Will Putin Attack Europe?

As the talks aimed at terminating the Russian war in Ukraine are taking shape, experts and politicians speculate whether an armistice or a peace treaty may secure Europe from risks associated with Putin's imperialistic policies. Dozens of assessments warning about the almost inevitable Russian military incursions into the Baltic states, Poland,[1] or even Germany,[2] are made on a daily basis with some analysts addressing more exotic options like, for example, a military expedition into Svalbard,[3] where the Soviets, and later the Russians have been for a long time developing their economic presence. European governments take these challenges seriously, with some of them trying to prepare for the Russian invasion by 2030,[4] and increasing their military budgets to cope with the growing threat.[5]

Under such an uncertainty it seems important to investigate whether the Kremlin possesses both the desire and the resources to project its aggressive plans beyond the Ukrainian territory. An answer to this question is vital in drafting any consistent strategy for the coming decades for Kyiv and the European powers, whatever the future American attitude to the conflict might be.

(Source: RIA Novosti)

A European Ukraine Would Be A Signal That A European Russia May Also Exist

Knowing quite well that Putin's actions have been unpredictable for decades, I nevertheless would advocate a kind of a "middle" forecast based on an assumption that Russia will refrain from invading Europe (under which I mean nations that hare part of either the European Union, NATO, or both) but at the same time will do its best to continue the ongoing war in Ukraine until the collapse of Ukrainian statehood and full occupation and subjugation of Ukraine by Russia, or until Putin's death, whichever comes first. To my mind, there are many quite obvious reasons for taking such a scenario as the most probable.

Why has Putin been obsessed with the "Ukraine problem" for most of his rule? I would argue that this hatred was caused not by his fears of NATO enlargement, as he declared in his famous 2008 speech in Bucharest[6] (at that time Ukraine positioned itself as a neutral state,[7] and later in 2010 it declared its non-aligned status,[8] which was abandoned after the Russian annexation of Crimea and its aggression in Donbass in 2014),[9] but originates from Putin's dreams about the restoration of a kind of "loose Empire" in the post-Soviet space. I would not say that Putin wishes to rebuild either the Russian or the Soviet Empires, as they existed in the 19th and 20th centuries (he openly admitted that those who believe such a task could be completed have lost their minds)[10] – but what he definitely wants is to possess distinctive capabilities of influencing, if not directing, the policies of neighboring states, which he believes to be "sovereign, but not independent."[11]

Ukraine, I would argue, has been the most "rebellious" nation among all the post-Soviet countries: In 1991, it was the main force that had derailed the signing of the "new Union treaty" promulgated by the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev;[12] later it proposed the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, but failed to ratify its basic treaty;[13] in the 1990s, Ukraine continuously turned down any Russian proposals to join different versions of the Customs Union; in 2004, it opposed the election of a "pro-Russian" presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, in what was the most Moscow-influenced election ever conducted in a post-Soviet nation;[14] and later Ukraine actually declared itself the first former Soviet Republic apart from the Baltic states that has seen its future in the European Union.

All Putin's efforts – both economic, like his 2004 and 2009 gas trades and his 2013 loan scheme, or political – failed to prevent this pro-Western drive to evolve. For Putin, losing Ukraine was a nightmare since, on the one hand, it had symbolic value for Russia's history as a source of Russia's statehood[15] and one of the three constitutive elements that turned Rus' into Russia when Muscovy, Novgorod, and Kiyv became "reunited" in the mid-17th century;[16] on the other hand, its close ties to Russia underscored the difference between the three "Slavic" peoples (those of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus) and the "Europeans" that proved that Russia might be organized and ruled in a different way. To be brief, I would say that a European Ukraine would be a signal that a European Russia may also exist, which has been unacceptable for Putin and his gang.

To Outlive Putin Rather Than To Defeat Him

Putin's hatred toward Ukraine and Ukrainians has grown over the years until it culminated in the purely nationalistic assumptions that filled his famous article on "the historical unity of the Russians and Ukrainians" published in 2021.[17] The ruler of the Kremlin cannot recognize Ukrainians as a separate nation – he believes in the artificiality of the Ukrainian language, and even more in the arbitrariness of Ukraine's borders, drawn in the 20th century by Soviet leaders "ignoring" the "historical realities," first among them is the fact that much of its territory was conquered by the Russians from the Turks in the 18th century.[18] All these factors force Putin to make his best to destroy Ukraine's sovereignty – and this is why I would argue he will never stop in this enterprise.

After being offset in 2004, he made another attempt between 2013 and 2015 – and, as his hopes for influencing Kyiv through a pro-Russian but formally Ukrainian Donbass faded, he opted for a full-scale aggression in 2022. If in the coming months he succeeds in securing a ceasefire, it would be just a temporary armistice used by Russia for both its own rearmament and for destabilizing the internal situation in Ukraine through a "hybrid war," in which the Kremlin has become so experienced. When the U.S. diverts its attention either to struggle with China or to other vital tasks, Russia will once again take on the weakened country, which at that time may not be a priority for the West, just as South Vietnam dropped out of the agenda after 1973 Paris Agreements.[19]

To conclude, I would say that Putin is committed to the "final solution to the Ukrainian question" in just the same way his Fascist teacher Adolf Hitler was committed to the "final solution" to the Jewish one. Only his physical demise may ignite a hope for the end of Russia-Ukraine hostilities – so the West should try, as I said more than ten years ago, rather to outlive Putin than to defeat him,[20] since the latter option may be too costly for the entire world.

