Russia is blaming the EU’s bad boys – UK and Poland – for Belarus border mess

The UK is to blame as a prime mover behind the refugee crisis on the Belarus – Poland border. So says the spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry, Ms Maria Zakharova. She says: “the British invasion of Iraq was carefully crafted.” Many of the refugees are Kurds and Arabs from Iraq.

“Britain has clear historical responsibility for everything that has happened in the region since.”

This was in response to the demand from the foreign secretary Liz Truss that Vladimir Putin do something to alleviate the plight of thousands of refugees being pushed from Belarus to the razor wire of the Polish border. Many are now camped in a no-man’s land with little food and shelter, and in temperatures well below zero.

Britain and allies are sending military engineers to help the Polish army on the border. Fears have been raised, not least by the outgoing UK services’ chief General Sir Nick Carter, that war could break out by accident on the Polish border, and most worryingly in the Donbas region of Ukraine where Russia currently has around 100, 000 troops massed for “exercises.”

The Biden administration has also said that a full blown clash between Nato and Russian and Belarus forces could happen within a matter of hours.

How likely is it that we are going to get another round of eccentric or “asymmetric” conflict in either or both of the two sectors – the Belarus – Poland border and Donbas in Ukraine ?

The two fronts are connected in Russian strategy, but how much Moscow controls the eccentric and wayward Alexander Lukashenko and his regime in Minsk is open to question. Russia has sent in military and paramilitary forces to help out – but for the most part Putin’s backing for the former Soviet pig farming collective boss has been less than full hearted. His regime lacks credibility following the continuous protests and rumblings since the autocrat claimed re-election last year.

Belarus is important  — not least because of its status as Russia’s only ally in Eastern and Central Europe. But increasingly Belarus, which still looks like part of the Soviet Union, is resembles a satrapy of the Putin regime rather than a country in its own right. For Putin it is part of Russia, culturally and spiritually.

By singling out the UK and to an extent Poland as being responsible for the current border mess, the Russian propagandists seem to have been cadging the punchline of Anne Robinson – You Are the Weakest Link. Poland and Britain are the EU’s bad boys, inside and outside the tent. Russia knows this and plays on it.

So far the UK military support on the ground to Poland, Ukraine, Estonia and the Baltics has been little more than nugatory. Ben Wallace is now on his way to Poland to see what more can be done. A new defence and security agreement between London and Kiev is in the pipeline – as Reaction revealed last week. This is likely to mean more arms sales and training packages, adding to those already in place.

General Carter was warning that Russia, its allies and the Nato allies risk tripping over the elaborately laid tripwires – if only by accident. There are a lot of forces, formal and informal, deployed across the region. According to some reports, the armoured infantry and tanks could roll across the border into the three Donbas provinces of Ukraine within a matter of hours.

“I don’t think Russia intends to invade Ukraine,” says Charles Hacker, CEO of Control Risks, one of the foremost security experts in the commercial sector. “Deployment into Ukraine carries high risk – and Putin has achieved his aim so far – the destabilisation of Ukraine, so it can’t join the EU or Nato in the near future. The alliances don’t want Ukraine now.”

“For Putin and Russia, Donbas has to be managed,” says Rupert Smith, one of the UK’s foremost military strategists. Russian actions over Ukraine in Donbas have been a partial failure, he says, ever since the Maidan Revolution in Kiev in 2014 which ousted the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich. In the same way, the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 looks like only a partial win for Putin.

The presence of the Russian troops doesn’t of itself mean serious intent. Similar forces have massed at this point earlier in the year, only to disperse. The reporting from the ground isn’t detailed enough to understand clearly what comes next. So far there is no sign of field hospitals and casualty clearing stations being built close to the border – and they would be needed quickly if a serious invasion is planned.

Commentators have described this as “asymmetric warfare” or “gray zone” confrontation activity. General Rupert Smith thinks that the Russians’ own term is more useful: “ambiguous warfare.” This means continuously ratcheting up and ratcheting down tension moving up and down a scale from competition to confrontation, near combat even, and then back down again.

Russia doesn’t hold all the cards – though it pretends to. It knows Europe wants its gas – but knows, too, that this is an old-fashioned commodity which will be in decreasing demand over the coming decades. It cannot control the market on its own terms. This makes Alexander Lukashenko’s boast that he’ll turn off the gas piped through Belarus somewhat bizarre. It isn’t his gas in the first place, and it isn’t his political call in the second place. Russia isn’t entirely successful in blackmailing the smallest and poorest East European state, Moldova, over gas supplies.

Russia is threatening to make mischief on Europe’s borders to mask difficulties at home, according to Nato strategists, and independent observers in Moscow itself according to reports in today’s International New York Times. Covid is not under control, and is adding to the continuing restiveness in the eastern Asiatic areas of the Russian Federation. Commitments in the Caucasus – peacekeeping in Nagorno Karabakh especially – and open-ended support for the Assad dictatorship in Syria are burdensome.

Putin’s autocratic regime seems firm – but the Russian state as presently constituted is dependent on his personal rule. When he falters or falls, it goes too.

The deployment of the 100,000 troops of the tank and armoured infantry battalions on the borders with Donbas seem the elegant proof and fine metaphor for what is going on. These are the last few days of autumn weather suitable for large ground training exercises.

Then comes winter when tracks freeze and break, and if you are not careful diesel engines wax up – to say nothing of human performance if the temperatures take a sudden plunge.

The next phase of the face-off on Europe’s eastern marches is just a few days from now. And it may just be time for all to hunker down – until Spring appears.