Opening up Black Sea exports was clearly Ukraine’s greatest strategic success since the liberation of Kherson in fall of 2022

It is now clear how this was achieved - via development of credible threats against Russian Black Sea shipping
🧵

https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1747812011411394561

With the concerted effort by the SBU with the participation of the Ukrainian Navy (and later GUR) since mid 2022, Ukraine was able to develop more and more capable maritime drones that showed their capabilities against Russian military ships and land infrastructure

The more important question to ask is what would bring about that improved position for an eventual negotiation with Moscow
The only one that’s being discussed as at all plausible is having Ukraine get to the Sea of Azov, destroy the Kerch Bridge and put fire pressure on Crimea🧵

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1740407797924454556

Putting aside the feasibility and likelihood of success of each of those elements of the strategy, I think it’s worth questioning the assumption that Putin would be driven to the negotiation table even if all of the above conditions come to pass

Good article on the challenges seen in the early days of the Ukrainian counteroffensive back in June. Some key points: washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/… “The goal for the first 24 hours was to advance nearly nine miles, reaching the village of Robotyne — an initial thrust south toward the larger objective of reclaiming Melitopol, a city near the Sea of Azov, and severing Russian supply lines”

Great WSJ story on Prigozhin’s last days

Something that’s been bothering me since yesterday—why kill Prigozhin now. Putin doesn’t rush into things and often waits years to kill ‘traitors’

The answer— it was not about the mutiny. It was about business, as it always is in Russia

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1694914126215077937

Putin/Defense Ministry/GRU were muscling in to take over Prigozhin’s Africa business and he dared to resist. He did not get the message after the June mutiny—that it was time to apologize and disappear, go to Belarus or wherever. Not fight for control of business in Africa

Putin had personally told Touadera, the Central African Republic president, that the time had come to distance himself from Prigozhin. When Touadera visited St. Petersburg last month, he abstained from taking a selfie with the Russian warlord

wsj.com/amp/articles/p… Since June, the Kremlin had been trying to assert control over that shadowy web of murky arrangements. The Defense Ministry had been dispatching delegations to inform foreign governments that they would henceforth do business directly with the Russian state

My thoughts on the implications of Prigozhin's mutiny this weekend: 🧵

First, what have we learned from this? 1. That a hostile armed column of about 5,000 troops can just drive across Russia for hours to within 200km of Moscow and no one in the MoD, Rosgvardia, MVD or FSB seems capable or willing to stop them.

(Ukraine take note)

*BREAKING* 🧵 summarizing Putin's speech in response to Prigozhin’s mutiny below: He is addressing everyone including those that were 'lied to and driven to participate in a criminal enterprise'

I’m highly skeptical that the economic blockade is the biggest or most likely risk that Taiwan faces from China. Here is why 🧵

https://twitter.com/jendeben/status/1646690659028590594

If China could take Taiwan without facing the enormous risks and challenges of what would likely be the largest amphibious invasion in history (by a military that has not fought a war since 1979, a war that didn’t go so well for them), it would certainly be its #1 option

My biggest takeaways from the very interesting Dossier Center story based on the leaked files from Prigozhin’s maze of companies are:

1. How scared he is of the FSB nailing him for tax evasion fraud (or other stuff) and the lengths he goes through to prevent FSB infiltration 2.Prigozhin’s obsession with opsec, such as using phones with custom Android OS to build an OpenVPN-based closed secure messaging system, polygraphing new recruits, continously scrubbing employees’ social media...

When did the Cold War truly start?

And why this might matter for our current confrontation/competition with China 🧵 People often cite Churchill's Iron Curtain speech in March 1946 as the marker for the origins of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union

But I believe one can make a compelling case that it began much earlier - in April of 1920

Some info that might be useful for companies trying to mitigate impact of #SVBCollapse

1. Payroll was being processed on Friday. Also hearing FDIC explicitly plans to allow it to continue to go through (assuming funds are available in account) 2. Most money market accounts should be safe (separate invested accounts, many not even custodied at SVB). FDIC will likely release those funds soon, maybe even early next week

