The Bear in the Room

The Nature of the Russian State and Putin's Aims in Ukraine

Anyone who has turned on the news or scrolled through Twitter in the last month knows that something is happening between Russia and Ukraine. Over this past week in particular, friends and family have reached out to me asking if, or rather when, Putin will finally pull the trigger and order a full-scale invasion of its neighbor. And each time, I reply with “I don’t know.”

You might be asking yourself why I’m even writing this if I don’t know what’s going on with Russia, but in fairness to myself, I’m not an military analyst and I don’t have access to the kinds of classified intelligence that would allow me to make a definitive statement on if or when Russia will invade. However, I’ve been following the Ukraine situation since the Maidan Revolution in 2014, including the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, and I’ve studied Russian politics a decent bit over the course of my academic career. So let’s give this a shot.

Russia Under Putin

Russia, as you may know, is not a democracy; it could have been one, very briefly at the end of the 20th century, but rampant corruption, instability, and incompetence created the space for a certain then-Prime Minister to step in, seize control, and ultimately tame Russia’s state and society. That man, of course, is Vladimir Putin. Since Putin’s presidency began in 1999, Russia has seen both economic revival and stagnation, as well as a renewed and vigorous foreign policy. Putin remains fairly popular within Russia despite the hardships faced by Russian people and tenacious opposition.

From the outset, Putin worked to construct the post-Soviet Russian state around himself; Putin is the lynchpin of the system, and his absence would quickly see the entire state crumble. Putin is charismatic and has substantial legitimacy as the leader who led Russia out of the tumult of the Soviet collapse. In his first stint as president, Putin spent his tenure shoring up his own position and the position of his close allies, who buttress him. According to scholar David White, the Putin regime has been first and foremost concerned with securing its own power over the state, rather than strengthening the state itself. Russia, White argues, is an electoral authoritarian state, engaging in nominally democratic behaviors like holding elections while disregarding liberal rights like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc. that are normally held by Westerners as essential to a functioning democracy. Sham elections provide legitimacy to the regime, even when they are obviously rigged to favor Putin. Rather, the regime is neopatrimonial, with Putin redistributing state resources to various actors and interest groups to maintain their support. To these actors, the survival of the regime ensures that they continue to reap the benefits of having a friend in power, and thus creates a cohesive elite.

White compares Russia to the rentier states of the Middle East in that it is reliant on the profitability of its oil and gas sectors to extract rents that are then redistributed throughout the economy. These rents are distributed in the form of subsidies for otherwise uncompetitive enterprises, as well as through the recruitment and maintenance of a large military and high pensions for retired Russians. This secures the loyalty of several social groups in Russia, namely the elderly, the elite, civil servants, and the security services, each of which the regime relies on for its continued existence.

For the purposes of this exercise, we need to disentangle “the regime” and “the state.” The regime is composed of Putin and the individuals whom he empowers and receives power from; in essence, his neopatrimonial network of oligarchs and elites that sit on top of society and extract resources from it. The state, in contrast, is the governmental “thing” that exists even in the absence of Putin and his cronies. The state is what provides government services, collects taxes, etc., and baring the total collapse of society into anarchy, will continue to exist long after Putin’s regime has faded into history (though the form of the state may take on a different appearance).

The quid pro quo between the regime and the interest groups supporting Putin strengthens the regime but does not strengthen the state. Economic reform to allow for greater entrepreneurship, as well as new administrative methods to more effectively tax the public, are unpopular amongst the ruling elite as they would disrupt the status quo and potentially cause short term economic and social pain (despite the status quo causing acute long term economic stagnation). The end result is that the Putin regime, despite being in control of the state, intentionally stymies the development of the state. Allowing the state to develop would undermine the strength and stability of the regime itself, even though these reforms would give the regime greater capacity to administer and control the country.

It’s a lot like a medieval feudal kingdom running up in the face of some new industry or technology. The powers that be in the kingdom are fearful of innovation because it would create new power centers outside of the direct control of the ruling elite. Embracing innovation would invariably strengthen the state against outside foes, but these regimes are far more concerned with power within a domestic context than the power of their state versus other states. This is particularly acute in authoritarian regimes where leaders are concerned with keeping society tamped down and under control. Two extreme examples of this are Tokugawa Japan and modern North Korea. Both states were/are internally strong and able to exert incredible force on their populations, while also being incredibly fragile with the potential to collapse at any moment.

The Putin regime sits on top of Russian society, using the relatively weak resources of the state for personal enrichment (with these resources being comparatively less than what could be achieved through strengthening in the state). Putin’s position is secure if not entirely stable, as there’s really no one of note within the system (that we know of) who could replace him and keep the flow of resources going to the powers that be. So where does Ukraine factor into all of this? To that, we need to get into Putin’s psychology a bit.

Putin’s Motivations

In a 2005 address to the Duma, Putin said “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” This was three years before the Georgian War, and nine years before the Russian invasion of Crimea. Clearly, this has been deeply engrained into Putin’s mind for some time, and is genuinely held. As has been noted in numerous op-eds, think pieces, and Twitter posts, Putin believes that Russia’s past imperial glories can be recreated in the present day; indeed, he believe they must be recreated if Russia is to compete with the West and retain its territorial integrity. These fantasies of grandeur are the product of Putin’s experiences in the Soviet intelligence services during the Cold War and his rise to power in the new Russian Federation. Lawlessness abounded while the political elite was too incompetent to deal with it, meanwhile Russia’s erstwhile Western foes steadily encroached on Russia’s historical sphere of influence by accepting post-Soviet states into NATO and the EU.

