Russia attacks a children's hospital

The horrible news for this week is a Russian attack on a children’s hospital in Ukraine. We’ll also look at a foiled Russian plot to kill the head of a German weapons manufacturing plant as well as the NATO summit. In addition, we’ll end up looking at the results of the French elections and the current state of the U.S. presidential election. 

Situation in Ukraine and Russia

Early in the week the Russian’s attacked a children’s hospital in Kyiv. The Russians attacked several other places in Ukraine on July 8^th, resulting in a total of 42 civilian deaths and 190 injured. The photo above is not of the children’s hospital, but just an example of what Russia’s continuous and indiscriminate bombing has done to Ukraine. 

Russia is making more of the type of missile they used to bomb the hospital and are making missiles that are better able to elude air defenses. The sad thing is that these missiles require electronics made by Western manufacturers. These parts are still finding their way into Russia and ending up in missiles that kill innocent Ukrainians.  

The other sad thing is that the U.S. and other western countries still place limitations on how Ukraine can use their weapons. At the NATO summit, Zelensky called for lifting restrictions and allowing Ukraine to strike all Russian military targets inside of Russia. Ukraine knows where the planes and missiles are coming from, they are just not allowed to attack them before they enter Ukrainian airspace. How ridiculous; especially when facing someone like Putin who will not hesitate to target civilians. 

Why are the restrictions in place? The ever-present fear of escalation. Again, I know it’s easy for me behind the safety of a keyboard to say that the fear of escalation is overblown. But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s true. If leveling cities, like the picture above illustrates, committing war crimes like those in Bucha and attacking a children’s hospital is not already escalation then I don’t know what is. It is like the old story of a frog that dies in a pot of water because the heat is only increased in small doses and by the time the frog realizes it is too much, it’s too late to jump (go with it even though apparently the frog will jump out of the pot before it’s too late). 

Putin increases the level, severity and brazenness of his attacks, waits for the outcry, says something about nuclear weapons so everyone freaks out about escalation and then starts the cycle over again. He is helped by “useful idiots” in the west who call for peace on Putin’s terms (like Orban) and warn of nuclear holocaust. It is all so predictable and depressing. 

Zelensky is right that Ukraine needs to be less constrained in fighting its war of survival and that the west needs a strategy for victory. Putin is relying on western incoherence and fear. 

While the west worries about escalation, Russia is practicing subterfuge within the borders of western countries. This week, the U.S. and Germany foiled a plot by Russians to murder the head of a large German manufacturing plant. As the story indicates, this murder was to be one of only many such murders of defense industry executives across Europe. This comes after Russia was blamed for setting fire to a weapons manufacturing site in Germany in June. In April, Germany arrested two Russian planning attacks on military sites (including U.S. sites) and arrested six people accused of espionage. 

Russia under Putin has a long history of espionage and attacks inside European countries and the U.S., with very little response because of the fear of escalation. Putin is now more brazen in his attempts and the attempts are more deadly. 

NATO had a summit celebrating its 75^th anniversary and showing support (mostly) for Ukraine. As I’ve mentioned several times, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made NATO stronger, not weaker. And the event largely demonstrated that strength. There were some events however of note. Zelensky called for greater support and fewer limitations and Viktor Orban played the odd man out (funny photo below is Italian PM Meloni looking at Orban) by focusing more on peace with Russia (according to Russian demands) than support for Ukraine. While the support is there now, Orban’s reluctance along with concerns about the U.S. election demonstrate that continued NATO support for Ukraine is not a given. And without that support Ukraine will not be able to defeat Russia. 

Elections

Looking at the current state of the U.S. election, things appear to be trending in Trump’s direction. Biden’s poor showing in the first debate caused a slight movement toward Trump in the national polls and, as the tweet above shows, caused the Cook Political Report to move 6 key battleground states toward Trump. Democrats are debating if Biden should drop out and then, if he did, who would replace him. (Biden referring to President Zelensky as President Putin at the NATO summit is not ideal). All of this is outside of the parameters of this newsletter, but the next few weeks will be interesting in U.S. politics and Biden may end up dropping out of the race. 

Regardless, what concerns me here is how a second Trump term would affect Ukraine. And, I’m afraid that a second Trump term would not be good for Ukraine. Let me start with recent news. After Orban visited Putin in Moscow, and then went to the NATO summit, he paid Trump a visit in Mar-a-Lago. Orban said that it was a “peace mission” and that Trump was going to “solve it”. Again, peace sounds good, but what Orban is discussing is a peace on Russia’s terms, where Ukraine is not a part of NATO or the EU, loses its territory to Russia and stays in a vulnerable state for another attack in the future. A peace like the period between 2014 and 2022, where there was still active fighting and oppression of Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories. This is the peace that Trump is talking about as well. 

Earlier this year, Trump said that NATO allies who did not spend the required 2% of GDP on defense would not be protected. He said not only would he not protect them, but he would also encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want”.  Trump has never been a strong supporter of NATO, taking a view of the alliance closer to Putin’s view. A second Trump term would likely include policies toward NATO and Ukraine closer to Orban than the German, French, UK, Swedish, Danish, etc. policies.  

Also, remember what the first impeachment of Trump was about. In phone calls with Zelensky in 2019 Trump seemed to condition $400 million in U.S. aid on whether Zelensky would assist Trump in digging up dirt on Biden. The aid was eventually given, but the episode reveals a few things about how Trump approaches Russia/Ukraine. First, he is willing to sacrifice Ukraine’s defense for his own benefit. Russia’s subsequent invasion of Ukraine shows how important that military aid was and the threat of withholding it for personal political gain is outrageous. Second, the alleged Biden corruption that Trump wanted Zelensky to investigate was all nonsense. It was a conspiracy theory planted by Russian agents to deflect from their actions during the 2016 election. Trump has repeatedly shown he is susceptible to Russian disinformation when it benefits him, which is not good news for Ukraine.  

(As a quick aside, when Trump and his supporters brag that Putin would never invade Ukraine when Trump was president they are right. But it’s not because Trump is so tough and Putin is afraid of him. It’s because Trump was pressuring Ukraine in ways that Putin felt he might get what he wants without force. Not to mention Trump was weakening NATO. With a different president, Putin knew he would not be able to pressure Ukraine in the same way and would have to use force to get what he wants) 

A lot will happen between now and November, and who is elected president will obviously affect a lot more than just the Ukraine situation. But, a second Trump term would be worse for Ukraine than the alternative, whatever that might be.