish Armed Forces. Some are to come from existing stock while others are to be produced by South Korean–Polish consortiums. In the same month, PGZ also signed an agreement with BAE Systems for the delivery of M88 armed recovery vehicles and armoured multi-purpose vehicles to the Polish Armed Forces. In February 2023 the Polish government placed an order with PGZ subsidiary Huta Stalowa Wola for 1400 Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles. The Borsuk is a new model developed to replace the Soviet-era BMP-1 and is to be produced in Poland based on a Korean chassis. In March South Korean producer Hyundai Rotem signed a consortium agreement with PGZ for the production of K2s in Poland. PGZ subsidiaries will also cooperate with the South Korean Hanwha Group to produce the K9s as well as K239 Chunmoo multiple-rocket launchers, which are to be integrated with trucks and other technologies produced in Poland under a $3.55 billion contract signed in November 2022. Hanwha has said it plans to increase its presence in Poland and work with local companies to develop and build a variety of military systems. In April, in what has been hailed as the ‘largest European short-range air defence acquisition programme in NATO’, the trans-European arms producer MBDA won a $2.4 billion contract to provide Poland with missiles and missile launchers to be integrated with the PGZ-produced Pilica+ air defence system. The two companies ‘continue to work towards contracting the technology transfer and Polish manufacture of the mid-tier . . . air defence programme’. Last month, Poland expressed interest in joining South Korea’s 4.5-generation KF-21 Boramae combat aircraft programme. If the partnership is given the green light, it would mean an upgrade to Poland’s air force capabilities, and PGZ would once again be involved in the industrial process. Opportunities and risks There is little doubt that the war in Ukraine has caused ripple effects across the arms industries in the whole of Europe. While for Poland helping Ukraine is a matter of national and regional security, the war is also catalysing steps to upgrade and modernize its arms industry. Poland sees an unprecedented opportunity to finally achieve its ambitions and become a more significant player in the global arms industry. The pre-1989 origins of the Polish arms industry have strongly influenced its recent fortunes, particularly in terms of products and customers. Since the end of the cold war, Poland has been trying to distance its arms industry from its Soviet legacy, for military, political and commercial reasons. However, one modernization and investment programme after another has been delayed, abandoned or simply fallen short of ambitions. While Poland is still a major importer of major arms, its approach has been to balance off-the-shelf imports to fulfil immediate needs with Polonization deals to develop domestic production capacity for the long term. Modernization and Polonization seem to currently be in full swing: contracts with major foreign companies positively impact the visibility and attractiveness of the Polish domestic arms industry, creating a self-reinforcing cycle. Coupled with increased Polish military spending and the most recent spending pledges, the current demand means the Polish arms industry’s prospects seem good for the next few years. However, basing ambitious long-term investment and modernization plans on the response to temporary, largely external events is something of a gamble. Several factors could change the prospects for Poland’s arms industry, such as a shift in governments’ spending priorities or new European policies on arms industry integration. If something like that were to happen, Poland’s ambitions for its arms industry could once again be undermined.

After many years of struggle against Islamist terrorism, the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was an electric shock for France. The country now seems more committed to a reinforced Euro-Atlantic security partnership. Since 2012, France has been under a constant threat of Islamist terrorist attacks. These reached their peak in 2015 with the deadly assault on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in January and at the Bataclan theatre in November. These threats explain why the French government has decided to intervene where terrorists are most likely to proliferate – the goal being to neutralise them before they could reach France or other European countries. The two regions where the French military have operated against terrorists have been in the Middle East and the Sahel. Meanwhile, the relationship between Paris and select NATO allies have to led to some difficult diplomatic tensions. “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” Emmanuel Macron told The Economist in October 2019. At the time, the United States (US) had failed to consult NATO before pulling forces out of northern Syria, while Turkey – another important NATO ally – pushed inside Syria, threatening US and French interests with no reaction from the alliance. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine modified Paris’ defence and foreign policy but perhaps not enough to face the challenges ahead. France and NATO: A difficult partnership Following the “brain death” episode, the tensions between France and Turkey escalated and reached a peak in June 2020 when, according to the French Navy, a Turkish ship flashed its radar at the French vessels during operation Sea Guardian. This mission was a NATO maritime security operation in the eastern Mediterranean, deployed after the United Nations imposed an embargo on arms supplies to Libya. Once again, NATO did nothing to reprimand Turkey for its anti-alliance behaviour. These episodes are just two in a long series of tensions between France and NATO. It is rather well known that France and some of its NATO allies have been barely civil since the end of the Cold War; the most complicated relationship being the one with the US. If Macron has been frustrated at the absence of a reaction from the alliance, France has also manoeuvred to upset its allies also. To understand France’s at times awkward relationship with the US, one must note that there are strong French political currents opposed to a supposed American hegemony. The far left and the far right are the most obvious, but even moderate conservatives may sometimes adopt a discourse reminiscent of Charles De Gaulle from the 1960’s that pushed France outside of NATO’s integrated command. Today, those against “Atlanticism” are either anti-capitalism (far left), pro-sovereignty (far right) or for national or European independence (conservatives). They all share a more-or-less anti-liberal ideology and they all tend to perceive Russia positively. The far left seems to think Russia is the successor of communist Soviet Union. The far right and the conservatives are fond of Putin’s anti-Islam discourse and his defence of traditional values. Meanwhile, many people serving in the French military are also sympathetic to Russia. This broad support for states that may “resist US hegemony” in France may explain the initial moderation of president Macron’s position vis-à-vis Russia. This anti-American sentiment is reinforced by the fact that France still seems to see itself as a major player in international relations. In April 2023, after a visit to China, Macron told journalists that Europe must resist becoming America’s “vassal.” This infuriated many allies in Europe, North America, and Japan, and it did nothing to strengthen European defence capabilities or strategic autonomy, paradoxically one of Macron’s goals before going to China. NATO: The inescapable actor According to President Macron himself, the war in Ukraine revived the “brain-dead” NATO. On the other hand, it seems to have had the opposite effect on French ambitions to be a central global player or a European security leader. Declarations regarding security guarantees to Russia, and the fact that France has contributed relatively less to the defence of Ukraine than some of its allies, have weakened its stature in Europe. That’s why Paris seems ready to work more closely with NATO, even if some incoherence still weakens the clarity of the message. Three things point in the direction of greater cooperation between France and its NATO allies. The first, following Macron’s speech in Bratislava in May 2023, is the new Loi de programmation militaire (military programming law) for military manoeuvres. The best example of recent joint military manoeuvres is ORION 2023 that started in 2021 and was terminated in May 2023. These were the largest exercises in thirty years for the French military and they involved, in their final phase during the Spring 2023, around 14 allies, including Indian air force Rafale jets. In ORION, France proved it was ready to act as a NATO framework-nation in a high-intensity-warfare scenario. This reassured France’s allies who were rattled by president Macron’s various statements since 2019. With its departure from the Sahel, France has at last been able to focus more seriously on European security. Another signal pointing at a switch in the French posture towards Transatlantic security was Macron’s speech in Bratislava. The French president wanted to reassure his allies about the role of NATO in European security. He did not emphasise “strategic autonomy,” preferring to highlight the importance of becoming better allies to the United States. He even mentioned that Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine had revived NATO. The last element regarding France’s decision to play a more constructive role in Transatlantic security is the military programming law for 2024-2030. At first sight, this law is impressive: with an estimated cost of €413 billion over the next seven years, this would bring the defence budget to €69 billion in 2030, up from €44 billion in 2023 and €32 billion in 2017. The problem is that, like Germany or the United Kingdom (UK), we don’t know if this new money will really boost European military capacity. In the case of France and UK, a large part of the military budget is dedicated to nuclear deterrence rather than for the needs of a high intensity conventional conflict like the one in Ukraine. What is more, inflation will chew through a relatively important part of this new budget. It is an important question then to ask if the new defence budget will boost France’s conventional military capacity to face a high intensity conflict in Europe or other technological capabilities to help project power far from France’s borders. Only time will tell. But allies must keep an eye on what the French government does rather than on what it says. With the importance of the populist and radical political movements, and also the constant threat of terrorism, a return to self-centred defence and foreign policy is always a possibility.

