The FBI has placed an analyst on leave whose name was on a list of alleged "deep state" actors in a book written by FBI Director Kash Patel, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News.

This was first reported by The New York Times. It’s unclear what reason the FBI gave for the move, and the agency declined to comment.

Brian Auten, a Russia expert, was the employee who was placed on leave. He was also among the FBI employees former FBI Director Christopher Wray recommended for internal discipline over in connection with the 2017 investigation into links between Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and the Russian government.

A later review by the Justice Department inspector general found no evidence that any FBI employee acted out of political bias in the Russia investigation.

Patel included Auten on a list of roughly 60 alleged "deep state" actors in his 2023 book, "Government Gangsters." Patel denounced the FBI analyst by name, writing: “The fact that Auten was not fired from the FBI and prosecuted for his part in the Russia Gate conspiracy is a national embarrassment.”

Patel also accused Auten of downplaying information found on the laptop of former President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

Patel has disputed that the list in his book is an enemies list. 

Patel has his own links to the 2017 investigation into ties between Trump's 2016 campaign and the Russian government.

At the start of Trump's first term, Patel worked for then-Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., as a staffer on the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee.

In that role, Patel wrote a memo accusing the FBI of making mistakes when it obtained a warrant to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, one of Trump's campaign advisers.

Later in the first Trump administration, Patel served on the White House National Security Council.

The Trump administration for months has targeted FBI officials who worked on prosecutions of Trump or those who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In January, the Trump administration forced out six of the agency's senior executives and several heads of FBI field offices across the country.

A letter sent to those who were fired said their removals were based on their roles in the Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Later, in March, the Trump administration forced out the head of the FBI's New York field office after he urged employees to "dig in" in the wake of the January firings.

The disabling of over 20 missiles with the help of "active countermeasures by means of electronic warfare" may be a turning point in Ukraine’s electronic warfare capabilities.

Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW)

Details: Military analysts say Ukrainian EW assets were usually credited with disabling Russian drones but not missile systems.

ISW has previously assessed that Russia's strike campaign against Ukraine and Ukrainian adaptation to counter new Russian strike systems are part of a broader tactical and technological attack-defence race between long-range aviation and air defence capabilities.

Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, noted that the Russian missile strike on 13 January was similar to the strike that Russian forces launched on 8 January and in previous times. The Institute for the Study of War believes that Ihnat’s words indicate that Ukrainian forces can recognise patterns in repeated Russian attacks and, accordingly, introduce innovations and adapt to them.

Earlier: 

Over 20 Russian missiles and drones failed to reach their targets during Russia's combined air attack on Ukraine on the morning of 13 January because they exploded mid-flight, landed in unpopulated areas, or met with an effective response from Ukrainian electronic warfare.

To quote the ISW’s Key Takeaways on 13 January: 

• A recent video appeal by a Serbian mercenary addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed discussions about an ongoing "clan war" within the Kremlin and the Russian information space against the backdrop of the Russian presidential campaign.

• In-fighting and factional dynamics within the Kremlin are not new phenomena and do not indicate the imminent collapse of Putin’s regime, particularly because power verticals are the foundation of Putin's regime.

• Russian forces launched a medium-sized drone, missile, and air attack against Ukraine on the night of 12-13 January using a strike package similar to recent Russian strike packages.

• Russian forces are reportedly increasingly using chemical weapons in Ukraine in continued apparent violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Russia is a party.

• A fire destroyed a large warehouse in St. Petersburg belonging to Russia’s largest online retailer Wildberries on 12 January.

• Russian forces made confirmed advances near Kreminna and Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire front line.

• Russian forces may be forming air assault brigades within combined arms ground formations as part of ongoing large-scale military reforms.

• Russian officials continue to fund social projects in occupied Ukraine in an effort to integrate these territories further into Russia and create the veneer of an active civil society in occupied areas.

Support UP or become our patron!

When Ukraine received Excalibur artillery shells in March 2022 from the U.S. shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, it was immediately the military’s weapon of choice.

Thanks to their GPS navigation system, these expensive munitions had a high-precision flight trajectory and could be used in urban combat.

