Russia doubled tanks along Ukraine border, Ukraine commander says

The Russian government has been bolstering its forces
along its border with Ukraine since the end of August and the military threat
it poses is the largest since 2014, Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief
Viktor Muzhenko said in an interview with the Reuters news agency published on
Dec. 4. He demonstrated photos of Russian tanks positioned 18 km from the
Ukrainian border, which swelled to 250 from 93 during September alone. Such
actions could be a precursor to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he said.

Ukraine’s two main Azov Sea ports, Mariupol and
Berdiansk, have lost nearly half of their traffic in the last five years owing
to Russian aggression in Donbas, the illegal construction of the Kerch Strait
bridge and aggressive conduct by border officials in the seas, the Sea Port
Administration of Ukraine said in a Dec. 4 statement. Annual traffic has been
reduced to 8.9 mmt, the administration estimated, citing most of the lost trade
to be Ukrainian exports to Western and Arab countries. Free maritime travel,
unimpeded by Russian officials, would improve traffic by 0.8 mmt per year. Most
recently, ships traveling to the Azov ports could not pass through the Kerch
Strait between Nov. 22 and Dec. 2.  

Russia is using the illegally annexed Crimean
peninsula to secure control of the Azov Sea, NATO Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg  told a Dec. 4 meeting in Brussels, the eurointegration.com.ua
news site reported. Russia is supposed to protect maritime rights and allow
unhindered access to Ukrainian ports, he said.

The Russian government is increasingly trying to
interfere in Ukrainian affairs, particularly the 2019 presidential and
parliamentary elections, a U.S. State Department official told a Dec. 4 press
briefing, as reported by the Ukrinform news agency. The Putin regime “view
Ukraine as a very vulnerable target and is trying to undermine trust in
democratic institutions in various ways,” the official said. To counteract some
of this influence the U.S. State Department has offered “enormous practical
support for Ukraine, including in the sphere of cyberdefense,” the official
said.

Zenon Zawada: As we’ve
consistently said, Russian President Putin wants to accomplish one of two goals
for Ukraine: either bring the entire Ukrainian territory to a client-state
status under Russian control, or dissolve Ukrainian statehood altogether. That
said, we believe recent statements by the president and his entourage
(including Gen. Muzhenko) on Russian threats of full-scale invasion are a
tactic to raise fear and alarm not only among Ukrainian voters, but among
Western leaders too.

Invasion and expanded occupation is too costly an
endeavor for Russia, incurring too many deaths and too many expenditures. We
view this as unlikely, but nonetheless possible (no more than 25% likely)
considering how devastatingly costly Putin’s actions have been already to
Russia. If Russia attacks Ukraine, it will likely occur in the form of targeted
strikes, likely from the air, at sites of military and strategic importance to
further devastate Ukraine’s military defense and economy. 

But we expect Putin will refrain from any drastic
moves until after the parliamentary elections in October, from which he expects
to gain a strong opposition to block much of the president’s activity. In the
best-case scenario for Putin, a Russian-oriented parliamentary coalition will
emerge to oppose what is likely to be a pro-Western president. Putin is aiming
to have the Ukrainians fulfill his geopolitical solutions themselves, rather
than impose them on the Ukrainians.

In the meantime, Putin will continue throughout 2019
to pursue his campaign of military aggression in Donbas and Ukraine’s maritime
zone in order to add pressure, worsen economic conditions and prompt Ukrainians
to vote for parties that support capitulation with Russia. So far, this
strategy is working. Russian intelligence agents will also work to stir chaos
in the elections, including having large numbers of Ukrainians doubting the
credibility of results. They might also be working towards certain regions
refusing to recognize the results.