The threat of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine is “real” and “absolutely irresponsible”, according to the US president, Joe Biden. He was reacting to questioning from journalists as to whether he believed Belarus had been taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. If true, it’s the first time Russia has deployed nuclear warheads outside its borders since the end of the cold war. This does not immediately mean a nuclear escalation with Nato, since Russian nuclear missiles stationed in the Kaliningrad region already put Poland and the Baltic states within range. Experts are sceptical about Russia’s intentions to use these weapons in Ukraine. But the presence of tactical nuclear arms in Belarus has, nevertheless, important implications for European security. It would change the nature of the relationship between Russia and Belarus and bring Belarus deeper under Russian control. The two countries are already in what is known as a “union state” after longtime Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko and Boris Yeltsin signed a series of treaties in the mid-1990s. These made for “deeper economic integration” and the “formation of a single economic space” as well as the coordination of foreign policy and military activities between the two countries. The “union” was relatively loose until the 2020 mass protests in Belarus pushed the desperate Lukashenko to agree to a much closer economic and military integration with Russia. The real target Noting that this is “not an escalation from Putin’s prior nuclear weapons rhetoric”, the Institute for the Study of War says this is more about increasing Moscow’s military grip over Belarus: “The Kremlin likely intends to use these requirements to further subordinate the Belarusian security sphere under Russia.” The warheads will be under Russian control. Storage facilities are reported to be under construction for completion in early July. This will require a significant Russian military presence and permanent military bases in Belarus. Belarusians do not want to have Russian nuclear weapons on their soil. Researchers from Chatham House who regularly conduct surveys in Belarus have found that 74% of respondents in their March 2023 survey objected to deployment. The rejection of nukes is even more dramatic when analysed by which media the respondents are consuming. Belarus state media beats a relentlessly pro-Moscow drum. Among those who do not consume state media between 97% and 98% are opposed. The prospect of Russian military bases is hardly more popular, with only 24% of respondents supporting it in an earlier Chatham House survey in June 2022. The idea of a single foreign policy and army with Russia was backed by a mere 9% in the March 2023 survey. This is yet another indicator of the chasm between the regime and the people, which was made evident by the 2020 protests, the largest in recent Belarusian history. Belarusians are traditionally wary of having to choose sides when it comes to political alliances. And, despite a “vote” ratifying an amendment to the country’s constitution to allow Russia to station nuclear weapons on its soil, the country is increasingly divided between those who look to Russia and those who are in favour of closer relations with western Europe. After Russia went into Ukraine, a Chatham House survey found that 47% were against the invasion, while only 33% were in favour. Another poll found 93% would not support Belarus entering the war. Fallout from Chornobyl And Belarusians also have a good reason to be strongly opposed to nuclear weapons. The memory of the Chornobyl disaster in 1986. About 70% of the radioactive fallout landed on its territory, and there is evidence that Moscow deliberately seeded clouds so that radioactive rain fell over Belarus rather than drift towards Moscow. The political fallout was slower but no less significant: over the years, Chornobyl commemorations have become an annual rallying point for anti-Lukashenko opposition. It also helped ensure that independent Belarus was the first among post-Soviet nations to abandon its Soviet nuclear arsenal. These points seem lost on Lukashenko, who has publicly declared that he will not consider the opinion of the Belarusian people about using nuclear weapons. Opposition opinions are dangerous in Belarus, and state terror against all criticism of the regime has only intensified since Russia invaded Ukraine. The number of those arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms has been steadily growing. As of June 21, Belarus had 1,492 political prisoners. This is just the tip of the iceberg of repression. Not only opposition activists, NGO workers, and independent journalists, but anyone who can be linked to the 2020 protests or who ever spoke out against the regime on social media is at risk of arrest. The recent UN Human Rights Office report decried “the unacceptable picture of impunity and the near-total destruction of civic space and fundamental freedoms in Belarus”, including the systematic use of unlawful detention, violence and torture. Consequences for Belarus and beyond Lukashenko is playing a dangerous game. Belarus’s economic dependence on Moscow, already heavy, has been deepened further by western sanctions and the war in Ukraine. Russia’s share in Belarus’ trade grew from 49% in 2021 to 60% in late 2022. Recently, a joint tax agreement with Russia, previously resisted by Minsk, reduced Belarusian control over taxation. According to the independent Belarusian monitoring organisation, the Hajun Project, there is no evidence that any warheads have arrived. But deploying Russian nuclear warheads would lead to Moscow’s permanent military presence. It would mean further loss of authority for Lukashenko and his generals. And worse, if Putin did decide to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, it would be an easier decision to launch them from Belarus and let them reap the whirlwind of retaliation. Consolidating his control over Belarus would be a significant strategic victory for Putin’s imperial ambitions. Preoccupied with fighting in Ukraine and lacking a clear and decisive policy on Belarus, the west has no obvious immediate response. But if Moscow follows through with its threat it would be a dangerous moment – not just for Belarus but for Europe as a whole.

