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Melissa Morgan
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In 1999, Lyubov Sobol was a serious eleven-year-old with aspirations to be a Sherlock Holmes-style private detective. That same year, Vladimir Putin, a small-time FSB agent and mid-level cabinet member for former Leningrad mayor Anatoly Sobchak, was abruptly placed into the national spotlight by then-president Boris Yeltsin. Never in her wildest dreams could young Lyubov have imagined that 20 years later, she would be facing off against now-President Putin and working on the front lines to investigate and expose the corruption of the most powerful people in Russia.

For the last twelve years, Sobol has been a lawyer and political activist with the Anti-Corruption Foundation of Russia (FKB), the country’s most prominent pro-democracy movement. She works closely with the group’s founder, Alexei Navalny, to push for the democratization of Russia and advocate against Putin's policies through on-the-ground and digital outreach. She is currently at Stanford as a visiting scholar with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

As the war in Ukraine continues and free speech and other rights within Russia are further curtailed, many activists, Sobol included, have had to adapt or leave the country. To help contextualize the work she and other activists are currently doing, she explains where the roots of the democracy movement in modern Russia began, and the place she hopes it will take on the global stage in the future.
 


Corruption is a foundational element of the system Vladimir Putin and his cronies built. Without removing him and his supporters from power, it will not be possible for serious reforms or the democratization of state mechanisms to take place.
Lyubov Sobol
CDDRL Visiting Scholar


Let’s start with a broad look at opposition movements and their place in modern Russia. What role have opposition movements played in Russian society since the end of the Soviet Era in the late 1980s and early 1990s?

After the attempt by the Communist Party of Russia to forcibly seize political control in the 1991 August Coup, the course towards democratic reforms was supported by the majority of the Russian population. However, the democratic politicians were divided, and they had little to no experience with public political activity or organizing participation in elections. They failed to offer a clear, intelligible  plan for reforming the country and get it across to voters.                     

With the exception of certain leaders like Foreign Minister A. Kozyrev, human rights ombudsman S. Kovalev, and Deputy Prime Minister B. Nemtsov, truly democratic politicians were not widely represented in power at this time, and did not have a significant influence on state policy. Many of the politicians in power used pro-democracy ideals and the language of human rights as a mask to further their own, more selfish interests. Then with the economic crash in 1998, radical rhetoric and a revitalized communist party began to regain support.

Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. Boris Yeltsin hands over the “presidential” copy of the Russian constitution to Vladimir Putin. (December 31, 1999) Wikimedia Commons

Ultimately, a strong democratic party never emerged in Russia and deeply rooted democratic institutions were not built. The corruption and false promises corroded trust in democracy and undermined many Russian’s belief in liberalism. When Putin came to power in the late 90s, he took advantage of the chaos and further crushed many of the structures of the state. By the 2000s, he had tightened control over the legislature and elections and removed almost all competition from within the power system.

Today, few opposition forces survive. The leading figure is Alexei Navalny, and the goal of his movement has been to promote the idea of democratic change and the change of Putin's regime as essential prerequisite for other structural reforms in Russia. His followers were refused the right to register as an official political party under false, far-fetched pretexts, and the organization was declared by the state as an extremist organization and subjected to countless, baseless criminal charges. Like most opposition politicians, Navalny is now in prison. But these attacks only show how in the last 10 years, he has truly become a viable competitor that Vladimir Putin’s regime fears.

Alexey Navalny marches with protestors in Moscow. Alexei Navalny, Anna Veduta, and Ilya Yashin march at a pro-democracy rally in Moscow on June 12, 2013. WIkimedia Commons

You work with the Anti-Corruption Foundation (Фонд борьбы с коррупцией), which was founded by Alexei Navalny in 2011. What has your network’s approach been to combatting corruption and systemic issues in Russia?

Our team investigates corruption crimes and collects legal evidence that we send to various law enforcement agencies as part of our efforts to bring those responsible to justice. At the same time, we focus public attention on these problems, demonstrating the negative impact that corruption and criminal activity has on all spheres of life. It’s important for people to understand that corruption is a foundational element of the system Vladimir Putin and his cronies built. Without removing him and his supporters from power, it will not be possible for serious reforms or deep democratization of state mechanisms to take place.

We’ve actively worked to propose anti-corruption bills and support those who are trying to ratify international standards like article 20 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which criminalizes illicit enrichment. Representatives of our team have participated in elections and conducted dozens of election campaigns throughout the country at all levels of government, from municipal and regional to the presidential elections in the Russian Federation. Our team also worked with authoritative Russian economists and experts such as Sergei Guriev and Sergei Aleksashenko to develop projects for economic and political reforms.

We’ve won several elections in both city and regional parliaments, and have also developed and successfully applied the Smart Voting project to help coordinate voting in support of promising opponents of Putin's United Russia party. But all this being said, we’ve faced strong opposition from the authorities, the police, and the FSB with each victory.
 


Opposition pro-democratic forces are partners with the West. Putin can only offer the world blackmails on energy, the threats of nuclear war, and a global food crisis. We offer stable business relationships and peaceful, constructive foreign policy.
Lyubov Sobol
CDDRL Visiting Scholar

How have you and other activists had to adapt since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the further crackdowns in Russia against opposition voices and protests?

Repressions against our team began even before the attack on Ukraine. In the fall of 2020, the FSB tried to kill Alexei Navalny by poisoning him with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok. After an investigation into this poisoning and his return to Russia, he was imprisoned. Our group, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FKB) was declared an extremist group and a foreign agent by the Kremlin and liquidated. In practice, this means we are banned from participating in political work like elections and protests. This has essentially created a ban on any political opposition activity in Russia.

Under such conditions, most of our team has evacuated to neighboring countries and continues to work from exile. We still influence the minds and moods in Russia through our internet media resources, which have an audience of millions. Conducting one-time protests is currently impossible in the country due to the introduction of repressive laws, but we continue to encourage our supporters to participate in elections under the Smart Voting strategy. We stand up for increasing the number of our supporters and for the trust of the people, while increasing the political costs for Putin, reducing his personal rating, and diminishing the standing of the United Russia party.

Muscovites protest against the war in Ukraine. Muscovites protest against the war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Wikimedia Commons

What can supporters of democracy across the world do to help the work you and other activists from Russia are doing?

After the attack on Ukraine, the best thing the rest of the world can do is to help Ukraine to get everything it needs to win this war. Ukraine's victory is Putin's loss.

The war unleashed by Putin is criminal not only in relation to Ukraine and Ukrainians, but also to Russia. It contradicts Russia’s national interests and literally destroys its future. Putin and his regime are a common enemy for Russians, Ukrainians, and the entire democratic world.

But the war is not only on the battlefields and in the Ukrainian cities. This war has an economic front, and Western countries need to intensify their efforts to deprive the Kremlin of its resources to continue the war. There also needs to be much tougher personal sanctions against Putin’s officials and propagandists.
 


The outcome [of this war] will determine the vector of development for the entire world: either towards democracy or to totalitarianism. That’s why . . . this war is important not only for the people of Ukraine and Russia, but for everyone, everywhere.
Lyubov Sobol
CDDRL Visiting Fellow

Despite what the propaganda tries to portray, Russia is not homogenous and support for Putin is far from being ironclad. Putin has not won the entire information war for Russian’s attitudes. That’s why we at FKB consider it our duty to continue countering false information and tell Russians the truth about the war and Putin’s crimes.

We want the democratic community to understand how important this work is for victory in the war and the post-war reconstruction of Russia. While the physical fighting might be localized to Eastern Europe, the war will have far-reaching consequences across the globe. Its outcome will determine the vector of development for the entire world: either towards democracy or to totalitarianism. That’s why victory on the side of justice and rights in this war is important not only for the people of Ukraine and Russia, but for everyone, everywhere.
 

