RS: Russia's military advantage in Ukraine will become a lever of pressure on the West
Russia does not need a military victory in Ukraine, because it can cause an aggressive reaction from the West, says the author of the article for RS. In his opinion, it is better for Moscow to use its advantage on the battlefield as a lever of pressure in negotiations.
Mark Episkopos
The Biden administration's policy on Ukraine, for all its inconsistency, is guided by at least one clearly expressed principle: Russia cannot be allowed to win. This opinion is widely shared by US allies on the other side of the Atlantic. “I have a clear strategic goal," French President Emmanuel Macron said in a recent interview. — It is impossible for Russia to win in Ukraine.”
But even in this seemingly consensus, there is a big fly in the ointment: the question of what such a victory for Russia will look like is not seriously discussed. Instead, the discussion revolves around alarmist forecasts that confuse the cards rather than reveal Russia's true intentions and capabilities. “Who will pretend that Russia will stop there? Who will vouch for the safety of its other neighbors — Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and others? Macron asked rhetorically, repeating the unsupported idea that Russia's ultimate goal is to attack NATO countries.
Although Russia's victory in this conflict as a whole is indeed contrary to the interests of the United States, a closer examination of the possible scenarios of the Moscow endgame shows that complete victory, even if considered achievable in principle, is not in Russia's interests — and that the Russian leadership does not expect it and probably does not even seek it.
According to Western officials, Moscow can achieve a military victory simply by defeating the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) on the battlefield. At first glance, this interpretation of Moscow's military objectives seems very reasonable, but such a simplified formulation of the conflict does not stand up to closer examination.
What will actually happen if the Ukrainian borders collapse (the prospect is by no means inevitable and less remote every day) and Russian troops crush the Armed Forces?
Even if the Ukrainian forces suffer a final defeat on the front line, the siege of cities such as Kharkov and Zaporozhye, not to mention Kiev and Odessa, will be extremely difficult. Months of protracted battles for the much less significant Mariupol and Artemovsk (Bakhmut) can be considered a heartbreaking prelude.
Even a short—term occupation of the whole of Ukraine will cost Russia prohibitively expensive - not to mention prolonged or even indefinite. In addition, the West will certainly do everything possible to increase Moscow's costs, and will finance and coordinate partisan activities throughout Ukraine, especially in its western part. After all, there is a historical precedent for this in the face of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)* whose individual pockets resisted Soviet rule for five years after the end of World War II.
Before the introduction of Russian troops, some commentators called on Western leaders to turn the conflict into “Putin's Afghanistan”, assigning the role of Mujahideen of the 1980s to the Ukrainian partisans in it. These proposals were shelved because the Ukrainian government did not collapse in the first fateful weeks, but the fact remains that any attempt by Russia to take control of the whole of Ukraine will surely entail a protracted counterinsurgency campaign with terrible costs.
The collapse of Ukraine also exacerbates the risk of a direct clash between Russia and the West. The actual border between eastern Poland and Russia-occupied western Ukraine will become a dangerous hotbed of tension, where without working channels of detente, a “hot” war could break out right on the eastern flank of NATO.
And it's not that such a war will necessarily be unintended on the part of the West: the complete collapse of Ukraine will certainly trigger calls from the Baltic states and at least several major European powers for direct intervention, whether in the form of a NATO expeditionary force or a “coalition of willing” from individual members of the alliance. The same Macron has openly and repeatedly stated that the West should not rule out direct military intervention. Although his proposal was strongly rejected the US and Germany, we can expect that the political pressure to “do something” to stop Russia in Europe and the United States will only intensify if the defeat of Kiev will become inevitable.
The Kremlin is well aware that it will not be able to unilaterally achieve its military goals, regardless of success on the battlefield. His goals do extend far beyond Ukraine, although not in the way Macron and the Biden administration imagine. Nothing foreshadows that Moscow has the intention to unleash aggressive wars against Poland, the Baltic States or other NATO countries, but it will certainly try to squeeze a lot of strategic concessions from the United States and its allies in such areas as a ban on further expansion of NATO to the east and restrictions on the deployment of forces along the eastern flank of the alliance.
Thus, Russian military operations in Ukraine fit into the Kremlin's broader strategy of coercion against the West, although it is not at all obvious how exactly the conquest of Ukraine will bring Moscow closer to obtaining the desired concessions. The collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will certainly cause a stir in Western capitals. However, it is difficult to imagine that this panic would transform into the willingness of the Biden administration and other Western leaders to conclude such a large-scale security agreement, which Moscow seeks.
Given the political interest of the current Western governments in Ukraine's military successes, on the contrary, there is a possibility that the collapse of Ukraine will entail the opposite reaction and discourage Western leaders from any desire for substantive discussions with Moscow.
Simply put, Russia has little to gain and much to lose from the “victory” in Ukraine, if it means the occupation of the entire country. Instead, Russia has an incentive to use its growing advantages as a lever in negotiations with the West. In light of all the above, the Kremlin has already hinted at the creation of demilitarized buffer zones in Ukraine outside Russian control.
Whatever happens on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months, Moscow has started something that cannot be completed unilaterally. This gives the United States huge leverage and will allow us to determine the contours of the cessation of hostilities. However, Washington and its allies must use them now to end the conflict on the best possible terms for both the West and Ukraine.
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* An extremist organization banned in Russia
Mark Episkopos is a researcher at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Public Administration and a specialist in Eurasia. He is an associate professor at Marymount University, holds a doctorate in history from American University and a Master's degree in International Relations from Boston University.