Other countries see arms exports as a strategic instrument. Germany should do the same. Arms cooperation with the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation has been the country's security policy foundation since India's independence. The friendship between the two states is primarily a deep dependence of New Delhi on Moscow. A dependence from which the Indian government wants and needs to break free, as the descent of the second largest arms exporter is just shifting the strategic tectonics in large parts of the global South. Cancellations, overdue payments, and delivery problems Already last year, astonishment arose after T-90 main battle tanks were photographed in Ukraine, which, according to some journalists, were a version used only by India. At the same time, some of these models were in the custody of the Russian state-owned Uralvagonzavod for modernisation. However, the theft of the Indian battle tanks could never be proven beyond doubt. Whether New Delhi could be informed about the whereabouts of its tanks has not been made public. In a report to the Indian parliament as early as 2022, it was stated that the Russian Federation would retain weapons systems produced for India. The type and scope were not specified. In short, the Kremlin declared its own requirements. In April 2022, New Delhi cancelled an order for 48 Mi-17 helicopters, followed in May 2022 by India's unilateral suspension of negotiations for Kamov Ka-31 naval helicopters. In addition to the considerable order volume of more than USD 500 million for the order cancelled in May alone, the Russian defence industry also lost reputation, as it now became public that the most important buyer of Russian defence equipment doubted the timely implementation of the order. The most recent conflict in Russian-Indian arms cooperation was a problem triggered by the sanctions in the payment processing of air defence systems, as Russia continued to press for payments in US dollars. A proposal by the Indian government that Moscow could invest the rupees gained from arms deals in Indian capital markets was rejected by the Russian side.  In New Delhi, the displeasure was directed less against the sanctions themselves, which prevented the transaction in US dollars, but against Russia's lack of goodwill: after all, the Russian Federation had provoked the foreseeable US sanctions in the first place through its invasion and now showed no accommodation in processing the payment. The Indian government is nevertheless displeased with "the West", as its dependence on the Russian Federation is a result of its lack of access to Western weapons systems and it is now being criticised for this very dependence. This criticism of Western criticism can hardly be dismissed out of hand. Russia dominates the low-price segment The Russian Federation plays a significant role in security policy, especially for the so-called "Global South". Russia was the second largest arms exporter in 2021, whereby this refers to the value of the exported weapons systems. In the lower price segment, the Russian Federation was the most significant exporter. In the 21st century, the Kremlin continues the role of the Soviet Union and for decades hardly needed to fear competition from comparably priced suppliers. Technical dependence in weapons systems is of course the more relevant factor. This affects the supply of spare parts: In combat aircraft, various components are subjected to extreme stress, which is why an aircraft has to be overhauled and wear parts replaced at fixed intervals. The operation of aircraft in particular requires a constant supply of spare parts. The supply of ammunition is also decisive: the delivery problems with ammunition for the Gepard anti-aircraft tank were an illustrative example, but the production of artillery ammunition is more decisive in Ukraine war. In air defence, too, the crucial question is whether one can muster more missiles than the attacking enemy. Shortages of ammunition can be decisive for the war. It is also widespread practice for most complex weapon systems to be overhauled, maintained and in some cases modernised at regular intervals. In the process, not only wear parts are replaced, but also technically advanced and new systems are integrated. For example, the Leopard 2A0 main battle tank, which went into series production in 1979, is technically extremely different from the Leopard 2A8, which will be delivered to the Bundeswehr from 2025. New versions of a weapon system are sometimes produced, but usually manufacturers try to upgrade existing systems. If this regular upgrading fails to take place, the weapon system will be overtaken by technological developments. The "Trophy Active Protection System" of the new generation Leopard 2 covers the vehicle with a 360-degree radar and fires a highly automated projectile-forming charge at approaching projectiles. In the early 1980s, there was nowhere near the computing power required for such technology. Today, it is essential for modern tank weaponry, as illustrated by the first weeks of the invasion of Ukraine, when technologically obsolete Russian tanks were shot down in rows. This practice is also common in ships. The Brandenburg-class frigates, in service since 1994, are comparatively new and yet radar and missile technology in particular has advanced. Among other things, the frigates of this class have been retrofitted with the MASS decoy system, which has only been in production since 2004. These two quite different weapon systems exemplify how weapon systems have been upgraded against the technically latest generation of projectiles. In the absence of such upgrades in an arms cooperation, the outdated models are easy to combat on the battlefield. The dependency between arms exporter and arms importer thus exists far beyond mere procurement. Especially when a state has opted for a long-lived weapon system, upgrades and spare parts create a massive dependency relationship. Arms cooperation has strong political implications This dependence on the Russian Federation has an enormous influence on Indian foreign policy. India's voting behaviour on Russia's war of aggression in the UN General Assembly has been making negative headlines since March 2022. The fact that India is one of the few democratic states to have abstained in all relevant votes so far is causing disgruntlement in the Western world. In India, it is openly communicated that the voting behaviour is primarily due to dependence on Russian weapons systems. Numerous attempts by Western diplomats and politicians to argue that India should side with them have accordingly come to nothing. India's government may share the arguments for a rules-based international order, but that does not change the fact that its own security interests have priority. India cannot afford any sign of military weakness - for this, arms cooperation with Moscow is indispensable in the medium term. India's security challenges often fly under the radar of the European public. Clashes like the one in Ladakh in 2020 are described as "skirmishes" in the press. A term that probably no journalist would choose if 20 German soldiers had been killed in an incident. That New Delhi feels threatened is by no means unfounded. The conflict with the nuclear power Pakistan, which has been going on since India became a state, is increasingly taking a back seat, but is still very present and linked to the rivalry with China. The People's Republic of China, Pakistan's most important arms supplier, is the second nuclear power with a direct border with India and claims parts of India's territory as "southern Tibet". The overarching level of the Indo-Chinese rivalry is China's aspiration to become a hegemonic power, which goes hand in hand with containing India's sphere of influence on the Asian continent. Chinese territorial claims in the Indian Himalayas, the Northeast and Bhutan are serious threats to India. In particular, there is concern in New Delhi that China may try to conquer the so-called "Siliguri Corridor", also known as the "Chicken's Neck of India". The Siliguri Corridor is a strip of land only twenty kilometres wide around the city of Siliguri in the Indian state of West Bengal and the only point of connection for the eight states of northeast India with the rest of the country. China also poses a threat at sea. For India, a possible military use of the Belt and Road projects is tantamount to complete maritime encirclement by China. If the ports in Pakistan, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh, and Myanmar were used as Chinese naval bases, they would effectively cover the maritime area around India. A destroyer can reach any point within India's 200-mile zone in less than 24 hours from these ports and have access to shipping in the Arabian Sea, the Laccadive Sea, the Gulf of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Chinese naval bases in Djibouti, the Strait of Malacca and the west coast of Africa form a second ring around