Know any good source on why Putin wants to invade Ukraine? I have yet to hear a theory which sounds like how the real world works, and absent that it’s hard to guess how anything will play out past the next month-or-so.
Current thoughts on Russian military objectives, based on comment threads here and my own general models...
Multiple people mentioned that annexation is an unlikely objective for Putin.
Putin could install a puppet government, and then leave. I expect that would be highly unstable; it would only be a matter of time until the Ukrainian populace overthrew a puppet government without a Russian occupation to back it.
Putin could install a puppet government, and then set up a long-term occupation. This is the “Russia’s Iraq/Afghanistan” scenario. Again, I doubt that it would be stable long-term, although with state media trying to make the war look good to the Russian populace it could remain popular for a while.
Putin could dictate terms with the pre-existing Ukrainian government, then leave once a treaty is signed. At a minimum, that treaty would probably include abandoning claim to the predominantly-Russian territories of Ukraine, promising not to join Nato, and probably various other things, with an emphasis on symbolic victories for Russia. This is the most stable outcome I see at the moment, and is probably what I’d be aiming for if I were Putin right now.
Putin might not have an exit strategy at all. This could be either stupidity or (more likely on my models) making a short-term/long-term tradeoff similar to the puppet government scenarios.
The general question of “is Putin accepting a long-term mess for a short-term win?” still seems very central to understanding and predicting the situation. If he’s not, then treating with the current government is the only plausible exit strategy I currently see. I could certainly imagine the treaty-exit adding up to a very popular war, which I currently think is Putin’s main priority here.
My best guess is very similar to you fourth scenario.
I think, that one of the main Putin’s goal (maybe his very terminal goal, but I’m not sure) is to solve the Ukrainian problem, and then quit the game as a triumphant (after president’s election at 2024; but he has option to continue work on it until 2030, if he choose so and nothing changes significantly). Putin’s time is relatively short—he is 69 years old, and there are some rumors (not very reliable, thought) that he is somehow sick. So achieving his main goal in two years is very preferably to him, but there are still another six president’s years, if he need it and can afford it.
Ukraine is one of few ex-USSR republics that is not loyal to Putin’s government, and he obviously perceive that as a big problem. So the main Putin’s current goal, as far as I can assume, is to create artificial loyal states (on the basis of pretending to independence Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast of Ukraine) between Russia and NATO. There are already couple of such states with limited recognition around Russia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are commonly recognized as parts of Georgia), so it is appropriate way for Putin to create a buffer zone.
Installing a puppet government at the Ukraine, as far as I can see, is the secondary goal, but also desired.
Speaking of price of the invasion in terms of Russian economics, there is Russian National Wealth Fund, which continuously grew up during almost all COVID pandemic. There were thoughts earlier, that this NWF was intended for possible war (especially considering, that pandemic was not reason to spend it). Today I say news, that government is planning to spend it to support the economics (personally, I consider it as a relatively good sign—if they started to spend the stock for a rainy day then they currently do not plan to escalate current situation even further).
There are a few dimensions in my general models that have a bearing on the short-term v long-term question, though I am deeply uncertain how they actually shake out. The two that are top-of-mind right now are:
Personal incentives. The background for this is the importance of oligarchs to the conduct of Russian affairs, and the significance of members of this group to Putin specifically. Sanctions from the Crimea affair very publicly took aim at (what were believed to be by the sanctioners) the personal fortunes of people judged important to Putin on the theory that they would apply pressure to him so they could recover their wealth.
Several of these oligarchs are involved in things like the natural gas pipeline which goes through Ukraine, and other questions of trade between Russia and Europe. It seems plausible to me that one of the payoffs Putin expects is effectively being able to distribute opportunities here to his key supporters as spoils, and probably also profit from them himself.
To the extent this is personal profit it is short term; to the extent that it is satisfying key political allies it is long term.
Avoid Eurocentrism or: China. The dimension I want to emphasize here is great power competition in Asia, as distinct from trade relations or diplomacy which are the key concerns for the US and Europe. In particular I point to the Belt and Road Initiative as something designed to bring areas which were traditionally under the political/economic influence of Russia under the political/economic influence of China instead. I cannot claim this directly, but it seems deeply plausible to me that Putin or his cohort judge an increasing China as a bigger threat than Europe, and being a junior economic power on all sides is viewed as intolerable.
It is worth pointing out that while I think that Russia is the biggest loser in China’s rise, I don’t see anything about this from the nominal experts. It just appears inevitable to me according to the historical precedents, and supported by geopolitical logic.
My working theory is that Putin could be worried about some kind of internal threat to himself and his power.
He’s betting a lot on his image of strong, dangerous leader to keep afloat. However the Russian constant propaganda that keeps up that image was starting to be more and more known and ineffective.
Europe also has been trying to get rid of Russian influence through gas for a while, and would likely have managed in a few more years. Then they’d be free to be less accepting of his anti-human rights antics.
Ukraine joining Nato would have made him look extremely weak, and it would have made it easier to make him look weak in the future.
Once his strong image faded he might have been worried of reforming forces within Russia to manage oust him out of office with an actual election and mass wide protests if the ball got rolling enough, or he might be worried about someone taking a more direct approach to eliminate him (he killed enough people to be extremely worried about being murdered, I think).
