‘Dangling Nato membership for Ukraine does a disservice to Ukrainians who are bravely fighting for their independence.’ Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP

At last year’s Nato summit, the United States focused on improving Ukraine’s self-defense capabilities rather than addressing the country’s potential membership in Nato. At Nato’s upcoming summit in July, some are pushing for Nato to bring Ukraine significantly closer toward membership, such as by defining an accession process for Kyiv or inviting the country to join that process. Any such step would be unwise.

Nato’s Article 5 is widely considered to bind members of the alliance – in practice the United States above all – to go to war to repel an attack against any member. If Ukraine were to join Nato after the current war, the US and its allies would be understood to be making a commitment to fight Russian forces over Ukraine, should Russia invade again. Reflecting a broad political consensus, Joe Biden has ruled out the direct use of US military force since the start of Russia’s deplorable full-scale invasion two years ago. As the administration recognizes, the security and prosperity of the United States are not implicated in the current war to the degree that would warrant direct US military intervention. Indeed, both the US president and former president Donald Trump have warned that the conflict could escalate into “World War III”. For the same reason that the United States should not go to war against Russia over Ukraine today, it should not make a commitment to go to war against Russia over Ukraine in the future.

Some claim that the act of bringing Ukraine into Nato would deter Russia from ever invading Ukraine again. That is wishful thinking. Since Russia began invading Ukraine in 2014, Nato Allies have demonstrated through their actions that they do not believe the stakes of the conflict, while significant, justify the price of war. If Ukraine were to join Nato, Russia would have reason to doubt the credibility of Nato’s security guarantee – and would gain an opportunity to test and potentially rupture the alliance. The result could be a direct Nato-Russia war or the unraveling of Nato itself.

Dangling Nato membership for Ukraine does a disservice to Ukrainians who are bravely fighting for their independence. The closer Nato comes to promising that Ukraine will join the alliance once the war ends, the greater the incentive for Russia to keep fighting the war and killing Ukrainians so as to forestall Ukraine’s integration into Nato. Ukraine faces difficult choices of enormous consequence for its future. Ukrainians deserve to weigh their strategic options through clear eyes, not through rose-tinted glasses held out by outsiders who do not have the support of their countries.

The challenges Russia poses can be managed without bringing Ukraine into Nato. Moving Ukraine toward membership in the alliance could make the problem worse, turning Ukraine into the site of a prolonged showdown between the world’s two leading nuclear powers and playing into Vladimir Putin’s narrative that he is fighting the west in Ukraine rather than the people of Ukraine. The purpose of Nato is not to signal esteem for other countries; it is to defend Nato territory and strengthen the security of Nato members. Admitting Ukraine would reduce the security of the United States and Nato allies, at considerable risk to all.

Institutional affiliations are listed only for identification purposes; individuals have signed strictly in their personal capacity.

James Acton, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Aisha Ahmad, University of Toronto

Robert J Art, Brandeis University

Emma Ashford, Stimson Center

Andrew Bacevich, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Doug Bandow, Cato Institute

George Beebe, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Daniel Bessner, University of Washington

Brian Blankenship, University of Miami

Rachel Bovard, Conservative Partnership Institute

Dan Caldwell, Defense Priorities

Jasen J Castillo, Bush school of government, Texas A&M University

Ed Corrigan, Conservative Partnership Institute

Daniel Davis, Defense Priorities

Daniel R DePetris, Chicago Tribune and Defense Priorities

Michael C Desch, University of Notre Dame

Monica Duffy Toft, Fletcher school of law and diplomacy, Tufts University

Jeffrey Engel, Southern Methodist University

Benjamin Friedman, Defense Priorities

John Allen Gay, John Quincy Adams Society

Eugene Gholz, University of Notre Dame

Peter Goettler, Cato Institute

Kelly A Grieco, Stimson Center

Mark Hannah, Institute for Global Affairs

Peter Harris, Colorado State University

David Hendrickson, Colorado College

John C. Hulsman, John C Hulsman Enterprises

Van Jackson, Security in Context and Victoria University of Wellington

Jennifer Kavanagh, Defense Priorities

Edward King, Defense Priorities

Charles Kupchan, Council on Foreign Relations and Georgetown University

Anatol Lieven, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Jennifer Lind, Dartmouth College