India. Given the territorial claims China is aggressively pursuing in the region and also on Indian territory, Beijing can be clearly identified as the aggressor in the Indo-Chinese conflict. Moreover, in 2022 China had a defence budget 210 billion USD larger than India's and is clearly superior in terms of defence technology. The threat situation could hardly be more tangible. India's diversification is a marathon, not a sprint In recent years, India has been the largest buyer of Russian weapons, albeit with a declining trend. The use of Russian weapon systems is pronounced in all three branches of the armed forces. The majority of the tank force is equipped with T-90s (1,200 tanks in active service) and T-72s (2,400 tanks in active service). Only a few units use the Arjun main battle tank, which is produced in-house. In combination with the main battle tanks, the Indian Army can draw on around 1,800 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles and 800 BTR-80s. The armoured force is completed by a good 700 BMD and BRDM-2 airborne and reconnaissance tanks. A total of about 7,000 tanks from Russian production (or Indian licensed production) make up India's land forces. This gigantic number, combined with the age of most of the vehicles, only gives an idea of how huge the need for spare parts and upgrades must be. Although the Indian Air Force has implemented two solid future projects with the French Rafale multi-role fighter (36 aircraft in active service) and the indigenously produced HAL Tejas (30 aircraft in active service), Russian MiG-29 (68) and Su-30MKI (263) fighters form the backbone of the air force. The navy has 42 more MiG-29s, which also form the main armament of the aircraft carriers. Away from air combat, around 250 Russian helicopters of different variants ensure the flexibility of the Indian armed forces. The navy, with a recently commissioned aircraft carrier of its own production and the Kolkata-class destroyers, has less dependence on Russian technology. However, the Indian Navy's older aircraft carrier, as well as the nuclear submarines and the majority of the frigates are of Soviet and Russian production, respectively. The various classes of frigates, all of which have Indian names, are Russian technology. Exemplary is the newly launched Talwar class, which is a modified version of the Soviet Krivak class. The seven ships were built in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad. The Indian military is just one of many examples of armed forces that have a heavy dependence on Russian weapons systems. Algeria, for example, has purchased over 300 T-90 main battle tanks and 46 Su-30MK fighter aircraft from Moscow since 2005 alone. Malaysia and Vietnam have recently received 18 and 12 Su-30s, respectively. Venezuela has purchased $15 billion worth of Russian aircraft, helicopters, and missile systems since 2000. Azerbaijan and Armenia have equally received extensive Russian arms imports ranging from tanks to helicopters in recent years. Uganda has amassed a Soviet-Russian tank fleet of around three hundred vehicles over many decades. The examples could be continued. India stands out merely because of its size, but the dependence on Russian weapons systems is glaring in many states of the global South. These states are now facing the "Russian arms question". States of the Global South are looking for an alternative It is obvious that the Russian arms industry will lose its position in the global security architecture. This does not necessarily mean that it will no longer have a prominent position, but it will lose market share regardless of the outcome of the war. There are four reasons for this: (1) In the coming years, the Russian defence industry will have little capacity to take on larger orders, as it will have to compensate for its own losses from the war. (2) It has become apparent that production is dependent on numerous foreign components, the availability of which is limited for the near future due to the sanction. (3) Furthermore, the acquisition of new Russian weapons systems is associated with possible political consequences for the purchasing state or at least with a loss of reputation in the West. (4) The most serious reason is the performance of Russian weapon systems in Ukraine. For example, technical defects in missiles were unexpectedly high; Russia was unable to gain air superiority even after more than a year; there is no footage of Russian tanks firing while moving and hitting targets with pinpoint accuracy; Russian artillery is surprisingly inaccurate in its aiming; and pictures of broken-down vehicles have gone around the world. Russian troops have had to procure drones from Iran and prestige projects such as the A-14 main battle tank or the Uran-9 unmanned tank have not yet been seen on the battlefield. The hypersonic missile "Kinschal", which was staged as unstoppable, was shot down many times by Western air defence systems. The sinking of the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet completed the bad image. The "Russian arms question" therefore becomes quite urgent. Since building an effective arms industry is unrealistic in the vast majority of states, few options remain. One can wait for the regeneration of the Russian arms industry or switch to the Chinese alternatives. India, even more than other states, is looking for a third way, as the Chinese alternative is not an option. From India's point of view, weapons systems from NATO countries or from Israel are the only chance for diversification. The Indian government is pushing joint ventures or production in India, not so much to strengthen its own economy, but rather to lower the cost of defence equipment. The question of cost is, of course, even more decisive for states that would also have access to Chinese armaments. Already in the past, some states opted for Soviet and later Russian products, either because they did not have access to other weapon systems for political reasons or because they were simply cheaper. A Leopard 2 main battle tank already costs 15 million euros in the A7 version. The Russian T-90 costs about 3.5 million euros. The example is not optimally chosen because the Leopard 2 has a different technical level and weighs about 20 t more. However, this would be the alternative from the point of view of a state that would want to switch from a Russian to a German battle tank. The price factor is still an important variable today. Should the arms industries of the NATO countries be economically unable or not politically mandated to fill the Russian vacuum, China will most likely take over this role. In South Asia, this development has already progressed, as Pakistan was dependent on an alternative to Russian arms imports due to good Indo-Russian relations. Pakistan has been the largest importer of Chinese arms from 2010 to 2020, far behind Bangladesh and Myanmar. In this sector, 38 per cent of all Chinese exports from 2006 to 2020 went to Pakistan. China's defence sector would in all likelihood be prepared for increased arms exports, as the industry grew precisely in the years when there was no reason for high arms spending in Europe. Comparing 2003 to 2007 and 2008 to 2012, China's arms exports grew by 162 per cent. China is ready. Germany should see its arms industry as a strategic tool Not only Russia and China, but also the USA, Israel and France see their powerful arms industry as a strategic instrument of their foreign policy. In Germany, the debate about domestic arms production has turned 180 degrees. The Bundestag debates on the acquisition of weaponised drones from 2008 onwards seem naïve today, the blanket opposition to arms exports is hardly represented in public discourse anymore, and the image of arms companies has also changed fundamentally. The IRIS-T air defence system protects the lives of civilians in Ukraine. Sentences such as "Armament research has no value for society" or "One can assist other countries in other ways than with howitzers" in German leading media seem out of date. In 2022, Germany has moved from an ivory tower discourse of ethics to an ethics of responsibility that recognises the new geopolitical reality. After this first step, it is important to initiate a strategic debate. It is in Germany's interest that states do not move away from their dependence on Russia into China's orbit. It is also a direct European security interest to minimise Russian arms exports. The Russian arms industry employs 2 to 3 million people, which corresponds to about 20 per cent of total industrial jobs. No other economy is so dependent on its arms industry. Since it is a majority state-owned industry, a decline in exports would directly affect the state budget. On the one hand, a decline in exports would result in a lack of revenue; on the other hand, procurement costs for the country's own armed forces would rise considerably. Moreover, the monopolised structure entails the risk that the failure of a single Russian company would result in the loss of