Fdd's overnight brief

Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin said peace talks with Kyiv had reached a dead end, as Moscow’s forces on Tuesday bombarded Ukrainian military positions and residential areas in the country’s east and unleashed new rocket attacks. – Wall Street Journal  

President Biden on Tuesday referred to Russia as committing a “genocide” in Ukraine, a significant escalation of the president’s rhetoric and a notable shift that comes as U.S. officials have avoided using the term, which suggests an effort to wipe out all or part of a specific group. – Washington Post 

The Biden administration is poised to dramatically expand the scope of weapons it is providing Ukraine, U.S. officials said Tuesday, with the Pentagon looking to transfer armored Humvees and a range of other sophisticated equipment. – Washington Post 

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called the war in Ukraine a “tragedy” but insisted the invasion will continue unabated, as the United States and its allies launched investigations into reports of a possible chemical attack ahead of an imminent Russian offensive in the country’s east. – Washington Post 

Searching for evidence in the killings of hundreds of people by Russian troops here, Ukrainian prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko unlocked the double doors leading to a boiler room on the south side of town. The space had been used as an office by the occupying forces. – Wall Street Journal 

The United States and its allies are pushing ahead with sanctions aimed at forcing Vladimir Putin to spend Russia’s money propping up its economy rather than sustaining its “war machine” for the fight in Ukraine, a top Treasury Department official said Tuesday. – Associated Press 

Ukraine’s security services on Tuesday said they had arrested pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who is President Vladimir Putin’s closest and most influential ally in Ukraine. – Reuters 

The United States is not in position to confirm reports of the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine but was working to determine what actually happened, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday. – Reuters  

Experts, comparing the situation to Putin’s devastation in Syria that resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths, say the Russian president may feel emboldened to use such tactics in Ukraine if he believes severe punishments would once again not follow. – The Hill 

Former President Barack Obama said in a new interview that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is evidence that Putin has grown increasingly “reckless” in the years since the pair of leaders last squared off on the world stage. – Politico 

Alleged and unconfirmed claims of chemical weapons use by Russia in Ukraine has forced a scramble inside the White House to match President Joe Biden’s promise of an “in kind” response while avoiding further escalation of the conflict. – Politico 

Editorial: Mr. Kara-Murza has often displayed the courage necessary to keep dreams alive for an opposition movement that Mr. Putin has mercilessly hounded. Many had gone into exile, but Mr. Kara-Murza stood his ground, despite the risks. In his columns for The Post and in public appearances, he spoke out fearlessly. He must be released, and given liberty to go on telling the truth: The war is wrong, speech must run free, and Russians must fight the deepening totalitarianism. – Washington Post 

Editorial: Inflation is a powerful political force because it can’t be explained away. Nearly every voter feels it every day. If the November elections are a referendum on the cost of living, voters won’t blame the Kremlin. They’ll blame the party in power in Washington. – Wall Street Journal  

John Barrasso writes: Europe has been rightly criticized for getting hooked on Russian energy. Now America must free itself from Russian uranium. I have introduced legislation to do this. Our nuclear supply chain should begin with American-mined uranium and end with American fuel. It is time to put Mr. Putin’s nuclear cash cow out to pasture. – Wall Street Journal  

Sean McFate writes: The Wagner Group is part of a wider and worrying trend in international relations. The number of mercenary operations seems to be increasing and it’s because hired guns allow clients to wage war brutally with minimal political costs. Every time mercenaries get away with something—from assassinating the president of Haiti to springing billionaires from jail—it serves as an advertisement to future clients. Should this trend continue, we should expect more massacres and torture. The sort of violence perpetrated in Bucha may become a common facet of modern war. – Wall Street Journal 

Bret Stephens writes: Plan for a long war. Make sure we can provision Ukraine with the weapons it needs for at least a year. Begin to train Ukrainian forces in advanced Western combat systems. Prepare to wall off Russia from the global economy for a decade. We may not be able to stop Putin from using chemical weapons, but we can still avoid the fatal mistake we made a decade ago with al-Assad. – New York Times 