The second part of the topic I want to debate – whether Putin may attack not only Ukraine but some other European nations (Baltic countries are most often depicted as potential targets)[21] – cannot be reliably explained by just mentioning Putin's "imperialism." Contrary to many analysts who readily embrace this possibility, I would say that such a development seems nowadays to be highly unlikely for several reasons.

Russia's Unique Attitude Toward Ukraine

The first reason is the one that I would call "ideological." As I already mentioned, Putin's hatred toward Ukraine has very deep roots. For no less than two decades (and even longer, in some sense),[22] the Kremlin has been indoctrinating its subjects, insisting that Ukrainians were traitors who forgot their common heritage with the Russians, and who were ungrateful for all that Russia (or the Soviet Union) did for them, such as increasing Ukraine's territory or even "inventing" the modern Ukraine,[23] and assessing moreover that Russia possesses "a natural right" over at least a significant part of Ukraine's territory[24] and that Western influence on Ukraine is in fact featuring Russia as its further target, etc.

As a result, by the start of the war, a large majority of Russians were convinced that Ukraine had fallen victim to the West and should be liberated (as it was in 1939, for example) so it could freely rejoin Russia. When Russian troops advanced toward Kyiv in February 2022 many servicemen sincerely expected to be greeted with flowers.

Moreover, a long history of Russian-Ukrainian coexistence became an important prerequisite for Russians to consider Ukrainians "our brothers," and so a re-unification with that country was seen as definitely beneficial for Russia. I would say that such an attitude was indeed unique – there are very few Russians who believe that their country should invade and attack either Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, or even the Baltic states. Russians realize quite well that these territories historically never belonged to Russia. Therefore, to mobilize the Russian people for another imperialistic war, a massive and, what is much more important, long-term campaign should be launched. Yet, the Kremlin leadership simply has neither the time nor the arguments to do so.

The second reason might be called "geopolitical." After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the main dividing line between Russia and "the West" shifted to the East from the Western border of the GDR (East Germany) and Czechoslovakia to as far as the eastern frontiers of Estonia and Lithuania. Nevertheless, the new line was in some part decisive: Baltic states became incorporated into the EU and NATO, while, for example, Belarus was at the same time taken into a "Union state" with the Russian Federation.[25] Ukraine was a unique country on the map that "was not claimed" by any of the parties – even Moldova became a ground for a military quarrel between pro-Western and pro-Russian forces as early as in 1992.

I would argue that this situation has fueled Ukraine's problems since both the European nations and the Russian leadership considered it a part of their sphere of influence (the EU elaborated a concept of "Eastern partnership," while Russia took Ukraine for its "near-abroad").[26] As the contest between Russia and the West intensified, Ukraine became poisoned to turn into a battlefield. While Belarus and the Baltic states have generally been considered as firmly belonging to one of the sides, I would say that in 2020 the Western nations behaved toward the uprising in Belarus more or less in the same way they did in the cases of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 or Czechoslovakian revolution of 1968. Such a positioning also makes Ukraine unique and forces me to hope that Russia's aggressiveness toward it may not be replicated in other cases. To finalize this part, I would argue that the assault on either Poland or Germany looks even less probable since, even during the Soviet times, these nations were considered independent and located outside Russia's imperial reach. I believe that Putin's war against Ukraine is largely caused by not only purely imperial but also various ethnocultural reasons, which seem to be inapplicable to other neighboring countries.

The third reason might be called a "practical" one. At the time when Putin ordered his troops to cross Ukraine's border, the Kremlin's strategical insights were based on an assumption that any mid-sized country cannot stand up against the Russian military,[27] and the West would rather remain a bystander as it did in case of the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea and parts of the Donbass after 2014. Putin's team was amazed and embarrassed by both the bravery and resilience of the Ukrainian army, and by the sanctions introduced by the Western countries that almost derailed the Russian economy in the first weeks of the war.[28]

Moreover, Putin's Blitzkrieg then turned into a war of attrition that Russia has a good chance of winning, but at an incredible price. Even if one should not take the Ukrainian calculations of the Russian casualties seriously,[29] there is no doubt that more than 200,000 Russian troops were killed[30] and the major part of the Russian military's equipment, including tanks, cannons, and armored vehicles, were destroyed on the battlefield. Saying that Russia's military-industrial complex will face no shortage in orders in the coming five to ten years,[31] Putin himself admitted the complexity of the losses.

Russia Possesses Enough Resources To Continue Its War Against Ukraine

Taking all this into account, it seems very unlikely that the Kremlin might order another attack – this time not against a no-one-needs nation, but against a NATO country that should be defended by three nuclear powers under the provisions of the NATO charter.[32] I would say that even while the Russian leadership hypothetically might have been reflecting on invading Estonia or Lithuania, or about cutting a "corridor" through Polish territory toward the Kaliningrad Oblast back in late 2010s, nowadays such an option seems to be "off the table." Russia, as I had said repeatedly, possesses enough resources to continue its war against Ukraine and try to exhaust it further,[33] but it definitely cannot afford another large war against an additional adversary.

As one may know, many European politicians claim that Ukraine now acts as a European defender against Russian hordes,[34] which has stopped Putin's armies that otherwise would reach Riga or Warsaw if not Berlin. But, to my mind – even though I have no intention of underestimating Ukraine's bravery and courage – such a claim should face at least some doubts.

Considering the background of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, its timeline, and Moscow's behavior during the war, I would say that it is much more reasonable to see the Russian attack in Ukraine as an episode that can hardly endanger the "collective West." This, of course, should not be taken as an excuse for not providing Kyiv all the help and assistance that might be needed to repel Russian forces, just as should be done in any case when one nation tries to defeat and conquer another, as is enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations…

*Dr. Vladislav Inozemtsev is the MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project Special Advisor, and Founder and Director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies.