Planning for victory
Planning for victory
President Zelenskyy announces Ukraine's five-point victory plan
Hello from the Bear Market Brief.
This week in the news:
President Zelenskyy announced Ukraine’s five-point victory plan, which relies heavily on support from Ukraine’s international partners.
President Putin signed a law revising the federally-mandated retirement age for the head of the Investigative Committee, allowing current leader Alexander Bastrykin to maintain his position.
Deputies of the Yakutsk City Council proposed eliminating direct mayoral elections with legislation at the federal level.
According to intelligence information from Ukraine and South Korea, North Korea will deploy as many as 10,000 troops to fight in Ukraine.
— Sara Ashbaugh, Editor in Chief
Zelenskyy reveals Ukraine’s victory plan
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy finally presented his long-awaited victory plan to the Parliament. The plan consists of five key points: one focused on geopolitics, two on military strategy, one on the economy, and one related to security. Additionally, there are three secret annexes that have been shared with international partners.
According to Zelenskyy, an invitation to NATO could be pivotal for achieving peace and sending a strong signal to Russia that its geopolitical calculations have failed. Following Zelenskyy's presentation of the plan to Parliament, NATO officials stated that they do not expect Ukraine to receive an invitation anytime soon. “We are not at the point right now where the alliance is talking about issuing an invitation in the short term,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told reporters on Wednesday. “But as always, we will continue conversations with our friends in Ukraine to talk to them about ways in which they can continue to move closer to this alliance.”
The second key point focuses on expanding operations by Ukraine’s Armed Forces in specific areas of Russia, strengthening Ukrainian positions, and neutralizing Russia’s offensive capabilities in occupied territories. This effort will rely on support from partners, particularly in equipping Ukraine’s reserve brigades, enhancing air defense systems, intercepting Russian drones and missiles collaboratively, investing in domestic defense production, lifting restrictions on the use of long-range weapons, and providing the necessary long-range capabilities along with real-time satellite and intelligence data. This defense point includes one of the secret annexes.
The third point has to do with deterrence. Ukraine proposes establishing a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package on its territory, aimed at safeguarding the country from any military threat posed by Russia. This point also includes a secret annex that has already been shared with the leaders of the U.S., the UK, France, Italy, and Germany.
The fourth point addresses Ukraine’s strategic economic potential. Ukraine proposed a special agreement with its strategic partners for the joint protection of the country’s critical resources, as well as for collaborative investment and utilization of this economic potential. This includes natural resources and critical metals valued at trillions of U.S. dollars, such as uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite, and other strategically important materials that provide a significant competitive edge in the global market. This point also includes a secret annex shared only with designated partners.
The fifth point pertains to security and is focused on the post-war period. It proposes, with the agreement of partners, the replacement of certain U.S. military contingents stationed in Europe with Ukrainian units that have gained real experience in modern warfare, including in the use of Western weapons and collaboration with NATO forces.
The victory plan received mixed reactions from experts and the political community in Ukraine. Some argued that the plan as presented by Zelenskyy places greater responsibility on Kyiv’s partners than on Ukraine itself. These experts emphasized that Ukrainian authorities should prioritize strengthening their own capabilities, saying that the current governance structure is ineffective and negatively impacting the country's defense readiness. Additionally, there are concerns that the victory plan should not be crafted by a single political party. The ambitious requests outlined in the plan may also serve a strategic purpose, allowing Ukrainian authorities to shift blame to Western partners for any defense failures, thereby absolving themselves of responsibility if they are forced to enter peace negotiations under unfavorable terms for Kyiv. Other experts noted that some points in the victory plan may target key individuals crucial for Ukraine’s support. One such observation is that the proposal to replace American troops with Ukrainians in NATO units is aimed at Donald Trump and Republicans, who oppose a large U.S. military presence.
— Lisa Noskova
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov traveled to Beijing this week to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Defense Minister Dong Jun. After the welcome ceremony on Monday, Belousov and Dong discussed their countries’ bilateral military cooperation and strengthening strategic ties. “The military departments of Russia and China are united in their assessments of global processes, and they have a common understanding of what needs to be done in the current situation,” Belousov said. Russia and China declared a “no limits” partnership in 2022, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (photo: Russian Defense Ministry / The Moscow Times)
Putin allows Bastrykin to stay in office
Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing him to extend the tenure of the head of the Investigative Committee beyond the federally-mandated retirement age of 70 years. The measure was somewhat urgent, as the current head of the Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, recently turned 71.
