Russia-Ukraine Thoughts March 2nd

Along with some thoughts on Putin's Endgame Options

I may update these occasionally if there are major developments and I am near my computer.

Overview:

Forty-eight hours ago, I warned on Twitter that the next few days would be bad news ones for the Ukrainian military forces. This was not because I expected the “tide” to suddenly turn. Rather, Ukrainian control of the narrative, especially in the West had reached such a fever pitch that the gap between the actual situation on the ground and the popular perception of what was happening was so great that anything short of a Russian surrender would cause disappointment. So many different stories were being shared that reality was going to break in somewhere.

• Diplomatically efforts to provide fighter jets to Ukraine fell through.

• Militarily the situation proceeded as anyone paying close attention to the maps and data coming out would have expected. Russian forces surrounded Mariupol, and began consolidating territory between major cities in the south and east as a consequence of the apparent neutralization of Ukrainian mobile forces. Ukrainian units continue to engage in static defense, but absent an ability to take the operational offensive, Russian forces can bypass locations where they meet resistance and push into territory in the Ukrainian rear. This is not helpful in terms of capturing any of the key cities which the media is focused on, but it is gradually filling the invasion maps with Russian-controlled red. This is not a sign of the tide turning or a Ukrainian collapse. Rather, the Ukrainian situation was never as good as perceived, and what is happening is in-line with expectations.

• On the public relations front, the Ukrainians have begun to slip. For almost a week, Ukraine has managed to maintain amazing message discipline, and been rewarded with Western sympathy. Being the victim of an invasion made this much easier, but it still was an impressive achievement. With Russians abandoning their light touch in favor of greater use of artillery against urban areas, Ukrainians can be expected to feel rage, but the Ukrainian Special Forces posting on their official Facebook account that Russian artillerymen would be executed rather than taken prisoner was a blunder. (Update: Kyiv Independent now reporting it officially) It did not threaten the execution of Russian prisoners in general, or even of artillerymen in particular, specifically referring to those engaged in “war crimes” against civilian targets, but even in those cases the Geneva Convention would require prisoners to be tried. This has often been honored in the breech in the past, but announcing that you intend to violate it in this way, rather than merely violating it and reporting that prisoners were “shot attempting to escape” is, as Talleyrand would put it, worse than a crime. It is a mistake. One Russian propaganda is already exploiting.

• The Russians for their part have badly hurt themselves by throwing around random threats. I should be clear when I use the term “random” I distinguish threats which serve a strategic purpose, such as the nuclear saber rattling the other day, from threats which serve the opposite, unifying opinion. Russia’s primary diplomatic objective, and the word diplomatic is doing a lot of work here, is convince NATO that any military support of Ukraine risks war, potentially of a nuclear variety. The targets of this messaging are Poland, Romania and Finland. The effectiveness of this strategy depends on assuring them that if they do not aid the Ukraine they will be safe. If, on the other hand, they have reason to believe that for Russia, Ukraine is not a historic conflict but the first item on a shopping list of targets, then the the choice is not between war and peace, but rather helping the Ukrainians fight now, or fighting alone later. Russian moves, such as Russian fighters violating Swedish air space or Medvedev suggesting economic war often leads to physical war, are counterproductive to this end and increase the perception that the Kremlin regime sees force as a default option rather than a last resort.

• Ukraine claimed to capture Russian military plans for a 15 day campaign. These were released on Twitter by Igor Girkin/Strelkov, the Russian paramilitary commander who helped lead the takeover of the Crimea. They may be real. They may not. They may be outdated. His description translates as “We have at our disposal the planning documents of one of the units of the battalion tactical group of the 810th separate brigade of marines of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation.”

• Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted a tweet praising Ukrainian President Zelensky for resisting “satanic” forces. He then deleted it shortly thereafter.

  

About those fighters and the “Information War”

• The same unrealistic expectations about the military situation were extended by Ukrainian propaganda to the wider diplomatic sphere. Ukrainian officials seized on a European Union promise to help Ukraine purchase fighter jets to spread stories that not only had the jets been promised by specific countries, but that Ukrainian pilots had actually arrived in Poland to fly the aircraft off Polish bases. Predictably, these claims, by official Ukrainian governmental accounts, led to demands for clarification from the governments in question. Some, like Bulgaria and Hungary were quick to deny, but Polish officials stuck to an ambiguous line for almost a day before stating they had denied the Ukrainian request.

