Chris Johns
I write a (short) daily post for Powerscourt, a Strategic Communications company, based in London and Dublin. The idea is to summarise the news flow around the war in Ukraine - not so much the news that makes the front pages but more the stuff that we find interesting/relevant. News that may have not attracted the attention it deserves. Anyone interested in receiving the short email on a daily basis is welcome to contact Powerscourt here: insights@powerscourt-group.com.
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Monday 20th March
China’s relationship with Russia dominates the headlines today with Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow. Will he also put a call into Zelensky? Will he begin sending weapons to Moscow? One thing we do know is that Russia has replaced Saudi Arabia as China’s largest oil supplier. China’s imports of Russian oil were up nearly a quarter in the first two months of the year - in terms of tonnes of crude oil at least. The main reason for the sharp increase is a fall in price. Russian ‘Urals’ oil now trades at steep discounts compared to other price benchmarks. China’s reopening after Covid lockdowns also contributed to increased oil demand. Al Jazeera also notes a rise in Chinese oil imports from Malaysia of 144%. The suggestion is that sanctioned exporters like Iran and Venezuela often use Malaysia as a conduit.
Those international oil price benchmarks are trading today at one year lows, Brent, for instance, is around $71 per barrel, with its West Teas counterpart trading at $65. OPEC, particularly the Saudis, want oil prices to be $100. Russian oil prices, more opaque, will undoubtedly be suffering as well. European natural gas prices are down around 6% this morning, or nearly 90% from their peak last Summer. Energy markets are driven by many factors but are now sniffing a banking crisis-driven economic slowdown or recession.
Some analysts think Xi’s objective is, ultimately, to broker a Korean-style armistice. In other words, a stalemate with an arbitrary line drawn through Eastern Ukraine marking the new border, As in Korea, it is destined to become one of the most militarised borders on the planet. John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, repeated the Western belief that any ceasefire, whether or not brokered by China, must not merely amount to an opportunity for Russia to regroup and rearm.
Russian business with Turkey is booming. A Turkish think tank, The Economic Policy Research Foundation, has published data suggesting more than 1300 firms were established last year by Russians in Turkey, a 670% increase. Russians also bought a lot of Turkish property.
Tuesday 21st March
Historian and journalist Max Hastings warns the West against hubris about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Writing for Bloomberg, Hastings suggests our foreign policies would be much more effective if we worked harder at trying to understand the perspective of others. Hastings quotes an unnamed African head of state: “I can’t see what’s different between what Russia is doing there [Ukraine] and what the West did in Iraq.” While a large majority of countries at the U.N. vote to condemn Russian aggression, 85% of the the world’s population lives in countries that do not apply sanctions against Russia.
Hastings notes our frustration with those who see the West as morally equivalent to Russia, “we know we are the good guys”, but concludes “moral conceit is the besting vice of our culture”. We would be wise to acknowledge the degree of support that exists for Russia and the alacrity with which India, Malaysia and Africa are all buying cheap Russian oil. We might take a crumb of comfort from the large number of nations determined to stay steadfastly neutral.
Ukraine claims a train carrying Russian cruise missiles has been destroyed in Crimea. A Kyiv intelligence briefing described the explosions as ‘mysterious’. Military analysts believe that Russian missile stocks are now all but fully depleted and that the only ones currently being fired are those recently delivered from the manufacturers.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence notes this morning that Wagner’s recruitment of Russian prisoners peaked last Autumn, with tens of thousands of convicts promised pardons if they survived six months on the front line. This means thousands of criminals are currently being released back into Russian civil society. About half the original recruits are dead or wounded and Wagner is now banned from further enlistments by convicted criminals. The mercenary group is, therefore, short of personnel.
Wednesday 22nd March
Russia state owned news agency RIA this morning stated that several Crimean radio stations have been hacked. The agency was keen to point out that reports of an imminent evacuation of Crimea were the work of those hackers and, therefore, false. Also in Crimea, authorities in the city of Sevastopol claimed to have completely shot down a Ukrainian drone attack. These kinds of probing actions in Crimea are no doubt designed to keep Russian forces tied down in the region.
In an intelligence briefing this morning, the UK’s Ministry of Defence raises the possibility that Russia’s attempt to take Bakhmut may be faltering. The MoD notes the recent success of a Ukrainian counter attack and suggests that Moscow may have redeployed some its forces away from the Bakhmut region. While the MoD is at pains to state that a Russian capture of the city is still distinctly possible, it’s a change of tone.
