Beijing’s Gamble: Putin’s Unsuccessful Mentor
As with Dr. Frankenstein’s ill-considered electrification of a dead person in Shelley’s classic, President Vladimir Putin three years into his reign sought to raise Yuri Andropov’s foreign and domestic policies from the dead to help him rebuild the USSR that Andropov’s decision-making on Soviet intervention in Afghanistan hastened toward collapse. And now there’s Ukraine. Other hardliner…
Iran Regime: Russia’s and China’s Destabilizer Bot
The dictatorial theocracy of Iran has been a quasi-vassal of larger dictatorships since the Iranian revolution of 1978-79. Today Iran acts in the strategic interests of Russia and China as it seeks membership in their regional organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. From 1997-2006, Russia under Putin was the top heavy conventional weapons supplier to Iran…
Keeping It Real: Reminders About The Dictators’ Club
The Dictators’ Club uses force, corruption, subversion, degradation, reeducation camps, unjust prosecutions, assassinations, and systematic lies to try to destroy opponents, dismantle free nations, and wage gray and open warfare to realize their expansionist plans. They are not likely to change unless they have to do so. Reminder on the Nature of Today’s Autocrat Regimes…
Belarusian Helicopters Fly Low into Poland’s Białowieża Forest
Setup: Two events aimed at NATO ally Poland were apparently orchestrated by Moscow, Belarus, and Wagner Group mercenaries this week: (1) Wagner mercenaries moved toward the strategic Suwalki gap that joins NATO ally Poland with the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), (2) and a military helicopter incursion into Poland by at least two low-flying Belarusian…
Tehran’s and Moscow’s Violations of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea
Setup: Article 2(2) of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea holds that “This Convention shall define and regulate the rights and obligations of the Parties in respect of the use of the Caspian Sea, including its waters, seabed, subsoil, natural resources and the airspace over the Sea.” Article 3(2) holds that…
Conceptual Thoughts: Defending Against the Onyx
Setup: The Kyiv Post ran a practical headline on Thursday, July 20, entitled with subhead, “Ukraine’s Latest Missile Problem – How to Shoot Down Russia’s ‘Onyx’: Russia has taken to using “Onyx” supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles against southern coastal cities, highlighting the shortage of air defense systems capable of taking them on.” The Onyx supersonic…
Stalking Horse, Provocateur, and PMC-Pirate for Putin
Set Up: Yevgeny Prigozhin has popped-up again in Belarus, claiming that new Wagner Group deployments are coming, emphasizing Africa and not ruling out future action in Ukraine. This, as Wagner fighters train Belarusian troops near Belarus’s border with Poland, and Russian troops mass with tanks, artillery, and multiple rocket launchers inside Belarus to open up…
Did Storm 0558 Access an On-Premises Hardware Security Module?
Set-up: On June 14th @Serghei for Bleeping Computer tweeted that “Microsoft says it still doesn’t know how Storm-0558 Chinese hackers stole an inactive MSA consumer signing key used to breach the Exchange Online and Azure AD accounts of two dozen organizations, including U.S. government agencies.” Bleeping Computer seemed to rely on a June 14th update…
Pattern Leads: Singapore Servers a Factor in China Hack?
Set-up: A Chinese hacker group called Storm-0558 reportedly breached accounts inside more than 24 organizations, including U.S. State Department officials’ Microsoft accounts leading-up to Secretary Antony Blinken’s June trip to Beijing. The hackers exploited a validation coding error enabling them to forge Azure AD tokens using an acquired Microsoft account (MSA) consumer signing key, as…
Implications for Russians if “Wagner Doesn’t Exist”
The BBC reported that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said, “Wagner doesn’t exist” when asked if Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group would continue as a fighting force aggressing against Ukraine. Putin set his portrayal of Wagner Group’s non-existence in the context of Russian law prohibiting mercenary armies, a law that he admittedly violated when he told the…