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From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | |  | | By Alexander Ward | | 
To date, State officials haven’t openly said anything for or against the House measure, except to insist the ultimate decision rests solely with Blinken and note that current U.S.-imposed sanctions and export controls on Russia are nearly equivalent to what the bill would mandate. | Win McNamee/Getty Images | With help from Lawrence Ukenye and Daniel Lippman Subscribe here | Email Alex The State Department is quietly letting congressional offices know that it has substantive concerns about labeling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. In July, Speaker NANCY PELOSI told Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN that if he didn’t put Russia on the terrorism blacklist, then Congress would. Since then, the Senate unanimously passed a non-binding resolution urging Blinken to do so, followed by a bipartisan quintet of House members introducing a bill that would officially slap the designation on Russia — circumventing the nation’s top diplomat. To date, State officials haven’t openly said anything for or against the House measure, except to insist the ultimate decision rests solely with Blinken and note that current U.S.-imposed sanctions and export controls on Russia are nearly equivalent to what the bill would mandate. But multiple people familiar with the conversations told NatSec Daily that agency officials in recent days have relayed to congressional offices their serious problems with the legislation. Namely, they said, State fears putting Russia on the state sponsor of terrorism list would imperil the fragile deal to let grain ships leave Ukrainian ports. It took months to broker that arrangement, and while vessels are slowly starting to depart the Black Sea — slightly calming a rampant global food crisis — there’s no guarantee Russia will live up to its commitments if it’s targeted so directly by the United States. What’s more, a country on the terrorism blacklist — a badge of dishonor only bestowed on North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran — suffers from blanket sanctions, meaning that the U.S. essentially cuts off Americans from engaging in business arrangements in those countries. That would include the various private-sector actors needed to keep the shipping deal alive and impact other key economic relationships that the U.S. maintains — like on nuclear materials — despite the raft of sanctions. The counterargument from some on the Hill is that the legislation wouldn’t automatically trigger sanctions that scuttle the food-shipping plan. It might cause some shivers up the collective spine of the private sector, but it’s nothing that can’t be easily assuaged in conversations with business leaders, these people say. Treasury could conceivably also design carve outs to please industry. Others your host spoke to worried the bill wouldn’t come up for a vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee without express support from the administration. For the moment none has been given, even in private, though it’s currently recess and the measure isn’t necessarily Pelosi’s top priority. It’s, therefore, possible it will get attention when Congress is back in session in September. Representatives for the speaker and HFAC didn’t return requests for comment about the legislation.
| | | UKRAINE’S NEW STRATEGY: Ukrainian Defense Minister OLEKSII REZNIKOV said his country’s forces are turning to a new approach in the six-month war: Striking military targets deep inside Russian-held territory. Ukraine doesn’t have the troop numbers or weapons to launch an offensive to retake seized territory, he told The Washington Post in a Thursday interview, so until such resources arrive, hitting sensitive Russian sites to degrade its capabilities will have to do. “We’re using a strategy to ruin their stocks, to ruin their depots, to ruin their headquarters, commander quarters,” Reznikov said. “It’s our answer to their meat-grinder tactics.” Kyiv is activating a “resistance force,” led by Ukrainian special forces, to strike behind enemy lines, he added. He neither confirmed nor denied that recent blasts in Crimea were due to such a strategy in action. NatSec Daily reported Wednesday that the Biden administration backs Ukraine targeting Russians positions in annexed territory because it’s still sovereign Ukrainian land. And yet … videos circulated online about a blast today at a Russian munitions depot in Timonovo — sovereign Russian territory the U.S. explicitly said Ukraine should not attack. TENSION AT UKRAINE NUCLEAR PLANT: Both Russia and Ukraine claim that both sides are planning a "provocation" at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after