You'd have thought the Russians would see the return of their reserves as being a critical part of any peace deal. If there is not going to be a peace deal then reparations are a moot point anyway. But no peace likely means this war is going on a fair while longer and costs will end up a lot higher than $300bn. The costs of rebuilding central Kyiv or Odesa would dwarf even the destruction we've seen so far.
I can’t envisage any peace deal acceptable to both Moscow and Kiev. I think therefore that this will continue until Russian forces collapse.
You may be correct that the Russians are able to inflict over $300bn of damage on Ukraine before the total collapse of their army but, even if so, conditions on permitting any sanctions to be lifted could require both relinquishment of the central bank funds plus confiscation of a % of future oil revenues. We used the latter approach with Iraq in the 1990s.
You are of course correct that Russia would never voluntarily acquiesce to this. Recent weeks have however proven that the Russian nation comprises of murderers and war criminals: they will not do anything voluntarily, so come what may we will have to force them.
I came to the comments section to make the same proposal. Whatever the current legalities, it is within the purview of the respective domestic legislatures (Congress, EU, etc.) to enact legislation to seize the funds.
Russia under Putin is simply a terrorist state. We've tried lesser measures for years, and they didn't work. This is a man who launched his entire political career by bombing his own citizens in their tower blocks, in false flag terrorist attack to create a strong man persona. After that, and with hindsight, it might have been a good idea to have done something about Putin when he used a radiological weapon in London. Or shot down an airliner over Ukraine. Or militarily supported Assad. Or annexed Crimea. Or used a chemical weapon on the streets of Salisbury. I shan't insult your intelligence by listing every murderous outrage for which Putin is responsible, suffice to say that they are legion, have persisted for decades, and we have appeased him at every stage. He is simply a killer. We must now stop Russia’s unambiguous attempt to destroy an independent country and subjugate its population, Russian attacks on hospitals and civilians trying to escape, the wide use of artillery to murder civilians, et al.
The only answer, I submit, is to enact every sub-nuclear option possible:
1. Economic war. Do what we've started, and what Bruno Le Maire accurately but undiplomatically described as economic war: bring Russia, and Russians, to their knees. Confiscate the Russian central bank's seized funds. Send the country back to the Stone Age, so it cannot wage war. Treat Russia like apartheid South Africa, or North Korea, or Iran: cut them off from the world. Bleed them dry: financially & literally. Bankrupt the economy, starve the people, block medicines, and encourage the killing all Russian security forces (wherever they may be: deployed military and domestic police). A nation of poor, technology-deprived, starving people, suffering from a lack of medicine and malnutrition, clinging on to survival, is less able to man an effective fighting force, and effectively wage war. They then cannot murder women and children as the current Russian army is gleefully doing. Russia's sole gambit will be nuclear war, but that's a zero-sum game ending with their annihilation. This approach means targeting “ordinary Russians”. Breaking Russian is a necessity, anyway, as it is the civilised world's only leverage to force them to change: “Misinformation, the closing of alternative information channels, all make it harder for [Russians] to organize and inform themselves and exchange opinions. Right now, it is much more convenient for Russians to believe the regime’s lies. Psychologically it is easier to ignore reality and trust propaganda. Until they begin to see the damage this war brings to their own world, their own society, and their sons.” https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/russias-information-war-painful-truths-vs-comfortable-lies
2. Information war. Strategic information operations, doing whatever possible to inform the Russian population of the reality of the situation. Infiltrate and hack Russian social media with images of murdered Ukrainian women and children, refugee convoys, and videos of captured Russian conscripts explaining how they were lied to, and ordered to commit war crimes. Without this, a Russian public fed on misinformation will be unable to form rational decisions. Presently, it is easier for Russians to take the easy option and believe regime propaganda rather than their own families: "Ukraine war: 'My city's being shelled, but mum won’t believe me'. Oleksandra says her mother just repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV channels. "It really scared me when my mum exactly quoted Russian TV. They are just brainwashing people. And people trust them," says Oleksandra. [...] Most Russians, she says, don't look for other points of view. She believes the one-sided narrative that is highly critical of the West helps explain why Russians can have opposing views to their relatives in neighbouring countries. "People who criticise Russia have for so long been presented as traitors or foreign agents; critics are all foreign agents working for the West. So you don't even believe your own daughter." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60600487.
3. Proxy war. Continue to support the heroic Ukrainians, with intelligence, weapons, ammunition and advice. Ensure that the the Russian military is literally bled dry. Increase both the amount of power of the weapon systems we are providing: SAMs, UAVs, artillery, armoured vehicles (tanks, IFVs, self-propeled artillery), precision munitions, ISTAR assets - everything we can usefully provide within the time available for training. This is NATO's opportunity to kill Russian soldiers without directly exposing our forces to offensive action. Every dead Russian in Ukraine is one fewer who can threaten NATO itself.
