WAR IN UKRAINE: January 12, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 323
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu appointed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov on Wednesday to oversee the military campaign in Ukraine, in the latest shake-up of Moscow's military leadership. Gerasimov, like Shoigu, has faced sharp criticism from Russia's hawkish military bloggers for multiple setbacks on the battlefield and Moscow's failure to secure victory in a campaign the Kremlin had expected to take just a short time - Reuters
The battle for Soledar in eastern Ukraine continues to intensify, with Ukraine denying claims by the private Russian Vagner military group that it had taken control of the salt-mining town. Geolocated photographs suggest the Vagner Group has been exaggerating its wins in the area and are not in an occupied salt mine.
The British Defense Ministry noted the announcement of a joint Russian-Belarusian tactical flight exercise in the second half of January and downplayed additional Russian military helicopters' new presence near Minsk - RFE/Rl
Russia is planning to wrest more money from some commodity producers and state companies and trim non-defense spending, as the costs of the invasion of Ukraine mount. Proposals include higher dividends from state companies and a “one-time payment” by fertilizer and coal producers, under instructions issued to officials by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in mid-December and seen by Bloomberg. The government order calls the effort part of “revenue mobilization.” It also orders 175 billion rubles ($2.4 billion) in extra spending to resettle 100,000 people from Kherson to Russia, an apparent admission that the Kremlin has little hope of retaking the parts of the Ukrainian region that its forces abandoned in the fall just weeks after illegally annexing it - Bloomberg
Switzerland blocks Spanish aid for Ukraine: Spain wants to deliver military material to Ukraine, but is prevented from doing so by Switzerland. Switzerland would have to issue a permit for the re-export of certain armaments. Now Madrid wants to make representations in Bern. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles is waiting for the green light from Switzerland to export certain military equipment to Ukraine. Switzerland bans the shipment of certain military material from Spain to Ukraine. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said in an interview with Spanish ambassadors on Tuesday. With its veto, Switzerland is currently preventing any transport of military material from Spain to Ukraine. According to Robles, Spain is trying to provide Ukraine with military support. But in order to send certain “material, we need a kind of permission from Switzerland, which they are not granting us at the moment”. Spain is thus prevented by Switzerland from participating in its “legitimate defense” against the “unjust, illegal and cruel” Russians - Switzerland Times
The largest number of foreigners working in Poland are Ukrainians, the country’s family and social policy minister said on Wednesday. Marlena Malag cited data which showed that 1,063,300 foreigners were legally employed in Poland in December 2022, a rise by 191,700 from January 2022. Malag noted the majority were Ukrainian refugees who fled their country's invasion by Russia. "The number of foreigners with legal employment in Poland... is growing. These people are aiding our labour market by filling in personnel gaps, and are helping the Polish economy to grow," Malag said - PAP
Polish President Andrzej Duda enjoys the greatest trust by Ukrainian citizens among all foreign leaders, according to a survey commissioned by the Centre for New Europe (CNE), a Kiev-based think tank. The Polish president has overtaken Joe Biden, the US president and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. Duda won the Kiev think-tank ranking for the second time in a row. In a similar survey in 2021, the Polish leader received 53 percent of the vote, three percentage points ahead of Biden.
Required reading…
The Long War in Ukraine
The West Needs to Plan for a Protracted Conflict With Russia
Whenever the United States faces a foreign policy crisis, critics claim that the U.S. government is doing either too much or not enough. So it is with Ukraine. Many fault the Biden administration for failing to provide Ukrainian forces with the heavy weapons—mainly tanks, long-range missiles, and combat aircraft—that they say are needed to expel Russian troops from Ukrainian soil. Others, worried about Western staying power and the rising human and economic costs of the war, urge the administration to pressure Kyiv into negotiating a deal with Russia—even if that means giving up some of its territory.
Neither argument is convincing. The Ukrainian military has surprised everyone with its capacity to defend the country and even retake a good part of the territory it lost at the outset of the war. But ejecting Russian troops from all its territory, including Crimea, will be exceedingly difficult, even with greater Western military aid. Achieving such an outcome would require the collapse of dug-in and reinforced Russian defenses and would risk starting a direct war between NATO and Russia, a doomsday scenario that no one wants. As for negotiations, Russian President Vladimir Putin has given no indication that he is prepared to give up his imperial dream of controlling Ukraine. And it would be just as difficult to convince the Ukrainian government to cede territories to a brutal occupying force in return for an uncertain peace. Given the strong incentives on both sides to continue fighting, a third outcome is much more likely: a prolonged, grinding war that gradually becomes frozen along a line of control that neither side accepts.
Read the full Foreign Affairs analysis here