This Week’s Highlights

• Russian missiles could wipe out a significant part of the Ukrainian military in less than an hour, said Robert Lee, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Ph.D. candidate at King’s College in London, who is a Russian military expert. “They can devastate the Ukrainian military in the east really quickly, within the first 30-40 minutes,” said Lee, according to The New York Times. However, Russia’s continuing military deployment, while larger than that seen earlier this year, is still missing some critical equipment and capabilities typically required for a sustained offensive, says a senior Western intelligence official, adding that these elements could be brought to the border rapidly if needed, Financial Times reports.
• Former director of the CIA’s Russia analysis George Beebe believes that “to avoid an even more disastrous failure in Ukraine, [U.S. President Joe] Biden will have to take on a Washington establishment that has yet to recognize that ... we cannot simply coerce the Russians into accepting situations that they believe threaten their vital interests.”
• U.S. Naval War College Prof. Nikolas K. Gvosdev sees no solution to Ukraine: “The central Ukrainian government understands that complete adoption of the Minsk proposals with the partial devolution of power to the Donetsk and Luhansk republics would have the same end result as the devolution of power to the units that make up Bosnia: giving those entities veto-power over Ukraine’s foreign policy decisions. So the deadlock persists—until the next crisis point is reached.”
• Financial sanctions the U.S. would impose in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine might not include ending access to the SWIFT system, according to FT columnist John Dizard. He cites Michael Parker, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, who believes that “cutting Russia off from SWIFT, absent any other action against Russia, serves only as a deep annoyance.” “Cutting Russia out of SWIFT may not by itself be a nuclear option, but spooked markets could turn it into one,” according to Foreign Policy’s Amy Mackinnon.
• Fiona Hill, a Russian expert at the Brookings Institution said the U.S. intelligence community recommended against offering a membership path to Ukraine and Georgia at NATO’s Bucharest summit of 2008. The eventual compromise “was the worst of all possible outcomes,” The New York Times reports. “‘The Bucharest compromise was the worst of both worlds,' said Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister. 'It created expectations that were not fulfilled and fears that are grossly exaggerated.’” 
• “To reduce regime security fears, especially in China and Russia, the United States should separate democracy promotion from its grand strategy—democracy promotion is not a security priority. Democracy promotion is good but starts at home, by being an exemplar of liberal values,” writes Benjamin Denison, a nonresident fellow at Defense Priorities.

Dear readers: Please be advised that Russia Analytical Report will resume publication on Jan. 3 due to Harvard’s winter holidays. We wish you all happy holidays and the best in the New Year!

 

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

Great Power rivalry/New Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:

“Specter of three wars poses danger to America’s dominance,” Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 12.13.21. The author, chief foreign affairs columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “For decades, American military planning was based on the idea that the U.S. should be able to fight two wars, in different parts of the world, simultaneously. But even the gloomiest strategists did not plan for three wars at the same time [Ukraine, Taiwan, Iran].”
• “The Biden administration will not explicitly take the military option off the table in any of these three conflicts. But the U.S. is most likely to rely on economic and diplomatic weapons. The kind of stringent U.S. economic sanctions already deployed against Iran could be used against Russia or China—in the event of attacks on Ukraine or Taiwan. That would not mean the beginning of world war three. But it might mean the end of globalization.”

“America is still a dangerous nation. Russia and China risk confusing the US public’s sullenness for permanent resignation,” Edward Luce, Financial Times, 12.09.21. The author, U.S. national editor for the news outlet, writes:

• “Less than six months ago, Biden evacuated U.S. forces from Afghanistan with such alacrity that billions of dollars’ worth of equipment was left on the ground. This looked like an eccentric way of showing that America was back. Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014. Putin absorbed the costs and kept Crimea.”
• “Why would Russia expect a different response this time? The answer, of course, is unknowable. But it is worth bearing some facts in mind.”
• “America has a bigger military than both Russia and China. … It has fought more wars than any other country. … Compared with other democracies, the U.S. has a martial culture. Americans respect their military more than any other institution. … The U.S. is also capable of recklessness. As the writer Robert Kagan pointed out, America is a ‘dangerous nation.’”

“Strategic Clarity Can Counter Chinese and Russian Aggression,” Jack Devine and Jonathan D. T. Ward, The National Interest, 12.11.21. The authors, former acting CIA director of operations and the founder of Atlas Organization, write:

• “The world is on the precipice of a possible new kind of Cold War, where it already confronts a schism between visions for the future: an autocratic one and a democratic one. This dichotomy could apply to numerous elements that affect our daily lives. There likely will be bifurcated 5G networks, Internets, major supply chains and banking systems. Two systems with two very different outcomes for the people who live under those systems. But the extent of this schism can still be addressed with a clearer strategic posture.”
• “To prevent the onward geopolitical march of China and Russia and the dystopian outcome of a world in which adversary systems have truly global range, the United States and its allies must cultivate a modern-day containment strategy towards our authoritarian challengers. It is time for Washington to be as unambiguous about its strategic posture as Beijing or Moscow.”

“Assessing Trade-Offs in U.S. Military Intervention Decisions,” Bryan Frederick, Jennifer Kavanagh, Stephanie Pezard, Alexandra Stark, Nathan Chandler, James Hoobler and Jooeun Kim, RAND, 2021. The authors of the report write:

• “U.S. military interventions can advance U.S. interests, but they can also be highly costly or counterproductive when used in the wrong circumstances. Our review of the historical record highlights the importance of a case-by-case assessment of intervention circumstances.”
• “The advisability of an intervention is likely to be affected by its potential to affect the local balance of power in a crisis or conflict.”
• “Forgoing an intervention might be preferable, even when clear U.S. interests are involved, when any plausible U.S. intervention force might be insufficient to alter the outcome, or when a favorable outcome is likely already.”
• “Interventions early in a conflict or crisis tended to advance U.S. interests more than those that occurred later, though this finding varied depending on the context, and there were clear exceptions.”
• “Larger intervention forces can help the United States better achieve its objectives in certain circumstances. In other cases, however, larger forces could be ineffective or counterproductive if they can only be deployed with greater delay, if they lead to a backlash among the local population, or if they prompt unwanted escalation on the part of an adversary.”

