The D Brief: Pleas at the UN; Russia-China drone project?; China tests ICBM; Army’s armor lessons; And a bit more.
Zelenskyy at the United Nations: “Russia’s war against Ukraine will end because the UN Charter will work. It must work. Our Ukrainian right to self-defense must prevail,” Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
He also asked the international community not to “tire” of Russia’s war on his country, nor to imagine that “peace talks” would bring peace. “From the very first second of this war, Russia has been doing things that cannot possibly be justified under the UN Charter. Every destroyed Ukrainian city, every burned village, and there are already hundreds and hundreds, serves as proof that Russia is committing an international crime. And that’s why this war can’t simply ‘fade away.’ That’s why this war can’t be calmed by talks,” he said.
Notable: Zelenskyy’s speech was a tentpole of his multi-day visit to the United States. The other will be a White House meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in which the Ukrainian is slated to formally present a plan for stepped-up action and ultimately victory.
Biden’s final UNGA address. The U.S. president sounded a hopeful note and reiterated many of his administration’s foreign-policy themes, including continued support for Ukraine and strengthening alliances in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. He said China has restarted its cooperation on stemming the global flow of deadly synthetic narcotics, and said the U.S. will continue to oppose unfair economic competition and coercion in the South China Sea. He also urged Israel and Hamas to finalize the ceasefire-and hostage deal put forth by the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. Here’s a transcript from the White House.
Speaking of the UN, Taiwan wants in. In a Defense One oped, Foreign Minister Lin Chia-Lung says his country and its citizens are unjustly excluded from UN activities, in part because of Beijing’s misportrayal of the assembly’s 1972 resolution recognizing the People’s Republic of China. The false claim is “one of the key elements in a campaign to establish the legal basis for justifying a future armed invasion of Taiwan,” Lin writes, arguing that now is the time for the UN to push back. Read, here.
Welcome to this Wednesday 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 1983, nuclear war was averted amid a computer error at the Serpukhov-15 bunker outside Moscow.
New: Russia is allegedly operating a “secret war drones project” inside China, two European intelligence sources tell Reuters. Using apparent copies of two invoices from a Russian intermediary, the sources say Moscow’s state-run arms firm Almaz-Antey is working with a subsidiary named IEMZ Kupol to test a Chinese-made drone with a range of over 1,200 miles known as Garpiya-3, or G3. Kupol has been under U.S. sanctions since last December.
At least two of those G3 drones were delivered to Russia at unspecified dates, according to the invoices, which themselves were created over the summer. Five other “military drones” made in China were also delivered, but it’s unclear what those five were.
Why it matters: “The two intelligence sources said the delivery of the sample drones to Kupol was the first concrete evidence their agency had found of whole UAVs manufactured in China being delivered to Russia since the Ukraine war began in February 2022,” Reuters writes.
Worth noting: Reuters says it was “unable to determine whether the [Russian] defence ministry gave the company the green light to proceed with the serial production proposed.”
Expert reax: I would like a lot more information before jumping to any conclusions, researcher Sam Bendett of CNA said. That’s at least partly because it’s not clear why China would risk such an arrangement, he explained. “For a factory to exist officially that builds UAVs for the Russians exposes China to some of the more severe effects of the sanctions, so it’s not clear the extent to which China would be willing to expose itself.”
But that’s not all: Another document lays out plans for “a joint Russian-Chinese drone research and production centre in the Kashgar special economic zone in China’s Xinjiang province,” Reuters reports. Read more, including allegations China is building a drone similar to the U.S.-made Reaper, here.
Meanwhile in the Russian motherland, authorities just released a postage stamp in an effort “to popularize drones and UAVs across the country,” Sam Bendett noticed and shared on social media Tuesday.
Back in the U.S. on the campaign trail, former President Trump praised Russia’s military as he argued Tuesday against giving Ukraine more military aid, the Associated Press reported from Savannah, Georgia.
“What happens if [the Russians] win? That’s what they do, is they fight wars,” Trump told his audience. “As somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. That’s what they do. They fight. And it’s not pleasant.”
