In a televised address on Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had declared Wednesday (February 16), which U.S. officials say could be the date of a Russian attack, as a day of “national unity”.
But he has also said the earlier predictions by western intelligence agencies of a possible attack had proven wrong. PBS Newshour, the American TV program, reported late last week, quoting unnamed U.S. officials, that Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, had decided to launch an invasion and sent his orders to his Generals.
But the top officials of the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NSA Jake Sullivan, say, in on-the-record interactions, that they don’t believe Mr. Putin has taken that call. But they warn that Russia has mobilised enough troops around Ukraine that it could launch an invasion “any day”.
In other words, nobody is certain whether Mr. Putin will attack Ukraine and if so, when. This unpredictability appears to be at the core of Mr. Putin’s Ukraine strategy.
Russian mobilisation
Russia has maintained that it has no plans to invade Ukraine. When he met the visiting French President, Emmanuel Macron, in Moscow last week, Mr. Putin told him Russia would not escalate. But at the same time, Russia has mobilised about 130,000 troops on the three sides of Ukraine. This includes 105 battalion tactical groups (each group having some 700-800 soldiers capable of fast manoeuvering in open terrain), 500 combat aircraft and some 40 warships in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. As part of the military drills with Belarus, Russia has also deployed S400 missile defence systems and Iskander surface-to-surface missiles. So with missiles, fighter jets, warships and tens of thousands of combat troops, Russia aims to ensure total domination in the land, in the air and in the sea in the event of a war.
When Russia says it won’t escalate or launch an invasion, what it actually means is that it won’t take escalatory steps without “a provocation”. The West warns that there could be a “false flag operation” in the rebel-controlled Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which Russia could use as an excuse for an attack.
And invasion could trigger severe sanctions from the West. Even if the Russian economy is better positioned today to offset the impacts of the Western sanctions, a full-scale invasion comes with other risks. Russia could overrun Ukraine within weeks and install a friendly regime in Kiev, but managing the post-invasion status quo in Europe’s largest country where the public opinion on Russia is almost evenly split would not be easy. Last time when Moscow made a large military intervention –in Afghanistan in 1979 – it didn’t end well. So, is Mr. Putin ready to take such a risk on Ukraine? Or would Mr. Putin take a less risky route of providing more weapons and money to the rebels in Donbas to push the frontlines of a civil war that has been frozen since 2015? Again, nobody really knows what Mr. Putin would do if he decides to go in to Ukraine.
Troops and talks
But escalation is not the only way forward. On Monday, at the same time Russia was building its military pressure around Ukraine, in a choreographed meeting that was telecast on the state TV, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told President Putin that the diplomatic possibilities are “far from exhausted”. He proposed continuing talks with the West and Mr. Putin was seen endorsing Mr. Lavrov. The meeting was telecast at a time when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Ukraine.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the destination of two Russian gas pipelines, is an important country for Moscow. Berlin, which has warned of sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, has also been sensitive towards Russia’s security concerns — it refused to send weapons to Ukraine and barred other NATO members from sending German-made weapons. On Monday, Mr. Scholz said in Kiev that Ukraine’s entry into NATO “was not on the agenda right now”. He is meeting Mr. Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.
Ukraine also showed signs of a compromise. Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Britain, told a BBC interview that Kiev was considering giving up the country’s bid for NATO membership to avert war. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry later said Prystaiko’s comments were taken out of context. But President Zelensky, while addressing a joint press conference with Chancellor Scholz in Kiev, did not dismiss Mr. Prystaiko’s comments. The prospect of Ukraine joining NATO could be “like a dream”, said Mr. Zelensky.
President Joe Biden has already told Mr. Putin that the U.S. has no plans to deploy offensive missile systems in Ukraine. He has also offered signing an agreement with Russia on ruling out deploying such missiles and stationing permanent combat troops on reciprocal terms. But those offers did not lead to a breakthrough as Russia wants guarantees that Ukraine would never be taken into NATO. Now both western and Ukrainian leaders are hinting that Ukraine joining the alliance is a distinct possibility.
Would it be enough to convince the Kremlin to opt for a ramp-off?
