Steve Gutterman's Week In Russia

I'm Steve Gutterman, the editor of RFE/RL's Russia/Ukraine/Belarus Desk.

Welcome to The Week In Russia, in which I dissect some of the key developments in the country and in its war against Ukraine, and some of the takeaways going forward.

A Ukraine peace proposal handed to former President Donald Trump ahead of the U.S. election would face huge hurdles, experts say, and critics fear it would benefit Russia.

Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward.

'Easy'

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has said that repeatedly he will quickly bring an end to Russia's war on Ukraine if he returns to the White House in January.

"If I were president…I will end that war in one day -- it'll take 24 hours," he said in May 2023, adding that "it would be easy."

In the June 27 debate against incumbent President Joe Biden, Trump asserted that if he defeats Biden in the November 5 election, he will "have that war settled" before he even takes office on January 20. But he has said little about how he would hope to do it.

Enter Fred Fleitz and retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, advisers to Trump who were chiefs of staff on Trump's National Security Council during his 2017-2021 term and have presented him with a proposed path to peace, or at least to peace talks.

The proposal, which is part of a research paper written by Kellogg and Fleitz, both at the Washington-based Center for American Security, has made waves since it was first reported by Reuters on June 25.

'Come To The Table'

Kellogg told Reuters that it would be important to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table quickly. He made clear that the proposal would seek to use U.S. weapons supplies and financial aid to Ukraine as a lever of influence on both sides.

"We tell the Ukrainians, 'You've got to come to the table, and if you don't come to the table, support from the United States will dry up,'" he said. "And you tell Putin…if you don't come to the table, then we'll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field."

Along with that stick, a potential carrot for Russia would be an offer "to put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period," the report says. Ukraine would be offered security guarantees that Fleitz told Reuters would likely involve "arming Ukraine to the teeth."

The proposal calls for a cease-fire based on the existing battle lines during the peace talks -- and that underscores the massive obstacles such a plan would face from the get-go, because neither side is likely to be content with such a situation for long, if at all.

Rewarding Aggression?

Ukraine wants Russian forces out of Ukraine, of course. Describing a 10-point "peace formula" in 2022, months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion that February, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity was "not up for negotiation."

"What Kellogg is describing is a process slanted toward Ukraine giving up all of the territory that Russia now occupies," Reuters quoted Daniel Fried, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state, as saying.

"I see the proposal as unbalanced in favor of Russia's aims and likely to reward aggression and brutal violence," Gordon "Skip" Davis, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and a retired U.S. Army major general, told Newsweek magazine.

Russia now holds the Crimean Peninsula and parts of four other Ukrainian regions in the east and south, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson -- about one-fifth of the country.

'New Realities'

Russian officials have frequently said any talks to halt or end its war against Ukraine must take the "new realities" into account. While that might sound like it refers to Russia's control over that territory, it actually refers to something that does not reflect reality at all: Moscow's claim that those four regions, in their entirety, are part of Russia.

Putin stated that more clearly than ever on June 14, saying that Russia would start peace talks only if Ukraine cedes the four regions in their entirety and renounces its ambition of joining NATO.

Those remarks and other evidence suggest that the proposal to keep Ukraine out of NATO for an "extended period" would be dismissed by Russia. One of the demands Russia made in December 2021, as it was massing troops at Ukraine's border ahead of the full-scale invasion, was a binding guarantee that Ukraine would never join the alliance – and there is no sign that position has changed.

The prospect that the United States would continue to arm Ukraine, both during talks and as part of security guarantees after a deal is reached, is also likely to irk Russia, which has sought -- again, since before the invasion of February 2022 -- to secure an agreement under which Ukraine would be allowed only a limited -- and very small -- arsenal.

Arms And Energy

"The intention to continue arming Ukraine will be particularly unacceptable [to Russia] and is likely to be immediately rejected," Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said in a post on X.

