Category Archives: Russia

Britain, China, Government, Intelligence, Middle East, Russia, Society, United States

Spy chiefs give joint-interview at Festival

US-UK INTELLIGENCE

IN a rare public appearance, Richard Moore, the head of MI6, has warned that Russia’s intelligence services have become “feral” and “reckless” in the way they are plotting attacks in Britain and across Europe.

In an historic joint interview with the head of the CIA, Mr Moore said Moscow is now using criminal gangs for state-sponsored terror attacks in Europe. The attacks are “more amateurish” and are endangering more lives.

His CIA counterpart William Burns said coordinated operations between UK and US intelligence services are thwarting the plots across the Continent and in mainland Britain. The intelligence chiefs were appearing before a Festival in north London, where they spoke of the long-standing relationship between MI6 and the CIA.

Mr Burns also revealed how the CIA feared Vladimir Putin was going to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine in the autumn of 2022, after falsely accusing Volodymyr Zelensky of amassing nuclear materials for such an attack against his troops.

The CIA chief also said 90 per cent of a new peace deal between Israel and Hamas is complete, adding that its details may be published in the “next few days”.

Mr Moore, known as C by his officers, spoke about how the two services often conduct intelligence operations together. “We will sometimes decide who is better-placed to go first – we call it the best athlete model. Whoever is best placed to do it, we work in a non-competitive way to get the result,” he said.

The MI6 boss said Russia’s intelligence services have conducted sabotage and criminal acts in Britain and in Europe, becoming “a lot more feral”. He added: “The fact they are using a criminal element shows they are becoming a bit desperate – they can’t use their own people. They’re happy to use criminals. It’s just a bit more reckless.”

Mr Moore referred to an arson attack in Leyton, east London, on a Ukraine-linked business, which is suspected of being directed by Moscow. Two men have since been charged for helping Russian intelligence after the Metropolitan Police used terrorism powers to investigate.

He also said the Salisbury poisoning in 2018 was “emblematic” of the recklessness of Russian agents.

“They left a large phial of a deadly poison lying around to be picked up,” he said. “It could have killed an entire school – in fact, it killed an innocent British civilian.”

Two Russian agents daubed Novichok nerve agent on the doorknob of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, which nearly killed him and his daughter. But the perfume bottle with the poison in it was later picked up by a woman, who later died.

Speaking publicly for the first time about how the CIA feared Russia was close to using a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine months into the conflict, Mr Burns said: “There was a moment in the fall of 2022 that I think there was a genuine risk of potential use of tactical nuclear weapons. I felt we should not be intimidated by Putin.”

He was dispatched to the Turkish capital Ankara to tell the head of the FSB, Sergei Naryshkin, how the West would respond “militarily” if Russia used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The CIA chief said: “We cannot afford to be intimidated by that sabre-rattling and bullying. The record shows the United States has provided enormous support to Ukraine, and I’m sure we’ll continue to.”

Mr Burns has been intimately involved in the difficult negotiations in the Middle East between Hamas and Israel, with Qatar and Egypt acting as intermediaries.

He said 90 per cent of a peace deal is complete, adding: “The last 10 per cent is the last 10 per cent for a reason… it’s the hardest part to do. But we will make this more detailed proposal, I hope in the next several days, then we’ll see.”

And he warned that Hamas cannot be entirely defeated. “You can severely degrade their military capabilities, but it is a movement and an idea, and the way you kill an idea is with a better idea.”

The intelligence chiefs – who gave a public interview to the editor of the Financial Times on the grounds of Kenwood House in Hampstead – said China was their main preoccupation, with 20 per cent of the CIA’s resources being devoted to the Beijing regime.

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Britain, Military, Russia, Ukraine, United States

A daring strike. Reason why we must keep sending arms

UKRAINE-RUSSIA

THE surprise factor has always been critical in war. And once again, Ukraine has displayed it with audaciousness – just as the country did when fighting back so valiantly against the world’s second biggest military power 30 months ago after Vladimir Putin tried to crush their country with his invasion.

Kyiv’s troops have made a lightning-fast thrust into the Kursk region of Russia with tank and mechanised units that no one anticipated – especially not the Kremlin.

It was clearly well prepared and planned, with cyber attacks stifling Russian communications and drones, aided by substantial artillery firepower. These are regular Ukrainian military forces – not the militia involved in previous incursions.

Russian convoys hastily transferring troops to the region after the initial raid seem to have been hit hard by Ukraine. Minefields were laid to protect the attack force. Social media suggests more Ukrainian tanks and troops are going in, plus significant captures of enemy soldiers.

It is difficult to determine precise numbers of the troops involved, let alone the aims of this daring strike that has taken them possibly 20 miles over the border. Whatever the case, it all shows an impressive level of operational planning and diligence.

It also bears similarities in style to the rapid advance by Ukraine two years ago that recaptured big chunks of the Kharkiv region. That was led by General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who has since been promoted to overall commander of Ukraine’s armed forces.

To take the fight into Russia with the first invasion of its terrain since 1941 is a bold and risky move. And it seems Western allies were left as surprised as the Kremlin when it was launched from Ukraine’s Sumy region.

Putin, the architect of so many bloodstained atrocities in this hideous war, has been silent so far. His aides are appealing to the United Nations for support, and bleat pathetically about “large-scale provocation”, and seemingly are threatening a “tough response”.

Only time will tell if this was a brave and foolhardy move by Ukraine – or a smart move that will force Moscow to shift forces from other parts of the frontline, thereby aiding Kyiv’s defence of its terrain while raising much needed morale among citizens and Western allies.

The attack certainly demolishes any suggestions that the war was settling into a stalemate, with Russia’s remorseless military steamroller making grinding gains in eastern Ukraine despite massive causalities.

Kyiv has demonstrated its military capabilities again when sufficiently equipped with modern weapons – just as it has in its remarkable defeat of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, where it used drones and missiles to sink or damage at least one third of the ships, forcing the rest to retreat from Crimea. This has frustrated Moscow’s ability to bomb Ukraine from warships.

In this latest operation, Ukraine has hit two airbases used to launch the glide bombs that are causing horrific carnage among Ukrainian civilians and soldiers with massive blasts.

The sluggish Russian response shows (again) the failings of a top-down, Soviet-style command structure under a power-crazed dictator. Moscow’s propaganda has been reduced to showing footage of “successful” strikes repelling Ukraine in Kursk – footage that was in reality filmed elsewhere.

We do not know if Ukraine intends to press on or try to hold this captured terrain for trading in future negotiations for its own stolen lands – or to retreat having shaken the enemy, rattled the Russian regime, and forced it to place more security and troops all along the border regions.

Military strategists are, however, right to point out that Moscow has held a big advantage in this war until now because it has not needed to commit military resources to defend its border – that’s an amazing thing during any war.

This advantage was down to the West’s ridiculous determination from the start to restrain Ukrainian efforts to fight back inside Russia. Washington even complained to Kyiv about attacks on fuel dumps supplying the Kremlin’s military machine.

The West’s pathetic fear of escalation, stoked ceaselessly by Russian threats of nuclear war, has been a powerful weapon for Putin because it has limited military aid for Kyiv and severely shackled Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

Now, though, Kyiv has dramatically challenged this stance and shown the absurdities of such timidity in this epochal confrontation between dictatorship and democracy. It feeds into the dictum expressed by Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, who said: “Enemy blows must be returned in war”.

. 14 August 2024

A sign negotiated peace is edging closer

IN the last few weeks, Kyiv had been signalling it was open to peace talks with Moscow. This was not an attempt to surrender, but to arrange a settlement that preserves Ukraine’s independence and by recovering as much ground as possible.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, had even gone to see Vladimir Putin’s allies in Beijing to sound out whether China would act as an intermediary.

If Putin took Zelensky’s willingness to talk as a sign that his resolve to fight was weakening, he surely suffered the greatest shock of his presidency in the early hours of August 6.

A week ago, an elite Ukrainian unit stormed the border and its forces have since seized some 400 square miles of Russian territory in the Kursk region.

It appears that the Ukrainians have adopted the great Soviet art of “maskirovka” – deception in warfare – and taught the Russian tyrant a lesson in over-confidence.

The claim that Kyiv’s allies were caught by surprise is disquieting. The presence of NATO advisers and technicians helping the Ukrainians deploy Western weaponry – including F16 fighters, French and British cruise missiles, and German armoured vehicles – must have been seen along with the preparations being made for the sudden offensive. The West is treading carefully, mindful of the cost the war is extracting from its taxpayers. Its leaders are more than happy to see Putin embarrassed by Ukraine’s surprise attack, but they’ve kept the triumphalist rhetoric to a minimum (for fear of burning bridges with the Kremlin were it to open talks on a ceasefire).

Through its successful invasion into Russian territory, Ukraine has dramatically gained more leverage for any impending talks. Zelensky now has the basis for bargaining Russian land not only for peace but also for the return of areas of the Donbas overrun by the enemy.

Seen in that light, this act of aggression is not an escalation of the war but a signal that a negotiated settlement might be edging closer. It will be tempting for Zelensky to push further. With new American F16s at his disposal, Russian targets in the Black Sea will be vulnerable.

Potential propaganda coups like destroying the bridge linking Russia to Crimea, or by targeting Putin’s palace near Sochi on the coast, could be strategic options. Such gains, however, could also be counter-productive, for they would enrage and infuriate Putin so much that any prospect of a peace deal would be dead in the water.

The important point is that being good at war is not just about fighting well.

As the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz argued after fighting with the Russian army against Napoleon in 1812, the ultimate purpose of war is to achieve a political objective.

Political and military leaders have to keep their eyes on the great prize of attaining that ultimate goal – whether they call it victory or peace – rather than just tactical victories on the battlefield.

The choice of invading Kursk was hugely symbolic given the emotional resonance the region holds over Russians.

On the very same terrain in 1943, the heroic Red Army routed the retreating Nazis in the biggest tank battle ever seen. That involved some 6,000 tanks and almost two million troops. The Battle of Kursk became a decisive turning point in the defeat of Hitler in the east.

The ill-fated submarine that was named in its honour has also imprinted itself on the Russian psyche. In August 2000, just eight months after Putin won his inaugural presidency, the nuclear-powered K-141 Kursk sank in the Barents Sea, taking with it all 118 souls on board.

Therefore the invasion of Kursk in particular, the first foreign incursion into Russia since the Second World War, will have hurt Putin.

That war ended in total victory; this one will end with a messy compromise.

Diplomacy is an unseemly business best kept secret from squeamish publics. A lot can go wrong, even with diplomacy behind the scenes. Trust is in short supply to put it mildly. Yet, there is now a glimmer of hope that Ukraine can get to hold its essential territory and rebuild its society and economy.

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Books, China, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, United States

Book Review: Autocracy, Inc

LITERARY REVIEW

Intro: Standing up to the tyrants in the East

THERE isn’t a more rigorous and engaging analyst of the crimes of the erstwhile Soviet dictatorship than Anne Applebaum, the acclaimed author of the Pulitzer prize-winning history of the Gulag, and also of Red Famine: Stalin’s War On Ukraine.

For her gifts, the historian is also rooted in the present, as a fearsomely active journalist, and the writer’s latest work is an up-to-the moment examination of how modern-day autocracies, not just that of Russia’s President Putin, but also including China, North Korea, and Iran, act as a kind of informal bloc to challenge what they see as the West’s “hegemony”.

It’s unfortunate that the phrase “axis of evil” has already been taken, since that would be a befitting description. Alas, it was inappropriately used by George W. Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to join together Iran, Iraq, and North Korea – which actually had no military or financial links at all.

Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, do, however, connect in this way, accelerated by Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

The only minor criticism of Applebaum’s formidable book is that it never mentions the Iraq War of 2003–2011 or the later Western intervention in Libya. For these were the developments which not only gave fuel to the anti-Western agenda, but also convinced many – including in the West itself – that we had little moral authority to criticise the military escapades launched by the Kremlin.

Applebaum is especially adept, however, in setting out the remarkable success of modern Russian propaganda – beyond the scope that Stalin could ever have dreamed of – using the worldwide web, and of China’s ability both to control its own people through technology and to censor what was thought to be unstoppable.

At the dawn of the millennium the ever-optimistic U.S. President Bill Clinton proclaimed that the internet would liberalise China, by exposing its people to all the possibilities and opportunities the free world had to offer.

When arguing, on similar grounds, for China to be admitted to the World Trade Organisation, he gave an address in which he ridiculed the idea that Beijing could keep a lid on things.

“Now, there’s no question that China’s been trying to crack down on the internet,” he declared. At that point, as Applebaum records, Clinton gave a wry smile, adding: “Good luck!” – and his audience joined in the laughter.

They are not laughing now. The Great Firewall of China, and even more sophisticated tools than that, have allowed Beijing to succeed, keeping billions of its citizens in a form of intellectual slavery.

In a similar vein, the German political establishment had long believed in the doctrine known as Wandel durch Handel – “change through trade” – the idea that making nice with Moscow in terms of market access would inevitably lead to political and cultural liberalisation. This was most notable with pipelines taking Russian gas to Europe. That dream, or self-interest, in terms of the aspirations of German business, has also been shattered. The kleptocracy just got richer and far  more ruthless. 

As the deputy mayor of St Petersburg in 1992, and in his first public role, the former KGB officer Putin argued that “the entrepreneurial class should become the basis for the flourishing of our society as a whole”. That was music to the ears of Western investors, but Putin was then, already, creaming off vast sums for himself and his associates, via his control of local export licences for raw material.

As Applebaum notes, under Putin’s perpetually renewed presidency this ultimately developed into “a full-blown autocratic kleptocracy, a Mafia state built and managed entirely for the purpose of enriching its leadership”. It was for his leading role in exposing this that Alexei Navalny paid with his life.

Despite his apparent personal austerity and regular crackdowns on colossal financial corruption within the Chinese Communist Party – the inescapable consequence of permanent one-party rule – Xi Jinping is only too happy to make common cause with the multibillionaire plutocrat Putin.

Central, this is because they share a primordial terror of a popular uprising against their regimes: in this context, it was striking how in 2022 Xi suddenly abandoned his hitherto iron-cast Covid lockdown measures after a public revolt threatened to spread to the streets of Beijing and Shanghai.

And the “no limits” friendship which Xi entered into with Putin on February 4, 2022, was specifically designed to demonstrate a kind of solidarity among autocracies, against what they both constantly refer to as the West’s “attempts at hegemony”.

Their joint communiqué denounced “the abuse of democratic values and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states”. Weeks later, Putin sent his tanks towards Kyiv.

There was a tantalising glimpse of a possible fracture in the relationship at that moment: it seems likley that Xi was not given a warning by Putin of what was about to happen and, some months later, Beijing made public its grave concern about the Kremlin’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, as Anne Applebaum concludes, the challenge to “Autocracy, Inc” must come from within the West itself.

And, yet, if the forecasts are right, the American people seem likely to elect to the White House (again) their own version of Autocracy Inc: Donald J. Trump.

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