Ukraine: Upping the ante

Last week, the United States and NATO predictably rejected Russia’s demands of never allowing former Soviet countries, namely Ukraine and Georgia, to join the alliance.

In this seemingly impassable diplomatic confrontation, Kremlin can still use intimidation to pressure Ukraine and the West for concessions under the Minsk agreements, a peace settlement brokered by Europeans to end the war in the Donbas, which is now in its eighth year and has kılled an estimated 14,400 people.

Moscow has been pushing for autonomy for the territories in the Donbas currently controlled by separatists it has backed militarily and politically. Kyiv agreed but has insisted on its own terms as ceding to Russia’s scenario may be disastrous for Ukraine in the long run even if it prevents a new invasion.

The 2015 Minsk agreements were inherently disadvantageous for Ukraine that at the time of signing was trying to stop the fighting in the east as its army was suffering heavy losses. Ukrainian authorities have pledged their commitment to the Minsk protocol, which they admitted was the only available framework to peace settlement albeit one that needed updating. Russia, of course, is against the idea of reviewing it.

Over the years, two warring sides agreed on withdrawal of heavy weapons, prisoner exchanges, and short-lived ceasefires but no more. Although the violence reduced, the peace talks ceased too, and a 427-kilometer frontline still divides the once-prosperous industrial region. The “Normandy Format” talks have been deadlocked since leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France met in December 2019 (and across the three years before it). As a sign of revival, senior officials of four states met in Paris on 26 January.

In 2019, then newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to sign the so-called Steinmeier Formula, a peace plan named after the former German foreign minister who first proposed it as a path towards the implementation of the Minsk agreements. His administration faced a huge backlash at home accused of surrendering to the Kremlin.

The plan envisions granting a self-governing status to the territory Ukraine considers occupied by Russia after local elections are held and their results are recognised by Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The stumbling block is the disagreement between Ukraine and Russia on what should come first: local elections or border control.

Ukraine insists that local elections can take place only after a complete ceasefire and withdrawal of all Russian troops and weapons. It demands to regain full control over its eastern border before the elections are held under Ukrainian law, with participation of Ukrainian political parties and in the presence of OSCE observers and Ukrainian media.

Russia says elections and autonomy first, then everything else.

By accepting Russia’s terms, Ukraine risks becoming liable to rebuild and support the economy of an autonomous region with vast political powers and legitimised pro-Russian leadership. Ukraine will have to grant full amnesty to people who participated in the secessionist movement in Donetsk and Luhansk. The details of the amnesty are still a matter of dispute but Ukraine said it won’t cover those who committed war crimes or were involved in the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 in 2014.

Hypothetically, this region can block Ukraine’s course towards NATO and the European Union, stir an internal conflict, or help Russia maintain influence over Ukraine’s domestic affairs in other ways.

So far, Kyiv has refused to talk directly to the leaders of the self-declared statelets of Donetsk and Luhansk, who recently became members of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia. Moscow, in turn, insists it’s not a party to the conflict but only a mediator.

Given how unpopular the idea of a special status for the Donbas is in Ukraine – more than 60 per cent are against it – any concession to Russia can lead to an upheaval, similar to EuroMaidan when Ukrainian rose against the decision of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych to suspend the signing of the association agreement with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia.

It is clear that no pro-European Ukrainian party would stand a chance in the elections on the territory that for the past eight years has been cut off from Ukrainian politics and media and has been under the influence of the Kremlin propaganda that portrays Ukraine as a failed state and nationalist government hostile towards Russian speakers.  It will also be necessary to conduct a new census before the elections and count the number of voters as 720,000 Donbas residents have obtained Russian passports since Russia simplified the path to citizenship in 2019.

Russia appears to be growing impatient with the stalemate in the Minsk process, and the latest war scare could be a leverage to reach a deal with the West. Ukraine understands the risk and had said it will not accept any concessions to Russia made behind its back to placate Putin. “We will not be in the position of the country that picks up the phone, hears the instruction of the big power and follows it,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CNN last week.

