Suchergebnisse

У статті розглянуто особливості бойових дій різновидового угруповання військ (сил) міжнародної вій-ськової коаліції з 7 на 8 лютого 2018 року поблизу населеного пункту Дейр-ез-Зора (Сирія). За результатами проведеного аналізу отримано висновки щодо можливого подальшого розвитку сумісного застосування ра-кетних військ і артилерії та Повітряних Сил. З відкритих джерел засобів масової інформації встановлю-ється загальна хронологія подій, визначаються певні характеристики (дані) та особливості використання зброї та підрозділів, а саме ситуація, що призвела до нездатності підтримувати батальйонно-тактичні групи та війська, що підтримуються урядом Башара Асада. За результатами аналізу були зроблені виснов-ки, які визначають можливий подальший розвиток форм і способів використання ракетних військ та арти-лерії. Основними з них є можливості більш ефективного використання ракетних військ та артилерії, для чого необхідно переглянути принципи, форми та методи їх застосування. Перш за все, вони повинні бути орієнтовані на досвід провідних військових країн-партнерів та на пріоритети озброєння з останніми моде-лями зброї та військової техніки. Також необхідно взяти до уваги значущість високоточних ударних раке-тних сил та артилерії, Повітряних Сил та можливості їх спільного використання з силами та засобами розвідки та засобами ведення електронної війни. В статі розглянуто спроби досягнення максимального ефекту в найкоротші терміни стримування противника від агресивних намірів завдяки функціонуванню розвідувально-ударної системи з правом кожного командира самостійно приймати рішення про ураження противника. ; В статье рассмотрены особенности боевых действий разновидовой группировки войск (сил) международной во-енной коалиции с 7 на 8 февраля 2018 вблизи населенного пункта Дейр-эз-Зора (Сирия). По результатам анализа были сделаны выводы, которые определяют возможное дальнейшее развитие форм и способов использования ракетных войск и артиллерии. Основными из них являются возможности более эффективного использования ракетных войск и артиллерии, для чего необходимо пересмотреть принципы, формы и методы их применения. Прежде всего, они долж-ны быть ориентированы на опыт ведущих военных стран-партнеров и приоритеты вооружения с последними моделя-ми оружия и военной техники. Рассмотрены попытки достижения максимального эффекта в кратчайшие сроки сдерживания противника от агрессивных намерений благодаря функционированию разведывательно-ударной системы с правом каждого командира самостоятельно принимать решение о поражении противника. ; The article deals with the peculiarities of the combat operations of a diverse grouping of troops (forces) of the interna-tional military coalition from 7 to 8 February 2018 near the village of Deir-ez-Zora (Syria). From the open sources of mass me-dia the general chronology of events is established, certain characteristics (data) and features of the use of weapons and units are defined, namely: the conditions of the situation that took place as of March 7, 2018 led to the inability to support battalion-tactical groups and forces supported by the government of Bashar al-Assad, by the forces and means of their senior commander (commander); the full advantage of the coalition forces over the enemy in the air was provided; fighting was carried out exclu-sively at night, widely used means of electronic warfare, complex night equipment (night vision devices); intelligence and elec-tronic warfare, artillery, aviation, high-precision and long-range weapons were used comprehensively and consistently; the du-ration of hostilities was up to 6 hours, during which the efforts of the forces and means of intelligence, electronic warfare and fire damage were focused on causing maximum irretrievable losses to the detected enemy's military formation; The basis of the fire influence on the enemy was a group of high-speed, long-range artillery and strike aircraft. According to the results of the analysis, conclusions were drawn that determine the possible further development of the forms and methods of the use of rocket troops and artillery. The main ones are: the effective use of rocket troops and artillery requires a revision of the principles, forms and methods of their application. First of all, they should be oriented towards the experience of the leading military partners of the partner countries and the prospects of armament with the latest models of weapons and military equipment; taking into ac-count the significance of the fire impact of long-range, high-precision shock (fire) missile forces and artillery, air forces and their combined use with the forces and means of intelligence and electronic warfare it is advisable to speak about the develop-ment and implementation of exploratory-shock (fire) operations (actions) of missile troops and artillery; attempts to obtain maximum effect in the shortest possible time or to deter an opponent from aggressive intentions determines the necessity of func-tioning of the reconnaissance-shock (fire) system with the right of its commander to make a decision independently regarding the defeat of the enemy.

The Israeli incursion into Gaza has begun though we do not know yet how full or advanced it will become. But it is reminding us already that war, especially urban combat, is indeed hell.So what will this ground invasion actually look like on a tactical level? Gaza proper is roughly 25 miles long and on average 5.5 miles wide. This is a tiny amount of space in which to conduct a large-scale military operation. Most modern artillery can almost shoot the length of Gaza. Most modern anti-tank missiles can shoot half its width. Israeli F-16s can fly the length of the strip in under three minutes and will find it necessary to be in a constant turn to maintain position over Gaza City. To make the range issue worse is the urban nature of the battlefield. While it might only be around five miles wide, it's highly unlikely that you have line of sight that far due to man-made obstacles — better known as buildings. What this means is no one has superior range. If you can see it, it's in range. If it's in range, so are you.The majority of this space in fact is covered in buildings — shops, offices, schools, hospitals, and residences. Each one provides cover and concealment for fighters. The structures also create natural channels funneling attacking forces into pre-designated fire zones for ambushes or over top of improvised explosive devices. Israeli armor can't conduct maneuver warfare on this battlefield. Armor will be sitting ducks without infantry support. Infantry are vulnerable to everything. The Israelis will take losses, and already have, according to the New York Times on Wednesday. Urban areas pose difficult tactical problems. Fortified urban areas are worse. Over the past decade Hamas has developed a labyrinth of tunnels that are fortified and connected literally across the entirety of the strip, and especially heavy in Gaza City. They use these underground structures for command and control, movement, logistics, shelter, and as a way to "out flank" and ambush an enemy. Fortified urban areas with significant population density pose the biggest challenges. The majority of combat will take place in Gaza city proper which has a greater population density than New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia or San Francisco. There are over two million people living in an area roughly twice the size of Washington D.C. This means civilians, or non-combatants, are everywhere. Even if half the population has moved south it will still cause the Israelis immense targeting problems. In addition, the densely populated area compounds the Israeli problem of target identification. Hamas intentionally blends in with the civilian population. The bottom line for the battlefield is that it helps Hamas and hinders the Israelis. In urban warfare, the defender, in this case Hamas, has the advantage. An advantage that can be mitigated if the attacker has overwhelming firepower, and the will to use it. How Hamas will fightHamas will use the urban terrain to cause excessive Israeli casualties while forcing them to injure civilians to limit those casualties. They will make every block a fortress and every street corner an ambush site. By using the "subterranean flank" they will pop out of tunnels and hiding places in buildings to shoot at Israeli vehicles with missiles, launch grenades, or even throw Molotov cocktails.While they may not be using Javelin anti-tank weapons (although the threat of Hamas having those weapons shouldn't be dismissed, given what may have been captured or "lost" in Ukraine), their weapons will be more than sufficient to at least disable a tank and cause casualties. The short ranges decrease Israeli reaction time and increase lethality. Hamas fighters are commingled with the civilian population most likely both intentionally and unintentionally, and will take full advantage of that. They know the world watches what the Israelis do and are counting on pressure to make them stop. Again, they see this war as existential, so they will use any and all means to win. How the Israelis will fightFirst, Israelis must find the Hamas fighters, then engage them in their fortified positions.They must do this without taking unreasonable casualties, all the while trying not to kill civilians. To find Hamas fighters the Israelis will use a variety of sources. They will have already scanned the electromagnetic spectrum for everything from cell phones, computers, to radios looking for an electronic signature to identify a potential target. They will pour over social media for anything identifiable.They will use drones, manned aircraft, and human reconnaissance teams to confirm and verify what they think they know. They will do all this and more to listen, collect, and build a targeting picture of command centers, logistics sites, artillery positions, and order of battle — who is who, who has what, and where it is. This process is called intelligence preparation of the battlefield. This is what the Israelis have been doing — in truth some of their targets were most likely derived long before Hamas attacked just as most certainly Hamas had/has a robust target list of Israeli targets — since the start of hostilities. The ground incursion of course changes this process. With Israeli tanks and infantry "closing" with the enemy, finding and subsequently engaging Hamas fighters will most likely devolve into merely returning fire — often with zero time to figure out how to limit civilian casualties. It's one thing to take a breath and disengage in sparse open terrain, it's another thing to figure out who is shooting at you.Once located, the Israelis have a host of options to engage the Hamas fighters. But it's not a simple task of deciding what weapon is best to use. They have to measure what they do by three metrics: 1) does it achieve the desired effect on the enemy? 2) Can they accomplish the task without losing too many Israeli soldiers? 3) Can they limit civilian casualties, which in excess can be a war loser for Israel? If civilian casualties weren't a concern, the Israelis would use their massive firepower to destroy any and all Hamas targets or potential targets. They have the potential to literally level Gaza City using 2,000-pound satellite guided bombs with delayed fuses to smash the known tunnel complexes or at least seal them for eternity. This would meet the goal of destroying Hamas and limiting Israeli losses. But in reality this approach would cause unacceptable civilian casualties. The inverse would be to advance for a close quarter battle that seeks a more "surgical" path. In a close quarter battle, you do nothing to mitigate the defender's advantage in urban warfare and you take losses — lots and lots of losses. Storming a building can be like storming a trench. We have seen what that is like in Ukraine. So how will the Israelis fight? Their best option for destroying Hamas (which is the first priority), managing their own losses (second priority), and limiting civilian casualties (last priority), will be to strike hard when they have known, verified targets, advance to make contact with the enemy, then choose the weapon to engage. Moving slowly, deliberately, a block at a time.This is why the prime minister said it would be a long war. This grinds Hamas down through attrition and loss of supply. The longer it takes, the more food, water, and fuel Hamas uses with no hope of real re-supply. The Israelis proclaim this war is existential. They will keep that consideration as they manage the tension of their losses and civilian casualties. Some suggest this will look like the battle for Fallujah between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents. Perhaps. But I suggest it will be more like Stalingrad or Berlin. Like in those battles, both sides see the war as existential and will conduct themselves accordingly. One thing is for certain, for the populations on both sides, this war is truly hell.

In 1946 reporter John Hersey published a harrowing report from Hiroshima that followed the travails of a number of survivors of the Bomb, including those of Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a Jesuit missionary from Germany.
On a search for water for some of the wounded, Kleinsorge came across a group of survivors"…about twenty men, and they were all in exactly the same nightmarish state: their faces were wholly burned, their eye-sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks. (They must have had their faces upturned when the bomb went off; perhaps they were anti-aircraft personnel) Their mouths were mere swollen, pus-covered wounds, which they could not bear to stretch enough to admit the spout of the teapot."Passages such as these revealed the horrors Japanese survivors endured in the aftermath of the American nuclear attack. Hersey's Hiroshima became, in the view of essayist Roger Angell, "part of our ceaseless thinking about world wars and nuclear holocaust."And throughout the Cold War, the idea of fighting a nuclear war was anathema to the respective leaders of the American and Soviet superpowers — a revulsion that found its ultimate expression in the pledge made by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan that "a nuclear cannot be won and should never be fought."
Yet little by little, as the Cold War has receded into memory, American and Russian leaders have torn up a series of arms control measures beginning with the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty (2002), the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty (2019), and the Open Skies treaty (2020). For its part, in 2023 Russia unilaterally withdrew from both the Convention Armed Forces in Europe treaty and suspended participation in the landmark New START treaty.
And one of the more worrisome developments in a time which does not lack for them has been a worrying epidemic of loose talk about the use of nuclear weapons.
Of late, the Russians have been the worst offenders. Yet perhaps even more troubling is the blithe disregard with which some American analysts dismiss Putin's stated readiness to deploy these weapons. As Brown University professor of Slavic studies Vladimir Golstein memorably puts the matter:"Putin conducts nuclear exercises, Putin warns the densely populated areas in Europe, Putin talks about going to heaven as the result of nuclear confrontation — what else does one need? Knowing Russians, I am extremely certain that they would respond. Sooner or later, but they would."Consider the, well, explosive language coming from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to the revelation, made by Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski on May 25, that the U.S. "told the Russians that if you detonate a nuclear bomb, even if it doesn't kill anyone, we will hit all your targets and positions in Ukraine with conventional weapons and destroy them all." Medvedev responded with threats of his own:"Americans hitting our targets means starting a world war, and a foreign minister, even of a country like Poland, should understand that. And third, considering that yet another Polack, [President Andrzej] Duda, has recently announced the wish to deploy TNW [thermonuclear weapons] in Poland, Warsaw won't be left out, and will surely get its share of radioactive ash. Is it what you really want?"According to a May 28 report in the Chinese-state run news service Xinhua, Russia has accused NATO forces of "practicing nuclear strikes against Russia." This accusation comes only a week after reports that Russia itself has launched tactical nuclear drills in "response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials against the Russian Federation," according to the Russian defense ministry.And then there are the alarming statements coming from Russian analysts and government advisers. A video circulating on social media shows Russian political scientist Konstantin Sivkov issuing nuclear threats against Poland, while the noted academic and Kremlin adviser, Sergei Karaganov published an article calling for Russia to launch limited nuclear strikes on Western Europe. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists points out, Karaganov's "proposal and other Russian political and military thinking about nuclear weapons raise profound questions about whether Russia might attempt to conduct a so-called limited nuclear war."As can only be expected, certain American politicians are pitching in to make things worse. Within the last few weeks, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has called for Israel to do its very worst by invoking the American attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as justification. A month into the Israel-Hamas War, a member of the Israeli cabinet issued his own irresponsible nuclear threat, while the U.S. continues to run diplomatic cover for Israel by denying the existence of its nuclear weapons program.
Meanwhile, recent statements coming out of Iran hinting at a potential change in its nuclear doctrine have raised alarm bells with the International Atomic Energy Agency which is meeting this week in Vienna to discuss the matter.
Amidst the madness, there's a silver lining.
There remain multiple organizations that have been doing valuable, utterly necessary work to raise awareness about the omnipresent threat of nuclear catastrophe, including the Nuclear Threat Initiative, NuclearWakeUpCall.Earth, and Women Transforming Our Nuclear Legacy. The founder of the latter two groups, the activist and award-winning documentary filmmaker Cynthia Lazaroff, believes citizen action is needed — and soon.
"We all have a voice," says Lazaroff, who urges citizens to "contact their Congressional representatives and tell them how worried they are about the growing threat of nuclear war. Urge them to hold congressional hearings on escalating nuclear dangers, nuclear winter and the catastrophic humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and to co-sponsor legislation like: H. Res. 77 and H.R. 2775 to back us away from the brink and eliminate nuclear weapons once and for all."The nuclear age is not past. It is our present — and one that the next administration needs to urgently confront, and ultimately, dismantle.

The situation along the Lebanese-Israeli front continues to escalate as Hezbollah and the Israeli military intensify cross-border operations. Despite the escalation, the Lebanese Shiite movement's strategy appears unchanged — to force Israel to divert substantial military forces from its Gaza offensive against Hamas without provoking a full-blown war with the Jewish state. Against this backdrop, Hezbollah's stance ironically appears to align with the Biden administration's goal of preventing a wider conflict as Israel continues its campaign against the Palestinian movement in Gaza.A new phase of escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli frontTensions between Hezbollah and Israel have peaked following an Israeli airstrike that targeted a civilian car in south Lebanon. The November 5 attack, which Human Rights Watch denounced as "an apparent war crime," led to the death of a woman and her three grandchildren, prompting retaliation from Hezbollah that led to the death of one Israeli civilian near the northern town of Kiryat Shmona. That incident marked the first time the Lebanese movement appeared to deliberately target Israeli civilians in this latest round of cross-border fighting.The situation has sharply escalated since then, with Israel bombing a hospital in the southern Lebanese town of Mays Aljabal, leaving one person wounded. Hezbollah meanwhile carried out a -border missile attack that left over 20 people wounded, including at least seven Israeli soldiers.The Lebanese Shiite movement's leader Hasan Nasrallah meanwhile announced that Hezbollah has upped the tempo and tactics of its cross-border operations. In his second address since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Nasrallah declared last Saturday that the Shiite movement has raised the level of its military action "in terms of the number of operations, targets and the type of weapons." This, he explained, included the use for the first time of "Burkan" missiles which have a higher explosive impact, in addition to suicide drones.Nasrallah stops short of declaring warImportantly Hezbollah's leader, while announcing the escalation at the tactical and tempo levels, did not declare a change to the movement's overall strategy since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza. This strategy, as explained by Nasrallah himself in his previous speech, aims to overstretch the Israeli army by forcing it to divert military resources towards the Lebanese front, thereby preventing Israel from using its full military power to destroy Hamas. Discussing the overall situation on the Lebanese-Israeli front, he stated that "this front would remain active."Nasrallah's apparent reluctance to open a major new front with Israel is consistent with his general strategy of not initiating conflict. Following the July 2006 war, he famously stated that he would not have authorized the capture of two Israeli soldiers, which initiated the conflict, had he known it would lead to war on Lebanon itself.Sources close to the Lebanese movement emphasize that preventing a new Israeli war on Lebanon is a major factor in its approach to the current conflict in Gaza."Hezbollah will not drag Lebanon into a destructive war unless Israel imposes such a war," explained one source close to Hezbollah who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to a second source who also enjoys close ties to Hezbollah's leadership, the movement's posture proves it places a high priority on Lebanon's national interests. "Hezbollah is behaving as a Lebanese rational actor that attaches great importance to Lebanese national interests," he stressed.This argument serves to counter the image of Hezbollah as a proxy of Iran. Both Lebanese and foreign critics of the movement depict it in such a manner, but the movement itself rejects this characterization, insisting instead that Tehran plays a mere supportive role.While Hezbollah has previously hinted that a Hamas defeat would be a red line that would provoke a more aggressive approach against Israel, Nasrallah appeared to pin his hopes on growing international pressures to prevent such a scenario. "We see thousands of people in Washington, New York, London and Paris protesting against Israel" he stated, adding that support by Western governments for Israel's ongoing war in Gaza was declining.The Lebanese Shiite movement also appears aware of the danger of Israel dragging the United States into a broader regional conflict. According to the first source, Hezbollah, as things stand, will not engage in any actions that would be understood as a declaration of war that would permit Israel to fulfill its longstanding dream of forcing the United States into a larger war against Israel's regional enemies. "There are American military assets and aircraft carriers deployed in the region" he emphasized, warning that this "increases the danger of Israel dragging the U.S. into a regional war."Israel escalates its threats against LebanonSenior Israeli officials meanwhile have threatened Lebanon with a Gaza-like scenario. Following Nasrallah's latest speech, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Hezbollah was playing a dangerous game that could elicit a devastating response."What we can do in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut," he asserted during a tour of the Israeli northern front.Such statements, in addition to Israeli military action on the Lebanese front, appear to have sparked new fears in Washington. According to media reports released immediately following Gallant's remarks, U.S. Secretary of Défense Lloyd Austin expressed his concerns regarding Israeli escalation against Lebanon during a phone conversation with his Israeli counterpart.Concerns over broader escalation reflect the Biden administration's policy of preventing a widening of the conflict in Gaza to Lebanon and elsewhere in the region. Biden's senior adviser for energy and infrastructure Amos Hochstein recently visited Beirut where he held talks with high-ranking officials that focused on preventing a spillover of the conflict into Lebanon.Austin is better placed than most in the current American administration in understanding the potentially catastrophic repercussions of full-scale war on the Lebanese-Israeli front. Having served as both head of U.S. forces in Iraq and the region more broadly as head of U.S. Central Command, the Pentagon chief is no doubt well acquainted with the significant clout Hezbollah enjoys with regional players like the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite armed groups in Iraq.Nasrallah himself alluded to this, stating that operations targeting U.S. military assets and personnel launched from Iraq and Yemen would stop if Washington pressured Israel into halting its offensive in Gaza. "If you Americans want to stop these operations, you must stop the war in Gaza," he declared.Viewed against this backdrop, Hezbollah's leader was effectively sending a message to Washington offering to rein in his allies in Yemen and Iraq if the Biden administration would do the same with its Israeli ally.The U.S. administration also appears to fear being dragged by Israel into a broader regional war. According to Joshua Landis, the head of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute, concerns regarding escalation on the Lebanese front stem from fears that Israel may seek to ignite the situation there as international pressures increase for a cease-fire."Biden has compromised the U.S. position through his outright support for Israel's objectives," he said in an interview with RS, adding that "Austin and other senior officials may be concerned that Israel will take this as a green light to widen the conflict which would endanger U.S. troops." Some U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq have come under increased rocket and missile fire from pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi'a militias since the launch of Israel's offensive in Gaza and elsewhere in the region.

