For weeks, I was on the fence, but if I had been forced to put money on it, I would've bet Putin backs off. There is nothing to gain by occupying countries. Not anymore. As Yuval Harari put it, there are no silicon mines in Silicon Valley. But either he cornered himself in a place where backing off would have meant losing face badly, or it was his plan from the start, and now the post-Cold War era is over.
Why would Putin do this? Solution 1: he really thinks the West is out to get him. Solution 2: he is playing for the domestic audience, and a war abroad is an opportunity to boost popularity and crack down on the opposition. Solution 3: a democratic, free, less corrupt, EU-integrated country of the Slavic cousins would give the Russians bad ideas, so it has to be prevented before it's too late.
Let's start with Solution 2. The Putin regime is ever more oppressive, living standards are stagnating, the contrast between the boss's chummies and the common citizens is outrageous. Rising petrol and gas prices have boosted the economy, but there is only so much to squeeze out of that. And Navalny and other anti-corruption activists are a huge pain in the ass. A war can dial-up patriotic feelings even in those who don't sympathize with the regime, and the disappearance of troublemakers will be the least of the people's problems. Or western journalists'.
Solution 1 is the fear of the West. According to this narrative, which, before the war started, had been echoed back even by Western voices, NATO has been encroaching upon Russia for decades. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Americans allegedly promised to not extend NATO and they did. In 2008, they even floated the idea of offering membership to Ukraine someday. Therefore Russia is absolutely in its right to feel threatened and take countersteps, just like America would do if one of its direct neighbors would step into a military alliance with Russia on China. Most recently, I listened to a conversation between Andrew Sullivan and Anne Applebaum, where Sullivan parrotted back all the Russian talking points one by one (even asking it whether Ukraine had ever been a sovereign state - as if the Austrians had all the right to reconquer Slovenia or Slovakia if they wanted, just because 35 years ago neither of them existed). Sullivan is an Oxford-educated British-American journalist and author, and has been a staunch conservative in his entire life. And really, and very well-respected and brilliant guy. Either the decades of smoking pot or Roman Catholicism, but something must have softened his brain. It was great to hear Applebaum counter his nonsense.
Back to the point, there are many issues with this course of logic. One is that comparing the expansion of Russosphere and that of NATO as if they were, in some abstract way, of the same nature, is abstracting away exactly from the important factors. Russia has historically expanded its sphere of influence the following way. It invaded other countries by force, set up puppet regimes, and when some time later the population raised up against their Russia-loving rulers, it sent in tanks and killed some more people. Whereas the NATO enlargements happen as follows. Countries, that are bullied by Russia for years, are practically begging for membership, because they want protection.
The other, more pragmatic issue is that Russia claims it feels threatened and encircled. Looking at the map, Russia's borders are 57 thousand km in total. From which, it is neighbored by NATO countries (Estonia and Latvia) on a couple of hundred kilometers. Poland, which is separated from Russia by Belarus, didn't even station American soldiers until Obama put them there after the annexation of Crimea. On the other hand, Russia has modernized its forces immensely in the last two decades, so the balance of military power has tipped heavily in its favor. This argument really is just bullshit. Russia is not scared by Western agression. It is annoyed by not being able to bully its neighbors. If Putin's aim had been to make Russia safe and prosperous, he would have integrated it into the West, as much as possible. Instead, he choose an allegiance of China. But China doesn't have allies, just vassals. (Great sentence, I stole it from a NYT op-ed)
Which leads to Solution 3, which Applebaum promotes. Putin is not afraid of NATO, which, as it knows well, would never attack Russia. He is afraid of the EU. Russians might be duped into thinking that the decadent West is digging its own grave. The French, German, English, and American are different and far away. But Ukrainians are fellow Slavs. If democracy works for them, and they start to be both freer and more prosperous, that sends the message that without Putin, you Russians could have this all, too. Crimea might have been a military success, but it was a political debacle. It alienated the Ukrainians forever. Keeping them under Russia's influence is now only possible by force.
So these are Putins' possible motivations, as far as I see them. Next question. What will happen now? First, let's see what is on Russia's side, then what goes against it.