The first round of Russia-United States-Europe strategic consultations, held between 10 and 13 January, finished without firm commitments, fuelling ongoing speculation about an imminent invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Claim and counter-claim add to the difficulty of making informed judgements. For example, a report this week by The New York Times about the alleged evacuation of the Russian diplomatic staff from Ukraine prompted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine to state it “did not receive any information from the Russian side”.

So will Vladimir Putin give the order to invade and occupy?

Several factors suggest Russia’s political and military leadership are unlikely to see great strategic advantage in invading Ukraine with an aim to seize more territory.

Back in 2014, Russia had a better chance to invade and occupy more of Ukraine beyond Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Then, the Ukrainian military had almost no effective fighting capacity: under trained and poorly equipped, morale was at an all-time low. The majority of senior and middle ranking Ukrainian officers were the product of Soviet defence educational establishments, many with at best neutral sentiments towards Moscow, and some willing to change sides (as happened in Crimea).

In 2022, the situation is different. The Ukrainian army has been recalibrated to confront a hostile Russia. The officer corps was cleansed of pro-Russia sympathisers. Individual and unit training as well as exercise activity intensified, with some equipment acquired. Many soldiers have gained combat experience in eastern Ukraine.

This is not to say that the Ukrainian army could expect to repel the Russian offensive. The larger, better trained and technologically advanced Russian force would sweep through rapidly, particularly after gaining air superiority and control of the battle space. However, a military success on the ground may turn out to be a loss in the longer-term. Eight years of confrontation has transformed Ukrainian attitudes towards their eastern neighbour. The Russians are likely to encounter cool reception from locals with the majority considering Russia to be hostile.

Based on its Crimean experience, Moscow would have to commit an astronomical amount of resources as part of the post-war reconstruction, which the Kremlin would find especially challenging, particularly in the face of promised severe sanctions.  

Finally, the Russian forces that are massing in the vicinity of Ukraine’s border appear insufficient to stage a full-scale invasion. According to the open source data, the Russians have a grouping of about 127,000 strong arrayed against a reported 125,000 Ukrainian troops in the country’s eastern regions. An invasion force would be expected to be at least three times current levels.

Troop movements are also being conflated. Russia’s Ministry of Defence has also undertaken preparations in recent days for a Russia-Belarus military exercise dubbed “Allied Resolve 2022”. Several army and artillery brigades, combat aircraft and air defence units are being transferred with great fanfare from Russia’s Eastern Military District to Belarus, the first theatre-to-theatre (east-to-west) force manoeuvre, of its kind.

But with all this said, what would be a key driver for Russia to resort to force now?

Russia’s demands ahead of the recent talks to deescalate the stand-off illustrate that the Russian leadership remains preoccupied with strategic geography, a notion the Kremlin has worried over since the end of the Second World War. The eastward expansion of NATO membership since 1998 has shifted the allies’ military infrastructure close to the Russian border, leaving Moscow to view Ukraine and Belarus as the last two major segments of what was once a strategic buffer zone with Europe.

In Ukraine, ideally the Kremlin wants a favourable change of regime, which appears unlikely. Realising that, Russia will probably accept a hostile Ukraine provided that remains free of any multilateral or bilateral defence commitments with either the whole of NATO or any of its individual members. And that hope appears to be beyond what either Washington or Brussels seems prepared to accept.

So Russia could potentially resort to force one of two ways:

• By defending an elusive buffer (parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions presently controlled by pro-Russia’s separatists;
• Or to launch targeted strikes driven by the attack-defeat-destroy-retreat operational principle, similar to what the Russian military executed during the 2008 Five Day War against Georgia.

The other trigger point could be the introduction of promised sanctions “from hell” against Russia. If applied as a pre-emptive measure, the Kremlin might decide to unleash hell of its own, having nothing more to lose in its already sank relations with the West.

But for the moment Putin will play his favourite game of ambiguity, postulating about strategic geography, all while holding a finger on a trigger. And he is probably thankful for the ongoing media commentary, which inevitably inflicts serious pain on Ukraine’s already struggling economy before any offensive has even been launched.

