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From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | |  | | By Paul McLeary, Joseph Gedeon and Christopher Miller | | 
Two British citizens Aiden Aslin, left, and Shaun Pinner, right, and Moroccan Saaudun Brahim, center, sit behind bars in a courtroom in Donetsk, in the territory which is under the Government of the Donetsk People's Republic control, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, June 9, 2022. | AP Photo | With help from Daniel Lipmann Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Quint Top human rights experts are slamming the death sentences handed down by a Russian-backed court in eastern Ukraine this week against two Britons and a Moroccan who were fighting with the Ukrainian army against Russian troops and their separatist allies. The sentence, announced Thursday after a show trial in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) — an area only recognized as independent by Russia —found that British citizens AIDEN ASLIN and SHAUN PINNER, and Moroccan national BRAHIM SAADOUNE be shot. It was just the latest in a long line of show trials put on by Russian-backed separatist courts dating to the Russian invasion in 2014, in which lawful Ukrainian combatants have regularly been convicted and sentenced to death in ad hoc “courts.” In the often gruesome spectacles, audiences vote on whether to execute the soldiers. Those proceedings have regularly violated the Geneva Convention. “There's no legal basis for the trial” in the DPR this week, according to MICHAEL NEWTON, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, adding that the Kremlin is ultimately responsible for what happens to the men. “The Russians have the obligation to accord prisoner of war status to all persons who come into their custody or the custody of their proxies,” under the Geneva Convention’s Article Five, Newton said. Once the separatist or Russian troops capture combatants on the battlefield, they are “entitled to all protections equivalent to Russian soldiers,” added Newton, who served as the senior adviser to the ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues in the State Department. International criminal courts and tribunals “use a standard we call overall control, so if you can show that Russia was funding and or organizing in some way, then this is directly imputable to Russia,” said LEILA SADAT, professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University who has also served as the International Criminal Court’s special adviser on crimes against humanity. “It's not illegal to serve in the army,” Sadat said, adding that the Geneva Convention’s Article Three “requires that prisoners be tried by an independent, impartial and regularly constituted court … but nothing about this sounds like it fulfills the requirements of an independent, impartial and regularly constituted court.” VADYM DENYSENKO , a Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser, said on national television Friday that Russia is holding the men “hostage” and their death sentence “raises the stakes in the Russian Federation's negotiation process. They are using them as hostages to put pressure on the world over the negotiation process." U.K. Foreign Secretary LIZ TRUSS said Thursday, "I utterly condemn the sentencing of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner held by Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine. They are prisoners of war. This is a sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy.” In any trial of captured troops, “what should happen is an administrative process under Article Five of the Third Geneva Convention that says ‘here's the evidence of who these people are, what they did,’ etc. but [the court] didn't do any of that, they just put them on trial” for fighting off the Russian invasion. On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister SERGEI SHOIGU said his country is holding 6,489 Ukrainian prisoners of war, and plans to put at least 1,100 of them on trial, raising new fears of mass show trials meant to feed the Russian propaganda machine.
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Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | UKRAINIAN MAYOR KNOWS RUSSIA IS COMING: With Russian forces bearing down on Kramatorsk, OLEKSANDR HONCHARENKO, mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city in their crosshairs, told our own CHRISTOPHER MILLER that the speed with which Western weapons can get there will likely be the difference between it falling or standing. “They move closer to us every day,” Honcharenko said of the Kremlin’s army from the tenuous safety of the basement of his city administration building last week. “It is kilometer-by-kilometer but a few more kilometers will put us in range of artillery.” Russian forces are waging a brutal scorched-earth campaign in Ukraine’s east, demolishing towns and villages with airstrikes, rockets, and barrages of heavy artillery, and then pushing through the ruins to capture territory. Kramatorsk has been hit with bombs and missiles fired from jets but has mostly avoided artillery strikes for now. But Honcharenko, a former marketing and