• This affair may be more than a case of fake news. It may well be that the Poles had been willing to supply Mig-29s to the Ukraine, and may even have been willing to allow Ukrainian pilots to pick them up on Polish airbases. But if so, it would have placed Poland at enormous diplomatic risk, and deniability would have been key. The Russians might well have accused Warsaw, accurately, of complicitly, but as long as Warsaw could deny it as Russian misinformation, Russia’s options would be limited. The Ukrainians, by publicly bragging about it, in effect placed the Poles in an impossible position. Unless they denied it, the conclusion drawn by almost everyone would be that the story was true. Despite some of the alarmism on segments of social media that “Acts of War” lead to war they don’t. But this does not mean that allowing Ukrainian pilots to take off from Polish bases in Polish planes to kill Russians would not be legitimately considered an “act of war”. We may not know the truth behind this story for some time, but if Poland ever did intend to allow Ukraine to use those aircraft, this is a case where winning the “information war” may have harmed Ukraine in the real one.

Diplomacy and the Dynamics of Ending a War

• American intelligence has briefed members of congress that they expect the current conventional phase of the war to last another month or two, and an insurgency to last 10 to 15 years. I do not have access to the raw intelligence behind this briefing, but I doubt it would be particularly informative. Those reports are “analysis” based on “intelligence” and I am skeptical of the underlying assumptions. The political, economic, and psychological cost of this conflict on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides is too high, in my view, for it to be sustained at this level of intensity without a settlement. What that settlement would be will depend on whether or not Ukrainian resistance collapses, but I do not believe in a scenario where organized Ukrainian resistance exists in six weeks where Putin does not pivot towards pursuing a Zelensky option.

• Putin has always had a spectrum of options ranging between a mixture of annexing the Ukraine, establishing a puppet government, or negotiating with the existing authorities. I believe the events of the last few days have on the whole reduced the appeal of the “puppet government” option. The maximalist nature of sanctions means that a victorious Russia which does not reach an agreement with the West will be in effect entirely cut off from Europe and America by a new Iron Curtain, sturdier for all that it is digital and economic. So much more than expected has been done in terms of Western efforts to isolate Russia that it is correspondingly harder to see what more they could do if Russia chose to outright annex large portions of the Ukraine rather than establish a puppet government. In turn Zelensky’s public relations successes have reduced the odds that any such puppet government could establish credibility. Given Putin’s consistently unhappy experience with clients abroad, especially in the Ukraine, it is hard to see why an economically devastated Russia would invest resources in a puppet administration that could neither effectively govern, nor legitimatize the Russian presence, and which would likely be corrupt, disloyal and a rallying point for popular hatred in any event.

• I believe that Putin’s available options have polarized between either imposing a solution of actual conquest and annexation, thereby appeasing Russian opinion and simplifying the administrative and security challenges, or seeking an agreement with the existing Ukrainian government. Just as recent events have increased the appeal of outright annexation compared to the installation of a puppet regime, they have also made the option of seeking an accommodation with the existing Ukrainian government more attractive. “The Zelensky option” offers Putin things he might not have been able to get from anyone a week ago, but at this point unclear if they are on the table or whether he would take them.

• What “Zelensky Option?” Zelensky’s success in amassing a large following among the Western public is treated in the media as a massive defeat for Russia and Vladimir Putin. It may well be a blow to Putin’s ego, but in a geopolitical sense it opens as many doors as it closes, and it is far from clear to me that it would be in the Kremlin’s interests to eliminate Zelensky. One of the themes I pointed out the other day when discussing why I did not believe concessions offered by Biden on NATO expansion would have mattered is because Putin did not believe Biden or any US President was in a position to deliver them. The lesson Putin has taken from observing US domestic politics, especially over the four years of Donald Trump’s Presidency, is that there will always be political incentives to accuse any incumbent Administration, no matter how hard-line its policy towards Russia, of being “soft” on Moscow. If Biden were to make promises to Putin, the very fact it was “Joe Biden” aka “Brandon” who did so would create an incentive for aspiring Republican Presidential candidates or wannabee Secretary of States to adopt a position of repudiating such an agreement the moment they took office. Whatever “isolationist” sentiment exists on parts of the Right represented by Tucker Carlson is irrelevant. The moment Biden offered any “deal” whatsoever, it would become the “Biden Deal(tm)”.

