Putin and October 7 attack on Israel – RSS Page
EV = 20 – EV=100 – EV = 200 – Review = 100
from Michael Novakhov on Inoreader
A number of Republican and MAGA figures have reacted angrily after The Houston Chronicle, one of the biggest newspapers in Texas, endorsed President Joe Biden.
The Houston Chronicle‘s editorial board said they would be backing Biden in the Democratic primary and for re-election so he can “make life better” for the American people as well as prevent the “chaos, corruption and danger to the nation” that would accompany his presumed 2024 Republican challenger Donald Trump returning to the White House.
The Houston Chronicle‘s praise for Biden will be a boost for the Democrat as he seeks re-election in November. It remains to be seen how much of a difference the endorsement will make, seeing as Texas has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate for nearly 50 years, with Trump beating Biden in 2020 by six points in the red state.
In their editorial, the paper’s board admit that Biden “has his shortcomings,” but what his administration has achieved during his time in office is a “potent reminder to his fellow Democrats, to independents and to those Republicans who have somehow resisted Trump’s cultish appeal that the nation has a viable alternative.”
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the reported death of Alexei Navalny from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 16, 2024 in Washington, D.C. The Houston Chronicle, one of the largest newspapers…
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the reported death of Alexei Navalny from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 16, 2024 in Washington, D.C. The Houston Chronicle, one of the largest newspapers in Texas, has endorsed Biden for re-election.Anna Moneymaker
The editorial notes how the U.S. economy is now “healthier” than any other advanced nation having recovered from the pandemic, unemployment is approaching a 50-year low and that inflation is falling.
The board cites other achievements from Biden’s presidency, such as seeking a “modest effort” to address gun safety, introducing a price cap on insulin, leading an allied response to Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s “brutish” invasion of Ukraine as well as seeking a “path to peace and stability in the post-October 7 conflagration involving Gaza, Iran and Israel and the desperate Palestinian people.”
“We are well aware that the Biden administration has not been successful on every front,” the board wrote.
“The calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan was the most obvious failure. The administration’s inability to quell chaos at the border is another, although blame primarily belongs to caviling and cynical MAGA Republicans in the House.
“In servility to Trump, they torpedoed a bipartisan border-security plan painstakingly crafted in the Senate. Biden can’t solve the crisis by executive order; he needs Congress to act.”
In response, a number of Trump supporters lashed out at the paper for their endorsement of Biden on social media.
Steve Guest, a former spokesperson for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Untethered from reality. REMINDER: the economy is a mess, our country is being invaded and the border is wide open, and the world is on fire from the Middle East to a ground war in Europe due to Joe Biden’s policies.”
Talk show host Joe Pagliarulo wrote: “O M G—I just LOVE this parody account for the Houston Chronicle. Kudos!!”
Comedian and political commentator Tim Young posted: “Fill the Houston Chronicle office with illegal immigrants. They endorse it, they can house it.”
Robert Bowlin, who frequently supports Trump on social media, added: “So, do you just not care about the fact that he can barely speak and he appears to be on the verge of tears in every press hearing?”
The Houston Chronicle board did note the concerns about the age and cognitive ability of Biden, who will be 82 by the start of his potential second term in office, and said that he may not be the “energetic, garrulous, occasionally even eloquent” public speaker of previous years.
However, the board suggested the president has “forgotten more than his presumed Republican rival will ever know. That’s not saying much, and at the same time, it says it all.”
Trump’s office has been contacted for comment via email.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
IT IS UNUSUAL for spymasters to taunt their rivals openly. But last month Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, could not resist observing that the war in Ukraine had been a boon for his agency. “The undercurrent of disaffection [among Russians] is creating a once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the CIA,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs. “We’re not letting it go to waste.” The remark might well have touched a nerve in Russia’s “special services”, as the country describes its intelligence agencies. Russian spies botched preparations for the war and were then expelled from Europe en masse. But evidence gathered by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a think-tank in London, and published exclusively by The Economist today, shows that they are learning from their errors, adjusting their tradecraft and embarking on a new phase of political warfare against the West.
The past few years were torrid for Russian spies. In 2020 operatives from the FSB, Russia’s security service, botched the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the recently deceased opposition activist. He mocked them for spreading Novichok on his underwear. Then the FSB gave the Kremlin a rosy view of how the war would go, exaggerating Ukraine’s internal weaknesses. It failed to prevent Western agencies from stealing and publicising Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. And it was unwilling or unable to halt a brief mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, last year. The SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, saw its presence in Europe eviscerated, with some 600 officers expelled from embassies across the continent. At least eight “illegals”—intelligence officers operating without diplomatic cover, often posing as non-Russians—were exposed.
The study by RUSI, written by Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, a pair of the organisation’s analysts, and Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former adviser to both Ukraine’s defence minister and foreign intelligence chief, draws on documents “obtained from the Russian special services” and on interviews with “relevant official bodies”—presumably intelligence agencies—in Ukraine and Europe. In late 2022, the study says, Russia realised that it needed more honest reporting from its agencies. It put Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff, in charge of “committees of special influence”. These co-ordinate operations against the West and then measure their effect.
That personnel change appears to have produced more coherent propaganda campaigns. In Moldova, for instance, a once-scattershot disinformation effort against the country’s bid for European Union membership grew more consistent and focused last year. It tied the accession bid to the president personally, all the while blaming her for Moldova’s economic woes. Campaigns aimed at undermining European support for Ukraine have also picked up. In January German experts published details of bots spreading hundreds of thousands of German-language posts a day from a network of 50,000 accounts over a single month on X (Twitter as was). On February 12th France exposed a large network of Russian sites spreading disinformation in France, Germany and Poland.
Meanwhile the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, has also been re-evaluating its tradecraft. In recent years its Unit 29155—which had attempted to assassinate Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer, in Salisbury, Britain in 2018—saw many of its personnel, activities and facilities exposed by Bellingcat. The investigative group draws on publicly available information and leaked Russian databases for its exposés.
The GRU concluded that its personnel were leaving too many digital breadcrumbs, in particular by carrying their mobile phones to and from sensitive sites associated with Russian intelligence. It also realised that the expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in Europe had made it harder to mount operations and control agents abroad—one reason why the invasion of Ukraine went awry.