4. A way out for Putin and his family. While unpopular, I consider that Putin must be offered a genuine, safe, and well-remunerated exit route. Perhaps retirement in a state which he trusts, with guarantees that he would not be pursued for war crimes. While distasteful, this is arguably a critical descalatory measure to minimise the risk of 'suicide by nuclear war'. Putin will want to avoid Gaddafi's fate of being sodomised with a sword, or Saddam Hussein being hanged. We also need this for self interested reasons, so that future dictators realise that there is a deescalation route - i.e. we may also need it for Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela etc.
If you read Kamil Galeev, he believes a way out should be offered to the soldiers fighting in the Russian army in Ukraine (passport to a Western or warmer South American country?) And even the generals and heads of the security apparatus, but that there is no good way out that can be offered Putin. If the Russian military and/or security apparatus defect en masse, it would be tough for Putin to carry out much of anything.
This is a good set of discussions, I hate to look at the endless destruction where the only conclusions to be made are ones of revulsion, so I gravitate to these posts. I think China will come into play, but more long term; I wonder what they were scheming in Beijing with Putin…? No doubt they will backtrack but they have already showed us their hand with their overt support for him. They did not however factor in his competence; they suffer the same the same blinkered view that only autocrats and dictators can have; they have no checks or balances that our own governments have through wonderful things called elections and a free press. And with that they are definitely surprised by the strong and coordinated western response. The real question is how will we change our future policies towards them? The more commerce we give them the stronger they become, but we can change that.
As for Putin, most dictators only leave by force, which is ominous to both their own people and the rest of us, but more for Ukraine whose only crime was wanting to be free from Russian tyranny.
This is definitely the best analysis I've seen - so glad I subscribed. (Disclaimer - I did a War Studies BA in the 1990s under Sir Lawrence Freedman).
The key point that many other people seem to miss is that events on the physical battlefield are important, but not necessarily decisive. The initial Russian military failure was absolutely critical in avoiding the kind of short, fait d'accompli for which the Russian Armed Forces and economy are optimized, and on which they're effectively dependent. Since that initial failure, I would argue that events beyond that physical battlefield have assumed greater importance: widespread political support, Chinese caution, economic and financial factors, and Ukrainian success in the infowar/global PR battle have greater significance, precisely because these factors are the opposite of those which Russia needs to work in its favour.
Even though the sanctions aren't watertight, they're causing sufficient damage to the Russian economy that it's status as a 'great power' has been completely undermined in the eyes of the world, and particularly China. While a China-Russia axis remains possible, I would assume that Chinese caution, pragmatism and long-term thinking make it significantly less likely given the dual irresponsibility and failure of the Putin regime to achieve its objectives. In thinking about post-war costs, would it be in Chinese interests to participate in a globally-funded reconstruction programme for Ukraine? This would be a clear benefit to China in improving its relations with the West, and would in essence be storing up both a 'favour' and a financial precedent for when Chinese sovereign debt becomes a regime-threatening issue. This would be even more the case if China has either participated in, or even led, international efforts to end the war or even have the Putin regime replaced (latter less likely but not impossible, depending on Putin's escalatory actions). In summary, will China's self-interest become a significant determining factor in both the current war and what comes after it?
Yes, the frozen Russian reserves should go towards rebuilding Ukraine. As for the Russian sanctions, keep them on to keep Russia weak. A weak Russia has little way to invade other countries or even help out other despots around the world much. It's OK if Russia turns in to another Iran. We really should be encouraging brain drain from all these places as well.
The brain drain is already happening. A weak Russia is all very well but that doesn't leave a very bright future for the remaining 140 million people and the ressources of Siberia. One can not be sure that Putin's nuclear capabilities are as ill-organized as his ground forces. Stalin's threat of a nuclear response in the 1950s was a bluff as he had no weapon delivery system. This time we should learn a little more of what is real in that particular part of Putin's world before totally relegating him and his to absolute poverty while his finger is on a button that could end it all for his enemies...and himself. His finger must be removed from that button and the Russian people need to impose themselves upon their currently governing clique of criminal kleptomaniacs to ensure that they can live, breath and enjoy the just fruits of their labours in their own homeland.
They'll become essentially 2 Irans (or Iran+Saudi Arabia) with a bunch of nukes. So, dangerous, yes, just like a giant North Korea would be. But more a big dangerous rogue state than any sort of power.
Also, no one person can make the decision to launch nukes in both Russia or the US. Even if Putin has a death wish, I doubt the other Russians involved (including the peon who has to push the buttons) do.
Agreed: there doesn't seem to be any solution that leaves Putin and his regime in power. After a period as an economic pariah state, the Russian Federation would need to be reintegrated into the world economy, purely for pragmatic reasons of regional/global stability. Big open question as to whether a post-Putin Russian state would accept some measure of nuclear disarmament/reduction as one of the prices to pay for its acceptance back into the global community. If this came from both China and the West, would or could it be possible? Something like Britain's Suez moment, but infinitely harder for the Russian people to accept.
