Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo
A Ukrainian serviceman walks through a trench on the front line in the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine, January 27, 2022.
In just a handful of weeks, the massing of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine has become the dominant foreign-policy story, with loose talk of “World War III.” But what are the real interests of those involved in the crisis: the Russians, the West, and the Ukrainians themselves?
I talked to Anatol Lieven, senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry, to try to figure out some of the basics. What is Russia’s favored scenario for Ukraine? Do the Ukrainians want a cloak of protection from the West, or just whatever will prevent war? How does the Nord Stream pipeline play into the growing tensions? What would the United States and NATO actually be willing to do in the event of invasion? And what should the policy response to the crisis be?
An edited transcript of our interview follows.
TAP: What do you think Russia wants with Ukraine? Does it want to occupy it permanently, or just make a quick show of force, or is this merely Putin attempting to extract NATO concessions?
Anatol Lieven: Well, not just Putin, but the Russian establishment wants to keep Ukraine out of Western alliances. While I think that they are perfectly aware that there isn’t actually any chance of Ukraine getting into NATO in the near future, what they’ve seen is the U.S. building up a military relationship with Ukraine short of NATO membership. There are these symbolic gestures which don’t threaten Russia but are irritating: NATO exercises in the Black Sea, ships sailing though territorial waters in Crimea. This shouldn’t need saying, but you know how totally hysterical the U.S. reaction would be if China did anything of this sort in Central America.
The Russians reckoned that, precisely because Ukraine wasn’t going to get into NATO or the EU, possibly ever, it would eventually come back to a friendly relationship with Russia. There are more extreme and less extreme elements in the Russian establishment, just like there are more intelligent and stupid ones. The more intelligent ones, and I think Putin is among them, don’t think Ukraine can get into a Russian alliance. They tried it in 2013 and it was a disaster. They feel they can now live with the situation from before 2014. Over the past year or so, the Russians have started to think that if they see another generation of closed borders with Ukraine, and intensifying measures against the Russian language, the closing of Russian media, eliminating Russians from public life, the historic basis of the relationship will be destroyed, with Ukraine drawing away from Russia and toward the West.
The third thing, if you read what some Russian officials are saying, the Russians always hoped, either a long-term ambition or a hope, that America, to some extent or another, would go home, and Russia, France, and Germany would sit down and regulate the affairs of Europe. Not in the sense of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. But the Russian elite are very much old-style realist in their thinking. They saw this Normandy process and the German-French Minsk-2 agreement as a small first step in that direction. [The Minsk Protocol was an agreement between Russia, France, and Germany to end the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. It was followed by a second peace plan, Minsk-2, in 2015, which included an unconditional cease-fire, armament withdrawal to a 50-kilometer “security zone,” pullout of foreign troops, release and exchange of hostages, and certain Ukrainian constitutional reforms.] Since then, France and Germany have not done anything from the Russian point of view to implement Minsk or seek any agreement. For the moment, there is nothing more to be hoped from the French and the Germans. And then there’s of course the issue of energy.
Let’s talk about that. The State Department said yesterday that a Russian invasion would doom Nord Stream 2. Wouldn’t the Germans have more to say about the fate of Nord Stream than the U.S.? And how much of this conflict is really about energy?
The language there was terribly interesting. The State Department said Nord Stream will be over. The Germans said nothing is off the table, including Nord Stream. They said they would be prepared to discuss ending Nord Stream. Biden may have been stupid to say it out loud but it’s true, how far the Germans will go is dependent on how far the Russians will go.
On the energy issue, it’s obviously particularly important. But we must keep in mind, which is so often forgotten, the Russians are not giving this gas for free. They need the money. Putin depends extremely heavily on energy revenues. The threat of an end, or even if it’s spun out over a long period of time, of gas sales to Europe would be damaging to the Russian economy.
The Russians don’t talk about this in public, but a complete break along these lines would push Russia into the pocket of China. In the long run, this puts eastern Siberia into question. Not that there would be an annexation, but what if you get Chinese immigration and Russians are no longer able to say no. You would need the infrastructure, but China would buy whatever gas Russia has to sell. But if you have a monopoly buyer, they would dictate the price. So that really does have an effect on Russia. But America has very little trade with Russia.
I’ve seen conflicting reports on whether sanctions on Russia, which Congress seems to be heading toward, are likely to be effective. I guess the bigger question is, the U.S. has relied for so long on economic warfare, does it make sense in every case?
Obviously, a point made again and again, this hasn’t worked. It hasn’t worked against Cuba, against Iran, or against North Korea.
And those countries are in much more precarious straits economically than Russia.
If Russia decides that it will invade, it does so knowing that it will face sanctions, and work to resist them. What people get wrong: Yes, sanctions might increase the domestic unpopularity of Putin. But there’s no certainty that such an upheaval would lead to a more pro-Western government in Russia. Nobody is going to run for election in Russia as the apparent representative of the United States.