Fast forward one year to March 2023 and the Excaliburs suddenly started missing their targets.

Russian electronic jamming, which overloads a receiver with noise or false information, was blocking the artillery shells’ GPS, causing the ammunition to miss its mark.

Similar issues began to occur in April 2023 almost immediately following the delivery of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) guided aerial bombs and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System GMLRS long-range missiles, which can be used with U.S-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

To make matters even worse, Russian soldiers were also jamming communication with Ukrainian drones, causing both reconnaissance and strike drones to crash, land on the spot, or in the best case, return to base.

In a war where both sides have relied heavily on the use of all types of drones — so much so that this war has been dubbed the “War of Drones” — Russia’s jamming capabilities have presented a major challenge on the front lines.

Electronic jamming is just one example of electronic warfare (EW), an entire set of invisible weapons that use electronic means on air, sea, land, or space to obstruct and mislead enemy communications and electronically-guided weapons systems.

EW systems vary in size and form, from pocket-sized devices to truck-mounted radar arrays and transceivers. They can be divided into several types, which differ in their purpose, including:

• Devices for countering and suppressing the enemy's radio-electronic means (radio and satellite communications, radars, etc.), as well as guided missiles and kamikaze drones.
• Devices for protecting personnel, military facilities, and equipment from the influence of enemy EW.
• Means for detecting coordinates and information about the location and actions of the enemy thanks to the intercepted signals of communication channels.

Depending on their operational range, EW can be divided into: tactical (up to 50 kilometers), operational-tactical (up to 500 kilometers), and strategic (over 500 kilometers).

On the closest-range tactical level, there is also "trench EW" — radio-electronic devices that work up to 10 kilometers and are designed to cover small tactical groups from reconnaissance and FPV (first-person view) drones.

Russia has traditionally invested heavily in growing its EW capabilities, with development placed into overdrive as the full-scale war against Ukraine continues. As the front lines have stabilized, its military has been able to place large numbers of its EW assets where they can have the greatest effect.

In his controversial opinion piece for the Economist published in November 2023, now-former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi wrote that Russia’s superiority in the number of its EW assets was one of the main threats to the war turning positional, which is not in Ukraine’s favor.

"Along the Kupiansk and Bakhmut axes, the enemy has effectively created a tiered system of electronic warfare, the elements of which constantly change their location," Zaluzhnyi wrote.

Acknowledging the importance of achieving parity in EW, the Ukrainian government is also working to speed up the process to get new technologies onto the battlefield.

Russia’s dominance in electronic warfare

Russia's density of the EW systems it can deploy is thanks to years of investment.

Ukraine and Russia began the conflict with differing starting capabilities. Nearly 65% of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' jamming stations were produced during the Soviet Union.

Russia on the other hand has been particularly active in developing its own EW systems since 2009, partly as its response to NATO’s network-centric systems and as EW troops have become a separate branch of the Russian armed forces.

A separate branch of the Russian military dedicated to EW has existed since 1991, developing over 60 different EW device models with various purposes and ranges. This has allowed the country to do away with its outdated equipment almost entirely, Valery Zaluzhnyi mentions.

Russian forces' use of EW in Ukraine goes far back before the launch of the full-scale invasion.

During the 2014-2022 war in eastern Ukraine, Moscow sent propaganda and fake orders to Ukrainian troops and civilians by spoofing the local cellular network, probably using the RB-341B Layer 3 system, according to volunteer investigative initiative InformNapalm.

It also helped them find the location of the Ukrainian personnel who at that time mainly used mobile phones to ensure communication.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the imbalance in EW between the two sides had a minor impact.

Now, with the front line largely static amid positional fighting, Russia has positioned one large EW system along every 10 kilometers of the front line, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) reported.

Russia’s Shipovnik-Aero EW complex, according to the RUSI report, is particularly effective at countering Ukrainian drone operations. The system has a range of 10 kilometers and can take control of a drone while simultaneously obtaining the coordinates of the operator's location with an accuracy of one meter.

It can then relay this information to an artillery battery that now knows where to aim to inflict the most damage.