Reference to Chechnya and Syria is very relevant. Perhaps the Chinese will be making these connections too, in determining their position towards the conflict?
A central problem and issue in any negotiated peace has to be the status of Crimea. A militarized Crimea will always pose a threat to Ukraine--and to the very existence of the Crimean Tatars.
I think Putin only cares about economics in so far as it strengthens/weakens his political and geo-political agendas. I can’t see him caring unduly about a costly, bleeding economic sore of an annexed and ungrateful part of East Ukraine as long as he remains in power and his Russian Empire looks bigger.
I think Europe’s mind is quite made up and they’ll want the sanctions to go for years the better to starve and enfeeble his war machine. Weakening it via money, looks much safer than spending blood and treasure shooting it up in Poland or the Baltic states (to say nothing of nuclear risks). Europe, Russia’s closest and biggest market, seems to have decided it’s prepared to suffer economic pain to harm Russia and it clearly means business. I doubt its governments would listen to their business lobbies which probably won’t clamor to return to an impoverished country that stinks of sovereign risk.
Putin will have got what he wants - a return to the good old days of the USSR. They’ll be no political freedom, a decrepit economy but he’ll find it rather harder to find allies. No one will trust him, let alone look upon his country as one to emulate. He’ll be sorely disappointed if he hopes anyone will give him or his beloved Russia much respect.
This might be a foolish question, but at this stage of the war what are they paying mercenaries with? I’m not trying to be facetious, but if you are dependent on additional hired labour, but your economy is undergoing a sharp contraction, where do your additional resources come from?
I don't think this is a foolish question at all: in fact, I think it's critical. If the Russian government is paying its people with worthless roubles, and there's less and less to buy with them anyway, this looks indistinguishable from mid-1980s USSR. In particular, the Putin regime relies for its 'muscle' on various security and paramilitary agencies (FSO, FSB, SVR, GRU, Rosgvardia, etc). If it becomes impossible to pay them in any meaningful way, and they no longer enjoy any economically-privileged status, will that test their loyalties to the point of either destruction or absenteeism? A big factor in the fall of the old USSR wasn't that all it's previously-favoured servants suddenly turned *against* the state: it's more that they stopped turning up to defend it.
Payment can be in roubles, with the Russian government printing as many as it needs.
I suppose there is no real need to put money directly into the mercenaries' hands, once they are transported outside Syria and sent into battle. Payment in whatever form or currency can be directed to the Syrian government officials overseeing recruitment.
Outstanding analysis. What Mr. Freedman has pointed out and must be stressed is that Putin has never had an economic agenda. And I think this is precisely the point we have never fully understood in the West. His mind is set for political control in the way Soviet apparatchiks used to be. Don't ever forget whose school he went to (KGB) He does not share the same set of values we have in the Western democracies and thereby his mindset and political resolve is not affected by economics. We saw that already many years ago when Soviet leaders did not care about their own population welfare. IMHO economic sanctions will not affect his resolve although will erode his base of power. This doesn't mean we should discontinue the economic pressure but we should not place too much faith on them.
Consideration of economic consequences is an important element in the search of a peace settlement.
Putin's assumtion was that the gains of the invasion, economic and political, would outweight the costs and sanctions.
His calculation was wrong, and we should now present him with a scenario where he benefits from ending the war - and where the costs become much more daunting if he decides to continue.
The incentive for the Russians to leave should be the lifting of all sanctions and amnesty for all war crimes, as well as a sum of reparations acceptable to Russia. In addition, Ukraine should accept a neutral status with security guaranteed by Western countries.
On the other hand, NATO should set an ultimatum from which it will intervene in the war if the Russians do not disengage. Russia can not have any interest in provoking this scenario since they already have no superiority only against the Ukrainian army.
There is a way to avert disaster and every one "wins". 1. Offer made to Russian oligarchs: depose Putin, commit large portion of wealth to rebuilding Ukraine. Allow for internationally observed democratic election. All protestors/political prisoners released. During the process, Russia loses veto in Sec Council (reinstated afterwards). 2. Wealthy get to keep most wealth. Sanctions dropped, businesses will be able to go back into Russia - revitalizing the economy. Ukraine gets rebuilt. Russia can freely trade. China maintains bulk of investment in Russia and privileged trading partner status - without ever having had to commit to one side and losing nothing. Alternatively, we all descend into hell for the next 20 years of China vs the West in which no one really wins and there is constant insecurity.
I am very happy I have found this blog, initially via a link from the FT. I find both Sam and Lawrence's articles incisive, balanced, detailed and interesting, and follow the links when new articles are emailed through to me. I also like the links in the articles which open up new interesting and credible sources (in this case to the article in Kommersant). Can anyone recommend any similar writers to follow elsewhere? Thanks for your efforts, Sam and Lawrence.
How much of this systemically looted money is now out of the reach of embezzlers lower down the food chain? And what effect will this have if combat gets dragged out?