Justin Logan, Cato Institute

Lora Lumpe, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Sumantra Maitra, American Ideas Institute and Center for Renewing America

Daniel McCarthy, Modern Age

John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago

Arta Moeini, Institute for Peace and Diplomacy

Samuel Moyn, Yale University

Lindsey A O’Rourke, Boston College

George Perkovich, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Paul R Pillar, Georgetown University

Patrick Porter, Cato Institute and University of Birmingham

Barry Posen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Christopher Preble, Stimson Center

Daryl G Press, Dartmouth College

William Ruger, American Institute for Economic Research

John Schuessler, Bush school of government, Texas A&M University

​​Joshua Shifrinson, school of public policy, University of Maryland

Peter Slezkine, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

Reid Smith, Stand Together

Marc Trachtenberg, University of California, Los Angeles

Kelley B Vlahos, Responsible Statecraft

Will Walldorf, Defense Priorities and Wake Forest University

Stephen M Walt, Kennedy school of government, Harvard University

Jim Webb, former senator and Notre Dame International Security Center

Stephen Wertheim, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Christian Whiton, Center for the National Interest

Gavin Wilde, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

William Wohlforth, Dartmouth College

Source: The Guardian

A woman walks past a huge coat of arms of Transnistria. Moldova’s breakaway region has appealed to Russia for help. Photograph: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images

The US has said it is closely watching the situation in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, after pro-Russian officials in the territory appealed to Moscow for “protection”.

Transnistria, which borders war-stricken Ukraine to the east, has maintained autonomy from Moldova for three decades with support from Russia, which has more than a thousand troops stationed there since a brief war in 1992.

Since Moscow began its full-scale assault on Ukraine, Chișinău has been concerned the Kremlin could use Transnistria to open a new front in the south-west, in the direction of Odesa.

The request for Russia to help Transnistria’s economy withstand Moldovan “pressure” was made after a meeting of hundreds of officials in the unrecognised region.

The resolution came a day before the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Thursday makes his annual address to Russian lawmakers and as Ukraine suffers setbacks on the battlefield. There are suggestions Putin might bring up the Transnistrian request in his speech and express support for the region.

Moldova’s pro-European government dismissed the appeal as a propaganda event to gain headlines.

The region, long seen as a potential flashpoint with Russia in Europe, held a “congress of deputies of all levels” after Moldova said it would require Transnistrian companies to pay import duties to the central budget from January.

At the meeting, the congress passed a resolution saying it would appeal to both houses of Russia’s parliament “with a request to implement measures to protect [Transnistria] in the face of increasing pressure from Moldova”.

Russian officials responded by saying that one of its “priorities” was to protect the thin sliver of land, which has been de facto controlled by pro-Russian forces since the collapse of the Soviet Union but is internationally recognised as part of Moldova.

US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday: “Given Russia’s increasingly aggressive role in Europe, we are watching Russia’s actions in Transnistria and the broader situation there very closely.”

Lawmakers take part in a congress of deputies of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, tensions surged around the separatist region, which says it has 220,000 Russian citizens. Relations between Moldova and Russia have also frayed as the government in Chișinău has steered a pro-European course.

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, in Albania for a summit of south-east European countries, said her country remained committed to a peaceful resolution of the Transnistrian conflict. “What the government is doing today is making small steps for the economic reintegration of the country,” she said.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said tensions in Transnistria were dangerous for the region. The problem “is not a new one”, he said, adding that the “threat of Russian intervention or at least some provocation there is something permanent”.

The call for help from Moscow has fuelled comparisons with February 2022, when Russian-backed militants in eastern Ukraine called for protection against what they said were relentless attacks and shelling by Kyiv’s forces.

Source: The Guardian

Samantha de Bendern is an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House

A still taken from footage released on 25 January shows what Russian investigators say is the IL-76 crash site in the Belgorod region. Photograph: Russian investigative committee/AFP/Getty

On 24 January, an IL-76 Russian strategic airlifter crashed 44 miles from the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border. Many questions surround the circumstances of the crash, as well as the identities of those who perished. Russia claims that 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war (PoWs) were on board. Neither Ukraine nor any national or international body have been able to confirm or deny this.

Vladimir Putin has since claimed to have evidence that an American Patriot anti-aircraft missile downed the plane. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian SBU (security service) has opened an investigation into a “violation of the laws and customs of war”. While both sides are accusing each other of acting unlawfully, the mystery of who was on board and what actually happened is still unsolved a week after the crash.

