Putin explicitly threatens use of force against Ukraine
For the first time in this round of the Ukraine crisis, President Vladimir Putin has explicitly threatened that Russia will use force against Ukraine and its Nato supporters.
Russia is considering a “military-technical response” to what it considers provocative and threatening postures by Nato, the Russian leader said yesterday. Hitherto he has said that Russia was trying to avoid direct action and war.
Ukrainian leaders and western intelligence now expect some kind of provocative incident around Ukraine, Belarus or the Baltic republics – now Nato members – in the next few days or weeks. “It could even be some sort of incident by provocateurs inside Ukraine,” according to Hanna Shelest, head of Ukraine Analytica in Kyiv.
In the past week, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, has spelled out a list of demands from Nato and Ukraine. They include a withdrawal of any offensive weaponry from Nato allies neighbouring Russia, specifically Poland and Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Nato teams and equipment must be withdrawn from Ukraine. Moscow wants a new treaty arrangement, supervised by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pledging that Ukraine and Georgia will never join Nato or the EU.
Hanna Shelest, speaking in a Webinar from Kyiv says Putin and Russia are comporting themselves like the abusive partner in a domestic dispute. “The abuser continually tests the tolerance of the abused, promises not to abuse and then does it again as long as he knowns he can get away with it. The West – Nato and the US – are behaving like the weak social worker or counsellor who tries to persuade the victim to moderate their behaviour – and to be less provocative towards the aggressor.”
Ryabkov and his boss, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, know they are making demands of Nato which cannot be met. “Russia is trying to reverse the outcome of the Cold War,” Yevhen Hlibovytsky, a well-known Ukrainian commentator, told Tuesday’s webinar from Kyiv.
“For Putin it’s now much more than Ukraine. Putin has advanced a long way against Nato. It’s now about his legacy. He knows that if he loses now, he loses his entire legacy. It’s a dangerous moment because the whole framework of power in Moscow now depends on him. If Putin goes, it all falls apart. It’s a very dangerous moment – and this is not generally appreciated in the West.”
Though he believes Nato is weak and divided, Putin is not expected to launch a direct attack along a broad front into Ukraine, despite having marshalled roughly 100,000 armoured troops and reserves in forward positions.
“He knows open attack isn’t beneficial to Russia,” says Hanna Shelest. “He will work through proxies – particularly in disinformation. The whole exercise in Crimea (the annexation in 2014) wasn’t logical or rational. He learned to use provocateurs inside the country, and that’s what I think he is doing now inside Ukraine.”
“I think his message to the West is “back off,’” says Volodymyr Dubovyk a professor at Odessa University, who hosted the web discussion. “He is now threatening continuous instability.”
“He can be quite irrational,” adds Yevhen Hlibovytsky. “He has shown himself as a brilliant tactician, but he is no strategist.” He is appealing to nostalgia for a glorious past under the USSR – to the extent that the Russian international hockey team has recently paraded in Soviet uniforms. This summer Putin repeated his view that the “collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of the Twentieth Century.”
He has deliberately embarked on the latest round of brinkmanship to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, our web seminar concluded. “There is a great deal of symbolism, and there are cultural reasons why Putin has to be centred on Ukraine,” says Yevhen. “For him it is key to Russian identity” – with Kyiv as the founding capital.
This is being encouraged by increasingly strident nationalist pronouncements by the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kyrylov. All three Ukrainian analysts agreed in yesterday’s webinar that Putin seems to be facing an unusual amount of domestic pressure. This is not so much from the protests from the underground media and the supporters of opposition leaders like the jailed Alexander Navalnay – mostly generated from abroad now. The new element is the push from hardliners within the Kremlin itself, especially the military faction led by the Defence Minister General of the Army Sergey Shoygu – who want to push Putin to more direct action against Ukraine.
The most probable area of action is likely to be a push to take the region round the port of Mariupol in order to link Russia itself with Crimea, the so-called “Crimea corridor.” Already Moscow has tried to close off the adjoining Sea of Azov on the pretext of holding naval exercises. “They are using international law, such as the laws of the sea, to gain advantage,” Hanna Shelest told me. “It’s the employment of ‘lawfare’ – which they are also using in the Arctic.”
One of the biggest constraints for Putin is time. He can only keep the armoured and motor rifle units, the 100,000 now forming up in four huge concentration areas, for a few weeks at most. This gives the lie to the idea that they can wait for the spring or to the end of January at the earliest. He is also beginning to feel his age as he approaches 70 and he may be worrying about his health giving out.
Another problem is the growing sophistication of Ukrainian forces. They have recently acquired Turkish Bayraktar Tb2 strike drones. These proved highly effective, and decisive even, in conflicts in Libya and Nagorno Karabakh last year. The Bayraktars are now being made under Turkish licence in Ukraine itself – where manufacturing and development facilities are more advanced than in Turkey itself.
In Nagorno Karabakh last year, the new missiles proved battle winners in combination with new Israeli munitions, command and targeting equipment then appearing on the battlefield for the first time. The so-called ‘suicide drones’ and Israel Harap (Harp 2) loitering strike drone proved devastating against the older Russian military weaponry used by the Armenian forces. The use of Israeli weapons and systems with the Turkish drones in Ukraine now could be devastating against Russian battle tanks and heavy artillery batteries. “I suspect there would be a lot of electronic warfare, jamming and hacking of the different command systems,” says Hanna Shelest.
Putin senses that he has got the Biden administration on the back foot, an impression reinforced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggesting that talks about the European security system should be opened in a month’s time. This is likely to encourage further rounds of abusive behaviour from Moscow, our three Ukrainian commentators agreed.
In the past two days, gas supplies to Germany have been slowed down. According to Putin this is merely owing to ‘commercial factors.’
Putin and his ministers may be bidding high in their latest challenge to the US, Nato and the EU leadership, but they know their demands cannot be met. They are a little more than a complete redrawing of the European security order since 1989, and the terms laid out at the crucial Nato summit in Bucharest in 2008. Sergei Lavrov demanded a signed treaty that Nato weapons wouldn’t be deployed forward in former USSR countries now in Nato and that Ukraine and Georgia will never join the alliance. “The document of demands is too vague, and they know it can’t be discussed seriously,” Hanna suggests. “They are not a basis for negotiation.
“It’s a cheap ultimatum. It’s typical of a domestic violence situation, in order to make the victim feel guilty.”