“The Folly of a Democracy-Based Grand Strategy,” Benjamin Denison, Defense Priorities, December 2021. The author, a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities, writes:

• “President Biden’s Summit for Democracy exacerbates regime security fears in states such as Russia and China, further destabilizing relations and making it more difficult to advance U.S. interests.”
• “U.S. policymakers may claim democracy promotion and regime change are clearly different policies. But years of excessive pursuit of both to prop up U.S. hegemony mean Russia, China, and other non-democracies perceive them as part of a unified U.S. threat to their regimes.”
• “China and Russia’s fears for their regime security may be overwrought, but regardless, they encourage those states to collaborate more with each other.”
• “The U.S. alleviating all of China and Russia’s apparent concerns is impossible and unnecessary; indeed, some regime insecurity is welcome for its restraining influence. But to advance its own interests, the United States should find ways to diminish piqued regime security fears.”
• “To reduce regime security fears, especially in China and Russia, the United States should separate democracy promotion from its grand strategy—democracy promotion is not a security priority. Democracy promotion is good but starts at home, by being an exemplar of liberal values.”

“The Faltering Fight for Democracy,” Yascha Mounk, Foreign Affairs, 12.07.21. The author, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, writes:

• “A meaningful democracy agenda would require the United States to demonstrate that populist leaders who are assaulting their countries’ free institutions will reap serious adverse consequences.... It would require the country to commit to prioritizing cooperation with true democracies while, of course, maintaining a lesser form of partnership with other allies. And it would require the president to set out a vision for how international institutions that are being subverted by antidemocratic leaders in their own midst, such as NATO, can be reformed or refounded.”
• “Such an ambitious course of action would have serious drawbacks. And even if it is attempted, it might not succeed. But the very least that U.S. leaders can do is to be honest with themselves, the country, and the world. If the Biden administration has decided that the steps that are required to make a real difference in the contest between ‘democracy and liberalism’ and ‘fascism and autocracy’ are not worth the cost, it should come out and say so.”

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

“A Deal Is Still Possible in Syria. But Washington Has to Stop Ignoring the Conflict,” James Jeffrey, Foreign Affairs, 12.13.21. The author, Chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, writes:

• “Russian hopes for an outright Assad victory have abated. Faced with the Syrian regime’s intransigence, the Turks, Israelis, and Kurds are maintaining their military postures in Syria. Some Arab states’ outreach to Assad is troubling but thus far has not resulted in Assad’s reintegration into the Arab League.”
• “The Biden administration has now confirmed most of the elements of the prior strategy: maintaining the U.S. troop presence and, with some modifications, the sanctions regime; warning all parties not to challenge the various cease-fires with Turkish, opposition, and Kurdish forces; backing Israeli air action against Iran; collaborating with the SDF against ISIS and, indirectly, Damascus; holding Assad’s regime accountable through diplomatic efforts and information gathering in support of U.N. investigations and European judicial processes against Syrian officials; and endorsing the U.N. political effort.”
• “In light of this situation, Moscow’s options are limited. It knows that Assad has not won the conflict and has no obvious options to do so. U.S.- and Turkish-backed groups hold almost 30 percent of Syrian territory, including most of the country’s oil reserves and much of its arable land. The half of the population that remain refugees or internally displaced people still fear a return to Assad’s rule and Israeli airpower has restricted Iran’s missile deployments.”
• “To be sure, a major diplomatic initiative on Syria is a lot for the administration to bite off. But doing so is less risky than allowing the conflict—and all its attendant humanitarian tragedy and security risks—to drag on indefinitely. Although an agreement will not be perfect, bringing an end to Syria’s war will dramatically strengthen Washington’s value as a security partner in the Middle East and beyond.”

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

“Why LNG Didn’t Save Europe From an Energy Crisis,” Sergei Kapitonov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12.13.21. The author, a gas analyst at the Energy Center of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo, writes:

• “The events of 2021 demonstrated just how volatile the LNG spot market could be. The current crunch began when prices rose sharply in Asia because of cold weather and the rapid post-coronavirus recovery of the Chinese economy. After several months, higher prices arrived in Europe: prices at European hubs reached $250 per 1,000 cubic meters in January; by July they were $500; and in September they hit $1,000.”
• “The main reason for the LNG deficit on the European market was the price. U.S. politicians have said repeatedly that supplies of American LNG are capable of reducing Europe’s dependence on Russia. But when push came to shove, it turned out that U.S. commercial companies would send LNG wherever their profit margins were greater. This year, that was to Asian markets.”
• “All of this gives Russia a unique chance to extend existing long-term contracts with Europe for both pipeline natural gas and LNG, and to agree new ones. Moscow’s export strategy, however, must be more flexible, more open, and accompanied by more friendly rhetoric if it is to seize the opportunity. Even if the crisis has exposed Europe’s natural gas trading blunders, this is not the moment for Russia to throw stones, or abuse its capacity to apply pressure.” 