Liubov Sobol

Lyubov Sobol

Activist and CDDRL Visiting Scholar
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U.S Russia Relations Putin and Biden
Commentary

U.S.-Russia relations, one year after Geneva

The June 16, 2021 meeting in Geneva between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a positive impulse to a bilateral U.S.-Russia relationship that was plumbing post-Cold War depths. Both sides made modest progress in the following months, only to be wholly derailed by Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine. It will be a long time before the U.S.-Russia relationship can approach anything that resembles “normal.”
U.S.-Russia relations, one year after Geneva
President Zelenskky addresses Stanford students and community members via a live video address in the CEMEX auditorium.
News

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Calls on Students to Lead as Future Ambassadors in a Special Video Address at Stanford

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to the Stanford community in a special video address about his country’s war against Russia for independence, freedom, and global democracy, which he said requires the continued support of all the people of the free world.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Calls on Students to Lead as Future Ambassadors in a Special Video Address at Stanford
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Lyubov Sobol, an activist and current visiting scholar at CDDRL, explains the roots of Russia's pro-democracy movement and the importance of its success to Russia, Ukraine, and the future stability of the global democratic community.

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Rose Gottemoeller
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Just days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Dmitri Medvedev, the former president and prime minister of Russia, took to social media to post a chilling message. He raged against Western sanctions on his country and suggested darkly that Russia could rip up some of its most important agreements with the West. He mentioned the New START treaty, the nuclear arms reduction agreement signed with the United States over a decade ago, but the threat was broader still: the sundering of all diplomatic ties with Western countries. “It’s time to hang huge padlocks on the embassies,” he wrote.

Read the rest at Foreign Affairs

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With Russia Going Rogue, America Must Cooperate With China

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Rose Gottemoeller
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This war between Russia and Ukraine shows why the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (nato) is the most successful of the international bodies created in the wake of the second world war. As Russian forces built up along Ukraine’s borders in the final months of 2021, the nato alliance was watchful and active, continuing its exercises and policing the sea and airspace near Russia and Belarus. This was despite the insurrectionist riot at the US Capitol in January, the shambolic withdrawal of alliance forces from Afghanistan in August, and the ravages of the Delta and Omicron variants across Europe and North America. Somehow, nato kept going quietly about its business.

Read the rest at The Economist

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A former deputy secretary-general at NATO argues that the alliance is far more flexible, adaptable and purposeful than its critics have claimed.

Michael McFaul, director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and other members of the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions, will speak about and answer questions about the group's two new white papers, "Individual Sanctions Roadmap: Recommendations for Sanctions against the Russian Federation,” and “Strengthening Financial Sanctions against the Russian Federation.”

Additional panelists include:
 

  • Dr. Andriy Boytsun, Founder and Editor of the Ukrainian SOE Weekly; Independent Corporate Governance Consultant; Former Member of the Strategic Advisory Group for Supporting Ukrainian Reforms
     
  • Jacob Nell, Former Chief Russia Economist and Head of European Economics, Morgan Stanley
     
  • Natalia Shapoval, Vice President for Policy Research, Kyiv School of Economic
     
  • Daria Sofina, National Agency on Corruption Prevention, Ukraine

Online, via Zoom

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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PhD

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. He is currently writing a book called Autocrats versus Democrats: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today.

He teaches courses on great power relations, democratization, comparative foreign policy decision-making, and revolutions.

Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. In International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. His DPhil thesis was Southern African Liberation and Great Power Intervention: Towards a Theory of Revolution in an International Context.

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Michael McFaul FSI Director
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SEMINAR RECORDING

For spring quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.

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Steven Pifer
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Three months after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine began, the Russians have failed to achieve their objectives. U.S. officials now expect a war of attrition, with neither side capable of a decisive military breakthrough. How the war will conclude remains unclear.

A FAILING INVASION

On February 24, Russian forces invaded Ukraine from the north, including from Belarus, from the south out of Crimea, and from the east. The multiple axes of attack suggested that the Russian military aimed to quickly capture the capital of Kyiv, depose the democratically-elected government, and occupy perhaps as much as the eastern two-thirds of Ukraine.

