The Big Five - 4 May 2025 edition
My regular update on global conflict. This week: Russia's '3-day peace' proposal rejected, Russian casualties increase, the minerals deal, and the North Koreans learn and adapt.
We are ready to move toward a ceasefire even starting today, if Russia is ready to take reciprocal steps: complete silence, a lasting ceasefire of at least 30 days. President Zelenskyy, 4 May 2025.
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Big Five. First, my apologies for not publishing a Big Five edition last week - I was on a short break after my time at West Point Military Academy with my wife.
Second, for all the Star Wars fans (of which I am one) - May the Fourth be With You!
In this week’s edition of The Big Five, I cover the Ukraine-U.S. minerals deal, the increase in Russian casualties in Ukraine accompanied by declining returns for those losses, the strategic strike campaigns of Ukraine and Russia, and North Korea’s continuing support to Russia’s war effort.
In my examination of strategic competition and confrontation in the Pacific, I explore the large scale exercises underway in the Western Pacific, Chinese development of counter-UAV doctrine and technology, and Australia’s just-held federal election.
As always, I conclude with my top five war and national security reads from the week.
Ukraine
Rusaia’s Peace Proposal. In the past week, the Russian president proposed another short-term truce which would coincidently cover his 9 May parade in Red Square. As I noted in my interview with Times Radio on this topic during the week, this was a cynical proposal by the Russian leader to prevent some kind of embarassing incident at his big parade - and respond to Trump’s comments about Putin in the wake of the Vatican Zelenskyy-Trump meeting.
Posting on social media after his meeting with the Ukrainian president, Trump said he believed Putin was "tapping me along" after Moscow's strikes on Kyiv this week. He also noted that he believed there there was "no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas". Putin, who wants to drag out negotiations for as long as possible, is now using his short ceasefire proposals to ensure the U.S. remains engaged and does not step up support for Ukraine.
Late in the week, the Ukrainians officially rejected Russia’s proposal with a counter-proposal for a 30 day ceasefire which would provide the foundations for negotiations about a longer term ceasefire and eventual war termination agreement. As Zelenskyy noted on 4 May:
We are ready to move toward a ceasefire even starting today, if Russia is ready to take reciprocal steps: complete silence, a lasting ceasefire of at least 30 days. That’s a fair timeframe to prepare the next steps. Russia must stop the war—halt its assaults and shelling.
Additionally, in rejecting the Putin proposal, President Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine cannot be responsible for the safety of foreign guests at Putin’s 9 May parade in Red Square.
There are more meetings about a ceasefire and eventual peace in Ukraine in the coming week.
The Minerals Deal. This week, the Ukrainians and Americans finally agreed to a deal about the future exploitation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Announed in a social media post by Yulia Svyrydenko on 1 May, the deal is a more favourable one for Ukraine than previous iterations put forward by the Trump administration. The full details of the minerals deal, which you can read in full here, includes the following terms:
The U.S. is no longer using the deal to demand repayment of previous assistance provided to Ukraine.
The deal gives America preferential rights to mineral extraction in Ukraine but states that Kyiv has the final say in what and where is being mined.
Besides minerals, oil and gas are also included in the agreement.
The deal could underpin future U.S. military assistance commitments, and so it turned out this week with an announcement about F-16 provision to Ukraine from America. It’s not a lot, but is a start.
The agreement does not stand in the way of Ukraine joining the EU.
A U.S.–Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund will be jointly managed by both countries as an equal partnership.
The deal counts future U.S. military assistance to Ukraine in the form of ammunition, weapons systems, or training as a capital contribution to the fund.
The deal does not provide exclusive access to Ukraine’s minerals for the U.S., only preferential rights. The agreement also does not include any form of security guarantee for Ukraine from the U.S. Importantly however, the new minerals agreement does take a much tougher stance towards Russia. As a CSIS analysis of the deal notes:
It refers to “Russia’s full-scale invasion,” and the U.S. Department of the Treasury adds that “no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Interestingly, most maps of Ukraine’s minerals date back half a century. There is a lot of work to be done to confirm the true nature of Ukraine’s potential mineral wealth. The word ‘potential’ is important here. Without infrastructure development, extraction, processing and buyers, mineral wealth is just ‘potential’ wealth and nothing more.
Assessment. The deal is likely to have a minor impact on the trajectory of the war. While it might make Trump slightly more inclined to assist Ukraine with its defence, we should not over analyse the strategic impact of this deal. Having worked in the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell in the Pentagon (2010-2011) when the U.S. discussed Afghanistan’s mineral wealth as part of their relationship, the discussion of future exploitation of minerals had no material impact on that war.
