Alexander Rojavin ’20, Law and Public Policy Scholar
Alexander Rojavin is a multilingual intelligence, media, and policy analyst specializing in information warfare. He is currently working on a book on modern Russian cinema as a key battlefield in the Kremlin’s information war. He is also co-chair of the Symposium on Disinformation Studies. In his spare time, he moonlights as a published literary translator (Routledge, Slavica Publishers, forthcoming Academic Studies Press).
What follows is a chronicle of key events, trends, and anomalies from day 162 through day 167 of the Russian-Ukrainian war for democracy.
This report summarizes the military situation across Ukraine, Ukraine’s politics and efforts in the information war, and Russia’s politics and efforts in the information war.
Military trends in the south and east are holding, while Ukraine flexes its muscles on the diplomatic and information fronts, and dissatisfaction in Russia becomes more openly expressed (which, as audiences should by now understand, isn’t something that necessarily bears immediate or short- or medium-term fruit).
Situation in Ukraine’s South
As Ukraine’s forces systematically deprive the Russians’ logistical infrastructure in Kherson Oblast’, the Russians appear to have mined critical communications in the city itself. However, unfazed by five months’ occupation, Ukrainian partisans in the area are only gaining steam: the Kherson-based underground has launched a newspaper titled The Partisan’s Voice, and Vitaly Gura, the Kremlin-installed head of occupied Nova Kakhovka, was assassinated. It also appears that Russian anti-air capacity in Kherson Oblast’ is either nonexistent or severely crippled, as on August 6, Ukraine’s air forces executed multiple air strikes and escaped unmolested; 8-10 fighters took part in the strikes, a concentration of Ukrainian aviation that has not been seen since February 24. While Russian rotations will delay the Ukrainian push for Kherson itself, Russian forces’ own ability to orchestrate a counter-counter-offensive are being preemptively crippled—a large ammo depot was destroyed in Nova Kakhovka on August 5, and the situation in the region has become untenable enough that Kadyrovite enforces have been deployed in an effort to maintain order of the oblast’’s right bank. As a sweeping illustration of Ukrainian success with long-range artillery: on August 4, Ukraine’s General Staff announced that 10 Russian command posts and 15 ammo depots had been destroyed in the region in a single week.
In Mykolaiv Oblast’, as promised, Governor Kim declared a three-day curfew on August 5 in an attempt to rein in the region’s collaborationist elements. Three days later, after repeated instances of locals’ reporting collaborationist activity and refusing the promised monetary award, saying that the money should go to the armed forces, Governor Kim stated that the curfew “was worth it,” an assessment that was soon echoed by Major-General Marchenko. Indeed, the intensity of the shelling of residential areas in the regional center noticeably decreased.
However, Enerhodar and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have become the center of recklessness on the southern front: on August 5, Russian forces twice opened fire on the NPP and (expectedly) subsequently accused the Ukrainians of doing it in an attempted provocation. On August 6, the Russians opened fire again, hitting the station near a spent nuclear fuel facility. Nuclear fearmongering is, of course, not a new instrument in the Kremlin’s information war arsenal. The IAEA’s director is demanding that the IAEA get access to the station because of concerns that security protocols have been critically violated. On August 7, he and President Zelensky discussed the situation, again signaling Ukraine’s continuing integration into vital international structures.
Situation in Ukraine’s East
Per Governor Gaidai, in Luhansk Oblast’, which still is not fully under Russian control, the Russians are yet again preparing for a referendum. This is not so much news as an indication of the Russians’ strategic holding pattern in the region. President Zelensky clearly delineated what would happen were a referendum to take place: any possibility of negotiations would evaporate.
On the eastern front, Ukraine’s forces have actually not only been holding, but have taken back a few settlements in the past week. On August 4, the General Staff announced that two settlements in the Slovyansk vector had actually been liberated. Meanwhile, Russian forces—despite slowly, six months later still inching towards Bakhmut and the other nerve centers of Donetsk Oblast’—keep being repulsed in the Avdiyivka vector. Per British intelligence, the Russians’ most successful vector in the east has resulted in a gain of a mere 10km after a month’s fighting.
New intelligence on the Russians’ terrorist act at the Olenivka POW camp keeps emerging: it would appear that the Wagnerites mined the building holding the POWs ahead of time in order for the fire to spread quickly. Ukrainian intelligence is hypothesizing that the explosion in Olenivka was retaliation for arms supplies.
Elsewhere in Ukraine
Russia’s rocket terror shows no sign of stopping, despite its lessened effectivity in some areas, as aforementioned. In Sumy Oblast’, for example, ~200 missiles flew in on August 6 alone. Since February 24, Chernivtsi Oblast’ is the only one of the 25 not to have been targeted.