South Korea is reacting sharply today to a Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership signed Wednesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.The treaty notably included a mutual defense clause invoking a defense pact: in the "case any one of the two sides is put in a state of war by an armed invasion from an individual state or several states, the other side shall provide military and other assistance with all means in its possession without delay in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and the laws of the DPRK and the Russian Federation."The future implications of such an agreement remain uncertain, but the underlying motivation for its signing can be gleaned from Putin's press statements in Pyongyang. The Russian leader drew attention to the U.S. and NATO supplying to Ukraine "long-range high-precision weapons, F-16 aircraft and other technology-intensive arms and equipment for delivering strikes at Russian territory." Putin went on to state that "In this context, the Russian Federation does not rule out developing military and technical cooperation with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea under the document signed today." Clearly, Moscow is demonstrating its ability and willingness to undermine Washington's policy on the Korean Peninsula — a policy that, in principle, Russia had previously backed by endorsing UN sanctions against North Korea. While Putin has been cautious in not seeking an expansion of the fighting in Ukraine to neighboring NATO member-states, in response to US military aid to Ukraine he has expanded ties with Washington's adversaries and sought to disrupt long-standing American policies from East Asia to the Middle East and beyond. In response to the treaty, South Korea stated that it will "reconsider the issue of arms support to Ukraine." At Washington's request, Seoul has already indirectly sent hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine. In fact, South Korea in 2023 indirectly sent more 155mm artillery shells to Ukraine than all European countries combined. This has played an important part in helping Ukraine, which is suffering from serious shortages of ammunition. However, Seoul has so far refrained from dispatching weapons — as opposed to ammunition — to Kyiv to avoid antagonizing Russia.On the one hand, the revitalized Russia-North Korea defense ties could prompt Seoul to revisit its relatively accommodative policy toward Moscow. On the other, the Kremlin presumably hopes that increased tension on the Korean peninsula will discourage Seoul from drawing down its own stocks of ammunition to supply Ukraine, and will remind Washington of the damage that Russia can do to U.S. interests around the world if it increases its own aid to Ukraine and abandons restrictions on how far Ukraine can use U.S. weapons to attack Russian territory.Prior to the Putin-Kim summit, South Korean officials had warned Moscow "not to go beyond a certain point" in its defense cooperation with Pyongyang and vowed to take necessary countermeasures depending on the summit's outcomes. Reiterating his government's desire to maintain stable ties with Russia, South Korean National Security Advisor Chang Ho-jin stated in a recent interview, "Moscow should take into consideration which among North Korea and South Korea will be more important to it, once Russia ends its war with Ukraine." From Seoul's perspective, Russia's seemingly unambiguous commitment to supporting Pyongyang in a potential Korean Peninsula conflict — as suggested in their new mutual defense pact — can be viewed as an indication that Moscow is shifting its policy toward the Korean peninsula from pursuing cooperative relations with both Koreas to not minding an adversarial relationship with South Korea for the sake of cooperation with North Korea. It has been widely reported – although both Pyongyang and Moscow deny it – that North Korea has supplied Russia with millions of shells and scores of ballistic missiles for its war in Ukraine. The impression that Moscow is more clearly siding with Pyongyang will certainly motivate Seoul to rethink its so-far restrained position on the issue of arms supplies to Ukraine. With the idea of accommodating Moscow to disincentivize its military cooperation with Pyongyang increasingly proving to be a false hope, Seoul may no longer find a strong incentive to bear the political burden of refusing its crucial ally Washington's calls for South Korean military aid to Ukraine. As the battlefield situation in Ukraine shifts in favor of Russia, U.S. pressure on South Korea to send munitions and weapons to Ukraine would only grow, making it more difficult for Seoul to keep resisting cooperation on that front. Seoul is also likely provoked by Moscow's seeming disregard for its several warnings not to cross the line and therefore could find it necessary to respond with strong retaliation in demonstration of resolve. The sense of bitterness could reinforce voices in Seoul calling for sending weapons to Ukraine and weaken voices calling for continued restraint. Additionally, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol's continuous struggle to boost his approval rating, which has been hovering around the low 20s, can serve as another motivation for Seoul to consider arms supplies to Ukraine. Showing defiance of Moscow would appeal to the ruling party's traditionally anti-communist conservative political support base and may also gain support from the broader population who might feel embittered by what they would see as Moscow's betrayal of their country's prudent restraint. To be sure, there are also factors that may compel Seoul to think twice about supplying military aid to Ukraine. Exporting a chunk of its stockpiles to Ukraine comes with a dilemma that South Korea's own readiness against North Korea would be reduced. Another question Seoul must consider is what Moscow's reaction would be if it did send Ukraine sophisticated weaponry. Speaking in Vietnam on Thursday, Putin said South Korea had "nothing to worry about" but cautioned against sending arms to Ukraine as "that would be a very big mistake." The Putin-Kim joint statement's relatively vague language on defense capabilities cooperation may leave space for Moscow to refrain from providing Pyongyang with military technologies that Seoul would consider a "red line," including advanced missile and nuclear development technologies. However, if Seoul does increase its arms supplies to Ukraine, the result may well be to bring about Pyongyang's possession of more advanced ballistic missile and tactical nuclear capabilities with Moscow's assistance — something that is regarded in South Korea as a nightmare scenario.It is also questionable how much South Korean arms can improve Ukraine's position on the battlefield. From Moscow's view, the military, economic, and demographic fundamentals of the battlefield strongly favor Russia's ability to effectively continue waging war against Ukraine. The provision of increased lethal aid from South Korea may or may not alter these fundamentals. However, previous examples demonstrate that there has yet to be any silver bullet weapon that dramatically alters Ukraine's ability to dislodge the Russian armed forces from significant portions of occupied Ukrainian territory. Seoul may worry about the risk that its munitions might only serve to further provoke Moscow and encourage more dangerous Russian military cooperation with North Korea without meaningfully improving Ukraine's battlefield situation. Whether Seoul decides to step up as an arms supplier for Ukraine remains to be seen, but overall, the possibility seems to have certainly increased in light of the upgraded Russia-North Korea defense pact. As the threat of new wars proliferate from Europe to the Middle East, and potential conflicts simmer in East Asia, the lack of active and serious communication channels between Washington and Moscow produces ripe environments for an uncontrolled security spiral between the two nuclear superpowers. As long as Russia believes that the U.S. is continuing to tighten the screws around it in Ukraine (or elsewhere in its "near abroad"), Moscow will play its cards to undermine and create problems for the U.S. and its allies across the globe. The dangers of this continuing unchecked could lead to severe consequences for many more than just those already suffering in Ukraine or on either side of the 38th parallel.

With the failure of Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive despite billions in armaments and months of training, the post mortems have begun.

They follow: The West was too slow in providing missiles and aircraft; Russia had too much time to prepare trenches and minefields; Ukraine needed more time to learn combined-arms tactics and employ Western armor effectively. Yet underlying all these excuses was a broader analytical failing that has yet to be acknowledged: flawed and often facile historical analogies led defense planners to underestimate Russia's resilience.

Even today, with the horrific costs of overconfidence plain to all and Ukraine at a crucial crossroads, the same flawed analysis of the Russian adversary persists.

Time and again, policymakers and commentators based their expectations of the war based on flawed historical parallels. One example is Russia's acceptance of mass casualties and use of "human wave" attacks where they lose three or more soldiers for every Ukrainian casualty.

Time and again — right up to the present — commanders and commentators cite this as a sign of severe Russian weakness. Whether discussed in the jargon of an "asymetrical attrition gradient," or simply referring to Russian soldiers as "cannon fodder," analysts frequently note that such profligacy with human lives is a legacy of ponderous Soviet and Tsarist armies.

But what they fail to note is that this tactic often brought victory. Tsarist armies took massive casualties in battles with Swedish, Persian and Turkish forces as they built the Russian empire. In defeating Napoleon, the Russians suffered as many casualties as the French despite the advantage of fighting on their home ground and their familiarity with the Russian winter.

Soviet Marshal Zhukov absorbed 860,000 casualties to the Germans' 200,000 at the Battle of Kursk in World War II. He also lost 1,500 tanks to the Germans' 500, yet Kursk is remembered as a great triumph that crushed Hitler's final hopes of victory. Can one imagine Germany celebrating its superior casualty ratio while being defeated by Stalin's hordes?

However shocking this tactic may be, it is a resource that Moscow has and Kyiv does not. Consider the battle for Bakhmut and the daily bulletins trumpeting Ukraine's success in killing thousands of Russians, right up to the moment that Bakhmut fell to Wagner Group mercenaries — weirdly reminiscent of the Pentagon's body-count bulletins in the Vietnam war.

At Bakhmut Ukraine lost the indispensable cream of its army to hordes of dispensable Russian convicts-turned-storm troopers in doomed defense of a strategically insignificant town that President Zelenskyy vowed would not fall. The average age of Ukrainian soldiers is now 43.

Losing Bakhmut hurt Ukrainian morale, but it is Russian morale that pundits say is shot. And they remind us that military disasters sparked Russian uprisings in the past — in 1905 after defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, or the debacle of WWI that led to the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in 1917.

Given their hardships and suffering, why wouldn't Russians do it again and overthrow Putin? Pundits often ignore that, after a decade of economic chaos and global humiliation in the 1990s, Putin is respected for restoring stability and national pride. Tsar Nicholas II, by contrast, was rather more like Boris Yeltsin — weak and out of touch, reliant on hated advisers, presiding over chaos.

It's also likely that, unlike a distant debacle with Japan or European carnage triggered by an Austro-Serbian dispute, many Russians believe in this war because they see Crimea and Donbas as historically and culturally Russian.

Whether it stems more from deep-seated imperial attitudes or a decade of anti-Western propaganda, Russians still back Putin and even take pride in standing up to the best NATO can throw at them. An effort to appreciate the views of Putin and his people is not being "pro Russian" even if we find those views wrong or repugnant.

On the contrary, such an approach is key to "thinking in time" with accurate historical analogies, and vital to avoiding the conceit of assuming that Russian soldiers or citizens will behave as we would.

On the eve of Ukraine's counteroffensive, U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman General Mark Milley declared that Russians "lack leadership, they lack will, their morale is poor, and their discipline is eroding." Of course, if your main historical lesson is that Russian armies crack under strain, then you look closely for signs of dissent and soon find a looming collapse.

This is how superficial history joins with confirmation bias to produce flawed analysis. Stymied by fierce Russian fighting, Ukrainians troops themselves told Milley he was wrong: "We expected less resistance. They are holding. They have leadership. It is not often you say that about the enemy."

As Kyiv's crisis deepens and recriminations spill out in public, commanders at all levels of the Ukrainian Armed Forces agree that they and their NATO advisers badly misjudged Russian tenacity: "This big counteroffensive was based on a simple calculation: when a Moskal [slur for ethnic Russian] sees a Bradley or a Leopard, he will just run away."

But what about taking the fight to Russia? Former CIA Director General David Petraeus predicted that Russian resolve could "crumble" in response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow. Such strikes "bring the war to the Russian people" and might convince Putin's regime that, like the USSR's Cold War quagmire in Afghanistan, Russia's current war in Ukraine is "ultimately unsustainable."

In fact the old Soviet elite did not see the Afghan war as unsustainable, nor were they much concerned about public opinion. It took both a generational transition and a bold new leader who prioritized improving ties with the West — Mikhail Gorbachev — to finally manage an exit.

The point is not that war isn't costly. The Afghan war was, and the Ukraine war is even more so. The point is that accepting defeat in a major war that was justified as a vital national interest is unlikely until there is both a new leader and turnover in the ruling elite.

As for "bringing war to the Russian people" by bombing Moscow, when did that ever work? NATO brought the Kosovo War to the Serbian people in 1999 by bombing Belgrade, and it only rallied them to the side of dictator Slobodan Milošević; 25 years later, Serbs remain strongly pro-Russian and anti-NATO. And when Chechen rebels bombed Moscow and other Russian cities in the early 2000s, it only rallied Russians around Putin and helped justify his increasingly authoritarian rule.
These aren't mere historical quibbles, but illustrations of flawed analogies that framed both strategic expectations and tactical decisions. And they have cost dearly, in both Ukrainian lives and now Western support. Confidence in Washington-Brussels elites falls even as officials still claim that Ukraine is winning and Putin "cannot outlast" the West.

In fact, as NATO empties its warehouses of equipment and misses deadlines for producing new munitions, it's hard to conclude otherwise unless one is trapped in another oversimplified WWII analogy: that of America as the "arsenal of democracy."

Many have contrasted America's innovative private arms producers with Russia's technology-starved state factories, predicting that Moscow would soon exhaust its munitions. Instead, Russia has consistently belied the "all brawn and no brains" narrative, not only outproducing the West in tanks, artillery and shells but defying sanctions to develop new precision-guided bombs, drones and missiles. Perhaps those discounting Russian ingenuity forgot the Katyusha multiple-rocket launcher, a legendary artillery weapon that both the Germans and Americans copied in WWII.
With a looming crisis in efforts to keep Kyiv supplied with munitions, it is useful to look closer at American arms production in WWII, when the "arsenal of democracy" was in certain respects more like Putin's economy than Biden's. But today Washington faces a complex set of institutional obstacles: "least-cost production models," contractor aversion to stockpiling, export restrictions, and environmental regulations the likes of which do not trouble Putin. A final lesson from WWII's "armaments race" is a caution against technological hubris such as that seen in today's gushing about the superiority of Western Leopard or Abrams tanks over the Russian T-72 and T-80. Germany's Tiger tank was clearly superior to the Soviet T-34 in WWII, but the latter was cheap, reliable, and easy to produce in numbers; at Kursk, Soviet tanks outnumbered German ones by 2:1. So as NATO planners and media pundits take up the "cannon fodder" refrain again with reference to the heavy losses Russians are taking as they advance in the battle for Avdiivka, these planners and pundits would do well to consider a quip famously attributed to Soviet wartime leader Josef Stalin: "Quantity has a quality all its own."

The Biden administration recently approved five major arms sales to Israel for F-15 fighter aircraft, tank ammunition, tactical vehicles, air-to-air missiles, mortar rounds, and related equipment for each. Though technically sales, most if not all of this matériel is paid for by U.S. taxpayers — Israel uses much of the military aid Congress approves for it effectively as a gift card to buy U.S.-made weapons.

The total value of the five weapons sales exceeds $20.3 billion.

More extraordinary than the price tag of these arms deals is that the White House made them public. Prior to last week's announcements, it had disclosed just two arms sales to Israel. By March, the Biden administration had already greenlit more than 100 separate weapons deals for Israel, or about one every 36 hours, on average. The administration presumably kept the value of each arms deal "under threshold" to avoid having to notify Congress.

From 2017 to 2019, the U.S. had approved thousands of below-threshold arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates worth a total of $11.2 billion. Exploiting this loophole helped the Trump administration avoid scrutiny of its enabling of a devastating and indiscriminate bombing campaign in Yemen. The Biden administration appears to be following the same playbook for the destruction it is enabling in Gaza.

The White House isn't shy about publicizing arms transfers to other countries. For example, it has been very transparent about the military aid it sent Ukraine since February 2022. Biden promotes arming Ukraine as industrial policy, marketing the military aid as a boon for domestic manufacturing and jobs. The Pentagon not only itemizes what specific matériel the U.S. sends to Ukraine, but also shows on a map where in the U.S. those weapons and equipment are made.

By contrast, nearly all the publicly available information on U.S. arms transfers to Israel comes from leaks reported by the media. The Biden administration says very little about the weapons it delivers to Israel or how the Israeli military uses them. The following analysis is intended to shed light on both. In doing so, it helps explain why the Biden administration prefers to arm Israel in secret.






What follows is a non-exhaustive list of attacks by the Israeli military since October 7 that likely violated international law, grouped by the type of U.S.-supplied weapon involved in the attack.

In order for an attack to be listed below, there must be sufficient evidence that it violated international law. In all of the following cases, it's at least more likely than not that the attack was a violation. Many of them almost certainly were in breach of international law. This is a very high threshold — as former State Department lawyer Brian Finucane wrote in Foreign Affairs, "The law of war permits vast death and destruction. This is true even under restrictive interpretations of the law."

Furthermore, in order for an attack to be listed, there must be concrete forensic evidence that a U.S.-supplied weapon was likely used to commit the probable violation of international law. Only the types of weapons the U.S. has reportedly delivered to Israel since October 7 are considered. This report draws from forensic investigations that have been conducted by reputable international organizations, civil society groups, media outlets, and independent analysts.

The following 20 incidents represent a small fraction of potential war crimes committed with U.S.-provided weapons. First, information gathering and fact finding is extremely difficult. Israel restricts U.N. and NGO access to Gaza and doesn't cooperate with investigations into misuse of U.S.-supplied arms. Members of the press are routinely denied access or attacked: Since October 2023, 116 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes or sniper fire in Gaza, representing 86 percent of all those killed worldwide, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Prolonged communication blackouts are commonplace in Gaza.

Second, Israel's military campaign relies on U.S. weapons, and so U.S. matériel is involved in nearly every facet of Israel's campaign. For example, Israel uses U.S.-made aircraft like the F-35, F-16, and F-15 to drop U.S.-made bombs, including the MK-84 (2,000 pounds), MK-83 (1,000 pounds), MK-82 (500 pounds), and 250-pound "small diameter" bombs, which can be fitted with U.S.-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits.

The vast majority of bombs Israel drops on Gaza are U.S.-made. The U.S. even provides Israel with jet fuel. The U.S. has sent so many arms to Israel since October 7 that the Pentagon has struggled to find sufficient cargo aircraft to deliver the matériel.

Third, Israel's campaign is historically destructive. In the three weeks after October 7, Israel dropped an average of 6,000 bombs on Gaza per week. By comparison, U.S. and coalition forces dropped on average 488 bombs per week on ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) between August 2014 and March 2019. OIR caused immense civilian harm — particularly in densely-populated areas like Mosul and Raqqa — but the scale of death and destruction doesn't come close to what Israel has done in Gaza.