So this is his extreme move to deny weakness. Better to be seen as the tyrant who’s willing to do anything if provoked, than the ex-strong leader who can be taken out of office.
“The Russian public really likes this invasion” is definitely one of the higher-prior hypotheses, good to know that it lines up with the data.
Assuming that is the main driver, the obvious next line of thought is that a few years down the line Russia will likely be in the same sort of quagmire occupation that the US was in with Iraq and Afghanistan, Russian public opinion will turn strongly against, and Russia will have to back out and Putin will lose a lot of popularity. Presumably this possibility is obvious to Putin (I have no impression that he’s an idiot), so either he’s making very aggressive short-term-over-long-term political tradeoffs, or for some reason he thinks an occupation of Ukraine won’t be an obvious giant mess. Some possibilities:
State-controlled media changes the problem (compared to the Iraq/Afghanistan versions) - maybe Putin does expect the occupation to be a giant mess, but thinks that won’t be obvious to the Russian public.
Putin expects to be able to leverage the short-term political gains for other long-term political wins which will outweigh the long-term political costs-to-Putin of the war.
Putin is getting old, and has abandoned long-term plans.
Putin expects an occupation of Ukraine to be easy??
I’m from Russia. The issue of war splits our society. Young people and intellectuals are mostly against the war, anti-war rallies were held today in most major cities of Russia. But the older generation (conservatives) mostly support the war, some even speak out for the complete annexation of Ukraine (this is hardly possible in reality). Written with the help of an online translator, my English is very bad, there may be mistakes.
In Russia, extremely many are dissatisfied with the collapse of the USSR and the deprivation of Russia’s superpower status, therefore they support the return of the former territories or at least political influence on them. In 2014, I also fervently supported the return of Crimea, where almost the entire population is Russian, although I hated Putin. But this was followed by a protracted economic crisis, a drop in household incomes, so now support for Putin’s actions is less than at that time.
Opinions of few people from Kyrgyzstan, middle age+
Nobody understands why this invasion started (this seem to be true for Russians too), did not want Russia to invade, scared and disheartened by war. Many have relatives in Ukraine. But! Suspect some unknown reasons for this to happen, probably intel on NATO deployment (Invasion seems rushed, but I’d consider it weak evidence—numbers of alternative explanations.)
Also a bit of clarification on 2014 popularity: it was invasion semantically but casualties extremely low, while right now we are looking at rivers of blood. Wonder how Russian population reacting.
In addition to Konstantin words. Many conservators in Russia honestly believe that USA/NATO want to destroy Russia and to seize Russian resources. They don’t think that Ukraine and Ukrainians are the agents. They believe that Ukrainians are the pawns of the West. They think that Russian army are saving Ukrainian people from NATO agents and crazy Ukrainian nationalists.
A decline to accept the agency of opponents is very common for Kremlin propaganda and Kremlin supporters.
Honest question: why is annexation judged to be impossible? I know nothing about Russia’s internal politics, and only a little about Ukraine’s but directly annexing conquered Ukrainian territory seems like a completely natural outcome to me.
… the maximal nature of Russia’s goals – conquest and regime change – impose considerable challenges all on their own. Russian troops will need not only to seize the country but also hold it and support the administration of whatever government Putin puts in place, against what is likely to be intense popular resistance. They will also need to take Ukraine’s major cities, particularly Kyiv. Urban warfare is brutally difficult and has in the past not been a particular strength of the Russian Federation.
That does not mean Ukrainian resistance is pointless here. Instead, both the initial, conventional stage of resistance and the likely secondary insurgency phase push towards the same objectives: making Russian occupation so costly in blood and treasure that it cannot be maintained. Here the Ukrainians have a real chance of eventual success if they remain committed to the effort, while the challenges for Russia are immense. Consider the US experience: Ukraine is about 10% more populous and about a third larger than Iraq. Whereas the funds for Iraqi insurgents often had to come via limited dark money or relatively weak state sponsors (like Iran) Ukrainian resistance, meanwhile, is likely to be bankrolled and supplied by the richest countries in the world able to use the traditional banking and finance system to do it (either covertly or overtly) and move those supplies through transport routes in well-developed NATO countries whose airspace is effectively inviolate. And finally, Russia has less than half of the United States’ population and about a sixth of the US’ economic production (adjusted for purchasing power). The United States in Iraq also had allies, both in the region and also providing troops; Russia has no real allies in this fight, though China may seek to keep Russia from becoming entirely economically isolated.
Russia is thus embarking, with fewer friends and fewer resources, on a war that may prove to be far more difficult than the wars the United States struggled with in Afghanistan and Iraq. And of course the very fact that Ukraine can win this in the long run will serve to stiffen Ukrainian resistance. Meanwhile, it is not entirely clear that Putin’s war has widespread popular support in Russia, though of course getting any clear sense of the popular mood within an authoritarian state is extremely difficult. Nevertheless, flagging public support at home, even in an authoritarian state where there are no political channels for that opposition, can translate into morale problems at the front, as Russians learned in 1917.