NSA Director Nakasone: “By the 11th of October, I’m convinced the Russians are going to invade Ukraine. The preponderance of intelligence was different than anything we’d ever seen before”

https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1629088645129940993

Jake Sullivan: Looking back over the course of 2021, it seems clear that [Putin] was toying with the idea all the way through, and he was getting more and more agitated about the future course of Ukraine. He didn’t wake up one day in September-October and decide to do this

Chinese Xi'an Bingo Intelligent Aviation Technology has reportedly agreed to manufacture and test 100 ZT-180 prototype drones, capable of carrying a 35- to 50 kilogram warhead, before delivering them to the Russian Defense Ministry by April 2023 spiegel.de/politik/krieg-… In a further step, Bingo reportedly plans to deliver components and know-how to Russia so that the country can produce around 100 ZT-180 drones a month on its own

Interesting analysis about nuclear use potential and red lines from Russian foreign policy analyst and nuclear arms control advocate Alexey Arbatov (member of a liberal opposition party and certainly not close to Putin, but his views are still insightful)🧵russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-… Arbatov believes that Russia will only use nuclear weapons if it believes that the existence of the country is threatened (by either WMD or conventional forces). That is, of course, the Russian official nuclear use doctrine and he believes Putin would actually follow it

The argument that any economic decoupling from China will lead to war is wrong on many level. Let’s discuss 🧵

https://twitter.com/neysunm/status/1620070107149127680

First, there is little historical evidence that major economic ties prevent wars and plenty of counterexamples. The significant UK-Germany trade ties before WW1 is the classical one but there are many others jstor.org/stable/2340924

New @SilveradoPolicy 40+ page research report is out where we dive into detailed data on Russian trade imports to determine how Russia is working around Western sanctions and export controls

Key findings: 🧵

silverado.org/news/report-ru… 1. Russian imports of key goods (e.g. chips) increased substantially in 2021 *before* the invasion of Ukraine. As a result, it likely meant that they entered the 'sanctions war' with strong inventory levels that allowed them to withstand the initial shock of the export controls

A story of a Wagner convict recruit, who had killed a judge with a poker, served 10 out of 23 years of his sentence, joined Wagner to fight in Ukraine, lost a leg but is now living the life of freedom and 'fantasy and fairy tale' in Russian southern city of Anapa on the Black Sea

https://twitter.com/PrivetNin/status/1616367464484581376

Correction: He says he only tortured the judge with a poker. But killed him by dropping dumbbells on his head... 3 times

My thoughts on nuclear escalation risk with Russia🧵 I don’t disagree with @james_acton32 that the risk of nuclear use by Russia hasn’t gone away

Although I do believe it has diminished significantly, in part because US has been remarkably successful in getting China to signal to the Kremlin that nuclear escalation is unacceptable

https://twitter.com/james_acton32/status/1616096289279574018

New @GeopolDecanted episode is out!

Ukr Reserve Colonel Grabskyi makes the unexpected case for why Ukraine may attempt to retake Crimea soon, long before it is able to liberate all of the territory lost since Feb 24!

podcast.silverado.org/episodes/why-u…

1/ Other topics covered:
- Why Ukraine is fighting so hard for Bakhmut despite taking devastating losses there
- Why Kreminna and Svatove are even more important than Bakhmut
- The vital importance of the barely noticed fight at Vulhledar in the South

“Putin is crazy,” says one Chinese official, who declined to be identified. “The invasion decision was made by a very small group of people. China shouldn’t simply follow Russia.” ft.com/content/e59203… China now perceives a likelihood that Russia will fail to prevail against Ukraine and emerge from the conflict a “minor power”, much diminished economically and diplomatically on the world stage, according to Chinese officials.

Great reporting from @washingtonpost on Ukr counteroffensives, rapid RU collapse in Kharkiv but also fierce fighting they put up in Kherson and Luhansk

Another revelation: Ukrainians considered flooding the Dnieper river by destroying the dam to prevent RU retreat from Kherson

https://twitter.com/ikhurshudyan/status/1608346234061979656

There were some who thought at the time that the Russians would destroy the Nova Kakhovka dam and flood the river.

As @KofmanMichael and I had discussed then on @GeopolDecanted, that never made any sense - it would have just hurt the Russians much more than the Ukrainians