The warring parties, as well as most journalists, ballistics and aviation experts and political analysts trying to make sense of what happened, agree on two issues: the plane was shot down by a missile, and a PoW exchange planned on the same day was cancelled.

The Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda initially claimed that the Ukrainian military had shot down a Russian military plane carrying S-300 missiles, but the post was later withdrawn. Soon after, the Russians stated that the downed plane had been carrying Ukrainian PoWs. All on board the plane, including the crew, allegedly perished. Social media profiles of the Russian crew are now overflowing with condolences.

On the face of it, this appears to be a Ukrainian defence operation gone disastrously wrong. But the waters have since been muddied by confusing statements from each side.

Shortly after the crash, Margarita Simonyan, head of the Russia Today TV network, published a list of the alleged PoWs killed in the plane. Ukraine debunked this list, saying it contains the name of at least one prisoner who is already back in Ukraine and very much alive. However, on 27 January, the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on its Facebook page that the names on the list provided by Simonyan was correct.

At the time of writing, no independent analysts have been able to confirm the authenticity of the list, but it was notable that when 207 Ukrainian PoWs returned home on 31 January, according to the Ukrainians, none of them were among those who had been due to come home on 24 January.

Mistrust of the initial Russian list is understandable. In mid-January Russia published a list of alleged French “mercenaries” killed in a missile attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Xavier Tytelman, a French aeronautics consultant who has spent a lot of time fundraising for Ukraine since the war started, and knows most of the French volunteers there, reached out to each person on the list whose name he recognised, or to their comrades in arms. To date, all are alive and well (or never existed in the first place). French journalists working in Ukraine have also spoken to men on the list since their alleged deaths and French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu has since stated: “France is once again the target of a crude Russian disinformation campaign.”

In his 31 January address, Putin called for an international inquiry, but complained that no one had volunteered to investigate. He knows perfectly well that it is up to Russia or Ukraine to ask the UN for an inquiry, not for international bodies to volunteer.

If the Russians are certain that Ukrainian PoWs were on the plane and that it was downed by Ukrainians firing an American missile, they would have every reason to welcome an investigation. Unfortunately, the likelihood of any such inquiry taking place is slim. In a similar tragedy, approximately 50 Ukrainian PoWs died in a blast in the Russian prison camp of Olenivka in July 2022. Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for the explosion, but Russia was never able to provide convincing evidence that it had not been involved, and neither the UN nor the International Committee of the Red Cross were able to investigate the site.

Amid accusations and counter-accusations, as well as contradictory statements by both sides, the only certainty is that the PoWs’ fate remains unknown. At this point it seems unlikely they will turn up alive, and unless their bodies are found and subjected to autopsy by international independent pathologists, their fate will feed the myriad conspiracy theories embedding themselves in the narrative of this war.

Russia excels at disinformation. The opportunity to paint the Ukrainians in a terrible light in the wake of this tragedy is too good to miss. Even if the Ukrainians did down the plane and mistakenly killed their own captured soldiers, Russia would be guilty of violating the rules of war by flying PoWs so close to the war zone in a military aircraft and for not warning the Ukrainians which route the PoWs were taking.

A generous analysis would be that this was a terrible mess-up and bad communication. It is tempting, however, to see this as a deliberate trap in which Russia taunted Ukrainian air defences by flying a strategic aircraft full of PoWs close to the border so that they could blame the ensuing disaster on their enemies.

Source: The Guardian

Ukrainian forces use Starlink technology to operate reconnaissance drones in Donbas, Ukraine, 26 May 2023. Photograph: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/Shutterstock

Elon Musk’s hindrance of a Ukraine attack via Starlink caused a row. But other firms have similar power, and need scrutiny

The revelations that Ukrainian naval operations were blocked by a lack of support from Elon Musk’s Starlink system cast light on to his complex relationship with Russia and Ukraine.

But it is an area that deserves more light still, for Starlink’s parent, SpaceX, is far from the only technology company playing a vital role in Ukraine’s resistance against the Russian invasion. Household names such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others have also been essential to the defence of Ukraine.