The MoD has also hit back at Moscow’s criticism and veiled threats concerning the UK’s decision to send to Ukraine shells containing depleted uranium. Such ammunition has been in use for decades and is very good at destroying tanks and other types of heavy armour. "It is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities,"
Xi Jinping has this morning departed Russia. In the words of one Sky news correspondent, the visit was a complete success for the Chinese leader, with Russia’s status as vassal state now fully cemented. In a surprise visit to Kyiv, the Japanese Prime Minister announced further aid for Ukraine. Zelensky said that he would be attending, virtually, the next G7 meeting, scheduled to take place in Hiroshima.
CNN reports from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Ukrainian troops are close to completing their training on the use of the Patriot missile defence system. Ukraine is due to receive two Patriots in the coming weeks, sooner than expected. Why only two? That’s not enough to protect a city but is consistent with a pattern established since the early days of the war. Military aid for Ukraine is announced incrementally, initially wholly inadequate and subsequently added to. Rinse and repeat. In fact, it’s a pattern repeated so many times it looks quite deliberate.
Thursday 23rd March
More hints are emerging about changing battlefield conditions. The US Institute for the Study of War this morning suggests “the tempo of Russian operations around Bakhmut appears to be slowing”. ISW notes that Russian forces are being redeployed, consistent with other analysts who think that Moscow is keen to shore up defensive lines in areas where they think the Ukrainian Spring offensive is likely to occur. The UK’s Ministry of Defence makes this very point in its most recent intelligence briefing: “Operationally, Russia’s intent in the north-east likely remains defensive. Commanders probably fear this is one of the sectors where Ukraine could attempt major offensive operations.”
Speaking at Heidelberg University, Polish Prime Minister Mateus Morawiecki argued that a different outcome to the 2020 US Presidential election would have meant that “Ukraine would no longer exist and the Kremlin would have moved on to its next victim”. The PM didn’t mention Trump or Biden by name but everyone knew who he was talking about. In a Bloomberg column, Andreas Kluth, former editor-in-chief for Handelsblatt, takes Morawiecki’s argument as self-evidently true and rolls them forward to ask what happens if Trump or Desantis wins next year. While noting the splits in opinion in the Republican Party over American assistance for Ukraine, Kluth suggests a Trump, or Trumpist, win in 2024 could well mean the end of Ukraine.
Much has been made of Desantis’ recent conversation with Fox News TV anchor Tucker Carlson, where the Florida Governor echoed Trump-like indifference towards Ukraine. The BBC reports this morning that Desantis is claiming his remarks were ‘mischaracterised’. He was speaking in an interview, due to be aired later today, with British Journalist Piers Morgan.
The World Bank has estimated it will cost Ukraine (more likely its donors) $411 billion dollars to recover and rebuild after the war. Just clearing up the rubble from destroyed buildings will cost $5 billion.
Friday 24th March
Yevgeny Prigozhin, boss of the Wagner mercenary group, has issued denials about a Bloomberg report that claims he is in the verge of scaling back his Ukrainian military operations. Bloomberg says Prigozhin is seen as an increasing threat by Russia’s military and security establishment. Putin has recently stepped in to stop Wagner from recruiting from prisons and someone in the Kremlin has slowed supplies of arms to the mercenary group. Wagner has been trying and failing to take Bakhmut for months and is said to be considering a return to Africa where it has had much more success. Prigozhin recently boasted of Wagner’s biggest success, capture of a village near Bakhmut, without mention that it had, in Ukraine’s most recent census, a population of two.
The head of Ukraine’s ground forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr SyrskyI, commenting on Wagner’s high casualty rate in Donetsk, stated that Ukrainian forces would ‘very soon’ be in a position to take advantage of the ‘opportunity’ that presented. CNBC and several other media outlets all carry similar stories noting that Ukraine is dropping multiple hints that a counter offensive is imminent.
Putin has penned an op-ed in the China People’s Daily, expressing gratitude for China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing supports the idea that NATO expansion is to blame for hostilities, reserves the right to send weapons to Moscow (but is yet to do so) and is pushing its ‘peace plan’ as hard as it can. Europe and the the US has dismissed Xi Jinping’s peace proposals but they are being taken seriously everywhere else. Importantly, China is widely seen as a global peace broker and is scoring important diplomatic and PR victories in the ‘global south’.
Putin’s indictment by the International Criminal Court has been widely dismissed as practically irrelevant: he will never travel to a country where he is likely to be arrested. One alternative possibility is that anybody seeking to overthrow Putin now has a way of getting rid of him: just put him on a plane to The Hague.
The munitions industry is certainly being asked to produce more. The pope has said the war is an opportunity for ‘testing of weapons on the battlefield’. I’m not a big conspiracy theorist but every situation, no matter how tragic, has profitable opportunities for somebody. Past wars did make a number of people very rich.
War is good for certain businesses - are there nuggets of arms-supporting businesses springing up & expanding - what do you think??