At least three out of five Russian electronic warfare brigades, whose operators gained experience in Syria, are involved in the war in Ukraine, wrote Bryan Clark, director of the Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology. This is not taking into account the specially trained company in other brigades.

Capable of operating at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, the Krasukha-4 is one of Russia's most advanced electronic warfare (EW) systems and the central element of its strategic EW system. The system is designed mainly for jamming airborne or satellite fire control radars.

Krasukha-4, which was too powerful and bulky to be useful during Russia’s initial offensive on Kyiv, is now being used in Donbas and southern Ukraine. It is able to disorient AIM-120 AMRAAM homing missiles and Patriot air defense radar stations and interfere with Ukrainian lines of communication, preventing Ukrainian forces from detecting Russian artillery points.

There are no developments of a similar level in Ukraine since strategic longer-range EW was not a priority direction for the Ukrainian military-industrial complex before the full-scale invasion.

Chinks in the armor

Despite Russia’s abilities on the battlefield to deploy EW, not everyone is convinced they are as superior as they appear.

"Russia has made this into a separate branch of the military and boasts of significant developments, but I constantly say that Russian EW is overrated," Anatoliy Khrapchynsky, military aviation expert and deputy general director of anti-drone rifle and EW company Piranha-tech, told the Kyiv Independent.

"Most of their developments are related to working in the areas known during Soviet times — navigation, suppression of radio signals, interception of communication frequencies, etc."

Khrapchynsky pointed to the shooting down of four Russian aircraft in May 2023 as examples of where Russian electronic warfare has failed.

In that downing, above Russia’s Bryansk Oblast, two SU-34 and SU-35 fighter jets and two Mi-8MTPR-1 escort helicopters were destroyed.

EW systems designed to protect aircraft from anti-air missiles with radar targeting can be installed on a fighter, but they are quite heavy, limiting the overall armaments the plane can be equipped with.

As such, it is helicopters that are usually equipped with powerful EW equipment and ordered to fly 10-30 kilometers from the front line to create obstacles for enemy radars in the bombing area until the aircraft completes its mission.

Russia’s Mi-8MTPR-1s are equipped with “Rychag-AV” stations, which were supposed to protect the fighters from being detected by Ukrainian air defense and their radar systems.

A similar situation was repeated with fighters at the front in the Avdiivka area. In five days in February 2024, the Defense Forces of Ukraine destroyed seven Su-34 and Su-35 fighters.

However, it is currently unknown whether Russians used escort helicopters Mi-8MTPR-1, of which they have less than 20, or whether the Khibiny EW system. It is attached to a fighter jet which, according to the Russian media, was specially modernized for the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s little-known, powerful EW system

Meanwhile, on a national level, Ukraine is developing a system designed to help it cope with constant Russian missile and drone strikes.

Named Pokrova, little is known about the system, but it appears capable of both suppressing Russian satellite navigation systems like GLONASS and spoofing them by replacing genuine signals with false ones.

It is also likely able to mislead missiles into believing they are somewhere where they are not, according to the Ukrainian military journal Defense Express.

Missiles have several guidance systems: a programmed trajectory, GPS control points, and a radar surface measurement system that compares the terrain with loaded data.

EW can create certain locations where the missile loses its sense of presence and cannot understand its coordinates.

As a result of suppressing these systems, the missile loses accuracy and fails to reach its target.

Pokrova was first publicly mentioned by Zaluzhnyi in his November 2023 piece for the Economist. Following Russia’s Jan. 13 large-scale missile attack, the Head of the EW Department of the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Colonel Andriy Starykov said on air that the Pokrova system “is already working.”

Of the over 40 missiles launched by Moscow in the Jan. 13 attack, the Ukrainian Air Force said that more than 20 had failed to reach their targets.

At least some of them were diverted by electronic interception methods, according to Ukraine’s Air Force.

"Over two years, the Air Forces were able to build a tiered defense that directly incorporated electronic warfare means, which includes both air defense and electronic countermeasures,” Khrapchynsky said.