Ukraine and Taiwan are now the major focal points in the geopolitical arena, testing the diplomacy of the United States but also other nations – India as much as any. Where India-China relations have soured in recent years, in some ways making India’s response to the Taiwan issue more straightforward, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia leaves New Delhi in a quandary.

Russia’s “unusual” build-up of troops on its border with Ukraine is taking place right as India is receiving the much-awaited S-400 air defence systems from Moscow. The missile deal has already been complicated by looming US sanctions on India under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, the US legislation meant to punish countries dealing substantively in the defence realm with America’s adversaries – where it is still unclear if India will be granted a waiver. But this must also be posited against increasing concerns about China’s regional influence in the Indo-Pacific, where India has been expected to be at the forefront of efforts to counter Beijing and is a much-touted member of the “Quad” grouping including the United States, Japan and Australia.

Should the Ukraine issue escalate, India will be presented with a dilemma, whether to stay silent on an important event involving its long-standing and traditional partner Russia, or to take sides.

The India-Russia relationship has endured as a robust bilateral partnership for decades, particularly in defence procurement, whereas India-Ukraine relations pale in comparison. In trade, although India is Ukraine’s biggest export market in the Indo-Pacific region, India’s total trade with Ukraine during 2019–20 stood at approximately US$2.5 billion, barely a quarter of India’s total trade with Russia.

India and Ukraine are engaged in several military hardware projects. Ukraine is involved in modernisation of Indian army tanks and armoured vehicles and provides spares for Indian naval ships and submarines. There has also been talk of fierce competition between Ukrainian and Russian military-industrial complexes for India’s arms market, with India’s defence deals with Ukraine often viewed in Moscow as a loss for the Russian defence sector.

But for big-ticket purchases, Russia dominates, shown by India’s deals for the S-400 and more recently AK-203 assault rifles. At the same time, Ukraine’s defence partnership with Pakistan has always been a bone of contention for India, whereas Russia is more alert to New Delhi’s displeasure when dealing with Islamabad.

During the 2014 Ukraine-Russia conflict, India broke its traditional approach of keeping a low profile and sided with Russia ­–­ India’s National Security Advisor at the time noting there are “legitimate Russian interests involved”. As tensions in eastern Ukraine again ratcheted up earlier this year, India welcomed all efforts to calm the situation. New Delhi had also last year voted against a Ukraine-sponsored resolution in the United Nations, which had sought to condemn human rights violations in Crimea by Russia.

There have been fitful efforts to kick-start the India-Ukraine bilateral relationship. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the COP26 climate change talks in Glasgow last month, while the Ukrainian defence minister earlier led a delegation to Aero India for discussions with his Indian counterpart and signed a handful of weapons-related agreements.

But set against the India-Russia annual summit held in December and the inaugural defence and foreign ministers’ 2+2 dialogue, the India-Russia relationship is undoubtedly in a higher gear. According to recent media reports, India and Russia are likely to sign a 10-year agreement for the transfer of new-age military technologies. This is a prize New Delhi could risk by siding against Russia over Ukraine.

India and Russia have several areas of disagreement ­– the “Indo-Pacific” construct is one, as well as very different relationships with China and the United States. But India may find itself under pressure to speak out should the Ukraine-Russia conflict escalate – and then keeping all sides happy will be an acute challenge.

Reports this month of a sizeable recent build-up of Russian military forces around Ukraine’s borders have aroused fears in Kiev and Western capitals of impending Russian military action in Ukraine. 

Emphasising Washington’s “serious concerns”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Moscow against making a “serious mistake” by repeating its 2014 aggression against Ukraine. The Kremlin, for its part, has denied any aggressive intent, and accused Ukraine and the West of inflammatory remarks and artificially whipping up tensions.  

What’s Moscow up to? Is renewed Russian military intervention in Ukraine a real prospect? Or is it just another case of sabre-rattling?

The build-up of Russian forces is similar, and perhaps even larger, to those earlier this year. Disturbingly, though, it has been matched by bellicose rhetoric from the Kremlin.

