Will Russia Invade Ukraine (Again)?

Not a day goes by without dire warnings of an imminent Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Such warnings do not come out of the blue: A variety of sources—including government organizations, such as U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence, military and diplomatic agencies, and non-governmental organizations, such as Jane’s and Russia’s Conflict Intelligence Team—are reporting that the Russian military is amassing assets, including infantry, airborne, artillery, missile and tank units, in regions adjacent to Ukraine in numbers unseen since 2014.  While the concentration of Russian tactical battalion groups vis-à-vis Ukraine is hardly disputable, tentative results of my research into the Russian leadership’s past decisions regarding military interventions indicates that Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to order these combat units to conduct an offensive against Ukraine unless Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky makes the first military move on the Donbass chessboard. I have examined nine instances when Putin was likely to have considered ordering a military intervention in a foreign country but decided against it, and three instances when he did end up issuing such an order (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria 2015). My examination of these 12 instances revealed that for Putin to issue such an order, a confluence of three conditions needs to be present. First, Putin has to see a clear, acute threat to one or more of Russia’s vital national interests as he sees them. Second, he has to have a reasonable hope that a military intervention would succeed in defending the threatened vital interests or advancing them. Third, Putin has either to have run out of options that do not involve the massive use of armed forces, and therefore are generally less costly, or to lack the time needed to exercise such non-military options to respond to the perceived threats. I don’t believe that Putin, who is the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to Russia’s foreign and defense policies, sees either the first or third of these conditions when he looks at Ukraine.