In Ukraine, the majority will not vote for joining Russia. It is impossible to preserve even the visible legitimacy of such an annexation. When Crimea was annexed, the majority voted for joining Russia. In Luhansk and Donetsk (two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine), the majority voted for independence from Ukraine. These referendums are not recognized by most countries, but there is no doubt about the reality of such sentiments of the local population. It won’t work that way with the rest of Ukraine.
Putin himself? His explicitly stated ambition is to reclaim all of the former USSR. Why should we not believe it? Ukraine is the first step. Why should we not expect more of the same?
Putin has also threatened “consequences greater than any you have faced in history” if the West intervenes. What can this mean but nuclear weapons?
If he goes after the Baltic states next, merely being members of NATO will not protect them. What will protect them is NATO actually going to war with Russia over them, despite Putin’s threats.
Check Dugin’s The Foundations of Geopolitics. I’ve posted some translated excerpts here on fb
Also: when it comes to world-modelling, you may disagree with Dugin on his view of geopolitics, but that’s not really important for the explanation. It’s enough that Putin’s actions make sense in Putin’s models. Given that the book has been highly predictive of Putin’s foreign policy over the past 20 years, it seems that the simplest explanation is that Putin is at least partially thinking in those terms. In Dugin’s model of geopolitics, invasion is necessary and has long-term goals.
This article by Tomas Pueyo looks at Russia from a historical and geographical perspective. It makes the case that much of Russia’s foreign policy is based on the need to protect Moscow, which is in the middle of the vast Eurasian plain with no natural barriers for defense, and so is vulnerable to attack from all directions. So Russia’s strategy has been to expand as much as possible, to either control directly the land where invasions might have otherwise come from (e.g. Siberia), or failing that, to at least create predictably controllable buffer states (the former Soviet republics) between them and their rivals. From that perspective, Ukraine may have been becoming too unpredictable as a buffer state recently, giving Russia an incentive to want to control the land directly.
I like a lot of things about this article—it is a high-effort piece, and the graphics are helpful and relevant. That being said, the author is relying on a bunch of conventional-wisdoms that turn out to be false and as a result, the article essentially raises the defense-in-depth point without having any persuasive power.
A central confusion is rivers, which the article treats as a dealbreaker for commerce to and from Siberia but as not existing for military purposes or commerce with Europe. Rivers are major physical obstacles to cross, and often a major transport advantage to follow, so they are extremely militarily important.
Sidenote: there is a close link between commerce and military activity, on account of both requiring the movement of stuff from A to B. Given no other information, ease-of-invasion should be ranked according to the volume of commerce between two locations.
There are several outright historical errors, such as cavalry being obsolete with the appearance of gunpowder because of guns stopping charges.
The point about different ethnicities is raised without being connected to anything else, and then the claim is made that this requires authoritarian government because...reasons? Why did the United States get to skip out on authoritarian expenditures if domestic diversity is the driver, rather than foreign invasion?
In short, the graphics are good and the defense-in-depth point is probably valid, but not for the reasons explained in the article.
A major caveat: the points raised in the article are bad for thinking about object-level reality, but they are extremely common beliefs. This is not only among the public, but extends to people like Congress and non-combat branches of the military. I therefore expect the same is true of Russian legislators, oligarchs, and military people. Therefore it merits higher consideration as a description of the social reality underlying the reasons for invasion.
I’ve been trying to think of this too. It seemed like Putin already had everything he could have wanted with a frozen conflict in Ukraine, preventing it from joining NATO. This is what I’ve come up with:
Ukraine might have still been able to join the EU, which would mean an attack on Ukraine would activate the EU defensive alliance, which would in turn activate NATO. I’m not sure how realistic this was.
Ukraine might have been admitted to NATO anyway, with the ongoing conflict. This seems unlikely.
Ukraine might have been able to defeat the Russian army in a conventional war over just the DPR/LPR, likely in a blitz that would leave it without the breakaway republics. If Ukraine accepts the loss of Crimea, this would allow it to join NATO. Picture the Armenian-Azerbaijani war, but between Ukraine and Russia, with Ukraine using Western technology and drones. I find this somewhat more plausible, but it’s not clear why Putin couldn’t have simply recognized the DPR and LPR and stationed Russian soldiers there as a “tripwire” similar to NATO in the Baltics.
I think the overarching reason is exactly what Putin says it is: having Ukraine join NATO is unacceptable for both the Russian national image and for Russian national security. Putin’s issue in Ukraine has always been EU/NATO membership and the departure of Ukraine from the Russian sphere.
One aim I could imagine having in Putin’s shoes, that seems better achieved by slow telegraphing of war over Ukraine followed by actual war (vs by a frozen conflict), is gathering information about how the West is likely to respond to any other such wars/similar he might be tempted by.
(I know nothing of geopolitics, so please don’t update from my thinking so. I got this idea from this essay)
I sort of get it and I want to believe it. But it makes no actual sense and that’s terrifying. The west would barely care if Putin was doing this in the *stans or Georgia. The only other target to go to after Ukraine is Moldova and then the Baltics.
If he goes in the Baltics that’s war with NATO. Nothing about the reaction to Ukraine makes a difference there. It’s black and white NATO vs not NATO.
