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US warns of Chinese disinformation. China says that’s disinformation By Mengchen Zhang, Teele Rebane and Heather Chen, CNN Published 3:20 AM EDT, Sun October 1, 2023

A US State Department report that accuses the Chinese government of expanding disinformation efforts is “in itself disinformation,” Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed Saturday.

The ministry shot back after the State Department issued a striking report this week in which it accused the Chinese government of expanding efforts to control information and to disseminate propaganda and disinformation that promotes “digital authoritarianism” in China and around the world.

The US report, issued by the Global Engagement Center on Thursday, alleged that China spends billions of dollars a year on foreign information manipulation and warned that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had “significantly expanded” efforts to “shape the global information environment.”

It also underlined US concerns about China as a main military competitor and key rival in the battle over ideas and global disinformation.

Two days later, China hit back.

“The relevant center of the US State Department which concocted the report is engaged in propaganda and infiltration in the name of ‘global engagement’ – it is a source of disinformation and the command center of ‘perception warfare’,” the ministry said on Saturday.

Referring to wars in Iraq and Syria as well as US reports alleging human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang as examples, the ministry claimed that the US is “an ‘empire of lies’ through and through.”

“No matter how the US tries to pin the label of ‘disinformation’ on other countries, more and more people in the world have already seen through the US’s ugly attempt to perpetuate its supremacy by weaving lies into ‘emperor’s new clothes’ and smearing others,” the ministry said.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/eastern-europe-and-former-soviet-union/rightsizing-russia-threat

Since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022, debates have raged in the West about how to properly respond to Moscow’s aggression. But those debates are limited by a lack of agreement about the goals of that aggression and, ultimately, what kind of threat Russia really represents. Arguably, understanding the Russia threat is a first-order priority: unless Western governments get that right, they risk either overreacting or underreacting.

Officials and scholars who have proffered their views of Russian goals tend to see them in quite stark terms. Many have made the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a maximalist whose ambitions go far beyond Ukraine. Others portray Putin as obsessed with Ukraine—or more specifically, obsessed with erasing it from the map. Such assessments of Putin’s intentions, however, are often unmoored from any consideration of his capabilities. If one accepts the formulation that a threat must be assessed based on an adversary’s intentions and capabilities, then the limits of what Putin can do establish which of his ambitions are relevant for understanding the threat posed by Russia—and which merely reflect the powers of his imagination.

Over the past 20 months, the world has learned much about what Putin can and cannot do. When one considers that evidence, a different view of Putin and the threat he represents emerges: a dangerous aggressor, for sure, but ultimately a tactician who has had to adjust to the constraints under which he is forced to operate.

WHAT DOES PUTIN WANT?

Some prominent Russia analysts have claimed that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is merely the first step in a much larger attempt at domination that will extend beyond Ukraine. Putin, in this view, is a maximalist. As the scholars Angela Stent and Fiona Hill argued in Foreign Affairs: “[Putin’s] claims go beyond Ukraine, into Europe and Eurasia. The Baltic states might be on his colonial agenda, as well as Poland.” In this view, Russia’s progressively greater use of military force in its foreign policy since the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 is part of a continual process that has yet to peak. Putin, accordingly, will not stop until he has restored some version of the Russian Empire or at least a sphere of influence that goes beyond Ukraine. As Hill and Stent put it in a different article: “If Russia were to prevail in this bloody conflict, Putin’s appetite for expansion would not stop at the Ukrainian border. The Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and many other countries that were once part of Russia’s empire could be at risk of attack or subversion.”

If Putin does harbor such imperialist ambitions in eastern Europe, his intentions would partly resemble those of Hitler and Stalin. Some leaders, particularly in parts of formerly communist eastern Europe that fell under Nazi occupation during World War II and Soviet occupation and control after it, have not shied away from making the analogy explicit. For example, in June 2022, Polish President Andrzej Duda criticized German and French attempts at diplomacy with Russia by rhetorically asking: “Did anyone speak like this with Adolf Hitler during World War II? Did anyone say that Adolf Hitler must save face? That we should proceed in such a way that it is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler? I have not heard such voices.”

Other analysts and policymakers have portrayed Putin as essentially a génocidaire—a man bent on destroying not only the Ukrainian state but also its people and culture. As the historian David Marples put it: “The Russian leadership seeks to depopulate and destroy the entity that since 1991 has existed as the independent Ukrainian state.” The writer Anne Applebaum concurs: “This was never just a war for territory, after all, but rather a campaign fought with genocidal intent.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described “an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia,” a charge backed by the odious practices of Russian forces: the mass killings of civilians, the torture and rape of detainees, the deliberate bombing of residential neighborhoods, and the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. In his September 2022 address to the UN General Assembly, U.S. President Joe Biden stated that “this war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people.” The legislatures of Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have joined that of Ukraine in formally declaring Russia’s aggression in Ukraine a genocide.

It now seems patently obvious that Putin’s motives went far beyond defense.

The trouble with seeing Putin as a maximalist or a génocidaire is that it ignores his inability to be either one of those things—unless he resorts to use of weapons of mass destruction. When Russia’s conventional military was at the peak of its power at the start of the war, it was incapable of taking control of any major Ukrainian city. Since the retreat from Kyiv and the northeast, Russian forces have demonstrated little capacity to conduct successful offensive operations. Their last attempt—a winter offensive in the south of the Donetsk region—ended in a bloodbath for the Russian side. At this rate, Putin will never succeed at taking control of Ukraine by force, let alone wipe out its inhabitants, even if Western support for Kyiv wanes. If he cannot take Ukraine, it seems far-fetched that he could go beyond it. These Russian weaknesses are widely invoked, but they are usually ignored in assessments that focus on Putin’s intentions.

Moreover, Moscow’s soft-power instruments have been revealed to be equally ineffective as its hard power ones. Despite many fears to the contrary, German dependence on Russian natural gas has not allowed Moscow to stop Berlin from leading efforts to counter aggression in Ukraine. In addition, the shallowness of Russia’s capital markets and the general weakness of its industrial sector have driven former Soviet countries toward the West and China in search of trade opportunities and investments—despite elaborate attempts by Moscow to foster economic integration in the region. In addition, Putin’s Russia, unlike its Soviet predecessor, has no power of attraction with which to co-opt foreign elites into larger political projects. The Kremlin under Putin has neither a powerful, transnational ideology nor a developmental model that could attract elites outside its borders. Whatever soft power Russia wielded to attract elites through more banal means—say, bribery on a grand scale—has been largely squandered by now, thanks to the brutality of its war.

The Ukraine war has revealed that Putin does not have the resources—short of using nuclear weapons—to fulfill maximalist or genocidal objectives. The Russian military has improved its performance during the war; its destructive power should not be dismissed. And Putin’s intentions do matter. But it is now clear that his forces cannot defeat the Ukrainian military, let alone occupy the country. Perhaps he might dream of wiping Ukraine off the map or of marching onward from Ukraine to the rest of the continent. But his dreams matter little if he cannot realize them on the ground.

PAVED WITH BAD INTENTIONS

A smaller but vocal group of analysts takes a markedly different view of Putin’s intentions, claiming that he is a fundamentally defensive actor who seeks (like all leaders of major powers, this group alleges) to prevent threats to his homeland from materializing. Rather than trying to conquer Ukraine, let alone Europe, Putin has been waging a reactive war to keep the West out of his backyard. The political scientist John Mearsheimer, the most prominent exponent of this view, has argued that “there is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine.” He has also written that “there is no evidence Russia was preparing a puppet government for Ukraine, cultivating pro-Russian leaders in Kyiv, or pursuing any political measures that would make it possible to occupy the entire country and eventually integrate it into Russia.” In other words, Russia has been playing defense, and Putin is merely pushing back against Western encroachment. He seeks nothing more than security for his country.

But this portrayal of Putin clashes with the reality of Russia’s actions. It now seems patently obvious that Putin’s motives went far beyond defense. It is difficult to see the Russian attempt to take Kyiv in the first weeks of the war as anything other than a regime-change operation. And British, Ukrainian, and U.S. intelligence agencies have all judged that the Kremlin attempted to prepare various Ukrainian figureheads to lead a Russian puppet regime in Kyiv and steer the country back into Moscow’s orbit. (One such figurehead, Oleg Tsaryov, even directly confirmed his presence in Ukraine on the day the full-scale invasion began, declaring on the Telegram social media platform that “Kyiv will be free from fascists.”)

Still, to accurately assess the Russia threat, the clear evidence of Putin’s initially expansive intentions must be coupled with the equally clear evidence of Russia’s limited capabilities, which have been on vivid display since February 2022 and which appear to have forced Putin to adjust his aims. Putin may well have been seeking to conquer Ukraine in the initial stage of the war, but following the failure of that plan, he (at least temporarily) downsized his goals. He withdrew his forces from around the capital and other cities in the northeast of Ukraine in early April 2022; they have never returned. As Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, has testified to Congress: “Putin is likely better understanding the limits of what his military is capable of achieving and appears to be focused on more limited military objectives for now.” The best way to understand Putin, then, is not as an offensive maximalist, a génocidaire, or a wholly defensive actor, but rather as a tactician who adjusts his ambitions to accord with the constraints under which he operates. Analysis of the Russia threat should focus less on what he might aspire to and more on what he plausibly can get with the power he has.

DEALING WITH A TACTICAL ADVERSARY

An understanding of Putin as a tactician is not necessarily reassuring. His ambitions may well expand in the future just as they have contracted in the past—and if Russia’s power can enable that expansion, then threat assessments should change. Moreover, even with his current limited capabilities, Putin can still inflict major damage on Ukraine and its people. Russia has pounded Ukrainian ports and industrial and energy facilities and has mined many agricultural fields. Its naval blockade has obstructed exports of grain, steel, and other commodities on which the Ukrainian economy (and that of many other countries) critically depends. In 2022, the Ukrainian economy shrank by a third, and it is hard to imagine how a substantial recovery could take place before Moscow stops bombing major cities and infrastructure and lifts the blockade. Further, Ukraine is by far the most powerful of Russia’s non-NATO neighbors. In other words, even with his current capabilities and a tactician’s mindset, Putin could pose an insurmountable threat to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and other former Soviet republics. U.S. allies in NATO might be safe, but that’s cold comfort to people in those countries.

