Russian forces along Ukraine border largest since the Red Army
In Kyiv they are preparing for a major offensive into Ukraine by the largest Russian army assembled since the end of the Second World War – a force now feared to reach nearly 200,000 by January 1st.
British defence chiefs believe that Russia has already begun the campaign with a familiar pattern of deliberate misdirection and deception. “We are beginning to see the ‘Little Green Men’ appearing,” one senior chief told me just a few days ago. He was referring to the use of militia and special forces in unmarked fatigues inserted to take over Crimea in 2014. They carried no insignia of their units, nor their rank.
They are a critical element in the pattern of “non-obvious” or “ambiguous” warfare developed by the Russian defence chief , General of the Army and Defence Minister Valery Gerasimov – which is based on a game of “now you see me, now you don’t,” and concealing the type, scale and line of attack until the last moment. In a way, it is an extension of the Soviet Army deception doctrine of “Maskirovka.”
“The green men are popping up in several different places – not just opposite the Donbas provinces in Ukraine,” the defence chief told me. “It is very worrying. They are assembling a huge force – the biggest since the Red Army in 1945.”
This week President Joe Biden warned Vladimir Putin against attacking into Ukraine. “The sanctions will be severe,” he said later, “on a scale not seen before.” Washington believes the Nordstreem 2 gas pipeline from Russia directly into Germany through the Baltic should not go ahead if Putin doesn’t back down. It seems the new German coalition under Olav Scholz would comply with this if Moscow attacks.
But Biden refused to say that America would send forces to defend Ukraine. Modern weapons, including British anti-armour missiles, have been sent lately to Ukraine; and Nato countries, including UK, have training teams in the country. Ukraine is an associate but not a full partner of Nato. At a critical Nato summit in Bucharest in Spring 2008, Nato put off, but did not discard, requests by Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance. President George W Bush was keen that they should be admitted, but Britain and Germany argued they should not for the time being.
This ambiguity, plus the training and weapons for Ukrainian forces, is conceived by Putin as a “direct threat to Russia, and Russian territory.” In July, he issued a rambling essay claiming that Ukraine and Belarus historically were at the heart of the Russian nation; and they are all part of the same country and culture. A recent opinion poll announced by the Italian institute ISPI shows that only 14% of Ukrainians agree in any way with Putin’s mystical notions of nationhood.
This means that if Russia invades, its forces will face a long guerrilla war of resistance. The separatists they support in two districts of Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, are not having an easy time – despite copious and increasingly obvious support from Russian military advisers. They have recently been hit by strikes from Bayraktar 2b drones acquired by Ukrainian forces from Turkey.
The Russian forces now massing on the Ukrainian borders opposite Donbas and to the north opposite Kharkiv have an increasingly offensive posture. They are now being reinforced by long range artillery and rockets as well as heavy armour. According to an intelligence picture and maps obtained by the Washington Post, Russian forces will have roughly 100 Battalion Tactical Groups – BTGs – are expected to be battle ready by 1 January. Recently BTGs have been assembling in Crimea and opposite Belarus from the Yelnya sector in Russia.
One sign that they mean business is the recent readying of field hospitals and equipment and vehicles for frontline battle casualty clearing stations. According to the Washington Post’s analysis, a further 100,000 Russian reservists have been put on standby. In all it makes up a force of around four times the current strength of the British army.
Despite such a mighty presence of boots, bayonets, rockets, artillery and tanks on the ground, it is hard to work out what this force can do. It would be very difficult to attack and occupy Ukraine as a whole. Even a push to the Dnieper river complex would be hard to sustain.
Some speculate that this is a deliberate manoeuvre of dodging and weaving, like a boxer, by Putin to scare Kiev, the Americans and Nato into major concessions. These might include a written treaty of neutrality to guarantee that Ukraine would never join Nato – nor, perhaps, the EU. This puts Biden in a real bind, according to the Portuguese diplomat and strategist Bruno Macaes. Any such agreement, let alone signed document, would be fatal for Biden at home and abroad, and deeply damaging for Nato as a whole.
Another concession for Putin might be an agreement for autonomy and local self-government for the two heavily Russian populated districts of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Any serious fighting puts Putin in jeopardy. Russians don’t like body bags returning from disputes they don’t understand or care about. This is the legacy of the last major operation in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, where 14,500 died and many more were severely injured. If Germany and the Western alliances of Nato and the EU suspend Nordstreem 2, it will hurt them first in the short term, but become hugely damaging to Putin in the medium to long term. He will try to make up by increasing sales of gas to China – but China doesn’t care for what he has been doing in Crimea and Ukraine since 2014. Besides Russia accounts for under 2.5% of China’s foreign investment and trade.
Putin is also facing a major crisis of credibility due to Covid-19. Vaccination has not gone well at home, and the Sputnik V vaccine export has not proved a world beater. There is active resistance to vaccine “green” passes and checks by QR code compliance. There are once more numerous and vociferous demonstrations across Russia and blanket criticism in the underground media, which the Kremlin cannot control.
The posturing and manoeuvring of such a huge force against Ukraine may prove a giant deception plan and bluff. If so, it comes at very high risk. A force of this size can only be kept at battle stations for a short period, especially in the winter.
In using it to divert from unpopularity at home and the noise from the parts of the media he knows he can never reach, Putin may be about to fall into a trap of his own making – taking Ukraine with him.