Programme Lead | Russia & European Security @theELN | Strategy | Defence | Arms Control | fmr ACONA Fellow | fmr @IFSHHamburg
Hamburg, Deutschland
Joined January 2015
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New article (open access) with @GabrielaIRosa in Global Studies Quarterly on the “#Karaganov debate”: Can public debate matter even in something as closed as #Russian #nuclear policymaking? We argue yes —and in ways current debates often miss. 1/5
academic.oup.com/isagsq/arti…
Alexander Graef retweeted
After many years of research, and on the eve of a historic Putin-Xi-Trump meeting, my 80-page treatment of the 1969 fighting between Moscow and Beijing is out!
New exciting evidence about civ-mil, intelligence, and escalation, esp from Russian archives.
direct.mit.edu/jcws/article/…
Interview mit dem @Tagesspiegel
Mögliches Kriegsende mit größeren Fragen der Sicherheitsordnung zu verknüpfen ist richtig. Schnellschüsse sind riskant. Zunächst bräuchte es ein Rahmenabkommen. Voraussetzung ist, dass 🇷🇺 die Souveränität der 🇺🇦 akzeptiert.
tagesspiegel.de/internationa…
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This is exactly the point we raised in 2024 when discussing long-range fires in Germany.
No one cared then, but here we are.
“France is pressing Germany to define how it would use long-range missiles in the event of a conflict with Russia”
ft.com/content/7f61b561-bcbd… 1/2
There is a working European security architecture. It just doesn't cover all of Europe. What's missing is a stable modus operandi with those outside built around basic principles. Now we have no rules. Fixing this is the real task and the max we can achieve, not some grand design
Alexander Graef retweeted
EXCL: Britain and Russia should seek fresh lines of communication to avert the “risk of miscalculation” arising from Moscow’s “state-sponsored terrorism”, UK defence secretary has urged.
Wes Streeting said in an interview with the @FT: “We have our embassy in Moscow. That is an important channel . . . I would much prefer there to be additional channels too, particularly military-to-military level.”
Speaking out as the UK has fallen behind allies such as France and Germany in its political and diplomatic lines of contact with Vladimir Putin’s regime, he added: “There is always a risk of miscalculation and that’s why having that direct communication is important.”
ft.com/content/4b3272a6-5d87…
Five years ago, on the eve of the invasion, I told journalists that even after military action, we’d face the same unsolved strategic order questions. That’s why I expected only a limited intervention. It seems we‘re back at that point, only millions have suffered in the meantime
Alexander Graef retweeted
💥NATO nuclear sharing new research💥 Everything you didn't know in one place! My good friends from Dublin City University asked me to give them 8,000 words on the legal basis for NATO nuclear sharing.
I gave them 21,000 words and broke new ground. 1/5
zenodo.org/records/24079488
Talk of Europe’s security order is familiar. Times are darker. In 2022, we traced rival readings of indivisible security. The call for a compromise formula looks way too optimistic now. Helsinki 2.0 is far off. We’re condemned to find solutions either way. warontherocks.com/a-letter-f…
Alexander Graef retweeted
Paris and Europe will have a seat at the table in next week’s U.S.-brokered peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said today. vist.ly/5rvnh
Putin’s personal vendetta against Zelensky and imperial views of Ukraine among Russia's pol elites are real. But so is the decades-long opposition to further NATO enlargement and Western regional influence. Both are true at the same time. In fact, they reinforce each other 1/3
2/3 The problem has always been that Moscow’s sweeping post-Cold War demands on European security exceed its leverage. It has been much clearer about what it rejects than about what it wants to build. Its proposals were vague and often fully out of step with others' interests.
2/3 States still share overlapping interests in avoiding unintended escalation. Mil-to-mil contacts and a pol exchange on which bilateral and multilateral tools they actually use, and which work to prevent and manage incidents, can lay the groundwork for greater predictability.
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3/3 These measures have limits. The political causes of war and rivalry in Europe run deeper. But as competition intensifies, so does the need for military comms. Many thanks to @UKOSCE for the invitation and for organising an excellent Security Dialogue on incident management.
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Alexander Graef retweeted
How are Belarusian forces adapting their training to lessons from the war in Ukraine?
Earlier today, we released @konrad_skorupa's paper on the Belarusian Western Operational Command’s September 2026 command-staff exercise.
A thread on the main findings.
Alexander Graef retweeted
The United States will mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on November 10–11 in Abu Dhabi, advancing President Trump’s mission to end the war. Discussions will focus on post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace.
Additionally, American negotiators will meet this week in Brussels with representatives from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the EU, and NATO to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, Europe’s post-war security architecture, and economic opportunities to support Ukraine’s reconstruction.
We look forward to building on the progress made in Kyiv, Oslo, and St. Petersburg toward a comprehensive, durable peace agreement that delivers lasting security for generations to come.
1/6 The point about the 1997 posture is frequently misunderstood. It's not about national troop strengths or NATO membership, but foreign deployments. It echoes Russia’s Dec 2021 draft agreement, Art. 4: no foreign forces and equipment beyond the 1997 levels in European states.
🚨 Putin plans to use Ukraine peace talks to push NATO back to its 1997 military posture
According to The Telegraph, the Kremlin wants to force NATO to scale back its military presence in Europe to levels seen before Eastern European countries joined the Alliance.
This could mean demanding the withdrawal of NATO forces from Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland.
That is why Moscow is pushing for European countries to participate in negotiations over Ukraine. Diplomatic sources cited by The Telegraph say Putin wants to turn talks about ending the war into negotiations over the entire European security architecture.
The issue may also have been discussed during Putin's three-hour meeting with Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in St. Petersburg.
However, European countries have previously rejected the Kremlin's demands to reduce NATO's military presence on its eastern flank.
5/6 But most importantly, Art. 4 of Russia’s 2021 draft agreement suggests reciprocity: it talks about all foreign troops in other European states. This naturally invites a discussion about Russian forces and equipment in Belarus, Moldova/Transnistria and, indeed, Ukraine.