Conrad Black writes: The outline of a solution is clear, and Jake Sullivan hinted at it. He and Messrs. Biden, Milley, and Blinken and the Pentagon and NATO should concert on the same song sheet and stick to it. To borrow, as is now fashionable, from Mr. Churchill, “Give them [Ukraine] the tools and they will finish the job.” – New York Sun 

Daniel Treisman writes: By attacking the postwar international order and changing his strategy of control at home, Putin has gambled with his own future. Initiating a war that does not go according to plan is a classic mistake that has undermined many authoritarian regimes in the past. The brazenness of Putin’s lie—sending forces to attack Kyiv while claiming that they were rescuing genocide victims in the Donbas—could also blow up in his face. – Foreign Affairs  

Mark F. Cancian writes: The Russians have lost about 40,000 troops, a quarter of their initial combat force, with especially high casualties in their elite units. Reinforcements and replacements can restore some of the numbers, but skills are deteriorating and morale, never high, seems to be declining. So, it is a race. Will Russian combat losses produce a battlefield stalemate before Ukraine runs out of its most effective anti-tank weapons? – Center for Strategic and International Studies 

Afghanistan

Iran summoned the Afghan envoy to Tehran on Tuesday, Iranian state TV reported, a day after protesters threw rocks at Iranian diplomatic missions in Kabul and Herat over what they called “mistreatment of Afghan refugees” in the Islamic Republic. – Reuters 

Military personnel and families, some affected by decades-old terrorist attacks, say Congress should open up a pool of confiscated Taliban funds to compensate victims of terrorism and not just those affected by the 9/11 attacks. – Newsweek 

An official report released by the State Department on Tuesday acknowledged a steep drop in human rights progress in Afghanistan following the United States’ withdrawal last August. – Politico 

Arabian Peninsula

The leaders of the House foreign affairs and intelligence committees and more than 20 other Democrats plan to press the Biden administration to take a tougher stance on Saudi Arabia, citing Riyadh’s refusal to cooperate with Washington over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a range of human-rights issues. – Wall Street Journal 

A decision driven by Saudi Arabia that OPEC+ should stop using oil data from the West’s energy watchdog reflected concern about U.S. influence on the figures, sources close to the matter said, adding to strain on ties between Riyadh and Washington. – Reuters  

A skit about U.S. leadership that aired in Saudi media indicates a larger rift between what were most recently stronger allies, former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove said Tuesday. – Fox News 

Neville Teller writes: What Yemen needs are elections, an inclusive government and a new structure for the state. UN Resolution 2216 aims to establish democracy in a federally united Yemen. The Houthis must be given the opportunity to choose. Do they wish to remain an outlawed militia permanently or would they prefer to become a legitimate political party, able to contest parliamentary and presidential elections and participate in government? The price would be serious engagement in negotiations aimed at a peaceful transition to a political solution for a united Yemen. – Jerusalem Post  

Korean Peninsula

A U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has been sent to the waters between South Korea and Japan this week, a display of American naval firepower amid growing tensions over North Korea’s missile tests. – Wall Street Journal  

A cryptocurrency expert who gave a presentation in North Korea on how to use blockchain technology to evade U.S. sanctions was sentenced to 63 months in prison Tuesday. – Wall Street Journal 

North Korea is destroying a South Korean-owned golf course at a scenic mountain resort in the second confirmed case of South Korean assets being eliminated in an area where the rivals once ran a joint tour program, officials said Tuesday in Seoul. – Associated Press 

South Asia

For much of his life, Shehbaz Sharif has waited for this moment, for years playing the role of loyal deputy to his older brother, Nawaz Sharif. Now that it is his turn to be prime minister, he faces hurdles that will likely make his term rocky, including an economic tailspin, tricky relations with the country’s military and a potent challenge from former leader Imran Khan. – Wall Street Journal 