sales director for a metals factory, fears it’s a matter of time — possibly just days — before Kramatorsk finds itself in the same position as Mariupol, Lyman and Popasna — cities in eastern Ukraine that Russia has pulverized. Slovyansk is Kramatorsk’s sister city just five miles north. The two share a strategically important highway and have been key hubs for the Ukrainian military since the initial Russian invasion eight years ago. Early on in 2014, Kramatorsk saw street fighting and was occupied by Russian forces for three months but has been in Ukrainian government hands since July 2014. Thanks to the new strikes, however, the pre-February population of 150,000 has been reduced to 50,000 civilians huddling for shelter. The city gained dubious notoriety in April when its train station was hit by a Russian rocket, killing 59 people and wounding more than 100 others. “We were lucky that only 59 died because at that time approximately 4,000 people were waiting for a train,” Honcharenko said. “It's so strange to say something or to hear something like ‘we’re lucky only 59 people died' because it's terrible. But that's how it is in the war right now. It could have been much worse.” As Honcharenko spoke, Kramatorsk’s air raid siren wailed in the background, signaling a Russian missile had been launched. The sirens activate anytime a missile enters Ukrainian airspace, but Ukrainians don't always know where it is headed. “This is our new reality. Nowhere is safe,” he lamented. “The Russians are stronger than us in the air,” Honcharenko said, calling for Ukraine’s allies to provide air defense capabilities to knock down the larger missiles and rockets that fall indiscriminately on civilian areas. Asked whether he would stay or go if Russian forces looked set to capture Kramatorsk, Honcharenko said he and his team had already decided: “We will go,” he said. “We will stay as long as possible to help take care of our citizens. But look, if they have Kalashnikovs and threaten us and they will force us to say things in front of the camera against our country, this is going to be bad for us and for Ukraine,” the mayor said. “We won’t be used for Russian propaganda.” Besides, “a living mayor can do more for people than a dead mayor.” FOOD INSECURITY IN UKRAINE AND BEYOND: As the situation in Ukraine continues to change, we are beginning to get a full scope of the humanitarian crisis that has grown from an all-out war. In a more than two-hour hearing with the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on national security this morning, international aid organizations told lawmakers that it’s not only Ukraine that’s affected by war: it’s the rest of the world, too. “The food supply disruption is going beyond the borders of Ukraine, and affecting countries like Yemen, Somalia and Lebanon that are highly reliant on Ukrainian wheat and food supply,” Rep. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-Mass.), the subcommittee chairperson, told our own JOSEPH GEDEON. But that doesn’t exactly translate into the U.S. or other countries greenlighting more aid. As the situation evolves, it could, as experts pointed out, impact how local farmers earn a living. “When factories were not operating, it was best to get the food from overseas,” Lynch said. “But now that in the eastern section of the country, factories and farms are beginning to operate, the need has changed and they would like to source the food locally. If we are bringing wheat into Ukraine, for free, then people will not buy the wheat provided by Ukrainian farmers. So we are exacerbating the problem.” Lynch said the subcommittee’s next steps would be to coordinate with NGOs on the ground that are providing food with recommendations that things need to change. “Right now the bureaucracy is supplying food that they don't need and in a way that is not helpful,” he said. “So we've got to be more cognizant of the impact of our aid.” NO MORE AMMO: It’s been more than 100 days of constant war for Ukrainians fending off a Russian invasion with their lives, but they have ominous news: Ukraine is almost out of their own ammo. Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence, VADYM SKIBITSKY, told The Guardian’s ISOBEL KOSHIW that everything now relies on what the West gives them. “We have almost used up all of our [artillery] ammunition and are now using 155-caliber Nato standard shells,” Skibitsky told the newspaper. “Ukraine has one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces. Our western partners have given us about 10% of what they have,” he added, explaining that Ukraine uses between 5,000 to 6,000 artillery rounds a day. U.S. Secretary of Defense LLOYD AUSTIN will be meeting with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in person in Brussels next week, where it is expected Ukraine will ask for more weapons. IT’S FRIDAY. WELCOME TO THE WEEKEND: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at award@politico.com and qforgey@politico.com , and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @QuintForgey. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @ChristopherJM, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @AndrewDesiderio and @JGedeon1.
