Military Escalation: Does Putin Have a New Plan for Ukraine?

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Dmitri Peskov often does not feel responsible: Vladimir Putin's press man likes to refer journalists to other government agencies if they have questions about the most important topics of the day or simply states that the Kremlin has not been informed.

But Putin's spokesman found clear words about what has been going on in the Russian-Ukrainian border region in recent weeks.

"The Russian army," said Peskov on Monday, "moves on Russian territory as it sees fit." Nobody should be concerned about that, because Russia "poses no threat to any country in the world, including Ukraine."

In the Ukrainian capital Kiev, of course, there is a different view of the situation and the Russian invasion seven years ago, which killed at least 14,000 people and made 1.7 million more refugees.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Russia's escalation the largest in years.

Most recently, according to the Ukrainian army, two government soldiers were shot dead while fighting with the separatists in the east of the country.

23 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the conflict since the beginning of the year, up from 50 in the whole of last year.

Source: WORLD infographic

NATO warned Moscow against further "destabilizing measures".

The alliance will support the "sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Ukraine, a spokesman said.

Military intervention by NATO, however, is very unlikely.

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For weeks Moscow has been gathering its combat units on the occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and on the country's eastern border.

Even combat units otherwise stationed in Siberia are transported westward by rail.

Russia's troop movements follow weeks of recurring breaks in the ceasefire on the line of contact between Ukrainian troops and the self-proclaimed, Russian-controlled “people's republics” of the separatists in Donbass.

Moscow could end the status quo

On paper, the ceasefire signed in February 2015 under the Minsk Accords is still in force, but in fact it is fictional in two ways.

On the one hand, it was never able to completely stop the fighting in eastern Ukraine; the supposedly frozen conflict repeatedly claimed victims on both sides.

After the signing of “Minsk II”, the so-called “set of measures to implement the Minsk agreements”, more Ukrainian soldiers died in Donbass than in the hot phase of the war in 2014. On the other hand, the agreement treated Russia not as a party to the conflict, but as one quasi-neutral mediator on the side of Germany and France.

This fiction now threatens to vanish into thin air if Moscow openly attacks Ukraine again seven years after the annexation of Crimea.

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Russia could break the status quo of the Minsk agreements, writes British political scientist James Sherr from the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, because it has gradually become frustrating for Moscow.

Neither Kiev nor its Western partners want to accept Moscow's position of influencing Ukrainian politics through the puppet governments in Donbass and ruling out the possibility of NATO entry into the country from the outset.

Moscow's frustration is fueled not least of all by Ukrainian domestic politics.

President Vladimir Selensky, who has been the successor of Petro Poroshenko, who is critical of Russia, in the presidential office for two years, has not proven himself, contrary to Russia's expectations, to be a weak and Moscow-friendly head of state.

On the contrary, Selenski's conciliatory rhetoric was followed by a new self-confidence in foreign policy this year at the latest, driven by falling popularity ratings.

The self-proclaimed reconciler, who wanted to bring Ukraine's Russian-influenced East and Ukrainian-speaking West together, is now taking over the positions of his predecessor.

Recently, Zelensky took surprisingly open action against Putin's middlemen and lobbyists in the country.

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The accounts of the Russian-friendly oligarch and Putin's personal friend Viktor Medvedchuk were frozen for financing the separatists, and three pro-Russian television channels belonging to one of Medvedchuk's comrades-in-arms - Putin's lever in the Ukraine - were banned for “spreading Russian propaganda”.

What is Putin up to?

Moscow interpreted this as Kiev's overconfidence, inspired by Joe Biden's new administration in Washington, and responded with more or less explicit warnings from top politicians such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

As early as January, he said that Russia would adjust its actions if Germany and France fail to bring their "protégés" in Kiev to reason.

This was followed by an information war that blames Ukraine for the escalation in Donbass, and indeed portrays the situation as if Zelensky wanted to militarily conquer the “People's Republics”.

The fact that the Biden administration has demonstratively backed Kiev - Biden and Zelensky recently spoke on the phone and talked about the situation in Donbass - reinforces the impression, from Moscow's point of view, that Kiev's policy is being carried out in Washington.

So what is Putin up to now?

Does the Kremlin chief want to put pressure on Zelensky with a show of force in order to make him compliant?

If that's the plan, it doesn't seem to be working out so far.

In an interview with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday, Ukrainian President named the alliance as “the only way to end the war in Donbass” and called on the alliance to press ahead with his country's accession.

The start of his country's NATO accession process will be “a real signal” for Russia.

This feeds hope in Moscow that Zelensky could allow himself to be provoked into an attack in Donbass - so that Moscow can strike back again.

For example, under the pretext of protecting Russian citizens, to annex the “People's Republics” or at least to station Russian “peacekeepers” there.

In recent years, Moscow has naturalized more than 400,000 residents of the separatist areas.

The US military expert Michael Kofman from the think tank “Center for Naval Analysis” is particularly concerned about the concentration of troops in the Crimea.

While he does not believe that an invasion is imminent, his belief that it could only be a show of force is waning.

From the perspective of political scientist Sherr, a limited escalation with the aim of stationing Russian “peacekeeping forces” in Donbass would be the most likely scenario.

Moscow could give the conflict a new format and, as before, remain a disruptive factor in Ukrainian politics.