Threats

The D Brief: Russia may need more Iranian drones; Suspense growing near Bakhmut; WH bans TikTok on official devices; Post-Erdogan Turkey?; And a bit more.

Ben Watson

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Senior Multimedia Editor, Defense One

Russia may be running low on Iranian-made one-way attack drones, four of which were allegedly launched at and shot down over Ukraine this morning, which is day 371 of Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion. Ukraine’s military said it downed 11 of those Shahed-136 drones on Tuesday, and the same for another 11 out of 14 such drones launched at Ukraine on Monday (none were reportedly used Sunday). 

The strikes this week ended an 11-day dry spell for Moscow’s lethal drone use, the British military said Wednesday on Twitter, and noted the temporary decline in “attack tempo likely indicates that Russia has run down its current stock” of the Iranian-made drones, and “will likely seek a resupply.”

In some good news for Ukraine, “There were no power outages across the country” on Tuesday, President Volodymir Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “Thousands of people have been working every day to achieve this result,” he said. “Of course, the threat still remains. Of course, we will fight and defend ourselves. We will definitely endure, no matter what the enemy does.”

Inside the hotly-contested city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces are being pressed from three different directions as invading Russians try to take the eastern city, keeping up a persistent effort that began last May. “The Russians have a lot of artillery,” one Ukrainian soldier told The Guardian on Tuesday. “They go quadrant by quadrant. We need more counter-battery fire,” he said. “The Russians are 150 meters from us in some places; we don’t see them but we can hear their voices,” another soldier said. 

In nearly every location in Ukraine’s east, “If you don’t burrow in you die pretty quickly,” a different soldier said. “You start with a small hole. Then you make another one next to it. You keep going,” he said. For the Russians, too, “It’s a meat grinder,” he continued. “Bodies are left where they fall. Their own people get injured and cry out. Nobody helps them.”

New: The U.S. will sell the Brits about 600 Javelin anti-tank missiles for about $125 million. The State Department’s arms sales wing announced the likely sale Tuesday. Details here.

Coverage continues below…

From Defense One

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Medevac Drone-Boat, Record-Setting UAV to Play in Sprawling Maritime Exercise // Caitlin M. Kenney: The U.S.-led IMX and Cutlass Express events will take place from the Mideast to East Africa.

Leased Ship Will Shape USMC Amphib Requirements // Jennifer Hlad: The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab will wring out modified commercial ships to learn what is needed in future amphibious ships.

Could the Pentagon Use a Little ChatGPT? // Lauren C. Williams: The Air Force’s top tech leader said the AI technology, or something like it, could help “rapidly pull together information” such as figuring out who’s in charge of an organization.

Ukraine Doesn't Appear to Be Diverting Arms, DOD Inspector Says as He Ups Scrutiny // Patrick Tucker: As lawmakers worry about the possibility of stolen arms, incoming IG says 20 audits are underway or planned.

Delete TikTok by March 29, White House Tells Feds // Chris Riotta: The Office of Management and Budget responds to a congressional push to ban the popular Chinese social-networking app from government devices.

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Jennifer Hlad. If you’re not already subscribed to this newsletter, you can do that here. On this day in 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park.

Here’s a truly wild statistic from Russia’s ongoing invasion: “More Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine than in all Russian wars COMBINED since World War II, including Chechnya and Afghanistan,” counterterrorism scholar Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote on Twitter promoting a new report on attrition during this year-long conflict. He added, “The average rate of Russian soldiers killed per month is at least 25x more than Chechnya and 35x than Afghanistan.”
The U.S. still sees no Russian efforts to negotiate any end to the invasion, State Secretary Antony Blinken told reporters Wednesday during a visit to Uzbekistan. “The war could end tomorrow—it could end today—if President Putin so decided,” Blinken said. “He started it; he can stop it. It’s, on one level, as simple as that. And we should never lose sight of that fact.”
“Just listen to President Putin’s own words,” Blinken said. “To cite just one example, he said recently, and publicly, that unless and until Ukraine recognizes what he called ‘the new territorial realities,’ there’s nothing to even talk about.” And that means “unless and until Ukraine accepts the fact that Russia has seized their territory and gets to keep it, they won’t even talk,” said Blinken, and stressed, “That’s obviously a nonstarter and it should be a nonstarter not just for Ukraine or for us, but for countries around the world,” including China, he said. 
However, despite last week releasing a 12-point “peace plan” for Ukraine, Chinese leaders and officials have “been doing the opposite in terms of its own efforts to advance Russian propaganda and misinformation about the war, blocking and tackling for Russia in international organizations,” Blinken said. “And, as we’ve made clear recently, now contemplating the provision of lethal military assistance to Russia for its aggression against Ukraine.”
“So China can’t have it both ways,” said Blinken. “It can’t be putting itself out as a force for peace in public while it, one way or another, continues to fuel the flames of this fire that Vladimir Putin started.”
Additional reading: 

Despite an earthquake death toll of nearly 50,000 people, Turkish elections will proceed as scheduled in May, President Recep Erdogan said Wednesday as he tries to stretch his rule as either prime minister or president to a third consecutive decade.
Background: “Before the disaster, Erdogan's popularity had been eroded in recent years by soaring inflation and a slump in the lira which hit living standards,” Reuters reported Wednesday from the capital. That erosion in Erdogan’s support may have abated somewhat after the quakes, but it’s difficult to know for sure since so many towns and cities still face daunting recovery efforts that are estimated to cost as much as $85 billion, according to the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation.
It’s not even clear just yet who will challenge Erdogan among Turkey’s six main opposition parties. Indeed, as the BBC reported in February, Erdogan “has already sought to prevent a leading rival, the mayor of Istanbul, from running” in the upcoming election. That mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, “was ahead of the president in the opinion polls before he was banned from running,” and given a two-year prison sentence, which he is currently fighting, the BBC noted. But let’s say Erdogan somehow does lose re-election…
What would a post-Erdogan Turkey look like? Scholar Sinan Ciddi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies just published his analysis of what might lie ahead. On the more optimistic side from Washington’s perspective, “a new president could immediately adopt policies that would distance Turkey from Russia, such as divesting Turkey of its S-400s, immediately ratifying Swedish and Finnish membership in NATO, and playing a more constructive role in countering terrorism and illicit finance,” Ciddi writes.
For a seemingly more likely status quo forecast, Ciddi reminds us Erdogan’s opposition still has not “put forward a clear vision for how to repair Turkey’s faltering economy, problematic foreign policy, and troubled democracy. Without greater resolve and focus, the opposition is unlikely to mount an effective campaign or weaken Erdogan’s hold on power, even if voters turn against him.”
However, “if voters remove Erdogan from office, there needs to be an alliance-wide consensus on the question of what to do with Erdogan,” Ciddi advises. That’s because Erdogan “will likely face charges of numerous crimes, mainly in the realms of corruption and abuse of power,” according to Ciddi. “The ability to rebuild Turkish democracy will depend in part on the means by which Erdogan is held accountable for his actions but also to the extent that domestic peace is preserved,” he writes. Read the rest—and there are a lot of wide-ranging considerations worth your time—here.

NEXT STORY: Today's D Brief: Lawmakers talk Ukraine oversight; Russia discourages future aid to Kyiv; China security issues hit primetime; USAF fires two Minot officers; And a bit more.