She also indicated that a proposal to use levies on Russian energy sales to pay for reconstruction in Ukraine was unrealistic, writing that it "could only be taken seriously in the event of a Russian defeat -- which seems unlikely -- or a regime change."

But she and other analysts suggested obstacles to the proposal are broader than issues such as territorial control, weapons supplies, energy sales, and reconstruction. And that amount to this: Russia wants to subjugate Ukraine.

'Incompatible Objectives'

"This plan overlooks the core issue of the conflict," Stanovaya wrote. "For [Putin] it's not about territory but about ensuring Ukraine becomes 'friendly.' I don't think it's achievable (which is why Putin's war is doomed), but it remains Putin's primary and most compelling motivation for the war."

"The two countries' objectives are incompatible," Brian Taylor, a professor of political science at Syracuse University and the author of The Code Of Putinism, told Newsweek.

"Russia wants to have political control over Ukraine and eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate nation," he said, "and Ukraine wants to defend its territory, its people, and its democracy from Russian violence and domination."

Despite aspects that may be unpalatable to the Kremlin, Russia might agree to enter talks if Putin sees them as a chance to further the goals of undermining Zelenskiy's government, gaining control over Ukraine, and getting more of a say on decisions about regional and global security -- something he has been seeking for decades.

Putin often portrays Russia as being ready for talks and Ukraine as recalcitrant. Asked about the plan, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that "Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has been and remains open to negotiations, taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground."

The proposal "has a specific feature that might appeal to Putin: It initiates a new geopolitical game where Moscow could have much more room to maneuver. The plan compels Ukraine to cease resistance -- exactly what Putin currently desires," Stanovaya wrote.

"It mandates direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow, which, in Putin's view, could weaken Ukraine domestically," she wrote. "The plan could be seen as a tactical opportunity, a starting point for a new geopolitical scenario in which an exhausted Ukraine would have to reassess its domestic political situation, becoming more susceptible to Russian influence and more pliable."

That's it from me this week.

If you want to know more, catch up on my podcast The Week Ahead In Russia, out every Monday, here on our site or wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts).

Yours,

Steve Gutterman

P.S.: Consider forwarding this newsletter to colleagues who might find this of interest. Send feedback and tips to newsletters@rferl.org.

I'm Steve Gutterman, the editor of RFE/RL's Russia/Ukraine/Belarus Desk.

Welcome to The Week In Russia, in which I dissect some of the key developments in the country and in its war against Ukraine, and some of the takeaways going forward.

Full of over-the-top pomp and propaganda, Russian President Vladimir Putin's trip to North Korea was a strange but predictable spectacle -- emblematic of his trajectory over a quarter-century in power, his focus on the war in Ukraine, and his pursuit of confrontation with the West.

Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward.

'The Purpose Is To Frighten'

Throughout the full-scale war he launched against Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has used the threat posed by Russia's nuclear arsenal as a lever, seeking to decrease support for Kyiv by scaring the West and the rest of the world -- and all the while claiming, implausibly, that he is doing nothing of the kind.

Russia's nuclear saber-rattling has taken many different forms, from claims to have put its strategic deterrent on "special alert" to tactical nuclear arms drills, just to name two.

In each case, it has stopped well short of a threat of imminent use of a nuclear weapon -- after all, among other potential consequences, such a clear warning would deprive the Kremlin of the ability to continue turning to this tactic and to keep the West guessing about its intentions.

One of the most recent instances came on June 7, when Putin called Russia's nuclear doctrine a "living instrument" and told a high-profile gathering in St. Petersburg that changes -- which he suggested would lower Moscow's threshold for its use of the weapons -- could not be ruled out.

This week, Putin came up with a new way to use nuclear weapons in an attempt to frighten the West, this time with the help of North Korea. On his first visit to the reclusive country since 2000, his first year in office, Putin and Kim Jong Un signed a pact to provide "mutual assistance in the event of aggression."