“Due to the construction of the Pokrova, Ukraine managed to reduce the accuracy of spoofed missiles by 40%. This technology has matured for a long time, but the enemy is changing tactics and combining strikes, using more and more ballistic missiles.”

Khrapchynskyi also added that in order to more effectively protect Ukrainian cities and infrastructure from enemy long-range missiles and drones, it is necessary to build systems of low-altitude radar fields that could see such airborne targets even at a height below 500 meters.

From volunteer orders to state contracts

The technology race continues at the front line. Special tools for silencing enemy radio signals and conducting reconnaissance are needed for every unit.

Andriy Znaichenko, director of military tech company Kvertus, broadly categorizes electronic warfare systems into "large" and "small" EW.

The former includes complex systems with several special vehicles that detect radio emissions over large areas. The latter consists of portable stations, anti-drone rifles, and backpacks with radio frequency jamming capabilities to protect against kamikaze FPV drones.

"If we talk about 'large' EW systems, the Russians indeed have an advantage there. They have more of them. In the 'small' systems, we are making decisions that are no worse, despite the fact that their industry is scaling up its volumes,” he said.

In Russia, mass production mainly comes from the state's military-industrial complex and associated firms.

"Although their electronic warfare is not as strong as they would like it to seem, the Russians have one advantage—they have more quantity," Khrapchynsky said.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, developments are driven by private research companies, which face several problems, particularly in collaborating with the government.

Until 2022, obtaining certification and orders from the Defense Ministry took from two to four years. The procedure now takes a few months.

Znaichenko’s company specializes in the production of protection systems against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as electronic warfare and intelligence systems. He says that over the past year, his company has increased its production capacity several times.

"At the beginning of the invasion, we made dozens of anti-drone rifles, which were mainly ordered by volunteers. Last year there were hundreds, and now there are thousands of devices, mostly through government contracts," he said.

However, not all problems have been resolved. All Ukrainian companies depend on a flow of imported parts, particularly from China, often competing with Russian demand.

"We try to purchase quality parts (cables, connectors, feeders) from American, European, Taiwanese, and Korean sources, but in some cases, we cannot do so without China," said Khrapchynsky.

"At the same time, there still exists a paradoxical situation where I can buy five Chinese anti-drone rifles, two of which will not work, and import them without paying tax. Meanwhile, when a Ukrainian company purchases components, it pays taxes."

The Government of Ukraine has developed several laws to promote the modernization of the military, including the import of anti-drone guns and UAVs without duties and taxes when equipment is supplied under a government contract.

This was done so that middlemen don't receive excess profits. But it puts a tax burden on companies if they order components, rather than completed products, for a future contract or if the equipment is purchased by volunteers.

Another challenge is the need for more skilled personnel. Most military tech companies have open positions for hardware engineers and radio engineers.

However, the development of Ukrainian companies could benefit the industry even after the war.

Znaichenko, who recently returned from an arms exhibition in the Middle East, claims that the developments of Ukrainian companies have surpassed the vast majority of foreign ones and have export potential.

“Some of their solutions propose jamming frequencies in drones that have not been used in the war for two to three years. It will take them several years to catch up with us."

BRUSSELS (AP) — Russia on Monday claimed its deadly missile attack on Ukraine’s Sumy that killed and wounded scores including children had targeted a gathering of Ukrainian troops, while European leaders condemned the attack as a war crime.

Ukrainian officials have said two ballistic missiles on Palm Sunday morning hit the heart of Sumy, a city about 30 kilometers (less than 20 miles) from Ukraine’s border with Russia, killing at least 34, including two children, and wounding 119. It was the second large-scale attack to claim civilian lives in Ukraine in just over a week.

Asked about the attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s military only strikes military targets. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strike targeted a gathering of senior military officers and accused Kyiv of using civilians as shields by holding military meetings in the city’s center.

The ministry claimed to kill over 60 troops. Russia gave no evidence to back its claims.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a global response to the attack, saying the first strike hit university buildings and the second exploded above street level. “Only real pressure on Russia can stop this. We need tangible sanctions against those sectors that finance the Russian killing machine,” he wrote Monday on social media.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, whose country holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, called the attacks “Russia’s mocking answer” to Kyiv’s agreement to a ceasefire proposed by the U.S. over a month ago.