The Russians failed. Their forces reached the outskirts of Kyiv but retreated at the end of March. The Russian army’s thrust toward Odesa bogged down around Mykolaiv after three weeks. In May, Russian forces attacking Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and located just 25 miles from the Russian border, were pushed back, having entered only the city’s outskirts.

The Russian military finally secured control over Mariupol in mid-May, when the last Ukrainian forces surrendered after a valiant resistance. Weeks of indiscriminate Russian shelling and bombing have left Mariupol, a predominately Russian-speaking city where almost half of population was ethnic Russian, absolutely devastated.

Following their retreat from Kyiv and northern Ukraine, Russian forces have concentrated on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. After six weeks, they have made some progress but at considerable cost against determined Ukrainian defenses.

Military analysts ponder whether the Russian army will soon become a spent force — exhausted by heavy casualties, high equipment losses, poor morale, and weak logistics, and incapable of mounting another major offensive operation. The Kremlin’s decision not to declare a full mobilization makes it difficult for the Russian military to replace combat losses. U.S. officials see Russian President Vladimir Putin stubbornly digging in, discern no negotiating path in the near term, and expect a war of attrition, with the sides slugging it out but neither able to score a convincing victory.

LOOKING FORWARD

Ukraine appears to have already won in one sense: virtually no one believes the Russian military capable of taking Kyiv and occupying one-half to two-thirds of the country. Ukrainians are returning to the capital, and life there has begun to take on an air of normalcy. However the war concludes, an independent and sovereign Ukrainian state will remain on the map of Europe.

Beyond that, things become more difficult to predict. The Kremlin has now focused on taking full control of the Donbas, a substantially downsized goal from its original invasion aims. Moscow may have to further reduce its Donbas objective to full control of Luhansk oblast but not all of Donetsk oblast. Russian forces in southern Ukraine have begun preparing defensive positions.

Ukrainian forces, bolstered by a growing flow of weapons from the West, have carried out successful counterattacks as well as conducting a stout mobile defense. However, transition from defense to a full-scale counteroffensive aimed at driving the Russians out of the territory they have occupied since February 24 would pose a tough challenge. In that case, some of the advantages that favor the defense would accrue to the Russian military.

A military stalemate that could perhaps drag on for many months more thus appears the most likely scenario.

A REAL NEGOTIATION?

A negotiated settlement offers one path to end a war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared ready for compromise on key questions in March, for example, offering to set aside Kyiv’s ambitions of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and accept neutrality. But his Russian counterpart did not take up the possibility to secure a neutral Ukraine and perhaps other gains.

In retrospect, that may turn out to be a missed opportunity for Moscow. Ukrainian attitudes toward negotiation have hardened since March. That reflects growing confidence in the abilities of the Ukrainian military and outrage at Russian war crimes, such as the wanton destruction of Mariupol, and atrocities in places such as Bucha and Borodianka. Public anger almost certainly limits the freedom of maneuver that Zelenskyy might have in considering possible concessions.

While Kyiv in March offered a proposal that suggested a readiness to compromise on Crimea, illegally seized and annexed by Russia in March 2014, Ukrainian officials now insist on full restoration of Ukraine’s borders as of 1991. The West should support that position and reject the Kremlin’s attempt to redraw international borders by force of arms.

Whether Kyiv would sustain that position if the war drags on is unknown. Barring a total collapse of the Russian military (not to be excluded, but unlikely), it is difficult to see how Ukraine can muster the necessary leverage to regain Crimea. A senior Ukrainian official privately said in September 2014 that perhaps Kyiv should let the then-occupied part of Donbas go — “they don’t think like we do” — but he quickly added that no serious Ukrainian official could say that publicly and expect to survive. In a recent private discussion, a Ukrainian politician did not argue for giving up Crimea and Donbas but noted that regaining those territories would bring a liability: the return of three or four million pro-Russian voters, which would prove disruptive for Ukraine’s politics.

How Ukraine resolves this dilemma is a question for the Ukrainian government to decide. Zelenskyy has left the door open for diplomacy. If Moscow changes its approach and moves to a serious negotiation, Zelenskyy will have to weigh the balance of his desire to end the killing of Ukrainians, the imperative of protecting Kyiv’s positions of principle vs. the possible need for compromise, and the potential political blowback if Ukrainians believe a compromise concedes too much to Russia.

