By Patrick Armstrong, Website, 8/2/26

Patrick Armstrong was an analyst in the Canadian Department of National Defense specializing in the USSR/Russia. He started in the time of Chernenko and watched the whole thing develop. He was a Counsellor in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow 1993-1996. He retired in May 2008 and has been writing on Russia and related subjects online since then.

A couple of years ago I had lunch with a former colleague. We had worked together for several decades and I had always regarded him as a very good analyst. He was able to find evidence, evaluate it and put together a competently argued thesis to explain or describe objective reality. As I have said before I, and he, were not formally in an intelligence unit but our work was similar: trying to figure out what’s going on in Country X.

So we’re talking away and I make the comment that some of what Russia is doing in Ukraine reminds me of the tactics used by Brusilov in 1916. (see my piece here). Immediately came an outburst – Russia is a shithole country, Bucha, unprovoked invasion, Bucha, shithole. Quite passionate and sounding almost as if he had rehearsed it and was just waiting for the cue to unload.

Now a real analyst would have responded by asking what I meant, listening, questioning, contradicting with an argument and so on. At the end of the process we would have got a bit closer to reality. Or, alternatively, just said he didn’t want to talk about it.

Some time ago Paul Robinson observed that there were two approaches to foreign policy operating in the world today. One is a belief in “a traditional, Westphalian, order in which states are equal sovereign entities”. The other is quite different:

“By contrast, human rights reasoning has pushed the West in an opposite direction, towards a preference for legal asymmetry. In this model, the just and the unjust, those who respect and those who don’t respect human rights, are not legally or morally equal.”

A very perceptive observation, in my opinion, and I wrote my own essay on why I thought Russia took a “Westphalian” view of things. My argument, in essence, was that Moscow had spent seven decades pushing an exceptionalist/moralist view – the world’s first socialist state, the bright future of mankind and all that stuff – and had found it to be a complete failure. It had learned the hard way that countries are as they are and have to be dealt with as they are. Moralistic posturing leads to failure.

Readers of this site will no doubt have concluded that I come down on the “Westphalian” side of the argument. You may not like your neighbours but they won’t disappear if you shut your eyes and disdain them. You may feel smug for a while but, when you open your eyes again, nothing will have changed. To deal with them, you have to try to understand them; try and see the world from their point of view. A veil of moral superiority obstructs a clear view.

But getting back to my colleague’s response, what do we see here but feelings substituted for reason? Don’t bother to make the effort to try to understand how Moscow sees things, just say it’s a shithole country. Judgement and condemnation supplant thinking and understanding.

The essence of intelligence is the attempt to see the other guy’s point of view. How does he see things? What’s he trying to do? What threats does he see? What is he able to do about it? That’s the whole point of intelligence, analysis, international relations, diplomacy and all that sort of thing. It’s difficult and you’ll never entirely get it right but you must keep your moral judgements to yourself and try and see reality. And that’s what disappointed me about his rant: I thought he was better than that. He just sounded like some think wank “expert” on TV saying we’re great and they suck. Moralism is easy, analysis is hard.

The first problem with the moralistic worldview is that one soon becomes very restricted on whom one can talk with. After all, the Good cannot acknowledge the Bad. Especially after all the carefully constructed war words have been deployed: the “regime’s” “claims” are “unverified”, they’re “disinformation” spread by “state media; they’re “talking points” from the “playbook”. The Good, The Just, by contrast, have democratic governments, speak the truth and have a free media. The more the Good stresses the evil of the other, the less it can know or understand. And certainly can never pollute its purity by meeting with The Bad. Here’s the essence of Robinson’s legal asymmetry expressed by one of its chief practitioners: Putin’s a monster, “there you go” “Russian talking points” and NATO is defensive. What more do you need to say or think?