For governments, rightsizing the Russia threat—that is, adopting an understanding of Putin as a tactician operating under significant constraints—should form the basis for determining appropriate policy responses to his actions. Policymakers should recognize that Putin’s goals might well be a moving target and avoid static assessments. Regularly testing the proposition that he might have adjusted to new circumstances would be a sensible approach.

Regardless, a proper understanding of the threat Russia poses must begin with an accurate appraisal of Russian power. Putin might harbor fantasies of world conquest. But at the moment, his military cannot even fully conquer any of the four Ukrainian provinces he claims to have annexed last year. Ultimately, those are the constraints that should bound the debate about the extent of the threat.

SAMUEL CHARAP is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation and a co-author of Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia. He served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration.

KASPAR PUCEK is a Lecturer in International and Russian and Eurasian Studies at Leiden University and an Associate Fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague.

Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t invade Ukraine in 2022 because he feared NATO. He invaded because he believed that NATO was weak, that his efforts to regain control of Ukraine by other means had failed, and that installing a pro-Russian government in Kyiv would be safe and easy. His aim was not to defend Russia against some non-existent threat but rather to expand Russia’s power, eradicate Ukraine’s statehood, and destroy NATO, goals he still pursues.

Putin had convinced himself by the end of 2021 that Russia had the opportunity to safely launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine to accomplish two distinct goals: establish Russian control over Ukraine without facing significant Western resistance and break the unity of NATO. Putin has long sought to achieve these goals, but a series of events in 2019-2020 fueled Putin’s belief that he had both the need and a historic opportunity to establish control over Ukraine. Putin’s conviction resulted from the Kremlin’s failed efforts to force Ukraine to submit to Russia’s demands, Putin’s immersion in an ideological and self-reflective bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Western responses to global events and Russian threats in 2021. Putin had decided that he wanted war to achieve his aims by late 2021, and no diplomatic offering from the West or Kyiv short of surrendering to his maximalist demands would have convinced Putin to abandon the historic opportunity he thought he had.

Putin has long tried to accomplish two distinct objectives: breaking up NATO and seizing full control over Ukraine. Putin’s core objectives from the start of his rule have been preserving his regime, establishing an iron grip on Russia domestically, reestablishing Russia as a great power, and forming a multipolar world order in which Russia has a veto over key global events.[1] Establishing control over Ukraine and eroding US influence have always been essential to these core objectives.

Putin has sought to break NATO and Western unity, but not because the Kremlin felt militarily threatened by NATO. Russia’s military posture during Putin’s reign has demonstrated that Putin has never been primarily concerned with the risk of a NATO attack on Russia. Russian military reforms since 2000 have not prioritized creating large mechanized forces on the Russian borders with NATO to defend against invasion.[2] Russia deployed the principal units designed to protect Russia from NATO to Ukraine, which posed no military threat to Russia, in 2021 and 2022.[3] In 2023 - at the height of Russia’s anti-NATO rhetoric - Russia continued to withdraw forces and military equipment from its actual land borders with NATO to support the war in Ukraine.[4] Putin‘s fear of NATO manifested in his preoccupation with the West’s supposed hybrid warfare efforts to stage “color revolutions,” which Russia claimed the West had done in various former Soviet states including Ukraine.[5]

Putin has always been more concerned about the loss of control over Russia’s perceived sphere of influence than about a NATO threat to Russia. Putin’s actual issue with NATO and the West has been that they offered an alternative path to countries that Putin thought fell in Russia’s sphere of influence or even control. The “color revolutions” that so alarmed Putin were, after all, the manifestations of those countries daring to choose the West, or, rather the way of life, governance and values the West represented, over Moscow. NATO and the West threatened Russia by simply existing, promoting their own values, as Russia promoted its values, and being the preferred partner to many former Soviet states – which, in Putin’s view, undermined Russia’s influence over these states. Putin saw the ability to control former Soviet states as an essential prerequisite to reestablishing Russia as a great power, however. In simple terms, the West – and those in the former Soviet states who preferred to partner with the West even without fully breaking with Russia - stood between Putin and what he believed to be Russia’s rightful role in the world.

Putin therefore initiated policies attacking NATO unity and enlargement. Putin has made it a priority throughout his rule to prevent more former Soviet states and even other states, such as the Balkan countries, from joining NATO.[6] The Kremlin has also sought to undermine the relationships between the members of the alliance.[7] Putin accelerated his efforts to undermine Western unity and NATO following the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution that drove out Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych, and brought in a pro-Western government. Russia responded by illegally occupying Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014.

The Russian occupation of Crimea and Donbas in 2014 was driven by Putin’s perception of a need and an opportunity to expand Russia’s power and establish control over Ukraine. The Kremlin sought to preserve strategic naval basing for the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea – an anchor of Russia’s power projection in the region.[8] The Kremlin was concerned that a pro-Western Ukrainian government would end the lease agreement by which Russia had kept the Black Sea Fleet headquartered in Sevastopol. Crimea continues to provide strategic military benefits to Russia. Ukraine is rightfully focused on depriving Russia of these benefits by making Crimea increasingly untenable for the Russian forces.[9] The occupation of Crimea and the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 were also a stage of a larger effort to bring a significant portion of Ukraine under Russian control, effectively breaking the country up.[10] Putin perceived a strategic opportunity to do so in the spring of 2014, as Ukraine faced a moment of vulnerability during its government transition after the Euromaidan revolution and as the West was focused on dampening rather than resolving any potential conflict in Ukraine. That effort to establish control over Ukraine failed because Ukrainians, in 2014 as in 2022, proved much more opposed to the idea of Russian overlordship than Putin had expected. Putin’s decisions to invade Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 had a core similarity: in both cases, Putin seized what he thought was an opportunity to realize a long-term goal because he perceived Ukraine and the West to be weak.

Putin allowed his stalled military intervention to be “frozen” by the Minsk II Accords in February 2015 when it became apparent that he could not achieve his aims by force.[11] He secured an important diplomatic victory by getting Russia recognized as a mediator rather than as a party to the conflict in Minsk II despite the fact that Russian military forces had seized Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine, and remained in both areas actively supporting proxy forces that the Kremlin had stood up and fully controlled. He ensured that Minsk II imposed a series of obligations on Kyiv that gave Russia leverage on Ukrainian politics—and no obligations at all on Russia itself. Minsk II was the diplomatic weapon Putin had created to force Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit when his initial invasion had failed.

Putin turned, in the meantime, to disrupting NATO’s coherence. The Kremlin cultivated a partnership with Hungary - a NATO member - to block resolutions related to Ukraine’s NATO membership.[12] The Kremlin launched a deliberate campaign to coopt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Putin took advantage of increasingly strained NATO-Turkey relations resulting from conflicting US and Turkish approaches to the Syrian Civil War by engaging Turkey in years-long negotiations to persuade Ankara to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems – prompting the US to sanction Turkey in 2020.[13] Putin repeatedly used the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction project to drive a wedge between the European Union (EU) and the US and appealed to Germany’s economic interests in Europe.[14] Putin sought to benefit from the fact that Germany and France--but not the US or any other NATO states--were parties to the Minsk II accords and then from the “Normandy Format” negotiations to drive wedges between the US on the one hand and Paris and Berlin on the other over the West’s policy toward Russia and Ukraine.[15] Putin fostered divisions among NATO and Western states to ensure that these states would not be united in their response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine as well as to pursue his larger aim of breaking NATO. His approach had some success in the years leading up to 2022, but not enough to achieve either of his core objectives.

The prospect of Ukrainian NATO membership did not drive Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s fulminations about a NATO expansion in 2022 were efforts to shape the information space ahead of the invasion, not reactions to NATO’s actions. The first NATO commitment to admitting Ukraine to the alliance came in the 2008 Bucharest Declaration, which promised Ukraine and Georgia paths to membership but took no concrete steps toward opening such paths.[16] Successive annual NATO summits generated no further progress toward membership for either country. Putin intensified the narrative that NATO was a threat to Russia over the years, alleging by 2021 that Russia feared NATO’s imminent expansion in Eastern Europe.[17] NATO had taken no meaningful actions to enlarge at the time, however.[18] Accession of new members to the alliance generally requires that they complete a formal Membership Action Plan (MAP) with specific measures agreed upon by the alliance and the prospective member state. NATO produced no MAP for Ukraine or Georgia, meaning that the formal process for their accession had not even begun.

NATO had taken no new formal steps toward Ukrainian membership by the time of the 2022 Russian re-invasion beyond restating the 2008 Bucharest Declaration promising Ukraine a path to NATO membership in a 2021 June communique that followed a massive Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders.[19] Ukraine enshrined the commitment to joining NATO in its constitution in 2019, and NATO recognized Ukraine as an Enhanced Opportunity Partner in 2020 facilitating Ukrainian efforts to bring Kyiv’s military closer toward NATO standards.[20] Neither of these events constituted formal steps toward NATO membership. The Enhanced Opportunity Partnership announcement, in fact, explicitly said that Ukraine’s new status “does not prejudge any decisions on NATO membership.”[21] The blocks on Ukraine’s accession to the alliance that Putin had helped establish remained firmly in place.

Russia had thus succeeded by 2022 in freezing any move to bring Ukraine into NATO in accord with the 2008 declaration, and there was no plausible argument to make that any further enlargement of the alliance was imminent. Hungary’s relatively pro-Russian position, tensions with Turkey, and NATO’s unwillingness to absorb a new member state with an unresolved military conflict with Russia meant not only had there been no meaningful progress toward Ukrainian NATO membership by 2022 but also that no progress was on the horizon. Putin had effectively blocked Ukrainian accession to the alliance by the time he launched his full-scale invasion—clear evidence that Russian fears of imminent Ukrainian NATO membership did not drive the invasion.

The prospect of Ukrainian NATO membership had most certainly not driven Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy, the NATO Bucharest Declaration notwithstanding, from 2010 through 2014. Ukraine renounced its non-alignment status in December of 2014 as a direct result of Russia invading Ukraine and illegally occupying three of its regions in 2014.[22] This point is essential to keep in mind for those who argue that Putin’s goal is Ukraine’s neutrality.