I remain seriously concerned that Putin may try WMD blackmail: capitulate or face chemical attacks. Would Zelensky refuse and see 100,000 dead Ukrainians? 200,000? 1,000,000? 4,000,000? The USSR lost between 20 million to 26 million in WWII - yet they fought on.
At what point is the loss of large portion of Ukraine's population not worth continued fighting? What would we do in response to chemical attacks?
It's not as if Putin is the only one who can up the ante. If he uses chemical weapons, NATO can enter the war in Ukraine and completely wipe out his military. If NATO doesn't directly invade Russia, I don't think Putin can convince anybody else to press the nuclear button (including the peon who has to actually do it).
I think you make Putin's prospects seem worse than they actually are by substituting your ideas of what he should want for what he tells us he wants, in word and more importantly in deed.
He wants all of Ukraine. However much Ukraine itself has stymied him so far, Ukraine cannot keep him from taking all of the country without direct NATO intervention in combat. It may take weeks or even months instead of the matter of days that the Russians would have preferred, but Russia can take all of Ukraine unless NATO armed forces join the fight.
You make an excellent case for how bad a bargain it would be for Russia to stop now, to seek a ceasefire now, on the basis of the uti possidetis as of 3/15/22. There is little good he could make of that patchwork, though even here I would think that we should understand that this patchwork would be even more untenable for Ukraine to live with.
You could imagine that Putin would accept a ceasefire now, but only if he calculates that accepting the ceasefire lines would destroy Ukraine fairly quickly. He seems to have imagined that what he did in 2014 would lead to the political destabilization of Ukraine sufficient to allow the country to be occupied without much armed violence. That didn't turn out according to plan, so Putin will probably not be willing to give this new hoped-for destabilization of Ukraine anything like eight years. He's not signing a ceasefire until and unless what remains of Ukraine is clearly no longer viable for more than weeks or months after the deal is signed by Ukraine.
Putin wouldn't want to stop now because anything less than destroying Ukraine as an independent state will not meet his war aims. He can't stop now because the lines now occupied are so unfavorable to those aims, and to Russia's interests in general. The only thing that will make him want peace, and want it badly enough that he will accept Ukrainian independence, would be defeat on the battlefield. That's not happening without NATO forces.
I don't agree with the premise here. It's possible the Ukrainian forces collapse but they're showing no signs of doing so. Russia have taken no defended cities yet; even Mariupol which is surrounded and much smaller than Kyiv. They've lost at least 10% of their initial force and possibly a fair bit more. So the idea they will take all of Ukraine unless NATO join the fight seems fanciful. (Of course it's perfectly possible Putin agrees with your assessment and not mine).
This is also why the rhetoric being spouted by the Russian far-right and their online enablers is so nonsensical. Talk of conquering Ukraine, then taking Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States, and even forcing the breakup of NATO.......seems wildly unrealistic given their inability to achieve even their initial objectives in Ukraine after 3 weeks. The idea that Russia can simply mobilise limitless manpower and modern equipment is entirely fanciful, and seems to hark back to the Soviet Russia of WW2 rather than being an accurate reflection of the Russian Federation of 2022.
Someone recently asked whether the Russian Armed Forces are holding their best troops and equipment in reserve. Answer: definitely not. To most (but not all) people's surprise, the complete failure to take any of their objectives in Ukraine reflects the efforts of the best forces they could assemble. Any follow-on forces are likely to have lower capabilities, and quite possibly lower morale.
"Ukraine cannot keep him from taking all of the country without direct NATO intervention in combat. It may take weeks or even months instead of the matter of days that the Russians would have preferred, but Russia can take all of Ukraine unless NATO armed forces join the fight."
Russia CANNOT occupy the whole of Ukraine with 300 000 soldiers, that is a funny delusion.
Yeah, I don't see you present any evidence to support your assumption that Russia can actually defeat on the battlefield a Ukraine that is willing to mobilize every man of fighting age and has an alliance behind it that is willing to flood it with as much arms as needed when Russia (at least in the near term) is running out of a lot of it's modern armaments and best units. Russia is losing 0.5% to 1% of it's initial invasion force every day in all aspects, and that force was 75-80% of it's frontline troops and equipment. You can do the math. With armies that are 30% destroyed being ineffective, Russia is a few weeks away from almost not having a modern army any more. They still have a ton of Soviet-era relics (if they still work) and ill-trained reserves and conscripts, but I doubt they'd be able to do much when the Russian forces are sure to have worse morale and motivation than the Ukrainian forces.
What about using the seized Russian foreign currency reserves for Ukraine reconstruction costs?
You'd have thought the Russians would see the return of their reserves as being a critical part of any peace deal. If there is not going to be a peace deal then reparations are a moot point anyway. But no peace likely means this war is going on a fair while longer and costs will end up a lot higher than $300bn. The costs of rebuilding central Kyiv or Odesa would dwarf even the destruction we've seen so far.