When moral superiority becomes entrenched, other superiorities soon take root. We’re morally better and everything we do is better too. Evil fails across the board, in war and in peace. Our tools work better and we use them better. The morally inferior are worse at war too. And so we come, to quote a certain Austrian watercolourist, to the expectation that “one good kick at the door and the whole rotten edifice will collapse”. But the USSR did not collapse in 1941 and neither did Iran in 2026.

And there are so many wars because there is so much evil that cannot – ought not – be reasoned with and certainly not left alone. And so NATO, that alliance of the morally superior, had to intervene in the Balkans, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine. War all the time and everywhere.

“Essentially, NATO not only helps to defend the territory of its members, but also engages – where possible and when necessary – to project its values further afield, prevent and manage crises, stabilise post-conflict situations, and support reconstruction”

Interesting how often this “projection of values” involves bombing isn’t it? Here’s a picture of NATO’s values projected into Raqqa.

The moralistic view is disastrous for its practitioners (to say nothing of thousands and thousands of the recipients). The moralists never see reality – how can they when it’s so evil!? They underestimate the opponent and over estimate themselves.

It’s hard to see reality, but reality has teeth that eventually bite. (Vide Washington and Iran at the moment.)

Moralism is fatal for intelligent decision making and it absolutely blocks the real purpose of intelligence. But I fear that moralism has taken over in the West and all “analysts” today have to agree with Nuland that Putin is a monster. Anyone who swims against the tide is a “Putin apologist” (which I have been called) and therefore at least a little bit monstrous too.

No wonder all of NATO’s wars have been defeats.

(And a good thing I retired 16 years ago.)

TASS, 8/17/26

MOSCOW, August 17. /TASS/. An intelligence service of a Western country, in coordination with its “Ukrainian stooges,” plans to stage another anti-Russian stunt and accuse Moscow of arming drug cartels in Latin America, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) press office said.

TASS outlines the key points of the SVR statement.

Preparations for a provocation against Russia

An intelligence service from a Western country, working with its “Ukrainian stooges,” plans to “stage another anti-Russian show.” This time, the action takes place on the Latin American stage, with a plot the SVR likens to “a scene from a third-rate crime drug thriller.”

The “directors” of the provocation against Russia naively hope to undermine Moscow’s constructive relations with Latin America and “persuade Latin American governments to support the West’s anti-Russian policy.”

“Russophobes can realistically achieve only one thing: once again show their lack of moral constraints and stereotyped thinking.”

Scenario of the provocation against Russia

A Western country, in coordination with Kiev, plans to accuse Russia of supplying arms to drug cartels and other organized crime groups in Latin American countries.

“Russia is to be accused of illegally providing weapons to drug cartels and other organized crime groups in Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico. To this end, Russian-made weapons seized by the enemy during the special military operation are already being brought into those countries.”

The SVR said fabricated audio and video materials were also being prepared to support alleged ‘evidence’ of Russians transferring weapons to Latin Americans through intermediaries.

The operation is also expected to include forged documents purportedly showing the involvement of Russian military personnel in the scheme.

By Aaron Mate, Substack, 8/5/26

…The predicate for this unprecedented [FBI] probe of a sitting president as the agent of a foreign power has been kept from the public ever since. When I obtained the first public release of its opening document in late 2024, just weeks before Trump’s second term, the FBI redacted the entire “articulable factual basis.” After more than nine years of secrecy, a new declassification by the Trump White House confirms that the investigation, codenamed “Oxferd Comma” [sic] and launched on May 16, 2017, was not driven by any secret information tying Trump to Russia. It was instead based on the FBI leadership’s maximalist, neoconservative-influenced reactions to innocuous and falsely reported public events.

One of the FBI’s triggers was a controversy that erupted in July 2016 at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. At the time, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin claimed that the Trump campaign had removed an amendment from the party’s platform that called for arming Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas region. In reality, the RNC platform committee had merely rejected a proposal to endorse providing “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine. The Republicans’ final platform text instead called for “increasing sanctions” on Russia and “appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine,” which could easily have included weapons. The RNC platform was also far more hawkish than the Democrats’ platform that same summer, in line with the policies of President Obama, who had refused to send the same weaponry to Ukraine…

…The document only underscores that the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation was influenced by Cold War views and the conspiracy theories of an illicit Trump-Russia connection promoted by the Hillary Clinton campaign and its media allies…

This article is behind a paywall here.

