Tuesday, December 7th, 2021
Deployment on the Ukraine border
Kiev’s self-confidence disturbs Moscow
An analysis by Markus Lippold
Russia is moving massive troops to the border with Ukraine. But what is Putin planning? There are several ways to do this, from invading to tactical games. The Kremlin can already record one success: Biden is ready for another summit.
The reports sound alarming: Russia is gathering troops on the border with Ukraine and preparing an invasion. Not only are the Ukrainian leaders warning, they are also reporting it US intelligence, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks of “evidence” for “Russia’s plans for major aggressive steps against Ukraine”. Moscow rejects the allegations. Russian foreign politician Leonid Sluzki speaks of “anti-Russian hysteria” and “fairy tales”.
It was only in the spring that Russia deployed troops in the border area with Ukraine and triggered the same worries in Western countries. The Kremlin spoke of a maneuver and withdrew the soldiers in April. Will this game be repeated now – or is there a risk of a military confrontation?
“We are actually seeing a massive deployment of troops on the border with Ukraine, which did not happen in the spring,” says Margarete Klein from the Science and Politics Foundation in an interview with ntv.de. The danger of a Russian invasion was therefore not out of thin air. In addition, the rhetoric on the Russian side is “much sharper and harder than it used to be”. The research group leader for Eastern Europe and Eurasia refers, for example, to an article by Putin in which he denies the neighboring country statehood.
However, no observer can seriously assess whether these points indicate an invasion. “The question is what the cost-benefit calculation of the Russian leadership looks like,” says Klein, and puts three options in the room: “First, a large-scale invasion with the annexation of parts of Ukraine,” but with extremely high political levels , military and economic costs for Russia. It would also be conceivable, however, that there is a kind of saber rattle to force the USA into a strategic dialogue at the highest level – as it was already in Geneva in June and now again virtually.
Kiev has become more confident
But Klein believes a third possibility is conceivable: that Russia has no real goal, “but that the troop deployment and the permanent threat backdrop serve to keep Ukraine in a persistent state of tension, to destabilize it and, for example, to prevent reforms “.
Moscow sees the former Soviet republic as a sphere of influence in its own right – and strives to maintain this influence in order to prevent Ukraine from turning to the West. “On this point, Russian policy with the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Donbass was counterproductive,” says Klein. Russia has clearly lost the dispute over Ukraine’s political and security policy course, even if eastern Ukraine remains a permanent point of influence with which Moscow can influence the neighboring country.
But the Ukraine of today is not the Ukraine of 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine began. The shock of these events destabilized the entire country. The various conflicts are still far from being resolved, although the fighting flared up again in the end and people died on both sides. But under President Volodymyr Selenskyj, who was elected in 2019, the country increasingly turned to the West – with increasing popular support. Ukraine receives military aid from the USA, has massively modernized its armed forces – and relocated troops to eastern Ukraine.
Kiev has become more confident and Moscow notes this with displeasure. Russian President Vladimir Putin calls for guarantees, speaks of red lines – it is not even clear what exactly he means by that. “First he meant Ukraine’s NATO membership, then the installation of NATO military infrastructure on Ukrainian territory,” said Klein. Now it might be the military cooperation of Ukraine with western states. “But this red line is not clearly drawn, and I think that is deliberately kept so vague.” The expert’s conclusion: “What the Russian side is doing now is to stir up a conflict that it has created itself and then say that it affects its own security interests.”
Does Moscow want to force the USA to the table?
This applies to eastern Ukraine, for example. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions have renounced Kiev, the separatists are supported by Russia. Even more: Moscow has distributed hundreds of thousands of Russian passports in the areas. The naturalized people thus fall under the Russian military doctrine, which provides for military interventions to protect their own citizens. Should the militarily strengthened Kiev government plan to recapture eastern Ukraine – which the Kremlin accuses it of in view of troop transfers – Moscow would use this argument to intervene, as it did in 2008 against Georgia, which wanted to recapture the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Accordingly, the Kremlin also criticizes NATO military maneuvers near the Russian borders. As in general, the eastward expansion of NATO is vehemently rejected by Moscow. But apart from a vague promise in 2008, Ukraine’s admission is currently not an issue. NATO is unlikely to have any interest in accepting a country that is at war. And even military intervention by the Western allies if the situation escalates is unlikely. “There is a difference between a close and highly valued partner like Ukraine and the NATO allies,” said NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg recently. There are only security guarantees for the Allies, he added.
Instead, sanctions are the method of choice should the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border escalate. “The question is how severe the economic sanctions would then be, who they would affect, which areas of the Russian economy, which oligarchs or which people in Putin’s circle,” says Eastern Europe expert Klein. According to her, a strong step would be the exclusion of Russia from the international payments system Swift. Ultimately, however, it is unclear which threats and threats could actually work.
It is completely unclear whether the video summit of presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will actually bring about a breakthrough. The points of view are too contradictory for that. According to his spokeswoman, Biden wants to “reaffirm the United States’ support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine” at the video summit – and that also means the areas in eastern Ukraine. Moscow, at least, is already dampening expectations. “It is difficult to expect a breakthrough in the negotiations,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday. It is to be hoped that Biden and Putin “can make their concerns clear to one another and react to them”.
The summit in itself is at least a success for Russia. Other diplomatic solutions such as the Normandy format with France and Germany are currently on hold. “I believe that the idea behind this is to involve the USA much more closely in dealing with this conflict in order to get back into a strategic dialogue with the USA,” says Margarete Klein. Russia got this dialogue in June at Lake Geneva. “But the Russian side is interested in having this dialogue much more often, stronger and more visibly on an equal footing.”