The annexation of four regions is nothing but a false victory for Russia. The Russian president's radicalization will have a strategic cost.
At first glance, the illegal annexation of four new Ukrainian territories seems to give the Russian regime plenty of reasons to claim victory. Indeed, by this quadruple takeover that Vladimir Putin formalized on September 30 with great fanfare, Russia is moving its line of contact with the West towards the west; it divides and permanently weakens Ukraine; it paralyzes inner opposition in the name of sacred union; and, ultimate success, it sanctuaries these conquests by placing them under the shadow of its nuclear umbrella while breaking with a West presented as a “colonizer”.
Prince Potemkin and the cardboard decorations
In reality, this sanctioned triumph is a pretense good for those who made Prince Potemkin go down in history. In 1787, the fave of Catherine II( 1729- 1796) had real coupon decorations erected along the route of the Empress during a trip by the ultimate- precisely in the regions which come from being now adjoined by Moscow, and which it had just conquered for the first time! – in order to give the vision that these areas were prosperous and their occupants satisfied.
Russian imperialism was therefore justified, at least in the eyes of Catherine, as protection of Diderot and fond for the French Enlightenment. Enlightened authoritarianism dazed itself to its fortified expansionism, just as the moment the vision is created by the pseudo-referendums held hastily in the regions torn from Ukraine – and which Russia doesn't control. indeed not entirely.
Martial celebrations in Red Square, Vladimir Putin's speech, and Russian media coverage attempt to create the impression of victory. On closer inspection, the limits of the scenography are obvious.
Did the mission accomplish?
We occasionally like to consider, in Washington, London, or Paris, that the Russian army is close to master, that the Putin administration is undermined by internal controversies and that strategic collapse is imminent. The assessment of the seven months of the irruption of Ukraine is less clear-cut, if we observe it from the point of view of the Kremlin it has indeed succeeded in achieving some of its cardinal objectives. Taking into account these political successes – and, of course, the strategic defeats – is essential to understand the new course of Russian politics for the coming decade, and the pitfalls that this entails for the European Union.
still, several achievements appear substantial, If we estimate the results attained by the Kremlin by the mark of its own criteria.
In fact, annexation and its corollary – a lasting state of war with Ukraine – allow Putin's Russia to achieve old and unequivocal military objectives. With this war, Russia has just stopped NATO's expansion dynamic in the post-Soviet space. This was a red thread of Putin's regulations and high ministers class of the Alliance of former People's Republic( Poland, Hungary, Romania, etc.) and of three former Soviet Socialist Democracy( Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) had formerly been considered in Moscow as so numerous provocations against Russian power.
Divorce with the whole of Europe
Moment, the education of Russian and Ukraine has come casus belli. And, internally, Vladimir Putin can put the idea that he's at war with NATO – a conflict he has been publicizing since the 2000s. definitively with the the-Western dynamics of the 1990s and consecrates the divorce of his country from the total of Europe.
also, this illegal retreat of the Russian- Ukrainian border towards the west offers Russia a demographic gain that it needs. Above all, it permanently ruins Ukraine, makes its confluence with the EU indeed more delicate and nearly destroys the stopgap of restoring the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Likewise, from the Kremlin's point of view, this war and these annexations shoot a communication to all the Russian- speaking communities – and Russians through the distribution of passports – who live outside the home of Federation Russia is likely to intermediate militarily where these populations are set up. Moscow, therefore, acquires an effective switch of pressure on the States which shelter a Russian- speaking community in the Baltic and in Central Asia. The “ Russian world ” theorized by the Kremlin isn't just nation imprinting it's a real strategic conception that destabilizes nonnatives close to Russia.
Eurasia as a field of action
Russia is therefore reorienting its political and geoeconomic posture towards the east without return it's Eurasia which is now its field of action. The Federation will direct the Eurasian Economic Union of which Belarus and Armenia are members to part these countries from the European route. It also pushes Belarus to commit its colors to the Ukrainian front. It'll also strengthen the Collaborative Security Treaty Organization( CSTO). Eventually, it renounces its tense cooperation with the EU to turn nearly simply to its Asian mates within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, foremost among which are the People's Republic of China and the Union of India, as well as Vietnam.
From a profitable point of view, the results aren't to be neglected. By starting the war and adding the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporijia, and Kherson, Russia has corroborated its status as a price maker in energy, mineral, and agrarian commodity requests.
Amplifying Affectation from the recovery following the Covid- 19 epidemic, the organized deficit has allowed Russia to replenish its autonomous wealth finances, foreign exchange reserves, and gold reserves. In other words, these annexations take place in a veritably different profitable environment from that of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 this was followed by two times of recession due to the combination of falling oil painting prices and Western warrants.. still, they're aimed at a country that has so far contained affectation pitfalls and rebuilt its incompletely firmed fiscal reserves, If EU warrants are hitting the Russian war frugality.
