Connexion
Executive Summary:
Introduction: A New Operational Environment
Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has become both the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II and the most technologically saturated war in history. Over four years of combat, both sides have moved through several cycles of tactical adaptation: from the classical combined-arms operations of early 2022, through the positional warfare of 2023–2024, to the current phase of small-group infantry assault dominated by ubiquitous unmanned systems and networked electronic warfare (EW). The Russian military—despite catastrophic losses and the systemic failures of its first year of invasion—has demonstrated a meaningful capacity for organizational adaptation and doctrinal reworking.
For the states on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastern flank—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in particular—Ukraine’s experience offers a practical reference for a possible defensive scenario. The geography of the Baltic theater possesses several distinctive characteristics: limited strategic depth (no more than 200–300 kilometers (124–186 miles) from border areas to national capitals); narrow corridors, namely the Suwałki Gap; dense urban development along borders; and dependence on maritime and air supply lines passing along vulnerable routes. Under these conditions, the defender’s capacity to impose a slow tactical tempo during the first 30–45 days of conflict takes on strategic significance, as this is precisely the interval required to deploy allied formations along the Vilnius–Riga–Tallinn axis.
Evolution of Russian Ground Offensive Operations From Brigade Columns to Small Assault Groups
The Russian offensive operation as observed in 2025–2026 differs fundamentally from the model envisaged in the Russian military’s general-purpose doctrine of 2010–2014. Current Russian practice includes virtually no armored wedges designed to penetrate rapidly deep into enemy defenses. Instead, Russian forces apply continuous pressure with small assault groups across a wide front. A typical assault group consists of four to eight personnel moving in pairs at intervals of seven to nine meters, conducting its assault in successive waves that attack the same objective to exhaust the defender’s fire system.
This evolution is the direct result of contact with the saturated reconnaissance-strike complex fielded by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) detect armored formations concentrating at jump-off lines within minutes, and a composite combination of artillery, first-person view (FPV) drones, and loitering munitions engages them before they can step off. Adaptation to this environment required a radical reduction in the attacking formation’s visual and thermal signature. Russian tactics have similarly evolved. As a Russian military blogger wrote:
Our tactics have changed: the front is being ‘stretched’ by small groups of our assault troops who ‘seep’ into the most vulnerable sectors of the defense, creating bridgeheads that are then expanded and reinforced. Classically, a company’s offensive frontage has been 1.5 kilometers [about 1 mile], and a battalion’s 3–4 kilometers [about 1.9–2.5 miles]. New means of delivering ammunition, material, and provisions to the line of contact are playing an important role. In addition to motorcycles and quadricycles, our forces are now using a ground assault drone with a payload of up to 20 kilograms [about 44.1 pounds].[1]
The “Disposable” First Wave
Using the first assault group as a disposable element of reconnaissance by fire is a characteristic feature of Russian small-group tactics. This group’s primary task is to uncover the defender’s fire system by drawing return fire. Only after the defenders have revealed their positions are subsequent waves committed. These subsequent waves carry heavier weapons and operate in coordination with FPV drone crews and artillery. This phenomenon has fundamental significance for the tactical training of defending forces: platoon and company commanders must be conditioned to recognize that the first detected enemy group is bait and to defer committing primary fire assets until a second or third wave is confirmed.
In parallel, the Russian side systematically employs the tactical method of “distraction.” This typically involves a demonstrative strike on one flank intended to draw the defender’s reserves, followed by the main attack on a previously quiet sector. Demonstrative actions are often accompanied by false artillery fire, the placement of linear and area aerosol screens, and even feigned damage to friendly equipment to deceive the defender about the true axis of advance.
Mobile Groups and Infiltration
Personnel and supplies move within 5–15 kilometers (3.11 to 9.32 miles) of the line of contact primarily on motorcycles, quadricycles, and buggies. This solution is dictated by the need to minimize exposure time to FPV drones. Infiltration by reconnaissance-assault groups through weak points in the defense is well documented: drainage ditches, irrigation channels, and culverts under roads are all used as routes of advance. Personnel use thermal-insulating capes to suppress their infrared signature. In the Baltic theater, analogous infiltration paths are formed by drainage systems in agricultural land, forest tracts, and marshy belts along the frontier. Ukrainian open-source intelligence (OSINT) material documented Russian UAV training in regions near the Lithuanian border and the practice of emergency UAV landings on unprepared sites in marshes as early as 2021.[2]
Pre-Operation Training: Full-Scale Mock-Ups
A key element of the Russian small-group method is 13- to 21-day pre-operation training cycles centered on full-scale physical mock-ups of target localities. Holding groups train in forest belts using equipment, while assault groups drill the specific tactical task assigned by combat order, study the objective on the mock-up, and rehearse its seizure with organic weapons combined with FPV drones. Night training develops silent movement and orientation skills, with UAVs equipped with thermal and night-vision cameras recording trainee actions for debrief. Daily intelligence from UAV reconnaissance flights of the target locality is incorporated into the next day’s training scenario, allowing the assault personnel to “live out” the actual tactical situation in advance. For the Baltic states, the implication is direct: pre-conflict training centers should incorporate full-scale mock-ups of likely targets in predicted operational sectors—particularly Narva, Daugavpils, and the Suwałki Gap—and reservist mobilization cycles should plan for a minimum 14–day cohesion phase.
Case Study: The Capture of Berestki, November 2024
The capture of the village of Berestki in Donetsk oblast by Russian forces in late 2024 illustrates Russia’s small-group, wave, and distraction tactics. The 114th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade (114 omsbr) of the 51st Combined Arms Army carried out the main thrust of the campaign from November to early December 2024. Initial clearance of Ukrainian Armd Forces (AFU) positions in the village was reported in late November.[3] The brigade’s own announcement of the village’s seizure followed at the end of November.[4] The formal Russian Ministry of Defense communiqué came one week later.[5] The brigade’s operational chronology appears in open Russian reference compilations and OSINT analytical material.[6]
Two battalions of the AFU 35th Independent Marine Brigade (35 obrmp) held a prepared defense organized within the village’s residential fabric. The defense delivered up to 30 mortar and artillery strikes and up to 25 FPV drone attacks per day against advancing Russian positions, while approaching routes were mined remotely. Berestki blocked the Novoselydivka–Kurakhove road, the principal communications route for AFU forces operating west of the Kurakhove reservoir.
The Russian brigade commander allocated 22 assault groups, totaling 126 personnel, across four axes. The plan concentrated the first attacks on the northern and northeastern axes, anticipating that the AFU would shift reserves from the southern and western flanks to those axes. At that point, the southern and western groups would launch their own assault into the weakened sectors.
Movement and pre-positioning
The Russian assault detachment moved from its assembly area along the Novoselydivka–Berestki road on motorcycles with sidecars (two–three motorcycles per group, at high speed), then dismounted and moved on foot through the shelterbelts, occupying their attack positions overnight in radio silence. Brigade artillery conducted harassing fire on AFU command-post candidates and on approaches to the northern edge, disrupting the AFU’s ability to maintain reconnaissance and vigilance ahead of the main attack.
The assault
Brigade artillery, reinforced by an army-level artillery battalion, began the artillery preparation, destroying up to two platoons of the 1st and 2nd Marine Battalions, 35 Separate Marine Brigade (OBRMP), in northern-edge buildings and in the “Son” forest belt. Two “Karakatitsa” robotic ground vehicles deployed a 15-minute smoke screen covering the northern axis, concealing the assault from FPV drone observation. The northern and northeastern groups attacked from shelterbelts. By midday, the first peripheral buildings on the northern outskirts were captured; high-rise buildings, whose upper floors became observation platforms, followed in the afternoon.
Decoy effect
As anticipated, the defender shifted forces to the northern axis. This was the trigger for the southern and western groups (10–22) to launch under hand-thrown smoke grenades. The defender, observing each smoke screen, opened intensive fire on the screened areas, exposing his own fire positions, which the assault groups then bypassed on the flanks and struck from the rear.
Encirclement and reduction
A defender’s attempt to evacuate personnel on a “Kirpi” MRAP toward Stari Terny was destroyed by ambush fire from the brigade’s assault detachment in the forest belts. A counter-attack by up to two companies of the AFU 88th Independent Marine Infantry Brigade, reinforced by a tank platoon and attacking from Stari Terny, was disrupted by integrated Russian artillery and UAV fire. After this attempt, the encircled 35th OBRM remnants in Berestki could not be rotated or resupplied. Over the next several days, the brigade employed massed FPV drone fire to complete the reduction of the position.
Implications for Baltic defense
The case shows the small-group, wave, and distraction methodology in successful, compressed form. The inverse implication for Baltic defenders is equally instructive. Despite an organized defense and a heavy daily fire output (30 mortar/artillery strikes and 25 FPV drone strikes per day), the defenders could not compensate for the loss of resupply once isolation occurred. This argues for pre-positioned cache networks, alternate routes, and the disciplined avoidance of provoking fire when smoke screens are detected—three elements that any urban-defense plan for Narva, Daugavpils, or the Suwałki sector should incorporate.
The Drone Revolution and Its Structural Implications: Scale and the Primacy of FPV
More than 250,000 UAV applications of various types were recorded on a single operational direction during 2024–2025, with FPV drones accounting for over 93 percent of that total. The share of FPV drones in the destruction of Russian armored vehicles approached 70 percent. By the end of 2025, the Ukrainian Defense Procurement Agency had supplied the AFU with approximately 2.4 million FPV drones during the calendar year, with an additional 200,000 units delivered via the DOT-Chain Defense digital procurement platform—a cumulative annual delivery approximately two-and-a-half times that of 2024.[7] Any armored vehicle detected and unable to change position within five to ten minutes is highly likely to be destroyed.
Four Categories of Drone Threat
The unmanned threat falls into four functionally distinct categories. The first category consists of small commercial quadcopters (DJI Mavic, Autel) employed for reconnaissance and small-payload drops within five kilometers (about 3.2 miles) of the line of contact. The second comprises FPV drones across various frequency bands, carrying warheads of 0.5–3 kilograms (about 1.1–6.6 pounds) and operating at ranges of 15–20 kilometers (about 9.3–12.4 miles). The third category consists of heavy multirotors known as “Baba Yaga” and “Vampire,” carrying 15–20 kilograms (about 33–44 pounds) of payload and operating primarily at night with thermal-imaging cameras and Starlink satellite control. A documented engagement saw a Baba Yaga bomber drone strike a Russian Buk-M3 air-defense vehicle at a distance of 57 kilometers (about 35.4 miles) from the line of contact, with the target spotted only 40 minutes before engagement.[8] The fourth category consists of loitering munitions (the Russian Lancet, Shahed/Geran-2, and fixed-wing UAVs) for striking targets at ranges of 35–2,000 kilometers (about 21.8–1,242.7 miles).
No universal counter exists for all four categories. Each requires its own combination of detection and engagement means. Attempts to cover a unit with a single type of jammer or counter-UAV rifle invariably leave gaps. This creates an enduring requirement for both density and diversity of air-defense and EW assets at every tactical level.
Fiber Optics and Machine Vision as the Next Frontier
By mid-2025, fiber-optically controlled FPV drones had risen to over 20 percent of total drone use. These systems are immune to classic radio-frequency suppression—the only effective countermeasures are physical engagement (small arms, anti-drone nets, shotguns) and pre-emptive destruction of launch crews. Both Ukraine and Russia are introducing machine-vision software (SakerScout, RAM X, and analogs) that allows drones to autonomously recognize a target and complete a strike after losing the control signal. Flight suppression, therefore, no longer guarantees target survival. Pre-emptive engagement alongside passive defenses has become essential: anti-drone netting, awnings over roads, cope cages on armored vehicles, and thermally-distorted camouflage.
Manufacturing Requirements
Each unit on the front now averages around 30–40 FPV drone launches per day. On a 50-kilometer (about 31.1 miles) front, this requires several thousand units per day—a volume foreign procurement cannot sustain. For the Baltic states, this creates a direct requirement to localize FPV drone and heavy multirotor production within national industrial bases. Every infantry company should be assigned no fewer than three permanent FPV crews, and every battalion should retain an organic UAV platoon. The Ukrainian model—culminating in the establishment of the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) as a separate combat arm in June 2024 and the launch of the “Drone Line” project in 2025, designed to integrate infantry and UAVs into a 10–15 kilometer-deep (about 6.2–9.3 miles) kill zone—offers a directly transferable organizational template.
Helicopter-Based Counter-UAV: The Russian Adaptation
Russia integrated army aviation forces into the air-defense fighter-cover system to counter the UAV threat. For the first time in Russian practice, attack helicopters were placed under the operational subordination of air-defense (PVO) division commanders, forming tactical groups of army aviation, each composed of two attack helicopters and one retransmission helicopter, held at Readiness State No. 2 (25 minutes from order to takeoff). The selected platforms are the Ka-52M “Alligator” and the Mi-28N, with the Ka-52M proving demonstrably more effective owing to its onboard radar. The principal munition for engaging UAV-class air targets is the 9M342 Igla-S missile. Targeted Ukrainian UAV types include the Yuzh-22 “Airbone,” the Yuzh-26 “Beaver,” the Liutyi, and the PD-2.
The first successful intercept occurred on August 30, 2023. A Mi-28N crew destroyed a Yuzh-22 “Airbone” unit 30 kilometers (about 18.6 miles) southeast of Zmiivka at a range of 250 meters (about 820 feet), expending 29 rounds of 30-mm cannon fire. Another instance occurred on December 19, 2024, when a single Ka-52M crew over Oryol oblast destroyed three approaching UAVs at ranges of 22, 10, and 45 kilometers (about 13.7, 6.2, and 28 miles) over 46 minutes, expending two Igla-S missiles and 65 rounds of 30-mm cannon fire. The aggregate statistics for November–December 2024 illustrate both the achievement and a sharp seasonal limit: across the two months, Army aviation tactical groups destroyed 59 UAVs in the general PVO system, with 39 (66 percent) destroyed in November and only 20 (34 percent) in December—halving effectiveness despite comparable UAV traffic, attributable to seasonal weather (cloudiness, icing) that restricts attack-helicopter availability. Of the 59 UAVs destroyed, 42 (71 percent) were struck with Igla-S missiles and 17 (29 percent) with 30-mm cannon fire.
The C-band Doppler meteorological radar (DMRL-S, originally a civilian meteorological asset) can detect NATO UAVs and loitering munitions at ranges up to 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles), presenting another implication for Baltic defense. Russia can operate meteorological radars that, with software modifications, could be incorporated into the national air picture without significant capital expenditure. The broader implication is twofold: helicopter-borne counter-UAV is operationally feasible but degraded by adverse weather—an argument against over-reliance on rotary-wing assets in the cloudy and icing-prone Baltic climate—while dual-use of national meteorological radar offers a low-cost addition to the layered counter-UAV picture.
Effective EW: Ukrainian Model of Dense EW
The AFU has built an EW maneuver-group structure on each operational direction that has proven effective in modern war. Up to ten EW and signals intelligence (SIGINT) maneuver groups defend a single direction, often fielding Bukovel-AD jammers. These jammers have a detection range against the Orlan-10 of up to 100 kilometers (about 62.1 miles) and a jamming radius of 15–20 kilometers (about 9.3–12.4 miles) against UAV control channels.[9] Other jammers include the Anklav (operating in the 400–2,500 MHz band, directional range up to 40 kilometers (about 24.9 miles), omnidirectional up to 20 kilometers (about 12.4 miles); Nota (detecting UAVs at 20 kilometers (about 12.4 miles) and jamming satellite channels at 15 kilometers (about 9.32 miles); Tuman; Khmara; and the SIGINT and direction-finding complex Plastun-RP of Ukrainian design, alongside Western TCI-903S systems. These assets are positioned on dominant heights 5–10 kilometers (about 3.1 to 6.2 miles) from the line of contact and shift positions at least once every 24 hours. The system can block adversary UAV command and navigation channels to a depth of up to 20 kilometers (about 12.4 miles) behind the enemy’s front lines.
Ukrainian EW assets suppress satellite-correction channels of Russian guided air bombs equipped with UMPK glide-kit modules, reducing their accuracy by a factor of two to three. The Pokrova system, unveiled in 2023, operates on the principle of GPS spoofing, supplying the adversary’s UAV with a false satellite signal to deflect it from course.[10]
Russian forces concede a lack of effective counters to commercial UAVs of the DJI Mavic, Autel, and DJI Phantom families, particularly under mass employment. Heavy octocopters such as the “Baba Yaga” and “Vampire,” controlled via Starlink commercial satellite channels, are often beyond the reach of standard Russian jammers. In early 2026, Russian UAV crews, EW and SIGINT units, fire assets, and infantry positions lost reliable internet access after the Russian government throttled Telegram and Starlink was interrupted on Russian-controlled territory. With no broadcasts and no battlefield picture, Russian decision-making slowed notably.
The AFU has systematically exploited a saturation problem of Russian air defenses and artillery. When five or more FPV drones are deployed simultaneously on different frequencies within a narrow front sector, the Russian EW system “selects” targets for suppression, allowing some drones to get through.
Russia has acknowledged these systems as the “blind spots” of its electronic suppression capability. For the Baltic states, this has a direct implication: priority should be assigned to the large-scale procurement of upper-segment commercial copters (DJI Mavic, Autel), heavy platforms for ordnance delivery, and the layered deployment of Starlink networks.
Artillery, Precision Strikes, and Counter-Battery
Tube and rocket artillery retain a key role in combat, but their use has fundamentally changed. Both Russian and Ukrainian artillery—faced with the FPV-drone and loitering-munition threat—have moved firing positions to 10 kilometers (about 6.2 miles) or more from the line of contact and adopted the principle of “one or two rounds—immediate displacement.” The Russian “active defense” of a brigade-tactical-group configuration usually operates in a kill zone of 3–5 kilometers (about 1.9–3.1 miles) along the front and 10 kilometers (about 6.2 miles) in depth.
Long-range precision weapons have proven highly effective against rear infrastructure. According to open-source reporting from Ukraine, Ukrainian unmanned systems conducted more than 220 deep-strike operations against targets on Russian territory during 2024, with confirmed strike depths exceeding 2,000 kilometers (about 1,242.7 miles).[11] For the Baltic theater, this generates a direct requirement to hold in national arsenals stocks of systems with ranges of at least 150–200 kilometers (about 93.2–124.3 miles), sufficient for sustained strikes against railway hubs, Kaliningrad-region ports, and transshipment bases in the Pskov and Leningrad oblasts.
Counter-battery work should be a distinct priority. An effective solution is to create reconnaissance-strike batteries that combine artillery-reconnaissance radar—with a detection depth exceeding 60 kilometers (about 37.3 miles)—fixed-wing reconnaissance UAVs, and loitering munitions.
Engineering and Fortification in the Drone Age
Tree lines and other elements of natural concealment, traditionally relied upon for cover, lose their protective properties within several weeks of combat due to artillery and FPV drone strikes. Defensive positions must therefore rely from the outset on artificial overhead cover, anti-fragmentation awnings, and dug-in shelters. Equipping a single operational sector during a single operation requires more than 3,400 wooden panels and over 14,500 earth-filled bags. A three-person engineer crew can prepare up to 40 meters (about 131 feet) of trench and up to two dugout pits in one night, using explosive methods to disrupt the soil.
Mine-laying should be planned with attention to current conditions. Up to 20 percent of mines should be set with anti-removal fuzes; booby traps and remotely emplaced engineering munitions, including UAV-delivered mines, must be available. The Russian army systematically employs remote mining with cluster artillery munitions and UAV-dropped mines within ten kilometers of its forward edge.
Open compiled combat-experience materials record the disproportionate diversion of manpower to engineering preparation: relocating a single calibrated overhead beam over two to four kilometers (about 1.2–2.5 miles) requires diverting two to four servicemen. Where centralized supply is lacking, units must fell tree lines, dismantle abandoned structures, and improvise anti-drone protection from scavenged materials.[12] For the Baltic states, this implies stockpiling prefabricated fortification kits (dugout sets, anti-fragmentation panels, cope cages for armor, thermal-distortion camouflage netting) in peacetime to reduce manpower diversion in the first weeks of conflict.
Logistics and Information Warfare Logistics under Persistent Fire
Moving rear columns during daylight hours near the line of contact has become essentially impossible. Within fifteen kilometers (about 9.32 miles) of the forward line, small-form transport is preferred: motorcycles, buggies, quadricycles, robotic ground platforms, and agricultural payload-carrying multirotors. Layered caches are applied to intermediate depots with five to seven days of supply, located no farther than 5–10 kilometers (about 3.11–6.21 miles) from front-line units. Standard motor transport resupplies these caches from fixed depots, primarily at night.
Information-Psychological Warfare
Russian information operations begin long before the kinetic phase and continue in parallel. Mass SMS distribution to mobile-network subscribers in the front-line zone is used (up to 80,000 messages per individual mobile EW system, such as Svirel, during a single operation), aimed at demoralization, desertion calls, and discrediting command structures. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are actively used to produce photo, video, and audio content, including deepfakes. A separate operation aims to discredit specific defending units on social networks and international media. Countermeasures include preparing a national strategic communications system, resourcing press services for rapid rebuttal, and maintaining a proactive social media presence with documented evidence of force activity.
The Adversary’s Self-Reflection: Compiled Experience and the Telegram Segment
Beyond AFU-compiled combat experience, an essential resource for verifying this report’s conclusions is the Russian military community’s open self-reflection. The most systematic open compilation is the three-volume series of Notebooks on the Generalization of Combat Experience of the Special Military Operation (SVO), the third installment of which covers operations through July 2025.[13] The notebooks are based on interviews with Russian soldiers and officers and are distributed to active Russian forces as a manual. Their analysis reveals strong convergence of lessons learned between the two sides.
Functional division of infantry
The notebooks record the division of Russian infantry into “holding” and “assault” categories. This division is absent from pre-war manuals but has become normative. For the Baltic theater, this implies that the preparation of reservists and territorial-defense forces should be planned from the outset along this functional division.
Degradation of classical table of organization
Motorized rifle squads, as elements of the platoon battle order, have functionally ceased to exist; tactical groups are “cut out” freely according to the specific task. BMPs and BTRs increasingly operate separately from their dismounts. The real combat capability of a unit is described as a “fluid value” that cannot be derived automatically from establishment strength. This conclusion has direct relevance to Baltic staff work: capability assessment must be confirmed from below rather than presumed from above.
“Plastic” contact instead of stationary defense
Stationary occupation of a single position for more than twenty-four hours leads the adversary to identify and effectively engage the position; cumulative losses in holding an unprepared position exceed losses in assault action. The conclusion is that future “plastic” contact—with constant forward-and-back movement—may replace classical positional defense altogether. For Baltic forces, this implies that even on defensive lines, units must be trained to execute a controlled withdrawal with a break of contact.[14]
“Lower sky” as a distinct combat arm
Current Russian force organization has no permanent positions for low-altitude counter-UAV operations at the company–battalion echelon. This function must be improvised from available manpower, reducing the unit’s real combat capability. The Baltic states should preemptively introduce a counter-UAV platoon at the battalion level, equipped with detection assets (acoustic, optical, thermal), fire means (heavy machine guns, shotguns, counter-UAV rifles), and tactical-level EW.
Constant air-defense movement; built-in adaptation
Some air-defense vehicles move continuously on chaotically routed circuits, halting only for maintenance—stationary complexes in modern war are mere targets. No force keeps pace with tactical change, and the armed-forces structure must therefore incorporate an adaptation mechanism: a sub-unit with “fluid” structure, decentralized procurement for the adaptation element, and “with-surplus” training.
The Russian Telegram milblogger segment reinforces this convergence. Notable observations include the Russian Baltic Fleet’s slow absorption of war lessons, as documented in critical commentary on a Baltic Fleet exercise video showing an FPV operator launching on open, unprepared terrain.[15] Russian FPV-crew commanders have characterized the rise of “highly mobile assault regiments”—pure infantry formations without organic armor, heavy weapons, or UAV components, redeployed rapidly to threatened sectors—as a fundamental and irreversible shift in the Russian operational pattern.[16]
The Baltic Theater: Forces, Hypotheses, and Defense Implications
Given limited strategic depth, the center of gravity of Baltic defense should shift toward lines that maximize adversary attrition within the border zone. A layered system of company- and platoon-strongpoints in populated localities and at key road junctions, to a depth of 20–30 kilometers (about 12.4–18.6 miles), with organized fire control of the FPV-drone and artillery kill zone between strongpoints, is likely the most resilient defensive model. Two analytical contributions from Ukrainian military commentary in 2025 frame the Baltic question more sharply: an operational hypothesis of how a Russian attack on Latvia might unfold, and a sober force-generation assessment of whether such an attack is realistic in the near term.
The Likely Russian Operational Concept
Open Ukrainian analytical commentary published in mid-2025 traces structural changes in Russian force deployments adjacent to Latvia that, in aggregate, are consistent with preparations for a concealed Baltic offensive rather than rotation to the Ukrainian front.[17]
Structural indicators
In the Leningrad Military District (LMD) and Belarus, Russia has begun deploying new motorized rifle divisions—the 116th, 72nd, 74th, and 86th Guards motorized rifle divisions (MRDs), among others—with coordination, relocation, and re-equipment proceeding outside the focus of Western monitoring.[18] Russian rail echelons carrying the latest artillery and multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) platforms—including Malva self-propelled howitzers and equipment of North Korean origin—have been observed moving through Petrozavodsk, Pskov, Tikhvin, and Gatchina, but not heading for the Ukrainian front lines.[19] The pattern is consistent with a deep strategic reserve forming for an alternative theater rather than routine rotation.
Belarus as flank bastion
Belarus intensified the formation of expanded divisional structures based on its brigades and mobilized reservists under the guise of territorial defense over 2024–2025. Soviet-era weapons storage facilities, dormant for decades, have been reactivated. In the western part of the country—particularly in Hlybokaye, Polatsk, and Braslaw—engineering works have intensified, including the modernization of highways and bridges leading toward the Latvian border. The pattern matches the classical Soviet doctrinal model for the concealed phase of preparation for an offensive operation.[20]
Russian logistical preparation
Multiple signs of preparation have been visible. The reconstruction and expansion of railway hubs in the Pskov region, the modernization of storage facilities at Ostrov, Velikiye Luki, and Palkino, and the restoration of Soviet-era auxiliary stations, backup overpasses, and ammunition depots—together with the publicly reported restoration of the Pskov–Gdov–Slantsy railway line—all make limited sense for Ukrainian-front supply but align with rapid deployment toward the Latvian direction, particularly given that these regions border Daugavpils and Rēzekne.
The likely axis of advance
The Russian operational concept does not envisage a frontal contest for the major Latvian cities. Rather, it projects an advance along the trajectory Daugavpils–Rēzekne–Preiļi–Jēkabpils–Jelgava, following the A6 highway and parallel railway lines, with the operational objective of reaching Tukums or the approaches to Riga. Three strategic effects are achieved simultaneously: the dissection of Latvian defenses; the blocking of the transfer of forces from southern Lithuania toward the Estonian border; a flanking threat to Riga producing political and psychological destabilization; and the creation of a coastal foothold via Tukums or Ventspils on the Baltic Sea, potentially used for seaborne reinforcement or as the basis of a “Courland Enclave.” The historical analog is the August 1944 Šiauliai Operation of the First Baltic Front: not a frontal battle for major hubs, but rather an envelopment, the seizure of critical communications, and the destabilization of the adversary’s coordination.
The “pulsing offensive”
Drawing on the Russian experience in Ukraine—particularly the failure of dense broad-front offensives in saturated Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) environments—a “pulsing offensive” model seems most likely. The model includes mobile forward detachments that penetrate deep into territory, operating outside a dense logistical framework that is supported by heavy artillery at the tactical level, with assault companies followed by narrow-corridor logistical extension and no waiting for flank stabilization. In this framework, the target set consists of junctions rather than cities: Jelgava, Tukums, and possibly Ventspils. The decisive effect is not classic territorial control but operational and political: splitting the country and isolating Riga, then offering an ultimatum—a ceasefire and recognition of a “new status quo” in exchange for a humanitarian corridor and a halt to further Baltic operations. Combined with a mass EW campaign and the on-ground presence of “peaceful representatives,” the intent would be to manufacture an atmosphere of partial collapse of state power—repeating elements of the reactive-pressure model previously used in Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Crimea: not taking everything, but cutting off, intimidating, and offering a “negotiated exit” from a “dead end” the adversary itself has manufactured.
Force-Generation Reality
The operational concept above must be placed in a realistic force-generation timeline as analyzed in open Ukrainian commentary in early 2026.[21] The central observation is that while the Russian General Staff planned to deploy approximately 17 division-level and up to nine brigade-level formations in 2025, the realities of the war against Ukraine necessitated a substantial postponement. As a result, Russia formed and deployed only four new divisions in 2025: the 68th Motor Rifle Division within the 6th Combined Arms Army; the 71st MRD within the 14th Army Corps; the 55th Marine Division within the Pacific Fleet; and the 120th Marine Division within the Baltic Fleet. Notably, at least three of the four sit within the Leningrad Military District or Baltic Fleet—adding to the earlier (2024) formation of the 44th Army Corps in the LMD with its own new 72nd MRD, and the expansion of the 6th Combined Arms Army (CAA). The LMD now hosts the 6th CAA alongside three army corps (11th, 14th, and 44th Army Corps), at least one of which (11th or 14th) is planned to be reorganized into a further combined-arms army in 2026–2027.
The remaining nine motor rifle divisions, two artillery divisions, one air-assault division, one coastal-defense division, and a series of independent brigades projected for 2025 have been postponed by the Russian General Staff to 2026–2030. Among the most consequential of these postponements are: a second artillery division in the LMD; two MRDs in the Central MD (based on the 15th and 74th Independent Motor Rifle Brigades (OMSBrs), joining the 2nd and 41st CAAs); two MRDs in the Moscow Military District; two MRDs in the Eastern Military Distric t(based on the 57th and 60th OMSBrs of the 5th CAA); three MRDs in the Southern Military District opposite Ukraine (based on the 123rd and 114th OMSBrs within the 3rd and 51st CAAs); an additional Southern Military District artillery division; and the 88th Coastal Defense Division based on the existing 126th independent coastal-defense brigade. The Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) are additionally projected to gain the 103rd Air Assault Division.
Daily Russian losses on the front in 2025 fluctuated between approximately 850 and 1,150 personnel (killed, wounded, captured, missing), depending on the intensity of combat. U.K. military intelligence has estimated cumulative Russian losses from the start of the war to mid-2025 at 230,000–236,000 (the figure most widely circulated in Ukrainian and Russian analytical commentary). Against this attrition, Russia contracted approximately 400,000–405,000 personnel during 2025—barely enough to offset losses and maintain very modest expansion of strategic groupings deployed in Ukraine. For 2026, the planned recruitment target is about 410,000, but expert estimates suggest the Russian command can allocate no more than 70,000 personnel to its strategic reserves—a figure plainly insufficient for the full list of planned new divisions and brigades. The postponement of most Russian formation plans will likely continue through 2026 and beyond.
The operational hypothesis and the force-generation assessment fit together as two halves of the same picture. In the near term, a large-scale Baltic operation is constrained by simple math: Russia does not yet have the freshly formed divisions in the Leningrad Military District and Western strategic direction that the announced plans envisaged. In the medium term (2027–2030), if attrition rates and contract recruitment hold at 2025 levels and the geographic concentration of newly formed Russian formations in the Leningrad Military District and Baltic Fleet continues, the cumulative weight of forces in the Western strategic direction will reach a level at which the operational concept becomes materially supportable. The defining lesson for Baltic defense planning is therefore not panic but pacing: a limited window—three to five years—to absorb the war’s tactical and operational lessons and translate them into national defense reform.
The Suwałki Gap
The narrow strip at the Lithuanian–Polish border separating Kaliningrad oblast from Belarus is a particularly vulnerable axis. In Ukrainian practice, attempts to close such a “bottleneck” have been undertaken in combined fashion: tactical air-assault landings, mass UAV strikes against road-network nodes, and artillery against reserve-concentration areas. Defense of the Suwałki Gap should therefore be planned as a circular defense, with prepared alternate detour routes and organic short- and medium-range air defenses distributed across multiple batteries.
The Narva Axis
Narva’s proximity to the Russian border and the density of urban development on both sides make this axis a priority for urban-defense preparation. The Berestki case shows what a successful attacker can accomplish in two weeks against a settlement of comparable size when given pre-positioned mock-ups, smoke-deception robotics, and integrated FPV-drone fire. The inverse—what a defender can hold for months with timely fortification, subterranean communications, and a cache network—is shown by the AFU experience at Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Pokrovsk. The Narva defense plan should explicitly emulate both the AFU fortification methodology and the lesson drawn from Berestki: preserve resupply corridors at all costs, and treat any encirclement as fatal.
The Maritime Axis
The Gulf of Finland, the approaches to Riga, and Klaipėda require separate defenses against reconnaissance-sabotage groups delivered by surface craft and submersible carriers. Maritime infrastructure (ports, cables, pipelines, wind parks) should be incorporated into the general protection scheme through underwater sensors and routine patrols by small anti-sabotage forces.
