Russia

July 27 marks the seventieth anniversary of the armistice that ended major hostilities on the Korean Peninsula. Sometimes referred to as the Forgotten War, the last thing the Korean War should be is forgotten. First and foremost because tens of thousands of US and allied soldiers and millions of Koreans died, but also because of the lessons the war offers for policymakers today as the world enters an era not unlike the budding Cold War in 1950.  The first lesson is on the importance of messaging. The world pays attention to what the US says, and Washington’s adversaries pay particularly close attention. In January 1950, secretary of state Dean Acheson spoke to the National Press Club about a perimeter that the US would defend against communist aggression.

At a small army field clinic outside Bakhmut, I watched as the body of a dead soldier was carried in. Two more soldiers followed, this time seriously injured – and this was what troops described as a ‘quiet day’. Ukraine doesn’t talk about its military deaths much and refuses to reveal any figures. There’s little in the way of victim culture here; the emphasis is on how brave its troops are, not how many have perished. Most people know someone who’s died in action, but treat the collective trauma as something to worry about when the war is over. In the meantime, there’s vodka. While Russia has used the conflict to drain its jails, Ukraine is losing its brightest and best Here and there, though, glimpses of the nation’s best-kept secret emerge.

An unlikely political star has risen in Germany. Boris Pistorius, a 63-year-old father of two is a career politician and, as of January, defence minister, an office that has proved a dead end for many of his predecessors. On the face of it, Germany’s Boris has little by way of stardust. Yet he is the country’s most popular politician by a country mile and his department is set to increase its budget at a time when overall government spending is being sharply cut. It seems for the first time in decades, Germany is serious about security and defence – but how long will that seriousness last?

It will be a matter of deep regret for Vladimir Putin that, in the wake of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ill-fated attempt to overthrow Russia’s military establishment, he has finally been forced to come clean about the Kremlin’s association with the Wagner Group. Deniability is a vital facet for a veteran spook like Putin. Even when Wagner’s band of mercenary cut-throats were spearheading the assault on the east Ukrainian city of Bakhmut earlier this year, the Russian leader rebutted claims of Prigozhin’s involvement. ‘He runs a restaurant business, it is his job – he is a restaurant keeper in St Petersburg,’ Putin told Austrian television.

Both Vladimir Putin and the mercenary Wagner Group have been dramatically weakened by yesterday’s attempted coup. Wagner’s nominal leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, goes into exile while his group will no doubt lose its privileged status. Putin, meanwhile, has been publicly and massively humiliated, a dangerous position for an autocrat. Firstly, Putin’s famed security forces proved completely helpless during a mutiny. Secondly, the mutineers – whom he called ‘traitors’ and promised to severely punish – will go unpunished. Putin had to make major concessions to bring an end to the coup, although what those concessions include is not yet clear. What is clear is that he was unable to crush the most serious threat to his authority in 23 years.