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Biden-Putin Call Solves Nothing, US Signals ‘Deterrence by Punishment,’” Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Russia Matters, 12.09.21. The author, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a non-residential fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, writes:

• “From the U.S. side, the overriding purpose of the [Dec. 7 Biden-Putin] call was to make sure the Kremlin has no doubt that the United States wants to deter any further Russian military action or incursion into Ukraine. … [T]he Biden administration has opted for a ‘deterrence by punishment’ stance: that while the U.S. cannot prevent a Russian incursion, it would impose such costs on Moscow that any benefits from advancing into Ukraine would be swamped by the losses.”
• “The Kremlin … went into this summit with the mindset that any progress on the Ukraine question must happen because of an agreement with the United States—that Germany, France or other European states would never be prepared to defy Washington.”
• “Moscow wants to be back on the U.S. presidential agenda as one of the top concerns for U.S. policymakers, and having a Putin-Biden call both after the Putin visit to India and the Biden summit with Xi Jinping is a way of keeping Russia within the ranks of the great powers.”
• “The Russian goal here seems quite clear: where Germany and France have largely failed to compel Ukrainian compliance with the Minsk accords, Putin is now turning to Biden. The United States is now prepared to at least consider Russian proposals for European security and to confer with its leading European allies about ways to provide reassurances to Moscow. … The secondary goal is also achievable: getting the United States to recognize and accept the Nord Stream 2 fait accompli.”
• “For much of 2021, the preference of the Biden team was to wrap up matters with Russia so as to be able to focus on China. The current crisis makes clear that Russia cannot be ignored. The call solved nothing, but guarantees that the Biden administration is going to have to devote more attention and time to Moscow in 2022.”

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Russia’s Mass Protests 10 Years On—Finding Hope in Defeat,” Ilya Klishin, The Moscow Times, 12.10.21. The author, the former digital director of the New York-based Russian-language RTVI channel, writes:

• “For the first time in modern Russian history, tens of thousands of indignant citizens took to the streets of Moscow and other large Russian cities [in 2011-2012] and, over many months, peacefully but persistently demanded respect for their rights. One year later, that wave of civic enthusiasm gave way to despondency as the authorities responded with criminal cases and police violence.”
• “To a casual observer, it seems that little has changed between the Russia of 2011 and that of today. After all, opposition leader Alexei Navalny is behind bars, his organization has been disbanded, all independent media outlets have been branded with the onerous label of foreign agent and, once again, it seems that no one is stirring and all is quiet on the protest front.”
• “This is not the case, however. There is a huge difference in today’s society. Ten years ago, politics was not even on the agenda. … Now, politics is front and center. The fact that citizens’ political demands have been strangled and shoved under the carpet so as not to be an eyesore has only made people angrier.”
• “Just imagine: in every major Russian city, there are now thousands of people with experience in direct political action, solidarity, donating to a cause and signing petitions. And if to include their friends, relatives and co-workers in the ranks of these ‘reserves,’ the number is even larger. But most importantly, Russia has accumulated a great deal of emotional baggage, a sort of collective grievance with the authorities.”
• “Yes, the Bolotnaya rallies failed. But they couldn’t have succeeded anyway because they were only the starting point. They served as the trigger for two things: the Kremlin’s aggressively repressive policy, but also as a kind of ‘civil society university,’ an impulse to instruct countless members of the intelligentsia and middle class in the ways of political action.”

“Russian Protest, From Pushkinskaya to Chistoprudny and Back Again,” Andrei Kolesnikov, The Moscow Times, 12.10.21. The author, a senior fellow and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “Kremlin propaganda tried to portray the Muscovites taking to the streets [in 2011-2012] as rich, a claim that did survive even a cursory glance at the crowds. The term ‘creative class’—first coined by American urban studies theorist Richard Florida to denote people in the creative professions—was applied to the protesters for no apparent reason. But even the infamous chief Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov referred to the protesters as ‘angry townspeople.’ Exactly as American sociologist Seymour Lipset had theorized, a well-developed, urbanized segment of society had risen to demand political rights and democracy. For the first time in many years, the crowd truly felt like a civil movement that could overcome rulers’ authoritarian tendencies and resolve the crisis of representation provoked by electoral fraud.”
• “[Since then] Deprived of its leaders, denied success and demoralized, the opposition and civil society have finally given up the outward fight, but continue on like an underground fire that, sparked by any chance event, could ignite. Another sign of people’s dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs is that more non-communists voted for communists in the 2021 elections than ever before. The story of the civil protest movement for the restoration of constitutional rights has not ended. It will continue.”

“Kremlin penetrates deeper into online world of Russians,” Polina Ivanova, Financial Times, 12.08.21. The author, Moscow correspondent for the news outlet, writes:

• “The takeover last week of VKontakte, Russia’s largest homegrown social media platform, by companies tied to state-run gas giant Gazprom has the feel of a final act in a long saga of creeping state control over the company.”
• “In this, the Facebook lookalike’s trajectory has mirrored that of the Russian internet as a whole—from the freewheeling Ru-net of the 2000s to what is increasingly being dubbed sovereign-net by local media today—as the Kremlin secures ever more control.”
• “The move did not bring the state deeper into the social network, as it was already there.”
• “Through a string of court cases and fines, the Kremlin has piled the pressure on western tech firms, demanding that they comply with local data and content laws. ‘Honestly, I think YouTube has six months left in Russia,’ said Andrei Soldatov, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and co-author of The Red Web. ‘Next year, we will move to the stage of banning global platforms.’”

