Plus: Speech of the day
IN TODAY’S EDITION
1️⃣ Some intrigue from the Russo-Ukraine war |
2️⃣ The IMF gets a star recruit from Jamaica |
3️⃣ Speech of the day |
Hi Intriguer. It’s exactly 15 years since I attended my first summit as a baby diplomat! It was the Pacific Islands Forum, a key regional summit.
Back then, the US delegation was led by an official called Kurt Campbell. Now fast forward to this week, and the US delegation is led by… Kurt Campbell. Same guy. This story is not about two guys both called Kurt Campbell.
Rather, while Campbell was a ‘mere’ freshman assistant secretary back then, he’s now the US deputy secretary of state (the department’s top rung). So what I’m saying is, Campbell’s meteoric rise in 15 years has kinda matched the revived US interest in the Pacific Islands.
Why the interest? Let me answer that with another humble factoid: this week’s summit is taking place in a new school stadium that just opened in Tonga’s capital of Nuku'alofa. And can you guess which major US rival helped build it?
Anyway, enough from me. Today, we’ve got some very intriguing updates from the Russo-Ukraine war.
PS – We’ll be on break this Monday, but will be back in your inbox on Tuesday!
Israel mounts raids across West Bank.
Israeli forces are now conducting raids across several cities in the occupied West Bank, with at least nine Palestinians reported dead. Details are still emerging. Israel says it’s a counterterrorism operation, and has accused Iran of seeking to open a new front in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Israel has rescued an eighth hostage from Gaza – a Bedouin man abducted by Hamas in October.
Damaged Red Sea tanker leaking oil.
The US has warned that an oil tanker attacked by Yemen’s Houthis is still on fire and appears to be leaking crude oil. At the time of the attack the ship was carrying more than 150,000 tonnes of oil, so any spill could be historic.
Australia caps international student numbers.
Canberra has announced plans to limit the number of international students to 270,000 in 2025 to create “a better and a fairer system”, with private training colleges set to take the brunt of the cuts. Net overseas migration hit an all-time high last year, fuelling ongoing concerns around housing costs.
Prosecutors revise electoral charges against Trump.
The revised indictment withdraws some charges and tweaks others, in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity for official acts taken while in office. The former president stands accused of seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
Nicaragua offers to send ‘fighters’ to Venezuela.
President Daniel Ortega has offered to send “Sandinista fighters” to support fellow authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, as folks there continue to protest Maduro’s fraudulent re-election.
Paralympics to open in Paris.
The games open tonight (Wednesday) and will continue through September 8, with over 4,000 athletes competing across 22 disciplines.
TOP STORY
Three reasons the Russo-Ukraine war might be a little more dynamic than you think
Ukraine’s reported new long-range weapon, the Palianytsia.
Ukraine is back on the front page (if it ever really left) after Russia launched its biggest-ever missile and drone strike on Monday, followed by a chaser attack yesterday (Tuesday).
It’s one of three intriguing developments happening in the war right now, with potential to shape the months and years ahead. So let’s take a look, shall we?
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Renewed Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure
Russian strikes have already destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy production capacity, with at least 80% of its thermal and 30% of its hydroelectric power now reportedly gone. Monday’s barrage even hit a dam at the Kyiv hydroelectric plant, which could cause catastrophic flooding if breached (it’s still okay for now).
That’s a grim scenario with winter around the corner.
So, why do it? Maybe it’s an odd question in the context of Putin’s whole invasion, but it’s still one worth asking because the answers are illuminating. So why? Putin is probably attacking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure for a few reasons:
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a) Because he can (Ukraine’s air defences are still porous)
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b) To make life hard for everyday Ukrainians and erode morale, reduce support for Zelensky, push him to capitulate, and curb his leverage
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c) As ‘revenge’ for (and a distraction from) Zelensky’s counterattacks in Kursk, which have been a humiliation, and
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d) To undermine Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and produce arms.
Btw, the reasons for Ukraine’s counterattacks on Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure are clear: Putin finances (and fuels) his invasion with oil.
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Ukraine’s vaunted new long-range weapon
President Zelensky has just claimed the deployment of a “completely new class of weapon”. It’s named the ‘Palianytsia’ after a type of Ukrainian bread that’s famously tough for Russians to pronounce – the word was rumoured to be a test to unmask suspected spies in the war’s early days (like a modern-day Shibboleth).
Wartime leaders have incentives to exaggerate, and there’s little verifiable info in the public domain here, but Ukrainians are hinting the Palianytsia is a jet-powered drone with solid range (up to 700km) and low cost (sub-$1M per unit).
And there’d be several advantages to something like this:
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Less reliance on Western arms (which are hostage to local politics)
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Less reliance on Western agreement (hostage to ‘escalation’ fears), and
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More Russian turf vulnerable to Ukrainian counterattacks (forcing Russia to pull back the bombers it uses to attack Ukraine’s cities).