“I hope that President Trump, the U.S. administration, see that the leader of Russia is mocking their goodwill, and I hope the right decisions are taken,” Sikorski told reporters in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers met.

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen noted that the attack on Sumy came shortly after President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Saint Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It demonstrates that “Russia shows full disregard for the peace process, but also that Russia has zero regard for human life,” Valtonen said.

Lithuania’s foreign minister, Kestutis Budrys, echoed Ukraine’s assertion that the Russian strike used cluster munitions to target civilians, calling it “a war crime by definition.” The Associated Press has been unable to verify that claim.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the attack shows that Putin has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire, and called for the European Union to “take the toughest sanctions against Russia to suffocate its economy and prevent it from fueling its war effort.”

The EU has imposed 16 rounds of sanctions on Russia and is working on a 17th, but the measures are getting harder to agree on because they also impact European economies.

Germany’s chancellor-designate, Friedrich Merz, described the Sumy attack as “a serious war crime” during an appearance on ARD television.

Merz made clear he stands by his past calls to send Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, something that outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to do. He said the Ukrainian military needs to be able to “get ahead of the situation” and that any delivery of long-range missiles must be done in consultation with European partners.

Asked about Merz’s statement, the Kremlin spokesman said such a move would “inevitably lead only to further escalation of the situation around Ukraine,” telling reporters that “regrettably, European capitals aren’t inclined to search for ways to launch peace talks and are inclined instead to keep provoking the continuation of the war.”

Russian forces this month have dropped 2,800 air bombs on Ukraine and fired more than 1,400 strike drones and nearly 60 missiles of various types.

The attack on Sumy followed a April 4 missile strike on Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih that killed some 20 people, including nine children.

Trump has previously described the strike on Sumy as a “mistake.” On Monday, he said the mistake was allowing the war to start in the first place, criticizing former President Joe Biden, Zelenskyy and Putin.

“Biden could’ve stopped it and Zelenskyy could’ve stopped it and Putin should’ve never started it,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “Everybody’s to blame.”

Late Sunday, Russian exploding drones attacked Odesa, injuring eight people. Regional head Oleh Kiper said a medical facility was among the buildings damaged.

Russia fired a total of 62 Shahed drones over Ukraine late Sunday and early Monday, Ukraine’s air force said, adding that 40 were destroyed and 11 others jammed.

Two Chinese nationals, who were captured by Ukrainian forces while fighting on the Russian side, said at a news conference in Kyiv on Monday that they had joined the war voluntarily after seeing recruitment announcements on TikTok. They said they weren’t encouraged or supported by Chinese authorities, who had warned them about the danger of participating in the conflict.

One of the men, speaking through an interpreter, said he did not intend to take part directly in combat but was sent to the front lines anyway. Another said that Russian recruiters abused his trust and put him in what he described as a “trap.”

They said they were given orders through gestures and hand signals, and Russian personnel constantly accompanied them, leaving no chance for escape. Both said they hope to be included in a future prisoner exchange and return to their families.

It was impossible for the AP to corroborate their statements or independently verify under what circumstances the two men spoke.

When he first announced the capture of the Chinese nationals last week, Zelensky said there were more than 150 other Chinese fighting for Russia. Beijing responded that it always asks its citizens to avoid participating in any military operations.

While China has provided strong diplomatic support for Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it is not believed to have knowingly provided Russia with troops, weapons or military expertise.

U.S. officials have accused Iran of providing Russia with drones, while American and South Korean officials say North Korea has sent thousands of troops to help Russia on the battlefield.

___

Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Sam McNeil in Barcelona, Spain, Hanna Arhirova and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Roman Rozhavsky has officially taken the helm as Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, bringing with him more than 18 years of deep operational experience, strategic leadership, and a career dedicated to protecting U.S. national security, according to an announcement on his LinkedIn.