Only Zelenskyy and his government can weigh the trade-offs and make that delicate decision. The West should follow Kyiv’s lead in any negotiation, not pressing Ukraine to accept a settlement it does not want and not objecting to a settlement that Kyiv favors and believes meets Ukraine’s interests. Western countries will have to decide what to do about sanctions on Russia; some may wish to maintain sanctions even after a settlement, though the West should be sensitive to sanctions-easing if Kyiv says that is necessary to secure an otherwise acceptable deal.

Of course, this is an academic discussion as long as the Kremlin remains uninterested in serious negotiation.

A TRAGEDY AND A DISASTER

Ukraine did nothing to provoke or justify this war of choice, a choice made by Putin. It is a tragedy for the country, one that has resulted in the death of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and enormous material damage to infrastructure, homes and apartments, and commercial and industrial facilities. (This could also become a tragedy for countries around the world that depend on Ukrainian food exports that are now blockaded.)

The war has also proven a disaster for Russia: tens of thousands of soldiers killed and wounded, major equipment losses, international isolation, sanctions that are inflicting real economic pain, and a galvanized, reinvigorated, rearming NATO that will soon welcome Finland and Sweden into its ranks. Moreover, NATO could well decide to make the presence of alliance forces on its eastern flank (e.g., in the Baltic states and Poland) permanent rather than rotating. Putin’s war will not succeed in bringing Ukraine closer to Moscow’s orbit; it is instead imbuing a hatred towards Russia in Ukraine that will take decades to overcome.

The war has a clear victim and a clear aggressor. It is in the West’s interest that the Kremlin fail in its attempt to subjugate Ukraine and deny Ukrainians the right to determine their own course. That means continuing to provide the Ukrainians the means to defend their country and drive back the invading Russian army. That also means ratcheting up sanctions to accelerate the havoc coming to the Russian economy due to Putin’s disastrous decisions.

In the end, the desired outcome to this war would see the Ukrainians forcing a Russian withdrawal or, at a minimum, getting Moscow to agree to a negotiated settlement on terms acceptable to Kyiv. Ensuring that Russia’s aggression fails and that Ukraine achieves one of these outcomes should be primary goals for the West.

Originally for Brookings Order from Chaos blog

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Three months after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine began, the Russians have failed to achieve their objectives. U.S. officials now expect a war of attrition, with neither side capable of a decisive military breakthrough. How the war will conclude remains unclear.

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Everything Counts: Building a Control Regime for Nonstrategic Nuclear Warheads in Europe
Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, addressing arms control policies in Europe and securing a follow-on agreement to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was a priority for the Biden administration. The United States has been particularly interested in potential limits on nonstrategic nuclear warheads (NSNW), which have never been subject to an arms control agreement.
 

Because Russia possesses an advantage in the number of such weapons, the U.S. Senate has insisted that negotiators include them in a future agreement, making their inclusion necessary if such an accord is to win Senate approval and ultimately be ratified by Washington. In the wake of Russian nuclear threats in the Ukraine conflict, such demands can only be expected to grow if and when U.S. and Russian negotiators return to the negotiating table.

Such an agreement will face major negotiating and implementation challenges—not only between Washington and Moscow, but also between Washington and NATO European allies. To stimulate this process, four NATO allies (Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway) and one NATO partner (Sweden) funded a research team led by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and former NATO Deputy Secretary General and New START lead negotiator Rose Gottemoeller. The research focused on the negotiating, policy, legal, and technical issues that allies will likely have to address to reach such an accord.
 

