RISE AND FALL: UKRAINE V. RUSSIA

There has been an extraordinary amount of news this past week, if we look beyond the stupidity of the war on Iran.

We have seen a remarkable shift in the behavior of several very wealthy powers towards a country they barely even noticed until 2022, except perhaps as a supplier of grain to keep their hungry people quiescent. It was not to the US or any of the usual western suspects the Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis turned to help defend them. It was Ukraine. Out of nowhere, faced with a security situation they had not previously fully taken account of – despite many warnings that the Saudis have had over the years from the Houthis attacking their oil fields. Ukraine was asked to supply interceptor drones and trained operators – people it needs for its own defence, to help these nations defend their air space.

Now it is true that Zelensky could have turned around and use that very argument and said no, he was well within his rights to do so. But he did not. And why didn’t he? because he knows that this is an opportunity to be grasped with both hands. Firstly it elevates Ukraine’s status in the eyes of nations that have had little time for it or its concerns. They recognize not just its potential now as a rising technological and military power – probably the most advance technological combat effective army on the planet, but as a potential European major power equal to Germany, France or the UK.

The Arab nations have seen with their own eyes they can no longer rely on the expensive showy American and European ‘exquisite’ systems they spent billions on. Much of what they bought was of little value against Iran in the first place and they’ve not used hardly any of it. It was about prestige and appearances. It turned out what was really needed was totally different. That they were all blind to this despite the Iranians being a pilot nation of the cheap drone concept, seems almost unbelievable. Again there were warnings over the years.

Now Ukraine is the way forward. Saudi Arabia is willing to throw in hundreds of millions of dollars, so are the UAE and Qatar, to get the latest defences from the latest drones Iran sends at them.

The advantage for Ukraine is its being seen as a leader, a viable partner, its attracting investment even in the middle of a war, that will help it wage that war. A war it should be added, that its increasingly taking the lead in, slowly but surely acquiring a dominance in the drone technologies and tactics its opponent, Russia, cannot manage.

EU+ Support for Ukraine continues to evolve. Even as Putin’s stooges in Hungary try to manufacture hostilities – Budapest, the Hungarian capital is awash with menacing looking posters of Zelensky as ‘Hungary’s enemy’ working to undermine the government of Victor Orban, Christian principles and turn the EU against the country. It’s worse than you can imagine, but it’s what this Hungarian election may well be decided on in less than a month on 12th April. It’s hard to get the truth out in Hungary so completely does the government control the media space. Yet there’s something about it that isn’t sitting right this time. Hungarians all know what their parents and grand parents put up with in 1956 when the Soviet Union invaded and crushed a nascent democratic movement. It’s etched in their memories. The talk about Zelensky seems increasingly desperate and untrue. Orban, like Putin is desperate to stop himself being defeated, and like Putin he’s going the wrong way about it. Scared men with a guilty conscience are like that.

Even as Orban holds up Ukraine’s €90 billion loan, the great Scandinavian and Baltic nations are working on a €30 billion loan to tide Ukraine over until the main loan can be released. Orban cannot stop it. He has already failed.

You may have missed it, but last week Ukraine exported electricity for the first time in months – not much but some to its close friend Moldova, to tide it over during a small emergency. Ukraine did this even in the midst of its own energy crisis. Some would say in spite of it, showing Russia that they will never, ever bring Ukraine down. Little things like that tell you a great deal about the people who run Ukraine and the nature of Ukrainians. It was a quiet middle finger to Moscow, a thank you to the people of Moldova, that even in their own crisis, Ukraine has their back. Who would not want such a country as their ally?

Ukraine’s rise on the battlefield has been remarkable in the past few weeks. The Russians are noticing it even as they notice their own failings and increasingly complain about them despite the risks. That in itself tells you the fear they felt somehow no longer seems to matter to them.

Another extraordinary moment came this week when Kremlin press boss Dmitry Peskov was caught at a sit down meeting complaining that without Telegram – which has less than three weeks to go now – Russia had lost its principle means of influencing the rest of the world with its propaganda. “What are we going to do,” he said, “They can turn off TV with a button push, nobody listens to radio, we’re losing the battle for influence now, around the world, especially in Kazakhstan and India”. It’s rare when you see with your own eyes the head of the propaganda arm of the Russian war effort express such panicked looking concern to a group of colleagues, he and they looked equally disgruntled and frankly, defeated.

All of this comes as Russians are about to enter a second week of mobile internet shut down across the Moscow and St Petersburg areas, which, according to the authorities will last “as long as necessary”. The rumors of an attempted coup are rife, hardly the sort of talk that a stable government in control of everything should be allowing. If everything is okay why is there so much secrecy? Why is nobody coming out a publicly saying all is well? Where is Putin? Busy it seems arresting another deputy defence minister and even his old friend Shoigu is said to be under suspicion. Rumor has it that Putin’s former bodyguard, General Victor Zolatov, now head of Rosguardia, Putin’s Praetorian Guard, has been tracking down potential suspects, just to up the ante on the already overly hot paranoia scales.

The man who was the architect of the ‘fake democracy’ years of Putins early presidencies has fled the country. It’s not safe being in Moscow if even a shred of doubt exists about your loyalty.

Something odd is happening in Russia. Cracks are appearing in the face of the administration, leaks of videos like that of Peskov are previously unheard of. Bloggers actually risking complaining, front line troops surrendering they’re so exhausted, hungry and hopeless. The complaints from senior state journalists that have been unheard of about military readiness and morale being made public at huge risk, that’s new. It’s as if the fear, the massive edifice of state oppression, is somehow fracturing and piece by tiny piece, the light is shining in. For there to be no fear it means someone somewhere has decided to let them get away with it. That can only be someone at the top of the tree who wants it to happen. Nothing like this occurs in Russia without someone being behind it. You would be immensely naive to think it was simply spontaneous.

In Russia there is always someone behind what goes on. They may well have decided that the only way to start the process is to let the truth out bit by bit then as a flood – that’s what did for Gorbachev and perestroika – the truth could not be hidden. As reality starts to bite and the fear lessens perhaps at last, the physical pressure from Ukraine on Russian industry will have ever deeper effect. Because like it or not the relentless Ukrainian campaign has had far reaching results. It has undermined Russian security and the way they feel their government does or does not keep them safe. They don’t understand how they can lose a major electronics factory, or oil wells and refineries and god knows how many weapons and chemical plants, component manufacturers and so on. These places employ people, people talk, their relatives talk, their neighbors talk. And the more it no longer gels with the lousy repetitive propaganda, the more disbelief sets in.

Russians are not a political people, it’s not something they have ever learned. But they have repeatedly been a revolutionary people. When the time comes they are on the barricades, 1902, 1905, 1917-22, 1991-2. Russia is one of those places where you never know when the straw will finally break the proverbial camels back.

The Analyst

militaryanalyst@bsky.social