A former high-ranking officer in the Israeli military told Haaretz that Israeli forces could have made as much progress as they have so far in Gaza with one-tenth of the destruction. This "unusually wasteful" and "reckless" conduct "reflects an absolute assumption that the U.S. will continue to arm and finance it," he is quoted as saying.

What's more, according to reporting, Israel has used an Artificial Intelligence program called "Lavender" to generate an unprecedented number of bombing targets with minimal human oversight. The AI program is coded with instructions that appear inconsistent with international law and is deployed with little to no human oversight.

The Biden administration acknowledges that Israel likely broke human rights law with U.S.-supplied weapons, but claims it doesn't have enough evidence to link U.S.-supplied weapons to specific violations that would warrant cutting off military aid to Israel. As national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS, "We do not have enough information to reach definitive conclusions about particular incidents or to make legal determinations, but we do have enough information to have concern…Our hearts break about the loss of innocent Palestinian life."

None of that is believable. As this report demonstrates, there is more than enough available information. If the Biden administration is truly concerned about the loss of innocent Palestinian life in Gaza, it can stop Israel's atrocities by denying it the tools it needs to commit them.
MK-84 and other 2,000-pound bombsAmount delivered since October 7: At least 14,100 (as of June 28). The U.S. sent Israel at least 14,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs from early October to late June. Another shipment 1,800 MK-84s is pending: The White House approved their transfer in March, but then paused shipping them in May. The U.S. also delivered 100 2,000-pound BLU-109 bunker-buster bombs between October 7 and December 1.By mid-December, the Biden administration had already provided Israel with more than 5,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, four times heavier than the largest bombs the U.S. dropped in Syria and Iraq in its war against ISIS. In the first month of its military offensive in Gaza, Israeli forces dropped more than 500 2,000-pound bombs, more than 40 percent of which were dropped in Israeli-designated safe zones. Six weeks into the war, Israel had dropped 2,000-pound bombs in areas to which it had instructed civilians to flee more than 200 times. October 9, 2023: Israeli airstrikes hit a busy market in Jabalia refugee camp, killing at least 69 people. The market was more crowded than usual because people were in the process of fleeing their homes at the instruction of the Israeli military. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) analysis reported that "one or two GBU-31 air dropped munitions were used" and found no military objective to justify the strike. The GBU-31 is made from a U.S.-made 2,000-pound MK 84 or BLU-109 bomb and a JDAM guidance kit. Neither U.N. OHCHR nor Amnesty International found evidence of a military target at the time of the attack. Even if there was a legitimate military target, the scale of destruction indicates the Israeli military's attack was disproportionate. Disproportionate attacks are war crimes — international law prohibits attacks that are expected to cause excessive civilian harm compared to the direct and provable military advantage anticipated from the attack.October 17, 2023: After the Israeli military told Gazans to flee to Khan Yunis for their safety, it bombed the al-Lamdani family house in Khan Yunis. Between 15 and 40 people were killed in the attack. Remnants of a U.S.-made MK-84 2,000-pound bomb were found at the siteOctober 25, 2023: Israeli airstrikes flattened at least 5,700 square meters in the Al Yarmouk neighborhood of Gaza City, killing at least 91 people, including 39 children. A U.N. assessment determined that "several" 2,000-pound GBU-31s air-dropped munitions were likely dropped by Israeli forces in the attack. According to a report from U.N. OHCHR, "The use of a GBU-31 or a GBU-32, in such densely populated areas in the middle of residential neighborhoods when extensive civilian harm would be foreseeable, raises very serious concerns that those attacks were disproportionate and/or indiscriminate, and that no or insufficient precautions were taken."October 31, 2023: After Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia, Gaza's largest refugee camp, a nearby hospital said it received 400 casualties, including 120 dead, most of whom were women and children. An analysis of the site showed at least five craters, the largest one likely from a GBU-31. The GBU-31 is made from a JDAM and either a 2,000-pound BLU-109 or MK-84 bomb. According to reports, Israeli forces gave no warning before the attack, and no effort was made to evacuate the residential buildings. U.N. OHCHR said the attack on Jabalia refugee camp could amount to a war crime.January 13, 2024: Israeli forces dropped a U.S.-made MK-84 2,000-pound bomb from a U.S.-made F-16 aircraft on a house in Deir al-Balah but it didn't explode. A second airstrike did destroy the home, leaving an approximately 40-foot size crater, characteristic of a 2,000-pound bomb with a delayed fuse. The Israeli military had designated Deir al-Balah as a safe zone in October. Israeli forces instructed Palestinians in northern Gaza to flee there on December 11 and told Palestinians in central Gaza the same thing on December 22. By mid-January, Israeli bombing had leveled entire city blocks and dozens of family homes in Deir al-Balah.GBU-39 and other 'small diameter' bombsAmount delivered since October: At least 2,600 (as of June). More than 2,000 of these "small-diameter" bombs are 250-pound GBU-39 munitions. After Israel received an expedited shipment of 1,000 Boeing-made GBU-39s in early October, the Biden administration approved the transfer of more than 1,000 GBU-39 bombs for Israel on April 1, the same day that Israeli forces bombed a World Central Kitchen convoy, killing seven aid workers. It's likely that far more GBU-39s have been delivered to Israel than the amount listed here.Purportedly out of concern for Palestinian civilians, the Biden administration is urging the Israeli military to use more 250-pound GBU-39s and fewer less-precise 2,000-pound bombs. The result appears to have been a surge in possible war crimes committed with GBU-39s. The relative size of bombs doesn't matter much if Israeli forces disregard fundamental rules governing targeting in international law, including distinction, precautions, and proportionality. As retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant Wes Bryant told the New York Times, "While they're using smaller bombs, they're still deliberately targeting where they know there are civilians."Boeing markets its GBU-39 as a "low collateral damage" precision weapon. Echoing Boeing, White House spokesperson John Kirby said Israel's use of these 250-pound bombs is "certainly indicative of an effort to be discreet and targeted and precise." The blast from a GBU-39 bomb can kill or injure people over 1,000 feet away, and shrapnel from the bomb's steel casing can kill or injure anyone within 570 feet. January 9, 2024: Israeli forces bombed a residential building in a neighborhood the Israeli military had repeatedly ordered displaced Gazans to flee to. The attack killed 18 people, including 10 children, and wounded at least eight others. Israeli forces gave no warning to evacuate. An investigation found no evidence that the building or anyone in it could be considered a legitimate military target. The Israeli government has yet to give a reason for the strike. Fragments from a U.S.-made Boeing GBU-39 were recovered from the rubble.May 13, 2024: Israeli forces bombed a school housing displaced civilians in Nuseirat, killing up to 30 people. A tail fin of a U.S.-made GBU-39 was recovered at the location of the strike(Credit above @AlQastalps)May 26, 2024: An Israeli airstrike on a displacement camp in Rafah filled with makeshift tents killed at least 46 people — including 23 women, children and older adults — and injured more than 240 others. The tail of a U.S.-made GBU-39 bomb was recovered at the site of the attack. The "81873" on the munition fragment is the identifier code the U.S. government assigned to Woodward, a Colorado-based manufacturer that supplies bomb parts, including the GBU-39. The State Department refused to acknowledge that this was a U.S.-made weapon. Israeli forces claimed munitions stored at the camp caused most of the devastation, but there is no evidence of a weapons cache present. (Credit above: @trbrtc/Alam Sadeq)June 6, 2024: At least two GBU-39 munitions were used in an Israeli airstrike on the UN-run al-Sardi school in Nusreit, central Gaza. At least 40 people were killed in the strike, including nine women and 14 children. About 6,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering at the school when it was bombed. The Israeli military denied that there were any civilian casualties. Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said the attack is a possible war crime. A U.S.-made navigation device manufactured by Honeywell was also documented at the site.August 10, 2024: More than 100 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on al-Tabin school in Gaza City, which was being used to shelter displaced people. The Israeli military said it used "precise munitions." Paramedics who arrived at the scene said they found bodies "ripped to pieces" and that many bodies were unidentifiable. Parents reported difficulty identifying their deceased children. Remnants of at least two Boeing-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs were identified at the scene. Two investigations found no evidence that the school was being used for military operations, as the Israeli military claimed. The list of fighters the Israeli army alleged it killed in the strike included several people who had previously been listed as deceased and civilians with no known military ties.Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM)
Amount delivered since October 7: At least 3,000 (as of December 1).

October 10, 2023: An Israeli airstrike on the al-Najjar family home in Deir al-Balah killed 24 civilians. The code stamped on a recovered munition fragment, 70P862352, indicates that a U.S.-supplied JDAM was used in the attack. The Boeing-made guidance kit was likely fitted to a 2,000-pound bomb. Survivors said Israel gave civilians no warning of an imminent strike. Amnesty International said the attack must be investigated as a war crime.





(Credit: Private/Amnesty International)

October 22, 2023: An Israeli airstrike on the Abu Mu'eileq family home in Deir al-Balah killed 19 people, including 12 children. The home was located in the area to which the Israeli military had ordered residents of northern Gaza to flee on October 13. The code stamped on the recovered scrap, 70P862352, is associated with JDAMs and Boeing. The Boeing-made JDAM kit was fitted to a bomb that weighed at least 1,000-pounds. Survivors said Israel gave no warning of an imminent strike. Amnesty International said the attack must be investigated as a war crime.
(Credit: Private/Amnesty International)March 27, 2024: An Israeli strike on the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association, a humanitarian organization, killed seven emergency and relief volunteers in southern Lebanon. The strike used a U.S.-made JDAM guidance kit affixed to an Israeli-made 500-pound bomb. Human Rights Watch said that the incident should be investigated as a war crime.
July 13, 2024: An Israeli strike on the Al-Mawasi — an Israeli military-designated "safe zone" — killed over 90 people and injured hundreds more. Remnants of a U.S.-made JDAM were found at the scene. Based on the size of the fin fragment, the JDAM was likely fitted to either a 1,000- or 2,000-pound bomb.
Hellfire missilesAmount delivered: At least 3,000 (as of June 28) June 8, 2024: Israel's operation to rescue four hostages in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed nearly 300 Palestinians. A witness reported Israeli attack helicopters launching many strikes in Nuseirat and surrounding areas. Another witness said 150 rockets fell in less than 10 minutes. Remnants of at least two U.S.-made Hellfire missiles were found in a damaged residential building. Video shows U.S.-made Apache helicopters firing several Hellfire missiles into the Nuseirat refugee camp. The Israeli military also bombed a busy market several blocks south of where the Israeli hostages were kept, and in the opposite direction of the evacuation route. U.N. OHCHR said the raid "seriously calls into question whether the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution — as set out under the laws of war — were respected by the Israeli forces."June 23, 2024: An Israeli airstrike on a health clinic in Gaza City killed five people, including Hani al-Jaafarawi, Gaza's director of ambulances and emergency. He was reportedly the 500th medical worker killed during Israel's military campaign in Gaza. The rocket motor of a U.S.-supplied Hellfire missile was recovered at the health care center.July 14, 2024: Hundreds of Palestinians were taking refuge at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Abu Oraiban school when it was hit by an Israeli airstrike, killing at least 22 people. The Israeli military issued no warning to the displaced people sheltering there before the attack. U.S.-made Hellfire missile fragments were found at the school, including part of its guidance system and motor. (Remnants of a Boeing-made GBU-39's tail section were also recovered at the site.)(Credit above: @Easybakeovensz)120mm tank shellsAmount delivered since October 7: At least 13,981. A day after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the unconditional release of hostages, the White House notified Congress on December 8 that it had approved the sale of 13,981 120mm M830A1 high-explosive tank cartridges to Israel.The Biden administration invoked an emergency authority to bypass the congressional review period. Because the shells were sourced from U.S. Army inventory, they could be transferred immediately to Israel. The day before, Reuters, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International all published investigations providing evidence that an Israeli tank likely deliberately fired two Israeli-made 120mm shells at a group of journalists in southern Lebanon in October, killing one Reuters journalist and injuring six others. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the incident was an apparent war crime. Israeli tanks have also struck hospitals and humanitarian shelters using 120mm tank rounds. On August 13, the Biden administration notified Congress that it approved a $774 million arms sale to Israel for 32,739 120mm tank cartridges.January 29, 2024: Six-year-old Hind Rajab was the only survivor in her family's car after Israeli tanks opened fire. Over the phone, Hind begged rescue workers to come save her. The Palestine Red Crescent Society dispatched an ambulance with two emergency workers. At least one Israeli tank opened fire, killing both paramedics. A fragment of a U.S.-made M830A1 120mm tank round was documented at the scene.155mm artillery shellsAmount delivered: At least 57,000 (as of December 1). This total includes thousands of 155mm rounds originally for Ukraine that the Biden administration diverted to Israel in October. Netanyahu specifically requested 155mm artillery shells from U.S. lawmakers in mid-November.Around the same time, more than 30 organizations urged the Biden administration to not supply Israel with these munitions because their inaccuracy and 100-300 meter casualty radius make them "inherently indiscriminate" in the Gaza context. "It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which high explosive 155mm artillery shells could be used in Gaza in compliance with [international humanitarian law]," the organizations wrote.On December 29, the White House notified Congress that it approved the sale of an additional 57,021 155mm shells to Israel. The Biden administration invoked an emergency authority to bypass the congressional review period. Israeli forces will likely fire these rounds from U.S.-made howitzers. The Israeli military announced earlier that month it fired over 100,000 artillery rounds during the first 40 days of its ground invasion of Gaza, adding that artillery plays a "central role" by providing "intense fire cover" for its ground forces.October 16: Israeli forces fired 155mm artillery shells containing white phosphorus into Dhayra, southern Lebanon. At least nine civilians were killed and civilian property was damaged. Lot production codes found on the shells indicate they were made in the US. Amnesty International said the attack was indiscriminate and must be investigated as a war crime.(Credit above: White phosphorus fired by Israeli army to create a smoke screen, is seen on the Israel-Lebanon border in northern Israel, November 12, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)Armored vehiclesAmount delivered since October 7: Unknown. The Israeli Ministry of Defense reported on October 19 that U.S. Air Force cargo airplanes delivered the first tranche of U.S.-made David light armored vehicles, part of a $22 million arms deal from April 2023.November 14, 2023: The first photo below from the Israeli Ministry of Defense shows David light armor vehicles after being unloaded from a U.S. Air Force C-17 at Ben Gurion Airport on October 19. The second photo shows Israeli forces using David light armor vehicles to obstruct an ambulance en route to a hospital on November 14, arresting the wounded person inside. International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on and obstruction of medical transport. (Credit aboive @Israel_MOD)(Credit above: @PalestineRCS )