I feel like the most parsimonious explanation is he’s not being very rational, rumors about him having terminal cancer are also pushing me towards that belief. It really doesn’t seem like anyone on the Russian side saw this coming either, which is extra scary.
The Baltic states are part of NATO, but I doubt it really makes a difference for the average American. Putin saying to the US “don’t get involved, or we will send nukes” may be just as effective before invading Estonia than before invading Ukraine.
That has been a key problem of NATO’s defense posture for many decades: How believable is it that the US will risk complete self destruction to protect the freedom of European countries? And iirc that was one reason during the cold war to switch from “massive retaliation” to “flexible response” as a deterrence doctrine.
As it was then, even now, I think, it is not about assuring the adversary that the US will be involved—there can’t be certainty about that. It is more about changing the probabilities for a US involvement. That is the main reason behind the troop movements to NATO’s eastern border, e.g. US F-35 fighter jets and an infantry batallion. An operation killing American soldiers in combat is massively more risky (and therefore, hopefully, much less likely) than an operation without this risk.
Telling the US “Get out of the Baltic states (even though you have guaranteed their safety), or else” is quite different from “Don’t get into Ukraine, or else”. Furthermore, there are troops in the Baltic states of other NATO countries with nuclear weapons, France and the UK.
THIS. Putin is saying the same thing for 20 years. He doesn’t want to have border countries to be NATO members which he sees an extended arm for the United States (which military is probably true). Putin wanted to join the NATO, NATO wants Russia to be more western. Putin feels bullied. NATO keeps going extending EAST and broke the promise that was given after fall of the Berlin Wall. NATO argues that every country is free to join if they want to. That’s the conflict. Even on the 15th February Putin said he doesn’t want war he just wants assurance that Ukraine isn’t joining NATO.
To put it easy to understand: Putin feels bullied by NATO.
A lot of people keep saying that Putin feels afraid of NATO. I really dislike this meme. Russia has been an imperial aggressor in Eastern Europe(and beyond) for centuries. The belt of countries from the Baltic to the black sea have been the Russian Empire’s victims again and again since the 1700s through to the fall of the USSR.
Now that Eastern European countries are joining a defensive alliance suddenly Putin feels threatened?
Why? He has nukes. The end. No one is ever invading Russia. It is just impossible. NATO is not going to invade Russia.
All NATO membership does is make Eastern European countries expensive or impossible to bully. This is what really bothers Putin.
There is nothing an abuser hates more than when their victims can protect themselves. He is not afraid of NATO invading Russia, an absurd idea that again would NEVER happen, because it takes more than the whims of one crazy dictator to trigger a NATO attack.
Putin is afraid that the people he views as his rightful prey and subjects are now able to defend themselves. That’s it. He’s a predator and he wants his subjects vulnerable.
Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt by taking the BS rhetoric about NATO encroachment seriously. As if NATO was bribing and invading countries one by one to get them to join the way he does geopolitics. Pure projection by a psychopath.
Why? He has nukes. The end. No one is ever invading Russia. It is just impossible. NATO is not going to invade Russia.
Russia has nukes with aging delivery mechanisms that are outpaced more and more each year. If NATO missile defense can change the calculus such that retaliation from a first strike seems survivable, MAD is gone and Russia is vulnerable. If NATO cyber capabilities could Stuxnet the Russian arsenal, MAD is gone and Russia is vulnerable.
″ If NATO missile defense can change the calculus such that retaliation from a first strike seems survivable”
Lol. Survive retaliation? Depends on what you mean by surviving. Maybe only get 70% of your country destroyed instead of 100%, maybe only get 70% of the population subsequently die from nuclear winter? Not much of a survival.
Stuxnet the Russian arsenal? Are you serious? That barely worked in a baby nuclear arsenal, do you think it would work in the nation with the greatest nuclear arsenal, and with some of the most capable communities of cyber warfare?
Why would NATO want to pretty much “just almost” destroy the world just to invade Russia?
There are depressingly many Washington think tanks who produce whitepapers on “winnable” nuclear exchanges with Russia and China. It does indeed depend on what you mean by surviving. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
The problem is not what the enemy will do, it’s what the enemy can do.
Maybe no need to attribute any qualities to those papers. If, for instance, the situation was such that such war was inevitable, then yes, it makes sense to know if we could “survive” someway.
My claim was simply that NATO would never invade Russia knowing that it would take at least civilization collapsed. It’s completely self-defeating. The person to which I responded said “it’s not as simple as”Russia has nukes, the end”, in the context of a possible NATO invasion of Russia. All I meant to say was it effectively is.
Our strategy and our Alliance are exclusively defensive. [...] This will also be true of a united Germany in NATO. The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops beyond the territory of the Federal Republic gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees. Moreover we could conceive of a transitional period during which a reduced number of Soviet forces could remain stationed in the present-day GDR. This will meet Soviet concerns about not changing the overall East-West strategic balance.
It is clear that he is speaking about not deploying NATO troops on the territory of former GDR, not about a broader commitment to not enlarge NATO. Gorbachev himself confirms that “the topic of NATO expansion was not discussed at all”. So this is just another lie of Putin.
So what’s the end state Putin wants to achieve through invading Ukraine? If Ukraine becomes part of Russia, then Russia will be bordering with NATO states.
Well, then it’s reasonable to assume that Putin’s desired end state is not complete annexation of Ukraine. However, even if Ukraine is an Austria/Finland-type neutral party, outside the Russian bloc but also outside of the American bloc, Putin’s security goals are achieved. The minimum criteria for Putin’s ideological goals being achieved seems like internal autonomy for Donetsk and Lugansk, the maximum would be the annexation of those areas to Russia in the style of Crimea. So annexation is unnecessary ideologically and strategically, and seems unlikely as a goal.
Know any good source on why Putin wants to invade Ukraine? I have yet to hear a theory which sounds like how the real world works, and absent that it’s hard to guess how anything will play out past the next month-or-so.
Current thoughts on Russian military objectives, based on comment threads here and my own general models...
Multiple people mentioned that annexation is an unlikely objective for Putin.
Putin could install a puppet government, and then leave. I expect that would be highly unstable; it would only be a matter of time until the Ukrainian populace overthrew a puppet government without a Russian occupation to back it.
Putin could install a puppet government, and then set up a long-term occupation. This is the “Russia’s Iraq/Afghanistan” scenario. Again, I doubt that it would be stable long-term, although with state media trying to make the war look good to the Russian populace it could remain popular for a while.
Putin could dictate terms with the pre-existing Ukrainian government, then leave once a treaty is signed. At a minimum, that treaty would probably include abandoning claim to the predominantly-Russian territories of Ukraine, promising not to join Nato, and probably various other things, with an emphasis on symbolic victories for Russia. This is the most stable outcome I see at the moment, and is probably what I’d be aiming for if I were Putin right now.
Putin might not have an exit strategy at all. This could be either stupidity or (more likely on my models) making a short-term/long-term tradeoff similar to the puppet government scenarios.
The general question of “is Putin accepting a long-term mess for a short-term win?” still seems very central to understanding and predicting the situation. If he’s not, then treating with the current government is the only plausible exit strategy I currently see. I could certainly imagine the treaty-exit adding up to a very popular war, which I currently think is Putin’s main priority here.
My best guess is very similar to you fourth scenario.
I think, that one of the main Putin’s goal (maybe his very terminal goal, but I’m not sure) is to solve the Ukrainian problem, and then quit the game as a triumphant (after president’s election at 2024; but he has option to continue work on it until 2030, if he choose so and nothing changes significantly). Putin’s time is relatively short—he is 69 years old, and there are some rumors (not very reliable, thought) that he is somehow sick. So achieving his main goal in two years is very preferably to him, but there are still another six president’s years, if he need it and can afford it.
Ukraine is one of few ex-USSR republics that is not loyal to Putin’s government, and he obviously perceive that as a big problem. So the main Putin’s current goal, as far as I can assume, is to create artificial loyal states (on the basis of pretending to independence Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast of Ukraine) between Russia and NATO. There are already couple of such states with limited recognition around Russia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are commonly recognized as parts of Georgia), so it is appropriate way for Putin to create a buffer zone.
Installing a puppet government at the Ukraine, as far as I can see, is the secondary goal, but also desired.
Speaking of price of the invasion in terms of Russian economics, there is Russian National Wealth Fund, which continuously grew up during almost all COVID pandemic. There were thoughts earlier, that this NWF was intended for possible war (especially considering, that pandemic was not reason to spend it). Today I say news, that government is planning to spend it to support the economics (personally, I consider it as a relatively good sign—if they started to spend the stock for a rainy day then they currently do not plan to escalate current situation even further).
There are a few dimensions in my general models that have a bearing on the short-term v long-term question, though I am deeply uncertain how they actually shake out. The two that are top-of-mind right now are:
Personal incentives. The background for this is the importance of oligarchs to the conduct of Russian affairs, and the significance of members of this group to Putin specifically. Sanctions from the Crimea affair very publicly took aim at (what were believed to be by the sanctioners) the personal fortunes of people judged important to Putin on the theory that they would apply pressure to him so they could recover their wealth.
Several of these oligarchs are involved in things like the natural gas pipeline which goes through Ukraine, and other questions of trade between Russia and Europe. It seems plausible to me that one of the payoffs Putin expects is effectively being able to distribute opportunities here to his key supporters as spoils, and probably also profit from them himself.
To the extent this is personal profit it is short term; to the extent that it is satisfying key political allies it is long term.
Avoid Eurocentrism or: China. The dimension I want to emphasize here is great power competition in Asia, as distinct from trade relations or diplomacy which are the key concerns for the US and Europe. In particular I point to the Belt and Road Initiative as something designed to bring areas which were traditionally under the political/economic influence of Russia under the political/economic influence of China instead. I cannot claim this directly, but it seems deeply plausible to me that Putin or his cohort judge an increasing China as a bigger threat than Europe, and being a junior economic power on all sides is viewed as intolerable.
It is worth pointing out that while I think that Russia is the biggest loser in China’s rise, I don’t see anything about this from the nominal experts. It just appears inevitable to me according to the historical precedents, and supported by geopolitical logic.
My working theory is that Putin could be worried about some kind of internal threat to himself and his power.
