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For more than a year my colleagues and I have wrestled with the question: whom does a
long war
favour? The conventional wisdom was that it suited Russia. It could not win on the battlefield, but it could prolong the war, hope for Donald Trump’s
election in 2024
and watch as European governments lost the stomach to keep sending arms and aid to Ukraine. The weekend of June 24th and 25th exploded that narrative.
A war to conquer Kyiv led to a
march on Moscow.
Vladimir Putin may have stopped the mutiny, but he appears to have cut a deal with a warlord whom he described, that morning, as a traitor (read our recent profile of Yevgeny Prigozhin
here).
His enemies will
smell weakness.
As I write, Mr Prigozhin’s whereabouts and intentions are unclear—a criminal case against him remains open. But his
Wagner Group
has not been disarmed. And the divisions in Russia’s military leadership have been
laid bare:
one of the most striking images from the rebellion was the sight of Russian generals joking with Mr Prigozhin about the fate of the defence minister and chief of general staff.
In other news, we’ve been keeping an eye on Iran’s increasingly dangerous nuclear programme and the prospect of a
US-Iran deal
which might reduce tensions at the cost of leaving Iran on the nuclear threshold. We look at how the war in Ukraine has boosted
Israel’s arms exports
to Europe. And in Asia, we consider how China’s government has been subtly asserting its claims to
Okinawa,
a Japanese island, but why the Chinese public
remains sceptical
of the idea of a big war over Taiwan.
Finally, don’t miss my
exclusive interview
with Ben Wallace, Britain’s defence secretary. Mr Wallace reflected on the lessons from Ukraine and his frustrations with the tendency of the army, navy and air force to buy flashy kit while under-investing in the means to maintain and operate it (I wrote about the
army’s woes
last year). The real surprise came at the end of the interview, when Mr Wallace revealed that he was out of the race to become the next NATO secretary-general. Jens Stoltenberg, the incumbent, now seems likely to receive an extension. Next week, ahead of a NATO leaders’ summit in Vilnius on July 11th, I’ll have a detailed assessment of the big changes under way inside the alliance.
Thank you for reading. We are keen to hear what you think of Mr Prigozhin’s failed coup. You can reach us here with your thoughts:
[email protected].
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