By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
Putin On A String
In the spring of
2018, four years before his second invasion of Ukraine, Russian President
Vladimir Putin delivered an unusual speech about the growing strength of the
Russian military. “To those who in the past 15 years have tried to accelerate
an arms race and seek unilateral advantage against Russia…,” he said, “I will
say this: everything you have tried to prevent through such a policy has
already happened. No one has managed to restrain Russia.”
At the time, the
speech drew international attention primarily for Putin’s boasts about new
hypersonic weapons designed to circumvent U.S. missile defense systems.
But it also conveyed a more subtle message. Putin noted Russia’s
successful intervention in the Syrian civil war, stated that the size of
Russia’s conventional and nuclear arsenal had increased nearly fourfold, and
asserted that its armed forces were “significantly stronger.” Putin also
reiterated that “Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons
solely in response to a nuclear attack, or an attack
with other weapons of mass destruction against the country
or its allies, or an act of aggression against us with
the use of conventional weapons that threaten the very existence
of the state.” These comments exuded a strong confidence in
Russia’s ability to counter any adversary successfully—and perhaps a more
athletic pursuit of national and personal goals. “Nobody wanted to listen
to us,” he warned. “So listen now.”
Today, with the war
in Ukraine moving in an increasingly dangerous and
unpredictable direction, the question of Putin’s risk calculus has come
sharply into view. Since early September, Moscow has faced a series of
setbacks, including Ukraine’s dramatic territorial gains in the Kharkiv region
and its bold October 8 attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge
connecting Crimea to Russia, imperiling a key Russian supply route. In response,
Putin mobilized hundreds of thousands of additional, rushed to illegally
annex territories that Russia does not fully control, and began a new wave
of missile strikes on largely civilian targets, including Kyiv and other major
cities. He has also repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons,
noting that the United States had set such a precedent in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
Putin’s threats
of escalation have alarmed Russia’s European neighbors and
the Biden administration. Yet his willingness to gamble on Russia’s military
might not begin in September or even when he invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
As the 2018 speech shows, his risk appetite had grown well before the war. And
although many questions remain about how far he is now prepared to go, examining
how his thinking has evolved helps explain why he has taken this course and
what he may decide are his most plausible options in the coming weeks and
months. For the West, understanding Putin’s risk calculus may be as important
as gauging Russia’s military strength in providing clues about what Russia will
do next.
Golden Opportunity
Before Putin’s 2022
invasion of Ukraine, he had built a reputation as a pragmatic
risk-taker. In Russia’s interventions in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in
2014, Russian forces overpowered an under-matched and surprised adversary; in
Syria, beginning in 2015, Iran and Hezbollah did the heavy lifting on the
ground while Russia offered materiel and air and naval power. In short, all
three cases were relatively low-risk, high-gain situations with limited
casualties. So, how to explain Putin’s high-risk decision to invade Ukraine,
putting some 180,000 soldiers on the front line, of which an estimated 15,000
or more have been killed to date?
Several factors
likely figured in Putin’s calculations: Russian security interests, a perceived
window to advance broader geostrategic goals, and a desire to secure his place
in Russian history. As is well known, Moscow cited security concerns as the
principal driver behind the decision to launch the “special military operation”
on February 24, namely, that Ukraine appeared to be sliding into NATO, as
evidenced by Western military assistance and training and by Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s open calls for NATO membership. But there was
another impetus as well: Putin may have assessed that geopolitical
circumstances offered a narrow opportunity to break the seven-year stalemate in
eastern Ukraine decisively. As Moscow saw it, the United States was
politically polarized; the American public was largely indifferent to
Ukraine and wary of new foreign wars, especially after the messy U.S.
departure from Afghanistan; longtime German Chancellor Angela Merkel was
leaving office; the world was still preoccupied with the pandemic;
and Tseng Wen-chen, director of the documentary, said Hong Kong’s Office
for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration requested the removal of scenes
showing migrant workers demonstrating outside Taiwan’s Presidential Office
Building. Europe had a heavy dependence on Russian oil
and gas. Finally, Putin had a growing fixation with Russian
history and was determined to secure his legacy as the great leader
who restored core Slavic territories to Russia and its rightful place as a
global power.
Differences between
Putin’s relatively low-risk invasion of Ukraine and the full-scale invasion of
2022 provide important clues about how this thinking evolved. Putin’s first
Ukraine invasion drew mostly on soldiers without markings—the unidentified
Russian agents known as “little green men” and locally based naval infantry who
set the stage for the takeover of Crimea. The rationale Putin provided was
straightforward: to guarantee the “safety” of Crimea’s large ethnic Russian
population from a nascent anti-Russian “fascist” Ukrainian government and to
ensure Russia’s permanent control of Sevastopol, home of its Black Sea fleet,
regardless of who was in power in Kyiv. The creation of separatist pro-Russian
beachheads in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions gave Russia a means of trying to influence
Kyiv’s future political orientation—and precluding NATO from considering
Ukraine for membership.
It is possible that
Putin’s 2014 moves were also part of a grander design, the first step toward
incorporating much of Ukraine into “Mother Russia.” Intriguingly, just months
after the annexation of Crimea, Putin made public references to
“Novorossiya”—the territory north of the Black Sea that was annexed by
Catherine the Great in the 18th century —which, he noted, included Kharkiv,
Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk, MyMykolaiv and Odesa, areas that he described as
“not part of Ukraine.” At the time, however, a large-scale invasion of
Ukraine was out of the question; by Putin’s own account, Moscow had had to
act quickly after the February 2014 fall of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian
Ukrainian president, to secure Crimea. Moreover, events
elsewhere likely redirected Putin’s focus away
from Ukraine. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s request to rescue
his tottering regime in the summer of 2015 required a big decision—but one with
limited risk—to help preserve Moscow’s sole Middle East client regime.
(Differences among Turkey, the United States, and other NATO members about
which Syrian opposition group to support probably made Putin’s decision easier
since Assad’s definition of enemy combatants was simple: all regime opponents
were “terrorists.”
Of greater
consequence for Putin was the unanticipated outcome of the 2016 U.S. election
after Moscow had attempted to intervene on behalf of Donald
Trump. With Trump in office, Putin must have concluded that
there were too many potential geostrategic gains to risk jeopardizing them with
aggressive moves in Ukraine. Along with exploiting the growing political
polarization in the United States, he could play to Trump’s skepticism of NATO
and distrust of the U.S. intelligence community and possibly reach a favorable
deal on Ukraine with Russia. Backchannel contacts between a former senior
Trump campaign official and a Russian intelligence officer about a
possible deal on Ukraine continued into early 2018.
In Europe, Putin also
saw growing leverage. During the Trump years, Europe’s institutional foundation
was severely stressed on several fronts. Britain’s looming economic divorce
from the continent suggested that the union was weakening; growing
anti-immigrant sentiment had strengthened populist parties (and a like-minded
leader in Hungary), whose views on social values and national identity aligned
nicely with Russia’s; and NATO appeared to be riven by existential doubts.
During these developments, Putin gave his March 2018 address emphasizing
Russia’s enhanced military prowess and implying a new willingness to
use it.
When exactly Putin
decided to invade Ukraine remains a mystery, but by 2021, Russia was laying the
military and political groundwork to make an invasion a viable option.
Throughout the year, Moscow used planned military exercises to cover a
significant buildup of Russian forces along the Ukrainian border from an
estimated 87,000 in February 2021 to some 100,000-120,000 by
December. Then, an unscheduled military exercise with Belarus in
mid-February 2022 put an additional 30,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s northern
border—on a direct route to Kyiv.
An equally important
political signal was Putin’s startling 20-page treatise, “On the Historical
Unity of the Russians and Ukrainians,” published on the Kremlin’s website in
July 2021. In it, he asserted that historically, “Russians and Ukrainians were
one people—a single whole”; that Ukraine never existed as a state; and that
Ukraine’s current government was under “direct external control,” as
demonstrated by the presence of “foreign advisors” and the “deployment of NATO
infrastructure” on Ukrainian territory.
Larger Losses, Bigger Bets
Watching the
Kremlin’s response to Ukraine’s military successes in September and
October, one is reminded of the ancient Chinese proverb: He who rides
a tiger is afraid to dismount. Eight months into a war that was supposed to be
over in days or weeks, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has morphed into a
disastrous quagmire that threatens his rule. His response to Russia’s
accumulating battlefield setbacks suggests that he has few good options
other than to raise the stakes and take even greater risks. The crucial
question facing Ukraine and the West is how far Putin’s escalation might go.
