Russia’s War in Ukraine

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Jack and Robbie here, coming to you live from day three of the Munich Security Conference with a big speech from Vice President Kamala Harris, fireworks from China’s Wang Yi, and a marathon of approximately 4.3 million back-to-back-to-back interviews.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Congress invades Munich in record numbers, China lambasts U.S. over spy balloons, and Harris accuses Russia of crimes against humanity.

If you would like to receive Situation Report in your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here.

When senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to Munich, he had a message for Europe: Reports about the death of Republicans’ support for U.S. allies “have been greatly exaggerated.”

Real talk. At a private breakfast on Friday, organized by the conservative Bavarian political party Christian Social Union, McConnell sought to reassure an audience of leading European dignitaries that the GOP hadn’t lost its way on foreign policy.

The audience included EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen and other European heads of state and ministers, all in town to attend the annual Munich Security Conference.

He told the audience that the GOP would not shrink from its international commitments and urged Germany and other NATO members to speed up their efforts to revamp their militaries to “mirror the resolve and commitment” of the United States, according to two people who attended.

Reading between the lines. “He was telling the Europeans clearly, look ignore the social media hype, look at the large majority of our party and see we’re not shrinking from our international commitments,” said one person, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the breakfast was private.

“To me the subtext was clear: We’re not the crazies like the small handful of House Republicans you see in the headlines so often,” said a second person who attended.

The loudest aren’t the most powerful. Several Republican lawmakers on the right fringe of the party have castigated the Biden administration for supporting Ukraine and called for the United States to halt its aid.

While they dominate the headlines and the bird app, their influence over the party’s platform—or powerful committees in Congress—is decidedly less influential.

McConnell appeared to echo those sentiments in a public speech at MSC.

Tweets don’t say it all. “Don’t look at Twitter, look at people in power,” he said. “My party’s leaders overwhelmingly support a strong, involved America and a robust trans-Atlantic alliance.”

For European officials stung by four years of high profile spats and disputes with former President Donald Trump, it was a welcome message, and one aimed at shoring up U.S. credibility on Ukraine ahead of what is sure to be contentious elections in 2024.

But… Some still have doubts, though. “It’s easy to be rah rah Ukraine here in Munich, when the war’s going well, when it’s not election year,” said one European official who spoke to SitRep. “But when election year comes around, when the war in Ukraine drags into another costly year, what then?”

The Hill invades Europe. The Congressional delegation that descended on Munich is the largest in the conference’s 60 year history, multiple lawmakers told us, with over 50 members of the House and Senate registered to attend.

“It’s like a joint session of Congress, Europe edition,” quipped one U.S. official.

It’s no coincidence that this massive-sized delegation came while there’s a major land war going on in Europe.

“It’s important for us to have a large delegation, it not only reinforces what we’re doing but it’s also good for all of us to be able to hear what’s going on and hear from our allies,” Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen told us.

Why Mitch’s presence matters. McConnell’s visit is significant for two reasons, Congressional aides and officials here told us over an endless stream of overpriced coffees and canapes at the conference’s crowded hotel bar.

First, if there’s a cohort of senators that always go to these types of international confabs, McConnell’s not one of them. So when Europeans heard he was on the guest list, their ears perked up. He wasn’t just delivering his message to Europeans, he was hand delivering it in a rare international trip.

All while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and other top Democrats in Munich gave (roughly) the same broad message as their GOP counterparts on solidarity for Ukraine and NATO.

Second, it mattered who on the Republican side came with McConnell. In tow were freshman Republican senators, barely over a month into their jobs, like Sens. Ted Budd and Katie Britt, a move made to introduce the freshest faces in the Republican Party to its roots of supporting NATO and Europe.

War crimes. The Biden administration has formally determined that Russia is committing crimes against humanity in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced today in Munich. Harris called on U.S. allies to back an international tribunal into battlefield atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine, following a strong push from the Baltic States.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russian troops had committed “execution-style killings of Ukrainian men, women, and children,” and tortured civilians with beatings, mock electrocutions, and rape,

“These acts are not random or spontaneous; they are part of the Kremlin’s widespread and systematic attack against Ukraine’s civilian population,” Blinken said in a written statement.

Balloons clouding the sky. China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, had some less than diplomatic words for how Washington handled the alleged spy balloons it caught over U.S. airspace.

He called the U.S. decision to shoot down the balloon “absurd and hysterical” and said it was an effort to “divert from its domestic problems.”

We asked Sen. Bob Menendez, the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for his reactions to those comments.

“If we were flying a balloon over their sensitive sites I’m sure they would feel the exact same way,” he said.

The (other) sky-high China problem. China isn’t picking up the phone when the United States calls about a crisis, U.S. officials and congressional aides have fretted to SitRep repeatedly over the last two days.

And that’s a problem when China’s growing nuclear weapons and spy balloon programs are causing major consternation in Washington.

China rejected a call from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley when the schoolbus-sized spy balloon was first caught overflying the United States, two officials and a lawmaker told SitRep.

Tough talk. U.S. officials and members of Congress eager to keep up U.S. and European military aid to Ukraine spent a lot of time trying to get Kyiv to talk tough on corruption. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the issue in his video address to the conference and pledged major reforms in a post-war Ukraine. But are they getting tough enough?

Sen. Chris Coons, a close Biden ally, was hoping for Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir, both 6-foot-7 former world boxing champions nicknamed Dr. Ironfist and Dr. Steelhammer, respectively, to give a bracing answer about corruption reform.

Coons, who has no boxing belts, said he had asked Vitali about corruption at the Davos Forum in Switzerland last month in private and heard strong words and Vitali exaggeratedly vowed to “kill personally, anyone corrupt,” Coons recalled.

Klitschko gave a similar answer, albeit much more diplomatic, to the congressional delegation he met with in Munich this time around.

Alumni network. Another former lurking behind the scenes: former U.S. Defense Secretary and retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, who held a breakfast on Saturday and met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

CODEL mania. The frenzy of congressional delegations around the world is set to continue after the Munich Security Conference. More details to come.

9:30-10:30 a.m. (local time): New Jersey Governor Philip Murphy and Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko speak on an MSC panel.

9:30-11:00 a.m. (local time): Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson are scheduled to speak on a panel on Europe’s security architecture.

“Okay, I have to be coherent at this meeting? Too many bilats. I can’t think straight”

—an overwhelmed-looking U.S. lawmaker, seen rushing into a meeting at MSC with his aides in tow. We took the smallest amount of pity on him, so we’ll leave him unnamed.