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JAKARTA – Defense Minister and presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto’s presumptive Ukraine peace plan may have been shot down before it got off the ground, but it is unlikely to have done him any harm among Indonesian voters who generally have an unusually sympathetic view towards Russia.

Addressing the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Prabowo delivered a speech that was meant to focus on Myanmar and the South China Sea, and instead dwelt in general terms on rising tensions between the US and China.

But it was the closing segment of the 18-minute address where he took a bizarre stab at acting as an international mediator, encouraged perhaps by President Joko Widodo’s adroit handling of last year’s G20 summit held in Bali.

To the bemusement of Kiev, he suggested Russian and Ukrainian forces agree on a ceasefire, establish a demilitarized zone by withdrawing 15 kilometers from their forward positions, and submit to a United Nations referendum on disputed territory.

The former three star general also recommended the UN raise a peacekeeping force to police the proposed DMZ. “Rest assured, Indonesia would be the first country to join,” he said, referencing the country’s past record of peacekeeping in Cambodia, Africa and the Middle East.

Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksii Rezkinov dismissed the proposal out of hand, saying the idea of freezing troops in position “sounds like a Russian plan, not an Indonesian plan” while adding: “We don’t need this mediator coming to us (with) this strange plan.”

European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, a Spanish socialist politician, weighed in as well, telling his high-level audience there must be a “just peace”, not a “peace of surrender.” 

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry was reportedly surprised and unhappy, having already signed off on a previous, carefully-crafted presentation that offered several constructive ideas on regional issues, but made only passing reference to Ukraine.

President Widodo was caught off guard too, summoning Prabowo to clarify some of the key points in the speech which implored officials gathered at Asia’s premier security summit to issue a declaration calling for an end to hostilities.

While he is on good terms with Prabowo, Widodo is having to take an even-handed stance between the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) leader and ruling Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) candidate Ganjar Pranowo, who share top ranking in presidential opinion polls.

With nine months to go before the election, PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto, who is always in lockstep with party matriarch Megawati Sukarnoputri, couldn’t resist taking a swing at Prabowo, accusing him of undermining Indonesia’s official position of condemning Russia’s invasion.

Some critics compared Prabowo’s plan to a Chinese peace blueprint, largely rejected by the EU because it would allow Russian forces to maintain control over wide swathes of eastern Ukraine occupied since the February 2022 invasion.

Chinese delegates predictably saw merit in Prabowo’s plan. “I appreciate very much efforts from our friends in the region, like South Africa and Indonesia,” said Cui Tiankai, China’s former ambassador to Washington.

Sources familiar with Prabowo’s thinking say he has a soft spot for the Russian people because of their history of struggle against adversity, although that admiration apparently does not extend to President Vladimir Putin.  

The original speech suggested a more prominent role for the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) in trying to persuade Myanmar’s military regime to accept the Association of Southeast Nations’ (ASEAN) five-point consensus plan to move back towards democratic rule.

It also called for restrictions on the size and armament of coast guard ships in the region. China’s largest vessel, which is the size of a heavy cruiser and packs a 76 mm gun, has been active around the disputed Spratly Islands and close to Indonesia’s Tuna gas block.

The Philippines Coast Guard’s 62-strong fleet includes several frigate-sized vessels and is commanded by a full admiral, compared to the navy which is only headed by a vice-admiral. Indonesia’s Coast Guard is confined to small patrol boats.  

Prabowo is one of Indonesia’s few defense ministers to think strategically in deciding what equipment the TNI needs, even if the Defense Ministry doesn’t have the budget to pay for some of the expensive items on his wish list.

While Prabowo’s speech is not the first time he has gone off on a tangent, it may well have tapped into a well of support given the resentment many Indonesians hold toward the US and the West over their war on terror, which has been widely seen as a veiled war on Islam.

That feeling appears to outweigh any obvious parallels that might be drawn between Indonesia’s own history of Dutch colonialism and an imperialist Russian president trying to seize back a former colony in an act of unprovoked aggression.

It is not helped by the fact that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is a Jew, or that many Indonesians see Russia as partially an Islamic state because of the presence of at least 14 million, or 10% of the total population, by far the largest number in Europe.

Although previous Russian leaders often dealt brutally with Chechnya, where 95% of the inhabitants are Muslim, thousands of Chechens have fought in Ukraine and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov describes Putin as Islam’s “most loyal ally and protector.”

Since coming to power in 2000, Putin has carried out a radically different policy towards Muslims than in previous eras. In 2013, he announced that Islam was an integral part of the country’s history, the first time a Russian leader had done so.

A year later, he declared: “Muslims in Russia have every right to feel they are part of the global Islamic nation, and that Moscow has been and remains a geopolitical ally of Islam.”