The result was wholesale reform, which began in 2020 but sped up after the war began. General Andrei Averyanov, the head of Unit 29155, was, despite his litany of cock-ups, promoted to deputy head of the GRU and established a new “Service for Special Activities”. Unit 29155’s personnel—once exemplified by Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, Mr Skripal’s hapless poisoners, who insisted that they had travelled to Salisbury to see its cathedral’s famous spire—no longer carry their personal or work phones to its facility, using landlines instead. Training is done in a variety of safe houses rather than onsite. Whereas half of personnel once came from the Spetsnaz, Russia’s special forces, most new recruits no longer have military experience, making it harder for Western security services to identify them through old photographs or leaked databases.
A separate branch of the Service for Special Activities, Unit 54654, is designed to build a network of illegals operating under what Russia calls “full legalisation”—the ability to pass muster even under close scrutiny from a foreign spy agency. It recruits contractors through front companies, keeping their names and details out of government records, and embeds its officers in ministries unrelated to defence or in private companies. The GRU has also targeted foreign students studying at Russian universities, paying stipends to students from the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.
For another example of how Russian spies have turned disaster into opportunity, consider the case of the Wagner Group, a series of front companies overseen by Mr Prigozhin. Wagner initially served as a deniable arm of Russian influence, providing muscle and firepower to local autocrats in Syria, Libya and other African countries. In June 2023 Mr Prigozhin, angered by the mismanagement of the war by Russia’s defence minister and army chief, marched on Moscow. The mutiny was halted; two months later Mr Prigozhin was killed when his plane exploded midair.
Russia’s special services quickly divided Mr Prigozhin’s sprawling military-criminal enterprise among themselves. The FSB would keep domestic businesses, and the SVR the media arms, such as the troll farms which interfered in America’s presidential election in 2016. The GRU got the foreign military bits, split into a Volunteer Corps for Ukraine and an Expeditionary Corps, managed by General Averyanov, for the rest of the world. The latter missed its target of recruiting 20,000 troops by the end of last year, says RUSI, though its strength is “steadily rising”. There have been hiccups: Mr Prigozhin’s son, who mystifyingly remains alive and at liberty, offered Wagner troops to the Rosgvardia, Russia’s national guard, prompting a bidding war between the guard and the GRU, according to the authors.
The net result of this consolidation is a revitalised Russian threat in Africa. Shortly after Mr Prigozhin’s death General Averyanov visited various African capitals to offer what RUSI describes as a “regime survival package”. In theory the proposals involve the GRU providing local elites with military muscle and propaganda against local rivals. In Mali, they observe, the GRU-created Lengo Songo radio station is one of the most popular in the country. In return Russia would get economic concessions, such as lithium mines and gold refineries, and so leverage over enemies, perhaps including the ability to sever France from uranium mines in Niger (France needs uranium for its nuclear power stations). Mr Prigozhin is dead; his malevolent influence lives on.
Mission possible
Russian intelligence, though bruised, is firmly back on its feet after its recent humiliations. In recent weeks the Insider, a Riga-based investigative website, has published a series of stories documenting Russian espionage and influence across Europe. They include details of how a GRU officer in Brussels continues to provide European equipment to Russian arms-makers, and the revelation that a top aide in the Bundestag and a Latvian member of the European Parliament were both Russian agents, the latter for perhaps more than 20 years.
“It’s not as bad for them as we think it is,” says Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist, who reckons that the Russian services are “back with a vengeance” and increasingly inventive. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, and once a (mediocre) KGB officer, is “trying to restore the glory of Stalin’s formidable secret service”, explains Mr Soldatov. He points to a case in April 2023 when Artem Uss, a Russian businessman arrested in Milan on suspicion of smuggling American military technology to Russia, was spirited back to Russia with the help of a Serbian criminal gang—a common intermediary for the Russian services.
In the past, says Mr Soldatov, the FSB, SVR and GRU had a clearer division of labour. No longer. All three agencies have been particularly active in recruiting among the flood of exiles who left Russia after the war. It is easy to hide agents in a large group and simple to threaten those with family still in Russia. Germany is of particular concern, given that the many Russians who have moved there could make up a recruiting pool for Russian spy bodies. The flood of new arrivals is thanks in part to Baltic countries having grown more hostile to Russian emigres.
Moreover, Russian cyber-activity goes from strength to strength. In December America and Britain issued public warnings over “Star Blizzard”, an elite FSB hacking group which has been targeting NATO countries for years. The following month Microsoft said that “Cosy Bear”, a group linked to the SVR, had penetrated email accounts belonging to some of the company’s most senior executives. That came on top of a sophisticated GRU cyber-attack against Ukraine’s power grid, causing a power outage apparently co-ordinated with Russian missile strikes in the same city.
The renewal of Russia’s intelligence apparatus comes at a crucial moment in east-west competition. An annual report by Norway’s intelligence service, published on February 12th, warned that, in Ukraine, Russia was “seizing the initiative and gaining the upper hand militarily”. Estonia’s equivalent report, released a day later, said that the Kremlin was “anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade”.
The priority for Russian spies is to prepare for that conflict not just by stealing secrets, but by widening cracks within NATO, undermining support for Ukraine in America and Europe and eroding Western influence in the global south. By contrast there has been precious little Russian sabotage against Ukraine-bound supplies in Europe. One reason for that is the Kremlin’s fear of escalation. Another is that the Russians cannot do everything, everywhere all at once.
In the meantime, spies will continue to battle against their peers. In their report, Estonia’s foreign intelligence services published the identities of Russians working on behalf of the country’s intelligence services. “For those who prefer not to find their names and images alongside those of FSB or other Russian intelligence officers in our publications, potentially affecting their associations with the West, we extend an invitation to get in touch,” noted the Estonian spooks. “We are confident that mutually advantageous arrangements can be negotiated!”■
Source:
As the war in Gaza continues to unfold, essential questions about Russian and Iranian support for Hamas remain. They include whether Russia played any role in providing support to Hamas ahead of its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Evidence available from foreign-language publications in Russian, Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew, as well as those in English, provides provocative leads, which, if accurate, have serious potential implications.
