Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 25 August 2022. © Richard Kemp

Putin looks set to win his bet against the fractured West. His calculation on swallowing up Ukraine without Nato intervention sufficient to stop him was based on at least some realities – namely his own successful exploitation of Western inaction in Syria, US failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, and France being driven from Mali after a 10 year campaign.

Surveying this woeful lack of strategic cohesion and resolve, Putin did not buy into the illusion that overtook so many of his opponents at the start of this war: that the invasion had united the West, that the shock had given Nato a semi-permanent new purpose and that it was a miscalculation to think he could get away with another outrage after the 2014 invasion of Crimea.

Early on that rosy picture did appear to be true. Scholz promised big defence spending increases. The supply of arms to Ukraine was patchy but shifted the dial. Massive sanctions caused real pain to the Kremlin. There were problems including Macron’s continued addiction to grand geopolitical bargains which undercut unity and encouraged Putin. Germany remained too dependent on Russian energy, providing vast sums to help finance Russia’s war. Despite other flies in the ointment – such as India sitting on the fence – broadly speaking unity held.

That may all be about to change, with European support fracturing. For the last two months no EU member has pledged new material support to Ukraine. The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, admitted this week that keeping the bloc together is a ‘day-to-day struggle’. His struggle is going to get harder. Macron no longer has a majority in his parliament and that will inhibit his ability to support Ukraine for the long term as he recently promised. Italian elections next month are likely to lead to a coalition that includes parties strongly opposed to backing Ukraine against Russia. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 19 August 2022. © Richard Kemp

Europe’s largest nuclear power station, Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, has been repeatedly shelled since Russian forces seized it in March, threatening a radioactive disaster potentially of the scale of, or even greater than, Chernobyl. It would contaminate the Black Sea and create a radiation hazard as far away as Germany – a game-changer in the Ukraine war, transforming it into a full-blown regional conflict.

Now Ukrainian military intelligence is warning that a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia is imminent, with reports that Moscow has ordered energy workers stationed there to stay at home this weekend. What is not clear is who is actually carrying out the high-risk attacks we have already seen, as each side blames the other.

It makes little sense for Russia to shell a facility that it possesses and plans to use to supply power to Donetsk and Luhansk, except as a false flag operation intended to undermine global support for Kyiv. The other side of the coin is a false flag attack by Ukraine to achieve the opposite and perhaps draw Western nations deeper into the conflict as well as scaring Ukrainian staff at the plant into disrupting output. Despite deep international concern, including a debate at the UN Security Council a few days ago, neither Britain nor the US has directly apportioned blame, although both have sophisticated surveillance assets that ought to be able to identify the source of artillery fire directed at such a hugely sensitive location.

So far, although both sides claim to support a UN inspection at the plant, it has not materialised with Russia and Ukraine blaming each other for that as well. It is hard to see a way to avert disaster. One option could be for the UN to take control of Zaporizhzhia but it is unlikely — certainly in the time-frame needed — that could be agreed on, including by the UN which has demonstrated only toothlessness since the war began. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 17 August 2022. © Richard Kemp

Ukraine is about to enter its time of maximum vulnerability as Russia’s traditional ally, General Winter, arrives on the scene and the Kremlin turns the energy screws on Kyiv’s shivering European backers.

On the battlefield winter will impact both sides as the war goes into deep freeze. Winter tends to favour the defender, better able to find shelter and warmth, while movement by foot and vehicle, a greater necessity for attackers, is impeded by first mud then snow. That might allow the Ukrainian army to hold onto what it’s got now but will prevent it from re-taking any significant part of the vast swathes of territory under Russian domination.

But it is in Europe that winter will have the greatest strategic effect on the war, and Ukraine is more likely to be the loser. As European media increasingly grow bored of a freezing landscape without much fighting to report, the spotlight will be more and more on hardship at home, with the economic crisis intensified by Putin’s conflict biting ever deeper.

While Europeans have been blindly satiating their hunger for cheap Russian energy, for years Putin has been baiting the strategic trap for them to fall into. His funding, disinformation and agents of influence in the environmental movement have increased dependency on Russia, playing a critical role in preventing shale gas exploitation across Europe as well as Germany’s termination of nuclear energy, heavily influenced by green parties that arose from the Moscow-funded anti-nuclear movement in the 1980s. A master of political and economic warfare as well as propaganda, Putin’s objectives were both for Russian economic benefit and to gain political leverage in situations such as this.

Russia reduced gas supplies to Europe by 60% in June. Countries are weighing how to minimise economic damage to their already crippled Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2022. © Richard Kemp

Few things could be more emblematic of US foreign policy failure than Bin Laden’s successor and the coordinator of 9/11 living comfortably in the heart of Kabul 21 years after US forces invaded Afghanistan to eliminate Al Qaeda. Killing Ayman al-Zawahiri was a triumph of US intelligence collection and operational capability. Biden was right to agree to the strike: although partially eclipsed by the Islamic State and other jihadist groups, Al Qaeda remains a threat to America and the world, with its global network of terrorist operatives in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Europe, the US, North and East Africa and many other places.