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Lockheed Martin employees and customers are bound by a common cause. Ennobled by our shared patriotism, we will do all that is necessary to protect American and allied interests. Together, we will strengthen deterrence and help ensure mission readiness today. Learn more. | | | | | | NOT CAMERA READY: Tehran has startled the nuclear world by beginning the process of removing 27 additional monitoring cameras from its nuclear sites. This could possibly deal the Iran nuclear deal a “fatal blow” if they aren’t restored, International Atomic Energy Agency chief RAFAEL MARIANO GROSSI said in an urgently called press conference in Vienna. “This of course poses a serious challenge to our ability to continue working there,” Grossi said. This escalation, which initially began with Iran shutting off two U.N. cameras. comes after the IAEA passed a resolution led by Western nations condemning Iran for failing to cooperate with an investigation about undeclared nuclear sites in the country and amid deadlocked talks over the 2015 nuclear deal. Around 40 cameras would remain, Grossi said. Iran’s president, EBRAHIM RAISI , meanwhile, responded on Thursday by saying, “Do you assume that we withdraw because of resolutions? In the name of God and in the name of the nation, Iran will not withdraw from its stance a single step,” according to the AP’s JON GAMBRELL and PHILIPP-MORITZ JENNE. Iran is closer than ever to attaining nuclear-grade weapons, and without cameras to monitor, the IAEA is worried Iran could divert their materials to unknown locations. “We had a process, we had agreed on a process,” Grossi said. “The process did not produce the results that we were hoping it would. Does this mean that it should be the end of the line? I think it shouldn’t be the case, not yet.” GAS FACE: Russia may be pulling in more revenue from energy exports now than before its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine thanks to the rise in global oil and gas prices, which is blunting the effect — for now — of massive Western sanctions slapped on Moscow. The EU's ban on Russian oil isn’t expected to be fully implemented until the end of the year, which should seriously dent the $20 billion a month that Russian gas companies are currently taking in, but at the moment, it appears that Western companies are feeling the biggest pinch from the sanctions. “Global companies have racked up more than $59 billion in losses from their Russian operations, with more financial pain to come as sanctions hit the economy and sales and shutdowns continue,” The Wall Street Journal’s JEAN EAGLESHAM reports. A staggering 1,000 Western businesses have said they are or will leave Russia or scale back their operations there, leading to a reassessment of how valuable their Russian assets really were, while suffering charges and write-downs as a result.
| | | DOJ MALWARE FIGHT: The Justice Department has been receiving permission to secretly reach devices and deactivate malware that hackers have been able to plant, according to reporting from our own ERIC GELLER. “The latest example of this approach came in April, when U.S. authorities wiped malware off of hacked servers used to control a Russian intelligence agency’s botnet, preventing the botnet’s operators from sending instructions to the thousands of devices they had infected,” Geller wrote. This isn’t the first time it’s happened: Geller reports that the Justice Department last year used the same commands to remove malware planted by hackers, including agents of the Chinese government, from hundreds of computers across the U.S. “We have gotten more comfortable, as a government, taking that step,” ADAM HICKEY, deputy assistant attorney general for national security, said in an interview at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | NUKES ON THE GO: Our friends over at Morning Defense, (for Pros!) report that the Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a prototype mobile nuclear reactor. On Thursday, BWXT Advanced Technologies announced it received $300 million to produce the prototype system it had pitched as part of an effort dubbed “Project Pele.” The Army wants small, portable nuclear reactors to keep power-hungry troops deployed to austere locations connected to the grid. The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office kicked off the program last year, and BWXT is teaming with X-energy, a nuclear reactor company, to design the prototypes. The first one will be delivered in 2024 for testing at the Idaho National Laboratory for a planned three years. The design is housed within a 20-foot CONEX container that can be moved by road, rail, sea or air. The components would be assembled on-site and the reactor would be up and running within 72 hours. Shutting it off will take about a week, the company says. PLANE DEAL: The Biden administration has opted not to go with former President DONALD TRUMP’s red, white and dark blue paint scheme for the Air Force One replacement after a new study showed it could drive up the cost, according to an administration official, our own LEE HUDSON AND LARA SELIGMAN scoop. The news comes two days after POLITICO first reported that Trump’s planned livery for the new Air Force One, which calls for dark blue paint covering the plane’s underbelly and engines, could contribute to excessive temperatures on the aircraft. The darker paint scheme would have required additional modifications to cool some of the components, potentially driving up costs, the Air Force said. “The Trump paint scheme is not being considered because it could drive additional engineering, time and cost,” said the administration official, who asked for anonymity to discuss an internal issue.