far-reaching military capabilities or necessitate costly state support. By denying the Russian defence industry sales markets, Russia's military capabilities are weakened in the long term and, at the same time, its economy as a whole. The type and volume of arms exports are undoubtedly an indicator of friendship between states. Many Russian customers from Venezuela to Syria are not strategic partners of Europe. Possible competition with the Russian or Chinese arms industry must be decided on a case-by-case basis. Arming Cuba, North Korea or Iran with German technology is obviously not in the strategic interest, but in other cases, such as Saudi Arabia - which is by no means a value partner - the German government has already decided in favour of arms exports for overriding strategic reasons. India's arms build-up is minimal risk and of critical strategic importance. The foreign and security policy institutions as well as the party landscape in India are very stable, which is why a change of policy is not likely. There is a great willingness to break away from dependence on Moscow. India is a stability factor in the Indian Ocean and stands for free sea routes. With a defence budget of over 80 billion USD per year, the country would be a major customer for the German defence industry. France and the USA have already been playing a significant role in the modernisation of the Indian armed forces for years and are taking a very proactive and accommodating approach. India-NATO relations have already been mapped out by these two NATO partners. From a German perspective, one can now at least follow this line retrospectively or decide not to play a security role in South Asia. With its more than 3,000 km long border with China and a kind of "Cold War" in the Indian Ocean, India is one of the states with which China could soon have a major military confrontation. Due to its sheer size and long land border, India is, from the US perspective, the most important potential partner in a possible escalation with China, along with Japan and Australia. India is therefore likely to be given privileged access to US weapons systems and will itself seek US security proximity. In the event of a conflict, India, for all its self-confidence, will not be able to stand up to China alone, as it is inferior to China in terms of defence technology. The Russian defence industry is still decisive for India's military planners - but many things are now being recalibrated here. For India - as for many other states - Germany must answer the question of how "the expansion of security and defence cooperation" is implemented. The Indo-Pacific Guidelines mention participation in forums, exercises, and evacuation planning as well as the deployment of liaison officers and "various forms of maritime presence". The states in the region are well aware that the German Navy is not a security factor in the region. The arms policy approach in Germany's guidelines is expressed in the thirteen mentions of arms control. If this is the Indo-Pacific strategy of the German government, it currently has no serious security policy dimension. In short, if Germany does not use its powerful arms industry as an instrument of security policy, then the toolbox is empty. Armament cooperation is a common and effective instrument of foreign policy for France or the USA, for example, but also for the Russian Federation and China. Especially for a nation that seeks to avoid military engagement, it is the only realpolitik option for action apart from "soft power". Germany should understand its arms industry as a strategic instrument.

Public support for Ukraine is holding up in allied countries, but preparations should be made for scenarios in which support ebbs away. As the war in Ukraine drags on, the direct economic cost to Europe and other countries is rising. Through unprecedently high and now long-lasting inflation, the war has increased financial fragility in households across the European Union and risks eroding public support for Ukraine. But the evidence shows that public opinion stands firm. EU countries and institutions have committed financial, humanitarian and military support to Ukraine, totalling €62 billion as of 24 February 2023, exactly one year on from Russia’s invasion. The total is estimated to be around €70 billion as of 23 May 2023.  Source: Bruegel based on Trebesch et al (2023). Bilateral commitments from EU member states had reached €26.18 billion by 24 February 2023, with most of this figure consisting of military aid (€16.02 billion). Commitments from European institutions hit €35.53 billion in February 2023. The biggest chunk of this was an €18 billion package to support Ukraine’s immediate needs and maintain macroeconomic stability throughout 2023 – one example being the gaping hole in Ukraine’s finances, the budget deficit currently at a quarter of Ukraine’s GDP.  The European Investment Bank has pledged €668 million in liquidity assistance, while a series of €500 million tranches contributed by the EU to the European Peace Facility (EPF)  for military purposes now amounts to €3.6 billion committed. This support is relatively small and sustainable. The €70 billion, encapsulating financial, humanitarian, military, emergency budget and resources for those fleeing the war, is only 0.44 percent of EU GDP. The European economy has also been affected by high energy prices. The European Commission predicted in its spring 2023 inflation forecasts that euro-area inflation will be 5.8 percent this year. This is a little higher than anticipated during the winter. According to the European Central Bank, euro-area food prices were 15 percent higher in April 2023 than in April 2022. With euro-area inflation at 8.4 percent in 2022 (European Commission, 2023), €100 in 2021 is only worth €86 in 2023. It is understandable that the public is impatient with the level of costs it faces every day and adapting energy consumption in the face of energy scarcity. Figure 2 shows the proportion of Europeans who changed their habits to save on energy or dipped into savings due to inflation.  Source: Bruegel based on European Commission (2022). Interviews conducted between 18 October and 4 December 2022 with a representative sample of citizens, aged 18 and over, in each EU country. Figure 2 shows that 71 percent of EU citizens changed habits at home to save on energy. In only one country, Slovenia, did less than half of citizens change habits (49 percent). Furthermore, 37 percent of EU citizens had to take money from their savings as a direct consequence of inflation, ranging from 58 percent in Greece to 16 percent in Croatia. European public opinion: remarkably stable The more expensive the war becomes, the more one might expect European public support to decrease. Indeed, there has been an overall decline in support for measures backing Ukraine. Figure 3 shows a pattern of slow overall decline across France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland. The proportion of those in favour of sending arms or of economic and financial sanctions has fallen.  Source: Bruegel based on Ifop (2023). Despite this decline, as of February 2023, support for sanctions and direct assistance to Ukraine remained solid, above 50 percent in all but one case. EU-wide persistent public support signals that European citizens understand that the outcome of the war is of critical importance to their own futures. Eight months into the war, the average approval rate amongst the EU27 for EU support for Ukraine was an astonishing 73 percent (European Parliament, 2022). Only four countries – Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovakia and Greece – reported approval ratings of less than 50 percent. Furthermore, an average of 59 percent of citizens in eight Central and Eastern EU countries believe that sanctions against Russia should remain in place according to a poll conducted in March 2023 (Hajdu et al., 2023). Meanwhile, a poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in February 2023 showed that 87 percent of Ukrainians said that under no circumstances should Ukraine give up any of its territory, even if the war lasts longer. This is an increase from 82 percent in May 2022 . The different blocs There are some significant disparities in popular support in different EU countries. Krastev and Leonard (2023) noted that three different blocs of public opinion have emerged: the northern and eastern hawks (Estonia, Poland, Denmark and the United Kingdom), the ambiguous west (France, Germany, Spain, Portugal) and the southern weak links (Italy and Romania). Figure 2 shows persistent support in countries from each of these groups. Amongst even the least supportive member states, some interesting results are observed. When individuals were asked to choose between two opposing statements on whether sanctions were worth higher prices or not, Hungary was the only one out of nine EU countries surveyed where the majority believed that sanctions were not worth it (Figure 4).  