Gabriel B
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Ukraine/Middle East - December 21, 2023

Ukraine/Middle East - December 21, 2023

Apr 18, 2024

Ukraine:

Winter is officially starting, but the weather is unchanged in Ukraine. Along much of the front, Russia is on the offensive, and at a few points, continuing to inch forward. But it is coming at a heavy price, as Russia is still sustaining casualties, particularly armored vehicles, at a quite high rate. However Ukraine is increasingly and visibly running into manpower issues of their own as Ukrainian leadership is now actively discussing ways to bring back Ukrainian men who fled the country back home. However, it has been decided that for now military subpoenas won't be sent abroad, but it is something that was clearly being discussed.

The west, including the United States, is increasingly coming to terms that they may need to outright seize frozen Russian assets to continue financing for Ukraine, particularly to make it politically viable for domestic audiences. It has been a very slow process to get to this point, and will probably take some more time before it happens. But something has changed in the media sphere surrounding discussions of finding Ukraine with seized Russia assets the last day or two, and it's worth noticing.

Hungary has been in the news, in a big way. Allegedly payments were transferred to former Ukrainian president Poroshenko before he attempted to meet with Orbán, bringing in all sorts of questions about possible corruption and ties to Russia, due to the Hungarian government's own ties to Russia. Orbán also accepted an offer by Zelenskyy to hold a bilateral meeting. This would be the first direct meeting that the pair has held since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It would also be a major opportunity for the two to try to sort out their issues with each other. An idealistic outcome from this meeting would see a rest in their relations, with Hungary dropping their vetoes of aid for Ukraine.

Moldova is finalizing their plans to ditch the Russian-led CIS, naming the end of 2024 as their target date for when they will fully leave the organization. In the meantime, Moldova is drawing up trade arrangements and visa agreements with most of the members of the CIS (excluding Russia) to reduce the impact of their leaving the bloc. Moldova is ripping up agreements that were implemented within the CIS, but there are hundreds more to go. The sheer bureaucracy involved combined with the desire to lessen the negative impacts of Moldova leaving means that the process is being drawn out. While CIS membership is effectively incompatible with EU membership, Moldova's current partial membership with the CIS shouldn't be an issue as Moldova will almost certainly fully leave the CIS before they would ever make it through the bureaucracy of joining the EU. Separately, Moldova has increased ties with Ukraine as the two countries agreed today to simplify their border protocols with each other.

Middle East:

A concerning development has arisen, with the IDF claiming the first use of a Hamas suicide bomber during the current war. Usually such bombings are carried out by the most ideologically extreme groups (such as ISIS or al-Qaeda) or are done out of extreme desperation. There are also rare cases where they are genuinely a one-off, and I am hoping that that is this situation. Otherwise, it suggests a doctrinal or ideological shift by Hamas, either of which will make the fighting that much worse and put civilians at much higher risk.

There have reportedly been some disagreements between France and the United States regarding Operation Prosperity Guardian, with France more or less wanting to act under their own military command. For those familiar with French behavior since the end of World War 2, this should be no surprise. However this is far from the only headache, as most of the other countries involved are pledging remarkably little assistance or are keeping mum about how they will contribute. All in all, the operation seems likely to be an entirely American one in all but name only. Meanwhile, the Houthis are continuing to spout off, but nothing too concerning yet. Mainly they said they would target American warships if the United States conducted a bombing campaign against the Houthis, which was obvious anyway.

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