The key role of tech companies – and the people working for and with them – in this war raises new questions about the status of private industry and civilians in wartime. Private companies are playing major roles in cyber, telecommunications, national resilience and more – but, just like SpaceX, none of them have an absolute duty to do so. Simply put, companies are providing capabilities that are vital to Ukraine’s national survival because they choose to, not because they are beholden to any of the states involved in the conflict.

Support from Amazon and its cloud services was crucial in evacuating Ukrainian government data before the invasion. Information technology companies such as Microsoft and ESET have been crucial to the cyber-protection of Ukrainian government and civilian networks against Russian attacks.

Google is providing both support services for Ukrainian government functions and protection for government websites and embassies worldwide. All of these companies – and a mass of smaller private sector and civil society organisations – have provided their services either pro bono or are funded by western governments backing Ukraine.

But the reason why none of these have hit the headlines in the same way as Starlink is not just because their support is provided quietly in the background. It’s also because, unlike Starlink, all of these companies have made a clear choice as to which side they are on. They concluded that their own values, and their duty to their other customers, mean that they must back Ukraine. According to the Microsoft president, Brad Smith, the process of getting involved in geopolitics was “unusual and even uncomfortable, but became indispensable for the protection of our customers”.

The case of Starlink highlights the vulnerabilities that come with dependence on this kind of goodwill. Twitter and Starlink under Musk are the primary case study for major tech platforms that hold power without accountability. Their distinctive ownership structure means that Musk’s personal decisions can easily cause lives to be saved or lost. Musk tweeted that he did not allow the Ukrainian raid on Russian warships for fear of causing “a major act of war” – which will have come as little comfort to Ukrainians fighting for their lives against major acts of war committed daily by Russia.

And the abortive naval raid on Sevastopol isn’t the first time Ukraine has depended on Starlink and been let down. Geofencing meant that advancing Ukrainian forces discovered in October 2022 that Starlink ceased to function when they entered newly liberated areas, depriving them of a critical communications capability at a vulnerable moment.

And in February 2023, Starlink placed further restrictions on usage, saying the system should not be used for offensive purposes such as providing communications for controlling drones carrying out attacks on Russian troops. This too was presented by Starlink as a response to an unanticipated use of the service – not just for communications but for specifically enabling offensive operations.

In all these cases, there are vital lessons for any other conflict where a state might be dependent on the goodwill of private industry: a critical warfighting capability can be hostage to a terms-of-service violation.

What is more, in a future, more ambiguous conflict, private companies’ loyalties could cross borders and they could find themselves offering services to both sides. In addition, their own commercial exposure could be a determining factor. Unlike Twitter and SpaceX, decision-makers in most corporations answer to boards and shareholders, which implies that in a future conflict involving, for instance, China, potential loss of business as a result of backing the other side could be decisive in determining a major technology company’s loyalties.

This has direct implications for the defence of western societies. The capabilities of private sector security firms are an integral part of western cyber-defence capability, and in particular the digital security of critical infrastructure has largely been entrusted to private industry. But the example of Ukraine has thrown open the question of where that industry’s loyalty may lie.

Starlink is an extreme example, both because of its unique prominence in Ukraine’s publicly visible warfighting effort and because of its distinctive ownership and decision-making structure. But the issues it highlights need to be addressed across the board. Corporations including SpaceX have independently jumped in to help Ukraine, largely because they felt it was the right thing to do. Governments must make sure it’s an easy decision for them to decide to jump in on the right side in future conflicts too.

Source: The Guardian

Coming just a day before the world’s media became submerged in the tragic aftermath of the explosion of the Kakhovka dam in Russian-controlled Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s latest invective against the Russian army on 5 June slipped under the radar. It was his most explosive yet.

Dressed in a khaki sweatshirt and trousers, in the middle of a forest in a Wagner training camp, Prigozhin, the commander of an army of contract fighters known as the Wagner group, accuses the Russian army of lying about events in the Belgorod region – where anti-Putin Russian partisans have been conducting cross-border raids from Ukraine since late May – and warns of the risk of civil war. He calls for the Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu to be put on trial for facilitating “the genocide of the Russian population” by being totally unprepared for the war in Ukraine, and more than once suggests that Shoigu and other senior military command should be shot. Prigozhin also claims that inhabitants of the Belgorod region have been writing to him, suggesting a Chile-type solution. “Chile means Pinochet,” explains Prigozhin. “… The Russian elite in a stadium surrounded by armed men with machine guns.”