***

When Winning is Not Victory

By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 8/19/26

Massive Russian Attack Anticipated

On the Military Summary Channel and extrapolating from information of recent Russian reconnaissance over Ukraine and equally recent activity at Russia’s Olenya and Ukrainka air bases, as well as in Bryansk, Kursk, Rostov and Liski, Dima is predicting another massive attack by Russia on Ukraine, not only on the customary targets in Kiev, Odessa, Zapporizhzhi and so on, but also concentrating more than before on Central and Western Ukraine. There has been a Russian strike with Banderol missiles already, targeting Zhytomar in the Zhytomary oblast which lies 130-150 kilometers west of Kiev. Dima expects to see strikes on targets along Ukraine’s borders with Romania and Moldova (nothing is said about Poland).

In the Air, on the Land

Other recent Russian attacks have destroyed warehouses in the area of Brovary – a suburb of Kiev, a ship in Odessa, a bridge and a warehouse in Zapporizhzhia. On the ground, Russian forces are moving further in on Orikhiv in Zapporizhzhia. They have taken the suburbs to the south of Novodanylivkia to the southwest and Mala Tokmacha to the southeast, taking control of the MO8 and TO-8-15 highways into the settlement. The Ukrainian garrison in Orikhiv will very possibly soon be surrounded by Russian forces and therefore unavailable to buttress any Ukrainian defense line between Orikhiv and Zapporizhzhia.

In the Polohy Raion district of Zapporizhzhia, as Russia creeps westward, Russia has already taken Verkhnya Ters and Kaponi, russian troops are moving southwestwards froim Liubytske, Novosoloshyne and Lisne towards Chervonyi Yar.

In Donetsk, Russian forces move slowly to tighten a noose around the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-Druzkivka conurbation in preparation for multiple ground attacks from the north, east, south and southwest. The conurbation is being evacuated, and Ukrainian troops are pouring in to build anti-tank defenses. To the east, Bilytske and Novomykalaivka have fallen, and Russian forces have just captured Andriivka, improving their positions in the direction of Zoloty Kolodiaz to eventually form a line from Stepy, through Zoloty Kolodiaz, Vesele, Hryzke to Novomykalaivka. Vodyanske and Krasnopodillia, east of Lyman, have also fallen, and fighting is going on northwest of Andriivka for the village of Staroandreyevka.

Domestic Crises

The Russian escalation coincides with the call by recently dismissed Ukrainian Minister of Defense Sergei Fedorov to be reinstated and for there to be new presidential and parliamentary elections. There have already been modestly populated protests outside the Verkhovna Rada in support of Fedorov, but Zelenskiy has publicly rejected Fedorov’s demands, while the Rada has appointed Zelenskiy’s choice of interim as permanent Minister of Defense namely Yevhen Khmara.

Fedorov is said by the Substack site Events in Ukraine to represent the Soros-supported liberal opposition to Zelenskiy. But then what does Zelenskiy represent?

Zelenskiy, Fedorov and George Soros

One perspective suggests that politically Zelenskiy is best seen as representing the centralized wartime executive power of the Ukrainian state, balancing traditional political and military command structures rather than serving as the antithesis to a specific reformist faction.

The premise that Mykhailo Fedorov acts as a designated “Soros-supported liberal opposition” is an oversimplification. Fedorov is a tech-savvy innovator and former defense minister who rose within Zelenskiy’s own administration before a political and structural falling-out over military bureaucracy and leadership turned him into a rival.

