You're reading: Ukraine’s Donbas is not enough for Putin

While Ukrainians and Russians speculated on reasons for Russian President Vladimir Putin's disappearance from the public spotlight since March 5, Western analysts concentrated on what to expect next in Russia's war against Ukraine.

Several reports released by Western organizations predicted a further escalation of the conflict, pumping out scenarios that only diverged in degree of Kremlin-inflicted destruction.

“Putin’s main goal is not Debaltseve, Donetsk airport or even Mariupol. They would like to destroy Ukraine from the inside using military, economic and political pressure on the Ukrainian government,” Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent Russian military analyst, told the Kyiv Post.

Short-term plan

Stratfor, the U.S.-based global intelligence company, says that despite Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military actions in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv seems to be growing even closer to the West, leaving Russia without a subservient buffer in the region.

According to the findings of the British Royal United Services Institute, the Kremlin might try to take advantage of a weakened Ukrainian military that retreated from the city of Debaltseve in Donetsk Oblast on Feb. 18.

“Relocation of Russian and rebel forces from the Debaltseve area to concentrations north and east of Mariupol indicate that this option is certainly being considered in the Kremlin,” says the report.
The port city of Mariupol is still high on the list of Russian potential targets, the report predicted. After Debaltseve, one of the first targets for heavy shelling by the separatists was the village of Shyrokine, located on the outskirts of Mariupol.

One of the most popular theories is that Russia will keep attacking until it forms a land bridge connecting Russia with Kremlin-occupied Crimea.

Six long-term options

Stratfor in a series of reports this week also predicted further military action. Its experts suggest six possible scenarios, in which Russia will need from 24,000 to 260,000 ground troops and from six days up to one month to execute a varying set of military operations.

The land-bridge scenario, one of the most frequently discussed options, implies that Russian forces and their proxies will make a push along Ukraine’s southeastern coast in order to link up Crimea with separatist positions in Ukraine’ east.

That would give Crimea water supply from the Dnipro and prevent any future isolation of the peninsula.

A similar scenario considered by Stratfor includes the seizure of the entire southern coast of Ukraine to connect Russia and its security forces in the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria to Crimea.

“The logic goes that this would cripple Kyiv by cutting off access to the Black Sea and would secure all of Russia’s interests in the region in a continual arc,” the report says.

The third scenario is about Russia taking all of Ukraine’s east up to the Dnipro River.

“When it comes to defending the captured territory, this scenario makes the most sense,” Stratfor experts believe, noting that in this case Russian insurgents would be able to use the Dnipro as a defensive front line.

But this plan requires a lot of troops on the ground. Such an intense insurgency “could threaten Russia’s ability to occupy the area even if it deployed all of its ground forces within Ukraine,” the report says.

This would also alarm Europe and the United States early on, experts predict.

The rest of the options are variations on these three base cases. For example, Russia could consider taking only the southern half of eastern Ukraine. Such an operation will require less combat power, but will leave the Russians with an exposed flank.

A small expansion of current separatist lines to the north is one more option. The final scenario involves Russia conducting small temporary incursions along the entirety of Ukrainian-Russian border in an effort to spread Ukraine’s combat power as thin as possible.

“It could accomplish some small political and security objectives, such as drawing Ukrainian forces away from the current line of contact, generally distracting Kyiv, or increasing the sense of emergency there, making the Ukrainians believe Russia would launch a full invasion if Kyiv did not comply,” the report says.

According to Stratfor experts, all of the options are feasible, but come with strings attached. “Not one of these options can meet security or political objectives through limited or reasonable means,” they say.

Defense expert Valeriy Ryabykh of the Ukrainian Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies says the land bridge scenario, as well as invasion of the country’s east, seem like the most likely options, from the Ukrainian point of view.

There is one more possible option that has been missed, he adds. The Russian-led troops can come from Ukraine’s north, through the border with Russia’s Belgorodska Oblast.

The most radical theory is that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to launch a full-scale invasion that takes control of all of Ukraine east of the Dnipro River.

Russian forces

The findings of The British Royal United Services Institute shows that Russia has been preparing its Ukraine operation methodically and over a long period of time. In spring 2014, for example, some 28 military units were positioned on the Ukrainian border and within Crimea to generate approximately 90,000 troops available for combat.

Following their increasingly large-scale, direct and conventional involvement in combat against Ukrainian troops in the middle of August 2014, Russian troops in Ukraine numbered between 3,500 and 6,000–6,500 by the end of August 2014, according to different sources.

The report says that Russian defense ministry had to involve 117 combat and combat-support units that were either stationed at the border, delivering artillery fire against Ukrainian territory from Russia, or directly participating in combat operations in Ukraine.

Even though there are no official numbers of Russian soldiers involved in Ukraine’s conflict, Ukraine estimates the total number of Russian troops and separatists fighters at around 36,000 at the moment.

Western experts say up to 11,000 Russian military personnel are now operating in the east of Ukraine. The number of Russian troops stationed in Crimea stands at 26,000–28,000 now, including approximately 13,000 of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This figure nearly matches that of all of Kyiv’s available combat forces, reads the British Royal United Services Institute report.

Dissent in Russia

Ryabykh of the Ukrainian Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies says a new escalation will probably start in May-June 2015, and “it all will end only when the international community, Ukrainian and Russian people understand, what is actually happening in Ukraine’s east.”

“And only when they understand that Russia’s expansion threatens not only Ukraine, but the entire world,” he adds.

There are small indications that protest spirit is starting to rise in Russia – at least in bigger cities. According to Russia’s pollster Levada, over the past two months, protest moods have jumped back to pre-Crimea level.

Some 44 percent of Moscow’s residents now believe that protests will intensify soon, and up to 15 percent say they will take part.