ANALYSIS:
The world spent months wondering whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine.
With tanks bearing down on Kyiv and Russian troops now in control of key cities, an equally knotty question has emerged: What does victory look like for Russia’s enigmatic leader?
Trying to define Mr. Putin’s ultimate endgame in attacking Ukraine — and how this military campaign will alter the landscape for Europe, the U.S., NATO and the broader international order — have become consuming questions as the war plays out in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities across Ukraine.
It has become clear that the Kremlin’s immediate goal is to drive Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from power and install in his place a friendly regime that toes the line on Mr. Putin’s security demands and stays firmly in Russia’s orbit. Such a government would immediately sever Kyiv’s growing ties with the West, end its quest to join NATO, and provide a major shot in the arm for Mr. Putin’s larger ambition to rebuild Russian influence across Eastern Europe and create a buffer against the West.
Such a clear-cut victory will be difficult, if not impossible. Russia may be able to topple the Zelenskyy regime, but maintaining full control over Europe’s largest country and its population of 44 million would require a massive, long-term military presence and Soviet-style repression. Mr. Putin already is facing growing protests at home, and the West’s unprecedented economic pressure on Moscow would make the prospects of a drawn-out guerrilla war in Ukraine a tough sell to a Russian population that has shown minimal enthusiasm for the war.
Although it can’t defeat Russia in a head-on conflict, the Ukrainian military and its cache of Western weapons are more than capable of wreaking havoc on Moscow in the form of a highly motivated insurgency, inflicting a heavy toll on Mr. Putin’s forces and chipping away at troops’ appetite to fight.
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The lack of clarity about Mr. Putin’s endgame has fueled talk that he may not have one.
“Russia is now engaged in a war it cannot win,” Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, wrote in an analysis Thursday. “Russia’s military might be large enough to take the country, but it is not large enough to govern it.”
Indeed, any Russian attempt to take over all of Ukraine and govern it as a satellite state harks back to the failed invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. That campaign exposed the limits of a military as mighty as that of the Soviet Union. More recently, the disastrous end of the U.S. military’s 20-year effort to stop another insurgency in Afghanistan offers the Kremlin a second cautionary tale.
With a full Ukrainian surrender seemingly off the table, the two nations are back at the negotiating table. Mr. Zelenskyy on Thursday expressed openness to talking directly with Mr. Putin, raising the possibility of some sort of negotiated settlement.
“What do you want from us? Leave our lands. If you don’t want to leave, sit down with me to talk. I’m available. I’m your neighbor, talk to me. What are you afraid of? We don’t threaten anyone, we are not terrorists,” Mr. Zelenskyy told reporters Thursday.
Mr. Zelenskyy said it’s not so much that he wants to talk with Mr. Putin but he probably has to. “The world has to talk with Putin,” he said. “There are no other ways to stop this war.”
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A peace deal, in theory, could include assurances from Ukraine that U.S. and NATO troops won’t operate on its soil, or guarantees that Ukraine will never host any long-range missiles or other weapons that could be used to target Russia.
‘A new era’ for Ukraine
If the two sides don’t reach such a deal, the future becomes much murkier. In addition to a slow-burning insurgent war against Russian troops, possibilities include a Ukraine that is cut into two. Some analysts have dubbed that scenario the “Cyprus model,” in reference to a split of the country after a Turkish invasion in 1974 to support the Turkish Cypriot population.
In Ukraine, that might mean a Russian-dominated eastern half of Ukraine, representing rump independent states recognized by few countries around the world. An independent Ukrainian government would continue to hold sway in the west.
“Moscow’s ideal outcome for Ukraine, should the war come to pass, might be something like the current situation on the island of Cyprus,” journalist David Lepeska wrote in a recent piece for The National.
That outcome would achieve at least one of Mr. Putin’s goals: to effectively end Ukraine’s status as a growing economic and military power in its own right, leaning increasingly to Europe and the West and moving inexorably farther away from Kremlin control.
Mr. Putin, in a string of speeches, essays and even his declaration of war last week, has laid out a set of grievances dating to the fall of the Soviet Union. It includes NATO’s expansion across Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the fate of ethnic Russian populations “trapped” in other countries with the Soviet Union’s fall, and the “color revolutions” in Ukraine and other countries that he said are trying to topple Kremlin-friendly regimes.
Having rebuilt Russia’s military forces after the declines of the 1990s, some analysts say, Mr. Putin feels strong enough to rebuild the great power status of the Soviet Union and force the West to adjust.
The geopolitical fallout would be messy. Few nations outside of close Russian allies such as Belarus and Syria would recognize any Kremlin claim over Ukrainian territory or a Russian puppet state claiming control over a chunk of Ukrainian soil.
The world has largely rejected Mr. Putin’s claim to the Crimean Peninsula after Russia’s 2014 invasion, and the international community would certainly follow suit if Russia tries to split Ukraine, claim half of it or embark on any other path that ends the democratically elected Zelenskyy presidency.
For the West, each result carries its own risks. If Russia is defeated or bogged down by a bloody insurgency, Mr. Putin could lash out with something more drastic. The erratic Russian leader this week put his nuclear forces on high alert, stoking fear that he may dramatically escalate the situation if his forces can’t secure a quick victory.
As recently as Thursday, Mr. Putin laid out that vision in a 90-minute phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron. According to aides, Mr. Macron ended the phone call convinced that Mr. Putin was determined to take control of all of Ukraine, whatever the hurdles or consequences.
“There is nothing in what President Putin said that should reassure us,” a French official told reporters.
Should Russian forces take Kyiv and depose Mr. Zelenskyy, the U.S. and NATO almost certainly would reject any Moscow-backed government. Under such a scenario, the West could recognize Mr. Zelenskyy or another leader who takes his place as the head of a Ukrainian government in exile with headquarters elsewhere in Europe. The prospect of Ukrainian resistance forces based in neighboring NATO countries carrying out a guerrilla war against the Russian puppet government is just one more nightmare scenario for Western planners.
The Biden administration, which has staunchly rejected the idea of U.S. forces fighting in Ukraine, hasn’t entertained questions about a Russian military victory. Foreign policy specialists say such an outcome would be chilling and would raise the danger of conflict between Russia and the West. The U.S. and its allies also would have to decide whether to continue their massive economic sanctions campaign on Russia or relax measures over time if the fighting stops.
“If Russia gains control of Ukraine or manages to destabilize it on a major scale, a new era for the United States and for Europe will begin. U.S. and European leaders would face the dual challenge of rethinking European security and of not being drawn into a larger war with Russia,” Liana Fix, a resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and Michael Kimmage, a history professor at the Catholic University of America, wrote in a recent piece for Foreign Affairs magazine.
“All sides would have to consider the potential of nuclear-armed adversaries in direct confrontation. These two responsibilities — robustly defending European peace and prudently avoiding military escalation with Russia — will not necessarily be compatible,” they wrote.
• Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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