Russia in the New Year: January 1st -21st Highlights
Russia and the world spotlights:
South Korea tightened restrictions on its exports to Russia: munitions and goods competition.
Russia prolongs soft power asymmetry with South Korea after investing heavily in partnership with North Korea throughout 2023 and January 2024: allegedly, Pyongyang anticipates Putin’s visit at ‘an early date’ as North Korea continues to pursue alignment with Russia against the US. Putin’s last visit to North Korea was in 2000; the rekindling of interest in deepening relations is likely part of increased Russian efforts to procure artillery munitions given Russian shortages. According to Budanov, North Korean artillery munitions are operationally critical for Russia: Main Directorate of Ukranian intelligence estimated a deficit of 500,000 122mm and 152mm shells in 2023 and predicted similar deficit throughout 2024. 122mm rockets are used for attacking light vehicles, in addition to having anti-aircraft application if used with towed gun-howitzers. 152-155mm shells, on the other hand, are some of the most sought-after modern munitions; this medium-calibre artillery can fire at targets over 17-40km and plays a fire support role.
(On the opposite front, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton states on January 20th that the EU will have the capacity to produce 1.3-1.4 million artillery shells by the end of 2024, promising to deliver the ‘majority’ of them to Ukraine, in addition to Ukranian Ukroboronprom producing these munitions since 2022)
Meanwhile, driving Moscow and Seoul apart was the latter’s decision to add 600 types of exports, which could be used for military purposes, to its export control list; these goods can no longer be exported to Russia without special permission. Maria Zakharova threatened that Moscow reserves the right to take measures in response, “not necessarily symmetrical ones”; “South Korea should not be surprised” if it does.
Russia continues to play a ludicrous normative trump card in attempt to find more Global South allies.
In a letter to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on January 20th, Putin (falsely) asserted that Russia stands for “unconditional equality” and “sovereignty” of all NAM states. The central idea of the letter was that Russia rejects “neo-colonialist ambitions, double standards, as well as forceful pressure, dictatorship, and blackmail as a means of achieving foreign policy and foreign economic goals”. Quite obviously, this narrative clashes with de-facto imperialist and expansionist Russian foreign policy of the past decade. Specifically, Russia’s ‘neocolonialism’ appears ludicrous in the presence of its 'Russkiy Mir' ideology, which has manifested in Russian policy towards the Baltics and Moldova. Moreover, the letter contradicts Russia’s official position on the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The ‘decolonization’ trump card was also played this month when setting the agenda for BRICS and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as Russia is due to chair both organisations in 2024. On January 1st, Putin stated that Russia “will promote political, economic, and cultural cooperation during its BRICS chairmanship and prioritize “strengthening multilateralism for equitable global development and security", adding that the accession of Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia to BRICS demonstrates the organization’s “growing authority” and conglomeration of ”like-minded” countries that respect sovereign equality and desire a multipolar world order. The Russian agenda for CIS on January 1, meanwhile, encompassed “increased military cooperation, sanctions evasion, and joint “military-patriotic education and the popularization of common spiritual and moral values””. The Kremlin appears to be emphasising cooperation between Russia and the Global South, without explicitly committing to their development or trade partnerships. The commitment to the Global south this month has thus remained normative, driven by ‘anti-Americanism’ and ‘fairness’ though neither of these concepts were elaborated on.
Russian vs NATO ‘Steadfast Defender’ narratives
NATO military exercise Steadfast Defender will be taking place between February-May 2023 in Sweden. The official NATO source claims this will be the “largest NATO exercise in decades”, involving all 31 allies and 90.000 troops. On January 21st, ISW reported that Russia is already conducting an information operation to portray the exercise as a provocation. This response intensifies diplomatic setback on January 20th where the Russian ambassador threatened Denmark, a founding member of NATO, following a US-Denmark agreement giving US forces access to military bases in the country. Considering the importance of the “NATO expansion” factor for Russian validation of the full-scale invasion, the resurgence of defensive narratives should be treated with caution, though it is unlikely that these narratives will materialize into an offensive policy in the shared neighbourhood until at least after the election, if at all. Earlier, on January 6th, the Danish MoD announced a 6-month delay in delivering the first batch of F-16s to Ukraine. Combined with fast diplomatic retaliation on January 20th, it is likely that Danish diplomatic activity and military aid are currently under close observation from Russia’s MoD.
