Russia might have a superior army but its political leadership seems increasingly unwilling to confront Western-backed neighboring Ukraine.
Despite warmongering and fearmongering rhetoric echoed in Western media, including reports today that Moscow continues to add troops around Ukraine, the actual situation on the border between the two countries is calm.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, keenly aware of the seriousness of the situation, recently called on the West not to create panic amid a build-up of Russian troops in Belarus and other regions in Western Russia.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov chimed in that there is no compelling reason to believe that Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine imminently. Despite those top-level assurances in Kiev, the West and its media still widely believe that Moscow could launch a large-scale attack on its neighbor at any time.
Although Russian officials openly claim they do not intend to invade Ukraine and call such allegations “complete absurdity“, their words do not seem to hold weight in Western capitals, not least Washington.
When Alexei Zaitsev, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department, said that Moscow considers war with Ukraine “unthinkable”, few Western media outlets gave the statement much, if any, play. Instead, media reports are laser-focused on Russia’s troop movements near the Ukrainian border.
At this point, Russia does not appear to have enough troops and equipment near the Eastern European country to launch a successful massive invasion. So then why does Moscow continue to amass forces on the border of Ukraine?
Russia, or at least some within the Kremlin, fear that Ukraine could eventually try to restore by force its sovereignty over the breakaway Donbass region. The coal-rich region in Eastern Ukraine has been under the control of pro-Russian forces since 2014, but Kiev has not dared to launch a large-scale military offensive against the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic.
It is entirely possible that Ukraine and West are seeking “security guarantees” that Moscow will not intervene to protect its proxies in case of a Ukrainian offensive. Russia’s units near the Ukrainian border are likely a signal that the Kremlin does not intend to abandon the Donbass. But what if it is just another bluff?
On January 22, Russia announced plans to hold military drills in February just 240 kilometers off Ireland’s coast. Five days later, the Kremlin decided to relocate its naval exercises in the Atlantic outside the Irish exclusive economic zone as a “gesture of goodwill” in order not to “disturb Irish fishermen.”
Western policymakers and strategic planners, however, likely viewed the flip-flop as more bluff than threat.
The West will now undoubtedly continue to pressure Russia, especially since the Kremlin’s “ultimatum” to the United States was apparently an empty threat. London has already signaled that it could target Russian oligarchs’ properties in the UK if Russia attacks Ukraine.
It is very probable that British Foreign Minister Liz Truss, who is expected to visit Russia in February, will openly tell Russian leaders what measures the UK will take if Moscow does not withdraw its troops from the Ukrainian border and resume peace talks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently met with Italian business leaders and is expected to meet soon with the Germans as well. Could it be that they also sent him a message of what economic sanctions the Russian Federation can expect if it launches an attack on Ukraine?
But even if Russia does not invade Ukraine, Washington and its allies could nonetheless impose new punitive restrictions on doing business with Moscow. The US has already said that Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns full control of the peninsula to Ukraine.
In other words, as long as the Donbass conflict remains unresolved and Crimea is not returned to Ukraine, US-Russian relations are unlikely to normalize under a Biden administration. The problem for Moscow is that if it turns a blind eye to a potential Ukrainian offensive in the Donbass, sooner or later Crimea’s status will be on the table.
On the other hand, even a limited Russian intervention in the Donbass will be interpreted in the West as Russian aggression against Ukraine, and oligarchs close to the Kremlin will face crippling new sanctions.
Russia thus cannot easily escape the vicious circle it entered in 2014 when Moscow incorporated Crimea into the Russian Federation and backed the self-proclaimed Donbass republics.
The Kremlin is now trying to ease tensions, given that its “ultimatum” was apparently rejected and Moscow has not taken any concrete steps yet to force the West to provide guarantees that Ukraine will never join NATO.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, recently answering a question about the possible recognition of the self-proclaimed Donbass republics as independent states, pointed out that for Moscow “Ukraine remains indivisible.”
He even said that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky would be welcome in Russia to discuss the normalization of bilateral relations, although in the past Putin refused to meet with the Ukrainian leader. Now, the Kremlin has not ruled out Putin meeting with Zelensky in Beijing during the Winter Olympic Games, which start later this week.
Moscow is also signaling that it will not launch an “asymmetric response” to US military activities in Eastern Europe by establishing military bases in Latin America.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, stressed on January 27 that Russia cannot open bases in Cuba and Venezuela as these countries “seek to get out of isolation and restore normal relations with the United States.” He even admitted that the US has significant leverage over Russia in Latin America.
Washington, for its part, continues to press Moscow in the diplomatic sphere. According to the Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, the State Department raised the question of his departure from Washington if Russia does not issue visas to the guards of the head of the American diplomatic mission in Moscow.
It is thus likely that the Kremlin will make yet another concession to Washington, which will be interpreted by some as yet another Russian stand down.
If Russia continues to make such “gestures of goodwill” and eventually pulls back its military forces now massed along Ukraine’s borders, the United States and wider West will likely view it as another sign of Kremlin weakness, not strength, and could thus encourage Kiev to resolve the Donbass conflict by force.
Such an operation would represent a war or humiliation moment of truth for Putin and the Kremlin.