“The Pandemic Is Beating Putin,” Alexey Kovalev, The New York Times, 12.08.21. The author, the investigations editor at independent Russian news outlet Meduza, writes:

• “The past several weeks have been especially painful. Daily infections in the country have hovered around 35,000—while the official figures, probably undercounted, record over a thousand deaths each day. (And that’s before the Omicron variant, newly found in Russia, circulates widely.) The misery is largely due to the low vaccination rate in the country: After a nearly yearlong campaign, only 41 percent of the country’s people are fully vaccinated, a lower number than in Laos or Cape Verde.”
• “The Kremlin has itself to blame. Given Russia’s intellectual, administrative and technological capacities, a successful vaccine rollout should have been possible. Instead, the authorities fatally eroded the public’s trust with conflicting messaging—oscillating between triumphalism and scaremongering—and haphazardly applied containment measures.”
• “The vaccine skeptics aren’t drawn from the usual ranks of anti-Kremlin activists. In fact, the movement is spearheaded by celebrities ... The usual playbook for dealing with the opposition—legal, physical and media harassment, arbitrary arrests and kangaroo trials—isn’t applicable.”
• “Mr. Putin seems to be sensitive to the dilemma. He has repeatedly shifted the burden of announcing new restrictions to government officials and local governors, reportedly to protect his popularity, and does not wear a mask in public. Unable to mandate its way out of trouble and wary of riling up people too much, the Kremlin is stuck: Clearly, there’s a limit to what an authoritarian ruler like Mr. Putin can force on his population. Russians, meanwhile, continue to die in the thousands.”

Defense and aerospace:

“The world needs to set new rules in space,” Editorial Board, Financial Times, 12.09.21. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “A crisis looms that could kill off the space economy in its infancy. On current plans, there could be 100,000 satellites in orbit by the decade’s end, for everything from internet services to Earth monitoring. Space is a big place, but the multitudes of planned constellations raise the odds of collisions that could render some orbits unusable.”
• “Russia’s recent anti-satellite test, which blew up an old Soviet spacecraft, created more than 1,500 new pieces of trackable debris. Some 30,000 fragments large enough to track are now flying around, posing a risk to satellites and the International Space Station.”
• “A new, overarching space treaty is probably not achievable in the short-term. But smaller steps could be taken to ensure the space economy remains safe and open to all. Nations that signed the 2019 guidelines should ensure there are penalties for violators. Launch companies and users of satellite services could refuse to do business with operators who ignore them. Urgent agreement is also needed on communication and traffic management protocols to avoid collisions.”

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:

“Russian COVID-19 Diplomacy in Africa: A Mixed Bag,” Paul Stronski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 12.10.21. The author, a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program, writes:

• “Global inequities—exacerbated by wealthy states hoarding vaccines and pharmaceutical technology—created opportunities for Russia to reintroduce itself as a development partner in Africa. Pandemic-era geopolitics are hampering Africa’s recovery. China, Russia and the West all need to do better to facilitate the flow of vaccines and, more importantly, vaccine technology to Africa. Russian licensing deals with several North African manufacturers to produce Sputnik V on the continent hopefully will help address these shortfalls, as will the U.S. administration’s November pledge to fund an additional 1 billion global vaccine donations and the recent production deals to manufacture Chinese and Western vaccines in Africa. Moving to address this vaccine inequity gap, overcoming vaccine hesitancy and helping to increase global vaccination rates are all equally important to slow the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, like the recently identified Omicron variant.”
• “With its ambitious COVID-19 public relations campaigns, Russia has set high expectations that it could serve as a reliable development partner for African states at this crucial time. Yet in numerous cases, it has experienced delays in delivering the vaccines or reasonable financing terms to purchase them. In some instances, Russia outsourced its COVID-19 diplomacy efforts to intermediaries and local partners, enabling them to profit by selling Sputnik V doses at a significant markup.”
• “Moscow … should and still could play an important role in helping curb the pandemic in Africa. However, after more than a year of misfires, the effort that began as a highly promising breakthrough now looks more like a laggard.”

Ukraine:

“A Temporary Pause, But No Solution on Ukraine,” Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The National Interest, 12.10.21. The author, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a non-resident fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, writes:

• “The video summit between presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin appears to have eased the steady decline in U.S.-Russia relations precipitated by the mobilization and deployment of Russian forces over the last several weeks in its southern and western military districts abutting the border with Ukraine.”
• “Stripping through all the verbiage of the readouts of the call, as well as the efforts by both sides to ‘spin’ the results, we have a temporary solution in place: an implicit Russian commitment not to use force and to engage in diplomacy, an equally implicit U.S. pledge not to pre-emptively deploy damaging economic sanctions against Russia and a similar commitment to urge Ukraine to also be more constructive in finding a diplomatic solution.”
• “Alongside the main summit are other arrangements—what appears to be a German commitment to shut down Nord Stream in the event of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, but the elimination of any language imposing mandatory U.S. sanctions on Russia in the final draft of the defense authorization bill.”
• “The fundamental question, however, is left unaddressed. The United States will not give binding and overt guarantees that the process of democratic enlargement as represented by the expansion of the NATO alliance has ended, while at the same time the United States and its allies continue to declare that Ukraine is not yet ready for a membership action plan.”
• “The central Ukrainian government understands that complete adoption of the Minsk proposals with the partial devolution of power to the Donetsk and Luhansk republics would have the same end result as the devolution of power to the units that make up Bosnia: giving those entities veto power over Ukraine’s foreign policy decisions (and giving Moscow a back door into Ukrainian decision-making). So the deadlock persists—until the next crisis point is reached.”