Overall, Western support of Ukrainian aerial operations continues, though delays or sub-optimal quantities of armaments continue to be an issue. On January 3rd, Norway promised to commit two F-16 fighter jets and 10 instructors to train Ukrainian military personnel in Denmark. Furthermore, addressing Western European skies, the NATO Procurement coalition will purchase up to 1,000 Patriot missiles to strengthen the member states’ air defences. The Patriot production facilities will be based in Germany. However, when and how the defences will be distributed is not known; nor do we know whether Ukraine will receive any of the 1,000 Patriot missiles.
New ‘Russkii Dom’ branches to spring up across Middle East and North Africa
Russia has begun negotiations with Algeria, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia to open Russian cultural centers (Russkii Dom) abroad, likely aimed at increasing Russian influence across the Middle East and North Africa. TASS previously reported that Russia is also in negotiations to open additional Russkii Dom branches in Brazil, South Africa, Angola, and Mali by 2025. At the moment, Russia has over 80 Russkii Dom centers concentrated in Europe, Africa, and Central and Southeast Asia aimed at promoting Russian culture, strengthening the influence of the Russian language, supporting “compatriots abroad,” and preserving historical monuments abroad with significance to Russia. ISW reports there had been warnings from Moldovan and Ukrainian officials that Russkii Dom enables Kremlin to conduct “subversive work” abroad and should be treated as an intelligence gathering capacity.
War in Ukraine spotlights:
POW exchange between Russia-Ukraine. Kadyrov holds Ukrainian POWs hostage in exchange for Western easing of sanctions.
At the end of 2023, Russia and Ukraine undertook the largest POW exchange since Summer. While Russia has used the exchange to bolster legitimacy, there are reports of Russian violations of the Geneva Conventions concerning their treatment of POWs: according to ISW report on January 6th, Ukrainian POWs are used as human shields in active combat and are killed at point blank range. In parallel to this development, Kadyrov was allegedly holding Ukrainian POWs hostage, offering to release them in exchange for the lifting of Western sanctions from his family and horses. The West should not take Russian openness to exchanging POWs as an indication of Russia’s readiness to proceed with peace negotiations; possibly, Russia is using POW exchanges to exploit western freedom of information to spread disinformation.
New mobilisation strategies to hold captured territories:
First, Russia is compensating the lack of recruits by offering easier access to citizenship in exchange for military service. In December 2023, President Putin signed a decree strengthening procedures for granting foreign citizens Russian citizenship in exchange for military service in Ukraine as part of ongoing efforts to coerce migrants into the Russian military. In addition to this, the Kremlin is beginning to utilise its occupied territories to bolster its mobilisation capacity: on January 4th, Putin signed a decree streamlining the process for Ukrainians to receive Russian citizenship. Furthermore, Ukrainian sources reported that Russian authorities planned to mobilise Ukrainian teenagers living in occupied territories. Subsequent youth mobilisation in this case should be seen as youth debilitation; mobilisation of young people discourages protests by mobilising the ‘revolutionary minds’ to frontline action and intelligence gathering, benefitting from their language or personal network access. This is expected to help Russia hold the occupied territories with lower resources. Overall, the utilisation of youth and migrants facilitates ‘guerilla warfare’, or asymmetric warfare, which Russia has been waging since 2014.
Specifically, Russia is interested in migrant workers as frontline power (cannon fodder), considering improper documentation that accompanies their deployment and, thus, plausible deniability for the state in case of their death. Likewise, enforcing a pro-Russian agenda and national identity upon Ukrainian youths allows to win ‘hearts and minds’ of Ukranian factions on Russia-occupied territories. Getting hold of education is especially important for Russia’s plans to maintain ‘sustainable’ hold of the territories it plans to annex. Forceful ‘Russification’ by means of conducting lessons in Russian, inclusion of (exceedingly patriotic) Russian history and literature in the curriculum and complete displacement of Ukranian narratives and civil identity would not only propagate pro-Russian vision of disputed events – eg. 2004 Orange Revolution, 2013 Euromaidan or the issue of Crimea – but, by extension, will diffuse willingness of Ukranian youth to protest and withstand Russian ultranationalism.
Kharkiv: future buffer zone
On January 10th, Russian sources revived calls for a large scale Russian offensive operation in Kharkiv oblast to create a buffer zone next to Belgorod Oblast despite Russian ostensible military inability to conduct operation to seize a sufficiently large chunk of territory in Kharkiv as of now. As of January 22nd, Russian forces are investing heavily (with little to show for it) into advancing along the frontline connecting Kupiansk, Svatove, and Kreminna. A Washington D.C.-based think tank also commented that the revival of the struggle for control of Kharkiv Oblast equates with intention to create a buffer zone near Belgorod.
