The D Brief: Kyiv hikes taxes; DOD’s space turf war; Smart new drone; Tornadoes shred Florida roofs; And a bit more.

It’s been 962 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv’s lawmakers just passed the largest tax hike of the war so far, increasing the rate on personal income from 1.5 to 5%, according to the New York Times. 

Kyiv is looking to spend $12 billion more on its military over the coming year. After all, “it must cover the salaries of its service members and domestic arms production from its own revenues. That military spending accounts for more than half of the state’s $100 billion annual budget,” the Times reports. 

“We will be hated, but we don’t have any other option,” one lawmaker said. 

President Volodymir Zelenskyy is in London for talks with British and NATO officials, he announced on social media Thursday. 

Those talks include possible long-range missile use for targets inside Russia, new alliance chief Mark Rutte told reporters afterward. “We discussed it today, but in the end it is up to the individual allies,” Rutte said, according to Reuters. 

Zelenskyy later flew to Paris for talks with officials there. Then he’s off to Rome and Berlin on Friday. 

Update: More than 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday.

Also notable: “Russian forces sustained their highest month-on-month losses of the war in September,” a senior military official said, citing a Russian push toward Pokrovsk as a leading factor there, Defense One’s Sam Skove reports. 

Why bring it up? Moscow’s losses could eventually influence Putin’s calculus on continuing the war as he seeks to balance his foreign and domestic goals, a senior government official said. This doesn’t yet seem to be the case, however; though it is worth noting Putin has not announced a “mass mobilization because of the effect that would have on Russia's domestic population,” the official said. But he has announced two partial mobilizations, in September and October 2022. More, here. 

Russian war fatigue rising? According to polling from September, there is a rise in those who are willing to say they believe war in Ukraine is bad for Russia—47% in the latest Lavada Center survey compared to 41% in results published this past May. 

And those who feel “war is good” for Russia has dropped to 28% compared to 38% four months prior. 

Still, some 60% say they feel the war is going well for Russia. For comparison, 70% said they felt that way in February. And notably, “72% of respondents said they would support Vladimir Putin's decision to end the military conflict,” according to Levada. But that number drops to just 31% if it means giving Ukraine back the territory Putin has annexed so far.

Coverage continues after the jump...

Welcome to this Thursday 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 1985, the airliner carrying the Palestinian hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise ship was intercepted by U.S. Navy F-14s and forced to land in Sicily.

Attention, Europe: There are serious limits to how much the U.S. can help, should Russia trigger a major war with NATO, analyst Franz Stefan-Gady, formerly of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, warned last week in a generous analysis published in the German language periodical Der Pragmaticus. 

Who is this guy? Stefan-Gady (aka @HoansSolo) is a highly regarded researcher who has spent the last few years traveling in and out of Ukraine to better understand contemporary warfare against Russia and Vladimir Putin’s war machine. His analysis reflects a particular kind of realism and urgency for the continent. 

Consider the following: “Of the approximately 450,000 active soldiers in the U.S. Army, only around 122,000 could be sent to Europe,” he predicts. And “Of the more than 2,600 battle tanks, the Americans could bring around 700 to Europe, and of their 40 submarines, only four would probably be used. Conclusion: Europe must—regardless of Donald Trump—be able to wage war and deter its enemies without major U.S. support.” However, according to Stefan-Gady’s reading of NATO capabilities, “No European country is currently in a position to lead a large unit such as a corps (up to 50,000 men), let alone an army, without American support.” And that is a big problem. 

Sobering reminder: Lithuania’s capital city of Vilnius “is only 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border and thus within range of Russian heavy artillery,” Stefan-Gady writes. According to NATO planners, “The strategic goal for Russia in this scenario is to take the city of Vilnius hostage in order to force NATO to stop fighting under the threat of using nuclear weapons.” The wider goal for Russia “would be to destroy NATO and cause the USA to lose credibility.”

Informed prediction: Trench warfare would very likely return to Europe, only this time “across the Baltics or from Kaliningrad across the Suwalki Gap to Belarus.” According to the associated logic, “Russia could dig in, as in Ukraine, and build dense defensive positions secured by wide mine belts.” After all, Stefan-Gady cautions, “No NATO force has practical experience of how to overcome such defensive systems,” and “Any attempt would therefore claim countless victims.”

When it comes to air and missile defense, “the European members of NATO could together provide only five percent of the equipment needed to protect troops in the Baltics, major cities and other important critical infrastructure,” he writes. Those NATO members have just 36 such systems; “70 to 90 long-range air defense systems would be needed in the two Baltic scenarios just to protect NATO units on the ground,” he estimates. At least an additional “50 additional long-range air defense systems would be needed in Eastern Europe to protect cities and critical infrastructure,” Stefan-Gady warns. 