He’s betting a lot on his image of strong, dangerous leader to keep afloat. However the Russian constant propaganda that keeps up that image was starting to be more and more known and ineffective.
Europe also has been trying to get rid of Russian influence through gas for a while, and would likely have managed in a few more years. Then they’d be free to be less accepting of his anti-human rights antics.
Ukraine joining Nato would have made him look extremely weak, and it would have made it easier to make him look weak in the future.
Once his strong image faded he might have been worried of reforming forces within Russia to manage oust him out of office with an actual election and mass wide protests if the ball got rolling enough, or he might be worried about someone taking a more direct approach to eliminate him (he killed enough people to be extremely worried about being murdered, I think).
So this is his extreme move to deny weakness. Better to be seen as the tyrant who’s willing to do anything if provoked, than the ex-strong leader who can be taken out of office.
It sounds realistic.
This is more or less what Kasparov believed back in 2015:
You can read Putin’s own words on the topic.
That definitely matches my models of things-Putin-would-say on the topic, independent of his actual motivations.
For what it’s worth, I wrote a Twitter thread which attempted to piece together a partial theory.
“The Russian public really likes this invasion” is definitely one of the higher-prior hypotheses, good to know that it lines up with the data.
Assuming that is the main driver, the obvious next line of thought is that a few years down the line Russia will likely be in the same sort of quagmire occupation that the US was in with Iraq and Afghanistan, Russian public opinion will turn strongly against, and Russia will have to back out and Putin will lose a lot of popularity. Presumably this possibility is obvious to Putin (I have no impression that he’s an idiot), so either he’s making very aggressive short-term-over-long-term political tradeoffs, or for some reason he thinks an occupation of Ukraine won’t be an obvious giant mess. Some possibilities:
State-controlled media changes the problem (compared to the Iraq/Afghanistan versions) - maybe Putin does expect the occupation to be a giant mess, but thinks that won’t be obvious to the Russian public.
Putin expects to be able to leverage the short-term political gains for other long-term political wins which will outweigh the long-term political costs-to-Putin of the war.
Putin is getting old, and has abandoned long-term plans.
Putin expects an occupation of Ukraine to be easy??
I’m from Russia. The issue of war splits our society. Young people and intellectuals are mostly against the war, anti-war rallies were held today in most major cities of Russia. But the older generation (conservatives) mostly support the war, some even speak out for the complete annexation of Ukraine (this is hardly possible in reality).
Written with the help of an online translator, my English is very bad, there may be mistakes.
Thanks, this is very helpful and whatever translator you’re using works great.
Thank you for your input. The readership here skews hard toward Europe/America. I appreciate your addition of a voice from Ukraine/Russia.
By the way, your online translator works great.
The link here was posted in the chat of the translation group of Yudkovsky’s articles about AI. Your post was interesting.
Among those supportive of the war, what do they want from it? Why do they want to invade?
In Russia, extremely many are dissatisfied with the collapse of the USSR and the deprivation of Russia’s superpower status, therefore they support the return of the former territories or at least political influence on them. In 2014, I also fervently supported the return of Crimea, where almost the entire population is Russian, although I hated Putin. But this was followed by a protracted economic crisis, a drop in household incomes, so now support for Putin’s actions is less than at that time.
Opinions of few people from Kyrgyzstan, middle age+
Nobody understands why this invasion started (this seem to be true for Russians too), did not want Russia to invade, scared and disheartened by war. Many have relatives in Ukraine. But! Suspect some unknown reasons for this to happen, probably intel on NATO deployment (Invasion seems rushed, but I’d consider it weak evidence—numbers of alternative explanations.)
Also a bit of clarification on 2014 popularity: it was invasion semantically but casualties extremely low, while right now we are looking at rivers of blood. Wonder how Russian population reacting.
Evidence?
“looking at” as in “anticipate”
In addition to Konstantin words. Many conservators in Russia honestly believe that USA/NATO want to destroy Russia and to seize Russian resources. They don’t think that Ukraine and Ukrainians are the agents. They believe that Ukrainians are the pawns of the West. They think that Russian army are saving Ukrainian people from NATO agents and crazy Ukrainian nationalists.
A decline to accept the agency of opponents is very common for Kremlin propaganda and Kremlin supporters.
Hello there! Will you translate something else?
And yes, even commentators with a different point of view in Runet are called paid.
Honest question: why is annexation judged to be impossible? I know nothing about Russia’s internal politics, and only a little about Ukraine’s but directly annexing conquered Ukrainian territory seems like a completely natural outcome to me.
Maybe not impossible, but very hard:
(source)
In Ukraine, the majority will not vote for joining Russia. It is impossible to preserve even the visible legitimacy of such an annexation. When Crimea was annexed, the majority voted for joining Russia. In Luhansk and Donetsk (two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine), the majority voted for independence from Ukraine. These referendums are not recognized by most countries, but there is no doubt about the reality of such sentiments of the local population. It won’t work that way with the rest of Ukraine.
Nothing impossible, just less politically convenient than installing a puppet regime. A mere change of hats.
I think Putin will not overtake Ukraine and just install a new government that guarantees that it won’t join the NATO.
