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Just as the satirical Twitter profile @DarthPutinKGB recalls almost every day ironically underlining Russian President Putin’s “strategic mastery”, what was supposed to be a 3 day special operation has turned into a war that has been going on for more than 300 days with huge casualties and no real end in sight.
It is therefore clear that Putin not only overestimated the capabilities of his army, but also underestimated the Ukrainian resistance and, above all, the willingness of the allied countries to help.
Still, the Russian president has no intention of backing down; and vice versa, Russia is preparing for a military and diplomatic escalation in the coming months to try to achieve at least some of the results it had set for itself.
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After withdrawing from the western Kherson region, Russia effectively lost every bridgehead across the Dnipro River to attack western Ukraine. This makes it extremely difficult for Moscow’s armies to move against strategically important cities like Mykolaiv and especially Odessa, the jewel of the Black Sea, which Putin himself named at the beginning of the war as one of the basic targets for the Russians.
In view of the difficult situation on the ground, from the beginning of autumn Putin was forced to take other paths in order to present the world with “faits accomplis”. In September, Moscow held mock referendums that resulted in the annexation of four Ukrainian regions within the Russian Federation: those of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson.
The announcement came despite the fact that Russia currently controls only a new portion of these territories.
With the ecxeption of Luhansk region, which is currently almost entirely under Russian control (however, towards which the Ukrainians are advancing in two directions, Svatove and Kreminna), the situation in the other regions is as follows: more than 40% of the Donetsk region, about 25% of the Zaporizhia region and the entire western part of the Kherson region , including the region’s capital of the same name, is still in Ukrainian hands.
At the same time, Putin has declared the partial mobilization of reservists in Russia to increase the number of Russian troops involved in the war by about 300,000 soldiers.
Many of these new recruits, often very unprepared and poorly armed, were sent straight to the front: some were even temporarily sent across the Dnipro to the city of Kherson, despite the knowledge of the Russian authorities that it was an impossible front to hold – and short indeed they are said to have retired to the left bank of the river.
Russia, as noted above, has also resumed large-scale missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, targeting residential and civilian infrastructure, especially energy infrastructure, leading to widespread power outages in Ukrainian cities and even in neighboring Moldova.
In response to this new missile attack campaign Kyiv has asked its western allies for advanced missile defense systems and so far the requests have been met with some success. The most recent example is the announcement of US President Joe Bidenwhich coincided with Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington to supply Ukraine with Patriot missile defense systems.
So far it has only been a battery, but it is already a clear sign that we want to continue helping Ukraine in this new phase of the war. As President Biden clearly stated alongside Zelenskyy at the press conference: “cWe will continue to help Ukraine as long as it needs it.”
The second invasion
Given the apparent steadfastness of Western countries, and particularly the United States, in supporting Ukraine, Moscow is also trying to force the West to reduce its support for Kyiv by raising the tone in other ways.
In addition to the above threats to use nuclear weapons, occasionally made headlines by the statements of a high-ranking Russian official such as the former President Dmitry Medvedev or by reporters from Russian state television, Russia is now flashing the possibility of such a thing second land invasion from the north. But how likely is that?
On December 12-14, several Russian units with up to 60 trucks and Ural infantry fighting vehicles arrived in Belarus. A Belarusian surveillance group said the equipment was intended for Russian troops stationed at the Abuz-Ljasnouskiy training ground in the Brest region.
On December 16, the Belarusian Independent Union of Railway Workers reported another shipment of Russian military equipment it received in the Mahiliou region near the Asipovichskiy training ground, which also houses Russian troops.
On December 20, Belarusian observers noted that Russian military equipment was being moved even closer to the Ukrainian border. In particular, 23 T-80 tanks and nine Ural and KamAZ trucks were transferred from the Abuz Liasnouskiy firing range to Luninets in the Brest region.
Instead, over 20 tanks and about 16 Ural trucks were transferred from the Lepelskiy polygon in the north of the country to Slutsk in the Minsk region. 20 infantry fighting vehicles and 7 Ural trucks arrived in Kalinkavichi, Homel region.
However, The amount of equipment moved near the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is still widely considered insufficient crossing the border south, especially after last winter’s debacle.
Nevertheless, the presence of these troops is at least sufficient to oblige the Ukrainians to maintain ready-to-action patrols in the northern border areas, thus preventing them from being sent as reinforcements to the hottest areas of the front line.
For his part, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that the risk of a new invasion by Belarus remained, but that there were no immediate threats.
In a recent interview with British magazine The Economist, however, Valery Zaluzhny, the supreme commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said he had no doubts that Russia would “take action again against Kyiv” in early 2023. Ukrainians must be prepared to push them back again.
The role of Belarus
At their recent meeting in Minsk the two dictators Putin and Lukashenko they dismissed speculation that Russia plans to force its neighbor to take part in the invasion of Ukraine; Instead, Putin spoke vaguely of a strategic partnership between the two authoritarian regimes.
These denials were confirmed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who also ruled out the possibility of large-scale Belarusian involvement in the ongoing invasion.
The real intentions of Putin and Lukashenko remain in the dark for the time being. Few are willing to accept their rejection, even given the record, but it is too early to identify concrete preparations for a new major offensive from the north.
For Putin, for his part, forcing Belarus into war would be a desperate gamble that could easily backfire. It has already suffered catastrophic casualties in Ukraine and cannot afford another humiliating military defeat.
Moreover, as Igor Girkin, the Russian ultra-nationalist who has become one of the Kremlin’s strongest critics, affirms, There is a risk that in the event of a war, Belarusian troops will open fire on the Russians instead of the Ukrainians.
However, as his invasion plans quickly unravel and his options shrink, Putin may decide that even that is worth the risk.
diplomatic strategy
The Russian military escalation strategy is based on the diplomatic one that has already been initiated. In an interview with Russia’s state news agency TASS on December 27, Lavrov said the Kremlin would continue to pursue a military solution to the war until the Ukrainian government essentially capitulated to Russia’s demands.
Among other things, Lavrov stated that Ukraine and the West are “well aware of Russian proposals to demilitarize and denazify” Ukrainian-controlled territory and that the Russian military will solve the problem by force if Kyiv “and its western Gentlemen” will refuse to accept such proposals.
Lavrov added that Ukraine and the United States must recognize Russia’s control over the annexed Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, although, as we have seen, a large part of these regions are not yet controlled by Moscow, and that this position a dead end for realistically possible peace negotiations.
Lavrov’s call for a military solution to the war in Ukraine consistent with Russia’s original war goals follows deliberately vague statements from President Putin, who instead said Russia was open to negotiations on December 25, but without formulating a concrete plan.
With its strategy of feigned openings to dialogue, the Kremlin essentially wants to continue directing its complaints against the West and ignoring Ukraine as much as possible as a sovereign entity capable of autonomously deciding its own future.
This serves in part for Putin to support the ongoing information war to portray the current operation as a “war against the West” and exploit its “fatigue” and urge him to make pre-emptive concessions and pressure Ukraine to negotiate terms favorable for Moscow.
Furthermore, It is very likely that the Kremlin is not interested in serious negotiations leading to a final solution to the war in Ukrainegiven his weakened position on the field and distance from achieving set goals.
Rather, the intent would be to achieve a temporary cessation of hostilities that would allow the armed forces to replenish for further offensive campaigns against Ukraine. For this reason, too, we should not harbor too many illusions and rather prepare for a war that will almost certainly last for a long time.
Daniele Angrisani, 43 years old. Always passionate about international politics, especially in the United States and Russia.