Russia has accumulated huge reserves of foreign currencies, according to the latest tally, around $630 billion. Instead of using the profits of years of soaring petrol prices to raise the living standards or make structural changes, it channeled them into a war chest. It has also made steps to make it's technological and financial sector self-sufficient. Putin apparently decided that he doesn't want to go to the West in his life anymore, and built a fortress economy. Possible sanctions might hurt, but Russia can withstand isolation for long years. Or at least Putin can. And if the Russians are unhappy about that, that's their problem. There are plenty of policemen to beat some sense into people if they start to get unruly.
Russia also has the energy weapon and very good timing on its side. Thanks to the famous German Russenverstehen and idiocy (well done, Angela Merkel and the rest of German establishment), Europe gets 37% of its energy from Russia (and yes, the Germans also had the brilliant idea of not only depending on the Russian, but also closing their nuclear plants - if Greenpeace-activists really cared about the climate, they would chain themselves not to trees but to nuclear plants when politicians come to shut them down, but I digress), and lower than average reserves. If Europeans banned Russian gas imports, it would send the prices through the roof and that might even help Russia, or at least blunt the weapon and even hurt the Europeans.
Who are divided, anyway. The first set of sanctions was watered down heavily by the Germans (their clear-sightedness has been commented on above), Italians (let's exclude luxury goods exports - seriously?), and Victor Orban. The first two countries have stupidity and avarice as excuses. The Hungarians simply yearn to be the despised servant of bloodthirsty lunatics. Looking back to the past hundred years, this must be our defining national characteristic.
Finally, Russia has an army much better equipped and much larger than Ukraine. NATO won't send there soldiers because everyone is shit-scared that the situation could escalate. Apart from the Americans, the West has really lost its appetite for wars, and at the end of the day, Putin can always count on that.
Ok, so what goes against the Russians?
About the war chest. Yes, they have a huge amount money in foreign currency. However, however. Having $630 billion dollars doesn't mean the Russian Central Bank has thousands of suitcases bursting with banknotes. It has those dollars on the virtual accounts it holds in other countries' central banks. And as they say, if you owe the bank $1 million, it's your problem. If you owe the bank $10 billion, it's their problem. If the FED and the ECB start sanctioning the Russian Central Bank, they could literally destroy Russia's economy. No idea how these things work, but this is the financial equivalent of a nuclear weapon.
About the divided EU. When really scary things start happening, the EU has proved to be way less dysfunctional as many love to portray it. Europe might have become soft and weak as far as military virtues go, but it's an economical giant. Whereas Russia's GDP is less than Italy's. And although there's been some dithering at the very beginning, after 4 days, even the Putin-lover Viktor Orban fell in line. If the EU makes up its mind on sanctions, Russia will be very badly hurt. Regarding the energy import, closing off the Russian gas would be painful. But I can't believe that in the 21st century, Europe couldn't handle this, especially with the US as the world's biggest energy-exporter at its back. And if not, perhaps wearing an extra sweater is not a price too high to pay when in the direct neighborhood people literally face bombs and bullets.
What about Russian domestic politics? I think selling the war as a patriotic cause will be much harder at home then the Kremlin imagined. The Ukrainians are not some dark-skinned Muslims living in some exotic place far away. They are literally relatives living right next to Russia. Killing slav brothers and sisters won't go do well with the public, whatever Putin says. The Ukrainian president Zelensky, unlike the Afghan leaders, didn't take the first plane out when the war started. Murdering him would make Putin an international pariah for ever. Or how will Russian citizens take to the following headline? "Boxing legend, Ukrainian national hero and Kyiv's mayor Vitaliy Klitschko killed by Russian soldiers." This would be very, very bad PR. Buy the way, the other day Putin came out and gave a speech in which he called for the Ukrainians to throw off the yokel of their drug-addicted neo-nazi leaders. This language barely falls short of the usual North-Korean way of calling dissidents pedophiles. Does Putin really think there are enough morons in Ukraine or at home who are suckers for that level of language?
And finally, what about the war itself? It's very early to say, but the Ukrainians seem to be willing to put up hell of a fight. What I most wonder about is: where are the cyberattacks? That should be the Russian speciality, and the least-bloody way of crippling Ukraine.
That's it for now. I do have a Ukrainian colleague with two small children, working from his home country, and we can't reach him for days (probably phones are shut off for security reasons). I can't write glibly about this now.