Putin himself? His explicitly stated ambition is to reclaim all of the former USSR. Why should we not believe it? Ukraine is the first step. Why should we not expect more of the same?
Putin has also threatened “consequences greater than any you have faced in history” if the West intervenes. What can this mean but nuclear weapons?
If he goes after the Baltic states next, merely being members of NATO will not protect them. What will protect them is NATO actually going to war with Russia over them, despite Putin’s threats.
Check Dugin’s The Foundations of Geopolitics. I’ve posted some translated excerpts here on fb
Also: when it comes to world-modelling, you may disagree with Dugin on his view of geopolitics, but that’s not really important for the explanation. It’s enough that Putin’s actions make sense in Putin’s models. Given that the book has been highly predictive of Putin’s foreign policy over the past 20 years, it seems that the simplest explanation is that Putin is at least partially thinking in those terms. In Dugin’s model of geopolitics, invasion is necessary and has long-term goals.
You were ahead of the curve here.
This article by Tomas Pueyo looks at Russia from a historical and geographical perspective. It makes the case that much of Russia’s foreign policy is based on the need to protect Moscow, which is in the middle of the vast Eurasian plain with no natural barriers for defense, and so is vulnerable to attack from all directions. So Russia’s strategy has been to expand as much as possible, to either control directly the land where invasions might have otherwise come from (e.g. Siberia), or failing that, to at least create predictably controllable buffer states (the former Soviet republics) between them and their rivals. From that perspective, Ukraine may have been becoming too unpredictable as a buffer state recently, giving Russia an incentive to want to control the land directly.
I like a lot of things about this article—it is a high-effort piece, and the graphics are helpful and relevant. That being said, the author is relying on a bunch of conventional-wisdoms that turn out to be false and as a result, the article essentially raises the defense-in-depth point without having any persuasive power.
A central confusion is rivers, which the article treats as a dealbreaker for commerce to and from Siberia but as not existing for military purposes or commerce with Europe. Rivers are major physical obstacles to cross, and often a major transport advantage to follow, so they are extremely militarily important.
Sidenote: there is a close link between commerce and military activity, on account of both requiring the movement of stuff from A to B. Given no other information, ease-of-invasion should be ranked according to the volume of commerce between two locations.
There are several outright historical errors, such as cavalry being obsolete with the appearance of gunpowder because of guns stopping charges.
The point about different ethnicities is raised without being connected to anything else, and then the claim is made that this requires authoritarian government because...reasons? Why did the United States get to skip out on authoritarian expenditures if domestic diversity is the driver, rather than foreign invasion?
In short, the graphics are good and the defense-in-depth point is probably valid, but not for the reasons explained in the article.
A major caveat: the points raised in the article are bad for thinking about object-level reality, but they are extremely common beliefs. This is not only among the public, but extends to people like Congress and non-combat branches of the military. I therefore expect the same is true of Russian legislators, oligarchs, and military people. Therefore it merits higher consideration as a description of the social reality underlying the reasons for invasion.
I’ve been trying to think of this too. It seemed like Putin already had everything he could have wanted with a frozen conflict in Ukraine, preventing it from joining NATO. This is what I’ve come up with:
Ukraine might have still been able to join the EU, which would mean an attack on Ukraine would activate the EU defensive alliance, which would in turn activate NATO. I’m not sure how realistic this was.
Ukraine might have been admitted to NATO anyway, with the ongoing conflict. This seems unlikely.
Ukraine might have been able to defeat the Russian army in a conventional war over just the DPR/LPR, likely in a blitz that would leave it without the breakaway republics. If Ukraine accepts the loss of Crimea, this would allow it to join NATO. Picture the Armenian-Azerbaijani war, but between Ukraine and Russia, with Ukraine using Western technology and drones. I find this somewhat more plausible, but it’s not clear why Putin couldn’t have simply recognized the DPR and LPR and stationed Russian soldiers there as a “tripwire” similar to NATO in the Baltics.
I think the overarching reason is exactly what Putin says it is: having Ukraine join NATO is unacceptable for both the Russian national image and for Russian national security. Putin’s issue in Ukraine has always been EU/NATO membership and the departure of Ukraine from the Russian sphere.
One aim I could imagine having in Putin’s shoes, that seems better achieved by slow telegraphing of war over Ukraine followed by actual war (vs by a frozen conflict), is gathering information about how the West is likely to respond to any other such wars/similar he might be tempted by.
(I know nothing of geopolitics, so please don’t update from my thinking so. I got this idea from this essay)
I sort of get it and I want to believe it. But it makes no actual sense and that’s terrifying. The west would barely care if Putin was doing this in the *stans or Georgia. The only other target to go to after Ukraine is Moldova and then the Baltics.
If he goes in the Baltics that’s war with NATO. Nothing about the reaction to Ukraine makes a difference there. It’s black and white NATO vs not NATO.
I feel like the most parsimonious explanation is he’s not being very rational, rumors about him having terminal cancer are also pushing me towards that belief. It really doesn’t seem like anyone on the Russian side saw this coming either, which is extra scary.
The Baltic states are part of NATO, but I doubt it really makes a difference for the average American. Putin saying to the US “don’t get involved, or we will send nukes” may be just as effective before invading Estonia than before invading Ukraine.
