Syria, Captagon and Geopolitics: From Magic Bullet to Placebo

On the $50bn for Ukraine, Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said: “This won’t be the end of the story. “Unfortunately, it can’t be the end of the story. There is more to do. But at least this particular bridge has been crossed and that is of tremendous benefit to the Ukrainians,” he added.

With a little discipline, a radio-relay crew could obscure its location. By limiting the duration of its broadcasts, and frequently changing position, the crew of an R-416GM might thwart Ukrainian efforts to trace the vehicle’s coordinates. But it’s possible Russian signal troops lack that discipline. In a March 2022 study for the Royal United Services Institute in London, analysts Sam Cranny-Evans and Thomas Withington noted “the apparently lax communications discipline sources have said some Russian units have exhibited.”

The confrontation is also part of a broader geopolitical clash, with China testing Western stamina in supporting Ukraine as a proving ground. “It is a standoff between the liberal international order — which is essentially the collective West — and the rising powers of Russia, China, and possibly Iran,” said Callum Fraser, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “Authoritarianism versus democracy.”