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine from the North, East and South in order to control the whole country through direct military occupation and/or a proxy government. Moscow assumed a rapid collapse or surrender of the Ukrainian state and planned a relatively fast war of manoeuvre coupled with air assaults and/or amphibious operations to take over major cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. Ukraine – which had prepared to some extent for a Russian invasion since 2014 – resisted and rolled back invading forces from its major cities in 2022, including from Kherson despite its illegal annexation to the Russian Federation. In late spring 2023, Kyiv launched a counter-offensive aimed at liberating territories south of Zaporizhzhia, but unfortunately Russian forces were able to hold most of the ground previously gained. A high level of attrition has now been experienced by both sides for several months, with more than half a million troops deployed by belligerents.
Over the last six months, the war has turned into a bloody stalemate. It witnesses continuous and indiscriminate air campaigns by Russia – including the use of bombs, missiles and drones –, tailored raids by Ukraine on the occupied territories and across the Black Sea, and above all fierce land battles over a highly fortified frontline with a systematic, mutual shelling and massive use of drones. Two years after the beginning of the invasion, Russian armed forces control the land corridor that connects the Crimea peninsula to Donbas – two areas already directly or indirectly under Moscow influence since 2014 – and the whole Azov Sea: a region accounting for slightly less than 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory. Still, Ukraine continues to access the Black Sea and export its goods. Such an occupation has cost so far dozens of thousands of military casualties in both countries, the lives of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, as well as huge numbers of injured people and millions of displaced citizens – plus the material destruction brought by the conflict. What does this dramatic watershed for Ukraine mean for Europe as a whole? At least six takeaways can be gained for the armed forces of European countries, NATO and EU defence initiatives, with a view to deterring Moscow from further aggressions and if necessary defending Europe from them.Putin's risk-prone and solid leadership
First, the war has proved that Russian leadership is so risk-prone, solid and obsessed with Ukraine to continue a large-scale, high-intensity attrition war despite its enormous costs in terms of blood and treasure, the limited territorial gains obtained so far and the likely scenario of a military stalemate. For the Kremlin and part of Russian society, the war entails a sort of existential character: the restoration of Russia's great power status, the rollback of Western influence from the former Soviet Republics, and possibly the wreckage of European and transatlantic unity by leveraging certain governments and/or constituencies within the EU and NATO.
Vladimir Putin has remained in power enhancing both repression and propaganda, despite the sacrifices imposed by the partial military mobilisation and Western economic sanctions, and seems confident to prevail in Ukraine in the long-term should US military support to Kyiv vanish. The recent death of Putin's principal opponent, Alexei Navalny,[1] represents further, tragic evidence of the regime's relative strength.Russia's initial mistakes and subsequent adjustment
Second, Russia initially miscalculated several key factors, including the resilience of Ukraine as a country, the strengths of its own armed forces, and the military and economic support provided by the US, Europe and like-minded countries to Kyiv. Moscow also made a number of mistakes in terms of war planning and execution, at both strategic and tactical levels, ranging from scarce unity of command – epitomised by the Wagner drama – to poor logistics, training and doctrines.[2]
Nevertheless, Russia adapted to the initial failures and compensated for miscalculations and mistakes with the mobilisation and sacrifice of its human and material resources[3] to a level well beyond the Cold War – including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This contributed to a military stalemate on the ground since 2023. Notably, Russia is spending about 6 per cent of its GDP on its military, a level far below the usual average for countries at war, and neither side has resorted to full wartime mobilisation. That means Moscow is willing and able to stay the course despite the initial mistakes and to massively draw on its society, something to bear in mind in the West should escalation between Russia and NATO take place.The factors of Ukraine resistance
Third, it must not be forgotten that the powerful and large Russian military, employed in a long-prepared war disregarding international law principles such as proportionality or discrimination, failed nonetheless to occupy a smaller and in theory weaker country. Ukraine's geography, spirit, leadership, organisation and training, command control and communication, all compensated for the material unbalance in favour of Russia – particularly during the first semester of the invasion, which was then halted by Ukrainians with limited international support. These structural elements have strongly contributed to the military stalemate on the ground.[4]
The strength of Ukraine's resistance – coupled with the aforementioned weaknesses and mistakes of the Russian military – has surprised many observers in Western Europe. This should lead to a more nuanced analysis and understanding of both material and immaterial factors shaping the balance of power among belligerents in a possible conflict with Russia.The key role of international support
A fourth point can be made regarding the international level. Ukraine faced the Russian invasion for the first half of 2022 with little military support from abroad. Then it gradually received a large quantity and variety of equipment, encompassing artillery, armoured vehicles, air defence, main battle tanks and missile systems, Soviet-era helicopters and aircraft, and the related ammunition, spare parts, logistic support and training – plus massive and growing satellite communication as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.[5]
Over the last two years, the amount and timing of supplies have often been questionable and far inferior to Kyiv's requests, especially with regard to main battle tanks, long-range weapons and the never-delivered F16 – while the heterogeneity of hardware drawn from the allies' arsenals has been high and problematic for Ukraine. Still, as a whole, it represents an unprecedented war support effort worth about 100 billion euros from 31 donor countries[6] – plus 5.6 billion euros earmarked by EU institutions – from February 2022 to January 2024. Further and wider economic aid has been provided, including humanitarian assistance, financial support, connection of Ukraine's energy infrastructures with the EU electric grid, customs-free import of Ukrainian goods in the Union, etc.[7]
Without such military and economic support, Ukraine would not have been able to hold so far more than 80 per cent of its territory against Russian invasion. As a result, while not belligerent, donor countries – especially but not only the US – play a major role in shaping Kiev's military options. In particular, Washington and its major allies placed limitations on significant Ukrainian operations into Russian territory,[8] despite their potential operational value to weaken Russia's war effort, and avoided or postponed certain supplies, in order to avoid an escalation between Moscow and NATO. On the opposite side, the Kremlin obtained military aid from North Korea and Iran[9] without significant constraints towards its strategy against Ukraine, while the role played by China seems limited so far to a political, energy and economic partnership with Russia, falling short of the provision of defence equipment.
This should lead to a reflection in Europe and North America on the responsibility to support Ukraine after two years of war which has been waged by Kyiv thanks to international support but within the limits of the related conditionalities. A US and/or European disengagement from this war would deliver a tremendous blow to Kyiv's military capacity to defend its people and territory, and probably lead to a Russian strategic victory in the mid-to-long-term. On the contrary, a stable, robust, long-term commitment to supply Ukraine's armed forces is the pre-condition for any reflection on the best Ukrainian strategy in light of two years of invasion and the ongoing stalemate on the ground.The limits of the European and US defence industries and the need for adaptation
Fifth, and relatedly, military donations to Ukraine have drastically drained North American and European arsenals that were not fit for a large-scale, prolonged, attrition war mainly fought on the land domain. Therefore, stockpiles of ammunitions, armoured vehicles, anti-tank missiles, air and missile defence system – including man-portable air defence systems –and main battle tanks rapidly dwindled and subsequently de facto constrained the amount and timing of Western support to Ukraine.[10] The European and, to a lesser extent, the US defence industries found it difficult to ramp up production for a variety of reasons, which has further limited the international support to Kyiv.
Two years after the beginning of the Russian invasion, Europe and the US find themselves deprived of much of their pre-2022 stockpiles of certain capabilities, and are unable to simultaneously replenish them and increase the pace or quantity of deliveries to Ukraine. Over the last two years, the US, Germany, France, Poland and other NATO members have begun to adjust their military budget and procurement to cope with the war implications, but such adaptation will be long, costly and hard to implement. Against this backdrop, a sober assessment of the available international support to Ukraine is necessary. At the end of the day, if Europe and the US are unable to provide Ukraine with what it needs for another counter-offensive, it is not sensible to plan for the latter.The future of NATO's deterrence and defence
Last but not least, this is a conventional conflict between two countries one of which is a nuclear power. So far Russia has used its nuclear rhetoric mainly against international allies of Ukraine in order to dissuade or at least limit their provision of military aid to Kyiv, with mixed results. Even though the remote risk of a nuclear escalation remains on the table, US and NATO deterrence has effectively worked to constrain Moscow's options to the conventional realm. For example, allied deterrence worked to prevent a nuclear escalation by Moscow despite the setbacks repeatedly experienced by its armed forces, up to the retreat from Kherson a few months after the province was formally – albeit illegally - annexed to the Russian Federation. This in turn has enabled Ukraine to defend itself and roll-back against a larger but still comparable military.
While successful in the nuclear domain, at the same time, NATO's deterrence has not compelled Russia to freeze the conventional conflict. This is particularly worrying for NATO, insofar as allied deterrence aims to prevent not only nuclear but also conventional wars in Europe. Therefore, a final takeaway is that allies have to reflect on how to enhance NATO deterrence across the entire military spectrum - and prepare for defence should deterrence fail. This is a priority first and foremost for European countries, as geography forces them to deal with the Russian threat whatever US administration will be in charge from 2025 onwards. NATO offers a solid framework for the security and strategic stability of the Old Continent, but needs a far stronger and more united European pillar: this was true before February 2022, and it is even more urgent after two years of Russian war of aggression in Europe.Alessandro Marrone is Head of the Defence Programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). This commentary is a revised and updated version of a chapter written by the same author for the study Russia-Ukraine War's Strategic Implications, edited by Alessandro Marrone, Rome, IAI, February 2024.[1] Andrew Roth, "Western Leaders Point Finger at Putin after Alexei Navalny's Death in Jail", in The Guardian, 16 February 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/p/hxp3c.[2] See among others Liz Sly, "Nine Ways Russia Botched Its Invasion of Ukraine", in The Washington Post, 8 April 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/08/how-russia-botched-ukraine-invasion.[3] Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, "Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of Ukraine", in RUSI Special Reports, 19 May 2023, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraine.[4] Alessandro Marrone, "Ukraine's Counteroffensive and a Potential Stalemate Scenario", in Aspenia Online, 19 September 2023, https://aspeniaonline.it/?p=53564.[5] On the space domain, see Karolina Muti and Maria Vittoria Massarin, "The Space Domain", in Alessandro Marrone (ed.), Russia-Ukraine War's Strategic Implications, cit., p. 45-55.[6] For a good accounting of such effort see Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Ukraine Support Tracker, updated on 16 February 2024, https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker.[7] European Commission, EU Solidarity with Ukraine, https://eu-solidarity-ukraine.ec.europa.eu/index_en (accessed 20 February 2024).[8] Kanishka Singh, "US Says It Does Not Support Ukrainian Strikes inside Russia", in Reuters, 23 August 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/us-says-it-does-not-support-ukrainian-strikes-inside-russia-2023-08-23.[9] Karen DeYoung, "North Korea Provided Russia with Weapons, White House Says", in The Washington Post, 13 October 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/10/13/north-korea-... "Iran Agrees to Ship Missiles, More Drones to Russia", in Reuters, 19 October 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/exclusive-iran-agrees-ship-missiles-more-drones-russia-defying-west-sources-2022-10-18.[10] Michelangelo Freyrie, "The Industrial Dimension", in Alessandro Marrone (ed.), Russia-Ukraine War's Strategic Implications, cit., p. 65-75.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, referred to as the Caribbean Crisis in the Soviet Union (Карибский Кризис) and the October Crisis in Cuba, is one of the most famous events of the Cold War. A large number of primary source documents are available for study. The U.S. government has released internal material and much of the official communications between the parties, and the Soviet Union has also released a significant number of documents (mostly during Gorbachev's "Glasnost" ("гласность") program in the 1980's). However, much of the historical analysis that has emerged from this material focuses on: the amount of "blame" that should be assigned to each side, technical discussions regarding the level of risk that there could have been a nuclear war, who "won" and who "lost," and the extent to which President Kennedy's actions may have been mythologized after his assassination. While these themes are important, the event also represents a clear example of the major powers in the Cold War using smaller countries to bear the biggest risks of their global strategies. This paper argues that messages that were sent between the Soviet and Cuban governments at the time show that the Soviets engaged with the Cuban leaders only to the extent that they could control their actions, and that they excluded them from critical decisions. The paper also demonstrates that messages sent between the key Soviet figures in the crisis, later interviews, memoirs and biographies provide insight into the Soviet leadership's justifications for their colonial practices.The United States and the Soviet Union had come to a situation where one believed the other might actually launch a pre-emptive strike if it could gain an advantage. The U.S. and Soviet Union were engaged in constant conflicts throughout the 1940's and 1950's. 1960 was an election year in the United States, so its hostile actions against Cuba escalated throughout the year, with plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and a trade embargo. Late in the year, Cuba and the Soviet Union issued a statement of solidarity and the Soviets began to supply conventional weapons to Cuba. However, there was no move to put Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1961. Khrushchev's reason for this was a belief that the U.S. would invade Cuba immediately if he took such an action. The plan to deploy the missiles could have been publicly announced, as it was legal under international law. The decision to deploy the weapons secretly is more evidence that the Soviets thought it was likely that news of such a plan would trigger an invasion. Castro and his inner circle were agreeable. In an interview he gave to PBS in 1985, Fidel Castro claimed that the Cubans' acceptance of the Soviets' missile plan was based on their belief that American invasion was likely unavoidable. However, he also claimed that he was motivated by a desire to help the Soviet Union achieve balance with the U.S. in the global nuclear competition. This agreement did not guarantee Castro equal partnership with the Soviets. The final deal involved stationing the missiles in Cuba, under full Soviet control. The mistrust between the allies began at this early stage. During a meeting to finalize their agreement, Che Guevara had suggested that the plan be made public and Khrushchev had refused. He even refused to sign his name to the treaty, to preserve the option to deny everything if the Cubans proceeded with a