Zelenskiy serves as the supreme commander and political face of Ukraine’s national defense and international coalition-building against the Russian invasion. He manages the vertical power of the government. Thius includes balancing legacy military brass, defense contractors, and political factions. He represents institutional continuity under martial law, arguing that ordinary democratic elections must wait until security allows.

Fedorov did not start out as an external opposition figure. He served as a core member of Zelenskiy’s team (notably driving digital transformation and drone procurement), taking pride in what the West (briefly?) saw as the magnificent success of Ukraine’s spring and summer drone offensive. His removal from the defense ministry stemmed from clashes with traditional military command and bureaucratic resistance to procurement transparency and may also reveal the regime’s growing skepticism of the value of drone offensives that do nothing to stem the loss of valuable, industry-and-agriculture rich territory to Russia.

From the margins to which he has essentially exiled himself, Fedorov has transitioned into an independent political voice, publicly criticizing opacity and calling for mechanisms to restore democratic processes. This transition, therefore, places him alongside movements that, with support from Europe and the US, oppose corruption in Ukraine and favor an early return to democratic process.

Economic and other Pressures

The appointment of Fedorov’s replacement and Zelenskiy’s certain refusal to consider elections that would, with equal certainty, remove Zelenskiy from power (such is the much-vaunted “democratic” status of Ukraine) will likely heighten tensions and incite protests across many cities of Ukraine. This comes as an embattled Zelenskiy pleads fruitlessly with the US and with Europe for more Pac-3 missiles for Ukraine’s remaining Patriot missiles, and confronts a major, growing agricultural crisis. This arises from Russian bombardment of Odessa ports that has effectively cut off a considerable chunk of Ukraine’s routes for agricultural export. Further, farmers, deprived of their expected revenues for the 2026 harvest will have fewer resources or even economic capability of preparing for 2027.

This is also contributing to a global food crisis. Ukrainian attacks on Russian grain cargo ships in the Sea of Azov and on the eastern Black Sea coastline have reduced Russian grain and fertilizer exports as well. Sister crises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea have also cut global supply chains of fertilizer.

Attacks by Ukraine on Western-affiliated assets – including, yesterday a Greek tanker headed for the Russian port of Novorossiysk and a recent attack on the Caspian-Black Sea oil company which is an important conduit for the delivery of Kazhak oil to Turkey and other clients – may also be moderating the enthusiasm of Ukraine’s Western sponsors. Ukraine’s Fire Point, which some commentators see as linked to Zelenskiy, made the Flamingo missiles that attacked the Progress factory engaged in the manufacture of Rassvet satellites in Samara, but pictures of holes in the roofs of two of the buildings of this vast entity suggest that the strikes did not cause explosions and did relatively little damage.

Mounting Russian attacks on Kiev, on top of the previous months’ of Russian bombardments of Ukrainian energy, electricity, gasoline, transport and commercial warehouse assets will conceivably make life intolerable for citizens of Kiev, leading to an exodus of its population headed, with or without resistance from police and military for European destinations.

A Russian Pyrric Victory?

Ukraine’s difficulties and, in particular, the degradation of its air defenses and the weakening of effective Western sponsorship, would certainly seem to offer the promise of a more determined Russian effort to finish the war and to reduce Ukraine to a rump State. There is evidence of a recent upsurge of Russian activity across the fronts, even extending to NATO assets in Ukraine. Leaks from Britain detailing British supply of drones that are launched deep into Russia have provoked comments from Russian foreign minister Lavrov that in effect indicate Russian preparedness not only to attack assets in NATO countries, but, following the logic of NATO’s Article 5, to regard the aggression of any one NATO country as greenlighting Russian attacks on any member of NATO.

Commenting on this development, Gilbert Doctorow, lately in the vanguard of commentators who have grown increasingly skeptical of the military logic of the SMO in favor of much sharper and conclusive action, says that unless this British provocation does actually evince a meaningful Russian response against Britain, Putin will have caved to NATO, undermining his own legitimacy. He further points out that the absence of a meaningful response will be interpreted by other European powers including, most notably, Germany, as an invitation for them to escalate their own support for Ukraine and their direct engagement in the war.