A long courtship
Russia has maintained a relationship with Hamas for more than 17 years, since the group’s leaders visited Moscow in March 2006, just weeks after taking power in the Gaza Strip.
In the ensuing years, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly invited Hamas’ political and military leadership back to the Russian capital. Hamas officials and commanders secured high-level meetings with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Russia’s special envoy for the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, among others.
Bogdanov’s role in the link between Russia-Hamas is central. He has been in charge of the relationship on a day-to-day basis for many years, regularly meeting its leaders in Moscow and Qatar. Bogdanov has also been entrusted by Putin to undertake sensitive diplomatic missions with China, among other major actors, to support Russia’s Mideast policies.
Russian talks with terrorists and Hamas political leaders
Hamas officials who have met regularly with Bogdanov over the years include its political leaders, such as former longtime head Khaled Meshaal; his successor, Ismail Haniyeh, a U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorist; and Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouk, a senior member of Hamas’ political bureau who previously served as its deputy chair under Meshaal. They also include senior members of Hamas’ military leadership, such as Husam Badran and Saleh al-Arouri. Badran formerly led Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank, where he planned suicide bombings during the Second Intifada, including the infamous 2001 Dolphinarium discotheque massacre in Tel Aviv, which killed 21 young Israelis. Al-Arouri, characterized by the Israeli government’s public intelligence center as number two in Hamas overall, founded its military wing and directs the group’s military and terrorist activities. He also notably has close, long-standing ties with Iran.
The U.S. Treasury Department first listed al-Arouri as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in September 2015, after he took responsibility for a June 12, 2014, terrorist attack that kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, including dual U.S.-Israeli citizen Naftali Fraenkel. In 2018, the U.S. State Department offered to pay a $5 million reward to anyone who brought him to justice to face trial for his crimes, including several terrorist attacks, hijackings, and kidnappings.
Thus Russia has not limited itself to building a relationship with Hamas’ political leaders. Its lengthy diplomatic courtship of Hamas has included regular contacts with military leaders who have long histories directing terrorist attacks that have killed civilians.
Tighter Russian-Iranian operational relations
Russia has simultaneously built a close working relationship with Iran and its military and terrorist arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with increasingly tight financial, military, as well as political ties. Since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, Iran and Russia have responded to U.S. sanctions with a program to “dump the dollar” and to connect bank-to-bank using SPRS, the Russian counterpart of the financial messaging system SWIFT, utilized by the rest of the world, with the goal of sanctions busting and intensifying their mutual economic ties. By January 2023, Russia had become the largest foreign investor in Iran, putting $2.7 billion into Iranian manufacturing, mining, and transport sectors, according to Ehsan Khandouzi, the country’s finance minister.
On the military side, two weeks before Hamas carried out its brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu traveled to Tehran to meet with Iran’s top security official, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, as well as the head of the IRGC air force, Amirali Hajizadeh, to inspect Iranian-built drones and missile- and air-defense systems. During his visit, Shoigu stated that Tehran and Moscow had worked for months on long-term military cooperation, with “serious military and defense dimensions” and “an entire range of planned activities, despite opposition from the United States and its Western allies.”
Iran’s pre-attack meeting with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Just as conspicuously, on Sept. 1, 2023, five weeks before Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, the group’s military leader, al-Arouri, traveled to Beirut to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Secretary-General Ziyad al-Nakhalah, another long-time Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The PIJ’s longtime openly stated goal is the destruction of Israel.
Since its inception, the PIJ has carried out numerous terrorist attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings against Israeli civilian and military targets. According to the website maintained by the Iranian foreign ministry, at the Beirut meeting, the Iranian foreign minister and the two terrorist leaders agreed to work together on joint action to carry out what they called “the complete defeat of the Zionist regime” with “the formation of a single Palestinian state in all of historical Palestine.”
Critical Hamas-Russian meetings in Moscow
Against this backdrop, it becomes easier to decode the possible substance of important meetings that took place between Russian and Hamas leaders on March 16, 2023, in Moscow, held just days after Hamas received an invitation from Russia. The timing of those meetings is significant, coming one year after the re-invasion of Ukraine and the burgeoning imposition of Western sanctions on Russia and six and a half months before Hamas’ attack on Israel. So why did Russia decide to convene it there and then?
At those meetings, first Lavrov and then Bogdanov met with two of Hamas’ most significant leaders, political head Marzouk and military commander al-Arouri. Coming out of the talks, the top Hamas officials made statements consistent with Russia promising to support Hamas in changing the status quo with Israel. Al-Arouri was quoted stating the Moscow trip “was an important visit [for Hamas] that highlights the role of the movement with many global actors,” in which the Hamas “delegation affirmed its legitimate right to armed resistance [emphasis added] in order to confront the Israeli occupation and continued Israeli violence and oppression of Palestinians.” In response, Bogdanov reportedly emphasized Russia’s “unwavering support” for the rights of the Palestinian people.
After the meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Bogdanov, Marzouk described the visit on Hamas’ website as “different from its predecessors” since the “[special] military operation in Ukraine [the Russian regime’s term for the war] caused special confusion in the world and in the international system.”
One possible explanation: this time was different because, in the context of its stalled invasion of Ukraine, Russia had agreed to help Hamas, with the strategic purpose of opening up a costly second front for Western states supporting Ukraine. Now, the West would simultaneously have to support Israel at both military and political cost, especially vis-à-vis the Western countries’ relations with the Global South.
The evidence not only documents Russia’s long-term political support of Hamas, which it does not recognize as a terrorist group, but the meetings with Hamas and Iran also offer circumstantial evidence of engagement on the military side, as reflected by the suggestive timing of the March 16 Moscow meetings with Hamas convened by the Kremlin, and Shoigu’s meeting with Iran just ahead of the Hamas attack.
The possible use of Russian proxies to assist Hamas
Did the Russian government directly, or indirectly, through proxies — Iran, Syria, or others — provide weapons, military training, financial support, terrorist finance facilitation, or the provision of intelligence and/or strategic or tactical advice to Hamas ahead of its brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel? Could the Russian government even have provided Hamas implicit or explicit approval for the attack before it occurred?
