On Monday, during the celebrations of Victory in WWII in Russia, we will reach another turning point in the war in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin must claim some kind of victory on the battlefield. But what will he do next? Will you declare a preliminary victory and negotiate peace? Will you keep the scenario on the battlefield unchanged? Will it escalate the war effort to take all of Ukraine and even eventually take the conflict to other countries?
The most feared possibility is that he will use a nuclear weapon to try to end the conflict. But would he be capable of it?
These are some of the questions that military and political analysts have been trying to answer in recent days. Two news items released in the last week, about the performance of American intelligence in Ukraine, could greatly influence Putin’s calculations.
Leaks of information to the press revealed that information provided by the US about Russian combat units helped the Ukrainians to kill several generals on the battlefield.
US intelligence also allegedly helped Ukraine locate the cruiser Moscow, the then flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, enabling a missile and drone strike against it on April 13. The ship sank a day later.
Added to the supply of attack weapons to Kyiv (such as tanks, artillery and missiles), these information leaks may suggest to Putin that Western powers are acting directly in the war (and not just providing indirect support for the defense of the Ukraine, as Washington claimed at the start of the war).
In parallel, the possible entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO (Western military alliance) puts even more pressure on Moscow. This is because they corroborate the eastward trend of the alliance, which motivated the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the minimum necessary for Ukraine to accept peace is for Russian troops to retreat to the positions where they were on February 23, before the Russian invasion.
This would mean that Russia would definitely win Crimea and parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in Donbas. On the other hand, if he accepts these terms, Putin will lose the land corridor conquered by his troops, which connects Russia to Crimea, passing through major cities such as Mariupol, Berdiasnk, Melitopol and Kherson. He would also have to give up trying to conquer highly industrialized regions rich in natural gas and coal in the Donbas region.
So what are the (known) options that Putin has?
Stop fire
Zelensky said that not all “bridges” were destroyed to reach a peace agreement. Putin can declare that Russia is satisfied with current achievements on the battlefield and accept a ceasefire, in which Ukraine would commit to giving up its intention to join NATO.
Propaganda in Russian state media would ensure that citizens shared the view that “Military Operation Ukraine” was successful and that a preliminary victory was achieved.
But that would be counterproductive if Putin’s goal is to keep annexing more of Ukrainian territory – as it would give the West time to send more weapons and train the Ukrainian military in how to use them.
Furthermore, the ceasefire could be interpreted internationally as a sign of weakness from Russia, which would fail in its greater objective of challenging American hegemony in favor of a more multipolar world order.
So the ceasefire scenario seems the least likely of all the options.
declaration of war
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace recently claimed that Putin could turn his “Special Military Operation” – a name used by the Russians to say that the conflict in Ukraine is limited in scope – into open warfare.
With this measure, Putin would unlock mechanisms to increase the conscription of soldiers in the country to reinforce the battlefront. Possibly, all men of military age would be prevented from leaving Russia and would have to wait for the call of the recruitment centers.
According to the specialist website Global Firepower, Russia currently has around 850,000 soldiers in its armed forces. Russia sent around 200,000 to the conflict in Ukraine. In theory, with the increase in conscription, the Russian army could reach a force of up to 1.3 million soldiers in the coming years.
If the number of fighters on the battlefield increases, it is almost certain that Putin will not be content with taking only the Donbas region and can move towards a scenario of conquest of the Ukrainian coast (Odesa, Mikolayv and hundreds of cities around them) or even from other regions of the country, such as the capital Kyiv itself.
Russia has said it will not change the status of its “Special Military Operation”, but this has to be viewed with reservations. Moscow also assured numerous times that it would not invade Ukraine.
But there are factors that could dissuade Putin from taking such a stance. Mass conscription could diminish the government’s popularity. According to a survey by the Levada institute released by the New York Times, 39% of Russians are not paying much attention to the war. But sending more citizens to the battlefield could change that reality and significantly diminish popular support for the conflict.
The scenario could also increase friction with NATO and raise the possibility of direct conflict – something that both Russia and Western powers are avoiding.
Invasion of Moldova
Changing the status of the conflict or not, another possibility raised by analysts is that Putin decides to invade Moldova, which is not part of NATO. This possibility began to gain strength when mysterious explosions were recorded a few days ago in the breakaway territory of Transnistria, which is inside Moldova.
The narrative promoted by the Russians was that Ukraine would be interested in invading Transnistria, which has around 1,500 Russian troops. An eventual Russian invasion of the region could be justified as an action to protect Transnistria.
The operation would be extremely risky for the Russian military, however. That’s because it would involve the amphibious landing of marines in the region and a possible direct confrontation with the defenders of the Ukrainian city of Odesa.
Russia has already lost its flagship in the Black Sea, the cruiser Moscow, due to an alleged missile and drone attack from Ukraine. Since then, the Russian fleet has operated further from the coast. Therefore, an amphibious landing would involve considerable risks for the Russians.
Another deterrent to Russia would be that, invariably, the West would increase economic sanctions on the country and increase arms shipments to Ukraine and Moldova.
As in the previous scenario, this action would greatly increase the possibility of direct conflict between Russia and NATO.
nuclear attack
The most alarming option was never ruled out by Putin: the use of nuclear weapons to end the conflict in Russia’s favor.
In that case, the most likely would be the use of a tactical nuclear bomb. In other words, a warhead with a nuclear potential of one-tenth to half that registered by the Hiroshima bomb in World War II.
It could be launched to destroy an outlying military installation or base, not to level an entire city. As with Japan, this could lead to Ukraine surrendering.
But it’s not that simple. No one knows whether breaking the so-called “nuclear taboo” could end a war or trigger a global nuclear conflict, with all the lethal consequences for humanity that we hear about throughout the Cold War.
That is, the action could, instead of ending the war in Ukraine, trigger the Third World War from a possible direct retaliation by NATO.
But it is also possible that precisely fearing this possibility, NATO prefers to withdraw from the conflict after the detonation of a Russian nuclear device – thus providing Putin with an almost immediate victory.
Undoubtedly, this scenario is the one with the greatest impact, but the one with the least possibility.
Elevation of rhetoric
On the other side of the spectrum, the low-impact, high-possibility scenario is an elevation of war rhetoric in Monday’s speech, but without causing major practical changes on the battlefield.
In it, Putin could emphasize in his speech the military victories already obtained and reinforce the need to win the Battle of Donbas.
This would be possible because Russia has been making slow but consistent advances in the theater of operations – mainly due to the massive use of artillery.
Moscow may also step up attacks on Ukraine’s strategic infrastructure to prevent Western weapons from reaching the eastern front.
The Kremlin can continue to systematically put pressure on the Ukrainians on the ground and slowly take over the Donbas region and expand the size of the land corridor in the south.
In parallel, there would be the consolidation of Russian administration over invaded cities, such as Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol.
This scenario would give a slightly more predictable pace to the war and take some of the world’s attention away from the conflict.
However, he would become neither less violent nor less dangerous. Violent because the number of military and civilian casualties would only tend to increase. Dangerous because the longer the war goes on, the possibility increases that a miscalculation on the battlefield will cause the war to spread across Europe with possible direct NATO involvement.
Notice
Starting this week, the column and the live Guerra Jogos will once again have a weekly frequency. The texts are only published again on the weekend and the lives will take place again on Thursday nights on the Gazeta do Povo YouTube channel. During the first two months of the war in Ukraine, we had opted for a momentary intensification of coverage.
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