| | | FIRST IN NAT SEC DAILY: After the bombshell this week that Brookings president (now on leave) and retired four-star Marine General JOHN ALLEN failed to disclose his work for the Qatari government and then allegedly lied to federal investigators about it when asked, Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.) has some questions. In a Friday letter to Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Warren said she’s looking for “information on the extent to which former DoD or State officials may be working for foreign governments, and the efforts by DoD and the State Department to prevent these officials from violating the law or inappropriately or unethically aiding foreign governments.” The Senator gives the two Cabinet officials until June 24 to provide answers to 10 questions, including whether Allen asked DoD or State permission to work for Qatar or any other government, and – this could be good – if State and DoD keeps a tally of how many former officials lobby their former departments on behalf of foreign governments, and to “please provide a full list of these officials and their roles.” Allen also reportedly lobbied then-national security adviser H.R. MCMASTER to have the Trump administration take go easy on Qatar, and Warren would like to know if McMaster ever reported these contacts. All great questions! And we’ll be watching for the answers. CHINA CASH: Rep. GREG MURPHY (R-N.C.) is drafting legislation — the Protecting Endowments from Our Adversaries Act — designed to cut U.S. university endowment investments that fund abusive or hostile Chinese entities, our own PHELIM KINE reports . The Congressman doesn’t yet have co-sponsors for the bill, but told POLITICO that he expects “a lot of interest from a lot of folks in both houses.” On Thursday, Murphy sent a letter to the 15 private universities with the largest endowments — Harvard, Yale, Duke and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among them — asking that they purge their investment portfolios of “entities that are supporting the imprisonment of Uyghur Muslims or aiding the Russian Federation’s horrific invasion of Ukraine.” Murphy also wants those schools to vet their endowment portfolios for any “adversarial entities” named on U.S. government sanction lists. A successful congressional push to sever U.S. university endowments from Chinese investments could provide a template for legislation requiring private sector investors, including private equity firms and hedge funds, to do likewise, downsizing the U.S. financial sector’s relationship with China. NDAA ACTION: The Senate Armed Services Committee next week dives into debate on its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which will be the upper chamber's first crack at the Pentagon budget. SASC's seven subcommittees hold markups on Monday and Tuesday. The full committee meets Wednesday behind closed doors to debate the NDAA, and the deliberations could continue into Thursday. Read the full markup schedule. Senators are expected to weigh whether to back military spending beyond the $813 billion Biden proposed, a movement that appears to be gaining momentum as lawmakers look to counteract the toll of the highest inflation in decades on the force.
| | | |   | | | | | | In an early-morning fit reminiscent of his Twitter days, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to unleash his unsurprising opinion on the select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, calling it “a one sided, totally partisan, POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” “The so-called ‘Rush on the Capitol’ was not caused by me, it was caused by a Rigged and Stolen Election!” he wrote. Less than 10 minutes later, he added: “I NEVER said, or even thought of saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ This is either a made up story by somebody looking to become a star, or FAKE NEWS!” Trump also downplayed his daughter IVANKA TRUMP’s testimony shown at Thursday night’s hearing, where she told investigators that she trusted former Attorney General BILL BARR’s judgment which flatly disagreed with the former president’s belief that the election was stolen. “Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results,” Trump wrote. “She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!)”
| | | — ANNA NEMSTOVA, The Atlantic: “In Ukraine, youth has ended” — IAN JOHNSON, Foreign Affairs: “Has China Lost Europe?” — ADAM CIRALSKY, Vanity Fair: Raiders of the Looted Assets: Inside the High-Stakes Race to recover Qaddafi’s iIl-Gotten Billions
| | | —The Information Technology Industry Council, 9:30 a.m.: “2022 Cyber Summit — with NIALL BRENNAN, MICHAEL MONTOYA, ERIC GOLDSTEIN and more”’ —House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, 10:00 a.m.: “The January 6th Investigation” —The Brookings Institution and Lawfare, 10:30 a.m.: “ Allies: How America failed its partners in Afghanistan — with MATT ZELLER, STEVEN MISKA, BRYCE KLEHM and SHALA GAFARY”’ —The Government Executive Media Group Defense One, 1:00 p.m.: “Seventh Tech Summit — with KATHLEEN HICKS and MICHAEL HOROWITZ”’ —The Business Council for International Understanding, 1:30 p.m.: “U.S.-Israel defense relations, operational challenges in the Middle East after the Abraham Accord and Israel's transition to CENTCOM” — with HIDAI ZILBERMAN’ —The Wilson Center's Global Europe Program, 2:00 p.m.: “The Marshall Plan at 75: Lessons for Ukraine? — with DERECK HOGAN, WOLFGANG PETRITSCH and JONATHAN KATZ”’ —Senate Armed Services Committee, 5:30 p.m.: “Markup of the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act”’ —Book discussion: The Hudson Institute, 6:00 p.m.: “Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers Who build America's Supercarriers — with MICHAEL FABEY”’ —The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 4:00 a.m.: “The 2022 Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment — with LYNN KUOK, TANVI MADAN, YUN SUN and more”’ Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot us an email at award@politico.com or qforgey@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter. And thanks to our editor, John Yearwood, for somehow surviving this week with fill-in anchors.
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Lockheed Martin is helping you outpace evolving threats by accelerating our digital transformation. That means simulating wear-and-tear with digital twins so you can anticipate maintenance and reduce downtime. It means deep knowledge of your missions. It means industry-wide experience and next-gen technologies. We do it all to help you prevent and deter emerging threats sooner and faster than ever. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