Something we don’t hear much about in U.S. media is: What do the Ukrainians want? What’s the popular sentiment within the country? Are they looking to break out of Russia’s sphere of influence and come under NATO protection? Or do they want something else?
It is difficult to say here. In the case of Russia, you have a coherent, under Putin, Russian establishment. To be part of it, you sign up to a common set of ideas. There are disagreements, but the overall policy toward Ukraine and the West is the policy of the Russian establishment. There’s no organized or mass opposition to that.
With Ukraine it’s completely different. Historically speaking, until 2014 you had large majorities [who] wanted membership in the EU for obvious reasons: the ability to work in London and Paris, economic aid, etc. Of course, they wanted membership, not being held permanently in a waiting room. But every poll showed two-thirds opposed to NATO membership. And this makes sense if you think of it. Half the country repeatedly voted for parties who wanted to keep close relations with Russia, for economic reasons, cultural reasons, linguistic reasons. Some 20 percent on top of that were afraid of war with Russia.
There’s also bitter disappointment with Ukraine’s economic record since 2014. Its GDP remains one-third of Russia’s. Since it, morally speaking, joined the West, there is strong anti-Russian feeling, but also deep disappointment with the Ukrainian government. Everyone who wins the popular vote sees their popularity go down within a few months. The last few leaders have been at 20 percent, Zelensky is at 10 percent.
I think the majority of the population really fears war and Russian invasion. A lot of them blame Ukrainian extreme nationalists for stirring up trouble in the Donbas. My own reading is, and I hope that this is what Russian intelligence is telling Putin, Russia would be unwise to think invasion would be welcomed by a majority of the population.
I’ve seen some U.S. analysts betting that Russia will get bogged down in an insurgency. Is that right, or is that projection on the part of a country that has seen such counterinsurgencies happen repeatedly?
Unless I’ve been totally misinformed, the Russians would never occupy areas of Ukraine where they would face an insurgency. They wouldn’t occupy Kyiv, they wouldn’t occupy the center of the country or the west. I don’t know whether the east and south would face insurgency. They certainly would face deep popular discontent. Russia would not annex but maybe do like what’s been done in Donbas, or return them to Ukraine in return for a federal system. To do that, you need to be able to demonstrate substantial local support. I’m not sure they would get it. They might.
The dream Russian scenario is if you can get seizure of power in Kyiv by ethnic nationalist extremists. Then you can say to Russian speakers in the east and south, we’ve got to protect you from these maniacs. But neither Poroshenko or Zelensky can be portrayed as a fascist. Some nationalists in Ukraine can absolutely be portrayed as fascists, because they are fascists. But they aren’t in power.
I guess the big question here is, what should U.S. policy be in Ukraine? I’m not sure there’s been a real diplomatic effort with any willingness to make concessions as part of a deal. Everyone expects Congress to institute sanctions, and there’s talk about placing 8,500 troops in Eastern Europe, along with military assistance. Is that supposed to be a deterrent in any way? But what are our interests in Ukraine? What should be our role?
The 8,500 troops for the Baltic states, Poland and the others, are in one sense totally irrelevant. The Russians have no intention of attacking those countries. It would involve huge risks; why would they do that? The only useful role of those troops, I imagine if you get agreements with Russia, then we withdraw our troops and Russia withdraws from the border. It’s an elegant kind of solution.
More widely, there is an element of craziness in U.S. foreign policy. In the present crisis, we’ve said that we’re not going to send troops to defend Ukraine. And this is consistent, remember the Republicans didn’t send troops to defend Georgia in 2008. There’s a very good reason for that, you can say it quickly: It’s China. NATO membership for Ukraine would imply sending to Ukraine a Cold War–style American army, and Cold War–style euro forces: the British forces, anti-tank forces, the British Air Force, and a huge part of the American Air Force. You’re talking about 200,000 U.S. troops backed by the Air Force. The only country I can see drawing benefit from that, other than Ukraine, is China.
Nobody is talking about the fact that the West is not remotely beginning to configure its military along those lines. The German army is a joke. Military funding in Europe is not increasing. I’m surprised people are not laughing. You hear talk about NATO deployments: two Danish aircraft, one Dutch frigate? This is going to frighten the Russians? There’s a basic weirdness here.
I’m not in favor of unilateral concessions to the Russians. But if we have no serious intention of taking in Ukraine [to NATO], what is so terrible about a treaty of neutrality? And neutrality would rule out an alliance with Russia. It would rule out joining the Eurasian Union. There’s also this line of thinking of, if we don’t show force against a Ukraine attack, then the Poles will lose faith in us and move toward Russia. Would one Pole do that?
We’ve trapped ourselves by our own rhetoric into a meaningless position.