The primary goal of the Kremlin’s anti-NATO rhetoric has been to justify Putin’s aggressive foreign policies that often had little to do with NATO. The Kremlin’s propaganda about NATO and the West has grown increasingly absurd over the years. Russian propagandists’ narratives about fictional US weapon-producing biolabs on Russia’s borders, NATO’s non-existent plans to establish a military base in Crimea, the supposedly imminent deployment to Ukraine of hypersonic missiles that did not even exist in NATO arsenals, or the “threat” of ‘NATO LGBT instructors’ proselytizing Russian youth are just some examples.[23] The Kremlin used these narratives as a tool to rally Russians against an external adversary to justify the Kremlin’s aggression abroad.[24] The Kremlin has been also using NATO as an excuse to justify its own failures. Russian propagandists have been trying to explain Russia’s repeated battlefield setbacks against Ukrainian forces over the past 19 months by claiming that Russia is fighting the ‘entire NATO’ when no NATO forces are fighting in Ukraine at all.[25]

The prospect of a Ukrainian attack on Russians did not drive Russia’s invasion of Ukraine either. The Kremlin did not believe in a real threat from Ukraine – certainly not in February 2022. Putin framed Ukraine as a threat to Russia and claimed that Ukraine was planning to attack Russian-occupied territories and Russia in 2022.[26] In reality, the Kremlin assessed Ukraine’s military capabilities and will to fight to be so weak that Russian forces would overrun the country in a matter of days.[27] The notion that Ukraine posed any meaningful military threat to Russia is incompatible with the contempt shown for Ukrainian military power and will by the actual Russian invasion plan.[28] The Kremlin began setting conditions to recognize the illegal Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) independence from Ukraine in mid-January 2022 to set conditions to justify its war on the basis of a supposed need to "save Donbas."[29] US intelligence pre-bunked a series of planned Russian false flag attacks in occupied Donbas and disinformation campaigns that aimed to create a pretext for the invasion in January and early February of 2022.[30] The false flag operations indicated that the Kremlin did not actually believe that a Ukrainian attack on Russia or on occupied Donbas was imminent. If there had been an imminent Ukrainian attack in preparation, then the Kremlin would not have needed a false flag attack. In reality, Kyiv was not preparing any attacks on Russia or occupied Donbas. These claimed fears for “Russia’s sovereignty” were a set of organized Kremlin information operations that aimed to create conditions for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They were never based in reality, and it is unlikely that Putin ever believed in them.

Putin’s NATO and Ukraine narratives in advance of the invasion often contradicted each other – likely by design. Kremlin officials repeatedly claimed that further NATO expansion is a “matter of life and death” for Russia while claiming that Ukrainian military escalation in Donbas supposedly would put Ukrainian statehood into question.[31] These narratives often contradicted each other as the Kremlin propaganda machine would switch from focusing on claims that NATO was the sole aggressor in Ukraine to claiming that Ukraine was planning an imminent attack on occupied Donbas or Russia.[32] The Kremlin propaganda machine also repeatedly claimed that Russia was not planning to invade Ukraine--even ridiculing the idea on the eve of the invasion--and framed its escalations as responses to the Western failures to give Russia adequate ”security guarantees,” simultaneously amplifying Putin’s theses on Russia’s historic right to Ukrainian lands. The narratives likely deliberately contradicted each other to mislead Western and Russian audiences’ understanding of Putin’s demands as well as to appeal to multiple different audiences at the same time.[33]

Putin may have feared NATO enlargement over the long term and may have believed that a US-led coalition was working to foster a “color revolution” in Russia to overthrow him, but those concerns cannot explain his decision to invade Ukraine in 2022. Russian fictional rhetoric notwithstanding, nothing about the NATO threat was more urgent in 2022 than it had been for years, and Putin could offer no plausible reason for thinking that it would become more urgent any time soon. We must look elsewhere for the explanation for the 2022 invasion, and therefore for Putin’s actual war aims.

Putin’s goals in Ukraine have always exceeded responding to some supposed NATO threat or conquering limited additional territory. Putin was not satisfied with illegally annexing Crimea and a portion of Donbas because territorial expansion was never his only goal. Putin sought to establish full control over Ukraine, including its foreign policy and even its internal political arrangements. Putin has been working on establishing control over Ukraine for years. He first tried to control Ukraine through economic influence and by attempting to establish pro-Kremlin political officials in the Ukrainian government, before turning to military means for the first time in 2014 when his previous efforts had backfired.[34]

By 2021, all the ways in which Putin tried to regain control over Ukraine – short of a full-scale invasion – had failed. Putin failed to get Ukraine to join Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union in the 2000s and failed to get pro-Kremlin leaders in charge of the Ukrainian government in 2004.[35] Putin failed to establish full control over Ukraine even when Yanukovych was in power.[36] Putin was able to solidify some of his territorial gains in Ukraine through the Minsk II Accords that froze the frontlines in Donbas, but he was unable to exploit those gains to achieve his full desired aims.

Putin tried to coerce Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (2014-2019) and later Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (2019-present) to legitimize the Russia-created illegal DNR and LNR, and Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea in accord with Ukraine’s Minsk II commitments despite the fact that Russia and the proxies it created had not met their commitments.[37] These efforts, if successful, would have legitimized the principle of Russian military intervention in Ukraine and secured for Russia a permanent lever of influence over Ukraine’s politics. (ISW documented this deliberate Kremlin effort in detail in 2019).[38] Putin failed at that too.[39]

Putin’s convictions about Ukraine and the West had likely further solidified over the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Putin entered a state of isolation during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, largely confining his interactions to a small group of trusted idealogues. He reportedly began becoming ever more preoccupied with Russia’s need to control Ukraine and avenge itself against the West for “humiliating” Russia in the 1990s.[40] Sources familiar with Putin’s conversations revealed that Putin began to “obsess over the past” and ”completely lost interest in the present” during the pandemic.[41]

Putin had also just succeeded in a major domestic power play. Putin had faced a moment of vulnerability as the 2020 oil price crisis and the pandemic occurred in the middle of his campaign to retain power.[42] Putin was attempting to amend the Russian constitution so that he could run again in 2024.[43] Putin’s power play went unchallenged, however, and he successfully re-solidified his grip on power with constitutional amendments that effectively allowed him to rule for life. The success of this domestic power play also undermines the argument that Western “hybrid warfare” was somehow putting Putin’s own rule at risk. Putin’s domestic grip in 2021 was solid and faced no meaningful challenge.

Putin was likely emboldened by his false assessments of Ukraine’s capability and will to fight. Ukraine has fended off Russian attacks on its sovereignty over the years and grown in its resolve as a nation – a process that went largely unnoticed by Putin and his inner circle of advisors. Putin had told a European official in September 2014 that he could “take Kyiv in two weeks,” and had evidently maintained the same outlook since invading Ukraine in 2014 despite his military failures that year.[44] Putin misattributed Kyiv’s unwillingness to yield to Russia to a small group of Ukrainian politicians controlled by the West (which the Kremlin usually refers to as ‘the Kyiv regime’) rather than to the growing self-determination of the Ukrainian people to remain a nation--a determination ironically driven in part by the Russian 2014 invasion and continued pressure. Putin’s propaganda in the lead-up to the invasion reveals that he and his idealogues lived in an echo chamber dominated by an alternate reality in which Ukrainians would welcome the Russian forces liberating them from the supposed oppression of the ”Kyiv regime.”[45]

Putin did not see NATO or the West as a power that would counter his ambitions in Ukraine either. A former unnamed intelligence official revealed that Putin’s ”personal banker” and close friend Yuri Kovalchuk, with whom Putin spent considerable time during his isolation, argued to Putin that the West was weak and that the time was ripe for Russia to demonstrate its military capabilities and ”defend its sovereignty” by invading Ukraine.[46] Former US National Security Council official Fiona Hill stated that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was guided by his belief that the West was weak and distracted, and Western analysts argued that some of Putin’s elites supported his vision after concluding that the West was divided and in decline.[47] Putin likely concluded that the West would not have the will or the strength to deter a swift military operation that would collapse the supposedly unpopular Zelensky government within days.[48] This belief in the West’s weakness again undermines the Russian-created fiction that Russia had to act to preempt some Western aggression—a West too weak and divided to defend Ukraine was certainly not going to attack Russia out of the blue.

Putin, thus, likely made a decision to begin setting conditions for the invasion sometime in late 2020 or early 2021. Putin began amassing over 100,000 Russian forces on the Russian-Ukrainian international border and in occupied Crimea in March and April 2021.[49] Russia retained some of these forces and equipment in western Russia to later participate in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[50] Russia also began transferring several landing craft and gunships from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea in early to mid-April 2021.[51] The Kremlin explained away this troop buildup as a response to NATO’s Defender Europe 21 military exercises, while Ukrainian military officials revealed in March 2021 that Russia was amassing forces as part of its preparations for the Zapad-2021 (West-2021) joint strategic exercises in western Russia and Belarus set to take place September 2021.[52] Russian units began deploying to Belarus for the active phase of Zapad-2021 in late July 2021.[53] Zapad-2021 exercises allowed Russian forces to prepare and secure logistics for reportedly 200,000 troops and these logistics would be crucial in Russia’s offensive on Kyiv and northeastern Ukraine from Belarus and western Russia.[54]

Western responses to the Russian escalation on the Ukrainian border and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan likely reinforced Putin’s anticipation of a weak Western response. The West, including the US, signaled its intent to deter Russia via primarily diplomatic means during Russia’s military buildup on the Russian-Ukrainian international border in March and April 2021, taking military intervention off the table. US President Joseph Biden spoke to Putin on April 13, 2021, and offered to meet him at a Geneva-based US-Russia summit on June 16, 2021.[55] The call notably occurred on the same day the White House announced that Biden had decided to draw down the remaining US troops from Afghanistan and a day before Biden’s announcement that the US would complete the withdrawal by September 1, 2021.[56] The Biden-Putin summit in Geneva did not achieve any diplomatic breakthroughs, of course.[57] Washington's purely diplomatic approach to deterring a Russian threat against Ukraine and withdrawal from Afghanistan likely strengthened Putin’s convictions that the West would not resist his invasion by force.

Putin issued two ultimatums to Ukraine, the West, and NATO in 2021 in support of these objectives.