The whole reason US and allied forces entered Afghanistan in 2001 was to deny Al Qaeda and other terrorists the freedom to operate in ungoverned space and to prevent the Taliban from giving them safe haven and support. But thanks to Biden’s disastrous foreign policy decisions, two decades later we are full circle, with the Taliban back in control and again harbouring Al Qaeda terrorists. Zawahiri and his family were not living anonymously in some remote area but in a wealthy district of central Kabul, close to several foreign embassies, in a house reportedly owned by a top aide to Afghanistan’s interior minister. It is inconceivable that the Taliban leadership did not know he was in their midst, churning out videos to incite terrorist attacks against the West and issuing directions to his network.

When Nato forces left Afghanistan, we were assured that the Taliban had changed — that they would no longer allow terrorist groups to operate there. The US even signed an agreement to that effect with the Taliban at Doha, and now Secretary of State Blinken professes outrage that they have not honoured it. Of course they were never going to honour it; they are terrorists with a long-established track record of lies, deception, duplicity and unrestrained violence. Continue reading →

Article published by the Gatestone Institute, 2 August 2022. © Richard Kemp

The Hebrew expression ‘hineni’ means ‘here I am’, most famously used by the great Biblical defender of Israel, Isaiah, who responded to a heavenly call to duty with the words: ‘Here I am; send me’. Hineni encapsulates the spirit of Club Z (for Zionism), a network of Jewish American teens that are standing up for their people and their Zionist identity against the scourge of antisemitism that is on the rise across the US, with the latest FBI figures showing Jews — 2.4% of the population — were the target of nearly 60% of religious hate crimes in 2020.

Jew hate is at its most virulent on campus. A complaint filed last week against City University of New York includes a recorded 150+ incidents of antisemitism on their premises since 2015, more than 60 directly targeting Jewish students with the intent to harm them.

Among the allegations are students carving swastikas on school property, mandatory classes scheduled on Saturdays to prevent observant Jews attending, students using class time to accuse Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’, endorsement of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a resolution banning Jewish institutions on campus and even an adjunct professor calling to ‘erase this filth called Jews’.

Faced with such widespread animosity and contempt, as well as cancellation of Israeli speakers and protests against those who support Israel, many Jewish students are tempted to keep away, keep silent or at worst take refuge in anti-Israel activism. Some choose to make a stand for their Jewish and Zionist heritage, a course that requires a strong sense of duty – duty to Israel and duty to themselves and their fellow Jews, because attacks on Israel are attacks on the dignity and honor of all Jews. Confronting this Jew hate, often widespread among their peers, also demands moral and sometimes physical courage. It is Club Z’s mission to help teenagers understand their duty and to find the courage to stand up and be counted. Continue reading →

Article published in The Jerusalem Post, 18 July 2022. © Richard Kemp

Watching the high school teens of Club Z in dialogue with pro- and anti-Zionists in Israel was an education in itself. Even the most ardently Zionist speakers approached their topics with caution, more used to American students that get triggered, fleeing to safe spaces and crying rooms, if faced with too strong a dose of the truth.

This lot had no use for safety and their tears were reserved for Rachel Frankel and Miriam Fuld who told stories of their loved ones brutally slaughtered by jihadist fanatics. Every speaker was left awestruck by the students’ unyielding stance, unexpected knowledge and deep-penetrating questions.

The anti-Zionists thought their words would elicit the standard sympathetic nods and murmurs, as they spun their halftruths and outright falsehoods to hand-wringing youths who would scurry back home and parrot them to gullible school friends.

Instead, they got an audience that saw straight through the tired narrative, and vigorously but politely pushed back against every fake tale of woe and fabricated legal recitation with the most powerful weapon in their armoury: the truth.

Yes, they knew all about the Fourth Geneva Convention but unlike the self-proclaimed peace activists, fully equipped with bushy beards and patronizing clichés, they also knew it doesn’t come close to applying in Judea.

Nor, in contrast to many high school and college students, did they buy the flimsy, anonymous and unconvincing stories of IDF abuse that have been bought and paid for by foreign funds to undermine the legitimacy of Israel.

Until it was too late, the Israel-haters didn’t realize these kids are the special forces of Zionist youth. Preparing to face the antisemitic bile so prevalent on US campuses, they have been trained by experienced instructors while at high school and they practise their skills on the Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 18 July 2022. © Richard Kemp

The fall of Boris Johnson contributes to Ukraine’s rising peril. His Churchillian support for Ukraine and push for blistering sanctions in the face of a lacklustre response from Joe Biden and heel-dragging in European capitals propelled him to world leadership in the campaign against Russia. None of Johnson’s potential successors are likely to equal his resolve, especially as the domestic economic consequences of the war continue to bite and bite hard.

With the Tory leadership election set to drag on at least into September, all political attention will naturally be on that, to the exclusion of new policy and action on the war. Media eyes, in any case tiring of Ukraine, will also be distracted, removing much of the impetus for government ministers and civil servants to focus on the conflict.

