By Nicholas Hayen & Stephen Howard
There are moments in history that mark a clear and definitive break from the past. Moments when old assumptions and behaviors shift suddenly and permanently. Last week’s brutal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian and Belarusian militaries has marked such an irrevocable break in history. The unjustified and unprovoked action by Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlike anything that Europe has seen since the end of the Second World War. There have certainly been terrible conflicts before in recent history, but nothing quite like this. Russia’s moves to completely invade and remove Ukraine’s democratically elected government constitutes a direct violation of everything that the international community should stand for. It is an assault not just on Ukraine, but on the entire international system that has outlawed wars of territorial conquest. We’ve already discussed the initial buildup to war and why Ukraine is so important to Russia in a previous post. You can also check out this previous post which shows why NATO expansion didn’t necessarily cause this invasion. So in this special edition post, we’ll break down the entire conflict for you and explain why it is so important to defend Ukraine in its most desperate hour.
But How is this different from Crimea?
The stunning invasion of Ukraine is a clear departure from Putin’s usual strategy. For decades, he has preferred to operate in the gray-zone of international conflict. He’s always been careful to maintain some plausible deniability to allow his corrupting influence to give people an excuse not to confront him. In Crimea in 2014, he used special forces units to infiltrate this small area and invaded with soldiers that didn’t wear Russian uniforms. This allowed Putin to claim that he wasn’t actually invading and that Crimea was instead “liberating” itself. In eastern Ukraine, he used similar tactics and found willing co-conspirators to overthrow some regional governments to stir up a conflict and give Putin a reason to intervene. All of this was possible because Crimea and eastern Ukraine (to a lesser extent) have significant Russian-speaking populations who in some cases welcomed Russia’s presence.
The rest of Ukraine is entirely different. Though Russia tried similar gray-zone tactics, it failed due to those tactics being uncovered by the US intelligence community. The country is roughly the size of Texas and has long had a distinctly unique language and culture. Ukraine suffered severe famine at the hands of the Soviet Union, and eight years of war with Russia in eastern Ukraine have left Ukrainians with a strong sense of solidarity. Putin and the Russian high command had bought into their own narrative that Ukraine and the West were weak and not willing to put up a fight. But by making such a bold and direct move to invade all of Ukraine and decapitate its government, he has left no gray-zone for outside observers to sit on the sidelines. Nearly everyone around the world can see the brazen aggression and wanton destruction unleashed by the Russian military.
What’s The Current Status?
The situation on the ground is changing rapidly, but it's already clear that the initial Russian invasion campaign has not gone according to plan. The Russian military seems to have anticipated a very quick and decisive capture of Kyiv that would have allowed them to quickly depose the current government and replace it with a Russian-friendly one (similar to the Russian-friendly government in Belarus). Instead, Russia has been met with extremely fierce resistance at every turn from the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) and regular Ukrainian citizens. This resistance has shown major flaws in Russia’s logistics planning as well; there are widespread reports of Russian vehicles running out of fuel and other supplies. All the while, the Russian military has sustained significant casualties. Dozens of aircraft, hundreds of tanks, and thousands of soldiers have been lost on the Russian side in only a matter of days. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of average Ukrainian citizens are taking up arms to defend their homeland.
But this doesn’t mean the war is won yet, and in a conventional military sense it isn’t very likely that there will be a definitive victory. Major cities like Maruipol and Kyiv are nearly surrounded and under heavy siege. Missiles are now being used on civilian centers. The UAF lacks substantial mechanized units, so it is nearly impossible for them to capture large divisions of the Russian military. Instead, Ukraine’s defense will rely almost completely on its fighters to attack with anti-air/-anti-tank rockets along with machine guns and molotov cocktails to slow down and demoralize the Russians. Meanwhile economic sanctions, diplomatic maneuvering, and solid statesmanship would hopefully force Russia to abandon its goals of demilitarization and installation of a puppet government. The initial capture of Kyiv was supposed to be the easy part of the war for Russia, but now their losses will likely be far more dramatic as brutal urban warfare takes hold. The goal isn’t to force the entire Russian army to surrender. Instead, the UAF will look to make the war as painful as possible for Russia in the hopes that domestic and international pressure will force them to withdraw.
Things will probably only get a lot worse from here.
The US & EU Response
The US & EU response to Russia’s aggression has been escalating for several years now (remember that Ukraine was in the headlines in the Obama and Trump Presidencies as both presidents attempted to figure out how to tackle the problem). But for the sake of this conflict, we can break the US & EU response out into four sections: post-Crimea measures, the information campaign, limited economic and military support, and major economic sanctions and military support. Something to note is that each of these phases seems to build on the previous phase, and that’s correct: the Western response to Russia has been driven primarily by Russia’s own movements.