And that’s not something that can be remedied by a huge pile of cash, since “more than four years can pass between the signing of the contract, production and delivery of a single system such as an M902 Patriot,” he reminds readers. 

One notable X factor: The U.S. could theoretically turn its ship around in terms of its inefficient defense procurement processes, thereby “creat[ing] the capacities necessary for such a [two-front] war in the national arms industries.” Should that herculean turnabout occur, “the Russian and Chinese calculations [in a two-front war against the U.S. and NATO] may not work out,” Stefan-Gady says. But this seems highly improbable at present, he concedes. And even if such industry changes do come about, “it remains unclear whether the West has the will to endure a long war of attrition,” especially given its strong historical inclinations toward isolationism. 

Continental reax: “We need to realise in Europe that we will need to do more for our own security independently of whether Trump gets elected!” said Ulrike Franke of the European Council on Foreign Relations (emphasis hers). “The US won’t be willing and able to do as much anymore while at the same time the threats get bigger,” she added. Want more? Check out Stefan-Gady’s article, in the original German, here. 

Additional reading: 

• “Wars Are Not Accidents: Managing Risk in the Face of Escalation,” by political scientist Erik Lin-Greenberg of MIT, writing this week in Foreign Affairs; 
• “Putin Fires US Ambassador,” Newsweek reported Thursday; 
• “Logan Act: Why it could be illegal for Trump to call Putin,” from Axios, writing Wednesday; 
• And “Africans recruited to work in Russia say they were duped into building drones for use in Ukraine,” the Associated Press reported Thursday.

A Pentagon turf war has ‘hamstrung’ the commercial space industry, execs say. Here’s how it breaks down: the NRO is in charge of buying commercial ISR imagery for the Pentagon, while the NGA handles analytic products—and the five-year-old Space Force is pushing to break their monopolies, arguing that it can move the data and intelligence more quickly to combatant commands. Industry execs like the way the Space Force is trying to do things, reports Defense One’s Audrey Decker, here. 

Anduril’s new AI-powered strike drone shows how quickly battlefield autonomy is evolving. The Bolt-M pushes to the outer limits of the Pentagon’s principle that armed robots need a human in on any lethal decision—and is ready to move on if that principle should fall, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports.

Related reading: “Lockheed taps deputy F-35 chief to take over program,” Decker reported Wednesday as well.

Update: Hamas has returned to suicide bombings after a two-decade lull, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing Arab intelligence reports that Yahya Sinwar, who launched the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and took full control of Hamas over the summer, has ordered it so. The first such took place in Tel Aviv on Aug. 19, detonating before it reached its target.

WSJ: “Sinwar, who has been Hamas’s top leader in Gaza for years, took control of the politburo in August after Israel killed the previous leader, Ismail Haniyeh, the preceding month. His ascension was the culmination of a yearslong internal struggle over how to balance two competing visions for the group.”

In the past week: “Hamas has claimed two separate shooting attacks in Israel—one in Tel Aviv that killed seven and a second in Beersheba that killed a female Israeli soldier.” 

Meet the man Hamas’ own officials in Doha, Qatar, reportedly call a “megalomaniac,” here.

Hurricane Milton eased to a category three storm as it made landfall overnight along the Florida coast, spawning 36 tornados and causing sporadic flooding as it advanced eastward from Siesta Key, south of Tampa, toward Daytona Beach. Residential roofs were shredded and many boats transplanted along roads and beside homes, according to aerial photography from ABC News. 

Portions of the stadium roof at Tropicana Field, which hosts the Tampa Bay Rays, were ripped off by winds that reached 97 mph. Tampa recorded one foot of rain, while eight inches fell around Daytona Beach, causing flash floods at Cape Canaveral. By the time Milton passed over the state, it had been downgraded to a Category One hurricane. 

So far, four people are believed to have died from the storm, according to Tampa’s NBC affiliate WFLA News Channel 8. But that number could rise as first responders get to work and more debris is cleared. In the meantime, “Officials in the hard-hit counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding,” WFLA reports. 

MacDill AFB latest: The base “remains closed at this time and personnel…should not attempt to access the installation until further notice,” officials said Thursday on Facebook. An assessment team is reviewing the base today, with updates for the public promised “as quickly as possible.” 

Nearly 3.4 million Floridians are without power, according to Poweroutage.us. However, “635,996 accounts have already been restored as of 6:00 AM,” Gov. Ron De Santis said Thursday morning. State personnel have begun clearing roadways, “and 150 inspectors have begun performing inspections to ensure bridges can reopen safely in impacted areas,” the governor said.