Sri Lanka’s central bank said on Tuesday it had become “challenging and impossible” to repay external debt, as it tries to use its dwindling foreign exchange reserves to import essentials like fuel. – Reuters 

President Joe Biden asked India’s Narendra Modi on Monday not to accelerate the buying of Russian oil as the U.S. and other nations try to cut off Moscow’s energy income following the invasion of Ukraine. The Indian prime minister made no public commitment to refrain from Russian oil, a source of tension with the U.S. – Associated Press 

Militants from a banned Pakistani group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed five police officers and wounded four others in a northwestern region. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty 

Following 9/11, when jihadi groups in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region attracted global attention, the Pakistani military-backed jihadi organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) came under international scrutiny. However, the Pakistani government, unable to act against the military-aided jihadi organizations, continued to turn a blind eye to LeT. – Middle East Media Research Institute 

Editorial: Khan has signalled he will not go quietly, insisting he was the victim of a US-led conspiracy to oust him. Though his sympathies for Vladimir Putin — who he visited on the day Russia invaded Ukraine — and defence of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan have not played well in Washington, Khan has produced no convincing evidence of a US plot. […]Some are none too happy at the return of dynastic politics and the prospect of Sharif — who has faced corruption accusations in the past — as premier. Khan’s prime ministerial innings, for now, is over; Pakistan’s political upheavals are not. – Financial Times 

Hamid Mir writes: Khan is not gone for good, of course. If anyone doubted it before, this episode shows that he’ll go to just about any lengths to hold on to power. He tried every trick in the book to keep himself in office, but it turned out that he had alienated too many key players (including many members of his own party). […]And when the supreme court refused to play along, essentially forcing him to go, he ordered more than 120 members of his party not just to act as the opposition in Parliament but to resign from it altogether — a shameless act of contempt for democratic procedure. – Washington Post 

Hartosh Singh Bal writes: For the BJP, this disempowerment is both an ends and a means. The whole project of a Hindu nation has little meaning if it is not juxtaposed against an Islamic threat from within. Ironically, this means that even as the BJP seeks to reach out to the Dalits—the former untouchables—and bring them within the fold of Hinduism, it is succeeding in creating a new set of untouchables: the Muslims of India. – Foreign Affairs 

Michael Rubin writes: It is time for a new approach. First, revoke Pakistan’s major non-NATO ally status. Second, both designate Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency as a foreign terrorist organization and the country itself as a state sponsor of terrorism. Pakistani Ambassador Masood Khan should be declared persona non grata and given 48 hours to leave the country. The State Department should close its consulates in Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar. – Washington Examiner 

Touqir Hussain writes: The bottom line is that if Khan had found a private diplomatic communication to contain an implied threat, it would have called for a strong démarche to Washington. But he was wrong to go public and claim it was proof of a conspiracy to remove him without showing the evidence, which of course could not be shown. – The National Interest 

Vasabjit Banerjee and Benjamin Tkach write: Whether India chooses to pursue indigenous production, continue with Russian imports, or seek alternative external suppliers will reflect the broader course of its foreign policy. Given that India has long sought strategic autonomy and flexibility, it will likely prefer hedging and self-sufficiency rather than moving from dependence on one external supplier to dependence on another. Therefore, we expect India to pursue a mixed strategy in the short run: relying on Russia for critical systems where necessary while also working to diversify and find alternative suppliers. – War on the Rocks 

Europe

Chancellor Olaf Scholz surprised the world, and his own country, when he responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a 100-billion-euro plan to arm Germany, send weapons to Ukraine and end his nation’s deep dependence on Russian energy. – New York Times 

With no sign of an early end to the war in Ukraine, the risk is growing that the conflict will tip a fragile global economy into a slump. In its first seven weeks, the war has already triggered massive Ukrainian refugee flows, boosted inflation by driving up prices on food and oil, and dented prospects for European growth. – Washington Post 