Key Takeaways

 

  • NATO allies want to keep existing NSNW, and they want an agreement limiting Russian NSNW, and they expect to be substantively consulted before each round of negotiations. A decade ago, some US allies, such as Germany, appeared close to parting with the weapons because of public pressure despite considerable opposition within the alliance, particularly from newer allies with territory closer to Russian borders. While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton managed to paper over these differences at the time, Russia’s behavior, including the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has helped reinforce allied views that under the present circumstances, maintaining NATO’s current nuclear-sharing arrangements is the right approach. At the same time, the Ukraine invasion may further reinforce some allies’ doubts about the value of such agreements with Russia. All allies will need to be reassured that arms control and deterrence do not clash, but rather complement each other. US leadership and willingness to engage in substantive consultations will be crucial in maintaining unity. The allies’ experience in negotiating the INF Treaty and the Biden administration’s current close work with NATO on Ukraine provide useful models.
     
  • Most of the Russian NSNW arsenal today is designed to support specific missions (as a backup to its emerging long-range conventional capability) and, from the perspective of the Russian military (particularly the Navy), will be tough to bargain away.
     
  • Addressing NSNW will require overcoming operational and technical verification challenges that are made more difficult by issues of information security, definitions, and stockpile disparities. Nuclear-warhead design, composition, and capabilities are among the most closely held secrets of the nuclear-weapon states, and warhead movements pose the most sensitive nuclear-security concerns. Because parts of a nuclear warhead are replaced on a regular basis and warhead configurations can differ greatly, it could prove challenging to establish a universal definition of a warhead, and their size and mobility present major obstacles to accounting for and tracking individual warheads. US and Russian NSNW stockpiles also differ significantly in types and numbers.
     
  • The experience in implementing the INF Treaty provides a useful starting point for considering how the new treaty might be implemented. Other agreements and inspection regimes to which many NATO allies are party also provide useful practical experience in preparing to host Russian inspectors. In advance of negotiations, allies should carry out a legal assessment to determine how domestic laws might need to be amended to carry out on-site inspections and other measures on their territory and a technical-capability assessment to determine how they might need to improve their staffing of national verification entities to implement an agreement.
     
  • Allies also need to enhance the analytical and legal capabilities of their foreign and defense ministries when it comes to NSNW and arms control. In most countries, such expertis has withered in the decades since the end of the Cold War; newer allies were never involved in INF Treaty negotiations or implementation, even indirectly.
     
  • US and allied research on verification measures for NSNW has largely focused on scientific and technical tools to conduct on-site inspections. The research team has developed an original and unique methodology for a data exchange employing historic stockpile data and taking advantage of past US-Russian cooperation and cryptography. This data exchange would serve as the critical backbone for other verification measures, no matter the type of warhead or the type of agreement (freeze, limitation, or reduction).
     
  • Finally, sustained political engagement at the highest level will be essential to the success of any arms control initiative involving allies. If there is a lesson from the past three decades of arms control in the Euro-Atlantic region, it is that a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach has decimated the personnel and the intellectual investment in arms control. When arms control has been pursued in recent years, it often has been done in isolation from security policy, national strategy, and military planning, rendering it at best a curio within foreign ministries. Until this topic is taken seriously as an instrument of hard power, to reinforce deterrence as one of the most important ways nations seek to avoid or limit war, it will not find purchase on the rocky ground of great-power competition.
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A team of experts led by Rose Gottemoeller has produced a new report for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies on non-strategic nuclear warhead policies in Europe, particularly in light of Russia's changing status in the global nuclear community.

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Rose Gottemoeller
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Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is honored to host the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for a video address to the Stanford community about Ukraine’s fight against Russia in its war for independence, freedom and global democracy, which calls for the continued support of all the people of the free world.

Following his remarks, President Zelenskyy will answer Stanford student questions. Michael McFaul, director of FSI and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, will introduce the event and moderate the Q&A.

In-person attendence is currently limited to members of the Stanford community and press by invitation. Registration is required for in-person attendence.

For press/media inquries, please contact fsi-communications@stanford.edu.
 

Michael A. McFaul
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In a May 5 interview with the Associated Press, Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka expressed concern that the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War could see the use of nuclear weapons. Lukashenka called such use “unacceptable because it’s right next to us.”  He has good reason for concern.