I can’t envisage any peace deal acceptable to both Moscow and Kiev. I think therefore that this will continue until Russian forces collapse.
You may be correct that the Russians are able to inflict over $300bn of damage on Ukraine before the total collapse of their army but, even if so, conditions on permitting any sanctions to be lifted could require both relinquishment of the central bank funds plus confiscation of a % of future oil revenues. We used the latter approach with Iraq in the 1990s.
You are of course correct that Russia would never voluntarily acquiesce to this. Recent weeks have however proven that the Russian nation comprises of murderers and war criminals: they will not do anything voluntarily, so come what may we will have to force them.
I came to the comments section to make the same proposal. Whatever the current legalities, it is within the purview of the respective domestic legislatures (Congress, EU, etc.) to enact legislation to seize the funds.
Russia under Putin is simply a terrorist state. We've tried lesser measures for years, and they didn't work. This is a man who launched his entire political career by bombing his own citizens in their tower blocks, in false flag terrorist attack to create a strong man persona. After that, and with hindsight, it might have been a good idea to have done something about Putin when he used a radiological weapon in London. Or shot down an airliner over Ukraine. Or militarily supported Assad. Or annexed Crimea. Or used a chemical weapon on the streets of Salisbury. I shan't insult your intelligence by listing every murderous outrage for which Putin is responsible, suffice to say that they are legion, have persisted for decades, and we have appeased him at every stage. He is simply a killer. We must now stop Russia’s unambiguous attempt to destroy an independent country and subjugate its population, Russian attacks on hospitals and civilians trying to escape, the wide use of artillery to murder civilians, et al.
The only answer, I submit, is to enact every sub-nuclear option possible:
1. Economic war. Do what we've started, and what Bruno Le Maire accurately but undiplomatically described as economic war: bring Russia, and Russians, to their knees. Confiscate the Russian central bank's seized funds. Send the country back to the Stone Age, so it cannot wage war. Treat Russia like apartheid South Africa, or North Korea, or Iran: cut them off from the world. Bleed them dry: financially & literally. Bankrupt the economy, starve the people, block medicines, and encourage the killing all Russian security forces (wherever they may be: deployed military and domestic police). A nation of poor, technology-deprived, starving people, suffering from a lack of medicine and malnutrition, clinging on to survival, is less able to man an effective fighting force, and effectively wage war. They then cannot murder women and children as the current Russian army is gleefully doing. Russia's sole gambit will be nuclear war, but that's a zero-sum game ending with their annihilation. This approach means targeting “ordinary Russians”. Breaking Russian is a necessity, anyway, as it is the civilised world's only leverage to force them to change: “Misinformation, the closing of alternative information channels, all make it harder for [Russians] to organize and inform themselves and exchange opinions. Right now, it is much more convenient for Russians to believe the regime’s lies. Psychologically it is easier to ignore reality and trust propaganda. Until they begin to see the damage this war brings to their own world, their own society, and their sons.” https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/russias-information-war-painful-truths-vs-comfortable-lies
2. Information war. Strategic information operations, doing whatever possible to inform the Russian population of the reality of the situation. Infiltrate and hack Russian social media with images of murdered Ukrainian women and children, refugee convoys, and videos of captured Russian conscripts explaining how they were lied to, and ordered to commit war crimes. Without this, a Russian public fed on misinformation will be unable to form rational decisions. Presently, it is easier for Russians to take the easy option and believe regime propaganda rather than their own families: "Ukraine war: 'My city's being shelled, but mum won’t believe me'. Oleksandra says her mother just repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV channels. "It really scared me when my mum exactly quoted Russian TV. They are just brainwashing people. And people trust them," says Oleksandra. [...] Most Russians, she says, don't look for other points of view. She believes the one-sided narrative that is highly critical of the West helps explain why Russians can have opposing views to their relatives in neighbouring countries. "People who criticise Russia have for so long been presented as traitors or foreign agents; critics are all foreign agents working for the West. So you don't even believe your own daughter." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60600487.
3. Proxy war. Continue to support the heroic Ukrainians, with intelligence, weapons, ammunition and advice. Ensure that the the Russian military is literally bled dry. Increase both the amount of power of the weapon systems we are providing: SAMs, UAVs, artillery, armoured vehicles (tanks, IFVs, self-propeled artillery), precision munitions, ISTAR assets - everything we can usefully provide within the time available for training. This is NATO's opportunity to kill Russian soldiers without directly exposing our forces to offensive action. Every dead Russian in Ukraine is one fewer who can threaten NATO itself.
4. A way out for Putin and his family. While unpopular, I consider that Putin must be offered a genuine, safe, and well-remunerated exit route. Perhaps retirement in a state which he trusts, with guarantees that he would not be pursued for war crimes. While distasteful, this is arguably a critical descalatory measure to minimise the risk of 'suicide by nuclear war'. Putin will want to avoid Gaddafi's fate of being sodomised with a sword, or Saddam Hussein being hanged. We also need this for self interested reasons, so that future dictators realise that there is a deescalation route - i.e. we may also need it for Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela etc.
