German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Russian President Vladimir Putin is totally unpredictable, but if we analyze his past speeches and actions is this true? During his speech at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, Putin publicly laid down his territorial claims on Crimea and the territory he currently calls Novorossiya. At that time this was snowed under over his anger over the independence of Kosovo. What he essentially learned out of Yugoslavia is that you can change borders and he warned NATO that if they can do this so could he. And this is precisely what is happening today.
Only if you belief his goal is to hold onto power his strategy makes no sense. He has been making his regime more repressive every year and he controls the extremely nationalistic media. He could easily hold onto power in a less risky way. He has provoked sanctions that will economically ruin him sooner than his current presidency expires. He could have sabotaged Ukraine way more effective without incurring these sanctions.
What if this is all planned and he is still more or less on track executing his strategy? What if Putin gave up the Eurasian Union even before the EuroMaidan Revolution occurred and wants to go down in Russian history as the man who undid part of the territorial humiliation the breakup of the USSR caused to the Russian empire? The Eurasian union would then be no more than a stepping stone into full membership of the Russian Federation a trajectory Belarus is following.
In such a context the invasion in Georgia was just a practice to test both his army and international reactions. It was something he could undo as minimal Russian interests were at stake there.
What he learned out of previous conflicts
Russia got limited sanctions over Georgia, but a mere two years after the invasion in Georgia, France signed an arms deal with Russia to deliver state of the art assault navy vessels. After Crimea the EU threatened with serious sanctions but these took eternal to arrive and Germany insisted on only sanctions that expire automatically. This signalled to president Putin that sanctions were merely a temporary problem. Could you blame him?
He is artificially creating a Yugoslavian style ethnic conflict in Ukraine where none existed and when he is finished he plans to strike a peace deal through a large agreement like the Dayton agreements that basically accepted the facts created on the ground in the torn up former republic of Yugoslavia. Part of that peace deal will be the abolishment of anti- Russian sanctions. Making that peace deal once he is ready will be easy with an EU that is constantly begging for a political solution to his military actions.
All the signs indicate this conflict has been prepared for years.
Since 2008, Russia built up a reserve fund of $500 billion which, according to their economy minister, protects them from two years of hardship. The EU sanctions are depleting this fund but this takes time. By the EU estimates about two years.
Russia has drastically expanded the investments in its military in the last years. A full 25 percent of the Russian budget is spent on the army. The Georgian invasion showed major shortcomings which we don’t see for now anymore.
Russia funded a party in Ukraine, Reunion With Russia, and distributed Russian passports in those regions where he has territorial ambitions. Even in Crimea it only gathered 4 percent of the votes though. But its party leader is today’s Crimean governor. It appears Security Service of Ukraine officers were on the payroll of Russia. They funded former and likely current EU politicians to represent their interest and to advise them on how to deal with the EU. Deep penetration into the EU power structures is the only thing that can explain why it was so difficult to get sanctions going after an extremely aggressive act against a nation that wanted a trade agreement with the EU.
What will he do next?
The EU sanction strategy works but it is a long-term strategy as it takes time to have effect and last weekend proved that Putin is not going to give them this time. As he explicitly indicated over the weekend he’s going to go for Novorossiya. And that is not just a threat or a new name for Donbas. Notice that Russian propaganda systematically kept talking over a southeastern Ukrainian rebellion even when for months nothing was going on in the south.
Immediately after the conquest of Crimea his hybrid approach moved to eastern Ukraine but after some initial gains things started to go sour. The Ukrainian army recovered faster than expected. They fought harder than expected. It took a direct though unofficial intervention of the Russian army to beat the Ukrainian army back.
Retaking Donbas simply does not get him what he needs. He has no water and no land connection to Crimea. He can fear a strengthened Ukrainian army in the near future. He cannot go into lengthy negotiations as time is not on his side, neither military nor financially.
On all the nationalistic maps future Ukraine is much smaller. The conquest of the south of Ukraine gives him the land connection and the water supply he desperately needs for Crimea. Military strategies published in Russian military magazines clearly show that Russia plans for many more months, but not years of continued fighting to achieve Novorossia. It needs to be achieved before he runs out of money.
The current Russian strategy is to push the Ukrainian army and economy through an attrition war into collapse and to finish them off with a final peace force blitzkrieg offensive somewhere in the winter. It will only be his army when they turn into peace force troops to make an end to the fighting. Russian media keep talking about an anti Maidan of disgruntled Ukrainians.
Ukrainian cities are heated through central city heating systems. You destroy the heating furnaces supply and the whole city goes cold. Putin’s idol Josef Stalin designed them on purpose like this to suppress rebelling populations.