Conclusion
A review of AFU-compiled combat experience, open Russian operational reporting, and open analytical commentary in both languages indicates that the modern Russian army, despite its adaptation to a high-technology battlefield, is not invincible. It can be halted and forced onto the defensive provided the defending side adapts in time to the new tactical reality. For the Baltic states, the analysis yields seven priority directions for defense planning.
First, localize the mass production of FPV drones and heavy multirotor carriers within national industrial bases. Second, equip every squad and every armored vehicle with tactical-level EW. Third, maintain in national arsenals stocks of precision-strike means with ranges of 150–200 kilometers (about 93.2–124.3 miles), sufficient for sustained strikes against the Russian rear during the first 30–45 days of conflict. Fourth, prepare national territory in advance, with stockpiles of prefabricated fortification kits and a network of dug-in shelters, plus the advance construction of full-scale mock-ups of likely contested settlements for cyclic reservist training. Fifth, build layered air defense with emphasis on inexpensive mass-engagement means against small aerial targets, including the dual-use incorporation of national meteorological radar for low-altitude UAV detection. Sixth, train reservists and territorial defense forces to the standard of regular forces, with mandatory division into “holding” and “assault” categories and a minimum 14-day cohesion phase before deployment. Seventh, prepare the national strategic communications system in advance and foster societal information resilience.
The window for this adaptation is limited but real—measured by force-generation arithmetic over three to five years rather than months. The Ukrainian experience is, above all, the experience of a side capable of halting and reversing a numerically superior adversary through the systematic application of solutions developed under fire. Reproducing this experience in the national armed forces of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania represents the fastest and least costly path to a qualitative increase in defense capability.
[1] Sladkov+ (@Sladkov_plus), Telegram post, May 10, 2026, https://t.me/Sladkov_plus/15508.
[2] Roman Burko, “Украинские комплексы РЭБ «Буковель-AD R4» развернуты возле границы (ФОТО)” [Ukrainian Bukovel-AD R4 Electronic Warfare Systems Deployed Near the Border (PHOTO)], InformNapalm, November 19, 2021, https://informnapalm.org/50888-ukrainskie-kompleksy-reb-bukovel-ad-r4-r/.
[3] “ВС России выбили ВСУ из села Берестки в ДНР, заявил Рогов” [Russian Armed Forces Drove the AFU Out of the Village of Berestki in the DPR, Rogov Says], RIA Novosti, November 23, 2024, http://ria.ru/20241123/rogov-1985361082.html.
[4] 114 Brigada (@mo114rf), Telegram post, November 27, 2024, https://t.me/mo114rf/7.
[5] “ВС России освободили населенный пункт Берестки в ДНР” [Russian Armed Forces Liberated the Settlement of Berestki in the DPR], RIA Novosti, December 7, 2024, http://ria.ru/20241207/berestki-1987872733.html.
[6] Artem, “Операции 114-й ОМСБр: от Авдеевки до Цукурино – путь к победе!” [Operations of the 114th OMSBr: From Avdiivka to Tsukuryne, the Path to Victory!], LostArmour, October 25, 2024, https://lostarmour.info/articles/put-brigada-mo114rf-11174; “114-я отдельная гвардейская мотострелковая бригада” [114th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade], DIVGEN, September 14, 2025, https://divgen.ru/wiki/486-114-ja-otdelnaja-gvardeiskaja-motostrelkovaja-brigada.html.
[7] Olena Kravchenko, “Шмыгаль пообещал, что ВСУ до конца года получат 3 млн FPV-дронов” [Shmyhal Promised That the AFU Will Receive 3 Million FPV Drones by the End of the Year], LIGA.net, December 24, 2025, https://biz.liga.net/all/news/shmygal-poobeshtal-chto-vsu-do-kontsa-goda-poluchat-3-mln-fpv-dronov.
[8] Yehor Loginov, “«Наша подтвержденная глубина работы составляет более 2000 км»: главный по БПЛА в ВСУ Сухаревский рассказал об инновациях на фронте” [‘Our Confirmed Operational Depth Exceeds 2,000 km’: AFU Drone Chief Sukharevskyi on Innovations at the Front], Krym.Realii, February 4, 2025, https://ru.krymr.com/a/suharevskyy-bpla-interview/33302452.html.
[9] Halyna Mykhailova, “Буковель — это не только курорт: одноименная украинская РЭБ умело сажает ‘птичек’ окупантов (видео)” [Bukovel Is Not Just a Resort: The Ukrainian EW System of the Same Name Skillfully Downs the Occupiers’ ‘Birds’ (Video)], Telegraf, September 12, 2023, https://war.telegraf.com.ua/tehnologii/2023-09-12/5808159-bukovel-tse-ne-tilki-kurort-odnoymenna-ukrainska-reb-vpravno-sadzhae-ptashok-okupantiv-video.
[10] Aleksandr Zalata, “РЭБ против КАБ и ‘Шахедов’: как украинцы побеждают российские антенны ‘Комета’” [EW Against Guided Bombs and ‘Shaheds’: How Ukrainians Are Defeating Russian ‘Kometa’ Antennas], Focus, March 28, 2025, https://focus.ua/digital/699624-ataki-kab-i-shahedov-rossiya-uluchshila-zashchitu-protiv-reb-kometa.
[11] Yehor Loginov, “«Наша подтвержденная глубина работы составляет более 2000 км»: главный по БПЛА в ВСУ Сухаревский рассказал об инновациях на фронте” [‘Our Confirmed Operational Depth Exceeds 2,000 km’: AFU Drone Chief Sukharevskyi on Innovations at the Front], Krym.Realii, February 4, 2025, https://ru.krymr.com/a/suharevskyy-bpla-interview/33302452.html.
[12] Obobshchenie boevogo opyta SVO do iyulya 2025 goda [Generalization of the Combat Experience of the SVO through July 2025] (2025).
[13] Obobshchenie boevogo opyta SVO do iyulya 2025 goda [Generalization of the Combat Experience of the SVO through July 2025] (2025).
[14] Obobshchenie boevogo opyta SVO do dekabrya 2024 goda [Generalization of the Combat Experience of the SVO through December 2024] (2025).
[15] Rybar (@rybar), Telegram channel, 2024–2026, https://t.me/rybar.
[16] Mikhail Kirillov, “«Болезненную реальность надо признать»: Командир расчета БПЛА — о боях за Доброполье, тактике пилотов ВСУ и главной проблеме фронта” [‘The Painful Reality Must Be Acknowledged’: A UAV Crew Commander on the Battles for Dobropillia, AFU Pilot Tactics, and the Front’s Main Problem], Lenta.ru, May 4, 2026, http://lenta.ru/articles/2026/05/04/platon-mamatov/.
[17] Hlib Parfonov, “Russia Exploits Latvian Vulnerabilities to Undermine Baltic Defenses (Part Two),” The Jamestown Foundation, June 3, 2025, https://jamestown.org/russia-exploits-latvian-vulnerabilities-to-undermine-baltic-defenses-part-two/.
[18] Pozyvnoi Katsman (@pozivnoy_kazman), Telegram posts, September 1, 2024, https://t.me/pozivnoy_kazman/13891, and April 27, 2025, https://t.me/pozivnoy_kazman/21511.
[19] milinfolive, VK post, April 26, 2025, https://vk.com/wall-123538639_4555016.
[20] Aleksandr Svechin, Strategiya [Strategy], 2nd ed. (Moscow: Voennyi vestnik, 1927).
[21] Zvizdets Manhustu (@zvizdecmanhustu), Telegram post, January 7, 2026, https://t.me/zvizdecmanhustu/3174.
The post Lessons Learned From Russia’s War Against Ukraine: Russian Military Adaptation and Defense Implications for Baltic States appeared first on Jamestown.
Executive Summary:
The death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the joint U.S.–Israeli military operation on February 28 triggered an unprecedented campaign of state-sponsored mourning across Iran and the broader Shi’a world (IRNA, March 1; Mehr News, July 15). Beneath a sea of red flags symbolizing the religious duty to avenge the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, senior Iranian officials, clerics, and millions of mourners invoked the battle cry Ya Latharat al-Hussein (“O Avengers of Hussein”), recasting Khamenei’s death through the lens of Twelver Shi’a martyrdom theology (Eurasia Diary, July 6). This symbolism is rooted in the Ashura commemorations, during which Shi’a Muslims worldwide commemorate Imam Hussein—the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE—through public mourning ceremonies and processions that symbolize the enduring obligation to seek justice for his death. By framing retaliation as a religious imperative rather than merely a political response, Tehran sought to strengthen ideological cohesion within its proxy networks and mobilize supporters for a prolonged confrontation with the United States and Israel.
Yet Tehran’s carefully constructed narrative found little resonance among Sunni Salafi-jihadist movements. Rather than mourning Khamenei or expressing solidarity with Iran, Uzbek- and Tajik-language supporters of Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups celebrated his death, ridiculed Shi’a mourning rituals, and denounced the Ya Latharat al-Hussein doctrine as further evidence of theological deviation and heresy.
Their reactions highlight the enduring ideological and sectarian divide between Iran’s revolutionary Shi’a project and Salafi-jihadism, especially among Central Asians. More importantly, they demonstrate that even amid a common confrontation with the United States and Israel, deeply entrenched doctrinal hostility outweighs any tactical convergence. This renders the maxim that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” largely inapplicable.
ISKP Supporters Celebrate Khamenei’s Death
On July 12, the Uzbek-language pro-ISKP Telegram channel Tavhid Makoni celebrated the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, underscoring the group’s uncompromising sectarian hostility toward Iran’s Shi’a leadership. [1] The channel—which regularly assails secular Central Asian governments as well as Uzbek and Tajik al-Qaeda-aligned clerics and militants in Syria—denounced Khamenei as a rafidha (“rejecter,” which is a derogatory Salafi-jihadist term for Shi’a Muslims) and declared that he had been consigned to hell. It further condemned the reported delay in Khamenei’s burial, accused Iranian authorities of displaying his body for public veneration, and mocked the millions of Shi’a mourners who participated in the funeral ceremonies. According to the channel, praying over Khamenei and venerating his remains constituted shirk (“polytheism,” or associating partners with God), which reinforced ISKP’s long-standing portrayal of Twelver Shi’ism as a heretical deviation from Islam rather than a legitimate Islamic tradition.
Similar themes appeared on July 7 in the Tajik-language pro-ISKP Telegram channel Ansor Tojiki. The channel exploited Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s attendance at Khamenei’s funeral in Tehran on July 3 to reinforce its anti-state and anti-Shi’a narrative (IRNA, July 3). Publishing Rahmon’s photograph alongside its commentary, the channel asserted that murtads (apostates), whether ruling Shi’a Iran or Sunni Central Asia, are indistinguishable, and accused both the Tajikistani and Iranian regimes of “betrayal of Islam, tyranny, and treachery.” The channel further denounced Rahmon as a taghut (an illegitimate ruler who governs in defiance of God’s sovereignty) and called for him to share Khamenei’s fate. [2] This messaging reflects ISKP’s ideological framework, which places Iran’s Shi’a theocracy and the secular governments of Central Asia within the same category of apostate regimes, thereby declaring both as equally valid targets of jihad.
The reactions of Uzbek and Tajik pro-ISKP supporters closely mirrored the entrenched anti-Shi’a sectarian narrative promoted by Islamic State (IS)’s Arabic-language propaganda apparatus. Their messaging was not an isolated regional response but a direct reflection of IS’s broader ideological framework, which portrays Shi’a Muslims as apostates and Iran as a principal enemy of Sunni Islam. This alignment became evident immediately after Khamenei’s death. On February 28, following the joint U.S.–Israeli strikes against Iran, prominent IS supporter Abu ‘Abdallah al-Halabi (also known as Muhammad Jabhah), a former media official of the IS-linked Liwa’ al-Aqsa, declared that Khorasan (Afghanistan and Pakistan) would emerge as the IS’s new global center and predicted that future conflicts would become ”openly religious” following the collapse of the “murtadd Shi’a Iranian state” (MEMRI, March 1). His remarks illustrate how IS sought to frame Khamenei’s death not merely as a military setback for Iran but as the beginning of a broader sectarian realignment that would strengthen the movement’s global jihadist narrative.
From Online Celebration to ISKP Attacks in Iran
IS supporters quickly amplified the same sectarian narrative across other online platforms. On March 1, an English-language IS supporter celebrated the death of what he called the “Taghut of Iran” at the hands of “the Jews,” thanking Allah for Khamenei’s killing and urging ISKP to exploit the resulting instability by entering Iran and “killing everyone.” Echoing the IS’s long-standing doctrine of takfir, he asserted that all Rafidahs are unbelievers and therefore legitimate targets of violence (MEMRI, March 1).
Uzbek and Tajik ISKP militants have long maintained deep hostility toward Iran’s Shi’a Muslims, whom they routinely denounce with the sectarian slur Rafidha and accuse of apostasy. This ideological hostility has repeatedly translated into operational violence, with Tajik ISKP members conducting three high-profile attacks inside Iran that extended the group’s operational reach beyond its traditional strongholds in Afghanistan and South Asia. For example:
In each case, ISKP deliberately selected targets of profound religious significance to Shi’a Muslims. Although ISKP supporters ridicule Iran’s Ya Latharat al-Hussein doctrine of sacred vengeance, their hostility toward Iran exists alongside an equally entrenched opposition to the United States and the broader Western order, which they define through the Salafi-jihadist concept of kufr (disbelief). The convergence of anti-Shi’a sectarianism and anti-Western extremism demonstrates that ISKP’s confrontation with Iran is driven by ideological rivalry rather than strategic alignment with Washington, despite conspiracy theories from Iran and Russia to the contrary.
Al-Qaeda-Aligned Jihadists Celebrate Khamenei’s Death as Divine Judgment
Like ISKP supporters, Central Asian Salafi-jihadist groups aligned with al-Qaeda and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) also celebrated Khamenei’s death. They, however, framed their reaction through a more politically calibrated sectarian narrative. Rather than focusing exclusively on the theological condemnation of Shi’a Islam, these actors portrayed the Iranian leader’s death as divine punishment for Tehran’s involvement in conflicts across the region and as part of a broader struggle among rival non-Muslim and sectarian forces. On March 1, for example, the Uzbek-language Telegram channel Guraba Medya, affiliated with the Uzbek al-Qaeda-linked group Katibat al-Guraba, published an excerpt from the eighth-century Islamic scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Awza’i’s Kitab al-Siyar, which stated, “If Allah kills one of two unbelievers fighting each other, it is good; if He kills both warring unbelievers, it is even better.” [3] By invoking this interpretation, Katibat al-Guraba framed Khamenei’s death as a manifestation of divine judgment while expressing hope that Israeli and U.S. leaders involved in the conflict would meet the same fate.
Similarly, Abu Umor Taliban, deputy emir of the Uzbek al-Qaeda-aligned Katibat Imam al-Bukhari (KIB), welcomed Khamenei’s death in a Facebook post published on March 8. He mocked Iranians as Shi’a Rafidhas responsible for the deaths of Sunni Muslims in Syria, arguing that Khamenei had ultimately suffered the same fate he had inflicted on others and would now face divine judgment. Thanking Allah for allowing “Zionist terrorists” to kill Iran’s leaders, he concluded by expressing hope that both sides would continue destroying one another [4].
Another al-Qaeda-aligned Uzbek-language commentator, Al-Shami, called upon Allah to “strike the oppressors with the oppressors and make the outcome beneficial for the Muslims” on June 18. [5] His remarks reflect the Salafi-jihadist view that both Shi’a Iran and Israel are enemies of Sunni Islam, making mutual attrition between them desirable.
Conclusion
Iran’s invocation of the Ya Latharat al-Hussein doctrine following Ali Khamenei’s death illustrates how Twelver Shi’a martyrdom theology can be instrumentalized in the service of state policy to legitimize retaliation, reinforce proxy cohesion, and mobilize supporters against the United States and Israel. At the same time, the overwhelmingly hostile reactions of Central Asian ISKP and al-Qaeda-aligned jihadists demonstrate that Tehran’s confrontation with Washington has done nothing to diminish the deep ideological hostility of Sunni Salafi-jihadist movements toward either Iran or the West. Instead, these actors continue to pursue independent agendas rooted in sectarian rivalry and global jihad.
Notes:
[1] Telegram source withheld due to the dissemination of terrorist propaganda. Uzbek-language Telegram channel, published July 12, 2026.
[2] Telegram source withheld due to the dissemination of terrorist propaganda. Tajik-language Telegram channel, published July 7, 2026.
[3] Telegram source withheld due to the dissemination of terrorist propaganda. Uzbek-language Telegram channel, published March 1, 2026.
[4] Facebook source withheld due to the dissemination of terrorist propaganda. Uzbek-language Facebook post, published March 8, 2026.
[5] Telegram source withheld due to the dissemination of terrorist propaganda. Uzbek-language Telegram channel, published June 18, 2026.
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Executive Summary:
The life sentence issued against Mahrang Baloch on June 22 deepens the fracture between Pakistan’s central government and the Baloch population (DW, June 27). The protests following her conviction on charges of terrorism and murder suggest that she retains considerable support and influence among the Baloch people (BBC, June 25; AsiaNews, June 30). Because of the state’s high-profile target, this episode may mark an escalation in the use of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism framework against prominent non-violent political and human-rights leaders.
From Human Rights Activism to National Prominence
Mahrang Baloch leads the Balochistan Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a Pakistani non-violent humanitarian organization that advocates for Balochistan (Amnesty International, July 30, 2024). In particular, the BYC campaigns against enforced disappearances affecting the Baloch population, which are allegedly carried out or enabled by the Frontier Corps (HrcBalochistan.org, May 30; LemkinInstitute.com, August 29, 2025). The Frontier Corps is a Pakistani paramilitary organization stationed in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and falls under the jurisdiction of Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior (see Terrorism Monitor, March 30, 2007).
Baloch’s involvement in defending human rights began with her father, Ghaffar Baloch Langove, a leader of the Baloch National Party, before he was disappeared in 2011. Shortly after, the young Mahrang began her mobilization, embracing Baloch culture by wearing a traditional black Balochi chador (South Asian Avant-Garde, February 18, 2021).
Another important moment in her political career came in 2020, when Baloch led a protest at Bolan University of Medical and Health Sciences in Quetta. At the time, she emerged as a prominent protest leader at Bolan University of Medical and Health Sciences over increased fees, reduced scholarships, governance problems, and changes to the district quota system, which students argued disadvantaged applicants from poorer areas of Balochistan (Balochistan Voices, February 23, 2020). The abolition of the district quota system therefore seemed to undermine efforts to promote equal educational opportunities for students from low-income backgrounds in Balochistan.
The Gwadar Case and Life Sentence
Between 2023 and 2024, Mahrang’s political activity peaked when she led the “Baloch Long March.” This protest movement sought to end enforced disappearances and other policies affecting the region (Baloch News, March 24, 2025). The following year, she was identified as the central organizer of the BYC and, on July 29, 2024, participants in a BYC protest to highlight “enforced disappearances” clashed with Pakistani security officers in Gwadar, resulting in three deaths (Dawn, July 29, 2024).
The Quetta Anti-Terrorism Court found Mahrang, Sibghatullah Baloch, and other BYC leaders guilty of the murder of security personnel in Gwadar during the July 2024 protests. The court did not present direct evidence of a connection linking Mahrang and Sibghatullah to the Gwadar killings, however (Amnesty International, June 23; GIWPS, July 2). The charges brought against Mahrang and the BYC leadership fell under various sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Pakistan Penal Code even though the organization did not appear on the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA)’s list of banned organizations (Dawn, June 22).
Mahrang’s high-profile conviction may therefore represent a tipping point in Pakistan’s counter-insurgency strategy in Balochistan. Unlike the case of Khaled Baloch, who was killed by Pakistani security forces in 2007, Mahrang’s life sentence for terrorism may represent the use of judicial and counterterrorism mechanisms by the Pakistani state to control and weaken Baloch separatist or dissident efforts to challenge Islamabad (see Militant Leadership Monitor, June 25).
Conclusion
A similar pattern to Mahrang’s case appeared when the Anti-Terrorism Court in Rawalpindi delivered the same terrorism verdict against 47 members of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the political party founded by Imran Khan (The Express Tribune, March 7). Both political leaders—Khan and Mahrang—accused the central government of failing to provide adequate medical conditions (BBC, February 12). This has fueled speculation about the political factors behind these sentences. The cases of Khan and Mahrang may illustrate a new approach to identifying and limiting internal threats through the politicization of “terrorism,” which highlights the complex relationship between terrorism designations and Pakistan’s domestic policy agendas.
The post Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Laws May Target Dissenters appeared first on Jamestown.
Executive Summary:
On June 19, the Taliban regime’s Defense Ministry claimed its forces “targeted and struck hard” at centers of Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces (X/@MoDAfghanistan2, June 19). Pakistan promptly denied the claim and described it as propaganda. If confirmed, however, the operation would mark the first publicly claimed Taliban cross-border strike against ISKP targets in Pakistan since the May ceasefire.
Taliban Claims ISKP Bases in Pakistan
ISKP has claimed responsibility for multiple deadly attacks inside Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021. The Taliban regime has repeatedly claimed that it has defeated ISKP inside Afghanistan, while accusing the group of maintaining bases in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces and using those locations to organize cross-border attacks. Pakistan has consistently denied those allegations. According to the Taliban Defense Ministry statement, the sites it targeted were allegedly used with support from “certain hostile intelligence circles” to plan and coordinate attacks against Afghanistan. The statement appeared to allude to Pakistani intelligence agencies. The Taliban did not, however, provide evidence to substantiate the claim.
The Taliban claimed that its forces struck locations in the Gulistan area of Qila Abdullah district and the Shakar Ab Gardi-Jungle area of Chagai district in Balochistan, as well as the Qamber Khel area of Orakzai district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The statement asserted that the targeted hideouts were frequented by several key ISKP leaders, but it did not identify any senior figures killed in the operation (X/@MoDAfghanistan2, June 19).
Pakistan’s Reaction
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting called the Taliban’s claim “fake and nefarious.” The Ministry countered that camps belonging to ISKP and more than “two dozen” other militant organizations are located, run, and sponsored from inside Afghanistan (X/@FactCheckerMoIB, June 19). The Taliban regime has, however, frequently denied Pakistani allegations that Afghan territory is used by militants to attack Pakistan.
Prior to the reported June 19 Taliban strikes on ISKP in Pakistan, mutual accusations had already led to military escalation. Pakistan had carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan since at least October 2025 against alleged militant sanctuaries. The most recent strikes before the Taliban’s June 19 claim occurred on June 10, in Afghanistan’s Kunar, Khost, and Paktika provinces. Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar claimed that 26 “terrorists” were killed by Pakistan (X/@TararAttaullah, June 10). The Taliban regime, by contrast, counter-claimed that 13 civilians, including children, were killed.
The cycle of cross-border escalation continued after the Taliban’s June 19 claim. On June 28, Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Paktya, Paktika, and Kunar provinces. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed that at least 28 civilians were killed and 49 injured, including women and children, while Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting confirmed that Pakistani security forces had conducted strikes in the three provinces (UNAMA, June 29). In early August, Pakistan’s military rejected broader UN findings on civilian casualties from Pakistani operations in Afghanistan, maintaining that its strikes targeted militant hideouts and were conducted in self-defense (CTPost, July 31).
It remains unclear how the Taliban may have carried out strikes inside Pakistan on June 19. Afghanistan has lacked combat aircraft since the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan republic and the international withdrawal. The Taliban has only a small air inventory, including six aircraft and 22 helicopters of uncertain operational status, although Taliban forces have used drones during clashes with Pakistan (Reuters, March 17). The Taliban had also previously claimed drone strikes against targets in Pakistan amid intensifying cross-border tensions (Reuters, February 27).
There are no verified reports on how the Taliban regime acquired its drones. Ahmad Zia Saraj, former director general of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), claims, however, that the Taliban mostly “purchase drones from open markets.” In an interview with Afghanistan International, Saraj asserted the Taliban modified these commercially available drones to carry explosives (Afghanistan International, June 20; X/@TKCKhyber, June 23).
Search for a Settlement
Former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has frequently commented on Afghanistan–Pakistan military escalations. He has urged both countries to pursue diplomacy and reach an agreement under which neither side allows groups or individuals on its territory to threaten the other country’s security (X/@realZalmayMK, June 19).
The conflict has also disrupted trade and civilian movements across the Durand Line. The People’s Republic of China, Türkiye, and Qatar have attempted to mediate between Afghanistan and Pakistan and encourage both sides to address each other’s security concerns. No durable settlement has been reached, however, and the conflict continues to affect border communities, commerce, and regional security.
Pakistan says it is ready to engage the Taliban regime diplomatically but wants guarantees that Afghan soil will not be used for militant attacks in Pakistan. Tahir Andrabi, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, told a news conference that Islamabad wants “verifiable commitments” from the Afghan side that militants allegedly operating from across the Durand Line will no longer kill Pakistani nationals (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, June 24). The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry has not yet responded to Pakistan’s latest demand.
Conclusion
The Taliban’s claimed June 19 strikes against ISKP targets in Pakistan, if confirmed, would represent a notable escalation in the Afghanistan–Pakistan security dispute. They also demonstrate how ISKP has become both a direct security threat and a point of diplomatic contention between Kabul and Islamabad. The Taliban’s claim that ISKP operates from Pakistani soil and Pakistan’s counterclaim that IS-K and other militant groups operate from Afghanistan reflect a deepening cycle of accusation and retaliation.
Indeed, on June 17, Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) captured a suspected senior Islamic State operative, Ahmet Kazanci, also known as “Abu Ubeyde” and “Abu Ibrahim,” and rendered him to Türkiye. The operation targeted the ISKP media wing, and Turkish security sources alleged Kazanci had traveled from Türkiye to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, joined ISKP, and played a role in the group’s camps (Anadolu Agency, June 17). The case underscored the transnational dimensions of ISKP’s recruitment, media, and logistics networks in the Afghanistan–Pakistan region and beyond.
Unless both sides establish credible mechanisms for intelligence sharing, border de-escalation, and commitments not to support or tolerate cross-border militant activity, tensions are likely to persist. ISKP may benefit from this environment by exploiting ungoverned spaces, mutual distrust, and the lack of coordinated counterterrorism efforts across the border.
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Executive Summary:
Tensions in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region escalated again over the summer. On July 11, Tigrayan authorities aligned with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) accused the Ethiopian federal government of preparing for war and declared that the November 2022 Pretoria Peace Agreement had “collapsed.” The statement indicated that Tigray’s current leadership no longer regarded the peace agreement, which ended the 2020–2022 civil war, as a viable mechanism for resolving the region’s political and territorial disputes (Addis Standard, July 11).
The latest confrontation arose after the TPLF restored Tigray’s pre-war regional council and installed party chairman Debretsion Gebremichael as regional president. This created a parallel administration that challenged the federally recognized Tigray Interim Administration (The Reporter Ethiopia, May 16). The TPLF justified this move by arguing that the federal government in Addis Ababa failed to implement key provisions of the Pretoria Peace Agreement, including the return of displaced populations and disputed territories, the normalization of public services, and the establishment of an agreed postwar political order. Federal authorities and international partners, however, accused the TPLF of violating the agreement by creating parallel institutions and pursuing unilateral military mobilization (The Reporter Ethiopia, June 29).
What began as a political dispute quickly became a military one. For example, a draft Tigray proclamation proposed compulsory mobilization, expanded security powers, penalties for obstructing recruitment, and a centralized command structure headed by the regional president (Addis Standard, June 9). The European Union later expressed concern about what it described as unilateral military conscription in Tigray and called for urgent talks to implement the 2022 agreement (The Reporter Ethiopia, June 29). The United States imposed visa restrictions in June on individuals accused of undermining the peace process after renewed clashes between Tigrayan and federal forces occurred (Capital Ethiopia, June 18). Human Rights Watch also reported that Tigrayan authorities had been forcibly recruiting civilians since at least April, including children as young as 15, through house-to-house searches and seizures at workplaces, although the TPLF denied such allegations (Human Rights Watch, July 6). Thousands of demonstrators also rallied in Addis Ababa on July 18 against the forced mobilization in Tigray (Africanews, July 18).
The standoff between Tigray authorities and the federal government had crossed the threshold of military action on June 5. Then, a federal government drone strike targeted military transport vehicles near Sheraro in northwestern Tigray, causing several casualties. Although no one claimed responsibility, the incident showed how quickly the confrontation could become further militarized (The Reporter Ethiopia, June 13).
The confrontation escalated even further on August 1, when federal and Tigrayan forces clashed in western Tigray close to the Sudanese border. The TPLF accused federal forces of launching a heavy-artillery offensive, while a federal minister blamed the TPLF for provoking the fighting (Al Jazeera, August 1). On August 10, the TPLF also accused the federal government of carrying out drone strikes at Merewa in southern Tigray that caused casualties among Tigrayan forces (Addis Standard, August 11).
The TPLF is an ethno-nationalist political-military organization with extensive experience in guerrilla and conventional warfare. A return to insurgency could involve bombings, assassinations, sabotage, attacks on infrastructure, coercive recruitment, and intimidation of civilians who support the federal government or live under its rule. The presence of two opposing governments with their own armed forces, along with compulsory mobilization and declarations that the peace agreement has collapsed, indicates that the Tigray conflict is once again moving beyond a constitutional or legal dispute toward an organized military confrontation. This could draw foreign powers into the fray in an already volatile region. Foreign funding, training, and arms for either side could spark a much broader conflagration.
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Executive summary:
Russia held its State Duma elections on September 18–20, including at polling stations in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. Researcher Petr Zhizhin collected official station-level results from Russia’s Central Election Commission and published them in an open archive maintained by statistician Dmitry Kobak. The results show that these three regions hosted about a quarter of Russia’s polling stations outside of the country but cast about half of all votes from abroad (Kobak Election Archive, October 2). The turnout in the regions also differed from one another. The data showed that participation grew in Abkhazia, where local authorities helped organize the vote, and fell in Transnistria, where Chișinău disputed the polling stations (Moldpres, August 29; NewsMaker, September 2; President of Abkhazia, September 17). In South Ossetia, far more residents voted in their own presidential election, held the same week, than in Russia’s.
The dispute over polling stations in Transnistria began weeks before the vote. On August 29, Moldova’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Russia’s plan to open 16 polling stations in the region without Chișinău’s consent “unacceptable,” stating that it “represents a violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” (Moldpres, August 29). Chișinău authorized only one station at the Russian Embassy in Chișinău. Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mihai Popșoi warned, “Any other section opened without the permission of Moldova’s constitutional authorities is an unfriendly move” (NewsMaker, September 2). On September 3, Chișinău summoned Russian Ambassador to Moldova Oleg Ozerov to the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and handed him a note of protest. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova countered that Chișinău has no right to deprive Transnistria’s residents of the vote, claiming, “Over 200,000 Russian citizens live in Transnistria.” Popșoi replied by urging Moscow “not to hinder Moldova’s peaceful reintegration and not to undermine the republic’s sovereignty and neutrality” (NewsMaker, September 16).
Moscow proceeded anyway, opening 17 polling stations across Transnistria (Novosti Pridnestrovie, September 27; see EDM, October 21). Obtaining a ballot was reportedly exceptionally easy, as either a Russian domestic or international passport was sufficient. Voting was also allowed with an expired Russian passport and a Soviet passport containing a stamp indicating Russian citizenship (Kommersant, September 20). In total, 51,092 people voted, and 77.8 percent backed United Russia (NewsMaker, September 21). For comparison, in 2021, Russia ran 27 stations in Transnistria for three days, drawing 59,233 voters, 76.4 percent of whom voted for United Russia (Novosti Pridnestrovie, September 20, 2021).
The decline is all the more striking given Moscow’s ongoing passportization drive, which enables Transnistrian residents to obtain Russian citizenship. De facto Transnistrian President Vadim Krasnoselsky also claims that about 220,000 Russian citizens live in the region, which would mean that fewer than one in four voted in the September Duma elections (NewsMaker, September 2). That figure amounts to roughly half of Transnistria’s population (Profile, August 29). Moldova, for its part, counts nearly 360,000 Moldovan citizens among the region’s residents, indicating that dual citizenship is widespread (Government of Moldova, June 30). On election day, Krasnoselsky estimated that the number of Russian passport holders in Transnistria would grow by the next election, in part because of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s May decree simplifying citizenship for Transnistria’s permanent residents (President of Russia, May 15; NewsMaker, September 20). The gap between the number of Russian citizens in Transnistria (about 220,000) and the number who voted in the September Duma elections (51,092) suggests that, for many residents, Russian citizenship serves more as a practical document than an expression of political allegiance.
Chișinău’s pushback also shaped the outcome. Moscow opened 10 fewer stations than in 2021, and voting was compressed into a single day, September 20, rather than the three days of the previous cycle (Novosti Pridnestrovie, September 20). The contrast within Moldova is equally telling. At the one station Chișinău authorized, in the Russian Embassy, United Russia won only 52 percent of the 761 ballots cast, compared with nearly 78 percent in Transnistria (NewsMaker, September 21; Kobak Election Archive, October 2). Where Russia holds elections on terms set by a sovereign state, its ruling party performs like an ordinary party. In territories under Moscow’s protection, however, it tends to secure much larger vote shares.
In Abkhazia, Russia faced no local resistance and expanded its electoral footprint at speed. Most of the region’s 243,897 residents hold Russian as well as Abkhaz citizenship (Abkhazia-Inform, December 25, 2025; JAMnews, September 18). In early September, Russia announced 35 polling stations in Abkhazia, more than 10 percent of the 319 stations it planned worldwide (JAMnews, September 2). Early voting from September 4–8 was reserved for Russians working or serving in Abkhazia, with stations opening to residents holding Russian citizenship and to Russian tourists on September 20, according to Russian Ambassador to Abkhazia Vyacheslav Gladkov (Caucasian Knot, September 4). The Abkhaz authorities not only permitted the vote, but also helped facilitate it. De facto Abkhaz President Badra Gunba created a working group under Vice President Beslan Bigvava to provide assistance to the Russian Embassy (President of Abkhazia, September 17). By election day, the network had grown to 50 stations, supplemented by 115 mobile ballot boxes (RIA Novosti, September 20). In 2016 and 2021, Russia operated only nine stations in Abkhazia, and in 2016, 20,235 people voted (JAMnews, September 19, 2016; Ekho Kavkaza, September 19, 2021). This number increased by four times, with a total of 82,018 ballots cast in 2026, more than in any foreign country, and United Russia won 75 percent (Kobak Election Archive, October 2). That equals roughly one ballot for every three Abkhaz residents, including children, and approaches the just over 100,000 ballots cast in Abkhazia’s own record-turnout presidential runoff in March 2025 (JAMnews, March 2, 2025). The total includes Russian servicemen and tourists, so it overstates Abkhaz participation, but it shows Russia’s electoral machinery operating on nearly the same scale as Abkhazia’s own.
A prominent Abkhaz blogger and public figure, Akhra Bzhania, argued that the scale of the election campaign in Abkhazia was intended to foster a sense of belonging to Russia, noting that the “entire republic is covered with banners.” Since 50,000–60,000 votes from Abkhazia would not shift the balance in the Duma, he concluded that the campaign served “a different, ideological purpose: to create a sense among the citizens of Abkhazia of a unified political and administrative space with the Russian Federation. And from there, it is not far from a common state” (JAMnews, September 2). Gunba himself cast a ballot, endorsing “political forces that consistently support the republic and contribute to strengthening its state sovereignty” (RIA Novosti, September 20). His participation underscores how the boundary between Abkhaz and Russian political spaces is becoming increasingly blurred.
South Ossetia, Georgia’s other occupied region, held two elections at the same time. On September 18, the first of three days of Duma voting there, a new South Ossetian De Facto President Marat Kambolov, a former Moscow official, was elected (JAMnews, September 19). About 90 percent of South Ossetia’s residents hold Russian citizenship, so the two electorates largely overlap (Interfax, July 22). The president received votes from 32,869 people, or 82.7 percent of the 39,768 registered voters (Caucasian Knot, September 20). Only 11,096 voted for the Duma, and United Russia won 67.6 percent of that vote (Kobak Election Archive, October 2). Russia opened 13 polling stations and ran mobile voting in 16 villages (TASS; Rambler News, September 18; Kobak Election Archive, October 2). Russian Ambassador to South Ossetia Marat Kulakhmetov urged citizens to vote “for our common future” (State News Agency Res, September 17). Even so, residents turned out in far greater numbers for their own election. The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned both the presidential vote and the opening of Russian polling stations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia without its consent as “another gross violation of Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” (SOVA News, September 18).
Taken together, the three territories accounted for 80 of Russia’s 333 stations abroad, or 24 percent. They cast 51 percent of all votes from abroad (5 TV, September 25; Kobak Election Archive, October 2). The three cases point in different directions. In Abkhazia, Russia organizes elections as if it already holds sovereignty. South Ossetia shows that Russian citizenship does not guarantee participation when residents have their own vote to cast. In Transnistria, Chișinău’s pushback narrowed the vote even as Moscow eased citizenship rules. The next test will come in 2031, after Putin’s citizenship decree has had time to take effect.
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https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/expulsion-of-russian-diplomats-from
gilbertdoctorow
https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/why-do-russian-speaking-estonians
gilbertdoctorow
par Moon of Alabama. La simple existence de ces unités doit être considérée comme un avertissement par les alliés des États-Unis : leurs économies et leurs entreprises risquent d’être victimes de ces nouvelles activités du Pentagone.
The post Le Pentagone met en place de nouvelles unités chargées de l’espionnage économique et du sabotage first appeared on Réseau International.
Click on the arrow and this leads directly to a recording of the RT interview which was broadcast live
gilbertdoctorow
Executive Summary:
Baku decided on September 21 to ban pupils and teachers from wearing the hijab in Azerbaijani state schools. The protests that the move has sparked have had a profound impact not only on Azerbaijani society but also on Azerbaijan’s relations with Türkiye (RTV Online, October 17). Azerbaijanis have been prompted to ask more questions than ever about the proper relationship between secularism and freedom of religion, and Baku has been forced to recognize that the balance Baku seeks and the one Ankara does are beginning to be at odds (Svobodnaya Pressa, October 16; The Caspian Post, October 20). Because the two countries have hitherto been the closest of allies, this division will have significant consequences not only for them and their relationship but for the region around them and beyond (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 18). Consequently, what may seem to some outsiders like a minor issue is major, and its resolution will affect the situation and policies of even powers distant from the South Caucasus (Voyenno-politicheskaya analitika, October 16).
Since the Azerbaijani republic was founded just over a century ago, secularism has been a core value of its leaders. They saw it as essential to maintaining stability in a country with many religions and as a necessary feature of a modern state (RFI, October 14). That commitment strengthened during Soviet times, albeit for different reasons, and re-emerged as a centerpiece of post-Soviet Azerbaijan’s construction. Maintaining a balance between secularism and freedom of religion, however, has never been easy. When Baku has intervened on that question in recent years and tilted toward secularism, such actions have sparked protests, most notably in 2010–2011 (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, May 6, 2011). As a result, until earlier this year, the Azerbaijani government moved cautiously, especially in handling the issue, since it affected schools and, given how many people in the country are part of the education system, had wide-ranging consequences.
Baku has long been worried about Iranian efforts to promote radical Islam in Azerbaijan and thus destabilize the regime there. Given the growing conflict between Iran, on the one hand, and Israel and the United States, on the other, Baku moved further and faster to ensure that Azerbaijani schools would be purely secular and thus could not become seedbeds of Islamist radicalism. Senior Azerbaijani officials, however, were careful not to publicly name Iran as the proximate cause of their actions (OC-Media, October 16). Since the start of this year, the Azerbaijani government has moved step by step to do so, establishing dress codes for pupils and teachers on July 7, tightening those codes on September 21 as far as pupils were concerned—an action that did not mention the hijab but was interpreted by school officials as targeting that in particular—and, on October 6, extending such restrictions to teachers as well (RTV Online).
These moves prompted hundreds of pupils, their parents, and rights activists to take to the streets to protest. Authorities have arrested dozens of them and restricted social media so they could not organize more protests. (For a sampling of the enormous reporting about the protests and about the arguments of those that the wearing of the hijab does not interfere with secular education, see Kavkaz Uzel, October 12, 18; Minval.az, October 12, 13; Aktsenty, October 12; OC-Media, October 13, 16; AsiaNews; Novaya Gazeta Evropa, October 15.) In these articles, the most impressive features of the protests were their size and length in a country whose government typically blocks any protest and shuts it down almost instantly, but that was not what made them most noteworthy.
From the outset of the protests in Azerbaijan, participants and observers focused on what these actions meant for Azerbaijan itself and for its relations with other countries. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they began by focusing on Baku’s relationship with Muslim countries in general, and Central Asian ones in particular, with which Azerbaijan has sought to expand its ties (Aktsenty, October 14). They quickly shifted to the impact of these events on the relationship between Azerbaijan and Türkiye, two countries that for more than 30 years have described themselves as “one nation—two states.”
Ever more observers even suggested that Azerbaijan’s ban had highlighted the limitations of that formula. The ban had appeared at a time when Türkiye too was committed to secularism, which has long passed given that Ankara is integrating Islam into the ideology of the Turkish state (Svobodnaya Pressa, October 16; Nesavisymaya Gazeta, October 18; The Caspian Post, October 20). As Israeli Caucasus specialist Abraham Shmulyevich noted in his commentary the formula “one nation—two states” still reflects the profound historical, linguistic, and cultural affinity between Azerbaijan and Türkiye. It does not, however, change that under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the two countries have developed along fundamentally different political and state models. They share ethnic kinship, strategic interests, and a common historical memory, but they differ on the role of religion in society, the limits of state intervention, and the very logic of national development (The Caspian Post, October 20). That scholarly judgment was echoed in the streets of Istanbul, where Turkish demonstrators at the Azerbaijani consulate against the hijab ban by Baku declared, “Such a state cannot be our brother!” (akcent.site/novosti/46235).
As this controversy has continued, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly lashed out at Türkiye for criticizing his policies. Türkiye does not have the right to try to teach Baku how to live, he has said, adding that while there is no question that Turks and Azerbaijanis are one people, they are different countries with different values and that each must respect the other (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 15; Svobodnaya Pressa, October 16). Some Azerbaijani officials and scholars have tried to downplay the obvious implications and argue that this is not a break and that the two countries will still operate as one on many issues. That seems increasingly unlikely the longer this war of words goes on. That in turn is something that will affect both countries, their relations with each other, and their relations with third countries including, but not limited to, Israel, where there are already signs of a break; Central Asia, where a division between the two will affect trade across the Caspian; and Europe, the People’s Republic of China, and the United States, each of which has a stake in issues on which the presence or absence of cooperation between Ankara and Baku depends.
Aliyev has a record of changing course relatively quickly when he judges that it is necessary. Whether he keeps the hijab ban in place is yet to be seen. Such a change will depend not only on what he has said but also on how Turks in general have reacted to it. Consequently, what may seem to many like a small internal matter in Azerbaijan casts a large shadow over the world as a whole, one that must factor into considerations of all such issues.
The post Baku’s Hijab Ban Sparks Protests in Azerbaijan and Creates Problems With Türkiye appeared first on Jamestown.
as from minute 17.30
This is the interview in which I set out the basic framework of the coming endgame in the war in which Donald Trump will have a decisive role
gilbertdoctorow
Executive Summary:
On September 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting in the Kremlin with the leaders of political parties that won seats in the recent State Duma election (President of Russia, September 28). This is a routine post-election meeting, in which Putin thanks the Central Election Commission for conducting the election, outlines the priorities for the new parliamentary term, and demonstrates that the political parties with power remain under his control. This time, however, Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy chief of staff of the Presidential Administration and the official overseeing domestic policy, was absent. He is responsible for organizing the State Duma election campaign and its outcome. Instead, sitting to Putin’s left was Alexei Gromov, another first deputy chief of staff who oversees information policy and relations with the media. The official explanation was that Kiriyenko had gone on vacation without waiting for the meeting to take place. In the Kremlin’s political culture, however, the absence of a key official from a ceremonial meeting reviewing the results of his own work is rarely accidental. No major change involving Kiriyenko has been announced as of October 22, and he has continued to perform public duties in his position.
Russian authorities took political scientist Alexander Kynev into custody in Moscow a few days before the meeting. He is regarded as one of Russia’s leading experts on elections and regional politics who remained in the country even after being designated as a foreign agent early this year (Nastoiashee Vremia, February 20; BBC Russian Service, September 25). Kynev described the latest State Duma election as “the most unfair” Duma election ever, and declared the victory of United Russia as the result of large-scale electoral fraud (Novaya Gazeta, September 29). Immediately after votes were counted, Kynev was detained in an operation involving Federal Security Service (FSB) officers and was severely beaten. He has been charged with attempted large-scale drug trafficking, but denies the allegations.
Kynev unofficially worked with New People, a political party part of the Kremlin-managed opposition regarded as close to Kiriyenko, in recent years (The Moscow Times, September 29). Kynev’s arrest does not directly weaken Kiriyenko’s position since the two were not personally close. Russian political circles, however, have been discussing the possibility that the security agencies did not alert Kiriyenko about the arrest until after the fact. The security services’ arrest of Kynev sends the message that cooperation with the Presidential Administration’s domestic policy bloc does not guarantee protection (Telegram/@russicaru, September 28).
Kiriyenko’s absence from the post-election meeting and the high-profile detention of someone connected to his policy apparatus occurred amid frequent rumors of major personnel changes in the Kremlin before the end of this fall. The two moves deserve attention as signs of a potential realignment of power within the ruling elite, not as isolated scandals.
The Kremlin often appears monolithic from the outside. In practice, it is a system of competing factions in which influence is measured by formal positions, the ability to protect one’s allies, and control of key processes. Since 2016, when he assumed his current position, Kiriyenko has built a relatively autonomous civilian apparatus for managing domestic politics, encompassing elections, regional governors, party projects, relations with the regions and, in part, soft power and Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia in 2014 and 2022. The success of the September State Duma election, with official turnout reported at almost 60 percent and United Russia securing a constitutional majority, should have strengthened Kiriyenko’s position. Other trends, however, emerged immediately after the election. First, the security agencies demonstrated that they can intervene in civilian political structures, diminishing the value of protection from the Presidential Administration. Second, potential changes to Kiriyenko’s position, along with the possible rise of other figures, have direct implications for the configuration of Russia’s governing apparatus ahead of the next political succession cycle, after 2030—or earlier, depending on the state of the system—and for who will determine the terms of the transfer of power.
Russian Telegram channels focused on political affairs have reported a gradual distancing of relations between the Kovalchuk family and Kiriyenko. Yuri Kovalchuk, a billionaire and close friend of Putin, was previously considered one of the patrons who paved Kiriyenko’s way into the Kremlin. Over time, however, the first deputy chief of staff accumulated his own bureaucratic clout and began acting more independently. Now, the Kovalchuks appear to prefer keeping their distance, observing events from the sidelines rather than protecting projects associated with Kiriyenko’s circle (Telegram/@politpochta, September 29). At the same time, they are redirecting some of their projects toward Stepan and Kirill Kovalchuk. The cancellation of Kanye West concerts in St. Petersburg is a symbolic example. Structures linked to VKontakte, Russia’s largest social media and technology company, headed by Kiriyenko’s son, Vladimir, were responsible for organizing the event and managing its media coverage (Repost News, September 30).
Kynev’s arrest adds to this broader pattern. Even if the political scientist was not personally close to Kiriyenko, he worked within the political infrastructure overseen by the Presidential Administration’s domestic policy bloc. The fact that the security agencies apparently did not consider it necessary even to notify their counterparts in the Presidential Administration points to a shift in the rules of the game and growing independence on the part of the security services. It suggests that ties to Kiriyenko no longer guarantee protection from detention or physical abuse.
Against the backdrop of the possibility of further personnel changes in the Presidential Administration and the Russian government before the end of the fall, three potential scenarios for Kiriyenko’s future are being discussed (Telegram/@taynaya_kantselyariya, September 21). The first is that Kiriyenko retains his position as first deputy chief of staff but loses control over domestic political affairs, which would be transferred to Chief of the Presidential Domestic Policy Directorate Andrei Yarin and the security agencies. Kiriyenko himself would be left to focus on international affairs. The second scenario involves his move to Moscow City Hall, accompanied by a substantial part of his team, potentially paving the way for incumbent Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to return to the position of chief of staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia. The third option is a move into the government as deputy prime minister responsible for the fuel and energy sector. The Moscow scenario is the one most frequently discussed and is reportedly the most attractive to Kiriyenko himself. It raises the question, however, of what would happen to Sobyanin, who is an influential and well-resourced political player in his own right (Telegram/@taynaya_kantselyariya, September 21).
If Kiriyenko leaves the Presidential Administration, his most likely replacement would be Yarin. During his years working under Kiriyenko, Yarin has significantly increased his bureaucratic influence, becoming a key link between the civilian political apparatus and the security agencies (Telegram/@taynaya_kantselyariya, September 21). He has also earned a reputation as a disciplined executor of orders. If promoted, Yarin could not only inherit Kiriyenko’s projects but also reshape them. Domestic politics, in turn, could come under tighter control by the security services.
Kiriyenko’s potential move to Moscow City Hall, with the prospect of eventually becoming mayor, would weaken his direct influence over the federal domestic political machinery. He would lose his levers of control, the projects under his supervision, and his position in the president’s inner circle. The longer-term implications, however, are far more significant. By the standards of Russia’s political elite, Kiriyenko is relatively young. The Moscow mayoralty offers substantial resources, public visibility, control over the capital’s budget and personnel, and the opportunity to build new networks as an independent political heavyweight. In the context of a future transfer of power, this could prove a more advantageous position than remaining the “perennial” first deputy chief of staff.
Kiriyenko’s absence from one meeting and Kynev’s arrest are not proof of an imminent dismissal. They do, however, offer insight into the trends surrounding Kiriyenko and the Presidential Administration as a whole. These developments suggest that the autonomy the first deputy chief of staff has built over the past decade is beginning to face constraints. His growing distance from former patrons has also weakened his network of support at precisely the moment when the security agencies are increasingly setting the rules without regard for civilian officials responsible for domestic politics.
The cabinet reshuffle that the Kremlin announced in October produced new appointments, but no change involving Kiriyenko (The Moscow Times, October 19). The latter would provide a more direct indicator of whether the balance of power within the Kremlin has shifted. A potential move by Kiriyenko to Moscow City Hall, followed eventually by his appointment as mayor, would create a political figure with substantial resources at his disposal. Meanwhile, Yarin’s rise and the growing influence of the security agencies over domestic politics would strengthen the role of repressive and control mechanisms in the management of Russia’s regions and political parties. For now, Kiriyenko’s absence from the September meeting and the Kynev arrest appear to be more indicators of possible tensions within the Presidential Administration than evidence that Kiriyenko is on the verge of leaving his post. But in a system where official statements rarely reflect the actual distribution of power, such signals are precisely what make it possible to track the shifting tectonic plates beneath the surface of Russian politics. Ignoring them means viewing the Russian government as a static entity rather than as a living, conflict-ridden structure in a constant state of realignment.
The post Post-Election Speculation Mounted About Kiriyenko’s Kremlin Position appeared first on Jamestown.
Executive Summary:
On September 23, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the United States convened an event in New York titled “Prosperity Through Peace: Investing in the Trans-Caspian Trade Route and TRIPP,” bringing together officials from the United States, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as private sector representatives, to discuss regional connectivity (Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, September 23). The event also focused on the Trans-Caspian Enterprise Fund, a $201 million U.S.-supported nonprofit vehicle for channeling private investment across eight South Caucasus and Central Asian states. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the fund in August, and it remains legally distinct from the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) itself (Modern.az, August 8).
The event revealed a central paradox of the Middle Corridor. Long framed as an alternative to routes through Russia, the corridor has become a platform on which Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Ankara, Tehran, and Brussels pursue distinct objectives. The same geopolitical fragmentation that increased demand for routes bypassing Russia also keeps national, regional, and international initiatives from merging into a unified framework and prevents diversification from producing genuine autonomy. Commercial activity remains robust. Azerbaijan reported over 9.1 million tons of transit freight on its east–west and north–south routes in the first seven months of 2026, with east–west volumes up 16.5 percent (Trend News Agency, August 10). Increase in volume, however, does not equate to integration.
That distinction is most apparent in how participating states approach diversification, which often replaces one dependence with another. In Central Asia, geography and bargaining power differ sharply from state to state. Kazakhstan provides the land bridge and the key Caspian ports, yet Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stressed at the October 8 summit in Avaza, Turkmenistan, that the north–south route through Russia remains “particularly relevant” (The Times of Central Asia, October 9). Uzbekistan sent 83 percent of its Middle Corridor cargo through the Turkmen port of Turkmenbashi, while Kyrgyzstan’s participation in the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (CKU) railway, majority-owned by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), offers a route around Kazakhstan at the price of deeper reliance on PRC investment (Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy Studies, April 3; Akchabar, April 8). Whether cargo departs from Kazakh ports or Turkmenbashi, it must cross the Caspian to reach Azerbaijan, linking Central Asia’s distinct transport strategies to transit routes shaped in part by the South Caucasus.
The South Caucasus states face the same trade-off between diversification and dependence. Azerbaijan, whose ports anchor the western Caspian, balances its alliance with Türkiye against normalized relations with Russia, largely based on north–south trade that traverses Azerbaijani territory (Eurasianet, July 16). Georgia, the corridor’s western outlet to the Black Sea, has made its planned deep-sea port at Anaklia a test of geopolitical alignment. After a PRC-led consortium went unmentioned in Tbilisi’s July 6 announcement, the government proposed state ownership under a “landlord” model, in which the state owns the port and private companies operate it, but with no confirmed partner and no named Western stakeholders (Eurasianet, July 8). Armenia’s maneuverability is constrained by a railway operated since 2008 by a Russian Railways subsidiary, which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says discourages Western users, and by reliance on Iranian territory for up to a quarter of its foreign trade (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, April 2026; Report, August 13).
Regional cooperation formats show that competition for control shapes coordination more than a shared interest in efficiency. In 2024, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan established the Eurasian Transport Route International Association (ETRIA), a Baku-based body to coordinate tariffs and digital tools along the corridor’s southern branch. In February, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia signed a separate protocol in Ashgabat to boost cargo transportation and digitize processes along the corridor (Embassy of Turkmenistan in the United Kingdom, February 11; The Astana Times, February 12). None of these formats brings all eight corridor states into a common decision-making body. The Trans-Caspian Enterprise Fund spans all eight, but it is a U.S. investment vehicle, not a regional institution. Without a regional body to set priorities among ports and routes, diversification widens the menu of options without strengthening strategic autonomy, and leaves the choice to outside powers with their own interests.
Outside powers deepen the fragmentation because they compete less for cargo than for control of the nodes it passes through and the rules that govern them. Washington’s stake is the most explicit. Through a planned 74 percent controlling share in the TRIPP Development Company, it seeks a durable foothold on the corridor’s western segment (Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, May 26). Beijing, by contrast, stays out of that contest and builds around it through its 51 percent stake in the joint venture developing the CKU Railway, opening a southern route that bypasses Kazakhstan (Kaktus Media, April 17). Meanwhile, its apparent exit from Anaklia leaves the Black Sea outlet without a declared sponsor (OC-Media, July 6). The European Union approaches the corridor through its Global Gateway strategy. Its Connectivity Agenda Platform, launched on June 23, came with statements of intent from international financial institutions expected to mobilize up to 2 billion euros ($2.25 billion) for the Black Sea region and the South Caucasus (European Commission, June 23). The European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) finance Kazakhstan’s Aktau port without holding any stake in TRIPP’s governance, so even Western engagement runs on separate tracks (EBRD, September 30, 2025; CivilNet, August 6).
Russia, Türkiye, and Iran answer with positional leverage. Moscow has rejected proposals to transfer the Armenian railway concession to a third party (CivilNet, February 19). Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said Russia’s position must be taken into account because TRIPP is planned to pass through an area guarded by Russian and Armenian border troops, and transit would also have to comply with the rules of the Eurasian Economic Union (TASS, June 29). Moscow has also called for regional states and their immediate neighbors—Russia, Iran, and Türkiye—to shape the solutions, a formula that implicitly excludes Washington, while promoting a north–south corridor linking Russia with Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan (The Times of Central Asia, October 9). Türkiye, Azerbaijan’s security guarantor, supports TRIPP but reportedly makes normalization with Armenia a precondition while building its own Kars–Dilucu railway from eastern Türkiye toward Nakhchivan (CivilNet, May 16). Iran vowed in 2025 to block the route, though Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on October 7 that Tehran is satisfied with Armenian transparency (Armenpress, October 7). The result is a layered rivalry in which the United States seeks to anchor a western outlet, Russia and Iran defend a north–south axis, and Türkiye and the PRC pursue their own initiatives, leaving participating states to bargain among competing offers.
TRIPP illustrates how these competing offers play out in a single project. Washington has secured a signed framework agreement under which a company it controls would hold development rights for the link between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan (Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, May 26). Capital and a controlling stake do not determine whose preferences prevail along the route. Armenia retains authority over border control and customs under the published framework, while the Russian, Turkish, and Iranian positions described above remain in place. As a result, TRIPP adds a U.S.-backed option to the corridor without removing the dependencies on Russia and Iran that continue to shape Armenian choices.
Strategic importance, rooted in a favorable geographic position, does not automatically translate into transregional integration, just as diversification does not necessarily confer autonomy. Alternative routes can generate new dependencies even as they reduce existing ones. Whether the Middle Corridor becomes a successful and integrated system will depend less on physical infrastructure than on whether its participants can overcome the geopolitical constraints and great-power interests that created demand for it in the first place.
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https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/estonia-the-russian-speaking-country
gilbertdoctorow
Des chercheurs du CNRS ont créé un planisphère carré, pour s'émanciper des visions cartographiques issues de l'époque coloniale. Résultat : pas d'Afrique comprimée, et aucun pays au centre.
Ceci n'est pas une simple carte du monde, c'est une nouvelle façon de représenter notre planète. Un carré que l'on peut plier, découper et agencer à sa guise pour mettre au centre de notre regard tantôt l'Afrique, tantôt l'Asie ou encore les Amériques. Baptisé « Le Planisphère carré », ce projet a été (…)
https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/the-wars-end-game-explained
gilbertdoctorow
Executive Summary:
On October 7, Deputies of Kazakhstan’s Kurultai ratified a protocol renewing the intergovernmental agreement with Russia on the supply of oil and petroleum products, extending its validity until January 1, 2028 (Vedomosti, October 7). The vote came a day after Ukraine launched more than 650 drones toward Moscow oblast, and hours after Russia launched 130 drones, 48 cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles against Ukraine (Fontanka, October 6; 5 Kanal, October 7). Kazakhstan is binding itself more closely to Russia’s energy system just as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has turned the Russian ports that carry most Kazakh oil into targets.
The protocol revives a 2013 agreement that expired on January 1, 2024. It preserves annual coordination of supply balances and data exchanges, allows Kazakhstan to import Russian petroleum products duty-free, and provides for processing Russian oil at the Kondensat refinery in western Kazakhstan, which Russia co-owns and in which Kazakhstan keeps 30 percent of the output. Kazakh Vice Minister of Energy Kaiyrkhan Tutkyshbaev stressed that Russia remains Kazakhstan’s strategic partner (Vedomosti, October 7).
Kazakhstan is the world’s largest landlocked country and depends on other states’ infrastructure to reach world markets. About 80 percent of its oil exports flow through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline (Kommersant, August 25). The pipeline runs more than 930 miles from Kazakhstan’s Caspian oil fields to a terminal at Iuzhnaia Ozereevka, just southwest of Novorossiisk, Russia’s main Black Sea port in Krasnodar krai (Forbes Kazakhstan, December 6, 2016). In 2025, the pipeline carried a record 70.52 million metric tons of oil, of which 62.8 million metric tons came from Kazakhstan’s three largest fields—Tengiz (36.6 million metric tons), Kashagan (17 million metric tons), and Karachaganak (9.2 million metric tons), with Russian suppliers adding the remainder (Port News, February 26).
The CPC route is also a Western business interest. Russian companies own 36.5 percent of the consortium’s shares, with an additional 3.825 percent partly held by Rosneft through Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures Limited. Kazakhstan holds 20.75 percent. U.S. companies Chevron and ExxonMobil, through its subsidiary Mobil, hold 15 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively. The other shareholders include Russia’s Lukoil, Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures, and Eni (Interfax, December 1, 2025). Washington has exempted the CPC from U.S. sanctions on Russian oil (Neftegaz.ru, May 16, 2025). The pipeline carries about 2 percent of the world’s daily crude supplies (Mirror of the Week, July 24).
Kazakh oil also leaves through a second Novorossiisk facility. The Sheskharis terminal is operated by Transneft subsidiary Chernomortransneft (Glavcom, November 15, 2025). It is Russia’s largest crude-loading terminal on the Black Sea and ships Russian Urals and Siberian Light crude, as well as Kazakh oil (Kyiv Post, April 6). It can handle about 700,000 barrels per day (Censor.NET, August 14). In June 2022, Kazakh producers rebranded these exports as Kazakh Export Blend Crude Oil (KEBCO), after traders repeatedly mistook them for Russian Export Blend Crude Oil (REBCO), which Western sanctions had made difficult to sell (Neft i Kapital, June 6, 2022). In peacetime, Novorossiisk port facilities handled around 25–35 percent of all Russian crude oil exports, or about 3–3.2 million metric tons per month. In wartime, the site accounts for about 20 percent of Russia’s crude oil exports (Kyiv Post, April 6). That makes the port too valuable for Kyiv to ignore.
While Kazakhstan has alternative export routes, they are not comparable in capacity. In 2025, about 11.1 million metric tons went through the Atyrau–Samara pipeline to Russia’s Transneft network, 19.5 million metric tons through the Kazakhstan–China pipeline, including Russian oil in transit, and about 3.2 million metric tons through Kazakhstan’s Caspian port of Aktau, partly for transshipment to Azerbaijan and the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline (Forbes Kazakhstan, January 16). With more than 80 percent of the country’s oil exports depending on a single terminal within range of Ukrainian drones, each new attack in the Black Sea rebounds on the Kazakh economy (Kommersant, August 25).
In August 2023, Kazakhstan’s KazTransOil Deputy Director for Transportation Erik Sagiyev said that if the situation in the Black Sea worsened, volumes bound for Sheskharis would be redirected to Ust-Luga, a Russian Baltic port in Leningrad oblast (Mind, August 18, 2023). In March, however, Ukrainian drones struck Ust-Luga five times, forcing it to suspend exports, while the nearby port of Primorsk lost at least 40 percent of its storage (Ekonomichna Pravda, April 2). Drones hit Ust-Luga again on September 1 (Slovo i Dilo, September 1).
As Russia’s war against Ukraine settled into a stalemate on land, Kyiv extended the war to Russia’s energy exports, and the CPC was drawn in. Between February 2025 and July of this year, Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) attacked CPC facilities and the tankers loading at Iuzhnaia Ozereevka eight times despite Kazakh diplomatic entreaties to Kyiv to cease the assaults (Sputnik Kazakhstan, July 30). On February 17, 2025, seven drones struck the CPC’s Kropotkinskaia oil pumping station in Krasnodar krai, destroying its roof and damaging a closed switchgear unit, a gas turbine, cables, two transformers, and the fire suppression system. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak told Putin that oil flows from Kazakhstan fell by 30 to 40 percent (The Insider, February 18, 2025).
On November 14, 2025, the first significant drone attack on Sheskharis occurred. Russian Novorossiisk Mayor Andrei Kravchenko reported that drone debris damaged a Chernomortransneft storage tank and berth, as well as the Sheskharis oil depot (Telegram/@astrapress, November 14, 2025). On November 29, Ukrainian naval drones struck the CPC terminal itself, damaging one of its three moorings beyond repair. Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the strike “a targeted attack on critical infrastructure” (Sputnik Kazakhstan, July 30). Kyiv replied that its actions were not directed against Kazakhstan (Interfax, December 1, 2025).
In February, then-Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Olha Stefanishyna confirmed that Kyiv had received a demarche from the U.S. State Department warning that attacks on the CPC terminal would cause tangible damage to U.S. economic interests in Kazakhstan. She stressed that the demarche did not require Ukraine to abandon strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, only on facilities tied to U.S. commercial interests (Exclusive, February 25). Kyiv kept Sheskharis in its sights. Drones attacked the terminal on March 2, and a strike overnight on April 5–6 damaged six of its seven oil-loading jetties (Exclusive, March 2; Ukrainska Pravda, April 6).
Over the summer, Ukraine’s maritime campaign escalated sharply. On June 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had approved a 40-day Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) operation to push Russia toward ending the war (Ukrainska Pravda, June 25). Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) struck 35 vessels in the Sea of Azov over 96 hours, as well as two tankers in the Black Sea (The Maritime Executive, July 9). By July 14, SBS Commander Robert “Magyar” Brovdi reported 116 vessels hit in nine days under Operation “MoLoChKa.” The operation targets Russia’s small tankers, dry cargo ships, and tugs in the Sea of Azov, limiting fuel deliveries to Crimea (Interfax-Ukraine, July 14, 18). Tankers serving the CPC were caught in the escalation. On July 7, a drone struck the unladen, Chevron-chartered tanker Yasa Polaris near the terminal (Deniz Haber Ajansı, July 9). Further strikes on tankers followed on July 17, 19, 20, and 30, and Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called them “an unacceptable attack on Kazakhstan’s economic interests” (Sputnik Kazakhstan, July 30).
This time, Washington intervened at a higher level. During a July 31 call, U.S. Vice President JD Vance asked Zelenskyy to halt the attacks. The U.S. was “alarmed that Ukraine was further destabilizing oil markets and harming U.S. companies by targeting tankers carrying crude piped from Kazakhstan to a Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal in the Russian port of Novorossiisk.” Ukraine agreed not to strike CPC infrastructure or non-Russian vessels, provided they were not under Ukrainian sanctions and were not carrying Russian oil or cargo (Nur.kz, August 12).