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. With the war now in its eleventh week, the Russian military has failed abysmally in what appear to have been its original objectives of taking Kyiv, deposing the government, and occupying the eastern half of Ukraine. The Russian army is now struggling against fierce Ukrainian resistance to attain a down-sized goal of securing the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east while holding on to gains in the south of the country.

Lukashenko was no innocent bystander in this war. On the contrary, he allowed Russian troops to enter Belarus, from which they launched their aborted assault on Kyiv. Belarus has also served as a platform for hundreds of Russian airstrikes against Ukrainian targets.

As for the Belarusian autocrat’s concern, the only threats of nuclear use since the war began have come from his ally, Vladimir Putin, and other senior figures in Moscow. On February 27, for no apparent reason, Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear forces had been placed on “special combat readiness.” On April 25, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the nuclear threat should not be underestimated.

Meanwhile, on one of Russia’s flagship television shows, leading propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov gleefully depicted a Russian nuclear weapon devastating the United Kingdom. This was one of several recent references by Kremlin TV pundits to Russia’s nuclear arms and the use of nuclear weapons. It is worth noting that none of these pundits has addressed what would happen to Russia when the inevitable retaliation arrived.

Despite the worrisome words from Moscow, the Pentagon has said that it currently sees no change in Russia’s nuclear posture.

So far, senior Russian military leaders have remained largely silent on the nuclear issue. Perhaps they understand better than Putin, Lavrov and Kiselyov that Russia’s introduction of nuclear weapons into the current war with Ukraine would open a Pandora’s Box full of unpredictable, nasty and potentially catastrophic consequences, including for Russia.

Lukashenka cannot comfortably distance himself from the nuclear issue. He is heavily dependent on Moscow’s support and recently oversaw a contrived referendum to approve a new Belarusian Constitution which permits nuclear weapons, presumably Russian, to be deployed in Belarus. Putin and Lavrov’s irresponsible attempts at nuclear intimidation should therefore worry Lukashenka, who also recently professed to be troubled that the war in Ukraine had “dragged on” longer than expected.

During much of the Cold War, NATO faced off against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Both sides arrayed against one another large conventional forces backed by nuclear weapons. NATO periodically war-gamed how a conflict with Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces would play out. These war games were sometimes designed with a nuclear element in order to give players a feel for the kind of consultations that would have to occur in the event of a nuclear war.

In those war games, if NATO decided to go nuclear, several questions arose. Perhaps the most important question was the choice of target for a nuclear strike. NATO of course did not want to target its own territory, but targeting Soviet territory could prove too escalatory. One other option presented itself: a strike against Soviet forces and other targets in the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries.

Fast forward to 2022. If the Kremlin were now to make the extremely reckless decision to use a nuclear weapon and NATO deemed a response necessary, the alliance would have a variety of options. One would be an overwhelming conventional counter-attack.

However, if the alliance considered a nuclear response, similar thinking as during the Cold War would likely apply. NATO would not want to target a nuclear weapon on NATO territory and might regard immediately striking Russian territory as too escalatory. As the victim of Russia’s invasion and a recipient of strong political support and major military assistance from NATO members, Ukraine would also be ruled out. This would leave Belarus. And Lukashenka has allowed the Russians to deploy plenty of possible military targets on his country’s territory.

Russia will hopefully not be foolish enough to use a nuclear weapon. However, the Belarusian autocrat might want to think about the potential implications for his own country. If the war drags on and the Kremlin, which has already made a series of miscalculations, were to make another regarding nuclear use, Lukashenka could well find that he has dragged Belarus into far more than he bargained for.    

Originally for Atlantic Council's Belarus Alert

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In a May 5 interview with the Associated Press, Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka expressed concern that the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War could see the use of nuclear weapons. Lukashenka called such use “unacceptable because it’s right next to us.” He has good reason for concern.

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Norman M. Naimark
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In one hand it is completely obvious that war crimes have been and are being committed. Not just war crimes, but other categories of crimes. Crimes against humanity.
Norman Naimark

Watch full interview with The Day on DW

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Norman Naimark discusses the war crimes committed in Ukraine and Putin's comments on the war during the Russia Victory Day parade.

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