While many in the West are fearing that Putin’s end game is the reoccupation of the entire Warsaw Pact with his cross-hairs focusing on the Baltic countries and Poland right this moment – there are pragmatic reasons why this won’t happen in the near future. Putin has conceived of a Eurasian Economic Union to act as a counterweight to the European Union. It has been suggested that Putin believes that Ukraine must be part of this union. There may be ideological reasons for Ukraine’s inclusion such as pan-Slavism, or a perception that Ukraine is an inalienable part of Russian territory. However, it is likely that the real reason why the Ukraine is such a critical part of Russia’s long term strategy is that without Ukraine Russia’s economy will collapse.
Russia, just as the Soviet Union before it, is dependent on oil and gas sales to the Europe and Russia’s foreign policy for the last eight years can be seen through the greasy prism of an oil slick. Putin’s support of his last remaining Middle-Eastern ally, Assad, in Syria perhaps served strategic interests in that it preserved a Russian foothold in the Middle-East, increased Russia’s prestige for leading a successful (repressive) intervention, and helped push refugees into Europe, creating the all-to-familiar refugee crisis. It also served as a training ground for modernising the Russian army and practising advanced combined arms operations (try not to laugh). However, if the Syrian government had collapsed and been replaced with a pro-Western government, it would have meant an oil pipeline could have been built straight from Iraq, through Syria, to the Mediterranean Sea. From here it would be piped into Greece and Europe. Russia’s monopoly on the European Oil and Gas market would have come to the end and Putin could potentially loose all oil and gas revenues should the West decide they no longer want to deal with him. This meant the Syrian operation was of critical importance for Russia’s survival as an economic entity. This is the reason why Putin is now in Ukraine. In 2012 and 2013 large oil and gas reserves were found in Eastern Ukraine. If Ukraine joins the European Union then Europe can receive its gas from Ukraine and again Russia faces economic ruin.
So what is next for Ukraine?
Putin needs eastern Ukraine. The blitzkrieg attack was a disaster. Russia will regroup and focus on the east. The plan is to seize the eastern parts of Ukraine, preferably by 9th May, so he can turn the victory parade into his victory parade, and then declare peace with Ukraine. The massacres in Bucha, Irpin and everywhere else are possibly designed to scare the population out of eastern Ukraine, which reduces the number of potential insurgents and then simplifies the task of building oil and gas infrastructure after the war.
Putin’s new plan is a division of the Ukraine and a quick peace, having secured Russia’s vital strategic interests. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has already hinted that peace might come soon, although that may be simply an attempt to undermine Ukraine’s current war effort and international support for Ukraine.
Ukraine and then the world?
Plans for world domination are probably on hold for a moment. If the assumption that Putin is simply a bully is correct then he will keep on pushing until someone gives him a bloody nose. If that is the case he has been given a nasty nose bleed and will sit quietly for a while. If he had seized Ukraine within a week, as he planned, then the Baltic states would be in a very uncomfortable position right now. As it is, we can expect the battle for eastern Ukraine to be vicious. While the quality Russian troops is poor, Putin will treat the battle as one for the existence of the Russian state. It is here that we might expect to see the use of chemical weapons or potentially an attempt to use tactical nuclear weapons. While it is easy for Putin to order their use while sitting in his bunker under the Ural mountains, the people carrying out those orders have no such protections and their families certainly don’t. It is unlikely that such weapons therefore will be used although Putin is doing as much sabre-rattling as he can, even having war-games in Kaliningrad. This is like the terrifying roar of a dog which turns out to be a chihuahua. What is more likely is that Putin demonstrates his inability to govern his own country and it collapses into several independent regions as happened during the collapse of the government during the Russian revolution a century ago. This in itself might lead to a nuclear threat with the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons much as we feared would happen during the 1990s. As far as the West is concerned we have a good blueprint for how to deal with Putin, STOP BUYING RUSSIAN OIL AND GAS and make the cost of war too high by providing arms and training to those fighting the regime on the front-line. This worked in the 1980s.