On September 8, a drone incident near the CPC terminal forced the suspension of loading at two of its moorings, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy (Interfax, September 9). The economic damage is already measurable. On August 25, Kazakh Energy Minister Erlan Akkenzhenov said the attacks would cost Kazakhstan about 3.5 million metric tons of oil in 2026 and that the year’s production plan had been cut to 96 million metric tons. “Initially, we had the idea to produce oil in the same volume as last year—99 million 550 thousand tons and actually increase it to 100 million tons,” he said (Kommersant, August 25). The same day, Akkenzhenov also declared Kazakhstan’s readiness to supply oil to Russia despite Western sanctions (Vedomosti, October 7).
Lacking a navy outside the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan cannot protect its tankers in the Black Sea and relies on diplomacy. In September, Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi met Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in New York on the sidelines of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. Tleuberdi said they discussed “the need to prevent future drone attacks on our vessels in the Black Sea” (RTVI, September 28). He also reiterated Kazakhstan’s readiness to host negotiations between Russia and Ukraine (Dzen News, September 28).
On October 9, U.S. President Donald Trump announced an agreement with Putin to supply Russian diesel to U.S. and global markets to help lower fuel prices (Fakty, October 10). Overnight on October 10, Ukrainian drones struck the oil-loading terminal of the Novoshakhtinsk Refinery, formerly known as Iug Rusi, in Rostov-on-Don, a Russian city on the Don River near the Sea of Azov. The terminal, with a capacity of about 2.5 million metric tons per year, was previously hit on July 9 (Militarnyi, October 10).
Kazakhstan does not use Iug Rusi, but the strike showed that Ukraine will not abandon its campaign against Russian energy infrastructure. The CPC’s protection from Ukrainian strikes rests on a narrow U.S.–Ukrainian understanding that Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow could erode. By renewing its energy ties with Russia while its main export route remains within range of Ukrainian drones, Kazakhstan could see more diplomatic demonstrations in Kyiv.
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Executive Summary:
Control of the city of Kupiansk has become a primary focus of Russian attacks in Kharkiv oblast since late 2025. Amid limited or contested battlefield progress, Russian military authorities and pro-war bloggers have repeatedly promoted exaggerated or false claims of territorial gains. On October 2, a Russian military blogger posted a video on Telegram purporting to show the capture of part of the city of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, a suburb of Kupiansk, by Russian forces. The terrain, however, especially the railway station building, does not match the current condition of buildings in the city, which have been severely damaged during ongoing battles. Ukrainian experts say that other visual anomalies also indicate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the clip (Telegram/@ssternenko, October 3). Similar manipulated, archival, and AI-generated videos have been identified and debunked by international experts and even Russian military bloggers in recent months (X/@Playfra0, August 13; X/@actfast, August 16; X/@LetsArmUKR, August 20; Telegram/@milinfolive, September 5).
Fierce kinetic battles and equally intense information wars are raging around Kupiansk. In December 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the complete capture of the city for the third time since November 2025 and invited journalists to verify this advance. The Ukrainian command has repeatedly stated that these claims are untrue (Radio Svoboda, November 20, 2025; New Voice of Ukraine, January 27). Ten days later, on December 12, 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recorded a video address near the Kupiansk entrance sign, refuting Russian claims of the city’s capture (President of Ukraine, December 12, 2025).
Russia’s “flag raising” tactics for demonstrating real or false control over territory are changing. Alongside often one-way missions involving real soldiers recording videos in disputed or Ukrainian-controlled territory, they have begun using videos that have been altered or entirely generated using AI. Information operations are a crucial component of Russian tactics in Ukraine. Videos, photos, open-source intelligence confirmation and refutation, online narratives, and official statements are as much a part of Kremlin strategy as missile strikes and mechanized assaults. With the development of AI, new tools and methods of information warfare are emerging.
This approach creates additional uncertainty for Ukrainian commanders regarding the actual situation on the front lines, paints a positive picture for the Russian public, and attempts to convince Ukrainians that resistance to Putin’s aggression is futile. Russia similarly intends to use falsified flag-raising videos to convince the West that Kyiv cannot win and ongoing aid to Ukraine is pointless (Center for Countering Disinformation, May 11).
In June, Putin claimed that roughly 5,000 Ukrainian troops were nearly encircled on the “left bank of the Stary Oskol River,” apparently confusing the Oskil River in Ukraine with the Russian city of Stary Oskol in Belgorod oblast. He also falsely claimed that Russian troops were advancing within about 8 miles of Sumy in September (UNIAN; New Voice of Ukraine, June 29; 5.ua, September 2). The reality on the battlefield, however, is forcing Putin to push back deadlines for the complete capture of Donbas for the 16th time, with Russia losing territory on the net in September (The Moscow Times, September 10).
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) “Vivaldi” counteroffensive operation, which ran from late May to October 14 in the Lyman sector under the command of the 3rd Army Corps, used a new information strategy. This operation was initially conducted with rigorous control over any leaks regarding the directions of Ukrainian forces’ advances, and Ukraine did not publicize results until September (Texty.org.ua, September 22). This approach is in stark contrast to how the “announcements” of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023 were handled (InformNapalm, September 18). After completion of Vivaldi’s initial phases, the 3rd Army Corps, already known for its strong media team and high-quality work in this area, launched an information campaign (Telegram/@InformNapalm, September 29, 30). This effort began with a video address by then-3rd Army Corps commander, Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky, from the city of Svyatogorsk in Donetsk oblast, in which he refuted Putin’s claims that the Russian army controlled the city (RIA Novosti, September 1). Biletsky stated that Ukrainian forces firmly control the city, which currently serves as a rear area for the corps (Telegram/@ab3army, September 7). As of September, the distance from the city to the front line was no closer than 13 kilometers (8 miles) (ISW, September 2).
The Ukrainian military released videos explaining Vivaldi’s progress only after the successful completion of certain stages of the operation. Until the official announcement, an information vacuum was created for Russian forces, in part because of the targeted destruction of Russian reconnaissance drones (Tyzhden, October 7). This tactic reduced the Russian Armed Forces’ operational intelligence regarding the Ukrainian military’s actions, complicating Russian efforts to respond to the offensive.
In the Russian military, there is a widespread practice of lying in reports to higher command, distorting situational awareness among commanders regarding the positions of their own forces (Telegram/@motopatriot78, October 8). Combined with fake video evidence purporting to show control over Ukrainian-held territories, these practices have become such a serious problem that even Russian military bloggers have begun to criticize them (Telegram/@rybar, September 7; Telegram/@milinfolive, September 29; Telegram/@dva_majors, October 4).
Ukraine released a video showing 250 captured Russian soldiers in early October, in contrast to a falsified Russian video from Piskunivka village in Donetsk oblast that purported to show surrendering Ukrainians (Armia.Inform, May 5). Ukrainian military videos intend to refute false Russian claims and undermine trust in the Russian Federation’s leadership (X/@LetsArmUKR, September 29).
Creating and managing narratives supporting military operations by restricting information leaks and controlling the release of objective data contributes to international and domestic political support for Ukraine. Russia’s use of AI-generated video in military operations may quickly undermine trust in its information.
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Executive Summary:
Transnistria opened its presidential campaign on September 14. Candidates may be nominated until November 12 and must gather signatures from at least 2 percent of registered voters, about 8,000 people. Registration closes on November 21, campaigning runs to December 12, and early voting begins on December 7 at territorial commissions before moving to polling stations on December 11 (Interfax, September 14). The vote itself falls on December 13.
The incumbent is not on the ballot, a contrast to the previous two elections. President of Transnistria Vadim Krasnoselsky has served two consecutive five-year terms, and the region’s constitution bars a third. He has said he supports rotating power and does not intend to change the rules, while predicting that Chișinău will try to obstruct the vote and fail (TASS, September 14). This will be Transnistria’s eighth presidential election and the first genuinely open seat since 2016.
The favorite candidate is Vitaly Neagu, appointed deputy prime minister this January. Before that, he spent five years as Transnistria’s interior minister, leaving with the rank of general. Before that, he headed the region’s Customs Committee and served as a Supreme Court judge. Between 2008 and 2012, he worked as a consultant in the legal department of Sheriff Holding, a conglomerate that has effectively selected every Transnistrian leader since 2011. He is also publicly associated with the Russian world current, holding membership in the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, which awarded him its Primakov medal, along with a Russian Orthodox Church order and a Black Sea Cossack Host medal (NewsMaker, September 16).
The résumé reads as a statement about what the job now requires. Yevgeny Shevchuk, Transnistria’s second president, and Krasnoselsky both rose through the Interior Ministry, so the security pedigree signals continuity. The customs portfolio is not. Neagu ran the apparatus that collected revenue at the administrative boundary when that revenue underwrote the budget, and he is being promoted to the presidency just as Chișinău is legislating that apparatus out of existence. The value-added tax (VAT) and excise regime that took effect on September 1 extends to petroleum products and base metals in January 2027, to natural gas and electricity in April, and eliminates all remaining exemptions by January 2030 (Logos Press, August 26). Tiraspol’s own outlets concede that full implementation could idle industrial enterprises.
The succession was managed almost immediately. On September 13, a Telegram channel appearing to belong to Neagu announced his candidacy and promised a program. Russian outlets, including RIA Novosti, carried it within hours (RIA Novosti, September 13). The Transnistrian government then stated the channel was fake (TASS, September 14). More than a week later, Neagu still had not formally declared, while attending every significant public event and commenting steadily on social and economic questions. Anatoly Dirun, a former deputy of the Supreme Council turned analyst, put it plainly. For anyone familiar with Transnistria, the nomination is obvious, because Neagu has passed through every stage and has been brought to this point both politically and technically. Dirun expects other candidates to be admitted as filler and notes that opposition aspirants are unlikely to be registered at all, though running would raise their profile. His summary of the exercise is that the vote will be arranged so that the candidate programmed to win does so (NewsMaker.md, September 16).
The constraint on all of this is participation. Krasnoselsky took 62 percent in the first round in 2016 and close to 80 percent in 2021, but turnout fell from 60 percent to 35.3 percent between those two contests. At the November 30, 2025 Supreme Council elections, it reached 26.01 percent, the lowest in the region’s history and below the 27.7 percent recorded in 2020. Of the 49 nominated candidates, 45 were registered for 33 single-member districts. Obnovlenie (Renewal), created and funded by Sheriff Holding, took every seat with 83.8 percent; independents won none; and 9.7 percent of ballots were cast against all candidates (RIA Novosti, December 1, 2025; Central Electoral Commission for the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic, December 8, 2025). A Russian analyst attributed the collapse to exhaustion, pressure from Chișinău, and far fewer people wanting to stand than in previous cycles, which he linked to the discouragement of political pluralism in the region (MK, December 1, 2025). With no turnout threshold in force, abstention cannot invalidate the result. It can only hollow it.
September offered a different kind of rehearsal. Around 220,000 Transnistrian residents hold Russian passports, and Tiraspol opened polling stations for Russia’s September 18 to 20 State Duma elections (TASS, August 28). Chișinău authorized a single station at the Russian Embassy and lodged a protest with Russian Ambassador Oleg Ozerov over the rest. Moldova’s Foreign Ministry said electoral processes conducted in the region by another state carry no legal consequences (Moldova1, September 20). In the 2021 Russian Duma vote, 27 stations in Transnistria produced more than 59,000 ballots, most of them for the ruling United Russia party (Moldova.org, September 19, 2021). At the 2024 Russian presidential election, 97 percent of Transnistrian voters backed Russian President Vladimir Putin, a higher share than in Russia itself (NewsMaker.md, March 18, 2024).
The pattern is the same across both ballots. Transnistria can still stage an election and produce a decisive number. It can no longer give voters a reason for the result to matter, or a budget that makes the office worth the contest it does not have.
The arithmetic of the term is the part worth keeping in view. A president elected on December 13 serves until December 2031. The 2030 deadline for abolishing Transnistria’s separate tax and customs regime falls within that mandate, as does the horizon on which Chișinău intends to become an EU member state. Whoever takes the oath in Tiraspol this December will be the first Transnistrian leader whose term is scheduled to outlast the fiscal boundary the office exists to defend.
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https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/roadside-notes-continuation
gilbertdoctorow
https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/roadside-notes-on-the-way-out-of
gilbertdoctorow
Executive Summary:
Editor’s Note: This article builds on the findings of a study the author conducted that was published on October 20 by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC). That study, which examines in detail the Party’s hold on the medical profession and transplant sector in the People’s Republic of China, can be read here.
On August 18, a Chinese news website announced the formation of the International Society of Organ Medicine (South, August 18). The English-language report touted the group as “the first global academic organization dedicated to the emerging field of organ medicine” and shared details of an inaugural online meeting joined by 20 Chinese doctors and 20 international experts from six countries. The organization’s honorary presidents are Chinese transplant surgeon and former vice minister of health Huang Jiefu (黄洁夫) and John Fung, an American surgeon and president of the Transplantation Society. It is one of the latest examples of the international transplant community welcoming cooperation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since Chinese officials announced in 2015 that they would no longer use prisoners as organ sources and henceforth rely only on voluntary donations.
This renewal of ties is occurring despite the 2020 findings of the China Tribunal—an independent people’s tribunal convened by the non-profit the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC)—that harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience had occurred on a “substantial scale” (China Tribunal, March 2020), as well as emerging evidence of falsified data, past violations of the dead donor rule, and mass blood testing of ethnic minorities and prisoners of conscience (Robertson et al., 2019; Robertson and Lavee, 2022; Robertson, 2024). [1]
The Chinese media article did not mention Huang’s status as a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a former alternate to the Central Committee, and former deputy director of the party committee responsible for top leaders’ health (Institute for Hospital Management, Tsinghua University, accessed October 16). Such omissions are common for foreign-facing articles that, along with other naming choices related to the Chinese transplant system, appear aimed at obscuring the extent of the Party’s footprint. In reality, the CCP dominates the transplant system’s national oversight body and professional association, and subordinates all organ procurement organizations (OPOs) to the party-state. A substantial number of party members, meanwhile, are found among transplant surgeons and center directors.
All Party members swear an oath making a lifelong commitment to the Party, as well as to “protect the Party’s secrets” (保守党的秘密) and to “never betray the Party” (永不叛党) (Xinhua, accessed October 16). A CCP member who violates this oath faces the Party’s internal disciplinary system, including the extralegal liuzhi (留置) detention system, as well as potential criminal charges for leaking state secrets (Safeguard Defenders, 2022). For top transplant surgeons and oversight body members, therefore, Party affiliation has real-world implications for whether denials of organ transplant abuses and claims of comprehensive reform can be trusted in the absence of genuine independent verification.
Party Dominance of National Oversight Body and Professional Association
The PRC’s entire organ donation and transplantation system is coordinated by the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee (NODTC). This is a state body established jointly by the National Health Commission and the Red Cross Society of China in 2013, and is under direct State Council oversight (Huang et. al, 2016). [2] The Red Cross Society of China, which official sources describe as the “third-party” verifier in the donation process, is in fact a state-supervised social organization under Party leadership, rather than an independent humanitarian body in the way its name might suggest to Western readers (Huang, 2017). [3]
The latest publicly available membership list of the NODTC is from 2016 and names 33 members, most of whom remain active in the transplant sector today (National Health Commission, April 28, 2016). Among these 33, 17—over half—were confirmed CCP members, including nearly all top leadership positions. Huang Jiefu is listed as the committee’s chairman. Other confirmed CCP members on the committee included at least six officials from the National Health and Family Planning Commission (the predecessor to the National Health Commission), three members from the Red Cross Society of China, and two officials from the Logistics Support Department of the Central Military Commission. The military presence highlights direct People’s Liberation Army involvement at the highest level of transplant governance (ETAC Appendix 1A, October 20). Among other responsibilities, the NODTC oversees the state-managed China Organ Transplant Response System, a centralized digital platform through which all organ procurement and allocation flows (Huang et. al, 2016). [4] Although the full current make-up of the committee remains unclear, it has been publicly acknowledged as recently as February 2026 that Huang Jiefu retains his role as its chairman (Nashan et al., 2026). [5]
Professional bodies are similarly dominated by CCP cadres. The Chinese Medical Association, for instance, is a state-controlled “social organization” (社会组织) with an embedded Party leadership. Indeed, its current president, Zhao Yupei (赵玉沛), along with all 15 vice presidents appointed in 2021, are CCP members (Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, May 2021). [6] This stands in contrast to countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia, where professional medical associations are voluntary bodies funded by members with diverse political viewpoints that set independent ethical standards, advocate for their members, and publicly criticize government health policy (Cao, 2011). [7] In the PRC, such a role is structurally constrained. It exists only within the boundaries of Party-state approval.
Subordination of Organ Procurement Organizations to the Party-State
In jurisdictions with ethical transplant systems, organ procurement is deliberately structured to reduce conflicts of interest between those who identify and manage donors and the transplant units that benefit from them. This separation exists so that those who perform transplants do not have institutional incentives to declare a patient a donor or to rush procurement. [8] In the United States, there is an especially high degree of separation, with 54 independent non-profit OPOs designated by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (Health Resources and Services Administration, accessed October 15). These OPOs are required to maintain governing structures separate from transplant hospitals. They risk federal investigations and decertification if problematic activity is found. [9]
In the PRC, there are no independent OPOs. Although Chinese authorities have appropriated the U.S. term, official Chinese sources explicitly acknowledge that in the PRC an OPO is “not an independent legal entity, which is different from that of the United States” (China Organ Transplant Development Foundation, 2020). [10] Instead, Chinese OPOs function as internal units within approved transplant hospitals and are subordinated to the hospital’s management structure. At the top of that structure sits the Party Secretary, above the hospital president and other medical or administrative staff (Baidu Baike/全国医院工作条例, 1982; author’s interview with a former Liaoning doctor, October 2025). One Chinese academic paper describes the position of the OPOs vis-à-vis the Party-state as follows: “As a subsidiary institution of a public hospital, an OPO derives its resources from the government; consequently, its operational activities must be guided by government policies” (作为公立医院的下属机构，OPO 所获取的资源来源于政府，其运营活动必然要受到政府政策的引导) (Li Yushu et al., 2022).
Chinese medical sources reported 118 OPOs in operation as of 2022, serving over 180 hospitals qualified for organ transplantation with some OPOs functioning as regional hubs serving multiple hospitals (Jiang, 2022; Nashan et al., 2026). [11] In 2014, an organization called the China OPO Alliance (中国医院协会器官获取组织联盟) was established. Huang Jiefu was also named founding head of that body, illustrating again the interconnected nature of supposedly “independent” entities in the PRC’s transplant sector, as well as Party members’ dominance of those institutions (China News Guangdong, January 2, 2025).
Party Membership among Transplant Center Leaders
Like other sectors of Chinese society, party control of the medical profession has tightened since 2018 under Xi Jinping’s leadership (Xinhua, June 25, 2018). In 2021, this included a State Council opinion that called on public hospitals to “turn professional backbones into Party members and Party members into professional backbones” (把业务骨干培养成党员、把党员培养成业务骨干) (State Council General Office, May 14, 2021). This phenomenon of having clinical leaders join the Party or assume Party leadership positions is also evident in the transplant sector, where a number of transplant surgeons and center directors at major Chinese hospitals are members of the CCP (People’s Daily Health, October 16, 2025).
Open-source research uncovered 19 cases of transplant surgeons or center directors who are documented CCP members, active in the period 2020–2025, with two recently deceased cases noted. [12] This was not a comprehensive audit. Rather, these results represent a sample of discoverable cases drawn from some of the PRC’s largest and most active transplant centers across several provinces. The actual number of CCP-member transplant leaders nationally is certainly larger. The full list and affiliations of the 19 surgeons identified can be found in the ETAC report (ETAC, October 20).
Analysis of the 19 surgeons reveals several common features. First, the surgeons’ locations are geographically diverse, encompassing 18 different hospitals in 12 provinces or major municipalities (see Figure 1). They span the country’s largest cities and most prestigious medical centers and are present in every major transplant discipline: liver, kidney, heart, lung, and multi-organ programs. Included among the list are doctors considered to be among the top transplant surgeons in the PRC, such as heart surgeon Dong Nianguo (董念国) from Wuhan (Hubei Provincial Science and Technology Association Propaganda Department, June 6, 2023).
Second, nearly one-third of the sample hold Party leadership positions within their hospital. Two of the most notable cases are Lü Guoyue (吕国悦) in Jilin and Liu Lianxin (刘连新) in Anhui, who both simultaneously serve as their respective hospital’s Party Secretary and play a leading role in transplant operations (National Genomics Data Center, December 2024; Anhui Provincial Hospital, April 12). In four other cases in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xinjiang, a prominent transplant surgeon also serves as Deputy Party Secretary of the hospital (CN Healthcare, February 7, 2021; Mentougou District, October 25, 2024; Shanghai Yangpu government, March 11, 2025; Fuwai Hospital, accessed October 16).
Third, several surgeons hold dual roles in national political bodies. Three of the 19 surgeons have also held concurrent positions in political bodies involved in Chinese governance and co-optation of elites, namely the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Chen Jingyu (陈静瑜), the PRC’s leading lung transplant surgeon, is a CCP member who served as an NPC delegate from 2008–2023 (Da Ai Qing Chen Public Welfare Foundation, March 19, 2017; Baidu Baike/陈静瑜, accessed October 16). Liu Lianxin was elected in 2023 to be a member of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC (Anhui Provincial Hospital, April 12).
Fourth, the surgeons’ hospitals overlap with regions that have large concentrations of populations most frequently identified as victims of forced organ harvesting. Two of the 19 confirmed individuals, Yang Yining (杨毅宁) and Wen Hao (温浩), are located in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in a network of internment camps and prisons since 2017 (Xinhua, July 25, 2016; CN Healthcare, February 7, 2021; Xinjiang Medical University, October 17, 2025). Independent research and Chinese official sources have documented the coercive extraction of biometric data, including systematic blood typing, from residents and detainees in Xinjiang—data that are directly relevant to organ matching (Robertson, CECC, 2024).
Other CCP members lead or work in transplant programs at hospitals throughout the northeastern provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, as well as Shandong. These regions have high populations of people who practice Falun Gong, including those who have been detained for their faith, and were among the most active centers of Falun Gong practice before the CCP banned the group in 1999. They subsequently became hotbeds of its persecution, a trend that continues to the present (U.K. Home Office, November 2025). Transplant leaders who were also CCP members have been present at major hospitals in all four of these provinces: Lü Guoyue in Jilin; Jiang Hongchi (姜洪池) in Heilongjiang; Liu Yongfeng (刘永锋) in Liaoning; and Jin Bin (靳斌) and Cai Jinzhen (蔡金贞) in Shandong (Shandong University Second Hospital, June 4, 2021; Qingdao University, May 10, 2023; Organ Transplantation, June 5, 2023; Mudanjiang Medical University, June 12, 2023). [13] Cai was among several Chinese doctors who presented research at the Transplantation Society’s international conference held in Australia in September 2026 (The Transplantation Society, September 22).
The connection between transplant leadership and the state’s anti-Falun Gong apparatus is illustrated most directly by Zheng Shusen (郑树森), a prominent Zhejiang liver transplant surgeon who also held a leadership role in the Zhejiang Provincial Anti-Cult Association, a body whose activities are directed primarily against Falun Gong. In 2009, Zheng authored a preface to a book vilifying Falun Gong in which he likened the practice to a “virus” and a “cancer” of society, adding that “[l]aunching a deep political struggle against ‘Falun Gong’ … is a duty jointly shared by the whole Party, the whole country, and the whole society” (Zheng et al. 2009; China Tribunal, June 12, 2019; China Brief, May 15, 2020). [14] Zheng remains active in the transplant sector. He is dean at Shulan International Medical College and a senior figure at Shulan Hospital in Hangzhou, which he founded and where he previously served as president (Shulan Hospital, May 9, 2020; Zhejiang Shuren University, September 7, 2025; Zhejiang Shuren University, accessed October 16). He was also named a vice president of the Chinese Medical Association in 2021 and appears as an NODTC member on the 2016 list (Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, May 2021; ETAC Appendix 1A, October 20).
Conclusion
The picture that emerges from this analysis of the PRC’s transplant sector is one of total circularity. Every entity that Chinese officials present to international audiences as ostensibly independent or as a “third party” is in fact a node in the same Party-controlled system. The entire chain of activity—from the identification of a potential organ donor, through procurement and ethical review to allocation and transplantation—occurs within institutions operating under the CCP’s direct political leadership. There is no external point of accountability.
This architecture does not prove that abuses are continuing. What it does demonstrate, however, is that the structural conditions for both systemic abuses and concealment are comprehensively in place. If the CCP and Chinese hospitals wanted to sustain a classified, non-voluntary sourcing stream for transplant organs alongside an official voluntary stream, they could do so within this framework without it being detectable from the outside. The CCP’s long track record of successfully silencing doctors who try to expose abuses or health crises, or of incentivizing medical professionals to participate in violations like forced abortions or the politicized use of psychiatry reinforces this possibility.
The absence of Chinese whistleblowers related to organ transplant abuses, is thus not evidence that no violations are occurring. It could just as well be evidence that the system is working as designed. As one former doctor from Liaoning province said during a recent interview, “Chinese people live in an environment filled with the CCP’s culture. Under the terrifying pressure of the CCP, everyone knows—if you yourself dare to speak up, you’d be the next to disappear” (author interview, October 2025).
This reality has implications for any institutions engaged in or considering collaboration with Chinese hospitals. Requesting disclosures or independently checking the Party membership of Chinese transplant surgeons should be part of any due diligence related to joint projects, trainings, or conference presentations. Such a review might have rendered some of the international participants in the recent founding of the International Society of Organ Medicine more reticent to join.
Notes
[1] Robertson, Matthew P., Raymond L. Hinde, and Jacob Lavee. “Analysis of Official Deceased Organ Donation Data Casts Doubt on the Credibility of China’s Organ Transplant Reform.” BMC Medical Ethics 20, no. 1 (2019): 79. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-019-0406-6; Robertson, Matthew P., and Jacob Lavee. “Execution by Organ Procurement: Breaching the Dead Donor Rule in China.” American Journal of Transplantation 22, no. 7 (2022): 1804–1812. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajt.16969;
[2] Huang, Jiefu, Hai-Bo Wang, Shu-Sen Zheng, et al. “The New Era of Organ Transplantation in China.” Chinese Medical Journal 129, no. 16 (2016): 1891–1893. https://doi.org/10.4103/0366-6999.187865.
[3] Huang, Jiefu. “The ‘Chinese Mode’ of Organ Donation and Transplantation.” Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition 6, no. 4 (2017): 212–214. https://doi.org/10.21037/hbsn.2017.07.08.
[4] Huang, Jiefu et al. “The New Era of Organ Transplantation in China.”
[5] Nashan, Björn, Haibo Wang, and Jiefu Huang. “Legal Framework on Organ Donation and Transplantation in China.” Transplantation 110, no. 6 (2026): e1185–e1199. https://doi.org/10.1097/TP.0000000000005623. (Epub 24 February 2026.)
[6] The association also contains an internal section, the Organ Transplantation Branch, which facilitates continuing education and research exchanges, including with external entities (Xi’an Jiaotong University News, April 20, 2023).
[7] Cao, Xuebing. “The Chinese Medical Doctor Association: A New Industrial Relations Actor in China’s Health Services?” Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations 66, no. 1 (2011): 74–97. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/ri/2011-v66-n1-ri/1005106ar.pdf
[8] Even in systems with this structural independence, a small number of serious failures have occurred. Recent U.S. investigations and reporting documented cases in which organ procurement organizations continued to pursue donation after circulatory death despite signs of neurological recovery in potential donors; these findings prompted federal investigations and at least one OPO decertification process. New York Times (2025), ‘A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk’, 20 July, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/us/organ-transplants-donors-alive.html.U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2026), ‘HHS Decertifies Kentucky Organ Procurement Organization to Protect Patients, Restore Trust’, 5 August, https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-decertifies-kentucky-organ-procurement-organization.html; Ars Technica (2026), ‘US to shutter organ donation group accused of trying to take living man’s organs’, August, https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/us-to-shutter-organ-donation-group-accused-of-trying-to-take-living-mans-organs/.
[9] Every OPO in the United States is a member of OPTN. According to the OPTN website, accessed August 2026, there were 54 OPO members of the network, 47 completely independent, and 7 hospital based: Health Resources and Services Administration (n.d.), ‘About OPTN Membership’, https://www.hrsa.gov/optn/about/membership, accessed August 2026. For independent OPO requirements in the U.S., see United Network for Organ Sharing/OPTN membership rules and application criteria: United Network for Organ Sharing (n.d.), ‘Application for Institutional Membership as an Independent Organ Procurement Organization (IOPO)’, https://unos.org/c_opo_application_independent/, accessed August 2026.
[10] Huang, Jiefu, ed. Report on Organ Transplantation Development in China (2015–2018) [中国器官移植发展报告 (2015–2018)]. Beijing: China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation / Tsinghua University Press, 2020. English PDF: https://en.cma.org.cn/attach/0/1641321f95524992974c11f71da149b9.pdf.
[11] Jiang, Wenshi, Xiangxiang He, and XIaotong Wu. “Current Development Strategy of Organ Procurement Organization in China.” Transplantation 106, no. 9S (September 2022): S317. https://journals.lww.com/transplantjournal/fulltext/2022/09001/341_8__current_development_strategy_of_organ.479.aspx; Nashan, Björn, et al. “Legal Framework on Organ Donation and Transplantation in China.”
[12] Methodological note: Affiliations were uncovered by searching for the explicit designation “中共党员” (CCP member) alongside individuals’ transplant-related leadership roles in public profiles or other announcements. The cases reviewed here are only a sample of discoverable cases, not a systematic or random survey of all Chinese transplant centers. Researchers began with individuals already known from prior work and then conducted targeted searches of publicly available official Chinese sources (e.g., hospital websites, Party announcements, professional profiles) for the explicit designation “中共党员” linked to transplant leadership roles at major hospitals across several provinces. Only cases with clear documentary confirmation were included. The sample therefore cannot support statistical inference about the overall prevalence of CCP membership among transplant leaders nationwide. It does, however, establish a documented lower bound and demonstrates that the phenomenon is present at a range of important, high-volume transplant centers. As evident from the detailed references provided for each doctor, sources used included hospital websites, government honor lists, online directory entries, academic profiles and official government announcements.
[13] Liu passed away in 2023, but was active until then.
[14] Zheng Shusen et al. eds., Selected Academic Papers on Evil Religion Prevention Research in the New Era [新时期邪教防治研究学术论文精选], Xinshiqi Xiejiao Fangzhi Yanjiu Xueshu Lunwen Jingxuan (Zhejiang Anti-Cult Association / Science and Technology Press, 2009).
The post Beholden to the Party: CCP Control in the Transplant Sector appeared first on Jamestown.
It takes a lot to get tens of thousands of people to riot. For it to happen simultaneously across several countries points to a supranational underlying cause, as opposed to local grievance at an egregious state injustice. That the temporary collapse of authority and restraint will allow some opportunists to loot is an inevitable concomitant. That does not make theft the cause.
There is a reason that, in every western democracy during the last 20 years, neoliberal politicians have campaigned under the slogans “Hope”, “Change”, or their various synonyms and translations. It is because very highly paid PR consultants have told them that what the people lack, what the people need, what the people desperately crave, is hope and change. Riot and rebellion are acts of extremely high risk which are the resort of the otherwise hopeless.
When I was studying history, a core part of the curriculum was the cross-European revolutionary waves of 1830/1, 1847/8 and 1870/1, against which you can precisely pin dozens of cross-European events including the overthrow of Charles XII, the Hungarian Rebellion and the Paris Commune, and their pale reflections in the UK such as the Great Reform Act and Chartism.
We were, I think, told that these waves of rebellion coincided with poor harvests, which is true. It is only a decade or so ago I learnt that they also coincided precisely with the waves of cholera epidemic which swept across Europe into Central Asia. My point is merely to illustrate that it takes a great deal of pain and hopelessness to force people in the streets to attempt to defy their governments with physical force.
In his short but superb essay on the education protests that sparked rebellion in France, Thomas Piketty includes this devastating passage:
To justify the inadequacy of education funding, and in particular the decrease in spending per student, the government and its supporters argue that France cannot afford to invest more. They are making two reasoning errors. Public debt has indeed risen from 20% of GDP in 1970 to 120% today. But at the same time, private wealth has grown much more dramatically: It has gone from 300% to 600% of GDP, with extreme concentration among the wealthiest financial fortunes. In other words, France’s national wealth – the sum of private and public assets minus private and public debts – has never been so high, not only in absolute terms but also as a percentage of GDP (which itself has never been higher).
In other words, France has never been richer. The problem to solve is simply one of distribution.
Precisely the same is true in the UK. It has never been richer. The problem is of distribution. It is true across the Western world. The living standards and the prospects of betterment for ordinary people are in slow but apparently irreversible decline. This is indeed due to an epidemic sweeping the Western world. It is an epidemic of billionaires.
In the UK, just 50 families hoard more wealth than the poorest 50% of the population – over 36 million people. To pretend that this mindboggling inequality of wealth is beneficial, and in no way related to the prevalence of poverty, requires intellectual dishonesty of an extreme level. Yet it is the neoliberal orthodoxy of our times and subscribed to by all the major UK political parties.
As everybody knows, domestic fuel cost inflation in the UK has increased by 90% during the past four years. Inflation on food and rent has increased by over 25%. These inescapable necessities form a much higher proportion of the spending of the poor than they do of the wealthy, who benefit from lower costs of certain less necessary items that explain the official inflation measure being much lower than the lived experience of most people. This is an officially acknowledged, though little-published, reality.
The wars in Ukraine and Iran are directly responsible for much of the inflation. They are, however, a consequence of the concentration of wealth, not a separate factor. Billionaires make money from war. They make money from weapons and from lending to governments. They make money from military and security contracts. They make money from high hydrocarbon prices. They make money from asset value fluctuations between hot war and negotiation. Billionaires drive war.
The social democratic compact that underlay western democracy is fatally fractured. Public provision is despised, and eked out grudgingly where the politicians whom the billionaires control see it as absolutely unavoidable to keep the helots quiet.
Discontent is everywhere. It does not always show the same face, and some of those faces are ugly. But the current status quo cannot and will not stand, and there are faces and voices of courage and hope, many of which have been heard in Europe these last few days.
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Executive Summary:
The future of four small remaining exclaves created based on ethnicity by the Soviets—three Azerbaijani ones inside Armenian borders and one larger Armenian one inside Azerbaijan—is again slowing down progress toward the signing of a peace accord in the South Caucasus. Armenian Nikol Pashinyan is now pushing for a swap, but Baku is less than enthusiastic. As a result, while Baku would like to sign a peace treaty now, Yerevan suggests it may be several years before that happens (OC-Media; Modern.az; Telegram/@Nikolpashinyan_PMofficial, October 14; Kavkaz Uzel, October 16). Calls for such territorial exchanges have regularly marked relations between the two countries since the early 1990s. Then, the proposed swaps involved two larger territories: Armenian-populated Karabakh—which had been part of Azerbaijan since the 1920s but which Armenian forces occupied at the end of Soviet times—and Zangezur—the land bridge between Azerbaijan proper and its noncontiguous autonomy of Nakhchivan. Neither was a true exclave, but continuing talk about them and the opposition to that which such proposals generated earlier has continued to shape discussion about the smaller remaining true ones and made it more politically fraught (Window on Eurasia, May 21, 2021; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty via Reliefweb, June 9, 2000; see EDM, November 28, 2023).
Initially, Azerbaijan supported these larger territorial swaps while Armenia opposed them. Baku’s military preponderance, however, appears to have reversed this, with Azerbaijan retaking Karabakh by force and securing a U.S.-backed deal that reopened transit through Zangezur (U.S. State Department, January 2026; OC-Media, August 11). Pashinyan, however, has now reopened the exclave issue, saying he has “the preliminary impression” that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev may be open to swaps for the exclaves (OC-Media, October 14). If true, this impression makes it more likely that such a swap will happen not only because of changes on the ground but also because of the successful use of land swaps in Central Asia. There are fears that no other path to a more permanent peace in the South Caucasus exists except through new military action to achieve the peace accord the two countries have already initialed (see EDM, June 30).
On October 14, Pashinyan said that he believes there should be “no enclaves or exclaves on either side of the border” between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He added that, to achieve such an arrangement, Yerevan and Baku should exchange territories of “corresponding sizes,” and said he believed Aliyev was prepared to agree (Telegram/@Nikolpashinyan_PMofficial; Kavkaz Uzel; OC-Media, October 14). The swap the Armenian leader anticipates would transfer sovereignty over four Azerbaijani villages in Armenia—Karki, Barkhudarlyu, Yukhari, and Askipara—to Armenia, and sovereignty over the larger village of Artsvashen, now controlled by Baku, to Azerbaijan (OC-Media, October 14). That swap would leave the two countries almost the same size as they are now and, more importantly, with a single border without the ambiguities of exclaves/enclaves. (The same territory is an exclave or an enclave depending on which side of this debate is being discussed, which adds confusion for outsiders.)
Azerbaijani media outlets reported Pashinyan’s comments (Modern.az; Asbarez, October 14; Kavkaz Uzel, October 16; New Dosh, October 14). They did not specify, however, that Aliyev was open to them. Three follow-up statements by Armenian officials suggest that moves on this issue may not be immediate. The day after declaring the need to swap exclaves, Pashinyan said in a press briefing that Yerevan and Baku were not yet discussing the issue (Facebook/CivilNet.TV, August 28). Then his foreign minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, said the exclave issue “does not constitute an obstacle” to signing the peace agreement the two leaders had initialed (Azernews, October 16). He said Baku has not made it one. He added that it is “a sensitive one” and that “if there is an exchange of territories, this is an issue that must be put to a nationwide referendum,” not only because “enclaves and exclaves complicate the lives of countries at least from a technical standpoint even if their relations are excellent in every respect.” Separately, Alen Simonyan, secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, said that Armenia has not agreed with Baku on this issue and that Armenia has neither surrendered nor would surrender any territory to Azerbaijan (Azernews, October 16). This statement reflects how deeply unpopular such steps would be in Armenia (see EDM, April 23, 2024).
Despite Yerevan officials’ qualifications and Baku’s corresponding silence, three reasons suggest a territorial swap to resolve the exclave issue may still go forward. First and most important, such swaps in Central Asia have been enormously successful, ending open military conflicts and paving the way for unprecedented cooperation among those five post-Soviet countries (see EDM, June 30). That success, and Azerbaijan’s growing involvement in Central Asia, make it likely that Baku will be more open to the idea than before. Second, most of the enclaves involved have been depopulated as their former Armenian or Azerbaijani residents have left. Consequently, and despite the international community’s general aversion to changes in international borders, transferring sparsely populated territories from one state to the other is less of a problem than moving densely populated territories.
Third, opposition to border changes that animated earlier suggestions by this author and others that Yerevan and Baku swap Karabakh for Zangezur has declined. This decline has occurred because of the passage of time and the implicit acceptance of sovereignty shifts elsewhere; the decline in Russian influence in the South Caucasus; the interest by the United States, Europe, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in developing transit across the region; and both the past successes of the Azerbaijani military in retaking areas occupied by Armenia and in the near certainty that it could do the same with other areas, including the exclaves, if it chose to. In such a situation, swapping small, largely unpopulated areas to prevent that from happening and open the region to expanded trade almost certainly appears to an increasing number of officials in Yerevan, Baku, and other capitals as less a problem and more an opportunity than it was earlier. It is likely to continue to animate opposition among many Armenians, however, who see any territorial retreat as a threat to their country’s future. (On why earlier discussions likely matter less now, see Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty via Reliefweb, June 9, 2000.)
Because of these factors, Pashinyan’s call for a territorial swap and Aliyev’s failure to react negatively to it immediately matter far more than a first glance might suggest. A territorial swap would not only undo yet another part of the Soviet inheritance that has restricted Armenia’s opportunities in the past, but also open the door to a genuine peace agreement.
The post Yerevan Wants to Swap Territories with Azerbaijan to Resolve Exclave Problem appeared first on Jamestown.
Executive Summary:
On September 30, the European Union and Uzbekistan convened the Second National Conference on the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor in Tashkent, bringing together government officials, international financial institutions, development partners, and the private sector. The European Union uses this name for its connectivity agenda along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also known as the Middle Corridor. The meeting underscored the corridor’s shift from political commitments toward implementation, with a focus on converting shared priorities into investable projects. European Commission Director for Asia and the Pacific Pēteris Ustubs noted the corridor is “moving from ambition to implementation,” with growing emphasis on “concrete projects” and “real investment on the ground” (European External Action Service, September 30).
Discussions covered railway and road infrastructure, logistics centers, border-crossing procedures, digital transport documents, and greater private-sector participation. The conference was held within the EU-funded Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor Coordination Platform, which operates under Global Gateway, the European Union’s global infrastructure investment strategy. The platform brings together the five Central Asian states, the European Union, international financial institutions, and other partners (European External Action Service, September 30).
The conference took place amid growing European financial support for Uzbekistan’s transport sector. In June, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBDR) approved a loan of up to 38.4 million euros ($43.1 million) for the digital transformation of Uzbekistan Railways. The project will introduce modern traffic-management systems, including dispatching, scheduling, and operational control, while strengthening cybersecurity. Uzbekistan Railways operates a 6,950-kilometer (4,318-mile) network and handles up to 40 percent of the country’s freight, making its modernization relevant to cargo flows toward the Caspian (EBDR, June 17).
European financial engagement with Uzbekistan could expand further. In June, the European Investment Bank opened its Central Asian regional representation in Tashkent and announced that its regional project pipeline was approaching 3 billion euros ($3.37 billion). Potential operations under consideration in Uzbekistan total around 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) and include transport, energy, climate, digital connectivity, and critical raw materials, with the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor among the priorities (European External Action Service; European Investment Bank, June 18)
Uzbekistan is also exploring additional links to Azerbaijan across the Caspian. During the September 30 conference, Uztemiryolkonteyner, the state-controlled container freight subsidiary of Uzbekistan Railways, proposed regular feeder services between Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan, and Baku, Azerbaijan, to expand multimodal transport between Uzbekistan and Europe. “The organization of regular feeder services between Turkmenbashi and Baku will create additional opportunities to accelerate cargo delivery, expand multimodal transportation and strengthen Uzbekistan’s connectivity with European markets,” the company said at the conference (Trend News Agency, September 30).
Kazakhstan is advancing larger-scale infrastructure projects along the Caspian section of TITR. On September 30, German logistics company Rhenus Group, Kazakhstan’s national railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, and the Port of Aktau agreed to move forward with a new trimodal container terminal in Aktau. The planned facility would cover at least 30 hectares (74 acres), integrate rail, road, and maritime transport, and provide at least 150,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of additional annual handling capacity. Rhenus links the project to TITR and the European Union’s Global Gateway initiative. Rhenus Group Chief Executive Officer Tobias Bartz said the challenge is “to bring individual infrastructure projects together step by step into an efficient network,” with Kazakhstan playing a key role in connecting the People’s Republic of China, Central Asia, the Caspian region, and Europe (Rhenus Logistics, September 30).
Rhenus’ plans extend beyond Aktau. Bartz said the company intends to develop 14 terminals along sections of TITR across Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Türkiye. “After that, they will be connected to our company’s networks in Europe. Rhenus has 23 container terminals and 70 port facilities there. This project will connect the logistics networks of Central Asia and Europe into a single network,” he said (Azernews, October 1).
Traffic volumes are also rising. About 44,000 TEU were transported via TITR in the first eight months of 2026, up 58 percent year on year, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy Deputy Chairman Yerlan Koyshibayev said at the Azerbaijan International Investment Forum in Baku on September 25. He highlighted the corridor’s role in strengthening transport and logistics links between “Central Asia, the Caucasus, and European markets” (Trend News Agency, September 26).
The European Union is deepening its connectivity engagement with Azerbaijan. During her May visit to Baku, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said there was “clear scope to deepen our cooperation, particularly on trade, transport and digital,” adding that stronger connectivity between “the EU, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia” was a shared strategic interest (European External Action Service, May 5).
That approach became more concrete in July. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed an EU–Azerbaijan Connectivity Partnership and a High-Level Connectivity Dialogue covering transport, energy, and digital connectivity. Under Global Gateway, she announced up to 200 million euros ($225 million) in grants for South Caucasus connectivity projects, with the potential to mobilize up to 2 billion euros ($2.25 billion) in public and private investment. Possible projects include the railway connection through Nakhchivan and the “development of the Port of Baku” (European Commission, July 1).
The Nakhchivan railway had already entered the preparatory stage in January, when the European Union, Azerbaijan, and the EBRD agreed to launch a feasibility study. The European Union describes the railway as part of the broader Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor linking Europe and Central Asia (European Commission, January 29). Von der Leyen also announced plans for a Regional Connectivity Investment Conference in Baku, bringing together Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia.
The TITR is moving from political ambition toward a more integrated transport system. European-backed modernization in Uzbekistan, German-led logistics investment in Kazakhstan, and the European Union’s expanding connectivity agenda with Azerbaijan are strengthening the Central Asia–Caspian–South Caucasus link. The next stage will be to deepen coordination and connect these projects into an increasingly seamless corridor between Central Asia and Europe.
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Executive Summary:
In late September, the Russian Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic note to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) threatening to use nuclear weapons against them if the Alliance attempts to “isolate” the Kaliningrad exclave from the rest of Russia following several military exercises along the oblast’s borders (The Insider, September 30). In early October, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated the same threat, calling nuclear weapons Russia’s “competitive advantage” against an “enemy … twice as big” at a meeting of the pro-Kremlin Valdai Discussion Club (Nastoyashee Vremya, October 1).
It is telling that Putin now refers to Europe as an “adversary.” This reflects the evolution of rhetoric over 26 years of Kremlin rule—a man who, at the start of his presidency in 2000, advocated Russia’s integration with Europe and even discussed its accession to NATO (Russia Matters, June 16, 2022).
Even after nearly five years of full-scale war against Ukraine, Putin portrays Russia solely as a “victim” of external attacks. On October 1, he said, “We have no intention of attacking anyone—neither in 2029, nor in 2030, nor in 2050. However, if we face aggression, we will be forced to respond. Citizens of European countries need to clearly understand this” (Euronews, October 3). In response to these Russian statements, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte emphasized that the Alliance is purely defensive and called on the Kremlin to cease nuclear threats (The Moscow Times, September 30).
Putin’s statements regarding supposed NATO threats to Kaliningrad are openly hypocritical (Radio Svoboda, October 4). In addition to its actual war against Ukraine, it has launched a hybrid war against Europe, employing drone incursions, acts of sabotage at factories, and information operations.
NATO military action against Kaliningrad is extremely unlikely. Such measures would likely be possible only as a retaliatory measure if Putin and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka seized the Suwałki Gap, the approximately 40 miles that separate Kaliningrad and Belarus along the border of Poland and Lithuania. Russian control of the Suwałki Gap would grant the Kremlin direct overland access to Kaliningrad via Belarus, and would sever the overland link between the three Baltic states and the rest of the European Union via Poland. Some observers believe that this is why there are regular Russian–Belarusian military exercises in Kaliningrad (Klops, September 12, 2025).
Putin’s threatening rhetoric may stem from a fear that sentiment inside Kaliningrad could shift against the Kremlin. Despite the crackdown on anti-war protests in Russia, such protests persist in Kaliningrad, including an act of self-immolation in February 2025 (Radio Svoboda, May 6).
In the 1990s, the Kaliningrad oblast was probably the most Europeanized region of the Russian Federation. The exclave only shares borders with EU countries, Poland and Lithuania, and a disproportionate number of its residents hold Russian “international passports,” a document required for Russians to travel abroad. Kaliningraders frequently traveled to neighboring countries, doing so far more often than they visited the rest of Russia. Such trips—whether for shopping, work, study, or tourism—fostered a more pro-European worldview.
These differences in mindset compared to other Russians were reflected in Kaliningrad’s politics. In the early 1990s, for example, the Baltic Republican Party emerged there, a regionalist movement that succeeded in getting a deputy elected to the local parliament in 2000 (Region Ekspert, November 19, 2020). As the name suggests, the party advocated transforming the Kaliningrad oblast into a republic, first as a part of Russia and later in more separatist terms, and pursuing greater European integration. It also called for restoring the city’s historical German name, Königsberg, which was held under German or Germanic rule from 1255–1946. The name since 1946 comes from Soviet official Mikhail Kalinin, who had no connection to the region and never visited.
In 2001, Russia effectively banned regional political parties by requiring them to have a nationwide organization. This hit the Kaliningrad oblast, with its distinct regional character, particularly hard. A segment of the population lost its outlet for political expression, while representatives of Moscow-centric “federal” parties viewed regionalism critically. Instead of fostering the region’s integration with Europe, Moscow began gradually transforming it into an anti-European military staging ground. In 2018, Russia permanently deployed nuclear-capable Iskander-M missile systems there (Postimees, February 5, 2018). NATO, in contrast, does not deploy nuclear weapons or nuclear-capable strike-missile systems in Lithuania or Poland.
The militarization of Kaliningrad presents a historical irony. In 1945, the Soviet Union annexed Königsberg from Germany, justifying the move as necessary to “eliminate a stronghold of militarism.” Moscow has transformed the region into a militaristic bastion. The Soviet Union moved the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet and its extensive military infrastructure to Kaliningrad. Moreover, during the Putin era, the region’s militarization has intensified. For instance, Kaliningrad University—despite now bearing the name of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, a theorist of “perpetual peace”—has become an instrument of informational warfare against the Baltic states (ICDS, August 27, 2018).
Many residents of Kaliningrad with pro-European leanings are dissatisfied with the hostility toward Europe imposed by Moscow. Most residents of Kaliningrad are descendants of people who arrived after 1945, but over several generations, they have come to regard this land as their own. A distinct regional identity has emerged in the area, emphasizing local cultural specificities and setting them apart from the “all-Russian” identity (Region Ekspert, February 13, March 7).
Kaliningrad’s economic situation, like the rest of Russia, is deteriorating. The Kremlin alleges that this economic downturn stems from European interference with supplies from Russia’s mainland. EU sanctions have affected the transit of some categories of goods between Belarus and Kaliningrad, but Lithuania continues to permit rail transit. Russia’s diminishing ability to sustain living conditions in its exclave is primarily because Russia’s civilian economy has stopped functioning normally amid rapid militarization (The Moscow Times, October 7).
Putin’s rhetoric is increasingly out of touch with reality. His recent claims regarding a massive Russian advance in Ukraine are objectively untrue (The Moscow Times, October 3). Russia suffered a net loss of territory in September. Putin’s attempt to portray Ukraine and Europe—rather than the Kremlin—as the source of Russia’s woes continues in Kaliningrad.
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Charles Goyette, Empire of Lies: Fragments from the Memory Hole. Edited by Mike Dworski and Ben Parker. Austin, Texas: The Libertarian Institute, 2025. 275 numbered pages, plus preliminary matter. ISBN 979-8-9942002-0-9.
What happens to a republic when its government lies so often that lying becomes less a scandal than a method of administration?
Charles Goyette’s answer is that the republic becomes an empire, and the empire eventually becomes unable to distinguish its propaganda from the world outside. It spends money it does not have. It starts wars it cannot finish. It creates enemies faster than its diplomats can name them. When the consequences arrive, its officials announce that nobody could have foreseen them. The newspapers publish the announcement. A congressional committee expresses concern. Then everybody gets ready to do it again.
Empire of Lies: Fragments from the Memory Hole is an effort to prevent that cycle from disappearing into what George Orwell called the memory hole. It is not a conventional chronological history of American foreign policy. Goyette instead gathers revealing episodes and arranges them around a central proposition: deception is not an accidental blemish on an otherwise benevolent American empire. “Systemic dishonesty,” as he puts it in his introduction, belongs to the nature of empire itself.
That judgment will sound extreme only to readers who have forgotten nearly everything that happened during their own lifetimes. Goyette has not forgotten. His subjects include the destruction of TWA Flight 800, the murder of John F. Kennedy, the CIA’s regime-change operations, Russiagate, the incestuous foreign-policy establishment, the press’s appetite for war, the fraud used to invade Iraq, Obama’s record of intervention, the engineered confrontation with Russia, and the fiscal exhaustion of the United States. These are not separate scandals. They are fragments of one history.
Goyette opens with TWA Flight 800, the Boeing 747 that exploded off Long Island in July 1996, killing all 230 people aboard. The official investigation blamed an ignition in the center fuel tank, although the source of the spark was never determined. Hundreds of witnesses described seeing a rising streak of light. Explosive residue was found on recovered wreckage. The CIA then produced an animated video instructing Americans that the witnesses had misunderstood what they saw.
Goyette does not pretend to prove conclusively that a missile destroyed the aircraft. He calls the chapter a thought experiment and asks what the government would have done if a missile had brought it down at a politically inconvenient moment. Would officials have told the truth if the truth damaged the Clinton administration or threatened a wider war? The record of state behavior supplies the answer. Governments will “subvert the truth for their own ends,” especially when foreign policy is involved.
The treatment of TWA Flight 800 is arresting, though it is also a risky way to begin the book. Readers who know only the official account may decide in the first chapter that they have wandered into a collection of conspiracy theories. They should keep reading. Goyette’s larger case does not depend on resolving Flight 800. It depends on showing that American officials have repeatedly contemplated staged incidents and have lied about real ones.
The documentary evidence for that proposition is abundant. Operation Northwoods proposed manufactured attacks as a pretext for invading Cuba. President Kennedy refused it. Before the Iraq invasion, George W. Bush discussed disguising a surveillance plane in United Nations colors in the hope that Saddam Hussein would shoot at it. General Hugh Shelton recalled a Clinton cabinet official suggesting that an American aircraft be deliberately exposed to Iraqi fire to manufacture grounds for war. These were not Internet rumors. They were proposals entertained at the highest level of government.
The chapter on coups moves from Iran and Guatemala to Cuba, France, South Vietnam, and the Kennedy assassination. Goyette is particularly good on the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The public explanation was resistance to communism. The material interest lay in oil. Mossadegh’s government had challenged the arrangements that allowed Western companies to extract Iran’s resources on favorable terms. The CIA and British intelligence answered with bribery, hired mobs, propaganda, and a restored Shah whose security apparatus was trained with Western help.
Washington has spent the succeeding generations blaming Iranians for remembering what Washington prefers to forget. The hostage crisis is remembered; the coup that shaped the regime against which the hostages rebelled is pushed down the hole. Iranian hostility is treated as a strange cultural affliction requiring sanctions, covert action, and occasional bombardment. This is how an empire converts blowback into a fresh mandate for intervention.
Goyette’s account of Kennedy is more assertive. He assembles the familiar but still formidable record: Kennedy refused to rescue the Bay of Pigs invasion, rejected Operation Northwoods, resisted demands for preventive nuclear war, pursued a test-ban treaty, and intended to withdraw from Vietnam. The intelligence establishment had motive, means, and opportunity. Long-withheld files exposed additional CIA falsehoods concerning Lee Harvey Oswald. Former President Harry Truman warned only a month after the assassination that the CIA had become an operational and policymaking arm of government.
Does this prove in a courtroom sense that the CIA killed Kennedy? No. Goyette sometimes moves from a strong accumulation of motive and concealment to a firmer conclusion than the surviving evidence permits. Yet the official lone-gunman story has not earned the reverence still demanded for it. An agency that concealed material evidence, lied under oath, and spent decades resisting disclosure has forfeited any presumption of innocence. The burden is not on ordinary Americans to have faith in a file kept locked for sixty years.
The chapters on the Deep State and the establishment supply the book’s conceptual center. Goyette does not describe a secret committee whose members meet every Tuesday to run the world. The establishment is a network held together by shared interests, social advancement, official secrecy, and an imperial creed. Its personnel circulate between the national-security agencies, congressional offices, defense corporations, think tanks, banks, and television studios. They disagree about elections while accepting the permanence of American global domination.
The system’s reaction to Trump’s first election illustrates this machinery. Goyette treats Russiagate as a Deep State campaign intended to disable any attempt at better relations with Moscow. The Steele material was unreliable, exculpatory evidence was suppressed, and intelligence veterans became television personalities while the press repeated their claims. The same newspapers that had transmitted Dick Cheney’s Iraq fabrications discovered no embarrassment in transmitting another set of claims from the same institutional world.
Goyette is right about Russiagate. The campaign against Trump was not invented by Trump, and acknowledging its abuses does not require admiring him. Intelligence agencies should not be permitted to interfere in elections merely because their target is vulgar or unfit. A republic in which unelected officials may secretly veto the electorate is already far gone.
The distinction matters because Trump later demonstrated that persecution by one part of the ruling class does not make a politician independent of the rest. Trump threatened portions of the imperial consensus during his first term, particularly on NATO and Russia. He also filled his administration with establishment figures, bombed Syria, assassinated Qasem Soleimani, and surrendered to the Israel lobby whenever resistance required more than a speech.
Goyette sees this inconsistency. His introduction condemns Trump’s 2025 fantasies about turning Gaza into a resort and recognizes that the joint American-Israeli attack on Iran had not settled anything. Even so, a faint hope remains that Trump might understand the danger of nuclear confrontation or end the Ukraine war. After the events of 2026, there is no longer any “perhaps” about him.
Trump has revealed himself as the worst of the bought-and-paid-for lackeys of the ruling class. The supposed opponent of forever wars launched Operation Epic Fury with Israel in February 2026. The White House advertised “overwhelming force” and promised to eliminate the Iranian threat “once and for all.” Six months later, the war was still producing strikes and retaliation, while oil moved above $100 a barrel. The administration had requested additional funding for an operation it had already proclaimed a success. White House announcement, Associated Press report
This development does not refute Goyette. It confirms him with almost indecent speed. Near the end of the book, he reproduces the post-9/11 plan described to General Wesley Clark: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finally Iran. Goyette notes that the empire had been checking countries off the list and that Iran remained unfinished business. His book was completed in December 2025. Within three months, the final unchecked box had become an American war.
The chapters on the press are among the book’s best. Goyette understands that state propaganda usually arrives wearing the clothes of independent journalism. Officials provide an allegation to favored reporters. The report is then cited on television by the same officials as independent confirmation. Anonymous intelligence sources acquire more authority than named skeptics. When the story collapses years later, the correction is placed somewhere near an advertisement for replacement windows.
The Iraq war is the great modern specimen. Claims about aluminum tubes, nuclear programs, mobile biological laboratories, al-Qaeda connections, and stockpiles of unconventional weapons moved from the administration to the press and back again. The establishment did not merely get the intelligence wrong. It selected doubtful fragments, suppressed contrary judgments, and presented uncertainty as fact. Torture was then used partly to extract the Iraq–al-Qaeda connection that the interrogators had been unable to find because it did not exist.
Goyette gives special attention to the social character of the lapdog press. War brings anchors drama, audiences, and the reflected glamour of men with medals. Brian Williams embellished his supposed exposure to combat and was later restored to broadcasting. When Trump fired missiles at Syria in 2017, Williams repeatedly described the weapons as beautiful. George W. Bush joked before reporters about his missing weapons of mass destruction while Americans were still dying in the war those weapons had been used to justify. The press laughed.
This behavior cannot be explained by Democratic bias or Republican bias. The common denominator is reverence for state power. Fox News may prefer a Republican commander in chief, while MSNBC wants a Democratic one. Both networks accept the commander in chief. Both turn to the same retired generals. The permitted dispute concerns who should control the imperial machine, not whether the machine should exist.
The chapter on Barack Obama is correspondingly severe. The Nobel Peace Prize president bombed seven countries and helped destroy Libya. His administration armed rebels in Syria even when its own analysts warned that jihadists dominated the opposition. Washington fought al-Qaeda in one place while supporting forces intertwined with it elsewhere. At one point CIA-armed groups were fighting Pentagon-armed groups inside Syria. This was called policy because admitting madness would have endangered too many careers.
Goyette does not sentimentalize Bashar al-Assad. He makes the harder point that Assad’s authoritarian government was no worse than regimes Washington supported and that secular Syria offered shelter to Christians fleeing the catastrophe in Iraq. The relevant question was never whether Assad met the standards of a New England town meeting. It was what would replace him. Iraq and Libya had already supplied the answer, but the governing class had trained itself not to look backward.
The sections on Russia and Ukraine are similarly valuable. Goyette traces NATO expansion, the American role in the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government in 2014, the consolidation of a hostile state on Russia’s border, and the CIA’s construction of forward operating bases in Ukraine. None of that makes Russia liberal or renders every Russian action legitimate. It does establish that the war did not fall from a clear sky in February 2022.
The demonization of Vladimir Putin performed the same function once performed by the demonization of Saddam Hussein. Personal evil replaced history. Anyone who mentioned NATO expansion was accused of repeating Russian propaganda. Anyone who asked what Washington would do if Russian intelligence constructed bases along the Mexican border was deemed morally suspect. The discussion had to remain childish because an adult account of cause and effect would have interfered with weapons appropriations.
Goyette’s chapter on missile defense explains why this irresponsibility is more dangerous than the earlier misadventures. Iraq could not destroy the United States. Russia can. Washington’s withdrawal from arms-control agreements, its placement of missile systems near Russia, and its use of Ukraine for strikes on Russian territory have weakened the barriers against nuclear war. Political leaders boast of crossing red lines as though history awards prizes for making a cornered nuclear power more nervous.
The book’s final chapters widen the lens from war crimes to imperial decline. Foreign bases and weapons programs have opportunity costs. Money spent on Afghanistan was unavailable for bridges, flood control, or productive investment. National Guard personnel and equipment deployed abroad were missing when Hurricane Katrina struck. Goyette’s discussion of disaster response makes the imperial bill physical. It appears in missing high-water vehicles, delayed helicopters, and equipment sitting thousands of miles from the Americans who paid for it.
Between the beginning of the post-9/11 wars and Trump’s second term, federal debt rose from $5.8 trillion to about $37 trillion. The empire calls this strength because the Treasury can still sell bonds. A motel owner learns a different definition of solvency. If I borrow to repair a roof, I have a roof. If Washington borrows to turn Libya into a militia bazaar, it has interest payments and a fresh supply of enemies.
Here the case could be strengthened. Goyette recognizes that China passed the United States in manufacturing while Washington consumed its capital in war. But the scale of this is beyond precedent. China invested in industrial production, technical education, energy, transportation, and physical infrastructure. The United States invested in financial manipulation, asset inflation, and global coercion. China built the productive base from which military power ultimately grows. America retained the military expenditure while allowing much of the productive base to leave. This is not an argument that China is free or that Americans should imitate its political system. It is an argument that factories exist and PowerPoint slides do not. A carrier fleet cannot be maintained indefinitely by an economy specializing in compliance departments, insurance billing, and leveraged acquisitions. Sanctions are less frightening when the sanctioned world manufactures the goods and the sanctioning power manufactures derivatives.
Goyette ends with the rule that no empire has escaped. Britain won two world wars and lost its empire. The Soviet Union survived the German invasion but could not afford its military burden. Germany and imperial Japan pursued domination until their domestic economies were consumed by it. Asked whether the American empire will prove the exception, Goyette answers, “The day is young.”
The historical comparison is persuasive, though the American decline may be slower and less theatrical than many expect. There need not be a final collapse broadcast from the Capitol. The government may keep its flags, bases, and nuclear weapons while living standards fall and public services deteriorate. The empire can survive as an expensive shell long after the republic inside has died.
There are weaknesses in Empire of Lies. Goyette occasionally presents a cumulative inference with more certainty than the record warrants. The state is not always as unified as the word “Empire” makes it appear; competing agencies and donor networks sometimes obstruct one another. More space could have been given to monetary debasement, deindustrialization, and the mechanics by which military spending feeds domestic financialization. These reservations do not diminish the book’s importance. Goyette has written a literate, well-documented, morally serious indictment of the American imperial system. His humor keeps a grim subject readable, while the breadth of his evidence prevents the familiar escape into partisan blame. Kennedy and Johnson matter. So do Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump. The names change. The official appetite for power remains.
The book’s subtitle, Fragments from the Memory Hole, is exact. Our rulers depend less on persuading us that the last war was wise than on making us forget how it was sold. They need the Tonkin deception detached from Iraq’s weapons, Iraq detached from Libya, and Libya detached from Ukraine. Above all, they need Iran to look new.
Goyette puts the pieces back together. The picture they form is not flattering, but it is recognizably ours. An empire lies because consent would otherwise be withheld. It forgets because memory would make the next lie harder to sell. It falls because reality eventually collects the debts that propaganda concealed.
The alternative is not national humiliation. Goyette makes a crucial distinction between imperial decline and American renewal. Bringing the empire home would release productive resources and reduce the enemies manufactured for ordinary Americans. We might recover the republic once Washington is no longer trying to supervise mankind.
That will require more than electing another loud man who promises to drain the swamp before handing its foreign policy to the same donors and war planners. It begins with memory. It continues with refusal. Goyette’s final demand is that the empire end and “America [be] allowed to come home.” After the lies, the graves, and the bill that keeps arriving, coming home would be a very good beginning.
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Executive Summary:
Over the last week, the intensity of the political fracas around Russia’s war against Ukraine mirrored the ferocity of pitched battles in Donbas and the severity of long-distance strikes on Ukrainian cities and Russian infrastructure. U.S. President Donald Trump’s October 9 announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to supply Russian diesel to U.S. and global markets precipitated a flurry of diplomatic activity (Izvestiya, October 12). The increase in immediate deliveries to global markets in October has been very limited, and diesel prices in the United States have not registered any drop. Russian officials declared plans to restore its diesel exports to ten percent of the global market by the end of the year, but the feasibility of these plans is dubious given the degradation of the Russian oil industry, in part because of Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries (Carnegie Politika, October 12; RBC, October 14). Moscow pundits, however, rejoiced over the deal, which in their opinion leaves Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a disadvantage (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, October 11).
On October 11, Trump announced an energy ceasefire on social media that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had formally agreed to (Novaya Gazeta Evropa, October 12). Russian forces did not stop striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and Ukraine ended a three-day pause on October 15 with a strike on the Ryazan refinery (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 12).
Ukraine has recently carried out several other significant strikes on Russian military and civil infrastructure. Ukrainian missiles hit Russia’s Borisoglebsk airbase on the night of October 14–15, destroying four Su-34 fighter-bombers and damaging two others, to the dismay of Russia’s jingoist bloggers (NV.UA; The Insider, October 15). Even more impactful were Ukrainian strikes between October 7 and October 14 on four of Russia’s largest data centers, operated by Yandex and Sberbank (Meduza, October 15). The strikes caused almost half of Yandex’s online infrastructure to fail, and many of its services experienced outages, extending to third-party businesses that use Yandex infrastructure. This severe disruption exposed the vulnerability of Russia’s highly centralized data infrastructure (Carnegie Politika, October 14).
