Vladimir Putin is wily, they say; he’s steps ahead of naive Western counterparts, ruthless at wielding his power for maximum advantage. And sure enough, there was the former KGB colonel Monday signing a piece of paper that Russia has recognized two breakaway Ukrainian regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent — a move widely seen as a precursor for an invasion of his neighbor, a democratic nation of 44 million people. Not long after the announcement, very well-armed “peacekeepers” (right) arrived on the scene.
Call us rubes, but we don’t see how on earth a Russian military occupation of Ukraine serves Putin’s ends.
It might feel good in the moment to bring a former Soviet Republic back into Moscow’s orbit, but what does he really gain by engaging his massive military with his neighbor’s 250,000-strong armed forces, bolstered by cash and arms from the West, in a war that would almost certainly make the Soviet Union’s disastrous invasion of Afghanistan look like whatever the Russians call a picnic (granted, picnics aren’t much fun in the dead of a Kyiv winter)?
What does he gain by inviting the punishing economic sanctions President Biden and European powers have rightly promised to levy, which are likely to choke off his country’s ability to obtain integrated circuits necessary for a range of technologies, while freezing out large Russian banks and potentially jeopardizing German acceptance of the lucrative Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline bringing liquid gold to Europe? If anything, Putin makes it likelier that his biggest fear — that Ukraine might someday join NATO — will ultimately come to pass, by showing the world that Russian aggression remains a growing threat.
It’s clear enough why Putin might want to distract his population, which has already been hammered by COVID and a faltering economy and increasing repression; they’ve been souring on his leadership for some time now, and nothing helped his popularity like the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
But Putin must know that beyond that, an invasion will only deliver misery. Right?
