Putin doesn’t bluff. I’ve noted this to people in the past. Other really smart and experienced Russia experts – far more experienced and knowledgeable than me – have pointed this out. Did we really forget this? Did we really think he was bluffing?
I don’t think I thought he was bluffing. I thought that there were a host of other “military-technical measures” that Russia could take to pressure the west and increasingly show that it meant business about its interests. I also thought that if Russia took military action in Ukraine, it would be limited to securing the entire Donbas area decisively and likely in response to a significant provocation. But as we all now know, that’s not what happened.
On Monday, February 14th, Putin had a televised meeting with his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in which Lavrov stated that he didn’t think diplomacy had been exhausted and advised to continue. Putin agreed. A week later, Putin signed the Duma decree recognizing the DPR and LPR which also allowed the use of military force. Three days later, he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
Between the week of 2/14 and 2/21, it appears that something tipped Putin’s thinking into this decision. Something during that time served as the straw that broke the camel’s back. Some have suggested that it was Zelensky’s implicit threat of developing nuclear weapons during his Munich Security Conference speech on February 19th. The threat of nuclear acquisition was indeed mentioned by Putin in his address announcing the invasion of Ukraine:
“I would like to additionally emphasise the following. Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, those who will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for freely making a choice to reunite with Russia.
They will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass, to kill innocent people just as members of the punitive units of Ukrainian nationalists and Hitler’s accomplices did during the Great Patriotic War. They have also openly laid claim to several other Russian regions.
If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They are getting ready and waiting for the right moment. Moreover, they went as far as aspire to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not let this happen.” [Emphasis mine]
Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, Russia’s state space corporation, also discussed this threat on a Russian news talk show this past Saturday, asserting that Ukraine has the scientific and technical resources for creating ballistic missiles:
“[T]hey are seeking to create their own ballistic systems which are really capable of delivering a strike on our territory…Ukraine has been developing combat missile systems lately…These are Grom systems, and in general it is not a big problem for any design bureau to increase the distance from 300 kilometers and beyond. There are other systems which actually are intermediate-range systems [with a distance] of up to 2,000 kilometers. In fact, this is a real threat to Russia, up to the Ural Mountains.”
At this point, we can’t know for sure what it was that finally precipitated Putin’s fateful decision. For now, we can only speculate. But we can observe the fact that this is a departure from Putin’s previous actions when it comes to the use of military force over the past 15 years. The operations in Georgia, Crimea, the Donbas (prior to 2022) and Syria were all relatively measured and on behalf of a limited objective. They were operations that did not see massive casualties or a protracted presence that would lead to a potential quagmire. That’s why me and many other analysts were caught on the back foot with this move by Putin. The cost/benefit analysis for this just didn’t seem to make sense at this time.
The economic costs are already looking to be significant and a previously fractured west is now seemingly rallying around the US/NATO flag far more than before – consequences that are not in Russia’s interests.
It also doesn’t seem to fit very well with Putin’s legalistic nature and his past finger-wagging at US/NATO for its flouting of the UN charter and international law. A lawyer by training, Putin has always been very adept at finding legalisms to justify his actions both domestically and internationally. He once spoke of the tyranny of the law as his governing style. I suppose he could bring up the Kosovo precedent or humanitarian intervention doctrine that the west has tried to use to justify its bogus military actions. But it seems rather unconvincing.
Perhaps this will end soon and the costs in blood will not have been too much. But the scale of this operation leaves far more potential for nasty unintended consequences than many of the other military-technical, diplomatic or economic measures that could have been taken to pressure the west, including taking control of the entire Donbas region.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, is literally out of central casting as a relatable underdog trying to defend himself against a bigger foe after being suckered into the fight by his fair-weather friends who have their own agenda. So far, he’s playing the role much better than anyone imagined and many on the sidelines are rooting for him, while Putin is losing any benefit of the doubt that some wanted to give him.
An experienced fellow Russia watcher once commented to me years ago that Putin seems to have a knack for pulling a rabbit out of his hat when confronted with certain geopolitical problems. Let’s hope for everyone’s sake that he has another rabbit left to pull out.