“Biden-Putin Call Solves Nothing, US Signals ‘Deterrence by Punishment,’” Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Russia Matters, 12.09.21. The author, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a non-resident fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute,  writes:

• “Despite the appeals and recommendations of some within the U.S. Congress and from European allies such as Poland, the United States is not prepared to engage in a ‘deterrence by denial’ approach—moving NATO forces into Ukraine … or even supplying the large amounts of conventional military equipment to Ukraine that would be required to halt any sustained Russian operation. Instead, the Biden administration has opted for a ‘deterrence by punishment’ stance.”
• “Moscow also has clear evidence that despite all the talk in Europe about ‘strategic autonomy’ and a Europe that should not have to take directions from Washington, there is a much higher (albeit quiet) level of compliance with American directives. … The Kremlin, therefore, went into this summit with the mindset that any progress on the Ukraine question must happen because of an agreement with the United States.”
• “The way that the Kremlin framed the Biden-Putin call—with its call-out to World War II (less, I believe, as an invocation of the wartime alliance, and more as a subtle reminder of the role played by the U.S. and USSR in shaping the post-war order)—used language consciously emulating the 1972 Moscow summit communique about how important questions of European and global security cannot be resolved without the active cooperation of both countries.” 
• “The Russian goal here seems quite clear: where Germany and France have largely failed to compel Ukrainian compliance with the Minsk accords, Putin is now turning to Biden. … Moreover, if the Minsk accords are completely fulfilled, then Putin's prima facie demand for ‘firm guarantees’ about an end to NATO enlargement become moot. The devolved system Minsk envisions guarantees a Donetsk/Luhansk veto over Ukraine joining NATO, without requiring any pledge from the West to stop enlargement. The secondary goal is also achievable: getting the United States to recognize and accept the Nord Stream 2 fait accompli.”

“Ukraine: What does Vladimir Putin want?,” Max Seddon, Henry Foy and Katrina Manson, Financial Times, 12.10.21. The authors, correspondents for the newspaper, write:

• “‘I don’t think this is over by any means,’ says Samuel Charap, a Russia expert at RAND Corporation, a U.S.-based think-tank. ‘It seems unlikely that a promise to talk is going to be enough for Putin to declare victory and send the boys home to Siberia for New Year’s.’”
• “Russia’s continuing military deployment, while larger than that seen earlier this year, is still missing some critical equipment and capabilities typically required for a sustained offensive, says a senior Western intelligence official, adding that these elements could be brought to the border rapidly if needed.”
  • “If Russia were to attack using the troops that the U.S. says are being readied, ‘it would be the largest conflict on the European continent since World War II,’ the official adds. ‘To think that conflict would be contained to one nation is foolish.’”
• “Any future summit on NATO expansion ‘would be a significant achievement for Moscow, because they’ve recognized there’s a problem,’ says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the Russia in Global Affairs Journal and an adviser to the Kremlin on foreign policy. ‘Neither the Americans nor the Europeans did that before—they said there were no problems with security in Europe, just problems with Russia. But if they need to meet, that means there’s something to talk about.’”
• “‘There’s very little reason to think that an issue of such cardinal importance for Putin is just going to disappear from the agenda,’ says Andrew Weiss, a former Russia director of the U.S. National Security Council. ‘Putin cares too much about Ukraine to listen to what the administration has been saying and respond with “Oh well, I guess I don’t care that much anymore.”’”

“Ukraine is a manageable problem—will Biden manage it?,” George Beebe, The Hill, 12.07.21. The author, vice president and director of studies at the Center for the National Interest, writes:

• “To avoid an even more disastrous failure in Ukraine, Biden will have to take on a Washington establishment that has yet to recognize that America’s unipolar moment has ended and we cannot simply coerce the Russians into accepting situations that they believe threaten their vital interests. He will have to persuade skeptics in his administration that the most promising path toward security and democracy in Ukraine lies not in some illusory future membership in NATO or the European Union (EU) but in extracting Ukraine from a geopolitical battle that is tearing the country apart.”  

“The Ghost of Ukraine’s Future,” Col. Douglas Macgregor and George Beebe, The National Interest, 12.13.21. The authors, a decorated combat veteran who advised the secretary of defense in the Trump administration and vice president and director of studies at the Center for the National Interest, write:

• “Should Moscow opt to invade, a Russian campaign would probably be aimed at effectively turning territory in southeastern Ukraine into an extension of Russia itself. … Kiev’s ability to contend with such a campaign is highly questionable. It is vastly outmanned and outgunned by the Russian military.”
• “The good news is that Putin almost certainly understands that an invasion of Ukraine would lead to a complete break in relations with the West, rendering Russia in effect a dependent junior partner of China. Moreover, he probably realizes that Russian forces would very likely have to deal with guerrilla resistance in occupied Ukrainian territory, and that unoccupied portions of western Ukraine could become a host for U.S. and NATO forces over the longer term. It is doubtful that these are outcomes he finds appealing. He would probably prefer to find an alternative way to derail a U.S. alliance with Ukraine if Biden is prepared to bargain. But if Washington refuses to recognize that Russian red line, he may well be prepared to fight—and there is not much the United States could do to stop him.”

“Ukraine Commanders Say a Russian Invasion Would Overwhelm Them,” Michael Schwirtz, New York Times, 12.09.21. The author, a staff writer for the newspaper, writes:

• “‘Unfortunately, Ukraine needs to be objective at this stage,’ said Gen. Kyrylo O. Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service. ‘There are not sufficient military resources for repelling a full-scale attack by Russia if it begins without the support of Western forces.’ General Budanov outlined his nightmare vision of a Russian invasion that would begin with airstrikes and rocket attacks aimed initially at ammunition depots and trench-bound troops. Very quickly, he said, the Ukrainian military would be incapacitated, its leadership unable to coordinate a defense and supply the front. After that, he said, responsibility would fall to frontline commanders to carry on the fight alone.”
• “The Russian missiles could wipe out a significant part of the Ukrainian military in less than an hour, said Robert Lee, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Ph.D. candidate at King’s College in London, who is a Russian military expert.  ‘They can devastate the Ukrainian military in the east really quickly, within the first 30-40 minutes.’”
• “Ukraine’s military is not the pushover it once was. … [After Russia’s intervention in 2014] the Ukrainian military clawed its way back, fighting the separatists to a stalemate and putting a stop to the most serious hostilities. It did so with help from Western allies.”
• “In an interview with Radio Liberty this month, Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, the commander of the Joint Operation Forces fighting the separatists, said the [U.S.-provided] Javelins had already been deployed to military units in eastern Ukraine.”
• “Pavlyuk noted that Ukraine had up to half a million people with military experience. If the West does not come to Ukraine’s aid, he said, ‘we’ll start a partisan war.’”

“The West Must Respond to Russia With Strength, Not Appeasement,” Dmytro Kuleba, Foreign Affairs, 12.10.21. The author, Ukraine’s foreign minister, writes:

• “Putin’s calls for a guarantee concerning NATO expansion present a dilemma. If the West gives in, Russia will no doubt be pleased with its newfound veto over Ukrainian foreign policy and NATO decision-making. If the West rejects its demands, Russia will be equally happy, because it will be able to lay fresh ideological ground for invading Ukraine again.”
• “The fact that Putin is searching for a new ideological justification concerning Ukraine suggests that he really is on the verge of something big: an attempt to fundamentally rewrite the post-Cold War security order in Europe.” 

“US may draw the line at cutting off Russia from SWIFT,” John Dizard, Financial Times, 12.10.21. The author, a columnist with the newspaper, writes:

• “So far, the Biden administration has carefully avoided saying that steps to shut out Russia from SWIFT are under consideration. Moreover, despite their public rhetoric, both Washington and Moscow know that the shock value of U.S. economic sanctions has been somewhat dulled by overuse in recent decades.”
• “When some U.S. policymakers air the idea of cutting off Russia’s access to SWIFT, the Office of Foreign Assets Control people cough and look at the ceiling.”
• “Until last month, Michael Parker was a prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, where he worked closely with former colleagues at the OFAC. Now he heads the money laundering and sanctions division of Ferrari Associates, a Washington law firm. As he sees it, ‘cutting Russia off from SWIFT, absent any other action against Russia, serves only as a deep annoyance. SWIFT, remember, is just a communication system.’”
• “This former official adds: ‘If you politicize a Europe-based institution such as SWIFT, then you encourage countries like Russia and China to set up their own system. So there are tremendous disadvantages to a SWIFT cut-off to implement a policy decision.’ A Russian attack on Ukraine would trigger some U.S. financial sanctions. But they might not include ending access to the SWIFT system.”

“U.S. Threat to Squeeze Russia’s Economy Is a Tactic With a Mixed Record,” Patricia Cohen, New York Times, 12.08.21. The author, the Times’ London-based global economics correspondent, writes:

• “‘We’ve seen that over and over again, that sanctions have a hard time really coercing changes in major policies,’ said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has spent decades researching the topic. ‘It’s a limited toolbox.’”
• “The best chances of success are when one country has significant economic leverage over the other and the policy goal is limited, Mr. Schott said—yet neither of those conditions really applies in this case. Mr. Putin has made clear that he considers Russia’s actions in Ukraine a matter of national security. And outside of the oil industry, Russia’s international trade and investments are limited, especially in the United States.”
• “Arie W. Kruglanski, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland, said that in assessing the impact of sanctions, economists too often overlook the crucial psychological aspect. ‘Sanctions can work when leaders are concerned about economic issues more than anything else,’ he said, but he doesn’t think the Russian leader falls into that category.”

“Kicking Russia Off of SWIFT Might Not Be the Nuclear Option,” Amy Mackinnon and Robbie Gramer, Foreign Policy, 12.10.21. The authors, national security reporters at the magazine, write:

• “In 2019, then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev described cutting Russia off from SWIFT as tantamount to a ‘declaration of war.’ But experts and former officials caution sanctions are not the silver bullet they are often made out to be. ‘Everybody falls prey to it because it’s such an easy talking point and it sounds so important and it sounds really tough,’ said Brian O’Toole, a former U.S. Treasury Department official and expert on economic issues with the Atlantic Council.”
• “The move would cause significant chaos in the short term, both within Russia and for international companies that do business there, as it would halt almost all international transactions. But other options for financial messaging exist, and since 2014, Russia has been developing its own, the System for Transfer of Financial Messages, which now accounts for some 20 percent of all domestic transfers.”
• “Cutting Russia out of SWIFT may not by itself be a nuclear option, but spooked markets could turn it into one.”

“Ally, Member or Partner? NATO’s Long Dilemma Over Ukraine,” Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, 12.08.21. The author, the newspaper’s chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, writes:

• “Ukraine presents NATO with a dilemma many years in the making—one the alliance itself helped create. In 2008, NATO—an American-led alliance explicitly created to counter the Soviet Union—promised membership to two former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Georgia, but without specifying when or how.”
• “‘The Bucharest compromise [where prospective NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia was decided upon] was the worst of both worlds,’ said Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister. ‘It created expectations that were not fulfilled and fears that are grossly exaggerated. It was short-term expediency with long-term consequences that we have seen since then’—in Georgia, which lost a quick and nasty war to Russia four months later in 2008, and in the Russian effort to destabilize and even reassert control over Ukraine.”
• “Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution, was at the Bucharest summit as an American national intelligence officer. She said the intelligence community recommended against offering a membership path to Ukraine and Georgia, because much of NATO opposed it, but it was overridden by Mr. [George W.] Bush. The compromise was brokered by the British, she said, but ‘it was the worst of all possible outcomes.’ Mr. Putin, she said, ‘has been trying to shut that door ever since.’”
• “It would have been better, Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London, suggested, if NATO had ‘found other ways to support Georgia and Ukraine’ and not promised membership. Most likely Ukraine will never be integrated into NATO, he said, ‘but we can't put that into a treaty,’ as Mr. Putin demands.”

