This RUSI report, looking at preliminary lessons from Feb-July last year, is one I come back to again and again. Its core message is one I hear again and again. "There is no sanctuary in modern warfare. The enemy can strike throughout operational depth."
https://t.co/Y3uK3ibMDbstatic.rusi.org/359-SR-Ukraine…
.@nicolange_'s paper for @GLOBSEC, published in February, is another outstanding survey of what Ukraine has been doing right. He emphasises areas in which NATO countries would find it hard to emulate Ukrainian practices for various reasons.
https://t.co/8DQuBYFNe9globsec.org/sites/default/…
Sweden's @FOIresearch team (including @MansRAD, @niklas_granholm) have produced very good output on Russia-Ukraine, including a study last summer () and more recently a forward-looking anthology (https://t.co/3sGivzdPKM).foi.se/rapportsammanf… foi.se/en/foi/reports…
.@HoansSolo, among other good writing, has reflected on the ways in which Ukraine might offer false or misleading lessons for a war over Taiwan. He disagrees with one of the points I emphasise in the special report—that defence is likely to dominate. https://t.co/genq3KWlZ1foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/02/les…
Ben Barry for @IISS_org looks at some of the lessons for land war. He points to the basics: "The war reminds us that the prime requirement for armed forces is competence."
https://t.co/BjVi9Yq7WAiiss.org/globalassets/m…
Israeli analysis has been good at putting the war into perspective, particularly in picking out the ways it echoes typical land wars of the past:
Here's one piece by Eado Hecht:
And another below by @Eyal_Berelovich https://t.co/bDHp5iKEyq https://t.co/WrRsNHbZhobesacenter.org/the-russo-ukra… idf.il/%D7%90%D7%AA%D…
Estonia's defence ministry has been a consistently pragmatic voice on the war, warning of Russian military strength even when others have played it down. Some of their assessments seem a bit pessimistic to me, but always worth reading: https://t.co/IahY1cfLbbkaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/…
.@peterwsinger looks at the technologies in use in Ukraine. "So too in Ukraine, we have seen similar examples of new technology in use—not drastically shaping the fighting, but providing signs of what’s to come." newamerica.org/international-…
We've also spoken to officials on what lessons they are drawing:
- @PedderSophie & I interviewed France's top general:
- @BWallaceMP on how defence review will reflect lessons: https://t.co/hfnmQeZgso
- JIC chair on intel lessons: https://t.co/zrSy9dSPc6 https://t.co/1Ix88EzdZAeconomist.com/europe/2023/06… economist.com/britain/2023/0… economist.com/britain/2023/0…
.@defpriorities has a good symposium from Feb on lessons, many from experts of a more realist bent. @AngelaStent: "The most important lesson U.S. strategists and policymakers should take away from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that deterrence failed." defensepriorities.org/symposium/less…
On resilience, society and total defence: Hannah Shelest on Ukraine's "third way", between the "whole-of-society" approach (Sweden, Finland, etc) and the big-power highly centralised approach (US, Russia, China). "Europeans should learn from this." https://t.co/Xqiyypu4suecfr.eu/publication/de…
Finally, though I will have a proper sources & acknowledgments section up shortly, I want to thank the many people who anonymously shared their insights with me for this special report—in particular the Ukrainian experts & officials generous with their time & wisdom in Kyiv.
I'll add some as they occur to me. @AmosFox6 in RUSI Journal: "today’s technological investments accelerate the death of manoeuvre while increasing the possibility of replicating [WW1] battlefields [eg] Somme, Ypres & Verdun—static, defensive, destructive" https://t.co/i58yqldWp4tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
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🍿 "Prigozhin originally intended to capture Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu & General Valery Gerasimov...during a visit to a southern region that borders Ukraine...the FSB, found out about the plan two days before it was to be executed" wsj.com/articles/wagne…
US Intelligence Community leaking to NYT and WSJ this week:
"Western intelligence agencies also found out early about the plans by Prigozhin, Putin’s former confidant, by analyzing electronic communications intercepts and satellite imagery, according to a person familiar with the findings." wsj.com/articles/wagne…
UK chief of general staff at Rusi land warfare conference: “It’s too early to tell how successful Ukraine’s counter offensive will be [but] you should never write off Moscow, Russia has been a country of comebacks. A fractured Russia is unlikely to be a good thing for” Europe.
.@Andriypzag, @KofmanMichael & Lt-Gen Ralph Wooddisse now speaking on the lessons from Ukraine.
Three lessons, says Wooddisse: 1/ much easier to see further & in more detail than before. 2/ Much more difficult to hide 3/ Proliferation of long-range fires, plus vast ⬆️ in data processing = strike many more targets, at greater distances. Battlefield extening in breadth, depth
It seems that Russia tried to kill Aleksandr Poteyev in Miami. Poteyev is the former SVR officer who was recruited by the CIA and is thought to have identified the Russian illegals in the US who were rolled up and swapped in 2010. nytimes.com/2023/06/19/us/…
“The plot, along with other Russian activities, elicited a harsh response from the U.S. government. In April 2021, the United States imposed sanctions and expelled 10 Russian diplomats, including the chief of station for the S.V.R” nytimes.com/2023/06/19/us/…
There have been hints of this before. In his book on the illegals programme, @gordoncorera suggests that the Russians might’ve practiced smearing a substance on a door handle (per Skripal plot in 2018) to target Poteyev, as a dry run (see below).
Zaporozhia: ‘“There are constant attacks from helicopters, three or four times a day,” he says, describing the Russians’ deadly use of Ka-52 attack craft in and around the frontline, and admitting they are difficult to shoot down from the ground…’ theguardian.com/world/2023/jun…
‘Like in many Ukrainian hospitals, conditions are cramped at the best of times, but local sources say the facility has been filling up with wounded soldiers over the past fortnight as the counteroffensive has begun.’ theguardian.com/world/2023/jun…
‘The squad are from Ukraine’s 1st brigade, a mechanised force using Czech-modernised…T-64 tanks, and the drone operators’ job, in part, will be to act in tandem with the armour “as their eyes” when they are deployed to attack…the soldiers themselves have to fund the effort’
Reading @calder_walton’s history of the east-west intelligence contest. On the Red Terror unleashed by the same Chekist agencies celebrated by the Putin regime today.
Our leader on UK’s AI ambitions: “A stock of clean, regularly updated datasets that are technically & legally easy for algorithm-makers to use would draw in engineers who want to build new AI systems. An AI-ready NHS would be the jewel in Britain’s crown.” economist.com/leaders/2023/0…
“One focus should be to ensure a reliable supply of clean, affordable power. To train models needs mind-boggling quantities of electricity. If Britain is without cheap supplies of power, it will struggle to persuade anyone to set up big GPU centres there” economist.com/leaders/2023/0…
And our briefing on the topic. “None of the big three cloud-computing companies—Amazon, Google, Microsoft—has built a large, advanced cluster of graphical processing units (GPUs) for compute to happen at scale in Britain. Only Oracle… offers a cluster.” economist.com/britain/2023/0…