Bastrykin is a former classmate of Putin’s from Leningrad State University. He has held the position since 2011 and oversaw the Investigative Committee’s transformation into a potent tool for political persecution. Over the past year, Bastrykin has attracted attention—likely deliberately—with proposals such as supporting the introduction of a “state ideology” and bringing back the death penalty, as well as personally going after several larger- and smaller-scale cases in the purview of his institution.
The law allowing the extension of Bastrykin’s tenure is the latest in a long series of laws enacted over the past 14 years that have helped aging allies of Putin to cement their positions at the helm of their institutions, subject only to the President’s approval. The Kremlin first allowed constitutional judges to remain in office beyond their federally mandated age of retirement. Then, in the 2010’s, the Kremlin provided extensions to top government and security officials and army officers, while essentially also removing term limits for the sitting president. This year, following Putin’s orchestrated re-election for a fifth term, a small number of new appointments took place in the federal government and in the Security Council. However, in reality, very few officials under 60 years of age have been promoted to influential positions over the past years and, if they were, they often saw their positions effectively still supervised by their predecessors. Several leading foreign and security officials are around 70 years old: Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu is 69, as is SVR Head Sergey Naryshkin. National Guard Head Viktor Zolotov is 70, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov is 72, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is 74.
The law is another indication that Putin likely increasingly mistrusts relative newcomers in Russia’s political and administrative elite, but also that high-ranking security officials feel like they cannot retire securely from their positions. However, this in turn may affect the ability of the Kremlin to recruit and retain the loyalty of public officials, as avenues to promotion are increasingly blocked.
— Andras Toth-Czifra
Yakutsk against mayoral elections
At a roundtable discussion this week, deputies of the Yakutsk City Council proposed that Russia’s upcoming municipal reform—a bill that has been adopted in the first reading in 2022 and is now on the agenda of the State Duma’s fall session—should stipulate that the mayors of regional capitals be elected by city assemblies that choose a candidate from a list proposed by the region’s governor. This would essentially mean that the four regional capitals that still elect their mayors directly (not counting Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the occupied Sevastopol) will likely lose the right to do so. Currently, these are Yakutsk, Khabarovsk, Abakan (in Khakassia), and Anadyr (in Chukotka). All other regional capitals have gradually moved to indirect procedures that are heavily influenced by the regional government. The proposal suggests that Yakutsk is going to be the next major city to abolish direct mayoral elections, albeit this could happen without the adoption of the federal reform if the regional and municipal assemblies make such a decision. However, the pretext of having to comply with federal regulation would likely free local deputies of responsibility and reduce the chances of unexpected opposition to the move.
In 2018, Yakutsk elected Sardana Avksentieva as mayor after she stood in for a popular local opposition politician, defeating the Kremlin’s preferred candidate. Although Avksentieva was pressured to resign two years later, she managed to become popular and well-known enough to turn into a politician of federal stature, now working as a Duma Deputy for the New People Party. In 2021, her Kremlin-approved successor, Yevgeny Grigoryev, mentioned in the campaign that since Yakutsk’s budget was highly dependent on federal and regional financing, the city needed a manager that was on good terms with both governments. This week, local deputies used essentially the same argument in support of moving to indirect mayoral appointments, pointing at the federal funds that Yakutsk stands to receive for its recently adopted “urban master-plan” in the coming years.
Of the remaining cities, Abakan and Khabarovsk are located in regions that have a recent history of public and elite opposition to the Kremlin’s plans. Putin appointed Dmitry Demeshin, a former Deputy Prosecutor General, to head Khabarovsk this year, with the thinly-veiled task of pacifying the local population and elite. Khakassia is still governed by the Communist Valentin Konovalov, who saw off a challenge from a Kremlin-favored outsider in 2023, but who has been forced into an increasingly conflictual cohabitation with his challenger ever since.
The Kremlin’s reform of municipal administrations would, among other things, extend the authority of regional governments over municipalities, including providing governors with the right to warn and eventually dismiss mayors. It would also fold thousands of currently free-standing municipalities (and their representative organs) into municipal districts—a process that has already been going on in numerous regions, not without local resistance.