There is no moral alternative.
If you read Kamil Galeev, he believes a way out should be offered to the soldiers fighting in the Russian army in Ukraine (passport to a Western or warmer South American country?) And even the generals and heads of the security apparatus, but that there is no good way out that can be offered Putin. If the Russian military and/or security apparatus defect en masse, it would be tough for Putin to carry out much of anything.
This is a good set of discussions, I hate to look at the endless destruction where the only conclusions to be made are ones of revulsion, so I gravitate to these posts. I think China will come into play, but more long term; I wonder what they were scheming in Beijing with Putin…? No doubt they will backtrack but they have already showed us their hand with their overt support for him. They did not however factor in his competence; they suffer the same the same blinkered view that only autocrats and dictators can have; they have no checks or balances that our own governments have through wonderful things called elections and a free press. And with that they are definitely surprised by the strong and coordinated western response. The real question is how will we change our future policies towards them? The more commerce we give them the stronger they become, but we can change that.
As for Putin, most dictators only leave by force, which is ominous to both their own people and the rest of us, but more for Ukraine whose only crime was wanting to be free from Russian tyranny.
You're off by a thousand-fold. They have $300B out of Russia's $650B in reserves.
Oops, i did it from memory . Ah age!
And i didn't think....millions don't count these days.
This is definitely the best analysis I've seen - so glad I subscribed. (Disclaimer - I did a War Studies BA in the 1990s under Sir Lawrence Freedman).
The key point that many other people seem to miss is that events on the physical battlefield are important, but not necessarily decisive. The initial Russian military failure was absolutely critical in avoiding the kind of short, fait d'accompli for which the Russian Armed Forces and economy are optimized, and on which they're effectively dependent. Since that initial failure, I would argue that events beyond that physical battlefield have assumed greater importance: widespread political support, Chinese caution, economic and financial factors, and Ukrainian success in the infowar/global PR battle have greater significance, precisely because these factors are the opposite of those which Russia needs to work in its favour.
Even though the sanctions aren't watertight, they're causing sufficient damage to the Russian economy that it's status as a 'great power' has been completely undermined in the eyes of the world, and particularly China. While a China-Russia axis remains possible, I would assume that Chinese caution, pragmatism and long-term thinking make it significantly less likely given the dual irresponsibility and failure of the Putin regime to achieve its objectives. In thinking about post-war costs, would it be in Chinese interests to participate in a globally-funded reconstruction programme for Ukraine? This would be a clear benefit to China in improving its relations with the West, and would in essence be storing up both a 'favour' and a financial precedent for when Chinese sovereign debt becomes a regime-threatening issue. This would be even more the case if China has either participated in, or even led, international efforts to end the war or even have the Putin regime replaced (latter less likely but not impossible, depending on Putin's escalatory actions). In summary, will China's self-interest become a significant determining factor in both the current war and what comes after it?
Yes, the frozen Russian reserves should go towards rebuilding Ukraine. As for the Russian sanctions, keep them on to keep Russia weak. A weak Russia has little way to invade other countries or even help out other despots around the world much. It's OK if Russia turns in to another Iran. We really should be encouraging brain drain from all these places as well.
The brain drain is already happening. A weak Russia is all very well but that doesn't leave a very bright future for the remaining 140 million people and the ressources of Siberia. One can not be sure that Putin's nuclear capabilities are as ill-organized as his ground forces. Stalin's threat of a nuclear response in the 1950s was a bluff as he had no weapon delivery system. This time we should learn a little more of what is real in that particular part of Putin's world before totally relegating him and his to absolute poverty while his finger is on a button that could end it all for his enemies...and himself. His finger must be removed from that button and the Russian people need to impose themselves upon their currently governing clique of criminal kleptomaniacs to ensure that they can live, breath and enjoy the just fruits of their labours in their own homeland.
They'll become essentially 2 Irans (or Iran+Saudi Arabia) with a bunch of nukes. So, dangerous, yes, just like a giant North Korea would be. But more a big dangerous rogue state than any sort of power.
Also, no one person can make the decision to launch nukes in both Russia or the US. Even if Putin has a death wish, I doubt the other Russians involved (including the peon who has to push the buttons) do.
Too true and one has the oil too...while it is still worth something. Those people who can will have left.
Agreed: there doesn't seem to be any solution that leaves Putin and his regime in power. After a period as an economic pariah state, the Russian Federation would need to be reintegrated into the world economy, purely for pragmatic reasons of regional/global stability. Big open question as to whether a post-Putin Russian state would accept some measure of nuclear disarmament/reduction as one of the prices to pay for its acceptance back into the global community. If this came from both China and the West, would or could it be possible? Something like Britain's Suez moment, but infinitely harder for the Russian people to accept.