Turkish newspaper Al-Estiklal said last year that Putin’s rapprochement with Muslims is inseparable from his strategy of geopolitical expansion, and “the restoration of the glories of the ancient empire in its areas of influence in the Balkans and other areas with an Islamic presence.”

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Iran has just publicly revealed its first hypersonic missile, an announcement that has sparked speculation about whether the missile is a functional weapon, bombastic propaganda, or something in between.

This month, Al Jazeera reported that Iran unveiled its first hypersonic weapon known as “Fattah,” meaning “opener” in Farsi.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders showed the Fattah in an unveiling ceremony, according to Al Jazeera.

Iranian state media claims that the Fattah can travel at Mach 15, has a 1,400-kilometer range, uses solid propellant technology and has a moveable nozzle for high maneuverability.

David Pappalardo notes in a 2022 Air & Space Operations Review article that Iran’s hypersonic missile may consist of a maneuverable re-entry vehicle (MaRV) mounted on a ballistic missile body, with Iran focusing on developing maneuvering warheads.

Pappalardo says that such missiles serve an intimidation purpose for regional and great power competition. However, he notes that hypersonic strike capability may present a steep technological curve for Iran, as the weapon requires highly integrated intelligence, targeting and command architecture wherein space assets are paramount.

However, hypersonic weapons may be a possible area of collaboration between Iran and Russia. Their shared disdain of the Western-dominated international order, common cause in the Ukraine war and heavily sanctioned economies have made them brothers in arms.

Asia Times reported in August 2022 that Iran had successfully launched its indigenous Khayyam satellite using a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Iran’s Khayyam may be a variant of Russia’s Kanopus-V satellite, which Iranian had negotiated with Russia since 2018 to acquire.

Although the Kanopus-V’s camera has just a 1.2-meter resolution, far below that of high-end US spy and commercial imaging satellites, it is a significant upgrade from Iran’s previous reconnaissance satellites, which have been derided as “webcams tumbling in space.”

The Khayyam and other satellites like it can provide targeting data for Iran’s missile arsenal, provide its proxies with space-based intelligence and monitor US and Israeli forces across the globe. 

Besides collaborating on the necessary space-based intelligence and targeting infrastructure for hypersonic weapons, Russia and Iran may have collaborated on hypersonic weapons design.

In November 2022, Asia Times reported that Iran appears to have developed a hypersonic weapon with Russian technical assistance in exchange for supporting the latter’s struggling Ukraine war effort. China, North Korea and Russia have all assisted Iran in varying degrees with its missile program.

Iran struggles to make its missiles accurate enough for offensive use, as it still needs to develop adequate stabilization and precision guidance systems for its missile forces.

Iran may thus have requested a quid pro quo in its strategic partnership with Russia, trading in military materials such as Shahed loitering munitions, artillery shells and ammunition and body armor kits in exchange for hypersonic weapons technical know-how.

Until now, Iran is not known to have conducted any hypersonic weapons tests. While Iran has a sizeable domestic arms industry, it is known to exaggerate its military capabilities.

One such case was that of the Qaher-313 stealth fighter, which Western analysts dismissed out of hand as fake. That raised immediate skepticism of Iran’s hypersonic weapon claim.

Iran International notes that current hypersonic weapons technology supports designs flying between Mach 5-6, so Iran’s claim of Mach 15 for the Fattah may be an exaggeration.

Iran International also notes that hypersonic weapons pose substantial technical challenges to established military powers such as the US, China and Russia, with these countries facing issues regarding the reliability, accuracy and effectiveness of their current designs. 

The report also points out that while the Fattah is most likely a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) mounted on a ballistic missile body, Iranian officials have not clarified if it would achieve hypersonic speed during the first phase of flight powered by a ballistic missile, or during its terminal phase gliding towards the target.

Nevertheless, Iran has the Middle East’s largest missile arsenal and building a hypersonic weapon could be within its priorities and capabilities.

Behnam Ben Talebu and James Syring write in a February 2023 Foundation for the Defense of Democracy report that  Iran and its proxies rely on extensive missile arsenals to punish and deter action against their regional networks, with the strategic goals of evicting the US from the Middle East and coercing regional states to accommodate Iran’s interests.

Talebu and Syring note that Iran’s missile arsenal is crucial to the regime’s existence, its revolutionary foreign policy and the capabilities of its proxies.

They note that Iranian officials are proud of their country’s status as the preeminent missile power in the Middle East and use that power to press for regional hegemony.

They say that Iranian officials often boast of their country’s missile and military progress under sanctions, touting it as a model for other countries facing similar circumstances to replicate.

They also mention that Iran frames opposition to its missile program as hostility to the regime, saying that pressuring Iran to disarm is equivalent to asking it to be helpless against its adversaries.

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