Putin first delivered an ultimatum to Kyiv in mid-July 2021. The ultimatum made explicit that there is no room for an independent Ukraine in Putin’s worldview. Putin published an essay on the “Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” on July 12, 2021, in which he noted that Ukrainians, alongside Belarusians, have always belonged to the Russian nation.[58] The essay, which reportedly became required reading for the Russian military, openly questioned Ukrainian territorial integrity and claimed that modern Ukraine was a ”product of the Soviet era” shaped ”on the lands of historical Russia.”[59] Putin reiterated theses that later became the focal points of his declaration of war against Ukraine in February 2022 - namely that Russia had been “robbed” of its “historic” lands, that Ukraine ”does not need Donbas,” and that ”millions of Ukrainians” are refusing the Kyiv-imposed “anti-Russia project.” Putin concluded the essay by stating “I am confident that the true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia... For we are one people.” The essay did not formally declare war against Ukraine, of course, but a Kremlin-affiliated outlet described the essay as Putin’s “final ultimatum to Ukraine.”[60]

Putin’s ultimatum implied that Ukraine’s existence and territorial integrity depended on its decision to align itself with Russia - a policy course that the Ukrainian people repeatedly and explicitly rejected. It was not a call for Ukrainian neutrality, but rather for Ukraine’s absorption into the Russian orbit if not into Russia itself. Putin also notably released this ultimatum after the US accelerated the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan on July 8, although he had obviously formulated it long before that.[61]

Putin then issued an ultimatum to the US and NATO in December 2021 that aimed to force the West into surrendering Ukraine’s sovereignty on its behalf and abandoning partnerships on NATO’s eastern flank. Putin’s November 30 “red lines” speech and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) December 17 ultimatum documents demanded "security guarantees” from the US and NATO that amounted to the destruction of the current NATO alliance.[62] The ultimatum demanded that NATO reverse its ”open door” policy, rule out eastward enlargement, and halt the deployment of forces or weapon systems to member-states that joined NATO after 1997 - among other things.[63] Putin explicitly demanded that Russia have an effective veto power over sovereign states’ ability to freely seek membership in NATO and over how the alliance operated militarily and politically. These demands would have required NATO to rewrite the North Atlantic Treaty that is its founding document and forced every NATO state to re-ratify a new agreement, a process that would almost certainly have broken the alliance. Putin’s ultimatum to the West also attempted to coerce the West into sacrificing Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Putin’s 2021 ultimatum to NATO and the West was an actual ultimatum, not the basis for a negotiation. Putin and his diplomats signaled that they were not interested in accepting any concessions short of forcing NATO to abandon its own principles and changing the framework of the world order. The “security guarantees” ultimatum was the Kremlin’s signal that it would no longer consider any compromises. The objective of the ultimatum was to weaken the alliance via internal friction, portray it as both weak and the aggressor, and legitimize the idea that Ukraine is part of Russia’s rightful sphere of control. The ultimatum also focused on preoccupying the West with the need to find a diplomatic solution – a solution that was no longer there and had not been for a while.

The behavior of the Russian Foreign Ministry (MFA) from October 2021 to January 2022 demonstrated Putin’s increasingly inflexible intent, as the Kremlin began to restrict Russian diplomats from pursuing meaningful negotiations in the lead-up to the invasion. The Russian MFA has never been independent of the Kremlin, of course – no foreign ministry is independent of its sovereign. But an August 2023 BBC investigation revealed that Russian top diplomats had lost the flexibility that makes meaningful diplomacy possible and begun acting like “robots,” reading scripted statements to Western officials as early as mid-October 2021 in contrast with their previous more normal engagement with their Western counterparts.[64]

Former adviser to the Russian mission at the United Nations in Geneva, Boris Bondarev, recalled that Putin’s ultimatum shocked many Russian diplomats and claimed that he immediately knew that the Kremlin’s "security guarantees” demands were ridiculous.[65] Bondarev claimed that the Kremlin issued this ultimatum in a way that gave Russian diplomats no choice but to adopt a new inflexible protocol.[66] Bondarev also recalled that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov screamed at US officials, including First Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, stating that ”[Russia] needs Ukraine” and that Russia will not ”go anywhere without Ukraine” during a dinner amidst the bilateral US-Russian strategic stability talks in Geneva on January 10, 2022.[67] Bondarev added that Rybakov vulgarly demanded that the US delegation ”get out with [their] belongings [to the 1997 borders]” as US officials called for negotiations.

The US and NATO, however, remained committed to the hope that diplomacy would change Putin’s determination at this stage. The US, for example, responded to the Russian ultimatum by reaffirming its commitment to Ukraine and to NATO’s open door policy and offered to discuss the possibility of negotiations to address Russia’s issues with NATO predictability and transparency in Europe.[68] The US even offered to discuss a transparency mechanism that would confirm the absence of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland – if Russia offered reciprocal transparency measures on two ground-launched missile bases of America’s choosing in Russia.[69] Director of the Carnegie Berlin Center Alexander Gabuev recalled that Russian diplomats, with whom he had contact, were ”pleasantly” surprised with US proposals and thought that they could achieve agreements that would ”really strengthen [Russian] security.”[70] The Kremlin, however, was not interested. Putin was not, in fact, trying to counter a claimed NATO threat but rather was setting conditions for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The ultimatums were likely a perfect hedge from Putin’s perspective. NATO would have had to transform itself—including by rewriting its charter and basic rules—to meet the Russian demands, and Ukraine would have had to amend its constitution and abandon core principles of its sovereignty. Putin would no doubt have accepted such a full surrender with delight, but it was never on the cards, as he certainly knew. When the West predictably rejected his demands, Putin had established the superficial justification for launching a full-scale invasion with two goals in mind: conquering Ukraine and breaking NATO. Forcing the West to reject these ultimatums also provided the Kremlin with additional justification to blame the West for the war, as the Kremlin continues to do.

By 2022, no diplomatic offering from the West short of surrendering Ukraine’s sovereignty and abandoning NATO principles would likely have stopped Putin from invading Ukraine. Only the threat that the US or NATO would intervene militarily might have deterred Putin, but the US explicitly took such a threat off the table.[71]

Putin’s objectives have remained unchanged despite the failure of his initial full-scale invasion in 2022 and despite Russian losses and setbacks since then. Even recent statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, presented by some as the potential basis for a settlement of the war, are actually just restatements of Russia’s ongoing demands.[72] These demands include the removal of the Zelensky government and its replacement by a Russia-amenable regime, the “neutralization” of Ukraine which means both the permanent renunciation of possible NATO membership and the weakening of Ukraine’s military, abandonment of Ukrainian identity by Ukrainians, and the recognition of Russia’s de facto control over Ukrainian international and domestic policies and over Ukraine’s way of life – the type of control that the Kremlin has established on all Ukrainian territories Russia occupies. Russian officials and media have constantly repeated these demands, and Putin has offered no indication of any willingness to compromise on them.

Western discussions of the need to find a diplomatic resolution to the conflict on the assumption that it is stalemated are thus deeply misguided. ISW assesses that the conflict is not stalemated, for one thing.[73] More importantly for this discussion, however, is the fact that Putin began this war with maximalist aims vis-a-vis Ukraine and NATO. He has not changed those aims, nor has he indicated any willingness to accept a lesser outcome because of any supposed stalemate.[74] Even if he did show a willingness to negotiate some cease-fire along current lines, however, Ukraine and the West would be foolish to accept it. Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 with aims far beyond what his means could achieve. He settled for freezing the conflict on terms advantageous to him not because he had moderated his aims, but so that he could pursue them in other ways. When it became clear that he could not achieve his aims through the manipulation of the Minsk II or Normandy Format frameworks and as he came to believe that both the Ukrainian government and the West were weak, he restarted his invasion on a massive scale. This invasion has failed to secure Putin’s aims as the 2014 invasion had. Why should the West and Ukraine expect any new ceasefire agreement or negotiation to “resolve” the conflict that Putin has created and been stoking for a decade?

Past is prologue. A ceasefire or negotiation format freezing the conflict along the current lines, which are far more advantageous to Russia than the pre-2022 lines were, will be in Putin’s eyes nothing more than a kind of Minsk III—a new mechanism by which to continue to pursue the same aims. Such a “peace” will be no peace at all. It will simply be an opportunity for Russia to rebuild its military and economic power, allow the West’s attention to be distracted, and seek to regenerate and benefit from cracks within Ukrainian society until it can resume its attacks.

The idea of providing Putin with an “off-ramp” and a “face-saving” opportunity completely fails to learn the lessons of the past nine years. Putin created for himself a diplomatic “off-ramp” in 2015 not because diplomacy convinced Putin to abandon his pursuit of Ukraine, but rather because he realized that freezing the frontlines was his best option for continuing to pursue control over Ukraine. In 2014, the Kremlin overestimated support for Russia in Ukraine, underestimated Ukrainian resistance, and overestimated Russia’s ability to create a proxy force capable of achieving military objectives without a large-scale Russian deployment. As a result, Russia was able to secure only portions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, instead of the originally planned six regions of Ukraine beyond Crimea.[75] Russia would likely have secured even less had it not deployed the Russian military to prevent Ukrainian forces from liberating more territory.[76]

Putin stopped in 2015 because he recognized that his military efforts had failed, that he had reached the limits of Russian power and his own risk tolerance, and that continuing the active conflict would have required the gamble of launching an unprepared and under-resourced full-scale invasion of Ukraine at the time.[77] Putin chose instead to accept a temporary setback to advance his larger objective. The West’s last ‘off-ramp’ for Putin did not secure peace. It led to the Kremlin’s eight-year-long campaign attempting to convert Russia’s limited military presence in Ukraine into political control over the country, and when that campaign failed, Putin resorted to full-scale invasion.

An enduring end to the current Russian war on Ukraine requires forcing Putin to accept defeat. He—and his successors—must be made to realize that they cannot impose their will on Ukraine and the West militarily, cannot suborn Ukraine politically, and cannot prevail diplomatically. As long as the Kremlin cherishes the hope of success—which any face-saving compromise settlement would fuel—it will continue to seek to overcome its setbacks in ways that make renewed war very likely.

Ukraine and the West should seek a permanent end to this conflict, not a temporary respite. Renewed war will likely be larger in scale and even more dangerous to Ukraine and the West. It will be extremely costly as well, since a renewed war once Moscow has rearmed and prepared will likely be far costlier and more dangerous. Demands to reduce the financial burden of supporting Ukraine now simply store up greater risk and expense for the future.