Reference to Chechnya and Syria is very relevant. Perhaps the Chinese will be making these connections too, in determining their position towards the conflict?
Certainly not leading to a positive impression of Putin's capabilities......but then we know want a "useful idiot" can bring a judicious puppeteer.
A central problem and issue in any negotiated peace has to be the status of Crimea. A militarized Crimea will always pose a threat to Ukraine--and to the very existence of the Crimean Tatars.
I think Putin only cares about economics in so far as it strengthens/weakens his political and geo-political agendas. I can’t see him caring unduly about a costly, bleeding economic sore of an annexed and ungrateful part of East Ukraine as long as he remains in power and his Russian Empire looks bigger.
I think Europe’s mind is quite made up and they’ll want the sanctions to go for years the better to starve and enfeeble his war machine. Weakening it via money, looks much safer than spending blood and treasure shooting it up in Poland or the Baltic states (to say nothing of nuclear risks). Europe, Russia’s closest and biggest market, seems to have decided it’s prepared to suffer economic pain to harm Russia and it clearly means business. I doubt its governments would listen to their business lobbies which probably won’t clamor to return to an impoverished country that stinks of sovereign risk.
Putin will have got what he wants - a return to the good old days of the USSR. They’ll be no political freedom, a decrepit economy but he’ll find it rather harder to find allies. No one will trust him, let alone look upon his country as one to emulate. He’ll be sorely disappointed if he hopes anyone will give him or his beloved Russia much respect.
Yes, Putin is making Russia a vassal state of China. Essentially a giant N. Korea (or bigger Iran if Iran was a vassal of China).
This might be a foolish question, but at this stage of the war what are they paying mercenaries with? I’m not trying to be facetious, but if you are dependent on additional hired labour, but your economy is undergoing a sharp contraction, where do your additional resources come from?
I don't think this is a foolish question at all: in fact, I think it's critical. If the Russian government is paying its people with worthless roubles, and there's less and less to buy with them anyway, this looks indistinguishable from mid-1980s USSR. In particular, the Putin regime relies for its 'muscle' on various security and paramilitary agencies (FSO, FSB, SVR, GRU, Rosgvardia, etc). If it becomes impossible to pay them in any meaningful way, and they no longer enjoy any economically-privileged status, will that test their loyalties to the point of either destruction or absenteeism? A big factor in the fall of the old USSR wasn't that all it's previously-favoured servants suddenly turned *against* the state: it's more that they stopped turning up to defend it.
Payment can be in roubles, with the Russian government printing as many as it needs.
I suppose there is no real need to put money directly into the mercenaries' hands, once they are transported outside Syria and sent into battle. Payment in whatever form or currency can be directed to the Syrian government officials overseeing recruitment.
Outstanding analysis. What Mr. Freedman has pointed out and must be stressed is that Putin has never had an economic agenda. And I think this is precisely the point we have never fully understood in the West. His mind is set for political control in the way Soviet apparatchiks used to be. Don't ever forget whose school he went to (KGB) He does not share the same set of values we have in the Western democracies and thereby his mindset and political resolve is not affected by economics. We saw that already many years ago when Soviet leaders did not care about their own population welfare. IMHO economic sanctions will not affect his resolve although will erode his base of power. This doesn't mean we should discontinue the economic pressure but we should not place too much faith on them.
Consideration of economic consequences is an important element in the search of a peace settlement.
Putin's assumtion was that the gains of the invasion, economic and political, would outweight the costs and sanctions.
His calculation was wrong, and we should now present him with a scenario where he benefits from ending the war - and where the costs become much more daunting if he decides to continue.
The incentive for the Russians to leave should be the lifting of all sanctions and amnesty for all war crimes, as well as a sum of reparations acceptable to Russia. In addition, Ukraine should accept a neutral status with security guaranteed by Western countries.
On the other hand, NATO should set an ultimatum from which it will intervene in the war if the Russians do not disengage. Russia can not have any interest in provoking this scenario since they already have no superiority only against the Ukrainian army.
There is a way to avert disaster and every one "wins". 1. Offer made to Russian oligarchs: depose Putin, commit large portion of wealth to rebuilding Ukraine. Allow for internationally observed democratic election. All protestors/political prisoners released. During the process, Russia loses veto in Sec Council (reinstated afterwards). 2. Wealthy get to keep most wealth. Sanctions dropped, businesses will be able to go back into Russia - revitalizing the economy. Ukraine gets rebuilt. Russia can freely trade. China maintains bulk of investment in Russia and privileged trading partner status - without ever having had to commit to one side and losing nothing. Alternatively, we all descend into hell for the next 20 years of China vs the West in which no one really wins and there is constant insecurity.
I am very happy I have found this blog, initially via a link from the FT. I find both Sam and Lawrence's articles incisive, balanced, detailed and interesting, and follow the links when new articles are emailed through to me. I also like the links in the articles which open up new interesting and credible sources (in this case to the article in Kommersant). Can anyone recommend any similar writers to follow elsewhere? Thanks for your efforts, Sam and Lawrence.