Zelenskyy sought to mobilize international support with visits to London and Brussels during the pause in Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure (Kommersant, October 15). Russian experts, meanwhile, celebrated a reduction in Ukraine’s functional access to Starshield, caused by restrictions on connectivity for fast-moving terminals (Nezavisimaya Gazeta; TopWar.ru, October 15). Zelenskyy reportedly considered a proposal from U.S. senators Roger Wicker and Kevin Cramer to pause Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries for 100 days in exchange for expanded U.S. Starshield coverage extending roughly 300 kilometers (186.4 miles) into Russia, which would allow Ukrainian drones to maintain communications farther into Russian territory and potentially target mobile ballistic-missile launchers (Vedomosti, October 16). No such agreement has been announced, and in the meantime, Ukraine has resumed strikes on Russian refineries, targeting the oil terminal in St. Petersburg and reaching as far in Western Siberia as the Surgut, where a gas condensate stabilization plant was reportedly hit (Radio Svoboda, October 16; Fontanka.ru, October 18).
Renewed Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure had the potential to strain Kyiv’s relationship with Washington. Trump subsequently signed an executive order temporarily waiving the implementation of the sanctions and tariffs mandated by the recently enacted Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act (Forbes.ru, October 17). This measure is unlikely to bring any relief to the struggling Russian economy, in which sustained under-investment in most civilian sectors is being aggravated by the accumulated impact from Ukrainian attacks (The Insider, October 12; see EDM, October 13). The European Union, meanwhile, continued to signal that it would maintain pressure on Russia, including through a proposed 22nd sanctions package (Kommersant, October 12; Izvestiya, October 16). Russia keeps trying to sow discord among the Europeans by expanding its campaign of disinformation and sabotage, including direct strikes on commercial ships near the coast of Bulgaria that Sofia attributes to Russia (Novaya Gazeta Europe, October 13; Voice of America, October 16). The volume of automated traffic originating from Yandex’s network decreased due to Ukrainian strikes on the Yandex data centers, and Bulgaria has requested support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) because of the Russian threat to its shipping (NV.UA; RBC, October 13).
The inability of Russian hybrid warfare to end European aid to Ukraine has incited the most hawkish commentators to argue for preparing to use nuclear weapons in a potential conflict with Europe. More balanced experts still ponder the usefulness of high-atmosphere nuclear explosions for interrupting hostile communications (Kommersant, October 11; RIAC, October 13). Putin prefers to make nuclear threats in more elliptical terms while emphasizing supposed successes of Russian troops in conventional battles. Last week, after a long break, he staged a visit to a carefully decorated command center and approved the report of Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and assembled commanders (Kommersant, October 17). The Russian claims of capturing some 1,800 square kilometers (695 square miles) from September 1 were so grossly exaggerated that even jingoist bloggers are questioning the reliability of the military data supplied to Putin (TopWar.ru, October 16). The real picture of heavy losses and penetrating Ukrainian counter-attacks in the two-month-long Operation Vivaldi is downplayed in the mainstream Russian media, but has no place in Putin’s strategic perspective (Gazeta.ru; Vazhnye Istorii, October 16). The sustainability of Putin’s war against Ukraine is undercut most of all by the mounting costs of manpower driven up by the system of commercial recruitment, which has become a heavy burden for Russia’s seriously unbalanced budget and cannot indefinitely deliver the necessary number of bodies for continuing offensive operations (The Moscow Times, October 12; Re: Russia, October 13).
The old war calculus that Putin refuses to revise presumes a steady escalation of trans-Atlantic disagreements, progressive growth of disunity in Europe, and fast erosion of Ukraine’s will to resist Russian aggression. These variables register oscillating changes, but the total does not support the assumption that Russia can outlast the Western coalition and bring Ukraine to submission. Zelenskyy exploits Putin’s miscalculations to gain the upper hand in political maneuvering despite disagreements with the U.S. administration and the rise of skepticism about aid to Ukraine in parts of Europe. Ukraine’s position of strength is incomprehensible to the Kremlin, for which declarations matter more than facts, but war has a cruel capacity to shatter political delusions.
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Executive Summary:
On September 16–17, Seoul hosted the inaugural Korea–Central Asia Summit under the slogan “Walking Together Toward the Future: Partnership for Trust and Prosperity.” It brought together South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan for the first leaders-level summit in this format (Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 17). The summit elevated a relationship that had previously been conducted primarily through bilateral channels and ministerial-level meetings. The participants agreed to make the summit a regular gathering, with the next meeting to be held in Kazakhstan in 2028 (The First Korea-Central Asia Summit 2026, accessed October 5).
Seoul has maintained diplomatic relations with all five Central Asian republics since the early 1990s and has developed particularly extensive economic ties with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (European Journal of Korean Studies, 2022; Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed October 5). Established in 2007, the Korea–Central Asia Cooperation Forum has provided a multilateral platform for ministerial-level dialogue and cooperation (Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 15, 2007). Seoul unveiled the K-Silk Road Cooperation Initiative in 2024 as its first comprehensive diplomatic strategy toward Central Asia. The initiative is based on the principles of “cooperation, integration, and creation.” It emphasizes combining South Korea’s technological and digital capabilities with the region’s resources and development potential (The Korea Times, June 7, 2024; Centre for Eastern Studies, July 2, 2024).
South Korea’s industrial economy depends heavily on secure access to resources required for semiconductors, batteries, electric vehicles, renewable-energy technologies, and other advanced industries. Seoul has consequently sought to diversify its supply chains and develop partnerships with resource-rich countries (Korea JoongAng Daily, February 27, 2023). Central Asia possesses significant deposits of uranium, copper, rare and strategic metals, and other minerals that can support industrial value chains (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, April 28–29).
The September summit adopted the Seoul Declaration, which outlined four broad areas of cooperation for the next 30 years. These include institutionalizing the Korea–Central Asia partnership, advancing peace and stability, promoting innovation and prosperity, and strengthening connectivity through people and trust (Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 17). This approach provides a mechanism for coordinating cooperation across five countries whose economic structures, resource endowments, and development priorities differ considerably (Korea Foundation, March 12, 2025; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, November 24, 2025).
Kazakhstan is important for critical minerals, energy, logistics, and the Middle Corridor. Its geographic position between the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus, and Europe gives it a central role in Eurasian connectivity (The World Bank, February 11). On September 15, Seoul and Astana upgraded their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and signed 13 agreements and memoranda of understanding, while businesses announced commercial agreements worth about $19 billion (The Korea Times, September 15; Trend News Agency, September 16).
Uzbekistan offers the region’s largest consumer and labor markets and has pursued an ambitious program of industrial modernization. Tashkent’s cooperation with South Korea already spans infrastructure, transportation, critical minerals, artificial intelligence (AI), digitalization, and manufacturing (The Korea Herald, June 21; Ministry of Digital Technologies of Uzbekistan, August 27). Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s September 13–16 state visit to Seoul yielded 13 agreements, while Tashkent announced $12 billion in investment and trade deals, alongside an $8 billion partnership program with the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Asia News Network, September 15; Dunyo Information Agency, September 16).
Turkmenistan’s engagement with Seoul focuses on energy and large-scale infrastructure. During the summit, Korean and Turkmen businesses exchanged numerous agreements covering investment, trade, energy, the chemical and industrial sectors, railway transport, science, technology, AI, environmental protection, and water resource management (Turkmenistan Golden Age; The Korea Herald, September 16).
The 17 agreements with Tajikistan covered textiles, chemicals, machinery, AI, digital industries, railways, logistics, energy, and critical minerals, while the 18 agreements with Kyrgyzstan focused on critical minerals, halal markets, infrastructure, livestock technology, energy, and intellectual property (The Korea Times, September 16). Seoul’s decision to create a regional framework allows these smaller economies to participate in projects and mechanisms that might otherwise remain limited to bilateral relations.
During the summit, South Korea and the five Central Asian states launched a broader climate, energy, and environmental cooperation mechanism. This creates an additional avenue for Korean companies to contribute technologies related to renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean energy, environmental management, and potentially hydrogen and other emerging fields (Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, September 17). They also established the Central Asian Five plus Korea (C5+Korea) Industry Ministers’ Meeting as a regular consultative mechanism. A total of 116 business memoranda of understanding were signed across the Korea–Central Asia business events, including 19 that were exchanged at the Korea–Central Asia Business Summit. These covered projects ranging from smart-city development to rare-metals technology and industrial equipment (Korea PRO, September 15; Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, September 18).
Central Asia’s geopolitical and economic importance has increased as the region has emerged as a key component of Eurasian connectivity. The Middle Corridor connects the PRC with Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus, Türkiye, and Europe, creating a multimodal network that is attracting growing investment and policy attention (Baku Dialogues, October 18, 2022; Euronews, September 16). This intercontinental trade artery is becoming a crucial pillar of South Korea’s engagement with Central Asia. More efficient transport connections can facilitate trade between Korea and Central Asian markets, while improved logistics can support the movement of Central Asian resources and manufactured products to international markets (Seoul City, June 18).
Outlining his vision of a “New Silk Road,” Lee said that Seoul would send trade delegations to the region, support digital customs systems to reduce non-tariff barriers, and introduce “Korea Desks” in all five Central Asian countries to help Korean companies address local challenges. “If we walk together, the road from 1,500 years ago will reopen as a new Silk Road,” Lee added in his speech at the inaugural Korea–Central Asia Business Summit (The Korea Times, September 16). Building on this broader vision of connectivity, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called on South Korean companies to participate more actively in developing the Middle Corridor. He also highlighted the potential to integrate the Middle Corridor with the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) initiative and combine the two routes into an end-to-end transport and logistics chain connecting Korea, Central Asia, and Europe (Kazinform; Trend News Agency, September 16).
Recent assessments by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Transport Forum (ITF) have highlighted infrastructure constraints, limited multimodal capacity, inconsistent regulatory systems, and border-crossing inefficiencies along parts of the Middle Corridor (OECD, November 24, 2025, February 3;ITF, July 24, 2025). These challenges also create opportunities for technology-oriented partners such as South Korea. Seoul can contribute by deploying emerging technologies and developing cutting-edge infrastructure in states along the Middle Corridor (The Center for Analysis of International Relations, July 2025).
As the transit and logistics partnership expands along the Middle Corridor, Seoul will need to deepen cooperation with the other transit countries in the trans-Caspian trade network. The South Caucasus could become a critical link in a Korea–Central Asia–Europe connectivity chain. Azerbaijan would provide the key maritime bridge across the Caspian Sea, while Georgia and Türkiye would connect the route to European markets. Integrating the Middle Corridor with TRIPP, alongside emerging trans-Caspian green-energy projects, could further expand this network beyond trade and logistics to include energy and digital connectivity (see EDM, July 23, 2025; The Astana Times, June 30). The Organization of Turkic States and the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and Azerbaijan (C6) could offer Seoul additional avenues for institutionalized engagement with countries along the Middle Corridor (see EDM, February 19, 2025, January 21).
The inaugural Korea–Central Asia Summit marked a shift in Seoul’s engagement with the region from predominantly bilateral relations toward a more coordinated regional framework. By bringing all five Central Asian states into a regular leaders-level mechanism, South Korea has created a platform through which its economic, technological, and connectivity initiatives can be pursued on a regional basis. This could allow the K-Silk Road Cooperation Initiative to evolve from a framework for bilateral economic engagement into a broader regional strategy, linking Central Asian resources and production networks with Korean technology, investment, and European markets.
The post South Korea Broadens Multifaceted Ties with Central Asia appeared first on Jamestown.
Executive Summary:
Armenia has been diversifying its economy as it moves away from Russia, both domestically and in its foreign relations. On October 13, at the Warsaw Security Forum, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan emphasized the growing relationship between Armenia and the European Union, especially in security and resilience, connectivity, energy, mobility, and sectoral integration (Armenpress, October 13). In recent years, Armenia has worked to reduce its dependence on Russia in telecommunications, electricity distribution, and transit. In telecommunications, Armenia has taken cautious steps since 2020 to reduce direct Russian ownership and economic influence. Russian–Dutch company VEON (owner of the Beeline Armenia brand) finalized the sale of its subsidiary, VEON Armenia, to the domestic company Team LLC in 2020, ending more than a decade of the group’s direct presence in Armenia’s communications market. After the transfer, Team Telecom Armenia continued operating as a domestic telecommunications operator (VEON, October 29, 2020). This process was completed in 2024 with the sale of 100 percent of the shares of MTS Armenia (the owner of the Viva-MTS brand) by the Russian company MTS to Fedilco Group Limited (MTS PJSC, January 24, 2024). As a result, two major Armenian mobile operators, previously owned by Russian companies, moved out of direct Russian control. This development does not eliminate Russian influence in Armenia’s information and communications technology sector. These changes are an important example of Armenia’s efforts to diversify ownership and reduce structural dependence in strategic economic sectors.
In the electricity sector, the Armenian government took its first practical step toward reducing Russian influence in 2025. Yerevan approved a law nationalizing the country’s electricity distribution company. President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed the law on July 9, 2025, enabling the state to take ownership of the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) (ARKA News Agency, July 9, 2025). This move quickly became one of the most controversial issues in Armenia’s domestic politics, as Samvel Karapetyan—a prominent opposition figure and one of the most significant challengers to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the recent June 7 parliamentary elections, owner of ENA, the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant, and Tashir Group—had been arrested shortly before this development (TASS, June 18, 2025). Karapetyan’s continued detention led opposition groups to accuse the government of using economic instruments to exploit politics in its decision to nationalize the electricity distribution company.
Pashinyan’s government has expanded cooperation with the European Union and other Western partners to develop the electricity sector (ARKA News Agency, July 2). These efforts have focused on electricity market reforms, developing renewable energy—particularly solar and wind power plants—and strengthening the interconnection of Armenia’s electricity grid with Georgia and Iran. In recent years, the European Union, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, and other international financial institutions have provided financial and technical support for clean energy projects, energy efficiency improvements, and the modernization of Armenia’s electricity transmission infrastructure (Armen Press, July 22).
The Armenian government has initiated studies to build a new nuclear power plant with support from the United States and some Western partners. Armenia will have no practical way to end its technical and fuel dependence on Rosatom, however, until it builds and brings online a replacement for the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (Mehr, July 9, 2024; ARKA News Agency, July 23). This process will likely take more than a decade. Therefore, the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant, which supplies a significant share of Armenia’s electricity, will remain dependent on the Russian state-owned company Rosatom for nuclear fuel, technical services, and engineering support. In contrast, Karapetyan’s Tashir Group still owns Units 1 to 4 of the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant. Gazprom Armenia continues to control the plant’s fifth unit. Ending Russia’s structural influence over Armenia’s electricity sector will remain extremely complex and difficult.
Efforts to end Russia’s dominance and monopoly over Armenia’s railway sector are also underway, although they have not yet been implemented. On February 13, Pashinyan announced that Armenia was prepared to transfer the concession rights to operate the railway network to a country that maintained friendly relations with both Armenia and Russia. His reference to countries such as Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar indicates that the Armenian government is seeking to reduce its dependence on Russia’s exclusive management (OC-Media, February 16; see EDM, March 31). At the same time, Yerevan is trying to ensure this transition happens without confrontation with Moscow and through the gradual transfer of operating rights to a third-party actor.
Pashinyan said he had asked Russia to place the urgent reconstruction of railway sections adjacent to Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave and the Turkish border on its agenda. This request covers three important railway segments: the Yeraskh–Nakhchivan, Gyumri–Kars, and Ijevan–Gazakh railway lines (OC-Media, 16 February). The Armenian government, however, appears to support Russian participation and investment only in parts of the railway network outside the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which connects Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan through Armenia’s Syunik Province. Responding to a question about the possibility of Russian involvement in this project, Pashinyan emphasized that TRIPP is a joint initiative between Armenia and the United States, and that any third-party participation could be considered only through a bilateral agreement (OC-Media, February 16).
This approach suggests that, at this stage, Pashinyan is not seeking to completely remove Russia from Armenia’s railway sector, especially since he still meets with Russian Railways officials (Armenpress, October 14). Rather, he is seeing a form of “geographical division of responsibilities.” The Armenian government is prepared to let Russia’s role in rehabilitating old railway lines within the Crossroads of Peace project continue, while seeking to limit Russian management and influence over TRIPP and develop the route through bilateral cooperation with the United States.
The legacy of the 2002 “Assets-for-Debt” agreement remains a major obstacle to Armenia’s economic disengagement from Russia. The agreement gave Russia direct ownership of some Armenian infrastructure assets and later expanded to other critical and strategic sectors—including telecommunications, railways, gas, electricity, and nuclear energy. The Pashinyan government’s efforts to reduce economic dependence on Russia across various sectors have produced mixed results.
In the telecommunications sector, the gradual withdrawal of major Russian companies from the Armenian market and the transfer of ownership to domestic investors have noticeably reduced Moscow’s direct influence. In the electricity sector, the development of renewable energy projects, expanded cooperation with the European Union, and efforts to diversify investment sources indicate signs of a gradual reduction in dependency, although reliance on Russian nuclear technology and fuel remains intact.
By contrast, the gas and railway sectors remain dominated by structures established over the past two decades. Gazprom Armenia’s monopoly over the gas supply chain and the continuation of the long-term operating agreement for the railway network by South Caucasus Railway have preserved Armenia’s dependence on Russia in two vital sectors of the national economy. These arrangements continue to act as “heavy weights,” preventing Armenia from disengaging economically from Russia, particularly a potential withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union.
The post Legacy of Armenia’s ‘Assets-for-Debt’ Hinders Economic Decoupling from Russia (Part Two) appeared first on Jamestown.
as from minute 20 to 33
gilbertdoctorow
For some months I have been saying that Russian victory in the Ukraine war will not come from some great surge on the battlefield that forces capitulation but from a socio-political-financial collapse. Now I am ever more persuaded that this is what we will see in the coming few weeks thanks to the contributing factors of Trump’s pulling the plug on all military assistance to Zelensky and to his NATO backers, thanks to Trump’s promoting dissension within the EU by actively calling for Europe to resume oil and gas imports from Russia, thanks to the mass demonstrations going on presently in France and Italy largely under the slogan of cost of living (which is directly related to the war and sanctions on Russia) and thanks to Alice Weidel of the Alternative for Germany party breaking the omerta imposed by the SD-CDU uniparty in Germany over importing Russian hydrocarbons here and now.
I was contacted this morning by a good friend in the United States who asked if I could make any sense of the zig-zags, seemingly bizarre pattern of US government actions relating to the Ukraine war and sanctions on Russia, secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian gas and oil like India and China over the past several weeks. Then there was the cutoff of Starlink services to the Ukrainian military leaving them defenseless against incoming Russian missiles and drones.
I said that I have no problem seeing an iron logic in all of this which nearly all Mainstream and Alt Media do not see because they have been sniggering about Trump’s mental state, about his alleged senility since the day he stepped back in the Oval Office when what I see is a magnificent operation to confuse all his enemies, to leave them puzzled as to what comes next while he proceeds in his own inimitable manner to his objectives: namely to withdraw the US from a collapsing NATO, to help break up the European Union and to engage Russia and China in a Yalta-2 type reorganization of the world order with clearly defined zones of hegemonic interest. That vision harks back to the mentorship Henry Kissinger provided to candidate Trump before his first election to office.
The logic for the first two of these objectives is not abstract or hard to comprehend: it is based on domestic U.S. political considerations which were firmly in place during Trump’s first administration. The fact then and now is that the European Union and its leadership is imbued with globalist ideology and supposedly progressive values that make them the willing allies of Trump’s Democratic Party opposition, which is antithetical to everything he stands for. There is no whim in what he is doing to break up the EU with help from Elan Musk and other fellow thinkers. It is raw politics and it makes good sense, for him, for the USA and for the peoples of Europe, who are being deindustrialized, whose economies are being wrecked by a leadership that has lost all sense of pragmatism and national interest, serving instead policies aimed at keeping themselves in power by preaching fear, hatred and war-mongering.
*****
Now let us go through each of the dynamics leading to the imminent collapse of Kiev and of its backers in the EU.
Last night’s news wrap-up on Russian state television opened with a celebration of the capture of Dobropolye, a town in the Donetsk oblast which is now being described as a key logistical support center to Ukrainian troops concentrated in the next and last heavily fortified cities in the oblast, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, guardians to the open plains leading to the Dnieper River. In the meantime a suburb of Kramatorsk has also been captured and we understand that Ukrainian forces have been ordered to evacuate the two cities, meaning that their capture by the Russians can only be weeks away, though fierce fighting lies ahead. We also heard President Putin solemnly declare that now Ukraine holds only 10% of the Donetsk oblast territory and 16% of Zaporozhiye, while Lugansk is 100% controlled by Russia.
Other news on state television fills in the multiple slow-motion collapse of Ukraine and of the EU that I mention above.
First, we were shown the results of the latest strategy meeting of European leaders in Brussels to consider the now vastly raised Ukrainian demands of financial assistance for 2027. Kiev is now projecting a 150 billion euro war budget for the year and is looking to collect this from Brussels. However, the European leaders reached no consensus on further aid. Two countries, Czechia and Hungary said flatly they will veto appropriating one more euro to Ukraine. That all by itself spells check-mate for Kiev in this war.
Second, we were shown extensive coverage of the massive anti-government demonstrations going on presently across France, from Marseilles, to Lyon, to Bordeaux and with the biggest protests in Paris. To be sure, the war in Ukraine, geopolitics is not mentioned in any of these anti-Macron demonstrations but the dual demands of the protesters relate to issues that are themselves the direct result of the war and of EU sanctions on Russia: the unacceptably high and rising cost of living and the allocation of the budget to rising military expenditures while cutting funding for schools and education. According to the French police, yesterday there were 550,000 demonstrators, both peaceful and violent, out on the streets of France yesterday with thousands of arrests. According to the organizers of the peaceful demonstrators, there were 800,000 out on the streets denouncing Macron and his government. If this continues and builds further it is hard to see how Macron, who has only 10% popular support, can hold onto power.
Meanwhile, similar mass demonstrations have broken out in Italy’s main cities of Rome, Milano and the university town of Bologna. They are calling for Meloni’s resignation over the same issues of underfunding for education and social welfare, which as we know results from the rising war budget.
Third, as Russian state television showed us in a very appropriate video clip of Alternative for Deutschland’s leader Alice Weidel, the curse of McCarthyism, which Germany’s left and right of center parties had adopted more than a decade ago to shut up all naysayers to the war party policies of their federal coalition governments, has finally and decisively been smashed just as Donald Trump liberated us all in his first presidential campaign by saying publicly what any of us could have gone to prison for saying had we dared. The subject is now out for open discussion in Germany: when and how to restart the Nord Stream pipelines with likely U.S. assistance; when and how to restart purchase of Russian oil, diesel fuel, etc.
This combination of developments leads me to be optimistic that the long awaited end of this disastrous war is approaching and that the monsters who have been running the EU these past several years to the detriment of the economies and national welfare of the Member States, in particular Ursula von der Leyen, Kaya Kallas and company will be put out on the street. It will be a double dividend if Chancellor Merz is forced out by his own patty and federal elections are held. A victory by Weidel is a real possibility and would change the dynamics in Europe in a very healthy direction.
Copyright Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
gilbertdoctorow
as from minute 7.40
gilbertdoctorow
In the second episode of The Unlimited Hangout Podcast, Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin discuss their latest investigation into OpenAI’s Stargate Argentina data center and the man behind it Emiliano Kargieman. They discuss how Kargieman is a part of a close-knit group of Argentines sponsored by the American group Endeavor that have blurred the lines between Argentina’s tech sector and Silicon Valley. In addition, they note that his company Satellogic is working closely with Palantir and SpaceX to create a global satellite surveillance network that aims to soon “predict the future.”
The discussion also covers the proposal for Stargate Argentina and how Emiliano Kargieman has suggested that OpenAI may not end up being the ultimate user of the center once built, due to an AI debt bubble. He further seems to suggest that the Argentine State will likely use it as it “digitally transforms” under Javier Milei into an AI-powered surveillance state.
0:00 Introductions
2:50 Discussion Overview
10:31 What is Stargate Argentina?
19:28 Who is Emiliano Kargieman?
26:00 What is Satellogic? Debt From Above Overview
30:00 Early Life: Endeavor, Core Securities, Hacked By Owls, Whuffie Bank
46:20 The Creation of Satellogic at Singularity University
55:15 Ames Research, Pete Worden, Mike Griffin and BlastOff!
1:01:01 DC-X into SpaceX, SDIO and the Private Space Nexus
1:07:01 Merlin: Palantir in Space, AI + SATL = Predictive Surveillance
1:20:00 Stargate Argentina, “A Source of Dollars”, Pax Silica
1:37:01 Bubbles Build Infrastructure, AI and Enron Overlaps
1:47:01 Pre-Crime, Digital Twins
Read the Stargate Argentina article here: https://unlimitedhangout.com/2026/08/…
Read our 2024 investigation into Satellogic, Debt From Above, here: https://unlimitedhangout.com/2024/04/…
Become a member of Unlimited Hangout to get early access to all UH content (videos, podcasts and articles) and participate in live Q+As with Mark and Whitney: https://unlimitedhangout.com/join/
Subscribe here on YouTube or elsewhere to help us fight AI impersonation of Whitney and other UH writers and to stop the slop! Follow and subscribe to us on other platforms here: https://linktr.ee/whitneywebb
Intro/Outro Music by MeanTheMusician.bandcamp.com
The post The Unlimited Hangout Podcast Ep #02 – Stargate Argentina appeared first on Activist Post.
In my last essay on my week of hospitalization, I omitted a couple of issues. One of these is highly relevant to all prospective travelers to Russia. The other relates to general security and lawfulness in urban Russia today,
The first issue is health insurance that you are obliged to subscribe to when you apply for a visa. The most common provider of this health insurance for foreign visitors is Ingosstrakh. Applying for the insurance is fairly complicated if you do not have a friend in Russia to guide you through the process and to pay the insurance fees on your behalf since you cannot pay them using a non-Russian credit card. Somehow people do solve this problem and I will not dwell on it.
The problem is how do you actually get the insurance benefits if you require medical assistance here.
As I said in my first essay, when I entered the emergency room of the Mariinsky Municipal Hospital no one took an interest in my presenting my insurance policy. But three days later, a lady from their Payments Department visited me in my ward and pressed the point: how will the first bill for 300 euros equivalent be paid? I showed her my policy and then at her request called Ingosstrakh to get the ball rolling. They were indignant that it was only on day 3 that I contacted them but reluctantly acknowledged that there is a claim. I turned the matter over to the hospital Payments lady to resolve directly with the insurer. I heard nothing more, meaning that settlement, that guaranty of payment was issued by Ingosstrakh. But then a day before my release the Payments lady visited me again to say that Ingosstrakh was refusing to pay 75 euros in claims on the xrays which were administered, saying they were excessive in number. Wow! Some bureaucrat in the insurance company deciding what is and what is not a proper insurable expense and proper medical procedures without having access to the details of the case. At their request, I phoned Ingosstrakh and protested vehemently at their refusal without knowing why my treatment required supplemental control xrays. After that the issue disappeared and I checked out of the hospital. Simply amazing that Ingosstrakh was trying to weasel out of a 75 euro charge when the face value of my policy is for 10,000 euros. So, dear friends, be aware of what awaits you if you have to make claims against your health insurance.
The second issue of broader importance relates to the traffic police. As you may understand, all of my health travails began with my being knocked down by an SUV that backed up into me while I as waiting for a taxi. The driver got out of his car, cursed me for being in the roadway and not on the pavement and then just drove off. Hit and run is what this is categorized as and it is a criminal act everywhere including in Russia.
On about day two of my hospitalization I got an SMS from the local brokers of Ingosstrakh responsible for northwest Russia putting me in touch with the Petersburg Traffic Police, whom they informed about my case. I assume that the motive of the insurer was to eventually claw back their expenses from the driver in damages.
The Traffic Police took the initiative to request that I visit them to make a deposition. When it became clear that my hospitalization was being extended, the Police then came to me in the hospital. A very smart young officer listened to my story of the incident, wrote it up for me to sign. He also took down the coordinates of my wife who had been an onlooker to my being struck. From his case folder it was clear that they had recovered the videos of the whole incident that took place at 10.50 am on 9th October. The whole space in front of the hotel is covered by multiple video cameras that send the images to the municipal authorities.
Then the real surprise came on the next day, Thursday, when the Police officer brought with him the already apprehended driver of the car that struck me. This was an act of generosity by the Police in deference to the driver’s wish to buy me off and persuade me to withdraw my accusation. Indeed, the driver’s first words were: “You are an American. Let”s do a Trump-like deal.” He offered to pay the medical costs, to pay for my staying on in Russia for several weeks until I am allowed to board a plane and leave.
I was not obliging: I refused to withdraw my deposition. But I did offer in writing a statement that will surely lessen his punishment when the case goes before a judge: I said that I very much appreciated his apology now and that I will not seek damages of any kind over this incident. That leaves it to the insurance company to go after his scalp as I am sure they will do.
I have presented the foregoing to make a very important fact: Russian Traffic Police are today highly competent, have at their disposal the video recorders everywhere to prove or disprove allegations in cases of violation of the law. And they have on board diligent and smart policemen. All of this is a radical change from when I was living and working in Petersburg in the 1990s. Then the traffic police were themselves among the most corrupt state employees, shaking down drivers for imaginary or insignificant offenses, demanding payment in cash on the spot to drop the case. It was scandalous.
Judging by what I saw this week, the police are now well under control and are performing a meritorious mission.
Copyright Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
gilbertdoctorow
In my first couple of essays this past week addressing the question of what Russian medicine looks like from inside the beast, I was largely positive about the operations of the Mariinsky Municipal hospital where I was being treated for Pneumothoras (collapsed lung) consequent to being knocked down by a car in front of my hotel.
And I open this essay with a frank expression of gratitude to the hospital staff for saving my life.
So much for the Big Picture. Now let us move on to the realities of this past week which were a week spent in hell, with much of the suffering unnecessary if hospital care were reorganized here, not just in this one hospital but in Russia generally, because what I describe here is the rule not the exception in Russian medicine.
I am well aware that subscribers to this substack account are favorably disposed to Russia, that many of you would happily come here to experience Russia for yourselves. For that very reason, I issue this essay so that you understand the risks that face you in case you need medical attention, especially hospital care.
I address particular attention to how they deal with patients’ pain, because this was the single most devastating element of my time in the hospital and does not require capital investments, changes in personnel hiring or anything complicated and expensive as require my other observations of what is wrong in their hospitals.
I have in mind the very rare use of general anaesthesia in Russia, when it would be entirely possible to spare the patient the kind of excruciating pain that was inflicted on me 4 times in the past week:
first when a tube was inserted into my right lung to evacuate the air that had entered the thorax and compressed the lung, then twice when it was discovered that the tube had become wrongly lodged and was not facilitating the evacuation so that it was removed and a new tube was inserted. Then finally, yesterday, when that tube was pulled out.
In Belgium, everyone undergoing a colonoscopy is offered the option of general anaesthesia. This has a medical benefit, because it keeps the patient steady, without twitching at each move of the probe. But it also eliminates the discomfort bordering on pain from the probe itself.
Here, the insertion/removal of the tubes inflicted terrific pain, the sort that causes you to black out, without a thought being given to general anaesthesia, or even to strong local anaesthetics. The needle injections of some pain killer around the point of entry of the tube were less effective than what your dentist administers before treating a cavity and they did not wait one minute for even that to take effect. In the best of cases, these local injections could treat only the point of entry and not the pain delivered deep in the chest by the tube’s positioning.
I do not want to sound categorical. One of my ward-mates told me that in his abdominal surgery they used general anaesthesia and he came out fine. But for non-invasive surgery, the Russian philosophy seems to be ‘grin and bear it.’ And for post-operative pain, very little is offered. Another ward-mate in our 3-bed ward who was recovering from a knife stabbing by a disgruntled employee, suffered terribly each evening without adequate pain killers being administered.
In my ward no one slept at night, most likely due to untreated pain. When I returned to my hotel yesterday, I went to bed and slept deeply for 8 hours as partial recovery from sleep deprivation of 6 nights.
Now, I move on to problems with the hospital administration that do have remedies that are not costly if anyone cared to pay attention.
First, the food. The meals were heavily composed of hot cereal or potatoes 3 times a day, with a chunk of ground meat at lunch or dinner, and with some broth or light soup. I like cream of wheat and hot oatmeal. But not 3 times a day. And not when I am immobile as nearly all the patients were. If you go out and chop wood all day, the caloric hot cereals are a blessing. If you lie in bed all day, they turn to cement and clog your intestines. No wonder that my fellow patients and I refused the meals after a day or two.