Russia’s propaganda mouthpiece RT is already warning that Europe’s biggest site of nuclear power plants in Zaporizhia is vulnerable to attacks. The rebels are a mere 200 kilometers away and they have Grads that can fire 90 kilometers far and now they even claim to have captured ballistic missiles. You might think this is madness but Russians would just call it a bold strategy.
Russian officials publicly intimidate NATO countries with the use of tactical nuclear attacks against them. Putin will not use tactical nuclear missiles as these don’t give him the cover of deniability and will destroy Russia’s relation for good with all other countries globally. This is just propaganda to demotivate the west from siding with Ukraine. Blowing up a nuclear power plant if things don’t go their way is within the scope of Russian policies though. Just like with a shot down plane try to prove who did it. They will just call it a Ukrainian false flag operation and claim the area was full of Russians living there.
The Novorossiya scenario was never taken very seriously by the EU because they did not see how he could occupy that much enemy territory populated by millions of anti-Russian Ukrainians.
In the Russian invasion plan, ethnic cleansing is an essential part of their strategy. You wonder how the EU could not see that one coming given that this is precisely what Russia did in Georgian occupied territories.
Alexandr Dugin, the main ideologist of the Eurasian empire, openly advocates this. The rebels will, during their fighting, destroy the heating infrastructure. The cold will make the Ukrainians run west when the winter forces them out of their homes. The EU sanction flaw was always that they assumed they were dealing with a humanistic opponent, when in reality they should have known better.
Putin believes he can bring the EU into submission after achieving his territorial goals. Faced with a flood of millions of refugees and a lack of gas, he thinks the EU will accept the situation he creates on the ground and drop the sanctions to move on. He might be right on that one. After the invasion of Crimea, Italy undermined any credibility of EU sanctions in Russia by increasing drastically gas imports from Russia. That country delivers the new EU foreign policy chief with whom Russia will have to deal.
Have we lost already?
If the EU gives Putin what he wants now and forces the Ukrainians to surrender through a lack of help they will get millions of refugees after he ethnically cleans up Novorossia. Once those in the occupied territories make a move expect the whole defeated and demotivated country to flood empty into the EU. If The EU makes a heroic last minute effort we might end up with way lower refugee numbers and avoid having to face Putin ever again. Being out of political appeasement options might finally give the EU some stamina.
If the EU wants to avoid the biggest humanitarian crisis faced in Europe since World War II then this massive effort is the bare minimum it will take:
· Supply of intelligence, short-range surveillance, training, command infrastructures, secure communications and modern arms to the Ukrainian army. They rooted out most of their traitors and Russian agents, something the EU still has to start with. They fight highly motivated for their land. Facing the Ukrainian reality which is wildly diverging from the Russian propaganda will definitely demotivate the Russian conscripts. Ukraine is Europe’s largest country and the Ukrainians if armed and trained well will drive the Russian army out themselves.
· A Crimean occupation tax on all Russian energy imported into the EU to fund Ukraine. The EU is the primary financier of the Russian army through its Russian energy purchases. It refocuses public opinion in the EU and Russia on what started the problems. The proceeds of this tax should be spent on energy preservation measures in the EU and Ukraine which will further enforce the low energy price impact on Russia. Because of lowering energy prices, thanks to the Saudi oversupply of the market and increased energy efficiency, the population in the EU won’t really notice this tax anyway.
· Iron Domes, patriot air-defense batteries and NATO troops to defend strategic sites like nuclear power plants. Switching them off is not an option as it leads to depopulation of large areas in the winter. The Russians might deem another Chernobyl acceptable to force the EU into submission. Not securing them is simply a risk we can no longer take with someone so brazen about going nuclear.
· Control of the sky against “rebel” planes if not they will systematically strike heating and electricity plants. If Russia does not control the sky, a blitzkrieg is most problematic. We can do this again at the demand of the Ukrainian government. There are no Russian troops in the country, just rebels. For once use their hybrid warfare against them.
· A total mobilization of the EU/US civic society to save energy and to help Ukraine through the winter. This is absolutely needed simply because this is the most efficient way to fight Russian propaganda. It also allows everybody to contribute. Many people just feel powerless in this conflict when in reality they can all contribute. Only the civic societies will be able to get the help in fast and where it is needed. Connecting the EU civic community with Ukraine’s Maidan civic society will finally show a different EU. One big on actions rather than big on words.
We wasted six valuable months trying to appease an imperialistic aggressor who is not interested in any other solution then a military victory.
The EU is not a neutral observer when a country gets attacked and dismembered because it wants a trade agreement with us. Any further weak leadership will mean we just wait until nuclear fumes and columns of refugees drift through Europe. Politicians should not count on re-election in these circumstances. Stop talking with someone who you know cannot be trusted and move into action now! Winter, war and refugees are coming.
Luc Vancraen is an entrepreneur in Kyiv and holds a master’s in business administration from Boston University.
