Putin Appears Poised to Attack

Will he or won’t he? That is the question garnering the attention of political-military analysts in Washington and capitals around Europe this week. It appears that President Vladimir Putin is poised to order the Russian military to invade Ukraine again. Unlike the 2014 Russian occupation in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine, however, it appears this time Russian military planners have spent considerable time prepping and refining all the details.

Over the last year Russia conducted a number of large-scale military exercises near the Ukrainian border. In effect Putin’s troops were a practice invasion force. Instead of the forces leaving the area at end of the exercises, the Russian president ordered some of the troops and heavy materiel to be left behind along the Ukrainian border. It is a move that analysts in Washington are labeling a “forward-deployment” in preparation for a potential invasion that may come in the next few weeks. The staging will allow Russia to move quickly when it decides to activate its forces. The Russian propaganda machine also is active delivering warlike rhetoric that Evelyn Farkas, writing in the publication Defense One, says “has saturated Russian airwaves” along with Putin’s ultimatums. The situation remains fluid. Last week demonstrations in Kazakhstan appeared to dampen the tempo when Putin sent 3,000 paratroopers to the country to help quell the violence. According to analysts, the personnel and financial commitment by Moscow may have delayed but did not stop Putin’s strategic plan for Ukraine.

The Biden White House has been speaking with European leaders and President Putin in a diplomatic effort to tamp down the situation along the Ukrainian border. Farkas says that the “basic reason… talks with Russia will fail is that the United States and its allies have nothing they can immediately offer Moscow in exchange for a de-escalation. So far ultimatums out of Washington, including the threat of economic penalties and sanctions has done little to alter the tension.

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Farkas argues that “US leaders should be marshalling an international coalition of the willing, readying military forces to deter Putin and, if necessary, prepare for war.” There is some indication that if Russia invades there is nothing left to restrain Putin from moving farther beyond Russia’s current borderlands in a land grab that could result in the restoration of all the pre-1991 borders. This would restore what Putin often has referred to as the unjust stripping of land from Great Russia. If US and other world leaders refuse to stand up to Putin now it will have repercussions throughout the world. One analyst called it the beginning of the end of the current world order. It could embolden China to move up it time schedule for retaking Taiwan if Beijing viewed Western, democratic leaders as impotent in the face of a military operation.“Nuclear Russia is a revisionist, revanchist power acting already as if there is no international order or United Nations, ignoring the Geneva Conventions, UN Charter, Helsinki Accords or any of the host of regional agreements Moscow has signed,” according to Farkas. The uprising in Kazakhstan may have convinced Putin that the recent democratic uprisings or “color revolutions” are a threat to Russian national security as they incentivize domestic Russian minority groups. The events of the past week are morphing into a broader issue as Putin is challenging the rules-based international order, NATO, and the the Western alliance in the United Nations. To date Putin has challenged and won at every step along the way. Since the dissolution of the USSR Putin has established Russian bases in Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Moldova. In 2008 when George was making overtures concerning membership in NATO Putin invaded two small northern provinces in the country. According to the NATO charter a country cannot become a Member state if it does not have control over its territory. Russian troops continue to occupy 20% of Georgia. Putin continues to grow bolder with each move. The Russian leader now is demanding a guarantee from President Biden that NATO will not move further east and that the United States will not support NATO in a move against Russia. It may be time to build a new coalition of the willing, who can restrain Putin while it still is possible.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Department during the Reagan Administration.

Quick Analysis

Russia Expanding Aggression

President Putin is using more than one pathway to enter Europe and undermine the West. While most of the world watches the conflict he initiated in Ukraine, the Russian government is actively pursuing a second front in a little noticed campaign in Cyprus. Although the corrupt Cypriot government ended its issuance of “golden passports” in 2020, Russian intelligence is functioning quietly there to transform this EU country into a Russian beachhead of illicit economic activity aimed at penetrating the capitalist West, according to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation. Cyprus is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nor does it receive as much attention as those countries who are member states. That adds to its allure as a prime location for Russia to attempt to gain a European foothold. Last week a NATO report, cited in the European Daily Monitor, noted that Russian intelligence agents have been plotting to destroy European infrastructure across the continent to disrupt states supporting Ukraine. It further suggests that Putin’s immediate goal is to lay the framework for a future move against the security organization’s members. Hungary, in particular, is another country garnering Moscow’s attention as it opposes the Western response to Russian aggression. Russia is focusing its intelligence efforts on other European, non-NATO member countries in addition to Cyprus, including Austria, Malta, and Ireland. The NATO report suggests that Moscow has had success in disseminating the Russian political narrative in these states to advance its campaign against the West. The island of Cyprus is proving to be a good target for Moscow as it is an ethnically divided island that is part of the EU since 2004. Northern Cyprus, officially called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that is only recognized by Turkey. The division precludes it from joining NATO. As Goble suggests, “it offers Russia troubled waters in which to fish.” Over the last 20 years, he points out, Cyprus’ challenges have opened it to a massive influx of Russian citizens, who now comprise approximately 10 percent of the island state’s population. Over 2,900 residents are Russians who entered until the “golden passport” program that allowed wealthy or well-connected Russians to move to Cyprus. It also provided them with documentation to travel freely throughout Europe! Although less visible on the world’s radar than the war in Ukraine, Moscow is also being helped by Cyprus’ banks opposition to seizing Russian assets and its support in evading Western sanctions. Russia has placed tens of billions of US Dollars there for money laundering. It has been more than two years since a single Russian “diplomat” has been deported and, in fact, the Embassy has grown to over 300 staffers on this tiny island state of only 1.2 million people. The Russian embassy in Nicosia has advanced communications antennae on its roof and opened a consulate on the northern end of the island. Moscow’s Ambassador, Mura Zyazikov, is a lieutenant general in the FSB with no diplomatic experience. The FSB, SVR (Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service), and GRU are actively using the island as a base of operations against NATO Member states, Israel, and other Western allies. Moscow backs pro-Russian political parties who in turn influence Cypriot decisions on education, language, and other issues. “Dmitry Khmelnitsky of the Dossier Center says that its findings should be of concern not only to Cyprus but to the West as a whole. Those who ignore what Moscow is doing because Cyprus does not follow the EU sanctions regime are missing something critical,” says Goble. “Cyprus does not seek to get rid of Russian agents and does not interfere with their work,” Khmelnitsky concludes, “despite the fact that what the Kremlin is doing is so clearly visible.” This has an impact not only on the small island but on the EU, NATO, and the West in general. Earlier this year the Moscow Times reported that when the FBI became more interested in Russian business and oligarchs in Cyprus, at least 10 of the major Russian businesses operating there left. Despite the government of Cyprus’ vow to implement plans for new sanctions against Russia, it continues to ignore Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine and to shield the wealth of the 50,000 wealthy Russian citizens and oligarchs residing there. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay