By Anatol Lieven, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 1/20/22

On Monday January 17, the Quincy Institute convened a small closed door working group of former American and British ambassadors and experts on Russia and Ukraine to discuss possible scenarios in the context of the present crisis between Russia and the West. Senior fellow Anatol Lieven chaired the meeting and summarizes its conclusions here.

Is a Russian invasion of Ukraine now certain? This was the belief of one participant in the discussion, on the basis of the fact that Russia enjoys overwhelming military superiority and that the United States and NATO have simultaneously made clear that they will not fight Russia and that they will not accede to Russia’s key demands.

The rest of the participants were not so pessimistic. All agreed though both on the extreme seriousness of the present crisis, and that we only have a matter of a few weeks at most to prevent a drastic escalation by Russia.

The consensus among participants was that the Russian government has not yet decided on war, and that Russian demands (including most notably a permanent bar on further expansion of NATO) are not final and non-negotiable, but are initial bargaining positions. However, there was general agreement that to have a chance of reaching a compromise with Russia to avert a new war, the United States will have to go much further than its own initial statements.

Participants agreed that for reasons of domestic and international prestige, President Putin simply cannot emerge from this crisis empty-handed, and that his rhetoric and that of other Russian officials, together with Western intransigence, have placed Russia in a position where its only choice may be between humiliation and war. So although Putin and the Russian establishment are fully aware of the economic and political damage that Russia could suffer from a war, as well as the immense political difficulties it would face in occupied areas of Ukraine, the Russian government is indeed seriously considering war.

It was pointed out that inside Russia, (quite contrary to most perceptions in the West), “Putin faces no real threats from the Left, only from the Right”. Hardliners in the Russian establishment were bitterly disappointed with Putin’s refusal to occupy much larger areas of Ukraine in 2014, when Ukrainian military resistance would have been minimal and incidents like the killing of Russian demonstrators in Odessa would have given Russia a perfect excuse. There is a general feeling among the Russian elites that Putin’s strategy of trying to seek compromise through Germany and France has utterly failed. Indeed, Putin himself now seems to share this view.

All participants were of the view that agreement can only be reached by the United States and Russia, ideally negotiating in secret. Involving European members of NATO can only complicate the process to the point where no coherent negotiating strategy will be possible. In addition, Moscow no longer takes the Europeans seriously. As to the Ukrainian government, fear of its own hardliners makes it incapable of compromise. It will therefore have to be faced with a fait accompli.

As to the formulation of U.S. proposals that could be accepted by Russia as the basis for a possible solution, or at least an end to the immediate threat of war and an agreement to go on negotiating, thinking among the participants was primarily along the following lines:

1.) If for domestic political reasons the Biden administration cannot offer a Ukrainian treaty of neutrality or a permanent ban on NATO membership, then it should offer a moratorium on further NATO expansion for a period sufficiently long (10-20 years) to reassure Russia and give Putin the appearance of success. The West would sacrifice nothing by this, since even the most ardent proponents of NATO membership for Ukraine acknowledge that this cannot possibly happen in the near future.

2.) A pledge by NATO to return to the full terms of the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (ACFE) agreement of 1999, allowing for the continued deployment of Russian troops in the Abkhaz and Southern Ossete (internationally unrecognized) republics formerly part of Georgia, and the Transdniestria region of Moldova. Russian troops are never going to leave these areas, so Western pressure is pointless. The ACFE however would form a solid basis for mutual restraint on military deployments elsewhere, including new NATO deployments in eastern Europe.

3.) Such an agreement should include proposals for a new European security framework involving Russia, aimed at the solution of the various disputes and frozen conflicts in Europe, including Crimea and Kosovo, and at the avoidance of future conflict. This would also encourage co-operation on areas of joint concern like international terrorism, illegal migration and the trade in drugs. 