Below is some of what is known to date. Taken together, the datapoints command attention.
Evidence of Hamas’ access to Russian-origin weapons and technology
For years, Hamas fighters have relied on Russian weapons, for example Kornet anti-tank missiles, to attack Israeli targets such as buses carrying Israeli soldiers. Hamas has contended the weapons are made locally — that is, inside Gaza — but the laser-targeting technology used to precisely guide them is not likely to be readily manufactured there. Iran has long been believed to be the supplier. But there is growing evidence that more of Hamas’ weapons originated from Russia as well.
On July 1, Hamas’ military arm undertook an open-to-the-Palestinian-public, Soviet-style show of its military inventory. Among the Hamas weapons on display were locally made missiles and launchers, Shihab drones, grenade launchers, and Russian-built Kornet anti-tank missiles. One Palestinian publication described the weapons displayed at the show as “Made in Gaza” and “Made in Russia.”
On March 14, just ahead of the Hamas visit to Moscow, CNN cited four unspecified sources who stated that Russia had been sending to Iran weapons and equipment lost on the battlefield in Ukraine that the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states had provided to the Ukrainian military. These reportedly included Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft systems, which could then be reverse-engineered and used by Hamas. In June, a senior Israeli official stated directly that he was concerned the weapons Moscow sent to Tehran would go straight from Iran to Hamas and Hezbollah.
On Sept. 10, Mossad chief David Barnea declared that the Israeli government was concerned Russia was seeking to sell advanced weapons to Iran in a barter arrangement. Barnea expressed worry that Iran would provide Russia with short- and long-range missiles in addition to the drones it was already selling to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and in turn, Russia would transfer advanced weapons to Iran that could threaten Israeli security “and maybe even our existence.”
Allegations of training by Russian “private” military companies
Using proxies to provide weapons to Hamas and, when possible, to have those weapons manufactured originally in other countries, such as China, or North Korea, fits the Kremlin’s usual modus operandi. Using proxies would enable President Putin to stir up conflict in the Middle East at lower risk than having its forces directly involved in a military action killing civilians. It would also be unsurprising for Russia to use “non-governmental” outfits, such as the so-called private military companies (PMCs), to train foreign fighters or to supply them with weapons, to provide some deniability if outsiders found out.
The day after the Oct. 7 attack, an official Ukrainian source claimed, “Some of the fighters of the Wagner [Group] PMC, who left Belarus in the direction of African countries, were involved in the training and transfer of combat experience to Hamas militants.” According to the Ukrainian Center for National Resistance, a Ukrainian government news and information agency formed after the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine, Hamas fighters had been training to use small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to drop explosive material as part of their attack. The center stated, “Only the Russians, among the allies of Hamas, have experience using drones with reset mechanisms on enemy equipment.” The center further asserted that Wagner provided Hamas fighters this training in an unspecified African country and that its information had come from “the Belarusian underground,” another country where the Wagner Group had carried out activities in 2023. On Oct. 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated, without providing further specifics, “We are certain that Russia is supporting, in one way or another, Hamas operations”; Zelensky reiterated the charge, again without specifics, on Nov. 20.
To date, there has been no non-Ukrainian confirmation of the allegations that the Wagner Group offered training to Hamas. Some have suggested this support was provided in whole or in part by other lesser-known Russian “private” military companies, such as Vegacy Strategic Services or the “Vega Network” with offices in Moscow and complex links to one another, previously alleged to have carried out such training for Palestinian fighters in Syria; another possibility floated was PMC Redut, also active in Syria.
Whatever the case, someone trained the Hamas fighters to undertake their sophisticated attack on Israel, as well as to behave as they did. In contrast with previous attacks by Hamas, the verified atrocities documented on Oct. 7, seen in footage recorded by body cameras worn by Hamas fighters, resemble the tactics used by Russian PMCs to intimidate and terrify local populations. Gunmen shooting the dead bodies of civilians in cars, beheading a body with a hoe, throwing burnt corpses in a dumpster, and committing heinous acts on the living — these are tactics used by Russian PMC fighters, not only in Ukraine but in the Central African Republic, Mali, Syria, and Libya.
The Ukrainian account provides one theory of who trained Hamas. Further independent reporting is needed to determine the truth. Of potential relevance is the release of declassified intelligence by U.S. officials on Nov. 21 that the Wagner Group has been recently preparing to provide an air-defense system “to either Hezbollah or Iran” at the direction of the Russian government.
The cryptocurrency connection
At the same time, there is separate evidence of Russian support for terrorist financing for Hamas. The Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, currently under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, has reportedly served not only wealthy Russians, various criminal groups, and Iran but also provided a means to help Hamas — and the PIJ — fund their terrorist operations prior to Oct. 7.
Major intelligence questions
Taken as a whole, the circumstantial evidence raises serious questions about what Russia and Iran knew and how much they may have helped Hamas to carry out its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. U.S., Israeli, and other Western intelligence agencies must work intensively to reach assessments on an array of key questions. With its invasion of Ukraine stalling out, did Russia decide to work to open up a second front in the Middle East as a means of dividing and distracting its adversaries? Did Russia promise Hamas assistance in its meetings with the group’s political and military leadership last March? If so, what did such pledges include: arms and technology, military training, financial support, assistance in money laundering, information warfare, and which types of assistance were provided in practice? Did Russia and Iran agree together to help Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah or others in the region take on Israel as a means of weakening their respective enemies in the West as well as Israel itself? Did Russia and Iran know that the attack was going to take place? Did they agree on its timing?
The information that is public does not provide definitive answers to these questions. But there is one more data point that is especially relevant. It is one that took place soon after the Oct. 7 attack and the start of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza.
