Tens of thousands of Russian troops and military hardware, including artillery, tanks, warplanes and helicopters are amassing and carrying out war games on all sides of Ukraine.
High concentrations have been spotted in Russia’s Klimovo in the north and Russia’s Belgorod in the northeast, in Russian-annexed Crimea in the south and in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region in the southwest, as well as sizable groups carrying out military exercises in Belarus in the north.
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As a spring invasion of mainland Ukraine looms large, Yevhen Marchuk, a retired Ukrainian general and former defense minister, warned on March 27 that the crisis is intensifying, saying that Russia has now moved to the “second phase” of its plan “to eliminate” Ukraine as a nation.
“There are many signs of an imminent attack,” he told journalists at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center. “Now it is in fact war time.”
Estimates of Russian troops on war footing vary, from the West’s estimates of more than 30,000 to the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council’s calculations of 100,000 soldiers ready to strike.
There are, in addition, 700 tanks and armed personnel carriers staging near the eastern border, according to Dmitry Tymchuk, head of the Center for Military and Political Research in Kyiv. He added there are 240 warplanes and helicopters, 150 artillery systems of various calibers, and 100 units of multiple rocket launcher systems.
In Transnistria, Tymchuk noted, there are 2,000 Russian boots on the ground, of whom 800 are commandoes.
But presidential chief of staff Serhiy Pashynsky said at a briefing that “no activity of Russian troop mobilization” has been spotted near Ukraine’s borders for two days now.
Still, experts noted that the battle-ready force is capable of cutting Ukraine off from the sea with a westward thrust, chopping perhaps a quarter of Ukraine’s territory into Moldova.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at a plan to do this in his March 18 speech at the Kremlin, during which he spoke of righting historical wrongs, specifically calling out the loss of those regions of Ukraine.
“After the (1917) Revolution, the Bolsheviks… included into the Ukrainian Soviet Republic significant territories of southern Russia. This was done without taking into consideration the national composition of residents, and today its modern southeast of Ukraine,” Putin said.
Taking advantage of Ukraine’s weakened and ill-prepared military, he seized Crimea with barely a shot fired, unconventionally taking the Black Sea peninsula in a flash and catching Ukraine and the world flat-footed. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said that half of its 18,000 troops there have switched allegiance to Russia, while Tymchuk said it was “much less.”
And yet, with all that is known, Putin could still catch Ukraine and the West unprepared again if Russian troops should storm the mainland, experts say.
Experts talk of scope of invasion
The Russian forces amassing at the Ukrainian border are “very, very sizable and very, very ready,” U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s top commander, warned on March 23. “And that is very worrisome.”
The tens of thousands of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border, combined with others put on alert and mobilized, give Putin the ability to move quickly into Ukraine without the U.S. being able to predict when it happens, CNN reported top level American officials as saying.
Moreover, a classified U.S. intelligence assessment obtained by the news agency shows that a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine is more likely than previously thought. Two administration officials with whom CNN spoke emphasized that a Russian incursion is not certain, but pointed out several worrying signs in the past three to four days.
“This has shifted our thinking that the likelihood of a further Russian incursion is more probable than it was previously thought to be,” CNN quoted one of the U.S. officials as saying.
What mainland invasion could look like
If Russia does invade, it would do so with swift precision, military experts say.
Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor and post-Soviet security affairs expert who has researched security forces in Russia and Ukraine, said Russia’s aim would be “as quickly as possible to seize the bits of eastern Ukraine they need and want to hold. And then… to lock that down.”
“A classic Putin model is to change the ground and turn to the rest of the world and say ‘what are you going to do about it?’” he added.
What Russia would do first, Galeotti explained, is “completely disrupt Ukrainian political and military communications systems.”
“We would probably see missile and air raids on military bases, bridges, transportation routes throughout the country… as much as anything else, to slow down Kyiv’s ability to muster and use all its forces,” he said. “The Russians almost certainly have positioned some special elements in eastern Ukraine. Plus, they have allies and sympathizers. So probably they would be able to seize the airports in places like Donetsk. And what they would do is bring in paratroopers very quickly. Paratroopers are great at seizing things very quickly.”
Breedlove said that in a series of military maneuvers on the Ukrainian border, the VDV corps of Russian paratroopers and the air force already have been preparing to spearhead a possible push deep into Ukraine. The armed paratroopers have been training to take over “enemy airfields and airports as bridgeheads of an overall advance,” he said, adding that such a thrust would be closely followed by the tank and motorized army brigades that have been training and mobilizing along the Ukrainian border.
The Russian Defense Ministry has denied it is preparing to invade Ukraine.
Admiral Ihor Kabanenko, a former first deputy chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, claims that a special operation is now being conducted in Ukraine to “destabilize the situation in a technological way” by duly formed and motivated groups, acting by means of bribery and blackmail.
Russia’s so-called fifth column, including extremist groups, is on Ukraine soil, he said, and working systematically and at various levels to create a pretext for Russia to invade.
Marchuk, said that he doesn’t rule out proxies – as in Crimea – first trying to seize key administrative buildings and infrastructure in eastern cities leading up to the invasion.
Ukraine’s security forces and border guards have caught on, though. Three operations jointly conducted by the Border Guard Service and Interior Ministry have since March 4 denied more than 8,200 Russians entry into Ukraine as of March 25. National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andriy Parubiy stated on March 27 that between 500 to 700 Russians are now being denied entry daily.