There is no path to real peace other than helping Ukraine inflict an unequivocal military defeat on Russia and then helping to rebuild Ukraine into a military and society so strong and resilient that no future Russian leader sees an opportunity like the ones Putin misperceived in 2014 and 2022. This path is achievable if the West commits to supporting Ukraine in the prolonged effort likely needed to walk down it. If the West instead is lured by the illusion of some compromise, it may end the pain for now, but only at the cost of much greater pain later. Putin has shown that he views compromise as surrender, and surrender emboldens him to reattack. This war can only end finally not when Putin feels that he can save face, but rather when he knows that he cannot win.

James Heappey in Warsaw also hailed what he described as "the functional defeat" of the Russian navy in the Black Sea saying "it has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine". Said "every bit as important" as breakthrough on land in Kharkiv oblast last year.

As I walked around Kyiv on a beautiful, sunny morning in early September, I noticed the scaffolding in the city’s squares. Statues had been covered up to protect them from bomb damage. Later, I saw a statue with no protection around it– a graffiti-covered memorial to a Red Army general whose name nobody remembered. I was told that this statue had been covered by protective scaffolding before the war. The protection was removed when the war broke out. There was some hope that Russian bombs might solve the problem of what to do with this relic of Soviet rule.

You cannot understand the war in Ukraine without knowing its history. This was made very clear to me in a conversation I had with Olesia Briazgunova, who works for one of Ukraine’s two national trade union centers, the KVPU (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine). I suggested that I saw some similarities between the situation in Ukraine today and the Spanish Civil War.

Olesia stopped me right there and asked if there had been genocide in Spain. I said there hadn’t been. She said, “Well there’s genocide here — and the Russians have been trying to wipe out the Ukrainian nation for a very long time.” I thought of Stalin’s terror-famine of the early 1930s, which Ukrainians call the Holodomor, and which they rightly consider an act of deliberate genocide. She had a point.

History surrounds you in Kyiv. You hear it in conversations, you see it in the street names, and you breathe it in the air. The Solidarity Center, which is the AFL-CIO’s global workers’ rights project, is located on a street once named after Stalin’s Communist International. The street was renamed in honor of Symon Petliura, a leader of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and a deeply controversial figure in the country’s history.

In addition to renaming streets with Soviet connections, the city seems to be removing much of its Russian history, too. At one point I was directed by Google Maps to Pushkin street. But Pushkin street no longer exists.

When I interviewed Georgiy Trukhanov, the leader of the 1.2 million member teachers union in Ukraine, about their relationship with the teachers union in Russia, he told me that those Russian teachers were partially guilty here. “Guilty of what?” I asked. All the Russian soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine, all of them, studied in Russian schools, he said. They were taught to be what they have become — killers and rapists.

The war has united Ukrainian society as never before. The unions are fully signed up. The FPU president, Grygorii Osovyi, told me that 20% of Ukrainian trade union members are now serving in the armed forces. Georgiy Trukhanov told me that teachers could not be drafted as they are considered essential workers — so thousands of them have volunteered.

I spoke with many union leaders about the situation in what Ukrainians call the “temporarily occupied territories.” Russian occupiers have essentially banned the Ukrainian language from classrooms. Many workers have fled those territories, and unions are doing an amazing job of helping them, collecting aid, providing accommodation, and much more. Union offices I visited were full of boxes of aid, including plastic sheeting to replace windows destroyed by Russian artillery. Mykhailo Volynets, a former miner and head of the KVPU, told me that there was an urgent need for bandages.

Amid the horrors of the war, there are occasional bits of very positive news. An LGBTQI activist explained to me how Putin had weaponized homophobia in Russia, including spreading rumors that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and other leaders were gay. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, there has been a huge shift in public opinion regarding LGBTQI people, many of whom are serving at the front. This is a part of the world where homophobia has run rampant, and even turned violent, as we have seen in countries like Georgia. But in Ukraine, the war has helped change attitudes in a positive way.

I spoke with Ukrainian socialists, with young workers who organize couriers, with aviation workers and railway workers. I was interviewed by women members of the nuclear power workers union — who are staying at their posts at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya, now under Russian occupation.

The message I got from everyone could not have been clearer: The Ukrainian labor movement and Left stand fully against the Russian invasion. They want and expect solidarity from the labor movement and Left in other countries. They enormously appreciate everything from solidarity gestures such as the visits of leading trade unionists, including the American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten, and donations from unions ranging from generators to much-needed bandages.

Despite the differences, I still see this conflict as the Spanish Civil War of our time. The many young men and women who have come to Ukraine to join the fight are inspiring in the way that the International Brigades were some 90 years ago. The Spanish Republic was defeated in large part because many democracies failed to come to its aid, while the fascists were fully backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Will the same thing happen in Ukraine?

Putin’s regime is a fascist one, and the war on Ukraine is an illegal, imperialist war. Ukraine is not a perfect society, and its government is not a perfect government. Nor was the Spanish Republic. But in the fight against fascism, we need to ask ourselves, to paraphrase the old song, which side are we on?

25 September 2023Human Rights Russian forces in Ukraine faced new allegations of war crimes on Monday as UN-appointed independent rights experts published the findings of their latest report into Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Members of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that they have documented attacks with explosive weapons on residential buildings, civilian infrastructure and medical institutions, as well as torture and sexual and gender-based violence.

Rape allegations Commission Chair Erik Møse provided harrowing details on the findings to the Council, noting that in the Kherson region, “Russian soldiers raped and committed sexual violence against women of ages ranging from 19 to 83 years”, often together with threats or commission of other violations.

“Frequently, family members were kept in an adjacent room, thereby forced to hear the violations taking place,” Mr. Møse said.

‘Widespread’ torture The Commission said that its investigations in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia indicate the “widespread and systematic” use of torture by Russian armed forces against persons accused of being informants of the Ukrainian military, which in some cases led to death.

Mr. Møse quoted a victim of torture as saying, “Every time I answered that I didn’t know or didn’t remember something, they gave me electric shocks… I don’t know how long it lasted. It felt like an eternity.”

Probe into child transfers a ‘priority’ The Commissioners also indicated that they have continued to investigate individual situations of alleged transfers of unaccompanied children by Russian authorities to the Russian Federation.

“This item remains very high on our priority list,” Mr. Møse assured the Council.

Possible ‘incitement to genocide’ The Commission expressed concern about allegations of genocide in Ukraine, warning that “some of the rhetoric transmitted in Russian state and other media may constitute incitement to genocide”

Mr. Møse said that the Commission was “continuing its investigations on such issues”.

Call for accountability The UN-appointed independent rights investigators emphasized the need for accountability and expressed regret about the fact that all of their communications addressed to the Russian Federation “remain unanswered”.

In their report, the Commissioners also urged the Ukrainian authorities to “expeditiously and thoroughly” investigate the few cases of violations by its own forces.

No equivalence Replying to questions from reporters in Geneva on Monday, the UN-appointed independent rights investigators strongly refuted any suggestions of an equivalence in the violations committed by both sides.

Mr. Møse stressed that on the Russian side, the Commission had found a “wide spectrum” and “large number of violations”. On the Ukrainian side, there were “a few examples” related to indiscriminate attacks as well as “ill-treatment of Russians in Ukrainian captivity”, he said.

More in-depth investigations The latest update reflects the Commission’s ongoing investigations during its second mandate, which started in April this year.

Mr. Møse said that it was now undertaking “more in-depth investigations” regarding unlawful attacks with explosive weapons, attacks affecting civilians, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and attacks on energy infrastructure.

“This may also clarify whether torture and attacks on energy infrastructure amount to crimes against humanity,” the Commissioners said.

The Commission The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was established by the Human Rights Council on 4 March 2022 to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law and related crimes in the context of the aggression against Ukraine by Russia.

Its three members are Chair Erik Møse, Pablo de Greiff and Vrinda Grover. They are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work.

The mandate of the Commission of Inquiry was extended by the Council last April for a further period of one year. Its next report to the General Assembly is due in October.

Deportation, Treatment of Ukraine’s Children by Russian Federations Takes Centre Stage by Many Delegates at Security Council Briefing Delegate Questions Moscow’s Position in International Community once Conflict Ends The United Nations remains committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity amidst indefensible attacks on civilians and infrastructure, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, as speakers took stock of the war’s impact on Ukraine’s children on the thirty-second anniversary of that country’s independence.

Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, noting that today marks 18 months since the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said that “the numbers alone tell a horrific story”. Citing confirmed numbers of at least 9,444 civilians killed — including 545 children — and nearly 17,000 injured, she added that “the real figures are likely much higher”. And, since Moscow’s 17 July withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the fighting has only escalated.

Detailing Russian Federation attacks against Ukraine’s ports, cultural heritage and civilian infrastructure, she expressed regret that the UN still does not have the necessary access to verify allegations of violations against children in the territory of Ukraine under Moscow’s control or in the Russian Federation itself. Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are “indefensible”, she stressed, underlining the UN’s “unwavering” commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.

Kateryna Rashevska, legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights, then reported that Russian Federation agents have taken at least 19,546 children to that country from Ukraine since 18 February 2022. Among other violations, Russian Federation citizenship is imposed on them, and they are forbidden to speak and learn the Ukrainian language or preserve their Ukrainian identity. “Leaving Ukrainian children in Russia means continuing to violate their rights,” she stressed, urging the Council “to assist in the return of Ukrainian children”.

Also briefing the Council was Mykola Kuleba, Chief Executive Officer of Save Ukraine, who said that, when the Russian Federation began “its war of genocide against our country” in 2014, more than 1 million Ukrainian children ended up on the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas and were further deported to Moscow. Stolen and turned into weapons, thousands of them now fight against their motherland. “You have the power to help these children,” he underscored, urging the Council to act to reunify families.

In the ensuing debate, many speakers spotlighted the impact of violence on the civilian population, urging a cessation of hostilities and a resumption of dialogue. Others spotlighted the conflict’s global ramifications and called for the resumption of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The treatment of children, however, took centre stage.

The representative of the Russian Federation said that Kyiv’s tragedy began when “the West chose Ukraine as a pawn to fight against and to weaken Russia”. Citing the war initiated by the “Kyiv regime” against its own Russian-speaking citizens in 2014, he stressed that his country was “compelled to come to the defence of women, children and the elderly, who were being destroyed by Ukraine after that country and the West unequivocally refused to comply with the Minsk agreements”.

Ukraine’s representative, however, stressed that the Russian Federation has pursued a policy of mass abduction and forceful indoctrination of Ukrainian children since 2014. “Russia’s aggression is about Ukraine’s future, and there is no future without children,” he observed, calling for relevant UN agencies and officials to properly monitor and report on the mass abduction of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation and Belarus.