Source: Bruegel based on Ipsos (2023). Surprisingly, the number of those who believe that the most important thing is stopping the war as soon as possible, even if Ukraine had to forfeit territory to Russia, actually declined almost across the board according to January 2023 polling reported by Krastev and Leonard (2023). Notable declines were seen in Romania and Italy – those characterised as the ‘southern weak links’. This may be due to citizens becoming more willing to support Ukraine for the long run.  Source: Bruegel based on Krastev & Leonard (2023). The United States US aid to Ukraine in the first year amounted to 0.37 percent of US GDP (Trebesch et al, 2023). The willingness in the US to bear costs for supporting Ukraine has followed a similar pattern to the EU of slow decline across the political spectrum.  Source: Based on Figure 5, Telhami (2023). This decline may signal ‘impatience’ with the war in Ukraine (especially amongst Republicans), but there are also signs of persistent support. The current level of US military expenditure to support Ukraine was either too little or about the right level according to 42 percent of respondents, as opposed to 33 percent who said it is too much. Interestingly, there is a strong preference for support staying on course for one to two years (46 percent of respondents) versus only 38 percent who would accept providing support to Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’ (Telhami, 2023). Whilst there is a clear division along party lines, there is reduced support amongst Democrats and Republicans. This means that the future of American support for Ukraine may change even before the 2024 elections. Lower support across the political spectrum during the upcoming electoral season could result in reduced backing from the Biden administration or in Congress, as both sides vie for votes. This is before a potential Republican victory, which under certain scenarios, may stop or dramatically limit support from the US. Conclusion   An erosion in public support for Ukraine might have been expected as the cost and economic consequences of the war began to impact EU households through inflation. But support for Ukraine has remained strong, suggesting that the public understands fully the wider implications for European security of the outcome of the war. The public sides overwhelmingly with the Ukrainians, which are clearly perceived as the victims of an aggression. This is consistent with the growing support for maintaining or increasing defence spending. Most NATO citizens (74 percent in 2022 versus 70 percent in 2021; NATO, 2023) think that defence spending should either be maintained at current levels or increased (with some significant differences from 85 percent to 52 percent, but always with a majority supporting). Just 12 percent think less should be spent on defence.   Public support could decline more in the future. If news from the battlefield suggests a protracted conflict in which neither side can prevail militarily, then time and the potential decline in US support may affect EU public opinion. A successful Ukrainian counter-offensive would play an important role in the continuance of Western support for the war. In the absence of progress on the battlefield, voices calling for a peace settlement, even on unfavourable terms to Ukraine, might gain traction in the public debate. In upcoming elections, this could benefit political parties less favourable to supporting Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’. European leaders must therefore prepare for several scenarios. Significant Ukrainian successes in the battlefield in the near future could pave the way for a positive settlement and the restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty and its reconstruction. The EU must also prepare for the more complex outcome of a protracted war, which would require sustained efforts to support Ukraine militarily (Grand, 2023) and economically. This would require further and constant political efforts to keep public opinion on board, preserving European and Western unity in a potentially degraded economic and political environment.

The humanitarian and ecological challenges caused by the breaching of the Nova Kakhovka dam present massive challenges for Ukraine, as it launches its long-awaited offensive. Mounting operations to assist and evacuate civilians from affected areas will deplete manpower and resources when the conflict is at a critical juncture. This is to Russia’s advantage. While Ukraine has already deployed an emergency response, there is little indication that Russia has either the capacity or inclination to assist in the humanitarian effort. Thousands are expected to have to leave their homes as waters flood dozens of villages. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has already called on the international community to offer immediate aid. Kyiv and Moscow have both accused each other of bombing people being evacuated. The circumstances surrounding the destruction of the dam on the Dnipro River remain difficult to determine. But the incident is being discussed as a possible war crime and an act of terror, with Russia indicated as the likely perpetrator. While it will be some time before all the details are clear, the event is certainly going to influence events on the battlefield. An attack of this nature can form part of a military strategy. After all, the destruction of Irpin dam in February 2022 played an important role in checking Russian advances earlier in the conflict. In this case, however, the relatively modest military benefit in no way justifies the massive and far-reaching destruction unleashed by the floodwaters. The rising water levels caused by the damage will, of course, have some implications for the campaign. Downstream any crossing of the river will become difficult for the foreseeable future, with the surging waters damaging any remaining infrastructure. The flooded ground may struggle to bear the weight of tanks and artillery as well, limiting the potential routes south for an attacking force. The scale of the disaster introduces many human factors to the battlefield, with displaced civilians further complicating any operations in the region. The result is that a significant portion of the frontline is now difficult to access, leaving Russia with less space to actively defend. While these are significant considerations and will complicate the nature of the battlefield from the Ukrainian perspective, the fundamental balance of power in the region remains unchanged. Ukrainian forces have demonstrated their adaptability from the outset in this conflict, and this will serve them well in the next phases. Having taken the time to integrate the training and equipment received from western partners, the forces compromising the Ukrainian counteroffensive will be able to effectively adapt to events of this nature. Current operations show that Ukrainian land forces are effectively probing for Russian weaknesses  in the south and east. These smaller advances – so called shaping operations – which provide intelligence and fix Russian forces in place, are taking place across a wide front. Ukrainian leadership remain quiet on specifics, but when its more heavily equipped brigades do move forward, they will benefit from these earlier efforts to shape the battlefield in their favour. Russian troops overstretched The Nova Kakhovka dam’s breach will do nothing to improve the status of Russian forces. While in the short term, there is now perhaps less frontline to defend, their troops are still overstretched. The fractured Russian leadership will struggle to effectively respond to any setbacks, and the equipment and human resources they currently have available remain of poor quality. If Nova Kakhovka was an attempt to replicate earlier events, in which Ukraine submerged the Irpin floodplain to interfere with the Russian advance to Kyiv, then it has not been successful. If it was the eve of a Russian offensive, an event of this nature might have been disastrous for them, with their rigid command structures and traumatised land forces incapable of adapting on the fly. This is not Russia’s moment, however. For the Ukrainian side, this is a setback that can be overcome. As well as growing disparities in training and equipment, the incident highlights the profound difference in the mindset and ability to adapt between the respective sides. Unfortunately, we may see more attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure as the offensive presses on. The Russian state clearly prefers to break what it cannot control. While attacks on civilian infrastructure may have little impact on how the conflict plays out, the Russian strategy is now about inflicting pain on the Ukrainian side by any available means. This could indicate that Moscow no longer views these areas as future Russian assets that can be assimilated relatively intact, but instead as areas it can devastate to harm the interests of the rightful owner.