We might also recall that Trump agreed with the President of Afghanistan in 2017 that America would help Afghanistan with extraction of its minerals. Trump then went behind Ghani’s back to negotiate an exit from Afghanistan with the Taliban.
We should not expect too much from the U.S.-Ukraine agreement.
North Korean Support for Russia’s war. With the recent acknowledgement that North Koreans are fighting on Russia’s side in the Ukraine War, attention has turned to where they might be employed after their engagement in the Russian Kursk campaign. North Korea originally deployed around 12,000 soldiers for combat operations in Kursk, and deployed another 3,000 reinforcements earlier this year.
Reports emerged this week that North Korean troops might be deployed by the Russians to the frontline in eastern and southern Ukraine. Russia might justify the deployment of these North Korean troops into Ukraine because of their illegal annexation by Russia, which is recognized by North Korea.
While Ukraine still holds onto a small strip of Kursk, and North Korean troops could be redeployed from there, a complicating factor is Ukraine’s more recent campaign in Russia’s Belgorod region. Russia, wanting to keep North Koreans in Russia, might deploy them there.
Assessment. Regardless of whether the North Koreans stay in Russia or are redeployed to eastern Ukraine, the North Korean forces have learned and improved. As General Budanov noted in my recent discussion with him, and this article for the WSJ notes, the North Koreans have learned and adapted from their early experiences in Kursk. As a Ukrainian commander recently described “Why are the Koreans the ones storming? They are better prepared psychologically and they are better prepared physically. In Kursk, they completed their mission.”
The North Koreans are improving their combat capabilities, which will see them remain a small but powerful element of Russia’s offensive capacity in the coming months. And, they are passing their lessons back home to also improve their massive army in North Korea; this will be a major concern for the Republic of Korea as well as for U.S. forces stationed on the penninsula.
The Strategic Strike Campaigns. Russia has continued its assault on Ukraine over the past week. It has undertaken strikes against Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Dobropillya, and elsewhere in Ukraine. On the 1st of May alone, over 170 drones and missiles targeted Ukraine. The average number of drones used in each of these nightly attacks was between 150 and 200 each night in May so far:
1 May: 5 ballistic missiles and 170 drones.
2 May: 150 drones.
3 May: 2 ballistic missiles and 183 drones.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces have executed carried out a two-day massive attack on Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory. At least 255 UAVs, 14 unmanned aerial vehicles, 12 cruise missiles (8 Storm Shadow/Scalp, 4 Neptune) were used. Explosions were reported in multiple cities across Crimea, including Sevastopol, Yevpatoria, Saky, and near Hvardiiske. Russian authorities temporarily shut down traffic on the Kerch Bridge for around 3 hours.
The Ukrainians had a major success earlier in the week with an attack against the Russian 51st Arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate (GRAU), located north east of Moscow. Videos show multiple secondary blasts after the initial strike. Apparently, the ejection of unexploded munitions during these explosion resulted in Russian authorities evacuating seven towns and twelve dacha villages. This is part of the ongoing Ukrainian strike campaign that is targeting Russian munitions storage depots, which I covered in detail in this post.
Russia’s Increasing Casualties and Declining ‘Return on Investment’. This week, British intelligence published their latest assessment of Russia’s casualties suffered since the beginning of their full-scale invasion in February 2022. So far this year, In Russia is likely to have sustained around 160,000 casualties. At a rate of 40K per month, this is a very significant number of casualties, and as the British report notes, “should these casualty rates persist for the rest of 2025, this would be the costliest year of the war in terms of Russian personnel, continuing the year-on-year trend of casualty increases.”
The graph below from the British report shows the trend in Russian casualties, which is all in the wrong direction from a Russian perspective, and heading in a positive direction for the Ukrainians (although we don’t know their casualties to make a comparison).
The maps below provide a comparison between the last day of 2024 and 1 May 2025 to show what the Russians have gained for 160,000 casualties.
Assessment. The above maps provide an indication of just how expensive each kilometre of Ukrainian territory has become for Russian forces, and what a poor return on their investment this has been for the Russian military. While they may have successfully cleared Ukrainian forces from large parts of Kursk, the opportunity cost of this is probably additional advances foregone by Russian forces in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The principal gain the Russians have made is not in territory but in the minds of decision-makers in the Trump administration. The Russians have sought to project the high costs of the war on Trump, Vance and others and that Russia’s momentum in Ukraine is irreversible. The Russians have had some success with this narrative, particularly with messaging from the U.S. administration about the human costs of the war and their unwillingness to acknowledge that Ukraine may get back its territories illegally seized by Russia.
