The Ukrainian Border
Offensive or defensive? Interpreting Russiaโs military build-up near the Ukrainian border
The international community was alarmed when, in the beginning of April, Russia started amassing its armed forces near the Ukrainian border. Many in the West expressed fear that such large-scale military build-up could potentially lead to a Russian offensive and a spill-over of the seven-year conflict from the Kremlin-controlled eastern Ukraine to other parts of the country. Anders Aslund, Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council and former professor at CERES, assessed concentration of forces as โparticularly serious,โ maintaining that โPutin certainly has good reasons to opt for a military offensive. Crucially, he faces Duma elections in September, and his favorite electoral tactic is to manufacture a small, victorious war.โ By contrast, Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, stated that Moscowโs actions resembled more like a deterrence than an offensive, which followed Kyivโs own reinforcements in eastern Ukraine.ย
One way or another, soon after the military build-up, President Joe Biden made a long-awaited phone call to his Ukrainian colleague Volodymyr Zelensky, during which he reaffirmed โthe United Stateโs unwavering support for Ukraineโs sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russiaโs ongoing aggression in the Donbass and Crimea.โ Biden had his next phone call with Vladimir Putin, urging him to โde-escalate tensionsโ in Ukraine. Following this conversation, on April 15, Washington imposed new sanctions against Moscow. According to the statement issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, sanctions resulted from Russiaโs alleged interference in the 2020 presidential elections, as well as its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. In the wake of the U.S. sanctions, in order to reduce the tension near the Ukrainian border, President Zelensky urged Putin to meet โat any location of Ukraineโs conflict-hit Donbassโ to which Putin responded affirmatively. However, instead of Donbass, the Russian leader invited Zelensky to Moscow โat any time convenient for himโ to discuss possibilities of โdeveloping the bilateral tiesโ between the two countries.ย
Coincidentally, towards the end of April, soon after the exchange of invitations between Zelensky and Putin, Moscow announced that it had started withdrawing its armed forces from the Ukrainian border. Sergei Shoigu, Russian Defense Minister, highlighted that the troop pullback had not been influenced by the U.S. sanctions, in particular, and Western pressure, in general, adding that Russia would continue taking any measures necessary to defend itself. This sentiment was shared by Zelensky himself, who claimed that the withdrawal of the Russian army did not mean that Ukraine โshould not be ready for the possible return of troops to the borders of our country at any moment.โย
Indeed, according to Russiaโs Interior Ministry, throughout the past two years, more than 527,000 people in Donbass, eastern Ukraine, have been granted Russian citizenship following Putinโs order issued in 2019 to simplify the process of obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of this conflict zone. And considering the fact that Moscow has emphasized numerously that it will defend its citizens regardless of their country of residence, more than half a million people with Russian passports in eastern Ukraine can constitute a possible threat to Kyiv. It is true that, currently, the tension has been de-escalated, but the real question is – how long will this respite last?ย
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Prepared by Tina Dolbaia, May 2021
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References:
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the positions of the Ukrainian military on the administrative border with the temporarily occupied Crimea (2021, April 27). Official Website of President of Ukraine. Retrieved April 29, 2021, from: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/volodimir-zelenskij-pobuvav-na-poziciyah-ukrayinskih-vijskov-68169
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