Who is popular today?

What is Vladimir Putin playing at? The build-up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border – variously put at 70,000 to over 100,000 and expected to rise to 175,000, according to US intelligence – has prompted widespread fears, notably in former Soviet bloc states, of an invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Putin has form, they say, with some justification, and demand that Nato prepares for the worst.
Putin has vehemently denied having any such intentions but insists on his right to secure Russia’s security against what he sees as increasingly aggressive Nato posturing and to provide protective cover for eight million ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
Safeguarding the latter provided him with the rationale for the 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea, and could provide “justification” for an invasion should Ukrainian troops attempt to push into the Donbass enclave controlled by separatist proxies of the Russians. The bloody stalemate and sporadic fighting on the enclave borders are sustained by that Russian presence.

The downside of any invasion, both militarily and in terms of the cost of economic retaliation by the EU and US, also suggest it is not a real prospect

Neighbourhood fears notwithstanding, and their understandable demands to ratchet up US and EU countermeasures, a more realistic assessment of Moscow’s intentions would be that Putin may simply be playing with the threat of invasion to leverage diplomatic and geostrategic concessions.
Most importantly he is determined to put an end to talk of Ukraine joining either Nato or the EU – Russia sees the “near abroad” as remaining part of its sphere of influence, and Ukraine, tied to Russia by so much history, could never be allowed to join an anti-Russian alliance.
So US president Joe Biden’s promise, admitted a day after their talks this week, of high-level talks “to discuss the future of Russia’s concerns relative to Nato writ large” represent a significant concession to Moscow which has been seeking such discussions for some time.
The concession, however, has reportedly appalled the central Europeans, who remain determined to keep the Nato door open whatever the US may wish.
Heavy casualties
The downside of any invasion, both militarily and in terms of the cost of economic retaliation by the EU and US, also suggest it is not a real prospect. Military analysts say that even 175,000 troops would probably not be half what would be needed for a successful invasion, which would almost certainly result in heavy casualties on both sides.
The Ukrainian army, boosted by more than $600 million annually in development and security aid from Washington, has been strengthened and rearmed and would represent a real challenge. And subduing a hostile civilian population in western Ukraine would be hugely costly.
In one important respect an invasion would also play straight into US strategic interests in blocking the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, hugely important to Moscow and whose operation is currently held up by EU regulators.
The US has for some time been trying to persuade European allies that the pipeline under the Baltic is more than a commercial enterprise by allowing Russia to bypass gas pipelines through Ukraine, and giving the Kremlin more leverage to use energy as a weapon against the EU.
Germany, in particular, has been most reluctant to take a stand against the pipeline – when fully operational it would see 55 billion cubic metres of gas pumped to Germany every year, equivalent to about 15 per cent of the EU’s annual gas imports. But it would almost certainly find the US argument to block it unanswerable in the event of an invasion of Ukraine.
While broadly supportive of the pipeline, the new administration of Olaf Scholz would consider halting Nord Stream 2 if an invasion took place, the Financial Times reports, as part of a wider slate of western sanctions against Moscow.
Popularity
Russia’s central purpose in its military build-up is to leverage concessions from Nato without jeopardising Nord Stream 2. Putin knows that nationalist sabre-rattling against the West in Ukraine will garner him popularity at home with a low risk of stumbling into major armed confrontation.
In a lengthy article published in July, Putin wrote of his and Russia’s special relationship to Ukraine, concluding: “I am convinced that the true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible precisely in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human, civilisational ties have been formed over the centuries, go back to the same sources, tempered by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship is passed down from generation to generation…. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. After all, we are one people….
“I will say one thing: Russia has never been and will never be “anti-Ukraine.” And what Ukraine should be – it is up to its citizens to decide.”
As long, that is, as they decide the right way.