Second, the manner of address to patients by the hospital personnel which deprives you of any shred of dignity and sharply depresses your morale. In an earlier essay, I pointed out that the support staff, meaning orderlies, janitors, the guy who brings you the meals are quarrelsome nags who speak to you as ‘boys and girls’ or ‘hey, you!’ Who are they? Why are they so rude and offensive? I speak now not just of the female staff aged over 50 but also for their male colleagues of similar age. It is a safe guess, confirmed by Russian friends who visited me in hospital that the lower level personnel are all out-of-towners living at the edges of this metropolis who are not favorably disposed to the urban population and who also, as very underpaid employees, make class war remarks to your face. When I asked if I could just have some soup for dinner, the hag who was serving remarked tartly: “this is not a resort! Go downstairs, go outside and walk to the restaurant on our territory and go eat what you want!”
I initially praised the Russian hospital for having so much personnel on hand to ensure 24/24 surveillance of the patients, all of which compares favorably with the situation in Belgium, France and Germany where support staff is in short supply because these employees came largely from Africa, from the Middle East and Southern Europe who cleared out during Covid and never returned. But, our Gastarbeiters in Belgium were/are all very respectful and kindly towards the patients, not resentful and aggressive as is the case with the Russian support staff in Russia. It would be better if they had here more Central Asian or Caucasus orderlies and helpers, since they too will be better disposed to the patients. And the total number of support staff could be reduced so as to give those in employment real living wages.
Now a word about the professional medical staff. They are good, without question. The senior doctors work as a collegium. Each morning five of them came to visit the wards and to speak with each patient. However, the treating doctors are all younger women, seemingly recent graduates of medical school. What will be the career progression of these women is unclear. Let us remember that from Soviet times, the medical profession was mostly populated by women and was systematically underpaid. Males predominated in dentistry and gynecology, which were uniquely well paid domains.
My closing advice to the Community is to avoid hospitalization in Russia if you have any chance to get out of the country on the first plane. I did not have that option and paid the price. I cannot imagine how someone who does not know the language will survive the experience intact: no one in the Mariinsky Municipal Hospital spoke a word of any language other than Russian.
Copyright Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
gilbertdoctorow
Executive Summary:
At the opening ceremony of the 2026 Shanghai Religious Community Chinese Culture Week, Shen Bin (沈斌), the bishop of the Catholic Church of Shanghai, introduced the “Initiative on Chinese Culture Saturating Religion” (The Paper, July 17). The term “saturate” (浸润) refers to the integration of Chinese culture—and socialism with Chinese characteristics—into religion, acting as one mechanism for the sinicization of religion. In 2023, Zheng Xiaoyun (郑筱筠), director of the department of world religion research at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, characterized the management of religion as consisting of “导” (guidance), “和” (harmonization), “润” (saturation), and “化” (transformation) (Zheng, 2023). [1]
Each tactic provides a framework for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to sinicize religion through its United Front Work Department (UFWD) and local ethnic and religious affairs (ERA) offices. In many Party-state directives and reports, multiple tactics are cited as the ends or means of the Party’s religious work, and Zheng’s heuristic is useful in showing that sinicization is multi-faceted. “Saturation” is particularly illustrative of the CCP’s mandatory integration between socialism and religion, such that the independence of religious groups is both organizationally and spiritually eroded.
The Party-state’s religious affairs work has explicitly followed the path of sinicization since the United Front Work Conference in 2015, when General Secretary Xi Jinping said that religion “must adhere” to this direction (必须坚持中国化方向) (People’s Daily, May 21, 2025). The recently enacted Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress Law then standardized the sporadic approaches to sinicization across the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which will likely lead to renewed efforts (China Brief, March 27, April 2).
The ethnic unity law expands on existing procedure in ways that touch religion, especially regarding mandates on Party alignment in the home and in schools; but provincial, county, and municipal governments do not need a national law to target religion. Party guidance previously sufficed to carry out sinicization efforts in the absence of a wide-ranging national statute, and Party organs have been promoting sinicization through “saturation” for over a decade, with local governments executing their guidance.
Local Documents Show ‘Saturation’ Efforts
“Saturation” is an attempt to reshape religion and integrate socialism with Chinese characteristics into personal identity. Book donations fill religious libraries with socialist and Party-aligned literature, such as Xi Jinping’s Talks on Governance and Regulations on Religious Affairs. ERA committees also install flagpoles and put up propaganda posters. Shenyang City boasted donations of more than 2,000 books and more than 500 national flags in the years leading up to 2020 (Liaoning ERA Committee, December 18, 2020).
Party-guided education in history also plays a role in reshaping identity. In the northeast region, studying the Korean War is cited as helping to “cultivate the patriotism of the religious community, sharpen the ambition of strengthening the country, and practice service to the country” (培养深植宗教界爱国之情、砥砺强国之志、实践报国之行) (Liaoning ERA Committee, December 18, 2020). In Hubei province, the ERA committee celebrated the “Hubei Religious Community ‘Red Education’ Base,” a historical showcase that celebrates the CCP and its sinicization efforts (Hubei ERA Committee, April 24, 2022). The PRC’s Patriotic Education Law calls for developing and visiting these sites (China Brief, December 15, 2023).
What the CCP calls “excellent traditional Chinese culture” (中华优秀传统文化) provides yet another vector for influencing religious identity. In Hubei and elsewhere, religious sites will hold traditional festival celebrations and recitations of the Chinese classics (Hubei ERA Committee, April 24, 2022). Along with legal measures, using traditional culture for religious sinicization establishes that “the nation is greater than religion” (国大于教) (UFWD, May 19). Xu Xiaohong (徐晓鸿), chairman of the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, a state-sanctioned body that oversees Protestant churches in the PRC, put this in a zero-sum context, saying that sinicization is a modern effort to prevent a reality where “one more Christian is one fewer Chinese” (多一个基督徒就少一个中国人) (Xinhua, March 11, 2019). This indicates that the fusion of religion and secular culture is an attempt to maintain a solely “Chinese” identity.
“Saturation” of religion also calls for the Party to influence theology itself. This can occur indirectly from book donations and ideological education, but is achieved more directly by encouraging religious leaders to align their messaging with the CCP. In Zhengzhou, the Protestant liang hui (两会) held a competition soliciting sinicized sermon manuscripts, and reportedly received 461 submissions (Zhengzhou ERA Bureau, July 9, 2024). [2] Sinicized sermons have covered themes such as “taking dedication to work as a sacrifice” (以敬业为祭) and “being a patriotic Muslim” (做一名具有爱国情怀的穆斯林) (China Islamic Steering Committee, 2021; The Protestant Church in China, July 1). [3] For these religious leaders, contests provided an incentive for alignment, but they also serve the CCP’s goal of bringing ideology into churches. The Party-state’s tactics of identifying, cultivating, and co-opting willing religious leaders to advance its “saturation” of religion mirrors its work in overseas united front operations (China Brief, February 11).
‘Saturation’ Demands Grassroots and Technical Surveillance
Governing religion through “saturation” creates ideological norms that must then be upheld by religious followers. In Pengxi county, located in Sichuan province, cadre inspections include “heart-to-heart talks” (谈心谈话) and soliciting opinions before meetings. This is an attempt to increase “ideological contact” (思想碰触), and forces Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists to embrace ideology or be marked as anti-CCP elements (Pengxi County UFWD, July 28, 2023). Sending cadres into religious sites serves as a tool for monitoring religion and identifying the people, ideas, and value systems that threaten the Party’s interests. The experience of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where indicators of religious extremism came to be defined so expansively as to include growing a beard or maintaining foreign contacts, shows how Party narratives shape what is tolerated and what is seen as religious fanaticism (United Nations, August 31, 2022).
The Party-state uses grassroots means to identify areas of interest and concentrate its monitoring efforts. In Jincheng, Shanxi province, the municipal united front work report discussed “targeted surveys and assessments covering villages with concentrated religious populations” and “foreign religious influences,” seeking to “fortify defenses against religious infiltration and expansion in key sectors and regarding specific religious groups” by “firmly grasping the city’s religious data” (对信教群众聚居村、外来宗教和教育系统开展专项摸排，全面掌握全市宗教数据，筑牢重点领域、重点宗教抵御渗透蔓延的防线) (Taixing Daily, February 28, 2022). In a sub-district of Wuxi City, “grid staff” (网格员) must conduct inspections of religious sites daily and maintain a registration ledger of religious leaders (Wuxi ERA Bureau, January 21). A local government in Anhui province also made reference to inspections by “grid staff” and “work ledgers,” where this refers to a report on investigative findings (Suncun Township Government, June 3, 2020).
The same inspection and monitoring tactics are used to identify “underground” religious sites. In advance of the 100th anniversary of the CCP’s founding in 2021, a local government in Huoqiu county, Anhui province, distributed an internal directive to villages and local bureaus. Party branches were ordered to inspect village units, shops, supermarkets, and hotels to identify unauthorized gathering points, including home-based gatherings (Wulong Town Party Committee and Government Office, 2021). The document names “core members” (骨干分子) of “underground” churches that had previously been broken up, both as subjects for long-term monitoring and nodes within continuous investigations to ensure that their organizations do not return. At least during this “Large-Scale Inspection and Rectification Campaign” (大排查大整治行动), village Party officials were to “provide renewed education and guidance” (再次进行教育引导) for these “core members.”
Religion-specific indicators are used to determine threats, reinforcing the Party’s desire to “saturate” and co-opt religious groups. According to a work plan released by Shiti town, located in Dazhou, Sichuan province, the threats emerging from different religions vary, but all must be “checked and changed” (要边查边改) (Dazhou District People’s Government, September 22, 2018). Buddhists and Taoists are identified as constructing unauthorized temples and statues; the supposed threats in Christianity come from private gatherings, self-appointed preachers, and foreign influence; and for Islam, the Party is concerned by the appointment of imams from the northwest, foreign missions, and illegal classes (Dazhou District People’s Government, September 22, 2018). These issues are seen as threats because they reflect religion taking on a form that the Party feels is beyond its control. “Saturation” is a way to re-center ideology and Chinese identity.
The Party-state turns to technical surveillance to reinforce cadre inspections. In 2022, Zhejiang province’s “religious intelligent patrol” (宗教智巡) used real-time monitoring and early warning to identify three instances of illegal missionary activities, 11 illegal Buddhist events, three illegal renovations, and 49 cases of minors entering religious places (Daishan County Government Office, August 23, 2022). A document from Nantong, a city in Jiangsu province, shows that video surveillance is ubiquitous, with 534 surveillance cameras outfitted to the city’s 178 religious sites. All video is fed to the county’s “governance command center” (治理指挥中心) that has supposedly “achieved full coverage of site monitoring and no blind spots” (实现场所监控全覆盖、无死角) (ERA Commission of Jiangsu Province, April 25, 2025). Local Public Security Bureaus in Zhejiang also used the social media app Douyin to identify illegal Christian private gatherings (Daishan County Government Office, August 23, 2022).
Local governments rely on technical platforms built by the private sector. Baotou Pasis Network Technology (包头市派司网络科技), for instance, offers a “smart religion management system” (智慧宗教管理系统) that integrates and analyzes data such as personnel, activities, and finances, in part with assistance from artificial intelligence (Pasis, accessed October 4). [4] There are also mobile applications intended to facilitate ERA work, as have emerged across departments in the PRC in recent years (China Brief, April 28). One, which is offered on Apple’s App Store, is meant to support inspections and assessments (Apple App Store, accessed October 4). Other companies offer similar products. In 2024, Jiangsu Cable Data Network (江苏有线数据网络) won a bid to provide a digitalized platform for the Jiangsu government, writing in the press release that the project would “actively publicize relevant policies, regulations, and socialist core values through audio and video systems and terminals, and promote the implementation of religious sinicization” (动态宣传相关政策法规和社会主义核心价值观，助力宗教中国化宣贯) (Jiangsu Cable Data Network, April 24, 2024).
Figure 1: AI-enabled video monitoring service advertised by Pasis
(Source: Pasis, accessed October 4)
Conclusion
The CCP describes the threat it faces from unmitigated religious practice, in part, as foreign “infiltration” (渗透), with sinicization as the response. It is difficult to understand sending cadres into religious sites, shaping sermon rhetoric, cultivating ideology, and other aspects of religious “saturation” as anything other than the “infiltration” of religion by the Party itself. By acting against religious groups in much the same way that it describes the threat, the Party expresses its view that religion offers rival value systems and organizations that cannot remain independent. Zero-sum framing, such as Xu Xiaohong’s statement that without sinicization “one more Christian is one fewer Chinese,” only underscores this perspective.
Notes
[1] Zheng Xiaoyun [郑筱筠], “‘Guide,’ ‘Harmonize,’ ‘Saturate,’ ‘Transform’: Several Theoretical Reflections on Deepening the Sinicization of Religion in China [‘导’ ‘和’ ‘润’ ‘化’——深入推进我国宗教中国化的几点理论思考],” Studies in World Religions [世界宗教研究], no. 7 (2023): 1–10.
[2] The term liang hui (两会) refers to the two organizations that manage Protestant churches in the PRC, the Chinese Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee (中国基督教三自爱国运动委员会) and the Chinese Christian Council (中国基督教协会).
[3] China Islamic Affairs Steering Committee [中国伊斯兰教教务指导委员会], ed., New Collection of Wa’z Sermons, Vol. 7 [新编卧尔兹演讲集（第七辑）] (Beijing: Commercial Press [商务印书馆], 2021), https://archive.ph/DJnEL.
[4] The company also offers similar services for an “ideological management system” (Pasis, accessed October 4).
The post The CCP ‘Saturates’ Religion with Socialist Values appeared first on Jamestown.
Executive Summary:
The 6th Maritime Silk Road Legal Affairs Forum (海丝法务区论坛) was held in Xiamen on September 7–8; among its noted achievements was progress made in two local Chinese International Commercial Courts (CICCs) in Xiamen and Quanzhou. Since their introduction in 2022, these courts have handled over 7,000 cases involving parties from over 40 countries and regions, with a cumulative value exceeding renminbi (RMB) 50 billion ($7.5 billion) (Supreme People’s Court [SPC], August 5, 2024; Southeast Net, September 8).
CICCs in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are taking on a significant workload. By 2026 the national-level CICC had accepted 46 international commercial cases and concluded 37 since its inception in 2018, involving parties from 21 countries and regions, with a total value of over renminbi (RMB) 13.8 billion ($2 billion). [1] Intermediate People’s Courts in 18 localities—including Suzhou, Beijing, Xiamen, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou—had established local CICCs, which concluded 1,777 foreign-related cases and arbitral reviews during 2025 involving parties from more than 50 countries, with a total value of nearly RMB 40 billion ($6 billion)—representing a year-over-year increase in case volume of more than 24 percent. Across all Chinese courts, foreign-related commercial and maritime cases saw a 44 percent year-over-year increase in case volume (China Business Journal, March 5).
PRC-Styled ‘New Legal Hubs’
The development of “new legal hubs” has increased globally, including in Singapore, Kazakhstan, and Dubai, for a variety of—often overlapping—rationales: attracting global talent, supporting domestic industry growth, reducing dependency on Western institutions; and other national interest-related issues, such as information access and the ability to shift the balance of outcomes toward domestic parties (Bookman & Erie, 2021). [2] Collectively, much of these efforts can also be understood as increasing each state’s “law power,” or “a nation-state’s ability to use law to affect others to get what it wants”—similar to the way in which the dominance of the U.S. dollar has benefited the United States in the post-World War II period (Jia, 2026). [3]
Many of these hubs follow the model of the London Commercial Court or longstanding arbitral forums: procedures are largely conducted in English, English common law is used as a foundation for rules, forums are staffed by judges or arbitrators of various nationalities, and there is a general promise of independence by the host nation. While it is a political decision in itself to favor dispute-resolution forums that prioritize expediency, low cost, judicial independence, or market liberalism, some would argue that there should be stronger government involvement when disputes implicate public concerns. Every nation makes decisions about how to balance commercial predictability, political authority, and public interest.
Chinese forums align with some of these general characteristics but differ partially or wholly on others. Disputes may generally use any governing law or procedural rules that the parties agree to, so long as Chinese choice-of-law rules permit it (SPC, December 18, 2023). [4] Chinese arbitration centers are generally more flexible, with the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), for example, allowing greater flexibility in the selection of rules (CIETAC, September 5, 2023). All judges in the PRC must be Chinese nationals and uphold the Constitution, Party leadership, and the socialist system (People’s Daily, July 28, 2019). For CICC judges, English proficiency is an additional selection requirement, and English-language evidence may be submitted without Chinese translation (SPC, December 18, 2023). CIETAC and other arbitral centers generally allow foreign arbitrators to be selected by the parties—which is in line with most arbitration centers globally (CIETAC, May 1).
PRC Seeks Foreign and Domestic Power
Chinese attempts to build a dispute resolution forum have consistently been linked to successive efforts to aid Chinese firms in expanding globally. The earlier references date back to 2018, when the State Council issued the “Opinions on Establishing an International Commercial Dispute Resolution Mechanism and Institutions for the Belt and Road (OBOR) Initiative” (关于建立 “一带一路” 国际商事争端解决机制和机构的意见), which established the country’s first two CICCs in Shenzhen and Xi’an (Xinhua, June 27, 2018). The State Council envisioned “a convenient, fast, and low-cost ‘one-stop’ dispute resolution center to provide high-quality and efficient legal services to parties involved in the OBOR” (便利、快捷、低成本的“一站式”争端解决中心，为“一带一路”建设参与国当事人提供优质高效的法律服务) (Xinhua, June 27, 2018).
The 2020 “Guiding Opinions of the Supreme People’s Court on People’s Courts Serving and Safeguarding Further Opening Up to the Outside World” (最高人民法院关于人民法院服务保障进一步扩大对外开放的指导意见) broadened the focus beyond the OBOR initiative to the newer terminology of “large-scale opening up” (大对外开放). Stated policy goals included “protecting Chinese and foreign investors’ lawful rights and interests” (依法维护中外投资者合法权益), “expanding the influence of China’s law” (扩大中国法的影响力), and safeguarding national security and economic and social order” (保障国家安全和经济社会秩序) (SPC, September 25, 2020).
Then, at a study session in 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the role of foreign-related legal efforts in “better safeguarding the interests of the nation and the people” (更好维护国家和人民利益) as well as “promoting high-level opening up” (推进高水平对外开放) (People’s Daily, November 29, 2023).
Wuhan University professor and former ambassador to Malaysia, Huang Huikang (黄惠康), directly linked the initiatives to expand international dispute-resolution services to the PRC’s goal of becoming “a global leader in comprehensive national power and international influence” (我国要实现综合国力和国际影响力领先) at a symposium hosted by the SPC (CICC, November 21, 2024). [5] More recently, Wang Shumei (王淑梅), a senior justice with the SPC, linked the efforts to expand Chinese international commercial dispute resolution to “safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and developmental interests” and promoting Chinese influence in the development of new international rules (坚定维护国家主权、安全、发展利益，为国际规则制定提供中国司法实践) (SPC, March 5). [6]
By encouraging case settlement in the PRC, Beijing is promoting its ability to shape international norms. In December 2023, the SPC also modified its rules relating to Articles 35 and 277 of the Civil Procedure Law to allow for Chinese courts to exercise jurisdiction over disputes without “requiring a real connection with the PRC” (不要求争议必须与我国有实际联系)—such as a Chinese party being involved—with the goal of expanding the number of foreign parties that choose Chinese forums for their disputes (SPC, December 18, 2023).
Some of these goals, however, appear at times to be contradictory. Policy documents frequently invoke language of equality, fairness, friendliness to foreign firms, and similar. Foreign companies may find it unclear what these forums will prioritize in a situation where the decision is between protecting Chinese national security or Chinese firms versus ensuring fair and consistent treatment of all firms—both foreign and domestic—under the law.
Local-court actions and SPC policy guidance have both complicated the issue and potentially contributed to fears that Chinese courts are acting to favor or aid domestic firms. In the “Report by the Xiamen Intermediate People’s Court on Leveraging Judicial Functions to Serve and Safeguard the Development of the Private Economy” (厦门市中级人民法院关于发挥审判职能服务保障民营经济发展工作情况的报告), the Court describes coordinating with local business councils to establish regular visits to domestic companies, answer their legal questions, and provide compliance guidance; this mechanism was selected as a national exemplary model. (Xiamen Municipal People’s Congress, October 23, 2023). The SPC described one of its recently released foreign-related commercial mediation guiding cases as exemplifying “the join efforts of courts at both levels to resolve foreign trade disputes, safeguarding the development of private enterprises in China” (两级法院联动化解外贸纠纷 护航我民营企业扬帆远航) (SPC, March 24).
In April 2026, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) released the “Plan on Further Deepening and Solidifying the Construction of Rule of Law in Central State-Owned Enterprises” (关于推动法治央企建设进一步走深走实的方案). The Plan directs all central enterprises to more closely supervise overseas disputes and better utilize CICCs, arbitral forums, and mediation forums as part of “properly handling overseas legal disputes” (妥善应对处置境外法律纠纷案件). It specifically directs them to “give due attention to drafting dispute resolution clauses in contracts” (重视争议解决合同条款的订立) and “encourage the resolution of overseas legal disputes within the PRC” (鼓励在境内解决境外法律纠纷) (SASAC, April 30).
The attention given to dispute-resolution clauses is not unique to SASAC’s guidance. The Xiamen CICC, for example, introduced the nation’s first model bilingual jurisdiction clause in mid-2024, which has subsequently been applied in over 200 foreign-related cases (SPC, August 5, 2024; Southeast Net, September 8). Model jurisdiction clauses allow parties to a contract to agree on where they will resolve disputes related to the contract and which rules and laws will apply. The Xiamen CICC’s model clause suggests that disputes be handled under PRC law and at one of the forums of Xiamen’s Maritime Silk Road Central Legal District (海丝中央法务区) (Xiamen Intermediate People’s Court, April 10, 2024).
Reforming Global Dispute Practice Norms
There have also been some hints as to how the PRC might alter extant modes of international dispute resolution toward more desirable procedures. Discussing the bilingual jurisdiction clause promulgated by the Xiamen Courts, for example, Zhai Weikun (翟伟坤), president of the Xiamen CICC, said that the clause “reflected Chinese characteristics” (体现了中国特色) because it would allow the Xiamen CICC to “guide [parties] to choose the most favorable dispute resolution method, such as mediation or arbitration” (我们也可以引导当事人选择对他们最有利的纠纷解决方法，比如调解、仲裁) (SPC, August 5, 2024).
Researchers have noted that the push toward alternative dispute resolution methods—especially mediation—beginning in 2003 was motivated by concerns about social stability and Party control (Minzner, 2011). [7] In its 2025 “Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of International Commercial Courts and Supporting High-Level Opening-Up” (关于推进国际商事法庭高质量发展 服务保障高水平对外开放的意见), the SPC advocated for increasing the use of mediation and arbitration, as well as for CICCs to more closely coordinate with government departments and other organizations (SPC, September 25, 2025).
While mediation is increasingly favored globally due to its efficiency, it also invites the appearance of greater political influence being injected into the process. In one instance from 2025 published by the SPC, a dispute originally arbitrated at the London Metal Exchange between Swiss-creditor Gerald Metals and a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned-enterprise, Henan Shenhuo Coal & Power (河南神火煤电), was brought to the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court after the Shenzhen-registered subsidiary, Henan Shenhuo International Trading, paid out RMB 83.3 million ($12.4 million), as opposed to the more than RMB 110 million ($16.5 million) it would have owed under the original London Metal Exchange award (Sina Finance, August 19, 2025). [8] Shen Hongyu (沈红雨), the presiding judge on the case and head of the Fourth Civil Division of the SPC, related the decision back to the broader effort to promote Chinese-style dispute resolution, saying that “[p]arties from various countries will increasingly recognize the power of China’s ‘culture of harmony’” (各国当事人将会越来越认可中国‘和文化’的力量) (SPC, June 20, 2025).
Although these types of haircut discounts are common in creditor–debtor settlements, this example demonstrates how complex and obscure relationships between Chinese dispute-resolution forums, state-owned or affiliated enterprises, and the Party-state bureaucracy can lead to the appearance that national interest is a motivating factor in outcomes. One interpretation of the above case would be that Gerald Metals came out better than it would have without the CICC’s intervention—quickly settling for a reasonable amount. Another might be that a Chinese state-owned enterprise received an undesirable outcome from a voluntary arbitration process in London and then retreated to within Chinese borders, where the process advocated for by the CICC was to abandon enforcement and settle—costing Gerald Metals roughly 25 percent of the original award, as well as a three-year delay from the initial award in London.
Quantitative research on potential domestic biases by Chinese forums has produced varied findings and continues to evolve. A 2018 analysis of some 1,660 patent-infringement cases made public in 2014 found that foreign plaintiffs obtained judgments that infringement occurred in more than 84 percent of cases, compared with just under 80 percent for domestic plaintiffs (Bian, 2018). [9] More recent scholarship examining 3,730 litigated cases over the 2002–2017 period found that multinational firms were more likely to win than not, but that the majority did not obtain substantial monetary compensation; firms that entered into joint ventures with domestic Chinese state-owned enterprises were comparatively more likely to obtain significant compensation (Chen & Xu, 2023). [10] Lastly, a 2026 investigation of over one million civil cases ranging from 2014–2020 found that win rates for U.S. plaintiffs suing Chinese defendants declined in Chinese cities that were more affected by the ongoing trade disputes (Bo & Liu, 2026). [11]
Conclusion
The Chinese international commercial dispute-resolution system is less than a decade into a period of rapid development and change, spurred by focus from the highest levels of government, and shaped by the broader context of the PRC’s booming trade exports. What it will develop into remains to be seen, but Chinese authorities have already succeeded in expanding the PRC’s comprehensive national power with these efforts.
Chinese courts may develop a reputation for being cheaper, fairer, and faster for all involved—and outcompete their foreign counterparts. Alternatively, foreign firms may come to see Chinese companies and courts as unfairly collaborating to advance the Party-state’s ideological goals and ambitions to shape global legal norms. Recent history has shown just how quickly fears about the weaponized dependencies and government interference can spark reactions. Some scholars argue that the initial cessation of rare-earth exports to Japan in 2010 may not have been centrally directed, but instead the result of grassroots nationalism reacting to perceived Japanese aggression (Xiong & Weiss, 2026). [12] Regardless of if this was the case, that was all it took for much of the world to begin seeing Chinese critical-mineral dominance as a threat to be mitigated. Unlike supply chains, contracts can quickly be revised.
Notes
[1] Previous research on the national CICC has suggested that it is more focused on providing policy guidance than resolving substantial amounts of disputes itself, instead allowing the eighteen local CICCs, or “international commercial tribunals” (国际商事法庭), to handle the bulk of disputes. Susan Finder, “China’s International Commercial Court Network: A Work in Progress,” U.S.–Asia Law Perspectives 6, no. 6 (2026), https://usali.org/usali-perspectives-blog/chinas-international-commercial-court-network-a-work-in-progress.
[2] Bookman, Pamela K., and Matthew S. Erie. “Experimenting with International Commercial Dispute Resolution,” AJIL Unbound 115 (2021): 5–10, https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2020.78.
[3] Mark Jia, “Law Power,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, forthcoming, June 1, 2026, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6864920.
[4] Under Articles 4 and 5 of the Foreign-Related Civil Relations Law (涉外民事关系法律适用法), Chinese law preempts the choice of foreign governing laws in cases where existing PRC laws contain mandatory overriding provisions, and a general public-interest exception applies “[w]here the application of foreign law would harm the public interest of the People’s Republic of China” (外国法律的适用将损害中华人民共和国社会公共利益的) (CICC, October 28, 2010).
[5] Huang had delivered the keynote lecture to the Politburo Central Committee at the aforementioned study session the previous year.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Carl F. Minzner, “China’s Turn Against Law,” The American Journal of Comparative Law 59, no. 4 (2011): 935–984, https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/4.
[8] A deeper account of the arbitration is discussed by the Connecticut Appellate Court in a linked case involving the insurance underwriters of the original agreement and also by the Hong Kong High Court, Court of First Instance in a later dispute related to the liquidation. Gerald Metals, LLC v. Certain Underwriters at International Underwriting Association of London, AC 46853 (March 25, 2025), https://info.jud.ct.gov/external/supapp/Cases/AROap/AP231/AP231.150.pdf; Henan Shenhuo International Trading Co Ltd v. Registrar of Companies, HCMP 740/2026, [2026] HKCFI 4202 (July 23, 2026), https://web.archive.org/web/20261016070713/https://legalref.judiciary.hk/lrs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp?DIS=183124.
[9] Renjun Bian, “Patent Litigation in China: Challenging Conventional Wisdom,” Berkeley Technology Law Journal 33, no. 2 (2018): 413–486, https://doi.org/10.15779/Z382J6846W.
[10] Chen, Frederick R., and Jian Xu. “Partners with Benefits: When Multinational Corporations Succeed in Authoritarian Courts.” International Organization 77, no. 1 (2023): 144–78, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000297.
[11] Shiyu Bo and Wen Liu, “From Trade Protectionism to Legal Protectionism: How the Trump Trade War Harms US Firms in China,” Journal of Development Economics 182 (June 2026): 103829, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103829.
[12] Gloria Xiong and Jessica Chen Weiss, “The Real History of Beijing’s Rare-Earth Dominance,” Foreign Affairs, August 18, 2026, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/how-china-found-most-potent-weapon-xiong-weiss.
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Executive Summary:
On October 8, Dongchedi (懂车帝), a car review platform in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), published a video of a brake test, where three new Maextro (尊界) V800s made repeated emergency stops from 100 kilometers per hour. The brake pedal bracket broke on all three (China National Radio, October 8). [1] The car, built by Anhui Jianghuai Automobile (JAC; 江淮汽车), was launched by Huawei in August at prices from renminbi (RMB) 766,000 ($114,000) to RMB 1.02 million ($150,000). Its official website advertises the safety design as “multiple redundancies, as stable as Mount Tai” (多重冗余，稳若泰山) and states that the vehicle’s architecture includes redundancy in braking, steering, computing, perception, positioning, interaction, communications, and power supply (HIMA, accessed October 9). JAC’s shares fell to the circuit-breaker limit during trading that day and again once markets opened the following day (21st Century Business Herald, October 9).
The story quickly turned into one of censorship. From late that night, the test video displayed the message “submission invalid” (稿件失效) on Bilibili, a leading PRC video-sharing platform, while WeChat Channels showed a notice stating that, following user complaints and platform review, the video had been found to contain content that violated the platform rules. The notice left both the complainant and the reason unstated (Xinhuanghe, October 9). By the next day, Internet users found that the original video and many reposts had been removed from Douyin, Bilibili, Weibo, and other platforms. Among comments from users inside the PRC relayed by the X account “Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher” (李老师不是你老师), one read, “it must be said that Huawei has achieved, on the Party’s behalf, strong leadership over the theoretical mouthpieces and the public opinion front” (不得不说，华为替党做到了对理论喉舌舆论阵地的坚强领导) (X/@whyyoutouzhele, October 9). [2]
The comment borrows the vocabulary of Party control over the media and applies it to a company, Huawei, that holds special status in the PRC. Officials treat Huawei as the representative of Chinese high-tech firms suppressed by the United States, its critics are often accused of smearing domestic brands, and online content that questions it is frequently taken down by censors. This particular protectiveness on behalf of the authorities, coupled with the difficulties entailed in raising issues of censorship, privilege, and unequal justice directly with the regime, has led to Huawei becoming a proxy for public criticism of the Party-state.
Beijing Makes Huawei a National Symbol
U.S. sanctions turned Huawei into an object of patriotic consumption. In May 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Huawei to the Entity List, restricting sales by U.S. firms to the company (Federal Register, May 21, 2019). Promotions and patriotic sentiment then drove a surge in its smartphone sales at home (Reuters, August 5, 2019). Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei (任正非) remarked wryly at the time that “one cannot say that using Huawei products is patriotic and that not using them is unpatriotic” (不能说用华为产品就爱国，不用就不爱国) (BBC, May 21, 2019).
During the Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟) affair, officials presented Huawei’s plight as the nation’s plight. On September 25, 2021, Meng, who is Huawei’s chief financial officer and Ren’s daughter, returned to Shenzhen after nearly three years of detention in Canada. Xinhua headlined its report with her words at the airport, “If faith has a color, it must be China red!” (如果信念有颜色，那一定是中国红！) (Xinhua, September 25, 2021). Two days later, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesperson stated that the case’s “purpose was to suppress Chinese high-tech enterprises represented by Huawei” (目的是打压以华为为代表的中国高技术企业) (MFA, September 27, 2021). Canadian and U.S. authorities had initially arrested her for charges of wire fraud that violated U.S. sanctions on Iran, though these were dismissed once a plea deal had been reached.
The state also backs Huawei with money and political favor. Materials from the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association reported by Bloomberg indicate that Huawei obtained about $30 billion from the central government and the Shenzhen municipal government (Bloomberg, August 23, 2023). In February 2025, at a symposium on private enterprise chaired by General Secretary Xi Jinping, Ren was listed first among the six business leaders who spoke (Xinhua, February 19, 2025). In recent years, private technology firms in the PRC have generally aligned themselves with national strategy before receiving explicit instructions (China Brief, March 20). Huawei has gone further, however, and has become part of the national narrative itself.