unilateral announcement.Soviet ships with nuclear missiles began to arrive in Cuba. A U.S. plane captured proof of the nuclear missiles in Cuba on October 14 th , and Kennedy announced the crisis to the public on October 22 nd . Tensions rose rapidly, so that four days later Castro wrote a letter to Khrushchev, assuring him that Cuban people will confront the aggressor "heroically". On the same day, Khrushchev sent a secret message to Kennedy offering a resolution to the crisis. By October 27 th the Soviet Union had finalized an agreement with the U.S. for the withdrawal of its missiles from Cuba, including an agreement to allow on-site inspections in Cuba. Most importantly, Castro first became aware of this agreement from the public announcements that were made by Khrushchev and Kennedy on October 28 th . Khrushchev also sent a letter to Castro on the 28 th , and its tone makes it clear that he considered Castro's position to be that of a "little brother" whose emotions and feelings should be soothed, but one who should not expect a decision-making role. Khrushchev's letter goes on to warn Castro against any action that might lead to a reanimation of the crisis. Referring to the shooting down of a U.S. U2 spy plane on the 27 th , Khrushchev states that this episode was the result of "senseless" provocation by militarists in the Pentagon who still hoped for an excuse to invade. In addition to the firm "advice" that Castro should allow U.S. military planes to violate his airspace, it is possible to infer a threat in the letter's subtext. Khrushchev implied that the Soviet Union would not risk a global nuclear war to defend Cuba from invasion if it had the excuse that the invasion had been sparked by unstable elements in the U.S. or in Cuba. The warning in Khrushchev's letter concerning shooting down the U.S. spy plane may have been particularly offensive to Castro. Although, Cuban anti-aircraft personnel had been instructed to fire on American planes to protect the Soviet missile sites, the weapon that had hit the U2 plane was a Soviet-controlled surface-to-air missile. In Castro's response letter to Khrushchev he expresses his rationale. He also refers to the public statement he had issued earlier in that day, in which he had criticized the U.S. promise not to invade Cuba as inadequate. Castro signs off with a notice that he is opposed to inspections. Further messages from October 30 th and 31 st are remarkable because the first captures Khrushchev's early attempts to frame the entire crisis for history and for his communist audiences, and the second presents Castro's view that the entire enterprise had been futile if the Soviet Union was unwilling to stand its ground. Khrushchev's letter is full of paternalism, he writes that he understands the bitterness that "some" Cubans might feel. Khrushchev refers to a conflict between superpowers in "the Caribbean zone," this emphasizes that Cuba's interests were subordinate to the Soviet Union's regional strategy. Castro rebuts several of Khrushchev's excuses by arguing that backing down was not the appropriate reaction to the possibility of an imminent U.S. attack, by clarifying that he was not consulted at all about the decision to withdraw the missiles, and by stating that many (not "some") Cubans were feeling "unspeakable bitterness and sadness" about the sudden Soviet decision. Castro demonstrated that he understood that the only strategic value of putting missiles in Cuba was as a deterrent against a strike against the U.S.S.R. A message from the Soviet Foreign minister Gromyko to Mikoyan on November 1 st detailed how the Cubans should be pressured to soften their "no inspections" position despite the loss of face this would cause them.Even while the Soviet-Cuban negotiations on the inspections were proceeding, the Soviet leaders were keeping new secrets from their allies. Later decision to remove weapons were made before discussing the issue with the Cubans. The frustrations that this created were evident during Mikoyan's conversation with Castro and the rest of the Cuban leadership on November 22 nd. Castro repeated his argument that the Soviets should have kept the strategic missiles in Cuba. The Mikoyan-Castro dialogue serves as evidence of the highly skewed nature of Soviet-Cuban relations and the Soviets' sense that they did not need justification for their colonial practices. Castro had to listen to public statements by Kennedy to acquire up-to-date information about the weapons that remained in his country. After confirming that the tactical missiles were still in Cuba, that they were not technically part of the Soviet's agreement with the U.S. and that the U.S. was not aware of them Mikoyan delivered the news that the Soviets had decided to remove these as well. He explained that there was a law that prevented the transfer control of any nuclear weapons to another country (this was a lie), and that the Soviets intended to withdraw all of their troops from Cuba once the Cuban military had been trained to use the conventional weapons they were leaving behind.Returning to the question of Soviet justifications, the ambassador's interpretation of the situation gives insight into the Soviet colonial discourse. The Cubans were portrayed as wild children, but well- meaning and smart, and the Soviets were portrayed as patient parents. Ambassador Beck reports that Mikoyan had characterized the Cuban leaders as young, honest people who were true to the revolution and who were deserving of respect, trust, and appreciation. However, a large part of the Ambassador's message is dedicated to a description of the Cubans' unorthodox path to Marxism, and criticism of the slow pace of development of the Cuban Communist party apparatus and the Cubans' belief that their revolution was one of "three great revolutions" (China's for Asia, the Soviets' for Europe, and Cuba for Latin America).In conclusion, for fifty-eight years since the Cuban missile crisis, the world did not experience nuclear wars. This outcome has allowed a self-congratulatory narrative to grow regarding the courageous and pragmatic actions of both the U.S. and Soviet leaders. The implication of this narrative is that only the highly tested, and "serious" leaders of superpowers, can be trusted to be stewards of nuclear weapons. In contrast, this way of thinking concludes that the leaders of smaller countries (who have less to lose – in total, but not in proportion) are more likely to choose "honorable destruction" as long as they might inflict asymmetrical damage on their enemies. The dialogues between the protagonists of the Cuban missile crisis demonstrate that there were two big truths. The first truth is that the Cubans could not be trusted with nuclear weapons, and that efforts to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons have been important. The second truth is that the leaders of the superpowers were just lucky. Like the great powers before WWI, The U.S. and Soviet leadership in the Cold War believed that global domination was their right. This imperialistic attitude was disguised as a defense of God-given human freedom (by the U.S.) or as the result of an inevitable process of social evolution (by the Soviet Union). The U.S. put nuclear missiles in Turkey to protect democracy, and the Soviets said that they put nuclear missiles in Cuba to: a) counter the U.S. missiles in Turkey; b) protect Cuba; c) advance the global socialist project; or d) "put a hedgehog in the Americans' pants". ; Кубинська ракетна криза, яку називають Карибською кризою в Радянському Союзі (Карибский кризис) та Жовтневою кризою на Кубі, – одна з найвідоміших подій холодної війни. Велика кількість первинних джерел доступна для вивчення цієї події. Уряд США оприлюднив внутрішні матеріали та значну частину офіційних перемов між сторонами, Радянський Союз також відкрив доступ до значної кількості документів (переважно під час програми М. Горбачова «Гласність» («гласность») у 1980-х рр.). Однак значна частина історичного аналізу, що постає із цього матеріалу, зосереджується на кількості «провини», яку має нести кожна сторона конфлікту, на технічних дискусіях щодо ризиків ядерної війни, на намаганнях з'ясувати, хто «переміг», а хто «втратив», і на тому, наскільки дії президента Дж. Кеннеді були міфологізовані після його вбивства. Незважаючи на важливість усіх цих тем, подія також є наочним прикладом того, як основні держави холодної війни перекладали найбільші ризики своїх глобальних стратегій на менш потужні країни. У статті наводяться уривки з листування між радянським та кубинським урядами під час кризи. Ці листи свідчать про те, що лідери Радянського Союзу контактували з кубинськими лідерами лише тією мірою, якою вони могли контролювати дії кубинців, не залучаючи тих до прийняття важливих рішень. Стаття також демонструє, що повідомлення, надіслані ключовими радянськими діячами періоду кризи, а також пізніші інтерв'ю, спогади й біографії показують, як радянське керівництво виправдовувало свою колоніальну практику.Сполучені Штати Америки та Радянський Союз потрапили в таку ситуацію, коли одна сторона вважала, що інша зможе насправді завдати ядерного удару, якщо це дасть цій стороні військову перевагу. Обидві держави постійно конфліктували впродовж 1940-х та 1950-х рр. 1960 р. був роком президентських виборів у США, на їх тлі відбувалася ескалація конфлікту з Кубою протягом усього року, у тому числі плани щодо вбивства Фіделя Кастро та встановлення торговельного ембарго. Наприкінці того ж року Куба та Радянський Союз виступили із заявою про солідарність, СРСР почав поставляти на Кубу конвенційну зброю. Важливо, що в 1961 р. не було жодних намагань встановити на Кубі радянські ядерні ракети. М. Хрущов вважав, що в такому разі США негайно вторгнуться на Кубу. Про плани на розміщення ракет можна було публічно оголосити, оскільки міжнародне право не забороняло таке розміщення. Рішення розгортати зброю таємно, скоріш за все, є свідченням того, що радянська влада вважала ймовірним провокування вторгнення. Ф. Кастро та його оточення погоджувалися. В інтерв'ю каналу PBS в 1985 р. Фідель Кастро пояснював, що прийняття кубинцями радянського ракетного плану базувалося на тому переконанні, що американське вторгнення неминуче. Однак він також стверджував, що його мотивувало бажання допомогти Радянському Союзу досягти паритету із США у світовій ядерній гонці. Ця угода не гарантувала Ф. Кастро рівноправне партнерство з радянськими лідерами. Заключна угода передбачала розміщення ракет на Кубі під повним радянським контролем. Недовіра між союзниками почалася на цій ранній стадії. Під час зустрічі щодо доопрацювання домовленостей Че Гевара запропонував оприлюднити план, однак М. Хрущов відмовився. Він навіть відмовився вказувати своє ім'я в договорі, щоб зберегти можливість відступу, якщо кубинці вдадуться до одностороннього розголошення.На Кубу почали прибувати радянські кораблі з ядерними ракетами. Американський літак отримав докази пересування ядерних ракет на Кубі 14 жовтня, а Дж. Кеннеді оголосив про кризу публічно 22 жовтня. Напруга швидко зростала до того рівня, що через чотири дні Ф. Кастро написав листа до М. Хрущова, запевнивши його, що кубинський народ буде протистояти агресору «героїчно». Того ж дня М. Хрущов відправив таємне повідомлення до Дж. Кеннеді, пропонуючи залагодити ситуацію. До 27 жовтня Радянський Союз уже уклав угоду із США про виведення своїх ракет із Куби та дав згоду на допуск на Кубу інспекцій на місцях. Найголовніше при цьому те, що сам Ф. Кастро вперше дізнався про цю угоду з публічних оголошень, які зробили М. Хрущов та Дж. Кеннеді 28 жовтня. Того ж дня М. Хрущов надіслав листа до Ф. Кастро. З огляду на тон листа зрозуміло, що він вважав позицію Ф. Кастро позицією «маленького брата», емоції й почуття якого потрібно враховувати, однак брати участь у рішеннях він не може. У листі М. Хрущов застерігає Ф. Кастро проти будь-яких дій, які можуть призвести до реанімації кризи. Посилаючись на збиття американського шпигунського літака U2 27 жовтня, М. Хрущов заявляє, що цей епізод став результатом «безглуздих» провокацій мілітаристів у Пентагоні, які все ще сподівалися на привід для вторгнення. Окрім твердої «поради» Ф. Кастро дозволити американським військовим літакам порушувати його повітряний простір, у підтексті листа можна побачити загрозу. М. Хрущов, можливо, мав на увазі те, що Радянський Союз не ризикуватиме глобальною ядерною війною, щоб захистити Кубу від вторгнення, особливо якщо в М. Хрущова буде виправдання, що вторгнення викликали нестабільні елементи в США або на Кубі. Попередження в листі М. Хрущова щодо збиття американського шпигунського літака, можливо, було особливо образливим для Ф. Кастро. Хоча кубинським повітряним силам доручили вести вогонь по американським літакам, щоб захистити радянські ракетні об'єкти, зброя, яка влучила в літак U2, була радянською ракетою системи «земля-повітря». У відповіді до М. Хрущова Ф. Кастро пропонує своє обґрунтування. Він також посилається на публічну заяву, опубліковану напередодні, у якій вважає обіцянку США не вторгатися на Кубу неадекватною. Ф. Кастро завершує повідомлення твердженням, що він проти інспекцій. Подальші повідомлення від 30 та 31 жовтня визначаються тим, що вони, по-перше, демонструють ранні спроби М. Хрущова сформулювати кризу для історії та для своєї комуністичної аудиторії, а по-друге, висвітлюють думку Ф. Кастро, який вважав, що вся операція була марною, якщо Радянський Союз буде поступатися американцям. Лист М. Хрущова сповнений патерналізму, він пише, що розуміє ту гіркоту, яку відчувають «деякі» кубинці. М. Хрущов посилається на конфлікт між наддержавами в «Карибській зоні», це формулювання підкреслює той факт, що інтереси Куби були підпорядковані регіональній стратегії Радянського Союзу. Ф. Кастро спростовує декілька виправдань від М. Хрущова, стверджуючи, що відступ не є відповідною реакцією на реальну можливість нападу США. Ф. Кастро уточнює, що з ним взагалі не консультувалися щодо рішення про виведення ракет, що більшість кубинців (а не «деякі») відчули «невимовну гіркоту й смуток» із приводу раптового радянського рішення. Ф. Кастро продемонстрував розуміння того, що єдиною стратегічною цінністю в розміщенні ракет на Кубі було стримування США проти удару по СРСР. Повідомлення радянського міністра закордонних справ А. Громико до А. Мікояна 1 листопада детально пояснювало, як на кубинців необхідно чинити тиск, щоб пом'якшити їх позицію «ні інспекціям», незважаючи на вірогідність втрати кубинською владою обличчя.Навіть під час переговорів із кубинцями про інспекції радянські лідери зберігали нові таємниці від своїх союзників. Пізніше рішення про відвід зброї було прийняте ще до обговорення цього питання з кубинцями. Розчарування, яке це викликало, було очевидним під час розмови А. Мікояна з Ф. Кастро та рештою кубинського керівництва 22 листопада. Ф. Кастро повторив свій аргумент про те, що СРСР мав зберігати стратегічні ракети на Кубі. Діалог А. Мікояна з Ф. Кастро свідчить про сильно викривлений характер радянсько-кубинських відносин. Розмова демонструє позицію радянської сторони, яка не вважала за потрібне виправдовувати свою колоніальну практику. Ф. Кастро доводилося слухати публічні заяви Дж. Кеннеді, щоб отримати актуальну інформацію про зброю, яка залишилася в його країні. Підтвердивши, що тактичні ракети все ще перебувають на Кубі, що вони не є частиною Радянсько- Американської угоди, що США не знали про них, А. Мікоян повідомив, що СРСР також вирішили їх забрати. Він пояснив, що є закон, який перешкоджає переданню іншій країні контролю над будь-якою ядерною зброєю (це була брехня), і що СРСР мав намір вивести всі свої війська з Куби після того, як кубинські військові навчаться використовувати конвенційну зброю, яку СРСР залишав після себе.Якщо повернутися до питання про радянські виправдання, то інтерпретація кризи послом Угорщини на Кубі Я. Беком дає розуміння радянського колоніального дискурсу. Кубинці сприймалися як дикі, проте доброзичливі й кмітливі діти, а радянські лідери зображувалися як терплячі батьки. Посол Я. Бек повідомляє, що А. Мікоян характеризував кубинських лідерів як молодих, чесних людей, вірних революції, які заслуговують на повагу, довіру та вдячність. Однак значна частина повідомлення посла присвячена опису неортодоксального шляху кубинців до марксизму, критиці повільних темпів розвитку партійного апарату Куби та переконань кубинців у тому, що їхня революція була однією з «трьох» великих революцій (китайська для Азії, радянська для Європи та кубинська для Латинської Америки).Наостанок варто зазначити, що 58 років після Кубинської кризи світ не зазнавав ядерних воєн. Цей результат привів до розквіту наративу самозахоплення в розповідях про сміливі й прагматичні дії як американських, так і радянських лідерів. Наслідком цього самозахоплення є віра в те, що володіння ядерною зброєю можна довіряти лише висококваліфікованим і «серйозним» лідерам наддержав. Таке мислення призводить до висновку, що лідери менших країн, яким втрачати менше (кількісно, проте не пропорційно), мають більше шансів обрати «почесне знищення», якщо вони зможуть завдати ворогам асиметричного збитку. Діалоги між основними персонами кубинської ракетної кризи демонструють, що існували дві великі правди. Перша правда полягає в тому, що кубинцям не можна було довіряти ядерну зброю і що зусилля щодо обмеження поширення ядерної зброї були дуже важливими. Друга правда полягає в тому, що лідерам наддержав просто пощастило. Як і великі держави до Першої світової війни, США та радянське керівництво періоду холодної війні вважали глобальне панування своїм правом. Це імперіалістичне ставлення маскувалося як захист даної богом людської свободи (у США) або як результат неминучого процесу соціальної еволюції (у Радянському Союзі). США встановили ядерні ракети в Туреччині для захисту демократії, а СРСР пояснювали розміщення ядерних ракет на Кубі такими причинами: а) протидією американським ракетам у Туреччині; б) захистом Куби; в) просуванням глобального соціалістичного проєкту; г) «підсунути їжака в штани американцям».