The Russian financial sector has taken a double hit from sanctions – both in infrastructure (affecting financial transactions) and in technology (affecting the hardware and software). Infrastructural sanctions imposed by Western countries in reponse to the war on Ukraine (de-SWIFTing, overcompliance, and breaking of correspondent relationships) affected their operational activity. Moreover, the Russian government banned the use of foreign software and equipment imports, which has been a drag on business development. The financial sector was able to withstand the first shock. However, the most recent restrictions on access to advanced technologies, especially from the US and the EU, will lead to import substitution based on technologies of yesterday.  - Since the war began, every second Russian company has lost tech support and access to cutting-edge technology. - Import substitution leaves tech companies scrambling for what they can get, not what they actually want or need, and stunts business development. - The financial sector is shifting from creating innovations to ensuring technological security and supporting current operations. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a coalition of Western countries led by the European Union and the United States imposed a large array of sanctions. Since then, the Russian financial sector has taken a double hit, namely sanctions on the infrastructure, affecting financial transactions, and on the technology, like software and hardware, it needs to operate. Infrastructure sanctions restrict banks’ ability to make payments (disconnection from the SWIFT global payments system and overcompliance). Technology sanctions create hindrances to technical upgrades and innovation. Before the war in Ukraine, the Russian financial sector was a world leader: it was third in financial technology penetration, in the top 10 in digital banking development, and fourth in the transition to cashless payments during the pandemic. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions in 2022, it has lost this competitive position.   The sanctions against Russia’s financial sector have largely isolated Russia from access to the global financial system. Inside Russia, however, only a small fraction of Russians have felt these restrictions. Russian payment infrastructure was and remains resilient primarily due to the financial messaging system (SPFS), the Russian equivalent of SWIFT, which was developed in 2014 and through which banks are required to exchange data within Russia. In 2022, traffic in the system increased by 22 percent. There are currently 469 participants, including 115 non-Russian banks from 14 countries. Among the foreign countries, banks in Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Switzerland are connected to the system. Due to the risk of new sanctions, Russia’s central bank does not disclose detailed statistics. Direct messaging channels allow for direct international transactions with those banks connected to the SPFS, including those bypassing SWIFT. Minimizing the damage of sanctions that target Russia’s financial sector infrastructure is considerably more difficult. Former partners, even in friendly jurisdictions like some post-Soviet countries, have been slow to help Russia with system-level transactions. It will take considerable time to build new payment infrastructure channels, as the technological constraints are much more difficult. The lack of access to modern technology keeps banks’ IT systems in their current state and impedes fintech development and innovation. Pain and Risk About 85 percent of software used in the Russian financial sector is produced abroad. For hardware, the situation is even worse. Only large-scale assembly takes place in Russia. For this reason, the departure of companies that ensure the viability of the financial sector has been particularly painful for the financial sector - companies like Oracle, SAP, Cisco, IBM, Intel, AMD, Diebold Nixdorf and NCR (ATMs). Every second Russian company was left without technical support after the war began. For Russian banks, it was impossible to quickly switch to domestic solutions, as the right quality and scale were simply not available on the market. Virtually all operations of a modern financial institution, from client services to internal operations, are heavily dependent on the smooth operation of software and equipment. This makes the financial system particularly vulnerable on the technological side. Banks and non-financial institutions may face operational risks due to the lack of servers and software. This could make systems more vulnerable to cyber-attacks, raise the risk of technical failures due to a shortage of equipment and maintenance specialists, and require failing equipment to be replaced with either used Western-made products or Chinese analogues. The Bank of Russia, which supervises the financial sector, pointed out these risks for the first time almost a year after the invasion. Import Substitution Software The withdrawal of foreign companies has left the Russian financial sector with a huge gap in software and services. Also, in October 2022, the government banned Russian banks from using foreign software, a rule that applies even if there are no domestic equivalents. This has forced critical information infrastructure facilities to urgently seek domestic solutions. The combination of these two factors has given a boost to software development in Russia. Thus, according to Ilya Sivtsev, CEO of Astra (developer of operating systems and PostgreSQL database management system (DBMS) based on open source code), the company’s revenue in 2022 doubled to over RUB 6.5 billion (USD 65 million) and the share of its revenues from the financial sector increased from 4 to 22 percent. Astra’s outlook for 2023 is for double-digit growth.  Astra’s figures generally reflect the situation in the Russian IT market in 2022: there was rapid growth due to the departure of foreign competitors. As Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, who oversees the industry, reported, IT firms in 2022 grew revenues by 35 percent and earned RUB 2.38 trillion (USD 27 billion). Despite the reduced presence of foreign companies, turnover in the Russian IT market has grown. Switching to Russian software instead of foreign software may not be the most significant challenge, but it is an expense that businesses could have invested in furthering business growth. With all the advantages of the Russian DBMS, migration from the US-made Oracle software may lead to performance degradation of 30-50 percent. This is a serious limitation for the financial sector, whose mission-critical core system (processing, the core of an automated banking system) requires high-speed interaction with databases. The banking applications must also be transferred to the new DBMS. In addition, information security risks that could jeopardize the stability of the financial system have increased. The massive migration to new IT solutions reduces the cybersecurity of the entire system. The growth of the Russian software market is limited by two factors: the Russian government’s permission for companies to use unlicensed foreign software and the country’s own borders. Before the war, Russian IT companies were rather active on the markets of neighboring countries, providing various services (e.g. 1, 2, 3 )–from the integration of IT systems and products to the provision of services to companies and private customers. Russian solutions were often cheaper and technical support in Russian was an important advantage in the