they traded blame for repeated shelling at the facility, Reuters reports. Moscow claimed it would shut down the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest nuclear power station, and Ukrainian intelligence officials allege that Russia told employees stationed at the facility to not come to work. The site has been the source of growing angst for the United Nations, which joined Ukraine in calling for a demilitarized zone around the plant. Russia, which has occupied the facility since March, rejected the idea. Kyiv has urged Moscow's forces to exit and demine the plant in order to avoid a disaster. WHERE’S EUROPE?: “Throughout all of July, Europe’s six largest countries offered Ukraine no new bilateral military commitments, according to new data — the first month that had happened since Russia invaded in February,” POLITICO’s ILYA GRIDNEFF reported. The data, from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and released Thursday, tracked the defense military pledges of the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland. The main takeaway, per Gridneff: “That major European powers are not keeping up with the military aid coming from the U.S., and that having led the charge, big-hitting Britain and Poland may be running out of steam.” That vindicates a talking point from Ukraine — that Europe simply isn’t doing enough to help Ukraine defend against Russia’s invasion. “Despite the war entering a critical phase, new aid initiatives have dried up,” said CHRISTOPH TREBESCH, who led the team that compiled the data. IT’S THURSDAY: 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 follow me on Twitter at @alexbward. 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 @magmill95 — plus our summer interns, @Lawrence_Ukenye and @nicolle_liu.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: LMXT: Competitive capabilities for America’s next strategic tanker.
Lockheed Martin and Airbus announced the LMXT’s boom will be manufactured in Arkansas, reinforcing that the LMXT will be built in America for Americans by Americans. Learn more. | | | | | | RUSSIA PUTS HYPERSONIC MISSILES IN KALININGRAD: Russia deployed three MiG-31 warplanes equipped with hypersonic missiles to its Kaliningrad enclave wedged between NATO nations, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Thursday. The Kinzhal-carrying fighter jets landed at Chkalovsk air base along the Baltic Sea to give Russia “additional measures of strategic deterrence,” the ministry said per The Associated Press, adding that the aircraft will be on round-the-clock alert. The Kinzhal has a range of around 1,200 miles and, per the Kremlin, can travel about 10 times the speed of sound.
| | | ESTONIA REPELS CYBERATTACK: Estonia’s cyberwarriors fended off its broadest cyberattack since 2007 — which came shortly after the country removed Soviet monuments in a Russian-majority region. “Russian hacker group Killnet claimed responsibility for the attack, stating on its Telegram account on Wednesday it had blocked access to more than 200 state and private Estonian institutions, such as an online citizen identification system,” Reuters’ ANDRIUS SYTAS reported. But Tallinn reported that the attack came and went without much disruption. "Yesterday, Estonia was subject to the most extensive cyber attacks it has faced since 2007," tweeted LUUKAS ILVES, undersecretary for digital transformation at Estonia's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. "With some brief and minor exceptions, websites remained fully available throughout the day. The attack has gone largely unnoticed in Estonia." U.S. CYBERCOM ENDS CROATIA MISSION: A U.S. Cyber Command team returned last month from a “hunt forward” operation in Croatia, Cyberscoop’s SUZANNE SMALLEY reported. The Cyber National Mission Force worked alongside the Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency’s Cyber Security Center, “hunting on the prioritized networks of national significance and looking for malicious cyber activity and vulnerabilities,” per Smalley. It’s the 35th such mission for the group, which has launched operations in 18 countries — including Ukraine — and more than 50 foreign networks.
| | | TRUCK IT UP: Our friends at Morning Defense (for Pros!) reported that GM Defense and American Rheinmetall are partnering in the Army’s Common Tactical Truck competition to replace its heavy tactical vehicle fleet, the companies announced on Wednesday. The Army released a request for proposals in June, and bids are due Aug. 29. The service plans to award contracts to up to five teams in December to build three prototypes for different missions. The prototypes will then go through a 1,500-mile test. The Army expects initial production for roughly 5,700 vehicles valued at $5 billion.