In a lengthy and tendentious article in July, Russian President Vladimir Putin portrayed Ukraine as an inalienable part of Russia, lacking its own distinct identity or territory. And last month, the Russian leader asserted that Western-supported expansion of Ukraine’s military capabilities posed a serious threat to Russia’s security, comments amplified by other senior Russian officials.

The Kremlin may be tiring of the impasse in eastern Ukraine.

For some time after 2014–15, Moscow seemed willing to tolerate the unresolved situation in eastern Ukraine, perhaps confident that time was on its side. While intent longer-term on bringing Ukraine back into its orbit, Russia was prepared to let the diplomatic process embodied in the Minsk Protocol run, especially if it offered the prospect of sanctions easing. Cynics in Moscow probably calculated that the festering conflict in eastern Ukraine, coupled with dysfunctional government in Kiev, would paralyze and weaken Ukraine.

But this has changed.

For one thing, Moscow may have given up on any prospect of working with Kiev. During the 2019 presidential election campaign, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky pledged to resolve the standoff with Moscow. But in office, he’s taken a harder line, and resisted any compromise with Moscow. Even though Zelensky’s administration is weak and unpopular, the Kremlin frets that Russia’s influence in Ukraine may be eroding longer-term.

Russia is also increasingly impatient with the stalled diplomatic process, sceptical that it can yield a meaningful outcome. Kyiv, correctly perceiving the 2015 Minsk agreement as loaded in Moscow’s favour, is unwilling to implement the required political devolution to the regions ­– without which Russia refuses to return control of Ukraine’s borders to Kiev. France and Germany, the key external parties involved, seem unable to exert effective influence on the process. 

At the same time, Moscow is increasingly alarmed by growing US/European defence cooperation with Ukraine. The Kremlin has suggested that deepening military ties between Kiev and the United States and European NATO partners may cross a redline for Moscow. 

It’s important to understand just how important Ukraine is to the Kremlin – and why Putin himself has tried repeatedly over the past 20 years to pull Kiev back firmly under Moscow’s wings.

Firstly, as Putin’s July article showed, the Russian ruling elite (like many Russians) simply do not see Ukraine as a separate country, but rather as inextricably part of Russia, regarding Ukraine as the historical heartland of the Russian state and Orthodox church.

Beyond perceptions of national identity (albeit laced with imperial nostalgia), Moscow also has serious geopolitical concerns at stake in Ukraine. The collapse of the USSR and expansion of NATO sharply reduced the strategic depth Russia has historically sought to maintain to its west. The Kremlin fears Kiev slipping into the West’s orbit, and indeed portrays Ukraine representing already a hostile instrument for the projection of Western power against Russia.

For the Kremlin, then, the current stalemate in eastern Ukraine cannot endure.   

But why raise the ante now? Because Putin may sense a window of opportunity for Russia to break the deadlock.

Europe’s stark dependence on Russian gas potentially gives Moscow considerable leverage as winter approaches. Meanwhile, European governments are focused on countering a new Covid wave, and an upsurge in migrant arrivals (including pressure on the Belarus border).  Berlin is preoccupied with the post-Angela Merkel transition. And the Biden administration’s primary focus is on countering the growing challenge from China.

Russia’s intentions remain unclear. Is this all about coercive diplomacy: fostering unease and uncertainty, intended to undermine Zelensky and to warn off the West from deeper military engagement with Ukraine? 

Or might it actually presage military action to break the deadlock – perhaps designed to create a land bridge between the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and annexed Crimea? 

We simply don’t know. 

But whatever Russia does, don’t assume Putin will perceive and assess the risks and benefits involved in the way Western observers do. 

The reality is that Ukraine matters more to Russia than it does to the West. And while US and European leaders have spoken of their “unwavering” and “ironclad” support for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Kremlin will calculate this is most unlikely to go beyond more tough rhetoric and more sanctions. 

Moscow can live with that.