The post-Oct. 7 Moscow meetings with Iran and Hamas and Russia’s current disinformation campaign
On Oct. 26, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Bagheri Kani met with Russia’s Bogdanov and Hamas’ Marzouk for a trilateral meeting in Moscow. Officially, the three gathered to discuss dual-national Russians who were being held hostage by Hamas. Little more than that was said publicly, besides Marzouk praising Moscow’s position on the conflict and the active efforts of Russian diplomacy. The New York Times presented the meeting as a belated effort at diplomatic catch-up by Russia to demonstrate its diplomatic engagement in the crisis, after initially seeking to “keep its distance” from the conflict.
If one draws a straight line from the Oct. 26 meeting back to the successive series of Russian-Iranian, Russian-Hamas, and Iranian-Hamas meetings that occurred in the months prior to Oct. 7, it is plausible to suggest there was more on the agenda than diplomacy. The growing evidence of the ongoing systematic Russian effort to disseminate pro-Hamas disinformation, including the retention of Moldovan agents by a Russian national to carry out destabilization efforts in France, provides a further clue of Russia’s continuing efforts to help Hamas and stoke conflict over the Israeli-Hamas conflict in the West.
There is a pressing need for Western intelligence agencies to gather enough information to reach solid conclusions about the extent of Russian involvement in the Hamas attack, and to make those conclusions public. The findings will be an essential element of managing as well as containing the conflict going forward. Any such findings could also have legal implications. Under U.S. law, countries designated as state-sponsors of terrorism have no immunity to civil suits by their U.S. victims. It is thus squarely in the public interest for the truth to come out.
Jonathan M. Winer, a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute, was the U.S. Special Envoy and Special Coordinator for Libya from 2014 to 2016 as well as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement.
Photo by YURI KADOBNOV/AFP via Getty Images
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here.
On October 7, 2023 (7/10), some 3,000 thousand Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli communities and army bases near Gaza. They killed around 1,200 people — most of them civilians — took some 240 persons hostage to Gaza.
Since the day of the massacre, many fragments of information have come to the surface, revealing that for years the political and military leadership at all levels have erred in recognizing the upcoming threat — sometimes by miscalculation, sometimes by sheer mistake. Although there is a lot of information available, it is all bits and pieces, without any line of thought or direction. My aim is to give them order and thus gain insight into where and when things went wrong in military and civilian policy circles.
Currently, two state inquiries into Israel’s policy and intelligence failures regarding 7/10 are underway. At the end of December 2023, Israel’s State Comptroller, Matanyahu Englman, announced that he will look into all aspects of the failures including examining those with “personal responsibility” for the “failures on all levels — policy, military and civilian.” He stated that his investigation will take up the larger part of 2024. Englman is unwilling to wait for a formal state inquiry committee or for the end of the war. In January 2024, he already submitted a long list of questions to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Subsequently, in January 2024, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the IDF Chief of Staff and Israel’s highest military actor, formed a team to probe the 7/10 massacre. Though the right-wing part of the coalition government heavily criticized the decision, it seems wise since having an evaluation now could help Israel make correct operational decisions in the current war. Israel is currently fighting Hamas in Gaza and may soon be fighting the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon, at Israel’s northern border.
Conversely, on the political side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that an investigation on the decision-making before and during the Hamas War will only be conducted after the end of the conflict. However, it is unclear when the war against Hamas will end; it may well last the whole year of 2024. Even if the fighting with Hamas were concluded, Israel might still be fighting Hezbollah. Besides, the outcomes of such a state investigation could take years.
In the current absence of results of state inquiry commissions, I will deliver a preliminary analysis of the Israeli policy and intelligence failings. Why preliminary? First of all, because the Hamas War is ongoing. Secondly, because as a private Israeli citizen, I do not have access to governmental documents; I will have to base my conclusions upon media reports.
I will apply the “levels of warfare” (or “levels of military operation”) analysis. Scholars of military studies commonly use this schema to describe how national interests are translated into national objectives. States generally use hard military power only in the case of a serious violation of national interests. We examine the way in which they use military power at four descending levels: political strategy, military strategy, operations and tactics. The division into these four levels is not strict; they influence each other, and there is overlap.
The levels of warfare in Israel.
The highest level, political strategy or “grand strategy,” involves the coordinated use of all the economic, diplomatic, psychological, military and other political instruments the state has at its disposal to achieve its objectives. The actor at this level is the government of the State of Israel.
At the level of military strategy, we see the use of military means of power to guarantee the security of the state. The actors at this level are the IDF Chief of Staff and the commanders of the different services, i.e. the army, air force and navy.
Operational strategy comprises the execution of particular joint campaigns (conducted by the army, air force and navy) in order to achieve a military-strategic objective. In the current situation, the war against Hamas in Gaza is called Operation Swords of Iron. This operation serves the military strategic objective of the destruction of Hamas.
At the tactical level, individual military units are deployed and operate in combat to achieve the operational aim of a campaign. For example, within Operation Swords of Iron, the 7th Armored Brigade raided a Hamas command center in Gaza.
On the eve of 7/10, the Israeli government was convinced that Hamas was deterred from starting a war with Israel. Political and military officials of Israel had frequently stated that Hamas was discouraged from a large conflict with Israel. Aryeh Deri, Member of Knesset and political leader of the ruling coalition party Shas, has admitted that the Israeli political and military leadership failed by not recognizing the Hamas threat. According to Deri, Israel underestimated Hamas’ strength and overestimated the IDF’s military power.
This belief was based upon the fact, among others, that Hamas kept aside from several rounds of conflict between Israel and the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad in 2022 and 2023. Hamas had ostensibly learned its lesson from its 2014 and 2021 conflicts with Israel.
Hamas intentionally encouraged Israel to believe it was interested in a quiet situation. They gave the impression that they were focusing on economic build-up and avoiding conflict with Israel. Allegedly, Hamas even provided Israel with intelligence on Palestinian Islamic Jihad to reinforce the impression that they were willing to cooperate with Israel.
At least a year before 7/10, the IDF hadacquired a Hamas manual that described how to take control of the Israeli area near Gaza. It explained how the operation was to be conducted (see the operational level below). The manual also described the objective to deceive Israel into inactivity, creating a low threat perception by holding negotiations for some form of long-term arrangement to create a false sense of security while at the same time conducting regular exercises and carrying out small security incidents on the border. The details of the manual were forwarded to senior IDF officers. Their reason for dismissing this threat was that Hamas would not be capable of carrying out such a large-scale attack.
