There are rumbles of a possible war reverberating on the other side of the Atlantic. It is not something for which the Europeans were prepared. But the amassing of 100,000 troops by Russia on Ukraine’s border and more recently their appearance in Belarus ostensibly for the purposes of joint manoeuvres, has suddenly shaken them out of their geopolitical complacency. From Belarus Russian forces could easily mount an attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
President Putin has strenuously denied that he intends to invade Ukraine, but no one forgets that he did just that in the case of Georgia in 2008 and the Crimea in 2014, and that he supplies his Russian surrogates with weaponry and the like in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, which they control. In any event, what are so many Russian forces doing on the Ukraine border if they are not to be part of an invasion force?
This week the White House issued what it described as its most “stark” warning yet that the Russians “could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine”. This comes on the heels of intelligence released by the US administration last week that an incursion could start between mid-January and mid-February. The timing is critical; by mid-March the Ukraine’s frozen soil will begin to defrost and turn into thick mud, making it difficult for heavy armour to manoeuvre, added to which in April Russia will have to replace its conscripts with a new set who will be militarily inexperienced. In any case a force of that size cannot be kept idling away from its bases indefinitely; as the Economist pointed out it is not good for morale in addition to which equipment will need repairs.
So what is President Putin’s objective in terms of this latest move? His larger goals are well understood by the West, but there is less agreement on exactly what he expects to achieve by an invasion of the Ukraine or even the threat of one, and how that fits in to the grand sweep of his vision for the future. Where the latter is concerned, he has dreams of restoring the Russian empire – at least in terms of spheres of influence − and is deeply resentful of the West’s advance into territories which once came under the rubric of the Warsaw Pact.
Seven of those eight countries are now members of Nato, and more than a decade ago Ukraine and Georgia were promised that they could become members too. This has incensed Mr Putin who has reminded the members of the Western military alliance that Mikhail Gorbachev was assured by both HW Bush and John Major there was no intention to expand Nato. Despite that, in 1997 Russia accepted Nato enlargement in exchange for the organisation refraining from the permanent deployment of “substantial combat forces” in eastern Europe or the siting of nuclear weapons there, conditions which have been adhered to.
Up until more recent times this arrangement had appeared acceptable to Moscow.
On December 21st at a meeting of military officers Mr Putin was quoted as complaining “What the US is doing is at our doorstep. They should understand that we have nowhere else to retreat. Do they think we will just watch idly?” Four days before that he had issued draft treaties for the US and Nato to sign. Moscow claimed they were intended to guarantee Russia’s security, but in reality they constituted a form of blackmail. Among other things, Nato would have to renounce any further military expansion, and have no military cooperation with Ukraine and any other non-members which had once been part of the former Soviet Union. Nato would also not be allowed to place troops or weapons in member countries in eastern Europe. In other words, it would have to remove the small numbers stationed in Poland and the Baltic states. As for the US, it would have to withdraw nuclear weapons from Europe. There were no corresponding gestures from Russia itemised.
These demands were made public; there was no cover of diplomatic confidentiality giving rise to the suspicion that Moscow simply didn’t expect them to be agreed to – and in fact they are so excessive they couldn’t be. As such, it was hypothesised, their rejection would serve simply as a casus belli. Nevertheless, the Americans, the Europeans and Nato initiated dialogue, which has produced very little in terms of results, although the US evinced a preparedness to talk about nuclear weapons, conventional forces and military exercises, among other things. The Russians, it seems, were unbending. On the last day of December Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying that if there was no “constructive response within a reasonable time, then Russia will be forced to take all necessary measures to … eliminate unacceptable threats to our security.”
Neither the Americans nor the Europeans know yet whether Mr Putin has actually taken the decision to invade Ukraine, but some of their anxiety arises from the fact that he has left himself no room for retreat; he has pasted himself into a corner and without a substantial face-saver it will be difficult for him to back down. An attack on Ukraine would invite resistance from the Ukrainian military, which would certainly put up a fight, but it could not deal with Russian air and sea power. However, controlling the country over an extended time-frame is another matter. The Russian public would not back such a war, although as a fully qualified autocrat President Putin probably would not be unduly concerned about that.
What can be said is that the cost of such a war is something Moscow does not have the financial resources for, more especially since the US has threatened severe sanctions should there be an invasion.
So if Russian demands reflect Mr Putin’s dreams, i.e. a huge retreat of Nato and the formation of something approaching a Russian sphere of influence in former Soviet zones, and he knows the West will not concede this, again, just what is the Ukrainian exercise all about? A former US ambassador to Russia was reported as saying: “Putin does not fear Nato expansion today, he fears Ukrainian democracy.” A properly functioning democracy (which is not quite what Ukraine is yet) is not something the Russian president wants on his borders. He could certainly, therefore, cause political chaos in Ukraine which it might be difficult for Europe to deal with, and would prevent any Nato association for a long time – although it must be said that Nato doesn’t want Ukraine at the moment.
Mr Putin may too be hoping to cause divisions and dissension in Europe. He does, after all, hold a major card and that is gas supplies. One third of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, although in the case of Germany that figure is much higher. There have been huge increases in the price of gas, and right now it is winter when people need it for warmth. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Russians that if Ukraine was invaded, Nord Stream 2, the new pipeline supplying gas direct from Russia to Germany would not be operationalised. Currently Germany like several other nations gets its Russian gas through Ukraine, and if there were an invasion one must presume that line of supply would be cut off. Is Mr Putin hoping to undermine European solidarity via this route? Reuters reported Washington as saying it was looking into ways of softening the impact on energy supplies, but to what degree this could be achieved is not clear.
Some commentators have suggested that President Putin sees it as better to invade Ukraine now, even though Nato has no intention of expanding there at the present time, than wait until it will be “bristling with foreign troops in a decade.” He may think that the timing is in his favour now, because of weakness in Europe, its divisions, and the perceived weakness of the US following the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Even where the threatened economic sanctions in the event of invasion are concerned, Germany has been reported as being reluctant to accede to Washington’s heavyweight measure of disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT network which links banks to one another.
As things stand, Germany has traditionally refused to supply Ukraine with weapons, and it seems that policy is not to change. Under Angela Merkel, however, it also vetoed the delivery of weapons to Ukraine from allies even when they had already been paid for. The Telegraph reported this week that the RAF plane which delivered anti-tank weapons from the UK to Ukraine avoided German airspace, the most direct route, and took a detour, and that this had caused speculation that Germany may have continued reservations about military support to Ukraine.
On Wednesday President Biden revealed that there were “differences in Nato as to what countries are willing to do, depending on what happens.” He made a distinction between an invasion and a minor incursion. Russia would be held accountable if there were an invasion, he said, but if it were a minor incursion, “then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, etc.” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is due to meet Foreign Minister Lavrov today in Geneva, but French President Emmanuel Macron has said Europe must hold its own negotiations with Moscow. Mr Putin will have noticed that the West does not speak with one voice.
For all of that the West clings to the hope that negotiations can alight on some path out of the crisis, and provide enough cover for President Putin to be able to claim that he has achieved something. They hope too that the threat of huge sanctions will dissuade him from military action. If not, the effects, not just in the Ukraine and Europe, but globally will not bode well for 2022.
As an aside, the Russian ambassador in London told a BBC reporter, that just as the US was on the doorstep of his country, Russia could be on the doorstep of America – i.e. Cuba and Venezuela. Takuba Lodge should pay attention.