The Economist (2022-02-26) Riva

TheEconomistFebruary26th 2022 BriefingWarinUkraine 21

Americans much more easily than they can
Ukrainians.
At a meeting of the national-security
council televised before the speech—a gro-
tesque spectacle of fear, humiliation and
isolation—Viktor Zolotov, a former body-
guard of Mr Putin’s who now commands
hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the
national guard, put Mr Putin’s position
simply: “We don’t have a border with Uk-
raine. It is America’s border, because they
are the masters there, and all these...are
vassals. And the fact that they are pumping
them up full of arms and are trying to
create nuclear arsenals—all this will cost
us in future. So we must recognise these re-
publics...and move further, to defend our
country.” The baseless fear that Ukraine,
briefly a nuclear-weapons state after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, might be-
come one again is a particularly disturbing
casus belli for the millions of Russians
fearing war.
Mr Putin needs such trickery. Russian
society is currently divided as never before
in his reign. Many who would not have
agreed with him a year or two ago will nod
grimly as they read Kirill Rogov, a political
analyst, writing that “the consequences of
aggression will cause greater damage to
Russia and its economy than the destruc-
tion of Ukrainian infrastructure would
bring to nato.”

Storm after the calm
If for many in Russia the speech was a
shock, for some in Ukraine it was just more
of the same. Not only had eight years of
conflict made war numbingly familiar.
Nearly four months of remorseless mili-
tary build-up meant it would take some-
thing shockingly unfamiliar to stir real
panic.In October American intelligence
agencies picked up signs that Mr Putin was
beginning to move military forces to the
Ukrainian border. Around the same time,
whether through human sources or inter-
cepted communications, they got hold of

plans which showed Mr Putin’s intention

to invade his neighbour with the largest

military force built up in Europe for de-

cades. Bill Burns, the director of the cia,

was sent to Moscow in early November to

tell Mr Putin he had been rumbled—but

the build-up continued.

As it reached its peak in mid-February,

with most of Russia’s combat power within

striking distance of Ukraine, the Kremlin

began claiming that Ukraine had commit-

ted “genocide” in the Donbas region and

was about to seize it by force. There fol-

lowed a series of provocations—explo-

sions in Donbas, the shelling of Russian

soil and alleged Ukrainian incursions.

No particular moment during this esca-

lation set alarm bells ringing throughout

Ukraine, in part because the government

eager to reduce damage to the economy as

capital took flight, bond yields rose and the

currency depreciated, resolutely urged

calm. Anastasia, a bartender in Slovyansk,

a town in the Donetsk oblast which is

80km or so back from what was, until

Thursday morning, the contact line be-

tween the Ukrainian army and the separat-

ist forces, spoke for many when she said on

February 22nd after that although she was

“very scared” by the real prospect of war

with Russia, it took more than a single item

of news to sway her mood. “I saw it on In-

stagram,” she said of Mr Putin’s speech. “I

felt nothing, I thought nothing. I am very

tired from all this.”

Nevertheless, the calm shown by Ukrai-

nians throughout the months of escalation

had started to dissipate in the days before

the new invasion began. In both Donbas

and Kyiv some of those with financial

means and flexible lives were making

plans to move, either to Ukraine’s west or

abroad. Some had gone already—as indeed

have some wealthy Russians.

On February 22nd Volodymyr Zelensky,

the president, reaffirmed his belief that

“there will not be an all-out war against Uk-

raine.” But he also brought together the

leaders of all the country’s factions, in-

cluding his arch-rival Petro Poroshenko, a

man who just a month ago he was threat-

ening with jail, in a show of unity. A new

phrase entered the political lexicon in Ky-

iv: “Oboronnaya koalitsiya,” or defence co-

alition. That evening he called up

Ukraine’s 200,000 army reserves. The fol-

lowing day he declared a state of emergen-

cy across Ukraine.

The hard way

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian

minister of defence, said at the time that

the country’s military leadership was

working off two base scenarios—one bad,

one worse. The first assumed that Moscow

would allow itself a strategic pause, per-

haps taking the opportunity to rotate tired

troops, before moving into the parts of the

Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts which the

separatists claim but do not occupy. In the

past, Mr Putin has often paused, or even

taken a tactical step back, to throw oppo-

nents off balance. Some of Mr Zelensky’s

intelligence officials thought the war

which would follow might largely be con-

fined to the existing conflict area and terri-

tory the separatists seized in 2014 but later

lost, such as Slovyansk. Such a war might

find more favour with Russians.

That assessment differed starkly from

the one offered by America and Britain.

They had believed for months that Mr Pu-

tin intended something much larger. An

action limited to Donbas would have given

him little of value: indeed it might have

thrown away a good position. While the

oblasts in which the two rebel republics sit

were still part of Ukraine, the separatist’s

claims could be used to disrupt Ukraine’s

policy.

That was the point of the “Minsk ac-

cords” negotiated by Russia, Ukraine,

France and Germany—the so-called Nor-

mandy group. Those accords, which

brought a bout of major battles in the Don-

bas to an end in 2015, required that the sep-

UKRAINE Luhansk RUSSIA

Oblast

Donetsk

Oblast

Donetsk

Mariupol

Kharkiv

Luhansk

Controlledby

Russian-backed

separatists

Belgorod

Slovyansk

Kramatorsk

75 km

Kyiv

Moscow

Source:Organisationfor Security and

Co-operationinEurope, Feb nd 0

Explosions

On the brink Other ceasefire violations

Ceasefire violations in Donetsk and Luhansk reported by OSCE, by both sides

Source:OrganisationforSecurityandCo-operationinEurope

,00

,000

,00

,000

00

0

Explosions Otherviolations

(^1815225121922)
January0 February
Feb 10th Russia and Belarus
begin military exercises
Feb 12th US orders evacuation
of Ukraine embassy sta
Feb 17th Nursery damaged in Luhansk shelling
Feb 18th Thousands evacuated
from Donetsk and Luhansk
Jan23rdBritainwarnsthatRussia
isplottingregimechangein Kyiv
Jan14thUSwarnsRussia
ispreparingfalse-flag
operationtojustifyinvasion
← Dec 3rd 2021 US intelligence warn that Russia
plans “multi-front” invasion of Ukraine