U.S. experts warn of Russian invasion, though unlikely

The U.S. Defense Department has identified eight staging areas in Russia where large numbers of military forces appear to be preparing for invasions into Ukraine, reported the Washington Free Beacon on August 17, citing anonymous U.S. defense officials. As many as 40,000 Russian troops, armed with tanks, armored vehicles and air force units, are arrayed along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, the report said. Additionally, large numbers of Russian military forces will conduct exercises this week that Pentagon officials said could be used as cover for an attack on Ukraine. Similar large-scale Russian exercises were conducted near Ukraine a month before Moscow carried out the covert military operation to take over the strategic Black Sea peninsula in March 2014, the report said.

The eight staging areas have recently received new military units, Potomac Foundation head Phillip Karber told the Washington Free Beacon. A full-scale Russian invasion is still plausible, using the recent hoax of a sabotage plot in Crimea as a pretext and employing Russian forces from Moldova’s Transnistria region and marine units on ships in the Black Sea, he said. The military offensive would likely aim to seize key sites such as a tank plant in Kharkiv, a missile factory in Dnipro, the Mykolayiv shipyard and even the port of Odesa, he said. Russian forces also could drive into Ukraine from the northeast to the outskirts of Kyiv and place the capital within artillery range to force a change in government, he said.

Ukrainians will commemorate the 25th anniversary of their independence on Aug. 24, which is when the Russians attacked in 2014, said Karber, a military expert who served as an external advisor to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “A successful campaign – with the U.S. and NATO doing nothing but verbiage – re-establishes Russia as a major European power that has be dealt with and increases Putin’s popularity at home,” he said, explaining the motivation for such an attack.

Zenon Zawada: The world now knows that with Putin, nothing can be ruled out. But we doubt that Russia is seriously considering expanding its occupation of Ukraine. Russia does not have the resources to occupy all of eastern Ukraine, let alone impose a client state in Kyiv, Ukraine’s largest city that fully backs Western integration. Russia can barely keep Donbas under control, with constant fighting between the various rebel gangs (resulting in a recent assassination attempt on the leader of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic.)

Moreover, Russia does not need to expand its military occupation in order to achieve its main geopolitical goal, which is to get the West to drop its sanctions and trade embargoes related to Crimea. Russia has the momentum of populist/nationalist movements in the West, which have stalled the ratification of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement. Attempts will grow this fall to drop sanctions in Western parliaments. If Donald Trump is elected president in November, Russia will likely not only be allowed to keep Crimea but could also have the related sanctions dropped.

The sanctions have been projected to topple the Russian economy by 2017, but the Putin regime could survive beyond that. Evidence surfaced in news reports on Aug. 16 that many of the sanctions are being flaunted. More than 600 foreign ships have visited occupied Crimea in the last two years, while a Czech drone manufacturer plans to build a factory in Russia rather than export its products. In light of such weakness with the sanctions, there’s still adequate time for the Russians to continue to lobby Western politicians, an option that is far less expensive than expanding the military occupation of Ukraine, which will only intensify Western sanctions.