The US is warning that Russia is now ready to invade Ukraine from three directions: south from Belarus north from Crimea and north-west from the Donbas area (where there has been what is described as a ‘low-level’ are for several years in which 14,000 people are said to have died). Whether the invasion goes ahead tomorrow or this
week or even at all remains to be seen. But as far as I am concerned baffling and odd are two very good descriptions of prety much all angles of what has been going on. Nothing is straightforward, not Russia’s — for which read Vladimir Putin’s — motives, not the West’s disjointed response and, to be frank, unconvincing response. And the logic of it all is certainly not straightforward.
As usual for ‘facts’ and ‘opinion’ I can here only repeat what I have heard on the radio and TV and read. I can, though, add my own thoughts. The fact is that Russia began moving troops to the Ukrainian border towards the end of last year, but steadfastly denied it intended to invade Ukraine.
Yet that build-up of troops continued, with more of them moved to the border of Ukraine with Belarus and to the Crimea (which Russia got away with annexing seven years ago and whose seemingly trouble-free acquisition might well have encouraged Putin to try his luck further).
The purpose of these troop movements seemed obvious: Russia intended to invade Ukraine. Well, that at least was probably the impression Putin wanted to give. It might well have been a form of blackmail. Russia has denied to this hour that invasion is its purpose, but it is difficult to believe anything else.
So the next equally obvious questions are: why would it want to invade Ukraine and if, as it claims, it has no intention of invading, why marshal those troops on the border? Well, the answer to the second question might, as I say, merely be to increase pressure on the West. But pressure to do what?
One issue has been Ukraine’s possibly membership of Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Russia says, correctly I think, that at some point after the fall of the Soviet Union the West promised that it would not expand Nato any further than its then borders. However, it did and the Baltic states, all three of them former Soviet bloc states, are now members of Nato.
Then there’s another oddity: Nato is on paper, in theory, but also in reality a defensive body. Yet Russia’s stance on the matter of implies that Nato is essentially an aggressive body and, by further implication, will at some point in
the future be put to work aggressively. How likely is that? It is certainly far less likely than Nato fulfilling is mission to go to the defence of a member if that member is attacked.
In fact, arguing on purely practical grounds, an aggressive Nato would be unlikely to see action: far too many of its members would veto any such move, even if it meant Nato, in that jokey phrase, was ‘getting its retaliation in first’.
Thus how worried is Putin about Ukraine becoming a member of Nato. If, as I suggest, Nato is essentially defensive not aggressive, why on earth should he be worried. Certainly, if as he claims assurances have been ignored by the Baltic states becoming members he might rightly feel peeved. But is that really a good reason for invading Ukraine? It doesn’t seem obvious.
Another explanation for Putin’s actions are that he is worried that Ukraine, a democracy, is not a good look for Russia which is nominally a democracy but where real political opposition is discouraged. For example Alexei Navalny, a brave man if ever there were one, was poisoned, treated by doctors in Germany, then returned to Russia where he was silenced by being jailed. That, too, is plausible. But how would invasion help?
It might make Putin in the eyes of some a ‘strong man’ but it might equally persuade those who tolerate him no longer to tolerate him (though given that free elections are at present as unlikely as a month of Sundays that is more of the theoretical danger). Aligned to that reasoning is the suggestion that Putin is following the principle that if you have domestic troubles, take the country’s mind off them by causing trouble abroad.
However, in short there is no way of reading Putin’s mind and establishing just what he might be up to.
Another consideration might be — and this will surely have crossed Putin’s mind — that invading the Ukraine might create more problems than it would solven and it is very unlikely that Russia would be in the Ukraine for the long haul.
Invading would be the easy bit, but holding the country and dealing with certain insurgency would not. Putin will well aware of the fiasco that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan became (and arguably it facilitated the eventual rise of the Taliban).
More likely would be that Putin would set about setting up a government beholden to him in the Kremlin, but that too might not be as successful as he wold like: insurgencies and possibly violent opposition might carry on.
Still, he would have made his point: that Russia is still of consequence in the world and it and its interest must be taken into account. Establishing a new status quo between Russia and the West, one which resembles the status quo of the Cold War, might be his goal. But it still begs the question: why? Is that really worth the hassle.
. . .
In its response to the Russian build-up of troops the West has been — I would like to say ‘predictably’ — at sixes and sevens. The US and Britain say one thing, France quite another and Germany for rather too long decided not to say anything at all.
One explanation for that I heard given yesterday by some bod who is an adviser on international affairs to Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz was that Scholz’s background is more in finance than foreign affairs and that he left the matter to his foreign minister. It doesn’t help the Annalena Baerbock, his foreign minister belongs to the
On the question of retaliation to an invasion of Ukraine, the West is also badly at six and sevens. Military action would be out of the questions (unless, of course, Russia then attacked one of the Baltic states in which case Nato would be obliged to defend them). So far the talk is off ’sanctions’, notably shutting Russia out of the global banking system (which, as one commentator claimed yesterday, although I have no way of knowing whether or no this is the case) overnight ATMs — cashpoints — throughout Russia would cease working and folk would not be able to get ready cash.
Russia would, though, hit back, notably and most probably by shutting off the gas is supplies to Western Europe. That would hit Germany harder than other European countries. Overall, Russia supplies Europe with 40% of its gas, but Germany is more dependent on the supply ever since Angela Merkel, the previous chancellor decided to close down the country’s nuclear power industry a decade ago.
The final plants will shut down later this year. (Many Germans are baffled that although their country no longer produces power from its own power plants, it is quite happy to buy in such nuclear-produced electricity from neighbouring countries.) In the real world it is no surprise that Germany is, or seems to be, dragging its heels.
So, it’s not looking good, but the West must do something. If in time it pretty much allows Putin to get away with invading Ukraine — which, as I say, is not definitely likely to happen — other ‘hard men’ might be encouraged. As it is Viktor Orban in Hungary, who has not shown himself to be much of a man to encourage opposition, has been notably half-hearted in expressing outrage over Russia’s apparent plans. For one thing, Hungary is also dependent on Russian gas and oil, but for another he fears a war in Ukraine would see thousands of Ukrainian refugees flooding into Hungary, and he doesn’t want that.
. . .
As for the prediction from the US ‘intelligence sources’ that Russia plans to invade Ukraine tomorrow morning (Wednesday, February 16) I read that — as I’m sure the Russians do, too — merely as just another tactical move to disconcert the Russians, as in calling their bluff. It’s as though the PR departments of the various Western governments are calling the shots and formulating policy.
For example, the recent visit to Moscow by Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, to see Putin was widely seen as Macron knowing a good photo opportunity when he saw one: France will be voting for its new president in a few
One final worry for the West is that if Putin pulls of whatever he is hoping to pull off — suggestions, please, on a postcard address to The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, No 10 Downing St., London SW1A 2AA as Johnson might like a hint for five — and does invade Ukraine, his fellow stooge in the line-up of The World’s Bad Guys, Xi Jinping, might be encouraged to try his luck with annexing Taiwan.
Tricky, eh. And it’s not ‘partygate’.