This was a great in-depth article, unfettered by the self serving and self propagating bias of the mainstream media.
Excellent insightful analysis. Thank you.
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-military-corruption-quagmire/
How much of this systemically looted money is now out of the reach of embezzlers lower down the food chain? And what effect will this have if combat gets dragged out?
I remain seriously concerned that Putin may try WMD blackmail: capitulate or face chemical attacks. Would Zelensky refuse and see 100,000 dead Ukrainians? 200,000? 1,000,000? 4,000,000? The USSR lost between 20 million to 26 million in WWII - yet they fought on.
At what point is the loss of large portion of Ukraine's population not worth continued fighting? What would we do in response to chemical attacks?
It's not as if Putin is the only one who can up the ante. If he uses chemical weapons, NATO can enter the war in Ukraine and completely wipe out his military. If NATO doesn't directly invade Russia, I don't think Putin can convince anybody else to press the nuclear button (including the peon who has to actually do it).
I think you make Putin's prospects seem worse than they actually are by substituting your ideas of what he should want for what he tells us he wants, in word and more importantly in deed.
He wants all of Ukraine. However much Ukraine itself has stymied him so far, Ukraine cannot keep him from taking all of the country without direct NATO intervention in combat. It may take weeks or even months instead of the matter of days that the Russians would have preferred, but Russia can take all of Ukraine unless NATO armed forces join the fight.
You make an excellent case for how bad a bargain it would be for Russia to stop now, to seek a ceasefire now, on the basis of the uti possidetis as of 3/15/22. There is little good he could make of that patchwork, though even here I would think that we should understand that this patchwork would be even more untenable for Ukraine to live with.
You could imagine that Putin would accept a ceasefire now, but only if he calculates that accepting the ceasefire lines would destroy Ukraine fairly quickly. He seems to have imagined that what he did in 2014 would lead to the political destabilization of Ukraine sufficient to allow the country to be occupied without much armed violence. That didn't turn out according to plan, so Putin will probably not be willing to give this new hoped-for destabilization of Ukraine anything like eight years. He's not signing a ceasefire until and unless what remains of Ukraine is clearly no longer viable for more than weeks or months after the deal is signed by Ukraine.
Putin wouldn't want to stop now because anything less than destroying Ukraine as an independent state will not meet his war aims. He can't stop now because the lines now occupied are so unfavorable to those aims, and to Russia's interests in general. The only thing that will make him want peace, and want it badly enough that he will accept Ukrainian independence, would be defeat on the battlefield. That's not happening without NATO forces.
I don't agree with the premise here. It's possible the Ukrainian forces collapse but they're showing no signs of doing so. Russia have taken no defended cities yet; even Mariupol which is surrounded and much smaller than Kyiv. They've lost at least 10% of their initial force and possibly a fair bit more. So the idea they will take all of Ukraine unless NATO join the fight seems fanciful. (Of course it's perfectly possible Putin agrees with your assessment and not mine).
This is also why the rhetoric being spouted by the Russian far-right and their online enablers is so nonsensical. Talk of conquering Ukraine, then taking Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States, and even forcing the breakup of NATO.......seems wildly unrealistic given their inability to achieve even their initial objectives in Ukraine after 3 weeks. The idea that Russia can simply mobilise limitless manpower and modern equipment is entirely fanciful, and seems to hark back to the Soviet Russia of WW2 rather than being an accurate reflection of the Russian Federation of 2022.
Someone recently asked whether the Russian Armed Forces are holding their best troops and equipment in reserve. Answer: definitely not. To most (but not all) people's surprise, the complete failure to take any of their objectives in Ukraine reflects the efforts of the best forces they could assemble. Any follow-on forces are likely to have lower capabilities, and quite possibly lower morale.
"Ukraine cannot keep him from taking all of the country without direct NATO intervention in combat. It may take weeks or even months instead of the matter of days that the Russians would have preferred, but Russia can take all of Ukraine unless NATO armed forces join the fight."
Russia CANNOT occupy the whole of Ukraine with 300 000 soldiers, that is a funny delusion.
Yeah, I don't see you present any evidence to support your assumption that Russia can actually defeat on the battlefield a Ukraine that is willing to mobilize every man of fighting age and has an alliance behind it that is willing to flood it with as much arms as needed when Russia (at least in the near term) is running out of a lot of it's modern armaments and best units. Russia is losing 0.5% to 1% of it's initial invasion force every day in all aspects, and that force was 75-80% of it's frontline troops and equipment. You can do the math. With armies that are 30% destroyed being ineffective, Russia is a few weeks away from almost not having a modern army any more. They still have a ton of Soviet-era relics (if they still work) and ill-trained reserves and conscripts, but I doubt they'd be able to do much when the Russian forces are sure to have worse morale and motivation than the Ukrainian forces.