Today's D Brief: 'Phase 2' of Russian drills begin in Belarus; UK's icy reception in Moscow; Afghans protest in UAE; And a bit more.

As “phase two” of its drills with Belarus begin, the Russian navy is firing off shells today in three regions around Ukraine: The Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the Kerch Strait (map here). The latter sits as an entry point into the Azov Sea from Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which Russia invaded in 2014, when it began supporting a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. 

Kyiv’s foreign affairs office is irate over the artillery and naval drills. “The unprecedentedly large area of exercises essentially disables international navigation in both seas, leading to economic consequences in the region and for Ukrainian ports in particular,” Foreign Affairs spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said in a tweet this morning. 

A note on Russia’s Black Sea naval presence: It currently involves “13 large landing ships…with dozens of landing craft and fast-attack boats,” which would give it “the capability to conduct a brigade [or larger-sized] amphibious landing,” tweeted former Marine officer Rob Lee, who now studies the Russian military. Russia also recently sent more troops closer to Ukraine’s border with Belarus, and dispatched “SU-25 and SU-35 jet fighters, electronic jamming systems, nuclear-capable Iskander missile systems, and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to Belarus,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

The Kremlin’s navy is also drilling in the Mediterranean Sea, which could have a useful dual purpose as a deterrent against NATO involvement, said Lee. And that would all seem to suggest that “If Russia was planning on a military escalation in Ukraine, the next 2-3 weeks make the most sense. The capabilities are there, the ground in [north and northeast] Ukraine is in better condition, and [Russia’s] Eastern Military District troops will be more proficient after the exercise in Belarus.”

From the UK’s point of view, “This is probably the most dangerous moment, I would say in the course of the next few days, in what is the biggest security crisis that Europe has faced for decades, and we’ve got to get it right,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels. 

BoJo’s recommendation: That NATO stick to “sanctions and military resolve plus diplomacy” as it weathers whatever lies ahead. Johnson also said 1,000 British troops are now on alert for crisis response, should Russia greenlight a new invasion of Ukraine. Reuters has a bit more on that, here.

Johnson’s top diplomat is in Moscow today, and it’s already gone very poorly. So poorly, in fact, that Russia’s top diplomat reportedly left a joint press conference early after complaining that speaking to his British counterpart, Liz Truss, was “like talking to a deaf person,” and declared, “Ideological approaches, ultimatums, and moralizing is a road to nowhere.” (Recall that Russia has tried to assassinate several individuals in the UK over the past several years, including former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter back in 2018.)

Kyiv’s president continues to project calm from the capital. Speaking to business leaders on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assured them, “We have enough resources and weapons to protect our country.”

Bigger picture: “I'm not sure Russia can keep tensions high for most of 2022 and extract strategic benefits from it,” said Rob Lee. After all, he argued Wednesday, “Threats from Russian officials haven't compelled NATO members to make serious concessions yet and Ukrainians are going about their lives as if nothing is happening.” However, he concedes, “much of Russia's current behavior and the buildup have been unprecedented, so Russia's next steps may also be unprecedented.”

Can the 2015 Minsk agreement be revived as a path toward peace in Ukraine? Diplomats from France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine are meeting today in Berlin to possibly try and answer that question. 

ICYMI: The first of about 1,000 U.S. troops heading to Romania arrived Wednesday. Stars and Stripes has more on that mission, here.

Contingency planning, Pacific friends edition: “Japan has decided to divert some of its [liquified natural] gas reserves to Europe amid growing concern over possible disruptions of supplies due to the crisis,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday from Tokyo. That request came from U.S. and European Union officials. Agence France-Presse has more, here.

From Defense One

Mike Bloomberg Named Chair of Defense Innovation Board // Patrick Tucker and Marcus Weisgerber: The former New York City mayor and billionaire replaces Mark Sirangelo.

The Army’s New Decades-Long Climate Strategy Has No Budget // Elizabeth Howe: The strategy includes a list of tangible objectives but no corresponding cost estimates.

Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson, with Jennifer Hlad. If you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day in 1258, the Islamic “Golden Age” came to an end when the Mongols invaded Baghdad after an almost two-week long siege. 

The U.S. Army has a few big climate ambitions—but little idea how much they’ll cost, Defense One’s Elizabeth Howe reports. The service just released a new climate strategy this week, and it includes plans for an all-electric vehicle fleet and calls for microgrids on all of its 130 installations.
“The funding is going to be a moving target,” said Paul Farnan, the acting assistant secretary for Army installations, energy, and environment, in remarks to reporters on Wednesday. “This is a strategy that lays out steps…a lot in the coming decade, and even some beyond the next decade.”
But according to Howe, even the strategy’s more tangible objectives with much closer deadlines lack a cost estimate. For example, the Army’s all-electric light-duty non-tactical vehicles fleet should be in the field by 2027, according to the climate strategy.
For his part, Farnan says the Army is still working with Congress on appropriations and potential partnerships. Continue reading, here. 

Hundreds of increasingly hopeless Afghans are protesting at their holding facility in the UAE, Reuters reports from Dubai. One protester described the conditions as prison-like, and another said Emirati authorities have already detained some Afghans who had taken part in the demonstrations. A bit more, here.

And lastly: An apparent solar event has destroyed as many as 40 of SpaceX’s 49 recent satellites that the company sent into orbit on Feb. 3. Those satellites, around 550 pounds each, will now slowly burn up as they reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, company officials announced in a rare message on Tuesday.
What seems to have happened: The event and its associated “geomagnetic” storm caused “the atmosphere to warm and atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes to increase,” SpaceX said. “In fact, onboard GPS suggests the escalation speed and severity of the storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50 percent higher than during previous launches.”
More on that event: “On Jan. 29, before these satellites launched, a violent eruption from the sun of highly energetic particles and magnetism known as a coronal mass ejection was detected,” the New York Times reports. “That ejection arrived at Earth sometime around Feb. 2, creating a geomagnetic storm in Earth’s magnetic bubble.”
Expect more of these, one scientist told the Times. That’s because “The sun has an 11-year-long cycle in which it oscillates between hyperactive and quiescent states. Presently, it is ramping up to its peak, which has been forecast to arrive around 2025.” And with SpaceX’s eventual plans to send about 28,000 more satellites into orbit over the next several years, it seems likely they’ll lose more. Continue reading at the Times, here.