• “Realists” as I noted were correct to note that Putin had serious problems with US policy in Ukraine, the effect of even the prospect of NATO accession on Ukraine’s domestic development, and the unsustainable status quos in the Donbass and Crimea. Where they erred was in assuming these were Putin’s primary or only motives. He has much wider historical and emotional reasons for wanting to swallow the whole Ukraine. But, one does not reach his position without separating aspirations from needs. Putin always wanted far more than the “isolationist/realist” lobby in the West claimed. He did not need it. He did, however, need to resolve the status of the Crimea insofar as failing to do so mean permanent Western sanctions on Russian officials and companies(as retrocession is not considered a possibility in Russian discourse.) Annexing the Ukraine or imposing a puppet government does not resolve these problems, insofar as no Western government will recognize it, and therefore the sanctions will not end.

• On the otherhand, Zelensky is clearly recognized not just as the legal President of Ukraine, but as the moral representative of the Ukrainian nation. This is key. A week ago Zelensky might have had the legal right to cede the Crimea to Putin, but he did not have the legitimacy to actual make Ukrainians or the West accept it as Russian. A strange side-effect of Zelensky’s transformation into a national icon with a 91% approval rating is he can “speak” for the Ukraine. If Zelensky were to say that Ukraine recognizes Crimea as Russian, and that Ukraine’s survival requires its friends in the West to do so as well, Putin has every reason to believe they might do so. If Zelensky signed a deal which required sanctions to be lifted, he alone might be able to get the West to lift them.

• This means that the value of any concessions made by Volodymyr Zelensky today are worth vastly more than any concessions he, or Joe Biden, or anyone could have made prior to this conflict. They are also worth far more than concessions Putin can gain from a puppet ruler after conquest. The question is whether what Putin can only get from Zelensky is worth the reduced menu he be able to select from. Or whether Zelensky would be willing to offer enough of a meal. And whether EU support is nominal or concrete.

• The outlines of what Putin might accept were posted today by the Russian Foriegn Ministry as talks were set to resume.
  They were in short

  1. Recognition of Russian ownership of the Crimea

  2. Independence of the Donbass Republics

  3. Neutralization, and disarmament

• Lets break these down. #1 and #2 are obvious. #3 is open to wiggle room. Two days ago the Presidents of eight EU member states signed a letter calling for accelerated accession for the Ukraine. While the Ukraine joining NATO would be unacceptable, if Ukraine were to give up the Donbass, the major difficulty would be the Ukrainian civilians who despite Russian claims, even the Kremlin knows would not wish to remain. If Ukraine cannot hold the territory, the next best thing would be to be able to compensate them. If Western economic aid were to pour in, that money could be used to compensate for a Ukrainian government accepting those terms domestically. A week ago, the prospect of European Union membership was not on the table as a potential compensation for #1 and #2. Today it is. And the advantages of EU membership/Western aid is that Putin does not have to pay the transaction costs. The West will spend billions to compensate Zelensky for his concessions to Russia.

• In short, some sort of agreement on the basis of the Ukraine securing recognition of Russian claims to the Crimea and Donbass and forgoing NATO membership, in exchange for Russia accepting membership of the rest of Ukraine in the European Union might be possible. But it would require a willingness on the part of all parties to compromise. The hardest part would likely not be Putin or Zelensky accepting this, but Zelensky persuading the West to accept such an agreement which require substantial economic costs, and the abandonment of their geopolitical posture towards Russia. It would represent a major test of Western intentions. If, as they claim, their primary interest is the security of the Ukrainian people and their right to determine their own future, then they would have every reason to support such a deal. If, as Putin alleges, such concerns are a cover for containing and weakening Russia, such an agreement would be a disaster. It would require them to abandon their preexisting sanctions and isolation of Russia, not just those imposed during war time, and then pay billions to help the Ukrainians as well as accept them as equals. For this very reason, that it would call the West’s bluff I can see Putin being tempted.

• I think the attractions of this option help explain why Putin is continuing to hold talks with the Zelensky government while sustaining military operations. I do not believe the talks are a trick, but nor do I believe they are a serious effort to reach a settlement at all costs. I suspect Putin is most likely aware of the potential for an agreement of the sort outlined above, but as of yet he has received no indication it is on offer, and even if it was, it is from clear Zelensky could deliver it. I also would not be surprised that even if he could, Putin has yet to decide what his answer would be. These talks are a speculative endeavor. Putin likely to wait as long as possible before committing to any line, to give time for the diplomatic and military situation to develop. With maximalist sanctions already imposed, there is little to lose by allowing his military situation to improve, and no rush. Well there is a rush to resolve this in weeks rather than months or, inconceivably in my view, years.