The agreement, whose text was released on June 20, says that if one of the countries "is put in a state of war by an armed invasion," the other will "provide military and other assistance with all means in its possession without delay."

Some analysts saw it as a reincarnation of a Cold War-era pact that was concluded by Moscow and Pyongyang more than 60 years ago but was scrapped with the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union.

But despite that wording, just what the agreement might lead to was murky. As with many Russian laws, far more important than the text itself is how it's interpreted and applied -- and there's always room for maneuver.

Also uncertain was the practical meaning of Putin's statement that North Korea "has the right to take reasonable measures to strengthen its own defense capability, ensure national security, and protect sovereignty."

As an article in The New York Times pointed out, Putin "did not address whether those measures included further developing the North's nuclear weapons."

The lack of clarity, as with a great deal of Russia's saber-rattling, is anything but an accident, experts say.

"The main purpose of the document was to frighten and to demonstrate," East Asia analyst Aleksei Chigadayev told RFE/RL's Russian Service before the full text of the pact was released.

'Eerily Reminiscent Of Stalinism'

There was plenty of demonstration going on during Putin's trip to Pyongyang, a one-day visit marked by parades, concerts, and thunderous applause -- a grandiose show that historian Sergei Radchenko said was "so eerily reminiscent of Stalinism. The rhetoric, the adulation, the whole vibe."

"It's like [Putin] is trying Stalin's boots on, just to see how they fit," Radchenko wrote on X. "He'll like it. You can just see from the grin."

Be that as it may -- and probably is, judging by Putin's penchant for choreographed, cheering crowds at home and his self-portrayal as the savior of a country critics say he has set back decades and may send to its ruin -- the main motivation for the trip was clearly pragmatic, if that word fits Russia's efforts to acquire more weapons for its unprovoked war against Ukraine.

The Putin-Kim pact "is based on mutual transactional needs -- artillery for Russia and high-end military technology" for North Korea, The New York Times quoted Victor Cha, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, as saying.

Shell Game

Russia "really needs" North Korean artillery shells, Cha wrote on X on June 20.

It's already gotten millions of them, according to Western governments and South Korea, but it wants more to fuel a war that, with Putin saying this month that peace talks could only begin if Ukraine cedes four regions that Russia occupies partially but claims in their entirety, among other preconditions, shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

"I just think it demonstrates desperation that a country like Russia needs to align itself with the DPRK to subjugate the people of Ukraine, and the fact that they have to go to a country like DPRK to obtain munitions demonstrates how isolated Russia is right now," Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said.

Still, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Putin's comment on June 20 that Moscow may supply weapons to North Korea was "incredibly concerning," adding that depending on the type of weapons, it might "violate UN Security Council resolutions that Russia itself has supported."

'A New Low'

A particular worry is that Russia could provide technologies that "could help the North design a warhead that that could survive re-entry into the atmosphere and threaten its many adversaries, starting with the United States," The New York Times reported.

Whatever real-life ramifications the choreographed visit and carefully worded pact may have in the coming months and years, Putin's trip was a sign of the times, a reflection of the path he has treaded since coming to power almost 25 years ago -- and in the last 28 months in particular.

"The embrace of the North Korean dictator is the logical extension of Putin's course after he launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine," Eugene Rumer, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a June 20 article. "He staked his entire tenure on victory in Ukraine. When triumph proved elusive, he went all in, hell-bent on winning even if it meant destroying his country; severing the critical diplomatic, security, and trade ties with the West; and weaponizing everything at his disposal."

"The security pact with North Korea is a new low" for Putin, Rumer wrote. "But it should not come as a surprise."

That's it from me this week.

If you want to know more, catch up on my podcast The Week Ahead In Russia, out every Monday, here on our site or wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts).

Yours,

Steve Gutterman

P.S.: Consider forwarding this newsletter to colleagues who might find this of interest. Send feedback and tips to newsletters@rferl.org.