Russia preparing for serious, large-scale war, Turchynov says

The Russian Federation is preparing for a serious and large-scale war, Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said in an essay posted on Dec. 1 on the council’s website. In Donbas, Russia is testing its military technology by employing powerful artillery and rapid-fire rocket systems, he said, as reported by the gazeta.ua news site. In Syria, Russia is using the war not only to preserve the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its Mediterranean naval bases in Tartus, but also as a free testing site for demonstratively applying its powerful artillery. “Russia is training, is amassing its military potential and is obviously preparing for not-quite peacekeeping operations,” Turchynov said.

Russia’s March 2014 invasion of Ukraine was the launch of a long-term strategy to influence the global realities of politics, economics, military and social structures, Turchynov said. In applying this influence, Russia is conducting a war that’s hybrid in form yet asymmetric in substance, which deforms the system of global and regional security, as well as the current system of international law, he said. “It needs to be clearly realized that the Russian regime is not planning to stop,” he said. “It is creating and using ‘hot spots’ to tests new armaments, employ new tactical measures of conducting military actions, accumulate military experience for its military units as well as pressure countries that are non-compliant. Putin wants to fulfill ‘geopolitical revanche’ by any means possible,” he said.

Zenon Zawada: Unfortunately, Turchynov’s observations are right on target. Russian President Putin understands the West’s strategy in imposing economic sanctions, which is to cripple his rule and ultimately force some kind of regime change. Yet he has not withdrawn from Donbas or Crimea, which could have alleviated the sanctions already and resolved the conflict. Therefore, his only other option to preserve power is to expand this “hybrid, asymmetric war” with the West, whom he has masterfully manipulated with his gambit in Syria. Indeed the West’s glaring foreign policy weaknesses – and inability to manage the unrest in the lslamic world – are only encouraging Putin.

In the case of Ukraine, Putin must be viewing Poroshenko’s own lack of vision or long-term strategy, eagerness to accommodate both the West and Russia and inability to form a national consensus as a ripe opportunity for regime change in 2016. Putin will seek to accomplish regime change without extending the war beyond Donbas, which can be made by capitalizing on internal conflicts that we view as potentially destabilizing Ukrainian statehood next year, though they can be minimized. But any Western intervention in a chaotic domestic situation in Ukraine in 2016 will give Putin the needed pretext to extend his military campaign further west. The key will be whether Ukrainians can keep their conflicts from boiling over and thereby deny Putin a pretext to interject. But Putin has also demonstrated an ability to manufacture pretexts when necessary.