For Doctorow, “winning” for Russia is not victory unless it achieves Putin’s objectives. The first and most important of these was that Ukraine should not fall within the umbrella of NATO but would remain neutral, and that goal, along with others including the de-nazification of the Kiev regime, and a cap on Ukrainian troop numbers, are far from being fulfilled.

By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 8/9/26

The Pentagon is reportedly drafting a new nuclear strategy that’s expected to emphasize the use of tactical nuclear weapons to give the president more “options” in a potential nuclear conflict.

The strategy, first reported by NBC News, is being drafted by the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby, who has for more than a decade called for the US to develop additional capabilities to fight a “limited nuclear war.”

The idea would be to shift the US nuclear strategy away from the focus on using strategic nuclear weapons to wipe out an adversary’s nuclear capabilities and focus more on the possibility of using smaller, tactical nuclear weapons in a “regional” conflict.

“If you actually want extended deterrence to be credible, you have to provide the nation’s political leadership with nuclear capabilities that common sense indicates you could actually use,” a source told NBC. “Otherwise you’re reducing our leadership’s options to extreme choices that the adversary won’t find credible.”

While the potential strategy would be carried out in the name of deterrence and preventing war, arms control advocates have strongly warned against the idea of developing more tactical nuclear weapons to prepare for a potential limited nuclear conflict over concerns that it would make nuclear war much more likely and that any nuclear exchange would likely lead to a global catastrophe.

“Without a firm rejection of the option to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict, by building and fielding more tactical nuclear weapons the administration is signaling its intention to use them against enemy forces and industrial infrastructure in a conflict,” the Arms Control Association said in response to the NBC report.

The ACA said that it “strongly opposes the administration’s decision to build more tactical nuclear weapons to supplement the options that exist” and pointed to the fact that the US already has at least two types of tactical nuclear weapons, including B61-12 gravity bombs, which are deployed in Europe, and the W76-2 low-yield warhead for the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile.

The ACA said the US Navy is also “acquiring a new nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) that may be available at the end of the decade for possible use in conflict with China.”

Breaking Defense reported that Colby announced on August 5 that the Pentagon was reviewing the US nuclear posture and repeatedly emphasized the term “options” in a speech he delivered that has not been made public.

Colby has been one of the leading voices in Washington’s policy circles advocating for the US to prepare for limited nuclear war. In a 2015 paper for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) titled “A Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2030,” Colby said the US “should make a special effort to develop the platforms and weapons, doctrine, planning capacity, and other capabilities needed to fight a limited nuclear war more effectively than plausible adversaries.”

He said that the ideal US nuclear force is “one that is not only highly survivable and able to issue a devastating blow against any adversary under any scenario but that is also capable of conducting effective limited nuclear operations in a controlled fashion while maintaining the ability to escalate to full-scale war if necessary.”

Colby made a similar argument in a 2018 piece written in Foreign Affairs titled “If You Want Peace, Prepare for Nuclear War,” published just a few months after he left the first Trump administration, where he led the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy.

“Washington’s task is clear. It must demonstrate to Moscow and Beijing that any attempt to use force against US friends and allies would likely fail and would certainly result in costs and risks well out of proportion to whatever they might gain,” Colby wrote. “This requires conventional military power, but it also means having the right strategy and weapons to fight a limited nuclear war and come out on top.”

Russia Matters, 7/31/26

The U.S. still relies on Russia for a quarter of its nuclear fuel purchases: Despite all the headlines about US-led global sanctions on Russia, U.S. nuclear industry remains heavily dependent on Moscow for the enriched uranium that fuels reactors, according to Bloomberg. U.S. reactor operators bought about 3.28 million separative work units, or SWUs, of Russian enrichment services in 2025, equal to almost 26% of their total purchases, according to EIA’s data cited by this news agency.