More worryingly, such diversion isn’t just a feature of British politics. It is a phenomenon across the West, occurring at precisely the worst time for Ukraine. In America, the political and media spotlights have turned to the mid-term elections in November. And while most American voters, on both sides, back Washington’s support for Ukraine, their main concern is economic issues that directly affect them like the soaring inflation, at least one third of which is directly attributable to the war and sanctions against Russia.

Biden, in campaign mode and eager to disperse responsibility, has emphasised that link between Western inflation and Putin’s actions. That will play out in longer term congressional support for government policies on Ukraine but more immediately we are likely to see greater caution from an administration that is already deeply fearful of losing its narrow majority in the Senate and the House.

The balance between fighting for a democracy assailed by authoritarian aggression, a generally popular cause in the States, and managing economic pain at home, is going to be influenced by how successful the fight is. Right now, with 54 billion dollars of US Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2022. © Richard Kemp

Despite claims in the West that Russia has already been defeated strategically, Putin has been rebuilding alliances that had frayed at the start of his invasion. China, the Kremlin’s most important partner, hedged its bets when Putin sent his forces in, calling for peace while laying at least part of the blame on Nato and the US. But just over a week ago, President Xi pledged greater economic and defence ties with Russia, flying in the face of Joe Biden’s direct warning to him in March against aiding Putin.

India and South Africa have also stuck with Putin, refusing to condemn his aggression at the UN. Indonesia too refused to join the international sanctions regime and, despite pressure, has invited Putin to the G20 summit in Bali in November which it is hosting. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran still maintain good relations with Moscow; and, along with Xi, Egypt’s President el-Sisi this month addressed the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, dubbed the ‘Russian Davos’.

Sri Lanka, facing a major fuel crisis, is sending ministers to Moscow to negotiate for oil at discounted prices. As well as economic self-interest, some of the countries that remain with Russia are influenced by anti-Western sentiment and some are only too willing to provide pathways for Putin and his oligarchs to get around ever-tightening financial controls and economic sanctions, including by transferring wealth and commodities. For example Iranian shipping, long used to overcome its own international sanctions, is reported to have been transporting Russian oil exports. All in all it has been a rather successful diplomatic project for the Kremlin, bearing fruit at a time when things are turning on the battlefield too.

What a striking contrast with the West, which has spent the G7 summit bickering over protectionism and irrelevant pet projects — such as President Macron’s grandstanding ‘European Political Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 16 June 2022. © Richard Kemp

Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi all looked very jolly as they took the train to Kyiv. During their visit yesterday, they made all the appropriate noises about backing Ukraine in its fight against Vladimir Putin. But they have played a large part in the country’s increasingly precarious situation. The three biggest economies in the EU have been dragging their heels on supplying arms while continuing to pour billions of euros into Moscow’s war chest by buying its energy. Scholz’s promise of tanks and failure to deliver them and Macron’s plea that Russia shouldn’t be humiliated have underlined Europe’s weakness.

The sluggish Western military response has meant that, in the east, Russia has a 10 to 15-fold advantage in artillery, the most important battle-winner in this campaign. While the Russians are firing 50,000 shells a day, Ukraine is unable to hold its own with plenty of Nato ammunition but hardly any guns to fire it. Despite big talk by the US and UK about sending multiple-launch rocket systems, a potent stand-off weapon that could help redress the balance, only a handful are being supplied against the 300 President Zelensky says he needs.

So as the Russians advance steadily over some of the most fortified terrain in the world, the Ukrainians are falling back in the face of blistering artillery fire, with a casualty rate of up to 800 a day. As other strongpoints have collapsed, the bastion town of Severodonetsk looks set to fall despite hard fighting to defend it. In the south, Ukrainian forces are making limited advances towards Kherson, while the Russians are stiffening their defences and claim to have reactivated the port. It is here we are likely to see the next major Russian offensive, as Putin aims to move west to capture the entire Ukrainian coast and threaten Moldova.

Early assumptions that Ukraine would decisively defeat the Russians are being unwound as Putin pushes forward, seemingly unfazed by the huge loss of life and hardware. But this new reality may not have been fully grasped even in some Western capitals. In a briefing on Tuesday, Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s defence policy chief, claimed that Putin would not be able to capture a significant proportion of Ukraine, yet 20 per cent of the country is already in his hands. America’s complacent line prevails in Whitehall as well, which takes the extraordinary position that Russia has already been strategically defeated.

That view does not seem to be shared in Beijing. At the start of the war, Xi Jinping tried to look both ways, blaming Nato for provoking Russia while calling for peace. But as the three European leaders headed for Kyiv, Xi was on the phone to Putin, pledging deeper co-operation between their countries. In the most unequivocal declaration of support for Putin since the war started, Xi committed China to backing Russia on issues such as sovereignty and security.

This must have come as a blow to Washington after months of efforts to get China to distance itself from Russia. Only hours before the call, Continue reading →