Albania’s representative joined others in stating that Moscow “has failed to convince the world that its re-education camps and forced adoptions are, as portrayed, humanitarian actions”. He recalled that, based on hard evidence regarding the unlawful deportation of children, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the Russian Federation’s President and Commissioner for Children’s Rights.

The representative of Japan, similarly, stressed that no matter how much Moscow tried to mislead the world, “we are united in our voice that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is nothing but a flagrant violation of the UN Charter”. As families are being torn apart by unlawful deportations, he urged a just, lasting peace for Ukraine and spotlighted a recent conference towards that end held in Saudi Arabia featuring the participation of more than 40 countries.

The representative of the United Arab Emirates also expressed alarm over reports of child abductions and forced transfers in Ukraine, urging the parties to the conflict to facilitate the reunification of such children with their families and for States to cooperate with the Central Tracing Agency of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). He also called for a cessation of hostilities and a diplomatic solution in accordance with international law.

Along those lines, Mozambique’s representative — recalling Africa’s experience in conflict mediation and resolution — underlined the indispensable nature of dialogue and diplomacy. The representative of Ghana also underscored that embracing dialogue and diplomacy remain Moscow’s best option for resolving its stated security concerns. China’s representative stressed that the “security of all States is indivisible”, adding that the Ukraine crisis demonstrates that provoking bloc confrontations and seeking absolute security “do not work”.

The representative of Ecuador, meanwhile, questioned whether the Russian Federation’s authorities have thought about the country’s position in the international community once the conflict ends. He underscored that States are not measured today by their nuclear power, the territory they snatch from their neighbours or the fear they instil. Rather, they are measured by their cosmopolitan culture, democratic institutions, tolerance, artistic creativity, technological progress and respect for law and human rights.

MAINTENANCE OF PEACE AND SECURITY OF UKRAINE

Briefings

ROSEMARY DICARLO, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, noting that today marks 18 months since the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said that “the numbers alone tell a horrific story”. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has confirmed at least 9,444 civilians killed — including 545 children — and nearly 17,000 injured. “The real figures are likely much higher,” she added, noting that some estimates put the total number of civilians and military personnel killed on both sides at 500,000. There is no end in sight to this war — launched in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law — and, since the Russian Federation’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative on 17 July, the fighting has only escalated.

Detailing “brutal and relentless Russian attacks” that have damaged grain-export infrastructure in Ukraine’s Black Sea and Danube ports, she stressed that attacks targeting grain facilities threaten to reverse the progress made in bolstering food security over the past year. “This could be catastrophic for the 345 million people already acutely food insecure around the world,” she emphasized. She also spotlighted the Russian Federation’s 19 August missile attack on a theatre in Chernihiv that took the lives of seven people — including a six-year-old girl — and injured more than 100 others. In recent weeks, dozens of civilians have also been killed in attacks on Kherson, Odesa, Donetsk, Lviv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia and other regions of Ukraine. In some instances, sequential strikes have killed and injured not only civilians but first responders who rushed to help.

Attacks against Ukrainian culture and heritage have also escalated, she reported, noting that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has verified damage to 284 cultural sites since the beginning of the war. Another recent UN assessment — on the impact on the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam — concluded that the breach caused a far-reaching environmental disaster, the scale of which may not be clear for decades. She also stressed that the war has had a devastating impact on women, who represent the majority of the 6.2 million people forced to move to other countries because of the violence. Civil-society organizations led by Ukrainian women were among the first to respond to the full-scale invasion and, to support these efforts, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) has allocated over $14.6 million to finance over 120 civil-society organizations that support females both inside Ukraine and displaced in the Republic of Moldova.

Also detailing incidents of sexual violence and the destruction of schools and hospitals, she expressed regret that the UN still does not have the necessary access to verify allegations of violations against children in the territory of Ukraine under Moscow’s control or in the Russian Federation itself. Further, she expressed concern over the possible impact on civilians of the shelling of Russian Federation border communities and drone attacks deep inside that country, including Moscow. Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are “indefensible” and strictly prohibited under international law, she underscored. Observing that “today’s grim milestone of 18 months of war coincides with the thirty-second anniversary of Ukraine’s independence”, she underlined the UN’s “unwavering” commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.

KATERYNA RASHEVSKA, Legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights, reported that according to the Ukrainian National Information Bureau, since 18 February 2022, Russian Federation agents have taken at least 19,546 children to that country from Ukraine — 3,855 of them orphans and children deprived of parental care — amounting to “a violation of Article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime”, she stated. Moscow further refuses to transfer the list of evacuated children to the Central Tracing Agency of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). These considerations formed the basis of the decision of the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II to issue arrest warrants against Russian Federation President Vladimir V. Putin and his Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. She further pointed to the imposition of Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children, as “the right to preserve one’s identity is a prerequisite for exercising all human rights.”

She emphasized that if Russian Federation officials intended to act for humanitarian reasons, then instead of legislation for the simplified imposition of citizenship, they would facilitate medical care and remove obstacles to education and social benefits. “But this is not the case,” she stressed. Ukrainian children are recognized exclusively as Russian citizens, and there is no dual citizenship agreement between Kyiv and Moscow. She affirmed that raising these children by Russian citizens, as well as political indoctrination, Russification, and militarization in the education system, is a violation of several articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Ukrainian children are forbidden to speak and learn the Ukrainian language or preserve their Ukrainian identity. For six years, she recalled, Moscow has not implemented the International Court of Justice order to ensure the right to education in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages in Crimea.

She noted the transfer of at least 7,116 children to recreation camps in 2023 — some facilities being 9,000 kilometers away from their original homes. Due to the lack of access to these territories, confirming or denying the return of Ukrainian children home is impossible. She further cited additional checks at the border, long-term interrogations by representatives of Russian Federation law enforcement, the requirement to obtain Russian citizenship, forced nudity and polygraph examinations. She addressed the Council “with a clear call: to assist in the return of the Ukrainian children”. Although the relevant article to the Geneva Conventions was adopted by consensus, a General Assembly resolution is needed to define the obligations of each member of the international community in returning Ukrainian children — which should be a transparent process by appointing a third-party guarantor and concluding an international binding agreement. “Leaving Ukrainian children in Russia means continuing to violate their rights,” she stressed.

MYKOLA KULEBA, Chief Executive Officer of Save Ukraine, said he will be a “voice of Ukrainian children deprived of their fundamental and inalienable right to life and their right to maintain individuality, including citizenship, name and family ties”, adding: “Today I will speak in the name of the lost, the dead and the wounded Ukrainian children, deprived of these rights.” He recalled that Save Ukraine is the biggest non-governmental organization in his country that is rescuing children in Ukraine from the warzones and the occupied territories. It has been operating since 2014, when the Russian Federation started the “war of genocide against our country and our nation”, he reported, recalling that back then more than 1 million of Ukrainian children ended up on the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas and were further deported to Moscow. “These are stolen Ukrainian children, who were turned into a weapon by the Russian Federation”, he stressed, pointing out that thousands of these children are now fighting against their motherland. He also noted that since 2014, Moscow has been conducting these actions “quietly, hiding its crimes from the world”.

Noting that the Russian Federation “covers its military objects with the Ukrainian children”, he said that Moscow’s military forces have placed their equipment next to an orphanage in Kherson. He further cited several messages of Ukrainian mothers and children pleading with his organization for help to return their children from the occupied territories, while underscoring that the Russian Federation “deprived all Ukrainian children of the happy childhood and the chance to a normal life, while maintaining 20 per cent of them as hostages”.

“You have the power to help these children,” he underscored, adding: “On the Independence Day of Ukraine, which the Russian Federation recognized in 1991, I stand on the most powerful world platform and ask for your help and assistance, while I am assured that you have all the means to resolve this important and painful issue.” “Our children are not a weapon, not a shield, they are merely small children, who have the right to a happy childhood and life,” he stressed, adding: “Let’s reunite families, let’s reunite nations, reunite all of us around Ukrainian children.”

Statements

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD (United States), Council President for August, speaking in her national capacity, underscored that “Ukraine’s very existence is under attack”. Ukrainians have courageously fought back to defend their country’s sovereignty, freedom and democracy, as well as to return Ukrainian children who have been ripped from their homes. Since February 2022, the Russian Federation forcibly transferred or deported thousands of Ukrainian children, including babies as young as 4 months. “We don’t even know the location of so many of the children who have been forcibly transferred,” she decried, detailing stories of parents who freed their children. “Russia’s campaign of cruelty continues to this day,” she said, refuting Moscow’s claims that transfers of children are part of their “humanitarian evacuations”. The International Criminal Court has alleged President Putin is responsible for war crimes, she said, also spotlighting reports that Belarusian leaders have supported moving Ukrainian children to camps in their country. Today, the United States is imposing sanctions on two entities and 11 individuals, including those reportedly responsible for the forcible transfers and deportation of Ukrainian children to camps. Additionally, she noted that her Government is taking steps to impose visa restrictions of three Russia-installed purported authorities for their involvement in human rights abuses of Ukrainian minors.

FERIT HOXHA (Albania) stressed that “we all have failed” when laws are not implemented, when commitments are not respected and when innocent people are hurt. Underscoring that there is no doubt regarding the aggressor in Ukraine, he said that the assault on that country’s present “is nothing short of an audacious bid to dismantle its future”. Credible reports have confirmed a well-prepared plan for the deportation of Ukraine’s children to the Russian Federation, and the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict listed the Russian Federation’s military forces among those who commit grave violations against children. He recalled that, based on hard evidence regarding the unlawful deportation of children, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on 17 March for the Russian Federation’s President and Commissioner for Children’s Rights. Against that backdrop, he stated that — while Moscow continues to brainwash domestic opinion — “it has failed to convince the world that its re-education camps and forced adoptions are, as portrayed, humanitarian actions”.

DOMINGOS FERNANDES (Mozambique), recalling Africa’s experience in conflict mediation and resolution, as embodied in its Silencing the Guns initiative, underscored the indispensable nature of dialogue and diplomacy. Yet regrettably, urgent appeals for peace have not found fertile ground. Citing the unfortunate collapse of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the starving of resources to mitigate humanitarian emergencies in global hotspots, he emphasized that “we are reminded of the global ramifications of this conflict.” This disruption not only threatens individual nations but also erodes the framework of peaceful coexistence, destabilizes multilateral and collective security arrangements, and makes the fulfillment of multilateral commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals more difficult. “Now, more than ever, we are in dire need of a paradigm shift, that prioritizes dialogue in alignment with the UN Charter’s ideals and our shared values,” he stressed, advocating for a political and negotiated resolution of the ongoing armed conflict.