This status also shields Huawei from criticism. One PRC technology commentator has said outright that Huawei long enjoyed a degree of protection in public opinion under the national narrative (HK01, August 6). In late 2025, the well-known internet personality Luo Yonghao (罗永浩) was likewise accused of “smearing national industry” (黑民族产业) after he joked about “far ahead” (遥遥领先), a catchphrase from Huawei’s product launches (Sina Finance, January 3). After the brake incident, an industry insider still publicly questioned “certain media outlets that gain traffic at the expense of Chinese brands’ reputations” (个别媒体以牺牲中国品牌的口碑获取流量) (JRJ, October 9). In an atmosphere that binds Huawei tightly to patriotism, questioning its products is easily cast as opposing the country.
Pushback Ranges From Parody to Political Satire
Criticizing a company is far safer in the PRC than criticizing the Party or the government. Consumer complaints about product quality are an officially recognized right, and China Central Television (CCTV) devotes a broadcast every March 15 to exposing errant firms. Huawei is at once a company open to consumer complaint and one that officials treat as a representative of the nation. Those who mock it can therefore claim that they are simply discussing product quality.
Public pushback against Huawei falls into roughly three categories. The first is parody, which targets the company’s marketing language. For instance, in July, Internet users decided that the “wah-wah” sound a traditional toy, the bamboo cicada (竹知了), makes when shaken resembled both the voice of Huawei executive Yu Chengdong (余承东) at product launches and the gasps of his audiences. Borrowing his description of the Aito (问界) M9 as “the best SUV under RMB 10 million” (1000万以内最好的SUV), they dubbed the toy “the best toy under RMB 10 million” (一千万以内最好的玩具) (21st Century Business Herald, August 7).
Huawei’s reaction gave the parody political meaning. Its legal department filed mass complaints with platforms, alleging that the videos used metaphor, homophones, altered audio, and other veiled means to vilify and mock the company and its executives (21st Century Business Herald, August 3). [3] The complaints reminded one commentator of an earlier case, in which a Shanghai media professional wrote a poem about cicadas that his employer judged to be an allusion to Xi. His Weibo post was deleted and his account silenced (China Digital Times, August 10).
The second way in which public pushback occurs is questioning, which targets how Huawei treats ordinary people. In December 2018, Shenzhen police detained former Huawei employee Li Hongyuan (李洪元) after the company reported him. The following August, prosecutors declined to indict him, citing unclear facts and insufficient evidence. He had spent 251 days in custody and later received state compensation. Huawei responded that it “has the right, and also the obligation” (有权利，也有义务) to report suspected illegal conduct to the judicial authorities, adding that it supported him in using legal means to defend his rights and interests, including by suing Huawei (Yicai, December 2, 2019). One outlet summarized a metaphor then circulating online as “the elephant stamps once, and the ant may stamp back. The rights are the same, the damage vastly different” (大象踩一脚，蚂蚁可回踩。权利相同，杀伤迥异) (The Cover, December 3, 2019).
Censorship turned this labor dispute into a protest against speech controls. Internet users flooded the comments beneath an open letter that Meng had published at the time with the string “985, 996, 251, 404.” The four numbers refer, respectively, to elite university credentials, the work schedule of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week, the days Li spent in custody, and the error code displayed when a web page has been deleted. These comments were subsequently removed as well. The New York Times reported that many people in the PRC were especially outraged by the censorship of news coverage and online responses. They said that they had felt helpless at being unable to criticize the government and now felt that they were “also not able to criticize a giant corporation” (The New York Times, December 4, 2019).
The third category of pushback ties Huawei directly to the Party-state. This includes comments such as those posted after the Maextro video was taken down that Huawei had achieved “strong leadership” on the Party’s behalf. On X, one user wrote that blocking and removal across the entire Internet was a concrete expression of “stressing politics” (讲政治), a discipline that the Party requires of cadres and the media (X/@justicefallen20, October 9). Another was blunter, asking “whose company is Huawei? If we cannot deal with the red sun, can we at least deal with you, Huawei?” (华为是谁的企业呀？处理不了红太阳，还解决不了你华为吗？) (X/@Neo_Marici, October 9). The user’s meaning is that those who are powerless against Xi can vent their anger on Huawei.
Efforts to Shield Huawei Backfire
In the past, and especially after the Meng Wanzhou affair, propagandists could readily turn measures to protect Huawei to their advantage. In June 2019, Shenzhen police acted on a report from Huawei and placed two people in administrative detention for spreading rumors in WeChat groups, among them a claim that Huawei employees had spied for the United States (Xinhua, June 13, 2019). As the Li Hongyuan case gathered attention, the Global Times asserted that many Internet users had redirected their criticism toward foreign media, believing that the United States was exploiting the case to smear Huawei (Global Times, December 6, 2019).
Today, Huawei more often handles public opinion through legal complaints. [4] During the bamboo cicada affair, the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA; 鸿蒙智行), Huawei’s automotive business, stated on August 4 that it respected normal online expression and well-intentioned criticism. It said that it had filed complaints against only 171 of the more than 56,000 related posts it had monitored, that platforms had removed 144 of them, and that its targets were malicious edits, imitations of executives’ voices, and similar content (IT Home, August 4). Some bloggers countered that videos that merely showed the toy had also been taken down (21st Century Business Herald, August 3). At one point, a Weibo search for “bamboo cicada” came back nearly empty (Storm Media, August 7).
Huawei’s heavy-handed approach backfired. The content it complained about spread more widely. Internet users bought bamboo cicadas to film their own versions, captioned with phrases such as “the lingering sound circles the rafters” (余音绕梁), which plays on the character for Yu’s surname, and “shaking ahead” (摇摇领先), a pun on Yu’s slogan, which was named one of the top ten internet buzzwords of 2023 (The Paper, December 8, 2023; HK01, August 3). One outlet called this Huawei’s “Streisand effect,” in which an attempt to suppress information spreads it further (Storm Media, August 7). As a Caixin commentary argued, the affair had weakened Huawei’s sacred aura in the public mind and brought latent public opinion into the open (Caixin, August 6).
The extent of the backlash became clear when official media ceased to speak with one voice in Huawei’s defense. On August 5, the WeChat account of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee’s propaganda department wrote that the stronger a company is, the more open it should be to discussion (WeChat/Zhejiang Xuanchuan, August 5). A commentary the same day in the official newspaper of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee likewise observed that Huawei could hardly avoid giving the impression of overzealous rights protection and of making a fuss over a trifle (Xinhua Daily, August 5). Provincial propaganda organs had stepped in to urge a company to be magnanimous. The space for criticizing Huawei is evidently far wider than that for criticizing Party and government bodies.
The brake incident in October played out as a replay of the bamboo cicada affair. First came efforts to absolve Huawei. Weibo chief executive Wang Gaofei (王高飞) replied to a user that JAC had built the car and that the making of a brake pedal lay outside Huawei’s “empowerment” (赋能) role (ITHome, October 8). Next came attacks on the tester. Dongchedi’s head of testing said that his phone had been bombarded with text messages (MyDrivers, October 9). Then the video was taken down, and the target of mockery moved from the brake pedal to censorship. One Weibo user wrote that the takedown merely “hammered nails into Maextro’s coffin lid” (给尊界的棺材板上钉上钉子) (Weibo, October 9). The official WeChat account of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government then published an article criticizing Maextro for evading the question. It drew more than 100,000 views within half a day and was hidden by the account that evening (Lianhe Zaobao, October 10). Two days later, Zhejiang Xuanchuan weighed in again. It noted that the test video could no longer be viewed on multiple platforms and that many posts discussing it had vanished, and it called the habit of dismissing safety questions as smears against domestic cars an “irrational mentality of shielding one’s own” (非理性的护短心态) (Zhejiang Xuanchuan, October 12). On October 13, Maextro published a third-party test report stating that the brake pedal met the industry standard, but the testing institution said that the report applied only to the samples the company had submitted and offered no guarantee for vehicles in mass production (Yicai, October 13). As of this article’s publication, the episode is still unfolding.
Conclusion
By making Huawei a national symbol, Beijing has allowed the company to become a target of public discontent, deflecting people’s ire from the authorities themselves. Mockery of Huawei uses the same homophones and veiled allusions as mockery of the Party-state. While it also draws complaints and takedowns, it does so at a far lower cost. Huawei is the most prominent firm in Beijing’s narrative of technological self-reliance. As public deference toward it declines, the persuasiveness of that narrative declines with it.
The Party may already have realized that the public is magnifying Huawei’s problems as a way of alluding to the Party-state, which is perhaps why central media declined to defend Huawei as they had in 2019. On October 10, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and three other departments solicited public comment on a draft notice that tightens the management of automotive research, development, testing, and validation (MIIT, October 10). The next day, the People’s Daily named the Maextro V800 and declared that “a car’s brake pedal should never ‘break’ while driving” (一辆汽车的刹车踏板，绝不应该在驾驶中出现‘断裂’) (People’s Daily, October 11). Beijing will continue to hold up Huawei as the standard-bearer of high-tech enterprise, but it may keep the company at a greater distance in its propaganda and defend its privileges less conspicuously.
Notes
[1] The brackets on the three cars broke on the third, fourth, and second stops, respectively. Dongchedi stated that seven other models with plastic pedal brackets completed six stops intact, and it rejected the charge that it had conducted “violent testing” (暴力测试) (ITHome, October 8).
[2] “Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher” (@whyyoutouzhele) is run by Li Ying (李颖), a Chinese artist based in Italy who has long compiled submissions and comments from internet users inside the PRC. X is blocked in the PRC. The X users cited here are most likely overseas or using circumvention tools, and both their identities and those of the users who submitted comments remain unverified.
[3] Homophones and veiled allusion are also the techniques that PRC internet users commonly employ to evade censorship and discuss sensitive political topics. Such expression resembles what James C. Scott called the “hidden transcript” of the weak, in which discontent is voiced through rumor, ambiguity, and jokes. See James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
[4] Other large firms also use legal means against critics. In June 2025, BYD said that it was suing 37 “smear accounts” (黑号) and had placed another 126 accounts on a watch list (Jiemian News, June 4, 2025).
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Kla.TV. Karen Kwiatkowski raconte aujourd’hui ce qu'elle a vécu, ainsi que ce qu'elle a observé en tant que témoin oculaire des explosions du 11 septembre au Pentagone et leurs conséquences.
The post Témoin du 11 septembre au Pentagone : Karen Kwiatkowski first appeared on Réseau International.
Executive Summary:
Russia and Brazil signed an agreement on July 31, increasing the volume of an existing contract from 2025 for Rosatom to process Brazilian uranium from the Caetité deposit in the state of Bahia (Atomnaia Energiia 2.0, July 31). In July, Brazil’s uranium imports from Russia totaled $84.5 million, 172 times more than in July 2025 and the highest monthly level since 1997 (Praim, August 11). This increase makes Russia Brazil’s largest uranium supplier (Biznes Zhurnal, August 11). Russia appears poised to secure a greater presence in Brazil’s other rapidly developing strategic sectors, potentially including deals on new reactor technologies, regulation of marine nuclear installations, and joint projects in critical mineral extraction. In March, for example, Rosatom’s Uranium One Group and Brazil’s Núcleo Brasil Energia Participações (NBEPar) agreed to establish the Nadina Minerals joint venture to explore, extract, and process mineral resources in Brazil (Atom Media, March 25).
Russian–Brazilian nuclear energy ties are not new. The foundation was laid after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with a 1994 agreement on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and a 2008 accord that expanded that relationship (Mirovaia Politika, January 20, 2025). In 2008, the governments signed another agreement on the peaceful use of atomic energy, but operationalization was slow-moving (TASS, accessed October 13). In 2017, cooperation between the two countries acquired a commercial character when Rosatom-owned Uranium One won an international tender to supply 400 tons of natural uranium to the Brazilian state-owned company Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB). At the same time, Rosatom and Eletronuclear—a Brazilian state-linked nuclear power plant (NPP) company—developed a dialogue on NPP construction, including prospects for small and medium-sized reactors. Russian and Brazilian entities also signed a memorandum on innovative nuclear technologies in 2017 (Social and Humanities Sciences, 2024). In 2021, the partnership acquired greater depth when Rosatom and Eletronuclear signed a memorandum on cooperation in the construction and maintenance of large- and small-capacity NPPs, nuclear materials management, personnel training, and nuclear medicine. In June 2021, branches of Rosatom and Brazil’s National Nuclear Energy Commission signed a five-year contract for monthly supplies of the medical isotopes Lu-177 and Ac-225. Russian supplies covered around 50 percent of Brazil’s demand for medical radioisotopes in 2021 and 2022 (RIA Novosti, October 29, 2022).
December 2022 marked a new shift in the Russian–Brazilian uranium partnership when Rosatom-owned TENEX (Techsnabexport) announced a contract between its subsidiary Internexco GmbH and Brazil’s state-owned INB. The contract provided for meeting 100 percent of the Angra NPP’s requirements for enriched uranium products in 2023–2027. Rosatom described it as the first long-term contract in its history with Brazil for the supply of enriched uranium products (Atomnaia Energiia 2.0, December 7, 2022). Crucially, the December 2022 contract was not a one-off deal, but the beginning of a series of agreements between the two countries on cooperation in this domain (Interfax, May 4, 2023). In February 2025, Rosatom announced that it won an INB tender to enrich uranium mined in Brazil (Interfax, February 27, 2025).
Russia’s engagement with Brazilian nuclear energy is no longer limited to assisting Brazil with processing uranium. Russia has shifted from uranium exports to integration into Brazil’s nuclear fuel cycle. Ivan Dybov, director of Rosatom Latin America, said in February 2025 that Rosatom aims to create a model of cooperation with private companies for uranium extraction in Brazil (Rosatom, February 28, 2025). For Russia, the value of such a model is higher than that of conventional exports of raw materials or processing finished products—Russian enterprises could become part of the technological chain of Brazil’s nuclear fuel cycle itself. The Nadina Minerals joint venture is a corroboration of such a trajectory. The plan involves more than just trade, including geological exploration, obtaining licenses, and establishing enterprises for the extraction and processing of strategic mineral resources in Brazil (TENEX, March 25, 2026). Rosatom is also discussing lithium projects with Brazilian companies (Rosatom, April 6).
Russia is likely to try to establish a position across the entire life cycle of the Brazilian nuclear industry, and Russian sources are already beginning to link uranium cooperation to Rosatom’s broader offerings. Specifically, Rosatom has described the processing of Brazilian uranium as an “important step toward deepening the partnership within Brazil’s national nuclear program,” while simultaneously presenting Russia’s concept of a closed fuel cycle and spent nuclear fuel processing technologies (Rosatom, June 30, 2025). This implies Russia’s potential advancement along the chain: extraction, conversion, enrichment, fuel, generation, and, finally, nuclear fuel management. Such advancement would mean that the relationship would cease to depend on a single uranium supply contract. The Russian government is already linking existing cooperation to the possibility of constructing further generating capacity. On May 25, Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov stated the Kremlin sees “prospects in the construction of additional Russian-designed generating units, both large and small” (Interfax, May 25). Russian industry sources have also reported Brazil’s interest in Russian-designed small NPPs. In July, this issue was discussed in relation to a potential site in the state of Santa Catarina (Rosatom, July 22).
In the Russian interpretation, the intensification of nuclear cooperation with Brazil after 2025 represents a transition from an export-supply model toward deeper technological integration into Brazil’s nuclear fuel cycle. Securing the contract for the conversion and enrichment of Brazilian uranium, its recent expansion, and the establishment of a joint venture for the development of the mineral resource base create the prospect of a long-term Russian presence across several stages of the energy production chain. In turn, the discussion of new large- and small-capacity nuclear power units demonstrates that Russia views uranium cooperation as part of a broader technological partnership.
Brazil’s renewed nuclear ambitions create a potentially significant long-term opening for Russian nuclear cooperation. Under the Plano Nacional de Energia (PNE) 2025, Brazil envisages up to roughly 14 gigawatts of additional nuclear capacity while seeking to expand domestic uranium production and strengthen its nuclear fuel cycle (Government of Brazil, February 19). This creates demand for uranium, and for conversion, enrichment, and reactor technologies. Russia’s post-2025 involvement in processing Brazilian uranium can therefore be viewed as an entry point into a potentially expanding nuclear value chain. Opportunities, however, remain contingent on Brazil translating long-term planning into financed projects and balancing foreign partnerships with its technological sovereignty.
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Executive Summary:
On September 30, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov and Turkish Defense Industry Agency President Haluk Görgün oversaw the signing of a package of contracts between Baku and Turkish defense companies worth more than $500 million (Daily Sabah, September 30). The documents were signed on the sidelines of the sixth Azerbaijan International Defence Exhibition, known as ADEX 2026, held in Baku from September 30 to October 2. Under the agreements, Azerbaijan will buy a range of Turkish systems. Turkish Aerospace Industries will supply 14 Hürkuş-II pilot training aircraft, with deliveries expected to begin this year. Baykar, the maker of the Bayraktar TB2 drones Azerbaijan used in the 2020 Karabakh War, will provide Mızrak loitering munitions. These drones hover over a target area before striking, and they will be paired with Antidot systems. Missile manufacturer Roketsan will deliver the Barbaros coastal defense system, and defense electronics firm Aselsan signed a preliminary agreement to supply ALP-100 radars (TRT World, September 30).
The procurement list is the less significant part of the package. Several documents concern production in Azerbaijan. Aselsan and the Azerbaijani company NOVASIS signed a term sheet to establish a manufacturing facility in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The plant is expected to produce laser guidance kits, which turn ordinary bombs into precision weapons, as well as TOLUN precision-guided munitions and KORKUT air defense systems (Defense Talks, September 30). Turkish producers MKE, Otokar, Kayı Defense, and Boğaziçi Defense concluded cooperation agreements with the Azerbaijani firms Miras and NOVASIS (Daily Sabah, September 30). The choice of Nakhchivan is notable. The exclave shares a short border with Türkiye. It is separated from mainland Azerbaijan by Armenian territory, so a plant there would place part of Azerbaijan’s munitions supply directly next to its treaty ally.
The two governments complemented the industrial agreements with an educational one. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense Industry and Ministry of Science and Education signed a memorandum with the SSB and Türkiye’s Council of Higher Education on higher education, scientific research, and human resources in the defense sector (APA, September 30). “We will train our engineers together with brotherly Azerbaijan,” Görgün said after the ceremony, adding that local production and joint projects would strengthen relations between the two countries (TRT World, September 30).
Türkiye is not the only partner agreeing to localization in exchange for access to the Azerbaijani market. On the same day, the Czechoslovak Group (CSG) announced it had signed agreements for a second joint venture in Azerbaijan. The venture will be established in December and will gradually localize self-propelled howitzer production, with manufacturing beginning in 2027. The company valued the business at 1.8 billion euros ($2.02 billion) over seven years and, citing confidentiality obligations, did not name its Azerbaijani partner, the howitzer types, or production volumes. “The signing of agreements leading to the establishment of our second joint venture in Azerbaijan confirms that we are building a long-term industrial presence here,” said CSG’s Board Chairman and CEO of the Defense Division Jan Marinov (The CSG Group, September 30). The group’s first Azerbaijani venture, VEXA DS, announced in April, will repair, service, and modernize armored vehicles in a program CSG values at hundreds of millions of dollars over more than ten years (The CSG Group, September 30). The same logic appeared when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received U.K. Minister of State for Defense Lord Vernon Coaker and raised the possibility of joint ventures in Azerbaijan (President of Azerbaijan, September 30).
Israel, long one of Azerbaijan’s principal arms suppliers, has likewise moved from selling weapons to Baku to manufacturing them in the country. In early October, the Israeli small-arms manufacturer ARI Arms inaugurated rifle production in Azerbaijan at a ceremony attended by Aliyev and Azerbaijani Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva (Globes, October 8). The state-owned plant, which until now produced only Kalashnikov rifles, will be the country’s first to produce M4-type rifles, the American-designed standard used by many Western militaries. It operates as a joint venture of ARI Arms, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense Industry, and the Iqlim Scientific-Production Enterprise, a state enterprise under the ministry that makes pistols and sniper rifles (Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense Industry, March 5, 2010). The initial contract reportedly covers tens of thousands of rifles worth tens of millions of dollars, and the deal required full local production (Globes, October 8). ARI Arms, an official supplier of the OR-4 rifle to the Israel Defense Forces, has cooperated with Azerbaijan’s defense establishment before (Ynet News, November 30, 2024; ARI Arms, accessed October 8).
These deals reflect a policy that Baku has pursued since the Second Karabakh War. The Ministry of Defense Industry created the Azersilah holding in 2023 to consolidate state enterprises and manage production, sales, exports, and international partnerships (President of Azerbaijan, September 30). Opening the exhibition, Azerbaijani Defense Industry Minister Vugar Mustafayev said that more than 20 private Azerbaijani companies were presenting products, most of which already supply the armed forces. He argued that the 2020 war taught that a national defense industry cannot rely solely on state-owned plants (Azernews, September 30). Baykar’s local subsidiary, which began manufacturing in the Sumgayit Industrial Park in 2025, presented the KASIRGA vertical take-off strike drone as an Azerbaijani-made product (Azernews, October 4, 2025; Report, September 30). Azerbaijan now makes more than 1,000 types of military products and exports to over 30 countries (APA, September 30). In his message to the exhibition, Aliyev said that the industry “has now entered a qualitatively new stage” (President of Azerbaijan, September 30).
The industrial agreements build on a military partnership that is already the core of Azerbaijan’s security policy. The Shusha Declaration on Allied Relations, signed in June 2021, covers both defense industry cooperation and mutual military assistance (President of Azerbaijan, June 15, 2021). Turkish unmanned systems were central to Azerbaijan’s 2020 operations, and the two armies have since made a joint training routine. Meeting in Baku on September 30, Hasanov and Görgün reviewed current joint projects and described the alliance as a contribution to regional security and stability (Azernews, September 30). The new contracts extend this relationship from purchasing and jointly operating Turkish systems to manufacturing them in Azerbaijan.
The latest drills illustrate the partnership’s operational side. Since September 22, Azerbaijani, Turkish, and Uzbek forces have been conducting the “Power of Unity 2026” exercise at training grounds in Karabakh, Nakhchivan, and the Caspian Sea (APA, September 22; Kun.uz, September 23). According to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense, the main phase on October 1 involved 3,579 personnel, 135 unmanned aerial vehicles, 27 aircraft, and 25 naval assets, and representatives of nine countries, including Pakistan, Georgia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, observed it. The ministry called it “the first large-scale military exercise of its kind to be held in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan” (APA, October 1). On September 30, Hasanov and Uzbek Defense Minister Lieutenant General Shukhrat Khalmukhamedov signed a bilateral military cooperation plan for 2027 (Azernews, September 30). Defense ties among the Turkic states, long discussed mainly in political terms, are thus acquiring an operational and industrial basis (see EDM, March 6, 2024, September 30).
Baku’s closer integration with Ankara has not narrowed its range of partners. At ADEX 2026, U.S. defense companies, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, exhibited in Baku for the first time (APA, September 30). The People’s Republic of China’s state aviation exporter displayed a J-10CE fighter jet model in Azerbaijani markings, though it has not announced a deal (Global Times, October 2). On September 30, Hasanov also met with defense officials from the United Arab Emirates and Slovakia, as well as a delegation led by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Vasily Osmakov (Azernews; Report; APA, September 30).
Most of the industrial agreements signed on September 30 are term sheets and memoranda, and their value will depend on implementation. The rifle plant opened with ARI Arms shows that such localization arrangements can reach the production stage. If the Nakhchivan facility and the howitzer venture begin production on schedule in 2027, Azerbaijan will manufacture precision munitions, air defense systems, and heavy artillery on its own territory with Turkish and European partners, in addition to the Western-pattern rifles it now makes with an Israeli partner. That would mark a substantive change for a country that has relied on imports for most of its major weapons, and it would give Ankara and Baku a shared industrial base to accompany their military alliance.
The post Azerbaijan Expands Defense Industry with Turkish and Other Partners appeared first on Jamestown.
Executive Summary:
A growing number of Central Asians are learning Chinese rather than Russian or English. Many see Chinese as the language of the future, and knowing it will help them find work with the growing number of Chinese institutions in Central Asia and build ties with Beijing (Xinhua, October 6). Most Central Asians studying Chinese do so in Chinese-funded institutions, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) offers scholarships to those who enroll or study in the PRC itself. A growing number of students are getting such instruction in local universities or from tutors, an indication that this Beijing effort at promoting its soft power in Central Asia is taking off (Piao, “Local Adaptability of Chinese Language Education in the Five Central Asian Countries from the Perspective of Language Planning,” September 8; Altyn Orda, October 6). At present, the number of Central Asians doing so is still relatively small compared to those still studying Russian—the language of upward mobility during and since Soviet times and one that all Central Asians hoping to join the elites have had to learn—or English, especially since the countries of the region gained independence in 1991. Those learning Chinese are growing rapidly, however, and helping Beijing to expand and cement its influence (Chen and Zhang, “On Chinese learning strategies of learners from Central Asian countries: an analysis of gender, age, and learning duration effects,” May 9, 2024; CentrAsia, October 5).
The PRC seeks to expand trade and influence across Central Asia through its One Belt One Road initiative. It has built an ever-growing economic, political, and even military presence in the region (see China Brief, October 17, 2025). While many governments have welcomed this, some of their populations have been upset by the PRC’s growing presence and have even attacked Chinese who have come to live in their region (Window on Eurasia, February 22, November 26, 2025). To prevent such clashes from growing and to win more friends in that region, Beijing has launched a major effort to grow its soft power. At the center of this policy is promoting the study of the Chinese language. This move lets the PRC use Central Asians rather than its own nationals on the ground and leads many Central Asians to see the PRC as a positive partner for the future. (For background on those calculations which have informed Beijing’s thinking over the last decade and more, see Window on Eurasia, January 28, 2014.)
To achieve these soft power goals, Beijing has opened 13 Confucius Institutes in Central Asia so far—five in Kazakhstan, four in Kyrgyzstan, two in Tajikistan, and two in Uzbekistan. Although Beijing funds them, most of these language-training centers are not independent but partner with local state universities, often offering dual degrees. Reports provide some idea of their size and growth that almost 150,000 Central Asians had taken the Chinese language proficiency test by the end of 2024, with a large share of those doing so in the previous three years, as well as claims that the number who want to enroll and then take such tests is exceeding the spaces available (Eurasian Research Institute, March 9, 2024; China Daily, June 16, 2025). In addition to these Beijing-supported institutions and the Chinese government’s offering of scholarships to Central Asians who want to study Chinese in the PRC itself, an increasing number of state universities in Central Asia now offer instruction in Chinese, and private tutoring agencies are sprouting up, with several hundred such private centers now open across the region (Eurasian Research Institute, March 9, 2024).
The expansion of Chinese language knowledge in Central Asia concerns Moscow, which has long viewed the region as its backyard and has placed particular stress on using Russian as the language that ties these countries to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that point this month at a Commonwealth of Independent States meeting in Turkmenistan (Svobodnaya Pressa, October 9). He and his regime will likely view this expansion of Chinese language knowledge in Central Asia as yet another sign of Moscow’s declining influence, a loss it now seems unable to slow, let alone stop or reverse. That was highlighted recently when Russian officials reacted negatively to Kazakhstan President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev’s use of Chinese, as he is a former diplomat who knows the language well and has not been shy about using it (see EDM, April 13; Tema Glavnoe, September 27).
Russia is far from the only country that will be affected by the continuing expansion of Chinese language knowledge in Central Asia. Türkiye, which has worked to promote a Turkic world with a shared alphabet and language, will be concerned about what this means for its influence in Central Asia. Some in the West have assumed that English would replace Russian as the region’s lingua franca and thus integrate Central Asia into the broader world. Such fears are not groundless, but they are premature at least for the time being. The number of Central Asians who speak Chinese is still quite small, and far fewer Central Asian political leaders know the language and see it as a window on their futures. Such concerns in capitals far from Central Asia are likely to intensify in the coming weeks, now that Beijing is trumpeting what it calls “a boom” in Chinese language learning in Central Asian countries (Xinhua, October 6).
The foreign languages elites learn and use say a lot about how they view their countries’ position on the geopolitical map. At the end of Soviet times, Russians sometimes even joked about that prospect, noting that the optimists in the Soviet Union were learning English; the pessimists, Chinese; and the realists, how to use the Kalashnikov. Chinese language knowledge has not yet reached that level in Central Asia, but it is clear that if more Central Asians, especially more Central Asian elites, learn Chinese, it will affect more than just words. It will help shape how they see their countries’ geopolitical futures, making Central Asians’ acquisition of Chinese language knowledge a more important indicator of how they view their future and where their countries are headed than many infrastructure projects that typically attract far more attention.
The post Central Asians Studying Chinese in Ever Greater Numbers appeared first on Jamestown.
“Forget justice, it’s much too expensive and time consuming. Plus if you take the government to court, you will have to spend your own money, and we are saving you from that”.
That is a fair summary of the judgement by Lords Pentland and Troy and Lady Wise in our appeal against the suspension of the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Plus an underlying Unionist assumption that Scotland should abide by the decisions of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the London Supreme Court adjudicating an English case in English law.
[30] We are not persuaded that this decision was “plainly wrong” or that it was one that no reasonable Lord Ordinary could have reached. The Lord Ordinary has clearly had regard to the relevant factors: the securing of the speediest final determination against a background of minimisation of expense and appropriate use of court resources. The decision of the Supreme Court, although not binding on the courts in Scotland, will be highly persuasive, concerning as it will the validity of an Order which applies equally to all UK jurisdictions.
There is a great irony here in that Scotland termed its own highest courts “The Supreme Courts” before the term was in use in English law, and these Scottish law lords were sitting in a building which has “The Supreme Courts” emblazoned across the front in bold gold letters. That same building was Scotland’s parliament in the days before Independence and houses the magnificent Parliament chamber with its extraordinary hammerbeam roof. It now has no function but to house portraits of fat self-satisfied justices, ranging from the Earl of Stair who planned the Massacre of Glencoe, to Lady Dorrian who imprisoned me for journalism and sought to limit trial by jury.
In their judgement Pentland et al acknowledge that the reason the Scottish judicial review has not happened was the delay caused by the UK government producing secret intelligence evidence, which we are not allowed to know, and for which special closed (a euphemism for secret) sessions had to be arranged:
28] It is regrettable that a year has passed since the petition was lodged, and some eight months since permission to proceed was granted, without a substantive hearing having taken place. There appear to have been two principal causes for the time taken (we find nothing to support the petitioner’s allegation that the UK Government has deliberately sought to obstruct an independent Scottish challenge). One of the causes was the procedure necessitated by the closed material application. The other was the interaction of the Scottish proceedings with decisions of the courts in Ammori. By the time the closed material procedure had run its course, the decision of the Court of Appeal was awaited. When the motion to sist with which this reclaiming motion is concerned was granted, the date of the expedited Supreme Court hearing was already known. All of these circumstances have had an effect on the timescale for determination of the petition.
The judgement therefore leaves the Scottish judicial review to continue after the Supreme Court judgement. It will look at the particularly Scottish arguments. There is a presumption in this judgement that it will not look at the freedom of speech and association arguments being considered by the Supreme Court in Ammori on the grounds that the Supreme Court decision will be “highly persuasive”.
But we are going to argue that there were matters not before the Supreme Court for consideration from the Ammori case. Principally there is our attack on the evidential basis for proscription, including so far only one out of 35 charges of violence against Palestine Action activists ending in conviction. That was not available information at the Ammori case as it had not yet happened, and subsequent appeals have only been on points of law. We have more unique material to add on the evidential grounds for proscription.
We will therefore be bringing a new basis to the weighting of the judgement of proportionality in considering the infringement of Article X and XI rights versus “national security”.
In addition we are going to be bringing the question of the duty to consult and lack of consultation with anybody at all in Scotland over a proscription which directly affects the Scottish government’s devolved powers over justice and policing.
The insistence of this Labour ‘Friends of Israel’ UK government on continuing with the proscription of Palestine Action – and the prosecution of almost 4,000 peaceful protestors as terrorists – gives the lie to the pretence of Burnham and Miliband to be different on Israel.
Miliband claimed it was not the intention to criminalise protestors. That is plainly a lie when that is the direct effect of the proscription they brought in, when they are proceeding with the prosecutions, and where they are proceeding with their defence of the proscription in the Supreme Court and Court of Session.
They also claimed they were going to bring in sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements, but they have done nothing. It is purely propaganda. They have allowed the Israeli government to effectively close the British Consulate General in Jerusalem and expel 14 UK diplomats and families, without any retaliatory action. They are joining in with the Saudi attack on Ansar Allah.
The grip of extreme Zionism on the political and media establishment remains so strong that, with their current attack on the English Greens, they are attempting to reimpose the requirement to accept the existence of an apartheid, genocidal entity as a necessary condition of societal respectability.
We may not have shifted the Establishment to do more than pretend to have changed nuance, but we have won the battle of public opinion. That is the value of these continued battles which expose the Establishment – be they judges, editors or politicians – for what they are.
We need help urgently as our legal bills currently exceed the amount of money raised. I have put in money myself but I am now wiped out. Our state opponents have had our crowdfunder closed down, which is disgusting in the middle of a legal case, but reflects the world in 2026.
Other donation methods are currently still available even though the CrowdJustice route has been closed. Obviously we now need funds more than ever to carry on.
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