Putin thus has two objectives. The greater of the two is to restore Russia’s stature on the world stage and be viewed as equal to the United States, as had be the case with the Soviet Union; the lesser is to maintain what remained of Russia’s sphere of influence, and grow it if possible. In pursuit of this second objective, Putin dealt first with Russia’s immediate periphery and prevent the remaining post-Soviet states from falling into NATO’s security architecture. The Baltics and Poland were off the table for expansion, though Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave serves as a means to mitigate risks posed by NATO there. Belarus, meanwhile, has been an erstwhile ally of Russia for decades and at times has toyed with the idea of full unification with Russia itself (I have a whole spiel about Belarus, but we can save that for another day). Thus Putin looked further south. Ukraine, until 2014, had a pro-Russian regime, making it secure. Georgia’s government, meanwhile, has been seeking NATO membership for two decades and vehemently opposes Russian involvement in its affairs. To deal with this, Putin goaded Georgia into taking the first shots in a brief war that saw the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia come under de facto Russian rule.

Russia pursued a similar policy of disruption and occupation in 2014 after the Ukrainian’s ousted their Russian-backed leader. Russia illegally annexed Crimea and set up puppet regimes in the Donbas region. By virtue of the Russian presence in both Ukraine and Georgia, neither country can successfully apply for NATO membership (unless NATO wants to see either country immediately invoke Article V and be drawn further into conflict with Russia). Putin has achieved a sort of heckler’s veto on NATO membership. I will note that in Ukraine’s situation at least, a petition for NATO membership would not have been accepted so long as Russia maintained a permanent lease on the port of Sevastopol. So as a rule, NATO doesn’t accept membership from countries currently hosting (willingly or unwillingly) non-NATO forces, even if all other membership criteria are met.

For the remaining post-Soviet states like Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the Central Asian nations, Putin has sought to maintain strong ties or seek similar disruptions as well (with a notable loss in the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia). It’s worth noting that Putin also maintains support of Serbs in the Balkans, again helping to ensure that unstable regions of Europe remain so to distract the West (though the degree to which the West pays attention to the Balkans seems to deteriorate by the day).

Russia’s capacity to shape events beyond its borders is a signal to the Russian people indicating how much power and prestige the country has. Deployments of troops abroad are not particularly popular, and Russian casualty figures are often obfuscated to mitigate the political fallout of losses. However, Russians regularly remark that they can deal with insecurities at home so long as Russia as a nation is taken seriously by other countries, particularly the United States. If Putin can justify the losses, Russians will accept them; the Syrian deployment was not popular, but Russia was able to secure its ally, the Assad regime, in the face of imminent collapse. Russian deployments in Libya have served to prop up Haftar’s army, which now controls more than half the country. Putin is willing to spend a lot of money on these ventures and on the considerable strength of the Russian military, as it is the primary means by which he can achieve his twin objectives.

To Invade, or not to Invade?

This brings us back to the question we started with: when will Russia invade Ukraine? This itself is a bit of a misnomer, since Russia has been occupying Ukrainian territory for the better part of a decade now.

Let’s rephrase the question:

“When will Russia bring the full might of its armed forces to bear and order a full-scale military assault directed towards Kyiv?”

There are a few competing elements to parse here. First is the obvious buildup of forces along Russia’s border with Ukraine, as well as the deployment of Russia troops along the Belorussian border. Meanwhile, the Russian navy is conducting exercises in the Black Sea off the coast of Ukraine, drills that happen to include amphibious assault ships that would be vital in military analysts’ gaming out of an invasion scenario. Simply looking at the disposition of troops would seem to indicate an imminent invasion. However, it is possible Putin is hoping to use the mere threat of an invasion to draw more concessions from the West and the Ukrainian government. And if that’s the case, it’s seemingly not working very well (yet).

Another possibility is that this is basically just a flex on the West. By massing forces such as these and threatening war, Putin is letting the West know that the only thing stopping an invasion is himself, and that Ukraine only continues to exist on the whims of his regime. He doesn’t need concessions since Ukraine won’t be able to gain NATO membership nor any security guarantees that would draw a major power into a conflict with Russia, Granted, analysts also note that while Russia would win a conventional military confrontation, the potential casualties from a Ukrainian insurgency would be massive, and that might be a good enough deterrent. However, Russians historically have borne massive military losses and continued to press on, so I’m personally unsure of how strong of a deterrent this would be. Take into account the brutality of the First Chechen War and consider what Russian forces would be willing to do to Ukraine, this time equipped with far better weaponry and with greater political stability at home.

And again we return to what motivates Putin in the first place - the memory of the Soviet Empire, and Russian prestige internationally. Ukraine is vital to the Russian nation in Putin’s imagination by his own admission; he would be abdicating his dream of a “reunified” Russian Empire if he were to explicitly or implicitly acknowledge Ukraine’s sovereign right to autonomy in its foreign policy and align with NATO. However, the potential loss in prestige of a failed Russian invasion would be a massive blow to Russian standing and Putin’s own legitimacy at home. This would be on par with the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, a shattering of the image of the indomitable nation and its messianic leader. That risk will always be there, and given the seeming delay over the invasion we’ve seen thus far, it’s possible that Putin is recalculating that risk. It’s similarly possible that he’s finalizing the exit strategy. Putin could feasibly invade, topple the government, and set up a puppet regime and then withdraw forces quickly to minimize casualties while achieving his goal of controlling Ukraine. But we know that Ukrainian’s hate the idea of being controlled by Moscow, and such a government would collapse unless it was propped up by a sizeable Russian force.

So I am left with the answer to the question of invasion: I just don’t know. I can’t read Putin’s mind; I can’t tell how much he weighs all the above in his calculations. No one can. So we are left to deter an invasion as best we can, and wait, and hope. Ukraine has seen enough violence these past eight years, and I pray that we won’t see more of it.