CNN —
Moscow’s accusation that Ukrainian drones struck two air bases deep in Russia’s interior has once again raised the fevered question of an escalation after nine months of war.
The attacks are a gross violation of Russia’s assumption that it can protect its deep interior, from whose safe havens its strategic bombers have slaughtered Ukraine with relative impunity.
These are airbases very far inside Russia, and whatever the truth of the strikes may be – whether they represent a new long-range drone capability that Ukraine has been promoting or some other explanation – this just wasn’t something that happened should when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his “10-day invasion” in February. Week after week there are further signs that Moscow’s military machine is not delivering on its promises.
On Tuesday, a Russian official said another drone attack hit a Russian airfield in Kursk, closer to the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the blasts, in line with Kiev’s policy of official silence on attacks in Russia or Russian-held Crimea. An aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyi seemed pleased with the strikes, cryptically tweeting that “if something is launched into the airspace of other countries, sooner or later unidentified flying objects will return to the starting point.”
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Russian state news agencies added unease to the humiliation, adding on Monday that the first two airfields in question were indeed photographed over the weekend by a US-based commercial satellite imagery company.
The low-tech tools used in this predicament are deflating Russia’s peer status with NATO.
Russian humiliation is usually accompanied by concerns that it could escalate the conflict. But it’s hard to say what else Russia could do to Ukraine that it hasn’t already done. It has leveled cities, ruthlessly and ruthlessly hit civilian infrastructure when it could, killed thousands of civilians and even more soldiers, and bombed maternity hospitals and shelters marked with the word “Children.”
At some point, the nagging assumption that Russia still has magical, non-apocalyptic buttons to push will begin to fade. First, let’s briefly discuss why a Russian nuclear strike seems off the table, at least for now. After months of deeply chilling nuclear rhetoric – from potential “accidents” at nuclear power plants to evidence-free speeches about Ukraine’s use of a dirty bomb to outright threats invoking Moscow’s nuclear arsenal – Moscow seems to be easing its Armageddon rhetoric to have.
China has made it very clear that it believes such talks must stop. So does India. Late last month, Putin found himself in an extraordinary moment when he signed a decree with the President of Kazakhstan reiterating that a nuclear war can never be won and should never be fought. It was a reaffirmation of a 2006 statement between Moscow and the Central Asian states it was attempting to lead as a geopolitical power at the time. How times have changed: Moscow no longer looks west like it did 16 years ago. And Kazakhstan, which as late as January was dependent on Moscow to quell internal unrest, is looking to China and Europe for its future, seemingly urging Putin to reassure them that nuclear weapons are bad.
None of this rules out the remote possibility that the Kremlin will give in to the insane fringe of state TV talk shows and unleash its worst weapons. But it is clear that every Putin he knows is now reminding him of the drastic consequences if he did so.
So what’s left for Russia? Chemical weapons are a possibility, but likely formed part of the warnings it has received not to use nuclear power. Moscow’s choices appear to be limited to more accurate or more brutal application of the same conventional brutality it is currently throwing at Ukrainian cities on an almost daily basis.
That’s the most pernicious side effect of how public the Russian military’s exhaustion has been: there’s no real “fear factor” anymore. Months ago, commentators on state television liked to muse that Russia has been fighting with “gloves” so far, but it is clear that the gloves have long been removed, the opponent has learned to duck before punches, and also brought a knife into the ring Has.
This open degradation of Russia as a power has been compounded by – hard to corroborate – claims by Ukrainian officials that over four out of five Russian missiles launched Monday were intercepted by Kiev’s reinforced air defense systems. Again, this is another certainty about the devastated Russian military. Its air attack and defense systems are surpassed in the same week.
So where is this going? The West is in a bind. The better Ukraine’s military performs on the battlefield, the less likely Kyiv is to agree with some European capitals that peace talks with Russia are needed. If you’re winning, why do you agree to talk about some form of losing? And NATO cannot begin to slow arms shipments or face criticism – even from its own citizens – for leaving Ukrainians to die. It cannot really ask Kyiv to accept the permanent loss of part of its territory as part of a settlement without essentially condoning the Russian invasion.
Instead, the momentum is directed against Russia. When they are weak, they are not suddenly somehow strong – they are only weak, to paraphrase one Western official’s private analysis. Do these slow and continuous humiliations bring the day closer to when Putin struggles to control his own hierarchy or gives in to pressure to withdraw from the territory he has occupied since 2014?
As we await the reply, the trajectories are unchanged: Ukraine: cold in winter, but winning and slowly getting better equipped. Russia: cold in winter but losing and slowly militarily fractured. The key variable is western patience and support.