Ukrainian Politics and Activity in the Information War
All other Ukrainian efforts on the information and diplomatic fronts holding steady, the past week has been marked by President Zelensky’s underrated diplomatic efforts in Africa, Amnesty International’s reputational suicide, and comments on the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
Ukrainian efforts in the information war are aimed at underscoring the success of Ukraine’s forces’ handling of Western weaponry as an argument for the supply of further arms. To this end, Ukrainian media and officials highlight when their armed forces securely take back previously occupied settlements—and they do so after the fact, unlike Kremlin mouthpieces, which prefer to announce grand victories days, weeks, or even months before they actually take place (if at all, as with Luhansk Oblast’). As of August 6, 1,060 settlements in total had been liberated by Ukrainian forces. A day earlier, Ukrainian media cited the Institute for the Study of War, whose report from the prior day had asserted that Ukrainian forces had finally claimed the strategic initiative in the war.
Other trends include Ukrainian media proudly following Finland’s and Sweden’s journey to NATO membership—most recently, Ukrainian media reported that the United States ratified the two countries’ membership applications. Foreign Minister Kuleba keeps reminding everyone that Crimea will be liberated by force, if need be, exploiting the Kremlin’s “exposed nerve.” Much as with continuing to maintain the discourse that Russia will disintegrate, it remains vitally important to keep reminding audiences that Crimea will be liberated by any means—to get people used to considering the world through such a lens. Also, Ukrainians are maintaining campaigns to make the image take root in people’s minds of Ukraine as an innately European nation: in Stockholm, Ukrainians took part in a pride parade, in which they held up signs that said “Russia is a homophobic and terrorist state,” drawing the contrast with Europe-bound, minority-rights-affirming Ukraine. On August 9, following the Pentagon’s announcement of a new $1B military aid package, Foreign Minister Kuleba rightly analyzed the situation, calling the new commitment the best counterargument about the “lack of trust” between the United States and Ukraine.
Turning way from trends to anomalies: President Zelensky has spent the past week engaging African countries in a manner that none of his predecessors did. He is actively building first-time bridges with nations across the continent in a bid not only to secure Ukrainian-African relations, but to undercut Russian and Chinese influence there and strengthen the region’s political, diplomatic, and economic ties with the West—through Ukraine, the West’s eastern sentinel. Moreover, it is part of an effort on Kyiv’s side to undo any potential disinformation-wrought damage from Kremlin-originating narrative strains that Ukraine is somehow responsible for the grain crisis. On August 4, President Zelensky spoke with President Umaro Sissoco Embaló of Guinea-Bissau, discussing food security and an anti-war coalition On August 5, he spoke with Lazarus Chakwera, the President of Malawi, addressing the same issues. On August 8, he touched base with President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana, whom he assured of Ukraine’s commitment to food security. And on August 9, he spoke with President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ukrainian (and Western) media are not paying much attention to this, but occasional articles on the subject do get published—and their reporting, though devoid of much analysis, indicate a stealthy and timely Ukrainian diplomatic campaign in Africa.
However, much other reporting was eclipsed by Amnesty International’s report from August 4 that Ukrainian forces have recklessly endangered civilians throughout the war. All of Ukraine’s top officials—President Zelensky, Defense Minister Reznikov, Foreign Minister Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister Vereshchuk, and Senior Advisor Podolyak, among others—swiftly responded to the report, condemning it as most welcome and considerate gift to the Kremlin junta. Russian media, in turn, gleefully jumped on the opportunity, weaving the report into every strain coming out of the Ukrainian Fascist Junta meta-narrative. A few days later, the editorial board of The Times wrote an editorial in which it calmly analogized Amnesty International’s behavior to similar situations in the past, thanked the organization for its prior work, explained how it has—intentionally or inadvertently—become a Kremlin mouthpiece, and essentially called for it to dissolve rather than continue engaging in false equivalence for the sake of the appearance of objectivity. Seemingly in conclusion, on August 8, Foreign Minister Kuleba wrote an op-ed in which he said that “Amnesty International’s manipulations…didn’t work. Their lies did not affect the supply of weapons to Ukraine.” The Foreign Minister’s op-ed appears to have put the lid on yet another instance of ossified international moral incoherence.
Russian Politics and Activity in the Information War
People have been commenting on Medvedev’s post from a few days back in which he raged about how Kazakhstan is next on Russia’s menu. Regardless of whether it was a drunken stupor or a calculated play (ultimately irrelevant), it does confirm that the Kremlin is acutely sensing Kazakhstan’s increasing confidence and decreasing deference regarding Russia—and it confirms that the Kremlin is disquieted by this.
Per Ilya Ponomaryov (the only member of the Duma to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and now a leading Russian opposition member in exile), members of the Kremlin’s top layer are in a panic and are looking for anyone with whom they can negotiate and surrender, but are too disorganized. Ponomaryov personally has received entreaties to negotiate. The despondence appears to be not only among the elite: a new poll has been published in Russia, where apparently 65% of the population wants a peace treaty with Ukraine. The poll’s accuracy is irrelevant, but the fact that a poll with such numbers was published at all is telling.