EXPERT INTERVIEW — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in the U.S., bringing with him what he calls a “plan for victory” to present to President Joe Biden and other American leaders, and take advantage of the annual United Nations General Assembly gathering to make his case in person, to global supporters and skeptics alike.
Zelensky’s first stop was a strategic one – a Sunday tour of the Scranton Army Munitions Plant in Pennsylvania, which has been churning out 155mm artillery shells for the Ukrainian defense against Russia's invasion. “I have heard that 400 people work here, but I wanted very much to come here and to thank you,” Zelensky said. “Four hundred people have saved millions of Ukrainians.” Pennsylvania Congressman Matt Cartwright, who was there for the Ukrainian leader’s visit, said Zelensky’s message was simple. “Thank you. And we need more.”
That, in essence, will be Zelensky’s message for Biden and other world leaders at the UNGA meetings in New York. While Zelensky has kept details of his victory plan close, he dropped hints in a series of weekend comments and interviews: it’s a package that hinges on securing more weapons for Ukraine, diplomatic efforts to force Russia to halt its attacks on the country, and broad global agreement to hold Moscow accountable for the alleged war crimes committed since its 2022 invasion.
Before arriving in the U.S., Zelensky sat down with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in Kyiv and told him that a key component for “victory” involves the lifting of restrictions that the U.S. has placed on long-range weapons systems that have already been delivered to Ukraine. Russia has been using military bases close to its border with Ukraine to launch attacks with guided bombs, which Zelensky says have destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine already has western long-range weapons systems capable of striking back – but is waiting on permission from the Biden Administration to do so.
The U.S. reluctance is based on concerns that lifting the restrictions would provoke an even more ferocious Russian response – and indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that he would consider use of the weapons inside his territory as a NATO aggression against his country. So for now, the U.S. answer is “no,” and the Ukrainian hope is that – as was the case with earlier American decisions on various heavy weapons systems for Ukraine – this “no” may ultimately turn to “yes.”
Last week, Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly was in Kyiv, where she noted that the absence of a change in U.S. policy amounted to “a deafening silence that was heard loud and clear in Kyiv.” Kelly interviewed several prominent Ukrainians in Kyiv, including Timofy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, who gave his own assessment of the state of the war and what Ukraine is asking of its Western allies. Their interview was featured in a special Ukraine edition of The World Deciphered.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The Cipher Brief: Regarding Ukraine’s request for the U.S. to drop restrictions on the use of long-range missiles for strikes in Russia, no news out of Washington DC is not necessarily good news.
Mylovanov: It's bad news, clearly, and also the language surrounding it is very bad. The “no news” in this case means that there has not been an approval to use long-range, deep-strike capabilities that Ukraine already has with the help of Western allies. The U.S. basically is not allowing [Ukraine] to use the weapons.
There are technical and military implications, but there are also political implications. A couple of days ago, we heard whispers, including some hints from Secretary (of State Antony) Blinken during his visit to Kyiv, that this change was in the works. And informally, people were saying that there is a debate within the government to allow that. And then Putin comes out with rhetoric saying, "I'm going to consider it to be a full engagement of NATO in the war with Russia," which of course, is total nonsense because that's no engagement, it's just equipment. NATO is not involved. North Korea is involved in war in Ukraine, China is involved, [and] Iran. Their weapons have been here from the beginning of the war, and they have never constrained Russia to use the weapon.
So it's a rhetorical device, but it looks like the Washington administration actually succumbs to this rhetoric. There is language coming out on the margins of that decision, which says essentially that the Washington establishment is concerned about hybrid escalations of Russia: sabotage attacks in the EU, political and informational warfare, cyber warfare, a little bit of kinetic, but with some plausible deniability.
