Putin Appears Poised to Attack

Will he or won’t he? That is the question garnering the attention of political-military analysts in Washington and capitals around Europe this week. It appears that President Vladimir Putin is poised to order the Russian military to invade Ukraine again. Unlike the 2014 Russian occupation in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine, however, it appears this time Russian military planners have spent considerable time prepping and refining all the details.

Over the last year Russia conducted a number of large-scale military exercises near the Ukrainian border. In effect Putin’s troops were a practice invasion force. Instead of the forces leaving the area at end of the exercises, the Russian president ordered some of the troops and heavy materiel to be left behind along the Ukrainian border. It is a move that analysts in Washington are labeling a “forward-deployment” in preparation for a potential invasion that may come in the next few weeks. The staging will allow Russia to move quickly when it decides to activate its forces. The Russian propaganda machine also is active delivering warlike rhetoric that Evelyn Farkas, writing in the publication Defense One, says “has saturated Russian airwaves” along with Putin’s ultimatums. The situation remains fluid. Last week demonstrations in Kazakhstan appeared to dampen the tempo when Putin sent 3,000 paratroopers to the country to help quell the violence. According to analysts, the personnel and financial commitment by Moscow may have delayed but did not stop Putin’s strategic plan for Ukraine.

The Biden White House has been speaking with European leaders and President Putin in a diplomatic effort to tamp down the situation along the Ukrainian border. Farkas says that the “basic reason… talks with Russia will fail is that the United States and its allies have nothing they can immediately offer Moscow in exchange for a de-escalation. So far ultimatums out of Washington, including the threat of economic penalties and sanctions has done little to alter the tension.

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Farkas argues that “US leaders should be marshalling an international coalition of the willing, readying military forces to deter Putin and, if necessary, prepare for war.” There is some indication that if Russia invades there is nothing left to restrain Putin from moving farther beyond Russia’s current borderlands in a land grab that could result in the restoration of all the pre-1991 borders. This would restore what Putin often has referred to as the unjust stripping of land from Great Russia. If US and other world leaders refuse to stand up to Putin now it will have repercussions throughout the world. One analyst called it the beginning of the end of the current world order. It could embolden China to move up it time schedule for retaking Taiwan if Beijing viewed Western, democratic leaders as impotent in the face of a military operation.“Nuclear Russia is a revisionist, revanchist power acting already as if there is no international order or United Nations, ignoring the Geneva Conventions, UN Charter, Helsinki Accords or any of the host of regional agreements Moscow has signed,” according to Farkas. The uprising in Kazakhstan may have convinced Putin that the recent democratic uprisings or “color revolutions” are a threat to Russian national security as they incentivize domestic Russian minority groups. The events of the past week are morphing into a broader issue as Putin is challenging the rules-based international order, NATO, and the the Western alliance in the United Nations. To date Putin has challenged and won at every step along the way. Since the dissolution of the USSR Putin has established Russian bases in Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Moldova. In 2008 when George was making overtures concerning membership in NATO Putin invaded two small northern provinces in the country. According to the NATO charter a country cannot become a Member state if it does not have control over its territory. Russian troops continue to occupy 20% of Georgia. Putin continues to grow bolder with each move. The Russian leader now is demanding a guarantee from President Biden that NATO will not move further east and that the United States will not support NATO in a move against Russia. It may be time to build a new coalition of the willing, who can restrain Putin while it still is possible.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Department during the Reagan Administration.

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.