• It is important to keep in mind that just because a certain course of action makes rational sense in a cost-benefit calculation for one or even all parties that any actor will pursue it. Much less that everyone will. Nor is refusing to behave as theorists and analysts consider “rational” a sign of irrationality. The situation in Russia is unprecedented in a modern nation. The combination of the shock of this war, coming with no effective propaganda buildup(I will write more on some of the Homefront issues which are not the ones the Western media highlights and where the Kremlin’s problems are not with liberals or oligarchs) with economic collapse combined with the unreality created by the temporary closing of banks and the Russian markets cannot fail to produce an environment detached from reality. Even if Putin were not under stress, and was not personally invested, it would be nearly impossible for him to gauge what the actual state of Russian opinion is. Ukraine is hardly better, with the reality of war sinking in gradually after an initial patriotic high. As for the West, discourse is fantastical with discussion of “no fly zones” and Russian regime change. No one is operating in an environment where decisive, Machiavellian options can be easily executed. It is going to be much easier for everyone to continuing playing their current parts as long as possible and hope others pivot first. Putin would prefer to defer the choice between annexation(and North Korea status) or the “Zelensky Option” to the last minute. Zelensky has had such success the warrior that he will wish to postpone the charges of “treason” which would accompany any effort to make peace on the terms Putin might accept. Western leaders, with none of the stakes facing either Putin or Zelensky, have no incentive to do anything other than pander to public opinion which is detached from reality and fickle. Just because there are good options available does not mean anyone will take them.

Military Meta-Level

(Map sourced from Wikipedia By Viewsridge - Own work, derivate of Russo-Ukraine Conflict (2014-present).svg by Rr016Missile attacks source: BNO NewsTerritorial control source: Template:Russo-Ukrainian War detailed map, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115506141)

• Lo and behold we have received repeated reports of the surrender of Russian soldiers. But while I am willing to buy the idea that the Russian military is facing desertions, it is relatively easy to desert from an army operating in an adjacent country with a common language during the chaos of combat, I would be hesitant to conflate Russian deserters showing up behind Ukrainian lines with actual combat units defecting or surrendering. Claims that Crimean-based Russian marines mutinied rather than conduct an amphibious assault on Odessa are unverified and even if there is truth, it may well be they revolted against launching a poorly conceived amphibious assault rather than morally against the idea of an attack on Odessa.

• On a wider level, the Ukrainian forces did not have the ability to live up to the expectations created by the media narrative even if the Russian military was as disorganized and demoralized as portrayed. No better example of this exists than the story of the “mile-long column” of Russian vehicles heading towards Kyiv. For nearly two-days Western commentators have fallen over themselves to stress the vulnerability of the column, to point out the madness of the Russians exposing themselves in that way. Intermixed with fringe calls for NATO to attack the column were questions as to why the Ukrainians had not done so. The answer is quite likely that they lack the ability to do so. Almost all Ukrainian successes have been defensive. A few local counterattacks have been launched, but most involved Ukrainian forces “retaking” towns which Russian forces had passed through but then abandoned. It is far from clear that the Ukrainian military retains organized mobile units capable of undertaking offensive operations, as opposed to defense in place.

• This should not be a shock, nor should it be seen as a condemnation of the Ukrainian military. Given the situation they found themselves in, the lack of a full mobilization or deployment prior to the outbreak of fighting, and the intensity of combat, the existence of such a reserve would be suspicious. Nonetheless, its absence should introduce a degree of realism. The Ukrainians are fiercely holding positions, but without a mobile reserve or the ability to launch offensive operations of their own, the question here is how long and at what cost it will take Russian forces to surround most of the cities in Ukraine east of the Dnieper. Not whether they can do so.

• The military narrative of the last 24hrs, and the likely narrative of the next 72hrs will probably be exactly that. In the absence of a mobile Ukrainian reserve, Russian forces should advance to occupy key points between the major cities in Eastern Ukraine with the result that the “maps” posted online will show a major increase in the territory colored “red” for Russian control. That is less a sign of Ukrainian collapse, and more the Russians, having completed a “hard phase” of this operation, consolidating their gains against limited opposition in an “easy” phase before resuming with another hard one.

• For those interested, a pro-Russian account tweeted a battle map of operations around Mariupol