— Andras Toth-Czifra
A Russian man was rescued this week after 67 days lost at sea. Mikhail Pichugin, 46, was spotted by a fishing boat on Monday off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, over 600 miles from where he originally set sail. On August 4, Pichugin, his brother Sergei, and his nephew Ilya embarked on a whale watching trip to the Shantar Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. The group became lost, and their food supplies ran out. Sergei and Ilya died at sea, and Pichugin lost over 100 pounds during the ordeal. Upon being rescued, Pichugin was transported to a hospital in the nearby Magadan Region. (photo: Russian Emergencies Ministry / Handout via Reuters)
Zelenskyy says North Korea is sending troops to Russia
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that North Korea is planning to send 10,000 troops to Russia to fight in Ukraine. Citing Ukrainian intelligence information, Zelenskyy claimed that North Korean soldiers are already training in Russia, and more are preparing to join them. “We know [of] about 10,000 soldiers of North Korea that they are preparing to send [to] fight against us,” he told reporters after the EU leaders’ summit on Thursday. Additionally, on Friday, South Korea warned about the “grave security threat” of North Korean soldiers dispatched to Russia. According to the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), 1,500 North Korean troops have already arrived in Russia and are training at Russian military bases in the Far East, in places such as Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk, and Vlagoveshensk. South Korean media reported that the final number of North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia could be up to 12,000.
Russia has so far denied any North Korean direct military involvement in the war. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the idea at a press conference last week, calling it “another piece of fake news.” “This is not only British intelligence, it is also American intelligence. They report it all the time, they don't provide any evidence,” he said on Wednesday. However, military ties between Russia and North Korea have deepened significantly since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Last June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President Putin signed a defense pact providing for “mutual assistance” in the case of aggression against either country. There is also evidence that North Korea has been providing Russia with munitions for the war, including ballistic missiles and artillery shells. A report published on Thursday by Ukraine’s Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO) found that a missile shot down over Ukraine’s Poltava Oblast in September was a North Korean KN-23/24 missile.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol encouraged the international community to respond to North Korea’s involvement with “all available means.” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that the U.S. is “concerned” about the claims, but is still evaluating reports that North Korea is sending personnel. “We agreed that we will continue to monitor the situation closely,” he remarked.
— Sara Ashbaugh
On the podcast
Kyiv-based journalist Fabrice Deprez returns to the Brief for another update on the mood in Ukraine, including a report on his recent trip to the frontline city of Pokrovsk.
Quickfire: Regions
According to the Russian Ministry of Finance, 118 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) of tax has been collected in the occupied territories of Ukraine (excluding Crimea and Sevastopol) in the first nine months of 2024. This is a larger amount than in 2023; however, most of the receipts (96 billion) are from personal income taxes, which, to a large extent, are collected from public officials and employees who receive their salaries from the state. The tax receipts are also overwhelmingly collected in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. However, these territories received almost twice the amount of their tax collections in subsidies and budgetary grants in the same period of time, and this does not include various further transfers for pensions, construction works, and similar projects. Just for “reconstruction” purposes, the four occupied territories are allocated more than 300 billion rubles ($3.1 billion) in next year’s federal budget—about the same as the whole budget of the Novosibirsk Region.
Head of Dagestan Sergey Melikov stressed that Suleiman Kerimov, one of Russia’s wealthiest people and one of the members of the Federation Council representing Dagestan, enjoys Melikov’s support. The head of neighboring Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, recently threatened Kerimov and two other members of parliament with a “blood feud.” Kadyrov accused them of planning to order his assassination in relation to the escalating conflict around the ownership of Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retail platform, in which Kerimov and Kadyrov took opposing sides. Kerimov has not reacted to the threats in person, but the other two targets, Rizvan Kurbanov and Bekhan Barakhoev, did, denying that they were involved in any such plotting. The Kremlin has not reacted to Kadyrov’s threats publicly, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov simply advising the parties to turn to law enforcement if they deem it necessary. According to the sources of Dozhd, however, Kadyrov did discuss the conflict with Putin—who had earlier approved the deal benefiting Kerimov—and concluded that he would be able to go against the businessman.
The Regional Parliament of the Republic of Tatarstan proposed a law to the State Duma that would allow authorities to seize the property of Russian citizens who have left the country for “anti-Russian actions.” The bill, which was adopted by the regional legislature last week, enjoyed the support of the federal government when it was first discussed months ago. It is unclear why the government needed a regional legislature to propose it officially. Elevating it to a legal norm will allow the Russian government to further increase pressure on Russian exiles cooperating with pro-democracy organizations and Western governments. The proposed law’s vague formulation will allow the authorities to act essentially at will.
— Andras Toth-Czifra