Prigozhin even plays the nuclear card, initially saying that it would be counterproductive to use it now and that “the button should have been pressed earlier … even though it would have been the act of a fucked-up psychopath”. Later in the interview he suggests that Russians would be capable of using a nuclear weapon on their own territory. This comes with the comforting caveat that he’s unsure how well nuclear weapons would work if they are as badly maintained as the rest of Russia’s weaponry.

Thе hour-long interview follows Prigozhin’s tour of Russian cities during which he spoke of the need to open a “second front”, in the information sphere, to tell the population the truth about what is happening on the front lines and recommended the creation of a territorial army specifically to protect Russia. Even though he denies having any political ambitions, all these elements together look very much like a politician preparing either for an electoral campaign or an armed coup.

The question remains whether Prigozhin is controlled by the Kremlin, or is a loose cannon posing a serious threat to the regime. Since in Russia nothing is ever as it seems, this either/or question is probably far too simple. Some things however seem clearer than others.

Prigozhin would not be able to travel around Russia holding court without support and protection at the highest level. Moreover, as he vilifies what he calls the corrupt elites and calls with impunity for them to be executed, Russia’s most famous anti-corruption campaigner, Alexei Navalny, is rotting away in a penal colony and faces a potential 30-year prison sentence. Those with protection in the right places can say what they want.

After taking Bakhmut, Prigozhin decided to withdraw his forces, leaving the regular Russian army to hold the city. Was he allowed to do this in the knowledge that Russia’s grip on Bakhmut was threatened by the Ukrainian armed forces who have regained control of parts of the surrounding countryside? If in the coming weeks the Russians lose the city, the regular army will be blamed, and Prigozhin’s Bakhmut victory will be intact. Again, this points to patronage at the highest level allowing him to save face.

By suggesting the creation of a territorial defence and opening what he calls his second Wagner front domestically, Prigozhin appears to be positioning himself to play a mix of policing, security and information/propaganda roles inside Russia. This is vastly different from being a proxy foreign policy tool and private army operating abroad, particularly considering that Wagner, like most other private military companies (apart from those created to protect critical infrastructure), is still officially illegal. Without high-up support it seems hard to imagine how long this ambition will go unchallenged.

Another thing that is becoming clearer is intra-Russian chaos and animosity, if not outright armed conflict. In the last week, Wagner forces detained an officer of the Russian federal army whom they accused of mining their retreat and shooting at them while drunk; anti-Putin Russian partisans captured Russian regular forces and invited the governor of the Belgorod region to negotiate their freedom; and a high-ranking Chechen fighter openly criticised Yevgeny Prigozhin, highlighting the rivalry between the Chechen forces and Wagner. Without counting the mounting jealousies between the growing number of Russian private armies, the above describes at least four factions of armed Russians (including one fighting on the Ukrainian side) in conflict with each other.

If one accepts that Prigozhin is protected by the Kremlin, to what extent does the Kremlin actually mean Putin? So far Prigozhin has refrained from direct attacks on the president and has even said that he respects him. However, by mocking Russia’s nuclear decision-making and capabilities in his recent harangue, he appears to be undermining the very concept of Russia’s nuclear deterrent. It is hard not to see this as a criticism of Putin who is the ultimate arbiter of nuclear use. Double, triple bluff?

Prigozhin’s latest rant looks more and more like the tip of an iceberg that betrays growing fractures inside Russia’s top power structure. In a country that cannot even defend a small sliver of its border from incursions and allows drones to hit the centre of power, it is difficult to imagine a master in the Kremlin who has the absolute control, foresight and planning capacity necessary to manage all this chaos and pull Prigozhin’s puppet strings.

In February 2022, two days before the invasion of Ukraine, senior members of Russia’s security council cowered in submission before a seemingly omnipotent Putin. As the war grinds on, these same men may be the ones planning to take control from a president who seems increasingly divorced from the realities of the front line. They will need a scapegoat for the disastrous “special military operation”. With his frequent diatribes against the regular army, Prigozhin is handing them the heads of the Russian armed forces on a plate. Perhaps he is also promising to be their front man and guarantor of immunity as he helps navigate the chaos to come. Whether or not this includes Putin is anyone’s guess.

Samantha de Bendern is an associate fellow at international affairs thinktank Chatham House

Source: The Guardian