That basically means that Russia has succeeded in using its rhetoric and blackmail, and we have never in the West checked any of the Russian bluffs. We just accepted them. It used to be the nuclear bluffs, but now it's expanded to something which is not even kinetic warfare, but sabotage and cyber and hybrid operations. In that sense, it looks like the weakest link turns out to be not in Ukraine, not the manpower or morale issues, but in the West’s not being willing to stand up, and having a clear problem with Russia. Because the response to sabotage operations in the EU should be stopping them rather than lying down on your belly and rolling over and saying Russia, do whatever you wish.
The Cipher Brief: The Ukrainian operation in Kursk seems to be a very important psychological operation, even more so than a military operation, from Ukraine's perspective, as an effort to show the West that if it punches Putin in the face, so to speak, that Russia would not respond. Have you been surprised by the Russian reaction to the occupation of Kursk by Ukrainian forces?
Mylovanov:No, I have not. I've been surprised by the operation itself, by the audacity, by the boldness, but that's how you win. Any leader knows that you have to run a series of bold moves to be able to achieve any lasting success. That's what Ukraine has been doing throughout the war. The Black Sea Fleet? Not in Crimea anymore. The grain deal? Yes, Russia recently tried to hit, in guerrilla warfare style, a grain transport ship. Fortunately, no one died, but it was not in Ukrainian territorial waters. It's truly terrorism, maritime terrorism. Russia is trying to fight back, but fundamentally, it has been pushed back from the Black Sea.
Now [Russian] oil refineries and ports are under threat from Ukrainian drones. And then Kursk. And we have not seen any response from Russia. Furthermore, Putin downplayed the Kursk offensive. He said it's a new normal, that it doesn't matter. We also saw some paralysis in the first 5, 10 days of basically no reaction, which tells you that the machine is not working properly, the Russian machine. Because if the machine is healthy, be it a mafia-like or authoritarian machine, it has to respond quickly. It reacts immediately, which it didn't in this case.
This is all pointing to the weaknesses and limitations of Russia. Think about it for a second: Had Russia been able to mobilize another million or two million people, Ukraine would have been in a very different situation. Instead of that, Russia is mobilizing exactly the same amount of people they lose every month, which also shows that they have limitations. Then the Iranian and North Korean missiles, that also shows that their defense production is limited. Russia is limited, and yet it's unlimited in terms of rhetoric, and rhetoric is working against the West. In my view, it's beyond weakness. It's really against the national security interest of the United States.
The Cipher Brief: Ukraine has never really been asking for support in terms of soldiers. They don't think that that's the strategy for winning this war with Russia. They think this is a technology war and this is an innovation war, and they are firmly believing that they can win that war if they have the funding and the backing. Is that right?
Mylovanov: That's correct. Technology, innovation, this is what matters. Now there is new development in drones, where drones become, essentially, air defense – intercepting surveillance reconnaissance drones from Russia, and in that way, denying them the ability to strike targets.
It's a constant innovation, sometimes as short as a one- or two-month innovation cycle. What is needed is technology, smart people, financial support, technological support. What is also needed is that people become serious about not shipping electronics to Russia, because Russia uses it and it ends up here. Also, the NATO countries have to be serious about violations of their airspace by attack drones, because what Russia is doing, it's testing NATO all the time. And the responses that we're seeing, they're not serious. This has happened before, and now this basically shows weakness again, in terms of Russian rhetoric and the Russian mentality taking away, chip by chip, the credibility of NATO.
The Cipher Brief: What are you most concerned about in the immediate future, and the next three to six months?
Mylovanov:The U.S. elections, and whoever and whatever people are saying about ending the war or not ending the war. I think Putin is going to test whoever is in the office because Putin wants to see the receipts. Whatever is the rhetoric, whatever is the expectation, whatever is the deal, in the mind of Putin, he will want to test it. He will want to call all the bluffs, and it's going to take months for Russia to try to derail the new U.S. president.
Whether Russia succeeds or not, we'll see, but my concern is that the new administration, whoever it will be, might not be very ready to deal with Russia because Russia has been emboldened by indecision of the existing administration.
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