But as Lawrence Freedman notes in his excellent recent article on peace negotiations, this focus on territorial gain has also come at a cost to Russia (besides the human cost, that is). As he notes in a 30 April 2025 article:
I wonder if Putin told his stories too well, so that Witkoff concluded that the big issue for Putin really was holding onto these territories and that so long as this was granted the other demands did not really matter…Of course the Russians are happy for the Ukrainians to be told that they can’t have their territory back. But they want much more. And if all they get is the territory they have been systematically battering for the last three years then the ‘special military operation’ will have failed. This conflict always had a territorial aspect but the core objective was to deny Ukraine its sovereignty and independence.
Thus, while Putin might be seeking to project success through small gains in territory (and they are small, particularly given how much they have cost him), this strategy might actually compromise his capacity to achieve his real war aim - to destroy a sovereign Ukraine and its culture.
One thing that isn’t included in the British report is equipment losses. This is an important complementary metric because while Russia might be able to reconstitute its losses in people (it has a population of 140 million afterall), its equipment losses compound its losses in personnel and are much harder to replace. According to recent reports by RAND and Carnegie Endowment, Russia’s equipment losses have equated to significant percentages of its pre-war regular stocks and it has had to draw deeply on its irreplaceable strategic stocks.
The long and the short of it is that while Putin might bluff his way through another summer campaign season, after that, Russian forces are facing increasing shortages in equipment. Additionally, while Russia might have a large population, he may also have to resort to another mobilisation campaign. As a January 2025 RAND report on Russian reconstitution notes:
Given the social tumult caused by the first mobilization and the worsening economic pains caused by transitioning to a wartime economy, a second mobilization could prove to be decisive in finally destabilizing the tightly controlled political climate in Russia.
Putin might still believe he can defeat Ukraine (at least publicly), but his theory of victory is that his forces can last just a little bit longer than Ukraine’s can. But if Ukraine continues to increase its kill rate of Russians with a combination of more drone strikes, adaptive tactics and western assistance, this Russian theory of victory is far from assured of success.
The Pacific
Exercise Season in the Western Pacific. Both the United States and China are conducting large scale exercises in the western Pacific region.
The U.S., Japanese and Philippines navies this week conducted Exercise Balikatan 25. Also participating were Coast Guard elements from the United States and the Philippines, as well as ground forces and marines from several nations. An important component was also the integrated air and missile defence aspect of the exercise, with Japanese, Australian, American, British and Philippines forces contributing to this part of the exercise.
This week, the PLA deployed an amphibious task group to the South China Sea and conducted live-fire exercises. Key elements of the amphibious task group included the amphibious assault ship CNS Hainan, as well as the landing platform dock ships CNS Qilianshan, CNS Changbaishan and CNS Jinggangshan (999).
Chinese Counter UAV Developments. Recently, two reports have been published that explore the development of counter UAV technologies and doctrine in the PLA. The first and most comprehensive is a report issued by the China Aerospace Studies Institute.
This report provides an overview of PLA doctrine on uncrewed systems warfare before exploring Chinese publications about counter-UAV operations, tactics, and technologies. It includes a study of lessons learned by the PLA and PRC defense industry from recent conflicts, and provides and an assessment of the trajectory of the PLA’s approach to counter-UAV doctrine and technologies.
The report’s principle findings are:
PLA scholars and strategists believe that future warfare will be “unmanned, invisible, and silent” and expect intelligent unmanned combat systems to become critical components of modern military forces.
Development of UAV systems is informed by the belief of PLA strategists that the development of intelligent weapons and equipment is increasingly confrontational and explicitly targeted for conflicts between major powers. PLA and defense industry observers track foreign R&D efforts in unmanned systems and counter unmanned systems closely.
PLA strategists have long viewed the United States as the uncontested leader in the use of unmanned systems in warfare. Continued monitoring of PLA writings will be necessary to assess whether this continues to hold true in the wake of conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war.
Recent conflicts have not only demonstrated the utility and effectiveness of UAV strikes, but have also served to underscore the necessity of robust counter-UAV strategies, tactics, and systems.
Though PLA strategists are aware of the threats posed by high-altitude long endurance and medium-altitude long-endurance UAV systems, the bulk of counter-UAV research among PLA and defense industry research organizations appears focused on countering “low, slow, and small” UAVs and swarm technologies.
UAV swarm warfare is viewed by PLA and defense industry research personnel as a potential serious threat to thePLA’s existing defensive combat capabilities.
PLA and PRC defense engineers acknowledge that existing counter-UAV measures face many technical challenges, including poor standardization, insufficient capabilities under complex environmental conditions, and unreliable performance during normal operations.
You can read the full report at this link.
The second report was released this week by Defense One. This article examines the technological solutions being developed for the sensors to detect drones, the command and control systems to connect sensors, engagement systems and decision-makes, as well the weapons to bring down drones.
