Today's D Brief: Ukraine, Russia escalate; Chinese fishing boats, unwanted; Small carrier, unneeded?; Lessons from Suez; And a bit more.

Ukraine says Russia is massing troops on its border, and “pro-Moscow separatists were systematically violating a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine,” Reuters reports from Moscow — the same day Kiev’s parliament officially declared an “escalation” in the east.

Just now catching up? “The war in eastern Ukraine...has escalated sharply in recent days,” the New York Times’ Andrew Kramer reported Tuesday from Moscow. “[F]our Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another seriously wounded in a battle against Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk Region,” Kramer writes. 

What’s more, “the U.S. military’s European Command raised its watch level from possible crisis to potential imminent crisis — the highest level — in response to the deployment of the additional Russian troops.” New equipment has been seen among the Russian-backed rebels, too; artillery fire has increased as well. “And Russian negotiators have warned of a breakdown in peace talks that have been dragging on for years,” the Times reports. 

Russia’s reax: Point the finger at Kiev. “We express concern over the growing tension and express concern that one way or another the Ukrainian side could take provocative actions that would lead to war. We really don’t want to see that,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today from the Russian capital. 

Russian hackers are believed to have snatched more State Department emails in a breach that happened last year at the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Politico reports.

ICYMI: Suspected Russian hackers accessed former Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf’s emails last year, too, the Associated Press reported Monday.  

And on the U.S. side, cyber defense is getting more difficult: “Staffers are worn out, money is tight and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is struggling to keep up with multiple competing crises, including the recently uncovered intrusions blamed on Russia and China,” Politico reported separately Tuesday.

One more Russian thing: A new report from Brookings says the U.S. military should anticipate “encounters” with Russian private military contractors in the field. “PMCs allow the Russian government to operate in places where it could not openly do so — at least not without drawing international retribution or sanctions. The Department of Defense (DoD) and U.S. military leaders must plan for this increased PMC presence. What measures must be taken to protect American forces and safeguard U.S. interests? And what procedures could the U.S. military implement to effectively counter PMC operations in certain countries around the world?” Some ideas, here.

PMCs in the CAR: “Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, a private military contractor, have committed human rights abuses in the Central African Republic while fighting alongside government forces, according to a group of independent UN experts,” The Guardian reports. “The country has been racked by a renewed bout of civil war since an alliance of rebel factions launched an offensive.” More, here

  • And don’t miss our podcast from last year on Russian PMCs, over here

From Defense One

New Small Aircraft Carrier Unlikely, Admiral Says As US Navy Begins New Assessment // Marcus Weisgerber: Air warfare chief: “I believe the L-class ships operating with the F-35B fit that bill.”

A US Ambassador Ends His Service on the Front Lines in Syria // William Roebuck: Reflections on U.S. foreign policy in a wartorn state.

The Suez Grounding Was an Accident. The Next Blocked Chokepoint Might Not Be. // Scott Savitz: Military planners must bear in mind the tactic of blockships.

Here’s How Russia and China Are Helping the U.S. // Yasmeen Serhan, The Atlantic: Beijing and Moscow are filling the vaccine gap that wealthy countries helped create.

America’s Immigration Amnesia // Caitlin Dickerson, The Atlantic: Despite recurrent claims of crisis at the border, the United States still does not have a coherent immigration policy.

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Send us tips from your community right here. And if you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day in 1945, German test pilot Hans Fay defected to the Allies — but only when he learned his parent’s hometown of Lachenspeyerdorf was under U.S. control — and landed his Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1 jet fighter at Frankfurt/Rhein-Main Airfield. The Allies would have another 16 months to learn about its design before an Army Air Corps pilot crashed it after an engine caught fire during a test flight over Ohio in August the following year. 


Japan, South Korea security officials are headed to Annapolis. President Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will welcome his counterparts from Tokyo and Seoul to a “Trilateral National Security Advisors’ Dialogue” on Friday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. The meeting comes on the heels of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s first overseas trip to both countries about two weeks ago.
Attending: Japan’s National Security Secretariat Secretary General Shigeru Kitamura, and South Korea’s National Security Advisor Suh Hoon.
Topics of discussion include “maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, and combating climate change...reflecting the importance we place on broadening and deepening our cooperation on key issues and advancing our shared prosperity across a free and open Indo-Pacific,” National Security Council Spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement Tuesday evening. 

Hundreds of Chinese fishing ships are ignoring Philippine requests (Reuters) to leave its 200-mile exclusive economic zone while they allegedly wait out a storm near the contested Whitsun Reef, where some 220 boats have been fishing against Manila’s wishes for the past several weeks.
About this place: “The reef, which Manila calls Julian Felipe, is a boomerang-shaped and shallow coral region about 175 nautical miles (324 kilometers) west of Bataraza town in the western Philippine province of Palawan,” AP reported 10 days ago.
About that storm: It’s hard to find, judging by video from the location in question, Greg Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out on Twitter.
The Philippines’ defense chief says he’s deployed his air force to monitor the ships, and he’s requested China order the fishing vessels out of Manila’s EEZ, he said this weekend (al-Jazeera). “We are ready to defend our national sovereignty and protect the marine resources of the Philippines,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Saturday.
Stern talk: “Neither the Philippines nor the international community will ever accept China’s assertion of its so-called ‘indisputable integrated sovereignty’ over almost all of the South China Sea,” the Philippines’ task force on the South China Sea said in a statement today, according to Reuters, which called it Manila’s “strongest [statement] since President Rodrigo Duterte took power in 2016 and sought to befriend Beijing.” Read on, here.

“France immediately rejected” a UN report accusing Paris of killing 16 civilians at a wedding in Mali back in January, Reuters reports.
According to the UN, “a wedding celebration was held that brought together about 100 civilians at the site of the strike, among whom five armed individuals, presumed members of [alleged regional al-Qaeda affiliate] Katiba Serma, were present.” The strike is believed to have killed 19 people at that wedding, including three accused members of Katiba Serma.
According to the French military, “The only concrete sources on which this report is based are local testimonies. They are never transcribed, the identity of the witnesses is never specified, nor the conditions in which the testimonies were gathered...It is therefore impossible to distinguish credible sources from false testimonies by possible terrorist sympathisers or individuals under the influence (including threats) from jihadist groups.”
Quick background, via Reuters: “France has been embroiled in Mali’s conflict since 2013, when it intervened to push back Islamist militants who were advancing south after seizing the desert north. The conflict has since spread to neighbouring countries in the West African Sahel region like Burkina Faso and Niger, leading to rising criticism of French forces from local activists and some politicians.” More here.

The U.S. just pledged almost $600 million for Syrian refugees, America’s Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced Tuesday. That could help a “U.N.-coordinated effort [that] is seeking some $4.2 billion to help Syrians inside the country and $5.8 billion for countries hosting refugees,” the Wall Street Journal reports

Some of the alleged Capitol insurrectionists are now coming on hard times, and some are even apparently a bit sorry for stoking and participating in that insurrection on Jan. 6.
“Among the rude awakenings: No plea deals yet, though they may be in the works,” the Associated Press reports. “Given it was an attack on what many regard as the citadel of American democracy, the sentiment among prosecutors, judges and the public at large, at least for now, isn’t exactly lenient.” More — including a possible defense invoking “the psychology of crowds” — here.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.