Additionally, the nation’s television and radio regulator has stopped broadcast of four Russian TV channels. “Would you allow the enemy to broadcast its propaganda on your territory?” stated Oleksiy Melnyk, director of foreign relations and international security programs at Razumkov Center.
Russia has protested the measure on freedom of speech grounds. Pro-Russian authorities in Crimea several weeks ago abruptly switched off almost all Ukrainian TV channels and replaced them with channels originating from the Russia.
Putin’s end game
Putin’s ultimate goal is to install a pro-Kremlin government in Kyiv, experts say.
He tried doing this in the four years of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s rule, observed Marchuk, but failed, “and the EuroMaidan squelched his plan altogether.”
What he has succeeded through Russian spies, said Melnyk, is to weaken Ukraine’s defense and security capabilities. He pointed to ex-security service chief Oleksandr Yakimenko and ex-Defense Minister Dmytro Salamatin, who are residing in Moscow and giving interviews to Russian television channels.
“Whether by use of force or through other tactics, Putin’s main goal is to install his own pro-Russian, very cooperative government in power,” said Melnyk.
Putin’s war crimes
Putin’s entire Crimean operation committed an array of brazenly illegal acts and, some would argue, war crimes. Among them, Russia violated the 1994 Budapest Agreement it signed to guarantee Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity, as well as the 1997 Black Sea basing agreement of troop size and movements.
Chief among its transgressions was the violation of the United Nations Charter and 1975 Helsinki Final Act. They include respect for the rights in inherent sovereignty, refraining from the threat or use of force, territorial integrity of states, non-intervention in internal affairs, among others.
Reports of torture and inhuman treatment have been cited in Crimea. Whole scale plundering of state and private property has begun.
Massive military mobilization along Ukraine’s borders itself, says Tymchuk, “is an act of war.”
More heinous, in the view of many, is Putin’s hiding of his troops’ identities and even his denial of their presence, as well as his use of women and children as human shields during the storming of Ukrainian bases, all in violation of Geneva conventions on acceptable warfare.
Ukraine’s readiness
But should Russia invade the mainland, Ukraine is prepared, according to Marchuk. “A Russian assault on Ukraine would not be done as fast as they suppose,” he said.
Although Kyiv has refrained from declaring a state of war, it has started to mobilize its military and tighten security at its borders. Aside from denying many Russians entry and blacking out four Russian TV channels, it has been forming a national guard of 20,000.
More needs to be done, said Melnyk, starting with spreading out fighter jets and preparing for a partisan war by training units and setting up a network to distribute its vast cache of small arms.
Still, Ukraine’s military, hollowed out by years of corruption and mismanagement, would not be a match for Russia’s, which by all accounts has amassed its best units and hardware around Ukraine’s boundaries.
Ukraine is already at war
Melnyk of the Razumkov Center think tank says there are plenty of reasons to argue that Ukraine is at war. At least four or five actions performed by the Russian Federation perfectly fit in the definition of “armed aggression” stated in Ukraine’s “law on defense,” he said.
“From the military point of view, the current situation in Ukraine is classified as a war, despite no armed fight back from our side,” said Kabanenko on March 26. “The government has to admit this fact and give up its actual strategy of non-provoking, act in a decisive and tough manner following a new counter-strategy.”
A number of facts exist to justify a state of war declaration, he explained. Numerous Russian troops are concentrated near Ukraine’s border, and elite “attack groups” are operating in Crimea. In particular, Uragan multiple rocket launch ers, as well as SU-24 frontline bombers are concentrated there.
“That is offensive power (not for defense). Its range of action covers the whole territory of Ukraine. We are also aware that the Russian Federation has prepared an airborne component to conduct a deep-penetrating airborne operations 500 kilometers and more deep (into Ukraine),” Kabanenko said.
Selling arms to the enemy
Media reports in mid-March said that despite Russia’s aggression, Ukraine’s vast industrial military complex is still selling products to it, one of its top clients. According to Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, two military production plants on March 13 shipped radar and guidance instruments for Russian tanks and aircraft. A factory in Zaporizhya in the south makes all the engines for Russia’s Mi-8, Mi-26, and Mi-35 helicopters, for example.
State-owned UkrOboronProm, which consolidates a number of multi-disciplinary enterprises in the defense industry, didn’t respond to a Kyiv Post inquiry on whether it is still fulfilling Russian orders. Likewise, Ukrspetseksport, the state-owned arms trading company, failed to respond to the Kyiv Post’s request for comments.
If Ukraine is still carrying out Russian orders, it should stop, said Valeriy Chaliy, deputy general director of Kyiv-based Razumkov Center.
“If Ukraine wants support from the West, it must act by example and stop selling arms to Russia and implement these measures,” he said.
This week, Germany led the way by announcing it was suspending military trade with Russia, its leading supplier of weapons. France has yet to make the move. Meanwhile in Canada, New Democratic Party Foreign Relations critic Paul Dewear said it makes no sense to impose political sanctions while continuing to sell weapons and military equipment to Russia. Canada sells military electronics, aircraft parts and spare parts for communications equipment to the Russians.
Kyiv Post editors Christopher J. Miller and Mark Rachkevych can be reached at miller@kyivpost.com andrachkevych@kyivpost.com.
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