| | | CODEL IN CAMBODIA: The congressional delegation led by Sen. ED MARKEY (D-Mass.) visited Cambodia during its Asia swing, which also included a recent stop in Taiwan. They met with more than a dozen government officials and legislators, per a news release from Markey’s office. The American lawmakers broached topics such as climate change, human rights and the presence of China’s military within Cambodia. “[T]he delegation raised concerns in particular about reports that the People’s Liberation Army is building a base for Chinese use at the Ream Naval Base,” read the news release. “They should be skeptical of Chinese military ambitions in Cambodia and prevent any base for use by the PLA, which is prohibited by the Cambodian constitution,” Markey said in a statement. Others on the CODEL: Reps. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-Calif.), DON BEYER (D-Va.), ALAN LOWENTHAL (D-Calif.) and Del. AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN (R-American Samoa).
| | | ‘I DON’T SEE JUSTICE IN THIS WAR’: PAVEL FILATYEV, a Russian soldier, is speaking out against his country’s invasion of Ukraine — having just returned from the front lines. “I don’t see justice in this war. I don’t see truth here,” he told The Guardian’s ANDREW ROTH and PJOTR SAUER two weeks after publishing a 141-page account of his experiences in the war. “I am not afraid to fight in war. But I need to feel justice, to understand that what I’m doing is right. And I believe that this is all failing not only because the government has stolen everything, but because we, Russians, don’t feel that what we are doing is right.” Fliatyev, per his account, fought in Crimea, Kherson and near Mykolaiv before he was evacuated with wounds and an eye infection from the fighting. “We were sitting under artillery fire by Mykolaiv,” he told The Guardian in Moscow. “At that point I already thought that we’re just out here doing bullshit, what the fuck do we need this war for? And I really had this thought: ‘God, if I survive, then I’ll do everything that I can to stop this.’” Filatyev has since fled the country with the help of a France-based human rights activist.
| | | — FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: JENNIFER BERLIN is now assistant national cyber director for stakeholder engagement. She most recently was deputy chief of staff for the deputy secretary of defense. DRENAN DUDLEY is now assistant national cyber director for budget review and assessment. She was most recently a professional staffer for the Senate Appropriations Committee's homeland security subcommittee. LORAND LASKAI is now deputy assistant national cyber director for strategy and research. He is a recent graduate of Yale Law School who served on the Biden-Harris transition. JOSE FONTANEZ is now special assistant to the National Cyber Director. He most recently was director of scheduling for Rep. LOU CORREA (D-Calif.). (h/t DANIEL LIPPMAN) — DAVID BURGER is now the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. He was previously the DCM in Greece and Slovenia, a political counselor at America’s embassy in Kabul and directed the State Department’s bureau of counterterrorism. — DAVID MAGRADZE has joined the International Republican Institute as the program director for the Eurasia division. He was previously an adviser to Norway’s embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. — ANGELA “MANANA” MARIANA FREYRE will join the International Rescue Committee as senior vice president and general counsel in September. Manana was previously at Squire Patton Boggs and served as a senior adviser for Cuba policy in the Obama administration’s NSC.
| | | |   | | | | | | — JESSICA CHEN WEISS, Foreign Affairs: “ The China Trap ” — ANDREA MAZZARINO, The Nation: “ What the Military’s Recruitment Crisis Means for America ” — ETHAN ROCKE, Task & Purpose: “ Why veterans are turning to psychedelic therapy to combat PTSD ”
| | | — The Hudson Institute, 10 a.m.: “ Saudi Arabia’s China Option ” — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 10 a.m.: “Kenya Elections 2022: What’s Next? — The Center for American Progress, 11 a.m.: “The Devastating Impact of the Inhumane Family Separation Policy” Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot me an email at award@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter. And a grudging thanks to my editor, Ben Pauker — it’s my answer to his meat-grinder tactics.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: LMXT: Competitive capabilities for America’s next strategic tanker.
The LMXT aircraft delivers proven capabilities for the U.S. Air Force’s increasing aerial refueling missions. One of the LMXT’s discriminating capabilities is its refueling system, which includes a fly-by-wire aerial refueling boom. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
