German political expert Andreas Umland:

Russia continues to escalate against Ukraine, but may not go to war

• A number of Ukrainian reservists receive instructions during combat training in a border area with Russia.

  Reuters

• Two Ukrainian soldiers in a border town of Russian-backed separatists.

  AFP

picture

Russia and Ukraine may be on the brink of war, which in a worst-case scenario could reach unprecedented proportions in post-war Europe.

Regionally, Russia and Ukraine are the two largest European countries, and both are military heavyweights.

German political expert Andreas Umland says, in a report published by the American "National Interest" magazine, that the conventional Russian armed forces, of course, far exceed the Ukrainian armed forces, in terms of quantity and quality.

Russia is also a nuclear superpower, while Ukraine is a non-nuclear-weapon state and is prohibited from acquiring any atomic warheads under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Over the past seven years, however, Ukraine has built a formidable and sophisticated conventional army, explains Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

vagueness

The Ukrainian forces are partly equipped with modern high-tech weapons, which were manufactured in Ukraine and abroad. Also, Ukraine will be supported with more weapons and Western intelligence, in case it faces any escalation from the Russian side. Thus, it is unclear whether Russia can achieve victory over Ukraine quickly and easily, as it did with Georgia in the five-day Russo-Georgian War in August 2008.

In addition, Umland says, it is not clear how citizens in the West and in Russia will react to the outbreak of a Russo-Ukrainian war. Past experiences indicate that neither negative external reactions nor the pacifism of ordinary Russian citizens can be relied upon as limiting factors. Russia's occupation of a fifth of Georgia in 2008, and its annexation of Crimea in 2014, was popular with the Russian people. These actions have increased support for President Vladimir Putin's regime, and anti-Western sentiment.

Worse, Umland says, Western reactions to Russia's southern expansions are constrained.

No significant sanctions were imposed on Moscow in 2008. Surprisingly, relations between Russia and the West improved after the Russian-Georgian war and occupation.

In 2014, the West initially imposed minor sanctions on Russia, due to its annexation of the Crimea, and its secret intervention in the affairs of Donbass, but the limited effects that resulted from that at that time encouraged the "Kremlin" to escalate the situation further.

moderate penalties

The European Union imposed fairly moderate sectoral sanctions on Moscow in the summer of 2014, but it was an apparent response to the killing of more than 200 EU nationals on a Malaysia Airlines flight on 17 July 2014, when a unit of The Russian army shot it down over eastern Ukraine.

“So what can Ukraine do in light of the frightening lessons that Moscow might have learned from its adventures in 2008 and 2014?” Umland asks.

He says that the main factors that determined past Russian behavior, and will determine Russian behavior in the future, are the relative costs of military escalation, and the assessment of those costs by Russian citizens.

Many Russians at that time saw, and still consider today, that the material and human losses resulting from the adventures of 2008 and 2014 were permissible.

The costs of the Moscow operation in Georgia were, and are, objectively low, according to Omland.

In the case of Ukraine, Russian citizens see the relative total cost as likely.

Putin's swift seizure of Crimea was a national victory, so many Russians continue to endure Russia's ongoing socio-economic stagnation, which was caused by the Western sanctions regime that began in 2014, among other factors.

Thus, the Kremlin's behavior makes sense, to some extent, during the events of 2008 and 2014.

The expansionist attacks have increased popular support for the Putin regime and reduced support for the West.

Meanwhile, the political and financial costs of the Putin regime have been limited, Omland said.

• It is not clear whether it is possible for Russia to achieve victory over Ukraine quickly and easily, as it did with Georgia in the five-day Russian-Georgian war in August 2008.

• The traditional Russian armed forces surpass the Ukrainian armed forces, in terms of quantity and quality.

Russia is also a nuclear superpower, while Ukraine is a country that does not possess nuclear weapons, and it is prohibited from acquiring nuclear warheads.

• In 2014, the West imposed minor sanctions on Russia, due to its annexation of the Crimea and its secret interference in the affairs of Donbass. However, the limited effects that resulted from that at that time encouraged the "Kremlin" to escalate the situation further.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news