Dueling offensives in Ukraine and Russia

Another week of quickly highlighting some of the key news stories coming out of Ukraine and Russia. We will take a look at both Ukraine and Russia’s continued offensives. A few interesting situations that touch on international law. And finally, a little bit about how the American public views the war. 

Ukraine continues to hold territory in Russia’s Kursk region and gain small amounts of new territory. Russia has been unable to effectively push Ukraine out and as was discussed last week, seems to be treating this as the new normal. Ukraine appears to be expanding its offensive by attacking the Belgorod region in Russia. They also continue to attack Russian energy infrastructure deep inside of Russia. Ukraine has not made any significant gains since the early days of their offensive, but they have held on to the territory and solidified their position. The offensive changed the landscape of the war. 

Unfortunately, Russia continues to make small gains in parts of eastern Ukraine. The current focus is on the city of Pokrovsk. Losing Pokrovsk would be a major blow to the Ukrainian army’s defensive efforts in the east. It is an important distribution hub linking supplies from western Ukraine to the front in the east. If Pokrovsk falls, which appears likely, there will certainly be questions if whether Ukraine’s offensive took troops away from defending eastern Ukraine. The same questions should be asked of Russia as well, as they continue their offensive in Ukraine without adequately defending their border. 

Russia also launched its largest air attack on Ukraine since the war began. The attack used more than 100 missiles and around 100 drones targeting at least 15 Ukrainian regions. Russia followed up these attacks with additional air attacks later in the week, one of which targeted President Zelensky’s hometown as it was observing a day of mourning for four civilians killed on an attack of a hotel the previous day. These types of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets are a clear violation of international law. The fact that they happen so regularly has resulted in many people becoming desensitized to them. But just about every day Russia adds to the tally of war crimes they have committed and that is not something that should be forgotten. 

Speaking of international law, President Putin is planning to visit Mongolia next week. If you remember, Putin has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), primarily for his program of kidnapping Ukrainian kids and bringing them to Russia. Mongolia is a member of the ICC, so by international law, they are required to detain Putin when he is on Mongolian territory so he can be transferred to the ICC court in the Netherlands for trial. Mongolia is very, very, very unlikely to do this. It is one of the weaknesses of international law that countries can enforce it depending on their own wishes. But what a scene it would create if Mongolia did actually arrest him. One can only hope. 

The other, sort of, international law issue is the arrest of Pavel Durov in France earlier this week. Durov is the billionaire owner of the social messaging app Telegram, as well as the founder of the Russian social media platform VKontakte. VKontakte is best described as the Russian Facebook. Durov was forced to sell his shares in the company in 2014 after a dispute with the Russian government after his refusal to turn over some private data to the government. Since 2014, Durov has lived outside of Russia. France arrested him primarily because of Telegram’s lack of content moderation on its app, leading to criminal activity such as child pornography.  

For this newsletter’s purposes, I’m less concerned about the specific crimes in this case. Two things interest me about this story from the Ukraine-Russia war perspective. First, Telegram is the main messaging app used by the Russian military. Russia is worried that the west could get access to these messages, which would be an intelligence coup and could have a dramatic impact on the war. Second, it has been interesting to watch some of the reaction to the arrest. Folks like Elon Musk and Edward Snowden predictably act as if Durov’s basic human rights are being violated and it is another case that demonstrates the “authoritarianism” of the west while Russia is defending freedom. Some more pro-Ukrainian reaction has been that Durov is just a puppet of the Kremlin. Neither of these are close to true but it demonstrates how everything, understandably, becomes very polarized in the context of war. You must be on one side or the other, and the supporters of each side view all new information and events through that prism. I do not know enough about the specifics of the case to make any statements, but I do know that Durov is no stooge of the Kremlin and that the west is not taking away his basic human rights. Telegram is notorious for not just child pornography but as a messaging app to plan terrorist attacks and coordinate criminal behavior. That seems like something worth looking into. 

Finally, there is some interesting data about the American public’s support for Ukraine. As the linked article discusses, there is a notion that American’s are growing tired of the support for Ukraine. However, the survey data suggests that is not true. It is less than at the outset of war, but it has been slowly rising since July 2023 and has increased among all partisan groups since October 2023. All partisan groups are also more sympathetic to Ukraine than Russia. As the data shows, Democrats and independents tend to be more supportive of Ukraine than Russians, but it still majorities of all groups. To me, as someone who thinks this conflict is vital to American interests, this is encouraging news.