Leader of the de-Westernization of the world
Outside, eventually, the mode honored “ crimes ” and “ difficulties ”. still, this governance is able of turning the flight of reservists who can be mustered and anti-mobilization demonstrations to its advantage these movements will serve as a defense for an indeed more vigorous preemption of the Russian social body in the name of the sacred union, nationalism, and reunification of Russians.
The annexation of Ukrainian homes safe from nuclear munitions constitutes, for Russia, a protestation of its transnational status. By recalling its military strength, averring its status as a nuclear power, posing as being at war with NATO, strengthening its ties with the Asian powers, and overall calling into question the 1991 borders, the Federation of Russia loudly claims the part of the leader in the de- Westernization of the world. The Russian chairman pounded home this in his September 30 speech he considers the West to be the main trouble to Russia.
We frequently like, in the West, to recall President Obama's formula according to which Russia is a dangerous indigenous power not because of its strength but rather because of its weakness. We must now come apprehensive – without accepting them – of the successes that Russia has attained from its own point of view. undervaluing these earnings would feed joyful triumphalism in the West. Exactly as overvaluing the strategic balance distance of this war would lead to neglecting the real sins of Russia – and the strengths of its adversaries.
Tactical successes at the cost of strategic setbacks
The results of the Ukraine crusade must indeed be assessed over the long term and with a broad focus. On this scale, the successes are less egregious. And the structural lapses, are irrefutable.
Concerning Ukraine itself, integrated into the conglomerate in the 17th century, into the USSR in 1921, and independent since 1991, Russian political successes shouldn't outdo strategic lapses. In 2022, Russia's unequivocal thing was indeed to foray into the entire home of Ukraine, replace its tagged government and help it from drifting further into the EU and NATO. The success is partial and the failure egregious.
After the annexation and after the war, there will be a crippled but independent Ukraine, forcefully attached to its public identity, to its fellowship with the West, and structurally hostile to Russia. In other words, annexations replace influence politics. Annexations to which President Zelensky replied incontinently by subscribing an operation for the accelerated class of his country in NATO.
still, it's because this influence is floundering to put itself else If Russia is forced to foray and addition a country to maintain its influence. The" defense of Great Russia" placarded on September 30, in reality, consecrates the revulsion of Russia's influence and area of influence. rather than enwrapping Ukraine and “ reuniting ” Ukrainians with Russians, Russia has permanently shattered relations between the two peoples. rather than emphasizing artistic parallels between Ukraine and Russia, the Kremlin has led Ukrainian identity to be defined in opposition to Russia. However, the moment it solidified in the resistance in Moscow If the Ukrainian public identity was disputed by some before the irruption.
Regarding relations with NATO, then again, the structural results are in fact mixed. Actually, despite the emblematic request that Zelensky has just inked, unborn enrollments will no doubt be paralyzed by the war in Ukraine. But, overall, Russia" succeeded" in bringing two vital countries, historically attached to impartiality, the Kingdom of Sweden and the Republic of Finland, into NATO.
In other words, for many weeks, Moscow changed the strategic situation in the Baltic to its detriment. From now on the Baltic Sea is a “ NATO Sea ” which encloses the two Russian maritime outlets of Kaliningrad and Saint- Petersburg.
Russia's Eurasian pivot is eventually a long-term reversal for Moscow. In the Beijing- Moscow head-to-head, Russia is structurally an inferior mate. It was formerly so before the war because of its weak profitable weight and it'll be indeed more so after the war because of the absence of volition for it. Cutting ties with Europe condemns Russia to an unstable face-off with the truly global power that's China.
Especially since the corollary of this divorce from Europe is, obviously, the reduction in Russia's implicit growth in the medium term deprived of European investments, technologies, and specialists, Russia is significantly reducing its capability to diversify its frugality. The war in Ukraine narrows the diapason of its guests, limits the range of its investors, and lowers its trading norms.
Putin, Potemkin of himself
In short, Russian triumphalism following the annexation of Ukrainian territories is grounded on short-term political successes. But it obscures several structural failures for Russia it has failed to diversify its frugality through stable trade with Europe; it has failed to pursue its interests in Ukraine peacefully; it polarized European relations between a strengthened NATO and a nearly alone Russia.
We like to describe the Russian chairman either as a new Doctor Strangelove – frenetic about the lemon – or as an outstanding strategist – an evil genius. He might just be a new Potemkin himself. His Ukrainian crusade offered him immediate success. But they're attained at the cost of lasting failures.