First, the pre-Crimea measures was the US providing limited intel support and military hardware to Ukraine in order for Ukraine to fight the eastern Russian-funded separatists. I’m sure many reading this will be familiar with former President Trump’s impeachment which, in part, was driven by a “quid-pro-quo” with Ukraine regarding the US providing material support to Ukraine; Zelenskyy was attempting to procure Javelin missiles and other lethal aid. This, unfortunately, is a good example of how the US and West treated Ukraine up to this point: a bit of a nuisance and something that it didn’t want to become too deeply involved with.
Just read the transcript!
Information Warfare
This changed into a new mode in the first year of the Biden presidency when US intelligence agencies began to receive real evidence that Russia was planning an invasion of Ukraine. This started when Russia declared it was going to have “military drills” near Ukraine, something many countries rightly saw as a pretext to get as many soldiers as Russia could to where they wanted to invade. The US in response took a novel approach with the intel gained through Russian movements. Instead of hoarding intelligence or sharing limited amounts of it with partner countries (as most states usually do), the US very loudly declared what Russia’s intent was: pretext and invasion of Ukraine. For the next few months the US messaged the whole world what Russia's plans were to the point it was blamed for fear mongering. This intelligence campaign came to a head 2-3 weeks before the invasion with very specific and dire forecasts backed up by very real intelligence, all released to the public. The specificity of these forecasts was astounding, denying western countries the ability to pretend for the sake of relations with Russia that they were unaware. This was crucial leading up to the formal invasion of Ukraine as NATO states were forced to engage with the questions of Russian aggression before the aggression happened, allowing almost all NATO states to have a response prepared in case Russia invaded.
Further, this had an incredible effect on public diplomacy because it denied Russia any ability to frame the invasion as Ukraine’s fault and it made a mockery of Russia’s intelligence service. Russia was very clearly the aggressor and all misinformation attempts that it tried (and was so vaunted for prior to this conflict) backfired on it. This stage clearly put the US in the driver’s seat of how the world was going to respond to Russia.
These moves seemingly befuddled the Russians. The Russian army idled on the Ukrainian board for about a week after the decision to invade was made, ready to go, eating through supplies while Putin tried to figure out just how to respond to his every deceit being called on every major news network on earth. Obviously, in the end, he decided that he didn’t care about having a justification, and invaded anyway. But that week of burning through supplies became crucial down the line.
It is worth noting that during this stage several countries stepped up military aid to Ukraine (US, UK, Poland), while other countries (France, Germany) attempted to distance themselves from any conflict. It is true, no country sent troops to help Ukraine and these initial intelligence moves didn’t end up deterring Russia. That misses the point of what this phase was set up to do, though. US intelligence had already determined with “high accuracy” that Russia would invade regardless of what the West did; there was no stopping the invasion. Instead, the US took a fractured NATO alliance and dissonant global opinion and put the framework together for a unified response to Russia the likes which the world has never seen before. This certainly is a hollow victory for the Ukrainian fighting in the streets, but it is far more powerful and sustainable than any other route could seemingly have achieved.
Nearly every country voted to condemn Russia for their invasion.
Offering A Way Out?
The third phase began with the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine into its proxy armies territories. Limited sanctions were imposed by many NATO states with the clear intention of signaling to Putin that while invading the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine was not acceptable, it would also not be considered a clear act of war. This was a deliberate attempt by the West to give Putin an out; he could take the parts of the two regions where his proxy armies had embedded and call it a win. The west would not escalate from there and instead call it a win for Ukraine; the rest of the country wouldn’t be invaded. Russia went ahead and occupied those parts of Ukraine and then, as western intelligence agencies had clearly indicated, decided to go forward into the rest of Ukraine. What this phase indicated is that there is a level of compellence going on in Ukraine right now; the West had indicated to Russia that there was a point it could draw back to with only minor sanctions and, most importantly for Russia, a thin veneer of victory as it could keep the previously occupied sections of Ukraine.
Still, the third phase was very short, transforming as Russian aggression forced the revocation of Nordstream II pipeline. Germany, one of the most reluctant countries to oppose Russia, had now cut its flagship project with Russia specifically over Russia's aggression in Ukraine. This project would have provided substantial revenue for the Russian state, while also making much of Europe dependent on Russia for its energy needs, and it was now dead in the water.
Crossing the Ukrainian Rubicon
Once the Russian army began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, all bets were off. Major sanctions have snowballed on Russia. In the past few days, Russia’s major banks have had assets frozen, have been disconnected from the international banking system SWIFT, oligarchs have been sanctioned and barred from travel to the EU and West more broadly. In addition, Russian planes have been banned from flying in the EU, and some countries have banned Russian nationals from entering their countries. All in all, Russia may now face complete economic collapse of Russia’s currency, the ruble.
Further, and even more unprecedented, was how quickly the EU, NATO, and some historically “neutral” countries turned from barely supporting sanctions to providing lethal assistance to Ukraine on a dime. Sweden, who hasn’t provided lethal military support to any other country since 1939, is now sending field rations, helmets, body armor, and crucially anti-tank weapons to Ukraine. Germany, Denmark, France, and many other countries are significantly stepping up their provision of supplies as well. Even Switzerland, which is famous for its neutral stance on world conflicts, has agreed to send aid and implement sanctions.
Most astonishing is the turnaround by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He has committed Germany to the NATO defense spending goal of 2%, vowing to meet it by 2024. This is something the US has hounded Germany on for years, attempting to get Germany to fulfill its obligations to NATO and something that former President Trump agitated about constantly. The Biden diplomacy, combined with Russian aggression served to finally and historically change it. Putin spent the last two decades carefully dividing Europe and the United States to pursue his aims of conquest; in only a few days he has undone nearly all of that work. To make matters even worse for Putin, nations like Sweden and Finland are now strongly considering joining NATO, which is exactly the type of scenario Russia wanted to avoid. All of this of course stops short of committing US or NATO troops to directly fight Russia or imposing a no-fly zone (which would involve shooting down Russian planes). Such a move would almost certainly escalate to a war throughout Europe or even more dire nuclear scenarios. But much of this response is possible in part because of the inspiring will of the Ukrainian people to fight back against Russia. Their courage has been a galvanizing force for Europe to rally behind.
Ukraine’s president taking selfies in Kyiv while Russian forces descend on the city.
The China Factor
One country that has bought into Putin’s lies is the People's Republic of China. Throughout the leadup to the war, China stood side-by-side with Russia believing that Putin was just posturing for a strong settlement on Ukraine without the use of military action. This might be why, after Putin did invade, Chinese state media was confused about how to report the invasion. Was Russia defending itself? Does China instead stand for territorial sovereignty?
A major factor here is that Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have a strong personal relationship. This means that Xi can’t fully distance or condemn Putin without looking like he (rightfully) misunderstood the entire situation. Instead, China has distanced itself by becoming firmly neutral on the question of Ukraine in the UN Security Council, which is about as far as China can go without embarrassing Xi.
Xi is sure to be learning the lessons of Ukraine in real time as well. After all, he has his own aims of territorial conquest in Taiwan. Xi and other members of the Chinese diplomatic cadre are sure to take note of just how badly Russia lost the information war in the run up and during the conflict. In any lead-up to an invasion of Taiwan, China would have to firmly create and control the narrative or face the massive backlash that Russia already has. The suddenly unified and strong US & EU response to the invasion of Ukraine may make China think twice about performing a military operation against Taiwan for fear of eliciting a similar global response.
Why should you care?
First, we have a nuclear armed country purportating an act of aggression against a much smaller country which actually gave up its nuclear weapons under the promise that Russia (along with France and the US) would respect its sovereignty. This country, Russia, has now begun to bandy about its own nuclear arsenal as it gets more and more frustrated with the dismal war it is executing. While the risk of nuclear war is still low, the fact that Russia has put its nuclear forces on “special alert” isn’t something to be willfully ignored either.
Yet, even without nukes, hopefully, this question should be fairly easy to answer at this point. Throughout human history, wars of territorial conquest have been the norm. The nearly 80 years of (relative) peace throughout most of the world since the end of the Second World War have actually been somewhat of an outlier, and the international system set up after that brutal war (and the US military power that backs this up) is the cornerstone of that peace and stability. If the United States and its allies did nothing in response to the invasion of Ukraine, it would demonstrate to the entire world that we can once again devolve into settling our differences through wars of conquest. It would show that we no longer care when a democratically elected government is taken over and murdered by an authoritarian power. Simply put, failing to act in a strong and decisive manner at this stage would signal the end of the current world order’s credibility. With that end, comes the type of chaos and instability that creates even more war, global financial depression, and staggering loss of life. But this ultimately isn’t about being “right” or proving one political theory over another. It’s about doing what’s right and doing everything possible to alleviate the suffering of Ukraine and helping them to fight for themselves. We stand with Ukraine, and we hope you do too.
Resources for Support
MN-Based NGO Alight’s Rapid Response Team in Poland
Ukrainian American Community Center for Ukrainians in Minnesota