Besides the Hamas attack manual, in spring 2022 Hamas TV broadcasted a series which dramatized a huge assault on Israel with pickup trucks, deactivating IDF communications, kidnapping soldiers and civilians and attacking kibbutzim (rural settlements) and IDF bases, among them the location of the Gaza Division. Presumably, neither news of Hamas’s intent to create a false sense of security (as mentioned in the manual) nor of the attack scenario (as mentioned in the series) ever reached the political decision-makers.
In the summer of 2023, a human source from Gaza informed Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, that Hamas was planning a large attack on Israel soon after Yom Kippur. The information was regarded as irrelevant: Hamas simply could not operate on such a large scale. Consequently, the information did not reach Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. Obviously, the upper political and military echelons did not hear about it either.
In order to shore up intelligence weaknesses discovered during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the IDF maintains an intelligence unit of different thinking. The task of Ipcha Mistabra, or the “Devil’s Advocate Unit,” is to doubt intelligence assessments and offer alternative conclusions. In the weeks before 7/10, the head of the Devil’s Advocate Unit sent out a number of warnings to all senior decision-makers in the army and the political echelons, assessing an impending attack by Hamas. The unit thus succeeded in its primary task, contradicting the conventional view shared by intelligence, military and political officials. Senior leadership dismissed the assessment, and Netanyahu has denied receiving the warning.
The IDF leadership assumed that Hamas was deterred because of the impact of the losses they suffered in the 11-day conflict of May 2021, dubbed by IDF “Operation Guardian of the Walls.” Furthermore, the IDF was convinced that, in that operation, they had destroyed the larger part of Hamas’ underground tunnel network. On 7/10, both assumptions proved to be totally wrong.
On October 6, 2023, some hours before the Hamas attack, the IDF’s most senior officers were alerted to some irregular activities on the Gaza border and that Hamas was preparing to launch an offensive. On the night between October 6 and 7, Herzi Halevi held an encrypted telephone call with the head of the Operations Directorate, Major General Oded Basyuk, and the head of Southern Command, Major General Yaron Finkelman. They discussed reports from military intelligence and from Shin Bet on irregular activities by Hamas.
The head of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate, Aharon Haliva, was not invited for the talk. But even if Haliva had participated in the meeting, his military intelligence would have given no indication of an imminent wide-scale attack by Hamas. Military intelligence estimated that the detected activities by Hamas were likely to be routine exercises, similar to previous months.
Consequently, the nightly meeting only resulted in limited action. Halevi ordered that the reported information be checked. He entertained the possibility that the prevailing assessment may have been wrong. Nevertheless, these doubts did not convince Halevi to prepare for a major Hamas assault.
For the intel check-up, three drones and a combat helicopter were activated. In addition to this, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar decided to dispatch Tequila teams to the Gaza border. Tequila is an elite undercover unit of Shin Bet, seen as a last resort in stopping one or a few individual terrorists who are already preparing to launch an attack. The use of Tequila teams, thus, confirms that Shin Bet also did not have the impression that a large Hamas offensive was looming.
The IDF thus prepared their defenses around Gaza for limited incursions by small groups of terrorists, not a large-scale invasion by thousands of Hamas operatives. As a result, when 7/10 came the IDF were unprepared to counter such a massive attack. According to standard procedures, battalions are expected to deploy within 24 hours in the event of an invasion, after being forewarned by military intelligence. Clearly, no such warning had gone out before 7/10.
The IDF’s response was slow and disorganized. It took considerable time to comprehend the size of the attack; hence, the initial units deployed were ill-equipped to counter the assault.
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) also missed out on 7/10. Only a pair of combat helicopters was on standby, but they were located in northern Israel. Some unmanned aerial vehicles were quickly deployed in the Gaza area, but they could not cope with the scale of the attack. IAF fighter jets arrived shortly after, but they did not understand what was going on and returned to base without taking any action.
The terror manual mentioned above can be considered as Hamas’s operational plan. It mentioned conquering IDF army bases and posts, capturing communities, killing and abducting Israelis and taking hold of the cities of Sderot, Ofakim and Netivot. The vehicles to carry out these tasks would be pickup trucks, motorbikes and hang gliders. Large-scale rocket fire from Gaza was to give cover. The manual accurately described what would happen on 7/10.
Israeli intelligence had further knowledge of Hamas’s operational plans. Allegedly, Aharon Haliva visited Unit 8200, a unit of the IDF Intelligence Corps responsible for signal intelligence. They had signaled an upcoming Hamas attack (see “The tactical level,” below). But the warning was not passed on to Haliva. On the contrary, the assessment that he received suggested that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had no intention of causing the situation to deteriorate.
Already in July 2022, an unnamed intelligence officer belonging to the IDF’s Gaza Division gave a briefing on “The Mass Invasion Plan of Hamas.” It described Hamas terror squads invading southern Israel from Gaza, together with engineering teams to breach the border fence on multiple spots. The presentation warned that this invasion constituted a very serious threat to the defense of Israel.
Subsequently, in October 2022, a document drafted in the Gaza Division described in detail the Hamas attack that would take place a year later. This document listed details of the impending Hamas operation, concurrent with those mentioned in the aforementioned Hamas manual in possession of the IDF: invading army bases and kibbutzim, killing, destruction and hostage-taking. This was to be preceded by breaching the fence at several spots, neutralizing the IDF technological warning, communications and remote weapon systems. Hamas would penetrate Israel with pickups, jeeps, motorcycles and paragliders, as well as with boats.
Allegedly, the document was sent to the top of the Military Intelligence Directorate. Its head, Aharon Haliva, was also aware of the contents of the report. Nevertheless, no conclusions were apparently drawn nor any action taken.
On October 1, 2023, the commander of the same Gaza Division ordered a situational assessment, which noted a sharp increase in Hamas drills — six battalions were exercising once or twice a week. The division’s intelligence officer described, on the one hand, the economic benefits for Hamas for absence of violence and, on the other hand, a continuation of disturbances at the Gaza border. However, he assessed that there was a development towards détente and a decrease in disturbances.