But it’ll take time to scale-up production, so for now Zelensky is doubling down on his request to use Western weapons to strike back within Russia.
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A more dynamic battlefield?
Each side could plausibly claim it has the initiative right now:
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Ukraine now holds 1,300 sq km (500mi), 100 settlements, and 600 POWs from across Russia’s Kursk region, with reports Ukrainian forces are now seeking to push into Russia’s neighbouring Belgorod region too, and
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Russia seems days away from seizing a key logistical hub over in Ukraine’s east (Pokrovsk), after grinding forward there at staggering cost.
So 30 months into Putin’s invasion, this war is still evolving.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
If your Black Sea fleet can no longer roam the Black Sea, can you still call it the Black Sea fleet? Somebody should ask Mr Putin, because apparently he quietly withdrew his last warship from occupied Crimea last month.
Ie, in two and a half years, we’ve gone from Putin confidently imposing an impenetrable blockade on a country with virtually no navy, to Putin quietly withdrawing his entire local fleet after losing a third of it to the Ukrainians.
Why do we talk about this stuff? As we flagged yesterday, we’re not expecting the conflict to end any time soon. But each move today can shape any eventual peace tomorrow. So with limited information and resources, both sides are now forcing the other to make some increasingly difficult decisions.
Also worth noting:
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UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi has just visited Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant (near the fighting), and has warned that the facility is “extremely exposed and fragile”.
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Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenksy has announced he’ll travel to the US next month to present President Biden (plus Kamala Harris and Donald Trump) a “package to force Russia to end the war using diplomacy”.
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…
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🇰🇷 South Korea: President Yoon Suk Yeol has instructed authorities to launch an investigation into a growing phenomenon of unlawfully using AI to produce explicit deepfake images of folks without their consent. His remarks come after journalists uncovered group chats dedicated to sharing the deepfakes.
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🇧🇬 Bulgaria: Authorities have called for snap parliamentary elections on October 27th, marking the country's seventh election in three years. Bulgaria has been plagued with political instability since 2020-21, when anti-corruption protests swept the country and toppled the government.
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🇲🇾 Malaysia: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has announced his cabinet’s "unanimous decision to stop all forms of direct trade" with Israel, in continued protest against its actions in Gaza. Malaysia doesn’t recognise Israel and has banned direct trade with the country since 1974, but Anwar claims there was still trade under his predecessor.
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🇯🇲 Jamaica: The International Monetary Fund has named Jamaica’s finance minister (Nigel Clarke) as one of the financial institution’s top three deputies. He’s highly regarded for pushing Jamaica’s central bank independence, stewarding his economy through COVID, and getting Jamaica removed from a money laundering ‘grey list’.
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🇹🇷 Turkey: Turkey is hosting officials from the UAE, Qatar, and Iraq to push forward a $17B cross-border rail and road project that could eventually link the Arabian Gulf to Europe. Erdogan signed a key MoU for the infrastructure project during his landmark visit to Iraq in April.
EXTRA INTRIGUE
Here’s a few jobs we thought you might like…
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Detail, Office of the General Counsel @ NASA, in DC and elsewhere
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Senior Finance Analyst, IT @ IAG Cargo, in London
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Sommelier, Food and Beverage @ Mandarin Oriental, in Hong Kong
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Associate Consultant Intern @ Mastercard, in Toronto
SPEECH OF THE DAY
Credits: Office of the President of the Republic of Finland
Finnish President Alexander Stubb has gathered his ambassadors for an annual pep-talk back in Helsinki. And right after emphasising the importance of “the work that you can do together with our companies and industries” (translation: join forces with Finnish companies like Nokia!), the president hinted that maybe the cables he’s seeing back from his embassies could be sharper.
We don’t mean to dunk on the Finns (their diplomats are excellent!), but it’s really just good advice for diplomats everywhere:
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Say what you really think, not just what’s in vogue, and
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Build those thoughts on a foundation of what really matters.
In fact, maybe that’s good advice for everyone?
DAILY POLL
If you could be a fly on the wall, which sitting leader's office would you choose? |
Yesterday’s poll: If you were a Wall Street executive, which geopolitical issue would you put at the top of your risk briefing?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⚡ US-China tensions (30%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ❌ Israel-Hamas war (10%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🌳 Climate change (20%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🚢 Trade disruption (25%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🪆 Russo-Ukraine war (6%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧓 Demographic shifts (5%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍏 Poverty (2%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (1%)
Your two cents:
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⚡ M.P: “US-China tensions – the biggest chance to really crash the markets. The other geopolitical issues are all gradual.”
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🚢 P.N: “Trade disruption is a catch-all for almost every problem that is being faced today. If anything goes wrong, being able to continue trade will be a major concern.”
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🌳 M.A: “While the world may be polyfurcated, one thing is certain – climate change is happening and its effects are already impacting the world, regardless of any election results or breakthroughs in negotiations.”
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🧓 R.C: “The role of shifting demographics is underplayed.”
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