4.) There was disagreement on whether a pledge to relaunch the Minsk II agreement on autonomy for the Donbas should be part of a U.S. offer. Some participants argued that Minsk II is effectively dead. Others pointed out that even if a new name is given to the process, in the end guaranteed autonomy for the Donbas within Ukraine is the only possible way of resolving that dispute peacefully and without its eventual incorporation into Russia. It was also argued that more broadly, the Biden administration and NATO should commit themselves to the principle of a multi-ethnic Ukrainian identity with a recognized and guaranteed place for the Russian minority and Russian language.

If the United States refuses to move significantly from its existing positions, then the general sense of the meetingas that war is very likely, preceded by an escalating series of moves like the cyber-attack on Ukraine intended to signal Russian will to fight and capacity to win. 

In the event of war, some participants suggested that Russia would only occupy the rest of the Donbas, and inflict a stinging local defeat on Ukraine that would underline NATO’s inability to help. By limiting military action in this way, Moscow would hope to avoid really severe Western sanctions —while threatening that if sanctions were imposed and the West armed Ukraine, Russia would go much further.

If it does go much further, one participant believed that this could even involve Russian strikes on the Baltic States, Poland, and Romania, intended to pre-empt the movement of U.S. forces into these countries and to emphasize the complete impotence of NATO. Most however felt that Moscow would do everything possible to avoid a direct clash with NATO forces, and would not try to occupy Kiev or the ethnic Ukrainian heartlands, but would stick to the Russian-speaking areas of the east and south of the country that were (at least till 2014) traditionally pro-Russian and where Russia could attract a measure of local support.

At the very least, Russia might aim to occupy the Black Sea coast of Ukraine as far as Crimea, so as to end Ukraine’s blockade of water supplies that has done considerable damage to Crimea. It is also possible that Russia would seek to take Odessa and the entire Black Sea coast so as to establish a land link to the Russian-protected territory of Transnistria (a separatist part of Moldova), fearing that otherwise Ukraine could blockade Transnistria and starve the Russian force there into surrender.

However far Russia marched, the consensus of the meeting was that Moscow would not subsequently annex more Ukrainian territory. Rather, having made its point about Russian determination and U.S. and NATO impotence, the Russian government would offer to withdraw its forces in return for Western and Ukrainian agreement to an expanded version of Russia’s existing demands. This would include: a bar on NATO membership for Ukraine (or possibly a treaty of neutrality), a mutual withdrawal of NATO forces from Russia’s borders, and a federal system for Ukraine involving autonomous status for all the main Russian-speaking regions. Moscow would hope that the West would then accept the re-establishment of Ukrainian unity and territorial integrity on this basis, that would also guarantee Russian vital interests in Ukraine.

While members of this group differed about the extent of the damage and losses Russia would suffer in the event of war, none of them put forward any scenario involving Western or Ukrainian success. 

QI research analyst Artin Dersimonian contributed to this report.

Dr. Vladimir Kozin, PhD, is a member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, and Special Advisor to the Russian Presidential Administration. 

Note: The author provides a long and comprehensive analysis of what kinds of concessions both US/NATO and Russia could provide to reach agreement on both the immediate issue of Ukraine and the larger issue of pan-European security as well as the possible recognition of spheres of influence for US, Russia and China that could form the basis of long-term peace and stability in international relations. Below is a significant excerpt but I highly recommend reading the full article at The National Interest at the link provided. Your thoughts on Pyne’s ideas are welcome in the comments section. – Natylie

By David T. Pyne, The National Interest, 1/15/22

….Since becoming president, Biden has alluded to his desire to improve and “reset” relations with Russia. Accordingly, rather than inadvertently provoke an undesired war, he should seize the opportunity Putin has provided to restructure Europe’s security architecture and establish a new détente with Moscow. Such an agreement might, for example, ensure Ukraine’s continued independence in return for Ukraine’s adoption of a new federal constitution that allots additional autonomy to its oblasts/regions and legally codifies the rights of Russian citizens who reside in eastern Ukraine. As part of this compromise peace agreement, the United States, NATO, and Ukraine would also formally recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, whose population is over two-thirds ethnic Russian, and which was part of Russia until 1954.

