The D Brief: Russia targets European arms moguls; China floods Taiwan’s airspace; US subs add info warfare crew; Farewell, Gaza pier; And a bit more.
U.S., Germany have foiled a Kremlin plot to assassinate a top European arms maker, CNN reports, citing “five US and western officials familiar with the episode.” Moscow’s target was Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger, “a white-haired goliath who has led the German manufacturing charge in support of Kyiv,” Defense One alumna Katie Bo Lillis and others from CNN reported Thursday.
What’s more: “The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, these sources said.” Continue reading, here.
In context: We’ve already seen fairly convincing alleged Russian-linked plots across Europe since the Ukraine invasion, including an apparent assassination of someone Putin would consider a “traitor” in Spain this February as well as apparent arson in April at a Ukraine-linked business in London.
However: “Targeting people like Papperger is something v[ery] different—killing ‘enemies’ rather than ‘traitors’ in Putin’s parlance, and non-Russians, at that,” said renowned Putin scholar Mark Galeotti of the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
His advice to NATO and Ukraine’s allies: “I hope we will continue [the] recent practice of being willing to be open about (certain aspects of) what the intel services know for ‘pre-attribution’ — ie, letting Putin know that we know, and warning our populations.” Still, he continued, “given the adhocratic nature of the Putin regime this could be the result of initiative in the intel apparatus, not new policy. But if it is, it will be a dangerous and worrying escalation, and we need to prepare accordingly.”
U.S. missiles-to-Germany plan draws mixed response. One day after U.S. and German officials unveiled it, the plan to deploy missiles to Germany “drew praise and misgivings on Thursday, as supporters said it made Europe safer and critics warned it could antagonise Russia and spark a new arms race,” Reuters wrote on Thursday. The missiles include SM-6s, Tomahawks, and hypersonic weapons under development. Read more, here.
For their part, Russian officials called the plan “escalatory” and vowed to respond. New: The U.S. pledged another $225 million in military aid to Ukraine, including another Patriot air defense system. The package also includes various missiles, including NASAMS, Stingers; HIMARS, TOWs, Javelins; 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds; small-arms ammunition; demolitions munitions; and spare parts, maintenance, and other ancillary equipment.
Expert reax: Those incoming long-range air defense systems “will provide much-needed additional capacity to help Ukraine defend its cities and critical infrastructure and counter Russian Su-34s carrying glide bombs,” said John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia program at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Western coalition now needs to make good on its promise to provide Kyiv with additional tactical air defense systems, which will help counter Russian reconnaissance drones that facilitate Russian strikes in Ukraine’s rear.”
“The Biden administration should also lift its prohibition against ATACMS strikes inside Russia, allowing Ukraine to strike military targets such as airbases from which Russian Su-34s launch glide bombs in Ukraine,” Hardie added.
Related reading:
- “Canada unveils for first time target date for NATO defense spending goal,” Reuters reported Thursday from Ottawa;
- “Air Force’s Cheap And Fast To Produce Long-Range Missile Is Being Built For Ukraine,” The War Zone reported Thursday;
- And “US agrees to build icebreakers with Canada, Finland,” Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Thursday.
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2007, the crew of two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters protecting U.S. troops under fire attacked a group of armed men in eastern Baghdad, killing nine alleged insurgents and two journalists from Reuters. Three years later, classified U.S. military video of the attack, along with thousands of diplomatic cables, were leaked to Julian Assange of Wikileaks by then-Specialist Bradley Manning, who boasted in private chats, “[I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.” Manning would spend nearly seven years in prison for the crime, while Assange spent the next 14 years trying to dodge extradition to the U.S. for his role facilitating the leaks.
The U.S. military will “wind down” its pier operations less than three months after announcing the operation to rush desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C.
Harsh reality, in numbers: The pier was open for just 20 days at what U.S. officials said this spring was an overall cost of about $230 million. By the end, that amounted to $11.5 million for each day of operation.