“How the West Should Negotiate Over Ukraine,” Henrik Larsen, The Moscow Times, 12.08.21. The author, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, writes:

• “NATO could never agree to a ‘closed door’ policy but, if prompted by U.S. leadership, perhaps to negotiate about language that in exchange would commit Russia not to use military force against Ukraine and to solve the conflict in the Donbas. Such language should signal what is already the reality: that NATO has the intention neither to enlarge, nor to station military infrastructure in Ukraine in the current security environment. Negotiations should be treated strictly as a question of military neutrality, without concessions on NATO’s continued advising, training and funding of Ukraine’s armed forces.”
• “The more the West can convince Ukraine to define its destiny as one of [a] fight against economic insecurity rather than of geopolitical choice and NATO membership, the more that process is likely to be surrounded by stability.”

“Will Putin Get What He Wants on Ukraine?” Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12.09.21. The author, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center and editor in chief of Carnegie.ru, writes:

• “It appears that what he manages to achieve in Ukraine will be the deciding factor in whether or not Putin stays on after 2024. From his words and an article on the issue, it’s clear that Putin sees relations with Ukraine as part of his historical mission. That’s not something he wants to leave in less experienced hands, nor to share the credit for in the event of success. And in the event of failure? Well, if victory hasn’t yet been achieved, perhaps it’s not the time to step down.”

“Biden Must Choose Between Appeasement and Deterrence in Ukraine,” Nigel Gould-Davies, Foreign Policy, 12.09.21. The author, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, writes:

• “Russia’s words and actions offer no assurance that its aims are limited. It is threatening force to demand unilateral concessions while it continues to occupy the territory of a sovereign state. The United States, supported by a united West, has now credibly committed to unprecedented sanctions that could avert aggression. If Tuesday’s Biden-Putin meeting revealed anything, it is that pursuing deterrence is essential.”

“Biden must resist Putin's trumped-up demands on Ukraine,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 12.08.21. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “Mr. Biden's disavowal Wednesday of a ‘unilateral’ U.S. troop deployment to Ukraine was true and not entirely new—aides had said it before—though it might have been better left unsaid by the president just now. The United States continues to arm Ukraine with defensive weapons and, together with European allies, still has enough leverage to keep the peace and to deny Mr. Putin tangible benefit from his threats. They must make smart and forceful use of it.”

“Deter Russia by Arming NATO Allies,” William Schneider Jr., Wall Street Journal, 12.08.21. The author, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, writes:

• “To begin with, NATO's forward perimeter needs to adapt to Russian belligerence. The frontline states, especially Poland and the Black Sea littoral states of Romania and Bulgaria, must be protected and will need a modern surveillance and reconnaissance system linked to an integrated command-and-control network.”
• “Additionally, NATO should initiate the Article 4 process in the NATO Treaty to restore deterrence and stabilize the border region. This would establish a consultative process whenever ‘the territorial integrity, political independence or security’ of any member state is threatened.”
• “Finally, NATO should provide the frontline states with modern military capabilities. This modernization needs to go beyond Poland's acquisition of F-35 aircraft and M1 Abrams tanks. NATO frontline allies need to be integrated into an effective deterrent.”

“Biden's Only Honorable Course on Ukraine,” Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, 12.06.21. The author, the Global View Columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “From a position of strength, the U.S. can and should offer Russia face-saving ways out of the crisis, but on substance Mr. Biden should stand firm. The reality is that Russia has lost its battle for the heart of Ukraine. After encouraging Ukraine to cast its lot with the West for three decades, America's only honorable course is to sustain Kyiv in this hour of trial.”

“U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Everybody but Putin,” Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Wall Street Journal, 12.11.21. The author, a member of the news outlet’s editorial board, writes:

• “Western elected officials don't go looking for intractable dilemmas to impale themselves on. Hence all those summits looking into Mr. Putin's ‘soul’ and pursuing ‘resets.’ But Western sponsors can't solve his basic problem for him. The chaos of the Yeltsin era and a boom in oil prices were initial gifts to Mr. Putin's 20-year reign but they have long since been squandered. Renewing Russia's socioeconomic progress, as the Kremlin itself has all but acknowledged, requires steps inconsistent with its leader's political interests, such as allowing rule of law and disempowering his Mafia-like retinue.”
• “A subtext of Mr. Putin's appeal to the West has been: If not me, somebody worse. But with each passing year, Mr. Putin's dilemmas are turning him into somebody worse.”

“To Resist Russia, Ukraine Must Help Itself,” Janusz Bugajski and Margarita Assenova, The National Interest, 12.11.21. The authors, senior fellows at the Jamestown Foundation, write:

• “Unfortunately, as winter approaches and Russia is pressuring Ukraine militarily and cutting energy supplies, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems more concerned about currying favor with oligarchs intent on maintaining low electricity tariffs rather than on pursuing critical energy reforms. Perpetual political infighting, media wars between oligarchs, and accusations of domestic coup attempts, together with a failing energy policy undermine Ukraine’s stability and statehood. It will further weaken the economy and foster social unrest that Russia exploits to its advantage. The Biden administration needs to work closely with Kyiv to buttress its energy security and counter Russia’s threats.”