SÉRGIO FRANÇA DANESE (Brazil) underlined that, as a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict in Ukraine continues to be elusive, it is essential to limit the impact of violence on the civilian population. The current dynamics of the conflict deprive millions of basic and dignified conditions for survival, a concern that grows deeper, especially with the coming winter. Accordingly, it is essential to increase the call from the international community for the cessation of hostilities, and for negotiations that bring a lasting solution. The resumption of dialogue can rebuild confidence where confidence and trust were shattered, and provide the means to resolve urgent issues, such as the situation of prisoners of war, humanitarian access, the security of nuclear facilities and the full resumption of transport of grain and fertilizers across the Black Sea, a claim made especially by developing countries, he emphasized.

ZHANG JUN (China) reiterated that all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity should be safeguarded, that all parties’ legitimate security concerns should be considered and that all efforts towards peaceful settlement of the crisis should be supported. Further, the international community should encourage the parties to exercise calm and restraint, achieve consensus and explore ways to create conditions conducive to peace talks. “The security of all States is indivisible,” he underscored, noting that the Ukraine crisis demonstrates that provoking bloc confrontations and seeking absolute security “do not work”. Also underlining the need to manage spill-over effects, he said that the Black Sea Grain Initiative “should not be easily abandoned”. All parties should strive for the early resumption of grain and fertilizer exports from the Russian Federation and Ukraine through dialogue and consultation. He added that the delivery of humanitarian assistance must be ensured and that measures must be taken to guard against risks to nuclear safety and security.

FELIX OSEI BOATENG (Ghana), voicing deep concern over the presence of Russian Federation troops in Ukraine, underscored that ending the war and embracing dialogue and diplomacy remain Moscow’s best option for resolving its stated security concerns. Urging relevant United Nations agencies to provide mental health and psychosocial support, he cited statistics on the harrowing post-traumatic stress disorder that about a quarter of the Ukrainian population have been diagnosed with. He further condemned deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure, notably health-care facilities, schools, residential areas, and food systems. Calling for the resumption of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, he encouraged the parties to cooperate with the Secretary-General’s efforts to comprehensively address all bottlenecks. The purely military logic underpinning this war over the past 18 months will not deliver any durable settlement or sustainable peace, he stressed.

NATHALIE BROADHURST ESTIVAL (France) underscored that, with its deliberate bombardments targeting civilian populations and infrastructure, the Russian Federation has inflicted unspeakable suffering on the Ukrainian people. Moscow is responsible for murder, maiming, illegal transfers of children, sexual violence against children, and attacks against schools and hospitals. Condemning the Russian Federation’s illegal deportations of Ukrainian children, she called on that country to return to Ukraine all deported children. She further recalled that the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for the Rights of the Child. The Court — which operates in full independence — found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Moscow’s highest leadership is responsible for the deportation of Ukrainian children, she said, adding that acts of deportation of children constitute war crimes. Recalling on incident on 19 August, during which Russian Federation strikes caused the death of seven civilians and injured more than 150 people when a university and a theatre were targeted in Chernihiv, she urged Moscow to stop targeting the Ukrainian population and civilian infrastructure.

HERNÁN PÉREZ LOOSE (Ecuador) observed that today not only marks 18 months since the invasion, but also since diplomatic efforts by the international community and the Council “were blown to smithereens” by bombardments that began while Council members echoed the Secretary-General’s call for Moscow to “give peace a chance”. Wondering how many more refugees, deaths and orphans it will take for the Russian Federation to end its invasion, he questioned whether that country’s authorities have thought about the Russian Federation’s position in the international community once the conflict ends. History repeatedly teaches that “nations unable to reconcile their past with their present pay a high price”, he observed. States are not measured today by their nuclear power, the territory they snatch from their neighbours or the fear they instil. Rather, they are measured by their cosmopolitan culture, democratic institutions, tolerance, artistic creativity, technological progress and respect for law and human rights, he stressed.

EDWIGE KOUMBY MISSAMBO (Gabon) noted that fighting in recent weeks has intensified in the south of Ukraine, with an increase in attacks by drones, missiles and other long-range weapons. Citing indiscriminate attacks continuing to target civilian populations and infrastructure, she voiced concern over the plight of millions of men, women and children left to fend for themselves, deprived of international aid. She called on the warring parties not to use mines, cluster munitions or other guided weapons. She further expressed regret that the momentum of hope represented by the Black Sea Grain Initiative seems to have evaporated, swept away by the sombre prospect of a war of attrition. Welcoming the extraordinary international mobilization of the United Nations — including the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ winter response plan, and UNESCO’s initiative to train 15,000 school psychologists — she called on the parties to de-escalate and initiate dialogue to end the war.

JAMES KARIUKI (United Kingdom), recalling that 92 per cent of Ukrainians voted in favour of their independence in 1991, said that Kyiv’s “historic resistance” not only protects its freedom, but defends the United Nations Charter. “If Russia wins the war, it would give the green-light to a new era of international aggression where big countries can rewrite borders by force. None of us want that,” he said, adding that those present are “deeply indebted to the Ukrainian people for their immense sacrifice”. Turning to Ukrainian families, that suffered forced transfers and deportations, he said that Moscow uses fear of this tactic to suppress dissent among Ukrainians living under its temporary control. “Russia has not attempted to preserve the identities of the children it has forcibly deported,” he stressed, pointing out that Moscow has also failed to provide information about the children transferred to its territory and placed with foster families. “Just 386 children have so far been returned,” he reported.

VASSILY A. NEBENZIA (Russian Federation), recalling a military parade in Kyiv on 9 May 2010, with 2,500 military personnel from Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Belarus, said that “only four years later” the fighters from the neo-Nazi battalions of “Azov” and “Dnipro-1”, during a similar parade, openly killed those who went out on the streets “to honour the memory of their grandfathers.” As a result, 99 people were killed and 119 wounded. Moreover, on the holiday eve, around 50 peaceful protestors, who stood up in defence of the Russian language, were burned alive at the Trade Union building in Odesa. “How were Ukrainians able to overnight replace the heroes who liberated the country from fascism with fascist collaborators complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians? How was an essentially Russian language country able to stoop to persecution of Russian language speakers?” he emphasized.

Noting that Ukraine’s population has reduced from 48.2 million in 2001 to “no more than 29 million people” today, he said that Kyiv’s tragedy began, when “the West chose Ukraine as a pawn to fight against and to weaken Russia”. Recalling the war initiated by the “Kyiv regime” against its own Russian-speaking citizens in the east in 2014, he said: “We were compelled to come to the defence of women, children and the elderly, who were being destroyed by Ukraine after that country and the West unequivocally refused to comply with the Minsk agreements.” Pointing out that everything linked to the Russian Federation was declared to be hostile even before the “special military operation”, he added: “Are you aware of any other country, where there is persecution on religious grounds taking place openly?” In this regard, he stated: “We have nothing to congratulate Ukraine on its Day of Independence,” adding: “Let the Ukrainian tragedy never again repeat itself.”

ISHIKANE KIMIHIRO (Japan) said families are being torn apart by unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainians, including children. Countless critical civilian infrastructure, including power plants and dams, have been destroyed. Europe's largest nuclear power plant is illegally occupied, posing a risk of nuclear disaster. Moreover, Ukraine's grain exports have been hampered, grain prices have risen and vulnerable populations have lost access to food. “The world is being held hostage,” he said, adding: “The damage is too great to list here.” No matter how much Moscow tries to mislead the world, “we are united in our voice that Russia's aggression against Ukraine is nothing but a flagrant violation of the UN Charter”. He pointed to a recent conference on peace for Ukraine which was held in Saudi Arabia, with the participation of more than 40 countries, including Japan. “We continue to seek a just and lasting peace for Ukraine together,” he said.

FRANCESCA GATT (Malta), underscoring that the weaponization of food is unconscionable, voiced regret that the Russian Federation disregarded a UN proposal ending a lifeline for millions facing hunger. “The threat of famine, with people slowly starving to death, is a red line for international peace and security,” she asserted, calling for the restoration of the Black Sea Grain Initiative as a means to re-balance the global food market and contribute to Ukraine’s export of grains to the countries that need it the most. Moreover, threats regarding the potential targeting of civilian vessels navigating in the Black Sea waters are unacceptable, she emphasized, highlighting an incident last week, during which a Moscow’s warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship. She also sounded alarm over the recent attacks on the Kherson region — especially in Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donbas and Kharkiv — noting that missile and drone strikes have destroyed vital infrastructure, health facilities, religious and residential buildings.

SAOD ALMAZROUEI (United Arab Emirates) expressed alarm about reports of child abductions and forced transfers in Ukraine, stressing the need for parties to the conflict, without exception, to protect children and respect their rights in accordance with the specific framework stipulated in the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. He further urged the parties to facilitate reunification with their families and for States to cooperate with the Central Tracing Agency of the ICRC and the provision of information on children separated from their families. Last week, his country announced an aid package for the educational sector as the new academic year commences, in addition to humanitarian programmes responding to the needs of civilians in Ukraine and refugees in neighbouring countries. He reiterated the call for a cessation of hostilities and a diplomatic solution in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

RICCARDA CHRISTIANA CHANDA (Switzerland) said Ukraine’s Independence Day is supposed to be a festive day. Yet, it also marks a year and a half of the Russian Federation’s military aggression. Highlighting the disastrous consequences of the war, she said that almost 10,000 civilians have been killed in the last 18 months. She condemned the fact that waves of attacks continue to hit the country's cities and areas where civilians gather. In recent days, Moscow’s strikes have again claimed the lives of civilians, including children. Indeed, children are particularly affected by the consequences of this war, she said, adding that nearly two out of three children in Ukraine have been forced to leave their homes. Of particular concern are credible reports of deportations of children to the Russian Federation and forced transfers of children within the occupied territories. Added to this are the immense humanitarian needs: 17.6 million persons — almost half of Ukraine's current population — require humanitarian assistance and protection.