Rozhavsky, who began his FBI service in 2006, has steadily climbed the ranks through some of the Bureau’s most critical and complex assignments in counterintelligence, insider threat detection, and high-stakes investigations involving foreign adversaries. His appointment to Assistant Director follows a brief but impactful term as Special Agent in Charge of the Counterintelligence Division at the FBI’s Washington Field Office, where he oversaw all CI investigations in the capital region.

Prior to this latest promotion, Rozhavsky led a range of sensitive and high-impact operations. As Section Chief from 2023 to 2024, he managed all FBI efforts to detect insider threats across the U.S. government — including espionage, mishandling of classified material, and unauthorized media leaks. Under his leadership, the Bureau advanced several high-profile prosecutions and dismantled networks targeting critical national security infrastructure.

Earlier roles included serving as Assistant Special Agent in Charge in New York, where he directed counterintelligence operations targeting China, Iran, and other foreign actors. He also spent several years as Unit Chief overseeing investigations into the illegal acquisition of U.S. technology and intellectual property by the Chinese government.

Rozhavsky has been a key player in building and strengthening the FBI’s counterintelligence posture nationwide. As Deputy Director of the National Counterintelligence Task Force in 2019, he helped create a nationwide framework for integrating federal, state, and local efforts against foreign intelligence threats.

Rozhavsky’s operational resume is backed by time spent on the front lines. As a Supervisory Special Agent and, before that, a Special Agent in the FBI’s Houston Field Office, he investigated espionage, technology transfer, economic espionage, and counterproliferation cases. He also served on Houston’s Enhanced SWAT Team, giving him tactical experience in high-risk operations.

From 2014 to 2021, he also taught advanced counterintelligence courses as an adjunct faculty member at the FBI Academy in Quantico and at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, helping shape the next generation of CI professionals.

He holds a master’s degree in international relations and national security from St. Mary’s University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Seattle University.

Rozhavsky’s work continues to make headlines. Recently, he played a role in the successful conviction of two Eastern European organized crime leaders hired by the Iranian government to assassinate U.S.-based journalist Masih Alinejad. The defendants — acting on behalf of Iran — conspired to carry out the murder-for-hire plot on U.S. soil using an assault rifle.

“The defendants participated in a brazen plot to kill an Iranian American dissident in New York who criticized the regime in Iran,” Rozhavsky said after the verdict. “Thanks to the good work of the FBI and our partners, their plan failed. This verdict demonstrates the FBI will not tolerate Iran’s attempts to threaten, silence, or harm American citizens.”

At the end of August, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated the Islamic New Year with aplomb. Fresh off his conversion of the monumental Haghia Sophia to a mosque, he converted another former Byzantine church, the fourth-century Chora church, one of Istanbul’s oldest Byzantine structures. The day after that he announced the largest ever natural gas depository in the Black Sea. This followed another recent discovery of natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean. Both of these areas are hotly contested zones of international competition between the powers around these seas. Later that week he welcomed a delegation of Hamas to Ankara, where he expressed support for Palestinians in the wake of the recent announcement of an agreement between Israel and the UAE.

All of these moves project Erdogan’s vision of Islamist strength into the world. Standing up for Islam at home goes hand in hand with securing natural resources and imposing Turkey’s power abroad. It also goes hand in hand with domestic repression. The Islamic New Year saw Erdogan further tighten his grip on social media freedom and consider pulling Turkey out of what is known, now farcically, as the 2011 Istanbul Convention, a treaty of the Council of Europe that commits countries to protecting women from domestic violence. Democratic peoples in Turkey, the Middle East, and around the world should worry.

Much has been written about Erdogan’s attempts to “resurrect” the Ottoman Empire or to style himself a sultan. There is truth here. But to understand Erdogan’s political agenda and horizon we must be specific about which Ottoman sultan Erdogan strives to be. It is the empire’s ninth sultan, Selim I.