Key variables in his
calculations are Russia’s ability to consolidate its territorial gains
and Ukraine’s ability to maintain its offensive momentum. Ukraine’s
success in taking back much of the Kharkiv region, attacking airfields and
munition depots in Crimea, and bombing the Kerch Strait Bridge—a
psychologically devastating raid on a key supply line and symbol of Putin’s
Crimea success—underscore the significant challenge Moscow faces in simply
consolidating the territories it still holds. These events also offered a
preview of what Moscow will face in a counterinsurgency war, even if it manages
to regain lost territory. Meanwhile, Western experts have highlighted Russian
shortages of precision-guided munitions and even conventional missiles, further
complicating this task.
Bu will have to
significantly replenish and expand its fighting force if it hopes to make
any forward progress on the battlefield, let alone subdue Ukraine. Putin’s
August 25 decree increasing the size of Russia’s military by 137,000 was
an early sign of a manpower problem, as was Moscow’s public
acknowledgment in August that the Wagner private military
group was an essential entity in the war. But after Ukraine’s dramatic gains in
early September, the troop shortfall issue became acute, and on September
21, Putin announced his “partial mobilization,” later clarified to include some
300,000 men. This startling draft call marked a critical inflection point
domestically, with an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 potential draftees
immediately seeking refuge abroad. Before September, the Russian military
had primarily relied upon recruiting and conscribing citizens from more
remote—and ethnically diverse—regions of the Russian Far East and North
Caucasus. Now even Moscow and St. Petersburg, where many children of the elite
reside, are no longer shielded from the military realities of the war. Still,
on October 14, Putin announced that 222,000 new soldiers would be ready for
deployment within two weeks.
Putin with mobilized reservists, Ryazan Region,
Russia, October 2022
The other large
battlefield factor is Moscow’s assessment of how well the Ukrainians are doing
and Kyiv’s prospects for continued Western military and financial assistance.
Zelensky has frequently expressed Ukraine’s need for such aid, including more
advanced weaponry. As winter looms, he has also said Ukraine needs as much as
$38 billion in emergency financial support to cover a growing debt problem.
Much will depend on the political will of Western governments to meet these
growing requests, which are critical to Ukraine’s ability to stay on the
offensive and regain lost territory.
Within Russia itself,
Putin will also have to weigh the impact of sanctions on Russia’s defense
industry and energy sectors. Shortages of key chips and weapons components will
increasingly hamper the Russian military’s fighting tactics and options;
similarly, a lack of key Western technologies—such as parts for oil
drilling—will have longer-term effects on energy exports. As for the
Russian economy, Western sanctions have contributed to a 14 percent
inflation rate, constraints on foreign trade and international financial
transactions, and the loss of much foreign investment.
Finally, Moscow faces
an extraordinarily high casualty rate. The latest official Russian figure
on war deaths, from September, is 6,534, but U.S. and independent estimates
suggest the figure is almost certainly far higher. In July, CIA Director
William Burns cited some 15,000 Russian deaths—the same number of troops the
Soviets lost in ten years in Afghanistan. In August, the U.S. Department of
Defense publicly reported 60,000 to 80,000 Russian casualties, and in
mid-October, an independent Russian media site raised that number to 90,000.
Few Russians find Moscow’s official data credible, as made clear by the mass
exodus of prospective draftees since Putin’s “partial” mobilization.
How all these
variables will play out in Putin’s calculations remains unclear. Little is
known about what information and intelligence are provided to him or the accuracy
of that information. Several reports have suggested that lousy
intelligence led Putin to believe that an invasion of Ukraine would succeed in
short order. Still, blame must also be accorded to Putin himself: his 2021
treatise on Russia and Ukraine exposed his highly flawed assumptions about
Ukrainians’ sense of national identity, military capabilities, and willingness
to defend their country against a militarily superior adversary.