In response to my previous article arguing for the recognition of Russian, Chinese, and U.S. spheres of influence, a Russian think tank, which appears to represent the Kremlin’s views, denounced my proposal for the United States to leave NATO in exchange for a Russian withdrawal from the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which serves as its de-facto military alliance with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as “a trap.” Accordingly, rather than make U.S. acceptance of Russia’s draft security agreement conditional upon a Russian departure from the SCO, U.S. acceptance of Russia’s proposed security agreement should be conditioned upon the signing of a U.S.-Russia Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance like the one that Russia concluded with the PRC over two decades ago.

Such an agreement would serve as the centerpiece of a new European security architecture that could end what has been called “the Second Cold War” between the United States and Russia. It would likely redefine U.S.-Russian relations by forging a grand strategic partnership between the two nuclear superpowers and ushering in a new era of mutual cooperation. If U.S. leaders began to see Russia as a potential strategic partner rather than as an adversary, they would likely be much more willing to offer the compromises necessary to ensure a peaceful resolution of the current standoff over Ukraine. Assuming the United States then ceased deployments of its military forces in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea, such a friendship agreement with Russia would greatly reduce the chances that the United States would either be dragged into a war with Russia and China or face the threat of an adversarial nuclear first strike.

Biden could also make U.S. approval of Russia’s security agreement conditional upon other concessions, such as a Russian commitment to significantly reduce its carbon emissions in furtherance of the Biden administration’s climate change agenda. The United States would agree to withdraw all its military forces from Eastern Europe in exchange for Russia agreeing to return to full compliance with the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty limitations on troop levels and the deployment of heavy weapons in Europe as well as returning its troops massed on Ukraine’s borders to their bases. In addition, the United States and Russia could agree to reinstate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the United States left in 2019. This could be followed by the signing of a U.S.-Russia Free Trade Agreement, meaningful military-technical cooperation, and the establishment of a joint U.S.-Russian missile defense shield in Europe, which Putin called for back in 2000. Military-technical cooperation between NATO and Russia, perhaps via the NATO-Russia Council, would also be encouraged. Russia and NATO could also implement further confidence-building measures and joint military exchanges designed to increase cooperation, trust, and friendly relations between Russia and NATO.

In return for Russia’s consent that the Baltic republics remain a part of NATO, the United States would agree to the construction of a land bridge/elevated road and rail highway through southern Lithuania that connects Russia’s ally Belarus (and thus Russia itself) to Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave. The United States could agree to withdraw all its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe in exchange for Russia’s agreement to denuclearize and withdraw all Russian nuclear-capable bombers as well as ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles from its Kaliningrad enclave and not station any ground or air-launched nuclear weapons outside of the territory of the Russian Federation. However, if Russia insisted on the departure of the Baltic states from NATO as the price of a peace agreement, the United States might agree providing Russia issue a written guarantee of the independence of the Baltic states with their neutrality ensured by international treaty (as was done with Austria under the Austria State Treaty of 1955).

As part of this agreement, the Biden administration should also offer to recognize a Russian sphere of influence over all the former Soviet republics (with the exception of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) perhaps in addition to Serbia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya in exchange for Russia’s recognition of a U.S. sphere of influence over the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, and Japan. Both sides would agree to refrain from sending their military forces, establishing military bases, or providing military assistance to any country within the other’s sphere of influence, which would serve to cut off Russian support for anti-American regimes in the Western Hemisphere including Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and ensure the withdraw of all Russian military personnel and advisors from those countries. Eastern Europe would remain outside both the U.S. and Russian spheres of influence with both great powers agreeing not to deploy troops there. Such an agreement might serve to guarantee peace between the two nuclear superpowers for many years to come. To help ensure Republican support for approval of the new U.S.-Russia Friendship Treaty by the U.S. Senate, Biden should declare a state of presidential nuclear/missile defense/EMP emergency to re-allocate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of unused federal funding from his recent Covid-19 relief and infrastructure legislation for critical defense priorities to restore the nuclear balance of power and help ensure Russia honors its agreements with the United States.

