Putin’s Endgame

By Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Gerard Roland (UC Berkeley)

There is every evidence that Russian troops are fighting the Ukrainian army on the Ukrainian soil. This Russian invasion is a further escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russian-sponsored separatists and terrorists in the East of Ukraine. As soon as the Ukrainian forces were about to take over cities in Eastern Ukraine, Mr. Putin raised the stakes and sent Russian military to rescue the separatists from certain defeat. Both sides have experienced heavy losses, but the Russian government denies any involvement. The excuses sound increasingly surreal (e.g., Russian paratroopers got lost). Furthermore, dead Russian soldiers appear to be buried in secret and journalists trying to reveal these losses are harassed, intimidated and severely beaten. Finally, Russia shows no sign of being willing to engage in genuine negotiations to establish peace—all previous attempts turned into farce when Russian calls for peace were followed with more Russian weapon deliveries and casualties.

After the cut-off of gas supplies in 2014, the infamous annexation of Crimea earlier this year, the delivery of weapons (including  tanks, artillery and BUKs that shot down Malaysian airline civil airliner MH17) to separatists, and now an invasion in Eastern Ukraine, one may ask where Mr. Putin is going to stop. We believe that Mr. Putin has been making calculated choices all along the way. His objective in Ukraine is to destabilize the new government that emerged from the Euromaidan movement that toppled Yanukovich. The ultimate motivation for this is to consolidate his own power at home and to prevent a similar democratic revolution in Russia. In each step of the Ukrainian conflict, he has weighed the benefits of each move, from the point of view of this strategic objective, against the costs. The current invasion is motivated by the need to prevent a military defeat of the separatists and to keep the conflict in Eastern Ukraine alive.

Has Ukraine lost modern media war?

By Yaroslav Markevych (Ukraine), Daryna Mykhayliv (University of Leeds), Oleksandr Talavera (University of Sheffield).

The power of mass-media has been widely recognized. Goebbels mentioned in his speech to Nazi party members in Berlin in 1928 “Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right.” Nowadays, distribution of news is almost instant, thousands of journalists look for sensations to attract wider audience of readers and watchers. Furthermore, the same event could be presented in a number of ways so that attitude of audience might be manipulated. This results in information wars in which different parties are fighting for influence over wider audience. Apart from the armed conflict, Ukraine and Russia have a fierce media war.

Internally Displaced People, Ukraine 2014.

By Oleksandr Talavera (University of Sheffield, UK)

How to help internally displaced people (IDP) is one of the key problems faced by Ukrainian government after Crimea annexation by Russia and fighting with separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Eastern Ukraine. This is a new problem for Ukraine as it never faced any war conflict in its modern history. At the same time a number of former Soviet Union republics faced this issue. For example, at least 34,900 IDPs, mainly from Chechnya and North Ossetia, are reported in Russia. 172,000 people were displaced in Southern Kyrgyzstan after the conflict between the Kyrgyz majority and the Uzbek minority in June 2010. The scale of the problem was particularly large in Georgia and Azerbaijan. After Karabakh war about 600,000 people were displaced in Azerbaijan which constitutes 6.2% of population. Moreover, about 5% of Georgians were displaced after conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Times Report Casts Shame on Obama's Handling of Ukraine Crisis

By Paul Gregory (Hoover Institution and University of Houston)

To the surprise of many, but not to those who understand him, Vladimir Putin has upped his aggression against Ukraine in the wake of the shooting down of MH17 by his separatist allies. (For a definitive account of separatist guilt, see AP What Happened: The Day Flight 17 Was Downed.) The Russian military is now routinely shelling Ukrainian positions from across the border, hoping to elicit a response so they can claim a Ukrainian attack. Russia’s drones are targeting troop positions. Even more sophisticated missiles are flooding across the border, ignoring the lesson of the Malaysian jet tragedy. Russian MIGs are shooting down antiquated Ukrainian SU fighter aircraft, depriving Ukraine of control of its own skies. (After shooting down MH17, a rebel commander called east Ukraine air space “our skies.”) Putin’s propaganda war continues unabated, spinning fantastic conspiracy theories and accusing Ukraine of war crimes as they fight back against professional Russian mercenaries. Russian state television informs its viewers that the true enemies are the United States and NATO. Ukraine is just a lackey carrying out orders from above.

MH17

By Yuriy Gorodnichenko (UC Berkeley)

I flew to Ukraine on July 16, 2014. It was a typical flight and travelers thought they could abstract from the war in the East of Ukraine. The next day changed everything. Pro-Russian separatists shot down MH17, a passenger airplane with 298 people aboard, 80 of which where children. This is an unspeakable crime that has shocked everybody in Ukraine and around the globe. Citizens of the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, the USA and many other countries had no connection to the conflict in Ukraine but they became victims of the indiscriminate violence of the separatists. 

Putin's Failing Ukraine Scorecard

By Paul Gregory (Hoover Institution and University of Houston)

Press and diplomatic observers appear to have reached a consensus that Vladimir Putin has brilliantly outmaneuvered Europe and the United States with his New Type of War – a mix of masked military aggression, proxy fighters, bluffing with troop maneuvers, intensive propaganda, and the use of human shields. This consensus is wrong.

My scorecard for the half year of hostilities shows that Putin is losing not only the battle for Ukraine but also his drive for the restoration of Russian empire. Unless the West pulls Putin’s chestnuts from the fire with its incessant demands for a cease fire, the Ukrainian theater will go from bad to worse for Putin.