regional Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) market. And while Russian companies were also looking to expand abroad before the war, they will now have to compete there with Western companies that have left the Russian market and whose technological development is not restricted by sanctions. The relationship between customers and integrators running programs to implement products from different vendors has also changed. The customers say, “I want it like SAP, but faster and better,” while the integrators say, “My offer is limited, so take what I have or you will run out too.” In other words, customers have to accept a downgrade in software and hardware capacity for certain technologies. Import Substitution and Hardware Because it was not profitable, the equipment needed for  assembly in Russia is not produced in the country. Until 2022, only large-scale assembly from imported components was carried out in Russia. And the financial sector is not the only one waiting for servers, storage systems, controllers and components – industry, the public sector and retailers are also in line. In their search for equipment, Russian companies have turned to parallel imports, obtaining what they need from countries that have not imposed sanctions. They have also acquiesced to lower requirements for equipment quality and delivery deadlines. However, there are no systemic solutions or supply lines yet. Right at the beginning of the conflict, the US applied the Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR) mechanism to Russia. The FDPR prohibits exports to sanctioned countries of equipment that US companies were involved in developing or manufacturing – thus it affects companies outside the US in so-called third countries. This mechanism is primarily aimed at keeping the defense industry from importing technology. However, civilian products that can be classified as “dual-use” (military and civilian) are also largely subject to the restrictions – including the kinds of equipment needed by the financial sector. That has made systematic and large-scale purchases much more difficult. Third countries are willing to restrict technology exports to Russia, and the US is constantly updating its sanctions lists to include intermediaries. Nevertheless, loopholes in sanctions frameworks and delays in sanctions decisions allow Russia more room to adjust, finding new partners in Asia or new ways to bring hardware to Russia. Chinese partners, for example, support Russian companies not only with equipment but also with chips. Shipments of microchips and other semiconductors from China to Russia  are 2.5 times higher than than pre-war level; China now accounts for more than 50 percent of semiconductor imports to Russia. By the end of 2022, China supplied 40 percent of Russia’s imports and purchased 30 percent of its exports, and the RMB had become the only (albeit less convenient due to its incomplete convertibility) alternative to the euro and dollar for Russia’s international payments. In 2022, trade turnover between the two countries reached an astronomical USD190 billion, and it is quite likely that within these imports are sanctioned goods that Russia desperately needs. Reports that China is helping Russia circumvent sanctions, especially in the technology sector, are mounting. The Russian IT sector’s focus on Chinese suppliers and their products – from servers and data center equipment to bulk purchases of consumer electronics – reflects Moscow’s growing and asymmetrical dependence on Beijing. For second- and third-tier Chinese companies, this opens up opportunities to enter the Russian market. For example, Sber, Russia’s largest bank, is testing its own custom-made laptops. Sber’s partner, the Chinese company Shanghai IP3 Information Technology, is a contract manufacturer that takes orders for electronic devices and commissions them from Chinese production facilities. Whereas before the war Russian companies were free to choose their equipment and electronics suppliers, taking advantage of the wide supply on the market to obtain favorable prices, the choice has now narrowed to Chinese manufacturers. The lack of alternatives also forces them to accept less attractive terms. Innovation Inhibited The sanctions bottleneck in both hardware and software is shifting the focus of IT specialists in the Russian financial sector from creating innovations to ensuring technological security and supporting current operations. The most prominent example is the introduction of payment stickers for Russians who can no longer make contactless payments with their smartphones. A payment sticker has an embedded near-field communications (NFC) chip that exchanges data with a payment device. In other words, it is a bank card chip stuck onto an iPhone, as iPhone owners are considered to be the highest-paying target group, and banks have a vested interest in maintaining the usual number and volume of card transactions. Android smartphone owners will still have the option of making contactless payments via a MirPay wallet linked to their domestic payment system card. Frank RG, the Russian financial information publication, estimates that 12 of Russia’s 25 largest banks already offer stickers to their customers. Tinkoff, the leader in innovative banking, plans to issue over 1 million stickers by July 2023. At state-owned Sberbank, over 100 000 people applied for stickers within three hours of their offering. Issuing stickers is more expensive for the bank than standard payment card issuance, bankers acknowledge. Russian financial institutions have become so similar to IT companies that they are almost indistinguishable. Sberbank alone employs 38,000 IT specialists, Sberbank President Herman Gref reported to Vladimir Putin in March 2023. Besides the purely financial challenges, such as ensuring the sustainability of the payment infrastructure, the financial sector needs to work with the IT industry on providing non-sanctioned hardware and software, finding indigenous solutions to replace Western ones, and localizing instead of scaling up. An important but not decisive obstacle to innovation is the mass exodus of IT professionals. Competition for the remaining specialists is fierce and will only increase. The government is making gigantic efforts to keep the remaining skilled workers in the country. The slowness in changing the taxation of departing Russians seems partly related to the fear that most foreign IT professionals who continue to work in Russia will no longer do so. Prospects for the Financial Sector The Russian financial sector’s resilience to sanctions on its financial infrastructure has been limited to Russian territory. The sanctions have largely isolated Russia from the international financial infrastructure. Russia’s demand to allow banks to use SWIFT (e.g. under the Grains Agreement) is a clear indication of this. Technological restrictions and the withdrawal of Western companies from the Russian market may seem less painful at first glance, but this is not the case. Their impact is longer-term: declining quality of hardware and software, forced investment at IT, cybersecurity, and operational risks. And while infrastructural constraints have had only a temporary impact on the ability of the financial sector to operate smoothly, technological constraints have significantly limited its potential for growth and development. The Russian financial sector’s dependence on foreign, especially Western, software and hardware manufacturers is high. This poses a significant risk to Russia’s financial stability, especially if Western countries tighten sanctions against the Russian IT sector.