The Cuban Missile Crisis, referred to as the Caribbean Crisis in the Soviet Union (Карибский Кризис) and the October Crisis in Cuba, is one of the most famous events of the Cold War. A large number of primary source documents are available for study. The U.S. government has released internal material and much of the official communications between the parties, and the Soviet Union has also released a significant number of documents (mostly during Gorbachev's "Glasnost" ("гласность") program in the 1980's). However, much of the historical analysis that has emerged from this material focuses on: the amount of "blame" that should be assigned to each side, technical discussions regarding the level of risk that there could have been a nuclear war, who "won" and who "lost," and the extent to which President Kennedy's actions may have been mythologized after his assassination. While these themes are important, the event also represents a clear example of the major powers in the Cold War using smaller countries to bear the biggest risks of their global strategies. This paper argues that messages that were sent between the Soviet and Cuban governments at the time show that the Soviets engaged with the Cuban leaders only to the extent that they could control their actions, and that they excluded them from critical decisions. The paper also demonstrates that messages sent between the key Soviet figures in the crisis, later interviews, memoirs and biographies provide insight into the Soviet leadership's justifications for their colonial practices.The United States and the Soviet Union had come to a situation where one believed the other might actually launch a pre-emptive strike if it could gain an advantage. The U.S. and Soviet Union were engaged in constant conflicts throughout the 1940's and 1950's. 1960 was an election year in the United States, so its hostile actions against Cuba escalated throughout the year, with plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and a trade embargo. Late in the year, Cuba and the Soviet Union issued a statement of solidarity and the Soviets began to supply conventional weapons to Cuba. However, there was no move to put Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1961. Khrushchev's reason for this was a belief that the U.S. would invade Cuba immediately if he took such an action. The plan to deploy the missiles could have been publicly announced, as it was legal under international law. The decision to deploy the weapons secretly is more evidence that the Soviets thought it was likely that news of such a plan would trigger an invasion. Castro and his inner circle were agreeable. In an interview he gave to PBS in 1985, Fidel Castro claimed that the Cubans' acceptance of the Soviets' missile plan was based on their belief that American invasion was likely unavoidable. However, he also claimed that he was motivated by a desire to help the Soviet Union achieve balance with the U.S. in the global nuclear competition. This agreement did not guarantee Castro equal partnership with the Soviets. The final deal involved stationing the missiles in Cuba, under full Soviet control. The mistrust between the allies began at this early stage. During a meeting to finalize their agreement, Che Guevara had suggested that the plan be made public and Khrushchev had refused. He even refused to sign his name to the treaty, to preserve the option to deny everything if the Cubans proceeded with a unilateral announcement.Soviet ships with nuclear missiles began to arrive in Cuba. A U.S. plane captured proof of the nuclear missiles in Cuba on October 14 th , and Kennedy announced the crisis to the public on October 22 nd . Tensions rose rapidly, so that four days later Castro wrote a letter to Khrushchev, assuring him that Cuban people will confront the aggressor "heroically". On the same day, Khrushchev sent a secret message to Kennedy offering a resolution to the crisis. By October 27 th the Soviet Union had finalized an agreement with the U.S. for the withdrawal of its missiles from Cuba, including an agreement to allow on-site inspections in Cuba. Most importantly, Castro first became aware of this agreement from the public announcements that were made by Khrushchev and Kennedy on October 28 th . Khrushchev also sent a letter to Castro on the 28 th , and its tone makes it clear that he considered Castro's position to be that of a "little brother" whose emotions and feelings should be soothed, but one who should not expect a decision-making role. Khrushchev's letter goes on to warn Castro against any action that might lead to a reanimation of the crisis. Referring to the shooting down of a U.S. U2 spy plane on the 27 th , Khrushchev states that this episode was the result of "senseless" provocation by militarists in the Pentagon who still hoped for an excuse to invade. In addition to the firm "advice" that Castro should allow U.S. military planes to violate his airspace, it is possible to infer a threat in the letter's subtext. Khrushchev implied that the Soviet Union would not risk a global nuclear war to defend Cuba from invasion if it had the excuse that the invasion had been sparked by unstable elements in the U.S. or in Cuba. The warning in Khrushchev's letter concerning shooting down the U.S. spy plane may have been particularly offensive to Castro. Although, Cuban anti-aircraft personnel had been instructed to fire on American planes to protect the Soviet missile sites, the weapon that had hit the U2 plane was a Soviet-controlled surface-to-air missile. In Castro's response letter to Khrushchev he expresses his rationale. He also refers to the public statement he had issued earlier in that day, in which he had criticized the U.S. promise not to invade Cuba as inadequate. Castro signs off with a notice that he is opposed to inspections. Further messages from October 30 th and 31 st are remarkable because the first captures Khrushchev's early attempts to frame the entire crisis for history and for his communist audiences, and the second presents Castro's view that the entire enterprise had been futile if the Soviet Union was unwilling to stand its ground. Khrushchev's letter is full of paternalism, he writes that he understands the bitterness that "some" Cubans might feel. Khrushchev refers to a conflict between superpowers in "the Caribbean zone," this emphasizes that Cuba's interests were subordinate to the Soviet Union's regional strategy. Castro rebuts several of Khrushchev's excuses by arguing that backing down was not the appropriate reaction to the possibility of an imminent U.S. attack, by clarifying that he was not consulted at all about the decision to withdraw the missiles, and by stating that many (not "some") Cubans were feeling "unspeakable bitterness and sadness" about the sudden Soviet decision. Castro demonstrated that he understood that the only strategic value of putting missiles in Cuba was as a deterrent against a strike against the U.S.S.R. A message from the Soviet Foreign minister Gromyko to Mikoyan on November 1 st detailed how the Cubans should be pressured to soften their "no inspections" position despite the loss of face this would cause them.Even while the Soviet-Cuban negotiations on the inspections were proceeding, the Soviet leaders were keeping new secrets from their allies. Later decision to remove weapons were made before discussing the issue with the Cubans. The frustrations that this created were evident during Mikoyan's conversation with Castro and the rest of the Cuban leadership on November 22 nd. Castro repeated his argument that the Soviets should have kept the strategic missiles in Cuba. The Mikoyan-Castro dialogue serves as evidence of the highly skewed nature of Soviet-Cuban relations and the Soviets' sense that they did not need justification for their colonial practices. Castro had to listen to public statements by Kennedy to acquire up-to-date information about the weapons that remained in his country. After confirming that the tactical missiles were still in Cuba, that they were not technically part of the Soviet's agreement with the U.S. and that the U.S. was not aware of them Mikoyan delivered the news that the Soviets had decided to remove these as well. He explained that there was a law that prevented the transfer control of any nuclear weapons to another country (this was a lie), and that the Soviets intended to withdraw all of their troops from Cuba once the Cuban military had been trained to use the conventional weapons they were leaving behind.Returning to the question of Soviet justifications, the ambassador's interpretation of the situation gives insight into the Soviet colonial discourse. The Cubans were portrayed as wild children, but well- meaning and smart, and the Soviets were portrayed as patient parents. Ambassador Beck reports that Mikoyan had characterized the Cuban leaders as young, honest people who were true to the revolution and who were deserving of respect, trust, and appreciation. However, a large part of the Ambassador's message is dedicated to a description of the Cubans' unorthodox path to Marxism, and criticism of the slow pace of development of the Cuban Communist party apparatus and the Cubans' belief that their revolution was one of "three great revolutions" (China's for Asia, the Soviets' for Europe, and Cuba for Latin America).In conclusion, for fifty-eight years since the Cuban missile crisis, the world did not experience nuclear wars. This outcome has allowed a self-congratulatory narrative to grow regarding the courageous and pragmatic actions of both the U.S. and Soviet leaders. The implication of this narrative is that only the highly tested, and "serious" leaders of superpowers, can be trusted to be stewards of nuclear weapons. In contrast, this way of thinking concludes that the leaders of smaller countries (who have less to lose – in total, but not in proportion) are more likely to choose "honorable destruction" as long as they might inflict asymmetrical damage on their enemies. The dialogues between the protagonists of the Cuban missile crisis demonstrate that there were two big truths. The first truth is that the Cubans could not be trusted with nuclear weapons, and that efforts to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons have been important. The second truth is that the leaders of the superpowers were just lucky. Like the great powers before WWI, The U.S. and Soviet leadership in the Cold War believed that global domination was their right. This imperialistic attitude was disguised as a defense of God-given human freedom (by the U.S.) or as the result of an inevitable process of social evolution (by the Soviet Union). The U.S. put nuclear missiles in Turkey to protect democracy, and the Soviets said that they put nuclear missiles in Cuba to: a) counter the U.S. missiles in Turkey; b) protect Cuba; c) advance the global socialist project; or d) "put a hedgehog in the Americans' pants". ; Кубинська ракетна криза, яку називають Карибською кризою в Радянському Союзі (Карибский кризис) та Жовтневою кризою на Кубі, – одна з найвідоміших подій холодної війни. Велика кількість первинних джерел доступна для вивчення цієї події. Уряд США оприлюднив внутрішні матеріали та значну частину офіційних перемов між сторонами, Радянський Союз також відкрив доступ до значної кількості документів (переважно під час програми М. Горбачова «Гласність» («гласность») у 1980-х рр.). Однак значна частина історичного аналізу, що постає із цього матеріалу, зосереджується на кількості «провини», яку має нести кожна сторона конфлікту, на технічних дискусіях щодо ризиків ядерної війни, на намаганнях з'ясувати, хто «переміг», а хто «втратив», і на тому, наскільки дії президента Дж. Кеннеді були міфологізовані після його вбивства. Незважаючи на важливість усіх цих тем, подія також є наочним прикладом того, як основні держави холодної війни перекладали найбільші ризики своїх глобальних стратегій на менш потужні країни. У статті наводяться уривки з листування між радянським та кубинським урядами під час кризи. Ці листи свідчать про те, що лідери Радянського Союзу контактували з кубинськими лідерами лише тією мірою, якою вони могли контролювати дії кубинців, не залучаючи тих до прийняття важливих рішень. Стаття також демонструє, що повідомлення, надіслані ключовими радянськими діячами періоду кризи, а також пізніші інтерв'ю, спогади й біографії показують, як радянське керівництво виправдовувало свою колоніальну практику.Сполучені Штати Америки та Радянський Союз потрапили в таку ситуацію, коли одна сторона вважала, що інша зможе насправді завдати ядерного удару, якщо це дасть цій стороні військову перевагу. Обидві держави постійно конфліктували впродовж 1940-х та 1950-х рр. 1960 р. був роком президентських виборів у США, на їх тлі відбувалася ескалація конфлікту з Кубою протягом усього року, у тому числі плани щодо вбивства Фіделя Кастро та встановлення торговельного ембарго. Наприкінці того ж року Куба та Радянський Союз виступили із заявою про солідарність, СРСР почав поставляти на Кубу конвенційну зброю. Важливо, що в 1961 р. не було жодних намагань встановити на Кубі радянські ядерні ракети. М. Хрущов вважав, що в такому разі США негайно вторгнуться на Кубу. Про плани на розміщення ракет можна було публічно оголосити, оскільки міжнародне право не забороняло таке розміщення. Рішення розгортати зброю таємно, скоріш за все, є свідченням того, що радянська влада вважала ймовірним провокування вторгнення. Ф. Кастро та його оточення погоджувалися. В інтерв'ю каналу PBS в 1985 р. Фідель Кастро пояснював, що прийняття кубинцями радянського ракетного плану базувалося на тому переконанні, що американське вторгнення неминуче. Однак він також стверджував, що його мотивувало бажання допомогти Радянському Союзу досягти паритету із США у світовій ядерній гонці. Ця угода не гарантувала Ф. Кастро рівноправне партнерство з радянськими лідерами. Заключна угода передбачала розміщення ракет на Кубі під повним радянським контролем. Недовіра між союзниками почалася на цій ранній стадії. Під час зустрічі щодо доопрацювання домовленостей Че Гевара запропонував оприлюднити план, однак М. Хрущов відмовився. Він навіть відмовився вказувати своє ім'я в договорі, щоб зберегти можливість відступу, якщо кубинці вдадуться до одностороннього розголошення.На Кубу почали прибувати радянські кораблі з ядерними ракетами. Американський літак отримав докази пересування ядерних ракет на Кубі 14 жовтня, а Дж. Кеннеді оголосив про кризу публічно 22 жовтня. Напруга швидко зростала до того рівня, що через чотири дні Ф. Кастро написав листа до М. Хрущова, запевнивши його, що кубинський народ буде протистояти агресору «героїчно». Того ж дня М. Хрущов відправив таємне повідомлення до Дж. Кеннеді, пропонуючи залагодити ситуацію. До 27 жовтня Радянський Союз уже уклав угоду із США про виведення своїх ракет із Куби та дав згоду на допуск на Кубу інспекцій на місцях. Найголовніше при цьому те, що сам Ф. Кастро вперше дізнався про цю угоду з публічних оголошень, які зробили М. Хрущов та Дж. Кеннеді 28 жовтня. Того ж дня М. Хрущов надіслав листа до Ф. Кастро. З огляду на тон листа зрозуміло, що він вважав позицію Ф. Кастро позицією «маленького брата», емоції й почуття якого потрібно враховувати, однак брати участь у рішеннях він не може. У листі М. Хрущов застерігає Ф. Кастро проти будь-яких дій, які можуть призвести до реанімації кризи. Посилаючись на збиття американського шпигунського літака U2 27 жовтня, М. Хрущов заявляє, що цей епізод став результатом «безглуздих» провокацій мілітаристів у Пентагоні, які все ще сподівалися на привід для вторгнення. Окрім твердої «поради» Ф. Кастро дозволити американським військовим літакам порушувати його повітряний простір, у підтексті листа можна побачити загрозу. М. Хрущов, можливо, мав на увазі те, що Радянський Союз не ризикуватиме глобальною ядерною війною, щоб захистити Кубу від вторгнення, особливо якщо в М. Хрущова буде виправдання, що вторгнення викликали нестабільні елементи в США або на Кубі. Попередження в листі М. Хрущова щодо збиття американського шпигунського літака, можливо, було особливо образливим для Ф. Кастро. Хоча кубинським повітряним силам доручили вести вогонь по американським літакам, щоб захистити радянські ракетні об'єкти, зброя, яка влучила в літак U2, була радянською ракетою системи «земля-повітря». У відповіді до М. Хрущова Ф. Кастро пропонує своє обґрунтування. Він також посилається на публічну заяву, опубліковану напередодні, у якій вважає обіцянку США не вторгатися на Кубу неадекватною. Ф. Кастро завершує повідомлення твердженням, що він проти інспекцій. Подальші повідомлення від 30 та 31 жовтня визначаються тим, що вони, по-перше, демонструють ранні спроби М. Хрущова сформулювати кризу для історії та для своєї комуністичної аудиторії, а по-друге, висвітлюють думку Ф. Кастро, який вважав, що вся операція була марною, якщо Радянський Союз буде поступатися американцям. Лист М. Хрущова сповнений патерналізму, він пише, що розуміє ту гіркоту, яку відчувають «деякі» кубинці. М. Хрущов посилається на конфлікт між наддержавами в «Карибській зоні», це формулювання підкреслює той факт, що інтереси Куби були підпорядковані регіональній стратегії Радянського Союзу. Ф. Кастро спростовує декілька виправдань від М. Хрущова, стверджуючи, що відступ не є відповідною реакцією на реальну можливість нападу США. Ф. Кастро уточнює, що з ним взагалі не консультувалися щодо рішення про виведення ракет, що більшість кубинців (а не «деякі») відчули «невимовну гіркоту й смуток» із приводу раптового радянського рішення. Ф. Кастро продемонстрував розуміння того, що єдиною стратегічною цінністю в розміщенні ракет на Кубі було стримування США проти удару по СРСР. Повідомлення радянського міністра закордонних справ А. Громико до А. Мікояна 1 листопада детально пояснювало, як на кубинців необхідно чинити тиск, щоб пом'якшити їх позицію «ні інспекціям», незважаючи на вірогідність втрати кубинською владою обличчя.Навіть під час переговорів із кубинцями про інспекції радянські лідери зберігали нові таємниці від своїх союзників. Пізніше рішення про відвід зброї було прийняте ще до обговорення цього питання з кубинцями. Розчарування, яке це викликало, було очевидним під час розмови А. Мікояна з Ф. Кастро та рештою кубинського керівництва 22 листопада. Ф. Кастро повторив свій аргумент про те, що СРСР мав зберігати стратегічні ракети на Кубі. Діалог А. Мікояна з Ф. Кастро свідчить про сильно викривлений характер радянсько-кубинських відносин. Розмова демонструє позицію радянської сторони, яка не вважала за потрібне виправдовувати свою колоніальну практику. Ф. Кастро доводилося слухати публічні заяви Дж. Кеннеді, щоб отримати актуальну інформацію про зброю, яка залишилася в його країні. Підтвердивши, що тактичні ракети все ще перебувають на Кубі, що вони не є частиною Радянсько- Американської угоди, що США не знали про них, А. Мікоян повідомив, що СРСР також вирішили їх забрати. Він пояснив, що є закон, який перешкоджає переданню іншій країні контролю над будь-якою ядерною зброєю (це була брехня), і що СРСР мав намір вивести всі свої війська з Куби після того, як кубинські військові навчаться використовувати конвенційну зброю, яку СРСР залишав після себе.Якщо повернутися до питання про радянські виправдання, то інтерпретація кризи послом Угорщини на Кубі Я. Беком дає розуміння радянського колоніального дискурсу. Кубинці сприймалися як дикі, проте доброзичливі й кмітливі діти, а радянські лідери зображувалися як терплячі батьки. Посол Я. Бек повідомляє, що А. Мікоян характеризував кубинських лідерів як молодих, чесних людей, вірних революції, які заслуговують на повагу, довіру та вдячність. Однак значна частина повідомлення посла присвячена опису неортодоксального шляху кубинців до марксизму, критиці повільних темпів розвитку партійного апарату Куби та переконань кубинців у тому, що їхня революція була однією з «трьох» великих революцій (китайська для Азії, радянська для Європи та кубинська для Латинської Америки).Наостанок варто зазначити, що 58 років після Кубинської кризи світ не зазнавав ядерних воєн. Цей результат привів до розквіту наративу самозахоплення в розповідях про сміливі й прагматичні дії як американських, так і радянських лідерів. Наслідком цього самозахоплення є віра в те, що володіння ядерною зброєю можна довіряти лише висококваліфікованим і «серйозним» лідерам наддержав. Таке мислення призводить до висновку, що лідери менших країн, яким втрачати менше (кількісно, проте не пропорційно), мають більше шансів обрати «почесне знищення», якщо вони зможуть завдати ворогам асиметричного збитку. Діалоги між основними персонами кубинської ракетної кризи демонструють, що існували дві великі правди. Перша правда полягає в тому, що кубинцям не можна було довіряти ядерну зброю і що зусилля щодо обмеження поширення ядерної зброї були дуже важливими. Друга правда полягає в тому, що лідерам наддержав просто пощастило. Як і великі держави до Першої світової війни, США та радянське керівництво періоду холодної війні вважали глобальне панування своїм правом. Це імперіалістичне ставлення маскувалося як захист даної богом людської свободи (у США) або як результат неминучого процесу соціальної еволюції (у Радянському Союзі). США встановили ядерні ракети в Туреччині для захисту демократії, а СРСР пояснювали розміщення ядерних ракет на Кубі такими причинами: а) протидією американським ракетам у Туреччині; б) захистом Куби; в) просуванням глобального соціалістичного проєкту; г) «підсунути їжака в штани американцям».

