Today's D Brief: Russian officials rush to annex after Ukraine's successes; PsyOps under review; SecAF warns China; Space Force's new song; And a bit more.
BEN WATSON, JENNIFER HLAD and JACQUELINE FELDSCHER | SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 11:17 AM ET
THE D BRIEF
The surprise success of Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive near Kharkiv “is panicking proxy forces and some Kremlin decision-makers,” and now several of those officials have announced what are likely to be sham referendum votes to annex Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, according to analysts at the Institute for the Study of War. Occupation officials in Luhansk and Donetsk want their votes to happen as soon as Friday; it’s unclear just yet exactly when the other two regions could proceed, according to Reuters.
One notable complication: “Russian forces do not control all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts,” ISW warns. And this suggests Russian officials could soon find themselves “in the strange position of demanding that Ukrainian forces unoccupy ‘Russian’ territory” after the sham votes, “and the humiliating position of being unable to enforce that demand,” according to ISW.
Meanwhile in the motherland, and amid Russia’s stark manpower shortages, parliamentarians appear to be trying to walk a fine line between coercing reluctant soldiers into going to war against Ukraine without sending too many of those “refusenik” soldiers into penal colonies, since the latter could pose a huge political risk to the safety of Vladimir Putin’s regime. That, anyway, is the opinion of Russia-watcher Rob Lee after learning of recent legislation in Moscow’s lower body, the Duma.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/09/the-d-brief-september-20-2022/377386/