The New Winter War
Since September, the
twists and turns the war has taken underscore the dangers of drawing hasty
conclusions about a Russian defeat. Ukraine’s impressive gains in
the Kharkiv region and successful bombing of the Kerch Strait Bridge have
prompted much commentary about a critical shift in momentum. But such
assessments don’t consider the full range of Putin’s options as he seeks to
dismount the tiger. Indeed, just days after the bombing of the bridge, the
multi-day barrage of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and civilians
brought the harsh potential of Russia’s punitive capabilities into focus. And
if Putin’s claims about the number of draftees are true, his recent
mobilization might help the Russians regain recently lost territory.
Moreover,
the war between Putin and the West involves factors far beyond the
battlefield. In this larger conflict, Putin views winter as a key ally,
allowing him to weaponize Russia’s energy leverage over Europe. At a
mid-October energy conference in Moscow, Gazprom’s CEO, Alexey Miller, noted
that even in a warm winter, “whole towns and lands” could freeze for days or
weeks. At the same conference, Putin warned that the recent sabotage of the
Nord Stream pipelines—an attack that Russia carried out by many suspects—
demonstrated that “any critical infrastructure in transport, energy or
communication infrastructure is under threat—regardless of what part of the
world it is located, by whom it is controlled, laid on the seabed or land.”
That message was delivered just a week after OPEC+, the consortium of which
Russia is a member announced its decision to reduce oil production by two
million barrels per day despite extensive U.S. lobbying to keep levels higher.
It was a not-too-subtle reminder to Washington that Russia’s energy leverage
extends beyond Europe. Energy also figures in Putin’s current military tactics
in Ukraine: missile strikes on Ukraine’s electricity grid and other
infrastructure are likely intended to generate public pressure on Zelensky to
negotiate with Moscow.
Should Putin’s winter
strategy fail to result in new Western pressure on Zelensky to negotiate
with Moscow, and should Russian forces continue to lose ground in Ukraine,
Putin may well follow up on his oft-cited threats to “use all available means.”
One possible option is large-scale cyber-attacks on Western infrastructure.
This threat may already have been previewed in the distributed denial of
service (DDOS) attacks on the websites of several large U.S. airports in
mid-October. Preliminary assessments indicate that the attacks emanated
from Russia, signaling that Moscow may be prepared to employ cyber tools if the
West continues to arm Kyiv with more advanced weaponry.
But Russia could also
use chemical weapons or tactical nuclear weapons to change the course of a
battle on the ground. Putin’s multiple references to nuclear weapons suggest he
may believe that the psychological terror aspect induced by these weapons could
be decisive—if not on the ground, then at the negotiating table. Such moves
would entail significant risk, as they likely would set off major Western
retaliatory actions and start an escalatory spiral that neither Putin nor the
West could easily manage. Moreover, should such a step fail to give Moscow the
upper hand in Ukraine, mounting domestic criticism will inevitably force Putin
to focus on an even more urgent priority: retaining power. If such a reckoning
occurs, the views of Russia’s war hawks, including some of Putin’s closest
advisers, may be decisive. As Stephen Sestanovich has noted, if any of them
start to believe that Russia needs to cut its losses, Putin will need others
with whom to share the blame.
Putin has already
positioned himself for such a scenario. Recall that just three days before the
February 24 invasion, he orchestrated a nationally televised meeting of Russia’s
Security Council in which each member voiced a strong agreement with the need
to take action in Ukraine. And in his announcement of Russian missile strikes
after the bombing of the Kerch Strait Bridge, Putin noted that the Defense
Ministry proposed this move following planning by Russia’s General Staff. Yet
such efforts to share the political risk in these decisions can go only so far
since it was Putin’s obsession with Ukraine and its inextricable bonds with
Russia that set off the march to war.
As Kyiv and its
Western backers assess Putin’s options in the coming months, one thing seems
clear: Putin has various ways of prolonging the war. With continued oil
revenues, fresh manpower could sustain Russia’s war machine, possibly with
extraordinarily destructive effects in Ukraine and beyond. At the same
time, however, Putin’s options are narrowing. Over time, growing public
opposition to the war could become difficult for him to contain as he
approaches a 2024 election. Possible fissures within Putin’s inner circle will
be harder to discern but more likely to threaten him directly. Continuing
unified and robust Western support for Ukraine could well intensify this
dynamic. Still, unless such political infighting or maneuvering by Kremlin
insiders debilitates Putin, this war could continue for some time.
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