As Ukraine entered the third year of the full-scale war, the situation appeared to have reached a stalemate, despite heavy fighting at different points on the front lines. In mid-February, with Ukrainian supply routes targeted and the troops running short of ammunition, Ukrainian forces had to withdraw from Avdiivka, the scene of some of the most intense fighting in the past half year. However, the Ukrainian army did succeed in destroying much of the Russian Black Sea fleet and airplanes. Ukrainian security services launched successful attacks on Russian oil refineries deep inside Russia, and Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine continued to conduct military operations in the regions along the border with Ukraine. Russia ramped up its disinformation campaign in Ukraine and Europe, striving to sow doubt among Ukrainians and distrust in the Ukrainian government both domestically and internationally. In late March it renewed its massive attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, causing serious damage. It also intensified attacks on civilian residential buildings. Future military aid to Ukraine remained a major topic of discussion with Ukraine's international partners. Nonetheless, during the quarter Ukraine signed security cooperation agreements with G-7 members and other states, and the European states made concerted efforts to provide critically necessary artillery rounds to the Ukrainian army.1. ROLLOUT OF THE WARIn February 2024, Ukraine entered the third year of combating Russia's wide-scale invasion, marking ten years of war since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, later unleashing war in the Donbas. The war has changed the country and its economy drastically, though the changes that have occurred over the decade of war differ from those experienced in the two years of the full-scale war. General Developments during January–MarchIn the first quarter of 2024, heavy fighting continued, but without notable changes to the front line. Throughout the quarter the Russian Air Force (RuAF) continued its intense offensive in all directions, expanding on bombing campaigns it had started in October of last year. The Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) shifted to defensive actions to exhaust the Russian forces. However, the Ukrainian army had to withdraw from some positions because of a lack of weapons and intense pressure from the RuAF.Russia used phosphorus and chemical weapons during several hard-fought battles. The fiercest Russian attacks were directed at Avdiivka, Donetsk oblast, where the situation resembled the one in Bakhmut last year. In mid-February, lacking ammunition and seeing their supply routes being cutting off, the Ukrainian forces stepped back from their positions in Avdiivka. One month later, the UAF command reported that the situation in the country's East had stabilized. Ukraine stepped up efforts to fortify three major defensive lines.Sea and air operations advances. Though facing a deadlock in land operations, Ukraine realized significant advances in destroying Russia's Black Sea Fleet and shot down several Russian military planes over Ukraine. During the quarter, Ukrainian forces sank five Russian military ships, including three landing ships. As of the end of March, Russia had lost almost all landing ships in the Black Sea. More than a third of the Russian fleet has been disabled, including a submarine. Ukrainian-designed kamikaze sea drones have become the main weapons used in attacking the Russian fleet. To save its Black Sea Fleet, Russia started withdrawing its major vessels from ports in occupied Crimea.Ukraine also shot down Russian military jets that were bombing regions close to the front lines. To illustrate Ukraine's advances in this arena, during just two weeks in late February and early March, Ukrainian forces downed fourteen Russian military airplanes. In addition to Su-34 bombers (used to attack frontline settlements with guided aerial bombs) and modern Su-35 fighter jets, Russia lost two A-50 planes, which together cost about $700 million (they are outfitted with an airborne early warning and control system, designed to detect air defense systems and coordinate targets for Russian fighter jets). Russia had only a few of these planes before the invasion, so the loss of two represents a setback. The RuAF is probably ready to tolerate high losses to maintain the offensive.Russian refineries under attack. In the first quarter of the year, more than a dozen Russian oil refineries deep inside the country came under drone attack by Ukraine (some of the targets were located as far as 560 miles from the border with Ukraine) The Security Service of Ukraine formally admitted to the attacks, defending them on the grounds that refineries are legitimate targets because they provide resources to run the Russian war machine. (Russia's income from oil sales remains high despite international sanctions.) Ukraine also attacked Russian factories producing weapons. Analysts have described the strikes on Russian oil facilities as a new phase of the war. The attacks have affected Russia's refining capabilities. Although Russia has not provided official statistics, the country is believed to have lost about 10 percent of its refining capacity. Because Russia's domestic gas supplies are now diminished, Russia is considering importing gas from Belarus.Contributions of Russian volunteers to the war effort. Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine under the corps names Freedom of Russia, the Siberian Battalion, and the Russian Volunteer Corps started military operations on the border regions with Ukraine, in Belgorod and Kursk oblasts. Similar operations took place in May 2023, but now the scale of the military actions is bigger and their duration longer. The operations began before the elections in Russia and continued after them. The anti-Kremlin volunteer military units clashed with Russian servicemen and even claimed to have captured some Russian troops.Russia intensified its attacks on civilian targets and critical infrastructure, especially in the frontline regions, notably Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts. This may be an attempt to increase pressure on Ukraine while the delivery of military aid and supplies to Ukraine is slowed or suspended, especially the delivery of supplies from the United States. In addition to drones and missiles, Russia started using its new Zircon hypersonic missiles and 1,500-kg (3,300-pound) aerial bombs to target Ukrainian cities. The lack of ammunition, especially air defense missiles, may play a critical role in Ukraine's ability to protect the frontline areas and critical infrastructure across the country; a continuation of massive Russian attacks, in particular attacks using North Korean missiles and Iranian drones, could plunge Ukraine into a new stone age.Engagement of Russia's AlliesAt the beginning of the year, it became evident that North Korea was supplying Russia with missiles, including ballistic missiles. Kyiv said that as of mid-March, Russia had used about fifty of these against Ukraine. The DPRK-origin missiles were found to contain U.S. and European parts. The North Korean defense minister said the country might also supply tactical guided missiles to Russia. According to the official, the country's military factories are working at full capacity. Russia uses DPRK artillery shells. Since September 2023, North Korea has delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munitions-related materials to Russia. Russia started supplying oil to the DPRK in exchange for weapons.Russia is negotiating with Iran as well to receive ballistic missiles. Foreign media have reported that Iran delivered hundreds of these missiles, but Ukrainian intelligence denies this.Belarus earlier was a key supplier of ammunition to support Russia's war. Though its stocks are probably exhausted by now, it remains one of Russia's important allies. Belarus is now building a new military town twenty-five miles from the border with Ukraine that will house both Russian and Belarusian troops. The combined forces started joint training in the Belarusian facility in March. Though Russia relies heavily on ammunition supplies from its allies, the country is still capable of producing its own weapons. For instance, one of the Russian missiles that hit Kyiv in 2024 was made in the summer of 2023. Russia is also pouring money into developing its own drone systems, with the combat drone Okhotnik-B expected to go into production in Novosibirsk later this year.Russian Disinformation Campaigns and CyberattacksRussia continued its disinformation campaign in Ukraine, hoping to undermine trust in the government and sow suspicions abroad. The clear goal is to weaken international support for Ukraine. These efforts are likely to ramp up in 2024 because many countries are holding elections, and policies regarding aid for Ukraine and the reception of Ukrainian refugees could shift drastically. Under normal conditions, Ukraine would also be holding elections. The curtain continues to be pulled back on Russia's disinformation efforts. The Washington Post published material on Russia's huge campaign to spread distrust of the government and societal despair in Ukraine, and the German Marshall Fund issued a report on Russia's use of Polish media to spread the Kremlin's lies about Ukraine. According to Security and Defense Secretary Oleksii Danilov, Russia has significantly stepped up its disinformation campaigns, issuing or spreading 166 million disinformation posts every week about Ukraine on social media in a global effort to manipulate thinking on Ukraine.According to Ukrainian intelligence sources, Russia is engaged in a massive disinformation campaign code-named Maidan-3 and designed to promote antiwar protests and destabilize the country, with the ultimate goal of removing President Zelensky from his leadership role. The campaign is expected be most active during March–May, and persons inside Ukraine are believed to be involved.Deep-fake videos play a prominent role in Russian propaganda. For instance, a deep-fake video of former president Petro Poroshenko allegedly making incendiary statements about President Zelensky was targeted to Ukrainian soldiers. Videos allegedly showing Russians attacking Ukrainian military training camps or Ukrainian special forces shooting civilians are widely circulated; such misrepresentations are unfortunately becoming commonplace.Russia has also continued cyberattacks against Ukrainian media, authorities, and critically important companies, including one of the biggest banks, the biggest state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz, POW Coordination Headquarters, Ukraine's Education Ministry website, and so on. Hackers have been sending Ukrainian soldiers messages containing malware. In 2023, the number of cyberattacks against Ukrainian organizations increased by 15.9 percent compared to 2022, reaching an overall number of 2,543 documented cases.Even though ISIS took responsibility for the terrorist shooting in Moscow's Crocus concert hall in March, and Western intelligence said it has proof that Ukraine did not organize it, Russian top officials, including Vladimir Putin, tried to link it to Kyiv, while constantly changing the narrative. The media reported that some in Putin's circle do not see any link to Ukraine. It's possible the Kremlin will try to capitalize on the attack to mobilize Russian society against Ukraine. The head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) blamed the United States, the UK, and Ukraine as instigators and enablers of the attack.Energy Terrorism and Other Attacks on Critical InfrastructureFrom mid-September 2023 to the end of the year, Russia did not succeed in damaging Ukraine's energy infrastructure, though not for lack of trying. The number of drones Russia launched during October–December 2023 broke records since the invasion. Most were brought down by Ukrainian air defense units before they could inflict damage, so we do not know their intended targets.This picture changed with the new year. Starting in early 2024, Russia focused on attacking energy infrastructure in the frontline regions, which are generally the easiest to reach. Despite the damage this caused, the power systems continued to operate in a relatively stable mode. On the night of March 22, Russia launched a massive attack on the Ukrainian power system, using drones and ballistic and cruise missiles. The largest such attack since the start of the full-scale invasion, it involved sixty Shahed drones and almost ninety missiles of various types. Power production and transmission facilities in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Dnipro were targeted. Russians hit the biggest Ukrainian hydropower plant, DniproHES, and the dam of its water reservoir on the Dnipro river in Zaporizhzhia oblast; two other big hydropower plants were damaged in the following days.The biggest private-owned Ukrainian energy company, DTEK, reported that 80 percent of its capacities had been damaged during the attacks by the end of March. In Kharkiv, all thermal power plants and substations were destroyed in the last week of March. The state-owned Centrenergo lost its biggest power plant in Kharkiv oblast. The major attack was followed by attacks in ensuing days. Crimes against Civilians and Attacks on Civilian InfrastructureIn the first quarter of the year, Ukraine faced more Russian drone and missile strikes on multi-block residential buildings, with many civilians injured and killed—in some cases dozens in a single attack. Occasionally multiple cities were attacked simultaneously. Big city targets included Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Sumy. In addition, civil infrastructure in the regions under Ukrainian control and well inside the front lines was regularly attacked, sustaining damage. Since March 11, Russia has been shelling the borders of Sumy oblast, mostly using guided aerial bombs, artillery, and Lancet attack drones.In general, from the start of the year, Ukraine has seen an increased number of civilians killed or wounded in air strikes. Fuel depots and fueling stations have been attacked, leading to civilian casualties and environmental damage. It is now commonplace for Russia to target a wide range of civil infrastructure with air strikes and artillery shelling.One of the numerous air attacks on Odesa happened during the visit of the prime minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. A missile exploded extremely close to the location of Mitsotakis and President Zelensky. Russia has continued committing crimes against civilians in the occupied territories: torturing civilians, forcing them to participate in Russian presidential elections, bugging residents, expropriating apartments, and resettling Russian transplants from deep inside the country in the occupied territories. POW ExchangesPOW exchanges, which had been suspended for a while, were renewed at the beginning of the year, with the largest number of Ukrainians returning home since the start of the wide-scale invasion. On January 24, a few days before the planned POW exchange, a cargo aircraft was shot down in Russia. Moscow blamed Ukraine for downing the plane, claiming it was carrying sixty-five prisoners to be exchanged. However, Russia did not provide any proof that the plane was in fact carrying POWs, and Kyiv said there were no Ukrainian POWs on the plane.Two more POW exchanges took place after the incident, in late January and again in February. 2. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRSPresident Zelensky's Diplomatic ToursIn the first quarter of 2024, President Zelensky undertook several diplomatic tours, hoping to consolidate support for Ukraine. This mission was especially critical in light of the slowing of aid from the United States, and the number of agreements Ukraine reached during this period is testament to the success of these efforts.In January, President Zelensky made a diplomatic trip to the Baltic states, Lithuania,Estonia, and Latvia, which are among the strongest supporters of Ukraine. Zelensky met with the countries' leaders and political elites and expressed gratitude for their support during the ten years of war. They discussed Ukraine's European integration and future cooperation in electromagnetic warfare and military drone production. The three countries remain strong Ukraine's allies of Ukraine in 2024, providing military and humanitarian aid and political support. Ukraine and Latvia signed an agreement on technical and financial cooperation and a memorandum on cooperation on defense and security.President Zelensky left the Baltics for Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he addressed the forum's participants on the war in Ukraine and the need to invest in Ukraine's victory. In Davos, he also met with leaders of different states and the world's finance leaders, seeking to boost investment in Ukraine.In February, President Zelensky visited Germany to give a speech and attend the Munich Security Conference. He met his German and Czech counterparts and discussed joint efforts to produce weapons.Later, he visited Saudi Arabia to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and to discuss the Ukrainian Peace Formula and ways to repatriate captured and deported Ukrainians. He left Saudi Arabia for Albania to attend the second Ukraine-Balkans forum, where he also met with the leaders of some Balkan states to discuss European integration efforts. On March 8, he visited Turkey to meet with his counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Repatriating Ukrainian citizens held in captivity in Russia was among the key topics discussed at the meeting. The two countries signed an agreement to simplify bilateral trade and extended permit-free cargo truck movement at least until the end of the war. Security Cooperation AgreementsFrom early 2024, Ukraine began signing agreements on security cooperation with other states. The G-7 states intended to sign these during the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 12, 2023. Later, twenty-four more states expressed their intention to join this format. The UK was the first country to sign, on January 12, followed by Germany, France. Denmark, Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands. Many countries are in dialogue, negotiating the text of the agreements to be signed. Some agreements stipulate commitments and plans to provide military aid in upcoming years.In Ukraine, these are often called "agreements on security commitments." However, they are more like framework agreements on security and defense cooperation; they do not have the force of a contract and do not spell out specific guarantees or steps the signatories should take to ensure Ukraine's sovereignty. Many experts in Ukraine have criticized the agreements because they do not provide Ukraine with hard security guarantees.Relations with NATOIn January, the NATO-Ukraine Council held a meeting at Ukraine's request after Russia launched massive air strikes against Ukraine at the beginning of the year. The allies reaffirmed their commitment to bolster Ukraine's defenses further and to provide Ukraine with major military, economic, and humanitarian assistance. In March, a NATO military delegation visited Kyiv for the first time since the start of the full-scale invasion.Relations with the United States and CanadaPolitical differences in the U.S. Congress remained an obstacle to achieving consensus on the future of military aid to Ukraine. In March the United States announced the first $300 million security assistance package for Ukraine this year, as supplemental funding was blocked in Congress. Funds for the package came from unanticipated cost savings in existing Pentagon contracts. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Kyiv on the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine to demonstrate his solidarity. Canada joined the drones coalition for Ukraine and allocated $1.5 billion in aid to finance Ukraine's budget deficit.Relations with the EU and the European StatesIn February the EU approved €50 billion in financial support for Ukraine, to run through 2027. Later the EU approved $5.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine for 2024. The EU planned to supply Ukraine by the end of March with half of the one million artillery rounds it has promised to supply by the end of the year. Joint European Efforts to Arm UkraineArtillery rounds to be provided by the Czech Republic. In February, Czech president Petr Pavel said that the country had found a way to acquire 800,000 artillery rounds for Ukraine, but it needed funding. Earlier, the Czech Republic had proposed buying ammunition for Ukraine outside the EU. Almost twenty countries, some outside Europe, joined the initiative and contributed to the fund to buy artillery rounds: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and others. In March, Prague reported it was ready to deliver the first batches of ammunition and that it had found 700,000 shells of other types that could be bought with additional funds.Long-range missiles coalition. In late February, President of France Emmanuel Macron announced a coalition to send Ukraine long-range missiles. On March 15, following a "Weimar Triangle" format meeting in Berlin, the leaders of Germany, France, and Poland agreed on new initiatives in support of Ukraine, including more weapons purchases and a future formation of a coalition on long-range rocket artillery. The initiative includes purchasing more weapons for Ukraine on global markets and expanding military production.Drone coalition. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in February said that allies had established a drone coalition for Ukraine, committing to supplying one million drones. The UK and Latvia will lead an international coalition to develop vital drones for Ukraine.Cybersecurity support. In February, the IT Coalition for Ukraine signed an agreement to enhance Ukraine's defense capabilities in communications and cybersecurity—an important step in light of Russia's use of IT in conducting the war. The coalition was established in September 2023. It is led by Estonia and Luxembourg and includes Ukraine, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands.France was the key newsmaker regarding Ukraine and its defensive fighting against Russia. Except for the agreement on security guarantees between the two countries, President Macron was the first leader to observe publicly that troops might have to be sent to Ukraine if Russia continued its advances. The statement caused a heated discussion with the leaders of other states, but Macron insisted it was not an off-the-cuff remark but a well-considered, realistic view. He referred to Russia's war as an existential threat to France and Europe. French foreign minister Stephane Sejourne visited Kyiv in January, reassuring Ukraine of longlasting support. Later, France announced new military aid to Ukraine, including artillery and air defense systems, drones, guided bombs, and other important pieces. France is considering expanding military aid programs for Ukraine, and President Macron called on Europe to be ready to compensate for reduced U.S. support. The UK, Germany, and the Netherlands continued to be among the biggest European supporters in providing military aid and economic assistance.Relations with Hungary remained strained. The country blocked the EU's €50 billion aid initiative for a few months, and also blocked the EU's joint statement commemorating the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale war. Pressure from the European Parliament probably encouraged Hungary to change its position. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba met his Hungarian counterpart in January to discuss a potential visit by Zelensky to Budapest aimed at improving bilateral relations. Later, Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó explained that such a meeting between Viktor Orbán and Zelensky would be impossible until Kyiv restored the rights of the Hungarian ethnic minority as they had existed before 2015.The prime ministers of Ukraine and Slovakia met in Ukraine and signed a joint statement to strengthen bilateral relations "based on mutual trust and respect." The Slovak prime minister promised not to obstruct Ukraine's purchases of weapons from Slovak companies and said that Bratislava would support the EU providing €50 billion in financial aid to Ukraine.The border blockade by farmers was a key issue in bilateral relations with Poland and remained contentious throughout the quarter. At different times, farmers and truck drivers have thrown up blockades, affecting almost all of Ukraine's border crossings.Polish farmers are demanding restrictions on imports from Ukraine, in the belief that their market prices have fallen because of competition. Poland had earlier banned food imports from Ukraine, allowing transit only. Polish officials confirmed that Ukrainian grain was not imported but merely transiting the country to destinations beyond. Kyiv says that now only 5 percent of Ukrainian food exports go through Poland, with most grain exports to be shipped by sea. Farmers are also protesting the EU's climate change policies and blocking other border crossings, including some on the border with Germany. Polish haulers on strike demanded the restoration of permits for Ukrainian carriers, a ban on the issuance of licenses to non-EU transport companies, and a waiver for empty Polish trucks to register through the Ukrainian electronic queue when returning to Poland from Ukraine. However, the blockade by haulers was much shorter this quarter.The blockade lasted the entire quarter, though not with the same sustained intensity. The blockade may be politically inspired, especially if one considers that the country will hold local elections in April. Farmers even tried to block railway connections with Ukraine and passenger transportation. The European Commission expressed concern regarding the blockade. The Polish government's attempts to settle the issue were unsuccessful, though it is unclear how robust those efforts were.The blockades created long lines at the borders, complicating the importation of even critically important goods such as military equipment. During the protests, Polish farmers from time to time dumped Ukrainian grain that was transiting Poland to other states, causing tension and tight-lipped reactions in Ukraine. It should be noted once again that one of the protest organizers is Rafał Mekler, a member of the Polish far-right National Movement Party, also known as the Confederation Party, which is skeptical about the EU and less friendly toward Ukraine. Mekler's role is important because Russia is seeking to take advantage of domestic Polish discontent by spreading its anti-Ukrainian narratives in Poland. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said he would not tolerate anti-Ukrainian sentiments in his government. Tusk visited Kyiv in January to announce a new aid package for Ukraine. At the same time, Poland continues to import grain and fuel from Russia and Belarus without any protests taking place on Poland's border with those states. Polish police detained Ukrainian journalists who investigated the import of goods at the border with Belarus. Other Ukrainian journalists were later similarly detained and deported from Poland while investigating trade with Russia. In late March, the Ukrainian and Polish prime ministers met in Warsaw to discuss the dispute. The parties have made some progress, but the problem remains. In mid-January, farmers in Romaniaagain started a blockade. However, the Romanian government quickly negotiated with the protesters, and the blockade was dissolved in early February. Ukrainian exports through Romania rose by 50 percent while those through Poland, formerly the biggest transit country, decreased.JapanIn February, Japan hosted a conference on Ukraine's restoration. The event brought together about 200 Japanese and Ukrainian companies, which signed fifty-six agreements and memorandums of cooperation. Japan allocated more than $12 billion in aid to Ukraine and will spend €1.25 billion to support investments in Ukraine.Debates on Transferring Frozen Russian Assets for UkraineIn the first quarter of 2024, Ukraine's allies continued to debate the use of frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine's needs during the war. A group of international law experts and practitioners concluded that it would be lawful, under international law, to transfer Russian state assets as compensation for the damage that has resulted directly from Russia's unlawful conduct. There was a debate in the EU about whether these funds should be held for future use in reconstructing Ukraine or be spent now on weapons. High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell supported the idea of using 90 percent of the revenue generated by frozen Russian assets to purchase weapons for Ukraine. Among the EU member states, Hungary and Austria expressed opposition to using these funds for weapons.The Fighter Jet Coalition DevelopmentsWhen the allies agreed to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, the craft were expected to arrive in early 2024. At the beginning of the year, the media reported that delivery of the first jet might be delayed to mid-2024. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that the delivery date will depend on when Ukrainian pilots will be ready to fly them after training.The first group of Ukrainian pilots will complete F-16 training by the summer. But probably only six F-16s will have been delivered out of about forty-five fighter jets that European allies have promised. The Netherlands decided to send six more F-16 jets to Ukraine in addition to the eighteen the country promised to supply in late 2023. 3. INTERNAL AFFAIRSReshufflesOne of the most shocking internal events in Ukraine was the dismissal of Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi. President Zelensky appointed General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who had previously served as commander of Ukraine's Land Forces, the new commander-in-chief and gave him wide latitude to make personnel changes. Zelensky explained his decision by citing the need to reboot management of the military command and to change the military strategy. However, Zaluzhnyi had made clear his frustration with the progress of the war on international media, and there are political tensions between the two men, with Zaluzhnyi's trust rating among survey respondents higher than Zelensky's.In February the government appointed a new head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, Viktor Pavlushchyk, as the previous head, Oleksandr Novikov, had completed his four-year term in the position. Pavlushchyk was selected as the head of the agency by a competition. In late March, President Zelensky dismissed the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, and appointed Oleksandr Lytvynenko, a former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, to the position. Danilov later was appointed ambassador to Moldova. The Economic SituationUkraine's economy remained relatively stable in the first quarter of 2024. However, the government experienced difficulty covering budget expenditures with a drop in foreign financial aid: in the first two months of 2024, Ukraine received only 10 percent of the planned financial aid from its allies.Slowing inflation led the National Bank to decrease its key rate to 14.5 percent. At the same time, the IMF expects the economic shock to begin in the second quarter of 2024 with the intensification of the war. Ukrainian agencies expect lower economic growth for 2024 as well.The Energy SituationDuring January and February 2024, Russia attacked Ukraine's energy facilities, mostly in regions close to the front. The power system continued to operate normally, however, and electricity exports to the EU in early March broke records since the start of the wide-scale invasion. The situation rapidly reversed after the attacks in late March, and Ukraine became deeply dependent on electricity imports from Europe, realizing record-high volumes of imports. Ukraine got through the winter just passed using domestically produced gas only. This was possible in part because the demand for natural gas has fallen since the start of the wide-scale invasion.4. PROGRESS IN REFORMS AND SUCCESS STORIESPlan of Reforms for the Ukraine Facility Funding ProgramIn March, the government approved a Plan of Reforms for 2024–2027. The plan addresses reform of the public administration and judicial system and strengthening the battle against corruption; economic reforms, such as management of public assets and creating an attractive environment for investment; and sectoral reforms (energy, transport agriculture, critical raw materials, small business, IT, and environment). It provides a basis for funding the Ukraine Facility, the EU's financial support program for Ukraine, which is expected to provide €50 billion over four years. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal submitted the plan to the European Commission for approval. The first tranche of funding was released on March 20.Oscar Award for 20 Days in Mariupol DocumentaryThe Ukrainian film 20 Days in Mariupol won the Best Documentary award at the 96th Academy Awards. It is the first film made by a Ukrainian director to have won an Oscar. The film records the atrocities committed during Russia's months-long siege of the city of Mariupol in 2022. The documentary was put together by a team of Ukrainian journalists from the Associated Press and included the film director, Mstyslav Chernov. The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.