Following the collapse of the USSR, U.S., Russian, and NATO leaders pledged their support for the lofty goal of creating a new Euro-Atlantic security community stretching from “Vancouver to Vladivostok.” One of the objectives of this new U.S.-Russia strategic partnership would be the eventual abolition of the NATO, CSTO, and SCO military alliances and their replacement with an enhanced pan-European collective security organization for the fifty-six members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), after which Putin’s initiative for greater economic integration between the EU and the EEU might proceed uninhibited. If Russia were to leave the SCO and cease all military-technical cooperation with China, then the United States could agree to leave NATO, withdraw all its troops, and close its military bases in Europe.

At the same time, the United States should sign a non-aggression pact and sphere of influence agreement with China in which the U.S. recognizes a Chinese sphere of influence over Mongolia, North Korea, Taiwan, and the South China Sea, perhaps along with parts of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and southern Africa in return for China recognizing the same U.S. sphere of influence that Russia agreed to recognize. Both the United States and China would commit not to deploy their military forces, establish military bases, or provide military assistance to any country within the other great power’s sphere. Nations within or outside the U.S. and Russian spheres of influence could continue to participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative if they so desire. Such sphere of influence agreements would serve to formalize the respective U.S., Russian, and Chinese “redlines,” thus greatly reducing the chances of the outbreak of a great power war and forging a more stable and secure tripolar international order to replace the dangerous and unstable bipolar international—which includes NATO and the United States Pacific allies arrayed against the Chinese-led SCO, in which Russia serves as a junior partner—on the other.

Read full article here.

By Zach Dorfman, Yahoo! News, 1/13/22

The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.

The CIA-trained forces could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion. The U.S. and Russia started security talks earlier this week in Geneva but have failed thus far to reach any concrete agreement.

While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.

By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern Ukraine to advise their counterparts there, according to a half-dozen former officials.

The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like “cover and move,” intelligence and other areas, according to former officials.

Read full article here.

By Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 1/10/22

Peace and order appear to be returning to the major cities of Kazakhstan. But the political landscape, both at home and in Kazakhstan’s relations with its neighbors, is vastly changed.

Despite a week of the most violent and destructive disorder in Kazakhstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago – set off by apparently spontaneous protests over the doubling of gas prices at the start of the new year – the Central Asian republic’s authoritarian regime seems more firmly entrenched than ever. That is due in part to the intervention of Moscow, through its post-Soviet military alliance, the six-member Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

The crisis in Kazakhstan has turned the CSTO from what formerly looked like a paper tiger into a functioning tool of regional elite solidarity. Now, its future goals will likely be to crush attempts at regime change and enforce pro-Moscow geopolitical alignment across a space that contains several emerging states that have yet to solidify strong national identities amid the turbulence and power struggles of the still-collapsing former USSR.

“Moscow was afraid that the state system in Kazakhstan might collapse, and if that happened the consequences for Russia and the region would be huge,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading Russian foreign policy analyst. “Turmoil across this region is common, and to be expected, so there are signs that Russia has been developing these tools for some time.

“During the recent unrest in Belarus, it was enough to just signal a readiness to intervene, but in Kazakhstan they found it necessary to go in militarily,” he says. “Russia is reassuring local authorities that they won’t be overthrown. But given the symbolic nature of the deployment, the message is that it’s up to those governments to stabilize their own societies.”

What happened?

There are still very different theories about the root causes of the unrest.

Last week a wave of peaceful demonstrations broke out in the impoverished west of the country, apparently over rising fuel prices. The government initially tried to assuage the protesters by capping prices, dismissing the Cabinet, and removing the former president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, from his post as chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan.

But that failed to stop the protests, which quickly spread and became violent riots, which some claim were highly organized. The upheaval left the downtown of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, almost in ruins. Well-armed gangs reportedly fought pitched street battles with police, while mobs ransacked shops and public buildings.