How could this intelligence officer come to such a conclusion in the light of a sharp increase in exercise activity by Hamas? What happened with the July 2022 briefing on “The Mass Invasion Plan of Hamas”? Considering the fundamental opposite views, the intel officers most likely of July 2022 and of October 1, 2023 were not the same. Nevertheless, how could such divergent views be held in the same division?
On different occasions, Unit 8200 presented warnings about Hamas preparing for a major assault. In July 2023, they warned that Hamas was conducting large-scale exercises aiming at invadingkibbutzim and several Israeli towns near Gaza. In September 2023, personnel from this unit noticed a Hamas military exercise which included preparations for a mass invasion with multiple entry points into Israel. The exercise included the use of vehicles to carry out the attack and practiced taking over Israeli towns. Subsequently, Unit 8200 warned a senior officer that Hamas was preparing a well-organized and planned invasion. However, their warnings were met with disbelief, and the senior officer failed to act on the information.
For at least three months before 7/10, lookouts from the Combat Intelligence Corps had reported on training, unusual activity and preparations near the border. They warned about a number of peculiar activities. For instance, more people who had not been previously observed in the area were arriving; the usual Palestinian farmers had been replaced by others; Hamas members were frequently conducting training sessions, digging holes and placing explosives along the border, et cetera. The lookouts saw furthermore that Hamas operatives had models of a tank and weapons on the Israeli fence; the operatives showed how to blow them up. The lookouts also noticed that the Hamas operatives observed the cameras on the fence and were taking pictures of them.
The lookouts passed information about what they were seeing to intelligence and higher-ranking officers, but were powerless to do more. As with Unit 8200’s findings, the lookouts from the Combat Intelligence Corps too had to experience their senior officers disregarding their warnings and consequently declining to forward them up the chain of command. Beyond this, the lookouts were threatened with legal action if they continued bringing up such alarming reports.
The policy and intelligence failures demonstrate shortcomings throughout the system. Intelligence warnings of a looming assault by Hamas were disregarded at all levels of warfare: warnings by Unit 8200 and lookouts of the Combat Intelligence Corps at the tactical level; Gaza Division intelligence at the operational level; warnings by the Devil’s Advocate Unit at the military and political strategic levels. Leaders were convinced Hamas was sufficiently deterred and interested in maintaining the status quo.
With these policy and intelligence deficiencies in view, we cannot help comparing 7/10 to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the other war that took Israel by surprise. The big difference, of course, is that in 1973 regular armed forces of neighboring states (Egypt and Syria) attacked Israel, whereas in the current war, paramilitary troops (Hamas) did so.
Nevertheless, similar failures occurred. In 1973, the Israeli government was wary of starting a war. The US government exercised political pressure on Israel to remain the status quo. This likely also played a role in Israel’s reluctance to prepare for war or to launch a pre-emptive strike in spite of several intelligence warnings. Equally, in 2023 the Israeli Government was convinced that Hamas was aimed at a calm relationship with Israel. Thus, the government neglected intelligence warnings on a threat by Hamas and was unprepared for warfare. As in 1973, in 2023 the US government under President Joe Biden was putting pressure on Israel to avoid conflict. In this case, Biden hoped to improve the circumstances of the Palestinians.
After the Six-Day War of 1967, in 1973 Israel considered itself invincible; any enemy would stay far away from IDF’s superior military power. Likewise, after 2014 and 2021, Israel considered itself as having soundly defeated Hamas. As Aryeh Deri has admitted, Israel misjudged the threat.
In the months preceding the Yom Kippur War, Israel received a number of warnings about a potential attack by Syria and Egypt. In the same way, over a year before 7/10, Israel received intelligence reports on a forthcoming assault by Hamas and did not act on them.
In 1973 Israel felt safe and secure behind the Bar Lev Line, a fortified set of defenses along the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, built shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War. But on Yom Kippur, Egypt quickly seized all the fortresses except for one. Similarly, before 7/10 Israel was sure that its high-tech sophisticated barrier with Gaza (consisting of remote controlled electronic signaling, camera surveillance and weapon systems) would be a reliable defense against Hamas. In December 2021, Minister of Defense Benny Gantz had ensured that an expensive, state-of-the-art upgrade to the wall would protect the bordering Israeli communities from terror attacks by Hamas. The fence was supplemented by a number of army bases surrounding Gaza. As with the Bar Lev Line, the fence around Gaza was also sparsely guarded, because the IDF relied on its high-tech capabilities. On 7/10, Hamas rapidly breached the fence at multiple locations and overran most of the army bases.
The inquiry committees of the State Comptroller, the IDF and of the State of Israel will have to deal with the question of why all these intelligence warnings were ignored. Was it out of sheer arrogance — Israel considering itself invincible? Or did the political and military leadership regard all the intelligence warnings that came from below as insignificant because it did not concur with the rosy outlook coming from above? Or were policymakers and senior officers afraid that setting off a false alarm might affect their careers?
Did careers outweigh the security of the nation and the lives of its citizens? Why did Israel not learn from similar failures 50 years earlier in the Yom Kippur War? These questions can only be satisfactorily answered if the political and military leadership of Israel is willing to do some deep soul-searching. Without such an introspection, Israel is likely to make the same mistakes again.
[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
Comment:
Michael Novakhov / @mikenov
Israel Didn’t Predict the October 7 Massacre. The Reasons Why Are Important. newsandtimes.org/israel-didnt-p More of the hypothetical reasons: Infiltration of he Israeli Intelligence by the GRU, their meticulous military planning, and the secret preparations and training of Hamas by the Wagner Group (of Syria and the Middle East, which is very close to another GRU project, ISIS.) – October 7 Massacre – GS: google.com/search?q=Octob –
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Two Russian courts have meted out the first convictions in connection with what the government calls the “international LGBT social movement” and which was designated as extremist last year.
On Thursday, a court in the southern region of Volgograd found a man guilty of “displaying the symbols of an extremist organization” after he posted a photograph of an LGBTQ flag online, according to the court’s press service.