“How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine,” Alexander Vindman, New York Times, 12.10.21. The author, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, writes:

• “The United States cannot adequately support Ukraine without significant European involvement.”
• “The more important issue to consider is that negotiations with Russia should be dealt with at the level of European security. These talks should devise off ramps that alleviate both European and Russian security concerns: for Russia, NATO encroachment and ballistic missile defense, and for NATO, Russia’s over-militarized western border. The Biden-Putin call on Tuesday opened the door to exactly this kind of discussion. The question that remains is whether Russia is prepared to walk through that door and reconsider its position on conventional arms control agreements such as the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.”

“The West can deter Putin only if Germany does its part,” Katja Hoyer, The Washington Post, 12.08.21. The author, a historian and journalist, writes:

• “The new government's political road map for Germany for the next four years highlights the inherent contradictions of the government's stance. It says that Germany's ‘transatlantic alliance is a central pillar and NATO an indispensable part of our security.’ But it also argues that ‘we need an offensive for disarmament’ and a ‘Germany free of nuclear weapons.’ Similarly, it claims that Germany will take ‘the concerns especially of our Eastern European partner states seriously’ but then speaks of ‘differences in the perception of threat’ between them and Russia that need to be ‘acknowledged.’”

“Russia’s ‘greyzone’ aggression is already harming Ukraine,” Elisabeth Braw, Financial Times, 12.09.21. The author, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writes:

• “Deploying significant military formations at a neighbor’s border is a cunning strategy by Russia, because by frightening investors, Russia can also cause real harm to a country whose economy badly needs a stable currency and foreign investment. In fact, to hurt Ukraine, Russia need do little more than keep the soldiers where they are to prolong the uncertainty, and add the occasional snap military exercise near the border. Russia’s actions are a quintessential example of greyzone aggression — activities in the no man’s land between peaceful relations and formal armed conflict.”
• “Who said those soldiers needed to cross the border?”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Why Lukashenko Has Recognized Crimea as Russian Territory,” Artyom Shraibman, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12.08.21. The author, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “After seven and a half years of equivocating over the issue of whether Crimea belongs to Russia or Ukraine, Belarus’s embattled leader Alexander Lukashenko finally said in an interview with Russian TV on Nov. 30 that ‘Crimea is de facto Russian, and after the referendum, Crimea became de jure Russian.’”
• “Today, Lukashenko is dependent on the Kremlin’s goodwill and deep pockets for two key issues: how peaceful and smooth the rest of his time in power will be, and the future power transition. Minsk’s priority, therefore, is to win Moscow’s benevolence while giving up as little sovereignty as possible in exchange. Lukashenko has decided to go about this using two methods: making strong symbolic gestures on the one hand, such as recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, and dragging Russia even further into its geopolitical standoff with the West on the other.”
• “The problem is that Lukashenko will have to provide Moscow with constant reminders of his loyalty, and following his recognition of Crimea, he is running out of options for further rhetorical and symbolic concessions.”
• “Going forward, he will either have to sacrifice something sacred like state property or aspects of sovereignty, or escalate affairs with Belarus’s neighbors to such an extent that the Kremlin won’t be able to remain on the sidelines. For now, it looks like Lukashenko is leaning toward the second option, making that the biggest source of risk to the region today.”

“Death of the Soviet Union: Widespread nostalgia but no going back,” bne IntelliNews, 12.10.21. The news outlet reports:

• “A poll by the Levada Centre in 2020 found that 75% of Russians consider the Soviet era the greatest in Russian history. 65%, meanwhile, said that they regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union. ... A 2016 poll showed ... that the number of respondents aged 35-64 who believed life was better before the collapse of the USSR varied hugely from a high of 71% in Armenia to just 4% in Uzbekistan. The number of respondents who agreed with that statement was 60% or above in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.”
• “In most countries the level of nostalgia was much lower among respondents aged 18-24, namely adults who were too young to remember the Soviet era, the outlier being Moldova, where a startling 69% of younger respondents thought life must have been better when the country was part of the USSR.”
• “There was no obvious correlation with the standard of living at the time of the poll; while many Armenians looked back wistfully to the Soviet era, the level of nostalgia was just 39% in Tajikistan. Both are small, low income countries.”
• “Nor did peace and stability appear to be a significant factor. 51% of Georgians, whose country fought a war with Russia in 2008, thought life had been better in the Soviet era, one of the lower figures for the region, but 60% of Ukrainians looked back nostalgically to the era.”
• “However, five years on, things have changed a lot in Ukraine. A new poll published in August by Rating Group showed that 61% of the respondents now do not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union. 32% do, most of them in the southeast of the country, among the older generation, who are financially less well off.” 

“De Facto States and Land-for-Peace Agreements: Territory and Recognition at Odds?” Eiki Berg and Shpend Kursani, Routledge, 2021. The authors, a professor of international relations at the University of Tartu in Estonia and  a lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University in the Netherlands, write:

• “This book presents an analytical framework which assesses how 'land-for-peace' agreements can be achieved in the context of territorial conflicts between de facto states and their respective parent states. The volume examines geographic solutions to resolving ongoing conflicts that stand between the principle of self-determination (prompted by de facto states) and the principle of territorial integrity (prompted by parent states). The authors investigate the conditions under which territorial adjustments can bring about a possibility for peace between de facto states and their parent states. It does so by interrogating the possibility of land-for-peace agreements in four de facto state–parent state pairs, namely Kosovo–Serbia, Nagorno–Karabakh–Azerbaijan, Northern Cyprus–Republic of Cyprus, and Abkhazia–Georgia. The book suggests that the value that parties put on land to be exchanged and peace to be achieved stand at odds for land-for-peace agreements to materialize. The book brings theoretical and empirical insights that open several avenues for discussions on the conservative stance that the international community has held on territorial changes in the post-1945 international order.”