That has been a key problem of NATO’s defense posture for many decades: How believable is it that the US will risk complete self destruction to protect the freedom of European countries? And iirc that was one reason during the cold war to switch from “massive retaliation” to “flexible response” as a deterrence doctrine.
As it was then, even now, I think, it is not about assuring the adversary that the US will be involved—there can’t be certainty about that. It is more about changing the probabilities for a US involvement. That is the main reason behind the troop movements to NATO’s eastern border, e.g. US F-35 fighter jets and an infantry batallion. An operation killing American soldiers in combat is massively more risky (and therefore, hopefully, much less likely) than an operation without this risk.
Telling the US “Get out of the Baltic states (even though you have guaranteed their safety), or else” is quite different from “Don’t get into Ukraine, or else”. Furthermore, there are troops in the Baltic states of other NATO countries with nuclear weapons, France and the UK.
THIS. Putin is saying the same thing for 20 years. He doesn’t want to have border countries to be NATO members which he sees an extended arm for the United States (which military is probably true). Putin wanted to join the NATO, NATO wants Russia to be more western. Putin feels bullied. NATO keeps going extending EAST and broke the promise that was given after fall of the Berlin Wall. NATO argues that every country is free to join if they want to. That’s the conflict. Even on the 15th February Putin said he doesn’t want war he just wants assurance that Ukraine isn’t joining NATO.
To put it easy to understand: Putin feels bullied by NATO.
A lot of people keep saying that Putin feels afraid of NATO. I really dislike this meme. Russia has been an imperial aggressor in Eastern Europe(and beyond) for centuries. The belt of countries from the Baltic to the black sea have been the Russian Empire’s victims again and again since the 1700s through to the fall of the USSR.
Now that Eastern European countries are joining a defensive alliance suddenly Putin feels threatened?
Why? He has nukes. The end. No one is ever invading Russia. It is just impossible. NATO is not going to invade Russia.
All NATO membership does is make Eastern European countries expensive or impossible to bully. This is what really bothers Putin.
There is nothing an abuser hates more than when their victims can protect themselves. He is not afraid of NATO invading Russia, an absurd idea that again would NEVER happen, because it takes more than the whims of one crazy dictator to trigger a NATO attack.
Putin is afraid that the people he views as his rightful prey and subjects are now able to defend themselves. That’s it. He’s a predator and he wants his subjects vulnerable.
Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt by taking the BS rhetoric about NATO encroachment seriously. As if NATO was bribing and invading countries one by one to get them to join the way he does geopolitics. Pure projection by a psychopath.
Russia has nukes with aging delivery mechanisms that are outpaced more and more each year. If NATO missile defense can change the calculus such that retaliation from a first strike seems survivable, MAD is gone and Russia is vulnerable. If NATO cyber capabilities could Stuxnet the Russian arsenal, MAD is gone and Russia is vulnerable.
It isn’t as simple as “He has nukes, the end.”
″ If NATO missile defense can change the calculus such that retaliation from a first strike seems survivable”
Lol. Survive retaliation? Depends on what you mean by surviving. Maybe only get 70% of your country destroyed instead of 100%, maybe only get 70% of the population subsequently die from nuclear winter? Not much of a survival.
Stuxnet the Russian arsenal? Are you serious? That barely worked in a baby nuclear arsenal, do you think it would work in the nation with the greatest nuclear arsenal, and with some of the most capable communities of cyber warfare?
Why would NATO want to pretty much “just almost” destroy the world just to invade Russia?
There are depressingly many Washington think tanks who produce whitepapers on “winnable” nuclear exchanges with Russia and China. It does indeed depend on what you mean by surviving. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
The problem is not what the enemy will do, it’s what the enemy can do.
Maybe no need to attribute any qualities to those papers. If, for instance, the situation was such that such war was inevitable, then yes, it makes sense to know if we could “survive” someway.
My claim was simply that NATO would never invade Russia knowing that it would take at least civilization collapsed. It’s completely self-defeating. The person to which I responded said “it’s not as simple as”Russia has nukes, the end”, in the context of a possible NATO invasion of Russia. All I meant to say was it effectively is.
I looked up the source of Putin’s claims that NATO promised not to expand, and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Putin cites the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990, during negotations about NATO deployment in Germany. Here is the quote in context:
It is clear that he is speaking about not deploying NATO troops on the territory of former GDR, not about a broader commitment to not enlarge NATO. Gorbachev himself confirms that “the topic of NATO expansion was not discussed at all”. So this is just another lie of Putin.
There are NATO troops in every NATO country, though.
So what’s the end state Putin wants to achieve through invading Ukraine? If Ukraine becomes part of Russia, then Russia will be bordering with NATO states.
Well, then it’s reasonable to assume that Putin’s desired end state is not complete annexation of Ukraine. However, even if Ukraine is an Austria/Finland-type neutral party, outside the Russian bloc but also outside of the American bloc, Putin’s security goals are achieved. The minimum criteria for Putin’s ideological goals being achieved seems like internal autonomy for Donetsk and Lugansk, the maximum would be the annexation of those areas to Russia in the style of Crimea. So annexation is unnecessary ideologically and strategically, and seems unlikely as a goal.