Artyom P., who was ordered to pay a fine of 1,000 rubles, admitted guilt and repented, saying he had posted the image “out of stupidity,” the court said.
On Monday, a court in Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, sentenced to five days in administrative detention a woman who had been in a cafe when a man approached her and demanded she remove her frog-shaped earrings displaying an image of a rainbow, said Aegis, an LGBTQ rights group.
The woman was called to the police station after the man, who filmed the encounter, posted it online.
A trial is set to resume next week in Saratov in southwestern Russian against a photographer who posted images of rainbow flags on Instagram, independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported.
The rainbow flag represents the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Russian law prohibits anyone in the country “displaying the symbols” of organizations it considers extremist, a list that includes social network Meta.
Russia’s Supreme Court banned the “LGBT movement” last November, continuing a pattern of increasing restrictions in Russia on expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity.
A law passed last July outlawed legal or medical changes of gender for transgender Russians, and a law banning the promotion of “nontraditional” sexual relations has been on the books for over a decade.
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Russia makes first convictions for ‘LGBT extremism’ following ban
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LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) – Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, has tried to send a “business as usual” message since his deputy was arrested on a bribery charge. But the widening scandal looks bad for him too, and is seen as a push by a rival clan to dilute his power.
On the surface, the timing of the detention on Tuesday of Timur Ivanov, one of Shoigu’s 12 deputy ministers, was unexpected, coming when Russia is waging war in Ukraine and the authorities have made discrediting the army a jailable offence.
Allegations of graft funding a lifestyle way beyond his means made against 48-year-old Ivanov by the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation had been in the public domain for more than a year with no apparent fallout.
Yet this week state TV suddenly showed Russians a perplexed-looking Ivanov – who denies wrongdoing – dressed in full military uniform, standing in a clear plastic courtroom cage of the type that so many Kremlin foes have occupied before him.
His arrest, say Russian political analysts including some former insiders, shows how the war is shaping infighting between the “clans” that jostle for wealth and influence in Russia’s sharp-elbowed political system.
The clans – alliances of like-minded officials or business people – centre around the military, the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the military-industrial complex and also include a group of people from President Vladimir Putin’s native St Petersburg who have known him personally for many years.
“Someone in the elite didn’t like the fact that Shoigu had grown stronger,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told Reuters.
“This doesn’t comes from Putin, but from people who are close to Putin who think that Shoigu has overplayed his hand. It’s simply a battle against someone and a ministry that has got too powerful and an attempt to balance the situation.”
Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter who is now designated as a “foreign agent” by the authorities, said he too saw the arrest as an attack on Shoigu that would weaken him.
“Ivanov is one of the closest people to Shoigu. His arrest on the eve of the appointment of a new government suggests that the current minister’s chances of staying in his chair are sharply declining,” he said.
Ivanov was arrested as a result of an investigation by the counterintelligence arm of the FSB security service, according to Russian state media.
Ivanov’s is the highest-profile corruption case since Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022. State media have reported that Shoigu has removed Ivanov from his post.
The scandal comes just two weeks before Putin is inaugurated for a fifth presidential term and before a government reshuffle expected next month at which Shoigu’s job will, in theory, be up for grabs.
Ivanov was in charge of lucrative army construction and procurement contracts and is accused of taking huge bribes in the form of services worth, according to Russian media reports, at least 1 billion roubles ($10.8 million) in return for handing out defence ministry contracts to certain companies.
While few are willing to bet Shoigu will lose his job because of the scandal, given his loyalty to Putin, Ivanov’s arrest is seen as a reversal for his boss, who’s influence and access to the Kremlin chief has been elevated by his key role in the Ukraine war.
The Moscow Times cited a senior government official as calling the arrest a serious blow to Shoigu’s camp and cited a source close to the defence ministry as saying that the arrest was more about politics and “Sergei Shoigu’s weakening position” than about Ivanov.
Shoigu and the top army brass have at times been the focus of vicious criticism from Russian war bloggers and nationalists who have accused him, particularly after a string of retreats in 2022, of incompetence.
Shoigu survived an abortive coup led by Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, since killed in a plane crash, who in June last year orchestrated a march on Moscow to try to topple him, but his authority was damaged. Putin said the events could have plunged Russia into civil war.
Shoigu had since managed to win back Putin’s trust, but the arrest of his deputy is a renewed setback.
“It indirectly damages Shoigu. Questions arise. How is it that a person who was close to him and who he brought on managed to steal so much under Shoigu’s own nose?” said Carnegie’s Stanovaya.
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, has forecast that Shoigu, in post since 2012, will keep his job regardless.
“Everyone is wondering – could this be a signal to Shoigu that he will not be in the next government after 7 May?” Markov wrote on his official blog.
“Calm down. He will be. Shoigu has created a new army since the disastrous year of 2022 which repelled the offensive of the Ukrainian army in 2023. And in 2024, the army is already advancing.”
There is much about the background to Ivanov’s arrest that remains unknown. Multiple theories are circulating in Moscow about whether the bribery accusation is the whole story, with unconfirmed media reports that he may also be accused of state treason, something his lawyer has denied.
Some have suggested that it was perhaps his love of a Western lifestyle at a time when Putin says Russia is engaged in an existential struggle with the West that may have been his downfall.
Others believe his family’s fondness for luxury European holidays, yacht rentals, Rolls-Royce cars and opulent parties was fine before the war but was now seen as “feasting at a time of plague”, a Russian literary reference.
Shoigu has remained silent on the scandal, inspecting a space launch facility this week as if nothing had happened.
The Kremlin has told journalists to rely solely on official sources and has said that the often vast construction projects which Ivanov oversaw – such as the reconstruction of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol – will not be affected.
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Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Alex Richardson
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As Russia Chief Political Correspondent, and former Moscow bureau chief, Andrew helps lead coverage of the world’s largest country, whose political, economic and social transformation under President Vladimir Putin he has reported on for much of the last two decades, along with its growing confrontation with the West and wars in Georgia and Ukraine. Andrew was part of a Wall Street Journal reporting team short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He has also reported from Moscow for two British newspapers, The Telegraph and The Independent.
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