Selim died 500 years ago in 1520. It was during his lifetime that the Ottoman Empire grew from a strong regional power to a gargantuan global empire. For Erdogan, this sultan from half a millennium ago serves his contemporary needs. Selim in many ways functions as Erdogan’s Andrew Jackson, a figure from the past of symbolic use in the present. Selim offers a template for Turkey to become a global political and economic power, with influence from Washington to Beijing, crushing foreign and domestic challengers alike. He helps Erdogan too to make his case for Islam as a cultural and political reservoir of strength, a vital component of the glories of the Ottoman past, which he seeks to emulate in contemporary Turkey against the dominant elite secularism that has reigned since its founding.

We should be wary of Erdogan’s embrace of Selim’s exclusionary vision of Turkish political power. It represents a historical example of strongman politics that led to regional wars, the attempted annihilation of religious minorities, and the monopolization of global economic resources. In addition to his attempts to monopolize natural gas reserves around Turkey, today this takes the form of Erdogan’s foreign military ventures in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. At home, he has gone after Turkey’s Shiite community, Kurds, intellectuals, Christians, journalists, women, and leftists. Erdogan cultivates his own Sunni religiosity to position Islam at the center of Turkey’s domestic agenda, with the church conversions the most potent recent symbols of this. Erdogan’s represents a political logic of zero-sum competition that pits Turkey against Saudi Arabia and Iran for control of the region and over claims of global Islamic leadership.

Erdogan likes Selim because he made Turkish global political power possible. From 1517 through the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire maintained the geographic shape Selim won for it, dominating the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. In 1517, the Ottomans defeated their major rival in the region, the Mamluk Empire based in Cairo, capturing all of its territory in the Middle East and North Africa. This more than doubled the empire’s size. This explosion of the Ottoman Empire into the Middle East turned it into the region’s foremost military and political power and one of the world’s largest states. The Ottomans now controlled the entire eastern half of the Mediterranean and thus dominated the globe’s most important trade routes overland between Europe and Asia and by sea through the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The Turkish Republic inherited much of that power after the empire’s demise and the republic’s rise in 1923.

While every modern Turkish ruler has distanced himself from the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, and Islam, to attempt to project a more “western,” “secular,” and “modern” face for the republic, Erdogan is the first who has actively embraced the Ottoman past and the empire’s Islamic heritage. Here too Selim proves key to Erdogan’s image of his rule. Selim’s defeat of the Mamluks made the Ottoman Empire a majority Muslim state for the first time in its history, after over two hundred years of being a state whose population was mostly Greek Orthodox. With this victory, Selim became the first Ottoman sultan to rule Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest cities, thus earning the title of caliph and cementing the empire’s global Islamic credentials. If Selim was the first Ottoman to be both sultan and caliph, Erdogan is the first republican leader to profess to possessing both titles.

Like President Donald Trump’s purposeful deployment of the symbols of Andrew Jackson—prominently displaying his portrait in the Oval Office and defending his statues—Erdogan has trafficked publicly and specifically in the symbolic politics of Selim in Turkey. His most striking act was to name the recently constructed third bridge over the famous Bosphorus Strait after Selim. Erdogan has also lavished enormous resources on Selim’s tomb and other memorials to his rule. After winning a 2017 constitutional referendum that greatly expanded his powers—a process marred by irregularities—Erdogan made his first public appearance at Selim’s tomb. Staged as a kind of pilgrimage, there Erdogan returned to the long-dead sovereign his kaftan and turban that had been stolen years before. This far-from-subtle first act after winning a referendum that gave him near-limitless power made clear who Erdogan’s role model is.

Erdogan and his Islamist party colleagues regularly describe themselves as the “grandchildren” of the Ottomans. In this very pointed genealogy, Erdogan purposefully skips a generation—that of Turkey’s republican fathers since 1923—to leapfrog back in time to when the Ottomans ruled the globe with their particular brand of Turkish Sunni politics, to Selim’s day when wars and domestic repression led to wealth and territorial power. Recreating a political program akin to Selim’s is a dangerous prospect for Turkey and the Middle East and indeed the world. To make Turkey Ottoman again requires the kind of violence, censorship, and vitriol that Erdogan has indeed shown himself ready to use. The universal lesson here is that calls for returns to perceived greatness, whether in Turkey or in United States, selectively embrace controversial historical figures, mangle their history, and elevate hatred and division.