Topic: Update on the War in Ukraine

Speaker:  David Edick, Jr., Principal at Core Global Advisory

Presentation:
2023 was a crucial year of transition in Russia's war on Ukraine. The failure of Ukraine's much-anticipated summer counteroffensive ultimately served to highlight how the conflict had become a grinding and bloody war of attrition...with advantage accruing to those on defense. Assumptions by many that sanctions on Russia's economy would cause economic collapse have turned out to be seriously mistaken. Russia's economy is in fact overheating. Russian armaments output is surging. Drones have profoundly altered the conduct of war at the front. Ukraine's maritime drones have chased the Russian navy into the corners of the Black Sea...while Russia's domestically-produced drones and electronic warfare capabilities have eliminated many of the advantages developed by Ukraine's foreign-supplied forces in 2022. 

As the summer of 2023 moved into Fall, one could sense a turning of the tide in the war in the field...enhanced by US Congressional resistance to Biden administration proposals for more arms and money for Ukraine. War fatigue became apparent in parts of Europe as well. Meanwhile, domestic politics have emerged in Ukraine for the first time since the start of the war. Heavy losses at the front and a fading sense of progress/hope have put the Zelensky regime under growing pressure.

Looking ahead, what are the prospects for the war in 2024? Will Western aid and sanctions be sustained...or fade? Is it possible that Russia will win this war? If so, what would be the strategic implications in Europe and Asia? Dave Edick will discuss these questions after updating us on the war itself. 

Speaker’s bio:
David Edick Jr. is Principal at Core Global Advisory, a consultancy focused on political risk, commodities, and market strategy. David has over 30 years' experience in trade, investment banking, and NGO relations in Russia. He has worked abroad in Russia in the food trade and investment banking, and in Mexico in the seafood export development business. 

David also serves as a member of the Energy Committee for the Western Regional Partnership, a collaborative between the Department of Defense and representatives of Federal agencies and State and Tribal leadership in 6 states of the US southwest. He also serves on the Natural Resources Committee and the Tribal Engagement Working Group. 

In Russia, David served as Deputy Director of Vladivostok-based Siberian Capital Investment. He later served as Director of North American Client Development & Research for the Moscow-based Russian-British investment bank, Vtoroi Finansovyi Dom. David also co-founded and served as president of California Trading & Industrial Corporation. Through the company's wholly-owned Vladivostok, Russia subsidiary the company was focused on the business of organizing the manufacture and shipment of non-perishable foods from Europe and North America for wholesale in urban markets of the Russian Far East. He later served as Executive Vice President of Cortez Seafoods which organized the marketing, processing and shipping of Mexican seafood to importers in Asia and Western Europe.

Drawing on his global perspective and experience, David has lectured widely for more than 15 years on energy, finance and geopolitics.

Long active in San Diego's international civil society community, David is 3-term Past President of the San Diego World Affairs Council. He is also 6-term Past President of the San Diego International Sister Cities Association, and 7-term Past President of the San Diego - Vladivostok (Russia) Sister City Society. In 2015 he served as Chair of the Steering Committee which led the establishment of San Diego’s 16th sister city relationship (Panama City, Panama).  David is a longtime participant in the international collaborative Pacific Rim Park program founded by James Hubbell. 

David graduated from San Diego State University in 1985 with a custom-designed, cross-disciplinary degree in Global Political Economy. David and his family live in Rancho San Diego, California.