Following a ferocious crackdown by security forces, with at least 164 dead and almost 6,000 arrested, the former Soviet republic is now firmly under control of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the hand-picked successor of longtime leader Mr. Nazarbayev, and the immediate danger has apparently receded.

“Even yesterday there was gunfire in the streets, and it was impossible to go out,” Vyacheslav Abramov, founder of the Vlast online magazine in Almaty, told the Monitor Monday. “Today there are buses running, the streets are being cleaned up, things seem to be returning to normal. … But we have only fragmentary information, and it’s hard to know what’s really happening.”

At an emergency meeting of the CSTO’s Security Council on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin placed the blame squarely on “international terrorism,” claiming that the violence came from “well-organized and well-controlled militant groups … including those who had obviously been trained in terrorist camps abroad.” The Islamist threat to Central Asia has been a deep Russian concern for many years, and has only been magnified since the chaotic U.S. retreat from Afghanistan last year left behind a dangerous vacuum.

But Kazakh leaders have offered a different explanation, pointing to high-ranking internal traitors who utilized the pretext of price increases to trigger protests, then unleashed specially trained armed units in an attempt to stage a coup d’état. At least one top former official, the recently dismissed head of the security services, Karim Masimov, has been arrested and charged with plotting against the state.

Other experts note that no movement has claimed responsibility for the uprising, and no set of unified demands or discernible leaders have emerged from the turmoil. That highly unusual circumstance is hard to square with an organized rebellion, Galym Ageleulov, head of the independent human rights group Liberty, told the Monitor from Almaty on Monday.

“I think what happened was that a peaceful civil meeting of people who are tired of authoritarian government got used by elites in their internal struggles,” he says. “It was a spontaneous upsurge without leaders because there is no permitted legal opposition, and civil activism is not able to grow.

“At some point in the protests, police abandoned their positions and left the streets to bandit formations, and they proceeded to loot the city. Bandits don’t make declarations,” he adds. “What we need here is a new government, one that people can trust. We need reforms and honest elections. Instead, they shuffle a few people at the top, like a deck of cards.”

It seems likely that a combination of factors were in play, says Mr. Lukyanov.

“All the elements are there: socioeconomic tensions, elements of outside interference, and a half-completed transfer of power” from the aging autocrat Mr. Nazarbayev to his chosen successor, Mr. Tokayev, he says. “It is well known that some groups behind Nazarbayev were not happy with his choice. There is a feeling among many observers that it was not a purely spontaneous outburst.”

Russia’s new role

The impact of the intervention by 2,600 troops from CSTO members – mostly Russian paratroopers, but also contingents from Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan – was largely symbolic, confined to securing the Almaty airport and a few other strategic points. But the swift and efficient injection of these forces into the crisis demonstrates an unprecedented level of elite solidarity among emerging post-Soviet states, which are often depicted as allergic to Russian leadership.

“There is a lot of solidarity among ruling elites” in the post-Soviet area, says Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, which is affiliated with the Foreign Ministry. “There are no mature democracies in this region, and none likely to emerge soon. This intervention will set a precedent, boost stability, and create more confidence in Moscow” as it deals with the myriad challenges confronting the post-Soviet region. In the past three years alone, political crises have hit Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and now Kazakhstan.

“Stability is one thing, but it will only work if elites deliver development,” says Mr. Kortunov. “Kazakhstan, with an abundance of natural resources, should be a rich country. But it has a deeply unequal social system and pockets of real poverty. I hope they understand that this needs to be addressed.”

Mr. Lukyanov says that Moscow’s policies are evolving and it is seeking ways to influence the former Soviet states of its neighborhood with a minimum of blunt force. It will be needed, he adds.

“The whole post-Soviet area has entered the period where all states must pass the test of sustainability,” he says. “Russia needs instruments that help maintain political stability, and once that’s accomplished these states will be closer to Moscow. It really doesn’t matter who is in charge there, as long as they understand the objective situation. This limited operation in Kazakhstan may prove an example of how that can work.”