How Putin’s Russia has used the Ukraine crisis to redraw a red line across eastern Europe

An innocuous-looking drone can be such a spoiler in an already tense standoff between two neighbours who for much of their recorded history have been one people. The Ukraine defence ministry photographs of drones destroying Russian-made Howitzers in eastern Ukraine in October 2021 regions controlled by the Russian-supported rebels. The use of Turkish Bayraktar T2B drones used widely by the state actors in wars in Libya, Syria, Nagorno Karabakh and against Kurdish separatists in Turkey. These drones were also extensively used during the 44-day Nagorno-Karabakh war and tilted the war in favour of Azerbaijan. Moscow blamed Ukraine for violating the Minsk agreements that ended the war between Ukraine and Russia resulting in 13,200 casualties among the warring states.

The latest standoff

Western intelligence agencies assess that around 1,75,000 Russian armed forces are deployed on the borders. The result of Russia amassing its troops was also primarily driven by what it termed as “deliberate provocations” and by the fact that increased men and machine movement in the Black Sea and Ukraine by the Western powers, especially of the British special services unit and American military trainers that are reportedly training the Ukrainian defence forces. NATO and the West believe Russia can manufacture a ‘provocation’ to start a war. The Western media reports abound with reports of an impending war. Still, the Russian language media sounds optimistic and upbeat that President Vladimir Putin has made the Western powers come to the negotiating table on the agenda set by Russia.

Moscow has used this latest standoff to its advantage. Its demands from the West, especially about NATO, go far beyond Ukraine. On 15 December 2021, Russia provided the drafts of the Russian-American treaty on security guarantees and an agreement on measures to ensure the security of Russia and NATO. Demands put forth by Russia include the rollback of NATO to its level in the 1990s; it has also sought security guarantees that NATO won’t expand eastwards or keep weapons and forces in former Soviet states that have since joined NATO. The West rejects these demands but seems agreeable to discuss all these issues raised by the Russian side. Whatever be the outcome, the belligerent Russian side has ensured that it brings all these outstanding issues to the discussion table.

This standoff could not have come at a better time for Russia. The recent withdrawal of US and Western forces from Afghanistan has signalled US reticence in engaging with points or powers that do not directly bear the US. After having burnt its fingers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is also not favourably disposed towards intervening in protracted conflicts.

Dmitri Trenin, one of the most vocal and respected voices on Russia’s foreign policy, says that the lack of a diplomatic solution will aggravate the crisis, increasing the chances of what President Putin earlier has warned of “Military Technical Response” if the present impasse is not addressed soon.

It has been since long that Russians wondered about the use of having NATO being an anachronistic instrument that lost its raison d’etre with disbanding of the Warsaw Pact, and there is no similar military arrangement that poses a counter-threat to NATO. To top it all, they say that the West verbally agreed not to expand NATO, but they have done five waves taking another 14 members on board. Russian scholars argue that NATO needs to invent enemies to justify its existence, whose members collectively spend $1.2 trillion annually on the military.

Russians argue that they don’t want to invade Ukraine. Since Russia is much bigger and more prosperous, militarily strong and potent endowed with tremendous natural resources, they see that Ukraine is just a pawn in the Western and the NATO game, as seen in the case of Georgia, which also fought a ‘useless’ five-day war only to be defeated by Russia in 2008. Above all, they are not looking for a ‘Russian Lebensraum’.

The fallout of the standoff

Things have not been smooth for Russia after the re-integration of Crimea with Russia in 2014. It was forced out of the G-8 (re-christened G-7) group of countries; debilitating economic sanctions were imposed on her, making the economy crippled, selling its military hardware to other states almost impossible, which have resulted in high inflation rates and coinciding with the falling International Oil prices. All this resulted in a fall in Russia’s GDP and a consequent fall in the standard of living of its people.

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The fallout of this showdown has been that Russia has been threatened with disconnecting with SWIFT (the international banking mechanism), which would hamper the flow of cash to Russian banking entities, though Germany has vociferously opposed this. Germany has maintained a very proactive attitude on engaging with Russia and is refraining from advocating any military or economic moves that would signal a further downslide in Russia and the West. Germany’s position to Russia is also linked to Germany’s dependence on Russian gas and is a significant heating source during the winters. Approximately 40 per cent of Germany’s gas requirements are met with Russia’s gas supply.

Germany has gone to the extent of disallowing overflight rights to the British Air Force, augmenting military support to Ukraine. The present impasse between the West and Russia has also unnerved Russia because the new gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, running parallel along Nord Stream 1 supplying gas to Germany, has been stalled mainly on the pretext of ‘regulatory’ restrictions by the European Union. Russia has invested $3.2 billion in this project, which hangs in the fire.

The way ahead

In the short run, Russia’s agenda to bring the US and NATO to the negotiating table seems to have worked. It is also for the first time since the talks of German unification that Russia and the US are talking about their issues directly with each other, and it is also for the first time that the US has agreed to discuss the deployment of intermediate and short-range missiles in Europe and to limit the military activities in Eastern Europe.

Whatever be the outcome, any expansion of NATO towards Eastern Europe will not be easy. Any stationing of missiles in Ukraine, which Russia fears, would also be impossible if the negotiations fail, then the ‘military-technical response’, which Putin said is always a possibility.

The writer is an associate professor, School of International Studies, JNU. Views expressed are personal.

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