Pressure was mounting on Germany to up its game over the war in Ukraine on Tuesday as Kyiv snubbed the country’s president and Chancellor Olaf Scholz was accused of a weak response to the crisis. – Agence France-Presse 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday mocked Moscow’s insistence that the war against his nation was going well, asking how President Vladimir Putin could have approved a plan that involved so many Russians dying. – Reuters 

The Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight U.S. weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years, two people familiar with the meeting said on Tuesday. – Reuters 

Poland has arrested a Russian citizen and charged him with espionage, a spokesperson for the Polish Minister Coordinator of Special Services said on Tuesday. – Reuters 

Russia will launch a lunar probe later this year and deepen cooperation with Belarus on space infrastructure and technology, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday. – Reuters 

There was a moment of relief for policymakers across the EU and Nato when President Emmanuel Macron won the most votes in the first round of the French election against far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. – Financial Times 

Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej became the first Israeli cabinet minister to visit Kosovo, landing in the capital city of Pristina on Sunday, at the invitation of Kosovo’s government. – Jerusalem Post 

Michael Gerson writes: The lesson? Ukraine, with aggressive help from NATO, must defeat Russian forces, or the United States might soon face the question: Do we really fight for Lithuania? Though we are obligated, the decision and task would not be easy. Helping draw a NATO redline at Ukraine could help the United States preserve itself from impossible choices of the future. – Washington Post 

Siamak Tundra Naficy writes: Samuel Huntington had it the wrong way around. It’s not a conflict of belief between cultures or “civilizations” that leads to war; it is war that refashions our ideas of self, community, and belief. In this way, Putin may find that now, even more than Lenin, his legacy will be of the man who helped make Ukraine. – War on the Rocks   

Jack Watling writes: The provision of military equipment to Ukraine should first and foremost be driven by solving practical problems. In NATO doctrine there is a growing emphasis on the deep battle, shaping the next fight and the fight beyond, to ensure success in the close. In Ukraine, the provision of tactical training by the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada to Ukrainian units has proven its worth. But the provision of lethal aid was left too late, exacerbating the problems that Ukraine faced in the close fight. – War on the Rocks 

The Americas

Respect for human rights and democratic norms eroded around the world in 2021, as repressive states increasingly detained opponents and struck out beyond their borders at those seen posing a threat, the Biden administration said on Tuesday. – Washington Post 

Mexican drug cartels appear to be shipping high-powered weapons to Colombia to purchase shipments of cocaine, a trade Colombian authorities say is fueling the deadly struggle between rival traffickers for control of the nation’s drug routes. – Reuters 

One of the busiest trade ports on the U.S.-Mexico border remained closed Tuesday as frustration and traffic snarls mounted over new orders by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requiring extra inspections of commercial trucks as part of the Republican’s sprawling border security operation. – Associated Press 

Mac Margolis writes: “What’s clear is that while Peru will still grow, it may not develop,” said Nicolás Saldías, Andean analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit. The fallout has spilled beyond the corner offices in Lima. The government’s own statistics bureau reported in December that nearly a third of the country doesn’t get enough to eat, while 39 percent go hungry in metropolitan Lima. That’s a red flag for even the most charmed of Latin America’s leaders, who know how quickly yesterday’s swoon can become tomorrow’s rant. – Washington Post 

Defense

In March 1922, the US Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, entered service. A century later, some are questioning whether carriers can survive in the wars of the future. The development of increasingly sophisticated anti-ship weapons by capable adversaries, namely Russia and China, has raised doubts about those ships. – Business Insider 

A quartet of logistics drones capable of carrying up to 50-pound payloads will embark on a U.S. aircraft carrier later this year to see if the unmanned aerial vehicles are practical at sea. – USNI News 

The Navy has in recent years been plagued by a series of high-profile shipbuilding problems that have delayed construction, sent costs skyrocketing and impacted quality and performance across platforms. Although the sea service has an oversight tool within major private shipbuilding yards that could help improve things, it remains hindered, according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. – Defense News