As Ukraine entered the third year of the full-scale war, the situation appeared to have reached a stalemate, despite heavy fighting at different points on the front lines. In mid-February, with Ukrainian supply routes targeted and the troops running short of ammunition, Ukrainian forces had to withdraw from Avdiivka, the scene of some of the most intense fighting in the past half year. However, the Ukrainian army did succeed in destroying much of the Russian Black Sea fleet and airplanes. Ukrainian security services launched successful attacks on Russian oil refineries deep inside Russia, and Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine continued to conduct military operations in the regions along the border with Ukraine. Russia ramped up its disinformation campaign in Ukraine and Europe, striving to sow doubt among Ukrainians and distrust in the Ukrainian government both domestically and internationally. In late March it renewed its massive attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, causing serious damage. It also intensified attacks on civilian residential buildings. Future military aid to Ukraine remained a major topic of discussion with Ukraine's international partners. Nonetheless, during the quarter Ukraine signed security cooperation agreements with G-7 members and other states, and the European states made concerted efforts to provide critically necessary artillery rounds to the Ukrainian army.1. ROLLOUT OF THE WARIn February 2024, Ukraine entered the third year of combating Russia's wide-scale invasion, marking ten years of war since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, later unleashing war in the Donbas. The war has changed the country and its economy drastically, though the changes that have occurred over the decade of war differ from those experienced in the two years of the full-scale war. General Developments during January–MarchIn the first quarter of 2024, heavy fighting continued, but without notable changes to the front line. Throughout the quarter the Russian Air Force (RuAF) continued its intense offensive in all directions, expanding on bombing campaigns it had started in October of last year. The Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) shifted to defensive actions to exhaust the Russian forces. However, the Ukrainian army had to withdraw from some positions because of a lack of weapons and intense pressure from the RuAF.Russia used phosphorus and chemical weapons during several hard-fought battles. The fiercest Russian attacks were directed at Avdiivka, Donetsk oblast, where the situation resembled the one in Bakhmut last year. In mid-February, lacking ammunition and seeing their supply routes being cutting off, the Ukrainian forces stepped back from their positions in Avdiivka. One month later, the UAF command reported that the situation in the country's East had stabilized. Ukraine stepped up efforts to fortify three major defensive lines.Sea and air operations advances. Though facing a deadlock in land operations, Ukraine realized significant advances in destroying Russia's Black Sea Fleet and shot down several Russian military planes over Ukraine. During the quarter, Ukrainian forces sank five Russian military ships, including three landing ships. As of the end of March, Russia had lost almost all landing ships in the Black Sea. More than a third of the Russian fleet has been disabled, including a submarine. Ukrainian-designed kamikaze sea drones have become the main weapons used in attacking the Russian fleet. To save its Black Sea Fleet, Russia started withdrawing its major vessels from ports in occupied Crimea.Ukraine also shot down Russian military jets that were bombing regions close to the front lines. To illustrate Ukraine's advances in this arena, during just two weeks in late February and early March, Ukrainian forces downed fourteen Russian military airplanes. In addition to Su-34 bombers (used to attack frontline settlements with guided aerial bombs) and modern Su-35 fighter jets, Russia lost two A-50 planes, which together cost about $700 million (they are outfitted with an airborne early warning and control system, designed to detect air defense systems and coordinate targets for Russian fighter jets). Russia had only a few of these planes before the invasion, so the loss of two represents a setback. The RuAF is probably ready to tolerate high losses to maintain the offensive.Russian refineries under attack. In the first quarter of the year, more than a dozen Russian oil refineries deep inside the country came under drone attack by Ukraine (some of the targets were located as far as 560 miles from the border with Ukraine) The Security Service of Ukraine formally admitted to the attacks, defending them on the grounds that refineries are legitimate targets because they provide resources to run the Russian war machine. (Russia's income from oil sales remains high despite international sanctions.) Ukraine also attacked Russian factories producing weapons. Analysts have described the strikes on Russian oil facilities as a new phase of the war. The attacks have affected Russia's refining capabilities. Although Russia has not provided official statistics, the country is believed to have lost about 10 percent of its refining capacity. Because Russia's domestic gas supplies are now diminished, Russia is considering importing gas from Belarus.Contributions of Russian volunteers to the war effort. Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine under the corps names Freedom of Russia, the Siberian Battalion, and the Russian Volunteer Corps started military operations on the border regions with Ukraine, in Belgorod and Kursk oblasts. Similar operations took place in May 2023, but now the scale of the military actions is bigger and their duration longer. The operations began before the elections in Russia and continued after them. The anti-Kremlin volunteer military units clashed with Russian servicemen and even claimed to have captured some Russian troops.Russia intensified its attacks on civilian targets and critical infrastructure, especially in the frontline regions, notably Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts. This may be an attempt to increase pressure on Ukraine while the delivery of military aid and supplies to Ukraine is slowed or suspended, especially the delivery of supplies from the United States. In addition to drones and missiles, Russia started using its new Zircon hypersonic missiles and 1,500-kg (3,300-pound) aerial bombs to target Ukrainian cities. The lack of ammunition, especially air defense missiles, may play a critical role in Ukraine's ability to protect the frontline areas and critical infrastructure across the country; a continuation of massive Russian attacks, in particular attacks using North Korean missiles and Iranian drones, could plunge Ukraine into a new stone age.Engagement of Russia's AlliesAt the beginning of the year, it became evident that North Korea was supplying Russia with missiles, including ballistic missiles. Kyiv said that as of mid-March, Russia had used about fifty of these against Ukraine. The DPRK-origin missiles were found to contain U.S. and European parts. The North Korean defense minister said the country might also supply tactical guided missiles to Russia. According to the official, the country's military factories are working at full capacity. Russia uses DPRK artillery shells. Since September 2023, North Korea has delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munitions-related materials to Russia. Russia started supplying oil to the DPRK in exchange for weapons.Russia is negotiating with Iran as well to receive ballistic missiles. Foreign media have reported that Iran delivered hundreds of these missiles, but Ukrainian intelligence denies this.Belarus earlier was a key supplier of ammunition to support Russia's war. Though its stocks are probably exhausted by now, it remains one of Russia's important allies. Belarus is now building a new military town twenty-five miles from the border with Ukraine that will house both Russian and Belarusian troops. The combined forces started joint training in the Belarusian facility in March. Though Russia relies heavily on ammunition supplies from its allies, the country is still capable of producing its own weapons. For instance, one of the Russian missiles that hit Kyiv in 2024 was made in the summer of 2023. Russia is also pouring money into developing its own drone systems, with the combat drone Okhotnik-B expected to go into production in Novosibirsk later this year.Russian Disinformation Campaigns and CyberattacksRussia continued its disinformation campaign in Ukraine, hoping to undermine trust in the government and sow suspicions abroad. The clear goal is to weaken international support for Ukraine. These efforts are likely to ramp up in 2024 because many countries are holding elections, and policies regarding aid for Ukraine and the reception of Ukrainian refugees could shift drastically. Under normal conditions, Ukraine would also be holding elections. The curtain continues to be pulled back on Russia's disinformation efforts. The Washington Post published material on Russia's huge campaign to spread distrust of the government and societal despair in Ukraine, and the German Marshall Fund issued a report on Russia's use of Polish media to spread the Kremlin's lies about Ukraine. According to Security and Defense Secretary Oleksii Danilov, Russia has significantly stepped up its disinformation campaigns, issuing or spreading 166 million disinformation posts every week about Ukraine on social media in a global effort to manipulate thinking on Ukraine.According to Ukrainian intelligence sources, Russia is engaged in a massive disinformation campaign code-named Maidan-3 and designed to promote antiwar protests and destabilize the country, with the ultimate goal of removing President Zelensky from his leadership role. The campaign is expected be most active during March–May, and persons inside Ukraine are believed to be involved.Deep-fake videos play a prominent role in Russian propaganda. For instance, a deep-fake video of former president Petro Poroshenko allegedly making incendiary statements about President Zelensky was targeted to Ukrainian soldiers. Videos allegedly showing Russians attacking Ukrainian military training camps or Ukrainian special forces shooting civilians are widely circulated; such misrepresentations are unfortunately becoming commonplace.Russia has also continued cyberattacks against Ukrainian media, authorities, and critically important companies, including one of the biggest banks, the biggest state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz, POW Coordination Headquarters, Ukraine's Education Ministry website, and so on. Hackers have been sending Ukrainian soldiers messages containing malware. In 2023, the number of cyberattacks against Ukrainian organizations increased by 15.9 percent compared to 2022, reaching an overall number of 2,543 documented cases.Even though ISIS took responsibility for the terrorist shooting in Moscow's Crocus concert hall in March, and Western intelligence said it has proof that Ukraine did not organize it, Russian top officials, including Vladimir Putin, tried to link it to Kyiv, while constantly changing the narrative. The media reported that some in Putin's circle do not see any link to Ukraine. It's possible the Kremlin will try to capitalize on the attack to mobilize Russian society against Ukraine. The head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) blamed the United States, the UK, and Ukraine as instigators and enablers of the attack.Energy Terrorism and Other Attacks on Critical InfrastructureFrom mid-September 2023 to the end of the year, Russia did not succeed in damaging Ukraine's energy infrastructure, though not for lack of trying. The number of drones Russia launched during October–December 2023 broke records since the invasion. Most were brought down by Ukrainian air defense units before they could inflict damage, so we do not know their intended targets.This picture changed with the new year. Starting in early 2024, Russia focused on attacking energy infrastructure in the frontline regions, which are generally the easiest to reach. Despite the damage this caused, the power systems continued to operate in a relatively stable mode. On the night of March 22, Russia launched a massive attack on the Ukrainian power system, using drones and ballistic and cruise missiles. The largest such attack since the start of the full-scale invasion, it involved sixty Shahed drones and almost ninety missiles of various types. Power production and transmission facilities in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Dnipro were targeted. Russians hit the biggest Ukrainian hydropower plant, DniproHES, and the dam of its water reservoir on the Dnipro river in Zaporizhzhia oblast; two other big hydropower plants were damaged in the following days.The biggest private-owned Ukrainian energy company, DTEK, reported that 80 percent of its capacities had been damaged during the attacks by the end of March. In Kharkiv, all thermal power plants and substations were destroyed in the last week of March. The state-owned Centrenergo lost its biggest power plant in Kharkiv oblast. The major attack was followed by attacks in ensuing days. Crimes against Civilians and Attacks on Civilian InfrastructureIn the first quarter of the year, Ukraine faced more Russian drone and missile strikes on multi-block residential buildings, with many civilians injured and killed—in some cases dozens in a single attack. Occasionally multiple cities were attacked simultaneously. Big city targets included Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Sumy. In addition, civil infrastructure in the regions under Ukrainian control and well inside the front lines was regularly attacked, sustaining damage. Since March 11, Russia has been shelling the borders of Sumy oblast, mostly using guided aerial bombs, artillery, and Lancet attack drones.In general, from the start of the year, Ukraine has seen an increased number of civilians killed or wounded in air strikes. Fuel depots and fueling stations have been attacked, leading to civilian casualties and environmental damage. It is now commonplace for Russia to target a wide range of civil infrastructure with air strikes and artillery shelling.One of the numerous air attacks on Odesa happened during the visit of the prime minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. A missile exploded extremely close to the location of Mitsotakis and President Zelensky. Russia has continued committing crimes against civilians in the occupied territories: torturing civilians, forcing them to participate in Russian presidential elections, bugging residents, expropriating apartments, and resettling Russian transplants from deep inside the country in the occupied territories. POW ExchangesPOW exchanges, which had been suspended for a while, were renewed at the beginning of the year, with the largest number of Ukrainians returning home since the start of the wide-scale invasion. On January 24, a few days before the planned POW exchange, a cargo aircraft was shot down in Russia. Moscow blamed Ukraine for downing the plane, claiming it was carrying sixty-five prisoners to be exchanged. However, Russia did not provide any proof that the plane was in fact carrying POWs, and Kyiv said there were no Ukrainian POWs on the plane.Two more POW exchanges took place after the incident, in late January and again in February. 2. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRSPresident Zelensky's Diplomatic ToursIn the first quarter of 2024, President Zelensky undertook several diplomatic tours, hoping to consolidate support for Ukraine. This mission was especially critical in light of the slowing of aid from the United States, and the number of agreements Ukraine reached during this period is testament to the success of these efforts.In January, President Zelensky made a diplomatic trip to the Baltic states, Lithuania,Estonia, and Latvia, which are among the strongest supporters of Ukraine. Zelensky met with the countries' leaders and political elites and expressed gratitude for their support during the ten years of war. They discussed Ukraine's European integration and future cooperation in electromagnetic warfare and military drone production. The three countries remain strong Ukraine's allies of Ukraine in 2024, providing military and humanitarian aid and political support. Ukraine and Latvia signed an agreement on technical and financial cooperation and a memorandum on cooperation on defense and security.President Zelensky left the Baltics for Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he addressed the forum's participants on the war in Ukraine and the need to invest in Ukraine's victory. In Davos, he also met with leaders of different states and the world's finance leaders, seeking to boost investment in Ukraine.In February, President Zelensky visited Germany to give a speech and attend the Munich Security Conference. He met his German and Czech counterparts and discussed joint efforts to produce weapons.Later, he visited Saudi Arabia to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and to discuss the Ukrainian Peace Formula and ways to repatriate captured and deported Ukrainians. He left Saudi Arabia for Albania to attend the second Ukraine-Balkans forum, where he also met with the leaders of some Balkan states to discuss European integration efforts. On March 8, he visited Turkey to meet with his counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Repatriating Ukrainian citizens held in captivity in Russia was among the key topics discussed at the meeting. The two countries signed an agreement to simplify bilateral trade and extended permit-free cargo truck movement at least until the end of the war. Security Cooperation AgreementsFrom early 2024, Ukraine began signing agreements on security cooperation with other states. The G-7 states intended to sign these during the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 12, 2023. Later, twenty-four more states expressed their intention to join this format. The UK was the first country to sign, on January 12, followed by Germany, France. Denmark, Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands. Many countries are in dialogue, negotiating the text of the agreements to be signed. Some agreements stipulate commitments and plans to provide military aid in upcoming years.In Ukraine, these are often called "agreements on security commitments." However, they are more like framework agreements on security and defense cooperation; they do not have the force of a contract and do not spell out specific guarantees or steps the signatories should take to ensure Ukraine's sovereignty. Many experts in Ukraine have criticized the agreements because they do not provide Ukraine with hard security guarantees.Relations with NATOIn January, the NATO-Ukraine Council held a meeting at Ukraine's request after Russia launched massive air strikes against Ukraine at the beginning of the year. The allies reaffirmed their commitment to bolster Ukraine's defenses further and to provide Ukraine with major military, economic, and humanitarian assistance. In March, a NATO military delegation visited Kyiv for the first time since the start of the full-scale invasion.Relations with the United States and CanadaPolitical differences in the U.S. Congress remained an obstacle to achieving consensus on the future of military aid to Ukraine. In March the United States announced the first $300 million security assistance package for Ukraine this year, as supplemental funding was blocked in Congress. Funds for the package came from unanticipated cost savings in existing Pentagon contracts. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Kyiv on the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine to demonstrate his solidarity. Canada joined the drones coalition for Ukraine and allocated $1.5 billion in aid to finance Ukraine's budget deficit.Relations with the EU and the European StatesIn February the EU approved €50 billion in financial support for Ukraine, to run through 2027. Later the EU approved $5.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine for 2024. The EU planned to supply Ukraine by the end of March with half of the one million artillery rounds it has promised to supply by the end of the year. Joint European Efforts to Arm UkraineArtillery rounds to be provided by the Czech Republic. In February, Czech president Petr Pavel said that the country had found a way to acquire 800,000 artillery rounds for Ukraine, but it needed funding. Earlier, the Czech Republic had proposed buying ammunition for Ukraine outside the EU. Almost twenty countries, some outside Europe, joined the initiative and contributed to the fund to buy artillery rounds: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and others. In March, Prague reported it was ready to deliver the first batches of ammunition and that it had found 700,000 shells of other types that could be bought with additional funds.Long-range missiles coalition. In late February, President of France Emmanuel Macron announced a coalition to send Ukraine long-range missiles. On March 15, following a "Weimar Triangle" format meeting in Berlin, the leaders of Germany, France, and Poland agreed on new initiatives in support of Ukraine, including more weapons purchases and a future formation of a coalition on long-range rocket artillery. The initiative includes purchasing more weapons for Ukraine on global markets and expanding military production.Drone coalition. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in February said that allies had established a drone coalition for Ukraine, committing to supplying one million drones. The UK and Latvia will lead an international coalition to develop vital drones for Ukraine.Cybersecurity support. In February, the IT Coalition for Ukraine signed an agreement to enhance Ukraine's defense capabilities in communications and cybersecurity—an important step in light of Russia's use of IT in conducting the war. The coalition was established in September 2023. It is led by Estonia and Luxembourg and includes Ukraine, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands.France was the key newsmaker regarding Ukraine and its defensive fighting against Russia. Except for the agreement on security guarantees between the two countries, President Macron was the first leader to observe publicly that troops might have to be sent to Ukraine if Russia continued its advances. The statement caused a heated discussion with the leaders of other states, but Macron insisted it was not an off-the-cuff remark but a well-considered, realistic view. He referred to Russia's war as an existential threat to France and Europe. French foreign minister Stephane Sejourne visited Kyiv in January, reassuring Ukraine of longlasting support. Later, France announced new military aid to Ukraine, including artillery and air defense systems, drones, guided bombs, and other important pieces. France is considering expanding military aid programs for Ukraine, and President Macron called on Europe to be ready to compensate for reduced U.S. support. The UK, Germany, and the Netherlands continued to be among the biggest European supporters in providing military aid and economic assistance.Relations with Hungary remained strained. The country blocked the EU's €50 billion aid initiative for a few months, and also blocked the EU's joint statement commemorating the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale war. Pressure from the European Parliament probably encouraged Hungary to change its position. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba met his Hungarian counterpart in January to discuss a potential visit by Zelensky to Budapest aimed at improving bilateral relations. Later, Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó explained that such a meeting between Viktor Orbán and Zelensky would be impossible until Kyiv restored the rights of the Hungarian ethnic minority as they had existed before 2015.The prime ministers of Ukraine and Slovakia met in Ukraine and signed a joint statement to strengthen bilateral relations "based on mutual trust and respect." The Slovak prime minister promised not to obstruct Ukraine's purchases of weapons from Slovak companies and said that Bratislava would support the EU providing €50 billion in financial aid to Ukraine.The border blockade by farmers was a key issue in bilateral relations with Poland and remained contentious throughout the quarter. At different times, farmers and truck drivers have thrown up blockades, affecting almost all of Ukraine's border crossings.Polish farmers are demanding restrictions on imports from Ukraine, in the belief that their market prices have fallen because of competition. Poland had earlier banned food imports from Ukraine, allowing transit only. Polish officials confirmed that Ukrainian grain was not imported but merely transiting the country to destinations beyond. Kyiv says that now only 5 percent of Ukrainian food exports go through Poland, with most grain exports to be shipped by sea. Farmers are also protesting the EU's climate change policies and blocking other border crossings, including some on the border with Germany. Polish haulers on strike demanded the restoration of permits for Ukrainian carriers, a ban on the issuance of licenses to non-EU transport companies, and a waiver for empty Polish trucks to register through the Ukrainian electronic queue when returning to Poland from Ukraine. However, the blockade by haulers was much shorter this quarter.The blockade lasted the entire quarter, though not with the same sustained intensity. The blockade may be politically inspired, especially if one considers that the country will hold local elections in April. Farmers even tried to block railway connections with Ukraine and passenger transportation. The European Commission expressed concern regarding the blockade. The Polish government's attempts to settle the issue were unsuccessful, though it is unclear how robust those efforts were.The blockades created long lines at the borders, complicating the importation of even critically important goods such as military equipment. During the protests, Polish farmers from time to time dumped Ukrainian grain that was transiting Poland to other states, causing tension and tight-lipped reactions in Ukraine. It should be noted once again that one of the protest organizers is Rafał Mekler, a member of the Polish far-right National Movement Party, also known as the Confederation Party, which is skeptical about the EU and less friendly toward Ukraine. Mekler's role is important because Russia is seeking to take advantage of domestic Polish discontent by spreading its anti-Ukrainian narratives in Poland. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said he would not tolerate anti-Ukrainian sentiments in his government. Tusk visited Kyiv in January to announce a new aid package for Ukraine. At the same time, Poland continues to import grain and fuel from Russia and Belarus without any protests taking place on Poland's border with those states. Polish police detained Ukrainian journalists who investigated the import of goods at the border with Belarus. Other Ukrainian journalists were later similarly detained and deported from Poland while investigating trade with Russia. In late March, the Ukrainian and Polish prime ministers met in Warsaw to discuss the dispute. The parties have made some progress, but the problem remains. In mid-January, farmers in Romaniaagain started a blockade. However, the Romanian government quickly negotiated with the protesters, and the blockade was dissolved in early February. Ukrainian exports through Romania rose by 50 percent while those through Poland, formerly the biggest transit country, decreased.JapanIn February, Japan hosted a conference on Ukraine's restoration. The event brought together about 200 Japanese and Ukrainian companies, which signed fifty-six agreements and memorandums of cooperation. Japan allocated more than $12 billion in aid to Ukraine and will spend €1.25 billion to support investments in Ukraine.Debates on Transferring Frozen Russian Assets for UkraineIn the first quarter of 2024, Ukraine's allies continued to debate the use of frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine's needs during the war. A group of international law experts and practitioners concluded that it would be lawful, under international law, to transfer Russian state assets as compensation for the damage that has resulted directly from Russia's unlawful conduct. There was a debate in the EU about whether these funds should be held for future use in reconstructing Ukraine or be spent now on weapons. High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell supported the idea of using 90 percent of the revenue generated by frozen Russian assets to purchase weapons for Ukraine. Among the EU member states, Hungary and Austria expressed opposition to using these funds for weapons.The Fighter Jet Coalition DevelopmentsWhen the allies agreed to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, the craft were expected to arrive in early 2024. At the beginning of the year, the media reported that delivery of the first jet might be delayed to mid-2024. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that the delivery date will depend on when Ukrainian pilots will be ready to fly them after training.The first group of Ukrainian pilots will complete F-16 training by the summer. But probably only six F-16s will have been delivered out of about forty-five fighter jets that European allies have promised. The Netherlands decided to send six more F-16 jets to Ukraine in addition to the eighteen the country promised to supply in late 2023. 3. INTERNAL AFFAIRSReshufflesOne of the most shocking internal events in Ukraine was the dismissal of Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi. President Zelensky appointed General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who had previously served as commander of Ukraine's Land Forces, the new commander-in-chief and gave him wide latitude to make personnel changes. Zelensky explained his decision by citing the need to reboot management of the military command and to change the military strategy. However, Zaluzhnyi had made clear his frustration with the progress of the war on international media, and there are political tensions between the two men, with Zaluzhnyi's trust rating among survey respondents higher than Zelensky's.In February the government appointed a new head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, Viktor Pavlushchyk, as the previous head, Oleksandr Novikov, had completed his four-year term in the position. Pavlushchyk was selected as the head of the agency by a competition. In late March, President Zelensky dismissed the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, and appointed Oleksandr Lytvynenko, a former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, to the position. Danilov later was appointed ambassador to Moldova. The Economic SituationUkraine's economy remained relatively stable in the first quarter of 2024. However, the government experienced difficulty covering budget expenditures with a drop in foreign financial aid: in the first two months of 2024, Ukraine received only 10 percent of the planned financial aid from its allies.Slowing inflation led the National Bank to decrease its key rate to 14.5 percent. At the same time, the IMF expects the economic shock to begin in the second quarter of 2024 with the intensification of the war. Ukrainian agencies expect lower economic growth for 2024 as well.The Energy SituationDuring January and February 2024, Russia attacked Ukraine's energy facilities, mostly in regions close to the front. The power system continued to operate normally, however, and electricity exports to the EU in early March broke records since the start of the wide-scale invasion. The situation rapidly reversed after the attacks in late March, and Ukraine became deeply dependent on electricity imports from Europe, realizing record-high volumes of imports. Ukraine got through the winter just passed using domestically produced gas only. This was possible in part because the demand for natural gas has fallen since the start of the wide-scale invasion.4. PROGRESS IN REFORMS AND SUCCESS STORIESPlan of Reforms for the Ukraine Facility Funding ProgramIn March, the government approved a Plan of Reforms for 2024–2027. The plan addresses reform of the public administration and judicial system and strengthening the battle against corruption; economic reforms, such as management of public assets and creating an attractive environment for investment; and sectoral reforms (energy, transport agriculture, critical raw materials, small business, IT, and environment). It provides a basis for funding the Ukraine Facility, the EU's financial support program for Ukraine, which is expected to provide €50 billion over four years. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal submitted the plan to the European Commission for approval. The first tranche of funding was released on March 20.Oscar Award for 20 Days in Mariupol DocumentaryThe Ukrainian film 20 Days in Mariupol won the Best Documentary award at the 96th Academy Awards. It is the first film made by a Ukrainian director to have won an Oscar. The film records the atrocities committed during Russia's months-long siege of the city of Mariupol in 2022. The documentary was put together by a team of Ukrainian journalists from the Associated Press and included the film director, Mstyslav Chernov. The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.