Trump also mocked Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as “the greatest salesman on Earth,” and lied about the amount of U.S. aid given to Ukraine. In a correction to his remarks, AP noted, “The U.S. has provided more than $56 billion in security assistance since Russia invaded in 2022,” citing State Department figures.
New: China’s military says it just launched an unarmed ICBM in what the BBC reports would be the first time since 1980.
According to Beijing’s Defense Ministry: “The PLA Rocket Force launched an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) carrying a dummy warhead to the high seas in the Pacific Ocean at 08:44 on September 25th, and the missile fell into expected sea areas. This test launch is a routine arrangement in our annual training plan. It is in line with international law and international practice and is not directed against any country or target.”
Pertinent info: “From Navigational Warnings and NOTAM’s, it was fired from Hainan with a ~11 700 km range and RV impact near 10.4 S, 146.5 W,” astronomer Marco Langbroek reports with supporting imagery and approximate 3D flight path. “The Rv impact area was some 700 km from Nuku Hiva in French Polynesia, and some 875 km from Bora Bora,” he writes.
Expert reax: “This launch is a powerful signal intended to intimidate everyone,” said former Pentagon official Drew Thompson, now a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
“China chose to launch an ICBM during the United Nations General Assembly,” Thompon noted, adding, “This is not just a signal to the U.S., Japan, Philippines and Taiwan.”
New: The Philippines’ military chief says he wants to host America’s mid-range Typhon missile system “forever,” Chief of Staff Romeo Brawner Jr. said Wednesday at the 5th Asian Defense, Security, and Crisis Management Exhibition and Conference in Manila.
Background: The U.S. brought the system to the Philippines in April for exercises, but it will now remain “indefinitely,” AP reported Wednesday, citing two Filipino officials.
Worth noting: China’s Foreign Ministry has protested the system for months, accusing the U.S. of undermining regional security. That’s partly because the U.S. system can launch Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of 1,000 or so miles—putting China within reach.
“Don’t throw stones when you live in a glass house,” Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said at the conference. “Why don’t they lead by example?” he said. “Destroy their nuclear arsenal, remove all their ballistic missile capabilities, get out of the West Philippines Sea and get out of Mischief Reef.” Read more, here.
Additional regional coverage: “U.S. Tackles a Military Vulnerability in the Pacific: Supply Lines,” the Wall Street Journal reported this week in a roughly five-minute explainer video.
How a U.S. armor brigade is applying lessons from Ukraine. Even though most of the fighting in the Ukraine war is between relatively lightly armed units, the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team is seizing the opportunity to learn from it, Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, 3rd Infantry Division commander, said at a recent media roundtable.
Deception is no less vital than ever. Norrie described how his soldiers rigged an old satellite dish to emit like a command post—and ensnared the opposing force during a recent exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Defense One’s Sam Skove has more, here.
Can AI predict if a Marine will quit? Corps wants to know. A new experiential initiative uses artificial intelligence to predict whether a Marine recruit will complete their full term and, more importantly, pinpoint the factors that might get in the way of that goal, said the AI lead for the U.S. Marine Corps. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports.
Air Force debuts “next-gen acquisition model.” Long accustomed to buying its aircraft with everything included, the service is moving toward ordering the mission systems separately, acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said last week.
An “element of our next-generation acquisition model is having direct relationships, where it makes sense and where we can, with our mission system providers, and not simply working through a prime on individual platforms,” Hunter said “The reason why is: your mission systems have to integrate across a broad swath of our force in order to accomplish the missions that we have to do, the complex mission threads that go into high-intensity conflict with a peer competitor.” Defense One’s Audrey Decker has more, here.
And lastly: The family of a Black World War II combat medic receives his medal for heroism. Waverly B. Woodson Jr. went ashore on D-Day with the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, the only African American combat unit assigned to the invasion by the still-segregated U.S. military. The medic spent 30 hours on the beach treating wounded troops, initially under heavy German fire that wounded him as well. Woodson, who was soon awarded the Bronze Star, died in 2005. But his family campaigned for greater recognition, and on Tuesday accepted his posthumous Distinguished Service Medal.
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