Europe’s “forgotten war” between the Western-backed Ukraine and the Russian-sponsored, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic over the energy-rich Donbass region of eastern Ukraine has been “on hold” for six years. Despite the formal truce declared in 2015, shelling and sporadic firing have been an everyday reality for the local population, and there are indications that both Kiev and Moscow are preparing for a potential escalation of the conflict that erupted in 2013.

Ukraine is actively modernising its military. According to reports, the Eastern European country is set to purchase five Turkish-made Bayraktar Tactical Block 2 (TB2) unmanned aerial vehicles this year, while in 2019, Kiev tested and purchased 12 Bayraktar drones, which proved to be a game changer in recent Azerbaijan-Armenia war over Nagorno-Karabakh. Also, in 2017 the Trump administration approved military aid to Ukraine, selling 210 Javelin anti-tank missiles and 37 launchers to the former Soviet republic. The US is also expected to soon provide further lethal weapons to Ukraine, another possible sign of preparation for the resumption of hostilities in the region.

The Kremlin, on the other hand, has sharpened its rhetoric regarding the future of the Donbass. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declared last month that Russia has no plans to absorb the Donbass, and that Moscow is solely focused on protecting Russians and the Russian-speaking population of the region. He also noted that the Donbass has “always been Russian-speaking” and that Moscow intends to stand up for its residents. On the other hand, several other Ukrainian regions in the east and south of the country are also Russian-speaking, but the Kremlin never stood up for their residents as actively as in the Donbass. Given that energy plays a crucial role in Russia’s politics, it is not surprising that Moscow is interested in preserving its de facto control over the coal-rich Donbass basin.

Other voices are more direct. “People from Donbass want to be part of our great homeland. Russia, mother, take the Donbass home,” said Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Russia’s state television RT on 28 January in Donetsk, where she took part in the “Russian Donbass” Forum. At the summit, leaders of the self-proclaimed Donbass republics reportedly adopted a doctrine of “Russian Donbass”. The main goal of the document is said to be to “strengthen the statehood of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as Russian-nation states”.

That, however, does not mean that Russia will incorporate the region into the Russian Federation the same way it absorbed Crimea in 2014.

For various reasons, “the Crimean scenario” in the Donbass was not implemented. Instead, the Kremlin created two unrecognised proxy states that are heavily dependent on Russia economically, politically and militarily. Igor Strelkov, Russian military veteran and an ex-KGB officer, who is also a former defence minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, repeated on several occasions that it was Moscow that formed army corps of the Donbass proxy states. Yet he still refuses to talk about the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, even though he was charged, along with two Russians and one Ukrainian. Strelkov, a critic of the Kremlin, has been claiming for years that a large-scale war between Russia and Ukraine is “imminent”.

It is worth noting that before the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, the Kremlin’s policy towards Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was eerily similar to Russian actions in the Donbass, where 441,000 residents already have Russian passports. Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia in August 2008 led to Russian military intervention and also to the recognition of these entities (which for a time extended to the Pacific). Unless Ukraine, backed by the West, starts a military offensive against Russia’s proxies in the Donbass, it is not likely that Moscow will recognise the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, although they will be closely integrated with Russia as unrecognised subjects.

In the meantime, both Moscow and Kiev will likely keep simulating the implementation of the so-called Minsk II accord signed in Belarus in February 2015 by Russian, Ukrainian and European officials, as well as representatives of the self-proclaimed Donbass republics. The first Minsk protocol (Minsk-1) was signed in September 2014. According to both documents, an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire has to be established, and all foreign armed formations and military equipment, as well as mercenaries, should be withdrawn. Besides that, Ukraine has to reinstate full control of its state border with Russia. None of these points has been implemented to this day.

Russia insists that Ukraine should negotiate directly with the Donbass republics, which is something that Kiev resolutely opposes, since it is aware that that would mean the de facto recognition of those entities. Given that the Unites States, as Ukraine’s main backer, is not officially involved in the peace talks, the chance of a sustained peace in the Donbass is very slim. Thus, the future of the region will likely be determined as part of a wider deal between Moscow and Washington.