The article notes that “China’s counter-UAV advances reveal three important developments: a dedication to learning from and mastering the latest trends in conflict and technology; a determined effort to secure its airspace; as well as a larger goal to dominate the electromagnetic battlespace in future conflicts.” You can read the full article at this link.
Australia’s Decisive Federal Election. Finally, yesterday Australians voted in their federal election. The results were pretty clear not long after the polls closed at 6pm. The incumbent Labor government was returned to power with a decisive majority in the House of Representatives. The makeup of the Senate will take a few days to confirm, but Labor will probably need to rely on the cross bench in the Senate to pass legislation. Unlike certain other elections, the Australian election did not feature leaders calling into question the legitimacy of the election, and the opposition leader gracefully accepted his defeat (and the loss of his seat as well).
Unfortunately, both sides of politics scrupulously avoided discussion of national security during the election campaign. While the issues of Russian bombers at Indonesian airbases and Australian tanks for Ukraine intruded in a minor way into the campaign, both sides sought to avoid anything other than domestic politics. This might help winning the election but it has callously avoided any kind of honest discussion with the Australian electorate about the profound changes in Australia’s strategic circumstances in the past year, and the need for larger defence and national security budgets in the short and medium terms.
Not only has this reinforced complacency in the Australian community about its national defence, but it has also rewarded the incumbent government for keeping defending spending low at around 2% of GDP. This also means that Australia is more than likely to suffer some kind of significant strategic shock in the coming year or two, which might include stepped up Chinese agression, a Taiwan attack or a change in the U.S. relationship, for which the Australian community and its military are poorly prepared.
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It’s time to turn to this week’s recommended readings.
This week, I have included a new report on space threats published by CSIS. I have also included a new online book from Air University Press on human-machine teaming, a piece on the evolution of the Australian Army and an article on Japan’s ‘one theatre’ concept.
As always, if you only have time to read one of my recommendations, the first one is my read of the week.
Happy reading!
1. The Space Threat
Recently, CSIS published their 2025 Space Threat Assessment. The report employs open-source information to examine developments in non-U.S. counterspace weapons. It describes trends in the development, testing, and employment of counterspace weapons including widespread jamming and spoofing of GPS signals in conflict zones, and Chinese and Russian satellites displaying more advanced maneuvering capabilities. You can read the full report at this link.
2. The Mind-Tech Nexus
This recent online (and free) book - Human, Machine, War: How the Mind-Tech Nexus Will Win Future Wars - published by Air University Press examines the issue of extending the power of humans through the clever use of machines. This incorporates the use of long range strike, cyber operations, command and control, cognitive warfare, human performance and a range of other issues. It explores these issues from both American and allied perspectives. With 18 excellent chapters, you can download and read this publication at this link.
3. The Australian Army Evolves
This week, the U.S. Naval Institute published a timely update on the evolution of the Australian Army’s force structure and capability in the wake of a more aggressive China and the recent National Defence Strategy. The authors note that “the Australian Army today is rediscovering its amphibious and littoral-operation DNA. This is no surprise, given Australia is—as our national anthem puts it—a nation “girt by sea” that has always relied on a maritime strategy.” For a good description how equipment, training, structures and the relationship with its neighbour armies is evolving, you can read the article at this link.
4. Japan’s One-Theatre Concept
Apparently, at his recent meeting with the U.S. Secretary of Defense in Tokyo, the Japanese Defense Minister proposed a “one-theater” approach. Such an approach links the East China Sea, the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula and surrounding areas as a single military theatre in wartime. This article reviews the development of this Japanese military concept, as well as some of its challenge. You can read the full article here.
5. The Role of Civilian Leaders in Defence Institutions
The U.S. Secretary of Defense continues to keep attention on himself for all the wrong reasons. Whether it is his use of Signal to brag about operational details to his colleagues, having his wife sit in sensitive meetings, sacking of key military leaders without cause or his focus on what military people look like rather than what they can do, he is demonstrating why experienced, mature leaders have been the norm in this appointment until now. That said, he is the civilian head of the U.S. Department of Defense. In this piece from the Christian Science Monitor, the importance of good leadership from civilian leaders is explored. You can read the full article here.
While not nearly as catastrophic as Trump’s initial demands, the “minerals deal” draft agreement is IMO still seriously bad so that I hope that the Ukrainian parliament won’t ratify it. (My recommendation being to postpone the vote for forever, or at least until no-one of importance gets upset anymore if the parliament votes no.) I consider it a NothingBurger with a potentially very bad long-term cost — A terrible deal, like a marriage contract where dissolution of the contract or divorce is possible only by mutual agreement and the spouse is already known to be an abusive bully.