SERGIY KYSLYTSYA (Ukraine), noting the thirty-second anniversary of his country’s independence, said that it has always been a matter of national pride that such independence was restored peacefully and that Ukraine has developed, democratically, into a peace-loving nation, reliable partner and friendly neighbour. However, the only role that the Russian Federation assigns to Ukraine, he emphasized, is that “of a lawless colony, where the local population either bows to forceful Russification or faces deportation and repression”. He went on to recall that the first judgment in Nuremberg referred to numerous Nazi crimes against children. He also recalled that it contains a quote by Heinrich Himmler regarding Nazi forced-adoption practices “that sounds terribly relevant today”: “What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type, we will take. If necessary, by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us.”

Against that backdrop, he stressed that the Russian Federation has pursued a policy of mass abduction and forceful indoctrination of Ukrainian children since 2014. Ukraine has strong grounds to believe that several hundred thousand Ukrainian children were forcibly, unlawfully taken by the Russian Federation and subsequently exposed to aggressive brainwashing to erase their Ukrainian identity. He underscored that Moscow’s crimes against children — like those of the Nazis during the Second World War — are one of the most horrible markers of the war. “Russia’s aggression is about Ukraine’s future, and there is no future without children,” he observed, repeating a call for relevant UN agencies and officials to properly monitor and report on the mass abduction of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation and Belarus. Noting that the first verdict of the International Criminal Court — like that in Nuremberg — was related to crimes against children, he said that this “makes us believe that every Russian criminal eventually will be brought to justice”.

RYTIS PAULAUSKA (Lithuania), also speaking for Estonia and Latvia, said that 541 children have been killed and 1,139 injured, while many more were forced to flee their homes. Reporting that at least 3,281 education institutions have been impacted by fighting, 54 per cent of them in the eastern front-line areas, he pointed out that psychological effects of this trauma on children will have far reaching consequences on the future of Ukraine. Moreover, he underscored the importance of the situation related to Ukrainian children being forcefully deported to the Russian Federation and Belarus, subjected to “pro-Russia re-education” and military training, while also having been turned into Russian Federation citizens and illegally adopted. In this regard, he welcomed the recently adopted joint preventive plan of Ukraine and the United Nations to prevent and stop violations of children’s rights in Moscow’s armed aggression.

Reporting that more than 4 million refugees sought shelter in European Union countries, including 100,000 in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, he said that his country has accepted over 8,000 pupils from Ukraine. While Moscow continues to destroy civilian infrastructure, its military strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have led to power outages, affecting that country’s agricultural sector, interrupting its water networks and denying access to essential services. The destruction of Kakhovka Dam on 6 June caused an unprecedented ecological catastrophe, he said, noting that 200,000 people in flood-affected areas rely on water distribution due to water contamination or drop of water levels in the reservoirs. “Russia’s war of aggression, enabled by Belarus, is a manifest violation of the UN Charter,” he emphasized, underscoring the importance of supporting Ukraine in establishing a special international tribunal for the crime of aggression.

THOMAS PETER ZAHNEISEN (Germany) expressed sadness that as the international community congratulates Ukraine on its Independence Day, the Russian Federation attacks everything that independence stands for: security, freedom and peace for all Ukrainians. Russian Federation armed forces and its affiliates continue to commit grave violations of children’s rights, he noted — just on Sunday, 20 August, seven people including a 6-year-old girl were killed and 156 wounded after a Russian missile attack on the central square of the historic Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. Recalling “shocking reports” of attempts by the Russian Federation to erase the identity of abducted children — forcing them to speak Russian, change their names and threatening them with adoption by Russian families — he stressed that these “are war crimes and they must be treated as such”. He urged Moscow to immediately cease all such atrocities, withdraw its troops from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders and “end this senseless war.”

SILVIO GONZATO, Deputy Head of Delegation of the European Union, in its capacity as observer, said that throughout the bloc Ukrainians have gathered with European Union citizens to mark the country’s independence, and that “its neighbour, Russia, continues to attempt to destroy by force”. In this regard, he emphasized the need for peace and the importance of holding Moscow’s political and military leadership accountable, while also calling for addressing the global consequences of this aggression. Welcoming the recent National Security Advisers’ meeting in Jeddah — at Ukraine’s initiative — he said the European Union will support Kyiv “as long as it takes”, also reaffirming the bloc’s support for Ukraine’s Peace Formula. He noted that the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine has started its support operations in The Hague and welcomed the establishment of the Council of Europe’s Register of Damage [of Damage caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine]. Turning to the forced deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children, he reaffirmed the Union’s support for the International Criminal Court’s mandate.

While condemning Moscow’s unilateral termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, he recalled that the deal has enabled the export of 33 million tons of grain and foodstuffs from Ukraine to 45 different countries, which played an instrumental role in reducing global food prices by over 23 per cent since the invasion. “Russia did not stop at pulling out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Just hours after withdrawing, it started destroying Ukraine’s grain storage facilities and port infrastructure, not only in the Black Sea itself but also in the Danube,” he stressed, pointing out that the European Union will continue strengthening its “EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes” as alternative agricultural exports routes. Moreover, the bloc has provided €18 billion to address food insecurity until 2024, he reported.

KRZYSZTOF MARIA SZCZERSKI (Poland) said the dramatic developments since the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 have demonstrated that Ukraine’s independence needs to be defended in the most literal sense — on the battlefield. The key principles and objectives set out in Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Peace Formula should constitute a basis for ending Moscow’s unlawful war of aggression, he emphasized, adding that all perpetrators should be tried before appropriate courts. Voicing particular concern over the fate of children in this armed conflict, he spotlighted a dedicated group of friends, co-created in Kyiv by his Government. Echoing the words of Poland President Andrzej Duda, he underscored that “the de-occupation of Crimea and the restoration of Ukraine’s full territorial integrity are necessary preconditions, not just for the security of the Azov-Black Sea region but also for the stability of the whole global security architecture”.

MAURIZIO MASSARI (Italy), aligning himself with the European Union, noted that global concerns on systemic food security spiked after Moscow’s decision to unjustifiably withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and called on it to swiftly reconsider its resumption. He strongly condemned the Russian Federation’s continuous inhumane and brutal attacks on civilian infrastructure, as well as the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. “No amount of disinformation spread by the Russian Federation can deny the truth of the matter, nor shield individuals from accountability for these crimes,” he stressed. Collectively, the UN will hold those responsible to account in accordance with international law, also taking into consideration those who are facilitating the illegal war. Voicing strong support for President Zelenskyy’s Peace Plan, he stressed that Moscow can end the war immediately by ceasing its attacks and withdrawing its forces from the territory of Ukraine.

Congress and Ukraine Aid — Reasons to Be Cheerful By Catherine Sendak October 3, 2023

Despite the pyrotechnics of congressional disputes over funding, there are solid grounds for hope over renewed Ukraine aid.

Almost 20 months into the largest European war since the end of World War II, hundreds of thousands of casualties, millions of displaced families, dangers to energy and food security, the emergence of a totalitarian villain’s club bent on remaking a world order that better serves their ambitions, and yet internal politics are the subject of partisan squabbling in the most powerful country in the world.

The idea, widely accepted last year, that Ukraine is fighting for itself and also for the rest of us is now disputed. Aid was cut from the government financing deal agreed on September 30.

And yet. Despite the grin that will certainly have spread across Vladimir Putin’s face and despite some despair among Ukraine’s supporters, I think we’ll be alright. Grounds for optimism include the undisputed fact that both houses of Congress contain significant majorities for Ukraine aid.

As President Biden said on October 2: “There’s an overwhelming number of Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate who support Ukraine. Let’s vote on it.”

The US has a short-term funding gap following the so-called continuing resolution (CR), which enables the federal government to keep going for 45 days.

Ukraine aid was stripped out, but there will now be efforts to restore it. The government has approximately $5.5bn of Ukraine funding remaining, and that is expected to last some months.

Congress needs to do two things.

First, lead the US efforts and ensure strong resourcing for Ukraine support for the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024, and quickly.

And second, carry the message to the American public, partners and allies, and Russia and other competitors and adversaries, of the critical nature of US leadership and support to Ukraine’s fight for freedom.

For the first, legislators need to take up this issue as soon as possible. And it cannot be limited to the $6bn in aid proposed in the most recent and ultimately unsuccessful budget package, or even the $24bn requested by the administration this summer.

The funds need to provide certainty to assist long-term planning and the oversight that Congress rightly insists upon. This cannot be done without consistent resources, budgeting, and planning.

This aid package should cover the rest of this year and, ideally, all of 2024. It should take into consideration 12-16 months of planning and support encompassing all aspects, including military, economic, and humanitarian assistance. Only by aiming for a long-term package can we ensure that Ukraine aid is ringfenced from the US election cycle and the (worrying) fact that the line between foreign policy and domestic issues continues to blur.

Secondly, the US and its democratic allies must provide leadership on tough and sometimes unpopular issues.

The US needs elected officials to constantly make the case about why this fight is not about a single country in Eastern Europe but to make the case that Ukrainian defeat would puncture the European continent’s security and so place US interests at risk.

US national security is entwined with European security. Leadership on both sides of the aisle and both sides of Capitol Hill understand this and repeatedly exhibit staunch support of continued aid to Ukraine. This included an unusual joint Senate letter by majority leader Chuck Schumer and minority leader Mitch McConnell, the same day as the continuing resolution passage, calling for a quick return to work on resources for the Ukrainian fight.

Yet internal strife in the House Republican party looks to be top of the to-do list when the House returns to session this week. There are signs that this could become quite nasty and may involve efforts to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy. This would be a distraction.

But I choose to be hopeful. Over my years in government service, I have seen reason replace absurdity, pragmatism replace anger, and good governance replace politicking. I remain a believer in the system. The majority of Congress wants to get the work done, ensure Ukrainian support, and exhibit clear leadership on these critical national security needs. I believe in the institution of the US Congress; now it’s time for the institution to believe in itself.

Catherine Sendak is the Director of the Transatlantic Defense and Security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). From 2018 to 2021, she was the Principal Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Sendak also spent over a dozen years on Capitol Hill on both the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.

Senator Mitch McConnell – CEPA Forum 2023 video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztkkJN2vj5I

BAKHMUT SOUTH / 2000 UTC 3 OCT/ UKR forces reported to surround key RU position in an under track culvert near Andriivka. RU milbloggers report heavy losses.