The pier enabled the United States to deliver nearly 20 million pounds of humanitarian aid into Gaza without having to put any U.S. troops on the ground, defense officials at Central Command said. “Over days and weeks that it was being delivered has made a difference in trying to deal with the heartbreaking humanitarian situation in Gaza,” Sullivan said Thursday.
But that 20 million pounds met only a tiny percentage of the humanitarian need in Gaza, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports.
Revealed: The U.S. military has declassified imagery allegedly linking Iranian weapons with an attack on Red Sea ships, and many other attacks throughout the Middle East. The report covers two shipments of arms headed for the Houthis in Yemen that U.S. forces intercepted on January 11 and 28. (The first interdiction operation resulted in the deaths of two Navy SEALs off the coast of Somalia.)
About the attack: On December 11, 2023 the Norwegian-flagged M/T Strinda was struck by a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile, or ASCM. The ship caught fire, but the crew was able to control it without any injuries.
Missile components were left behind on the ship after the strike, including a turbojet engine “consistent with the Iranian Tolu-4 from the Noor ASCM,” the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency said in its new report.
Bottom line: The declassified findings add to well-documented reports strongly illustrating links between Iranian-supplied weapons and Houthi attacks inside and around Yemen. Such reports have been published by DIA (here and here, e.g.) as well as the United Nations.
New record for China’s Taiwan-adjacent drills: The Chinese air force just recorded its largest-ever single-day violation of Taiwan’s air defense zone on Wednesday, with 66 PLA aircraft detected around the island, and 56 of those crossing the ADIZ to come as close as 33 nautical miles of Taiwan, analyst Ian Ellis noted on social media, citing Taiwan’s defense ministry.
“The previous single-day highs were 54 ADIZ violations on 10 April 2023 and 52 on 4 October 2021,” Ellis said. (To be clear, China has flown more aircraft near Taiwan in the past—103 on September 13, 2023, e.g.; but never before has it sent so many across the ADIZ.)
Context: Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang war games begin July 22, “and China has stepped up its own activities ahead of that,” Reuters reported Wednesday.
Worth noting: Summer weather is typically more favorable for Chinese naval drills, though this year there seems to be slightly more activity than normal, a security source told the wire service.
A second opinion: “It is worth periodically reminding everyone,” said U.S. Air Force veteran Patrick Fox of University College London, “These penetrations are designed to normalize [Chinese military] aggression and progressively desensitize [Taiwan’s] personnel to their occurrence, among other things.”
Developing: Information-warfare officers are coming soon to Pacific subs. The U.S. submarine force has long been in the intelligence business, but the past year have seen pilot efforts to upgrade crews’ information-warfare capabilities. Now Naval Information Forces plans to put an IW officer and enlisted sailors on certain Pacific-based submarines, Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams reported Thursday.
The additional crew “brought expertise in cybersecurity, communications, and intelligence, and included cryptologic technicians for electronic intelligence and warfare,” Vice Adm. Kelly Aeschbach, the outgoing chief of Naval Information Forces, told reporters Wednesday. More, here.
And lastly: The U.S. and South Korea just formalized nuclear-deterrence guidelines. The Associated Press describes the move as “a basic yet important step in their efforts to improve their ability to respond to North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats.”
The new guidelines represent a year of work by a joint consultative body established “to strengthen communication on nuclear operations and discuss how to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons in various contingencies,” AP writes.
Why it matters: “The U.S. has long promised to use all its capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend South Korea if it is attacked, but faced suspicions that it lacks plans on how it would exercise its extended deterrence for its Asian ally.” Read on, here.
From the region:
- “Australia charges Russian-born married couple with espionage,” Reuters reported Friday from Sydney; one member of the couple is a 40-year-old private in the Australian army;
- “Japan punishes hundreds of defense officials for mishandling classified data and other misconduct,” the Associated Press reported Friday from Tokyo;
- And “US blocks British court from British territory,” the BBC reported this week after attempting to travel to Diego Garcia for a trial over whether migrants there were being unlawfully detained.